Chapter 9
LIBERIA
In a former chapter we have traced the early development of the American Colonization Society, whose efforts culminated in the founding of the colony of Liberia. The recent world war, with Africa as its prize, fixed attention anew upon the little republic. This comparatively small tract of land, just slightly more than one-three hundredth part of the surface of Africa, is now of interest and strategic importance not only because (if we except Abyssinia, which claims slightly different race origin, and Hayti, which is now really under the government of the United States) it represents the one distinctively Negro government in the world, but also because it is the only tract of land on the great West Coast of the continent that has survived, even through the war, the aggression of great European powers. It is just at the bend of the shoulder of Africa, and its history is as romantic as its situation is unique.
Liberia has frequently been referred to as an outstanding example of the incapacity of the Negro for self-government. Such a judgment is not necessarily correct. It is indeed an open question if, in view of the nature of its beginning, the history of the country proves anything one way or the other with reference to the capacity of the race. The early settlers were frequently only recently out of bondage, but upon them were thrust all the problems of maintenance and government, and they brought with them, moreover, the false ideas of life and work that obtained in the Old South. Sometimes they suffered from neglect, sometimes from excessive solicitude; never were they really left alone. In spite of all, however, more than a score of native tribes have been subdued by only a few thousand civilized men, the republic has preserved its integrity, and there has been handed down through the years a tradition of constitutional government.
In a former chapter we have traced the early development of the American Colonization Society, whose efforts culminated in the founding of the colony of Liberia. The recent world war, with Africa as its prize, fixed attention anew upon the little republic. This comparatively small tract of land, just slightly more than one-three hundredth part of the surface of Africa, is now of interest and strategic importance not only because (if we except Abyssinia, which claims slightly different race origin, and Hayti, which is now really under the government of the United States) it represents the one distinctively Negro government in the world, but also because it is the only tract of land on the great West Coast of the continent that has survived, even through the war, the aggression of great European powers. It is just at the bend of the shoulder of Africa, and its history is as romantic as its situation is unique.
Liberia has frequently been referred to as an outstanding example of the incapacity of the Negro for self-government. Such a judgment is not necessarily correct. It is indeed an open question if, in view of the nature of its beginning, the history of the country proves anything one way or the other with reference to the capacity of the race. The early settlers were frequently only recently out of bondage, but upon them were thrust all the problems of maintenance and government, and they brought with them, moreover, the false ideas of life and work that obtained in the Old South. Sometimes they suffered from neglect, sometimes from excessive solicitude; never were they really left alone. In spite of all, however, more than a score of native tribes have been subdued by only a few thousand civilized men, the republic has preserved its integrity, and there has been handed down through the years a tradition of constitutional government.
The resources of Liberia are as yet imperfectly known. There is no question, however, about the fertility of the interior, or of its capacity when properly developed. There are no rivers of the first rank, but the longest streams are about three hundred miles in length, and at convenient distances apart flow down to a coastline somewhat more than three hundred miles long. Here in a tract of land only slightly larger than our own state of Ohio are a civilized population between 30,000 and 100,000 in number, and a native population estimated at 2,000,000. Of the civilized population the smaller figure, 30,000, is the more nearly correct if we consider only those persons who are fully civilized, and this number would be about evenly divided between Americo-Liberians and natives. Especially in the towns along the coast, however, there are many people who have received only some degree of civilization, and most of the households in the larger towns have several native children living in them. If all such elements are considered, the total might approach 100,000. The natives in their different tribes fall into three or four large divisions. In general they follow their native customs, and the foremost tribes exhibit remarkable intelligence and skill in industry. Outstanding are the dignified Mandingo, with a Mohammedan tradition, and the Vai, distinguished for skill in the arts and with a culture similar to that of the Mandingo. Also easily recognized are the Kpwessi, skillful in weaving and ironwork; the Kru, intelligent, sea-faring, and eager for learning; the Grebo, ambitious and aggressive, and in language connection close to the Kru; the Bassa, with characteristics somewhat similar to those of the Kru, but in general not quite so ambitious; the Buzi, wild and highly tattooed; and the cannibalistic Mano. By reason of numbers if nothing else, Liberia's chief asset for the future consists in her native population.
In pursuance of its plans for the founding of a permanent colony on the coast of Africa, the American Colonization Society in November, 1817, sent out two men, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, who were authorized to find a suitable place for a settlement. Going by way of England, these men were cordially received by the officers of the African Institution and given letters to responsible persons in Sierra Leone. Arriving at the latter place in March, 1818, they met John Kizell, a native and a man of influence, who had received some training in America and had returned to his people, built a house of worship, and become a preacher. Kizell undertook to accompany them on their journey down the coast and led the way to Sherbro Island, a place long in disputed territory but since included within the limits of Sierra Leone. Here the agents were hospitably received; they fixed upon the island as a permanent site, and in May turned their faces homeward. Mills died on the voyage in June and was buried at sea; but Burgess made a favorable report, though the island was afterwards to prove by no means healthy. The Society was impressed, but efforts might have languished at this important stage if Monroe, now President, had not found it possible to bring the resources of the United States Government to assist in the project. Smuggling, with the accompanying evil of the sale of "recaptured Africans," had by 1818 become a national disgrace, and on March 3, 1819, a bill designed to do away with the practice became a law. This said in part: "The President of the United States is hereby authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such Negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction; and to appoint a proper person or persons residing upon the coast of Africa as agent or agents for receiving the Negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slave-trade by commanders of the United States armed vessels." For the carrying out of the purpose of this act $100,000 was appropriated, and Monroe was disposed to construe as broadly as necessary the powers given him under it. In his message of December 20, he informed Congress that he had appointed Rev. Samuel Bacon, of the American Colonization Society, with John Bankson as assistant, to charter a vessel and take the first group of emigrants to Africa, the understanding being that he was to go to the place fixed upon by Mills and Burgess. Thus the National Government and the Colonization Society, while technically separate, began to work in practical coöperation. The ship Elizabeth was made ready for the voyage; the Government informed the Society that it would "receive on board such free blacks recommended by the Society as might be required for the purpose of the agency"; $33,000 was placed in the hands of Mr. Bacon; Rev. Samuel A. Crozer was appointed as the Society's official representative; 88 emigrants were brought together (33 men and 18 women, the rest being children); and on February 5, 1820, convoyed by the war-sloop Cyane, the expedition set forth.
An interesting record of the voyage—important for the sidelights it gives—was left by Daniel Coker, the respected minister of a large Methodist congregation in Baltimore who was persuaded to accompany the expedition for the sake of the moral influence that he might be able to exert.135 There was much bad weather at the start, and it was the icy sea that on February 4 made it impossible to get under way until the next day. On board, moreover, there was much distrust of the agents in charge, with much questioning of their motives; nor were matters made better by a fight between one of the emigrants and the captain of the vessel. It was a restless company, uncertain as to the future, and dissatisfied and peevish from day to day. Kizell afterwards remarked that "some would not be governed by white men, and some would not be governed by black men, and some would not be governed by mulattoes; but the truth was they did not want to be governed by anybody." On March 3, however, the ship sighted the Cape Verde Islands and six days afterwards was anchored at Sierra Leone; and Coker rejoiced that at last he had seen Africa. Kizell, however, whom the agents had counted on seeing, was found to be away at Sherbro; accordingly, six days after their arrival136 they too were making efforts to go on to Sherbro, for they were allowed at anchor only fifteen days and time was passing rapidly. Meanwhile Bankson went to find Kizell. Captain Sebor was at first decidedly unwilling to go further; but his reluctance was at length overcome; Bacon purchased for $3,000 a British schooner that had formerly been engaged in the slave-trade; and on March 17 both ship and schooner got under way for Sherbro. The next day they met Bankson, who informed them that he had seen Kizell. This man, although he had not heard from America since the departure of Mills and Burgess, had already erected some temporary houses against the rainy season. He permitted the newcomers to stay in his little town until land could be obtained; sent them twelve fowls and a bushel of rice; but he also, with both dignity and pathos, warned Bankson that if he and his companions came with Christ in their hearts, it was well that they had come; if not, it would have been better if they had stayed in America.
Now followed much fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disaster followed disaster. The marsh, the bad water, and the malaria played havoc with the colonists, and all three of the responsible agents died. The few persons who remained alive made their way back to Sierra Leone.
Thus the first expedition failed. One year later, in March, 1821, a new company of twenty-one emigrants, in charge of J.B. Winn and Ephraim Bacon, arrived at Freetown in the brig Nautilus. It had been the understanding that in return for their passage the members of the first expedition would clear the way for others; but when the agents of the new company saw the plight of those who remained alive, they brought all of the colonists together at Fourah Bay, and Bacon went farther down the coast to seek a more favorable site. A few persons who did not wish to go to Fourah Bay remained in Sierra Leone and became British subjects. Bacon found a promising tract about two hundred and fifty miles down the coast at Cape Montserado; but the natives were not especially eager to sell, as they did not wish to break up the slave traffic. Meanwhile Winn and several more of the colonists died; and Bacon now returned to the United States. The second expedition had thus proved to be little more successful than the first; but the future site of Monrovia had at least been suggested.
In November came Dr. Eli Ayres as agent of the Society, and in December Captain Robert F. Stockton of the Alligator with instructions to coöperate. These two men explored the coast and on December 11 arrived at Mesurado Bay. Through the jungle they made their way to a village and engaged in a palaver with King Peter and five of his associates. The negotiations were conducted in the presence of an excited crowd and with imminent danger; but Stockton had great tact and at length, for the equivalent of $300, he and Ayres purchased the mouth of the Mesurado River, Cape Montserado, and the land for some distance in the interior. There was also an understanding (for half a dozen gallons of rum and some trade-cloth and tobacco) with King George, who "resided on the Cape and claimed a sort of jurisdiction over the northern district of the peninsula of Montserado, by virtue of which the settlers were permitted to pass across the river and commence the laborious task of clearing away the heavy forest which covered the site of their intended town."137 Then the agent returned to effect the removal of the colonists from Fourah Bay, leaving a very small company as a sort of guard on Perseverance (or Providence) Island at the mouth of the river. Some of the colonists refused to leave, remained, and thus became British subjects. For those who had remained on the island there was trouble at once. A small vessel, the prize of an English cruiser, bound to Sierra Leone with thirty liberated Africans, put into the roads for water, and had the misfortune to part her cable and come ashore. "The natives claim to a prescriptive right, which interest never fails to enforce to its fullest extent, to seize and appropriate the wrecks and cargoes of vessels stranded, under whatever circumstances, on their coast."138 The vessel in question drifted to the mainland one mile from the cape, a small distance below George's town, and the natives proceeded to act in accordance with tradition. They were fired on by the prize master and forced to desist, and the captain appealed to the few colonists on the island for assistance. They brought into play a brass field piece, and two of the natives were killed and several more wounded. The English officer, his crew, and the captured Africans escaped, though the small vessel was lost; but the next day the Deys (the natives), feeling outraged, made another attack, in the course of which some of them and one of the colonists were killed. In the course of the operations moreover, through the carelessness of some of the settlers themselves, fire was communicated to the storehouse and $3000 worth of property destroyed, though the powder and some of the provisions were saved. Thus at the very beginning, by accident though it happened, the shadow of England fell across the young colony, involving it in difficulties with the natives. When then Ayres returned with the main crowd of settlers on January 7, 1822—which arrival was the first real landing of settlers on what is now Liberian soil—he found that the Deys wished to annul the agreement previously made and to give back the articles paid. He himself was seized in the course of a palaver, and he was able to arrive at no better understanding than that the colonists might remain only until they could make a new purchase elsewhere. Now appeared on the scene Boatswain, a prominent chief from the interior who sometimes exercised jurisdiction over the coast tribes and who, hearing that there was trouble in the bay, had come hither, bringing with him a sufficient following to enforce his decrees. Through this man shone something of the high moral principle so often to be observed in responsible African chiefs, and to him Ayres appealed. Hearing the story he decided in favor of the colonists, saying to Peter, "Having sold your country and accepted payment, you must take the consequences. Let the Americans have their land immediately." To the agent he said, "I promise you protection. If these people give you further disturbance, send for me; and I swear, if they oblige me to come again to quiet them, I will do it to purpose, by taking their heads from their shoulders, as I did old king George's on my last visit to the coast to settle disputes." Thus on the word of a native chief was the foundation of Liberia assured.
An interesting record of the voyage—important for the sidelights it gives—was left by Daniel Coker, the respected minister of a large Methodist congregation in Baltimore who was persuaded to accompany the expedition for the sake of the moral influence that he might be able to exert.135 There was much bad weather at the start, and it was the icy sea that on February 4 made it impossible to get under way until the next day. On board, moreover, there was much distrust of the agents in charge, with much questioning of their motives; nor were matters made better by a fight between one of the emigrants and the captain of the vessel. It was a restless company, uncertain as to the future, and dissatisfied and peevish from day to day. Kizell afterwards remarked that "some would not be governed by white men, and some would not be governed by black men, and some would not be governed by mulattoes; but the truth was they did not want to be governed by anybody." On March 3, however, the ship sighted the Cape Verde Islands and six days afterwards was anchored at Sierra Leone; and Coker rejoiced that at last he had seen Africa. Kizell, however, whom the agents had counted on seeing, was found to be away at Sherbro; accordingly, six days after their arrival136 they too were making efforts to go on to Sherbro, for they were allowed at anchor only fifteen days and time was passing rapidly. Meanwhile Bankson went to find Kizell. Captain Sebor was at first decidedly unwilling to go further; but his reluctance was at length overcome; Bacon purchased for $3,000 a British schooner that had formerly been engaged in the slave-trade; and on March 17 both ship and schooner got under way for Sherbro. The next day they met Bankson, who informed them that he had seen Kizell. This man, although he had not heard from America since the departure of Mills and Burgess, had already erected some temporary houses against the rainy season. He permitted the newcomers to stay in his little town until land could be obtained; sent them twelve fowls and a bushel of rice; but he also, with both dignity and pathos, warned Bankson that if he and his companions came with Christ in their hearts, it was well that they had come; if not, it would have been better if they had stayed in America.
Now followed much fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disaster followed disaster. The marsh, the bad water, and the malaria played havoc with the colonists, and all three of the responsible agents died. The few persons who remained alive made their way back to Sierra Leone.
Thus the first expedition failed. One year later, in March, 1821, a new company of twenty-one emigrants, in charge of J.B. Winn and Ephraim Bacon, arrived at Freetown in the brig Nautilus. It had been the understanding that in return for their passage the members of the first expedition would clear the way for others; but when the agents of the new company saw the plight of those who remained alive, they brought all of the colonists together at Fourah Bay, and Bacon went farther down the coast to seek a more favorable site. A few persons who did not wish to go to Fourah Bay remained in Sierra Leone and became British subjects. Bacon found a promising tract about two hundred and fifty miles down the coast at Cape Montserado; but the natives were not especially eager to sell, as they did not wish to break up the slave traffic. Meanwhile Winn and several more of the colonists died; and Bacon now returned to the United States. The second expedition had thus proved to be little more successful than the first; but the future site of Monrovia had at least been suggested.
