ing $50,000,[17]
was designed materially to aid in the suppression of the trade, all the
others relating to expenses incurred after violations. After 1823 the
appropriations dwindled, being made at intervals of one, two, and three
years, down to 1834, when the amount was $5,000. No further
appropriations were made until 1842, when a few thousands above an
unexpended surplus were appropriated. In 1843 $5,000 were given, and
finally, in 1846, $25,000 were secured; but this was the last sum
obtainable until 1856.[18] Nearly all of these meagre appropriations
went toward reimbursing Southern plantation owners for the care and
support of illegally imported Africans, and the rest to the maintenance
of the African agency. Suspiciously large sums were paid for the first
purpose, considering the fact that such Africans were always worked hard
by those to whom they were farmed out, and often "disappeared" while in
their hands. In the accounts we nevertheless find many items like that
of $20,286.98 for the maintenance of Negroes imported on the
"Ramirez;"[19] in 1827, $5,442.22 for the "bounty, subsistence,
clothing, medicine," etc., of fifteen Africans;[20] in 1835, $3,613 for
the support of thirty-eight slaves for two months (including a bill of
$1,038 for medical attendance).[21]

The African agency suffered many vicissitudes. The first agent, Bacon,
who set out early in 1820, was authorized by President Monroe "to form
an establishment on the island of Sherbro, or elsewhere on the coast of
Africa," and to build barracks for three hundred persons. He was,
however, warned "not to connect your agency with the views or plans of
the Colonization Society, with which, under the law, the Government of
the United States has no concern." Bacon soon died, and was followed
during the next four years by Winn and Ayres; they succeeded in
establishing a government agency on Cape Mesurado, in conjunction with
that of the Colonization Society. The agent of that Society, Jehudi
Ashmun, became after 1822, the virtual head of the colony; he fortified
and enlarged it, and laid the foundations of an independent community.
The succeeding government agents came to be merely official
representatives of the United States, and the distribution of free
rations for liberated Africans ceased in 1827.

Between 1819 and 1830 two hundred and fifty-two recaptured Africans were
sent to the agency, and $264,710 were expended. The property of the
government at