VOLUME Ill 1970-1971 NUMBER 1

LIBERIAN STUDIES JOURNAL

Edited by:

Svend E. Holsoe, David M. Foley, University of Delaware University of Georgia

PUBLISHED AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE Cover photograph: Brass ring, use unknown. Called Dwit:i. Collected 1965 near Barclayville, Grand Cess Territory. 10 1/2" wide, 3" high, 27 lbs. Svend E. Holsoe Collection VOLUME III 1970-1971 NUMBER l

LIBERIAN STUDIES JOURNAL

EDITED BY

Svend E. Holsoe David M. Foiey University of Delaware University of Georgia

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

John Blamo College of Liberal Arts University of Liberia

Mary Antoinette Brown William V. S. Tubman Teachers College University of Liberia

George E. Brooks, Jr. Warren L. d'Azevedo Indiana University University of Nevada

David Dalby Bohumil Holas School of Oriental and African Studies Centre des Science Humaines University of London Republique de COte d'Ivoire

James L. Gibbs, Jr. ]. Gus Liebenow Stanford University Indiana University

Bai T. Moore Department of Information and Cultural Affairs Republic of Liberia

Published at the Department of Anthropology, University of Del aw are Emphasizing the social sciences and humanities, the Liberian Studies Journal is a semiannual publication devoted to studies of Africa's oldest republic. ~ price of subscription is $5 . 00 a year (additional charges for overseas air mail). The views expressed herein are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or The Liberian Studies Association in America.

Copyright 1971 by The Liberian Studies Association in America, Inc.

Manuscripts, correspondence and subscriptions should be sent to: Liberian Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19711.

The editors wish to express their gratitude to Catherine Johnston for typing the manuscript, Kenneth Miller for the map, and Cornelia Weil for the cover photograph. CONTENTS

page A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM (Part 4) by War ren L. d 'Azevedo l

A HISTORY OF CROZIERVILLE, by Burleigh Holder 21

THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GR EBO RISING OF 1910, by Gordon Haliburton 31

CONTRIBUTORS TO TI-IIS ISSUE 40

EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND ' HIS PARENTS, by Svend E. Holsoe 41

LIBERIA'S POPULATION FIGURES, by William Kory 53

UTILIZING TRADITIONAL CO- OPERATIVES IN LIBERIA, by Jack Kolkmeyer 63

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN LIBERIA, by William Siegmallll 67

BOOK REVIEWS Bowne, Elizabeth, Their Silent Message, hy Kathleen rl ' Azeve

NEWS AND NOTES 76

RECE1'ffLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL ON LIBERIA 79

A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM (Part 4)*

Warren L. d'Azevedo

THE NEW TRIBALISM

During the 1930's the Gola had been divided into a number of distinct spheres of Liberian government administration in the western interior. The new situation constituted a drastically different one from that which had obtained in the fluid struggle for power and economic advantage among a multiplicity of small tribal chiefdoms before the turn of the century. The processes of sectionalization which had begun in the late nineteenth century, under pressure of the shifting balance of power brought about by increasing national Liberian control of the coast and of large interior sections, had now been coalesced into the firm administrative entitles of an expanding state. New paramount chieftaincies exercised jurisdiction over clusters of people that bad been, a few decades previously, autonomous chiefdoms ("clans") either at war with one another or allied in tenuous confederacies. Though paramount chiefs represented "tribal authority", their tenures in office depended entirely upon presidential approval and upon their responsiveness to government policy as expressed through the commissioners of their districts and provinces. 31 Thus, tribal and inter­ tribal alliances between widely spaced chiefdoms- - a phenomenon which had characterized the political relations in western Liberia during the nineteenth and early twentieth century--became virtually impossible. The paramount chieftaincy, itself, became the focus of tribal politics within the regional structure of government administration. ln the north the most isolated and ancient Gola areas had become the paramount chieftaincies of Kongba and Goje, each administered by the Bopolu district of the Western Province. Though the ancient trade routes connecting these areas to the Vai coast and the southern Gola chiefdoms continued to be used for travel and commerce, direct political relations among them were controlled

•oue to limitations in space, the final section of this paper will be published in the following issue of the Journal . 31. An Act of the Legislature in 1924 defined "Tribal Authority" as " • •• Paramount Chiefs and their Councillors composed of recognized Sub- chiefs and men of note. Recognized Sub- chiefs shall mean any chief not Paramount Chief, commissioned by the Government or temporarily appointed as such by the Paramount Chief, pending Government endorsement. Men of note shall mean the experienced and influential elderly men of the tribe who are usually called by their people 'Owners or Fathers of the land. ' Where land has been known and recognized as belonging to a Confederacy of tribes, then the expression 'Tribal Authority' shall mean the Paramount Chiefs of all the tribes with their Councillors and men of note acting jointly. " Charles H. Huberich, The Political and Legislative History~ Liberia (New York, 1947), II , 1230. - ---

Liberian Studies Journal, Ill, l (1970- 71). AIJ.IINISTRATIVE ~ITS a= GcllA TRIBAL ~ITV IN 1l£ M10-TWENTIETH Cam.RY

~ Pararount Chieftai.ncy

Tradit.ialal Ol,i.efdans, or "Clans" l. Tungele 2. Gboba Ne119e 3. Zui

~ ParanDUnt Chieftai.ncy

Tradit.ialal Chiefdans, or "Clans" l. Sokpo 2. Kposo 3. Pokpa (incorporatinq old Semavula, Dagole, Dazamqbo & Dago chiefdOllls)

Gola-Kone Parairount Chieftaincy

Traditional Chiefdans, or "Clans" 1. Laa 2. Hana 3. Dablo

<;,je ParCl"DOUnt Chieftai.ncy

Traditional Chiefclans, or "Clans"

1. Y~aya 2. Gbama

lofa-Gola Parairount Chieftai.ncy

Traditional Chiefdans, or "Clans" l. Senje 5 . Gb:1 2. Mana 6. Gobla 3. Te 7. Kpo 4. hje

RECENTLY ALIENATED TERRITCRIES

~Chiefdan (reverted to Kpelle control in early twentieth century)

Den Oliefdan } (absorbed as Liberian townships in the 1950s and 1960s) ~Chiefdan

~Chiefdan (a section of Lof a-Gola territory transferred to Mandi1190 jurisdiction by the government in the 1940s) A-«:100 TERRnams CLAWED BY Go!.A TRADITION

(a) '1he Glllla section of Liberia, ard lands in Sierra I.eooe districts between the Maro ard 1't:>a rivers, now occupied by the Mende. (b) Bandi ard Kisi sections northeast of Kongba. (c) '1he western sections of territories presently occupied by the BaRii. (d) '1he legendary I<'l::rqba area, also known as "Ancient Mana." (e) Territories east of Bopolu to FUama. (f) '1he territory northeast of Lofa-Gola to Bopolu. (g) Access to coastal saltpans ard tradin:J statioos at the rrouths of the I.ofa ard ~ rivers ~h old De chiefdans. LEGEND

Present Gola territory

Dense foreat sparsely inhabited

- () Indicates areas of • ancient territory SANDI claimed by Gola tradition ----- Boundaries of Chieftoincies ·-·-·- Notional boundaries (d' Azevedo 1969)

BELE ·x w s

Kakata Chiefdom

CAPE MESURADO ATLANTIC OCEAN 4 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO by district headquarters at Bopolu. Between the Lofa and the Mano rivers, the old autonomous chiefdoms of Sokpo, Kposo and Pokpa were, in 1936, combined into one section under the Pokpa Paramount Chieftaincy. Similarly, in 1938, a number of old chiefdoms just north of the Lofa were combined into the Gola Kone Paramount Chieftaincy and a boundary was established separating this ancient area of Vai and Gola commerce into two administrative sections (Vai Kone and Gola Kone). 32 But the Pokpa and Gola Kone Paramount Chiefdoms were both placed under the administrative jurisdiction of the Tewo district of Grand Cape Mount county, thus orienting their political and economic relations almost exclusively to the Vai sections of the coast, separ ating them from closely related groups in Kongba as well as those immediately to the south of the Lofa river. 33 These changes were largely effected during Edwin Barclay's administration and demonstrated the vigor of the government's tribal reorganization program. Its application was not difficult in the northern Gola sections. The Kongba, Goje , and Pokpa areas had been devastated by the unsuccessful Gola uprisings of 1917-18. A major portion of the population had fled to Sierra Leone out of fear of reprisals from victorious Liberian government forces. Only a few returned later to their old lands, though most of the leaders who had supported the Kanga War remained among the Mende chiefdoms over the Mano river. Much of the animosity expressed for the administrations of Presidents Howard and King is associated with the events of this period. Military law was imposed periodically, and the region was exploited by vengeful officers and commissioners with little direct control from Monrovia. Farmlands and entire villages turned to bush. This s ituation con­ tinued with little change until the early 1930's when the government conducted reprisals against those believed to be cooperating with the League of Nations Commission of Inquiry. The uprisings among the Kru, at this time, were sufficiently serious to cause general alarm among Liberian officials in all areas where there had been tribal disturbances. Punitive actions were carried out in many sections of the interior, includi ng the Vai and northern Gola chiefdoms where antagonism toward the government was still strong. Though Bar clay was associated with these retaliatory measures early in his administration, as well as with the new laws against tribal slavery and pawning, he very quickly established himself as the originator of an era of constructive policy for the interior. He conducted presidential conferences in various troubled ar eas, rewarding loyal chiefs a nd r emoving from office those who had shown r esistence to government. He is r emembered particularly by elder tribal leaders for his support of the traditional ruling aristocracy in each chiefdom, always making appointments or replacements from among the acceptable

32. The cultural diversity of this area was recognized as early as the seventeenth century, and the names of these divis ions were r eported by Dapper. 33. Detailed ethnohistorical accounts of the northern Gola chiefdoms are presented in Department of Interior, Bur eau of Folklore, The Traditional History and Folklore of the Gola Tr ibe ~ Liberia , (Monrovia , 196JT.° II, 19- 64. A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 5

contenders to office. 34 One of his first interior visits was made to Pokpa in 1933 where he presided over the election of a paramount chief and laid the foundation for the reorganization of the area, which was carried out in 1936. He made a special point of assuring leader s of the northern sections that they would not be held accountable for past resistance to the government, but would be judged by their present and future actions. As a result, a degree of order and economic productivity retur ned to the area, and some of the population that had fled to Sierra Leone filtered back into their former villages. Barclay's strategy was equally successful among the southern Gola chiefdoms between the Lofa and the St. Paul rivers. In 1932 these small chiefdoms were amalgamated into the Lofa- Gola Paramount Chieftaincy and linked administratively to the Bopolu district. By the end of the decade, the government had responded to competing Mandingo demands, and large sections of old Gola territory such as Gonbeya, just southeast of Goje, and portions of Mana, Boje and Gbo were given over to Bopolu Chiefdom a"iid the new chiefdom of Mecca. Theserather extensive administrative adjustments were made rapidly and with very little strife. Tribal historians attribute this to a number of factors, some of which have already been mentioned above. First of all, there were the traumatic consequences of the prohibition against tribal slavery. A disrupted economy and increasing government display of effective power had brought about a condition of despotism and chaos among the chiefdoms. The memory of the failure of the Kanga uprising was still fresh in the minds of the southern Gola leaders, and they were determined not to share the fate of the northern chiefdoms by resistence to any reasonable demands of government. But a major factor underscored by elder historians was the effectiveness of Barclay's diplomacy. He is said to have convinced tribal leaders of his sincere concern in their behalf,

34. Barclay's sympathy for the native aristocracy is firmly stated in his Annual Message of 1937 wherein he takes exception to certain provisions of existing government regulations: 111e results of experiments under these regulations have in a large measure proven beneficial. There are one or two features, however, to which objections have been taken by the chieftains and which some of the District Commissioners think are impolitic and unworkable. The chiefs in most tribal areas seem opposed to the elective principle adopted by the administration as a basis of appointment to leadership of the tribe. They feel that by insisting upon this feature of the Gover nment's policy, the traditional governing power of the tribe is being disintegrated. Under this system, they claim, many persons who do not belong to the traditional ruling houses are brought forward, and sometimes elected to the chieftaincy, for reasons which do not make for the better government of the tr ibe. 1l1e result is that its internal discipline is destroyed and every individual comes to feel that he has no obligation to obey authority, or undertakes to interpret the decisions and orders of the Government as suits his own purposes • •• Article 51 , therefore of the Administrative Regulations, should be revised in such a manner as to give, for the present, recognition to the hereditary principle in selecting chiefs wher e such a principle is the tradition of the tribe. 6 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

arguing that the new native policy would bring order and prosperity to the interior, as well as generous patronage from the government. The promise of government protection from exploitive interior officials, military raids, and powerful local upstarts had wide appeal to the members of the old ruling houses of the chiefdoms. The new paramount chieftaincies were rationalized as a revival of old confedera­ cies, and the selection of paramount chiefs from among the rulers of the con­ federated chiefdoms was seen as a maintenance of traditional patterns. Further­ more, it is said that the Barclay administration argued from strength, while the chiefdoms were in no position to resist. One Gola elder paid tribute to Barclay's diplomacy, in this context, by applying a well-known adage: "The great king asks of you what he has already taken from you. President Barclay showed us respect by letting us decide to do what he knew we must do. " Along the St. Paul river the extension of the old Deng-Gola chiefdom into Kpele and Basa territory was stabilized in 1932 by the amalgamation of these units into the Todi Paramount Chieftaincy. By 1939 the Kpele-Gola chief of the Fuama section of the chiefdom received Barclay's approval to secede from Todi and establish a separate paramount chieftaincy attached to the Kakata district of the Kpele area in the Central Province. Since that time this region has become increasingly populated by Kpele, Basa and Liberian coastal peoples, and is no longer considered to be a Gola section even by the remaining Gola inhabitants. Thus after almost one hundred years of Liberian national existence, and less than twenty years having elapsed from the last Gola rebellion against ex­ panding Liberian power, Barclay's administration had succeeded in effecting structural changes throughout the western province which consolidated government control by means ofa highly adaptive apparatus of state in the hinterlands. One important consequence of these developments in the 1930's and early 1940's was the unprecedented prestige which the national government had achieved in its relations with tribal peoples. The new administrative structure created a degree of centralization of political authority that had not obtained anywhere in the western interior since the great Gawulu and Kondo confederacies of the early nineteenth century. The expanded jurisdiction of paramount chieftainships gave these offices considerably more power than in the past, and party politics among contending factions of the now amalgamated traditional chiefdoms was intent upon exploiting the opportunities inherent in the new system. Councils of clan chiefs and elders became region-wide in representation and were frequently able to achieve sufficient unity to control presidential approval of paramount chiefs as well as of district commissioners. This recognition of the potentialities of the new system, on the part of tribal leaders, was expressed by a famous Gola paramount chief of the southern section, as follows:

