John Leighton Wilson

While at Cape Palmas, Leighton Wilson wrote copious reports about Grebo culture and challenged white stereotypes of Africans.

He vigorously opposed the international slave trade and was often quoted in William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist paper The Liberator.

They came to regret helping their freed slaves come to the Cape, thinking that New England would have been a better place for them to start a new life of freedom.

Leighton Wilson began to compare the African American settlers to whites in Georgia who were taking the land of the Cherokees.

[1] In 1842, the Wilsons and their colleagues with the American Board turned over their work to a nearby Episcopal mission and moved to Gabon.

When American naval ships arrived in the estuary, the French apologized for the bombardment and a serious international incident was avoided.

They purchased a large home in the city and over the next eight years welcomed to it many missionaries and recent converts from various mission fields.

Wilson was soon made the Secretary for Foreign Missions for the newly formed Southern Presbyterian Church.