Who, How, When, Why: Establishment of Liberia

 

The commonly expressed assertion that "...Liberia was founded by freed American slaves in 1847…” is challenged by the submission that freeborn American white men, organized as the American Colonization Society (ACS), established Liberia in 1821.

The American Colonization Society was inaugurated on 21 December 1816 at Washington DC USA by freeborn American white men, and during its active history included in its membership freeborn American white men such as: (i) James Madison, President of the United States 1809—1817; (ii) U.S. Speaker Henry Clay; (iii) Presbyterian Reverend Robert Finley, (iv) Francis Scott Key, author of the U.S. national anthem; (v) Bishop William Meade; (vi) Senator John Randolph of Roanoke Virginia; (vii) Bushrod Washington, nephew of President George Washington and Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; (viii) Thomas Buchanan, brother of U.S. President James  Buchanan; (ix)  Elias B. Caldwell, Chief Clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court; (x) General Andrew Jackson, President of the United States 1829—1837; (xi) Thomas Jefferson; (xii) John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1801—1835; (xii) Daniel Webster; (xiii) U.S. Congressman Charles Fenton Mercer of Virginia; (xiv) U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford; (xv) U.S. Attorney General William Wirt; and, (xvi) Abraham Lincoln.

ACS 1816 Constitution, Article II, described its functions as: "The object to which attention is to be exclusively directed, is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their consent) the free people of color, residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient. And the Society shall act, to effect this object in co-operation with the general government, and such of the states as may adopt regulations upon the subject."

At the inauguration of the ACS, keynote speaker Elias B. Caldwell highlighted the "expediency" of African colonization as "...a plan in which all interests, all classes, and descriptions of people may unite..."

Notably, U.S. Speaker Henry Clay, the chairman of the ACS's inaugural meeting, is cited as having described the aims of the ACS as: “No attempt was being made to touch or agitate in the slightest degree, a delicate question, connected with another portion of the colored population of this country. It was not proposed to deliberate upon or consider at all, any question of emancipation, or that which was connected with the abolition of slavery.”

Significantly, in 1817, Francis Scott Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner" of the United States of America, described his dreams of glories of an "Empire of the United States in Africa" with "spires of temples glittering in the sun" and the 'hum of industry resounding in the streets".

The ACS in 1818 dispatched its agents, freeborn American white men Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, to the Grain Coast of West Africa to acquire information and ascertain whether a suitable territory could be obtained for the establishment of a colony.

By an Act of Congress on the 3rd of March, 1819, U.S. President James Monroe was authorized "...to provide by the establishment of a suitable agency on the African coast..."

In 1821, freeborn American white men Medical Dr. Eli Ayres and U.S. Navy Captain Robert F. Stockton signed an agreement with: King Peter, King George, King Zoda, King Long Peter, King Governor and King Jimmy:  "...Dozoa Island and also all that portion of land bounded north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, an on the south and east by a line drawn in a south-east direction from the north of Mesurado River..." Thus Liberia was established.

Between 1818 and 1838, several settlements were established along the Grain Coast of West Africa under the aegis of societies such as the American Colonization Society, the Maryland State Colonization Society, the New York City Colonization Society, the Virginia Colonization Society, the Kentucky Colonization Society, and the Mississippi State Colonization Society. On 5 January 1839, these settlements were "...united into one Government, under the name and style of the Commonwealth of Liberia..." and governed by Jehudi Ashmun, a freeborn American white man. Of the subsequent 11 Governors of the Commonwealth, 6 were freeborn American white men and 5 were freeborn American black men.

 

So then, let us inquire: WHY AND HOW WAS LIBERIA DECLARED A REPUBLIC IN 1847?

In 1842 the British vessel LILY invaded the Port of Buchanan, which had become the Commonwealth's major harbor, and seized the ship JOHN SEYS owned by merchant Stephen Allen Benson (freeborn black man, never slave),' under the charge of "...suspicion of slave trading..." The action of the British was in retaliation for Liberia having seizing the British-owned ship LITTLE BEN, which had violated Liberian customs regulations. The British demanded reparations of Benson for the return of the JOHN SEYS. Upon Benson's refusal to accede to the demand, his vessel and cargo were auctioned off. When the ACS in the United States protested the British action, the British government replied that: "...Great Britain could not recognize the sovereign powers of Liberia, which she regarded as a mere commercial experiment of a philanthropic society..."

The U.S. Department of State followed up on the British reply half-heartedly, which led Commonwealth Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts (freeborn black man, never slave), Stephen Allen Benson (freeborn black man, never slave), and other merchants who were also freeborn black men and never slaves, to launch the movement to declare the Commonwealth of Liberia a Free, Sovereign and Independent State, under the name and style of “The Republic of Liberia”.