When President Edwin Barclay began talking to us about joining our old chiefdoms together, we did not want to trust him. My brother was paramount chief over my family's country (chiefdom) under the old way which President Arthur Barclay had brought to us. In that way, the real kings of the land were made paramount chiefs. We did not want this changed, even though President Howard and President King had spoiled the old ways by appointing any man who pleased them to be chief. But Edwin Barclay tried to A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 7

show us that new times were coming and that we could not work in the old ways if our people were to r ise in the world. He said we could not deal properly with the government if each small country [chiefdom] spoke for itself. We would be like chickens running here and there while small boys catch us one by one for chop. He showed us that the government was strong and that we would be destroyed if we did not become part of it. He was a very hard man, but he was right and he gained respect from my brother and other chiefs. Now I will show you how he was right. Under the old way each paramount chief was fighting for himself and his own family. Unless he was very rich or had many friends in Monrovia, his people were helpless. The old people have their heads in the past, so if a chief wanted to raise himself in the world, he was forced to fight his own relatives and use the government to make them obey him. II you were good to your people, you were poor and no one listened to you. The district commissioner and any ignorant man from Monrovia could use your country for his own purposes. But when we began to follow &twin Barclay and join our old countries together, we learned something new. We could take our strongest and richest man and put him before us as paramount chief to deal with government. We tried to find one who knew book [was literate] and kwi ways. Then all the chiefs, all the old kings of the countries could get behind him and make him strong. It is no easy thing to be a paramount chief. For on one side the government is jamming you to do their work, and on the other side the chiefs and old people are jamming you to do what they want. If you make a wrong step you are finished. But it is making the native man s trong again. Even the old people agree that this is a good way. When a paramount chief has all the elders and all the clan chiefs behind him he can make the government listen to him. That is why we had respect for President Barclay. He was like his old uncle. Even though he was kwi and listened to all those old American [Liberian] families in Monrovia, he seemed to know what was in the hearts of the real rulers of this land. He understood that we wanted the blood of the great old ancestors of this land to be in our rulers. He had respect for the old rulers and supported their brothers and sons as leaders of the people. I do not know if he wanted the Gola to be great , but what he did for us will make us great again. We are no longer thinking only of our own families, but of all our people. I have begun to see all that. I am a paramount chief not for my own blood [lineage] but for all the Gola and strangers in my chiefdom. Those of my own blood should not expect more of me than those others who depend on me. My idea is that the Gola people will be great again. We will not be great in the same way as in the old days of our ancestors. In those days we did not think so much about being Gola. We called ourselves 8 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

by the name of our family or the small country we came from. But today we think of all the Gola in all the old lands from the Deng [St. Paul r iver] to Sierra Leone. We are a great tribe, and we will be one of the great people in Liberia.

The man who made this statement was the same man who, as a young clan chief, had been fined by President Barclay in the late 1930's for disrupting the Mandingo survey of lands claimed by Gola chiefdoms. In the last year of Barclay's administration he was commissioned by the president as paramount chief of the combined Lofa-Gola chiefdoms, a position which he held almost continuously until his death in 1969. The above statement was made to the writer in 1957. It contains a most cogent estimate of the impact of political changes during this period, and the views expressed were shared by many Gola leaders, particularly those who represented important lineages of old ruling houses of chiefdoms. 1\vo profoundly s ignificant themes of modern Gola historical attitude are presented in the statement. The first is the high priority placed upon the preservation of traditional authority. In Gola history Presidents Arthur Barclay and Edwin Barclay emerge as uniquely benign and majestic leaders of the Liberian ruling class. The administration of each followed a period of national disaster and consequent repression. Arthur Barclay came into office after the turbulent period of the 1890's which had seen the Sofa War, tribal rebellions, economic depression, and an angry Monrovian citizenry forcing the resignation of President Coleman. Edwin Barclay was sworn into office after the forced resignation of President King and one of the most serious periods of internal strife and danger to national survival that the country had faced. The adminis­ trations of both men brought a degree of stability and confidence to the nation in crisis. Threats to national sover eignty and dignity were dealt with by skillful foreign policy and admirable statesmanship. Each responded to the dissention among tribal peoples by initiating highly creative and effective programs of administrative reorganization. The similarity between these programs is obvious, and there is no doubt that Edwin Barclay consciously brought to fruition the intent and potentialities of the plan of Arthur Barclay in the development of The New Native Policy, reaffirming a strategy of nationalization which had been misdirected and misinterpreted by two intervening government administrations. These programs gave positive recognition to the traditional systems of authority among African peoples of the interior, yet pressed firmly for compromise amenable to national structure. A second theme of Gola historical attitude, which the above statement con­ tains, has to do with a changing concept of cultural affinity. Throughout this region notions of ethnic identification have always been complex and pervasive. Despite extensive intermarriage, mobility,· multilingualism, and the population heterogeneity of local units, individuals as well as group s are classified in terms of their dominant language, their patrilineal ancestry, and the myth of origin they share. However, these conditions produce a high degree of flexibility and option for both individuals and groups. Processes of affiliation are usually guided by pragmatic principles. The existence of permeating ideologies of ethnicity delineating individuals and groups can be misleading to the observer if these phenomena are not understood in the context of history and the intricate networ k of actual social relations. A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 9

Among the Gola , for example, "Golaness" is a compelling value associated essentially with common language and shared myths of origin. The religious emphasis upon ancestral validation of temporal affairs, and the expression of this in the rituals of sacred female and male organizations or in the histor y of founding patrilineages, has given form and continuity to the importance of being Gola. lt is a convention of Gola historical narrative to refer to "we Gola" or "the Gola" as though the entire people identified by this name have been motivated by some grand design. This is particularly true where accounts deal with epochal phenomena such as Gola migrations from the interior homeland, the arrival and subsequent dominance of the Liberian settlers, or wars and negotiations i nvolving confrontation with groups whose predominant ethnic identity is considered significant for an explanation of events. The impression / is given that "tribal"entities are acting and being acted upon. In earlier portions of this paper, where much of the material was derived from oral history, the Gola tendency to generalize major processes and events in pan-tribal terms is further reinforced by the ethnographic convention of making similar generalizations for ostensibly heuristic purposes. But it was also shown that for the Gola, as well as for surrounding peoples, group solidarity bas been primarily a function of the social relations of small local ized populations which constitute distinct and relatively independent societies. Population mobility, warfare, and continually shifting alliances created a situation in which "ethnicity" was as much an instrument of opportunistic manipulation as were kinship ties or political diplomacy. This is clearly illustrated by the histories of chiefdoms resulting from Gola expansion into ter ritories formerly claimed by Vai, De, Kpele, and Basa groups, or from Mandingo, Mende, and Bandi penetration iilto areas formerly claimed by Gola inhabitants. Competing traditions of founding lineages within these heterogeneous units provided alternatives which were expressed in the changing orientations of individuals and groups to ideologies of ethnicity. Local legends and histories of the development of chiefdoms stress the exploits of leading personages with little reference to tribal affiliation. Lineages are identified by the names of their founders, and chiefdoms by a tradi­ tional territorial designation. Ethnic distindtions are normally made only when differences of language or custom appear to have affected relations among peoples within chiefdoms or between a chiefdom and outside groups. In the legend of the founding of the present Gola chiefdom of Gobla, for example, the first towns are said to have been built by three brothers of a Mandingo family who bad become initiated into Gola Poro while residing in Kongba. This caused them to be disowned by their Mandingo relatives and they were unable to return to their original homes. Consequently they set off with their households to establish a new home in the frontier to the west. They settled briefly among various Vai and Gola chiefdoms of the coast, but in each case they were asked by the people to move on due to their numbers, the shortage of food, and their strange history. At last they settled across the Lofa river in some uninhabited lands assigned them by friendly De chiefs. Here they built the first towns of Gobla chiefdom and established the Poro and Sande associations in accordance with their training among the Gola of Kongba. Later, many De and Vai people came to live among them, but even more Gola came from the interior so that in time Gobla was considered a Gola chiefdom. In this legend the specific tribal designation of the principals is important, for it reveals how a group of Mandingo men and their dependents could have founded a chiefdom among the Gola, Vai, and De. The Mandingo were vigorously 10 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

prevented from direct commerce with the coast and were looked upon as competitors in the lucrative trade to the interior. They were powerful intruders who disdained the intertribal institution of Poro which was basic to confederation and alliance among t!Je entrepreneur chiefdoms of the coastal frontier. But, in this instance, it was the remarkable fact of three Mandingo brothers joining Poro that exposes the unique origin of the Gola Chiefdom of Gobla. Though De, Vai, and Mandingo languages and traditions came together in Gobla, it was the later predominance of Gola immigrants and leaders that caused it to be known as a Gola chiefdom. Accounts of the later history of the chiefdom tend to minimize the tribal origins of individuals or lineages and, when such information is solicited, contradictory and often hotly contested versions are presented. Historians of leading families seem to be preserving the ethnic "neutrality" of their lineages as a strategy of expedience. Golaness, Deness, or Vainess is asserted when some advantage can be gained in doing so. The fact that the present writer was known to be a student of Gola culture and history produced a disposition to stress the "Golaness" of major lineages of the chiefdom. Yet certain of the same informants were kn01vn to have given quite different interpretations during earlier government hearings over De, Mandingo, and Gola land disputes. The paramount chief of the southern Gola sections, whose statement was given above, epitomizes a political career in the social and historical context of the frontier chiefdoms where these factors of ethnic diversity and manipulation were crucially operative. His father, a Gola man from Kongba, had been a paramount chief of Gbo Chiefdom before its incorporation into the new Lofa-Gola Paramount Chiefdom in 1932, and was the head of a ruling lineage connected through marriage with a number of important Mandingo and De families of the area. Muslim influence was intensive in the chiefdom, and its status as a Gola section was frequently claimed to be ambiguous in the narratives of the elders of some of the surrounding Gola chiefdoms. During the 1930's the son became clan chief of Gbo under the system initiated by Barclay, and a former paramount chief of Te Chlefdom became the first paramount chief of the new Lofa-Gola Paramount Chiefdom. Gbo had been included as a "clan" in this new arrangement among the old southern Gola chiefdoms, but political factionalism among its ethnic groups intensified. Some of the Mandingo leaders of lineage segments were pressing for alignment of the Gbo territory with the interests of the increasing Mandingo population of the Bopolu- region, a process which was soon to result in the creation of the Mandingoized Mecca Chiefdom adjacent to Gbo. The De-oriented faction was supporting the claims of the De chiefs for the large - sections of lands in Te and Gbo which were said to have been alienated from the De by Gola expansion in the nineteenth century and by the arbitrary boundaries . established by the government during the creation of Lofa-Gola Paramount Chiefdom in 1932. The young clan chief of Gbo skillfully utilized the kinship links of his lineage to maintain an ambiguous and plural ethnic status. As a devout Muslim, he was · considered a leader of the local Islamic community and had developed strong ties with Mandingo- Muslim leaders in Bopolu and throughout the region. Kinship links with families of important De chiefs were also kept viable through exchange of favors and other expressions of solidarity. ln conversations with the writer, this chief reflected on the early period of his career as a time in which he had been extremely ambitious and aspired to the highest possible position of tribal authority: A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 11

Though I came from a great family and my father was a man much admired by the government, I was still only a country man (tribal) myself and had no kwi schooling [formal Liberian education in English]. So I hadtodepend on my family and the place which they had given me in the world. I decided that I must serve my people as my ancestors had done. It was my desir e in life to become a paramount chief over many people and gain them respect among other peoples and in the eyes of the Liberian government. I am fortunate in this because my family's house has many rooms where you can find people from all the main tribes in this section. My father was a real Gola man, but he had many wives and other relatives from different people. No one can say I am not r eal Gola, but also no one can say that I am not Mandingo, De, or even Vai. In Gbo where I was clan chief you could not rule unless all the people of your big family were satisfied with you. I learned to be a leader of many kinds of people, and I was able to show them that I could turn my face to each of them and be one of them. This is how I kept peace in my family and how I managed to become paramount chief of all this country. My Mandingo people wanted me to join them and make Gbo part of their country. My De people wanted me to go with them. My Gola people told me I must show that I was real Gola from my father's line. I waited to see which was the best way for all my people before I decided which way to go.

In the late 1930's he made this decision by publicly opposing the Mandingo attempt to usurp portions of Gbo lands and dramatically affirming his Gola allegiance by joining with other-Go la chiefs in arguing against the Mandingo petition to President Barclay. He indicated in discussion that he had at one point considered the possibility of siding with the Mandingo, had there been an opportunity to assume leadership of the new chiefdom they envisioned in the western Bopolu area. 'But he had become embittered by the discovery that his Gola paternity denigrated him in the eyes of some of the most powerful Mandingo leaders. Consequently he focused his aspirations on the political opportunities presented by the Lota-Gola Paramount Chiefdom where a ser ies of aged paramount chiefs had died in office and where the current incumbent was unpopular. His opposition to Mandingo usurpation of ostensibly Gola lands gained him a degree of fame in the Gola sections. Furthermore, he became an active participant in the True Whig Party, vigorously supporting President Barclay's policies and, during the party's search for a candidate in the early 1940's, campaigned for Barclay's choice of a successor, W. V. S. Tubman. In 1943, when the regular election for paramount chief was held, he easily defeated the incumbent and was commis­ sioned by Barclay on the eve of Tubman's inauguration. The administrative headquarters of Lofa-Gola Chiefdom was shifted to the ancient town of Suen in Gbo which had, since the early nineteenth century, been one of the major centers ofcommerce and conflict between Liberians, Gola, De, and Mandingo in the struggle for control of western Liberia. It was here that Getumbe, a famous ancestor of the new paramount chief, had directed a devasting war against the De and the settlers at Monrovia in the late 1830's which, though 12 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

lost, resulted in the consolidation of Gola control of Bopolu and of large sections of former De territory in what is now Te and Gbo "clans. " The place of Getumbe in standard Liberian history was that of a renegade and vicious enemy of the colonists. Among the Mandingo and De he is recalled as a symbol of the most aggressive period of Gola expansion. To the Gola historians he is a dangerously heroic figure whose exploits have not been praised openly for fear of reawakening government antagonism. The paramount chief and his constituents also refrained from public mention of Getumbe and tended to stress the ·role of his father and other Gola chiefs who had sided with the government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the mid- 1950's when the writer first met this paramount chief, he was still reluctant to discuss this phase of the history of his own family and section; but in the mid-1960's, when he was met again, the political climate had changed to such an extent that he wc.s avowing his relation­ ship with Getumbe and seeking to memorialize him. This was at once a gesture of daring affirmation of his Gola heritage, of confidence in the government's improved policies of tribal administration, and a strategy of power politics in a further reorganization of the western interior which will be discussed below. 35 But during the first decade or so of his paramount chieftainship his status was precariously maintained in the face of intensive factionalism and profound readjust­ ments among constituent groups of the region. Leaders of some of the "clans" sought to replace him by reviving suspicion concerning his ethnic allegiance. Even his status in Gola Poro was questioned due to his unusually devout Muslim faith and the modifications in Sande and Poro ritual which leaders of Gbo Clan had made to accomocate participation by its mixed Gola-Mandingo population. He was frequently accused of conspiring to advance Mandingo and De interests over that of the Gola, and the efforts of a number of aspiring Gola chiefs were sufficiently successful to have him deposed briefly in the late 1940's. A most common accusation made against him by his enemies within the chiefdom was that he was a secret member of dangerous and illicit associations of the Bopolu area and that he spent great sums of money to procure "medicines" that kept him in power. The favor which seemed to be shown him by the government was often explained on the basis that many high Monrovia officials were also believed to be members of these associations. The career of this chief was not unique, for it illustrates a pattern of leadership which was emerging throughout the western interior of Liberia as a response to government creation of larger-scale administrative units in areas where numerous petty chiefdoms had co- existed as discrete social entities. These units had experienced brief involvements in heterogeneous and shifting con­ federacies under the leadership of temporarily ascendant warrior kings, but regional conditions had never produced the stabilization of such confederacies into permanent structures. Moreover, as has been shown in earlier sections of this paper, the advent of Liberian colonial and national expansion ushered in an era of restrictive sectionalization which, until the 1930's, encouraged the insulation of small kinship- based units from one another and disrupted long­ standing processes of intergroup relations which had provided flexible alternatives for the strategy of survival and power in the forest frontier. The requirements of leadership in the new paramount chiefdoms were s imilar to those of the old confederacies in that success depended largely upon the leader's ability to control an ethnically heterogeneous population whose subgroups were semi-autonomous political units under traditional chiefs and headmen. In the past

