Absolutely fascinating! Yes, it is a shame that very few people know about the history of Liberia. And most don't even know the country exists. This was really well done. Bravo!
The titled "Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It Paperback" by James Ciment details the actual formation of Liberia and illustrates why the ACS is called the "Black Mayflower" in Liberia. www.liberiapastandpresent.org/ is also a great resource with maps and scans of documents from Liberia past. Also, more accurate.
Fantastic research! Lots of the Freed Slaves that settled in Liberia are documented in a book called “The African Repository”. It was the official publication of ACS from 1825 - 1892. The Tolbert family was a prominent family in Liberia. William R. Tolbert was the last ruling president of the settler class that was assassinated in 1980. The Tolbert and Major families and many others that settled in Liberia are all part of the multiethnic groups that make up present day Liberia.
First, Black people in the United States should drop the term 'Black American' and pick an African (Bantu) name for the (collective) group, e.g., Maboma ('many villages' < Kiswahili). The "Black American" term does nothing to denote that the associated person is of African origin. In fact, the term "Black American" sounds like someone who is classified as an appendage culturally , ethnically and philosophically to the American, the name that the white colonizers, who founded the eventual United States, gave themselves. Second, develop an Africa linkage/engagement plan.
When you say the settlers enslaved the natives you should present your evidence. I believe you are trying to make excuses for what your ancestors did to black people in America.
Lots of Americans esp Black Americans are in deep denial about Liberia. The fact is the Liberia Project was a classic WS colonialism using a Blackface. Look at this: 1) COLONIZATION: Whites provided the money, ships, weapons & all other resources for the adventure. The settlement was not at the invitation of the local tribes. Just like Europeans colonization of other parts of Africa. 2) BLACKFACE: The whole project was led by Mixed races fathered by White slave owners. Where were the real Blacks? One Pres was 87% White. Another 94%. Colorism at its worst. We don't have the 1 drop rule in Africa. Black means 2 Black parents. Otherwise Mixed. Beyonce is Mixed here. 3) LIBERIA: Why would a Black people give an African country a European name? What's wrong with real African names like Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Zimbabwe etc? Uncivilized? Difficult to pronounce? Only if you were not really African. These people were not Africans. They were Americans with some African descent which was used to justify the invasion & colonization. 4) MONROVIA: How can ex-slaves name their capital after a White slave-owner? It does not make sense. What's wrong with Harare Kinshasa Maputo Lumbumbashi Kisangani? Why did not ask the Kpelle people what the place was called. Liberians were not Africans in the least. They were full blooded Americans. 5) STARS&STRIPES: How can people who claimed to be fleeing from Slavery in US adopt an American flag? The flag of a country that was still enslaving millions of their own people? These people behaved just like European colonizers. Bec they were completely brainwashed. But most probably bec they did not really see themselves as African or even Black in the real sense of the word. Not the 1drop rule sense. 6) ENGLISH: They imposed Massa's language on an African people & refused to assimilate to African culture. They were Americans first & Africans in Name Only. Africans or Black by vitue of a distorted 1 drop rule which quite frankly is racist. A Mixed race person can't be Black bec he is half-White. Just as he cant be White bec he is half-Black. Liberians were Mixed. This rejection of Black languages happened at a time when even White missionaries were learning indigenous African languages in order to spread the Gospel & translate the Bible. Liberians would have none of it. Black languages were barbaric. 7) AMERICAN CULTURE: There was nothing African or even Black abt Liberians. Culturally they were as White as T Jefferson or D Trump. They replaced local indigenous names with American names. Like Maryland, Tubmansburg, Buchanan etc. They encouraged the local population to abandon Black names in favour Am slave names. Just like Europeans were doing in their colonies. Their aim was not to acclimatize to Africa but to transform an African country into an image of a racist slave owning US. 8) ECONOMICS: To crown it all, they sold local resources to to US companies like Goodyear & Firestone. Exploiting the indigenous population as calously & ruthlessly as European colonizers. Perhaps even more so. 9) APARTHEID: They created an Apartheid (Jim Crow) state very similar to that in S Africa. With Black Americans at the top, especially Mixed races, & the Indigenous peoples at the Bottom. But at least White racists in S Africa had lots of technical skills & managerial comptence & they built Africa's only Industrial economy. What did BA build in Liberia? Absolutely Nothing. Today Liberia is worse off than all its neighbours & former European colonies in all respects. Over the past 20 years China has built more infrastructure in just 1 African country than Liberians did in 160 years. The country would have been better off had it been colonised Europeans. Or even China. That's a terrible legacy.
