1821–22, as a place in West Africa for freedmen. Wanting to control its own territory and solve its perceived problems, the Maryland State Colonization Society founded the Republic of Maryland in West Africa, a short-lived independent state. In 1857 it was annexed by Liberia. The society was founded in 1827, and its first president was the wealthy Maryland Catholic planter Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who was a substantial slaveholder. Although Carroll supported the gradual abolition of slavery, he did not free his own slaves, perhaps fearing that they might be rendered destitute by the difficulties of earning a living in the discriminatory society. Carroll introduced a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the Maryland senate but it did not pass. Many wealthy Maryland planters were members of the MSCS. Among these were the Steuart family, who owned considerable estates in the Chesapeake Bay, including Major General George H. Steuart, who was on the board of Managers; his father James Steuart, who was vice-president; and his brother, the physician Richard Sprigg Steuart, also on the board of Managers. In an open letter to John Carey in 1845, published in Baltimore by the printer John Murphy, Richard Sprigg Steuart set out his views on the subject of relocating freed slaves to Africa. Such opinions were likely widespread among Maryland slaveholders: The colored man [must] look to Africa, as his only hope of preservation and of happiness ... it can not be denied that the question is fraught with great difficulties and perplexities, but ... it will be found that this course of procedure ... will ... at no very distant period, secure the removal of the great body of the African people from our State. The President of the Maryland Colonization Society points to this in his address, where he says "the object of Colonization is to prepare a home in Africa for the free colored people of the State, to which they may remove when the advantages which it offers, and above all the pressure of irresistible circumstances in this country, shall excite them to emigrate. The society proposed from the outset "to be a remedy for slavery", and declared in 1833: Resolved, That this society believe, and act upon the belief, that colonization tends to promote emancipation, by affording the emancipated slave a home where he can be happier than in this country, and so inducing masters to