35. In the 1960's he was to play a major role in the organization of Bomi Territory, and expanded administrative section dominated by the Gola. A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 13

the instruments of control of the leader of a confederacy were his fame and prowess, genealogical ambiguity providing his kinsmen with a wide range of opportunity for putative links to other kinship and ethnic groups, alliances through wardship and intermarriage, and wealth as the essential implement of patronage. But a key factor in the emergence of the most powerful confederacies, such as those of Sau Bosu of Bopulu and of Zolu Duma of Gawula in the early nineteenth century, was the ability of the leaders to gather about them large numbers of mercenary warriors and other clients loyal to themselves rather than to any kinship group or ethnic faction within the population. The despotism which characterized these confederacies was made possible by the degree of the ruler's w1restricted usurpation of authority from councils of elders and from traditional institutions such as Sande and Poro. He could be deposed only by assassination, or by a war in which he was defeated by a more powerful adver­ sary from without. Poro often played a prominent role in such circumstances. Leading elders of the local Poro organization might appeal secretly to the lodges of other chiefdoms, within or outside the confederacy, for a war against their ruler. Such negotiations also involved retracing of kinship links or, where inter­ tribal relations obtained, appeal to latent ethnic loyalties. These machinations sometimes led to the migration of entire villages and local kinship units , led by their headmen, to place themselves under the protection of another ruler prior to a war in which they hoped to regain their lands and statuses through conquest. These traditional processes of power politics among the chiefdoms of the western Liberian frontier area continued almost unrestricted into the first decades of the twentieth century, tllough they began to be modified by steadily increasing Liberian government intervention. The policy of sectionalization of tribal areas and conditional recognition of local rulers implemented in the administrations of Arthur Barclay, Daniel Howard, and Charles King, i mposed new principles of sectional consolidation and legitimate authority. Chiefdoms were relegated to various spheres of Liberian administrative jurisdiction, and the rulership of chiefdoms required presidential commission. In effect, tile Liberian government interjected itself into the traditional system of checks and balances among tile chiefdoms, and rapidly assumed the role of the invincible patron whose approval and protection must be acquired in all inter- chiefdom relations. In the 1930's the further reorganization of interior administration created amalgamated units of larger scale which, for all intents and purposes, were confederacies of a new type. Permanent territorial boundaries were placed around clusters of traditional units whose current leading elements could be brought to a degree of consensus concerning historical and cultural rationaliza­ tions for political incorporation. Though the government considered this policy to be based upon traditional alignments, it was actually an imposition of alien concepts of immutable boundaries and ethnic solidarity. It intensified and gave concrete administrative expression to the trend toward tribal separatism that had been evolving under pressure of advancing Liberian domination in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the Liberian predilection to interpret events in the interior as being effected by "tribes", each of which constituted a popula­ tion characterized by traits assigned to them in the course of historical relations with tile Liberians, tended to accentuate and codify an ethnic consciousness which had been residual, fluid, and tacitly instrumental throughout the region. Stereotypes of the Vai, the De, the Gola, or the Mandingo have developed in 14 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

the culture of the coastal Liberians as a function of attitudes cbnditioned by their Euroamerican identification and by the relative success of their efforts to control various sectors of the interior. From the earliest colonial period, the Mandingo and the Vai were con­ sidered among the most 'civilized' native peoples of the western region. Their wealth, their Akill and dominance in trade, and their apparent close connection with Islam and legendary civilizations of the far African interior, were contributing elements to the view of these peoples as superior. The legend of "Mandingo" alliance with the settlers during the first two decades of colonial survival at Mesurado, and establishment of a successful Liberian settlement at Cape Mount by the 1850's , provided the basis for a strong positive identification of Liberians with two western "tribes" who were idealized as worthy allies in the early struggles to form a nation. Mandingo and Vai individuals were to be among the first tribesmen of the western interior to be accepted into official government circles and to receive important posts in Monrovia. The De were considered benefectors of the Liberians, but also as unfortunate victims of "Gola" aggression against the colony in the early eighteenth century. They were depicted first as allies and then as pathetic r efugees who fled to the protection of the Liberians, voluntarily submitting to the paternalistic authority of the government. But throughout the history of the western region, as seen by Liberians, it was the "Gola" who kept the interior in turmoil, who were determined to prevent Liberian penetration, and who represented the epitomy of savage ferocity and untrustworthiness. Until the twentieth century, there were no settlements of Liberians in predominately Gola territory. There was little knowledge of their distribution or political arrangements, and the complexity of ethnic interspersion and continually shifting relations among interior chief­ doms was almost entirely unknown to the Liberians. Disturbances among the more interior Vai, De, or Kpele chiefdoms were, therefore, easily at­ tributed to " Gola" insurgence, a convention which was also readily adopted by chieftains who saw an opportunity to utilize Liberian bias by shifting responsibility to more remote and inaccessible areas. The Pokpa, Kone, Goje, and Kongba Gola areas comprised a mysterious wilderness which Liberians viewed as a bastion of savagery intervening between themselves and the supposedly abundant markets of the Mandingo highlands. This was the homeland of the "Gola tribe" seen as the source of a vast conspiratorial hegemony dedicated to mastery of the western interior and to the obstruction of Liberian aspirations. Thus , the Suen, Coleman, and Kanga wars have taken their places in standard Liberian history as "Gola" uprisings despite the fa<:l lhal Val, Mentle, &ntll, antl other c.:hic::ftloms were involved. Brltish boundary encroachments, and the activities oft.he League of Nations Commission of Inquiry in the early 1930's, wer e believed to have been primarily aided and abetted by rebellious Gola chiefs. The distrust of the Gola, on the part of Liberians, has been reflected in government administrative policy and Liberian orientation to development in the western interior from the mid-eighteenth century to the present time. A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 15

The conditions affecting Liberian relations with the southern Gola chiefdoms have created a somewhat different situation. The proximity of this area to Monrovia, and its crucial role in providing a commercial corridor to Bopolu and upper St. Paul river region, involved the southern Gola in relatively pros­ perous and intricately interwoven networks of association with other groups such as the Mandingo, De, Basa, Kpele, and the Liberian settlers along the lower St. Paul river. The situation was sufficiently comple , and the official Liberian knowledge of the area so limited, that the "tribal" identification of chiefdoms in government reports was often ar bitrary and contradictory. This was, in part, due to the rapidly changing political and demographic features of the area as discussed above, in which migration, warfar e, and the processes of merging or fissioning groups produced conditions of organizational and ethnic pluralism. But a particularly significant factor influencing Liberian interpretations was the deeply ingrained notion that native "tribes" or "nations" were concrete entities operating in terms of the characteristics which Liberians had assigned to them over the course of colonial and national history. As government power was extended into the interior, it was not difficult for native leaders and other in­ dividuals to recognize the opportunities for manipulation of Liberian attitudes. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (and even in more recent times), itwas common for chieftains of groups in the more western Pokpa and Kone sections to identify themselves and their peoples as Vai for purposes of improved relations with the government, or for pr estige in dealing with Liberians. Among the southern chiefdoms, where the tradition of Gola hegemony persisted despite mixed population and culture, opportunities for instrumental choice of Mandingo, Vai, Kpele, or De identities were abundant, and local histories indicate that they were vigorously exercised. The twentieth century trend of these chiefdoms to disengage from intertribal pacts of resistance to the government--such as those of the Coleman and Kanga wars which were initiated in the northern interior--was interpreted by the Liberians as a suc­ cessful consequence of their policy of subjugating and retrenching the Gola. During the 1930' sand 1940's, the reassertions of Kpele orientation in :Fuama Chiefdom, or of the Mandingo and De in territories along the lower St. Paul river and about Bopolu, were seen as a decisive containment and taming of the southern Gola. Gola advances into Vai territory near Cape Mount had bee!:! halted nearly a century before when the Gola- dominated confederacy led by Zolu Duma at Gawula came under the control of rebellious Vai chiefs with the aid of armies sent from Bopolu, were seen as a decisive containment and taming of the southern Gola. Gola advances into Vai territory near Cape Mount had been halted nearly a century before when the Gola-dominated confederacy led by Zolu Duma at Gawula came under the control of rebellious Val chiefs with the aid of armies sent from Bopolu by Sau Bosu, the leader of the Kondo Confederacy. During the ensuing century "Vai" identity was extended eastward into those sections of Tewo, Kone, and Gawula that had become "Gola" in the previous period. In the 1930's these sections were incor­ porated into the reorganized Vai paramount chiefdoms. Only Pokpa, Goje, and Kongba remained, in the north, as administrative units of territory claimed by people identified as Gola. In the south the Lofa-Gola Paramount Chiefdom bounded the traditional groups considered to be predominately Gola in that region; but along the St. Paul river, a number of formerly "Gola" sections were shifted to Mandingo, Kpele, De , and settler spheres of ethnic alignment. All of these changes were accompanied by individual and group maneuvers with regard to the advantages or disadvantages of alternative "tribal" designations as indicated by government inclination to favor one or another "tribe" and by ~he potentialities of projected administrative plans in the interior. 16 WARREN L. d'AZEVEDO

Toward the middle of the twentieth century certain effects of r eorgani- zation became clearly apparent. Among the Gola and other peoples of the region, the rhetoric of political and legal controversy was charged with references to ethnic solidarity and prerogatives. Leaders publicly identified themselves or were identified by the government as spokesmen for a "tribal" section. Boundary disputes involved claims and counter-claims of prior "tribal ownership", Renowned elder historians were sought out to testify as to the ethnicity of the dominant inhabitants of contended areas in the past. Candidates to political office campaigned for support by appeal to ethnic lore and latent rivalries. Local histories and genealogies frequently were revised in order to remove any references to anti- government activity or sentiment. After the merging of the autonomous "clan"-chiefdoms into the new Lofa-Gola Paramount Chief­ dom, for example, a "Lofa- Gola" orientation began to appear in local history. Clans, whose recent leaders had been associated with hostility to the government, stressed their kinship and other traditional links with clans such as Kpo, Mana, Gbo , and Te, some of whose leaders had been known to the Liberians as friendly chiefs. The five paramount chiefs who have been elected by tribal authority and approved by the president for the new chiefdom, since 1932, were from these clans. In Lofa-Gola diplomatic relations with government, special eulogistic reference is always made to the role of the great warrior chi ef Kpomo Kpo of Kpo Clan and to the famous Ja Male of Gbo Clan who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were known to Liberians as supporters of the government in the Coleman and Kanga wars. Aspirants to political office stress their kinship or other connections with these figures, and strive to reconstruct the Gola image by linking all of Lofa-Gola to a tradition of progressive pro-government polity. The development of this tribalistic orientation in social relations throughout the region was a cultural accommodation of indigenous groups of the interior to Liberian preconceptions about African "kingdoms" and "nations". It was also a response to the intensive factionalism and permanent area sectionaliza­ tion stimulated by the slow but persistent progress of Liberian national growth. Government administrative policy in the twentieth century created conditions in which it was expedient for groups to press for political recognition by realigning themselves in terms of Liberian concepts of sovereignty. This involved the requirements of a fixed territory associated with an ethnic or cu!tural designation, and permanent centralization of poiitical authority over wider areas than comprised by any of the traditional chiefdoms. Such re­ quirements were not wholly inimical to concepts and forms of organization that had appeared in the r egion at various times during past centuries, but the new arrangements necessitated a profound reorientation of the traditional system and resulted in the rapid transition to a system based upon different principles. In the past sovereignty was vested in the founding lineages of small inde­ pendent chiefdoms, each associated with lands which were theoretically in­ alienable but which could be. assigned to others through privileges of usufruct. The boundaries of lands held by a chiefdom were indistinct, and seldom contiguous with those claimed as core lands by neighboring chiefdoms. Intervening areas were a kind of public domain whose ownership fluctuated with the changing balance of power among adjacent chiefdoms or with customary understandings about their disposal. Warfare, migration, and brief periods of confederation produced A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 17

intricate local traditions of overlapping r ights among dispersed kinship groups residing in and incorporated into the many heterogeneous political units of the region. The major organizational concern of such units was not the acquisition and control of a territory so much as it was the acquisition and control of a viable population for the exploitation of natural resources, domination of local trade, and defense or aggression in warfare. Maintenance of the sacred lor e of land ownership was a function of the ruling segment representing the founding lineages; but, as indicated earlier, the lore itself, as well as the constituency and form of chiefdoms were continually subject to reinterpretation and re­ str ucturing. Ethnic identities were also aspects of lore, maintained by tradi­ tional local institutions, yet operating as instruments of individual and group strategies within a multilingual and pluralistic cultural context. Notions of pan- ethnic solidarity were only vaguely influential, as elements of origin myths or as rationalizations of minor cultural differences; but they were not prime factors in the creation of local spheres of political control, and never consti­ tuted the basis for a conscious strategy of conoolidating or centralizing the interests of the widely extended segments of a "tribe". The "new tribalism" of the twentieth century was an adaptation to fu nda­ mentally different conditions. Territorial boundaries and administrative structures were negotiated under pressure from the national government which appeared to be monolithic and unsubvertable. Territories were made contiguous and inflexible, and changes required government approval. Local populations were not only identified with the newly reorganized territories, but with the encompassing tribal designation applied to them. Mobility was dis­ couraged both by chiefs and interior government officials, thus restricting an ancient process of individual and subgroup opportunism through voluntary fission and r eaffiliation. With the subjugation of the interior, the building of roads, and the appearance of foreign concessions, Liberians began to seek land holdings for plantations and speculation. Land, itself, became a com• modity, and local groups strove to maximize their claims as they awakened to the potential value of "land palaver". An effect of this situation upon the reorganized Gola chiefdoms was to stimulate the rapid emergence of a doctrine which might be characterized as a "pantribal nationalism" consciously constructing and disseminating symbols of Golaness. Myths and legends of common Gola origin and of the historical interrelations of widespread Gola chiefdoms were standardized into accounts of "Gola history", and local tr aditional histories were revised in order to conform to them. Accounts of heroic events and persons, that had formerly been the exclusive property of particular lineages, were drafted into generalized histories of par amount chiefdoms and administrative sections. A new type of semi- official historian appeared represented by men considered to have excep­ tional knowledge of the Gola past and who were called upon by government and native groups alike to provide conclusive statements in the resolving of dis• putes. There is evidence that there was a strong r evival of Poro activity in this period and that Gola Poro began to assert pre-eminance as well as a custodial role with regard to surrounding peoples such as the De , Vai, and Kpele. Though these developments were primarily focused in the political and cultural life of separate Gola administrative sections, defined by the reor­ ganized paramount chiefdoms, the rhetoric of Gola spokesmen frequently included references to the far- flung groups "from the Mano River to the St. Paul who are one with us and who have been lost to us." The fact that this is a new pattern was made explicit to the writer by elder informants of 18 WARREN L . d'AZEVEDO

various chiefdoms in the 1950's. Very frequently these men distinguished between the "new history" and the "old" when they were pressed for comment on the Gola past. A good example of a common response is the following:

