4
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface vii
Foreword ix
Introduction xiii
I Liberia, Longitude and Latitude. Visited
by Hanno 1
II Monrovia and the Liberian Region 5
III The Topography of Liberia, and Its Flora
and Fauna. The “Periplus” of Hanno 8
IV Early Expeditions to Liberia 11
V The Portuguese Influence on the West
Coast 15
VI The English on the West Coast and in
Liberia 17
VII African Products 24
VIII Arts and Crafts in Early Liberia 26
IX The Dutch in Liberia 30
X Snqek’s Description of Liberia. The
Chevalier des Marchais 35
XI The Beginnings of the Slave Trade 42
XII The Founding of Sierra Leone 49
XIII Origin and Founding of the Liberian Re¬
public 51
XIV The Settlement of Monrovia 60
XV Liberia Named 66
XVI Liberia’s Territorial Acquisitions 70
XVII The Colonies of Maryland and Mississippi 77
xvii
xviii CONTENTS
PAGE
XVIII Liberian Progress and the Beginning
of the End of the Slave Trade 82
XIX Thomas Buchanan, the First Gov¬
ernor of Liberia 86
XX Governor Roberts 93
XXI The Founding of the Republic 100
XXII The Republic in 1850. Roberts’ Sec¬
ond Term as President 107
XXIII Population in 1853. Border Troubles
and Annexation of Maryland 113
XXIV Roberts as Consul. Domestic and For¬
eign Troubles and Complications 117
XXV The Relations Between the United
States and Liberia 123
XXVI President Warner and the Ports of
Entry Law 126
XXVII President Payne. Edward James Roye
AND THE ChINERY Law 132
XXVIII The Ultimate Settlement of the
Chinery Law 138
XXIX Boundary Troubles with Sierra Leone 144
XXX Liberia in 1880 147
XXXI Boundary Troubles with France 153
XXXII The Third Grebo War. Concessions
in Mining and Rubber 157
XXXIII President Arthur Barclay 162
XXXIV Education in Liberia and the Needs
of the Natives 165
XXXV Population. Religion 168
XXXVI The Presidents of Liberia. Term of
Office—Birth and Death v 172
XXXVII Different Parts of the Government 174
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
President King Frontispiece
Facing Page
President D. E. Howard 9
Warriors of Early Days 10
Liberian Soldiers 10
The Council of Chiefs at Monrovia 21
Dr. Edward W. Blyden 30
J. A. Simpson 35
President Joseph J. Roberts 35
African Musicians 42
Wash Day of the Aborigines 42
Jehudi Ashmun 51
Ashmun Street, Monrovia 59
President Gibson and Prominent Statesmen 64
President Warner 80
President Benson 80
President Payne 80
President Russell 80
President’s Mansion, Monrovia 94
U. S. Legation, Monrovia 94
President Cheeseman 100
President Coleman 100
President Johnson 100
President Howard 100
President Cheeseman and Cabinet 111
President Johnson 120
Hon. J. L. Morris 135
xix
XX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing Page
Dr. N. H. B. Cassell 150
Council General Dr. Lyons 150
Bishop Ferguson 150
Bishop I. B. Scott, M. E. Church 150
President Barclay 174
Chief Justice Johnson 174
President E. James Roye 178
Dr. Coleman 178
Dr. Reed 178
Ex-Mayor Fuller of Monrovia 178
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
CHAPTER I
Liberia, Longitude and Latitude. Visited
by Hanno
In regard to its position on the map, Liberia may be
styled the end of Northern Guinea, lying between Sierra
Leone and the Ivory Coast. The mouth of the Cavalla
River, just beyond Cape Palmas and the most easterly
point on the coast, is in longitude 7°33' west. The
mouth of the river Mano, which forms the westernmost
part of the Republic, lies in about N. latitude 6°55' and
W. longitude 11°32' Liberian territory extends north¬
wards to about 8°50' N. latitude in the interior.
From the mouth of the Mano, the trend of the coast
is in a southeasterly direction, and at the entrance to the
Cavalla, reaches to within 4°22' of the Equator. Curv¬
ing to the northeast from this point, the Guinea Coast
does not again approach the Equator until the delta of
the Niger. Cape Palmas, in the southernmost extremity
of Liberia, is mentioned again and again in accounts of
early African exploration. On the other hand, the river
Mano to the northward probably was the extreme limit
seen by Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, in his voyage
along the West Coast of Africa in approximately 500
B. C.
l
2
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
This particular Hanno, who was one of fourteen fa¬
mous members of that Carthaginian family, no doubt
saw the last crumbling ruins of a once great Negro civiliza¬
tion, of which natives paddling down the rivers sang.
According to Hanno, they gave accounts of a great em¬
pire that had tottered and fallen with the years.
Whatever boundaries, confines or customs were com¬
mon to that empire have been entirely blotted out by
time, for Liberia today is but 43,000 miles in extent,
and from time to time its territory has been lessened by
French and British inroads upon it. It is bounded on
the north and east by French possessions, and on the
west by the British Colony of Sierra Leone. To the south
is the Atlantic Ocean, on which the steamer track be¬
tween Europe and South Africa parallels the Liberian
seacoast. This long stretch of coastline gives Liberia an
enviable strategic position.
Liberian flora and fauna are peculiar to that country
and its immediate neighbors of Sierra Leone and the
Ivory Coast alone, so that the Republic differs materially
in its animal and plant life from the entire remainder of
West Africa. This is the more astonishing on account of
the fact that on the map the country does not seem to be
especially marked off from the other lands of the region.
In respect to its physical geography, Liberia consists
of the basin of the St. Paul’s River on the one hand, and
the more westerly portion of the Cavalla’s watershed,
together with a section of the rugged hill country which
forms the Mandingo Plateau, where the Moa, Mokona
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
3
or Sulima River finds its source. This large stream,
which is known by its first two names in Liberia, and
by the last in Sierra Leone, enters the sea within the
confines of that Colony.
The French have drawn the northern frontiers of
Liberia in such a fashion as to exclude the entire basin of
the Upper Niger from Liberia. The country itself
forms the southern section of the region which slopes
more or less gently to the sea from the abruptly rising
plateaux and ranges, from which the Niger, Senegal and
Gambia rivers flow in their respective directions.
On the maps of the ancients, and some of the more
modern charts, are found “ The Kong Mountains,”
rising on the northeastern frontiers of Liberia. These
peaks were invariably marked on all maps with the
portentous word, “ gold.” Many were the expeditions
which sought the range, and many were the legends
woven about it. At the present time, it is believed that
the Druple Range and the Nimba Mountains are the
“ Kong Peaks ” of history. Altitudes of from six to
ten thousand feet are reported by travelers in connection
with these ranges, which run northwestwards three
hundred miles from the sea to the headwaters of the
Upper Senegal. The Niger rises also in these mountains,
which are the highest to the west of the Cameroons.
Liberia’s seaboard of three hundred and fifty miles is
much indented, but in such a manner that no sheltered
anchorages or roadsteads are afforded for the protection
of coastwise vessels. A site for a good harbor is Mon-
4
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
rovia, the capital on Cape Mesurado, where the construc¬
tion of breakwaters and jetties, together with some dredg¬
ing work, would serve to establish a port of the first
importance in the West African maritime trade. Aside
from Monrovia, which is even now the best landing
place, there are several spots where disembarkation may
be effected more or less easily. Navigation of the rivers
by vessels of much draught is made impossible by the
enormous sand-bars, which block the entrance to every
stream of importance in the region.
CHAPTER II
Monrovia and the Liberian Region
Monrovia, the capital, is again fortunate in being
only ten days out from Southampton, Liverpool and other
British ports by English liners maintaining only a fair
rate of speed. A good deal of the seaboard is dotted
with sharp rocks and reefs, which lie near the surface
and render coastwise navigation rather dangerous.
Before the World’s War of 1914-1918, English and
German liners made the direct run to Monrovia every
two weeks.
Liberia was formed by its colonists into an independent
republic in 1847, and during the next two years, was
recognized by most of the great powers except the United
States. Until 1857, it consisted virtually of two re¬
publics, Liberia and Maryland, which amalgamated in
that year.
At various times, Liberia has been involved in disputes
with France, England, and the indigenous natives of the
region. These latter Negroes, who are uncivilized,
number over two millions, and form the bulk of the
population. Twelve thousand American-Liberians are
the governing class, and the remainder of the voting
population consists of thirty or forty thousand civilized
Christian Liberians of native origin.
5
6
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
The American colonists may only take residence
along parts of the coast line and about the mouths of the
St. Paul’s and Cavalla rivers. Therefore, except for
a narrow belt of cleared land all along the seaboard,
Liberia is thickly forested. This is not true of the ex¬
treme North of the Republic, for there the dense tropical
growths give way to a mountainous country covered
with grass and thinly scattered trees. This open growth
is more or less caused by the action of the Mohammedan
tribes in clearing the forest lands for planting and the
importation of cattle and horses.
The densest forest of the region is the Gora, which is
regarded as being nearly wholly uninhabited. It ex¬
tends about six thousand square miles between the
British frontier and the Po hills.
It is on account of these forests and tropical jungles,
which contain many varieties of palms and bamboos,
besides other trees of more rarity, that the hinterland of
Liberia is so little explored. The nature of the land
itself is rugged and rises abruptly in certain sections to
mountains of considerable height.
There is a large salt lake or lagoon lying between Cape
Palmas and the Cavalla River, but except for this and a
few others, there have been no discoveries made of any
sizable lakes. The coast, itself, has few lagoons and
marshes compared to the neighboring seaboards of Sierra
Leone and the Ivory Coast. In fact, the capes and
headlands of the region oftentimes rise abruptly from
the sea. Cape Mount towers almost sheer in some
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
7
places for 1,050 feet, while Capes Mesurado and Palmas
are inferior in actual height.
Liberia’s rainfall and climate is equatorial. The
mean precipitation is about a hundred inches per annum.
More than a hundred miles inland, the climate is not
so wet, and the weather is much cooler during the dry-
season, which extends from November until May. Tem¬
peratures near the coast range from around 75° to 105°,
while in the interior 56° is a low mark.
CHAPTER III
The Topography of Liberia, and Its Flora and
Fauna. The “ Periplus ” of Hanno
Much of the fauna of Liberia is that of a far-distant
period of development; examples of which are found
fossil in the caves of certain lands in Europe. Among
the mammals, the pigmy hippopotamus and the zebra
antelope are common to this region. Several interesting
local developments of the Diana monkey are also found
in the dense forests, as are several peculiar varieties of
reptiles. The brilliantly colored red and blue lizard
is common to Eastern Liberia, as is the giant scorpion
to the forests. Those common pests of Equatorial
Africa, white ants and mosquitoes, are almost entirely
absent from the country.
Exploration and development of Liberia has been
largely curtailed by the forest growths, which have al¬
lowed the inhabitants to remain in a far more backward
condition of civilization than have the tribes of other
sections of Africa.
Owing to this fact, the mineral resources of Liberia
are at present almost entirely unfathomed. The sand of
nearly every river of importance contains some propor¬
tion of gold, and garnets and mica are common. From
the volcanic range of the Finley mountains, some dia-
8
*
President D. E. Howard
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
9
monds have been taken. Iron is present nearly every¬
where, and sapphires have been found.
The “ Periplus ” of Hanno gives a probably authentic
account of how and when the first white men visited
Liberia. Setting forth from Carthage about 520 B. C.
for purposes of exploration and colonization, his ships
skirted the North and West coasts of Morocco, until
the mouth of the Rio De Oro was reached. Here he
began the settlement of Kerne Island.
Passing the inlet of the Senegal, Cape Verde, and what
is now Sierra Leone, his vessels apparently followed the
coast as far as Cape Palmas, although some accounts
say the voyage was ended at Cape Mount.
Sherbro Island was made a stopping place, and here,
Hanno says, his seamen captured hairy and grotesque
appearing women, whom they called gorillas. Some
historians consider that these “ women ” were merely
specimens of the chimpanzees which still range the jungle
along the Liberian Coast. Others believe that the ac¬
count of Hanno is substantially true, and that female
savages of an undeveloped and primitive type may have
been found.
Luckily for the pages of history, Hanno and his fleet
returned safely to Carthage despite adverse winds, and
the usual maritime difficulties and delays of those times.
After his arrival, he wrote an exhaustive history of his
voyage, which was transferred to tablets and set up in
the temple of a Carthaginian god. Shortly afterwards,
translations into the Greek language were made, and
10
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
accounts of the epoch-making voyage were given by
several early historians.
Hanno especially mentions the sheets of flame which
swept over the grass plains at the end of the rainy season,
and was apparently much impressed and startled by the
sight of Mount Kakulima wrapped in fire from crest to
base. The practice of burning the grass and brush at
this time of year is still continued in the West African
coast lands.
Great traders and seamen as the Carthaginians were,
it is extremely likely that they made other and uncharted
voyages to the West African coast, purely for purposes of
trade. There is a complete dearth of information regard¬
ing these voyages in the works of either Greek or Roman
geographers until after 200 A. D.; but without doubt
the Liberian tribes traded indirectly with the merchants
of the Mediterranean at that time, possibly through the
desert tribes.
,
Warriors op Early Days
4
«
*
#■
CHAPTER IV
Early Expeditions to Liberia
For a thousand years, intercourse between the Mediter¬
ranean peoples and the Negroes of the Equatorial West
Coast was apparently broken off. In the tenth century,
Senegal was invaded by Arab hordes, who had been
sweeping victoriously across the Sahara under the banner
of Islam, since 640 A. D., when Kale and his desert
tribes surged into Egypt.
Tripoli, Mauritania, and the regions of the Upper
Niger had been invaded by 1200, and the tide of Islam
then broke down the barriers along the Atlantic Coast,
and swirled about Lake Tchad on the one side and the
mouth of the Senegal on the other. On the upper half
of that river, there is still existent a town named after
Kale.
Preceding the march of the desert tribes, there was a
great religious movement of Islamized natives from Mo¬
rocco to the Upper Niger. Some echo of this great
Asiatic invasion may have reached Liberia; but the
next appearance of white men in the country is told in
the presumably legendary account of the journey of a
Spanish mendicant friar, and certain members of the
Franciscan order in 1230. In his expedition to the
Canary Islands, nearly two hundred years later, De
11
12
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Betencourt is said to have obtained proof of this early
journey for exploration and conversion. From Mo¬
rocco, overland to the Mandingo Plateau, and then
towards the Liberian Coast is the supposed route of the
Spanish brothers.
Another traditional expedition is that of the Dieppois
merchant-adventurers, who may have reached the Li¬
berian seaboard in the fourteenth century. In 1700 the
French claimed that these Norman seamen had not only
explored the coast-lands, but had established settle¬
ments at Grand Basa and Cape Mount, as well as at
other points. No absolute proof has yet been offered,
however, to prove that the Portuguese were not the first
white men to reach the coast. In 1455 and 1456, what
is now Portuguese Guinea was visited by Luigi Ca’ da
Mosto, a Venetian mariner in the service of Prince Henry
the Navigator, whose previous explorations had opened
up the sea route to the Far East. Ca’ da Mosto saw the
mouth of the Senegal and discovered Cape Verde and
the Cape Verde Islands, but got no farther to the South
than the Bisagos group of Islands.
Ca’ da Mosto is noted not only for his bold voyage of
exploration, but also for his clear and concise account
of the tribes and geography of the part of Africa which he
visited. Ca’ da Mosto seems to have been something
of an author as well as a skilful navigator, for he wrote
a vivid account of the voyages and travels of a fellow
captain of^the Portuguese Navy, Pedro de Sintra. De
Sintra was sent out by King Alfonso V, and opened his
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
13
career by giving the name “Sierra Leone” to what is now
the British colony of virtually the same name. The
Portuguese rendering of the name is “ lion-like mountain
range,” and da Mosto states that this appellation was
due to the roaring of the surf on the coast. Before de
Sintra’s time there is a record of a voyage made by
one Diego Gomez of the same service, but he unfortu¬
nately had no historian to chronicle his travels.
Continuing on beyond Sierra Leone, de Sintra reached
as far as the River Marshall, called in the ancient ac¬
counts “ River Junk,” which lies between Monrovia and
Grand Basa. De Sintra also gave names to the bold
headland of Cabo do Monte (Cape Mount) and, near
Monrovia, Cape Mesurado. Several reasons have been
assigned for the latter name, which appears to mean
either “ measured,” “ miserable ” or “ calm.” This
latter meaning may have had something to do with the
peacefulness of the natives, for da Mosto calls it “ Cape
Cortese ” in his Italian narrative.
During a lapse of seventy years in the French voyages
on the Atlantic, the Portuguese obtained a strong foot¬
hold on the Gulf of Guinea and asserted their advantage
of priority for nearly a hundred years.
With these mariners, Christopher Columbus made
several voyages to Guinea, before his epoch making cruise
to “ The New World.” His connection with Liberian
history lies in the fact that in all probability he landed on
that coast when the caravels touched there for com¬
merce in pepper or to renew their water supply.
14
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
In order to maintain their sovereignty over the sur¬
rounding territory, the Portuguese erected forts at the
mouth of the River Gambia early in the sixteenth cen¬
tury, and toward the close of that era the English en¬
tered the field and built settlements for trade near Sierra
Leone. As Great Britain’s territorial acquisitions grew
rapidly, by the seventeenth century she was one of the
leading powers on the Gold Coast.
This constant influx of traders, particularly the
Portuguese and English, caused a trilingual speech in the
natives of the Liberian Coast, who were able to speak
the two foreign languages as well as their native tongue.
The chiefs and headsmen became particularly conversant
with this art, and at Cape Mount some of them could
speak Portuguese, Dutch, French and English with great
ease. As is today the case in the South Seas, a cosmo¬
politan or “pidgin” tongue was formed out of the Portu¬
guese and the native dialects, and was greatly used in the
territory between Cape Yerde and Cape Palmas. With
the waning of Portuguese dominion, this tongue became
based on “ pidgin ” English instead of Portuguese.
CHAPTER V
The Portuguese Influence on the West Coast
Seven years before Columbus set sail for America,
the Portuguese were filling their water casks in the Congo
River, and their hold was in large measure retained down
to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Portuguese
was the established language all through the Liberian
coastlands, for the early traders of that country inter¬
married with native women, and passed the European
tongue down to their offspring. Consequently even
in the nineteenth century, Portuguese-speaking Chris¬
tian mulattoes were to be found from the River Senegal
to the Gallinhas.
To mark the path of their superb seamanship, for
they sailed toy caravels down one of the most dangerous
coasts in the world, they named headlands and forelands
rivers and inlets and mountain peaks and ranges from
Morocco around the coast of Africa to the Red Sea.
Not only did they merely name the features of the coast,
but insured their dominion by bringing the Christian
religion to the natives. In 1491 their priests were say¬
ing mass on the Congo, and ten years later the results
had been so gratifying as to justify the appointment of
a native bishop for the district.
The greater number of the Portuguese colonies are now
15
16
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
gone from the West Coast, but the religion remained in
some measure and the place-names given by the sailors
from Oporto are still there. The Gallinhas was so named
on account of the multitude of domestic fowls in its
vicinity, and Cape Mount, Cape Mesurado, and the
rivers St. Paul and Junk are all survivals of ancient Portu¬
guese sovereignty. Then comes the Cess or Cestos River,
thus named on account of the fish weirs or baskets (ces¬
tos) which are to this day placed in the stream.
Cape Baixo and the Sanguin River were also given
their names by the Portuguese. The river’s name is
gleaned from the color of the red clay that floats down it
at time of flood, although there is an interesting tale of a
native maiden, whose love for a sailor led them both to
their death and subsequent burial in the river by a
native and his headsmen.
Few of the original native names were left by the
Portuguese. One example of these, the Sino settle¬
ments, still retain their tribal name. The Dewa River
was changed by the Portuguese for obvious reasons to
Rio Dos Escravos (River of Slaves), but now has returned
to the original appellation. The “ Grand Paris ” founded
by the adventurers from Dieppe is now Grand Sesters,
and Cape Palmas also takes its name from the Portuguese.
The Cavalla River is so called on account of the super¬
abundance of fish, particularly mackerel, that then and
now were found in this stream. Cavalla’s Portuguese
meaning is “ Mackerel.”
CHAPTER VI
The English on the West Coast and in
Liberia
In the fifteenth century, mariners of any race did not
sail up and down the treacherous West Coast for pleasure
merely nor to bring Christianity to the natives. Trade
was their object: trade in gold, in pepper, and later on,
in slaves. When the Dieppois came beating back into
their French haven, they brought with them two kinds
of “ Grains of Paradise ” or pepper, which they dis¬
covered in use by the Negroes of Sierra Leone and Li¬
beria. These “ Grains of Paradise / 7 which have lent
their name to the Grain Coast, are sometimes called
cardamons, or more often by the Moorish-Castilian name
malaguetta. They were first introduced into Europe
by the Moors, and almost immediately a thriving trade
in pepper sprang up all along the West Coast and greatly
increased the number of voyages of exploration to that
region.
Although the English mariners were quick enough in
following the Spanish explorers to America, they were
less enthusiastic about voyages to the African Coast. .
Indeed, the first Englishman on the West Coast coasted
down the seaboard as a sailor on a Portuguese ship.
In some manner, for he was travelling in disguise, he
17
18
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
penetrated the mysterious walled city of Benin, and
nearly lost his life in consequence. His safe return to
England caused British seamen to turn their eyes south¬
ward, and in 1553, they had begun an extensive trade in
pepper. The first expedition to fly the British flag was
composed of the ships Primrose and Lion , which left
Portland on August 12, 1553, under the command of
Antonio Anes Pinteado of Oporto, a former captain of
high rank in the Portuguese Navy, and a Captain Wind¬
ham. A pinnace called the Moon joined the expedition,
and their first landing was made at the Canary and Cape
Verde Islands. From these, they set sail for Liberia,
and entered the mouth of the Cestos River. Here a
division of opinion arose in the little fleet. Pinteado
wished to load up with pepper, and Windham was in
favor of finding nothing but gold.
Finally, Windham’s counsel prevailed, and the ships
sailed up the Benin River. Here the king promised a
great cargo of pepper, but delayed its arrival so long that
the seamen, unused to the climate, began to die from
fever at the rate of four and five a day. Windham be¬
came totally unbalanced, presumably from fever, en¬
gaged in a severe quarrel with Pinteado, and displaced
him as commander of the expedition. The latter died
on the way home. Thus the first British attempt at
discovery ended in disaster.
One year later (1554), Captain John Lok and two
“ gentlemen adventurers,” Sir George Barn and Sir
John York, set sail from London in the Trinity , the
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
19
Bartholomew and the John Evangelist. Experiencing
many dangers from hidden rocks, they were driven down
the coast until they passed Cape Mesurado in Liberia.
The next day they put in at the mouth of the Cestos
River, which, together with the coast, is carefully de¬
scribed in their log-book. They also called at the “Rio
Duke,” and described Cape Palmas as “ a fair high
land.” After a voyage lasting one year, these ships
returned safely to England with huge cargoes of gold,
ivory and pepper, for which they had traded all along the
Gold Coast.
In the year of their return, a third British expedition
dropped anchor in the river Cestos. This was com¬
manded by William Towerson, whose two ships, Harte
and Hinde, had left the Isle of Wight late in September.
Captain Towerson was much impressed by the Liberian
Coast, of which he said: “ The land full of woods and
great rocks high above the shore, and the billows beating
so that the seas brake upon the shore as white as snow,
and the water mounted so high that a man might easily
discern it four leagues off. On nearing the river St.
Vincent we met with divers boats of the country, small,
long, and narrow, and in every boat one man and no
more. We gave them bread, which they did eat and
were very glad. Directly before the mouth of it there lie
a ledge of rocks — so that a boat must run in along the
shore a good way between the rocks and the shore be¬
fore it come to the mouth of the river; and being within
it, it is a great river, and divers other rivers fall into it:
20
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
the going in to it is somewhat ill, because that at the en¬
trance the seas do go somewhat high; but being once
within, it is as calm as the St. John’s River that is found
in Florida.”
As to the inhabitants on this coast, “ They are mighty
big men, and go all naked, except something before their
privy parts” (much like the Igrotos of the Philippine
Islands), “ which is like a clout about quarter of a yard
long, made of the bark of trees, and yet it is like cloth.
Some of them, also wear the like upon their heads,
being painted with divers colors; but the most part of
them go bare-headed, and their heads are clipped and
shorn; and the most part of them have the skin of their
bodies traced with divers works in the manner of a
leather jerkin. The men and women go so alike that
one cannot know a man from a woman but by their
breasts.”
Towerson and his men evidently penetrated inland
some distance, for he speaks of the making of iron arrow
heads, which even then was in practice by the natives.
