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About Liberia Essay, Research Paper

Liberia is a republic in western Africa, bounded on the north by Sierra Leone and

Guinea, on the east by C?te d’Ivoire, and on the south and west by the Atlantic Ocean.

Liberia has an area of 99,067 square kilometers (38, 250 square miles). Liberia was

founded in the early 1800s by freed American slaves. Monrovia is the capital and largest

city.

Maps of Africa and Liberia

History

Liberia owes its establishment to the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816 to

resettle freed American slaves in Africa. An attempt at colonization in Sierra Leone had

failed in 1815. Six years later native rulers granted a tract of land on Cape Mesurado, at

the mouth of the Saint Paul River, to U.S. representatives, and the first

Americo-Liberians, led by Jehudi Ashmun, began the settlement. In 1894 an American agent

for the society, Ralph Randolph Gurley, named the new colony Liberia and the Cape Mesurado

settlement Monrovia. Other separate settlements were established along the coast during

the next 20 years. Soon, however, conflicts arose between the settlers and the society in

the United States. By the time Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first black governor in

1841, the decision had been made to give the colonists almost full control of the

government. A constitution modeled on that of the United States was drawn up, and Liberia

became an independent republic in July 1847. Roberts was its first president, serving

until 1856. Britain recognized Liberia in 1848, France in 1852, and the United States in

1862.

Relations with Indigenous People

The Americo-Liberian communities eked out a precarious existence during the 19th

century. Claims over interior territory were disputed not only by the indigenous Mandinka

(also known as Mandingo or Malinke, Kru, and Gola peoples, but also by European states

that did not recognize Liberian jurisdiction over the interior. U.S. support led to a

series of agreements with Britain and France between 1892 and 1911, which marked the

present boundaries. (Liberian control over the interior peoples, however, was not

completely assured until the 1940s.) Loans from Britain and the United States partially

eased the country’s financial difficulties. Liberia declared war on Germany on August 14,

1917, which gave the Allies an additional base in West Africa during World War I

(1914-1918). In 1926 the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company opened a rubber plantation on

400,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land granted by the Liberian government the year

before. Rubber production became the mainstay of the nation’s economy.

In 1931 the League of Nations confirmed that Americo-Liberians were using native Africans

for forced labor, tantamount to slavery. The ensuing scandal implicated the highest

government officials; the president and vice president resigned. By 1936 the new

government had succeeded in abolishing forced-labor practices and Liberia was again in

good standing with the League. The indigenous population, however, was still treated as

second-class citizens, without voting rights.

Tubman’s Regime

U.S.-Liberian relations became closer after the

United States entered World War II (1939-1945). In 1942 the republic agreed to allow U.S.

troops to be based in the country despite the fact that Liberia did not declare war on the

Axis powers until 1944. In 1945 Liberia became one of the original member states of the

United Nations.

Following his election in May 1943, President William V. S. Tubman pursued a policy of

national unification and economic development through foreign investment. The latter

policy led to the exploitation in the 1950s of iron-ore deposits in the Bomi Hills,

located north of Monrovia.

In the presidential election of May 1951, women and indigenous property owners voted for

the first time, but the few thousand Americo-Liberians living in the coastal region still

retained control of the government. The incumbent Tubman, candidate of the dominant True

Whig Party, was reelected without opposition. The government had suppressed the

Reformation and United People’s parties. Their leaders, supported mainly by residents of

the hinterland, were arrested or exiled following the election. President Tubman was

returned to office in the 1955 election, but he narrowly escaped assassination during his

victory celebration. Thirty people were indicted for treason; two former cabinet ministers

and five others were convicted.

Considerable progress, both social and material, was made during Tubman’s later terms as

president. Thus, in February 1958, the legislature passed a law making racial

discrimination punishable by fine and imprisonment for citizens and by deportation for

aliens. During the 1960s a Swedish-American group completed a major iron-ore project near

Mount Nimba, and German investors developed iron-ore resources in the Bong Range. The

Liberian Bank of Industrial Development and Investment was established in 1965 to provide

capital for private investment.

During this time President Tubman held a firm rein on power. After some labor unrest

within Liberia and coups elsewhere in Africa, he was given emergency powers in February

1966 for 12 months. In 1967 he was reelected to his sixth term (a year ahead of time), and

he was returned the seventh time in May 1971. Two months later he died and was succeeded

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