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History of Liberia
Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest among settlements reported with modern recordkeeping. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived (39.8%).
In 1846, the first black governor of Liberia, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, requested the Liberian legislature to declare independence, but in a manner that would allow them to maintain contacts with the ACS. The legislature called for a referendum, in which Liberians chose independence. On July 26, 1847, a group of eleven signatories declared Liberia an independent nation. The ACS as well as several northern state governments and local colonization chapters continued to provide money and emigrants as late as the 1870s. The United States government declined to act upon requests from the ACS to make Liberia an American colony or to establish a formal protectorate over Liberia, but it did exercise a "moral protectorate" over Liberia, intervening when threats manifested towards Liberian territorial expansion or sovereignty. Upon Liberian independence, Roberts was elected as the first president of Liberia.
Liberia retained its independence throughout the Scramble for Africa by European colonial powers during the late 19th century, while remaining in the American sphere of influence. President William Howard Taft made American support to Liberia a priority of his foreign policy. From the 1920s, the economy focused on exploitation of natural resources. The rubber industry, specifically the Firestone Company, dominated the economy. Until 1980, Liberia was controlled politically by descendants of the original African-American settlers, known collectively as Americo-Liberians, who made up a small minority of the population. The violent overthrow of the Americo-Liberian regime that year led to two civil wars that devastated the country, the first from 1989 to 1997 and the second from 1999 to 2003.
Historians believe that many of the indigenous peoples of Liberia migrated there from the north and east between the 12th and 16th centuries AD. Portuguese explorers established contacts with people of the land later known as "Liberia" as early as 1462. They named the area Costa da Pimenta (Pepper Coast), or Grain Coast, because of the abundance of melegueta pepper, which became desired in European cooking.
In 1602, the Dutch established a trading post at Grand Cape Mount but destroyed it a year later. In 1663, the English established a few trading posts on the Pepper Coast. No further known settlements by Europeans occurred until the arrival in 1821 of free blacks from the United States.[citation needed]
From around 1800, in the United States, people opposed to slavery were planning ways to liberate more slaves and, ultimately, to abolish the practice. At the same time, slaveholders in the South opposed having free blacks in their states, as they believed the free people threatened the stability of their slave societies. Slaves were gradually freed in the North, although more slowly than generally realized; there were hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 census, and in New Jersey, in the 1860 census.[citation needed] The former slaves and other free blacks suffered considerable social and legal discrimination; they were not citizens and were seen by many as unwanted foreigners who were taking jobs away from white people by working for less. Like Southern states, some Northern states and territories severely restricted or prohibited altogether entry by free blacks. This was, for example, the case in Illinois, and was proposed for Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution.
Some abolitionists, including distinguished blacks such as ship builder Paul Cuffe (or Cuffee), believed that blacks should return to "the African homeland", as if it were one ethnicity and country, despite many having generations of ancestors living in the United States. Cuffe's dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves "could establish a prosperous colony in Africa," one based on emigration and trade. In 1811, Cuffe founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a cooperative black group intended to encourage “the Black Settlers of Sierra Leone, and the Natives of Africa generally, in the Cultivation of their Soil, by the Sale of their Produce.” As historian Donald R. Wright put it, "Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel each year to Sierra Leone, transporting African-American settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products." However, Cuffe died in 1817, and with him his project.
The first ship of the American Colonization Society, the Elizabeth, departed New York on February 6, 1820, for West Africa carrying 86 settlers. Between 1821 and 1838, the American Colonization Society developed the first settlement, which would be known as Liberia. On July 26, 1847, Liberia declared itself a (free) sovereign nation.
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History of Liberia
Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest among settlements reported with modern recordkeeping. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived (39.8%).
In 1846, the first black governor of Liberia, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, requested the Liberian legislature to declare independence, but in a manner that would allow them to maintain contacts with the ACS. The legislature called for a referendum, in which Liberians chose independence. On July 26, 1847, a group of eleven signatories declared Liberia an independent nation. The ACS as well as several northern state governments and local colonization chapters continued to provide money and emigrants as late as the 1870s. The United States government declined to act upon requests from the ACS to make Liberia an American colony or to establish a formal protectorate over Liberia, but it did exercise a "moral protectorate" over Liberia, intervening when threats manifested towards Liberian territorial expansion or sovereignty. Upon Liberian independence, Roberts was elected as the first president of Liberia.
Liberia retained its independence throughout the Scramble for Africa by European colonial powers during the late 19th century, while remaining in the American sphere of influence. President William Howard Taft made American support to Liberia a priority of his foreign policy. From the 1920s, the economy focused on exploitation of natural resources. The rubber industry, specifically the Firestone Company, dominated the economy. Until 1980, Liberia was controlled politically by descendants of the original African-American settlers, known collectively as Americo-Liberians, who made up a small minority of the population. The violent overthrow of the Americo-Liberian regime that year led to two civil wars that devastated the country, the first from 1989 to 1997 and the second from 1999 to 2003.
Historians believe that many of the indigenous peoples of Liberia migrated there from the north and east between the 12th and 16th centuries AD. Portuguese explorers established contacts with people of the land later known as "Liberia" as early as 1462. They named the area Costa da Pimenta (Pepper Coast), or Grain Coast, because of the abundance of melegueta pepper, which became desired in European cooking.
In 1602, the Dutch established a trading post at Grand Cape Mount but destroyed it a year later. In 1663, the English established a few trading posts on the Pepper Coast. No further known settlements by Europeans occurred until the arrival in 1821 of free blacks from the United States.[citation needed]
From around 1800, in the United States, people opposed to slavery were planning ways to liberate more slaves and, ultimately, to abolish the practice. At the same time, slaveholders in the South opposed having free blacks in their states, as they believed the free people threatened the stability of their slave societies. Slaves were gradually freed in the North, although more slowly than generally realized; there were hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 census, and in New Jersey, in the 1860 census.[citation needed] The former slaves and other free blacks suffered considerable social and legal discrimination; they were not citizens and were seen by many as unwanted foreigners who were taking jobs away from white people by working for less. Like Southern states, some Northern states and territories severely restricted or prohibited altogether entry by free blacks. This was, for example, the case in Illinois, and was proposed for Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution.
Some abolitionists, including distinguished blacks such as ship builder Paul Cuffe (or Cuffee), believed that blacks should return to "the African homeland", as if it were one ethnicity and country, despite many having generations of ancestors living in the United States. Cuffe's dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves "could establish a prosperous colony in Africa," one based on emigration and trade. In 1811, Cuffe founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a cooperative black group intended to encourage “the Black Settlers of Sierra Leone, and the Natives of Africa generally, in the Cultivation of their Soil, by the Sale of their Produce.” As historian Donald R. Wright put it, "Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel each year to Sierra Leone, transporting African-American settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products." However, Cuffe died in 1817, and with him his project.
The first ship of the American Colonization Society, the Elizabeth, departed New York on February 6, 1820, for West Africa carrying 86 settlers. Between 1821 and 1838, the American Colonization Society developed the first settlement, which would be known as Liberia. On July 26, 1847, Liberia declared itself a (free) sovereign nation.