Qualla: Bushrod Island https://qualla.com/bushrod-island en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bushrod Island https://qualla.com/bushrod-island Bushrod Island: Introduction https://qualla.com/bushrod-island/ Photo credit Rjruiziii, CC BY-SA 3.0. The island is named for a man who never set foot on it. Bushrod Washington, nephew of George Washington and first president of the American Colonization Society, lent his name to a flat slab of mangrove and mud at the edge of Monrovia where the Saint Paul River, the Mesurado River, and the Atlantic Ocean all converge. The ACS had a singular mission in the early nineteenth century: relocate free and enslaved African Americans to West Africa. The island that carries Washington's name became one of the places where that fraught experiment in repatriation played out, layered on top of centuries of indigenous habitation and reshaped by commerce, war, and the constant pressure of water on all sides.

Read more: Bushrod Island on Qualla

Image: Rjruiziii | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/ec0k-bushrod-island-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bushrod Island: Before the Name https://qualla.com/bushrod-island/ Photo credit Rjruiziii, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before the American Colonization Society drew its maps, the Dei people held Bushrod Island. They occupied the low-lying mangrove swampland from the sixteenth century onward, building their chief settlement at Gawulun, which served as the capital of the Dei confederation. In ...

Read more: Bushrod Island on Qualla

Image: Rjruiziii | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/ec0k-bushrod-island-before-the-name.mp3 0:06 2 full Bushrod Island: Freed Twice, Settled Once https://qualla.com/bushrod-island/ Photo credit Rjruiziii, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the late 1820s, a community called New Georgia appeared on Bushrod Island. Its founders were people who had been rescued from a slave ship in 1820, then held in the U.S. state of Georgia for seven years before being sent to Liberia. The name they chose honored the American sta...

Read more: Bushrod Island on Qualla

Image: Rjruiziii | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/ec0k-bushrod-island-freed-twice-settled-once.mp3 0:06 3 full Bushrod Island: Port and Pulse https://qualla.com/bushrod-island/ Photo credit Rjruiziii, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today, Bushrod Island's defining feature is the Freeport of Monrovia, Liberia's principal deepwater port and the commercial artery through which most of the country's imports and exports flow. The port shares the island with four distinct towns: Vai Town, New Kru Town, Logan Town...

Read more: Bushrod Island on Qualla

Image: Rjruiziii | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/ec0k-bushrod-island-port-and-pulse.mp3 0:06 4 full Bushrod Island: The Weight of a Name https://qualla.com/bushrod-island/ Photo credit Rjruiziii, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bushrod Washington never traveled to Liberia. He served as a U.S. Supreme Court justice and managed Mount Vernon after his uncle's death, but his most consequential legacy may be the organization he led. The American Colonization Society operated from a tangle of motivations: som...

Read more: Bushrod Island on Qualla

Image: Rjruiziii | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/0/k/bushrod-island-wp/ec0k-bushrod-island-the-weight-of-a-name.mp3 0:06 5 full