History of Liberia

The History of Liberia from this point on assumes a peculiar interest. The capacity and capabilities of the Negro are subjected to a crucial test. He is left fully freed from the control or influence of an alien race, in possession of a borrowed civilization, and of a borrowed political system of an advanced type, dependent on popular intelligence for its very existence. Can he maintain his position? Will he make further progress, developing along lines peculiar to his race and environment, and spreading a new civilization among the adjacent tribes? Or is he to lapse helplessly back into his … Read more

With commendable energy the newly organized society set about the accomplishment of the task before it. Plans were discussed during the summer, and in November two agents, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, sailed for Africa to explore the western coast and select a suitable spot. They were cordially received in England by the officers of the African institution, and by Earl Bathurst, secretary of state for the colonies, who provided them with letters to Sierra Leone. Here they arrived in march, 1818, and were hospitably received, every facility being afforded them to prosecute their inquiries, though marked unwillingness to … Read more

It is always a most interesting part of historic inquiry to search out the very earliest sources, the first feeble germ of the idea whose development we are investigating. It is difficult to decide from what one origin can be traced the continuous development of the idea which resulted in the birth of Liberia; but toward the close of the last century there arose a number of projects, widely differing in object and detail, which bore more or less directly upon it, each of which may be said to have contributed some special feature to the fully rounded and developed … Read more

There are but few more interesting spots in Africa than the little corner of the west coast occupied by the Republic of Liberia. It has been the scene of a series of experiments absolutely unique in history experiments from which we are to derive the knowledge upon which we must rely in the solution of the weighty problems connected with the development of a dark continent, and with the civilization of hundreds of millions of the human race. Many questions have arisen which have not been settled to our complete satisfaction. Is the Negro capable of receiving and maintaining a … Read more

This paper claims to be scarcely more than a brief sketch. It is an abridgment of a History of Liberia in much greater detail, presented as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University.

Colonization has come to be looked upon with unmerited indifference with an apathy which its history and achievements surely do not deserve. To some, perhaps the present condition of the republic seems a discouraging and inadequate return for the life and treasure lavished upon it; for others, hoping for a bloodless and gradual extinction of slavery, the civil war carried away the chief element of interest. Others still, who looked for a ready solution of the negro problem in this country, have gradually lost heart in the face of the increasing millions of the race. And so, some from one … Read more

George Whitefield is said to have declared to Oglethorpe when lamenting his failure to exclude slavery from Georgia, that he was making a mistake: the Africans were much better off as slaves than in their native barbarism, and would receive a training that would enable them ultimately to return and civilize the land of their nativity. In this bold idea he anticipated one of the leading thoughts of the fathers of colonization, and, perhaps prophesied, a great migration which the world is yet to see. But to confine ourselves to the present and the strictly practical there is to the … Read more

It would be unnecessary to bring into review the causes that are operating daily to make the conditions of earning a living in America more difficult. However much or little credence we place in the Malthusian theory of the increase of population, in the doctrine of diminishing returns, or the iron law of wages, all thinking men are agreed that the country is already entering upon a new era. The period of expansion, of the taking up of new territory by the overflowing population of the older districts, is practically ended; future development will be intensive, the country will be … Read more

The coast upon which the colony was established had for several hundred years been one of the chief resorts of the slave dealers of the western shores of Africa. Their “factories” were situated at numerous points on both sides of the early settlements. The coast tribes, broken up and demoralized by the traffic, waged ceaseless wars for the sole purpose of obtaining for the trader a supply of his commodity. It was their only means of getting supplies of the products and manufactures of civilization; and, as we have seen, when they found the presence of the newcomers an obstacle … Read more