Lott Cary

Lott Cary (also in records as Lott Carey and Lott Gary) (1780 – November 10, 1828) was an African-American Baptistminister and lay physician who was a missionary leader in the founding of the colony of Liberia on the west coast of Africa in the 1820s. He founded the first Baptist church in 1822, now known as Providence Baptist Church of Monrovia. He served as the colony's acting governor from August 1828 to his death in November that year.

Born into slavery in Charles City County, Virginia, Carey purchased his freedom and that of his children at the age of 33 after saving money from being hired out by his master in Richmond. He became a supervisor in a tobacco warehouse, as the city was a major port for exporting that commodity crop.^[1]

He emigrated in 1821 with his family to the new colony of Liberia, founded by the American Colonization Society for the resettlement of free people of color from the United States. Cary was one of the first black American missionaries and the first American Baptist missionary to Africa. He established the colony's first church, founded schools for natives, and helped lead the colony.

In 1780, Lott Cary was born into slavery and humble surroundings in Charles City County, Virginia, on the plantation of John Bowry.^[2]

In 1804, his master, a planter and Methodist minister hired Cary out in Virginia's capital city of Richmond, about 25 miles away. Bowry had arranged a one-year-long contract for Cary to work at the Shockoe tobacco warehouse.^[3]

In 1807, Cary joined the First Baptist Church of Richmond, a congregation that included whites and African Americans. During the second Great Awakening and religious revivals of this period, Baptist and Methodist preachers recruited enslaved people into their congregations. Cary was baptized by its pastor, John Courtney.^[2]

Cary learned to read the Bible and later attended a small school for enslaved people. Its twenty young men were taught by DeaconWilliam Crane. He had come from Newark, New Jersey in 1812, opened a shoe store, and joined the First Baptist Church. Crane's students met three evenings each week to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Bible.^[3]

Cary went from working as a common laborer to a shipping clerk and supervisor of a tobacco warehouse on Tobacco Row in Richmond. His master sometimes rewarded Cary with five-dollar bills from the money he earned. He was also permitted to collect and sell small bags of waste tobacco for his profit.^[2]

In 1813, Cary's first wife died. The same year, Cary used his savings to purchase his freedom and that of their two children for $850.^[2]

As a free man, he continued to be both industrious and frugal. He and his family stayed in Richmond; many jobs were available, and the city had a growing free black community. In 1813, Cary became an official Baptist minister. He also became a lay medical practitioner while in Richmond.^[2]

In 1815, he and Collin Teague helped form the African Baptist Missionary Society in Richmond.^[2]

In the early 19th century, about 2 million African Americans lived in the United States, of whom 200,000 were free, mainly in the North. The Upper South states, especially Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, also had more free blacks. For the first 20 years after the Revolutionary War, some enslavers freed the people they enslaved to uphold ideals of liberty and, in other cases, in response to the appeals of preachers active in the Second Great Awakening, who supported the abolition of slavery.

Believing that free blacks threatened the stability of their slave society, in 1816, Virginia politician Charles Fenton Mercer and the Reverend Robert Finley founded the American Colonization Society (ACS) intending to enable free blacks and formerly enslaved people to emigrate to Africa and establish a colony. By this time, most enslaved and free blacks were native-born in the United States, often for generations. They wanted to enjoy the rights of free people in the country where they had grown up and had family and social ties. Members of the ACS supported a goal of "repatriation" of blacks to Africa.

The Society was supported by a coalition of philanthropists, members of the clergy, abolitionists, and slaveholders. Those favoring abolition wanted to free enslaved blacks and provide them with the chance to go to Africa to escape continuing discrimination in the United States. The slaveholders wanted to expel free blacks from the South and the United States to remove what they perceived as a threat to the stability of their slave societies.

The ACS established the Liberia colony on the West African coast in 1819.^[2] Cary was among numerous free blacks who became interested in this movement. In 1819, The American Colonization Society published the Journal of Samuel John Mills^[4] along with “Letters from Africa to Persons of Color in the United States.”^[5] Cary's first biographer describes how the journal and letters, which invited "the free colored people of the United States to come and join them" produced "an immediate determination in Lott Cary and Collin Teague to remove to Africa."^[6]

By 1821, Cary had accumulated a sum to pay for his and his second wife's expenses for transportation to the new colony of Liberia on the African coast. He was giving up his property, purchased in Henrico County, and a good income.^[2]

When asked why he would leave a community in which he was respected and led a comfortable life, he replied: 'I am an African, and in this country, however meritorious my conduct, and 'respectable' my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion; and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race.'^[2]