In November came Dr. Eli Ayres as agent of the Society, and in December Captain Robert F. Stockton of the Alligator with instructions to coöperate. These two men explored the coast and on December 11 arrived at Mesurado Bay. Through the jungle they made their way to a village and engaged in a palaver with King Peter and five of his associates. The negotiations were conducted in the presence of an excited crowd and with imminent danger; but Stockton had great tact and at length, for the equivalent of $300, he and Ayres purchased the mouth of the Mesurado River, Cape Montserado, and the land for some distance in the interior. There was also an understanding (for half a dozen gallons of rum and some trade-cloth and tobacco) with King George, who "resided on the Cape and claimed a sort of jurisdiction over the northern district of the peninsula of Montserado, by virtue of which the settlers were permitted to pass across the river and commence the laborious task of clearing away the heavy forest which covered the site of their intended town."137 Then the agent returned to effect the removal of the colonists from Fourah Bay, leaving a very small company as a sort of guard on Perseverance (or Providence) Island at the mouth of the river. Some of the colonists refused to leave, remained, and thus became British subjects. For those who had remained on the island there was trouble at once. A small vessel, the prize of an English cruiser, bound to Sierra Leone with thirty liberated Africans, put into the roads for water, and had the misfortune to part her cable and come ashore. "The natives claim to a prescriptive right, which interest never fails to enforce to its fullest extent, to seize and appropriate the wrecks and cargoes of vessels stranded, under whatever circumstances, on their coast."138 The vessel in question drifted to the mainland one mile from the cape, a small distance below George's town, and the natives proceeded to act in accordance with tradition. They were fired on by the prize master and forced to desist, and the captain appealed to the few colonists on the island for assistance. They brought into play a brass field piece, and two of the natives were killed and several more wounded. The English officer, his crew, and the captured Africans escaped, though the small vessel was lost; but the next day the Deys (the natives), feeling outraged, made another attack, in the course of which some of them and one of the colonists were killed. In the course of the operations moreover, through the carelessness of some of the settlers themselves, fire was communicated to the storehouse and $3000 worth of property destroyed, though the powder and some of the provisions were saved. Thus at the very beginning, by accident though it happened, the shadow of England fell across the young colony, involving it in difficulties with the natives. When then Ayres returned with the main crowd of settlers on January 7, 1822—which arrival was the first real landing of settlers on what is now Liberian soil—he found that the Deys wished to annul the agreement previously made and to give back the articles paid. He himself was seized in the course of a palaver, and he was able to arrive at no better understanding than that the colonists might remain only until they could make a new purchase elsewhere. Now appeared on the scene Boatswain, a prominent chief from the interior who sometimes exercised jurisdiction over the coast tribes and who, hearing that there was trouble in the bay, had come hither, bringing with him a sufficient following to enforce his decrees. Through this man shone something of the high moral principle so often to be observed in responsible African chiefs, and to him Ayres appealed. Hearing the story he decided in favor of the colonists, saying to Peter, "Having sold your country and accepted payment, you must take the consequences. Let the Americans have their land immediately." To the agent he said, "I promise you protection. If these people give you further disturbance, send for me; and I swear, if they oblige me to come again to quiet them, I will do it to purpose, by taking their heads from their shoulders, as I did old king George's on my last visit to the coast to settle disputes." Thus on the word of a native chief was the foundation of Liberia assured.
By the end of April all of the colonists who were willing to move had been brought from Sierra Leone to their new home. It was now decided to remove from the low and unhealthy island to the higher land of Cape Montserado only a few hundred feet away; on April 28 there was a ceremony of possession and the American flag was raised. The advantages of the new position were obvious, to the natives as well as the colonists, and the removal was attended with great excitement. By July the island was completely abandoned. Meanwhile, however, things had not been going well. The Deys had been rendered very hostile, and from them there was constant danger of attack. The rainy season moreover had set in, shelter was inadequate, supplies were low, and the fever continually claimed its victims. Ayres at length became discouraged. He proposed that the enterprise be abandoned and that the settlers return to Sierra Leone, and on June 4 he did actually leave with a few of them. It was at this juncture that Elijah Johnson, one of the most heroic of the colonists, stepped forth to fame.
The early life of the man is a blank. In 1789 he was taken to New Jersey. He received some instruction and studied for the Methodist ministry, took part in the War of 1812, and eagerly embraced the opportunity to be among the first to come to the new colony. To the suggestion that the enterprise be abandoned he replied, "Two years long have I sought a home; here I have found it; here I remain." To him the great heart of the colonists responded. Among the natives he was known and respected as a valiant fighter. He lived until March 23, 1849.
Closely associated with Johnson, his colleague in many an effort and the pioneer in mission work, was the Baptist minister, Lott Cary, from Richmond, Va., who also had become one of the first permanent settlers.139 He was a man of most unusual versatility and force of character. He died November 8, 1828, as the result of a powder explosion that occurred while he was acting in defense of the colony against the Deys.
July (1822) was a hard month for the settlers. Not only were their supplies almost exhausted, but they were on a rocky cape and the natives would not permit any food to be brought to them. On August 8, however, arrived Jehudi Ashmun, a young man from Vermont who had worked as a teacher and as the editor of a religious publication for some years before coming on this mission. He brought with him a company of liberated Africans and emigrants to the number of fifty-five, and as he did not intend to remain permanently he had yielded to the entreaty of his wife and permitted her to accompany him on the voyage. He held no formal commission from the American Colonization Society, but seeing the situation he felt that it was his duty to do what he could to relieve the distress; and he faced difficulties from the very first. On the day after his arrival his own brig, the Strong, was in danger of being lost; the vessel parted its cable, and on the following morning broke it again and drifted until it was landlocked between Cape Montserado and Cape Mount. A small anchor was found, however, and the brig was again moored, but five miles from the settlement. The rainy season was now on in full force; there was no proper place for the storing of provisions; and even with the newcomers it soon developed that there were in the colony only thirty-five men capable of bearing arms, so great had been the number of deaths from the fever. Sometimes almost all of these were sick; on September 10 only two were in condition for any kind of service. Ashmun tried to make terms with the native chiefs, but their malignity was only partially concealed. His wife languished before his eyes and died September 15, just five weeks after her arrival. He himself was incapacitated for several months, nor at the height of his illness was he made better by the ministrations of a French charlatan. He never really recovered from the great inroads made upon his strength at this time.
As a protection from sudden attack a clearing around the settlement was made. Defenses had to be erected without tools, and so great was the anxiety that throughout the months of September and October a nightly watch of twenty men was kept. On Sunday, November 10, the report was circulated that the Deys were crossing the Mesurado River, and at night it became known that seven or eight hundred were on the peninsula only half a mile to the west. The attack came at early dawn on the 11th and the colonists might have been annihilated if they had not brought a field-piece into play. When this was turned against the natives advancing in compact array, it literally tore through masses of living flesh until scores of men were killed. Even so the Deys might have won the engagement if they had not stopped too soon to gather plunder. As it was, they were forced to retreat. Of the settlers three men and one woman were killed, two men and two women injured, and several children taken captive, though these were afterwards returned. At this time the colonists suffered greatly from the lack of any supplies for the treatment of wounds. Only medicines for the fever were on hand, and in the hot climate those whose flesh had been torn by bullets suffered terribly. In this first encounter, as often in these early years, the real burden of conflict fell upon Cary and Johnson. After the battle these men found that they had on hand ammunition sufficient for only one hour's defense. All were placed on a special allowance of provisions and November 23 was observed as a day of prayer. A passing vessel furnished additional supplies and happily delayed for some days the inevitable attack. This came from two sides very early in the morning of December 2. There was a desperate battle. Three bullets passed through Ashmun's clothes, one of the gunners was killed, and repeated attacks were resisted only with the most dogged determination. An accident, or, as the colonists regarded it, a miracle, saved them from destruction. A guard, hearing a noise, discharged a large gun and several muskets. The schooner Prince Regent was passing, with Major Laing, Midshipman Gordon, and eleven specially trained men on board. The officers, hearing the sound of guns, came ashore to see what was the trouble. Major Laing offered assistance if ground was given for the erection of a British flag, and generally attempted to bring about an adjustment of difficulties on the basis of submitting these to the governor of Sierra Leone. To these propositions Elijah Johnson replied, "We want no flagstaff put up here that it will cost more to get down than it will to whip the natives." However, Gordon and the men under him were left behind for the protection of the colony until further help could arrive. Within one month he and seven of the eleven were dead. He himself had found a ready place in the hearts of the settlers, and to him and his men Liberia owes much. They came in a needy hour and gave their lives for the cause of freedom.
An American steamer passing in December, 1822, gave some temporary relief. On March 31, 1823, the Cyane, with Capt. R.T. Spence in charge, arrived from America with supplies. As many members of his crew became ill after only a few days, Spence soon deemed it advisable to leave. His chief clerk, however, Richard Seaton, heroically volunteered to help with the work, remained behind, and died after only three months. On May 24 came the Oswego with sixty-one new colonists and Dr. Ayres, who, already the Society's agent, now returned with the additional authority of Government agent and surgeon. He made a survey and attempted a new allotment of land, only to find that the colony was soon in ferment, because some of those who possessed the best holdings or who had already made the beginnings of homes, were now required to give these up. There was so much rebellion that in December Ayres again deemed it advisable to leave. The year 1823 was in fact chiefly noteworthy for the misunderstandings that arose between the colonists and Ashmun. This man had been placed in a most embarrassing situation by the arrival of Dr. Ayres.140 He not only found himself superseded in the government, but had the additional misfortune to learn that his drafts had been dishonored and that no provision had been made to remunerate him for his past services or provide for his present needs. Finding his services undervalued, and even the confidence of the Society withheld, he was naturally indignant, though his attachment to the cause remained steadfast. Seeing the authorized agent leaving the colony, and the settlers themselves in a state of insubordination, with no formal authority behind him he yet resolved to forget his own wrongs and to do what he could to save from destruction that for which he had already suffered so much. He was young and perhaps not always as tactful as he might have been. On the other hand, the colonists had not yet learned fully to appreciate the real greatness of the man with whom they were dealing. As for the Society at home, not even so much can be said. The real reason for the withholding of confidence from Ashmun was that many of the members objected to his persistent attacks on the slave-trade.
The early life of the man is a blank. In 1789 he was taken to New Jersey. He received some instruction and studied for the Methodist ministry, took part in the War of 1812, and eagerly embraced the opportunity to be among the first to come to the new colony. To the suggestion that the enterprise be abandoned he replied, "Two years long have I sought a home; here I have found it; here I remain." To him the great heart of the colonists responded. Among the natives he was known and respected as a valiant fighter. He lived until March 23, 1849.
Closely associated with Johnson, his colleague in many an effort and the pioneer in mission work, was the Baptist minister, Lott Cary, from Richmond, Va., who also had become one of the first permanent settlers.139 He was a man of most unusual versatility and force of character. He died November 8, 1828, as the result of a powder explosion that occurred while he was acting in defense of the colony against the Deys.
July (1822) was a hard month for the settlers. Not only were their supplies almost exhausted, but they were on a rocky cape and the natives would not permit any food to be brought to them. On August 8, however, arrived Jehudi Ashmun, a young man from Vermont who had worked as a teacher and as the editor of a religious publication for some years before coming on this mission. He brought with him a company of liberated Africans and emigrants to the number of fifty-five, and as he did not intend to remain permanently he had yielded to the entreaty of his wife and permitted her to accompany him on the voyage. He held no formal commission from the American Colonization Society, but seeing the situation he felt that it was his duty to do what he could to relieve the distress; and he faced difficulties from the very first. On the day after his arrival his own brig, the Strong, was in danger of being lost; the vessel parted its cable, and on the following morning broke it again and drifted until it was landlocked between Cape Montserado and Cape Mount. A small anchor was found, however, and the brig was again moored, but five miles from the settlement. The rainy season was now on in full force; there was no proper place for the storing of provisions; and even with the newcomers it soon developed that there were in the colony only thirty-five men capable of bearing arms, so great had been the number of deaths from the fever. Sometimes almost all of these were sick; on September 10 only two were in condition for any kind of service. Ashmun tried to make terms with the native chiefs, but their malignity was only partially concealed. His wife languished before his eyes and died September 15, just five weeks after her arrival. He himself was incapacitated for several months, nor at the height of his illness was he made better by the ministrations of a French charlatan. He never really recovered from the great inroads made upon his strength at this time.
As a protection from sudden attack a clearing around the settlement was made. Defenses had to be erected without tools, and so great was the anxiety that throughout the months of September and October a nightly watch of twenty men was kept. On Sunday, November 10, the report was circulated that the Deys were crossing the Mesurado River, and at night it became known that seven or eight hundred were on the peninsula only half a mile to the west. The attack came at early dawn on the 11th and the colonists might have been annihilated if they had not brought a field-piece into play. When this was turned against the natives advancing in compact array, it literally tore through masses of living flesh until scores of men were killed. Even so the Deys might have won the engagement if they had not stopped too soon to gather plunder. As it was, they were forced to retreat. Of the settlers three men and one woman were killed, two men and two women injured, and several children taken captive, though these were afterwards returned. At this time the colonists suffered greatly from the lack of any supplies for the treatment of wounds. Only medicines for the fever were on hand, and in the hot climate those whose flesh had been torn by bullets suffered terribly. In this first encounter, as often in these early years, the real burden of conflict fell upon Cary and Johnson. After the battle these men found that they had on hand ammunition sufficient for only one hour's defense. All were placed on a special allowance of provisions and November 23 was observed as a day of prayer. A passing vessel furnished additional supplies and happily delayed for some days the inevitable attack. This came from two sides very early in the morning of December 2. There was a desperate battle. Three bullets passed through Ashmun's clothes, one of the gunners was killed, and repeated attacks were resisted only with the most dogged determination. An accident, or, as the colonists regarded it, a miracle, saved them from destruction. A guard, hearing a noise, discharged a large gun and several muskets. The schooner Prince Regent was passing, with Major Laing, Midshipman Gordon, and eleven specially trained men on board. The officers, hearing the sound of guns, came ashore to see what was the trouble. Major Laing offered assistance if ground was given for the erection of a British flag, and generally attempted to bring about an adjustment of difficulties on the basis of submitting these to the governor of Sierra Leone. To these propositions Elijah Johnson replied, "We want no flagstaff put up here that it will cost more to get down than it will to whip the natives." However, Gordon and the men under him were left behind for the protection of the colony until further help could arrive. Within one month he and seven of the eleven were dead. He himself had found a ready place in the hearts of the settlers, and to him and his men Liberia owes much. They came in a needy hour and gave their lives for the cause of freedom.
