Send Me Some Carpenter Tools (and Bonnets)

Abstract

In Austin Major’s letter to Ben in 1849, he shares family news and asks for carpentry tools, cloth, writing paper, and bonnets for his wife and daughter. The Liberian settlers do not know the Africans’ world; they know only their own world, and they try to recreate it in their new homeland. The men wear frock coats and top hats; the women wear American-style dresses, bonnets, and shawls. They continue to speak English, give English names to their children, and build American-style frame houses. Many of them also exhibit a sense of superiority or arrogance toward indigenous Africans, attitudes that will eventually tear the country asunder.