He must have been a scholar of sorts, for his collection
of the native words and phrases of that time is still
interesting to linguists. He mentions that goats, fowls,
and dogs were then found in the various villages, and
comments on the fact that there were no horses in that
part of the country. The unending forest growths and
jungles are also duly described in the interesting account
of his travels.
A year later, Towerson returned to Ireland with only
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
21
one ship. The Hinde had gone down in a great tropical
tornado off the Guinea coast. Towerson bought two
ships in Ireland and sailed into Bristol in the early part
of June. The lure of adventure must have been strong
in him, for in September of the same year he again left
England on an African cruise. Beaching Sierra Leone
and the mouth of the Cestos River, they arrived just
too late to see the first battle between ships of European
nations off this coast. Several French ships had fallen
in with a Portuguese squadron, and as the latter nation
had just decided to close the Gold Coast to foreign
traders, a sea-battle on a small scale resulted. In the
encounter, one of the Portuguese ships went down. In
spite of this clash of nations, Towerson’s second voyage
was a comparatively uneventful one. At several Li¬
berian rivers, he replenished his water supply, and finally
returned to England safely with a large cargo of ivory.
In 1577, he made his third and last voyage to the sea-
coast of Liberia.
Other English adventurers, lured from the explora¬
tion of the New World by the fabled riches of Africa,
visited Liberia immediately after Towerson’s voyages.
One, Robert Baker, set down his adventures in doggerel
rhyme, which is still extant. His jangling rhymes are
descriptive of a veritable argosy of adventure, for at the
outset, he had the misfortune to be present at the first
battle between black and white men on that section of
the coast.
The affray occurred after the Krumen, who inhabited
22
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
that particular region, had been accused of stealing
trade goods from a pinnace. The English unwisely
attempted to invade Kru territory, and were met by a
fleet of a hundred war canoes, hurriedly summoned from
up and down the neighboring coast. They used only
light darts against the arquebuses, arrows, and pikes
of the English, but in spite of their crude armament,
succeeded in putting the invaders to rout. The English
were forced to their boats, and raced down the river to
the open sea with the fleet of war canoes hard upon them.
The darts of the Krumen had done their work, for seven
Englishmen were severely wounded in the struggle.
The number of Kru casualties was never computed.
So ended the first inter-racial battle on Liberian soil.
Baker and his companions again landed on the coast
of Liberia, but engaged in no more affrays with the in¬
habitants. Theirs was a voyage of almost continual
excitement, for it had begun with a successful sea-fight
against a French pirate, and ended with their being
marooned on Liberian soil, when their ships departed
without them. Nine of these Englishmen found them¬
selves on a Liberian river, with no means of escape by
sea. After many hardships, they succeeded in reaching
the Gold Coast, where the Portuguese received them with
the utmost cruelty. They put up a stiff battle against
their oppressors, and succeeded in escaping to sea again.
Finally, they landed through the mountain-high surf
on the shores of an unknown Negro kingdom. Here, in
spite of the fact that they were treated with the greatest
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
23
kindness, six of the party died of fever. After some time,
the three survivors were taken on board a French vessel,
and thence to France.
In accordance with the usual custom of that country,
they were held in captivity for ransom. In the end the
trio, of which Baker was a member, safely returned to
England.
CHAPTER VII
Afkican Pkoducts
According to the tales of the Norman traders, whose
reported visitation to Liberia may or may not be founded
on fact, the “ uncivilized ” natives were really more
“ civilized ” at that time than at the present. 1 Portu¬
guese records also show that between 1460 and 1560, the
condition of the tribes along the Liberian seaboard was
better in that day than in the early nineteenth century,
when the repeated raids of the slave traders on the
coastal tribes did much to brutalize and impoverish
them.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, cattle, sheep,
goats and fowls were common throughout Liberia and
the neighboring territory of Sierra Leone. Agriculture
on no mean scale was also practiced by the inhabitants,
who seem to have been on a much higher plane of civiliza¬
tion than were the natives of the hinterland of Portuguese
Guinea, or the denizens of the Ivory Coast, who were
cannibals.
Products which the natives of Liberia had for trade
in those tribes consisted chiefly of gold, pepper, and
negro slaves, a number of whom came from Senegambia.
Other articles which the traders greatly desired were
i In 1460.
24
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
25
hides and ivory. The hides were taken from the large
colonies of seals, which, at that time, had rookeries along
the Sahara coast between Cape Bojador and the Senegal.
These were doubtless specimens of Monachus Albiventer,
and their skins were much in favor with the Portuguese,
who used to spend great parts of their voyages of ex¬
ploration in seal bunting. Indigo and civet perfume
were also in demand. The former came from the various
rivers of Guinea, and the scent bags of the civet cat were
found throughout Liberia as well as in Sierra Leone, and
along the course of the Senegal River. Civet perfume
was much used for two centuries, and live civet cats
were also in much demand. Despite the numbers
slaughtered, these animals are still prevalent in Liberia
today.
The so-called “ Ivory Coast ” produced less ivory
at that time than did Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Senegal
and the Gold Coast. During the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, however, the bulk of the ivory brought to the
coast for purposes of trade originated in either Sierra
Leone or Northern Liberia. At each trading post,
native chieftains would quite commonly produce a
hundred tusks at a time.
Ostrich feathers, gum, ambergris, and camwood were
also common articles of trade. The latter produces
vivid crimson dye, and for three centuries was in much
demand among the European peoples.
CHAPTER VIII
Arts and Crafts in Early Liberia
Arts and crafts of the Liberian natives during the early
explorations consisted of the weaving of cotton fabrics,
and work in iron, copper, bronze and brass. The crafts¬
men in bronze reached their greatest fame in still virtu¬
ally unknown Benin City, which produced remarkable
portraits on bronze. The latter metal was introduced
into West Africa by the Portuguese, who used it to supple¬
ment the common trade articles of mirrors, beads, brace¬
lets, kettles and blankets. The amazing and interesting
sculptural art of Benin is presumed to be entirely Negro,
without Egyptian influence.
Astonishing as it may seem, it was not the European
nations who sent cotton to Liberia at that time, for the
Africans actually exported their cotton fabrics to Portu¬
gal. To Islam is due the credit for introducing the art
of spinning and weaving to Africa, for as the Moham¬
medan tide of invasion swept steadily southward, the
Arabs divulged the secret of cloth manufacture, which
they had learned in India or other countries of the Far
East. From the banks of the Niger, the knowledge of
cotton fabrication spread to the regions about the
Senegal, and then into Guinea. Several species of the
genus Gossypium (cotton) are common to almost all
26
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
27
parts of Liberia, and in cultivated form are much like
the varieties grown by the American Indians before the
white men arrived. Small quantities of American cot¬
ton were brought home by Columbus in 1493, when in
Africa, the kings, chiefs and headmen of Liberia were
wearing short robes of colored cloth.
At the present time, spinning and weaving in Liberia
has been greatly curtailed by the importation of print
goods from England and Spain. Copper is today found
in the rocks of Liberia, but the natives have never shown
a disposition to work it, as other tribes in different
regions of the Dark Continent have done.
Iron, however, had been worked by the natives for
centuries before the white men came, as the various
tribes were obliged to fabricate their war spears as well as
more peaceful implements.
In the northern and western regions of Liberia the
Mohammedans introduced horses to the country, the
terrain in the plateau country being especially suited
to stock raising. On the seaboard, horses from Portugal
were brought on some of the first expeditions. Various
early explorers, however, comment on the fact that the
Liberians had an indigenous breed of their own.
Pigs were also imported by the Portuguese, for aside
from Abyssinia and Sennar, there are no species of wild
pig in Tropical Africa. The Potamochoerus, the red
bush or river pig of Central Africa, is in some degree
akin to the English domestic pig, and has been interbred
with the latter by the natives. This interbreeding has
28
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
been most successful, for the red river pigs are easily
domesticated, sometimes even to the extent of being
regarded as pets in native households.
The question of sugar is a rather complicated one.
The cane is supposedly not indigenous to Liberia, and
was first introduced either by the Mohammedan tribes,
who brought horses and rice into the country, or by the
Portuguese.
Before their trading expeditions to West Africa had
been continued for a century their caravels imported
the sugar-cane from Brazil. Several other and authenti¬
cated accounts state that sugar-cane was indigenous to at
least some portion of northwest Africa, and that the
Spaniards came to the Dark Continent for sugar-cane
to introduce in Hayti during the sixteenth century.
But from whatever source it came, the cane was growing
in Liberia by the seventeenth century.
It seems that European trade with the Liberian coast
was not an unmixed blessing, for the white men not only
introduced to West Africa all the diseases of Europe,
but kidnapped, cheated and corrupted the blacks all
along the sea coast. They taught nothing of the indus¬
trial arts, and the influence of the missionaries was weak.
The Portuguese fathers apparently taught neither reading
nor writing, but it is everlastingly to their credit that
they protested against the slave trade.
On the credit side of the ledger is the stimulus given
to native agriculture by the bringing of cultivated plants
to the Negro, and also the introduction of various domes-
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
29
tic animals of value for interbreeding and stock-raising
purposes.
The traders, sailors, soldiers, and captains, who
daringly sailed up and down one of the worst coasts in
the world in tiny vessels, were obviously all adventurers,
and quick-thinking, and often quick-tempered men.
They are also described as being intensely religious in
their speech, though not in all their principles or actions.
CHAPTER IX
The Dutch in Liberia
In that day, the Dutch were rated as seamen second
only to the English, and therefore, while the British
mariners were coasting down the Liberian seaboard,
the Dutch had snatched Arguin Island and another
islet near Cape Verde from the French. Seventy-seven
years later the French came back into power, and re¬
captured and renamed their lost possessions, but during
those seventy-seven years, the Dutch were no mean fac¬
tors in the West African trade.
Gold was, of course, the lure of first importance to the
Hollanders, although their tall ships periodically visited
the Grain Coast to obtain pepper. Indeed the coast
probably took its name from the Dutch word “ grain,”
which has the same meaning as its English equivalent.
Two voyages of note were made in 1611 and 1614
by one Samuel Braun, a Swiss in the Dutch service.
Braun’s initial trip to the Cameroons, the Congo and
Angola was so successful that he brought back to Hol¬
land a thousand pounds of gold and two tons of ivory.
This success called for another trip, so in 1616, he
again left Holland for the Ivory or “ Qua Qua ” coast
and called at Cape Mount, the Cestos River, and the
Kru coast in Liberia. His opinion of the Liberian na-
30
*
*
Dr. Edward
W. Blyden
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
31
lives may have been prejudiced by some treatment he
received, for he says concerning them:
“ The natives are cruel and bad people, though in
some places better than others, according to the way in
which foreign nations coming there to trade have treated
them.
Yet one nation is agreeable to them and beloved more
than others, — the French — who for such a long time
have frequented and travelled in this district. The
Portuguese in these present times come here but seldom.
Our Dutch nation is at one place more agreeable than
others; but from time to time, we have made ourselves
disliked by our rough ways, so that the Moors often try
to take their revenge on us.”
Braun bought much rice in the Grain Coast, and bar¬
tered coral beads for pepper. His two voyages were
admirably described by Hulsius, the historian, in 1620.
While the Dutch came for trade purposes, they ap¬
parently were more interested in the different tribes of
the country than were either the French or Portuguese.
A most comprehensive work on this subject by Dr. O.
Dapper, a Hollander, was published in Amsterdam in
1686. It proved an African geography of no small
value, and was printed in both Flemish and French.
Dapper tells us that then, as now, the Yai tribe wasamong
the most powerful, and at that time formed the ruling
class of Liberia.
The language of the coast tribes was that of the Folgia
people, and its dialects included the Quoja, Gebbe and
32
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Gola or Gora tongues. The Folgia, who seem to have
had some connection with the Kru tribe, were extremely
war-like, and fights between them and the Vai people
were continuously going on.
Throughout his geography, Dapper adheres strictly
to native place names, of which the Mafu River and the
Kondo tribe are modern survivals. In the south, as
today, lived the various Kru tribes: The De, Basa, Gibi
Grebo, etc.
The researches of Benjamin Anderson in 1868 dis¬
close that even at that late date the tribal regions had not
changed notably. He regards the “ Folgia ” race as
having been akin to the Kru people, and the Mambas
also to the Kru, through the De and Basa tribes. The
Gora tribe are the indigenes. Of the present tribes,
the Vai, Mende, and Mandingo are Mohammedans. The
Mandingoes have an almost European cast of feature,
and as a rule, the indigenes of Liberia are handsome and
well-proportioned Negroes.
Ivory has succeeded pepper as the leading article of
trade at the Cestos River, which seems to have been a
calling station for the Dutch vessels. A now unknown
town or trading-post mentioned many times in Dapper’s
account is Petit Dieppe, the location of which was near
the present Grand Basa. It was apparently of inferior
importance to the river Cestos, which was the headquar¬
ters and leading port for the entire pepper trade.
The Dutch sailors were amazed at the stature of the
Grebo and Mandingo men and classed them as “ giants.”
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
33
Dapper enumerates many of their feats of strength and
devotes some space to the history of the Karou,or modern
Kru peoples, who conquered the warlike and powerful
Vai tribes under the leadership of their chiefs, Sokwalla
and Sonikerri. First the Folgia went down before the
all-conquering Kru chieftains, and then the Gora and
Kwoya peoples were conquered.
The almost whirlwind advance of the Krus continued
into Sierra Leone, and ended with the victory over the
Dogo and Gibi tribes of the interior. Today, the Krus
are the seamen, not only of Liberia, but of the entire
West Coast, and form a large proportion of the sailors
employed on vessels in tropic waters.
The next authentic account of Liberian natives is
given by John Snoek, who sailed past the Grain Coast in
a yacht. According to him, ivory was already becoming
less abundant along the coast. Snoek also says that at
that time the coast women were “ nearly and sometimes
quite naked,” although the natives around Cape Mount
wore the Mohammedan garments of the Mandingoes.
He describes the inhabitants as being most hospitable,
and writes that near the present site of Monrovia the
natives lived fifty or sixty in one large house, divided
into two or three apartments. In spite of these rather
crowded conditions, guests were welcomed in these
“ hotels,” as the majority of the coast peoples were ex¬
tremely friendly to whoever visited their country.
The slave trade had just commenced, and its primary
cause is described as having been the almost incessant
34
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
warfare between the coast and interior tribes. Which¬
ever party was victorious, was always ready to sell the
prizes of war to white traders.
At this time, however, the slave trade, and inciden¬
tally the warfare, was stopped of necessity, when the
great plague of 1626 swept over the country. That
particular epidemic was caused by dysentery, which was
introduced into Sierra Leone by a Dutch trading vessel,
and ravaged that country and Northern Liberia for three
years.
Smallpox had already become common in the country,
and attained epidemic proportions at various times.
During Snoek’s voyage, the most powerful king in
the country was Mendi Manou, a Mandingo chief, who
had not adopted the practice of being called by a Euro¬
pean name. This was so common that Peters, Johns
and Jamses were found all over the coast. The “ court ”
language was a mixed dialect of Portuguese and English.
I
*
*
v
•*
„• * %
. Simpson President Joseph J. Roberts
CHAPTER X
Snoek’s Description of Liberia. The Chevalier
des Marchais
So high were the houses built about the trading-post
at the mouth of the Cestos, that they could be seen from
three miles out at sea. These were built with three or
four stories, and were higher than any others along the
coast.
In those days the Cavalla River formed the boundary
line of civilization. On the Cape Palmas side lived the
partially-civilized Krumen, and on the other, the canni¬
bal tribes of the Ivory Coast. To the East of the river,
the natives adopted the custom of sharpening their
front teeth to a point, probably to give an appearance of
great ferocity.
At the time of Snoek’s visit, the Liberian throne was
held by one of a long line of Captain Peters; as that
name was for some time common to the regents of
Mesurado. Trading in those days was fraught with
considerable danger when dealing with the Dutch and
English. Both the Europeans and the natives were
armed and hostages were exchanged.
Exactly opposite methods were used by the French,
who renewed their commerce with Liberia in the seven¬
teenth century. The trading was done with no precau-
35
36
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
tions on the part of the French, and on the other hand,
the natives visited French vessels without hesitation,
and there was a feeling of trustfulness on each side.
By this practice of dealing with the tribes, and treating
the natives as valued friends, the French obtained a
mighty and far-reaching hold over the West Coast.
In the eighteenth century, the colonial policies of
France and Holland were almost allied, and French
vessels began to call at the Dutch trading-posts. To
ascertain whether or not it would be profitable to
colonize the interior of Senegambia, France sent out
the Chevalier des Marchais in 1725. He brought back
to France a very complete description not only of
the conditions for colonization and trade, but also an
interesting and valuable account of the customs of the
natives of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
He says: “ The religion of the natives of Mesurado is
a kind of idolatry, ill understood, and blended with a
number of superstitions, to which, however, few of them
tenaciously cling. They easily change the object of
their worship and consider their fetishes only as a
kind of household furniture. The sun is the most
general object of their adoration; but it is a voluntary
worship, and attended with no magnificent ceremonies,
as was the case of the Aztecs in Mexico.
“ In the space of a few leagues are many villages
swarming with children. They practice polygamy, and
their women are very prolific. Besides, as those people
deal no further in slaves than by selling their convicted
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
37
criminals to the Europeans, the country is not depopu¬
lated like those in which princes continually traffic in
their subjects. The purity of the air, the goodness of
the water, and the abundance of every necessary of
life all contribute to people this country.
“ The natives are of large size, strong, and well pro¬
portioned. Their men are bold and martial, and their
neighbors have often experienced their intrepidity, as
well as those Europeans who attempted to injure them.
They possess genius, think justly, speak correctly, know
their own interests, and, like their ancient friends the
Normans, recommend themselves with address and
even with politeness. Their lands are carefully culti¬
vated, they do everything with order and regularity, and
they labor vigorously when they choose.
“ Their friendship is constant ; yet their friends must
beware of making free with their wives, of whom they
are very jealous. But they are not so jealous with re¬
spect to their daughters, who have an unbounded
liberty, which is so far from impeding their marriage
that a man is pleased at finding that a woman has some
independence. Her lover is obliged to give her parents
a present when he marries her. They tenderly love their
children, and a sure and quick way to gain their friend¬
ship is to caress their little ones and to make them trifling
presents.
“ Their houses are very neat. The kitchens are some¬
what elevated above the ground, and of a square or
oblong figure; three sides are walled up, and the fourth
38
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
side is left open, being that from which the wind does not
commonly blow. They place their posts in a row, and
cement them together with a kind of fat, red clay, which
without any mixture of lime makes a strong and durable
mortar. Their bed chambers are raised three feet above
the ground. This would seem to indicate that the
country is marshy or sometimes inundated, but this is
by no means the case. The soil is dry, and they take
care to build their houses beyond the reach of the greatest
floods, but experience has taught them that this eleva¬
tion contributes to health, by securing them from the
damps caused by the copious dews.
“ The women work in the fields, and kindly assist one
another. They bring up their children with great care,
and have no other object but to please their husbands.
The men, much like most men of the orient, work but
little.
“ The extent of King Peter’s dominions towards the
north and northeast is not well known; but from the
number of his soldiers, there is reason to believe it is
considerable. The eastern boundary is the river Junco,
about twenty leagues from Cape Mesurado, and the
western is a little river, about half way from Cape Mount.
“ The country is extremely fertile. The natives have
gold among them; but whether found in this country
or brought thither in the course of trade is not precisely
known. The country produces fine redwood, and a
quantity of other beautiful and valuable woods. Sugar
cane, Indigo, and cotton grow without cultivation.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
39
The tobacco would be excellent if the people were skilful
in curing it. Elephants, and consequently ivory, are
more numerous than the natives wish; for these cum¬
brous animals very much injure their corn fields, not¬
withstanding the hedges and ditches with which they
so carefully fence them. The frequent attacks of
lions and tigers hinder not their cattle from multiply¬
ing rapidly; and their trees are laden with fruit, in
spite of the mischief done to them by the monkey tribe.
In a word, it is a rich and plentiful country, and well
situated for commerce, which might be carried on here
to any extent by a nation beloved like the French; for
no nation must think of establishing themselves here by
force.”
The result of King Peter’s having given Bushrod
Island, in the estuary of the St. Paul’s, to the Chevalier
des Marchais was that he formulated a scheme for the
establishment of a French colony at Cape Mesurado.
This was laid before the Senegal Company, and if it had
been carried out, a French settlement might have com¬
pletely anticipated Liberia. The Chevalier, after care¬
ful consideration of the actual plateau on which Monro¬
via is now built, wrote: “ Clay fit for bricks abounds
everywhere, and even stone proper for ashlar work.
Building timber grows on the spot, and the common
country provisions are extremely cheap. Except wine,
brandy, and wheat flour, which the company must
supply, everything else is to be had on the spot. Beef,
mutton, goats, and hogs cost little, and game abounds.
40
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Antelopes and deer graze quietly with the tame cattle
in the meadows. There are many species of birds.
The basin (i. e. the lagoon), the rivers, and the sea afford
plenty of fish and turtles. No river on the coast is as
much frequented by the sea-horses as the Mesurado.
The flesh of these animals is good, and their teeth are
whiter and harder than those of the elephant.”
Unfortunately for France, the Chevalier’s scheme of
colonization was frowned upon.
From the very first, French travellers showed more
interest in the condition of the natives than did the other
trading nations. Grandpierre was so impressed by
his exploration of the River Cestos in 1726, that he wrote
concerning it:
“ My ambition is to be powerful and rich enough to
fit out a large fleet, filled with able and intelligent people,
to make a conquest of this fine country, and change
its nature by introducing the best social laws and
knowledge.”
Evidently the system of Grandpierre as regards treat¬
ment of the natives was not followed out, for in 1730,
English slave-traders reported that there was not a single
European trader left on the Northern Coast of Liberia.
The cause of this was the practice of kidnapping by
Dutch and English, which had left the natives so hostile
that the coast was unsafe for any white man.
For twenty years in the early part of the eighteenth
century, these northern shores of Liberia were nests of
pirates. Both Spanish and English buccaneers preyed
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
41
about equally on the commerce by sea and the natives
by land.
The slave trade brought countless European expedi¬
tions to the West Coast throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and while the Dutch built up a
large and profitable trade in slaves, they oddly enough
preferred dealing for natives on the Gold Coast, leaving
the Grain Coast entirely to the French, English and
Spaniards. It was long after the slave trade was over,
and indeed but a few years after the establishment of
Liberia as a Republic that the Hollanders came back.
At present the Dutch commercial houses are among the
most respected in the country.
Natives of two European countries, Sweden and Den¬
mark, at different times, advocated settlements on Capes
Mesurado and Mount. The Swede, Ulrik Norden-
skiold, wished to develop sugar plantations, and the
Dane, J. Rask, declared that there was an abundance of
gold in the country between the two capes.
At this time, however, the slave trade was the leading
consideration of the four great trading countries, and
neither of their schemes bore fruit. For several reasons,
Liberia felt the slave trade only lightly. In the first
place, the natives of the Kru coast did not prosper
in slavery, and refused to work under such conditions.
Therefore, they and their savage neighbors on the Ivory
Coast were largely left alone. Northern Liberia was
much more infested with slavers.
CHAPTER XI
The Beginnings of the Slave Trade
As the slave trade was largely instrumental in the
formation of the Liberian Republic, it should be con¬
sidered at least in its relation to the countries of northwest
Africa. Oddly enough, the church was in large measure
responsible for the' action of the slavers in bringing
Negroes from Africa to America.
Since the natives of the Antilles did not prosper under
the treatment of the Spaniards, the Bishop of Chiapa
in Hispaniola (Haiti), Bartholomew de las Casas, came
to Spain in 1517, and protested to the Emperor Charles
V against the cruel methods taken to subjugate the West
Indian indigenes.
He proposed that the West African coast Negroes
should be imported directly into the West Indies as
slaves. As this was in thorough agreement with the
previous plans of the young emperor, he very graciously
agreed to the proposition. He could well do so, for a
year before he had “ licensed ” certain Flemish cour¬
tiers to ravage the West African coast for slaves.
One of the largest contracts entered into was with a
follower of the court, Lebrassa, who was to supply each
year four thousand Negroes to the Spanish Islands in
the West Indies. Lebrassa sold his rights to a merchant
42
African Musicians
Wash Day of the Aborigines
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
43
of Genoa, who in turn contracted with the Portuguese
for the supply of blacks.
On account of the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander VI,
issued in 1493, and described as an order of “ Demarca¬
tion,” the Spaniards were prevented from invading
Portuguese territory on the West Coast, and were thus
obliged to secure their slaves through the Portuguese
traders.
As the time went on, they required more and more
slaves for work in the mines of Haiti, but the trade did
not attain much proportion until the last of the six¬
teenth century. This was in spite of the fact that as
early as 1510, King Ferdinand of Spain was buying
slaves from the Portuguese, who obtained them on the
Liberian seaboard. They were sent to San Domingo,
where even in 1502 African slaves were hard at work.
