Liberia
li-be'ri-a, a negro colony on the west coast of Africa. It was established in 1822 by the various British and American societies for the abolition of slavery. It was the original plan to return slaves to Africa as rapidly as their freedom could be secured. Many difficulties were encountered and privations endured. By 1832 there were 2,500 negro settlers. In 1847 an independent state was organized on the model of the United States. Voters were required to be of negro blood and to be property holders. The natives of the country were permitted to become citizens. Monrovia, named for President Monroe, was made the capitol. The following extract is taken from the so-called Liberian declaration of independence of 1847:
In coming to the shores of Africa we indulged the pleasing hope that we should be permitted to exercise and improve those faculties which impart to man his dignity--to nourish in our hearts the flame of honorable ambition, to cherish and indulge those aspirations which a beneficent Creator hath implanted in every human heart, and to evince to all who despise, ridicule, and oppress our own race that we possess with them a common nature, are with them susceptible of equal refinement, and capable of equal advancement in all that adorns and dignifies man. . . . Among the strongest motives to leave our native land. . . . was the desire for a retreat where free from the agitations of fear and molestation we could in composure and security approach in worship the God of our fathers. Thus far our highest hopes have been realized.
Liberia has about 350 miles of coast. Area, 400,000 square miles. There are about 62,000 American negroes and their descendants. They live in a strip within six miles of the coast. It is estimated that there are 2,000,000 uncivilized native negroes in Liberia. The various Protestant religious denominations maintain churches and missions. There are 100 elementary schools having 3,000 pupils and an attempt is made to maintain a college. Import duties produce an annual revenue of $387,000, but the state is in debt nearly $1,000,000, counting principal and interest.
Trade is carried on chiefly with England, Germany, and the United States. Palm oil, palm kernels, coffee, rubber, and a fiber much used in making coarse brushes and street brooms, are the chief exports. Accounts are kept in American money. The country has abundant coal and other mineral wealth. Cocoa and cotton are raised readily. Coffee grows wild. There are magnificent unworked forests. The inhabitants should become independently wealthy, but the fact is that, despite the utmost efforts of their friends, the settlers have not done as well as was hoped for.
During the active period of African land grabbing, Liberia narrowly escaped appropriation. Territory not "effectively administered" was cut off by the French and by the British. There is a bitter feeling in Liberia against the British. An "Improvement Company" borrowed large sums of money in the name of the Liberian government and took possession of the custom houses to pay the interest. British officers organized and commanded the Liberian militia. A gunboat was sent to protect British interests. In 1908 the British consul general sent the Liberian government a notice to the effect that Liberia "must not lose a moment in setting herself seriously to work to put her house in order, or be prepared, at no distant date, to disappear from the catalogue of independent countries." "If, however, the Government do not reform, no amount of guarantees will save them from the end which must surely, in the near future, await them." Under British influence, the Liberian militia rose in mutiny. Liberian independence seemed lost. In very desperation the Liberian government ordered British officers out of camp, and succeeded in inducing the American government to send a commission to decide whether the negroes of Liberia were incapable of self government. Since then affairs have seemed to mend.
The following excerpts are condensed from a sympathetic article by Edgar Allen Forbes in The World's Work for October, 1909:
The people of Monrovia look, dress, and act very like the better-class negroes of Atlanta or Louisville. All the Americo-Liberians (and many civilized natives) are neatly but not flashily clothed, and most of the aborigines put on an extra cloth when they come to town. I doubt if there be anywhere in the United States a negro community of the size of Monrovia where there is so little boisterousness, profanity, or indecency. Swearing is a lost art, and I saw but one case of drunkenness during my first month in the Monrovia. The Sundays suggests the quiet of a New England city--a quiet that is broken only by the sound of church organs and congregational singing. The churches are well attended, and the services are conducted with due regard' to dignity and reverence. There appears to be a complete absence of the American saloon and of the degrading concert-hall.
In most respects, this description of Monrovia applies also to Harper, the original capital of the Maryland colony, which is more thoroughly American than any other part of Liberia. For tropical beauty and whole-souled hospitality, Cape Palmas is not surpassed on the west coast of Africa--so far as one man's experience goes. Between these two cities are several important ports of entry, and all along the coast are scattered little settlements of Liberian planters--some prosperous and well-housed, others reflecting the deep poverty of sloth and failure. Bordering upon this coast-belt of civilization is a fringe of half-civilized natives, with a few fruit trees and some coffee-bushes around their squalid villages; and beyond these lies the great mass of the uncivilized, who plant nothing but what they eat and whose civilized attainments rarely extend further than tobacco, gin, calico, and gunpowder.
The Liberian people are American to the core. Before reaching the country, I had been led to believe that the present generation had forgotten the rock from which they were hewn, but one hour's sojourn in Monrovia convinced me that such was not the case. News travels fast in these "new and naked lands," and as soon as it was noised abroad that an American visitor had dropped in, all sorts and conditions of men began to call at the American legation. To the visitor it was almost like a homecoming. Men and boys passing along the street tipped their hats in greeting and even the children apeared anxious to welcome a man from the country about which they had heard all their lives. It happened during this first week that a delegation of farmers from up the St. Paul River came to the capital to make a political demonstration. Led by a small brass band, they marched to the executive mansion, and greeted the president; then they made a bee-line for the American legation to pay their respects to the Minister. Many of these men of the soil had served their apprenticeship in the cottonfields of the South, and their welcome to me was almost an ovation. One patriarch slowly climbed the steps as the delegation was leaving, and gave me his trembling hand. "I seed you on the porch," he said, "and I know'd you wuz some o' mine--and I'm some o' your'n." When I visited the various settlements back from Monrovia, I found a universal and unmistakable affection for everything that bears the American name.
Once freed from its present entanglements, no friend of the negro need be apprehensive about Liberia's future. The republic is rich in its soil and in undeveloped resources; it has a strong national spirit and a peace-loving population; and it has men endowed with the qualities of leadership--plenty of men.
If there be found occasion for censure in the present state of affairs, the United States must first plead guilty to criminal negligence. It was wholly unnecessary for Liberia to stand absolutely alone; duty to the memories of the Americans who founded the republic should have moved us long ago to inquire whether we might be of assistance. On a low, level site halfway down the street that leads from the hilltop of Monrovia to the surf that thunders beyond it is the old cemetery where the first Liberian settlers lie in their unwaking sleep, their graves almost concealed by the profusion of ferns that cover nearly every square yard from the street back to the impenetrable green of the African bush. To an American wandering through the bracken, it becomes transformed into a map of the Southern States. "A Native of the U. S. A."; "Of Charleston, South Carolina."; "A Native of Georgia"--almost every discolored slab bears some such inscription.
Near the farther side of the cemetery, modest and unobtrusive even in death, I found the white men and women who went to their graves for Liberia. There are thirty mounds in one place, and no American can look down that long row without feeling that the place whereon he stands is holy ground.