Alfred Francis Russell

Infobox_President
name=Alfred Francis Russell


order=10th President of Liberia
term_start=January 20 1883
term_end=January 7 1884
vicepresident=None
predecessor=Anthony William Gardiner
successor=Hilary R. W. Johnson
birth_date=birth date|1817|8|25|mf=y
birth_place=Lexington, Kentucky, United States
death_date=death date and age|1884|4|4|1817|8|25|mf=y
death_place=Liberia
party=True Whig

Alfred Francis Russell (born 25 August, 1817 in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. - 4 April 1884 in Liberia) served as the President of Liberia from 1883 to 1884. He immigrated to Liberia in 1833 with his mother, Amelie "Milly" Crawford, his cousin, Lucretia Russell and her four children Cynthia, Gilbert, George, and Henry. He served as a Methodist missionary and later owned a large coffee and sugarcane farm. Russell remained in the ministry and served in the Senate as well. He was elected vice-president under Anthony William Gardiner in 1881, becoming President of Liberia on the latter's resignation due to poor health.

Early life

Russell was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Amelie "Milly" Crawford. Russell was born a slave to his then-master Jane Hawkins Todd Irvine. He and his mother were sold to Robert Wickliffe and Mary Owen Todd Russell Wickliffe [http://www.uky.edu/~dolph/HIS316/sources/liberia.html Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, Introduction & Milly Crawford, 1833] ] or Mrs. Polly as he and his mother called her, a wealthy heiress of the frontiersman, Colonel John Todd and the daughter of Irvine. [ [http://history.ky.gov/pdf/Publications/ancestors_v39_n4.pdf Kentucky Ancestors: Genealogical Quarterly of the Kentucky Historical Society] ] John Todd was the brother of Levi Todd, the grandfather of Mary Todd Lincoln. [ [http://members.aol.com/beaufait/biography/geneology.htm The Geneaology of Mary Todd Lincoln (see generation four)] ] It was publicly exposed by Robert Breckinridge that John Russell (Mary Owen Todd Russell's son from her previous marriage with James Russell) engaged in a relationship with Crawford during a summer visit with his grandmother and thereby fathered Alfred. Alfred's father being white and his mother being an octoroon gave him his obvious mixed-race appearance. After Wickliffe emancipated Alfred, his mother, Lucy, and her four children they left for Liberia. [ [http://www.disc.wisc.edu/Liberia/pdfs/emigrant2c.pdf Emmigrants to Liberia between 1820 and 1843] ] [ [http://www.disc.wisc.edu/Liberia/pdfs/emigrant6n.pdf Emmigrants to Liberia between 1820 and 1843] ] Alfred was fifteen years old, when he and his family left on the Brig Ajax to go to Liberia, West Africa with many of the first frontiersman of the country. They arrived in Liberia on July 11, 1833.

Political career

In 1881 when Anthony Gardiner won the presidency for a third term, Russell also won Vice-President. When health issues made Gardiner resign three years later, Russell became president.

Presidency (1883-1884)

Territorial conflict with the British

The conflict with the British, that had reached a crisis during the Gardiner administration, was still unsolved. Two months after Russell took office, in March 1883, the British Government annexed the Gallinas territory west of the Mano River and formally incorporated it into Sierra Leone. Whenever the British and French seemed intent on enlarging at Liberia's expense the neighboring territories they already controlled, periodic appearances by U.S. warships helped discourage encroachment, even though successive American administrations rejected appeals from Monrovia for more forceful support. [Liebenow] Russell, along with Gardiner, has been notably blamed for Liberia's losing much of its territory to the British and most likely because of this Russell was not elected to a second term.

Economy

The decades after 1868, escalating economic difficulties weakened the state's dominance over the coastal indigenous population. Conditions worsened, the cost of imports was far greater than the income generated by exports of coffee, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, and timber. Liberia tried desperately to modernize its largely agricultural economy.

Death and legacy

Russell died three months after he left office on April 4, 1884. [ [http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/awash/russell.htm A Durable Memento] ]

Russell is survived by many descendants in Liberia, West Africa and also some U.S. states like Maryland, Kentucky, and South Carolina.Expand|date=March 2008

References

ee also

*History of Liberia

Further reading

*Liebenow, J. Gus, "Liberia: the Quest for Democracy". Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
*see further: History of Liberia, further reading

External links

*see History of Liberia, external links