Most of these early arrivals had been converted to
Christianity.
Soon after the trade began, the English became the
worst offenders in slavery. The first British conces¬
sion for Negro slaves to be exported to the West Indies
was taken up by Sir John Hawkins in 1562. Hawkins,
who was a famous seaman, besides being a privateer
and something of a pirate, made three voyages to the
region between the Gambia and Northern Liberia.
He obtained many slaves from Sierra Leone.
On the third and last of these voyages, the man who
became the most famous admiral^England everjiad,
Francis Drake, who was then about twenty years of
44
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
age, was included in the ship’s company. Drake had
virtually been adopted by his kinsman, Hawkins, and
this was the first of several voyages they made together.
Liberia was largely spared by Hawkins, who, on one
voyage, collected more than two hundred slaves at
Elmina by joining in a tribal war.
Other British traders periodically descended on the
Liberian seaboard, and made slaves of whatever natives
they could find. Indeed in the eighteenth century, the
English were so hated all up and down the Gold Coast,
that one man was obliged to represent himself as a
Frenchman, when his expedition visited Liberia.
In his writings concerning the Grain Coast, the afore¬
mentioned Chevalier des Marchais states that, in this
region, the natives readily turned from human sacrifices
to selling their captives into slavery, when they dis¬
covered the profit which could be made.
After the year 1730, not one European dared remain
in any part of Liberia, so hostile were the natives.
Added to all the ravagers of the Liberian coast, rivers
and marches, were the English and Spanish pirates,
who again and again scudded to and from their landing
places in the search for slaves.
After a time in the early part of the eighteenth cen¬
tury, the risks taken by these buccaneers in penetrating
the Liberian hinterland became so great, that they en¬
tirely abandoned the Grain Coast, and turned their at¬
tentions to Sierra Leone, the Dahomey Coast (also known
as the Slave), the Niger delta, Old Calabar, Loango
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
45
and the Congo District. The latter region and the
mouth of the Niger suffered the most from the ravages
of the slavers.
In addition to the risks involved in landing on the
Liberian Coast, the slaves secured in this section never
brought high prices in the slave market. The Yais
were Mohammedans, and were too proud to labor under
a slave-driver, while the Des and Basa did not flourish
in captivity, and frequently died on the voyages. On
the other hand, the Krus, while excellent fighters and
well content to carry on a slave trade of their own, vio¬
lently objected to personal slavery, and, indeed, pre¬
ferred suicide to enforced labor in the West Indies or
America.
From the very first, European advocates of the slave
trade were prolific in arguments as to how slavery bene¬
fited its victims. The contention of many English and
Continental writers of the seventeenth century, that
servitude gave the blacks an excellent opportunity to
become civilized as well as to embrace the Christian
religion, does not hold water.
Strange as it may seem, the sanitary arrangements
in the various West African coast towns were equal to
those of Europe. Their cooking was even more appetiz¬
ing than that prevailing on the Continent, and in respect
to clothing (taking the climate into consideration), they
were quite on a level with the people of England and
Europe. Their apparently inherent good taste in dress
was even more pronounced than it now is, and agricul-
46
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
ture, in like manner, seems to have been much more
advanced and extended than at the present time. Live
stock raising was also more developed than now.
One nation alone furnished no apologists for its slave¬
trading activities. It is to the credit of the Dutch that
they indulged in no sanctimonious humbug about civiliz¬
ing or “ Christianizing ” the slaves. They regarded the
whole affair as a mere commercial transaction, and in¬
dulged in no religious or moral propaganda whatever.
They were far superior to all the other nations in the
methods and conditions of their overseas transport,
though they seem to have had little regard for their
charges afterward. On the other hand, the Portuguese
who are reputed to have given the best all-around treat¬
ment to their slaves, began by kidnapping the Negroes
from coast villages instead of buying them, and trans¬
ported them under extremely bad conditions.
However, once in the Portuguese possessions, the cap¬
tives were made into Roman Catholics, and were well
treated to a fault. No ignominious servitude nor cruel
treatment was accorded them. Despite their reputation
for exacting hard labor from their Negroes, the almost
fanatical religious sense that animated the Spaniards
assured the slaves in their colonies of at least fair treat¬
ment. Third in respect of kindliness to slaves were the
Danes, whose trading was done in a comparatively
small way.
The French and English footed the list, and yet it
was English-speaking people who began the campaign
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
47
against slavery and the slave trade. This, at first highly
unpopular movement, was sponsored by the Quakers.
Their first move towards abolition was contained in an
anti-slavery address of George Fox in Barbadoes.
The Protestants, and more particularly the Non¬
conformists, next fell into line, and feeling grew so high
among the Lutherans of Germany, Denmark, and Swe¬
den, that in 1792 the Danes officially renounced the slave
trade. Their stand was followed by similar action by
the United States two years later, by Great Britain in
1807, Sweden in 1813, Holland in 1814, and France in
1815-18.
Carl Berns Wadstrom, a citizen of Sweden, in 1787,
wrote in his Essay on Colonization, an excellent and
truthful account of one Ormond, who may be taken as
a fair example of the slave trader of 1790. He says:
“ The following is a sketch of the origin, progress,
and end of a European slave trader who lately died at an
island near Sierra Leone, and who seems to have at¬
tained to a degree of ferocity and hardness of heart pro¬
portionate to his success in that bloody traffic.
“ He went from England about thirty-five years ago
(i. e. about 1758) as a cabin boy to a slave ship, and was
retained as an assistant at a slave factory at Sierra Leone
River. There he acquired a knowledge which qualified
him for setting up a slave factory afterwards for himself
in a neighboring part towards the north (Rio Pongo),
and though unable to write or read, he became an expert
slave trader, so much so that he realized about $150,000.
48
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
His cruelties were almost incredible. Two persons who
seem to have had good means of information give the
following account of them. One of them, who lived for
a time near Ormond said he knew it to be a fact that he
used to tie stones to the necks of his unsaleable slaves,
and drown them in the river during the night; and that
his cruelty was not confined to blacks, for, being offended
by a white agent one Christmas day, when drinking
freely with some company, he made his slaves tie up the
European, and gave him, with his own hands, four hun¬
dred lashes, from which he died in a few days.”
Finally, his destruction of a town of the Bagos, a war¬
like tribe who lived near his factory, caused a native
war to be proclaimed against him. His establishment
was burned to the ground, and his son and adherents
were put to death. Ormond was at Isle de Los at the
time, and so escaped. He died about a month later.
CHAPTER XII
The Founding of Sierra Leone
In the year 1786, about four hundred Negro ex-slaves
from Nova Scotia were sent together with sixty irre¬
claimable London prostitutes to Sierra Leone. This
rather peculiar combination was to begin a new life in,
and incidentally form, the British colony of Sierra Leone.
Five years later eleven hundred and thirty-one more
Nova Scotia blacks were sent out, so successful had the
British Sierra Leone Company’s sagacious mixture of
pure philanthropy and shrewd business acumen proved.
Two years later a French squadron bombarded the
settlement and destroyed much of it, and in 1807 the
British rather tardily began to appreciate the strategic
value of Sierra Leone Harbor, and formed the whole
into a Crown Colony with a Governor at its head.
After 1833, when British men-of-war began to swoop
down on the slavers in an attempt to destroy the entire
trade, whole ship-loads of freed slaves were literally
dumped in Sierra Leone, regardless of whatever their
native country might be. Consequently, about every
tribe of every country on the West Coast is represented
among its inhabitants, and from Nyasaland, the Upper
Congo, the Lower Congo, Bornu, Wadai, Shari, Benue,
and the Niger, the suddenly freed slaves were deposited
49
50
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
in Sierra Leone. They for years manifested a very
clannish disposition, and Congos and Ibos hated each
other far more than they ever did the white men.
Add to this fact that the abundant native population
of the colony in turn hated almost all the colonists, and
you have the reason why wars and rumors of wars agi¬
tated Sierra Leone for a full hundred years.
Today the hinterland of Sierra Leone is described as
“ a country every whit as undeveloped as the Congo
swamps of Central Africa.” This is not the statement
of a casual traveller, but is contained in the report of a
British governor.
Aside from the Sierra Leone Government railway,
which is two and a half feet wide and two hundred and
seventy-seven miles long, there is not much progress
shown for a century of colonization.
The railway is the pride of the West Coast, and Free¬
town is said to have the best harbor on the entire Guinea
seaboard, but the constant friction of the various tribes
has prevented that development which would naturally
be expected of such a country.
■ ' '• •• Sgm 5
Jehttdi Ashmun
I
f
CHAPTER XIII
Origin and Founding of the Liberian
Republic
However, the founding of Sierra Leone was in large
part responsible for the formation of the Liberian Repub¬
lic. Much interest was felt in America concerning the
work of the British philanthropists during 1794, and this
interest led for the founding of the American Coloniza¬
tion Society in 1816.
At the end of the eighteenth century slavery was
becoming less favored in the United States; Vermont
abolishing the practise in 1777, and most of the Northern
states following suit. By an act of Congress in 1794,
American ships were forbidden to participate in the
slave trade, and in 1808 the importation of African
slaves into any state was prohibited.
Washington had freed his slaves, and this created a
precedent. Many American planters followed his lead,
and in a short while the problem of what to do with
the “ free ” black man was looming up before the coun¬
try. Alleging that mere freedom in an alien land was
hardly a great privilege for the African slaves, various
philanthropists in the United States urged that a system
of repatriation be adopted.
It was put forward that not only would this be ade-
51
52
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
quate reparation for the injuries done the black race,
but that inestimable benefits would be conferred on
Africa by establishing a small nucleus of Christian and
civilized natives on that continent.
For these ends the American Colonization Society
was created in 1816. Both the North and South were
largely represented; for Elijah Caldwell and Robert
Finley, whose name has been given to a Liberian moun¬
tain range, had proposed the society at a meeting held
in the Capitol at Washington, and attended by President
Clay.
Finley was elected vice-president and Caldwell secre¬
tary when the Society was formally constituted. Bush-
rod Washington occupied the position of president, and
Francis Key was second vice-president.
The initial meeting took place one year after
Richard Allen organized the African Methodist Epis¬
copal Church, which ever since that time has been
interested in Liberian colonization.
Sierra Leone was first considered as a suitable region
for Negro emigrants, but the British, who controlled
the country, did not share in the enthusiasm. In 1818,
a commission under Mill and Burgess went to Sierra
Leone and found conditions most favorable. Their
report impelled three white Americans, Rev. Samuel
Bacon, John P. Bankson, and Dr. S. Crozer, to start for
Sierra Leone with eighty-eight Negroes in 1820.
Upon the arrival of the party on the ship Elizabeth ,
the Governor of Sierra Leone became suspicious that
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
53
some ulterior motive actuated the colonizing scheme.
Possibly he may have feared an attempt to raise the
Stars and Stripes over His Imperial Majesty’s Domin¬
ions. At any rate, the reception met by the colonists
was the forerunner of many succeeding bickerings be¬
tween Liberia and Great Britain.
Macarthy refused to let the emigrants land, claiming
that there was no room on the Sierra Leone peninsula
for Bacon’s ex-slaves. Therefore, the Elizabeth sailed
off to find another spot as favorable for inaugurating
the experiment of colonization.
She took a southward course, and a landing was
effected on Sherbro Island. Here an attempt was made
to start a settlement or trading post, but the land proved
so unhealthy that in a few weeks all the whites and
twenty-two of the black settlers had succumbed to
tropical fever of a most virulent type. As the leaders
were dead, Daniel Coker and Rev. Elijah Johnson took
entire command of the diminished party and returned to
Fura Bay in Sierra Leone to wait for assistance.
In a short period of time the United States brig,
Nautilus , scudded into Fura Bay and dropped anchor.
On board were Rev. Ephraim Bacon and his wife, and
Joseph Andrus, J. B. Winn and Christian Wiltberger.
A small number of Negro colonists were included in the
ship’s company, and stores and provisions were also
brought. These proved more than welcome to the first
expedition, which was still marooned in Fura Bay.
Then the question again arose as to a proper spot for
54
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
colonization. Cape Mesurado was, of course, regarded
as the best site, but the local chiefs did not at all wel¬
come the idea. After that project was given up, a
landing was made at Grand Basa, where the natives
proved more friendly.
The climate was poor, however, and Bacon, Winn and
Andrus were forced to return to America after a bout
with fever. Back again came Captain Stockton, who
commanded the Elizabeth, with Dr. Eli Ayres. After
the latter’s arrival, Wiltberger took command of the
expedition, while Ayres and Stockton returned to Cape
Mesurado.
Andrus was already there, and was busily dickering
with the native chiefs concerning land purchases.
He had no success, but the intercession of John Mill,
a mulatto trader, materially assisted Ayres and Stock-
ton in their negotiations with the De chief.
For an astounding price, one hundred and thirty
miles of seacoast was purchased. This strip of land was
to be everywhere forty miles broad, and was forever
reserved for the settlement of American freed slaves.
On December 15th, 1821, the bargain was struck.
The future site of Monrovia was also included in the
transaction, and it must be admitted that the De and
Mamba chiefs, Peter, George, Yoda, and Long Peter,
got the worst end of an extremely bad bargain. For this
large tract of land Ayres paid to the chiefs about fifty
dollars’ worth of trade goods. They were as follows:
Six muskets, one small barrel of powder, six iron bars,
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
55
ten iron pots, one barrel of beads, two casks of tobacco,
twelve knives, twelve forks and twelve spoons, one small
barrel of nails, one box of tobacco pipes, three looking-
glasses, four umbrellas, three walking-sticks, one box of
soap, one barrel of rum, four hats, three pairs of shoes,
six pieces of blue baft, three pieces of white calico.
In addition, the purchasers bound themselves to pay
when they could: six iron bars, twelve guns, three barrels
of powder, twelve plates, twelve knives, twelve forks,
twenty hats, five barrels of salt beef, five barrels of salt
pork, twelve barrels of ships’ biscuit, twelve glass de¬
canters, twelve wineglasses, and fifty pairs of boots.
This promised payment, was, however, never made,
and the Mesurado chiefs complained long and loudly.
Some of their complaints took the shape of spears and
poisoned darts. Whatever they thought they were
bargaining for, they certainly did not realize that they
were selling their country.
Probably the colonists justified the ridiculous bargain
by the thought that they would never expel the natives
from their holdings. As might be expected from such
a one-sided transaction, trouble at once began. Bushrod
Island was the bone of contention, and here the natives
gained the first victory.
This small tract of fertile land lying between the St.
Paul’s River, Stockton Creek and Mesurado Bay was
much desired as a place for settlement by the colonists.
The natives objected and fiercely prevented the Afro-
Americans from landing. After this initial disappoint-
56
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
ment and defeat, the eighty Negro and two white colon¬
ists set up a small settlement on Perseverance Island.
This was an islet, low and unhealthy, in Mesurado
Lagoon. The one settlement on the island, Kingstown,
was formed by the factory of John Mill, the mulatto
slaver. Again he aided the colonists in various ways,
and thereby perpetuated his name, which is found in
Millsburg, a town on the St. Paul’s River.
Disheartened by the repeated failures attending the
expedition, Ayres proposed to again attempt a settle¬
ment at Sierra Leone. Fortunately for Liberia, Wilt-
berger favored building on the high land of the Mesurado
Cape. His project was strongly supported by Elijah
Johnson, whose impassioned speech in answer to Ayres,
“Two years long have I sought a home; here I have found
one, here I remain! ” is famous in the annals of Liberia.
Faithful to his plan, Ayres left for Sierra Leone, and
the energetic Wiltberger assumed sole command of the
party. He daringly led his handful of colonists into the
Mesurado Cape, and hurriedly felled trees and made
slight fortifications. In a short time, his exertions
brought on fever, which forced him to return home.
Then it was Johnson’s turn to assume leadership.
Eighty men, women and children formed the party.
Of that number only half were capable of bearing arms.
Yet Johnson was a born commander and master strate¬
gist. He knew that it was impossible for his companions
to spend the rainy season in the marshes of Perseverance
Island, and so adopted Wiltberger’s idea.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
57
With armed men guarding the workers a site for the
future Monrovia was swiftly cleared, while the natives
again and again “ sniped ” with light spears and darts
from the cover of the jungle. Each day their attacks
grew more fierce, and finally became extremely serious.
At this juncture, a British frigate appeared off the coast.
The commander of this vessel had been attracted by
the spasmodic fighting, and offered to help Johnson repel
the natives — at a price. The condition was that a
small piece of land should be ceded to Great Britain,
on which the British flag should be raised. Forced to
choose between the aggressions of the natives and the
aggressions of England, Johnson refused pointblank.
At once the frigate spread canvas and sailed away,
leaving the natives and the colonists still fiercely skir¬
mishing.
A lull in the fighting came in the rainy season, which
also brought the American brig Strong from Baltimore
with fifty-three new colonists, sorely needed stores, and,
best of all, a new director for the colony. He was a
white man whose name was destined to become famous,
Jehudi Ashmun of Champlain, New York State. He
was first and last a man of action, and the American
Colonization Society had hit upon him in their search
for a man to take charge of their so far unsuccessful
settlements on Cape Mesurado.
Jehudi Ashmun came of New England Puritan stock.
His father was Samuel Ashmun, a well-to-do settler.
Jehudi was the third son out of ten children, and was
58
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
born April 21st, 1794. He grew up at the time and
in surroundings when Methodist Christianity in the
United States was at its height.
After his conversion at the age of seventeen, Ashmun
trained himself for the ministry in the Episcopal Church.
But when not much over twenty he accepted the posi¬
tion of professor at a college. About this time he made
the acquaintance of a young woman, also a teacher, for
whom he conceived a certain attachment.
They were soon afterwards married. He was ordained,
and offered himself as a missionary.
Among the fifty-two Negro settlers who accompanied
Ashmun, one Rev. Lott Carey was one of the right-hand
men and foremost founders of the Liberian Republic.
Carey was a pure-blooded Negro, short, thick set,
ugly of features, but a man of remarkable natural ability
and dogged determination. He was a slave employed
by his owner in Virginia to manage a large store where
the tobacco of the plantation was kept for sale. He
married early, and had several children. Between his
hours of work, he got a little elementary education, so
that he could read and write. He possessed business
ability and a remarkable memory, and was so clever and
upright in his commercial transactions that his master
again and again rewarded him. Gradually in this way he
accumulated a sum of money with which to purchase his
freedom and that of his wife and children.
Aided by friends he secured his freedom and that of
his family for eight hundred and fifty dollars in 1815.
*
Ashmun Street, Monrovia
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
59
From his originally scanty education, he succeeded in
qualifying himself for the ministry. Repatriation in¬
tensely interested him from the start, and it was only
natural that he should be chosen to assist Ashmun.
■o
CHAPTER XIY
The Settlement of Monrovia
For several months twenty out of the thirty-five
who composed Liberia’s first army had to remain on
guard every night. Ashmun was as prompt in organiza¬
tion as in action, and only a fortnight after his arrival,
issued a proclamation concerning the status of the
population. This is here reproduced in its entirety, as it
was virtually the first “ state document ” issued by the
Liberians.
It is as follows:
(1) The Settlement is under military law.
(2) Elijah Johnson is Commissary of Stores.
(3) R. Sampson is Commissary of Ordnance.
(4) Lott Carey is Health Officer and Government
Inspector.
(5) F. James is Captain of the brass mounted field-
piece, and has assigned to his command R. Newport,
M. S. Draper, William Meade, and J. Adams.
(6) A. James is Captain of the Long 18, and has under
his command J. Benson, E. Smith, William Hollings,
D. Hawkins, John and Thomas Spencer.
(7) J. Shaw is Captain of the Southern Picket Station,
mounting two iron guns. To his command are attached
60
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
61
S. Campbell, E. Jackson, J. Lawrence, L. Crook, and
George Washington.
(8) D. George is Captain of the Eastern Station,
mounting two iron guns. Attached to him are A. Ed¬
mondson, Joseph Gardiner, Josiah Webster, and J.
Carey.
(9) C. Brander is Captain of a carriage mounting two
swivels to act in concert with brass pieces, and move
from station to station as the occasion may require;
attached are T. Tines, L. Butler.
(10) Every man to have his musket and ammunition
with him, even when at the large guns.
(11) Every officer is responsible for the conduct of the
men placed under him, who are to obey him at their
peril.
(12) The guns are all to be gotten ready for action
immediately, and every effective man is to be employed
at the pickets.
(13) Five stations to be occupied by guards at night
till other orders shall be given.
(14) No useless firing permitted.
(15) In case of alarm, every man is to repair instantly
to his post and do his duty.
Rain in torrents greatly added to the suffering of the
colonists, and on September 15, 1822, Mrs. Ashmun
died of fever. Many colonists also succumbed to that
malady, which was contracted through the floods of
rain penetrating their huts. For two months it rained
daily, and the condition of the colonists grew worse and
62
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
worse. They were situated on a bit of cleared rocky
ground, and were hemmed in on one side by dense jungle
growths, and on the other by the sea. Not only was
this dismal in the extreme, but it was also unhealthy.
With the lifting of the rains, still worse fate befell the
colonists. On November 11th, the combined forces of
the De, Mamba and Yai tribes began a furious assault
on the stockade as day broke. The first surge of the
natives overwhelmed some of the outer defences, and
many of the colonists fled into the woods.
Had the savages realized their advantage, they would
have rushed the palisade in force. As it was, they
stopped to ransack and plunder the huts and to kill the
wounded. Ashmun’s strategy caused him to load the
five guns with common shot, and to fire them pointblank
into the struggling mass of attackers.
As Ashmun writes in his diary: “ Eight hundred men
were here pressed shoulder to shoulder in so compact a
force that a child might easily walk upon their heads
from one end of the mass to the other. They presented,
in their rear, breadth of rank equal to twenty or thirty
men, and all exposed to a gun of great power, raised on a
platform at only thirty to sixty yards’ distance. Every
shot literally spent its force in a solid mass of human
flesh.”
To celebrate the victory over the De tribe, Liberia
has set apart a national holiday which is called “ New
Port day,” named in honor of Mary New Port who
on the day of the battle with the Des, when all was
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
63
lost and Ashmun’s men were about to flee, Mary New
Port with a live coal from her pipe touched off a cannon
that fired pointblank into the human mass. The
others gained heart and in quick succession the five
cannon were loaded by Ashmun’s men as related
above.
Such slaughter at close quarters terrified the natives
and the entire force fled to the beach and their war
canoes.
Although Ashmun ordered a day of thanksgiving, he
realized that this initial victory was not in the least de¬
cisive. Despairing of triumph by storming the palisade,
the natives laid siege to the little colony, which day by
day grew smaller in area. Gunpowder, shot, and all
manner of provisions began to run low, and the situation
seemed more desperate than ever. Finally, just as
tragedy stared the settlers in the face, a Liverpool trader
arrived in the anchorage on November 29th. Its com¬
mander, Captain H. Brassey, saved the situation, and
incidentally Liberia, by giving the distraught colonists
all the supplies that could be spared from the ship.
Again on December 1st, the British came to the aid
of the struggling little colony. On the last day of
November, the De tribe reappeared at the apex of the
peninsula, and the next day two thousand picked war¬
riors charged the stockade. The steady fire of the
colonists kept them at bay for several hours. This was
not accomplished without some casualties. T. Tines
was killed in the fight, and Gardiner and Crook were
64
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
severely wounded. Ashmun himself received three
bullets through his coat, but was uninjured.
Towards sunset, a British man-of-war swept into the
harbor. At once the Des fled inland. Startled by the
noise of gun-firing, the officers of the Prince Regent had
diverted the ship from its course from Sierra Leone to
Cape Coast Castle. The captain of this vessel not only
sent ashore a detachment to ascertain the cause of the
excitement,but upon hearing of the perils the colony was
undergoing, sent a Scotch midshipman named Gordon
and eleven bluejackets to aid the settlers. This ended
the most critical period in all the history of Liberia.
Gordon brought many supplies of food and munitions
of war, which were more than welcome.
Even greater aid was conveyed by Major Laing, the
famous African explorer. After a short parley with the
native chiefs, he made peace between the Americans and
both the De and Mamba tribes. After this success,
the Prince Regent shook out canvas and sailed away for
the Gold Coast. Gordon and the eleven sailors were left
behind. One by one, eight of the seamen died from
fever, and finally Gordon himself succumbed. His
memory is perpetuated in a proposed Gordon Scholar¬
ship in Liberia College.
Undismayed by deaths or by fever, Ashmun ordered
the houses to be rebuilt outside the palisade. Examples
of their type of Architecture are today found in the poorer
sections of Monrovia. They were raised from the ground
on wooden or stone supports, and had the appearance of
President Gibson and Prominent Statesmen
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
65
being on stilts. This style of building was a distinct
novelty to the African Coast, and was probably con¬
ceived by either Carey or Johnson.