In addition to the seizure of the JOHN SEYS by the British authorities, several other events also inspired Liberia's move to declare its independent sovereignty; they include: (i) the Nat Turner insurrection of 1831 forced the ACS to accelerate its grand design by emigrating 633 freeborn black men to Liberia. 7 ships, costing $73,886 — that's $2.3 million in current dollars — were needed to ferry the immigrants to Liberia. The expense placed the ACS into bankruptcy; (ii) Henry Clay, who had made political enemies by denying the American presidency to Andrew Jackson in 1824, and successfully opposing the appointment of Martin Van Buren as United States Minister to Britain, was elected President of the ACS in 1835. Andrew Jackson (1829—1837) and Martin Van Buren (1837—1841) became presidents of the United States and retaliated by substantially reducing United States role in Liberia; and, (iii) the Panic of 1836 in the United States substantially reduced donations to the ACS, sealing its bankruptcy.

All of these events, particularly the bankruptcy of the ACS, and the perennial harassment of Liberian shipping and business ventures by British merchants who refused to recognize the sovereignty of the Commonwealth of Liberia, forced Liberian leaders on July 26, 1847 to declare the Commonwealth of Liberia a Free, Sovereign and Independent State, under the name and style of The Republic of Liberia.

After the Liberian 1847 Declaration as a Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic, England, France, and Prussia in 1848, and Belgium in 1858, accorded recognition of the Republic of Liberia. Significantly, despite President Abraham Lincoln's preoccupation with the American Civil War, he heeded the pleas of not only friends of Liberia in the United States, and also his Whig colleague James E. Roye freeborn at Newark, Ohio U.S.A. (freeborn American black man and President of Liberia, 1869-1872) that the Lincoln administration offer recognition of Liberia. Early in 1862, President Lincoln instructed his representatives in London to negotiate with representatives of the Liberian government concerning a treaty of commerce and navigation. This treaty was signed on October 22, 1862 in London, seat of the United Kingdom. Thus, after more than 15 years of being a Republic, Liberia was at last formally recognized by the United States Government which stipulated in its instruments of recognition to “…protect and provide, in perpetuity, for the security and well-being of the people of Liberia…”

In spite of President Lincoln’s Treaty of Trade and Commerce with the Republic of Liberia, the United States Government in 1872 vetoed a plan that would have insured “…the safety, integrity and future welfare of Liberia…” and would have offered the “…hope to all the world that, happen what may, the United States of America will see to it that no power on earth shall obliterate from the map the infant Republic of Liberia…”

 

I. Abstract of minutes of the first meeting of the American Colonization Society

December 21, 1816 - "...The United States... providing a Colonial Retreat..."

Congressman Charles Marsh, of Vermont, having made the necessary arrangements, on Dec 21, 1816, the colonizationists met in the Davis Hotel, in a public meeting, attended by citizens of Washington, Georgetown, Alexandria and other parts of the country. Among the men of note present:

1. Henry Clay
2. Francis Scott Key
3. Bishop William Meade
4. John Randolph
5. Judge Bushrod Washington

Etc…

Purpose?

“Considering the expediency and practicability of ameliorating the condition of the Free People of Color now in the United States, by providing a Colonial Retreat, either on this continent or that of Africa.”

Henry Clay, the chairman of the meeting remarks:

“No attempt was being made to touch or agitate in the slightest degree, a delicate question, connected with another portion of the colored population of this country. It was not proposed to deliberate upon or consider at all, any question of emancipation, or that which was connected with the abolition of slavery.”

Principal Address delivered:

Elias B. Caldwell - Graduate of Princeton.
The expediency and practicability of African colonization.
December 21, 1816.
Davis Hotel, Washington

“Expedient because the free blacks have a demoralizing influence on our civil institutions; they can never enjoy equality among the whites in America; only in a district by themselves will they ever be happy. To colonize them in America would invite the possibility of their making common cause with the Indians and border nations, and furnish an asylum for fugitives and runaway slaves.

Africa seemed the best place to send them: there was a settlement already in Sierra Leone, the climate was agreeable to the colored man's constitution, they could live cheaply there, and above all other reasons, they could carry civilization and Christianity to the Africans. While the expense would be greater than that connected with a settlement on the American Continent yet, in order to make atonement for the wrongs done Africa, America should contribute to this object both from the treasury of the national government and from the purse of private individuals. With the promise of equality, a homestead, and a free passage, no black would refuse to go.”