His work in Liberia was supported by the First Baptist Church of Richmond, the American Baptist Foreign Missions Society, and the African Baptist Missionary Society of Richmond, of which he was a co-founder.^[7] Cary became the first black American missionary to Africa.^[2]

Cary ejerció como pastor, consejero y médico en la nueva colonia. Su segunda esposa falleció de una enfermedad poco después de su llegada a Liberia. Volvió a casarse, pero en su artículo del 5 de noviembre de 1825 sobre la colonia y la vida de Cary, el New York Observer informó que su tercera esposa había fallecido; era «hija de Richard Sampson, de Petersburg, Virginia» . «Cary, Lott»  . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . 1900.

Tras su llegada, Cary fundó rápidamente la Iglesia Bautista Providence en Cabo Montserado . El asentamiento fue posteriormente designado como capital y rebautizado como Monrovia . En 1822, ayudó a organizar la defensa de la nueva colonia contra 1500 nativos. ^{[ 2 ]} Fundó varias escuelas para enseñar el cristianismo a los nativos del interior. En 1826, Cary fue elegido viceagente de la ACS.

Los primeros años de la colonia de Liberia fueron duros y peligrosos. Los nativos mandé y otras tribus étnicas se resistieron a la colonización y expansión de los colonos estadounidenses, y se produjeron numerosos conflictos armados entre los grupos. Los colonos también corrían el riesgo de sufrir incursiones de traficantes de esclavos , que los vendían como esclavos. Además, padecieron enfermedades tropicales hasta que la colonia pudo desarrollar mejores viviendas y saneamiento.

En marzo de 1828, Cary se convirtió en vice-agente interino de la Colonia. Antes de su muerte, el agente colonial Jehudi Ashmun lo había designado como su sucesor . Ese mismo año, Cary resultó herido en un accidente y falleció dos días después, el 10 de noviembre de 1828. Una explosión lo hirió mortalmente a él y a siete compañeros mientras fabricaban balas.

• La Convención de Misiones Extranjeras Lott Carey , con sede en Washington, DC, ha continuado su labor.
• La Casa Lott Cary en el Condado de Charles City es un monumento histórico estatal designado; fue incluida en el Registro Nacional de Lugares Históricos en 1980. ^{[ 8 ]} Hoy en día, la casa, muy modificada, se utiliza como residencia privada. El marcador histórico de Virginia, V27-Lugar de Nacimiento de Lott Cary, señala el sitio en la intersección de las carreteras estatales de Virginia 155 y 602. Poco queda de la casa original del siglo XVIII, que probablemente fue la plantación de John Bowry. Existe una fuerte tradición oral en la comunidad afroamericana que afirma que este fue el lugar de nacimiento de Cary. El sitio está marcado históricamente para representar al hombre y sus logros, así como la importancia de los afroamericanos en la historia de Virginia. ^{[ 2 ]}
• La calle Lott Cary Road, en el condado de Charles City, recibió su nombre en su honor.
• The Board of Supervisors of neighboring James City County, Virginia declared March 21, 2001, to be "Lott Cary Day" in his honor.
• In Richmond, the Carytown shopping district was named for him.
• Careysburg, on the outskirts of Monrovia, was named for him.^[2]
• Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia, Liberia celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2001.
• In 2015 Cary was posthumously honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Strong Men & Women in Virginia History".^[9]
• Lott Carey Baptist Secondary School, Afaha Obio Eno, Ibiono Ibom, Nigeria, is named after him.

• History of Liberia

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Cary, Lott" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

• Gurley, Ralph Randolph. Life of Jehudi Ashmun, Washington, DC: 1835.
• Russell, John H. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865, Baltimore: 1913.
• Taylor, James Barnett. Biography of Elder Lott Cary, Late Missionary to Africa, Baltimore: 1837.
• White, Blanche Sydnor, compiler. First Baptist Church, Richmond, 1780-1955.

• Ralph Randolph Gurley, "Sketch of the Life of Lott Cary", in Life of Jehudi Ashmun, Late Colonial Agent in Liberia. With An Appendix, Containing Extracts from his Journal and Other Writings; 1835, online at Documenting the South, University of North Carolina
• Liberia – "Liberia", Catholic Encyclopedia (1907). Includes a biography of Lott Carey from the New York Observer of November 5, 1825.
• Biography of Lott Cary, Library of Virginia's "Strong Men & Women in Virginia History" website