Economic Adjustments in Liberia

Abstract

Early in the nineteenth century, the American Colonization Society planned to provide a home on African soil for Negro ex-slaves. Sierra Leone was first selected as a colonization site, but after a change of plans, the Society purchased Mesurado Promontory on the coast of what is now Liberia. In 1821, a colony of 80 negro freedmen was planted on Providence Island a few rods offshore. Sickness and starvation came near to obliterating this first little colony, but the timely arrival of more settlers with several shiploads of supplies finally saved the venture from complete disaster. Thus reinforced, the colonists began the settlement of the mainland, although the native tribes were violently hostile to the intruders. By 1838, there were more than 2,000 settlers on the coast and along the St. Paul River, and all of the coast from Mesurado Promontory to Cape Palmas had been acquired from the natives. The colony had become strong enough by 1847 to cast off the tutelage of the American Colonization Society and to declare itself a republic. Ten years later the separate Negro colony of Maryland joined Liberia. Maryland had been started in 1833 as a group of settlements along the lower Clavalla River some 250 miles east of Cape Mesurado. However, in 1857, it elected to give up its separate existence and to become instead one of the four counties in the Liberian Republic. While settlement was progressing in the coastal zone, political control was rapidly extended into the interior. By the middle of the nineteenth century the republic had reached quite sizeable proportions; but from that time until the first decade of the twentieth century, Liberia's area shrank bit by bit. Since Liberia was unable to effectively control the large hinterland which she claimed, France and Britain frequently nibbled at her boundaries. Probably they would have ultimately divided Liberia between them had they not been held in check by the commercial plans of Germany, plans which were encouraged by Liberia as the only means of preserving her existence. In 1908, Britain would undoubtedly have annexed Liberia to her Sierra Leone holdings had not the official and semi-official influence of the United States restrained her. In 1912 an agreement was finally reached wherein the United States Government (acting with the consent of Britain and Germany) assumed