You must go to all those different families to find out what you want to know. My old people told me only about how my family came to be in this place and how we grew into a great chiefdom. They told us very little about all those other Gola who went to different places in the world. We knew only about the people around us--not only the Gola, but all different people like the Vai and De who lived among us. But since the kwi [Liberians) have come into the country, we are learning about what has happened to the different tribes. We know that they feared and hated the Gola, and that we were a great people in all this dark country of the interior. The young people are beginning to think of that. We tell them they must know what it is to be Gola. We say they must study all that and show the government that the Gola are great. They must do this or other tribes will take all we have. That is the way we think about Gola- business now. But my ancestors did not care about it. They were owners of the country. They had no time to think about Gola- business or Vai-business or De-business. They were kings over many different people. In those days a man did not go about shouting that he was one kind of tribe or another. The animal that makes noise in the bush shows the hunter how to find him. But today we must think about each tribe in a special place, for the kwi deal with each tribe one-one (separately). So now we want the Gola to be respected in the world, or we will have nothing in the future and other tribes will put us low. That is why an old man like me will talk to you, a stranger, about how the Gola came to be in this country. In the old days we would not speak these things out to str angers, even if they were Gola. We spoke them to our own families, and we did not car e about things that were far away. But now a man who does not know of these matters is not respected. We say he lives in darkness even though light has come into all the country. That is why certain of the old people you talk to are respected and others are not. I know more than what my own ancestors have told to me. I have gone about , to different places and learned the history of different Gola people. I have made myself ready for these new times. That is why you have been sent to me.

In the 1940's and 1950's the new tribalism was articulated most clearly in the Lofa-Gola section, where competition among the reor ganized De, Mandingo, and Gola elements continued to be intensive. During the first decade of the Tubman regime, with. its dramatic slogan of "unification" and support for native culture, there occurred throughout the western interior what was tantamount to a nativistic revival. De, Vai, and Gola sections vied A TRIBAL REACTION TO NATIONALISM 19

for presidential recognition by sending invitations to ceremonial events where local ritual, dances, and crafts were exhibited. Unprecedented official requests were extended from the government for native groups to participate in public festivals in Monrovia. Petitions were presented to the president for honorary pensions to be conferred on illustrious tribal elders, and a number of tribal representatives were appointed to i mportant government posts. Gola reaction to this new situation was highly competitive and defensive. The view was commonly expressed that the government was showing favoritism to other "tribes" and that "the enemies of the Gola would not let the government forget the past. " Historical narrative concerning the recent period was embued with a nostalgia for lost glory and a sense of bitterness about supposed abuses which had been heaped upon the Gola while other tribes escaped blame. Ref­ erence was also made to alienated lands and peoples--"all those countries that once belonged to the Gola and all those Gola people who are scattered among other tribes. " This new element in Gola worldview did not find con­ crete expression in political program until the 1960's when the hinterland was reorganized into the county system. h was at that point that the new tribalism became an instrument of Gola sectional diplomacy, and provided the basis for a long-range strategy of pan-tribal advancement within the Liberian nation. A Precedent-Setting Formula for the Development

of Liberia's Natural Resources

NATIONAL IRON ORE COMPANY, LTD.

is 503 owned by the Government of Liberia. 1600 Liberian Citizens hold over 20% of the remaining stock and purchased it with only 203 down, the remainder was financed for them, interest free, by the late Lansdell K. Christie and is repaid only out of dividends.

This is the type of new approach to development inspired by

PRESIDENT TUBMAN' S OPEN DOOR FDLICY and by the enterprise, stability and imagination of the Liberian people.

MINE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES, LTD. Managing Agent for NATIONAL IRON ORE COMPANY, LTD. A HISTORY OF CROZlERVILLEl

Burleigh Holder

I am honored by the invitation for me to participate in the events of this great day by presenting a brief historical survey of the incidents leading to the founding of this settlement, and some of the contributions made by the Barbadian emigrants who landed on these shores exactly one hundred years ago. The opportunity thus afforded me to address you on this memorable occasion is a rare and distinguished honor of which I am deeply proud and which I shall strive humbly to merit. TI1e occasion for which we have gathered here is not only memorable, but monumental. It is unique, too, not only in its circumstances but also in its historic and symbolic significance. There is but one occasion commemorating the Barba­ dian Emigration to the Republic of Liberia which occurred on that historic 10th day of May in 1865. Or should I refer to the event not as an emigration or an im­ migration, but as the return of men, women and children to their Fatherland from which their forefathers had been involuntarily snatched away into bondage. Exile or migration is not an unusual feature in the history of mankind. A slight advertence to the pages of history will make clear that ancient man (say, the Greeks, the Gauls), Medieval man (the Europeans}, and modern man (the Ew:opeans, the Africans), have all tasted of this experience. It is not as easy to determine whether exile is voluntary or involuntary as it is to distinguish between actual applied physical compulsion to move, on the one hand, and intentional move­ ment free of physical constraint, on the other. Today, I shall concern myself with both aspects of the matter, the one I refer to as involuntary exile, the other, in­ tentional migration - in our case, repatriation. It was more than three hundred years ago that the first Africans were snatched away from these shores to labour in the Barbadian Plantations. It is an historical fact that slavery is a pre-civilized institution. Moreover, modern knowledge seems to disprove the theory advanced by some historians that conditions in the tropics are not conducive to tiresome physical exertions on the part of the Caucasion. Neverthe­ less, following the ope1ting of the American continents, the African became the object of prey to the end that his labour might be forcibly and brutally extracted and utilised to the advantage of the more powerful race in the Western Hemisphere. In that area there are the West Indian Islands, of which Barbados is one. Geo­ graphically , it is a tiny island situated among the Windward Islands, with an area

1. Editors' note. Tiii.s is the text of an address delivered by the Hon. Burleigh Holder at Crozierville, May 10, 1965.

· Liberian Studies Journal, III, J (1970- 71). 21 22 BURLEIGH HOLDER

of 166 square miles and a· population now of just under 300,000. Barbados, the only West Indian island which was never in the possession of a European country other than Great Britain was "occupied" in 1625, and effective settlement begun soon after. It was to this island that the forefathers of the emigrants were taken. It was on this island, among others, that the harsh and brutal treatment by the British slave owners is described in history as second only to the Dutch. Yet, through all their trials and tribulations, these slaves, along with other African slaves elsewhere, were not destroyed as was the case with some unfortu­ nate American and Australian tribes. They were preserved by God in the land of their thraldom from the deadly strokes of adverse destiny. Who can dispute the great truth that when God does not destroy a people, but, on the contrary, trains, sustains, chastises, and disciplines them, it is a sign that He intends to make some­ thing of them, and to do something by them? It is the dawn of a bright and powerful future. There is, so to speak, a covenant relation which God has established between Hlmself and them; not easily discernible at first but ever more apparent in the full­ ness of time. The first signs of this interest in those slaves became evident in the last quarter of the 18th century in England, and manifested itself in the hearts of the Quakers, otherwise known as the Society of Friends, and in the hearts of Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, and King George III. But it was not until the year 1807 that the hope for a new era in the life of the slaves began to blossom. It was in that year that an Act for the abolition of the slave trade was passed by the British Parliament, whose example was followed by some other countries at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. After this beginning, emancipation was inevitable. As the wave reaches out to majestic heights, towering with beauty befor e explosion, so the normal sugar estate was to the outside observer a placid, genial community, and yet, like the tropical landscape, it had poisonous terrors beneath its surface and was on occasion the scene of convulsions of violence. Statistics of mortality, records of revolts and murders and floggings, were surer evidence than tourists' impressions, and they support the graver interpretation of the problem. Discussions of measures to · ameliorate the condition of the slaves had begun before the abolition of the traffic in human beings, but it was not until the founding of the anti-slavery society in 1823 that relief was pursued more vigorously. Rumours of impending emancipation followed the virtual end of the slave trade and improvement in the treatment of slaves. Suspicions that the planters were blocking progress of the emancipation movement, however, led to revolt after revolt in these islands until in 1833 the Emancipation Act was passed. Mere emancipation is not the only good for which the black sighs, or which is necessary to his happiness. It is not enough that he should pass from a state of servitude to the individual, to one of bondage to the society. The life of the African expatriate on the island was full of successes and reverses: Legislation was often employed as an instrument of repression. Prosperity was not uniformly enjoyed or equally shared. The white man, full of prejudice toward the black man, treated him unfairly and unjustly. The way of ascent and progress for the Negro was limited and difficult. Barbados was described by some of the emigrants as a "country 21 miles long and 14 miles wide", was without any vacant land, and the freed slaves were forced by this situation to continue in the main to work as free labourers. The partial protection which the planters had enjoyed at the time of the abolition of slavery, in the form of duties on sugar imported into the United Kingdom, was discontinued by the British A .HISTORY OF CROZIERVILLE 23

government under Lord John Russell between 1846-1851. With a population then described as numbering "nearly 160, 000 persons of whom 136, 000 are coloured", it was not surprising that many Negroes should seek relief through emigration. The declaration of independence by the Republic of Liberia in 1847, whereby Negroes established their own country with equal rights and with equal opportu­ nity for all, doubtless must have influenced the minds of many freedmen like the Barbadians. The thought of a free black republic in the land of their for e­ fathers doubless must have stir~ed the Negroes of Barbados, even though they were free and apparently happier, healthier and better fed than their brothers elsewhere who remainP.d in bondage. The situation in Liberia had not wholly changed after the declaration of in­ dependence. It will be recalled that it was the refusal of the British government to deal with a colony that had compelled the fragmented settlements on this coast to declare independence prematurely. On several occasions that government had annexed portions of what was regarded as part of the Commonwealth of Liberia, and her position was strengthened by the refusal of the United States to entertain a colonial relationship. The British government could not deal with a society. Liberia was in a desperate position. The civil war in the United States had virtually put an end to emigration of freedmen from that country. The handful of Liberian pioneers were battling for existence not only from external forces. As if this untamed pestiferous land was not spreading enough havoc among them, they were being devastated by the indigenous inhabitants. It was President Daniel Bashiel Warner, described as a man of unmixed African descent, who was to play an important role in attempting to remove some of the hardships. It was he who, with the assistance of his able Secretary of State , Edward Wilmot Blyden, considered an urgent need for immediate emigration of Negroes to Liberia, if not from the United States of America, then from the West Indies or elsewhere, where men were seeking that type of freedom and pride ai.>ailable only in a land of their own. It was no surprise that the Liberian Com­ mission's visit to the West Indies in July 1862 to invite emigration to Liberia met with overwhelming success. lt was no wonder letters from all over the islands were pouring into St. Thomas, the place of Blyden's birth, where he had gone and published the circular appeal. President Warner was a man who not only thought like a man of action, but he acted like a man of thought (if I may refer to the admonition of President Tubman to the nation). He was not satisfied merely with the encouraging and heart-warming report which had been brought back by Blyden, then Secretary of State. On the first day of March 1864, he issued a proclamation, the relevant portion of which reads as follows:

TO THE DESCENDENTS OF AFRICA THROUGHOUT THE WEST INDIAN ISLANDS. WHEREAS by an Act of the Legislature of the Republic of Liberia of Febru­ ary 16, 1864, entitled, "An Act authorising the President to adopt measures to encourage emigration to Liberia from the West Indian Islands, " the President is authorized to enter into arrangements to increase the population of Liberia by renewing the invitation extended in 1862 to persons of African descent in West Indian Islands, to come and settle in Liberia, and by aiding worthy and industrious persons in the same islands to emigrate. And Whereas, abundant and satisfactory evidence has been received by me from various islands of the West Indies of a general desire among the descendants of Africa to emigrate to Liberia. 24 BURLEIGH HOLDER

Now therefore, I, Daniel Bashiel Warner, President of the Republic of Liberia, do hereby declare and proclaim to the descendants of Africa throughout the West Indies, who may be desirous to return to their father.­ land and assist in building up an African Nationality, that the Government and people of this Republic are anxious to welcome them to tbese shores. A grant of twenty- five acres of fresh fertile land will be made by the Gov­ ernment to each family and of ten acr es to each single individual. Persons of all classes and pursuits are invited, Mechanics and Merchants, School Teachers, Physicians, Ministers, Farmers, Laborers, etc. , etc. The demand in this new and growing country for persons skilled in all the professions and in every branch of industry is unlimited. BRETHREN OF THE ANTILLES! We are one in origin and destiny. We have the same history of centuries of suffering, of tribulation and woe. The time seems to have come in the Providence of God, when this oppressed people, wherever they may be found in their exile, should seek together and co-operate for the establishing in the land of their Fathers a ho~e and a Nationality. The Republic of Liberia, whose independence is acknowledged by all the leading nations of the world, seems to be the most suitable starting point from which the returning exiles may begin to take possession of and civilise this long- neglected land, and thus aid in restoring to this ancient cradle of civilisation her pristine glory. Given under my hand at the City of Monrovia the first day of March, in the year of our Lord One 111ousand Eight Hundred and Sixty Four and of the Republic the Seventeenth.

