28.6: The Independent African States

28.6.1: Liberia

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. Liberia means “Land of the Free” in Latin. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its west, Guinea to its north, and Côte d’Ivoire to its east. English is the official language and over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous tribes who make up more than 95% of the population. The country’s capital and largest city is Monrovia.

The Republic of Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States. The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U.S. did not recognize Liberia’s independence until during the American Civil War on February 5, 1862. Between January 7, 1822, and the Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black Americans, who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans relocated to the settlement. The black American settlers carried their culture with them to Liberia. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born black American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected as Liberia’s first president after the people proclaimed independence.

Liberia is the only African republic to have self-proclaimed independence without gaining independence through revolt from any other nation, being Africa’s first and oldest modern republic. Liberia maintained and kept its independence during the European colonial era.

Settlement and Independence

Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta (“Pepper Coast”) but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders bartered commodities and goods with local people.

In the United States, there was a movement to resettle free-born blacks and freed slaves who faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement, and the denial of civil, religious, and social privileges in the United States. Most whites and later a small cadre of black nationalists believed that blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was founded in 1816 in Washington, DC for this purpose, by a group of prominent politicians and slaveholders. But its membership grew to include mostly people who supported abolition of slavery. Slaveholders wanted to get free people of color out of the South, where they were thought to threaten the stability of the slave societies. Some abolitionists collaborated on relocation of free blacks, as they were discouraged by racial discrimination against them in the North and believed they would never be accepted in the larger society. Most African-Americans, who were native-born by this time, wanted to work toward justice and equality in the United States rather than emigrate. Leading activists in the North strongly opposed the ACS, but some free blacks were ready to try a different environment.

In 1821, the ACA began sending African-American volunteers to the Pepper Coast to establish a colony for freed African-Americans. By 1867, the ACS had assisted in the migration of more than 13,000 African Americans to Liberia. These free African-Americans and their descendants married within their community and came to identify as Americo-Liberians. Many were of mixed race and educated in American culture; they did not identify with the indigenous natives of the tribes they encountered. They intermarried largely within the colonial community, developing an ethnic group that had a cultural tradition infused with American notions of political republicanism and Protestant Christianity.

Reflecting the system of racial segregation in the United States, the Americo-Liberians created a cultural and racial caste system with themselves at the top and indigenous Liberians at the bottom. They believed in a form of “racial equality” which meant that all residents of Liberia had the potential to become “civilized” through western-style education and conversion to Christianity.

On July 26, 1847, the settlers issued a Declaration of Independence and promulgated a constitution. Based on the political principles denoted in the United States Constitution, it established the independent Republic of Liberia.

The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians, who initially established political and economic dominance in the coastal areas that had been purchased by the ACS; they maintained relations with United States contacts in developing these areas and the resulting trade. Their passage of the 1865 Ports of Entry Act prohibited foreign commerce with the inland tribes, ostensibly to “encourage the growth of civilized values” before such trade was allowed.

Republic of Liberia: Charles D. B. King, 17th President of Liberia (1920-1930), with his entourage on the steps of the Peace Palace, The Hague (the Netherlands), 1927.

Attributions

• Liberia
  • “American Colonization Society.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “History of Liberia.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Liberia.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “LiberiaKing.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LiberiaKing.jpg. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.