I watched a video on Liberia some time ago and and it is comments like yours that led me to look much deeper at the history of Liberia. I'm still researching but I already know enough to know better -- you're either misinformed or purposely lying. These sorts of comments where the returned slaves are these all-powerful, brainwashed agents of white supremacy who immediately set about enslaving the natives and erecting apartheid 2.0 are embarrassingly inaccurate and completely insulting to people who actually suffered through apartheid and jim crow. People writing these comments are very likely white supremacy internet trolls who love to gloat that "see colonialism was inevitable, the blacks did it too". You clearly haven't learned anything about Liberian settlers in the 1800's. They were a random group of people (some just-freed slaves, some already free, some educated, some not, some mixed race, some not) who arrived at different times, with differing amounts of money, no infrastructure, no guides and no welcome party. At BEST, America and ACS were ambivalent about their survival. Large amounts of them died due to disease and lack of food, water and medicine. The ACS was often broke and outright abandoned the settlers many times. Also there was no homogeneous groups of "indigenous" in Liberia, there were multiple groups who were often fighting and destroying entire family/clan groups. The slave trade was still going on so raiding each other to be sold was in full swing. Many of these groups voluntarily joined the liberian settlers for safety or to get a numbers advantage over other groups they were fighting. You say it was blackface colonialism. Did you know that Germany led a coup to destroy the Liberian settlers? Same for the british. The only reason America barely intervened was because black americans who were still in america petitioned the U.S. government to do so. At the same time, colonial powers were trying to take all of Liberia's territory because, get this, the settlers didn't have the manpower, resources or military might to stop or control the indigenous groups from raiding into neighboring colonial territories. That's why Liberia lost half of its original territory to France and Britain. The settlers weren't practicing colonialism they were struggling to feed and clothe themselves while not get killed by warring factions; they were in such a desperate and pathetic state that they couldn't have practiced colonialism even if they wanted to. You say, "Why would a Black people give an African country a European name? How can ex-slaves name their capital after a White slave-owner? How can people who claimed to be fleeing from Slavery in US adopt an American flag?" Do you know nothing of geopolitics in the 1800's? This wasn't the 1960's African liberation era, this was in the middle of the slave trade and scramble for africa. What other African country was free and self-naming at the time? None of them. If you are a half-starving group of people in the middle of continental upheaval, you have no choice but to align yourself with a greater military power to ensure survival. Part of that process is appeasement, you name things after people to appeal to their ego and evoke some level of responsibility for what is named after you. You say "refused to assimilate to African culture". Classic white supremacist thinking. Which "african culture"? Africa is a continent not a homogeneous group of people. There were multiple languages and language variants all spoken in liberia among mutually hostile groups. Which language and culture were the settlers supposed to choose and learn? You say, "...Mixed races fathered by White slave owners. Where were the real Blacks? There was nothing African or even Black about Liberians." You mean being enslaved for 200 years up to that point while your language, customs, religion, music, family and tradition are forcibly repressed, families are split up and horrific sexual exploitation takes place results in people who struggle to figure out who they are and don't have 100% genes from a certain group? The fact that even after all of that violent and involuntary assimilation that you insult them for, they were still a) rejected by white society and b) at risk of being recaptured and sold into slavery in the U.S. You come across as completely ignorant to not grasp their situation. You say, "To crown it all, they sold local resources to to US companies like Goodyear & Firestone." It's called economic diversification and joining global trade in order to bring capital and industry into your country. Were these deals masterpieces of negotiation? Hardly. Guess what, when you're a small, poorly funded country with a limited technical workforce you're going to get hosed during negotiations because you don't have much leverage or bargaining power. And once you do gain more leverage guess what happened? President Tolbert's brother, Steven, was assassinated when working to renegotiate the firestone contract to benefit the country more. There are so many factors about running a country that exists in a context of larger military and economic powers that you are ignoring or are ignorant of. Finally, you say, "Exploiting the indigenous population as calously & ruthlessly as European colonizers. Perhaps even more so. They created an Apartheid (Jim Crow) state very similar to that in S Africa. The country would have been better off had it been colonised [by]Europeans." I said it before and I'll say it again, you clearly have no idea what happened in Apartheid S Africa, Jim Crow U.S., the Belgian Congo, Jamaica or Brazil to name just a few. If you did you'd never think to type something like "Perhaps even more so" or "been better off". Such absolute disrespect to what so many other Africans went through at the hands of actual, real colonialism and chattel slavery.