In conclusion he said: "It is for us to make the experiment and the offers; we shall then, and not till then, have discharged our duty. It is a plan in which all interests, all classes, and descriptions of people may unite, in which all discordant feelings may be lost in those of humanity, in promoting 'peace on earth’ and good will to man.”

---
- Sunderland, "Liberian Colonization," Liberian Bulletin, No. 16, 19.
- Virginia Historical Society, Collections, VI, 26; Niles' Register, XI, 296.
- Archibald Alexander, "A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa" (Philadelphia, 1849), 77-82.
- J. Tracy, "A View of Exertions Lately Made for the Purpose of Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States, in Africa, or Elsewhere" (Washington, 1817), 4 ff.
- David Walker, "An Appeal" (Boston, 1830), 50 ff.

 

II. "First cause" in the argument: Was Liberia founded by "freed American slaves" or "freeborn American white men"?

By "first cause" argument, the Scottish Enlightenment, and its various schools of philosophical thought with regard to utilitarianism, rationalism, moral law, social obligation, human rights and economic equity, is linked to the founding and institutionalization of both The United States of America and The Republic of Liberia into Free, Sovereign and Independent States.

The philosophies of Continental rationalism and Benthamite utilitarianism, which were major elements arising out of the Scottish Enlightenment, were the primary elements of progressive society during the periods of the founding of the United States of America and the Republic of Liberia. Liberia’s founding was influenced and structured by American and European intellectuals, social scientists, politicians, philosophers and abolitionists such as Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, Simon Greenleaf, Francis Scott Key, Jeremy Bentham, John Greenleaf Whittier, Susan B. Anthony, Lydia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, and John Stuart Mill (all white men and women).

In particular, we note the key influence of Simon Greenleaf, (freeborn American white man, influential rationalist, Grand Master of Freemasonry, and one of the founders of the Harvard Law School), who wrote the 1847 Constitution of Liberia. Dr. Greenleaf's creation of the fundamental premises of Liberian constitutional law, codes, statues, and ensuing pattern of governance, was based on his opinion that good-governance best be described as a government of extreme Executive power which would be administered and held in trust by a coterie of "wise men" - philosophers imbued with the graces of "rational thinking" who would provide, as noted by quoting Dr. Greenleaf's opinion in his treatise entitled; "Testimony of the Evangelists" : "...the increase of light and civilization and refinement in the pagan world..."

Dr. Greenleaf states in his treatise entitled; "Testimony of the Evangelists":                        <  http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html  >

"...Indeed it is evident that nothing but a revelation from God could raise men from the degradation of pagan idolatry, because nothing else has ever had that effect. If man could achieve his own freedom from this bondage, he would long since have been free. But instead of this, the increase of light and civilization and refinement in the pagan world has but multiplied the objects of his worship, added voluptuous refinements to its ritual, and thus increased the number and weight of his chains. In this respect there is no difference in their moral condition, between the barbarous Scythian and the learned Egyptian or Roman of ancient times, nor between the ignorant African and the polished Hindu of our own day. The only method, which has been successfully employed to deliver man from the idolatry, is that of presenting to the eye of his soul an object of worship perfectly holy and pure, directly opposite, in moral character, to the gods he had formerly adored. He could not transfer to his deities a better character than he himself possessed. He must forever remain enslaved to his idols, unless a new and pure object of worship were revealed to him, with a display of superior power sufficient to overcome his former faith and present fears, to detach his affections from grosser objects, and to fix them upon that which alone is worthy..."

 

III. Significant European and United States interventions into the Grain Coast

The Treaty of Tordesillas ratified Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 Papal Bull of Demarcation    <  http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/indig-inter-caetera.html  >  in 1494. Pope Alexander had decreed that all lands “discovered” by Columbus belong to Spain and provided for a line of demarcation drawn North to South 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands (off the coast of West Africa) and stipulated that lands and seas west of this line shall be the Spanish sphere of exploration and influence. The Treaty of Tordesillas shifts the line of demarcation 270 leagues further west, thereby giving Portugal not only the right to all of Africa but also to Brazil.

In view of Pope Alexander VI's 1493 Papal Bull of Demarcation in which the world was prohibited from trespassing on Portugal’s “sphere of influence” in Africa, inclusive of the Grain Coast in West Africa, the Spanish, Cubans and Dutch had received permission from Portugal to establish trading posts along the Grain Coast, particularly in the area now called Liberia.

