Rulers · fl. c. 1810s–1820s
King George (Caine)
Dei signatory of the Cape Mesurado agreement and one of the coastal kings who resisted its execution.
Biography
King George held a town on the Mesurado shore in the years when the American agents arrived. He signed the December 1821 contract with King Peter and five others, and within months joined the party that repudiated it.
The reversal is usually read as bad faith. Read against Dei land practice it is nothing of the kind: what a coastal king could grant was residence and the right of trade, revocable and reciprocal, not freehold in the European sense. When the settlers began fencing, clearing and mounting cannon, they were doing something the grant had never contemplated.
Historical significance
The clearest illustration of the legal mismatch at the founding: two sovereign systems using the same document to mean two different things.
Timeline
- Dec 1821Signs the Cape Mesurado (Ducor) contract
- Apr 1822Joins the coastal kings repudiating the cession
- 1822Bound by the settlement Sao Boso imposes
On the map
Associated with Cape Mesurado. Open the historical atlas.
Related entries
References
- Huberich, Charles Henry (1947). The Political and Legislative History of Liberia.
- Holsoe, Svend E. (1976). 'A Study of Relations between Settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Western Liberia.'
Suggested reading
- Huberich (1947), vol. I, on the December 1821 instrument.