An American steamer passing in December, 1822, gave some temporary relief. On March 31, 1823, the Cyane, with Capt. R.T. Spence in charge, arrived from America with supplies. As many members of his crew became ill after only a few days, Spence soon deemed it advisable to leave. His chief clerk, however, Richard Seaton, heroically volunteered to help with the work, remained behind, and died after only three months. On May 24 came the Oswego with sixty-one new colonists and Dr. Ayres, who, already the Society's agent, now returned with the additional authority of Government agent and surgeon. He made a survey and attempted a new allotment of land, only to find that the colony was soon in ferment, because some of those who possessed the best holdings or who had already made the beginnings of homes, were now required to give these up. There was so much rebellion that in December Ayres again deemed it advisable to leave. The year 1823 was in fact chiefly noteworthy for the misunderstandings that arose between the colonists and Ashmun. This man had been placed in a most embarrassing situation by the arrival of Dr. Ayres.140 He not only found himself superseded in the government, but had the additional misfortune to learn that his drafts had been dishonored and that no provision had been made to remunerate him for his past services or provide for his present needs. Finding his services undervalued, and even the confidence of the Society withheld, he was naturally indignant, though his attachment to the cause remained steadfast. Seeing the authorized agent leaving the colony, and the settlers themselves in a state of insubordination, with no formal authority behind him he yet resolved to forget his own wrongs and to do what he could to save from destruction that for which he had already suffered so much. He was young and perhaps not always as tactful as he might have been. On the other hand, the colonists had not yet learned fully to appreciate the real greatness of the man with whom they were dealing. As for the Society at home, not even so much can be said. The real reason for the withholding of confidence from Ashmun was that many of the members objected to his persistent attacks on the slave-trade.
By the regulations that governed the colony at the time, each man who received rations was required to contribute to the general welfare two days of labor a week. Early in December twelve men cast off all restraint, and on the 13th Ashmun published a notice in which he said: "There are in the colony more than a dozen healthy persons who will receive no more provisions out of the public store until they earn them." On the 19th, in accordance with this notice, the provisions of the recalcitrants were stopped. The next morning, however, the men went to the storehouse, and while provisions were being issued, each seized a portion and went to his home. Ashmun now issued a circular, reminding the colonists of all of their struggles together and generally pointing out to them how such a breach of discipline struck at the very heart of the settlement. The colonists rallied to his support and the twelve men returned to duty. The trouble, however, was not yet over. On March 19, 1824, Ashmun found it necessary to order a cut in provisions. He had previously declared to the Board that in his opinion the evil was "incurable by any of the remedies which fall within the existing provisions"; and counter remonstrances had been sent by the colonists, who charged him with oppression, neglect of duty, and the seizure of public property. He now, seeing that his latest order was especially unpopular, prepared new despatches, on March 22 reviewed the whole course of his conduct in a strong and lengthy address, and by the last of the month had left the colony.
Meanwhile the Society, having learned that things were not going well with the colony, had appointed its secretary, Rev. R.R. Gurley, to investigate conditions. Gurley met Ashmun at the Cape Verde Islands and urgently requested that he return to Monrovia.141 This Ashmun was not unwilling to do, as he desired the fullest possible investigation into his conduct. Gurley was in Liberia from August 13 to August 22, 1824, only; but from the time of his visit conditions improved. Ashmun was fully vindicated and remained for four years more until his strength was all but spent. There was adopted what was known as the Gurley Constitution. According to this the agent in charge was to have supreme charge and preside at all public meetings. He was to be assisted, however, by eleven officers annually chosen, the most important of whom he was to appoint on nomination by the colonists. Among these were a vice-agent, two councilors, two justices of the peace, and two constables. There was to be a guard of twelve privates, two corporals, and one sergeant.
For a long time it was the custom of the American Colonization Society to send out two main shipments of settlers a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. On February 13, 1824, arrived a little more than a hundred emigrants, mainly from Petersburg, Va. These people were unusually intelligent and industrious and received a hearty welcome. Within a month practically all of them were sick with the fever. On this occasion, as on many others, Lott Cary served as physician, and so successful was he that only three of the sufferers died. Another company of unusual interest was that which arrived early in 1826. It brought along a printer, a press with the necessary supplies, and books sent by friends in Boston. Unfortunately the printer was soon disabled by the fever.
Sickness, however, and wars with the natives were not the only handicaps that engaged the attention of the colony in these years. "At this period the slave-trade was carried on extensively within sight of Monrovia. Fifteen vessels were engaged in it at the same time, almost under the guns of the settlement; and in July of this year a contract was existing for eight hundred slaves to be furnished, in the short space of four months, within eight miles of the cape. Four hundred of these were to be purchased for two American traders."142 Ashmun attacked the Spaniards engaged in the traffic, and labored generally to break up slave factories. On one occasion he received as many as one hundred and sixteen slaves into the colony as freemen. He also adopted an attitude of justice toward the native Krus. Of special importance was the attack on Trade Town, a stronghold of French and Spanish traders about one hundred miles below Monrovia. Here there were not less than three large factories. On the day of the battle, April 10, there were three hundred and fifty natives on shore under the direction of the traders, but the colonists had the assistance of some American vessels, and a Liberian officer, Captain Barbour, was of outstanding courage and ability. The town was fired after eighty slaves had been surrendered. The flames reached the ammunition of the enemy and over two hundred and fifty casks of gunpowder exploded. By July, however, the traders had built a battery at Trade Town and were prepared to give more trouble. All the same a severe blow had been dealt to their work.
In his report rendered at the close of 1825 Ashmun showed that the settlers were living in neatness and comfort; two chapels had been built, and the militia was well organized, equipped, and disciplined. The need of some place for the temporary housing of immigrants having more and more impressed itself upon the colony, before the end of 1826 a "receptacle" capable of holding one hundred and fifty persons was erected. Ashmun himself served on until 1828, by which time his strength was completely spent. He sailed for America early in the summer and succeeded in reaching New Haven, only to die after a few weeks. No man had given more for the founding of Liberia. The principal street in Monrovia is named after him.
Aside from wars with the natives, the most noteworthy being the Dey-Gola war of 1832, the most important feature of Liberian history in the decade 1828-1838 was the development along the coast of other settlements than Monrovia. These were largely the outgrowth of the activity of local branch organizations of the American Colonization Society, and they were originally supposed to have the oversight of the central organization and of the colony of Monrovia. The circumstances under which they were founded, however, gave them something of a feeling of independence which did much to influence their history. Thus arose, about seventy-five miles farther down the coast, under the auspices especially of the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Grand Bassa settlements at the mouth of the St. John's River, the town Edina being outstanding. Nearly a hundred miles farther south, at the mouth of the Sino River, another colony developed as its most important town Greenville; and as most of the settlers in this vicinity came from Mississippi, their province became known as Mississippi in Africa. A hundred miles farther, on Cape Palmas, just about twenty miles from the Cavalla River marking the boundary of the French possessions, developed the town of Harper in what became known as Maryland in Africa. This colony was even more aloof than others from the parent settlement of the American Colonization Society. When the first colonists arrived at Monrovia in 1831, they were not very cordially received, there being trouble about the allotment of land. They waited for some months for reënforcements and then sailed down the coast to the vicinity of the Cavalla River, where they secured land for their future home and where their distance from the other colonists from America made it all the more easy for them to cultivate their tradition of independence.143 These four ports are now popularly known as Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Sino, and Cape Palmas; and to them for general prominence might now be added Cape Mount, about fifty miles from Monrovia higher up the coast and just a few miles from the Mano River, which now marks the boundary between Sierra Leone and Liberia. In 1838, on a constitution drawn up by Professor Greenleaf, of Harvard College, was organized the "Commonwealth of Liberia," the government of which was vested in a Board of Directors composed of delegates from the state societies, and which included all the settlements except Maryland. This remote colony, whose seaport is Cape Palmas, did not join with the others until 1857, ten years after Liberia had become an independent republic. When a special company of settlers arrived from Baltimore and formally occupied Cape Palmas (1834), Dr. James Hall was governor and he served in this capacity until 1836, when failing health forced him to return to America. He was succeeded by John B. Russwurm, a young Negro who had come to Liberia in 1829 for the purpose of superintending the system of education. The country, however, was not yet ready for the kind of work he wanted to do, and in course of time he went into politics. He served very efficiently as Governor of Maryland from 1836 to 1851, especially exerting himself to standardize the currency and to stabilize the revenues. Five years after his death Maryland suffered greatly from an attack by the Greboes, twenty-six colonists being killed. An appeal to Monrovia for help led to the sending of a company of men and later to the incorporation of the colony in the Republic.
Of the events of the period special interest attaches to the murder of I.F.C. Finley, Governor of Mississippi in Africa, to whose father, Rev. Robert Finley, the organization of the American Colonization Society had been very largely due. In September, 1838, Governor Finley left his colony to go to Monrovia on business, and making a landing at Bassa Cove, he was robbed and killed by the Krus. This unfortunate murder led to a bitter conflict between the settlers in the vicinity and the natives. This is sometimes known as the Fish War (from being waged around Fishpoint) and did not really cease for a year.
Meanwhile the Society, having learned that things were not going well with the colony, had appointed its secretary, Rev. R.R. Gurley, to investigate conditions. Gurley met Ashmun at the Cape Verde Islands and urgently requested that he return to Monrovia.141 This Ashmun was not unwilling to do, as he desired the fullest possible investigation into his conduct. Gurley was in Liberia from August 13 to August 22, 1824, only; but from the time of his visit conditions improved. Ashmun was fully vindicated and remained for four years more until his strength was all but spent. There was adopted what was known as the Gurley Constitution. According to this the agent in charge was to have supreme charge and preside at all public meetings. He was to be assisted, however, by eleven officers annually chosen, the most important of whom he was to appoint on nomination by the colonists. Among these were a vice-agent, two councilors, two justices of the peace, and two constables. There was to be a guard of twelve privates, two corporals, and one sergeant.
For a long time it was the custom of the American Colonization Society to send out two main shipments of settlers a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. On February 13, 1824, arrived a little more than a hundred emigrants, mainly from Petersburg, Va. These people were unusually intelligent and industrious and received a hearty welcome. Within a month practically all of them were sick with the fever. On this occasion, as on many others, Lott Cary served as physician, and so successful was he that only three of the sufferers died. Another company of unusual interest was that which arrived early in 1826. It brought along a printer, a press with the necessary supplies, and books sent by friends in Boston. Unfortunately the printer was soon disabled by the fever.
Sickness, however, and wars with the natives were not the only handicaps that engaged the attention of the colony in these years. "At this period the slave-trade was carried on extensively within sight of Monrovia. Fifteen vessels were engaged in it at the same time, almost under the guns of the settlement; and in July of this year a contract was existing for eight hundred slaves to be furnished, in the short space of four months, within eight miles of the cape. Four hundred of these were to be purchased for two American traders."142 Ashmun attacked the Spaniards engaged in the traffic, and labored generally to break up slave factories. On one occasion he received as many as one hundred and sixteen slaves into the colony as freemen. He also adopted an attitude of justice toward the native Krus. Of special importance was the attack on Trade Town, a stronghold of French and Spanish traders about one hundred miles below Monrovia. Here there were not less than three large factories. On the day of the battle, April 10, there were three hundred and fifty natives on shore under the direction of the traders, but the colonists had the assistance of some American vessels, and a Liberian officer, Captain Barbour, was of outstanding courage and ability. The town was fired after eighty slaves had been surrendered. The flames reached the ammunition of the enemy and over two hundred and fifty casks of gunpowder exploded. By July, however, the traders had built a battery at Trade Town and were prepared to give more trouble. All the same a severe blow had been dealt to their work.
In his report rendered at the close of 1825 Ashmun showed that the settlers were living in neatness and comfort; two chapels had been built, and the militia was well organized, equipped, and disciplined. The need of some place for the temporary housing of immigrants having more and more impressed itself upon the colony, before the end of 1826 a "receptacle" capable of holding one hundred and fifty persons was erected. Ashmun himself served on until 1828, by which time his strength was completely spent. He sailed for America early in the summer and succeeded in reaching New Haven, only to die after a few weeks. No man had given more for the founding of Liberia. The principal street in Monrovia is named after him.
Aside from wars with the natives, the most noteworthy being the Dey-Gola war of 1832, the most important feature of Liberian history in the decade 1828-1838 was the development along the coast of other settlements than Monrovia. These were largely the outgrowth of the activity of local branch organizations of the American Colonization Society, and they were originally supposed to have the oversight of the central organization and of the colony of Monrovia. The circumstances under which they were founded, however, gave them something of a feeling of independence which did much to influence their history. Thus arose, about seventy-five miles farther down the coast, under the auspices especially of the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Grand Bassa settlements at the mouth of the St. John's River, the town Edina being outstanding. Nearly a hundred miles farther south, at the mouth of the Sino River, another colony developed as its most important town Greenville; and as most of the settlers in this vicinity came from Mississippi, their province became known as Mississippi in Africa. A hundred miles farther, on Cape Palmas, just about twenty miles from the Cavalla River marking the boundary of the French possessions, developed the town of Harper in what became known as Maryland in Africa. This colony was even more aloof than others from the parent settlement of the American Colonization Society. When the first colonists arrived at Monrovia in 1831, they were not very cordially received, there being trouble about the allotment of land. They waited for some months for reënforcements and then sailed down the coast to the vicinity of the Cavalla River, where they secured land for their future home and where their distance from the other colonists from America made it all the more easy for them to cultivate their tradition of independence.143 These four ports are now popularly known as Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Sino, and Cape Palmas; and to them for general prominence might now be added Cape Mount, about fifty miles from Monrovia higher up the coast and just a few miles from the Mano River, which now marks the boundary between Sierra Leone and Liberia. In 1838, on a constitution drawn up by Professor Greenleaf, of Harvard College, was organized the "Commonwealth of Liberia," the government of which was vested in a Board of Directors composed of delegates from the state societies, and which included all the settlements except Maryland. This remote colony, whose seaport is Cape Palmas, did not join with the others until 1857, ten years after Liberia had become an independent republic. When a special company of settlers arrived from Baltimore and formally occupied Cape Palmas (1834), Dr. James Hall was governor and he served in this capacity until 1836, when failing health forced him to return to America. He was succeeded by John B. Russwurm, a young Negro who had come to Liberia in 1829 for the purpose of superintending the system of education. The country, however, was not yet ready for the kind of work he wanted to do, and in course of time he went into politics. He served very efficiently as Governor of Maryland from 1836 to 1851, especially exerting himself to standardize the currency and to stabilize the revenues. Five years after his death Maryland suffered greatly from an attack by the Greboes, twenty-six colonists being killed. An appeal to Monrovia for help led to the sending of a company of men and later to the incorporation of the colony in the Republic.
Of the events of the period special interest attaches to the murder of I.F.C. Finley, Governor of Mississippi in Africa, to whose father, Rev. Robert Finley, the organization of the American Colonization Society had been very largely due. In September, 1838, Governor Finley left his colony to go to Monrovia on business, and making a landing at Bassa Cove, he was robbed and killed by the Krus. This unfortunate murder led to a bitter conflict between the settlers in the vicinity and the natives. This is sometimes known as the Fish War (from being waged around Fishpoint) and did not really cease for a year.