The nuance that’s missing is that there was a racial cast system at place. Many of the freed people that were part of the movement to colonise Liberia were multiracial, not black.
Being “multiracial” wasn’t w concept back then. If you had any documented African ancestry, you were considered black. Look at Plessy vs Ferguson. Homer Plessy was 1/8 black, and the judge ruled him as black.
Another misinformation about Liberia from a white person.First off Liberia never had slave descendants in its foundingThese were Black people who were free but never had or was recognized as American citizens.So the solution of what to do with Black people was to help them establish themselves in Africa.This also protected the institution of slavery which free Blacks was seen as a threat
This is a highly romanticized and very inaccurate history of Liberia. The ACS and "Americo Liberians" installed slavery, black codes and Jim Crow in Liberia. At one time the UN had to step in due to the Fernando Po scandal. Furthermore, natives were removed from their lands and relocated to the hinterland, not allowed "Liberian" citizenship, not allowed to vote or participate in office and weren't even allowed in schools. At certain times, Natives had to change their names in order to be employed outside of servant jobs. Americos not only considered Natives second class (who lived on the land hundreds of years prior), they forbade the marriage between Americos and Natives. This is sheer hypocrisy, these actions in the Americas is defined as slavery and genocidal relocations of African Americans and Native Americans. However, when it comes to natives in Liberia, false narratives replace the reality of what happened in Liberia. In addition, the Americo-Liberians were solely responsible for the Firestone Agreement which has lead to exploitation of Liberia's resources, illegal dumping and child labor violations to this very day. The sole reason for civil wars erupting in Liberia was due to the caste system treatment of natives installed by Americos' from day one. Where did you get that feelings were "mixed" regarding feeling between between Americos' and Natives?
There was never such a people called Americo Liberians.That was something White people created out of their own racist beliefs about some superior Americans who colonized Africans with their superior Western civilization.That is mythology and a farce.America at the time didn’t really exist and most Liberians never called themselves Americans it was an insult
@@Kalagenesis You clearly have no idea what you were talking about. Liberia was created in the late 1800s, thebUS was clearly established by them. I'm a native of Liberia l, Americos called themselves that and had nothing to with the "white man'. Just another American trying to change thay narrative that Africans Americans were slave masters and ever worse than the white man.
@@Peter-the-Angry Liberia was created in the early 1800’s Also I suggest you actually read real Liberian history especially about the Farce of Fernando Po which never happened.A book 📕 written in 1953 called Liberia America’s African friend by R Earl Andersen on Barnes and Noble.Please you are talking to a Liberian historian a founder of the Historical Preservation Society of Liberia
@@Kalagenesis I dont need to read anything considering I was not only born and raised in Liberia, I was there during the Civil War. I know about Fernando Po etc. Youre also didn't mention Firestone, removing natives from the hinterland etc. Never stepped foot in Africa and trying to tell someone from there cause you read some books to fit your stupid narrative.
