The McGill family of
Monrovia, Liberia, was a
free African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
family from
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, who emigrated to
Monrovia in the 19th century. Among the early American settlers in Liberia, the McGills became established as one of the most prominent early
Americo-Liberian
Americo-Liberian people or Congo people or Congau people in Liberian English,Cooper, Helene, ''The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood'' (United States: Simon and Schuster, 2008), p. 6 are a Liberian ethnic group of Afric ...
families. Daguerreotypes of the McGill family can be found in the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
. Members occupied colonial offices, and they are mentioned in the ''African Repository'' magazine published by the
American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freebor ...
.
Immigration to Liberia
George R. and Angelina McGill emigrated to Liberia aboard the ''Reaper'' with several members of their family and arrived in Monrovia in February 1831. Shortly after, Angelina died. Some of the McGill family settled at
Cape Palmas, south of Monrovia. George McGill, however, remained in Monrovia, where he became a wealthy merchant and Methodist preacher; two of his four sons followed suit.
George McGill also served as the acting colonial agent of the American Colonization Society from September 24, 1833, to January 1, 1834. Brothers Urias and James McGill partnered in 1854 to establish the Urias A. McGill & Brother trading company. Later on the name was changed to McGill Brothers when their two other brothers, Samuel and R. S. McGill, joined them in the trading business. The McGill Brothers company established many warehouses and numerous stores. They were among the first successful Americo-Liberian trading families.
Members of the family
*
Urias McGill (merchant)
*
Sarah McGill Russwurm, wife of
John Brown Russwurm
*
James McGill (American Colonist)
*
Samuel Ford McGill (doctor, merchant, graduate of Dartmouth College)
*
R. S. McGill
*
Edwin Urias McGill. Son Urias McGill
*
Rick Betton-Desheild. Great-grandson of Edwin Urias McGill
*
Corinna McGill. Daughter of Urias McGill
*
Edrinna McGill Moosman. Grand-daughter of Urias McGill (An American Model-Actress & Entrepreneur)
*
Lance Bell. Great-Grand son of Urias McGill
*
Corinna Moosman. Great-granddaughter of Urias McGill
*
Devin McGill. Great-Grand son of Urias McGill
They were members of the largely
mixed-race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...
Americo-Liberian community, as they had visibly light skin and European ancestry.
Two portraits of members of the McGill family were shown on a segment of ''
African American Lives'' presented by
Henry Louis Gates
Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...
; one of the members of the family shown was Urias McGill, known as the "Merchant of Monrovia" Daguerreotypes of the McGill family are held in the Library of Congress as they were among the early 19th-century colonizers of Liberia.
See also
*
Joseph Jenkins Roberts
Joseph Jenkins Roberts (March 15, 1809 – February 24, 1876) was an African-American merchant who emigrated to Liberia in 1829, where he became a politician. Elected as the first (1848–1856) and seventh (1872–1876) president of Liber ...
- first president of Liberia
*
Stephen Allen Benson
Stephen Allen Benson (May 21, 1816 – January 24, 1865) was a Liberian politician who served as the second president of Liberia from 1856 to 1864. Prior to that, he served as the third vice president of Liberia from 1854 to 1856 under President J ...
- second president of Liberia
References
Citations
Sources
*
*http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/awash/mcgill.htm
*http://negroartist.com/dags%20library%20of%20congress/index.htm
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080211234250/http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/Arrivals/liberia.htm
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080306041452/http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/famamer/NinthPresident.html
*http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam003.html
*http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/dagamco.html
Liberia Past and Present J. J. Roberts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macgill family
Americo-Liberian people
People of Americo-Liberian descent
Americo-Liberian families
McGill family of Monrovia
African-American families
African-American history in Baltimore
Agents and Governors of Liberia