To further amicable relations with the natives, a
trading station was opened. Meanwhile, Ashmun’s
courage and decision were being made apparent to the
native chiefs, who called him “ the white American devil
of Cape Mesurado.” He was greatly aided in 1823 by
Lieutenant Dashiell of the American warship Cyane.
Dashiel! supervised and assisted the erection of a much
stronger fort of stone, on which six cannon were mounted.
Not satisfied with this provision for the safety of the
colonists, he went to Sierra Leone, found the schooner
Augusta , which had been used on an early voyage to
Liberia, and put it into seaworthy condition. A crew
of twelve men was installed and the Liberian merchant
marine was begun. Dashiell, like many other white
men who dared the climate, soon afterwards died of
fever.
CHAPTER XV
Liberia Named
Inside the little colony several squabbles over the
division of land were in full sway, when on May 24th,
1825, Dr. Eli Ayres returned to Cape Mesurado, fully
vested with the powers of agent for the American Coloni¬
zation Society. Ayres attempted to make a more equal
allotment of land, but his efforts led to more quarrels
than before. Finding that he could do practically
nothing for the little colony, he returned to America and
Ashmun resumed his position as Director of the Colony.
From Virginia on board the good ship Cyrus one
hundred and five fresh colonists came in 1824. With
this reinforcement, Ashmun felt that he could safely
leave the little settlement, and so went to Cape Verde
Island for a rest from his labors.
The American Government and the Colonization
Society had recently appointed the Rev. Robert Gurley
to draw up a provisional constitution for the Mesurado
colony. While proceeding to the Grain Coast on the
war vessel Porpoise, he met Ashmun, and the definite
result was the establishing of the plucky leader both as
virtual governor of the settlement and as principal agent
of the American Colonization Society. Gurley after¬
wards wrote an extended biography of Ashmun, of whom
he became a great admirer.
66
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
67
Gurley not only drew up a constitution, but on August
15th adopted the suggestion of Robert Goodowe Harper
of Baltimore, and named the colony, Liberia, and the
Mesurado settlement, Monrovia. In true religious fer¬
vor, Ashmun had tentatively named the little settle¬
ment “ Christopolis,” but readily consented to the
change. Monrovia was of course named after Monroe,
then president of the United States. Harper was greatly
interested in the colonization project, and had suggested
both his names in the United States Senate. His own
name was afterwards given to the largest settlement in
Maryland on Cape Palmas.
After Gurley’s return to America on August 22, 1824,
his measures were almost at once approved and ratified
both by the Colonization Society and the United States
Government. This ratification was conveyed to Li¬
beria by the U. S. S. Hunter, which dropped anchor off
Monrovia, March 14, 1825. This ship also increased
the population of the Mesurado Plateau by sixty
colonists.
After this success, Ashmun perceived the growth of
population that would inevitably follow, and began
buying up strips of land about the seacoast. Bushrod
Island, that much contested piece of ground, was either
bought from Old King Peter or from a certain Mary
Mackenzie, who is said to have been its “ native ”
owner. Doubtless, she was the mulatto daughter of a
Scotch trader.
At any rate Bushrod Island was purchased, but up
68 HISTORY OF LIBERIA
to the present time the Liberians have found very little
use for it.
By a treaty and alliance with the chiefs Peter, Long
Peter, Gouverneur, Yoda and Jimmy, on May 11, 1825,
Ashmun secured the right to colonize along the St.
Paul’s River up to about twenty miles of its mouth, or
to the head of navigation. Two settlements were im¬
mediately founded near the junction of Stockton Creek
and the St. Paul’s River. One was named Caldwell in
honor of Elijah Caldwell of the American Colonization
Society, and the other, a station called New Georgia,
set apart for the colonization of freed slaves, who
might come as refugees.
This skilful diplomacy much heightened Ashmun’s
reputation, both in Liberia and in the United States.
He had not paid all his attention to securing terri¬
tory, however, for it is recorded in the annals of the
Colony that the Liberian volunteers gave a Fourth of
July dinner, wholly of native products in 1825.
Some of the native products must have been rather
heady, for two of the fifty diners were dragged before the
justice the next day to answer charges of drunkenness
preferred against them. Many American and British
guests were present, among the most noted, Captain
Ferbin, a West Coast trader, who afterward got into
hot water through minor participation in the slave
trade.
Thus in three years, Ashmun had as vigorously de¬
veloped agriculture as he had defenses. A very good
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
69
and abundant food supply had been obtained locally.
One Sarah Draper, an American colored woman, was the
horticultural pioneer, and it is recorded that her garden
produced vegetables the whole year round.
CHAPTER XVI
Liberia’s Territorial Acquisitions
The colony having been definitely established, Ash-
mun turned his attention to stamping out the slave trade,
which even in 1825 was much in practice along the lower
St. Paul’s River. He first concentrated his efforts on
the Grain Coast, and carefully made treaties with the
different chiefs, by which he secured rights over various
pieces of land. His first large purchase was made on
October 27th, 1825, when the chief Freeman ceded some
territory about the New Cess River. This later became
the headquarters of Theodore Canot, one of the most
noted slave traders.
Around Cape Mount, Ashmun secured the land where
powerful Spanish slave trading-stations were established.
A provision of this treaty, signed on April 12, 1826, was
that no part of Cape Mount should ever be re-sold to any
foreign nation.
Another large purchase was made October 11th of the
same year, when Chiefs Will, Tom and Peter Harris of
the Mamba tribe transferred their rights over the terri¬
tory about the Junk River and between the Dukwia and
Farmington to the Liberians.
Almost exactly a year later, the town of Marshall was
founded, near the mouth of the Junk. This was named
70
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
71
after the chief justice of the United States. Later in
the same year, the King of Grand Basa, Joe Harris, sold
to the Liberian colonists the plot of land lying about the
St. John River and extending southward to the Biso
River near Point Basa.
By the accession of all this territory, Liberia now
possessed indisputable political control to the Grain
Coast between Cape Mount and Grand Basa, not in¬
cluding the territory along the St. Paul's River.
Ashmun’s success had been so pronounced that King
Boatswain, a chief of the Mandingos, hastened to enter
into alliance with the American settlers. On March
14, 1828, his envoys concluded a treaty with Ashmun.
This alliance was of no mean importance, for King Boat¬
swain reigned over six different tribes gathered into the
Kondo federation. From his capital at Boporo, he
directed many of the affairs of the West African Coast,
and his cession of a part of the hinterland north of Cape
Mount was a great achievement in Ashmun’s diplomacy.
Whether the king was able to read his own treaty is
doubtful, but at any rate, alliance with his powerful
confederation benefited the colonists to a large extent.
Near the mouth of the New Cess River, the Spanish
slave-traders had established a thriving trading-post,
and against this Ashmun sent an expedition. Three
American frigates participated in the attack on the
settlement which was aptly enough named Trade Town.
Naturally the Spaniards were not desirous of losing their
flourishing commerce, and put up a most determined
72
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
resistance to the invaders. As Ashmun and an armed
party of marines landed on the beach, the frigates bom¬
barded the town. In a short time the whole settlement
caught fire, and the flames spread to a great powder
magazine.
Immediately a great explosion occurred, and the blast
razed nearly every building by its force. For some
moments the air was full of fragments of houses and
human beings.
Notwithstanding this wholesale destruction, all the
slaving stations were rebuilt, and were again destroyed
by a British-Liberian expedition in 1842.
Turning like Cincinnatus from war to peace, Ashmun
began the development of agriculture in Liberia. He
introduced and raised new breeds of cattle, sheep, pigs,
goats, ducks, geese and fowls. Cotton-planting was
widely encouraged, as was the growing of coffee.
Sorghum, indigo, sugar-cane, rice and maize were also
planted in and about Cape Mesurado.
Fever ravaged the colony periodically, the settle¬
ments were flooded by torrents of rain in the wet season,
and certain of the settlers loudly complained of their lot,
and yet the colony prospered almost miraculously.
So fast had been its growth in respect to territory,
that in 1827, the colored people of America were again
urged to come to Liberia. Evidently their response was
enthusiastic, for one year later the population of the
colony was more than twelve hundred.
This figure did not include the many freed slaves and
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
73
natives of the country, who were becoming assimilated
by the American-Liberians. For about the first time
since its founding, Liberia seemed to be a success.
Laws were drawn up in 1824 and, though they were
rather primitive in construction, they answered every
purpose of the colonists. In 1824 there also appeared
the first newspaper, The Liberian Herald , edited by a
mulatto, John Baptist Russwurm.
To keep the peace, four companies of militia were
formed, and numerous churches and schools were
erected.
In 1828 Ashmun’s health, which had long shown signs
of breaking, gave way, and he left the colony for America
on the ship Doris . So ill was he that he had to be
landed at one of the British West Indies, as it was feared
he would die before America was reached. Late in the
summer his health had sufficiently improved so that he
was able to leave St. Bartholomew Island for the United
States. There his health again broke down, and he died
at New Haven, Conn., on August 25th, 1828. When
delirious, he described the struggles of the colony, and
his last words, “ I die, but the Negro will some day be
great,” were as closely interwoven with the fortunes of
the colored race as his life had been.
Before his death, he succeeded in persuading the offi¬
cials of the American Colonization Society to give more
independence to Liberia. He also asked, and was
accorded, a greater measure of self-government for the
little colony on the West Coast of Africa.
74
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
In the fall of 1828 the fruits of his last work became
apparent in a new arrangement, by which the American
Colonization Society merely appointed an agent and
vice-agent to take over the direction of the colony.
Every other official was to be elected directly by the
colonists themselves, and then to receive his appoint¬
ment from the agent, if the latter approved of the selec¬
tion. The vote was given to every adult colored man
in Liberia who had taken an oath to the constitution.
Upon Ashmun’s departure from the colony, there had
been no other white man in Liberia. Therefore he selected
Lott Carey to succeed him as Director of the colony.
Lott, however, did not long survive his chief, but was
killed by an explosion of gun-powder while preparing
munitions for a fight against a native chief in December,
1828.
At Ashmun’s death the American Colonization So¬
ciety had appointed another white American, Dr.
Richard Randall, to be agent. Almost his first notable
act on arriving in the colony was to found the station of
Careysburg in memory of Lott Carey. This town is
situated to the east of Millsburg, and like many other
settlements was intended to be a place where freed
slaves might find refuge.
Like many of his predecessors Dr. Randall died of
fever in April, 1829, while important negotiations with
King Boatswain were going on. A young American
doctor, Mechlin, who had accompanied him to Liberia,
succeeded to the position of agent.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
75
Mechlin seems to have been a very strong and diplo¬
matic man, for among his friends were numbered Long
Peter, chief of Cape Mount, and Bob Gray, king of
Grand Basa. Mechlin attempted to strengthen the
hold of the Liberians on the banks of the St. Paul's
River, and attained much success in his negotiations.
He developed the settlement of Marshall at the outlet
of the River Junk,' which is the main estuary of the
Dukwia and Farmington streams.
He had, in common with Ashmun, a hatred for slave
traders, and continued all the policies of the latter.
Under his direction, the fort which overlooked and com¬
manded the peninsula of Cape Mount was improved and
strengthened.
The first real test of his ability came in 1832, when a
number of slaves being sent down the St. Paul's River
and destined for the Gallinhas territory and the Cuban
slave trader, Pedro Blanco, escaped from their guards and
fled to Monrovia as refugees. This precipitated an
international complication, for the Sultan of Brumley,
who owned the slaves, was far from being pleased. He
immediately dispatched his son, Kaipa, to Monrovia to
demand the return of his property.
Needless to say, the demand was summarily refused.
At once, the indignant Sultan procured some assistance
from the slave traders and marched at the head of his
army to the Liberian settlements about the St. Paul's
River. Mechlin acted even more promptly than had the
Sultan, and despatched General Elijah Johnson, a field
76
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
piece, and one hundred and seventy militiamen to the
scene. Guarded by one hundred and twenty freed slaves,
who acted as scouts, Johnson ascended the banks of the
St. Paul’s River to above the first rapids, and seized the
villages of Brumley and Gurrats.
Discouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, the chief
sued for peace, and was accorded favorable terms by
Mechlin. By the conditions of the treaty, the chiefs,
were, however, forced to desist from interrupting the
trade between Monrovia and the natives of the hinter¬
land. Formerly the caravans of the latter had been
plundered time and time again as they made their way
towards the seacoast.
CHAPTER XVII
The Colonies of Maryland and Mississippi
Two more attempts to repatriate free Negroes to the
West Coast of Africa were inaugurated about 1830.
These were the Maryland and Mississippi State Societies.
Both societies made landings on the coast, but the Mary¬
land colonists met with a cool reception, not only from
the natives, but from Mechlin, who could not come
to terms with the commander of this expedition, James
Hall, regarding the allotment of land.
In the end Mechlin refused to cede the territory
Hall desired. Consequently the former was obliged to
return to America for fresh instructions, leaving his
thirty-one colonists in Liberia. The State of Maryland
had subsidized this project of expatriation heavily, and
had done so mainly in the interests of prohibition among
the African colonists.
This was greatly against the desires of the Da and
Basa chiefs, who did not care to be deprived of their
whiskey, and the Maryland project nearly came to an
untimely end on account of the “ dry ” question. Land¬
ing in the De and Basa country on his return, Hall got
into a violent dispute with the different kings, and in
particular, Chief Joe Harris.
During the excitement, Governor Finley of the Missis-
77
78
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
s : ppi Colonization Society of Sino was killed, possibly
through the collusion of Theodore Canot, the slave
trader, whose part in the fight seems to have been a
rather shady one.
Harris’s warriors attacked the Marylanders, and aid
was hastily sent from Monrovia. Again Elijah Johnson
and his sturdy militiamen arrived on the scene, drove
the tribesmen back, and captured the principal Basa
villages. This success drew a grudging consent to the
colonization of the Marylanders from Joe Harris. Up
to the present time, however, the efforts of prohibition
leaders to bar liquor from the West Coast of Africa have
not been successful.
The Mississippi Colonization Society had a far more
peaceful time of it than did the Maryland group. In
1833, the colonists sent by this society founded the
town of Greenville at the mouth of the Sino River. This
settlement, which is still the largest in the neighborhood
of the Sino, was named after James Green, one of the
first advocates of emancipation.
During all this time, Liberia had not abandoned its
territorial growth. In 1835, more land along the coast
was purchased from the natives. These acquisitions
extended Liberian dominions to the mouth of the Sino
River, and included the outlet of the Sanguin.
Mechlin died of fever, and was succeeded by Dr.
Skinner, who spent only part of one year in Liberia.
In 1837, Anthony D. Williams was appointed agent.
During Skinner’s brief term of office, Thomas Bu-
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
79
chanan, a cousin of President Buchanan of the United
States, was selected by the colonization societies of New
York and Pennsylvania to report on the condition of
Liberia. His services to the colony, which were many,
included the building of the first lighthouse on Cape
Mesurado. The Liberian settlements of Upper and
Lower Buchanan at Grand Basa are named after him.
In 1838 the first census of Liberia was taken. It gave
the entire population of American origin as 2,281.
This, of course, did not include the colony of Maryland,
which was then regarded as a separate state. Doubt¬
less the account which states that four thousand emi¬
grants had been sent from America to Liberia and
Maryland was an exaggeration.
Even the death rate among the Americo-Liberians,
which was of course high, would hardly account for this
discrepancy in figures, while the number of emigrants
who went to Sierra Leone or returned to America was
infinitesimal.
As a matter of fact, a hundred thousand Negroes could
have been sent over of the three million in the United
States at that time. However, it is hardly necessary
to point out that the primary object of the several
American Colonization Societies was not to abolish
slavery as an institution, but to deport free Negroes.
Slavery was then firmly established in America, and
it was considered that its abolition was a very far dis¬
tant event. The free Negro was not welcomed in the
South, for he presented a problem of the equality of the
80
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
white and black races. Indeed, in many sections, these
Negroes were considered a menace to society, and an
attempt at a general black man’s uprising was feared.
For this reason, some authorities consider that the work
of the colonization societies was not only a work of
philanthropy, but also of precaution.
Liberia now had its first governor. In 1838 fresh
attention was given to the government of the colony,
and to the persons in whom authority should be vested.
An entirely new constitution, peculiar to the needs of
Liberia, was drawn up by Professor Greenlof, of Harvard
College. By this time the Colony of Maryland which
had been built up round Cape Palmas was an indepen¬
dent state. The rest of what we now know as Liberia
was divided into the two counties of Montserrado and
Grand Basa, and stretched from somewhere about Cape
Mount on the west to beyond the Sino River on the east.
It was placed under a Governor and a Vice-Governor.
To these was added a Council of Liberians, who under
the direction of the Governor were constituted as a
legislative body. The Governor and Vice-Governor
were virtually appointed by the committee of the Ameri¬
can Colonization Society, which also retained the right
of veto on any laws promulgated by the Governor and
Council. The members of this Council were to be
elected by the people. As in the United States a suffrage
was granted to every male citizen of twenty-one years
and upwards, without property qualification. The
Council consisted of ten members, of whom six sat for
President Payne
President Russell
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
81
the county of Montserrado and four for the county of
Basa. The administration of justice was vested in a
High Court of which the Governor was President.
CHAPTER XVIII
Liberian Progress and the Beginning of the End
of the Slave Trade
The first decisive blow against the slave trade was
struck when Liberia declared slavery or the sale or barter
of slaves illegal within the limits of the colony. Fear
of slave traders being allowed a voice in Liberian politics
was largely instrumental in confining citizenship to
persons of color or Africans. The question of this
limitation of citizenship was much discussed until
Elisha Whittlesey, a member of the commission to dis¬
cuss the constitution, succeeded in having his “ color
line ” measure adopted.
The term “ African/’ which was used in the Liberian
Constitution, was taken advantage of some years later
by one Attia, a Moorish trader. This Moroccan Jew,
though as fair complexioned as an European, claimed his
right to Liberian citizenship, as an African, and boldly
and openly carried on trade outside the limits of the
ports of entry. He also established factories on the
coast and up the rivers of Liberia, and was entirely
protected by the wording of the Constitution.
At first glance, this racial distinction might seem to be
illiberal or even unjust, but from first to last, the colony
82
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
83
was for people of color, and at that time the admission
of whites to citizenship might have given protection to
the slavers, besides allowing the participation of un¬
principled Europeans in the affairs of Government.
The year 1838 found Liberia making great progress
as a state. Large bands of freed slaves and many
friendly natives supplemented the 2,247 American Ne¬
groes, and materially swelled the population. The
number of Negroes of American origin in the colony had
been materially reduced by deaths from fever and
kindred diseases.
The effects of civilization were already being felt.
Cape Mesurado boasted a lighthouse, and along the St.
Paul's River, the Basa and Kru coasts, the slave trade
was a dead letter. On Cape Mount and in the territory
of the Vai tribe, the slavers were becoming less and less
evident. Some twenty churches, ten schools and four
printing-presses had been built.
Russwurm, the future Governor of Maryland, was
editing the one newspaper, the Liberian Herald , which
was shortly afterwards rivalled by the African Luminary.
To facilitate trade with the natives and obviate the
clumsy methods of barter, a Liberian currency of paper
money was in use. The paper bank notes were novel,
inasmuch as they were ornamented with pictures of
natural objects akin to the value of the note, which was
also transcribed in figures.
Despite the withdrawal of the United States from the
slave trade in 1808, the development of the plantations
84
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
in Cuba, Porto Rico and Brazil gave rise to a large de¬
mand for slaves from the African Coasts.
Don Pedro Blanco, a native of Malaga, and Theodore
Canot, the former mate of a Boston trading ship, were
the two best known slavers of this time, and it is to
Canot’s account that we are much indebted for informa¬
tion about the trade itself. Prices paid for the slaves
were low, adult Negroes in good condition being worth
only about ten dollars apiece.
Children or inferior slaves were bought at from three
to eight dollars. Slaves of the Mandingo or Fula race
were more valuable, owing to their lighter skin and more
handsome appearance. Mandingos were very much in
demand in Cuba as the smartest type of domestic ser¬
vant. But speed and economy of space in the oversea
transport being essential considerations, after the British
interference with the slave trade had commenced, not
so much attention was paid as in the eighteenth century
to the comfort of the slaves on board. In his account,
Canot says:
“ Sometimes on slave ships the height between the
decks where the slaves were chained was only eighteen
inches, so that the slaves could not turn around, the
space being less than the breadth of their shoulders.
They were chained by the neck and the legs. They had
not the room of a man in a coffin. They frequently died
of thirst, for the fresh water would often run short.”
The establishment of the Liberian colony contributed
remarkably to the driving out of the slave trade from the
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
85
regions east of Sierra Leone; but the greatest work in
the suppression of this traffic in Negro slaves in West
Africa was done by Great Britain sending her cruisers
to patrol the Atlantic and the Gulf of Guinea, and abol¬
ishing slavery in the West Indies, as in South Africa,
at a cost of the immense sum of $150,000,000. When
the British West Indies market was closed, half the in¬
ducements were removed. In the meantime the United
States of America seemed a seething pot, many churches
drew the bands tighter about the admission of members
and the Methodist Episcopal Church was ruptured by
one of its bishops marrying a woman who held slaves.
The church, as did the nation a few years later, divided
in half, which placed Liberia more and more in the
lime-light of the world as^ the future home of the
liberated slave.
CHAPTER XIX
Thomas Buchanan, the First Governor of Liberia
Liberia’s first governor under the new Constitution
was Thomas Buchanan of Philadelphia, a white Ameri¬
can, who has been mentioned elsewhere in this history.
In 1836 he had come out to Liberia as the envoy of
two colonization societies, and had constructed one of
the first lighthouses on the West Coast of Africa.
In 1839 he became governor, and almost at once
began an eventful career which finally won him the
native nickname of “ Big Cannon.” Under the rather
weak and ineffectual administration of Anthony D.
Williams, the Gora and De tribes had been continuously
and furiously battling in the country back of Monrovia.
For some time victory lay in the balance, but the Gora
tribesmen finally destroyed all the power that had been
the Des’. Inevitably all this warfare and bloodshed did
considerable damage to the colony, and Williams be¬
trayed no inclination to right matters by force of
arms.
Hardly had Buchanan entered upon his new duties,
when Gatumba, a chief of Boporo, linked his fortunes
with those of the Gora people, and led his warriors in a
furious onslaught against the Des. Whether by acci¬
dent or by intention, those Liberians who lived along
86
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
87
the course of the St. Paul’s River were also attacked by
Gatumba’s followers.
At the time of this infringement on the rights of the
little Republic, Buchanan was suffering from a violent
attack of fever. Even in illness, however, he was far
stronger in action than his predecessor. He at once
sent a peremptory message to Gatumba, ordering him to
withdraw from Liberian territory.
Almost coincident with the sending of an insulting
reply by the chieftain, the settlement of Millsburg was
destroyed by the Gora. Buchanan was still very unwell,
but immediately appointed a young octoroon trader,
Joseph Jenkins Roberts, to command an expedition of
three hundred Liberian militiamen and several field-
guns. Roberts was afterwards the first president of
the Liberian Republic.
Meanwhile, Gatumba was still following up his earlier
successes. He had a notorious ally, one Gotora, who
was locally supposed to be a cannibal. To initiate a
real invasion of Liberia, Gotora and seven hundred men
were sent to attack the little mission station of Hedding-
ton on the St. Paul’s River. Here the invasion sus¬
tained a severe check, for in spite of the smallness of the
body of defenders, so well were they armed and so good
was their discipline, that after a short-lived attack
Gotora was killed, and his men at once fled.
Close on their heels came not only General Roberts
with his militiamen and guns, but Governor Buchanan
himself, who had arisen from a sick bed to carry the war
88
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
into the enemy’s territory. Leaving their cannon behind
them on account of the density of the undergrowth, and
the impossibility of their transportation across the
swamps, the three hundred Liberians marched through
the jungle on Gatumba’s stronghold.
This was a walled town some twenty miles from Mills-
burg, and supposedly amply protected by the dense
jungle which surrounded it. In a short time, however,
the Liberian force had surrounded it, and their aim was
so good, that after a first fierce struggle the soldiers of
Gatumba laid down their arms and fled to cover.
Gatumba’s town was finally burned to the ground,
after the Liberians had occupied it for twenty-four hours.
The chief, himself, became an outcast and entirely lost
all his considerable power. This incident, and the suc¬
cess of Governor Buchanan’s prompt action, raised the
prestige of the Liberian Government considerably in
the esteem of the natives. The chiefs of Boporo
hastened to effect a new treaty, and peace was again
restored to the hinterland.
Despite the fact that all warfare was abandoned, the
land on both banks of the St. Paul’s River remained
undeveloped for some time, owing to the unsettled state
of the adjacent country. Its agricultural development,
which had been proceeding very satisfactorily up to
1830, thus received a severe set back.
