In Skinner’s view, responsibility for spilled African blood laid thousands of miles away”
“I traced the evil to the whole of the slave ship, and the watery grave that swallowed its thousands, and thence to the slave market and slave planation, and the course of hereditary slavery. I thought of the black cloud that hovers over my country, and saw all this evil embodied in the name Factory Island, and almost wished that the Island and its name were annihilated together.”
The name of the island was soon “annihilated,” in keeping with Skinner’s wish. In April 1836, he informed the ACS that initial plans for Edina had been laid.
Footnote: E. Skinner, “Liberia: Extracts of a letter,” African Repository, June 1836, p. 169.