Because of the especially aggressive slave trade by Cubans such as Blanco and Canot, the Kings and Chiefs of the Grain Coast assembled with the Governor of the Commonwealth of Liberia Jehudi Ashmun (freeborn American white man) on April 12, 1826 at Grand Cape Mount where a mutual protection treaty was signed which stipulated that surrounding territories would never be offered by the American Colonization Society to any foreign subjects or governments, particularly of European nations. Thus the origin of Section 13, Article V of the Liberian Constitution of 1847:

“...The great object of forming these colonies being to provide a home for the dispersed and oppressed children of Africa and to regenerate and enlighten this benighted Continent, none but Negroes or persons of Negro descent shall be admitted to citizenship to this Republic...”

The spirit of the Treaty of April 12, 1826 continues to be reflected in Chapter IV, Article 27(c) of the Liberian Constitution of 1986, which reads thus:

“... In order to preserve, foster and maintain the positive Liberian culture, values and character, only persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or by naturalization to be citizens of Liberia...”

Even after the United States elections of 1833 when United States President Andrew Jackson vetoed all US Government funding and alliances to the Commonwealth of Liberia, there have been several interventions executed by the United States in defense of the Government of Liberia.

During 1843, in defense of the Liberian central government. Commodore Matthew Perry and 150 United States Marines stormed the beaches of Cape Palmas in southern Liberia, to thwart the efforts of European slave traders who had instigated the Grebo civil uprising against the Liberian central government.

The $500,000 loan of 1871, which was allegedly embezzled by President Roye and Speaker of the House of Representatives, W. S. Anderson, contributed to the demise of President Roye and bitterly divided Liberia.

In 1873, Liberia President Roberts was humiliated, when United States President Ulysses S. Grant demanded payment of a $46,807.81 loan, the principal of which Liberia did not have. When President Roberts was pleading with the United States for the forgiveness of the loan, United States Minister to Liberia, J. Milton Turner said that Liberia was infected with the economic disease of “...continual consumption without production…”

President Payne subsequently attempted to obtain a $10 million foreign loan, but failed because of Liberia's bad credit rating.

In 1875, Ulysses S. Grant dispatched the U.S.S Alaska, after the Grebo warriors won a series of crucial battles. In 1910, President Howard Taft dispatched the U.S.S. Birmingham to forestall another military disaster at the hands of the Grebo warriors; and in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson sent the U.S. naval vessel Chester, to assist the Liberian Government during the Kru civil campaign against the Liberian central government.

In 1906, President Arthur Barclay, obtained a loan from Sir Harry Johnston's Liberia Development Corporation, most of which was embezzled.

In 1912, Liberia obtained a $1.7 million loan from the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, which resulted in the abrogation of Liberia's financial sovereignty.

In 1914 and 1922, Liberia Presidents Daniel E. Howard and Charles D. B. King, respectively attempted, and failed, to obtain $5 million loans from the United States during the administrations of U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding.

In 1926, Liberia surrendered its financial sovereignty to Firestone's Finance Corporation of America, when Firestone took over the collection and disbursement of Liberia's revenue, in return for a $5 million loan. When Liberia later attempted to unilaterally alter the agreement, Firestone covertly tried to use gunboat diplomacy to bring Liberia to her knees, but U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt refused to go along with such plan.

During the League of Nations investigation of slavery in Liberia in the 1930s, Liberia again, called on the United States for its assistance, when Britain and France attempted to abrogate its sovereignty in respect of the criminal involvement of the administration of President Charles King in the provision of unpaid workers to Fernando Po.

 

IV. Significant political elements during and after the Commonwealth of Liberia

It was during the Commonwealth of Liberia when Liberia's first political party that was formed. It was called, 'Independent Volunteer.' Organized in 1826, it sought to oppose the dictatorship of ACS Agent Jehudi Ashmun, a man who thought that the colonists did not have the intellectual power to lead themselves. In 1823, Lott Carey lead a rebellion against Agent Ashmun, which caused the Agent to go into self-imposed exile at the Cape Verde Island of Porto Praya, and resulted in a major investigation by the ACS and the American Government. American marines were sent out to impose order. That investigation by Ralph Randolph Gurley, the man after whom Gurley Street in Monrovia is named, led to the provision of a constitution for the colony. The constitution provided that a vice-agent should be elected by the colonists to assist the Agent in administering the affairs of the Liberian colony. Jehudi Ashmun however, continued to wield absolute power over the colony. He was the executive, judicial, and the legislative head of the Colony. He assigned town lots to newly arrived colonists; he relocated emigrants; he settled ACS accounts with American merchants; he presided over the court system as chief judge; and led the army.

