This letter is one of several sent by Bureell (which he also spells Bureel) W. Mann, an enslaved man and minister in Richmond, Virginia, to representatives of the American Colonization Society (ACA), from whom he sought assistance, during the second half of 1847. The increasingly desperate correspondence reveals Mann’s unshakable commitment to securing his freedom and emigrating from America to Liberia, a colony in West Africa for people of color established by the ACA during the 1820s. Liberia declared itself an independent republic the same year that Mann began writing his letters. As his letters reveal, Mann faced numerous obstacles to reaching Liberia, including a lack of funds with which he could purchase his freedom and superiors in the Southern Methodist Church reluctant to support his efforts.