Meet the Ancestors: Richard Randall

Richard Randall

Richard Randall was the fifth son of John Randall (builder of many of the fine houses in Annapolis). He became a physician in 1818 and became one of the founders of the American Colonization Society, which established a settlement in Liberia. Its purpose was to resettle free blacks back to Africa after fear arose in Annapolis of both slaves and freed African Americans after several slave rebellions, beginning with that of Nat Turner’s in Tidewater, Virginia. In 1828 Mr. Randall traveled to Monrovia, the capital, as governor of the new colony, but died four months later of a “malignant fever”. The Maryland Colonization Society began its own settlement at Cape Palmas, down the coast from Monrovia, in 1833. About a thousand men, women and children settled that town.

Because Richard Randall is actually buried in Liberia, his monument is actually a cenotaph, which reads in part, “he fell, a martyr to the cause in which his heart was engaged”.