At the time of the massacre, it was populated by approximately 130 African-Americans, as well as one White representative of the Pennsylvania society, Edward Hankinson.
[1][4][5] Roughly twenty of the Port Cresson settlers were killed outright by King Joe's men, with the remainder managing to flee the bloodshed and escape to the armed settlement of Monrovia, where Hankinson appealed for aid.
[4] On learning of the massacre at Port Cresson, Elijah Johnson, a veteran of the War of 1812, assembled a company of 120 armed volunteers and set out on a punitive expedition to engage King Joe.
In it, Joe promised to pay indemnifications, stop participating in the slave trade, and submit all territorial disputes to settler courts for adjudication.
The demonstration of the military power of the Monrovian forces against Joe helped cement the central importance of Liberia among the disparate repatriation colonies being established in west Africa.