While Buchanan’s main contribution to the welfare
of the colony was his suppression of the slave trade,
he also took advantage of his war-like reputation to con-
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
89
elude several treaties and alliances with the native chiefs.
He was also instrumental in preventing much inter¬
tribal warfare, and in abolishing barbarous customs, such
as the poison ordeal.
The United States had long since prohibited its sub¬
jects from engaging in the slave trade, but until 1842
did not back up the law with force. Therefore the
Stars and Stripes fluttered from the stern of many a
slaver which scudded past the Liberian Coast. At that
time, the British Government had not the oft-disputed
right to search American vessels, but the English
cruisers prevented the establishing of slave exporting
stations at Cape Mount and the Basa Coast.
Writing of the British naval officers, Buchanan
says:
“ Whilst making various complaints against English
traders, I cannot forbear placing in distinguished con¬
trast the honorable and gentlemanly conduct of the naval
officers of that nation. They invariably manifest a
warm interest in the prosperity of the colony, and
often lay me under obligations by their kind offers of
service.”
Already the trade in palm oil was beginning to out¬
rank the slave traffic as the first consideration of traders.
Great Britain, at that time and for many years, was the
principal purchaser of palm oil, which was greatly in
demand by the Liverpool shipping interests.
As Liberia was rich in oil-bearing palms, British traders
from Sierra Leone began to encroach upon the Liberian
90
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Coast. These settlers were very anxious to have the
Union Jack flying over them, and were openly scornful
of the United States, which, as they said, enslaved
Negroes in one country, and advocated their freedom in
another.
Buchanan looked with great suspicion on these British
settlements, and in 1840 sent an agent to England to
obtain assurance that no English colonization society
would trespass upon Liberian territory. The British
Anti-slavery Society was viewed with suspicion by the
colonists, who feared that ulterior motives lay beneath
its philanthropy.
An All-British domain from Sierra Leone to the Gold
Coast was the spectre which confronted Liberians at
that time. Many Americans interested in Liberia urged
the United States to buy the Dutch and Danish settle¬
ments; but American interests at that time were chiefly
concerned with domestic problems.
The census of 1840 disclosed that Liberia, not includ¬
ing Maryland, had a population of 2,221 American set¬
tlers and thirty thousand freed slaves and natives, who
were loyal to Liberian rule.
Buchanan oftentimes professed himself acutely dis¬
satisfied by the attitude of the colonists, who were for
the most part townsmen and not farmers. From time
to time, he addressed drastic remarks to the settlers,
urging them to become self-supporting. This must
have had some result, for, writing in May, 1839, he
says:
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
91
“ The right bank of the river St. Paul presents an
almost continuous line of cultivated farms.”
He was greatly in favor of intelligent cooperation in
the smaller communities, and urged them to raise money
for schools, etc., by clubbing together.
Commerce between Liberia and the United States
began to diminish during this period on account of the
many sailing vessels lost on the coast. A few years
later, Britain’s trade with Liberia really began when the
Macgregor Laird , the first British steam vessel on the
West Coast, came out from Liverpool.
Gradually the current of trade drifted to Great Brit¬
ain, because the voyage to England was easier and
quicker than that to the United States. From 1840 a
more or less continuous friendship began between Great
Britain and Liberia, which is still in existence.
The last years of Governor Buchanan’s administra¬
tion were marred by the intrigues of the Rev. Seyes, a
well-known Baptist missionary. Seyes attempted to
become a sort of religious dictator or Grand Elector who
would rule over Liberia and defy the American Coloniza¬
tion Society.
In this attempt he entirely failed a few days before
the death of Governor Buchanan. The latter suffered a
relapse from fever contracted in the surf at the mouth of
the Junk River, and died at Governor House, Basa Cove,
on Sept. 3, 1841.
He was mourned alike by natives and colonists all
along the Liberian Coasts. His administration stands
92
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
as one of the strongest and best directed in the whole
history of the colony. Incidentally he was the last
white administrator in power on the West African
littoral eastwards ofjSenegal.
CHAPTER XX
Governor Roberts
Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who had com¬
manded the expedition against Gatumba, succeeded
Buchanan as the head of the Liberian colony. He was
immediately plunged into the vortex of international
complications by the action of France in purchasing
from the native chiefs Cape Mount, the site of Great
Dieppe at Basa Cove, Great and Little Butu and
Garawe, near the State of Maryland.
The French flag was run up at the latter place, and it
was asserted on royal authority that a considerable
portion of the Kru coast had been purchased from the
natives. Naturally, the latter were only too glad to sell
their lands over and over again.
In 1840, French possessions on the Grain Coast
were found only along the course of the river Senegal
on the Cape Verde Peninsula, and the little island of
Goree, which had originally been French, but had re¬
verted to Holland and England. To these colonies and
protectorates were added Grand Basa and several
other parts of the Ivory Coast, some land at Porto
Novo, near Lagos, and territory about the mouth of the
Gabun River, from which her vast Congo Possessions
came into being.
93
94
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Apparently these territorial acquisitions took up all
her time, for after a protest was registered by Governor
Roberts, no attempts were made by the French to follow
up their purchases in Liberia. After a long time, the
claims were renewed, but merely for purposes of negotia¬
tion.
Governor Roberts was no less active than Buchanan
and Mechlin had been in adding to the Liberian sphere
of influence. On February 22, 1843, he concluded a
treaty with King Yoda of the Gora tribe, by which
Liberia obtained much territory along the upper waters
of the St. Paul’s River. The Goras likewise pledged
themselves to abolish slavery and trial by poison.
So successful were Roberts’ efforts in the way of treaty
making that by 1845, Liberian territory extended over
the whole coastline between the Mafa River on the West
and Grand Sesters River on the East. Considerable
money had been paid for these lands; the American and
other colonization societies frequently financing the
transactions.
Most of the territory so acquired was purchased in
the years of 1843, 1844, and 1845. The position of
Liberia on and along the Junk River, at Grand Basa,
at Sino, on the Sanguin, and west of Cape Mount in the
general direction of the Mano River was greatly strength¬
ened by these treaties.
An agreement was made between Roberts on the one
hand and John B. Russwurm, President of Maryland,
on the other, that the states of Maryland and Liberia
President's Mansion.
Monrovia
U. S. Legation, Monrovia
i
•
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
95
should practically unite against aggression by foreign
powers, and as far as possible pursue a common domestic
policy, particularly in the matter of customs and tariff.
In both countries a uniform import duty of six per cent
ad valorem was fixed, which it was hoped, would provide
sufficient funds to meet the cost of administering each
colony, and also render them independent of financial
support from the various American Colonization Socie¬
ties.
Perhaps a word should be said here about the colony
of Maryland, which had so far insisted on maintaining
an existence independent of her larger neighbor, Liberia.
Founded in 1831, it grew but slowly, and numbered
about four hundred colonists nine years later. Ten
miles west of Cape Palmas was the extent of its coast¬
line in 1843, but in 1846 various treaties were concluded
with chiefs of the Kru tribes on either side of Cape
Palmas.
These lands extended the State of Maryland from the
Liberian Frontier at the Grand Sesters River on the west
to the River San Pedro on the east, sixty miles east of
the cape. This gave the state a coastline of approxi¬
mately one hundred and twenty miles.
At the present time, the existing county of Mary¬
land is but a small portion of the original state, for in
1892 the French Government annexed fifty miles of
coast between the San Pedro and the Cavalla rivers, and
at the same time took over several square miles of the
hinterland.
96
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
The administrative capital of Maryland was the town
of Harper situated at Cape Palmas and named after
Robert Goodloe Harper of Baltimore, one of the most
active and most prominent members of the American
Colonization Society.
Russwurm was the first governor of Maryland. Like
many prominent citizens of Liberia he was a native of
the West Indies, coming from the Danish Island of St.
Thomas. He was an octoroon, as was Roberts, and
resembled the Governor of Liberia in energy and capa¬
bility.
Under his supervision and that of Roberts, a census
was taken in 1843. It placed the combined American
Negro population at 2,790.
Governor Roberts made a flying visit to the United
States in 1844 to consult with officials of the colonization
societies concerning the slave trade and other problems.
Later in the same year an American fleet of warships
visited the Liberian coast. It was in this year also that
the Methodist Episcopal Church became divided on
account of the slave question.
Roberts shortly returned from America to conclude
an important treaty with chief Bob Gray, one of the
most important “ kings ” of the Grand Basa district.
By this agreement, which was signed on April 5, 1845,
the entire strip of seacoast between Marshall on the Junk
River and the Grand Basa settlements was ceded to
Liberia.
In the same year, Liberian territory was much ex-
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
97
tended by agreements with natives on the Sino River and
the Kru Coast, and the affairs of the colony seemed
in excellent shape, until an unexpected compli¬
cation was precipitated by the authorities at Sierra
Leone.
Officials of that colony decided that the Liberian
Administration had no right to collect custom duties
anywhere along the Liberian Coast, and guaranteed the
British merchants against acts of aggression which might
be committed if the dues were not paid.
The first collision between British and Liberian
authorities occurred at Basa Cove, where the Liberians
attempted to collect harbor and import dues from Cap¬
tain Dring, a British trader. Commander Jones of the
British West African Squadron was ordered to Mon¬
rovia from Sierra Leone with a letter from the British
Government, which flatly informed Governor Roberts
that “ Great Britain could not recognize the right of
private persons to constitute themselves a Government,
and amongst other acts of sovereignty to levy custom
duties.”
Soon after, the Liberians retaliated by seizing in Basa
anchorage a vessel known as the Little Ben for non¬
payment of harbor dues by a certain Captain Davidson
of Sierra Leone. Commander Jones and an English
gunboat arrived on the scene, and effectively turned
the tables by seizing a ship, the John Seyes, owned by
one Benson, a loyal subject of Liberia. Very flimsy and
transparent excuses were put forward by the British
98
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
for this act, against which the United States Govern¬
ment protested to Britain.
The reply was made that “ Great Britain could not
recognize the sovereign powers of Liberia, which it
regarded merely as the commercial experiment of a
philanthropic society.”
It was also put forward that by time of residence,
Captain Dring had prior rights at Basa Cove to those of
the Liberians. Lord Aberdeen, the foreign minister,
took up the case, and wrote to Everett, the American
ambassador at the Court of St. James, that, “ Her
Majesty’s naval commanders would afford efficient
protection to British trade against improper assumption
of power on the part of the Liberian authorities.”
Doubtless this last phrase referred to the levying of
custom duties and harbor dues.
The United States appears to have abandoned all
intention of intervention for the little Republic at that
time, for the minister in Great Britain replied that the
United States had no thought of “ presuming to settle
differences arising between Liberian and British sub¬
jects; the Liberians being responsible for their own acts.”
From these diplomatic interchanges it became ap¬
parent that the United States entirely disclaimed any
protection of Liberia, and did not claim for it the status
of an American colony.
The American Colonization Society immediately
followed the lead of the United States Government in
standing aloof from the responsibilities of creating the
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
99
Negro colony, and in January, 1846, resolved through
its board of directors that “ the time had arrived when
it was expedient for the people of the Commonwealth of
Liberia to take into their own hands the whole work of
self-government, including the management of all their
foreign relations.”
Thus Liberia was entirely thrown upon her own re¬
sources, and deprived of all aid, financial or otherwise,
from either the United States or the colonization socie¬
ties, which were jointly responsible for its creation as a
colony.
A few thousand ex-slaves and freed Negroes were
left to fight, on one hand, the savages and the jungles,
and on the other, the determined and almost constant
aggressions of foreign nations upon their territory.
That they met the crisis wisely and bravely is forever
to their credit.
CHAPTER XXI
The Founding of the Republic
Fortunately for Liberia, the British Government at
that time was rather overburdened by its territorial
responsibilities in Africa, and did not care to add more
lands on the West Coast to its already long list of colonies.
If Britain had desired to annex Liberia in 1846, it is
hardly likely that the United States would have offered
any considerable opposition.
In those days there was no steamship service between
England and the West Coast, and the Liberian trade
was not of much importance. Consequently the British
Government was in no hurry to act, and during this
time Governor Roberts had the foresight to materially
strengthen the Liberian hold on the Grain Coast by ad¬
ditional purchases from the native chiefs. He secured
eighty miles of the Kru coast and also the Kru towns of
Sestra Kru and Grand Sesters in this year. He was also
occupied in a determined attack on the slave trade, which
was almost wiped out in the vicinity of Cape Mount.
Whether or not England approved of this territorial
growth of the little colony, it did not venture to further
interfere with the foreign policies of Liberia, and in
January, 1846, Roberts decided that the only solution
of the difficulties of Liberia was to declare it an inde-
100
President Cheeseman
President Coleman
President Howard
President Johnson
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
101
pendent Negro Republic. It was not difficult to obtain
the assent of the American Colonization Society to this
scheme, for the Society had for some time wished itself
rid of its responsibilities on the West Coast.
The British seemed to favor the plan, provided Li¬
beria constituted itself a State with definite responsibili¬
ties, and the government was assured that it would
receive full recognition from the British Government.
During the spring and early summer of 1847, the Li¬
berians continued to discuss the question of indepen¬
dence. On May 18, an ordinance for administering
justice in the State of Maryland was passed, and prep¬
aration was made to declare Maryland an independent
state simultaneously with Liberia. July 8th, 1847, was
declared a day of public thanksgiving in Liberia, to mark
the conclusion of the efforts which had been made to draw
up the terms of the Declaration of Independence and the
future constitution of the Liberian Republic.
On October 7th of the previous year, a council of
Liberians had almost unanimously approved of the
measure providing for a Republic, and all the tribes
favored it, except the people of Grand Basa.
On July 2nd a solemn Declaration of Independence
on the part of the Liberian nation was made in conven¬
tion. Roberts seems to have been absent from Monro¬
via at the time; Samuel Benedict, the Chief of Liberia,
was elected President of the Convention which made
this declaration. The other members were H. Teage,
General Elijah Johnson, J. N. Lewis, Beerly Wilson, and
102
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
J. B. Gipson (representatives of the Montserrado
County), John Day, Amos Herring, A. W. Gardner,
Ephraim Titler (representatives from Grand Basa);
and R. E. Murray, representative from Sino. Mr. Jacob
W. Prout was the Secretary of the Convention. The
Constitution was adopted by a unanimous vote.
The Liberian seal: “ A dove on the water, represent¬
ing peace, with an open scroll in its claws, representing a
thirst for the pen and the knowledge so long denied
them,” was also adopted. On the seal is also the promon¬
tory of Mesurado, a lighthouse, ships under full sail,
and a plough. Oftentimes the dove is represented as
carrying a document in its beak, which is emblematic
of a rising republic.
A somewhat peculiar state of affairs existed at this
time regarding the status of Maryland State. Despite
the fact that it was not formally annexed until 1857,
three members from Maryland sat in the Lower House at
Monrovia, and it was represented by two senators in the
Liberian Senate. Its constitution was largely modelled
on that of the larger republic, although it continued
under its own governor.
The Sino district was represented by two members
in the Upper House and three in the Lower House of
Liberia.
The hoisting of the new flag of the Republic on August
24th was the signal for the recognition of the new Repub¬
lic as an independent state by Great Britain. An Eng¬
lish man-of-war proceeded to Monrovia and there
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
103
saluted the new ensign with a salvo of twenty-one
guns.
On the first Tuesday in October, 1847, Joseph Jenkins
Roberts was elected the first President of the Republic,
and on January 3d, 1848, he was inaugurated. The
President was well liked by many of the native chiefs,
and several hundred tribesmen flocked to Liberia to see
the ceremonies of his installation.
Soon after taking office, President Roberts left for
Europe with his wife, who was an octoroon like himself.
Arriving in England, Roberts succeeded in completing a
commercial treaty with the British Government which
thoroughly assured the status of the Liberian Republic
as an independent nation.
Great Britain acknowledged the right of Liberians to
levy duties and taxes, and ordered her merchant vessels
not to enter certain specified ports without the permis¬
sion of the Liberian authorities. In return, Liberia
allowed the British to reside wherever they pleased in
the country.
The treaty was signed for England by Viscount
Palmerston and the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, and
was ratified by the Liberian Senate on February 26,
1849. Labouchere was then Under Secretary of State
for the Colonies, and afterward became Lord Taunton.
From England Roberts proceeded to France, where he
was received by Napoleon III, and thence to Belgium,
where Leopold I gave him a most cordial reception.
In Holland he was likewise welcomed, and on his visit
104
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
to Berlin, the Government of Prussia took the op¬
portunity to formally recognize the existence of the
Liberian Republic. This recognition closely followed
that of France and England.
The Ambassador of Prussia to England, the Chevalier
de Bunsen, gave a dinner in Roberts’ honor upon the
return of the latter to England. Among the guests
at this banquet were Lord Ashley, who was soon to be¬
come Earl of Shaftesbury, the Rev. Ralph Randolph
Gurley (the biographer of Ashmun and one of the best-
known American promoters of Liberia), and Blomfield,
the Bishop of London.
The Bishop was much interested in the slave trade in
the Gallinhas country, and listened with amazement to
Roberts’ graphic description of the ravages of Pedro
Blanco and the other Cuban and American slavers in
that region.
Roberts declared that in his opinion the only way in
which the slave trade in this region might be effectively
suppressed would be to purchase the lands between
Sherbro Island and Cape Mount from the native chiefs,
and then use the entire authority and force of Liberia to
break up the commerce in slaves.
The Bishop promptly asked how great a sum would be
necessary to purchase the rights to this land, and Rob¬
erts estimated it at two thousand pounds ($10,000).
Lord Ashley immediately volunteered to raise this
sum if Mr. Gurley approved of the expenditure. Gurley
expressed the utmost satisfaction in regard to the proj-
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
105
ect, and the next day Lord Ashley obtained a thousand
pounds in a Lombard Street bank and gave it to Roberts.
Arrangements were made for raising the other thousand
pounds, and on his return Roberts was able to finance
treaties with the chiefs of Mattru, Gumbo, Basa, Gallin-
has, Manna and Manna Rock, although these territories
were not actually purchased until the year 1856.
Of all the European potentates, Queen Victoria gave
the most kindly welcome to President Roberts, and it
was in England that he received the greatest assistance
for the new Republic. Every honor was paid the
President, and a salute of seventeen guns was accorded
him at a reception on board the Royal yacht. Not only
Roberts but his whole official staff were sent back to
Liberia on board the British warship, Amazon; and in
addition to these courtesies, the British admiralty
presented the Liberian Republic with a transport, the
Lark, and a small four-gun sloop, the Quail. The
latter was of much use as a revenue cutter, and proved
most efficacious in the prevention of smuggling and the
slave trade. Upon the presentation of these vessels,
the Liberian Senate and Congress passed unanimous
resolutions of thanks.
Roberts returned to Liberia, delighted above all with
his reception in England, and also gratified at the kindli¬
ness with which other foreign courts had received him,
and the readiness with which they recognized the Li¬
berian Republic. Soon after his return to Monrovia,
France sent a gunboat, the Penelope, to salute at Monrovia,
106
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
with twenty-one guns , the flag of the Liberian Republic.
The American corvette Yorktown and the English gun-
vessel Kingfisher also visited Liberia in the early part of
1849 and assisted Roberts in a final attack on the ob¬
stinate Spanish slave-trade settlements at New Cess
River, just beyond Basa, which were destroyed and
3,500 slaves released.
In the year 1849, Portugal, Sardinia, Austria, Den¬
mark, Sweden and Norway, Brazil, Hamburg, Bremen,
Lubeck, and Haiti followed the powers of Western and
Central Europe in formally recognizing the Liberian
State. The United States withheld its act of formal
recognition, for the reason that it feared if Liberia was
recognized as an independent State, the United States
would have to receive at Washington a “ man of color.”
Such was the color prejudice then in vogue in the United
States. In 1862 the United States formally acknowl¬
edged the independence of this little State created by
American philanthropy.
CHAPTER XXII
The Republic in 1850. Roberts’ Second Term as
President
At this time, when its status as a sovereign state had
been recognized throughout Europe, Liberia had a sea-
coast of 286 miles. It was estimated to extend between
and 6 0 48' north latitude and between S°S and
11°20 west longitude. From Cape Mount on the
north to Grand Sesters on the south, the average width
of the country was forty-five miles, while its approximate
area was 12,830 square miles.
There were 6,100 Liberians of American origin resi¬
dent in the Republic, and the export trade had so grown
that it amounted to $50,000 yearly. In 1850 the popula¬
tion of Monrovia is said to have been 1,300. The
country’s public debt at the beginning of that year was
but eight thousand dollars.
The settlement of Robertsport was founded at Cape
Mount in 1849, and in the same year, the Rev. Ralph
Gurley came to Liberia as the joint representative of the
Liberian Government and the American Colonization
Society, in order to report on the progress made by the
country since its declaration of independence.
Gurley left Baltimore on August 1, 1849, and reached
Cape Mount on September 18. From the moment of his
107
108
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
approach to the West African Coast, when he said of the
gorgeous sunsets and sunrises of this region: “It seemed
as though all the purple of Home’s consuls and Caesars
were spread out under the last footsteps of the God of
Day,” to his return after a month in the Republic, his
impressions of Liberia were most favorable. His very
enthusiastic account of the country and its possibilities
was printed as a State Document in 1850 by the United
States Congress. With this act may be said to have
ended the direct patronage of the United States and the
American colonization societies, though in 1877 a number
of Negroes were sent from the southern states as colo¬
nists. But in various philanthropic circles the interest in
the Liberian experiment died.
The American Colonization Society, which for so long
fostered the colony of Liberia, still exists, and still pub¬
lishes its journal, The African Repository. This review
was founded in 1832, and to the present day continues
to give regular and authentic reports on Liberia. Its
name was changed to Liberia in 1892, and it now has
an active and well-edited contemporary in Liberia,
West Africa, which is also published in Monrovia.
The president elected in 1905 was the Rev. Judson
Smith, D.D. Among the vice-presidents is the familiar
name of Crozer, in remembrance of whom Crozerville
was founded in Liberia.
The late professor Edward W. Blyden, and Bishop
Isaiah B. Scott, and Bishop J. C. Camphor, Methodist
Bishops of Africa, were great workers worthy of note.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
109
The Chairman of the Executive Committee bears the
honored name of Gurley, and is no doubt a son of Ash-
mun’s biographer.
The Liberian Republic resembles the United States
in its flag, its political distinctions and a system of party
government, bearing among the conservative-minded
Liberian voters the name of Whigs or Old Whigs, while
the more radical or progressive section of the people
called themselves the “ True Liberian Party,” and
“ Republicans.” The term “ Whig,” like “ Tory,”
came, as a political nickname, from England to the
United States, and from America back to Liberia,
where it is in use at the present day.
The Whigs in later days have been further differen¬
tiated as “ True Whigs,” and “ Old Whigs.” As a
party, they desire to limit and restrain the rights of
foreigners in Liberia, and to preserve the commerce and
land-settlement as much as possible for Negroes. The
True Liberian, called later on the Republican Party,
on the other hand, advocate a far more liberal policy,
which should admit strangers to nearly all the advantages
of Liberia. To this last party belonged President
Roberts, and also Stephen Allen Benson for the first
part of his career. But Benson afterwards went over
to the Whig party, and since 1860 this has been the
dominant faction.
So successful had the administration of President
Roberts been, that in May, 1849, he was elected for a
second term, beginning January 1, 1850. He was again
110
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
chosen to head the Republic between 1851 and 1853, and
held office until December 31, 1855, a tenure of more
than six years.
Under Roberts’ capable guidance, Liberia began to
grow in importance and in commerce.
In 1850 German interests entered the Liberian field,
and two Hamburg trading-houses were established in
the Republic. One year later the British Government
appointed as its first consul at Monrovia, the Rev. Mr.
Hanson. Hanson’s tenure of the post was not altogether
successful, and he left in a year, complaining of disre¬
spectful treatment by the Liberians. He was a native
of Cape Coast Castle and a man of African birth, but
does not seem to have attracted much attention as a
diplomat.
In 1850 also the “ sleep sickness ” or “ sleep disease ”
was found to exist in Liberia. A missionary, Koelle,
and a physician, Lugenbeel, both reported the malady,
which has lately appeared to a small extent in the United
States. Doala Bukere, inventor of the Yai alphabet,
was one of the most prominent victims of this disease,
which has been fully described by Lugenbeel on condi¬
tions as he found them in Liberia.
During the next year, Edward Wilmot Blyden, a
Negro from the Danish Island of St. Thomas, who was
destined to become one of the most famous Liberians,
arrived in the Republic. At that time he was only nine¬
teen years of age, but was already an excellent Latin and
Greek scholar, and was also conversant with many
V,/-' #»<*«*>*#£
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
111
European languages. He soon became a person of note
in the Republic, and was the author of many books of
interest. His best known, “ Christianity, Islam, and
the Negro Race,” is regarded as being one of the most
authoritative works on African subjects. He was versed
in Arabic, and it is said that his policy on African
Colonization is the only method that will meet with
success. He was a resident of Liberia until his death
there in 1913.
