Category: Grand Bassa

Grand Bassa was initially the name Europeans used to identify the piece of land jutting out near the Bassa Cove. That peninsula consisted of rocks and sand near the shore, but extended into the Atlantic Ocean as a quarter-mile long ridge of rocks pointing northwest, which continued further out as a sunken reef known as the Yellow Will. A small section of  ocean enclosed between the shore and the peninsula came to be known as the Bassa Cove. Along the shore of the cove sat a village also called Grand Bassa.

Footnote: U. S. Hydrographic Office, The West Coast of Africa, pt. 2. From Sierra Leone to Cape Lopez. Publication No. 47. Translated and compiled by Leonard Chenery [from the French of C. P. de Kerhallet and A. Le Gras]. Washington, DC: Navy Dept. Hydrographic Office, 1875, pp. 65-69; U. S. Hydrographic Office, The West Coast of Africa, pt. 2. From Sierra Leone to Cape Lopez. Publication No. 47. Translated and compiled by Leonard Chenery [from the French of C. P. de Kerhallet and A. Le Gras]. Washington, DC: Navy Dept. Hydrographic Office, 1875, pp. 65-69.

This peninsula was called “grand” to distinguish it from another about one mile south of Marshall. Jutting out from the mouth of the Little Bassa River, the smaller peninsula began as a strip of sand but continued into the Atlantic Ocean as a ridge of rocks. It was once recognizable from the seaside by two high trees on its left bank.

The use of “Grand Bassa” as the name of a “district,” not just a peninsula, took off after the Liberian colony was established. The focus of the district shifted from  the Little Bissaw stream to being centered two and a half miles to the northwest around the delta where the St. John River and two streams, Benson and Mechlin, merge before emptying into the ocean.

Footnote: U. S. Hydrographic Office, The West Coast of Africa, pt. 2. From Sierra Leone to Cape Lopez. Publication No. 47. Translated and compiled by Leonard Chenery [from the French of C. P. de Kerhallet and A. Le Gras]. Washington, DC: Navy Dept. Hydrographic Office, 1875, pp. 65-69: J. Ashmun, “Accessions of territory – and new establishments connected with the colony, African Repository, May 1826, p. 93.

The earliest know inhabitants of Grand Bassa were the ancestors of the Bassa. Some migrated from Musadu in the present-day Guinea, a trading town,  down along the St. John.

Others had previously lived on Mount Gedeh. They cite Mount Niété in Grand Gedeh as their ancestral home, the summit of which is said to be the site of a village of the dead. Oral traditions suggest the ancestors of the Bassa engaged in metal smelting in Grand Gedeh, probably to make iron tools.

Footnote: Béavogui, 2001, p. 26; Fairhead, 2008; Person, 1968, p. 242; Person, 1987, p. 249; Geysbeek, 2002; Geysbeek, 1995, p. 3; Korvah, 1960, p. 7; Korvah, 1995; Jones, 1987; Massing, 1985, p. 36; Fairhead, Geysbeek, Holsoe and Leach, 2003, p. 136; Højbjerg, 2007, p. 80, n. 19; Martin, 1968, p. 48; “Tour two hundred miles interior,” African Repository, Vol. 45, Vol. 5 (May 1869), pp. 153-154; “Missionary exploration by a native, African Repository, Vol. 45, Vol. 10 (October 1869), pp. 308-313; Siegmann, 1969, p. 8.

Having mingled near the mouth of the St. John, they then ventured eastward to Rivercess and westward as far as the Mesurado River.

They claim to have learned canoe building from the Klao only after relocating near the coast. After moving to their present location, they continued smelting iron using ore from Mt. Finley. One Bassa tradition claims that their ancestors encountered Europeans when they first reached the Atlantic Ocean.

Footnote: Schröder and Seibel, 1974, p. 22; Siegmann, 1969, p. 4, 7-8; Martin, 1968, p. 42; Person, 1966, p. 491; Martin, 1968, p. 48; “Tour two hundred miles interior,” African Repository, Vol. 45, Vol. 5 (May 1869), pp. 153-154; “Missionary exploration by a native, African Repository, Vol. 45, Vol. 10 (October 1869), pp. 308-313; Massing, 1970-71, p. 177, citing J. Nma, History of the Gbeta-Tribe,” unpublished ms.; Johnson, “Traditions,” p. 46.

The language of the Bassa belongs to a family that includes Kuwaa, Dei, Kru, Grebo, Sapo and Krahn. Unlike most of their linguistic cousins, they and the Dei share membership in the Poro power association diverse ethnic groups living in Northeastern Liberia.