At the same time he instructed the Secretary of State to address a letter to the American Colonisation Society, requesting the employment, for two or three years, of the service of the Society's ship, the M. Q.. Stevens to bring, at least twice a year, "Emigrants and passengers from the West Indies to Liberia, as long as she shall not actively be employed in transporting emigrants from the United States". John Pinney, Liberian Consul General at New York, was accord­ ingly advised to undertake immediate negotiations with the Society, including the charges for this service. By this time, several organisations had sprung up in Barbados the most im­ portant of which were The Fatherland Union Barbados Emigration Society for Liberia, with Anthony Barclay as its leader; and its offshoot, The Barbados Company for Liberia, with its chairman, john W. Worrell. All these people felt that it was their highest privilege, as well as their imperative duty, to cast in their lot with the pioneers in the work of Africa's civil, social and religious redemption, and sacrifice themselves, if need be, in the stupendous work of spreading free government and civil institutions in Africa. They were determined that Liberia with its unlimited field of opportunities, with its innumerable facilities for comfort, independence, and usefulness must be the place which should become their home. They had been call ed by the instinct of race. But innumerable difficulties encompassed them. The American Colonisation Society was organised in 1816 in the United States of America for the purpose of r epatriating free Negroes from the United States only. The constitution of this Society specified that "the object to which its attention shall be exclusively devoted A HISTORY OF CROZ!ERVILLB 25

is to promote and execute a plan for colonising with their own consent the free people of colour residing in our Country in Africa". ln one of his letters to the American Colonisation Society, dated 22nd March, 1865, the president of the Fatherland Union, Anthony Barclay, wrote of the emigrants: "They are respectable but poor. " The Government of Liberia, on the other hand, facing a crisis in her trade with the United States as a result of the civil war there, could ill afford to underwrite the voyage. However, word had spread among the Barbados Company for Liberia that the first group of emigrants would be taken to Liberia by the American Colonisation Society's ship on the first day of December 1864. Their hopes were shattered. Although many of the prospective emigrants had sold their homes and other possessions, the M. C. Stevens, because of her state of disrepair, had been sold by the Society. ThereWiiSllo ship on the first of December as envisaged. Panic ensued. The island's authority seized this opportunity to offer free passage to any of the other islands in the West Indies and the guarantee of a pleasing job. Under these circumstances, mass emigra­ tion followed: about three hundred to Jamaica, another three hundred or more to British Honduras, and scattering numbers to other places. Of this state of affairs, I must quote a portion of another letter (in reply) addressed to the American Colonisation Society by Anthony Barclay, This is a circumstance which I cannot otherwise than deplore. They however excused themselves under the plea of necessity which 1 designate as a want of firmness through which I fear they have been most awfully disappointed. But, be that as it may, they are not all to be reg-drded as the leaders of a movement of such great importance. They were only an isolated few, in a country distri ct whose movements were not known to the townsfolk until it was too late to avert the evil, and as such, their failure ought not in justice to be visited on another and more steady people who long have laboured for, and still desire to emigrate to Africa and nowhere else.

Here, then, are a people kindred in r ace, analogous in institutions· and language, sympathising in principles and views, anxious to join the Liberians and help to fill up, protect, and improve the Republic, yea, the West African continent. These men were not of ordinary ca.pacity. They could not relinquish their decision to come to Liberia at the first sign of disappointment. Wave after wave of a destructive and malignant tempest had passed over their heads without impairing their vitality. Now they decided that their case had to be put to the Society. Joseph S. Attwell, one of their number, was chosen for the task. This was a man of no mean intelligence who had sacrificed his time and his money to go to the United States in order to persuade the Society to transport his companions to Liberia. So successful was his mission, that the Philadelphia Colonization Society, with its president, John P. Crozier, brother of the well-known pioneer of this country, Dr. Samuel A. Crozier, and severally described as "unpretentious, wealthy, universally known, and respect­ ed and beloved for his many most admirable traits of character, and for his never­ ceasing words and deads of kindness and charity", contributed the greater portion of this amount. The Society then "resolved that ten thousand dollars be appropriated and expended for the purpose of aiding emigration from Barbados to Liberia". Measures to carry out the novel and interesting trust thus committed to them were promptly taken by the Executive Committee, who, at their meeting held 1st February, 1865, directed Reverend William McLain, D. D. , Financia.l Secretary of the American Colonisation 26 BURLEIGH HOLDER

Society, "to proceed to Barbados", delegating to him the necessary power to act in the premises. Dr. McLain arrived at Bridgetown, Barbados, on the lltb of March, 1865, where he was received "with indications of regard and gratitude". There he found that hundreds were anxious to come to Liberia and he experienced no little embarrassment in making a selection from the waiting applicants. So desirous were many of these people to remove to Africa, that on the 14th day of February, before intelligence of the action of the Board could reach the island, the chairman, John W. Worrell, the vice chairman, C. H. Lawrence, and the former corresponding secretary, of The Barbados Company for Liberia, with several of its members, numbering in a!l sixteen persons, embarked for Liberia on a small vessel, chartered by the British Government to transport Recaptured Africans from her colonies in the West Indies to Sierra Leone. It is reported that they regretted that they could wait no longer. Perhaps, I have inadvertently failed to mention that while Attwell went to the United States to put the case of the emigrants to the American Colonisation Society, Nelson and Tait had come to Liberia to discuss s imilar problems with the government, where Nelson soon died of "African fever". Upon his arrival in Barbados, Dr. McLain was met by large deputations of the two organisations. After the means at his disposal for the colonisation were made known, it was unanimously decided by those intended to be benefited, that "these ought to be used rather for the transfer of as many persons as possible, than that any portion should be applied for the comfort and support of a limited number - say 150 - after arrival". Their problem had not disppeared with the coming of Dr. McLain to the island and the choice of the number to be transferred. No vessel suitable for the carriage was in port or expected. Several anxious days passed. But as the runners in a steeple chase wait eagerly, impatiently, anxiously at the line for the sound that releases one set of emotions only to give birth to another set, so did anxiety turn to joy for all interested in the movement when the superior British brigantine Cora appeared and anchored in the harbour, about 25th March, 1865, seeking business. · The hour had come at last. All those hopes, all those dreams had been marshalled as if on a battlefield. For each individual in the company, the heart must have been filled with mixed emotions: There was the desire for real freedom; the adventure into a new and challenging life; the feelings of nostalgia; the anxiety for those of their relatives and friends who would be left behind. After negotiations, speedy preparation and provision was made for the accom­ modation of 320 emigrants for a passage of sixty days and for at least the same period upon arrival at Monrovia. The Cora, ready to sail on tbe 5th of April, 1865, got under way, but had to drop anchor out a good distance from the shore in Carlisle Bay. She was ordered not to leave until a commission ordered by the governor of the island had surveyed her and until the English Admiral commanding on that station and his first Executive Officer had made an examination of "how the Queen's subjects were provided for". Happily, these commissions made a favourable report. It was not until the evening of the 6th of April that the Cora actually commenced her momentous and memorable voyage - the time 5 o'clock p. m. The passage across was uneventful and was made in 33 days without serious illness or a single death. Eve.ry history has its lighter pages. Here was a ship with 320 berths; yet at roll call in Bridgetown, 333 persons were on board; but the Captain landed 346 persons at Monrovia; being 46 more than was arranged should go; 26 more than berths had been provided for on board; and 13 more than had answered to their names when called prior to the sailing of the vessel! A 1-JISTORY OF CROZIERVlLLE 27

These emigrants were not ordinary ex- slaves seeking a livelihood for themselves and their families. And at the risk of wearying you, I will advert to the testimony of men of the day as an illustration of this statement. ln the American Colonisation Society's i:ecords, it is written,

Among them were coopers, carpenters, canoemakers, a wheelwright, printer and teachers, with several who thoroughly understood the cultivation of the cane and manufacture of sugar, and the culture and preparation of all kinds of tropical products. A large proportion were professed followers of Christ, prompted by the love of souls, as well as the desire to improve their temporal condition. They were mainly Episcopalians , Wesleyans, and Moravians.

In President Warner's letter to the Society, dated 13th May, 1864, he wrote of the emigrants,

The people just landed seem, upon the whole, to be a well selected company, and may be regarded as a valua ble acqui sition to our young Republic. To your large experience of the kind of materials required here for the up-bringing of tbis off­ spring, and the further development of our country and the character of the people in it, and your sagacity of selecting those materials, is due the very respectable and promi sing immigration with which we have just been favoured.

President Warner again writes, 21st August, "these people are of industrious habits, pious, seemingly, withal. " In the Philadelphia Ledger of June 1868, is recorded an address delivered in America by Reverend Crummell in which he says, "The most of these persons were Episcopalians, well-trained handcraftsmen, skilled sugar-makers, intelligent, spirited, well-educated persons". Records of the Society, June 1870, state, "Thus was added a number of well educated and religious families and of skilled and industrious mechanics and agricultur­ ists to the African Republic". Finally, I must quote a portion of the editor's column in the New Era, a Liberian publication, September, 1873, -- - -

We visited the settlement of Crozierville.•• The Barbadians are known to be the most intelligent and well educated company of emigrants that ever came to Liberia, and equally industrious. There were but few of their number that could not read, write and cipher when they arrived in the Country. Many of these people were first class mechanics, some farmers, some teachers, and some small traders, etc. They seem to have been trained to promptness in the discharge of both public and private duties•.. 1 am opposed to farmers obtaining credit on crops not yet made as much as I am to the shingle and lumber workmen who take an advance on their lumber when they have not yet found the tree to produce it. But if I had to recommend and be responsible for any class of our people upon their honour, I know of none more reliable than the Barbadians. They will make a mark for good upon the age and the Country.

The Company arrived at Monrovia on the morning of 10th May, 1865, and after a few days, they were sent up to the "Receptacle" on the road to Careysburg, built by John Seys, a representative of the American Colonisation Society. The location was 28 BURLEIGH HOLDER

described as being about four miles from the St. Paul River and about twenty miles from Monrovia. Some of them, however, did not r each the Receptacle. Some were too ill to move at the time. Some went to Harrisburg, described as the place of the St. Paul r iver falls. Some died. But the majority of the group which set out together from Barbados arrived together at the Receptacle. Here there was a blossoming out of self reliance, developing not despair but calm assurance. A people who had come through such terrible generations of oppression were too strong to be destroyed. New strength and inspiration for their people burst forth in this place which they themselves named Crozierville in honour of John P. Crozier and his brother, Dr. Samuel A. Crozier. Within ten days after arrival, they organised an Episcopal Church, which they named "Christ Church", after their church in Bridgetown. It would be foolish to suggest that all the emigrants accepted the new home, or even the new plans, the new ideas, and the new programs, of the day. Some returned home, some went to Sierra Leone, some went to other counties in the Republic. The Tulis went to Cape Palmas, some Clarkes and Barclays and others went to Bassa, the Gibsons to Caldwell and the Wiles and others returned to Monrovia. Wherever they were, I am proud to say, these were public spirited men, not vain, petty, or se1f­ serving. They r emebered that the end for which they had been planted in this place i n this great country was the promotion of civilization and the building of a precious nationality. Hence, they were concerned about that temper, character, and spirit into which their generations might be educated. They were anxious about encouraging the development of wholesome qualities in our population. They were eager to establish and cultivate righteous principles and just sentiments. The character of these people, then, was for them the primary consideration. They turned their minds to t he educa­ tion and training of their children and to the great and everlasting work of God and man in this countr y, on this continent and in this world. This was a company of good men and women, upright , gallant , brave, sagacious, adventurous, daring, industrious, intelligent, magnanimous, persever ing, successful. For a few moments, let us in imagination roll back for a century the tide of time. Let us close our eyes for a moment on this comfortable spot, this well dressed and intelligent assembly, the open streets, the pleasant homes, the quietness and decorum of everything around, and bring before our mind's eye the reality of a hundred years ago; the dense and impenetrable forests, the sound of the wood bringing terror and fright with every note after the sun has gone down. l should like to have been with them on that day. I should like to have seen those noble spirits in the midst of their darkness and trials and loneliness. They had left far away the homes of their childhood. If they looked back towards the land from which they had come, there was the deep and roaring Atlantic between them and their former home. If they looked before them they were confronted by an impenetrable and awful wilderness. If they heard the sound of human voices at all, it was the alarming shriek of exterminating war under the Gola chief, Zolo Kpangae, who abandoned no effort to annihilate them. But in the midst of their trial, the Sires did not despair. They never attempted to relinquish this spot. It was the answer to their prayers offered unto God that strengthened their hearts and the arm of General Padmore to bring down Zolo Kpangae, as David brought down Goliath. An excellent company of immigrants to this country, producing men and women who have shown respectable talent as mechanics, as soldiers in the army, as exemplary citizens in the state, not infrequently as diplomats and statesmen, not seldom as scholars, repeatedly as ministers of tre gospel, and at times, men of letters. Here, I must venture to refer to some of the more celebrated among these people. And I must add that, while, indeed, an attempt to enumerate the varied activities and outstanding A HISTORY OF CROZIERVILLE 29

achievements of these men is time-consuming, nevertheless, on such an auspicious occasion as this, one that occurs rarely more than once in a lifetime, it would be not only an unforgivable disrespect to our patriot fathers and mothers, but also a flagrant disregard for propriety, to allow impatience to overshadow and defeat the purpose of these celebrations and the object of this discourse. Among 346 emigrants, the majority being Episcopalians and Wesleyans (Methodist), there were about fifty families, one hundred professional people including sixteen planters, nine farmers , eight sug.ar boilers, six carpenters, five seamstresses, five tailors, five traders, three smiths , three masons, three coopers, three mantua makers, two teachers including a mus ic teacher, two bakers, two joiners, two cabinet makers, two millwrights, two printers, two confectioners, a pastry maker, sugar clarifier, school mistress, fancy worker, shipwright, plumber, distiller, reporter, painter, penman, coopersmith, bootmaker, tanner, butcher, and a seaman. Anthony Barclay was the president and corresponding secretary of the Fatherland Union, and James T. Wiles the corresponding secretary of the Barbados Company. These two men were the leaders of the emigrants . Of the permanent settlers, in Crozierville, the first school teacher of the Christ Church School, John Isaac Thorpe, was chosen as the first Chairman of the Company. Alone in Anthony Barclay"s family of thirteen, there were nine professionals. Here is a short list of some of the names of the Barbadians and their descendents who have held or are occupying very high executive positions in the government of Liberia: two presidents, Arthur Barclay and Edwin Barclay, five Secretaries of State, Ernest Barclay, Arthur Barclay, Edwin Barclay, Louis Arthur Grimes and Joseph Rudolph Grimes; two Secretaries of the Treasury, James T. Wiles and Arthur Barclay; two Attorney Generals, Henry Waldron Grimes and Louis Arthur Grimes; t wo Postmaster Generals, James T. Wiles, the first Postmaster General of Liberia, and Arthur Barclay; Sec:retary of War, George S. Padmore; Secretary of the Interior, Richard N. Holder; two Secretaries of Education, George S. Padmore and Edwin Barclay; Secretary of National Public Health Services, Edwin Murray Barclay; Director of National Planning Agency, James Milton Weeks; Administrative Assistant to the President, Everett Jonathan Goodridge; of the Judiciary, Louis Arthur Grimes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; of the Legislature, Richard S. Wiles, Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the field of education, it is noteworthy that the first Liberian President of the University of Liberia is Dr. Rocheforte L. Weeks. The list includes a host of Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries in the departments of government, of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, Associate . Justices, a well known one of whom is present, Anthony Barclay; a number of Ambassa­ dors - to name a few , George A. Padmore, Reid Wiles, John D. Cox, John F. Marshall, III. Also included are many of the gospel, among them are the names, Clarke, Holder, Padmore, Porte and Weeks. In the army we can boast the names of Colonel James B. Padmore, whose gallantry brought the Gola war in Crozierville to an end. George S. Padmore, who twice fought bravely in the Cape Palmas wars and on the second occasion in 1910 resigned his post as Secretary of War to head the military mission to that county. The women, too, have contributed not only in nursing the cradle of these great men, but they have laboured and are labouring in the social, political and religious fields in this country. Among the first "Ladies of the Land" , the Barbadians can boast a few; even today, Mrs. Antoinette Tubman, the grand-daughter of General George Stanley Padmore, shines as a beacon in our chief executive parlours. Here are the names of sur viving descendents whose parents were among the emi- 30 BURLEIGH HOLDER

