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At about the same time that Tolbert and Austin Major, Agnes Harlan, and their families are starting over in Liberia, Ben Major and his wife and children are settling in Illinois. This chapter explores Ben’s complicated relationships with his brothers and brother-in-law. The men have different views on slavery and colonization, illustrating the range of attitudes other Americans had on these topics. Surprisingly, Ben remains closest to Joseph Major, his brother who continues to own slaves. Ben writes to Joseph, “You are well apprised of the sacrifices I made to secure myself and my family from the Curses of Slavery.”

Ben Major, an early member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is deeply committed to his faith and is often referred to as “father” or “reverend.” In an 1846 letter to the American Colonization Society, Ben notes that his copies of the society’s publication are addressed to Rev. Ben Major. He asks them to drop the title in the future, saying that he is “nothing but a plain Christian,” a sentiment that ignores his significant contributions to the church. Chapter 19 details Ben’s involvement in the church, as well as that of his brothers and close friends.

This chapter opens with a quotation from an essay penned by Ben Major’s niece, Margaretta Major, in which she concludes that by living a Christian life, the faithful could draw others to Christ and “We [will] not have lived in vain nor labored in vain.” Ben, his family, and his friends live their faith daily, building churches and schools, and helping one another. Ben supports local merchants, pays tuition for one of his nieces, buys items to send to Liberia, donates land to the community, and practices the Thomsonian system of botanical medicine, nursing his neighbors back to health.

Of the sixteen Majors and Harlans who arrived in Liberia on the Luna in 1836, only six are still alive when the letters end in 1851, following the deaths of Tolbert Major and Ben Major. Did the Majors and Harlans—black and white—succeed in finding freedom, peace, and security in their new homes? What might have happened had the Liberian settlers remained enslaved in America? What might have happened to Ben Major had he made different choices? The author offers her thoughts and conclusions.

Ben Major, who owned and then freed Tolbert, Austin, and their families, is a good-looking man with wavy dark hair, thick brows, and expressive eyes. In his late teens, he moves to New Orleans, where he and his brother work in a mercantile business. Slaves are one of the many commodities flowing into and out of the Crescent City. Ben is surrounded by slave markets and auction houses, and his time in the city influences his views on “the peculiar institution.” In 1819, following his brother’s death from yellow fever, Ben returns to Kentucky and marries Lucy Davenport. The couple settles in Christian County, Kentucky, where nearly half the population is enslaved. Supported by slave labor, the couple builds a home and farm, and starts a family.

After his return to Kentucky, Ben Major becomes deeply involved in the nascent Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); its founders, Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, stridently oppose slavery. Ben had long harbored doubts about slavery. Now, driven by his new faith and memories of the brutal New Orleans slave markets, he decides to free his enslaved people. He becomes a life member of the American Colonization Society but learns that emancipation is not a simple process. Ben creates a multi-year plan that includes teaching his slaves to read and write. He also makes plans to move his own family from the slave state of Kentucky to the free state of Illinois and purchases land in Tazewell County, Illinois. When a colonization society agent, G. W. McElroy, travels through southwestern Kentucky, Ben’s slaves are turned over to him for transport to New York.

Austin Major, Tolbert’s brother, adds a note to Ben in Tolbert’s 1840 letter. Austin tells Ben he was ill for two years after arriving in Liberia, his supplies were stolen, and his hut burned. He makes a business proposition: “I have suffered much since I come here, but the dark clouds begin to disappear again if you can send us some few articles of trade, such as tobacco, cloth, pipes, beads such as china beads; it will be a profit to both of us.” He asks Ben to write to George Harlan, the man who had owned Agnes and her children. Harlan and many other former slave owners do not maintain contact with their former slaves. Ben’s choice to continue helping Tolbert, Austin, and the others—while not unheard of for former slave owners—is not typical.

On a sunny spring day in 1850, Ben Major takes a walk with the local schoolteacher, Asa Starbuck Fisher. At the top of a knoll, Ben stops and turns to glance back at a piece of land east of the school. He looks at Asa and says, “On that rise, we intend to build a college and we want you to be president.” The school Ben helps found becomes Eureka College, which still exists today. Reflecting the views of its founders, Eureka is only the third college in the nation to admit women on an equal basis with men.

Although nearly a year has passed since Liberia became a republic, Tolbert is still giddy. He writes to Ben in 1848, “It is my pride and joy that I am a free man in a free country and can enjoy the free mild and equal government which has just been established, and where I can have an equal share of republicanism.” He also thanks Ben for sending seeds, books, and botanical medicines. In the letter, Tolbert displays more sentiment than he has in the past, asking Ben and his wife to pray for him and writing, “I hope the Lord will make a way for me to see you all again this side of the grave.” He uncharacteristically closes his letter with “farewell.” It is his last letter to America. Austin Major also writes to Ben, catching him up on family news.

On an ordinary spring morning in 1852, Ben Major and his wife Lucy are eating breakfast when they are interrupted by a frantic messenger. Ben’s only sister, Eliza Ann Davenport, is gravely ill with cholera. Ben rushes to her home, where he tries all his various botanical treatments for cholera, but to no avail. Eliza Ann dies, and within a short time it is clear that two of her sons and Ben are sick, too. All three of them die within a few days. With the deaths of Tolbert and Ben—six months apart—the remarkable correspondence between Bassa Cove and Walnut Grove ends, but the final letter from Liberia is not the last interaction between the Liberian colonists and the American Majors. Years later, Wesley Harlan travels from Liberia to pay his respects at Ben Major’s grave in Illinois.

In 1843, Ben Major and his family host a meeting of the local colonization society in their small Illinois town. Ben reads aloud a letter written by Tolbert Major but signed by him and his brother, Austin Major. The letter bears sad news: both Tolbert’s son Washington and Austin’s son Thomas have died. Tolbert’s house has been burned down. In a voice thick with emotion, Ben reads Tolbert’s words: “My loss was great. . . . But I do not feel no ways discouraged at all, for as long as life lasts and my health is good, I do not feel discouraged.” In the letter, Tolbert promises to send coffee to Ben—a promise he keeps. Ben looks up from the letter to his guests who are balancing coffee cups and says, “Brethren, that coffee will drink sweet without any sugar.”

After a silence of nearly four years, Tolbert Major writes again to Ben Major in 1847. He asks Ben to send writing paper, its scarcity accounting, in part, for the long delay between letters. Tolbert’s letter is filled with family news. He writes, “I want to see you and your wife and children very bad,” and asks Ben to send a drawing of him and his wife, Lucy, “for my children to look at when I am dead.” The relationships between enslaved people, their owners, and the owners’ families were complex, and this chapter explores that complexity. The chapter also explores the value colonists placed on education and the experiences of widows in Liberia.