PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- John Brown Russwurm was a remarkable individual. He was Bowdoin's first African-American graduate and would become the first person of African descent to govern an American colony in Africa.
Brown's early life is shrouded in mystery. His father was from Virginia. His mother may have been a free woman from the West Indies. Historians believe that she died when John was young.
His father sent John to Quebec at age eight to begin his education.
John's father moves to Portland and begins farming on back cove and marries Susan Blanchard of Yarmouth. She insists that John be brought into the family. He studies in Portland, at Hebron and Bowdoin. The family homestead still stands near Cheverus.
Upon graduation, Russwurm goes to Boston and then New York to work as a journalist and abolitionist.
Originally opposed to emigration to Africa, he changes his mind. After helping to found Freedom's Journal, the first abolitionist newspaper run by black people. Early on Russwurm wrote, "We wish to speak for ourselves."
In Africa, he works as a school superintendent, journalist and colonial administrator.
He becomes Governor of the Maryland Colony.
After returning to Maine for a visit at age 50, he died in his adopted home of Liberia a year later.