The 'Independent Volunteer' party was disguised as a social club to raise money for social causes. Late in 1826, the IV nominated its own candidate for vice-agent and won. Angered by the power of the IV, Jehudi Ashmun annulled the election. In response, the leaders circulated a circular, in which they reminded Jehudi Ashmun, that: 'the right of election conferred by the Board of Managers [and the Constitution]...never should be interfered with by the Agent.' Jehudi Ashmun ignored them and scheduled another election, in which his handpicked candidate won. Later on Jehudi Ashmun said the following about the leaders of the IV: '[they are] high spirited young men, all excellent soldiers, but bad politicians.'

Beginning the late 1850s through to the First World War, the great coffee, cotton, yam and sugar plantations on the Saint Paul River were under oversight of the governing boards of the national agricultural fairs held each year in various areas throughout Liberia.

In 1850 the Sherbro and Gahlinas territories were purchased from the British for twenty thousand pounds sterling so as to abolish the slave trade in those areas and open them up for piassava export.

By the 1865 Ports of Entry law, foreign traders were restricted to the ports of Robertsport, Monrovia, Marshall, Edina, Greenville, and Cape Palmas. Liberians had ships that plied the sealanes to Europe, Asia, South America and North America. Ships such as 'EUSIBA ROYE' owned by Edward Roye; 'MOSES SHEPARD' owned by the McGill Brothers; and, 'GOLDELTS' SCHOONER' owned by Payne and Yates. During the period 1850 to the First World War, Liberia's foreign commerce was managed by the Hamburg trading houses of Woermann and Hedler, as well as the trading house of Muller in Rotterdam.

Because of the immense profits realized by Liberians from piassava grown in the Gahlinas, and the strategic and vital importance gained by Liberia because of piassava used in the production of rope for European, Mediterranean and American naval vessels, the British in 1871 forcibly took back the Gahlinas territories which we had paid for, thus requiring Liberia to renegotiate commercial arrangements and territorial boundaries in the Blyden-Havelock Treaty. In 1883 the British also seized the Sherbro territories and forced us to renegotiate commercial, shipping and trade agreements with European nations.

While reviewing our history, we realize there have been many rebellions throughout the years of existence of the Republic of Liberia! Plus, note that the Coup of 1980 was not the Republic's first coup - remember the Coup of 1871 when President Roye was forcibly removed? Or the Coup of 1926 when President King was forcibly removed? Are we aware of the rebellion of the Gedeboes of Cape Palmas in 1893? Are we aware of the Kangha War between 1917 and 1918 as a result of the Gola objection to the imposition of the Hut Tax during the 1st World War? Or the rebellions of the Lormas or even the Kru? An interesting long-term aspect of the Gedeboe rebellion was that the Central GOL had to compromise with the Gedeboe. We will note that in 1923 a result of this compromise saw the Honorable Henry Too Wesley of the Gedeboes elected Vice President of Liberia. Do we recognize any of the following Liberian political parties: OLD WHIGS, TRUE LIBERIAN, PEOPLES, REFORMATION, INDEPENDENT, WHIGS, and REPUBLICAN. Are we aware that twice in our history the Secretary of State was worn in as President instead of the Speaker of the House when there was no Vice President to succeed the President? This happened first in 1900 when President Coleman was forced by the Legislature to resign and the Legislature considered its Speaker, the Hon Robert Marshall of Cape Mount, to be too old, so Secretary of State Garretson Gibson was sworn in as President. The next occasion was in 1926 when Secretary of State Edwin Barclay became President after President King and Vice President Yancy were removed and Speaker Lewis of Sinoe was considered too old. Both of these events were in contradiction to the Succession Statute of 1873.

When President Tubman took over the presidency of Liberia in 1944, the national debt was $1.2 million. In 1962 it rose to $108 million. By 1971, when President Tolbert took over, Liberia's national debt was $317 million, and debt financing consumed 23 percent of domestic revenue. When President Tolbert was removed in 1980, Liberia's national debt was $515.9 million, and the Doe Administration pumped it up to $1.1 billion.

 

V. We all come from somewhere, and we are all here to stay - together!

In order to know the people of the Grain Coast who are now called Liberians we have to revisit true and accurate history and explore all it's complexities and nuances.

We must take into account the thriving African kingdoms, which existed in the Grain Coast of West Africa before 1821. We must study the social and political atmosphere in America when the “plan” of Liberia was created. We have to take note of the dehumanizing conditions that many black people faced before leaving for Africa (refer to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas) or the general state of apathy that beheld them (Letters from Liberia). Then we have to examine the dimensions added by skin color, skewed Christianity, and deficient economic backgrounds. To get a complete understanding we must also look into the history of the West Indians immigrants and other immigrants from various parts of Africa.