grants: Georgia Barclay, R. S. Wiles, J. E. Padmore, Anthony Barclay, Louisa Wharton-Porte, Jeanie Wharton, J. I. A. Weeks, Ella Holder-Weeks, Jacob A. Padmore, Lincoln Thorpe, Sara Holder, Eulyses Thorpe, Julia Thorpe, Salome Padmore, Maude Braithwaite- Wright and James Wesley Holder. It is heart-warming to note that just under a hundred years ago, John Isaac Thorpe, the first teacher of the Christ Church School,was elected leader of the Barbadians in the District of Crozierville; that, today, his great- grandson, Napoleon B. Thorpe, is serving as the Commissioner for the Township of Crozier­ ville. The historical data would not be complete without reference to John H. Cox, one of the Officers of both The Barbados Company for Liberia, and of the District of Crozierville, to whom the credit is due for the presence of breadfruit in this country. The original trees, imported and planted by him, can be seen today. This plant is now widespr ead all over Liberia, and the fruit has on innumerable occasions filled the plates of many hungry people. Their history makes it clear that these were people of extraordinary capacity. Their character and their history are the products of discipline and preparation and of education which comes from trial and endurance; for these are the well­ springs of their virtue and idealism and their sense of national responsiblity, and of the strong family ties which are so deeply engrained in the character of the whole Negro race. There can be no shadow of a doubt that the work done by these men and which is carried on by their posterity has been and is directed towards the advancement of the interests and the welfare of the Republic of Liberia and of all Liberians, and not for their partisan advantage as a separate group. In conclusion, reflecting upon the countless pages of historical documents on the life of this nation, I am compelled to say that our most arduous labours are only now just begun. Our first century brings us into the presence of grave res­ ponsibilities and unending toils. Crozierville must continue to be an interesting spot on the map of Liberia, and we must help to strengthen our ration, by continuing to prepare the citizens of this settlement and of this country to be ready to serve and to play our part as best as we can by encouraging labour and the common arts of life and by continuing to foster the institutions of religion, learning, and good behaviour; but above all by practising virtue. Let us consider our duties, let us be true to our obligations. Let us cherish and honour the past, let us serve the present; but let us offer the future as a challenge to ourselves, for the benefit of our nation, for the benefit of our race, for the benefit of the world, and for the glory of our God. THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GREBO RISING OF 1910

G. M. Haliburton

Among the charismatic figures of African history, among the "prophets" and evangelists who have precipitated religious and social innovation with concommitant political repercussions, the Prophet William Wade Harris stands pre-eminent. A Grebo from the Cape Palmas region, he was usually identified as a Kru, and he himself emphasized the strangeness that God should call on him, a "Kruboy", lowiest of the lowly, the ubiquitous labourer of the Coast, to be His Prophet. A prophet lie was indeed. During 1913 and 1914 he walked along the Coast from Cape Pal mas as far as Axim, in present-day Ghana, and part way back again, preaching and performing miracles, or what were accepted as such. In the Gold Coast his converts flocked to join the Methodist and Catholic churches, abandoning in a mass movement the magical objects which had heretofore been as gods to them. In the next few years the European administrators spoke in high praise of the new cleanliness of the villages, the thirst for schooling, and the receptivity of the local peoples to new crops and new ways of making a living. The missionaries, too, praised Harris for bringing such a harvest of souls to them, though within a few years they were mourning that their inability to hold the people was leading to the emergence of strange independent sects. ln the Ivory Coast where missionaries were sparse, Harris converts took their ideas of an ecclesiastical organization directly from him. After some initial suspicion the French administration of the area decided that Harris was an ally in their "civilizing mission", particularly since here, as in the Gold Coast, the breakdown of old beliefs included the relaxation of taboos which had made the efforts to introduce a money economy difficult. For some months Harris was left free to carry on his preaching and baptizing, until a hllndred thousand people, or more, had caught the fever , burned their "fetishes", and accepted baptism from him or one of his many disciples. A movement of such dimensions soon seemed out of control. The undermanned administration began to fear that Harris might turn against them and drive out all Frenchmen. His enemies began to whisper that he was in the pay of the Germans, and the governor decided that he had better be deported. It was done, and early in 1915 the Prophet Harris was back in Liberia. Although he tried several times to r e­ enter the Ivory Coast, the French were watchful, and he was kept out. In the course of time the "Harris Movement" and its aftereffects were discovered and discussed by missionaries, historians, and assorted students of Africa. Unfortunately, the chief witness to the phenomena he raised, the Prophet Harris himself, could no longer be heard; he died in 1929. Of the numerous people who had met him, few had set down their impressions in writing. Fewer still had tried to give an account of his personality and preaching in publications, while so far as can be determined, only one man had actually sat down with Harris and tried to elicit from him the salient features of his life story.

Liberian Studies Journal, III, l (1970-71). 31 32 G. M. HALIBURTON

Th.is was Pierre Benoit, a missionary working with Harris' converts in Ivory Coast, who travelled to Cape Palmas in 1926 and spent several days with the old man. 1 It is in Benoit's account that.the link is made between Har ris and the Grebo Wa.r of 1910. Benoit writes that Harris had the mystical experiences which trans­ formed him into a prophet while serving a prision tei-m at Cape Palmas, and that be was in pr ison because he had taken part in the war of 1910, the particular incident in which he implicated himself being the raising of the Union Jack over his house. When writing on Harris in 1966, 2 the author accepted this statement as a touchstone of solid truth in the welter of confusing and contradictor y material on the Prophet but has since discover ed that it needs considerable qualification. It does, however , accord very well in a general way with a statement attributed to President Arthur Barclay of Liberia. According to a report of the American Minister, Ernest Lyon, who was interested in ascertaining the cause of the war of 1910 , the president told him that

the present uprising•• . dates back to the Cadell incident when the natives all along the Liberian Coast, especially at Cape Palmas, were told that Liberia had become a British colony. Believing this to be true, a native Liberian, who is now imprisoned, hoisted the British flag on Liberian territory. It is claimed that he was influenced to do so by Dr. Blyden.•• 3

Despite the statements of these two authorities, there was an interval of roughly a year between Harris' act of raising the flag and the actual outbreak of war. The Union Jack was raised at the same time as a crisis of some magnitude was en­ veloping Monrovia. Th.is was an episode in which the British commander of the Liberian Frontier Force, R. MacKay Cadell, played a leading part and so becaLne known in Liberia as "The Cadell Incident. " In other circumstances, it might have been "the Cadell Coup". It is not the intention to discuss the details of the crisis here, but a few points may be made. The British Foreign Office was attempting to help Liberia put her finances in order, and to this end was helping her get control of her coastline for purposes of collecting a substantial customs revenue. On the other hand, the peoples of the coast, resentful of Liberian authority, r esisted Liberian pressure and looked for support to British shipping interests and the British government. The Englishmen on the spot, such as the consul, Braithwaite Wallis, sympathized with the aboriginal population and their pro-British declarations. The explanation given by Baldwin, Wallis' s uccessor, to explain the cause of the Grebo war of 1910, is illustrative of the general approach.

l. Benoit jotted down his observations in French, but so far as is known, the only copy of his notes available is a typewritten English translation in the Archives of the Methodist Missionary Society in London. 2. G. M. Haliburton, "The Prophet Harris and His Work in Ivory Coast and Western Ghar1a , " unpublished lb. D. dissertation, University of London, 1966. 3. Ernest Lyon to the Secretary of State , Washington, D. C., 6 April 1910. Record Group 59, National Ar chives (Washington), 882. 00, no. 367. THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GREBO RISING OF 1910 33

The Grebos appear to be an intelligent people, and to have among them some well- educated men. They hate and despise the Liberians, whom they look upon as thieves and outcasts, and as they are clever enough to see that they cannot remain independent, they openly state their wish to be placed under the protection of Great Britain. 4

Cadell and Wallis were much impressed by the Liberian elder statesman, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and if their contempt for the Liberian government needed strengthening, they found the authority in him. Blyden would , at this ti me, have l iked to see Liberia become a British protectorate. There were tense days early in February 1909 when it was believed that Cadell and his men, antagonized by salary arrears, were about to seize power in Monrovia. 111e crisis passed when a British warship arrived and Cadell and other British subjects serving with the Ft·ontier Force were taken away. The incident inflicted a blow to the belief that Great Britain had a disinterested wish to help Liberia out of her troubles. It was during this brief period of crisis that the Union Jack was raised at Cape Palmas by Harris. Whether by design or coincidence, he had chosen a good moment for a Grebo rising, for Monrovia could have spared no force to assist Harper. ln the event, the Grebo did not r ise but stood calmly by while Harris was marched off to jail. Perhaps the primary reason for this was that the Grebo were divided themselves, and it is also doubtful that any propaganda had been spr ead by Harris before raising the flag. In due course be was brought to trial and imprisoned. The general impression from the court testimony was that Harris l:iad a private grudge against the Liberian authorities which had led him to try to stir up strife between his own people and them. However, the court records do not indicate that any attempt was made to connect him with Cadell or the British consul. The evidence tends to show that his activities resulted from an abnormal mental state. On the other hand, evidence was given that he had been in Monrovia shortly befor e, and while nothing definite was brought out, the court obviously saw a connection between the two events. Yet even if it had been proved that Harris had been influenced by Cadell, Blyden, and other conspirators in Monrovia, to what extent was President Barclay cor rect in linking him with a war which broke out a year later? Benoit's evidence may be assumed to be an honest err or; it is practically certain that Harris was sent to prison for several years for his action, and tl1erefore could not have raised the British flag again in 1910. The account of the war communicated to the British Foreign Office contains no mention of him. According to Baldwin, the fighting began early in January 1910, some 30 miles up the Cavalla River which by this time formed the boundary between Liberia and the Ivory Coast. lt was thought in Monrovia that it was basically a dispute over land r esulting from the enforcement of a new boundary line. T he inhabitants along the Cavalla bad commonly looked on the river as a means of communication, not a barrier as it had now become, and they had often farmed lands on the bank opposite their villages. The boundary conventi<>n between France and Liberia

4. F. O. 458/10, Baldwin to Grey, Monrovia, 13 April 1910. 34 G. M. HALIBURTON

agreed that this must cease. As a result, certain plots formerly farmed on the Ivory Coast side lay untilled, and it was said that a dispute broke out between two groups of Grebo (one inland, one coastal) for possession of this land. 5 When the dispute came to the attention of the authorities, Major William Lomax. commanding fifty men of the Liberian Frontier Force stationed at Harper, sent ten men up to the disputed area to sommon the chiefs to Harper for discussion. The rough behaviour of this squad led dir ectly to the outbreak of war. According to the Grebo, in a Memorial which they addressed to the British government, the Frontier Force was to blame for starting hostilities. They wrote:

••• This execrable Force6 is entirely demoralized and whenever they have been sent throughout the country-­ whether to River Cess, or into the Hinterland--their custom has been to plunder the towns through which they pass, and to rape their women. This practise they exhibited on the Cavalla River, and moreover shot a man of a tribe, thus forcing this tribe whose chief they had been sent to call, to take measures for their own defence which resulted in three of the frontier soldiers being killed. 7

According to the British consul, the men of the Frontier Force had looked for women, according to their custom, when they entered the village of Gbolobo8 and the men of the village had objected strongly. A shot was fired which killed the chief's son, and the infuriated villagers attacked the soldiers. Three of them were killed and the rest ran away. 9 The citizens of Harper were excited by this news, and the paramount chief of the area was summoned to Cape Palmas to explain. While en route, several prominent Grebo were killed at Harper. The Rev. B. K. Speare, an Episcopal priest, found his house on fire one day and though he extinguished it, he was shot the next day on his verandah. 10 At about the same time "Tailor Kilbu"was chased into the sea and drowned. The rest of the Grebo community took fright at this and fl.en across the river to Hoffman Station. Here at "Grebo Town" they built a stockade for protection and general fighting began between them

5. F. O. 458/ 11, Consul- General J. G. Baldwin to Sir &!ward Grey, Monrovia, 11 February 1910. 6. Mostly, according to the British Consul, made up of Mende troops. 7. F. O. 367 /184, Memorial of King Gyude and Chiefs of the Grebo at Bigtown, Cape Pa!mas, 15 February 1910. Slightly differing versions were sent to the American Colonization Society and to certain newspapers. 8. Liberia. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Folkways. Traditional History and Folklore of the Glebo Tribe (Monrovia, 1957), 167. ---9:--F. O. 458/ lo;Baldwin to Grey, Monrovia , 13 April 1910. 10. According to Baldwin, the murderer was a Liberian Methodist minister. THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GREBO RISING OF 1910 35

and the Americo- Liberians. 11 At this point, late in January, two members of the Liberian government came to Cape Palmas in the gunboat Lark to investigate the trouble and bringabout a cessation of hostilities, but the Grebe refused to see them. Their secr etary, Natianiel Seton, himself a Grebe, joined the rebels, asserting that he feared for his life if he stayed in Harper. He was of great value to the insurgents in putting their point of view into a coherent and polished document, the Memorial referred to above, which was given wide circulation.12 The Lark returned to Monrovia to pick up a force of armed men to protect Harper. The militia, however, were reluctant to go, and the Lark waited in vain at Monrovia for them to come on board. -- Meanwhile, a great deal of ammunition was being expended at Cape Palmas. On the 12tl1 and 13th of February snipers were busy and bullets were whistling in all directions. The Lark, back at her Cape Palmas anchorage on the 17th, bombarded the Grebe positions that night. The authorities decided to push a gun towards Cuttington, but hastily with­ drew it on the 19th when the Grebe nearly captured it. However, field guns on the Cape did keep up a daily bombardment, while the Lark prepared and presumably carried out a bombardment of Graqay and Half Graway. ln Monrovia the Legislature voted $40, 000 for the war, despite the precarious state of the Treasury. These small scale hostilities were of some interest at Liverpool, where West African shipping interests feared its effect on their commerce and properties in the Cape Palmas region. When t11e steamer Salaga of Liverpool called at Cape Palmas on the 10th of March, the crew and passengers were much impressed by the exchange of fire between the Lark and the guns of "Grebo Town". On arrival at Liverpool at the end of the month the passengers from Cape Palmas reported that a constant sniping had been kept up against the trading factories and against all boats which went back and forth to tile steamer. The English traders on the spot actually feared that they might be shot as a means of bringing Great Britain into the struggle. 13 A letter was in fact delivered to the traders interdicting trade in the war zone. Dated at Bigtown, Cape Palmas, 22nd March, it read as follows:

