Congressman Richard H. Cain called for a million men to leave the injustices they suffered in the United States, for Africa.
Intended to last the emigrants six months after they started their new lives in Liberia, the food supply was of poor quality and was consumed entirely on the journey.
Enthusiasm for the Liberian exodus had been fed partly by exaggerated reports of the land's fertility, including claims that potatoes grew so large that a single one could feed a family for a day, and that certain trees produced bacon.
Eighteen returned on the Monrovia in December 1879, reporting that not a single passenger of the Azor would stay in Liberia if he had the means to return to the U.S.[1] The Azor's stop at Sierra Leone incurred heavy, unforeseen expenses, creating a debt that the Liberian Exodus Company was unable to pay.
[1] Saul Hill, an earlier immigrant from York, South Carolina, established a successful, 700-acre coffee farm.