A Brief History of Liberia

So before we get started today, a little housekeeping. I'm trying to make posts at the end of the week but I unfortunately was not able to this last week so here it is. I'll try harder to make that happen. This post is kind of long but I think the history of Liberia is very interesting so here is the short version.

The History of Liberia

Something I definitely was not aware of before I came to Liberia was its history. I’ve mentioned before that their Civil War only ended in 2003 but there’s a lot of history that came before that.

In the early 1800s the future president James Monroe advocated and worked for a state for freed slaves from the US. That state ended up being Liberia, and one of the US’s only attempts at colonization. This connection between the US and Liberia is also reflected in the Liberian flag. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very similar it has the same red and striped pattern and a blue upper left corner filled with a single white star. So, James Monroe sent a ship with freed slaves and a few white men to Liberia.

That ship first landed in what would end up being Sierra Leone. The voyagers tried to negotiate with the British colonists for a plot of land to start their own country. The British refused and the freed slaves sailed further up the coast where they made contact with an indigenous tribe in the area that would be Liberia. Again, they tried to negotiate with the indigenous people to buy some land but the indigenous people refused. The future Liberians then took the tribal leader of the indigenous people hostage and forced him to negotiate with them.

Establishing this foothold in Africa that opened the way for more freed slaves. As the former slaves immigrated to Liberia they formed their own government and townships. This required them to acquire more land and that, in turn, lead to them pushing the indigenous people further inland and the enslavement of the indigenous people by the Liberians.

One of the most famous uses of the indigenous slaves in Liberia was at the Firestone plant in the early 1900s. The advent of the motor vehicle increased the demand for rubber and Liberia had the perfect climate for rubber trees. I also heard, from my professor's husband Lorenzo, who is Liberian, that the Firestone plant signed a lease with Liberia for the rubber tree plantation that fixed the price of a bucket of rubber at 25 cents for 100 years. I don’t really know the going rate for rubber but the way that Lorenzo acted when he shared this information makes me think that 25 cents is low. Apparently, some car manufacturers had some qualms about the rubber for their cars coming from slave labor. The enslavement of the indigenous peoples divided the country and would set up decades of conflict further down the road.

The president in the early 70s was a man named Tolbert. Tolbert was what they call an Americo-Liberian. He was descended from the freed slaves that came over from the US. His heritage meant that most indigenous people didn’t appreciate him as a leader. His government also oppressed the indigenous people by denying them access to education and infrastructure development. Tolbert stated that the reasoning behind this was the majority of indigenous people lived in the interior of the country where it was difficult to build roads, water pipelines, and power plants. Tolbert’s government was also rife with corruption and the many people felt powerless to do anything about it.

Enter Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor was a teacher in Liberia. He had both black and indigenous roots and he was accepted into a government program that would send people to the US to be trained to work in the Liberian government. He lived in the US for several years and earned his degree in economics. While he was there he became part of a Liberians in America group that wanted a change in the Liberian government. He became an officer in one of these groups and lead protests and rallies. Some of these protests were against the US government that was providing humanitarian aid to Liberia which, because of the corrupt government, was prone to ending up in the pockets of government employees.

Tolbert actually made a visit to the US which was protested by Taylor’s group. Tolbert was there to negotiate humanitarian aid with the US and Taylor went so far as to push Tolbert out of the way as he entered the building and proclaim that Taylor, not Tolbert, was there to negotiate on behalf of Liberia. Taylor was arrested but never charged.

Tolbert then invited Taylor and some of the members of his group to Liberia to see what was really going on for themselves. A few days after they arrived, one of Tolbert’s generals, a man named Doe, initiated a coup against Tolbert. Tolbert was ousted and executed as well as prominent members of his government. Taylor elected to stay and soon found himself a place in Doe’s government in the Ministry of Finance.

Taylor worked hard but the Liberian government, despite changing leaders, continued to misappropriate humanitarian aid funds. At first Taylor tried to change things for the better but soon he found himself under investigation and eventually charged with embezzlement. At the time, he was in the US so instead of going back to Liberia to face the charges there he stayed in the US. He evaded the authorities for a while but was eventually arrested.

While this was going on, Doe’s government began to use its power to disenfranchise black people in Liberia. Doe installed an almost entirely indigenous cabinet and his government began to validate the indiscriminate killing of black people in Liberia. This lead to a huge public outcry by people, Liberian expats and otherwise, in the US.

The outcry became so immense that the US had to do something. According to Taylor, the guards at Taylor’s prison allowed him to just walk out. From there he traveled on his own passport to Africa where he traveled around the continent rallying forces to his cause of overthrowing Doe’s government. Taylor insinuated that the US government funded him to travel Africa and even paid for him to train as a guerilla fighter in Syria under Muamar Gaddafi who also provided a lot of the funding to Taylor's group the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Taylor and his forces crossed over into Liberia from Sierra Leone and began to fight their way up to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Adding to the evidence that the US was aiding Taylor was his testimony that stated the US had given him a satellite phone that he used to call into the heads of the American military to report on his progress. The US Government also admitted that Taylor was working for them but refused to say in what capacity. 

Eventually Taylor invaded Monrovia and deposed Tolbert, and Taylor installed himself as the de facto president in 1989. Infighting in his group split them and the war continued on with a racial tint in which many racially motivated genocides occurred. In 1996, after the fighting had abated, Taylor held an election in which he strongly intimated that if he was not elected as president he would continue to inflict violence on the country. He was elected president but a plethora of rebel groups rose up against him in 1999 and the violence continued. Another interesting thing was that the current president, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, was a big proponent of Taylor at this time, praising what he was doing. However, after he came to power she subsequently denounced him and his regime.

In the early 2000s the UN got involved and indicted Taylor on funding a rebel movement in Sierra Leone and personally ordering human rights violations also in Sierra Leone. When Taylor was indicted he refused to step down as president but the indictment fueled the rebel groups and the public called for him to leave office. The UN offered him safe passage out of the country to Nigeria which he eventually was forced to accept.

He remained in Nigeria while the UN collected evidence against him. Once the UN had their case they asked for Nigeria to deliver Taylor to Paris where the trial would take place. The Prime Minister of Nigeria refused and stated that they would no longer continue to hold Taylor. Taylor was released and remained missing for two days. During those two days the Prime Minister of Nigeria was supposed to go to the US and meet President George W. Bush. When Taylor was released Bush stated that perhaps the visit should be cancelled. When the Nigerian Prime Minister heard this Taylor was suddenly found trying to cross the border and delivered to Paris.

In Paris the UN proceeded with their trial against Taylor. They actually pardoned some members of the rebel group Taylor had funded in return for the member’s testimony against Taylor. The trial lasted two years and Taylor was sentenced to 40 years at The Hague for war crimes.

The first Civil War when Doe took over from Tolbert the death toll was estimated to be 500,000. When Taylor took over from Doe the death toll was 250,000. Between the two wars over a million people were displaced.

So that's the history of Liberia in a nutshell. I found it very interesting and I hope you did to. Hopefully I'll have another post for you at the end of this week.