11. F. O. 458/11, Baldwin to Grey, 11 February 1910; a Reuters report in the Globe, 30 March 1910; Memorial of Crebo Chiefs, 15 February 1910. 12-:-Tam indebted to Dr. Jane Martin of Boston University for the identifi- cation of Seton as autllor of the Memorial. Dated 15th February at Bigtown (Gbenelu) it consisted of a severe indictment of Liberian rule as well as a pressing invitation for British intervention. The course of Grebo history since the coming of the settlers was summarized to show how the Grebe had suffered discrimination, oppression, and lack of protection under law. 13. F. O. 458/10. Reeves to Baldwin, 4 April 1910. (Reeves was a merchant. ) 36 G. M. HALIBURTON

Gentlemen: Some months ago we wrote to inform you that without cause the Liberians had killed certain young men of our tribe, and no satisfactory account as to their investigations for the detection of the criminals could be given us by the Liberians, and that if your trade roads were blocked we were not to be blamed for it. During the war we have tried to respect your national flags as much as possible; but we discover from observations as well as from information, that the Liberians are being benefited by this Liberian Government Custom-house, and the Liberians through you enjoy all advantages of marine communication, while we are effectively barr~d from the same by them. They are now vigorously trying to cut off all our sources of supply, although without any appreciable result, by carrying the Rocktown people and some of their frontier soldiers at the rear of our towns to block our roads to the interior. In view of all these facts, we should be Jess than men to sit and allow the Liberians to enjoy all the above mentioned advantages at the same time that they try to starve us out. Therefore we have to inform you that we intend to intercept their over-sea communication as much as lies in our power to do; and have to inform you accordingly to hold your boats in check, as we no longer wish the Liberians to continue the war through your co-operation. From date we shall attempt to stop every boat leaving the shore for any marine intercourse with any vessel, either in or outside of the harbour. We beg, &c. King Gyude (and the Chiefs of the Cape Palmas Grebos)14

Even the United States was encouraged to take an interest in the war, for the Liberian government informed them that their missionaries were in danger. 15 This may explain why the U.S. S. Birmingham {which had conveyed the American minister, Ernest Lyon, to discuss Liberian financial rehabilitation) gave support of its prestige to the authorities. In addition, in order to forestall European intervention, the commander of the Birmingham was under orders to co-operate with the Liberian authorities. 16

14. F. 0. 458/ 10. This letter was forwarded to Consul- General Baldwin and thence to London. 15. F. O. 367 / 184. The F. O. welcomed this, for it gave the U. S. "an additional r eason for taking control, which is what we want. " 16. U. S. Department of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of -the --United---- States, 1910, 704. ------THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GREBO RISING OF 1910 37

The Liberian government would have liked the military support of the vessel but this Commander Fletcher refused to give. At that point, according to Baldwin,

.•• alarmist reports began to arrive that the position at Cape Palmas was critical, and the President, who is believed to sympathise with the Grebes, was accused of using his influence to keep the ship at Monrovia. 17

President Barclay personally asked Commander Fletcher to take his vessel to Cape Palmas. The Birmingham sailed on the 12th of April, taking as passengers Vice President Dossen (who was from Maryland County)l8 and Attorney General King, who were to arrange peace terms with the Grebo. A truce was called while the chiefs came aboard and laid their case before Fletcher. He suggested to Dossen that a proper enquiry might be held on board, on the basis of which he would advise the United States government of its proper action. Dossen was opposed to this, and argued that the United States was bound by treaty to help Liberia; further, he refused to be bound by the results of any such enquiry. Accordingly, the attempts at peace making proved abortive, and the commander and the vice president were on strained terms thereafter. By the beginning of May the Liberian government was said to have come to an agreement with the German government for the provision of 1,000 rifles and 200, 000 rounds of ammunition, while two regiments of militia were being called out to use them. By this time the insurgents had been driven from Webbo, a customs station 30 miles up the Cavalla, and controlled only the right bank downstream and the stretch of coast from the river mouth to Harper. The British consul wanted to go to the area to see for himself what was happening, but when he mentioned it to President Barclay, the latter asked him not to go--because Dr. Blyden, when he went down the Coast in 1909, .was supposed to have told the Kru and Grebo "that the republic was on its last legs, and that the best thing they could do was to ask Great Britain to annex their country. " President Barclay feared that a visit from the British consul would arouse expectations about the intentions of Great Britain, and the difficulties of his own position would increase. 19 Presumably the deal with Germany fell through, for it was a loan of $20,000 from the German firm ofWoermann & Co. (the shippingline particularly friendly to Mr. Dossen, who was under financial obligations to it)20 which finally prompted a mobilization of the militia. On 17th May

17. In their Memorial the Grebo Chiefs spoke of "the high qualities of the President of Liberia" and his struggle against "the corrupt state of affairs in the country. " 18. The British consul reported on 13th April (F. O. 458/10), "The Grebes know hi m for what he is and will put no faith in his promises. " 19. F. 0 . 458/11, Baldwin to Grey, l May 1910. 20. F. 0 . 458/11, Annual Report for 1910, Baldwin to Grey, 2 March 1911 . 38 G. M. HALIBURTON

the Lark car ried 250 militiamen to Cape Palmas, a11d at about the same time the Liberian government aMounced that the Grebo were asking for ter ms. 21 They were short of supplies and, blockaded as they were, could not carry on the struggle. Effectively defeated, they dispersed in early June. Yet the injustices from which they complained continued. Accordi11g to Baldwin,

Those who Jive in the immediate neighbourhood of the town of Harper have lost a number of their cattle, which were killed by the Monrovia militia after peace had been declared. These men, when there was no further chance of being shot at, seem to have got entirely out of hand, and their behaviour was the cause of a remonstrance from the Commander of the United States cruiser -----Des Moines to Vice President Dos sen. 22 The final reckoning of arms does not support on the accounts cited above, for the Grebo surrendered only seven rifles, which they said were all they had. Although accounts may have exaggerated the firepower of the Grebo, it is incredible that seven rifles were able to hold Liberian authority at bay for months. Whether or not President Barclay really sympathized with the Grebo a s rumored, he did believe that they had cause for complaint, and ai: the close of hostilities he issued a public rebuke in these words:

The County of Maryland contains many persons whose views and ideas with respect to the native population it is both impossible to approve or to carry out•• • Less hauteur of the wrong sort, less of the assumption of a superiority which (]oo::; not o:xi:;t.. •• woul(] reu(]er the task of the a(]mlnlsu·ation much easier. 23

TI1e last of the Liberian militia were brought back to Monrovia by the Lark on the 29th of August, while next day the steamer Alexander Woermann - ­ followed witl1 government officials and eight Grebo chiefs as prisoners of war. Thus ended the war which, according to President Barclay, had cost Liberia L25,00o24 Little more than a prolonged skirmish, the war was costly enough to seriously injure Liberia's financial stability at a time when new international loans were being sought. However, the United States had in the course of the preceeding year become Liberia's main hope of a dis interested protector, and the period when a Grebo appeal to Britain might have had a chance of success was definitely closed. From the point of view of the Grebo and the other indigenous peoples of Liberia, a pro-British coup in Monrovia in February 1909, backed by lo..:al risings such as Harris' gesture was intended to precipitate at Harper, would

21. F. 0 . 458/11. 22. F. O. 458/11, Baldwin to Grey, 13 June 1910. 23. F. O. 458/11, Consul's Report for 1910, 20. 24. F. 0. 458/11, Parks (Acting Consul) to Grey, 16 August 1910. THE PROPHET HARRIS AND THE GREBO RISING OF 1910 39

have been good. It would have overthrown the independence of the country completely. Britain would have been invited to take charge of the dissolving republic, and would have found it difficult to refuse. The tone of the Grebo Memorial makes it clear that this was what the insurgents of 1910 desired. However, one cannot overlook the fact that the Grebo had not shown this desire very strongly a year before. Harris had raised the Union Jack and desecrated the Liberian flag in the presence of both Grebo and Americo­ Liberians, yet when he was arrested his own people did not defend him or follow his lead. How can it be said that tbis unsuppor ted act of 1909 was a significant cause of the 1910 rising? President Barclay may have meant that the idea of a revolt had been planted by Harris and took a year to develop, but this is an unnecessary hypothesis. The Grebo had taken up arms against the settlers a number of times in the past sixty years, and did not require Harris to suggest the possibility. It would be more reasonable to suppose that Harris' action had a discouraging effect on the possibility of British intervention, especially when linked with Cadell and Blyden, because the widespread belief in a conspiracy led to a swift fall in British prestige and a rise in that of the United States. This was, naturally, a change of feeling among the Americo-Liberians, and the indigenous peoples had no motive to prefer the Americans. ln fact they might more likely look to Britain as their champion when she had ceased to be involved in attempting to carry out reforms in co- operation with the authorities at Monrovia. It must have been clear, however, that if the United States was becoming seriously interested in maintaining the independence of Liberia, then no European power would risk offending her by under mining it. ln any case, the evidence suggests that the war of 1910 occurred spontaneously and unplanned. The appeals made to Great Britain may have owed something to the ideas of Blyden and the action of Harris, but the war was not begun to add emphasis to them. President Barclay in blaming Blyden and Harris for the 1910 trouble aimed at absolving his own administration from a share of responsibility, and was perhaps trying to disassociate himself from the embarrassing compliments contained in the Grebo Memorial. Barclay, after all, had used his influence to carry through a policy of co-operation with Britain up to 1909, and the antagonism it had aroused was detrimental to his own reputation. He had to be careful to say and do nothing which would give credence to the idea that he was a tool of Britain in an attempt to overthrow the independence of Liberia. Summing up the available evidence, it may be said, therefore, that contr ary to what has been stated in the past, the Prophet Harris did not bring on the 1910 Grebo war by his raising of the Union Jack, nor did be participate actively in it. 40 CONTRIBITTORS TO THIS ISSUE

Kathleen d ' Azevedo, wife of Warren d'Azevedo and resident of Liberia for two extended periods in the 1950 's and 1960's.

Warren d'Azevedo, Chairman of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada.

Gordon Haliburton, presently teaching in Lesotho, did his Ph. o. dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London on William Wade Harris.

Burleigh Holder, Assistant Secretary of State and Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, Monrovia , Liberia.

Svend Holsoe, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Delaware.

Jack Kolloneyer, currently a member of the Peace Corps in Liberia.

William Kory, has been a resident in Liberia for a couple of years and is presently living in Pittsburgh.

Jean Martin, Member of History Department, Milton, Academy, Milton, Massachusetts.

William Stegmann, Graduate Student in History, Indiana University and former Instructor at CUttington College, Liberia. A PORTRAIT OF A BLACK MIDWESTERN FAMILY DURING THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY: EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PARENTS*

Svend E. Holsoe

Edward James Roye holds an important place in Liberian history. During the m iddle of the nineteenth century he was a business man, member and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Senator, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and finally, from 1870-1871, President. Yet his life has never been adequately studied. A variety of short biographical sketches have been written, later ones often merely restating earlier accounts. 1 All of these biographies recount very little of Roye's early life in the United States. Recently new evi­ concerning his residence in the Midwest has been located and this article attempts to provide a clearer picture of his life in the United States. 2

* The author would like to acknowledge his gratefulness to the following people for assistance and comments: R. W. Ryan, Ohio University; E. c. Ross, Vigo County Public Library; D. F. Carmony, Indiana University; G. E. Brooks, Jr. , Indiana University; D. F. McCall, Boston University; W. E. Bigglestone, Oberlin College; L. Beggs, Licking County Historical Society; the staff, Licking County Library, and the staff at the county court houses in Newark, Ohio, Terra Haute, Indiana, and Vandalia, Illinois; finally to my col­ leagues P. M. Weil and N. R. Schwartz. The sole responsiblity for conclusions are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the above mentioned people. 1. "The Fifth President of the Republic of Liberia," African Repository (hereafter AR), XLVI (1870), 121-124; "Late from Liberia," AR, XLVI (1870), 57; "Drowning of President Roye," AR, XLVIII (1872), 220-22i;w. E. B. DuBois, "Edward James Roye," DictlOnary £!American Biography, ed. by Duman Malone (New York, 1935). XVI, 212; "Edward James Roye, Fifth Presi­ dent of Liberia," Negro History Bulletin, XVI (1952). 45; "Forgotten President," Echoes, The Ohio Historical Society, VII Qune, 1968), l; Nathaniel R. Richardson, Liberia's Past and Present (London, 1959), 106- 108. 2. More detail has been deliberately added to this account than might normally be necessary in the hope that others may be led to pursue other lines of inquicy which some of this information suggests.

Liberian Studies Journal, III, l (1970-71). 41 . .

42 SVEND E. HOLSOE

&!ward Roye , a "man of color" to use the term found in the legal records of the day, was born on February 3, 1815, in the small town of Newark, the seat of Licking County in Ohio. 3 The house in which, according to local tradition, he was born, still stands today. 4 Historians of Licking County today remember Roye with pride. After all , he is the only president of a republic ever born in that county. 5 Roye's father, john Roye, 6 is said to have been born a slave in Kentucky. 7 In time he made his escape and fled northward finally settling in Newark. 8 He was among the early settlers of the town, which was founded and surveyed in 1802. 9 By 1810 John Roye had purchased a city lot, paying $53. 00 for it. 10 The lot, lying one block south of the center of town where the courthouse stands, was on the opposite side of the courthouse from where an early mapll shows a Negro section. Three years later John Roye purchased an additional lot lying contiguous to his former plot for which he paid $80. 00. The following year he purchased property. one hundred acres of farm land in the northeastern section of Licking County. 13 Finally in 1817 he again purchased land, another one hundred acres of farm land lying in Newton County, immediately to the north of Licking. For this tract Roye paid $262. so. 14 One other aspect of John Roye and his family is known for this period. In the national census of 1820 his family is enumerated as four people. He and one other family of five were the total number of "free colored persons" in the town of Newark. Roye 's occupation was given as being "'engaged in agriculture. .. 15 It would seem that John Roye was a hard working and enterprising man since he was able to purchase so much r eal estate. Certainly his later history, as we shall see, supports this evidence.