The ancestors of the Bassa probably adopted the Poro while living in Guinea. There, they were a link in a pan-ethnic Poro chain that ran from the Gola, Dei and Vai through the Kissi, Bandi, Kuwaa, Loma, Bassa, Kpelle and some Dan in the middle, to the Lobi, Birifo, Dya and Senofu.

Footnote: M. Izard, “The people and kingdoms of the Niger Bend and the Volta basin from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,” General History of Africa: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, Vol. IV. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 94-96. at the northern-most tip.

In a book published in 1668, Dutch geographer Olfert Dapper described an invasion near Cape Mount that touched many groups, including some Bassa.

According to Dapper’s account, the Quabbe was one of several groups said to be living along the Cestos River. This was possibly the Kuwaa (Belle), who would be pushed west when the Kpelle and Ma entered from the north. He mentioned another group called Quea. This was undoubtedly the Kwea, a Bassa group in present-day Liberia.

Footnote: John D. Fage, A Guide to Original Sources in Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages, for the Most Part in Book Form (Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison,1994), pp. xi; Hallett, 1965, p. 67; P. E.H. Hair, “Barbot, Dapper, Davity: A Critique of Sources of Sierra Leone and Cape Mount,” History of Africa. 1 (1974): 25-54, especially pp. 33-39; P. E. H. Hair, “An early seventeenth-century vocabulary of Vai,” African Studies, 23, 3-4 (1964): 129-139; Oglivy, 1670, pp. 402-405.

A local ruler called John was the first to provide the Liberian colony a tract of land in the area. The land laid on the south branch of the St. John’s River, three miles from the river mouth.

By May 1826, the colony had built a “commodious” trading post on the site, which, according to Governor Jehudi Ashmun, was being operated by “one of our most worthy and respectable people,” who lived there with his family.

The governor planned to have a large farm cleared and planted by laborers provided by King John, under the supervision of the resident Liberian trader

Footnote: J. Ashmun, “Accessions of territory – and new establishments connected with the colony, African Repository, May 1826, p. 93

Prior to May 1826, the colonial government of Liberia also obtained a tract of land on the north bank of the north branch of the St. John’s River from three Bassa rulers, including Bob Gray.

By May 1826, Gray had built a trading post on the land for use by the colonial government. He promised, according to Governor Jehudi Ashmun, “to turn over to the Colony all the produce he should be able to bring down from the interior of the country.”

Footnote: J. Ashmun, “Accessions of territory – and new establishments connected with the colony,” African Repository, May 1826, p. 93.

In four trips between November 1866 and May 1868, the Golconda brought a total of 1,878 emigrants, 677 of whom went to Bassa, 282 to Sinoe, 208 to Cape Palmas, and the rest to Montserrado County.

Although population estimates for Grand Bassa are not available for later in this period, the county seems to have retained the second place position after Montserrado. It received about 36 percent of the passengers brought out by the Golconda, one of the few large vessels operated by the ACS during this period.

Footnote: ACS Fiftieth Annual Report, 1867, pp. 10-12; ACS Fifty-Second Annual Report, 1869, pp. 7-8, 10; ACS Fifty-Fourth Annual Report, 1871, pp. 9-10; Cassell, 1970, pp. 250, 264; Liberia, 1848, p. 16; also Huberich, 1947, pp. 638, 649-650, 819; Williams, 1878, p. 50; Sullivan, 1978-79, p. 84.

By 1851, “Observer” writing in the Herald newspaper noted that the local wars in the area of Grand Bassa, which had divided the people “against themselves” had declined, and those whose chief employment had been the procuring of victims for the trade had turned to agriculture and the manufacture of palm oil.

About the previous wars, he added, “nine-tenths of this excitement have been evermore the offspring of the slave trade; to which, hitherto, what has been misnamed lawful and honorable trade [in alcohol] had contributed a melancholy share.”

Footnote: Liberia Herald, June 4, 1851, p. 32; also Liberia Herald, Sept. 30, 1848, p. 46.

One of the regional papers published from 1847 to 1907 was the People of Grand Bassa, 1867-1869.

A pension of $150 was granted in 1938 to Colonel Edward W. Leonards of Grand Bassa County, who served for 48 years in the military, including command of the Sinoe and Grand Bassa regiments in the Nana Kru Expedition of 1903.

Footnote: Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1864, pp. 26-27; Willis-Thomas, 1985, pp. 6-7; Rogers, 1988, pp. 155, 203; Rogers, 1988, pp. 157, 212 n. 43; 222-235; Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1938, pp. 57-58.