The first governor of the newly formed Commonwealth was Thomas H. Buchanan, a man of singular energy who represented the New York and Pennsylvania societies and who had come in 1836 especially to take charge of the Grand Bassa settlements. Becoming governor in 1838, he found it necessary to proceed vigorously against the slave dealers at Trade Town. He was also victorious in 1840 in a contest with the Gola tribe led by Chief Gatumba. The Golas had defeated the Dey tribe so severely that a mere remnant of the latter had taken refuge with the colonists at Millsburg, a station a few miles up the St. Paul's River. Thus, as happened more than once, a tribal war in time involved the very existence of the new American colonies. Governor Buchanan's victory greatly increased his prestige and made it possible for him to negotiate more and more favorable treaties with the natives. A contest of different sort was that with a Methodist missionary, John Seyes, who held that all goods used by missionaries, including those sold to the natives, should be admitted free of duty. The governor contended that such privilege should be extended only to goods intended for the personal use of missionaries; and the Colonization Society stood behind him in this opinion. As early as 1840 moreover some shadow of future events was cast by trouble made by English traders on the Mano River, the Sierra Leone boundary. Buchanan sent an agent to England to represent him in an inquiry into the matter; but in the midst of his vigorous work he died in 1841. He was the last white man formally under any auspices at the head of Liberian affairs. Happily his period of service had given opportunity and training to an efficient helper, upon whom now the burden fell and of whom it is hardly too much to say that he is the foremost figure in Liberian history.
Joseph Jenkin Roberts was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1809. At the age of twenty, with his widowed mother and younger brothers, he went to Liberia and engaged in trade. In course of time he proved to be a man of unusual tact and graciousness of manner, moving with ease among people of widely different rank. His abilities soon demanded recognition, and he was at the head of the force that defeated Gatumba. As governor he realized the need of cultivating more far-reaching diplomacy than the Commonwealth had yet known. He had the coöperation of the Maryland governor, Russwurm, in such a matter as that of uniform customs duties; and he visited the United States, where he made a very good impression. He soon understood that he had to reckon primarily with the English and the French. England had indeed assumed an attitude of opposition to the slave-trade; but her traders did not scruple to sell rum to slave dealers, and especially were they interested in the palm oil of Liberia. When the Commonwealth sought to impose customs duties, England took the position that as Liberia was not an independent government, she had no right to do so; and the English attitude had some show of strength from the fact that the American Colonization Society, an outside organization, had a veto power over whatever Liberia might do. When in 1845 the Liberian Government seized the Little Ben, an English trading vessel whose captain acted in defiance of the revenue laws, the British in turn seized the John Seyes, belonging to a Liberian named Benson, and sold the vessel for £8000. Liberia appealed to the United States; but the Oregon boundary question as well as slavery had given the American Government problems enough at home; and the Secretary of State, Edward Everett, finally replied to Lord Aberdeen (1845) that America was not "presuming to settle differences arising between Liberian and British subjects, the Liberians being responsible for their own acts." The Colonization Society, powerless to act except through its own government, in January, 1846, resolved that "the time had arrived when it was expedient for the people of the Commonwealth of Liberia to take into their own hands the whole work of self-government including the management of all their foreign relations." Forced to act for herself Liberia called a constitutional convention and on July 26, 1847, issued a Declaration of Independence and adopted the Constitution of the Liberian Republic. In October, Joseph Jenkin Roberts, Governor of the Commonwealth, was elected the first President of the Republic.
It may well be questioned if by 1847 Liberia had developed sufficiently internally to be able to assume the duties and responsibilities of an independent power. There were at the time not more than 4,500 civilized people of American origin in the country; these were largely illiterate and scattered along a coastline more than three hundred miles in length. It is not to be supposed, however, that this consummation had been attained without much yearning and heart-beat and high spiritual fervor. There was something pathetic in the effort of this small company, most of whose members had never seen Africa but for the sake of their race had made their way back to the fatherland. The new seal of the Republic bore the motto: THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE. The flag, modeled on that of the United States, had six red and five white stripes for the eleven signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in the upper corner next to the staff a lone white star in a field of blue. The Declaration itself said in part:
We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were originally inhabitants of the United States of North America.
In some parts of that country we were debarred by law from all the rights and privileges of men; in other parts public sentiment, more powerful than law, frowned us down.
We were everywhere shut out from all civil office.
We were excluded from all participation in the government.
We were taxed without our consent.
We were compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gave us no protection.
We were made a separate and distinct class, and against us every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers from all lands of a color different from ours were preferred before us.
We uttered our complaints, but they were unattended to, or met only by alleging the peculiar institution of the country.
All hope of a favorable change in our country was thus wholly extinguished in our bosom, and we looked with anxiety abroad for some asylum from the deep degradation.
The Western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties, which the God of nature had given us in common with the rest of mankind.
Joseph Jenkin Roberts was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1809. At the age of twenty, with his widowed mother and younger brothers, he went to Liberia and engaged in trade. In course of time he proved to be a man of unusual tact and graciousness of manner, moving with ease among people of widely different rank. His abilities soon demanded recognition, and he was at the head of the force that defeated Gatumba. As governor he realized the need of cultivating more far-reaching diplomacy than the Commonwealth had yet known. He had the coöperation of the Maryland governor, Russwurm, in such a matter as that of uniform customs duties; and he visited the United States, where he made a very good impression. He soon understood that he had to reckon primarily with the English and the French. England had indeed assumed an attitude of opposition to the slave-trade; but her traders did not scruple to sell rum to slave dealers, and especially were they interested in the palm oil of Liberia. When the Commonwealth sought to impose customs duties, England took the position that as Liberia was not an independent government, she had no right to do so; and the English attitude had some show of strength from the fact that the American Colonization Society, an outside organization, had a veto power over whatever Liberia might do. When in 1845 the Liberian Government seized the Little Ben, an English trading vessel whose captain acted in defiance of the revenue laws, the British in turn seized the John Seyes, belonging to a Liberian named Benson, and sold the vessel for £8000. Liberia appealed to the United States; but the Oregon boundary question as well as slavery had given the American Government problems enough at home; and the Secretary of State, Edward Everett, finally replied to Lord Aberdeen (1845) that America was not "presuming to settle differences arising between Liberian and British subjects, the Liberians being responsible for their own acts." The Colonization Society, powerless to act except through its own government, in January, 1846, resolved that "the time had arrived when it was expedient for the people of the Commonwealth of Liberia to take into their own hands the whole work of self-government including the management of all their foreign relations." Forced to act for herself Liberia called a constitutional convention and on July 26, 1847, issued a Declaration of Independence and adopted the Constitution of the Liberian Republic. In October, Joseph Jenkin Roberts, Governor of the Commonwealth, was elected the first President of the Republic.
It may well be questioned if by 1847 Liberia had developed sufficiently internally to be able to assume the duties and responsibilities of an independent power. There were at the time not more than 4,500 civilized people of American origin in the country; these were largely illiterate and scattered along a coastline more than three hundred miles in length. It is not to be supposed, however, that this consummation had been attained without much yearning and heart-beat and high spiritual fervor. There was something pathetic in the effort of this small company, most of whose members had never seen Africa but for the sake of their race had made their way back to the fatherland. The new seal of the Republic bore the motto: THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE. The flag, modeled on that of the United States, had six red and five white stripes for the eleven signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in the upper corner next to the staff a lone white star in a field of blue. The Declaration itself said in part:
We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were originally inhabitants of the United States of North America.
In some parts of that country we were debarred by law from all the rights and privileges of men; in other parts public sentiment, more powerful than law, frowned us down.
We were everywhere shut out from all civil office.
We were excluded from all participation in the government.
We were taxed without our consent.
We were compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gave us no protection.
We were made a separate and distinct class, and against us every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers from all lands of a color different from ours were preferred before us.
We uttered our complaints, but they were unattended to, or met only by alleging the peculiar institution of the country.
All hope of a favorable change in our country was thus wholly extinguished in our bosom, and we looked with anxiety abroad for some asylum from the deep degradation.
The Western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties, which the God of nature had given us in common with the rest of mankind.
With the adoption of its constitution the Republic of Liberia formally asked to be considered in the family of nations; and since 1847 the history of the country has naturally been very largely that of international relations. In fact, preoccupation with the questions raised by powerful neighbors has been at least one strong reason for the comparatively slow internal development of the country. The Republic was officially recognized by England in 1848, by France in 1852, but on account of slavery not by the United States until 1862. Continuously there has been an observance of the forms of order, and only one president has been deposed. For a long time the presidential term was two years in length; but by an act of 1907 it was lengthened to four years. From time to time there have been two political parties, but not always has such a division been emphasized.
It is well to pause and note exactly what was the task set before the little country. A company of American Negroes suddenly found themselves placed on an unhealthy and uncultivated coast which was thenceforth to be their home. If we compare them with the Pilgrim Fathers, we find that as the Pilgrims had to subdue the Indians, so they had to hold their own against a score of aggressive tribes. The Pilgrims had the advantage of a thousand years of culture and experience in government; the Negroes, only recently out of bondage, had been deprived of any opportunity for improvement whatsoever. Not only, however, did they have to contend against native tribes and labor to improve their own shortcomings; on every hand they had to meet the designs of nations supposedly more enlightened and Christian. On the coast Spanish traders defied international law; on one side the English, and on the other the French, from the beginning showed a tendency toward arrogance and encroachment. To crown the difficulty, the American Government, under whose auspices the colony had largely been founded, became more and more halfhearted in its efforts for protection and at length abandoned the enterprise altogether. It did not cease, however, to regard the colony as the dumping-ground of its own troubles, and whenever a vessel with slaves from the Congo was captured on the high seas, it did not hesitate to take these people to the Liberian coast and leave them there, nearly dead though they might be from exposure or cramping. It is well for one to remember such facts as these before he is quick to belittle or criticize. To the credit of the "Congo men" be it said that from the first they labored to make themselves a quiet and industrious element in the body politic.
The early administrations of President Roberts (four terms, 1848-1855) were mainly devoted to the quelling of the native tribes that continued to give trouble and to the cultivating of friendly relations with foreign powers. Soon after his inauguration Roberts made a visit to England, the power from which there was most to fear; and on this occasion as on several others England varied her arrogance with a rather excessive friendliness toward the little republic. She presented to Roberts the Lark, a ship with four guns, and sent the President home on a war-vessel. Some years afteryards, when the Lark was out of repair, England sent instead a schooner, the Quail. Roberts made a second visit to England in 1852 to adjust disputes with traders on the western boundary. He also visited France, and Louis Napoleon, not to be outdone by England, presented to him a vessel, the Hirondelle, and also guns and uniforms for his soldiers. In general the administrations of Roberts (we might better say his first series of administrations, for he was later to be called again to office) made a period of constructive statesmanship and solid development, and not a little of the respect that the young republic won was due to the personal influence of its first president. Roberts, however, happened to be very fair, and generally successful though his administrations were, the desire on the part of the people that the highest office in the country be held by a black man seems to have been a determining factor in the choice of his successor. There was an interesting campaign toward the close of his last term. "There were about this time two political parties in the country—the old Republicans and the 'True Liberians,' a party which had been formed in opposition to Roberts's foreign policies. But during the canvass the platform of this new party lost ground; the result was in favor of the Republican candidate."144
Stephen Allen Benson (four terms, 1856-1863) was forced to meet in one way or another almost all of the difficulties that have since played a part in the life of the Liberian people. He had come to the country in 1822 at the age of six and had developed into a practical and efficient merchant. To his high office he brought the same principles of sobriety and good sense that had characterized him in business. On February 28, 1857, the independent colony of Maryland formally became a part of the republic. This action followed immediately upon the struggle with the Greboes in the vicinity of Cape Palmas in which assistance was rendered by the Liberians under Ex-President Roberts. In 1858 an incident that threatened complications with France but that was soon happily closed arose from the fact that a French vessel which sought to carry away some Kru laborers to the West Indies was attacked by these men when they had reason to fear that they might be sold into slavery and not have to work simply along the coast, as they at first supposed. The ship was seized and all but one of the crew, the physician, were killed. Trouble meanwhile continued with British smugglers in the West, and to this whole matter we shall have to give further and special attention. In 1858 and a year or two thereafter the numerous arrivals from America, especially of Congo men captured on the high seas, were such as to present a serious social problem. Flagrant violation by the South of the laws against the slave-trade led to the seizure by the United States Government of many Africans. Hundreds of these people were detained at a time at such a port as Key West. The Government then adopted the policy of ordering commanders who seized slave-ships at sea to land the Africans directly upon the coast of Liberia without first bringing them to America, and appropriated $250,000 for the removal and care of those at Key West. The suffering of many of these people is one of the most tragic stories in the history of slavery. To Liberia came at one time 619, at another 867, and within two months as many as 4000. There was very naturally consternation on the part of the people at this sudden immigration, especially as many of the Africans arrived cramped or paralyzed or otherwise ill from the conditions under which they had been forced to travel. President Benson stated the problem to the American Government; the United States sent some money to Liberia, the people of the Republic helped in every way they could, and the whole situation was finally adjusted without any permanently bad effects, though it is well for students to remember just what Liberia had to face at this time. Important toward the close of Benson's terms was the completion of the building of the Liberia College, of which Joseph Jenkin Roberts became the first president.
The administrations of Daniel Bashiel Warner (two terms, 1864-1867) and the earlier one of James Spriggs Payne (1868-1869) were comparatively uneventful. Both of these men were Republicans, but Warner represented something of the shifting of political parties at the time. At first a Republican, he went over to the Whig party devoted to the policy of preserving Liberia from white invasion. Moved to distrust of English merchants, who delighted in defrauding the little republic, he established an important Ports-of-Entry Law in 1865, which it is hardly necessary to say was very unpopular with the foreigners. Commerce was restricted to six ports and a circle six miles in diameter around each port. On account of the Civil War and the hopes that emancipation held out to the Negroes in the United States, immigration from America ceased rapidly; but a company of 346 came from Barbadoes at this time. The Liberian Government assisted these people with $4000, set apart for each man an allotment of twenty-five rather than the customary ten acres; the Colonization Society appropriated $10,000, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty-three days they arrived without the loss of a single life. In the company was a little boy, Arthur Barclay, who was later to be known as the President of the Republic. At the semi-centennial of the American Colonization Society held in Washington in January, 1867, it was shown that the Society and its auxiliaries had been directly responsible for the sending of more than 12,000 persons to Africa. Of these 4541 had been born free, 344 had purchased their freedom, 5957 had been emancipated to go to Africa, and 1227 had been settled by the Maryland Society. In addition, 5722 captured Africans had been sent to Liberia. The need of adequate study of the interior having more and more impressed itself, Benjamin Anderson, an adventurous explorer, assisted with funds by a citizen of New York, in 1869 studied the country for two hundred miles from the coast. He found the land constantly rising, and made his way to Musardu, the chief city of the western Mandingoes. He summed up his work in his Narrative of a Journey to Musardo and made another journey of exploration in 1874.
It is well to pause and note exactly what was the task set before the little country. A company of American Negroes suddenly found themselves placed on an unhealthy and uncultivated coast which was thenceforth to be their home. If we compare them with the Pilgrim Fathers, we find that as the Pilgrims had to subdue the Indians, so they had to hold their own against a score of aggressive tribes. The Pilgrims had the advantage of a thousand years of culture and experience in government; the Negroes, only recently out of bondage, had been deprived of any opportunity for improvement whatsoever. Not only, however, did they have to contend against native tribes and labor to improve their own shortcomings; on every hand they had to meet the designs of nations supposedly more enlightened and Christian. On the coast Spanish traders defied international law; on one side the English, and on the other the French, from the beginning showed a tendency toward arrogance and encroachment. To crown the difficulty, the American Government, under whose auspices the colony had largely been founded, became more and more halfhearted in its efforts for protection and at length abandoned the enterprise altogether. It did not cease, however, to regard the colony as the dumping-ground of its own troubles, and whenever a vessel with slaves from the Congo was captured on the high seas, it did not hesitate to take these people to the Liberian coast and leave them there, nearly dead though they might be from exposure or cramping. It is well for one to remember such facts as these before he is quick to belittle or criticize. To the credit of the "Congo men" be it said that from the first they labored to make themselves a quiet and industrious element in the body politic.