At this time friction with the natives again occasioned
trouble in Liberia. In 1850, the natives of Boporo had
again stopped all trade between the Mandingos in the
hinterland and the Liberians on the coast by plundering
the caravans.
Commerce all along the coast was considerably dis¬
turbed by this interior outbreak, which occurred shortly
after President Roberts had concluded a treaty of peace
between the Vai, Gora and Buzi tribes in an effort to
stimulate trade development. Grando, a native chief,
led a horde of tribesmen against the little town of Lower
Buchanan, and practically destroyed it. Ten Liberians
were killed in the battle.
Rendered over-confident by this victory, he attacked
Basa Cove, which proved a far harder nut to crack.
The settlers displayed unexpected resistance, and utterly
defeated Grando’s army with great loss to the latter.
Meanwhile, Maryland was having its share of native
troubles and insurrections, and the governor, John Bap¬
tist Russwurm, died of overstrain and overwork.
112
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Roberts had completed the acquisition of territory
between Cape Mount and the Bulo country behind Sher-
bro Island, and returned to Europe in 1852. In October
of the same year he had an interview with the Prince-
President of the French Republic, Louis Napoleon,
who was not yet Emperor. Roberts’ visit to England
was to secure recognition from the British Government
of Liberian sovereignty over the Gallinhas country.
He was again highly honored and was sent back to Li¬
beria on a British warship.
CHAPTER XXIII
Population in 1853. Border Troubles and Annexa¬
tion of Maryland
It was estimated that in 1853 the civilized population
of Liberia was more than ten thousand.
Maryland had been having no such prosperous time
as that experienced by Liberia, and was, on the contrary,
embroiled in troubles with the native tribes. Governor
Russwurm had been succeeded as head of the colony
by S. M. McGill, and a fine town was being founded at
Cape Palmas. Constant trouble was the rule in dealing
with the natives, and the friction was particularly marked
between the American colonial administrators and the
warlike coast tribes of the Grebos and Krus. The allied
races of the Lower Cavalla River also frequently warred
on the colonists.
In 1854 William A. Prout succeeded McGill as Gover¬
nor, and Maryland was then declared to be not a colony
but an independent Republic. Any advice from Mon¬
rovia on domestic questions was resented as infringing
on the independence of Maryland, whose existence as a
Republic was not recognized by any of the European
Powers.
In 1856 the long-smouldering embers of native insur¬
rection broke into flame, when on December 22, warriors
113
114
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
of the Grebo and allied tribes battled at Cape Palmas.
They were driven off; but on January 18, 1857, a body of
Marylanders, who were endeavoring to retaliate upon
the Grebos, met with disaster on the shores of Sheppard
Lake.
In a fierce battle near this lagoon, which lies between
Cape Palmas and the river Cavalla, the Maryland State
troops lost a considerable number of men and guns.
At that time, Roberts was no longer President, but bore
his old title of general. With two hundred and fifty
Liberian militiamen, he came to the aid of Maryland.
On February 18th, a treaty of friendship between the
two Republics was signed by the Hon. J. T. Gibson for
Maryland, and by Roberts for Liberia. Shortly after¬
wards, peace was declared between Maryland and the
Grebos.
J. B. Drayton had succeeded William Prout as gover¬
nor at the latter’s death in 1856. Drayton’s policy was
in accord with that of Liberia, and it was felt on both
sides that two such Republics as Maryland and Liberia
should become one.
This union was effected on February 28, 1B57, when
Maryland was formally annexed by the larger Republic.
The office of “ superintendent ” of Maryland superseded
that of governor, and the former republic became a
county of Liberia. Its first superintendent was the
Hon. J. T. Gibson, who had been instrumental in bring¬
ing about annexation. Maryland now sent two senators
and three representatives to the Liberian Congress.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
115
During his last year of office (1854), President Roberts
went to Europe for a third time, reaching England in
October. So great had been the encouragement af¬
forded by Great Britain, that Roberts confidently asked
Lord Clarendon, then foreign minister, to consent to the
annexation of Sierra Leone to Liberia for the reason that
the latter country desired a good harbor. This proposi¬
tion was received with little favor by the British diplo¬
mats, and it probably was just as well for Liberia not to
assume more territorial responsibilities at that time.
Liberian coins were first struck off in this year with
the financial assistance of Samuel Gurley. In denomina¬
tions of one cent, two cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents,
fifty cents, etc., they were cast in England. Roberts
returned to Liberia in December to find some degree of
local opposition to his policies, and in May of the next
year, Stephen Allen Benson was elected President.
Benson was born in Maryland (U. S. A.) in 1816, the
year Richard Allen incorporated the A. M. E. Church,
and had come to Liberia in 1832, the year of Nat Turner’s
uprising in the United States in his attempt to free
himself and to liberate his brother slaves. He had
risen to be a General and a Vice-President in the
Liberian State, and was elected with but little oppo¬
sition.
Roberts had rendered great service to the Liberian
Republic. It is possible that but for his vigorous manage¬
ment that state might never have had any independent
existence at all. Though Roberts was of Negro blood
116
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
he was mentally and physically the equal of the greatest
white statesmen, a fact which perhaps gave him more
weight at that time in the councils of Europe. He was
much exasperated in the summer of 1855 by the attacks
of a Mr. George S. Downing, described as a “ Free
colored man of New York,” who wrote bitter articles
containing various aspersions on Liberia and President
Roberts. These articles showed that President Roberts,
like all great leaders, was, too, to have his opposers.
Roberts after ceasing to be President still continued
to devote his talents and energies to the service of Li¬
beria. As already related he took command of the
armed force that went to save Maryland in 1857, and he
played a leading part in the annexation of that colony;
his soul was too big for him to stop.
In 1857 he was appointed principal of Liberia College,
an institution founded on paper in 1856, but not brought
into being until 1858-62, during the great Civil War of
the United States of America. With Mrs. Roberts he
resided on the site of the college for many years.
E. W. Blyden, President Gibson and Dr. Nathaniel
H. B. Cassell afterwards became Presidents of this col¬
lege. President Cassell was elected in 1918.
CHAPTER XXIV
Roberts as Consul. Domestic and Foreign
Troubles and Complications
Ex-president Roberts, in 1862, was appointed Belgian
Consul at Monrovia. This was not the first honor that
had been conferred on the Liberian statesman by Euro¬
pean potentates. In France, he had greatly attracted
the attention and respect of Napoleon III, then Prince-
President of the Republic. No small service was done
Liberia by this virtual sovereign, who, in 1856, sent to
the Little African Republic military equipment for a
thousand men, and the Hirondelle, a small gun-boat.
The latter proved of almost immediate use, for it con¬
veyed Roberts and his two hundred and fifty militia¬
men to Maryland, where the defeat of the Grebos was
accomplished.
Two years later the hitherto disinterested friendship
of France was in some degree shattered by a mutiny
of Krumen on a French vessel. The ship Regina Coeli
had arrived on the Kru coast to recruit native labor.
This was a practice much in vogue at the time, the Krus
being taken to the various parts of the African West
Coast.
They were willing to remain in the establishments of
various merchants or to serve on board French ships for
117
118
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
considerable periods of time. This particular band of
recruits was to be taken to the West Indies. Upon
hearing of their destination, they at once took alarm,
and long and suspicious conversations between the cap¬
tain and the headsmen induced in them the fear of being
sold into slavery.
Terror-stricken by the thought of this eventuality,
they mutinied in the captain’s absence, and killed every
member of the white crew, save the doctor. The latter
had, luckily for himself, won the good graces of the na¬
tives by treating the sick among their number. After
their work of butchery, the Krus set the ship adrift and
fled to the shore. The vessel drifted along the shore
until picked up by a passing British steamer, which
conveyed it to a Liberian port.
The French Government was in no way to blame for
this unfortunate incident, due no doubt to a complete
misunderstanding.
While Roberts had been anxious to improve the foreign
relations of the little Republic, President Benson was in
like manner concerned with the interior of Liberia it¬
self. He had had considerable experience in the con¬
ditions of the hinterland, gleaned in large measure from
his adventures as a trader on the St. Paul’s River. On
one occasion a buccaneering native chief had taken
him captive, and held him for some time as a hostage.
Soon after his election, he made a thorough search for
explorers. His object was to penetrate the vast forest
of Liberia to the uncharted and unknown regions beyond.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
119
Seymore and Ash were sent on this quest early in the
year 1858. The two Liberians travelled for half a year
and a full description of their journey, in which they
reached Kwanga, two hundred and eighty miles distant
from Monrovia, is given in the proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society for 1860. Kwanga can no longer
be identified on the map, — it is probably the Mandingo
state of Kwana, — but the travellers describe with
emphasis the high mountains which they reached.
They journeyed to the great mountain mass of Nimba,
where Cavalla River takes it source, and like Joshua
and Caleb they told of a great country beyond the hills.
In 1850, the Anglo-Liberian trade had begun to attain
considerable importance. Four British steamships were
maintaining a regular service between English ports and
Liberia. This line, The African Steamship Company,
was in reality the beginning of the firm of Elder Demp¬
ster, which has been almost without a rival in the West
African trade since the Hamburg Woerman line was
discontinued in 1914. In 1858, St. Mark’s Hospital,
the first in the Republic, was founded at Cape Palmas.
During the ten years after 1850, sharp reprisals were
visited by Germany and Great Britain on the natives of
the Kru Coast. The latter customarily stripped and
dismantled all manner of ships which came ashore on
the rocks of their coast. Like many seafaring and sea-
coast peoples, they regarded wrecks and wreckage as
legitimate salvage. The Governments of Liberia and
Maryland endeavored to control the natives, but their
120
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
militiamen and revenue officers were obliged to engage
in fierce battles with the Krus, which led to very doubt¬
ful victories for the Government forces.
In 1860, the long-drawn-out and bitter boundary
dispute between Britain and Liberia began. The
primary cause of it was the refusal of a trader, John
Myers Harris, to recognize Liberian authority. Harris,
who was suspected of carrying on a trade in slaves,
established himself between the Sulima and Mano
rivers. He was reminded of the Liberian political
rights, but refused to in any way submit to the authority
of the Republic.
President Benson ordered a coast-guard boat to seize
two schooners belonging to the trader. The seizure
took place between Cape Mount and Point Mano; that
is to say well within Liberian territory.
Notwithstanding the fact that Benson was acting
entirely within his rights, a British gunboat, the Torch ,
was ordered from Sierra Leone to Monrovia. Her
officers took away by force the vessels belonging to
Harris, while the Liberians looked on, powerless to
intervene.
In 1862, President Benson went to Sierra Leone to
negotiate with the Governor for an established boundary
between that colony and Liberia. Benson was civilly
received at Sierra Leone, but was referred to London for
a final decision on the question.
A commission called the Anglo-Liberian was ap¬
pointed and the commission remained in utter deadlock
President Johnson
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
121
over this question; nothing was done either on the
part of Sierra Leone or of Liberia.
Although this ended the boundary dispute for the
time being, it by no means curtailed the activities of
Harris. Operating with the support of the Sierra Leone
Government, he attempted to establish himself as an
independent chief in the Gallinhas country. His exac¬
tions caused the Yai tribe to wage virtual war upon him.
In retaliation, Harris organized the Gallinhas tribes
for war with the Vai. At once the Liberian Govern¬
ment sent a force of militiamen to aid the Vais. With
their arrival, the Gallinhas natives took to flight, and
turned their resentment on Harris. One of his factories
was destroyed, and the trader had the presumption to
put in a claim against Liberia for six thousand pounds
($30,000).
In this he was apparently supported by Sierra Leone.
This caused the creation of a new joint Anglo-Liberian
commission to enquire into the matter. It was indeed
fortunate for the little Republic that an American man-
of-war was in the neighboring waters, for otherwise the
Governor of Sierra Leone might have been disposed to
carry matters with a high hand.
Commodore Shufeldt of the battleship was chosen as
arbitrator, and reduced the claims of Harris to a mere
three hundred pounds ($1,500).
The colony of Sierra Leone now advanced its claims
to a protectorate over the coast east of Sherbro Island
as far as the River Mano, asserting that no order was
122
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
kept by the Liberian Government west of that
stream.
This excuse was but a flimsy one, for the Liberians
were wholly powerless against the aggressions of the Brit¬
ish traders, who could command the military aid of the
Sierra Leone Government at any time. Again the ques¬
tion was submitted to London, and was met with an
evasive answer by Lord Clarendon.
In 1870, the ill-fated President Hoye agreed to Lord
Granville's proposal that the British frontier should be
at the Sulima River.
By consenting to this somewhat curious proposal
President Roye had no doubt gravely compromised the
right of his government to an extension west of the
Sulima. As a matter of fact, no steps were taken to
carry Lord Granville's proposals into effect, owing to the
disaster which led to the death of President Roye in
1871. The question, therefore, of this northwest frontier
continued to remain open until closed by the Anglo-
Liberian Treaty of 1885.
CHAPTER XXV
The Relations between the United States
and Liberia
Finally after Liberia’s independence as a sovereign
state had been recognized by all the great nations of
Europe, the United States swung into line. On October
22, 1862, after fourteen years of delay, the virtual
mother of Liberia gave recognition to that Republic.
The great argument against such action by the United
States had been that men of color would come to Wash¬
ington as representatives of a country ruled by black
men.
This treaty was of no great import, for the indepen¬
dence of Liberia was in no way guaranteed, and American
protection was in no way assured. The question of
exact relationship between the two Republics is as per¬
plexing a one as it is interesting. Therefore it might
be well to insert the instances and languages in which the
United States Government has defined its special interest
in Liberia. This summary is taken from Sir H. H.
Johnston’s well-known work on Liberia:
“ In 1879, on the occasion of the reported offer of
French protection to Liberia, the American minister at
Paris was instructed to make inquiries on the subject,
and he was reminded in his instructions that when it
123
124
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
was considered that the United States had founded and
fostered the nucleus of a native representative govern¬
ment on the African shore, and that Liberia, so
created, had afforded a field of emigration and enter¬
prise for the emancipated Africans of America, who
had not been slow to avail themselves of the oppor¬
tunity, it was evident that the United States Govern¬
ment must feel a peculiar interest in any apparent
movement to divert the independent political life of
Liberia for aggression of a great Continental Power,
which already had a foothold of actual trading posses¬
sion on the neighboring coast.
“ In 1880 Mr. Evarts informed Mr. Hoppin, the United
States Charge d’Affaires in London, that the United
States were not averse to having the Great Powers know
that they publicly recognized the peculiar relations
which existed between them and Liberia, and that they
were prepared to take every proper step to maintain
them.
“in 1884 during Chester A. Arthur’s administration as
President of the United States, Frelinghuysen informed
M. Roustan, French Minister at Washington, that
Liberia, though not a colony of the United States, began
its independent career as an offshoot of that country,
which bore to it a quasi-parental relationship. This
authorized the United States to interpose its good offices
in any contest between Liberia and a foreign state. A
refusal to give the United States an opportunity to be
heard for this purpose would make an unfavorable
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
125
impression on the minds of the Government and the
people of the United States.
“ In 1887, on the occasion of the reported French ag¬
gressions on Liberian territory, the United States Govern¬
ment stated that their relations with the Republic had
not changed and that they still felt justified in employ¬
ing their good offices on her behalf.”
The name of Bishop H. M. Turner, a noted writer and
lecturer, will ever live as an agitator and vindicator of
the love America owed Liberia.
CHAPTER XXVI
President Warner and the Ports of Entry
Law
While the Civil War was at its height in America
(1864) President Benson was succeeded in office by
Daniel Bashiel Warner. Whereas the former was a
very dark man, Warner was a mulatto. Re-elected
once, he served continuously from 1864 to 1868.
Warner was elected on the Republican or True Li¬
berian ticket, but while in office became a Whig in
politics. His establishment of the Ports of Entry Law
in 1865 was doubtless due to a distrust of Europeans;
induced by the aggressions of Harris and other traders.
Despite the storm of disapproval it drew from British
merchants, the Ports of Entry Law is doubtless a wise
and even necessary measure for Liberia. It confined
the commerce of foreigners to six “ ports of entry ”
and a circle of six miles in diameter about each port.
The six harbors selected for intercourse were Roberts-
port, Monrovia, Marshall, Grand Basa, Greenville and
Cape Palmas.
At each of these ports, Liberian customs houses were
erected and the government itself took the responsibility
for all traders and their property. This was not as
drastic a measure as it would seem, for any person of the
126
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
127
African race could become a Liberian citizen, even if he
was white as to color.
Many British and other merchants were highly dis¬
pleased by this measure, for it rudely curtailed their
commercial dealings with the native Negroes at many
ports of the coast. The Liberian Government had little
choice in the matter, however, for its revenues were too
slight to permit the erection of more than six customs
houses, and to provide for their personnel and equip¬
ment.
This restriction of trade was in no way unusual at
that time, for even on the coasts of British and French
Africa there were only a few places for the landing or
embarkation of goods under the supervision of customs
officers.
The customs duties were low at that time (six per cent
ad valorem), but even that small toll induced the foreign
traders, more particularly the British, to defraud the
little Negro Republic by making landings at parts of the
coast outside the recognized spheres of entry.
Doubtless these spheres will be much extended when
the financial status of the Liberian Government is such
that more customs houses can be opened, not only on the
coast, but along the boundaries of Sierra Leone and the
French possessions. Numerous trading stations are
also to be established in the interior, when the Govern¬
ment has completed the construction of roads for wheeled
vehicles and has established police stations.
Emigration to Liberia received a new stimulus in
128
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
1865, when three hundred West Indians came to the
West Coast Republic. Included in the ship-load was
Arthur Barclay, then a mere boy, who afterwards served
as President of Liberia. His father was a free Negro,
who had become involved in political matters in Barba¬
dos, and as a result, was obliged to leave that island with
all his family.
He was a very able man, and much respected in Li¬
beria, where his success was considerable. The Barclays
were of pure Negro blood, and originally came from
Little Popo or Dahomey. They showed the strength of
the Negro brain, although unmixed with the white race.
After the conclusion of the war between the North and
South in America, when the Negro’s status in the United
States was entirely changed, interest in Liberia began
to revive. Bishop Turner got a better hearing on the
great African Question, and several attempts were made
to inaugurate wholesale emigration to Liberia.
This reawakened interest necessitated the securing
of information concerning the virtually unknown hinter¬
land of Liberia. Many persons went to the little Repub¬
lic, but not counting the cost of settling in a new country,
some returned home and branded the entire project a
failure.
To meet the need, Benjamin Anderson, a young Li¬
berian, born in 1834 and Secretary of the Treasury under
President Warner between 1864 and 1866, volunteered
his services as an explorer. He had received a good
education, and had a thorough knowledge of surveying.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
129
At the time of his withdrawal from office, he visited the
United States to meet several American philanthropists
who were interested in the Liberian Question.
They enquired why some boundary line had not been
fixed on the Eastern frontier of Liberia, and Anderson
declared himself willing to undertake such a task of de¬
marcation if sufficient funds were provided. Henry
M. Schiefflin assisted greatly in the financing of this
work of exploration, which has not to this day been
repeated in a like direction.
It stood for many years as one of the greatest under¬
takings in the exploration of West Africa. Anderson
made his start from Monrovia on February 14, 1868, and
journeyed slowly by crooked trails to the principal
town of a chief called Besa. This was located near
the coast slightly west of the river Mano.
The Mandingos at Boporo manifested some opposi¬
tion to the journey, but this trouble was soon ended.
At Boporo, indeed, Anderson succeeded in securing
porters and bearers to take him through the country of
Chief Boatswain, whose name still clung to this stretch
of hinterland.
The Mandingos almost wholly controlled the Boat¬
swain country, and were large holders of slaves either
captured in war or brought from the neighboring Kpwesi
or Buzi tribes. The latter seem to have been a nation
of considerable importance, for they maintained their
independence despite the aggressions of the warlike
Mandingos.
130
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Anderson finally reached the edge of the great forest
at Zigapora Zue. A stretch of park and grasslands as¬
cending to a plateau 2,200 feet above sea level, stretched
northward from this town, and over this he took his way.
The oil palms, which mark the forest region in western
and central Africa, disappeared as he reached Bulata
(2,253 feet in altitude), and the explorer was now travers¬
ing a high, healthy and open country, where a dry
atmosphere and cool nights made travelling more easy
than in the dense jungles.
The people of this land were highly civilized, and
were breeders of horses on a large scale. They were
Mohammedan Mandingos, and held their capital at
Musadu. Anderson’s treaties with their chiefs and
others of the interior may still be seen in the state
archives at Monrovia. The originals were written in
Arabic, and by them the various kings and headsmen
placed their countries within the limits of Liberia.
As a result of the curious conformations of the lands
of these chieftains, a somewhat zigzag hinterland bound¬
ary was secured for Liberia.
Again, in 1874, Anderson struggled northeastward
through the jungles of Liberia. This expedition was
one for treaty-making, and the geographical discoveries
were of small importance. Coupled with territorial
delineations, which were made subsequent to the an¬
nexation of Maryland, Anderson’s researches caused
Liberia to exhibit a curious formation on the map.
About the time of Anderson’s first trip of exploration,
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
131
the noted traveller, Burton, visited Cape Palmas and
the coast of Liberia, when en route to Fernando Po,
where he was to take up consular work in the Bights of
Benin and Biafra.
Win wood Reade, a follower of Burton’s in the paths of
literature, visited Liberia in 1863 and also in 1870,
spending about three months on the coast between Cape
Palmas and Monrovia. With Dr. Blyden, he made a
journey to Boporo, but his description of that Kondo
town is not extant.
His account of Liberia in the second volume of the
African Sketch Book, published in 1873, and his remarks
on the Kru people have survived over forty years, and
are still true to life and well worth reading.
He died in 1874 on his return from Ashanti land.
It is said by some historians that he and Professor Henry
Drummond are the only two writers of genius who have
ever touched Africa. Reade’s best known work, “ The
Martyrdom of Man,” was planned in a leaky hut at
Falaba, high up in the Mandingo country, where he was
being held captive. It is now in its seventeenth edition.
CHAPTER XXVII
President Payne. Edward James Roye and the
Chinery Loan
In the election of 1867, President Warner was defeated
by the Republican candidate, James Sprigg Payne.
Payne took office on January 1, 1868, and was president
until 1870. His term of office was uneventful.
He was succeeded by Edward James Roye, a pure-
blooded Negro, and the first Whig president to take office.
At that time the relative volume of the Liberian trade
was small compared with that of the British and French
colonies on the same coast, on account of Liberia’s
inability to open up her hinterland to a more profitable
and extended commerce. Between 1860 and 1870,
there had been much discussion on this question and
regarding that of public works.
As the difficulties surrounding the propositions were
purely financial, it was decided to negotiate a loan.
This measure was enthusiastically supported by Presi¬
dent Roye, who sent two commissioners, W. S. Anderson
and W. H. Johnson, to London to complete arrange¬
ments. Unluckily for the Republic, its consul-general
for Great Britain was an English financial agent, one
Chinery, whose connections were with certain banking
houses of not the best repute.
132
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
133
The loan was to be for a hundred thousand pounds,
that is to say five hundred thousand dollars. Chinery
introduced a rather shady firm of bankers, who outlined
a proposition unfavorable for Liberia. A payment in
cash of seventy thousand pounds was to be made against
a bond issue of a hundred thousand pounds.
The whole loan was to be repaid in fifteen years, and
the interest was seven per cent for the entire ore hundred
thousand pounds. This arrangement made it necessary
for Liberia to pay back to the lenders the outrageous
sum of one hundred and thirty-two thousand six hun¬
dred pounds, including the interest.
Doubtless the hard terms of the loan were largely
due to the rather poor security advanced by Liberia.
The customs dues or some branch of the customs revenue
was a guarantee for the loan; but the bankers declared
that the revenues were collected in no certain and orderly
fashion, and it might happen that there would be too
little revenue to meet the actual “ overhead ” expenses
of Liberia itself.
In case the little Republic repudiated its obligations,
they were fully aware that the British Government
would take no action whatever in the matter.
In Monrovia and elsewhere, the news of Chinery’s
loan was received with great dissatisfaction on all sides.
The indignant citizens at once protested to Chinery,
but President Roye was in England, compromising
Liberia in the Gallinhas Question, and while there ap¬
proved the idea of the loan. Upon this journey the
134
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Liberian Secretary of State, Hilary R. W. Johnson,
accompanied him.
In England Johnson disagreed with Roye over the
Sierra Leone Liberian frontier, and hastily returned to
Monrovia. It seems apparent from his subsequent
actions that Roye was about to attempt an overthrow
of the Government, which would allow him to govern
Liberia as a despot. While he did not take any direct
action as to Chinery’s loan, he intimated his approval of
the scheme, before the matter had been duly considered
by the Liberian legislature.
