Priest to Walter Lowrie letter, 1845 January 17

Six page letter from James M. Priest to Walter Lowrie, former United States Senator and Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Missions, in which he questions whether the Board of Foreign Missions intends to provide monetary, material, and political support for his ministry equal to that they would provide a white man. He wonders how much of his concerns are in fact miscommunications with the Board, but stresses that he will not retain his authority with the Indigenous populations if a white missionary is sent to his area and given more power. He points out that his wife has just given birth to twin boys, so now the family requires more support. Other topics include house-building supplies, crops, and the sale of a horse. Includes the letter's cover.

Biographical Sketch of Creators:
James M. Priest was born ca. 1816 in Paris, Kentucky.; he died in 1883. He was an enslaved person who was given a theological education in Indiana by the religious woman who owned him. He was then freed to go to Liberia in 1835 with his wife, who was also a freed slave. In 1843 they moved permanently to Liberia, where he served as Presbyterian missionary in King Will's Town, and later Greenville. He became the Liberian vice-president, 1864-1868; and then associate justice of the Liberian Supreme Court.