Russwurm, John Brown

October 1, 1799
June 9, 1851

Abolitionist and Liberian government official John Brown Russwurm was born in Jamaica of an unknown slave mother and a white American merchant father, John Russwurm. After eight years as a free black in Jamaica, young John Brown, as he was then known, was sent by his father to Quebec for formal schooling. His father brought the child to Portland, Maine, in 1812 when he married Susan Blanchard, who insisted that John Russwurm acknowledge his son's paternity by name. After the death of John Russwurm Sr. in 1815, John Brown Russwurm stayed with Blanchard until he entered Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine. Later he attended and graduated (in 1826) from Bowdoin College, becoming one of the first black university graduates in the United States. In his graduation speech, Russwurm praised the Republic of Haiti and encouraged American blacks to consider settling there.

Russwurm moved to New York City in 1827 and helped found Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper. The paper employed itinerant abolitionist blacks to publicize the antislavery cause and gain subscribers across the country and in Europe. Freedom's Journal demanded an end to southern slavery and equal rights for blacks in the North. After Samuel Cornish resigned as coeditor on September 14, 1827, to return to the Presbyterian ministry, Russwurm continued to publish the paper until February 1829. Despairing of any hope for an African-American future in the United States, he resigned to take a post in Liberia, scandalizing black New York. Generally condemned by his contemporaries, Russwurm in fact anticipated the Pan-Africanism of Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, and Edward Blyden twenty years later.

Arriving in Monrovia, Liberia, in November 1829, Russwurm quickly gained prominence. He edited the Liberia Herald from 1830 to 1835, when he resigned in protest over the American Colonization Society's attempts to control the newspaper. At the same time he was superintendent of education for Monrovia. Despite his differences with the colonization society, Russwurm served as its agent, recruiting American blacks to migrate to Africa. He became fluent in several African languages.

In 1836 Russwurm became the first black governor of the Maryland sections of Liberia. He was an able administrator and successfully established relations with nearby African nations, encouraged arriving African Americans, and worked diplomatically with whites. His administration supported agriculture and trade, and in 1843 completed a census of the colony. Throughout the 1840s, Russwurm negotiated for absorption of the Maryland colony into Liberia. He died, a distinguished leader, on June 9, 1851, five years before that union became a reality. A monument was erected to his memory near his burial place in Harper, Cape Palmas, Liberia. Russwurm Island, off Cape Palmas, is named for him. His shift in favor of colonization offended many in 1829, but he is now remembered as a significant and successful Pan-Africanist.

See also Abolition; Cornish, Samuel E.; Pan-Africanism

Bibliography

Brewer, William M. "John Brown Russwurm." Journal of Negro History (1928): 413–422.

Shick, Tom W. Behold the Promised Land: A History of Afro-American Settler Society in Nineteenth Century Liberia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980, pp. 20–23.

Smith, James Wesley. Sojourners in Search of Freedom: The Settlement of Liberia by Black Americans. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987.

graham russell hodges (1996)