The American
Colonization Society

Robert K. Griffin
The Liberian Senate
Watercolor and graphite
on paper, ca. 1856
Prints & Photographs Division
LC-USZC4-4908
LC-USZ62-117300

Attributed to Augustus Washington
(b. 1820, active 1840s-1850s)
Edward J. Roye
Sixth-plate daguerreotype,ca. 1856
Prints & Photographs Division

The American Colonization Society was founded in 1817 to relocate freeborn and emancipated blacks to Africa. In 1855 African American Robert K. Griffin emigrated to Liberia at he age of nineteen under the auspices of the Society. His watercolor portrait of the Liberian Senate was based on daguerreotype portraits of the sitters, some of which are shown here. The daguerreotype process created laterally reversed images unless a prism or mirror was used to correct the image. Senator Edward J. Roye, standing along the left side of the room with his hand raised, had been elected to fill the vacancy of the late Hon. G.H. Ellis. Ellis's death could account for the black mourning cloth draped along the walls of the room.