Roye thought his position a secure one, and so im¬
mediately after his return from England in the first
part of October, 1871, issued a proclamation to the effect
that he would extend his tenure of office for two more
years. Doubtless the Liberians might have favored
such a change, if Roye had not autocratically and ille¬
gally ordered it on his own authority.
At once popular indignation began to run high at
Grand Basa, Monrovia, and many other settlements.
Roye attempted to arm those of his party who had
promised to support him in his coup d’eiat. His sup¬
porters made an attempt to seize a bank building in
Monrovia, and with that overt act, the fires of insurrec¬
tion broke out.
Almost to a man, the citizens of Monrovia rose against
the despotic president in the first and last revolution in
Liberia. Street fighting became general and several
lives were lost on both sides. Roye’s followers were out-
>
Hon. J. L. Morris
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
135
numbered and out-fought,and fled, while an angry crowd
sacked the President’s mansion.
After a somewhat extended man hunt through the
city, Roye and one of his sons were caught and im¬
prisoned. Congress was hastily summoned, and the
Senate and House of Representatives issued a manifesto
deposing Roye. The government was to be provisionally
carried on by Charles B. Dunbar, General R. A. Sherman
and Amos Herring until a new president could be
elected. The manifesto was issued on October 26, 1871.
Roye’s Secretary of State, H. R. W. Johnson, still re¬
mained in office.
Meanwhile, ex-President Roye’s trial before the
Supreme Court was halted by his death in the breakers
off Monrovia. During the night, Roye, through negli¬
gence, had managed to elude his guards and had
escaped from jail. In a native canoe, he tried to
reach an English steamer in the harbor. He removed
the greater part of his clothing, so that he might be mis¬
taken for an ordinary native or Kru boy looking for work.
About his waist was a money belt, filled with sovereigns!
and as the badly steered canoe capsized, Roye was
drowned.
Much confusion exists as to the precise amount of
money which actually reached the Liberian treasury from
the loan. It is generally estimated that twenty-seven
thousand pounds out of the hundred thousand actually
reached Liberia. Of this sum, twelve thousand pounds
was paid in bills, which could be negotiated only at a
136
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
high rate of discount, and out of the seventy thousand
pounds assumed to have been found by the London
bankers, three years’ interest was apparently deducted.
A great deal of the money seems to have disappeared
with Roye, and W. S. Anderson, who was bringing out
a small sum from England, was so alarmed by Roye’s
fate that he fled to St. Paul de Loanda, and demanded
protection against prosecution in Liberia.
President Roye had further compromised the Li¬
berian Republic by issuing bonds to the sum of eighty
thousand pounds against the amount of the loan. Vari¬
ous historians state that possibly even one hundred
thousand pounds’ worth of bonds were in circulation,
but the Liberian government was able to cancel a large
number of these.
Chinery’s successor as Consul General began a suit
against the former Liberian representative at the behest
of the Republic, but no satisfaction was obtained in any
manner. Indeed, through a strange turn of circum¬
stance, Chinery again acted as Consul General in London
during 1880. This came about through the efforts of
Dr. E. W. Blyden, who, meeting Chinery in Sierra
Leone, came to the conclusion that the blame lay entirely
with Roye. Blyden, then Liberian minister to the court
of St. James, appointed Chinery to his former position,
but this action was never confirmed by the Liberian
President.
Former President Joseph J. Roberts was called upon
to succeed Roye, and held office until 1875. Scarcely
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
137
two months after relinquishing his position as head of the
Republic, he died from a chill contracted at the funeral
of a colleague. A tornado burst on that occasion, and
Roberts died on February 21, 1876, from the effects of
the downpour.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Ultimate Settlement of the Chinery
Loan
Quite naturally the Liberian Government was in¬
clined to repudiate the Chinery loan after the treachery
of Roye, but unfortunately from twenty to twenty-seven
thousand pounds had arrived in Liberia and had
promptly been spent. An Englishman named Johnson
had taken Chinery’s post in London, and during nine
years attempted to in some way straighten out the
tangled affairs of the Republic.
Owing to Blyden’s efforts, Chinery again held the
office, but was succeeded by one Gudgeon, who, in turn,
gave place to Henry Hayman, whose title was Consul
General and Acting Minister Resident. Hayman
first took office from 1885 to 1891, and his more
vigorous attempts to unravel the tangle of loan matters
were more successful than those of his predecessor.
Fraud and negligence greatly added to his troubles, for
a large number of bonds made out “ to bearer ” were
actually on sale in the London Stock Market, in Holland
and other countries of the Continent.
Negligence on the part of Liberia is presumed to have
been responsible for this flood of bonds “ to bearer.”
In 1898, the year of the Spanish-American War, the
138
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
139
Liberian Government agreed to pay a progressive
interest at three to five per cent. Since that time the
interest, which is on a loan of from seventy to eighty
thousand pounds, has risen to four per cent, and has been
paid without default.
This unusually honorable settlement with holders of
Liberian bonds, particularly honorable in respect to the
Liberian Republic, was achieved by Arthur Barclay,
then Secretary of the Treasury.
The text of this agreement is as follows:
“ Liberian Government 7 per cent. External loan
of 1871.
Bases of Agreement submitted by the Honorable A.
Barclay, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Hon. J. C.
Stevens, Attorney-General of the Government of Li¬
beria, of the one part, and approved by the Committee
of Liberian Bondholders acting in conjunction with the
Council of Foreign Bondholders of the other part.
I. The interest on the debt to be reduced as follows:
3 per cent for three years; per cent for three years;
4 per cent for three years, the present rate of interest;
4i per cent for three years; 5 per cent thereafter until
extinction. Interest to be paid half yearly in gold in
London, by a banking house to be appointed by the
Government of Liberia and approved by the Council.
The first payment of interest to be made on October
1st, 1899.
II. Amortization of the principal of the bonds, de¬
posited with the Council under this arrangement, in
140
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
accordance with Article VIII, to commence after five
years, viz.: On October 1st, 1904, by means of an accu¬
mulative sinking fund of 1 per cent per annum, to be
applied half yearly by purchases on the market or by
tenders as the Government may decide, when the price
of the bonds is under par, or by drawings for redemp¬
tion at par when the price is at or above par. The
government reserves the right to increase the sinking
fund at any time, or to put it into operation at an earlier
date.
III. For the arrears of interest reckoned up to March
31st, 1899, the Council of Foreign Bondholders will
issue non-interest bearing certificates, which shall be
redeemed in the following manner: After the extinction
of the principal of the debt, the Government of Liberia
will continue to remit in the manner hereinbefore pro¬
vided, for a period of four years, the like amount of
interest and sinking fund payable at the date of such
extinction in respect of the amount of bonds which may be
deposited with the Council within the period prescribed
by Article VIII. This sum shall be applied by the bank¬
ers charged with the service of the debt to the redemp¬
tion of the certificates, either by a pro rata payment or
by half yearly drawings as may be determined by the
Council in conjunction with the committee. The
Government of Liberia is entitled to purchase certificates
on the market at any time if it so desires, and to partici¬
pate with the holders of the other outstanding certifi¬
cates in the fund appropriated for their redemption.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
141
IV. As security for the service of the debt the Govern¬
ment especially exports direct to the Consul-General for
Liberia in London, and to be handed by him to the bank
charged with the service of the debt. Any sums hereafter
paid to the Government by the existing Liberian Rubber
Syndicate, or any other syndicate or company that may
succeed it, are to be applied in like manner to the service
of the debt.
V. Should the product of the rubber export duties
within the first five years amount to more than is re¬
quired for the payment of the interest on the debt at the
rates set forth in Article I, such surplus shall be applied
to amortization, or if after the fifth year there should be
a surplus from the same source after providing for the
payment of interest and the accumulative sinking fund
of 1 per cent as set forth in Article II such surplus shall
be applied to additional amortization.
VI. The service of the debt shall be further secured
on the general customs revenue of the Republic, it
being understood that the acceptance of these bases of
arrangement on the part of the Council and Committee
is contingent on some effective control of the collection
of the customs duties satisfactory to the committee be¬
ing established, and that any deficiency in the product
of the rubber export duties required for the service of the
External Debt is to constitute a first charge on the reve¬
nues derived from the general customs revenue, subject
only to the expenses of collection and the payment of
interest not exceeding 6 per cent per annum on any ad-
142
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
vance made by the syndicate or company which may be
formed to undertake the collection of the said revenues.
In any event the full sum required in gold for the half
yearly service of the debt is to be in the hands of the
bankers in London at least a fortnight before the due
date of the coupons as altered under this arrangement.
The Government will also at the same time pay the bank
the usual commission for administering the debt service.
VII. The bonds of 1871 are to be lodged with the
Council, and stamped on their face as assenting to
the new arrangement, and the coupons endorsed with the
altered dates and rates of payment in accordance with
Article I, or new coupon sheets are to be printed and at¬
tached to the bonds. If any stamp duty in England is
involved in this operation the cost shall be borne by the
Government of Liberia.
VIII. In order to participate in this arrangement
the bonds must be deposited with the Council of Foreign
Bondholders within one year from the date of its ac¬
ceptance by the bondholders.
IX. In the event of default of any payment con¬
templated by this arrangement, or of failure to carry out
the terms thereof, the existing rights of the bondholders
to revive.
X. This arrangement is subject to ratification first
by the Legislature of Liberia, and afterwards by resolu¬
tion of a general meeting of bondholders to be convened
by the Council.
XI. A reasonable sum to be paid by the Liberian
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
143
Government to the Council for their expenses and ser¬
vices, to be settled between them and the Consul-General
of Liberia.
London, the 28th day of September, 1898.
For the Government of Liberia:
Arthur Barclay, Secretary of Treasury,
J. C. Stevens, Attorney-General.
For the Committee of Liberian Bondholders:
G. W. Fremantle, Vice-president of the Council,
Acting Chairman]\
CHAPTER XXIX
Boundary Troubles with Sierra Leone
Rumors of gold mines near Musadu agitated Liberia
in 1871, during Roberts’ last term, and the explorer,
Benjamin Anderson, was again sent to the hinterland,
this time to ascertain the truth of these reports. He
did not succeed in finding any mineral wealth, and his
travels in the jungles of the interior brought nothing new
to light in a geographical sense. The prestige of Li¬
beria among the native tribes was, however, considerably
heightened by this expedition.
At about this time, relations were again strained be¬
tween Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Vai, once more
grown restless under the aggressions of the notorious
Harris, had risen in force and destroyed his factories on
the Mano and Mafi rivers. As usual, the governor of
Sierra Leone stood behind the trader, and demanded a
new indemnity in addition to that of 1869, which had
not been paid.
Roberts agreed to settle the first matter in 1872, but
denied the justice of the second claim. The matter
lapsed until 1878, when it was again brought to life by
Sir Samuel Rowe, Governor of Sierra Leone. He de¬
manded that the second indemnity of more than eight
144
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
145
thousand pounds be paid, and at the same time declared
that the British Government would establish a protecto¬
rate along the coast to the Mano River to keep order
among the native tribes.
In 1870 Lord Granville and Roye had agreed that a
mixed commission should be appointed to discuss the
question of Liberian rights west of the Sulima. Gran¬
ville had added that Great Britain did not bind herself
to recognize Liberian dominion beyond that stream.
In the meantime, Roberts had been succeeded by J. S.
Payne, who in turn was followed by Anthony William
Gardner in 1878.
Gardner agreed to the assembly of a boundary com¬
mission at Sierra Leone, and the Liberian and British
delegates arrived there on December 29. Even British
historians admit that the treatment of the Liberian
diplomats and commissioners in Sierra Leone was cava¬
lier in the extreme, and assert that the proceedings of the
commission were neither fair nor impartial.
While the question was allowed to consume more and
more time, the British officials brought all the pressure
possible to bear on the native chiefs west of the Mano.
Coercion may have been resorted to to make the kings
and headsmen deny that their predecessors had ever ceded
their lands to the Liberian Republic.
At any rate, in thirty years various tribes had risen
in power, while others had fallen in importance. New
racial divisions had displaced those with whom Roberts
had made treaties twenty-nine years before, and the
146
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
entire tribal characteristics of the land had undergone
some change.
The British commissioners had their eyes on Cape
Mount, and endeavored to secure that strategic point by
coercing the Liberians into declaring the Mafi or Mano
River the Sierra Leon e-Liberian frontier. The question
of indemnity due to Harris and other British traders,
whom the Yais were said to have attacked, was also the
subject of much acrimonious and heated debate. Finally
the commission split up without arriving at a satisfac¬
tory settlement of any question.
In 1879 an unfortunate incident further endangered
the Republic, already shaken by British aggressions and
the failure of the Chinery loan. Near Nana Kru, the
natives of the coast had maltreated the crew and pas¬
sengers of a German steamer, the Carlos, which had
crashed on the rocks near the Dewa River. At once a
German man-of-war, the Victoria, steamed for the Li¬
berian coast, and bombarded the Kru towns about the
scene of the wreck. After this act of summary ven¬
geance, the battleship proceeded to Monrovia, and a
claim against Liberia was deposited which was paid by
the cooperation of the European merchants settled at
Monrovia. Might is often called right, and whether
the little Republic was responsible or not, it paid the
claim.
CHAPTER XXX
Liberia in 1880
In 1876 a pest in the form of burrowing fleas or
“ jiggers ” came to Liberia on a ship from the Portuguese
Island of Sao Thome. The “ jigger ” spread over the
coastal belt of Liberia, but is much less apparent at the
present time than a few years ago.
President Gardner was made a Knight Grand Cross of
the Spanish Order of Isabella Catolica in 1879, and
resolved to initiate an order of chivalry peculiar to Li¬
beria. This was named the Order of African Redemp¬
tion.
Under Gardner’s presidency, on April 1st, 1879,
Liberia joined the Universal Postal Union.
In 1877 there had been a fresh accession of Negro
colonists from Louisiana who were mainly distributed
about the Lower St. Paul’s River. Some of these subse¬
quently returned to America. One of them was Rev.
M. H. Mahaffey, whose wife was so affected by the re¬
turn to America that she lost her mind, jumped over¬
board from the ship and was drowned. Rev. Mahaffey
was foully murdered in 1913, near Gainesville, Fla.
No immigration of any organized or important kind
has taken place subsequently from America, though
individuals from the United States and the West Indies
147
148
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
have from time to time found their way to Liberia and
settled there more or less permanently.
In 1880 it is probable that the total Americo-Liberian
population was ten thousand in number. The birth
rate was small, and the somewhat slow increase at most
atoned for the departure of dissatisfied colonists and the
heavy death rate from disease.
It is a fact that Americans are no less susceptible to
African fevers than Europeans. Full-blooded Negroes
are least affected by the climate, and mulattoes suffer
less than quadroons. As a result, the pure Negro type
has increased in Liberia, while the half-breed is dying
out.
In 1880 a rather foolish system of caste was main¬
tained between Christian Negroes from America and
the indigines of Liberia. Marriages or illicit unions
between Americo-Liberian men and native women were
frowned upon almost equally, although some of the
Yai and Man dingo girls are strikingly beautiful*
Different observers declare that Liberia is dependent
for its population upon the inter-marriage of the
natives with the emigrants, who will infuse a new blood
into the coming generation. Some, indeed, go so far
as to state that persons of color from America or Europe
should obtain wives direct from the African Continent.
After 1880 public spirit in Liberia was taking a more
African turn, perhaps on account of a feeling of disap¬
pointment in regard to the results of Negro repatriation.
During this time, the philanthropists of the United
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
149
States and Britain vied with one another in contributing
towards the endowment of Liberia College and the Col¬
lege of West Africa. In England, Robert Arthington, of
Leeds, was the leader in the work. A settlement on the
St. Paul’s River has since been named for him.
Only for a short time did Sierra Leone abandon its
hostile policy towards Liberia, and in 1880, Sir Arthur
Havelock, who had succeeded Sir Samuel Rowe as Gover¬
nor of that colony, again took up the frontier question.
He demanded that British influence should extend over
the region between the Sherbro and the Mano River,
and also that Harris’ indemnity of eight thousand five
hundred pounds should be paid in full.
Sir Arthur Havelock, who was, unluckily, also consul-
general for Britain in Liberia, arrived off Monrovia with
four gunboats on March 20, 1882, and ordered the Li¬
berian Government to cede its territory and to pay the
claims of British traders.
This display of force by Britain caused President
Gardner to appoint the Minister of the Interior, Dr.
Edward Blyden, to parley with Havelock. The latter
agreed to pay for the damages caused by the Vai in 1871,
and to abandon all Liberian territorial rights to her
lands west of the Mafi River. . In return, Sir Arthur
solemnly promised to intercede for the line of the Mano
River instead, and asserted that the British Govern¬
ment would repay to Liberia all the money spent by the
latter since 1849 in buying land west of the Mano.
The treaty signed, Havelock and his gunboats went
150
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
back to Sierra Leone, but the Senate was more coura¬
geous than its leaders, and rejected the treaty, while
instant opposition to its harsh terms was displayed all
over the country.
Liberia declared herself ready to have the matter
arbitrated, as the entire dispute arose more or less from
the fact that Liberia could not use armed force to re¬
strain the arrogant British traders who had established
themselves within her boundaries. Their aggressions
served to stir up the natives, and the result was almost
incessant turmoil.
Back to Liberia on September 7, 1882, came Sir Arthur
Havelock and his gunboats. The governor demanded
an immediate ratification of the treaty, but was now
vigorously opposed by President Gardner. The Li¬
berian executive had had time to prepare a defence, and
asked Havelock why, if the contested territory were
British, England should claim any indemnity for tribal
risings therein. On the other hand if Liberia did pay
an indemnity, why should her lands by right of priority
and of purchase be snatched from her? Gardner was
supported by the Senate, which vigorously opposed any
ratification of the treaty.
All attempts to coerce Liberia having failed, the
Government of Sierra Leone, in March, 1883, by force
took over all the territory from the Sherbro to the Mano
River. This territory had cost Liberia approximately
twenty thousand pounds ($100,000) to buy, main¬
tain, and pay indemnities. Small wonder that Gardner
Bishop Ferguson
Bishop I. B. Scott, M. E. Church
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
151
was so indignant at the insult that he left office almost
immediately as a protest against these high-handed
methods.
According to custom, the vice-president, A. F. Russell,
completed Gardner’s term. On January 1, 1884, a
diplomat and a native Liberian entered the Presiden¬
tial chair, Hilary Richard Wright Johnson, a pro¬
fessor at Liberia College and a former Secretary of
State. He was born in Liberia during 1837, and was
a son of the pioneer, Elijah Johnson. True to his
diplomatic training, he at once commenced to regulate
the action taken by the British Government in 1883.
These negotiations finally resulted in the treaty of No¬
vember 11th, 1885, which was subsequently ratified by
both governments. By this the boundary of Liberia
on the west commences at the mouth of the river Mano.
The Treaty of 1885 runs thus:
“ The line marking the northwestern boundary of the
Republic of Liberia shall commence at the point on the
seacoast at which, at low water, the line of the south¬
eastern or left bank of the Mano River intersects
the general line of the seacoast, and shall be continued
along the line marked by low water on the southeastern
or left bank of the Mano River, until such line, or such
line prolonged in a northeastern direction, intersects
the line or the prolongation of the line marking the
northeastern or inland boundary of the territories of
the Republic, with such deviations as may hereafter be
found necessary to place within Liberian territory the
152
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
town of Boporo and such other towns as shall be here¬
after acknowledged to have belonged to the Republic
at the time of the signing of this Convention.”
The question was finally set at rest by further negotia¬
tions in 1902, which resulted in the Anglo-Liberian
boundary commission in 1903. The same treaty also
provided for the repayment to Liberia of 4,750 pounds,
which was intended to reimburse Liberia for sums
originally paid between 1849 and 1856 for the pur¬
chase of some of these contested territories.
CHAPTER XXXI
Boundary Troubles with France
At about this time France, which had severely cen¬
sured the British Government for its aggressions on
Liberia, decided to do a little plundering on its own be¬
half. As has been before mentioned, by the purchase of
coastal lands, the Republic of Maryland, and finally
that of Liberia, extended eastwards along the Ivory
Coast about sixty miles from the Cavalla, that is to
say, to the river San Pedro.
The entire Kru tribe inhabited these limits, so that it
was as much a racial boundary as a geographical one.
Up to 1888, this strip of coastland was recognized as
being Liberian territory, although in 1885, the Bulletin
des Lois published a decree extending the territory of
France to the Cavalla and even beyond, to the town of
Garawe, past Cape Palmas. France also began to ad¬
vance some ridiculously slight claims to Cape Mount
and to the original site of Petit Dieppe (Grand Basa).
Upon hearing of these intentions in 1891, Lord Salisbury,
acting for the British Government, attempted to induce
France to restrain her aggressions to “ reasonable ”
limits.
The French boundary was drawn at the Cavalla.
The Liberians protested in vain against this spoliation,
153
154
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
but, receiving no assurances of support either from the
United States or Great Britain, were fain to conclude a
treaty with France on December 8th, 1892, according
to which the river Cavalla became the boundary between
France and Liberia from its mouth, as far as a point
situated about twenty miles to the south of its conflu¬
ence with the river Fodeduga-ba, at the intersection
of the parallel 3°30 north latitude and the (Paris)
meridian 9°12 of west longitude. This starting-point
of Franco-Liberian delimitation on the river Cavalla
is determined in the most contradictory manner.
The treaty first says that it shall be situated at a
point on the Cavalla about twenty miles to the south of
its confluence with the river Fodeduga-ba, which was
at that time supposed to be an affluent of the Cavalla.
But the treaty supplements this definition by adding the
words, “ at the intersection of the parallel 6°30 north
latitude and the Paris meridian 9° 12 of west longitude.”
At the date this treaty was drawn up, almost nothing
was known of the course of the river Cavalla. The name
Fodeduga-ba is a Man din go word, apparently, for a river
or water course which under varying forms appears and
reappears constantly in the Upper Niger Basin. The
river which is indicated under this name in the Franco-
Liberian treaty is obviously the main course, Dugu or
Duyu, of the river Cavalla. This was confused by na¬
tive tradition with a real “ Fodeduga-ba ” which occurs
a great deal farther to the north as an affluent of the
Sasandra River.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
155
In addition they went on to postulate that twenty
miles below the confluence of these two streams the
main course of the Cavalla would be intersected by 6°30'
north latitude, and 9°12, Paris, west longitude. From
this, “ Point at a point,” so contradictorily fixed on the
Cavalla, the boundary was then to be carried along
3°30 parallel of north latitude as far west as the Paris
meridian 10° of longitude, with this proviso, that the
basin of the Grand Sesters River should belong
to Liberia and the basin of the Fodeduga-ba to
France. Then the boundary was to be carried north
along the 10th meridian of Paris to the intersection of
7th degree of north latitude, and from this point in a
northwesterly direction until the latitude of Tembi
Kunda was reached, after which the boundary was
carried west along the latitude of Tembi Kunda till it
intersected the British frontier near that place. At that
time it was supposed by both French and English that
Tembi Kunda is in about latitude 8°35 . Subsequent
surveys, however, show that Tembi Kunda is in about
9°5 . All these lines drawn by latitudes and longitudes
from 7° north latitude to Tembi Kunda were, however,
to be inflected and inverted should they conflict with
the basin of the Niger and its affluents, all of which were
to belong to France. It was also decided that the
Mandingo towns of “ Bamaquilla,” and “ Mahommo-
dou ” should belong to France.
This treaty, coupled with the Sierra Leone settlement,
enabled the territory of Liberia to appear on maps of
156
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Africa with some greater definiteness of outline and
without the fantastic zigzags introduced by Anderson’s
surveys. These two treaties, like a mighty vise, are
endeavoring to more completely confine the bounds of
the little Republic.
President Hilary Johnson died in 1898. He had
received several decorations from European powers
and was much respected. After his retirement from the
Presidency he took up the position of Postmaster-
General. He had been chiefly responsible for negotiat¬
ing this frontier treaty with France but retired from the
Presidency before it was concluded, on January 1st,
1892, and was succeeded by President Joseph James
Cheeseman, who occupied the chief magistracy till his
death in November, 1896. Cheeseman was followed by
William David Coleman, first as Vice-president and
later as President.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Third Grebo War. Concessions in Mining
and Rubber
More trouble broke out on the lower Cavalla River
in 1893, when the warlike Grebos, excited by the ag¬
gressions of the French, tried to capture an Americo-
Liberian settlement near Harper by assault. After
several disasters to Liberian arms, the steamer Gorrono-
mah was sent to the scene of the “ Third Grebo War,”
and co-operating with Gen. R. A. Sherman, who com¬
manded the land forces, gained a final victory over the
natives.