Prior to 1821, various African ethnic groups inhabited the land now called Liberia. Anthropologists have divided them into three linguistic groups; namely (i) Mande (Mande-Tan and Mande-Fu), (ii) Mel, and (iii) Kru.

The Mande-Tan consists of the Vai and the Mandingo. This group originally inhabited the Quoja Kingdom, which was located from the Mano River to Cape Mesurado.

The Mande-Fu is composed of the Mano, Gio, Ge, Loma, Bande and Kpelle. They occupied the Nimba and the Lofa regions.

The Mel comprises the Gola and the Gissi. The Gola inhabited the interior part of the Quoja kingdom, which was ruled under King Manu.

The Kru is composed of the Bassa, Grebo, De, Belle, Kran, Sapo and Kru or Krao. They occupied the Folgier kingdom, which extended from the area now called Monrovia to the St. Paul River. The Kru is a semi-Bantu linguistic group of the Kwia speaking family. As an ethnic group, they are called the Krao people. They originally resided in the vicinity now known as Monrovia and gradually migrated southeast into the coastal areas. The Bassa meanwhile inhabited the area east of the St. Paul River. The Kran occupied the southeastern interior of Liberia. But they also inhabited the midwestern part of Ivory Coast and are called Guere. Note that the Liberian Kran and the Ivorian Kran (Guere) are separated by the Cavalla River. This separation may have been a factor of migration.

Today the term Mande (or sometimes Manding, Mandingo, Malli, or Malinke) identifies cultural and linguistic groups in West Africa, which include the Mandenka (in Guinea, Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia), the Diola and Senufo (in Mali, Senegal, Mauretania, and Gambia), and the Wangaran (in Ghana).

While it is not known the exact years various ethnic groups migrated to the land now Liberia, ethnic people inhabited the land since the fifteenth century and maybe prior. The area was considered part of the Western Sudan and comprised the great empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. These Mande speaking peoples occupied the land. They established a functional society with its own culture; a social order that educated the youths and respected the elders; and a political system which administered laws and order. Commercial and industrial activities included the marketing and shipping of goods such as gold, pepper, kola nuts, and rice to Europe; the manufacture of sodium and potassium salts, clothing, and iron goods.

The Mande (pronounced mahn'-day), a group of West African peoples, live principally in the western Sudan region but have also migrated to the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. They speak various Mande languages, which constitute a subgroup of the Niger-Congo linguistic family; Mande-speaking peoples include the Bambara, Dyula, Kasonke, Malinke, Soninke, and Susu. Agriculturalists for an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 years, Mande-speaking peoples developed a number of early West African civilized states. Among these were the Soninke state of Ghana (fl. 8th-10th centuries AD), the Mali empire (fl. 13th-14th centuries), and the Bambara Kingdoms (fl. 17th-19th centuries).

Son-Jara (or Sundiata or Sun-jata), the great hero of the Mande people of West Africa, defeated the Susu King, Sumamuru (or Soumaoro or Sumanguru), at the battle of Kirina in 1235 and founded an empire that today would cover most of the modern day nations of Mali, Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea. During his reign he established a standing army, moved his capital to Niana on the river Niger, and extended his empire westward to include the gold rich areas of Wangara and Bambuk. He established an immensely wealthy kingdom; the visits of his grandson Musa I to Mecca and Egypt brought so much gold and other treasure that the price of gold was depressed on the Cairo exchange for decades. Seven centuries later Son-Jara is still honored for his wise and just government and celebrated as his people's greatest hero.

Though he was an important historical figure, we have no written records from his era and the earliest references to him occur in a fifteenth-century account by the Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun. Most of our information about Son-Jara comes from analyzing the many versions of his epic which continue to shape Mande culture. Today the term Mande (or sometimes Manding, Mandingo, Malli, or Malinke) identifies cultural and linguistic groups in West Africa which include the Mandenka, (in Guinea, Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia), the Diola and Senufo (in Mali, Senegal, Mauretania, and Gambia), and the Wangaran (in Ghana). Son-Jara ruled most of the Western Sudan. In his lifetime the area known as the Sudan was a broad savannah region stretching across Africa from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east, bordered by the Sahara Desert on the north and the tropical forest to the south.

Once the Mali empire had been established in the 13th century, Mande speaking peoples began to expand its boundaries through conquest and trade. The Mandinkas were the first of a series of invaders to the Senegambia region. Gradually the whole of Gambia valley came under Mandinka control and they were firmly established by the 15th century.

Trade was also important in Mandinka states and long distance trade routes were established. During the period of the Transatlantic slave trade, slaves and firearms became the most important articles of trade. As well as being victims of slave takers, some Mandinkas carried on extensive trade in slaves. Even well into the 19th century it was ‘well-known and admitted fact that Mandingos… are in the practice of obtaining and carrying off liberated slaves from Freetown’.

