New Cess was the name given to this location by the Portuguese. It was also called “New Sestos” and sometimes “Young Sestos.”
The repatriates arrived just as slave trading and anti-slavery efforts were increasing in the area. In 1808, the British navy began patrolling high-volume slave marts along the West Africa coast and seizing suspected slave ships. Those actions unintentionally drove slaves buyers from major ports like Elmira and Bonny to previously underutilized areas like the coast of present-day Liberia.
Among people already living in the area, opinions were sharply divided regarding the slave trade. Each ethnic group contained some members who were proslavery while others were abolitionist. That was the case in societies all along the rim of the Atlantic.
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