The early administrations of President Roberts (four terms, 1848-1855) were mainly devoted to the quelling of the native tribes that continued to give trouble and to the cultivating of friendly relations with foreign powers. Soon after his inauguration Roberts made a visit to England, the power from which there was most to fear; and on this occasion as on several others England varied her arrogance with a rather excessive friendliness toward the little republic. She presented to Roberts the Lark, a ship with four guns, and sent the President home on a war-vessel. Some years afteryards, when the Lark was out of repair, England sent instead a schooner, the Quail. Roberts made a second visit to England in 1852 to adjust disputes with traders on the western boundary. He also visited France, and Louis Napoleon, not to be outdone by England, presented to him a vessel, the Hirondelle, and also guns and uniforms for his soldiers. In general the administrations of Roberts (we might better say his first series of administrations, for he was later to be called again to office) made a period of constructive statesmanship and solid development, and not a little of the respect that the young republic won was due to the personal influence of its first president. Roberts, however, happened to be very fair, and generally successful though his administrations were, the desire on the part of the people that the highest office in the country be held by a black man seems to have been a determining factor in the choice of his successor. There was an interesting campaign toward the close of his last term. "There were about this time two political parties in the country—the old Republicans and the 'True Liberians,' a party which had been formed in opposition to Roberts's foreign policies. But during the canvass the platform of this new party lost ground; the result was in favor of the Republican candidate."144
Stephen Allen Benson (four terms, 1856-1863) was forced to meet in one way or another almost all of the difficulties that have since played a part in the life of the Liberian people. He had come to the country in 1822 at the age of six and had developed into a practical and efficient merchant. To his high office he brought the same principles of sobriety and good sense that had characterized him in business. On February 28, 1857, the independent colony of Maryland formally became a part of the republic. This action followed immediately upon the struggle with the Greboes in the vicinity of Cape Palmas in which assistance was rendered by the Liberians under Ex-President Roberts. In 1858 an incident that threatened complications with France but that was soon happily closed arose from the fact that a French vessel which sought to carry away some Kru laborers to the West Indies was attacked by these men when they had reason to fear that they might be sold into slavery and not have to work simply along the coast, as they at first supposed. The ship was seized and all but one of the crew, the physician, were killed. Trouble meanwhile continued with British smugglers in the West, and to this whole matter we shall have to give further and special attention. In 1858 and a year or two thereafter the numerous arrivals from America, especially of Congo men captured on the high seas, were such as to present a serious social problem. Flagrant violation by the South of the laws against the slave-trade led to the seizure by the United States Government of many Africans. Hundreds of these people were detained at a time at such a port as Key West. The Government then adopted the policy of ordering commanders who seized slave-ships at sea to land the Africans directly upon the coast of Liberia without first bringing them to America, and appropriated $250,000 for the removal and care of those at Key West. The suffering of many of these people is one of the most tragic stories in the history of slavery. To Liberia came at one time 619, at another 867, and within two months as many as 4000. There was very naturally consternation on the part of the people at this sudden immigration, especially as many of the Africans arrived cramped or paralyzed or otherwise ill from the conditions under which they had been forced to travel. President Benson stated the problem to the American Government; the United States sent some money to Liberia, the people of the Republic helped in every way they could, and the whole situation was finally adjusted without any permanently bad effects, though it is well for students to remember just what Liberia had to face at this time. Important toward the close of Benson's terms was the completion of the building of the Liberia College, of which Joseph Jenkin Roberts became the first president.
The administrations of Daniel Bashiel Warner (two terms, 1864-1867) and the earlier one of James Spriggs Payne (1868-1869) were comparatively uneventful. Both of these men were Republicans, but Warner represented something of the shifting of political parties at the time. At first a Republican, he went over to the Whig party devoted to the policy of preserving Liberia from white invasion. Moved to distrust of English merchants, who delighted in defrauding the little republic, he established an important Ports-of-Entry Law in 1865, which it is hardly necessary to say was very unpopular with the foreigners. Commerce was restricted to six ports and a circle six miles in diameter around each port. On account of the Civil War and the hopes that emancipation held out to the Negroes in the United States, immigration from America ceased rapidly; but a company of 346 came from Barbadoes at this time. The Liberian Government assisted these people with $4000, set apart for each man an allotment of twenty-five rather than the customary ten acres; the Colonization Society appropriated $10,000, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty-three days they arrived without the loss of a single life. In the company was a little boy, Arthur Barclay, who was later to be known as the President of the Republic. At the semi-centennial of the American Colonization Society held in Washington in January, 1867, it was shown that the Society and its auxiliaries had been directly responsible for the sending of more than 12,000 persons to Africa. Of these 4541 had been born free, 344 had purchased their freedom, 5957 had been emancipated to go to Africa, and 1227 had been settled by the Maryland Society. In addition, 5722 captured Africans had been sent to Liberia. The need of adequate study of the interior having more and more impressed itself, Benjamin Anderson, an adventurous explorer, assisted with funds by a citizen of New York, in 1869 studied the country for two hundred miles from the coast. He found the land constantly rising, and made his way to Musardu, the chief city of the western Mandingoes. He summed up his work in his Narrative of a Journey to Musardo and made another journey of exploration in 1874.
Edward James Roye (1870-October 26, 1871), a Whig whose party was formed out of the elements of the old True Liberian party, attracts attention by reason of a notorious British loan to which further reference must be made. Of the whole amount of £100,000 sums were wasted or misappropriated until it has been estimated that the country really reaped the benefit of little more than a quarter of the whole amount. President Roye added to other difficulties by his seizure of a bank building belonging to an Industrial Society of the St. Paul's River settlements, and by attempting by proclamation to lengthen his term of office. Twice a constitutional amendment for lengthening the presidential term from two years to four had been considered and voted down. Roye contested the last vote, insisted that his term ran to January, 1874, and issued a proclamation forbidding the coming biennial election. He was deposed, his house sacked, some of his cabinet officers tried before a court of impeachment,145 and he himself was drowned as he was pursued while attempting to escape to a British ship in the harbor. A committee of three was appointed to govern the country until a new election could be held; and in this hour of storm and stress the people turned once more to the guidance of their old leader, Joseph J. Roberts (two terms, 1872-1875). His efforts were mainly devoted to restoring order and confidence, though there was a new war with the Greboes to be waged.146 He was succeeded by another trusted leader, James S. Payne (1876-1877), whose second administration was as devoid as the first of striking incident. In fact, the whole generation succeeding the loan of 1871 was a period of depression. The country not only suffered financially, but faith in it was shaken both at home and abroad. Coffee grown in Liberia fell as that produced at Brazil grew in favor, the farmer witnessing a drop in value from 24 to 4 cents a pound. Farms were abandoned, immigration from the United States ceased, and the country entered upon a period of stagnation from which it has not yet fully recovered.
Within just a few years after 1871, however, conditions in the United States led to an interesting revival of the whole idea of colonization, and to noteworthy effort on the part of the Negroes themselves to better their condition. The withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, and all the evils of the aftermath of reconstruction, led to such a terrorizing of the Negroes and such a denial of civil rights that there set in the movement that culminated in the great exodus from the South in 1879. The movement extended all the way from North Carolina to Louisiana and Arkansas. Insofar as it led to migration to Kansas and other states in the West, it belongs to American history. However, there was also interest in going to Africa. Applications by the thousands poured in upon the American Colonization Society, and one organization in Arkansas sent hundreds of its members to seek the help of the New York State Colonization Society. In all such endeavor Negro Baptists and Methodists joined hands, and especially prominent was Bishop H.M. Turner, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1877 there was organized in South Carolina the Liberian Exodus and Joint Stock Company; in North Carolina there was the Freedmen's Emigration Aid Society; and there were similar organizations in other states. The South Carolina organization had the threefold purpose of emigration, missionary activity, and commercial enterprise, and to these ends it purchased a vessel, the Azor, at a cost of $7000. The white people of Charleston unfortunately embarrassed the enterprise in every possible way, among other things insisting when the Azor was ready to sail that it was not seaworthy and needed a new copper bottom (to cost $2000). The vessel at length made one or two trips, however, on one voyage carrying as many as 274 emigrants. It was then stolen and sold in Liverpool, and one gets an interesting sidelight on Southern conditions in the period when he knows that even the United States Circuit Court in South Carolina refused to entertain the suit brought by the Negroes.
In the administration of Anthony W. Gardiner (three terms, 1878-1883) difficulties with England and Germany reached a crisis. Territory in the northwest was seized; the British made a formal show of force at Monrovia; and the looting of a German vessel along the Kru Coast and personal indignities inflicted by the natives upon the shipwrecked Germans, led to the bombardment of Nana Kru by a German warship and the presentation at Monrovia of a claim for damages, payment of which was forced by the threat of the bombardment of the capital. To the Liberian people the outlook was seldom darker than in this period of calamities. President Gardiner, very ill, resigned office in January of his last year of service, being succeeded by the vice-president, Alfred F. Russell. More and more was pressure brought to bear upon Liberian officials for the granting of monopolies and concessions, especially to Englishmen; and in his message of 1883 President Russell said, "Recent events admonish us as to the serious responsibility of claims held against us by foreigners, and we cannot tell what complications may arise." In the midst of all this, however, Russell did not forget the natives and the need of guarding them against liquor and exploitation.
Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (four terms, 1884-1891), the next president, was a son of the distinguished Elijah Johnson and the first man born in Liberia who had risen to the highest place in the republic. Whigs and Republicans united in his election. Much of his time had necessarily to be given to complications arising from the loan of 1871; but the western boundary was adjusted (with great loss) with Great Britain at the Mano River, though new difficulties arose with the French, who were pressing their claim to territory as far as the Cavalla River. In the course of the last term of President Johnson there was an interesting grant (by act approved January 21, 1890) to F.F. Whittekin, of Pennsylvania, of the right to "construct, maintain, and operate a system of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines." Whittekin bought up in England stock to the value of half a million dollars, but died on the way to Liberia to fulfil his contract. His nephew, F.F. Whittekin, asked for an extension of time, which was granted, but after a while the whole project languished.147
Joseph James Cheeseman (1892-November 15, 1896) was a Whig. He conducted what was known as the third Grebo War and labored especially for a sound currency. He was a man of unusual ability and his devotion to his task undoubtedly contributed toward his death in office near the middle of his third term. As up to this time there had been no internal improvement and little agricultural or industrial development in the country, O.F. Cook, the agent of the New York State Colonization Society, in 1894 signified to the legislature a desire to establish a station where experiments could be made as to the best means of introducing, receiving, and propagating beasts of burden, commercial plants, etc. His request was approved and one thousand acres of land granted for the purpose by act of January 20, 1894. Results, however, were neither permanent nor far-reaching. In fact, by the close of the century immigration had practically ceased and the activities of the American Colonization Society had also ceased, many of the state organizations having gone out of existence. In 1893 Julius C. Stevens, of Goldsboro, N.C., went to Liberia and served for a nominal salary as agent of the American Colonization Society, becoming also a teacher in the Liberia College and in time Commissioner of Education, in connection with which post he edited his Liberian School Reader; but he died in 1903.148
Within just a few years after 1871, however, conditions in the United States led to an interesting revival of the whole idea of colonization, and to noteworthy effort on the part of the Negroes themselves to better their condition. The withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, and all the evils of the aftermath of reconstruction, led to such a terrorizing of the Negroes and such a denial of civil rights that there set in the movement that culminated in the great exodus from the South in 1879. The movement extended all the way from North Carolina to Louisiana and Arkansas. Insofar as it led to migration to Kansas and other states in the West, it belongs to American history. However, there was also interest in going to Africa. Applications by the thousands poured in upon the American Colonization Society, and one organization in Arkansas sent hundreds of its members to seek the help of the New York State Colonization Society. In all such endeavor Negro Baptists and Methodists joined hands, and especially prominent was Bishop H.M. Turner, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1877 there was organized in South Carolina the Liberian Exodus and Joint Stock Company; in North Carolina there was the Freedmen's Emigration Aid Society; and there were similar organizations in other states. The South Carolina organization had the threefold purpose of emigration, missionary activity, and commercial enterprise, and to these ends it purchased a vessel, the Azor, at a cost of $7000. The white people of Charleston unfortunately embarrassed the enterprise in every possible way, among other things insisting when the Azor was ready to sail that it was not seaworthy and needed a new copper bottom (to cost $2000). The vessel at length made one or two trips, however, on one voyage carrying as many as 274 emigrants. It was then stolen and sold in Liverpool, and one gets an interesting sidelight on Southern conditions in the period when he knows that even the United States Circuit Court in South Carolina refused to entertain the suit brought by the Negroes.
In the administration of Anthony W. Gardiner (three terms, 1878-1883) difficulties with England and Germany reached a crisis. Territory in the northwest was seized; the British made a formal show of force at Monrovia; and the looting of a German vessel along the Kru Coast and personal indignities inflicted by the natives upon the shipwrecked Germans, led to the bombardment of Nana Kru by a German warship and the presentation at Monrovia of a claim for damages, payment of which was forced by the threat of the bombardment of the capital. To the Liberian people the outlook was seldom darker than in this period of calamities. President Gardiner, very ill, resigned office in January of his last year of service, being succeeded by the vice-president, Alfred F. Russell. More and more was pressure brought to bear upon Liberian officials for the granting of monopolies and concessions, especially to Englishmen; and in his message of 1883 President Russell said, "Recent events admonish us as to the serious responsibility of claims held against us by foreigners, and we cannot tell what complications may arise." In the midst of all this, however, Russell did not forget the natives and the need of guarding them against liquor and exploitation.
Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (four terms, 1884-1891), the next president, was a son of the distinguished Elijah Johnson and the first man born in Liberia who had risen to the highest place in the republic. Whigs and Republicans united in his election. Much of his time had necessarily to be given to complications arising from the loan of 1871; but the western boundary was adjusted (with great loss) with Great Britain at the Mano River, though new difficulties arose with the French, who were pressing their claim to territory as far as the Cavalla River. In the course of the last term of President Johnson there was an interesting grant (by act approved January 21, 1890) to F.F. Whittekin, of Pennsylvania, of the right to "construct, maintain, and operate a system of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines." Whittekin bought up in England stock to the value of half a million dollars, but died on the way to Liberia to fulfil his contract. His nephew, F.F. Whittekin, asked for an extension of time, which was granted, but after a while the whole project languished.147
Joseph James Cheeseman (1892-November 15, 1896) was a Whig. He conducted what was known as the third Grebo War and labored especially for a sound currency. He was a man of unusual ability and his devotion to his task undoubtedly contributed toward his death in office near the middle of his third term. As up to this time there had been no internal improvement and little agricultural or industrial development in the country, O.F. Cook, the agent of the New York State Colonization Society, in 1894 signified to the legislature a desire to establish a station where experiments could be made as to the best means of introducing, receiving, and propagating beasts of burden, commercial plants, etc. His request was approved and one thousand acres of land granted for the purpose by act of January 20, 1894. Results, however, were neither permanent nor far-reaching. In fact, by the close of the century immigration had practically ceased and the activities of the American Colonization Society had also ceased, many of the state organizations having gone out of existence. In 1893 Julius C. Stevens, of Goldsboro, N.C., went to Liberia and served for a nominal salary as agent of the American Colonization Society, becoming also a teacher in the Liberia College and in time Commissioner of Education, in connection with which post he edited his Liberian School Reader; but he died in 1903.148
William D. Coleman as vice-president finished the incomplete term of President Cheeseman (to the end of 1897) and later was elected for two terms in his own right. In the course of his last administration, however, his interior policy became very unpopular, as he was thought to be harsh in his dealing with the natives, and he resigned in December, 1900. As there was at the time no vice-president, he was succeeded by the Secretary of State, Garretson W. Gibson, a man of scholarly attainments, who was afterwards elected for a whole term (1902-1903). The feature of this term was the discussion that arose over the proposal to grant a concession to an English concern known as the West African Gold Concessions, Ltd. This offered to the legislators a bonus of £1500, and for this bribe it asked for the sole right to prospect for and obtain gold, precious stones, and all other minerals over more than half of Liberia. Specifically it asked for the right to acquire freehold land and to take up leases for eighty years, in blocks of from ten to a thousand acres; to import all mining machinery and all other things necessary free of duty; to establish banks in connection with the mining enterprises, these to have the power to issue notes; to construct telegraphs and telephones; to organize auxiliary syndicates; and to establish its own police. It would seem that English impudence could hardly go further, though time was to prove that there were still other things to be borne. The proposal was indignantly rejected.
Arthur Barclay (1904-1911) had already served in three cabinet positions before coming to the presidency; he had also been a professor in the Liberia College and for some years had been known as the leader of the bar in Monrovia. It was near the close of his second term that the president's term of office was lengthened from two to four years, and he was the first incumbent to serve for the longer period. In his first inaugural address President Barclay emphasized the need of developing the resources of the hinterland and of attaching the native tribes to the interests of the state. In his foreign policy he was generally enlightened and broad-minded, but he had to deal with the arrogance of England. In 1906 a new British loan was negotiated. This also was for £100,000, more than two-thirds of which amount was to be turned over to the Liberian Development Company, an English scheme for the development of the interior. The Company was to work in coöperation with the Liberian Government, and as security for the loan British officials were to have charge of the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting as financial adviser to the Republic. It afterwards developed that the Company never had any resources except those it had raised on the credit of the Republic, and the country was forced to realize that it had been cheated a second time. Meanwhile the English officials who, on various pretexts of reform, had taken charge of the barracks and the customs in Monrovia, were carrying things with a high hand. The Liberian force appeared with English insignia on the uniforms, and in various other ways the commander sought to overawe the populace. At the climax of the difficulties, on February 13, 1909, a British warship happened to appear in the waters of Monrovia, and a calamity was averted only by the skillful diplomacy of the Liberians. Already, however, in 1908, Liberia had sent a special commission to ask the aid of the United States. This consisted of Garretson W. Gibson, former president; J.J. Dossen, vice-president at the time, and Charles B. Dunbar. The commission was received by President Roosevelt and by Secretary Taft just before the latter was nominated for the presidency. On May 8, 1909, a return commission consisting of Roland P. Falkner, George Sale, and Emmett J. Scott, arrived in Monrovia. The work of this commission must receive further and special attention.
President Barclay was succeeded by Daniel Edward Howard (two long terms, 1912-1919), who at his inauguration began the policy of giving prominence to the native chiefs. The feature of President Howard's administrations was of course Liberia's connection with the Great War in Europe. War against Germany having been declared, on the morning of April 10, 1918, a submarine came to Monrovia and demanded that the French wireless station be torn down. The request being refused, the town was bombarded. The excitement of the day was such as has never been duplicated in the history of Liberia. In one house two young girls were instantly killed and an elderly woman and a little boy fatally wounded; but except in this one home the actual damage was comparatively slight, though there might have been more if a passing British steamer had not put the submarine to flight. Suffering of another and more far-reaching sort was that due to the economic situation. The comparative scarcity of food in the world and the profiteering of foreign merchants in Liberia by the summer of 1919 brought about a condition that threatened starvation; nor was the situation better early in 1920, when butter retailed at $1.25 a pound, sugar at 72 cents a pound, and oil at $1.00 a gallon.
President Howard was succeeded by Charles Dunbar Burgess King, who as president-elect had visited Europe and America, and who was inaugurated January 5, 1920. His address on this occasion was a comprehensive presentation of the needs of Liberia, especially along the lines of agriculture and education. He made a plea also for an enlightened native policy. Said he: "We cannot afford to destroy the native institutions of the country. Our true mission lies not in the building here in Africa of a Negro state based solely on Western ideas, but rather a Negro nationality indigenous to the soil, having its foundation rooted in the institutions of Africa and purified by Western thought and development."
Arthur Barclay (1904-1911) had already served in three cabinet positions before coming to the presidency; he had also been a professor in the Liberia College and for some years had been known as the leader of the bar in Monrovia. It was near the close of his second term that the president's term of office was lengthened from two to four years, and he was the first incumbent to serve for the longer period. In his first inaugural address President Barclay emphasized the need of developing the resources of the hinterland and of attaching the native tribes to the interests of the state. In his foreign policy he was generally enlightened and broad-minded, but he had to deal with the arrogance of England. In 1906 a new British loan was negotiated. This also was for £100,000, more than two-thirds of which amount was to be turned over to the Liberian Development Company, an English scheme for the development of the interior. The Company was to work in coöperation with the Liberian Government, and as security for the loan British officials were to have charge of the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting as financial adviser to the Republic. It afterwards developed that the Company never had any resources except those it had raised on the credit of the Republic, and the country was forced to realize that it had been cheated a second time. Meanwhile the English officials who, on various pretexts of reform, had taken charge of the barracks and the customs in Monrovia, were carrying things with a high hand. The Liberian force appeared with English insignia on the uniforms, and in various other ways the commander sought to overawe the populace. At the climax of the difficulties, on February 13, 1909, a British warship happened to appear in the waters of Monrovia, and a calamity was averted only by the skillful diplomacy of the Liberians. Already, however, in 1908, Liberia had sent a special commission to ask the aid of the United States. This consisted of Garretson W. Gibson, former president; J.J. Dossen, vice-president at the time, and Charles B. Dunbar. The commission was received by President Roosevelt and by Secretary Taft just before the latter was nominated for the presidency. On May 8, 1909, a return commission consisting of Roland P. Falkner, George Sale, and Emmett J. Scott, arrived in Monrovia. The work of this commission must receive further and special attention.
President Barclay was succeeded by Daniel Edward Howard (two long terms, 1912-1919), who at his inauguration began the policy of giving prominence to the native chiefs. The feature of President Howard's administrations was of course Liberia's connection with the Great War in Europe. War against Germany having been declared, on the morning of April 10, 1918, a submarine came to Monrovia and demanded that the French wireless station be torn down. The request being refused, the town was bombarded. The excitement of the day was such as has never been duplicated in the history of Liberia. In one house two young girls were instantly killed and an elderly woman and a little boy fatally wounded; but except in this one home the actual damage was comparatively slight, though there might have been more if a passing British steamer had not put the submarine to flight. Suffering of another and more far-reaching sort was that due to the economic situation. The comparative scarcity of food in the world and the profiteering of foreign merchants in Liberia by the summer of 1919 brought about a condition that threatened starvation; nor was the situation better early in 1920, when butter retailed at $1.25 a pound, sugar at 72 cents a pound, and oil at $1.00 a gallon.
President Howard was succeeded by Charles Dunbar Burgess King, who as president-elect had visited Europe and America, and who was inaugurated January 5, 1920. His address on this occasion was a comprehensive presentation of the needs of Liberia, especially along the lines of agriculture and education. He made a plea also for an enlightened native policy. Said he: "We cannot afford to destroy the native institutions of the country. Our true mission lies not in the building here in Africa of a Negro state based solely on Western ideas, but rather a Negro nationality indigenous to the soil, having its foundation rooted in the institutions of Africa and purified by Western thought and development."
Our study of the history of Liberia has suggested two or three matters that call for special attention. Of prime importance is the country's connection with world politics. Any consideration of Liberia's international relations falls into three divisions: first, that of titles to land; second, that of foreign loans; and third, that of so-called internal reform.
In the very early years of the colony the raids of slave-traders gave some excuse for the first aggression on the part of a European power. "Driven from the Pongo Regions northwest of Sierra Leone, Pedro Blanco settled in the Gallinhas territory northwest of the Liberian frontier, and established elaborate headquarters for his mammoth slave-trading operations in West Africa, with slave-trading sub-stations at Cape Mount, St. Paul River, Bassa, and at other points of the Liberian coast, employing numerous police, watchers, spies, and servants. To obtain jurisdiction the colony of Liberia began to purchase from the lords of the soil as early as 1824 the lands of the St. Paul Basin and the Grain Coast from the Mafa River on the west to the Grand Sesters River on the east; so that by 1845, twenty-four years after the establishment of the colony, Liberia with the aid of Great Britain had destroyed throughout these regions the baneful traffic in slaves and the slave barracoons, and had driven the slave-trading leaders from the Liberian coast."149 The trade continued to flourish, however, in the Gallinhas territory, and in course of time, as we have seen, the colony had also to reckon with British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independence in 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberian revenue-laws by Englishmen. While President Roberts was in England not long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives of philanthropy, undertook to raise £2000 with which he (Roberts) might purchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured the title and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to Sherbro Island. The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informed England of his acquisition, and his right to the territory was not then called in question. Trouble, however, developed out of the attitude of John M. Harris, a British merchant, and in 1862, while President Benson was in England, he was officially informed that the right of Liberia was recognized only to the land "east of Turner's Peninsula to the River San Pedro." Harris now worked up a native war against the Vais; the Liberians defended themselves; and in the end the British Government demanded £8878.9.3 as damages for losses sustained by Harris, and arbitrarily extended its territory from Sherbro Island to Cape Mount. In the course of the discussion claims mounted up to £18,000. Great Britain promised to submit this boundary question to the arbitration of the United States, but when the time arrived at the meeting of one of the commissions in Sierra Leone she firmly declined to do so. After this, whenever she was ready to take more land she made a plausible pretext and was ready to back up her demands with force. On March 20, 1882, four British men-of-war came to Monrovia and Sir A.E. Havelock, Governor of Sierra Leone, came ashore; and President Gardiner was forced to submit to an agreement by which, in exchange for £4750 and the abandonment of all further claims, the Liberian Government gave up all right to the Gallinhas territory from Sherbro Island to the Mafa River. This agreement was repudiated by the Liberian Senate, but when Havelock was so informed he replied, "Her Majesty's Government can not in any case recognize any rights on the part of Liberia to any portions of the territories in dispute." Liberia now issued a protest to other great powers; but this was without avail, even the United States counseling acquiescence, though through the offices of America the agreement was slightly modified and the boundary fixed at the Mano River. Trouble next arose on the east. In 1846 the Maryland Colonization Society purchased the lands of the Ivory Coast east of Cape Palmas as far as the San Pedro River. These lands were formally transferred to Liberia in 1857, and remained in the undisputed possession of the Republic for forty years. France now, not to be outdone by England, on the pretext of title deeds obtained by French naval commanders who visited the coast in 1890, in 1891 put forth a claim not only to the Ivory Coast, but to land as far away as Grand Bassa and Cape Mount. The next year, under threat of force, she compelled Liberia to accept a treaty which, for 25,000 francs and the relinquishment of all other claims, permitted her to take all the territory east of the Cavalla River. In 1904 Great Britain asked permission to advance her troops into Liberian territory to suppress a native war threatening her interests. She occupied at this time what is known as the Kaure-Lahun section, which is very fertile and of easy access to the Sierra Leone railway. This land she never gave up; instead she offered Liberia £6000 or some poorer land for it. France after 1892 made no endeavor to delimit her boundary, and, roused by the action of Great Britain, she made great advances in the hinterland, claiming tracts of Maryland and Sino; and now France and England each threatened to take more land if the other was not stopped. President Barclay visited both countries; but by a treaty of 1907 his commission was forced to permit France to occupy all the territory seized by force; and as soon as this agreement was reached France began to move on to other land in the basin of the St. Paul's and St. John's rivers. This is all then simply one more story of the oppression of the weak by the strong. For eighty years England has not ceased to intermeddle in Liberian affairs, cajoling or browbeating as at the moment seemed advisable; and France has been only less bad. Certainly no country on earth now has better reason than Liberia to know that "they should get who have the power, and they should keep who can."
The international loans and the attempts at reform must be considered together. In 1871, at the rate of 7 per cent, there was authorized a British loan of £100,000. For their services the British negotiators retained £30,000, and £20,000 more was deducted as the interest for three years. President Roye ordered Mr. Chinery, a British subject and the Liberian consul general in London, to supply the Liberian Secretary of Treasury with goods and merchandise to the value of £10,000; and other sums were misappropriated until the country itself actually received the benefit of not more than £27,000, if so much. This whole unfortunate matter was an embarrassment to Liberia for years; but in 1899 the Republic assumed responsibility for £80,000, the interest being made a first charge on the customs revenue. In 1906, not yet having learned the lesson of "Cavete Graecos dona ferentes," and moved by the representations of Sir Harry H. Johnston, the country negotiated a new loan of £100,000. £30,000 of this amount was to satisfy pressing obligations; but the greater portion was to be turned over to the Liberian Development Company, a great scheme by which the Government and the company were to work hand in hand for the development of the country. As security for the loan, British officials were to have charge of the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting as financial adviser to the Republic. When the Company had made a road of fifteen miles in one district and made one or two other slight improvements, it represented to the Liberian Government that its funds were exhausted. When President Barclay asked for an accounting the managing director expressed surprise that such a demand should be made upon him. The Liberian people were chagrined, and at length they realized that they had been cheated a second time, with all the bitter experiences of the past to guide them. Meanwhile the English representatives in the country were demanding that the judiciary be reformed, that the frontier force be under British officers, and that Inspector Lamont as financial adviser have a seat in the Liberian cabinet and a veto power over all expenditures; and the independence of the country was threatened if these demands were not complied with. Meanwhile also the construction of barracks went forward under Major Cadell, a British officer, and the organization of the frontier force was begun. Not less than a third of this force was brought from Sierra Leone, and the whole Cadell fitted out with suits and caps stamped with the emblems of His Britannic Majesty's service. He also persuaded the Monrovia city government to let him act without compensation as chief of police, and he likewise became street commissioner, tax collector, and city treasurer. The Liberian people naturally objected to the usurping of all these prerogatives, but Cadell refused to resign and presented a large bill for his services. He also threatened violence to the President if his demands were not met within twenty-four hours. Then it was that the British warship, the Mutiny, suddenly appeared at Monrovia (February 12, 1909). Happily the Liberians rose to the emergency. They requested that any British soldiers at the barracks be withdrawn in order that they might be free to deal with the insurrectionary movement said to be there on the part of Liberian soldiers; and thus tactfully they brought about the withdrawal of Major Cadell.