During the period of the great Sudanic empires, the lives of most farmers and fishers remained virtually unchanged. While imported goods or luxuries were enjoyed only by the ruling classes, the farmers lived in subsistence economies, subject to periodic tax gathering and occasional slave raids. Islam was associated with the great urban centers and was the religion of some of the ruling classes and of the foreign residents. By the late 15th century, however, the nomadic Kunta Arabs began to preach, and during the mid-16th century the Qadiriyya brotherhood, to which they belonged, began to spread Islam throughout the western Sudan. At about the same time, the Fulani, a nomadic pastoral people, were moving slowly eastward from the Fouta region in Senegal, gaining converts for Islam. During this period, Islam became a personal religion rather than merely a religion of state. Indeed, Islam appears to have declined among the ruling classes, and non-Muslim dynasties ruled in old Muslim strongholds until the 18th century. Islamic reform and revival movements then began among the Fulani, Mandinka (also known as Mandingo or Malinké), Susu, and Tukolor.

In the western-most Sudanic area, Voinjama was a major industrial center, which was "the core of the most complete industrial unit in indigenous economy among Africans in Liberia", according to George Brown. Cotton fabric manufactured by them was sent to Portugal. Harry Johnston further notes that Portuguese traders who visited the land before 1460 impressively observed the civilization and commercial development of the area.

The Kru speaking peoples arrived in Grain Coast about 850AD. The Krus, a subdivision of the Krahn-Dan Kingdom of Man broke away from the Dan Kingdom after Islamic mercenaries from Gao and Jenne invaded the kingdom in about 700AD. Prior to their arrival, Hanno of Carthage had visited the area in 520BC and his record indicated that he did not find traders on the Grain Coast. Belle and Deis were Kru-Bassa soldiers sent to fight the Golas, Vais and Kpelles.

The Greboes are a subdivision of the Krahn speaking peoples. This includes all the interior Grebos and the coastal and interior Grebos of Ivory Coast. The Gleboes arrived in Liberia about 965AD. The Gleboes are related to the subgroups such as Dei, Bassa, Belle, Krahns and Kru proper in Liberia. They are also related linguistically to Betes, Wuobe, Krahns, Didas, Neon, Dapo, Klepos, Baapos, Ulebos, Plaapos, Tepo, and Bakwe in the Ivory Coast. The first European settlement on the Grebo coast was about 1471. The first European explorers to visit the Grebo Coast were the Portuguese in 1462 (N. R. Richardson). The Portuguese Navigators, De Sintra and Sueiro da Costa explored the Grebo coast in 1462 from the Po River to Saint Andrea (Sassandra). The English followed the Portuguese a hundred years latter. Captain Windham and his crew of the *Primrose* visited Cape Palmas in 1553. The English traded with the Greboes and the Portuguese who had established a small colony and a fort in Cape Palmas.

The Vais also emigrated, like the rest of Mande speaking peoples, to the forest region of the Grain Coast. Many of the sub Mande-speaking peoples left the Sahel region after the collapse of Ghana. Many Mande speaking peoples left the mines in Wangara, currently known as Guinea (Ibn Battuta) to escape Almoravids invasion. The Mendes of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Manjako and Jullas of Guinea Bissau and Senegal, Dagombas of modern Ghana, Saraholle Mandingoes of Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are Mande tribes who are among the immigrant arrivals to the forest regions as to the coastal areas of west Africa, namely the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast and the Pepper Coast - all so-named by the Portuguese.

The Vais are a sub group of the Kono peoples of Mandingoe Pu. These immigrant groups built many ancient walls to protect cities and towns all across West Africa. The remnants of one such ancient wall exist to this day in Grand Cape Mount and extend over fifty miles from the Atlantic Ocean through Lake Piso to the northern section of the Gissi areas. Note that lore has it that this wall had already existed for over one hundred generations before the Commonwealth of Liberia was founded in 1822 and was built during the days of the old empire of the Kumbas. Interestingly, Guinee and Liberia share a long, long joint history. Kankan heroes Amure Toure and his grandson Samore Toure, as well as Alfa Yaya of Labe, uprooted many Mandinka speaking peoples from the Fouta Jallon Mountains. Many of the uprooted peoples ended on the coast in the area now called Liberia.

