History of Liberia, Part I, from 1820 1847

History of Liberia, Part II, from 1847 December 1989

The country of Liberia was officially founded in 1847 when it declared its independence from the United States. The settlers, referred to as Americo-Liberians, were former slaves from the United States or were Africans on slave ships that were captured by the United States Navy.

On January 31, 1820, the first ship of immigrants set sail from New York carrying 88 settlers. Their landing site was extremely inhospitable, causing almost all of the immigrants to die. A year later they were able to find a better site, later to be called Monrovia. It is important to note that the land was taken from native people by threat of force.

A constitution for Liberia was written in 1820, giving all power to the American Colonization Society, which was ran by white Americans. The settlers began to protest the distribution of land and food, which was in favor of the white agents from the Society . The Liberians were promised all the rights and privileges of U.S. Citizens, but they did not receive any of those privileges. Their conditions seemed no different than slavery. The head of the government was a white man, who on several occasions had to flee the colony in fear of his life, due to settler discontent (Jones p. 312).

In 1830, the Americo Liberians petitioned the American Colonization Society and the United States government to give them greater powers in the government of the colony. Unfortunately, the American Colonization Society refused to cede any power to the settlers.

Wars between native Africans and the American settlers began to break out due to the disturbance of the Africans way of life. The settlers wished to impose a moral code upon the Africans. Which caused war and destruction between the Americo Liberians and the Africans.

In 1847, Liberia declared its independence from the United States, due to the desire to improve trading relationships with other countries. The government that emerged was based on serving the elite, powerful and wealthy Americo-Liberians. "[P]arty politics had taken shape along clearly recognized lines of class (Jones p. 315)." Franchise rights were granted to Americo-Liberians, if they owned property. However, franchise rights were not given to any native Africans, unless they had been a resident of the colony for more than three years in a civilized Western fashion. The two parties that emerged by 1847 were the True Whig Party and the Republican Party. The True Whig Party became the dominant party in 1878 and ruled until 1980 when Samuel Doe came to power.

The Liberian government was criticized as "inefficient, arbitrary, and often corrupt...and [having] a repressive 'native policy' that maintained insecure but tyrannical control over the tribal areas. [T]he True Whig Party formed an oligarchy, which...denied the indigenous people any meaningful political representation or self-expression (July p. 379)." One example of this is referred to as the League Affair, which happened between 1930 and 1935. The League of Nations went to Liberia to investigate charges of slavery or forced labor. Their findings stated that while there technically was not slavery, the conditions did not significantly differ from it. The League Commission recommended that the government of Liberia radically reconstruct their policy toward the native people, calling for a more humane treatment of the Africans. The commission also recommended that divisions between "civilized" and "uncivilized" be removed by education for all regardless of cultural origin. However, non of those recommendations became a reality, the government "continued substantially unchanged in its long-standing authoritarianism designed to maintain the ascendancy of the Americo-Liberians (July p. 379)."

The Liberian governments harsh treatment of the native peoples continued unabated until President William Tubman came into power in 1944. He began the Unification policy aimed at including the traditional societies in the processes of government, as well as breaking down the old barriers between Americo-Liberians and native Africans. The franchise was extended to all citizens regardless of cultural origin as long as they owned some property and paid taxes. However, "there was little real change (Davidson p. 108)."

The same problem that has always existed in Liberia continued to trouble it. This trouble lay in the continued ambition of the Americo-Liberian group to keep all power and privilege in their hands at the cost of the majority of Liberians...The inferior position of the 'tribal interior' was scarcely improved. The Americo-Liberian group continued to rule with an iron hand. (Davidson p. 108)

Samuel Doe became President of Liberia with his coup in 1980. Due to international pressure, elections were held in 1985. Doe's opponent, Jackson Doe, won the election but Samuel Doe refused to step down. This began the illegitimate rule of Doe, and started the ethnic conflict of the Khran, who were the ethnic group of Doe, versus the Mano, Gio and Americo Liberians who supported Jackson Doe. Doe was able to remain in power in spite of the fact that the vast majority of Liberians did not want him in power. Doe's power came from aid given to him by the U.S. which amounted to approximately 380 million dollars (Newton). However, at the end of the cold war, the U.S. stopped giving aid to Liberia because there was not the threat of communism. When support was cut off, Doe was not able to suppress rebellious factions. On December 24, 1989 the Mano, Gio, and Americo Liberians were able invade Liberia on December 24, 1989 from the Ivory Coast. When Liberia was invaded, it began the civil war, which is in the current events section of this page.

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