By this time, however, the Liberian commission to the United States had done its work, and just three months after Cadell's retirement the return American commission came. After studying the situation it made the following recommendations: That the United States extend its aid to Liberia in the prompt settlement of pending boundary disputes; that the United States enable Liberia to refund its debt by assuming as a guarantee for the payment of obligations under such arrangement the control and collection of the Liberian customs; that the United States lend its assistance to the Liberian Government in the reform of its internal finances; that the United States lend its aid to Liberia in organizing and drilling an adequate constabulary or frontier police force; that the United States establish and maintain a research station at Liberia; and that the United States reopen the question of establishing a coaling-station in Liberia. Under the fourth of these recommendations Major (now Colonel) Charles Young went to Liberia, where from time to time since he has rendered most efficient service. Arrangements were also made for a new loan, one of $1,700,000, which was to be floated by banking institutions in the United States, Germany, France, and England; and in 1912 an American General Receiver of Customs and Financial Adviser to the Republic of Liberia (with an assistant from each of the other three countries mentioned) opened his office in Monrovia. It will be observed that a complicated and expensive receivership was imposed on the Liberian people when an arrangement much more simple would have served. The loan of $1,700,000 soon proving inadequate for any large development of the country, negotiations were begun in 1918 for a new loan, one of $5,000,000. Among the things proposed were improvements on the harbor of Monrovia, some good roads through the country, a hospital, and the broadening of the work of education. About the loan two facts were outstanding: first, any money to be spent would be spent wholly under American and not under Liberian auspices; and, second, to the Liberians acceptance of the terms suggested meant practically a surrender of their sovereignty, as American appointees were to be in most of the important positions in the country, at the same time that upon themselves would fall the ultimate burden of the interest of the loan. By the spring of 1920 (in Liberia, the commencement of the rainy season) it was interesting to note that although the necessary measures of approval had not yet been passed by the Liberian Congress, perhaps as many as fifteen American officials had come out to the country to begin work in education, engineering, and sanitation. Just a little later in the year President King called an extra session of the legislature to consider amendments. While it was in session a cablegram from the United States was received saying that no amendments to the plan would be accepted and that it must be accepted as submitted, "or the friendly interest which has heretofore existed would become lessened." The Liberians were not frightened, however, and stood firm. Meanwhile a new presidential election took place in the United States; there was to be a radical change in the government; and the Liberians were disposed to try further to see if some changes could not be made in the proposed arrangements. Most watchfully from month to month, let it be remembered, England and France were waiting; and in any case it could easily be seen that as the Republic approached its centennial it was face to face with political problems of the very first magnitude.150
In the very early years of the colony the raids of slave-traders gave some excuse for the first aggression on the part of a European power. "Driven from the Pongo Regions northwest of Sierra Leone, Pedro Blanco settled in the Gallinhas territory northwest of the Liberian frontier, and established elaborate headquarters for his mammoth slave-trading operations in West Africa, with slave-trading sub-stations at Cape Mount, St. Paul River, Bassa, and at other points of the Liberian coast, employing numerous police, watchers, spies, and servants. To obtain jurisdiction the colony of Liberia began to purchase from the lords of the soil as early as 1824 the lands of the St. Paul Basin and the Grain Coast from the Mafa River on the west to the Grand Sesters River on the east; so that by 1845, twenty-four years after the establishment of the colony, Liberia with the aid of Great Britain had destroyed throughout these regions the baneful traffic in slaves and the slave barracoons, and had driven the slave-trading leaders from the Liberian coast."149 The trade continued to flourish, however, in the Gallinhas territory, and in course of time, as we have seen, the colony had also to reckon with British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independence in 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberian revenue-laws by Englishmen. While President Roberts was in England not long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives of philanthropy, undertook to raise £2000 with which he (Roberts) might purchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured the title and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to Sherbro Island. The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informed England of his acquisition, and his right to the territory was not then called in question. Trouble, however, developed out of the attitude of John M. Harris, a British merchant, and in 1862, while President Benson was in England, he was officially informed that the right of Liberia was recognized only to the land "east of Turner's Peninsula to the River San Pedro." Harris now worked up a native war against the Vais; the Liberians defended themselves; and in the end the British Government demanded £8878.9.3 as damages for losses sustained by Harris, and arbitrarily extended its territory from Sherbro Island to Cape Mount. In the course of the discussion claims mounted up to £18,000. Great Britain promised to submit this boundary question to the arbitration of the United States, but when the time arrived at the meeting of one of the commissions in Sierra Leone she firmly declined to do so. After this, whenever she was ready to take more land she made a plausible pretext and was ready to back up her demands with force. On March 20, 1882, four British men-of-war came to Monrovia and Sir A.E. Havelock, Governor of Sierra Leone, came ashore; and President Gardiner was forced to submit to an agreement by which, in exchange for £4750 and the abandonment of all further claims, the Liberian Government gave up all right to the Gallinhas territory from Sherbro Island to the Mafa River. This agreement was repudiated by the Liberian Senate, but when Havelock was so informed he replied, "Her Majesty's Government can not in any case recognize any rights on the part of Liberia to any portions of the territories in dispute." Liberia now issued a protest to other great powers; but this was without avail, even the United States counseling acquiescence, though through the offices of America the agreement was slightly modified and the boundary fixed at the Mano River. Trouble next arose on the east. In 1846 the Maryland Colonization Society purchased the lands of the Ivory Coast east of Cape Palmas as far as the San Pedro River. These lands were formally transferred to Liberia in 1857, and remained in the undisputed possession of the Republic for forty years. France now, not to be outdone by England, on the pretext of title deeds obtained by French naval commanders who visited the coast in 1890, in 1891 put forth a claim not only to the Ivory Coast, but to land as far away as Grand Bassa and Cape Mount. The next year, under threat of force, she compelled Liberia to accept a treaty which, for 25,000 francs and the relinquishment of all other claims, permitted her to take all the territory east of the Cavalla River. In 1904 Great Britain asked permission to advance her troops into Liberian territory to suppress a native war threatening her interests. She occupied at this time what is known as the Kaure-Lahun section, which is very fertile and of easy access to the Sierra Leone railway. This land she never gave up; instead she offered Liberia £6000 or some poorer land for it. France after 1892 made no endeavor to delimit her boundary, and, roused by the action of Great Britain, she made great advances in the hinterland, claiming tracts of Maryland and Sino; and now France and England each threatened to take more land if the other was not stopped. President Barclay visited both countries; but by a treaty of 1907 his commission was forced to permit France to occupy all the territory seized by force; and as soon as this agreement was reached France began to move on to other land in the basin of the St. Paul's and St. John's rivers. This is all then simply one more story of the oppression of the weak by the strong. For eighty years England has not ceased to intermeddle in Liberian affairs, cajoling or browbeating as at the moment seemed advisable; and France has been only less bad. Certainly no country on earth now has better reason than Liberia to know that "they should get who have the power, and they should keep who can."
The international loans and the attempts at reform must be considered together. In 1871, at the rate of 7 per cent, there was authorized a British loan of £100,000. For their services the British negotiators retained £30,000, and £20,000 more was deducted as the interest for three years. President Roye ordered Mr. Chinery, a British subject and the Liberian consul general in London, to supply the Liberian Secretary of Treasury with goods and merchandise to the value of £10,000; and other sums were misappropriated until the country itself actually received the benefit of not more than £27,000, if so much. This whole unfortunate matter was an embarrassment to Liberia for years; but in 1899 the Republic assumed responsibility for £80,000, the interest being made a first charge on the customs revenue. In 1906, not yet having learned the lesson of "Cavete Graecos dona ferentes," and moved by the representations of Sir Harry H. Johnston, the country negotiated a new loan of £100,000. £30,000 of this amount was to satisfy pressing obligations; but the greater portion was to be turned over to the Liberian Development Company, a great scheme by which the Government and the company were to work hand in hand for the development of the country. As security for the loan, British officials were to have charge of the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting as financial adviser to the Republic. When the Company had made a road of fifteen miles in one district and made one or two other slight improvements, it represented to the Liberian Government that its funds were exhausted. When President Barclay asked for an accounting the managing director expressed surprise that such a demand should be made upon him. The Liberian people were chagrined, and at length they realized that they had been cheated a second time, with all the bitter experiences of the past to guide them. Meanwhile the English representatives in the country were demanding that the judiciary be reformed, that the frontier force be under British officers, and that Inspector Lamont as financial adviser have a seat in the Liberian cabinet and a veto power over all expenditures; and the independence of the country was threatened if these demands were not complied with. Meanwhile also the construction of barracks went forward under Major Cadell, a British officer, and the organization of the frontier force was begun. Not less than a third of this force was brought from Sierra Leone, and the whole Cadell fitted out with suits and caps stamped with the emblems of His Britannic Majesty's service. He also persuaded the Monrovia city government to let him act without compensation as chief of police, and he likewise became street commissioner, tax collector, and city treasurer. The Liberian people naturally objected to the usurping of all these prerogatives, but Cadell refused to resign and presented a large bill for his services. He also threatened violence to the President if his demands were not met within twenty-four hours. Then it was that the British warship, the Mutiny, suddenly appeared at Monrovia (February 12, 1909). Happily the Liberians rose to the emergency. They requested that any British soldiers at the barracks be withdrawn in order that they might be free to deal with the insurrectionary movement said to be there on the part of Liberian soldiers; and thus tactfully they brought about the withdrawal of Major Cadell.
By this time, however, the Liberian commission to the United States had done its work, and just three months after Cadell's retirement the return American commission came. After studying the situation it made the following recommendations: That the United States extend its aid to Liberia in the prompt settlement of pending boundary disputes; that the United States enable Liberia to refund its debt by assuming as a guarantee for the payment of obligations under such arrangement the control and collection of the Liberian customs; that the United States lend its assistance to the Liberian Government in the reform of its internal finances; that the United States lend its aid to Liberia in organizing and drilling an adequate constabulary or frontier police force; that the United States establish and maintain a research station at Liberia; and that the United States reopen the question of establishing a coaling-station in Liberia. Under the fourth of these recommendations Major (now Colonel) Charles Young went to Liberia, where from time to time since he has rendered most efficient service. Arrangements were also made for a new loan, one of $1,700,000, which was to be floated by banking institutions in the United States, Germany, France, and England; and in 1912 an American General Receiver of Customs and Financial Adviser to the Republic of Liberia (with an assistant from each of the other three countries mentioned) opened his office in Monrovia. It will be observed that a complicated and expensive receivership was imposed on the Liberian people when an arrangement much more simple would have served. The loan of $1,700,000 soon proving inadequate for any large development of the country, negotiations were begun in 1918 for a new loan, one of $5,000,000. Among the things proposed were improvements on the harbor of Monrovia, some good roads through the country, a hospital, and the broadening of the work of education. About the loan two facts were outstanding: first, any money to be spent would be spent wholly under American and not under Liberian auspices; and, second, to the Liberians acceptance of the terms suggested meant practically a surrender of their sovereignty, as American appointees were to be in most of the important positions in the country, at the same time that upon themselves would fall the ultimate burden of the interest of the loan. By the spring of 1920 (in Liberia, the commencement of the rainy season) it was interesting to note that although the necessary measures of approval had not yet been passed by the Liberian Congress, perhaps as many as fifteen American officials had come out to the country to begin work in education, engineering, and sanitation. Just a little later in the year President King called an extra session of the legislature to consider amendments. While it was in session a cablegram from the United States was received saying that no amendments to the plan would be accepted and that it must be accepted as submitted, "or the friendly interest which has heretofore existed would become lessened." The Liberians were not frightened, however, and stood firm. Meanwhile a new presidential election took place in the United States; there was to be a radical change in the government; and the Liberians were disposed to try further to see if some changes could not be made in the proposed arrangements. Most watchfully from month to month, let it be remembered, England and France were waiting; and in any case it could easily be seen that as the Republic approached its centennial it was face to face with political problems of the very first magnitude.150
From what has been said, it is evident that there is still much to be done in Liberia along economic lines. There has been some beginning in coöperative effort; thus the Bassa Trading Association is an organization for mutual betterment of perhaps as many as fifty responsible merchants and farmers. The country has as yet (1921), however, no railroads, no street cars, no public schools, and no genuine newspapers; nor are there any manufacturing or other enterprises for the employment of young men on a large scale. The most promising youth accordingly look too largely to an outlet in politics; some come to America to be educated and not always do they return. A few become clerks in the stores, and a very few assistants in the customs offices. There is some excellent agriculture in the interior, but as yet no means of getting produce to market on a large scale. In 1919 the total customs revenue at Monrovia, the largest port, amounted to $196,913.21. For the whole country the figure has recently been just about half a million dollars a year. Much of this amount goes to the maintenance of the frontier force. Within the last few years also the annual income for the city of Monrovia—for the payment of the mayor, the police, and all other city officers—has averaged $6000.
In any consideration of social conditions the first question of all of course is that of the character of the people themselves. Unfortunately Liberia was begun with faulty ideals of life and work. The early settlers, frequently only recently out of bondage, too often felt that in a state of freedom they did not have to work, and accordingly they imitated the habits of the old master class of the South. The real burden of life then fell upon the native. There is still considerable feeling between the native and the Americo-Liberian; but more and more the wisest men of the country realize that the good of one is the good of all, and they are endeavoring to make the native chiefs work for the common welfare. From time to time the people of Liberia have given to visitors an impression of arrogance, and perhaps no one thing had led to more unfriendly criticism of this country than this. The fact is that the Liberians, knowing that their country has various shortcomings according to Western standards, are quick to assume the defensive, and one method of protecting themselves is by erecting a barrier of dignity and reserve. One has only to go beyond this, however, to find the real heartbeat of the people. The comparative isolation of the Republic moreover, and the general stress of living conditions have together given to the everyday life an undue seriousness of tone, with a rather excessive emphasis on the church, on politics, and on secret societies. In such an atmosphere boys and girls too soon became mature, and for them especially one might wish to see a little more wholesome outdoor amusement. In school or college catalogues one still sees much of jurisprudence and moral philosophy, but little of physics or biology. Interestingly enough, this whole system of education and life has not been without some elements of very genuine culture. Literature has been mainly in the diction of Shakespeare and Milton; but Shakespeare and Milton, though not of the twentieth century, are still good models, and because the officials have had to compose many state documents and deliver many formal addresses, there has been developed in the country a tradition of good English speech. A service in any one of the representative churches is dignified and impressive.
The churches and schools of Liberia have been most largely in the hands of the Methodists and the Episcopalians, though the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Lutherans are well represented. The Lutherans have penetrated to a point in the interior beyond that attained by any other denomination. The Episcopalians have excelled others, even the Methodists, by having more constant and efficient oversight of their work. The Episcopalians have in Liberia a little more than 40 schools, nearly half of these being boarding-schools, with a total attendance of 2000. The Methodists have slightly more than 30 schools, with 2500 pupils. The Lutherans in their five mission stations have 20 American workers and 300 pupils. While it seems from these figures that the number of those reached is small in proportion to the outlay, it must be remembered that a mission school becomes a center from which influence radiates in all directions.