Three years later the tribe again waged war on the
settlers, but so strong had Liberia’s ^rmy then become
that the Grebos were almost instantly put down with
little loss to the Liberians. General R. A. Sherman, the
mulatto officer, who had the record of directing the
greater part of these punitive expeditions, died in 1894
and was buried with all military honors.
Up to 1880, there had been no thought of European
development of Liberian resources, but in that year talk
of “ concessions ” in mining or in rubber was begun.
Such a concession might well prove a financial success
for the state.
Eleven years before, the Mining Company of Liberia
was established and given special rights by the Govern-
157
158
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
ment. However, it failed to raise sufficient capital for
the working of these mining rights. In 1881 this was
transformed into the Union Mining Company, and to it
was granted a charter containing important privileges.
This chartered company was to languish in inaction,
since it was unable on a purely Liberian basis to raise
any capital for its purposes.
The belief in mineral wealth in Liberia then, and per¬
haps one may add now, lingers in the air of Liberia, as
Benjamin Anderson has written a great deal that is
alluring about mines of fabulous wealth in the vicinity
of Musadu, which, however, he had not been allowed to
visit. He tried to reach these regions in 1874, but failed.
The wonderful gold mines of Buley (Bula) have not been
discovered as yet.
The rubber royalties were afterwards applied to the
service of the Liberian debt. The concession, after
passing through several hands, was finally bought by the
Chartered Company, and has now become the Liberian
Rubber Corporation.
The results of Prof. Buttikofer’s journeys have con¬
siderably increased the knowledge of the coastal geog¬
raphy of Liberia.
From 1880 to 1890, German interest in Liberia began
to increase, partly through the publication of Butti-
kofer’s work on the fauna of the Republic, and also
through the Hamburg Company of Woermann, who had
been trading on the West Coast since 1850, and had
established factories all along the Liberian seaboard.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
159
Elder Dempster, the British House, has since 1855
conducted a steamer service between Liverpool and
various ports of Liberia, but for some time the line was
in a way unsatisfactory, for the ships were slow and
uncomfortable.
This was remedied a short time after the Woer-
mann line had installed its service of a monthly express
boat from Monrovia to Hamburg and Southampton
and had put on the route modern and comfortable
steamers of good speed.
Naturally, these efforts on the part of the Woermann
Company served to improve the English service, and the
rivalry was most beneficial for Liberian commerce and
communication with the Continent.
During the last years of the nineteenth century Kru-
men came into more demand as sailors on European
ships. For nearly a century, they had been the sea¬
faring tribe of West Africa, and had survived all at¬
tempts of slave traders to lure them into captivity.
To this day there are many Kruboys in the British Navy,
particularly in vessels of the Cape and West African
flotillas. As English tars, they sailed up and down the
coast from the Gambia to Cape Town.
They engaged in service with all the commercial
houses: British, German, French, Spanish, Dutch,
Belgian, and Portuguese, along the coast of West
Africa, from Sierra Leone to Mossamedes.
They generally formed the boats’ crew up and down
the coast. This race accepted the settlement by the
160
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
Americo-Liberians on either side of their country with
good-humored tolerance until attempts were made to
maintain law and order within the Kru country.
Kru labor is sought after everywhere and shows that
the African is not the shiftless fellow that many writers
claim him to be. France snapped up the sixty-mile
stretch of coast between the San Pedro and the Cavalla,
so as to have under her own flag a supply of Kru
labor.
Several attempts were made by the German house of
Woermann to obtain a concession for the recruiting and
exporting of Kru labor, and regulations governing this
recruitment were from time to time drawn up by the
Liberian Government.
The Monrovian Government in 1893 strengthened its
position among the Krumen — by securing declarations
on the part of their chiefs of adhesion to the Govern¬
ment of Liberia—to put a stop to foreign intrigue in this
direction. President Coleman favored vigorous measures
to subdue the tribes of the hinterland around the St.
Paul’s River, and in 1900 commenced a disastrous
attempt to carry Liberian influence into the northwest
regions of Liberia. His plans met with a rude jolt when
his expedition was totally defeated and utterly routed
by the very tribes it had been sent to subdue. The
Liberian Cabinet was thoroughly in opposition to Cole¬
man’s domestic policies as regarded the natives, and he
resigned in flavor of Vice-president Garretson Wilmot
Gibson, the president-elect.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
161
Gibson's ideas on domestic affairs were in great con¬
trast with those of Coleman, and under his direction the
development of the Republic took a great stride forward.
To facilitate this development, and especially that of the
hinterland, the agent of the Union Mining Company
offered the charter of that firm to Lt.-Col. Cecil Powney,
the chairman of a British syndicate.
To clear up all difficulties concerning the tenure of the
charter and the necessary sanction of the Liberian
Government, Sir Simeon Stuart and T. H. Myring went
to the Republic as accredited agents of the syndicate.
An agreement to buy up the charter was entered into,
and the Liberian Congress in December, 1901, sanc¬
tioned the transfer of the charter from the Union Mining
Company to the West African Gold Concessions Limited.
Some minor changes were introduced into the charter,
and further modifications were made in August, 1904,
and January, 1906. By this charter, mining rights in two
counties, those of Montserrado and Maryland, and bank¬
ing, railway, telegraph, and other rights throughout
Liberia are consigned to the company. The Chartered
Company, between 1902 and 1904, dispatched six expedi¬
tions to search the hinterland for minerals, and in 1903
engaged Mr. Alexander Whyte to make a thorough
investigation of the Liberian flora. The results of Mr.
Whyte’s work have been of some importance to science;
he has done for the flora of Liberia what Buttikofer did
for the fauna.
CHAPTER XXXIII
President Arthur Barclay
In 1904, President Arthur Barclay succeeded the Hon.
G. W. Gibson, and immediately began a policy of concilia¬
tion toward the tribes of the Liberian hinterland. Bar¬
clay was a native of Barbados, had come to Liberia in
1885, and had served in the legal, judicial, financial,
and other departments of the Liberian Government.
He was first Clerk of the House of Representatives,
Judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions, Sub-Treasurer
at Montserrado, Postmaster General and Secretary of
the Treasury.
He proceeded to hold at Monrovia a Congress or Con¬
vention of kings, headmen and chiefs from the hinter¬
land, and more particularly the Gora, Boporo, and
Kpwesi countries. This conference served to greatly
improve trade relations between the Americo-Liberians
and the indigines, and other meetings of Kru and Grebo
men of authority followed. Missions were also dis¬
patched under native commissioners to the interior and
up the Cavalla and St. Paul rivers, oftentimes a hundred
miles, to endeavor to develop commerce with the coast,
to hoist the Liberian flag and to prevent tribal wars and
skirmishes.
President Barclay struck the keynote of his policy
of domestic government when he stated that he con-
162
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
163
sidered all Negroes inhabiting Liberia to be Liberians,
and had no wish to drive out native Negroes in favor of
colonists of the coast. This gave a more than effective
answer to the French claim that a lack of “ occupation ”
was noticeable in Liberia on account of absence of
“Americo-Liberian” settlements in the hinterland.
France in reality had little right to make such an
assertion, for the Mohammedan Negroes, who are virtu¬
ally French subjects, are steadily penetrating the Li¬
berian hinterland and driving the tribes of the forest
farther and farther back into the jungles.
Coming first as peaceful settlers, these Mohammedan
French Negroes have been much more active in ousting
the indigines than have the Liberian colonists.
President Gibson had effected the demarcation of the
Anglo-Liberian boundary from the mouth of the Mano
to Tembi Kunda, and in 1904 President Barclay, anxious
to carry on the work of his predecessor, aided a French-
Liberian commission to carry out the same scheme in
regard to the French frontier.
From 1898 to 1900 another most remarkable journey
of exploration had been added to the several notable
expeditions into Liberia which had served to arouse
French land-hunger as regards Liberian territory. This
expedition was under the joint command of a colonial
official of the Ivory Coast, M. Hostains, and a military
officer, Captain D’Ollone. They started on February
19th, 1899. Their journey was the most remarkable
piece of exploration that has yet been accomplished in
164
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
the Liberian hinterland, for this French expedition was
the first to reveal with any approach to accuracy the
configuration of the Cavalla basin. It also discovered
the lofty Nimba Mountains, and enabled us to make a
more accurate guess at the sources and affluents of the
St. Paul’s River. Their journey threw a beam of bright
light through the dark Liberian hinterland.
Therefore, in 1904, proposals and counter proposals
on the part of France and Liberia were made in regard
to the drawing of the boundary line on the northern and
eastern frontiers of the Republic. In the first place, a
more accurate delineation of the frontier was rendered
necessary, inasmuch as the treaty of 1892 had not been
founded on geographical facts.
The proposals of France, which were finally agreed to
by Liberia, caused the cession by the Republic of a
portion of the basin of the Makona in the northwest, but
on the other hand, assured her undisputed possession of
the entire western basin of the Cavalla. The whole
basin of the river St. Paul was also given over to Li¬
beria. By this treaty, much valuable territory in both
the regions of the northeast and northwest-is lost to the
little Republic, which, however, secures the territory
previously mentioned, and attains a much more easily
marked frontier in the course of the Cavalla from source
to mouth. This is also the line of water-parting between
the river systems of the Niger and the St. Paul’s and the
main course of the Makona as far as the Anglo-Liberian
frontier.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Education in Liberia and the Needs of the Natives
According to the report of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction for 1904, there were more than five
thousand pupils in the public schools and mission schools
of the Republic. The average yearly expenditure for
education was twenty-five thousand dollars, not includ¬
ing an extra ten thousand dollars which was annually
devoted to the College of Liberia.
The staff of the public and mission schools was com¬
posed of the most efficient teachers that could be found.
The government has agreed to give free tuition in the
public schools, if the various parents will consent to pay
for the books which their children use.
The College of West Africa has a large student body
and a competent corps of teachers. This university is
largely supported by the Methodist Episcopal Church
and ranks with the best colleges of Africa.
Denominational schools, including those of the Episco¬
pal Church, are doing a great work in Liberia, and the
entire educational system is unusually efficient.
At that period (1904), the greatest need of the country
in an educational way was a complete plant to publish
adequate school books for the various institutions, col¬
leges and schools.
165
166
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
It has been observed that the great flaw in the Li¬
berian system of education is that the ideas of the native
African have been too much subordinated to the culture
of the Anglo-Saxon, and that this neglect of the customs
of the natives has in Liberia, as in other sections of
Africa, hindered the spread of education throughout
the land.
Many of the missionaries who are now sent to Africa
would fail if they attempted the same work at home.
Hence, Liberia’s great need is a well-selected number of
missionaries to work among the natives.
The missionary, oftentimes bred and shaped only in
his little denominational groove, is prone to overlook
what is good and noble in the culture of the native
Africans. To impress the ideas and ideals of the white
race upon the African, without adequate consideration
of his own peculiar culture, is a mistake often made.
Along sociological lines alone, there are elements in
the customs of the natives which merit extended con¬
sideration. For instance, why should the native African
or the native Liberian, the Kru or the Mandingo adopt
our system of marriage?
Why should he adopt our dress? The Mandingo robe
is wholly suited to the needs of that tribe, and European
clothes are unnecessary as they are incongruous when
worn by a native. The dress question should be gov¬
erned rather by the requirements of the climate and the
need of the individual than by any arbitrary ruling
of church or state.
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
167
Again the question of ethics appears. Ethics in
China are peculiar to China; so are they in Japan; in
the North and in the South, and likewise in Africa,
they are peculiar to the country of their origin.
Climates and people and conditions make and shape
them, and the viewpoints of right and of wrong are in¬
numerable. Christ is for all, but the modes of worship
vary in Africa, even as they do in those countries where
civilization is at its highest.
The Presidents of Liberia College from 1862 to 1913
Hon. Joseph J. Roberts, LL.D. 1862 to 1876
Prof. M. H. Freeman (Acting) . 1879 to 1880
Rev. Edward W. Blyden, D.D., LL.D. 1881 to 1890
Rev. Garrison W. Gibson, D.D.
Rev. O. F. Cook (White).
Rev. Garrison W. Gibson, D.D., LL.D. 1900 to 1902
Rev. Robert B. Richardson, D.D., LL.D. 1903 to 1912
Hon. Robert J. Clarke (Acting) Aug. 8 to Oct. 14.. . 1912
Rev. John A. Simpson, D.D. (Acting) Oct. 15. 1912 to 1913
CHAPTER XXXV
Population. Religion
The approximate total coast population of “civilized”
Liberians, mostly Christian, and of mixed American
and indigenous Negro races, amounts to 50,000. The
“ Liberian ” community, therefore, at the present time
amounts to a population in the coast regions of about
60,000 in number. In 1914 a large number of persons
from the United States, thirty-eight in number going
from Jacksonville, Fla., were added to the citizenry.
The writer of this book lives but a few blocks from the
wharf where these persons took ship for Africa.
The Protestant Episcopal Church started work in
Liberia in 1830. A few years later the First Missionary
Bishop was elected, Bishop Auer. The second Bishop
was the celebrated John Payne, who worked among the
Grebo of Cape Palmas. The present Bishop is a colored
man, the Right Rev. Samuel David Ferguson, D.D.,
born at Charlestown in the United States, but settled
in Liberia since 1848; his picture herein appears. He
was elected Bishop in 1884 and consecrated in 1885. He
attended the Lambeth Conference in 1897 and was one
of the Bishops received in audience by Queen Victoria.
He also attended the Conference at Richmond, Va.,
168
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
169
U. S. A., 1912. His death was a great loss to the
Church as well as Liberia.
Under the Protestant Episcopal Church, Liberia is
divided into four districts, Mesurado, Basa, Sino, and
Cape Palmas. These again are divided into a number
of sub-districts. Nearly every Americo-Liberian settle¬
ment has a church or school belonging to this body.
At Cape Mount the Protestant Episcopal Church
has a fine establishment, the Irving Memorial Church,
Langford Memorial Hall and St. George’s Hall.
The residence of the Bishop is at Monrovia. This
church maintains, besides the Bishop, 19 clergy, 70
catechists and teachers, 38 day schools, 18 boarding
schools, and 31 Sunday schools. It gives instruction
to over 3,500 pupils. Dr. N. H. B. Cassell is among
the leading preachers.
The Methodist Episcopal Church started in 1832. Its
work in Liberia is controlled by the Methodist Episco¬
pal Church, Right Rev. Joseph C. Hartzell, D.D., a
well-known and much-respected personage in West,
South, and Southeast Africa, supervised the American
missionary work in Western Africa between Liberia and
Angola, and in Rhodesia and Mozambique for 16 years.
The Associate in Liberia was a colored man, Bishop
Isaac B. Scott. Bishop Scott had a most wonderful
success and under his administration the membership
doubled. He spent 12 years there. He and Bishop
Hartzell have been retired. They were succeeded in
Liberia by Bishop J. C. Camphor. Bishop Camphor,
170
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
while visiting the U. S. of America, succumbed to
pneumonia in 1919.
Bishop M. W. Clair of Washington, D. C., was elected
at Des Moines, la., May, 1920, along with Bishop R. E.
Jones, being the first regular Negro bishops elected in
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Clair goes
to Liberia.
The Methodist Episcopal Church has about 13,700
adherents, 48 ministers and missionaries, 42 day teach¬
ers, 61 Sunday schools, and 10,000 scholars.
The Presbyterian Church: Presbyterian missionaries
began work in Liberia in 1832. Their operations are
chiefly confined to Monrovia and the St. Paul’s settle¬
ments.
The Baptist Church: Earliest of all Christian churches,
the American Baptist entered Liberia, in 1821, to perform
chaplain’s duties for the American colonists. Their
first pastor was Rev. Mr. Waring, the father of Miss
Jane Waring, who married President Roberts, the first-
President of Liberia. The Baptists have most of their
adherents in Monrovia and Basa settlements.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church began
work in Liberia in 1885. It has mission stations in three
counties of Liberia. Bishop Heard and Bishop Ross
served a short time. But the A. M. E. Gen. Conference
elected in May, 1920, Bishop W. Sampson Brooks of
Baltimore, who like Bishop Clair of the Methodist
Episcopal Church will sail for Liberia about September.
The Lutheran Church is represented in the St. Paul’s
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
171
River district, with stations at Arthington and Mount
Coffee.
There are Mohammedan mosques at Vanswa, Brewer-
ville, and of course in the far interior Mandingo towns.
Of the approximate 2,000,000 population, about 40,000
are Christians, about 300,000 Mohammedans, and the
remainder pagans.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Presidents of Liberia. Term of Office —
Birth and Death
Joseph Jenkins Roberts was born in Virginia, March
14, 1809, served January 1st, 1848 to January 1st, 1856,
died February 26, 1876 at Monrovia.
Stephen Allen Benson, born in Maryland, U. S. A.,
1816, served January 1st, 1856, to January 1st, 1864,
died at Grand Basa, Liberia.
Daniel Bashiel Warner, born April 18, 1815, U. S. A.,
served January 1st, 1864, to January 1st, 1868, died
November 30, 1880, at Monrovia.
James Spriggs Payne, birth unknown, served January
1st, 1868, to January 1st, 1870, died 1883.
Edward James Roye, time of birth unknown, served
January 1st, 1870, to October 19th, 1871 (deposed),
died 1871.
(Vice-president) James S. Smith, served October 19th,
1871, to January 1st, 1872.
Joseph Jenkins Roberts, served January 1st, 1872,
to January 1st, 1876. Second term.
James Spriggs Payne, served January 1st, 1876, to
January 1st, 1878. Second term.
Anthony William Gardner, served January 1st, 1878,
to January 1st, 1883, died 1883.
172
President E. James Roye
Ex-Mayor Fuller of Monrovia
■V
%•
\
<
HISTORY OF LIBERIA
173
(Vice-president) Alfred F. Russell, served January
20th, 1883, to January 1st, 1884.
Hilary Richard Wright Johnson was born June 1st,
1837, served January 1st, 1884, to January 1st, 1892,
died February 28th, 1901, at Monrovia.
Joseph James Cheeseman was born in Ednid, Grand
Basa, March 7th, 1843, served January 1st, 1892, to
November 12th, 1896, died November 12th, 1896, at
Monrovia.
William David Coleman, born July 18th, 1842, in Ken¬
tucky, U. S. A., served as Vice-president into Presidency
November 12th, 1896, to January 1st, 1898, and January
1st, 1898, to December 11th, 1900, died July 11th, 1908,
at Ashland.
Garretson Wilmot Gibson, born in Maryland, U. S. A.
May 20th, 1832, served December 11th, 1900, to January
1st, 1902, and January, 1902, to January 1st, 1904. Died
April 26th, 1910.
Arthur Barclay, born July 31st, 1854, served January
1st, 1904, January 1st, 1906-1912.
Daniel Edward Howard, born August 1st, 1861, and
inaugurated President, January 1st, 1912. Re-elected
1916-1920. Declared war on Germany, 1917.
C. D. B. King elected 1919, inaugurated January 1st,
1920.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Different Parts of the Government
(1) The Cabinet
The Cabinet and Executive usually consists of the
President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the
Treasury (the present officer is J. L. Morris, whose pic¬
ture appears among the illustrations), the Attorney-
General, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of
War and Navy, and the Postmaster-General. There is
also an official private secretary to the President.
(2) The Senate
The Senate is composed of eight members, two from
each of the four counties or provinces, Montserrado,
Basa, Sino, and Maryland. The Senators are selected
for four and two years.
(3) The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives consists of thirteen
members, four from Montserrado and three from each
of the other counties. Each member of the House
receives about $500 per year while serving in that
capacity; they sit for two years, and are elected bien¬
nially.
174
*
HISTORY OP LIBERIA
175
And so we close this short history of Liberia with the
confident prediction that in due time the little Republic
will rise in dignity to the position of one of the advanced
states of the world.
Already she has produced scholars, statesmen and
generals of note, and as yet her development is in its
infancy. One of the youngest Republics of the world, she
is a member of the postal union and the convention for
the preservation of big game, and is a leading nation of
the West Coast.
Her history is unmarred by atrocities and unblemished
by thefts of land from the natives. In respect to mineral
and vegetable wealth, Liberia’s hinterland is almost
entirely undeveloped, and there is great need for ade¬
quate anchorage on the seaboard.
Monrovia would have one of the best harbors of the
world if some construction work in the way of jetties
and breakwaters were done, and a network of roads to
the interior would assure a considerable Liberian trade.
Founded as an experiment, decried as a colony, Li¬
beria has come out of immeasurable difficulties, the only
independent Republic in the whole of Africa.
Little of its history is yet written, for Liberia’s hope
is in the future, and in that future success is sure.
I
.
6 7 o m
■nj-w
X ^ V
Z'. c v v
' V ^ Y *
>: Q' *
% ~ ' ^
> AV
cP •< V
* ( v cl. \ a-
. * * , *>. * .0 N O ’ A O * 1 ! 1 * V ^ X
* A, A * Wa\ V ,AV . ',
\
r ' ' v. -
A «f »
.ww; ,^ v a -Wm?* <$>% °'
s* A '. ■•"'■■- • A *,*© 5 *,* f ^
s A> . . C y o * A A °/ * / s s <6^ <*
^ ^ ** <.° NC «, O- *“ f0 A *'"*,•%
'' " >, A ‘‘‘■^' ‘ ° *' -
5 Xk ^°~ <* <*i
7 . *>. * .■> n °' 9 /, ^ H o * ^°;
r **> Jy o v a22L* ' A o> *
* >* A? *<*• C. * .* A* r
A A, 9 yyf^'SSir * A y /v - ;-f^ - A
s v ^0 , „ <. ^ 0 * v ■* A v , o * / ' s s. .A? <*.
-O' V*' % <*, / c 0 N c * v b -0‘ v * v ' 8 * ~*'' ° . 0 *v ., -
) x . fernSt •: > c '. •"© o N ’* •< 1
ss:
#■
> ^ r> ✓
^ A x "/
A X c 0 ' ‘ « -*o
J» « rJ>S>tV ^
A ' /
H -r
* ^ ^ '
- * » ' ' • \ v s » » ^ ^ 0 V 0
V s / >
^ >
^ y '^yo^' ^0 J o
// > S> s * ' c 0 *. ; c
' - AO
* - -• — — _ - r x
. , « ■*.
V’^ s ■? « * 0 N 0 ^ ^
V OliW ^, > . V' N^
* 0 ,. ^
°’> C » ' ^ ° ’ \^
^ * % v ' s
^ //Vi O .\V o £
Ay 7 A 7 , ^V
, 0 ^'v* v,,<
\
< \ *3* o ^
s *
V
0 S »
A^ 1 - .«. 59 «f* N ✓
/A ^ rvfV'S^ A. .V,
AV
A v %
>■*'-'*"'# *\":n
> cy *
*■ v
** v **
I ~ ^
m** «f c \ %
», >•' ,# *
Or- A
\
*-■• % .A »‘
*< ^ v « O
V<
K -0,* rt 0 c* ^
\ V S s * * / , ■=*>- ' 0 N ° ^ O ir ,
*'££~.>. • .*■ # .’A?A •’V ,y>
v ^ r p® - -
■' "' K^’ - ' J ' , ' A' >\ * «U’
' '■ * \ O. *, .s . 0
'>. *
1 A
oo' * i
i a* ^
^ z *
^ V ' <4-
\ -So /
- sy cP*
\
* V
'''v% " A <•"*♦ *C •**■ . 0 ^ .•>••» ■«.
p >yy77^ ^ ^ S* * x O c> V v i *f>
* 0 !///T 2 -) * ^ A <* sva ' Va ^ v
5 .,;• : ^ v*
r»<‘-.* x°^.
*1 ,. y> > ~ 4
• '„' 0 ° °o %
' N V o'* **♦«, ■ %. *
> C, - Ar rs(\ >1 ^ * * > *
? 'y ~ 0 %' \F * ‘"V
A -^ >»"'■» ■*©.
k I
O''CnXVvI 7& .r i v *** 4^tT \Mf//*
O ^ ^ %H;\\ .- -
* 1 -V * ' \^ s , ^ ^ o N 0 " .'d 0 '
v . _ 1 f, y
^ V
x 0c ^
y 0 « X ^ -A
.<6
A 0 K C „ 7 d C u 4 o ^O v
. o v- ^ ^ rV N
\ k cVo'AW ' v
o 0 ^ I »
i I
■■■■ , ^ ^
* ^ 7 jy^ * \^ ^ ^
C* /- \ \L c^*
' y 8 I \ ~ v\ xX •
\> s o; ' >
= *+4$
; 0 % ^VSy
\ ,<$> tr ^ d 1 -i
„ l A ./ . ^
S, S , o
o * * 0^ *' 1 v *y,
^ ’3 & ^ -» 'p
/*
<> y o * A U A
•#
'A ^
K =
o> ^ - t
"'• /s...,A ♦ -'• ’.y
a. a
O' «. * v •/*
\ * o
*w- v
°o 0 °
\ O ( V^»K ^