6 pp. With original stampless outer wrapper, addressed to Walter Lowrie, Corresponding Secretary, Board of F[oreign] Missions [of the Presbyterian Church], Mission House, New York. * With: Newspaper printing of a letter from Priest on his first trip to Liberia on Page 2 of complete 4-pg. issue of the “Christian Intelligencer” of October 14, 1837, expressing “my thanks to God that I was landed on the soil of my forefathers…I wish to return to the United States and complete my studies, and bring my brothers to this country…”
As the education of American slaves was strictly forbidden in the South, antebellum letters written by men and women born into slavery are uncommon, some penned by the 60 literate freedmen who emigrated as missionaries to Liberia. Outstanding among these was the outspoken James Priest; born a slave in Kentucky, he was given a theological education in Indiana by the religious woman who owned him, and then freed him to go to Africa as an ordained Presbyterian Minister. After an initial trip to Liberia, Priest and his wife (also a freed slave) took up permanent residence there two years before he wrote this extraordinary letter to a former US Senator, in which he frankly criticizes the white Protestant gentlemen who sent him to an isolated settlement on the African coast with scant material support. Quoting in part: “…I rejoice to find that you feel for our welfare, and have not forgotten us, though sometimes the wicked one, tempts us to say that ‘now they have got us off to Africa, the place where they wish to have us’. Now go for what we care. It takes a great deal of grace to possess a colored man with that confidence that he ought to have in those whites who wish to do him good, and vice versa. I will take it upon myself to be a little bold this time, be not angry with me while I thus speak…I wrote to the Board to extend that kindness that I ought to expect from the Board. Now upon the principle of justice ought I not to expect such kindness from you. If the Board will endulge me with a gun you may send me a rifle or a shot gun… you say that I must write my letters all to be seen by the Committee…but my private ones…I hope the Board will not open them. I will try and not do wrong, though a colord man yet I do not think that such a thing ought to be demanded of me…I will have to write a great many letter to the West, in order that I may keep my self alive in the minds of the Western Ministers… I will however keep my own account, not submit to anything that may be wrong or contrary to Ecclesiastical Polity – any thing like playing the Negro over the Negro. I will desent from any thing like degrading a collard Minister. I will look upon it as living nefarious in the exstreme…My wife has been delivered of two boys, so that instead of two Missionaries to attend to, you now have four. The little fellows are small but they handsome…I will not say send them anything, because they may die soon, should we raise them up a little then you may send whatever you please. They are now two weeks old…We have a woman hired at $4 ½ per month…We are thankful that we could get some one for that price. I hope the Board will not think hard of it…We are now in good health. Much better than we deserve…The course that has been taken has been very niggardly. If the Board authorises any man mearly because he is White to come in the Mission and do what they please, without consulting those who they have sent here, I wish not to be under any obligation to submit such a course. My influence among the natives would be destroyed entirely…I will then be no longer useful Minister. Every step ought to be taken to elevate instead of degrading Minister. If we are not respected at home we ought [not?] to be here. I could have remained a useful Minister in the West. But thinking that I could be more so in this country, I consented to come. Should it turn out that… I am less useful, then I ought to be at home. I hope however that we will get right after a while. Colard men will be met yet. We must come up by degrees. We must prove out [?], then our worthiness, all will be right then, will it not? I will be thought no doubt that I am rather soon in suing for that respect which belongs to me…” This unusually assertive ex-slave would remain in Liberia for the rest of his life - though not as a struggling clergyman. During the American Civil War, Priest would become Vice President of the Republic of Liberia, and, later, Associate Justice of the country’s Supreme Court.