While the enterprise of the denominational institutions can not be doubted, it may well be asked if, in so largely relieving the people of the burden of the education of their children, they are not unduly cultivating a spirit of dependence rather than of self-help. Something of this point of view was emphasized by the Secretary of Public Instruction, Mr. Walter F. Walker, in an address, "Liberia and Her Educational Problems," delivered in Chicago in 1916. Said he of the day schools maintained by the churches: "These day schools did invaluable service in the days of the Colony and Commonwealth, and, indeed, in the early days of the Republic; but to their continuation must undoubtedly be ascribed the tardy recognition of the government and people of the fact that no agency for the education of the masses is as effective as the public school.... There is not one public school building owned by the government or by any city or township."
It might further be said that just now in Liberia there is no institution that is primarily doing college work. Two schools in Monrovia, however, call for special remark. The College of West Africa, formerly Monrovia Seminary, was founded by the Methodist Church in 1839. The institution does elementary and lower high school work, though some years ago it placed a little more emphasis on college work than it has been able to do within recent years. It was of this college that the late Bishop A.P. Camphor served so ably as president for twelve years. Within recent years it has recognized the importance of industrial work and has had in all departments an average annual enrollment of 300. Not quite so prominent within the last few years, but with more tradition and theoretically at the head of the educational system of the Republic is the Liberia College. In 1848 Simon Greenleaf of Boston, received from John Payne, a missionary at Cape Palmas, a request for his assistance in building a theological school. Out of this suggestion grew the Board of Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia incorporated in Massachusetts in March, 1850. The next year the Liberia legislature incorporated the Liberia College, it being understood that the institution would emphasize academic as well as theological subjects. In 1857 Ex-President J.J. Roberts was elected president; he superintended the erection of a large building; and in 1862 the college was opened for work. Since then it has had a very uneven existence, sometimes enrolling, aside from its preparatory department, twenty or thirty college students, then again having no college students at all. Within the last few years, as the old building was completely out of repair, the school has had to seek temporary quarters. It is too vital to the country to be allowed to languish, however, and it is to be hoped that it may soon be well started upon a new career of usefulness. In the course of its history the Liberia College has had connected with it some very distinguished men. Famous as teacher and lecturer, and president from 1881 to 1885, was Edward Wilmot Blyden, generally regarded as the foremost scholar that Western Africa has given to the world. Closely associated with him in the early years, and well known in America as in Africa, was Alexander Crummell, who brought to his teaching the richness of English university training. A trustee for a number of years was Samuel David Ferguson, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who served with great dignity and resource as missionary bishop of the country from 1884 until his death in 1916. A new president of the college, Rev. Nathaniel H.B. Cassell, was elected in 1918, and it is expected that under his efficient direction the school will go forward to still greater years of service.
Important in connection with the study of the social conditions in Liberia is that of health and living conditions. One who lives in America and knows that Africa is a land of unbounded riches can hardly understand the extent to which the West Coast has been exploited, or the suffering that is there just now. The distress is most acute in the English colonies, and as Liberia is so close to Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, much of the same situation prevails there. In Monrovia the only bank is the branch of the Bank of British West Africa. In the branches of this great institution all along the coast, as a result of the war, gold disappeared, silver became very scarce, and the common form of currency became paper notes, issued in denominations as low as one and two shillings. These the natives have refused to accept. They go even further: rather than bring their produce to the towns and receive paper for it they will not come at all. In Monrovia an effort was made to introduce the British West African paper currency, and while this failed, more and more the merchants insisted on being paid in silver, nor in an ordinary purchase would silver be given in change on an English ten-shilling note. Prices accordingly became exorbitant; children were not properly nourished and the infant mortality grew to astonishing proportions. Nor were conditions made better by the lack of sanitation and by the prevalence of disease. Happily relief for these conditions—for some of them at least—seems to be in sight, and it is expected that before very long a hospital will be erected in Monrovia.
One or two reflections suggest themselves. It has been said that the circumstances under which Liberia was founded led to a despising of industrial effort. The country is now quite awake, however, to the advantages of industrial and agricultural enterprise. A matter of supreme importance is that of the relation of the Americo-Liberian to the native; this will work itself out, for the native is the country's chief asset for the future. In general the Republic needs a few visible evidences of twentieth century standards of progress; two or three high schools and hospitals built on the American plan would work wonders. Finally let it not be forgotten that upon the American Negro rests the obligation to do whatever he can to help to develop the country. If he will but firmly clasp hands with his brother across the sea, a new day will dawn for American Negro and Liberian alike.
Footnotes:
Footnote 135: (return)
"Journal of Daniel Coker, a descendant of Africa, from the time of leaving New York, in the ship Elizabeth, Capt. Sebor, on a voyage for Sherbro, in Africa. Baltimore, 1820."
Footnote 136: (return)
March 15. The narrative, page 26, says February 15, but this is obviously a typographical error.
Footnote 137: (return)
Ashmun: History of the American Colony in Liberia, from 1821 to 1823, 8.
Footnote 138: (return)
Ashmun, 9.
Footnote 139: (return)
See Chapter III, Section 5.
Footnote 140: (return)
Stockwell, 73.
Footnote 141: (return)
This name, in honor of President Monroe, had recently been adopted by the Society at the suggestion of Robert Goodloe Harper, of Maryland, who also suggested the name Liberia for the country. Harper himself was afterwards honored by having the chief town in Maryland in Africa named after him.
Footnote 142: (return)
Stockwell, 79.
Footnote 143: (return)
McPherson is especially valuable for his study of the Maryland colony.
Footnote 144: (return)
Karnga, 28.
Footnote 145: (return)
But not Hilary R.W. Johnson, the efficient Secretary of State, later President.
Footnote 146: (return)
President Roberts died February 21, 1876, barely two months after giving up office. He was caught in the rain while attending a funeral, took a severe chill, and was not able to recover.
Footnote 147: (return)
See Liberia, Bulletin No. 5, November, 1894.
Footnote 148: (return)
Interest in Liberia by no means completely died. Contributions for education were sometimes made by the representative organizations, and individual students came to America from time to time. When, however, the important commission representing the Government came to America in 1908, the public was slightly startled as having heard from something half-forgotten.
Footnote 149: (return)
Ellis in Journal of Race Development, January, 1911.
Footnote 150: (return)
Early in 1921 President King headed a new commission to the United States to take up the whole matter of Liberia with the incoming Republican administration.
In any consideration of social conditions the first question of all of course is that of the character of the people themselves. Unfortunately Liberia was begun with faulty ideals of life and work. The early settlers, frequently only recently out of bondage, too often felt that in a state of freedom they did not have to work, and accordingly they imitated the habits of the old master class of the South. The real burden of life then fell upon the native. There is still considerable feeling between the native and the Americo-Liberian; but more and more the wisest men of the country realize that the good of one is the good of all, and they are endeavoring to make the native chiefs work for the common welfare. From time to time the people of Liberia have given to visitors an impression of arrogance, and perhaps no one thing had led to more unfriendly criticism of this country than this. The fact is that the Liberians, knowing that their country has various shortcomings according to Western standards, are quick to assume the defensive, and one method of protecting themselves is by erecting a barrier of dignity and reserve. One has only to go beyond this, however, to find the real heartbeat of the people. The comparative isolation of the Republic moreover, and the general stress of living conditions have together given to the everyday life an undue seriousness of tone, with a rather excessive emphasis on the church, on politics, and on secret societies. In such an atmosphere boys and girls too soon became mature, and for them especially one might wish to see a little more wholesome outdoor amusement. In school or college catalogues one still sees much of jurisprudence and moral philosophy, but little of physics or biology. Interestingly enough, this whole system of education and life has not been without some elements of very genuine culture. Literature has been mainly in the diction of Shakespeare and Milton; but Shakespeare and Milton, though not of the twentieth century, are still good models, and because the officials have had to compose many state documents and deliver many formal addresses, there has been developed in the country a tradition of good English speech. A service in any one of the representative churches is dignified and impressive.
The churches and schools of Liberia have been most largely in the hands of the Methodists and the Episcopalians, though the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Lutherans are well represented. The Lutherans have penetrated to a point in the interior beyond that attained by any other denomination. The Episcopalians have excelled others, even the Methodists, by having more constant and efficient oversight of their work. The Episcopalians have in Liberia a little more than 40 schools, nearly half of these being boarding-schools, with a total attendance of 2000. The Methodists have slightly more than 30 schools, with 2500 pupils. The Lutherans in their five mission stations have 20 American workers and 300 pupils. While it seems from these figures that the number of those reached is small in proportion to the outlay, it must be remembered that a mission school becomes a center from which influence radiates in all directions.
While the enterprise of the denominational institutions can not be doubted, it may well be asked if, in so largely relieving the people of the burden of the education of their children, they are not unduly cultivating a spirit of dependence rather than of self-help. Something of this point of view was emphasized by the Secretary of Public Instruction, Mr. Walter F. Walker, in an address, "Liberia and Her Educational Problems," delivered in Chicago in 1916. Said he of the day schools maintained by the churches: "These day schools did invaluable service in the days of the Colony and Commonwealth, and, indeed, in the early days of the Republic; but to their continuation must undoubtedly be ascribed the tardy recognition of the government and people of the fact that no agency for the education of the masses is as effective as the public school.... There is not one public school building owned by the government or by any city or township."
It might further be said that just now in Liberia there is no institution that is primarily doing college work. Two schools in Monrovia, however, call for special remark. The College of West Africa, formerly Monrovia Seminary, was founded by the Methodist Church in 1839. The institution does elementary and lower high school work, though some years ago it placed a little more emphasis on college work than it has been able to do within recent years. It was of this college that the late Bishop A.P. Camphor served so ably as president for twelve years. Within recent years it has recognized the importance of industrial work and has had in all departments an average annual enrollment of 300. Not quite so prominent within the last few years, but with more tradition and theoretically at the head of the educational system of the Republic is the Liberia College. In 1848 Simon Greenleaf of Boston, received from John Payne, a missionary at Cape Palmas, a request for his assistance in building a theological school. Out of this suggestion grew the Board of Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia incorporated in Massachusetts in March, 1850. The next year the Liberia legislature incorporated the Liberia College, it being understood that the institution would emphasize academic as well as theological subjects. In 1857 Ex-President J.J. Roberts was elected president; he superintended the erection of a large building; and in 1862 the college was opened for work. Since then it has had a very uneven existence, sometimes enrolling, aside from its preparatory department, twenty or thirty college students, then again having no college students at all. Within the last few years, as the old building was completely out of repair, the school has had to seek temporary quarters. It is too vital to the country to be allowed to languish, however, and it is to be hoped that it may soon be well started upon a new career of usefulness. In the course of its history the Liberia College has had connected with it some very distinguished men. Famous as teacher and lecturer, and president from 1881 to 1885, was Edward Wilmot Blyden, generally regarded as the foremost scholar that Western Africa has given to the world. Closely associated with him in the early years, and well known in America as in Africa, was Alexander Crummell, who brought to his teaching the richness of English university training. A trustee for a number of years was Samuel David Ferguson, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who served with great dignity and resource as missionary bishop of the country from 1884 until his death in 1916. A new president of the college, Rev. Nathaniel H.B. Cassell, was elected in 1918, and it is expected that under his efficient direction the school will go forward to still greater years of service.
Important in connection with the study of the social conditions in Liberia is that of health and living conditions. One who lives in America and knows that Africa is a land of unbounded riches can hardly understand the extent to which the West Coast has been exploited, or the suffering that is there just now. The distress is most acute in the English colonies, and as Liberia is so close to Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, much of the same situation prevails there. In Monrovia the only bank is the branch of the Bank of British West Africa. In the branches of this great institution all along the coast, as a result of the war, gold disappeared, silver became very scarce, and the common form of currency became paper notes, issued in denominations as low as one and two shillings. These the natives have refused to accept. They go even further: rather than bring their produce to the towns and receive paper for it they will not come at all. In Monrovia an effort was made to introduce the British West African paper currency, and while this failed, more and more the merchants insisted on being paid in silver, nor in an ordinary purchase would silver be given in change on an English ten-shilling note. Prices accordingly became exorbitant; children were not properly nourished and the infant mortality grew to astonishing proportions. Nor were conditions made better by the lack of sanitation and by the prevalence of disease. Happily relief for these conditions—for some of them at least—seems to be in sight, and it is expected that before very long a hospital will be erected in Monrovia.
One or two reflections suggest themselves. It has been said that the circumstances under which Liberia was founded led to a despising of industrial effort. The country is now quite awake, however, to the advantages of industrial and agricultural enterprise. A matter of supreme importance is that of the relation of the Americo-Liberian to the native; this will work itself out, for the native is the country's chief asset for the future. In general the Republic needs a few visible evidences of twentieth century standards of progress; two or three high schools and hospitals built on the American plan would work wonders. Finally let it not be forgotten that upon the American Negro rests the obligation to do whatever he can to help to develop the country. If he will but firmly clasp hands with his brother across the sea, a new day will dawn for American Negro and Liberian alike.
Footnotes:
Footnote 135: (return)
"Journal of Daniel Coker, a descendant of Africa, from the time of leaving New York, in the ship Elizabeth, Capt. Sebor, on a voyage for Sherbro, in Africa. Baltimore, 1820."
Footnote 136: (return)
March 15. The narrative, page 26, says February 15, but this is obviously a typographical error.
Footnote 137: (return)
Ashmun: History of the American Colony in Liberia, from 1821 to 1823, 8.
Footnote 138: (return)
Ashmun, 9.
Footnote 139: (return)
See Chapter III, Section 5.
Footnote 140: (return)
Stockwell, 73.
Footnote 141: (return)
This name, in honor of President Monroe, had recently been adopted by the Society at the suggestion of Robert Goodloe Harper, of Maryland, who also suggested the name Liberia for the country. Harper himself was afterwards honored by having the chief town in Maryland in Africa named after him.
Footnote 142: (return)
Stockwell, 79.
Footnote 143: (return)
McPherson is especially valuable for his study of the Maryland colony.
Footnote 144: (return)
Karnga, 28.
Footnote 145: (return)
But not Hilary R.W. Johnson, the efficient Secretary of State, later President.
Footnote 146: (return)
President Roberts died February 21, 1876, barely two months after giving up office. He was caught in the rain while attending a funeral, took a severe chill, and was not able to recover.
Footnote 147: (return)
See Liberia, Bulletin No. 5, November, 1894.
Footnote 148: (return)
Interest in Liberia by no means completely died. Contributions for education were sometimes made by the representative organizations, and individual students came to America from time to time. When, however, the important commission representing the Government came to America in 1908, the public was slightly startled as having heard from something half-forgotten.
Footnote 149: (return)
Ellis in Journal of Race Development, January, 1911.
Footnote 150: (return)
Early in 1921 President King headed a new commission to the United States to take up the whole matter of Liberia with the incoming Republican administration.
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