Buchanan

Sister cities

• Winston-Salem

History

In December 1832, the Port Cresson colony was founded in what is now Buchanan by black Quakers from the New York and Pennsylvania colonization societies. It was established as a settlement for black emigrants from the United States. The emigrants named the settlement in honor of Elliott Cresson, a Philadelphia merchant and Pennsylvania Colonization Society founder who funded their voyage to Liberia. On June 10, 1835, the Indigenous Bassa people destroyed the Americo-Liberian colony of Port Cresson, killing 10. A month later, a new colony called Bassa Cove was founded by black Quakers of the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania. The Bassa Cove colony was incorporated into Liberia on April 1, 1839. Throughout much of the 1850s, Buchanan's population failed to grow, as deaths outnumbered births and only through immigration from the United States was the community able to avoid a substantial decline.