The Congoes arrived in Liberia with nothing and were assisted by the local ethnic peoples and the American Colonization Society. These new arrivals consisted principally of Congoes from Central Africa (now Democratic Congo Republic) and Iboes from the Pepper Coast (now Nigeria). Many of them, having been kidnapped in their own home, and placed on board the Portuguese and Spanish slavers to be carried away into slavery, were taken off these slave vessels by the English and American warships, and landed on the shores of what is now Liberia. These arrivals continued in mass until 1860. Also from 1821, peoples from the Americas and Europe immigrated to the Grain Coast (now Liberia) and came to be called “Americo-Liberians”.

We all come from somewhere, and we are all here to stay - together!

 

VI. What next,... and, why???!!!

While preparing these notes, an American Caucasian friend said to me, “I find it such a shame that the 'noble words' of the American Colonization Society, did not '...provide a home for dispersed and oppressed children of Africa...', nor has their been anything but lip-service, '...to regenerate and enlighten...'. The reality of the oppression and exploitation of the masses by a greedy few still haunts Liberia to this day, - The legacy of the Colonization Society is one that only apologist and revisionist can use to distort the reality of 150 years of mis-leadership.”

I replied to my friend, “I agree with you that the origins and statehood intents in founding the Republic of Liberia are seriously flawed. These problems existed before any of us - and will exist even when we are gone if we do not properly examine and accept the proper facts of our origins as a nation. First, we must understand and accept that it was Caucasian men such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Thomas Buchanan, Bushrod Washington, Francis Scott Key, Eli Ayres and Jehudi Ashmum who offered specific dreams and plans for an 'Empire of the United States of America in Africa'. The American Colonization Society found its roots in such dreams and plans. I trust that we may seek to understand the merits and demerits of those men's dreams and plans.”

I believe that TODAY the Republic of Liberia possess some of the world’s finest minds, possessed of high intellectual capability to effect growth for Liberia, Africa and a truly One World. Appropriately, we Liberians are now more forcefully putting forward issues and solutions, Building Benefit, in such areas as manpower needs of post civil conflict Liberia, reconstruction, education, public health and other ingredients necessary for effective and lasting socio-economic development. We are growing the definite character - the Hope, Promise and Opportunity - of Liberia, which has been shaped by our unique history.

I see atonement to us and to each other as being the foundation of national redemption. To the extent that Liberians of indigenous decent and Liberians of Americo-­Liberian decent have been responsible for memories of painful recollections to each other, I ask for forgiveness. I ask forgiveness for our self ­inflicted pain, division, suffering and fear. I enter into this atonement with a humble awareness that mistakes and offenses have been committed.

I am on the mat begging that all of us who have either injured any other person, or commanded other persons who have done so, to lift our hands and hearts up high seeking and asking for forgiveness for the horrors we have imposed on each other. I am unable to answer for such insanity, but I can seek to heal the wounds and remove the scars.

While it is just and appropriate to answer the cries of innocent bloodshed all around us, it is also necessary to prevent it from ever happening again, and that we are reconciled one to another. To be reconciled one to another is to also be hopeful for one another, to be thankful for one another, and to be helpful to one another. I am on the mat seeking that we hear the pleas of the many, many, many who cry lonely, silently, painfully in the dark hours of lonely nights knowing and remembering the pain of injury. We are hurting. We want to be healed.

Liberia now seeks: An inward and outward looking, as well as internationally driven, economy that combines stability of the general price levels as well as a ten year goal to strengthen markets, expand access and opportunity, create jobs, and invest in people;

Liberia also now seeks: A national product real growth rate of more than 15%, a national product per capita of more than US$ 1,000, an inflation rate of less than 2%, and an unemployment rate of less than 5%;

Liberia is now dedicated to establishing Progress, Prosperity and Peace, preserving the freedoms of people, and to working for a peaceful and productive international order.

========================================

WEB-DOCUMENT REFERENCES

·         European Treaties bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648, Frances Gardiner Davenport, editor, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917, Washington, D.C., The Bull Inter Caetera (Alexander VI), May 4, 1493

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/indig-inter-caetera.html

 

·         Evolution of an Africanist Perspective

http://www.columbia.edu/~hcb8/EWB_Museum/Evolution.html

 

·         Henry Noble Sherwood, 1882-. The Formation of the American Colonization Society. From The Journal of Negro History 2, no. 3 (July 1917), 209-228.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/sherwood/sherwood.html

 

·         American Dissident Voices, Program of 2-20-93 : Forbidden Truths Today - United States Black History

http://web.archive.org/web/20120521194238/http://natvan.com/american-dissident-voices/adv022093.html /

 

·         American Colonization Society

http://voyager.dvc.edu/~mpowell/afam/ps_ACS.htm

 

·         American Politics Journal -- Jeff Koopersmith, Liberian Revisionist History

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20030708Koop.html

 

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