3. "Fifth President, " AR , 121. 4. "Forgotten President,'" 1. 5. Brandt D. Smyth, Early Recollections~ Newark (Newark, Ohio, 1940), 86; "Newark Birthplace of Negro, Once President of Liberia, " Newark (0. ) Advocate, Qune 20, 1967). 6. In most of the documents his name is spelled Roy; however, the form used by his son, Roye, is used here. 7. A brief attempt was made to trace the family name in Kentucky. Two refer­ ences which may lead to further evidence are: The Register 2! Kentucky State His­ torical Society, XLII (1944), 164 & Ibid., LVl (1958), 341. --8-. "Fifth President," AR, 121.- 9. Smyth, Early Recolie"ctions, 13 10. Deedbook D, County Courthouse, Newark, Licking Co. , Ohio (hereafter, Newark Courthouse), ff. 179-180. 11. TI1e map hangs at the Licking County Historical Society building, Newark, Ohio; however, it has been impossible to obtain the date given on the map. 12. Deedbook E, Newark Courthouse, f. 60. 13. Deedbook I, Newark Courthouse, ff. 553-554. 14. Deedbook F, Newark Courthouse, ff. 517- 518. 15. Population Schedules of the Fourth Census of the United States, 1820, Vol. 9, National Archives Microfilm PUblication, Microcopy No. 33, Roll 94, 9- 10. EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PAR ENTS 43

About Nancy Roye, John's wife and Edward's mother, we know very little. She may have been born about 176416 and was originally from Virginia. 17 But how she met John Roye, or how she came to Ohio is not clear. She is first mentioned in 1822 as John's wife in a legal document when property that John Roye bought became their joint property and subsequently was sold. 18 A record of their marri age, if it oc­ curred in Newark, apparently does not exist. From the documents that are signed with "X's", it seems both Nancy Roye and her husband were unable to write, which would not be surprising considering the chances that blacks born in the South had at that time for an education. But then, most whites at this time were also illiterate. Clearly this inability did not hamper their legal transactions. The Roye family was able to prosper with apparently little legal difficulty, at least as far as the purchase of land was concerned, even though of a different race from most of the community, and although some laws existed that were clearly discrimi natory towards them, such as the Ohio law which prohibited them from offering testimony in cases where a white man was party. Nothing is known of Edward Roye's earliest years. When he was about seven in September, 1822, his father and mother sold all their land for $500. 00. 19 Shortly afterwards his father moved westward, leaving his wife and young Roye behind. Why he left i s unknown, and it is not possible to pick up his trail again until 1826 when he was in Terre Haute at the western border of Indiana. The education that would eventually provide Edward Roye with the means for success and fame is shrouded in some mystery. Roye's first biographer, the well known West Indian- West African, Edward Wilmot Blyden, who personally consulted Roye concerning his past, 20 wrote:

Among the few colored children admitted to the schools of Ohio at that period was the subject of this sketch. His thirst for knowledge soon became apparent, and he made rapid progress in readi ng, writing, arithmetic, and other branches of elementary knowledge. After a while he gained admittance to the Newark High

16. Nancy Roye, Plot No. 197, Graveyard Register. Record kept at Licking County Historical Society, Newark, Ohio. If she was actually born in this year, she would have been about fifty- one years of age when young Edward was born. The census of 1820 (see footnote 14) lists only two women in the Roye family, the oldest being between 26 and 45 years. Thus the information that Nancy Roye was 76 years old in 1840 as recorded in the graveyard register may well be incorrect. 17. "Address of President Roye at Leesburg, Va., " AR, XLV I (1870), 289- 290. 18. Deedbook I, Newark Courthouse, ff. 553-554. - 19. Ibid. 20. Edward w. Blyden to W. Coppinger, January 7, 1870, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Section, American Colonization Society Papers, Vol. 15/l (1869-1870), Letters Received, Letter No. 04387. 44 SVEND E. HOLSOE

School, an institution which had numbered among its preceptors men eminent for their literary acquirements, among whom was the distinguished elocutionist, Bronson. During the time that young Roye attended, it was taught by Mr. Chase, the present [1870) Chief Justice of the United States. 2l

The validity of parts of this account is questionable. Although young Roye may have attended the first school built in Newark in 1825, 22 it is doubtful if a high school existed in the city until considerably later. In addition, it is not clear that Sherlock Anson Bronson, whom Blyden presumably meant in his sketch of Roye, ever lived in Newark. Bronson was made assistant principal of Norwalk Academy in 1826 and did not leave the school until 1829. 23 It is true that Bronson did settle in Granville, Ohio, a nearby town to Newark, but that was not until 1837. 24 Likewise Salmon Portland Chase, who is also mentioned by Blyden, does not seem to have lived in Newark. During the years in question, Chase first lived in Washington, D. C. , and in 1830 moved to Cincinnati where he established himself as a lawyer. During the subsequest few years he apparently remained in Cincinnati. 25 Thus it is not known with certainty what education young Roye actually received despite the detail that we are given by Blyden's biography. Nevertheless, Roye did receive some schooling, which in time would lead him to obtain a higher education. Meanwhile, his father was pursuing his life separate from his family. As indicated by 1826 we know that John Roye was settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, which in that same year bad an estimated population of 200 in the town plus many farmers in the surrounding countryside. 26 John Roye came to know James Farr ington of that city, who employed him. Farrington was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1798. He attended Harvard Law School and upon completion of his studies moved to Indiana, ·eventually settli ng in Terre Haute in 1822. 27 He probably held fairly liberal political views, at least if his membership in the Republican Party shortly after it was formed is any indica­ tion. In fact, through his political activities, he was elected a Representative in 1824 and a Senator in 1831 to the Indiana State Assembly. 28

21. "Fifth President, " AR , 121-122. 22. Smyth, Early Recollections, 40. 23. "Bronson, Sherlock Anson," The National Cyclopaedia~ Biography (New York, 1897), VII, 5-6. 24. Ibid. 25. }.(;. R. , "Chase, Salmon Portland," Dictionary 2! American Biography (New York, 1930), IV, 28. 26. H. c. ~adsby, History Q! Vigo County, Indiana with Biographical Selections (Chicago, 1891), 385 . 27. Ibid., 243; Blackford Condit, The History 2J Early Terre Haute from 1816 to 1840 (New York, 1900), 109. - 28. C. C. Oakey, Greater Terre Haute and Vigo County (Chicago, 1908), 244; Dorothy Riker & Gayle Thornbrough, Comp., Indiana Election Returns, 1816-1851 (Indianapolis, 1960), 345. ------EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PARENTS 45

Roye had a well- chosen friend. One biographer has said generously of Farrington:

Mr. Farrington was a model in every way. He was a lawyer by profession. His love of business, however, and the rare oppor­ tunities of his day to amass fortune lured him from his profession. His was the highest type of personal integrity. There was no stain upon his business transactions. He was a polite and culti­ vated gentleman; his hospitalities were faultless alike in substance and dispensation. 29

In the winter of 1825- 1826 Farrington was granted a license to establish a ferry across the Wabash River between Terre Haute and the Illinois bank. 30 John Roye was placed in charge of this ferry. He soon had difficulties, as the boat went adrift one night and was lost. Only six months later did he learn that it had gone aground down river near Mt. Carmel, Illinois. Farrington charged Roye for half the cost of the boat. 31 Roye in the meantime continued to work for Farrington, acting as his agent to employ laborers to clear land and cut wood for him. 32 Roye seems to have maintained the same enterprise and foresight he had had in Newark and thus began to purchase land. In 1826 he bought land in Vandalia, Illinois, which at the time was still the state capital. 33 Again in 1828 he bought another lot that was only a few blocks from the capitol building arxl purchased for $8. 00. 34 Roye also began acquiring farm land in the east central part of Illinois, so- called military land. By the time of his death, he had purchased three separate plots totaling 480 acres. 35 Thus he continued a business pattern that he had previously started in Ohio. Sometime, probably in 1827, Roye settled in Vandalia and became a teamster, having purchased a wagon and set of oxen. Part of his time was spent hauling wood and hay for people in the surrounding area. 36 His residence in Vandalia, however, was short. Sometime between July and November, 1829, John Roye died. During the last ten months of his life, he was periodically ill and needed assistance and nursing, which was provided by Fanny Hudley, a black woman in the community. 37

29. Oakey, Terre Haute, 70. 30. Ibid. ' 70:---- 31. Letters and Receipts from James Farrington, July 15 and August 12, 1826, John Roy, Package No. 5, Box 241, Papers of Estates, County Courthouse, Vandalia, Fayette County, Illinois (hereafter, Vandalia Courthouse). 32. Receipt, July 15, 1826, ibid. 33. Ibid. -- 34. Entry Ledger, Vandalia Lots - A, Vandalia Courthouse, f. 36, Square No. 36, Lot No. 3. 35. Probate Court Record, B-1 (1829-1838), Vandalia Courthouse, f. 10. Blyden states that there were 640 acres, but this seems to be incorrect, "Fifth President, " AR, 121. - 36. Account between John Roy and Amos Swet, January 22 to July, 1829, Papers of Estates, Vandalia Courthouse. 37. Bill against Estate of John Roy by Fanny Hudley, November 16, 1829, Papers of Estates, Vandalia Courthouse. 46 SVEND E. HOLSOE

John Roye anticipated his death as early as April of 1829 and wrote his fourteen year old son: Vanda lia, Apr il 14, 1829

Dear Son,

I would infor m you that I am very sick at this time hoping that these few lines may find you well. I have had the feever this long long time and am very low at this time. I wish you to have two quarter sections of land lying in the Military land in the State of Illinois and designated as follows • • • , likewise two town lots in the town of Vandalia that I own. I want you to have my waggon and two yoke of oxe that I own at this time. So I remain your father until death. John Roy to Edward Roy38

It is very possible that this letter never reached Edward. Moreover, when John Roye died he left no will. 39 In addition, there seems to be no record of the subsequent sale of the town property, though it is possible that the land was sold under the names of the executors of the estate. Thus it is not completely clear what provision was made for Edward 's receipt of the property. Cer tainly young Roye came to know of it as it is mentioned by his biographer Blyden. 40 Just what benefits Edward Roye derived from his father 's property remain unknown. Meanwhile, John Roye's wife and son in Newark, Ohio, apparently managed reasonably well on their own. In May of 1827 Nancy, his wife, purchased a lot in Newark for $15.00. 41 In December, 1832 , Edward purchased this same property from her for $150. 00. 42 Possibly funds for this purchase came from money that Edward received from his father's estate in Illinois, though it is just as possible that these were funds saved from work in the Newark area. It is said by some biographers that Edward was a barber43 although Blyden makes no mention of it. 44 Certainly bar bering would have been a very acceptable occupation for a black, and Newark did not have its first white barber until 1856. 45

38. John Roy to Edward Roy, April 14 , 1829, Papers of Estate, Vandalia Court­ house. ht the probate records of John Roye's property, there is only mention of one town lot. P.robate Court Record, B-1 (1829-1838), Vandalia Courthouse, f. 42. 39. P.robate Court Record, A-1 (1821- 1839), Vandalia Courthouse, f. 78. 40. "Fifth President, " AR, 121. 41. Deedbook K, Newark Courthouse, ff. 288- 289. 42. Deedbook Q, Newark Courthouse, f. 307. 43. Smyth, Early Recollections, 86. 44. "Fifth P.resident, " AR , 121- 122. 45. Smyth, Early Recollections, 74. EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PARENTS 47

By the time Edward purchased the town lot from his mother, Blyden records that he already had left Newark. During the spring of 1832, at the age of twenty, he entered Ohio University at Athens and remained there for three years until the end of the fall term in 1835. 46 Blyden correctly mentions that Robert G. Wilson was at the time President of Ohio University. 47 Wilson's biographer states that he had been a pastor of a church in Chillicothe, Ohio, during the early part of the century,48 and possibly through him Roye upon leaving the University was able to obtain a teaching position in that city. 49 Roye taught at Chillicothe during the year of 1836 but decided not to remain there. 50 According to Blyden he then made a business trip to New Orleans selling sheep from which transaction he was able to gain a handsome profit of $1, 000. 00. 5 l In the summer of 1837 he was back in Newark. During that time he negotiated with a Peter Lowell to rent part of his town lot for ten years. In lieu of rent during that period, Lowell was "to build and finish a frame house in a good and workman like manner•• • one story and a half high with a brick chimney" which at the expiration of his lease he would turn over to Roye in good condition. 52 The plan, however, does not seem to have come to fruition, for in July of 1839, the lease was cancelled. 53 In the fall of 183754 Roye set out westward, as Blyden says, "to find the lands left him in Illinois by his father . ..55 Apparently he took with him a variety of goods to carry on trade and make his t rip profitable. 56 Roye, it seems, never reached Illinois; instead he decided to settle in Terre Haute, Indiana, where .his father before him had lived. By the beginning of the new year, Edward Roye had established himself in Terre Haute. On January 19, 1838, he, in partnership with a white, John E. Dixon, purchased from Matthew Steward and his wife, Elizabeth, a half lot within sight of the county courthouse. 57 Roye's association with John E. .Dixon was to continue for the next six and half years that Roye resided in Terre. Haute. Dixon was among the first settlers of Terre Haute, having settled in 1816 in an area called Honey Creek just to the north of the site of old Terre Haute. 58

46. "Fifth President, " AR, 122. The only reconl which Ohio University retains on Roye is "a card in the old student record files which reads as follCAvs : 'Roye/ Summer Term/1833/Academy' ". Richard W. Ryan, Special Collections Librarian, Ohio University, to A. R. Booth, October 29, 1970. ln the author's possession. 47. Ibid. 48. Wilson, Robert G. , The National Cyclopaedia 2f American Biography (New York, 1895), IV , 443. 49. "Fifth President, " AR, 122. 50. "Late from Liberia-:"56. 51. Ibid. 52. Deedbook DD, Newark Courthouse, f. 370. 53. Ibid. 54. "Late from Liberia," 56. 55. " Fifth President," AR, 122. 56. Ibid. 57. Deed Record, No. 7 (1837- 1839), County Com:thouse, Terre Haute, Vigo County, Indiana (hereafter, Terre Haute Courthouse), f. 69. 58. Beatrice Biggs, "Kinney Home, Honey Creek Landmark," Vigo County Public Library, filed under 'Terre Haute Historic Houses 1965- 48 SVEND E. HOLSOE

Matthew Steward and his wife came to Terre Haute in 1829 and established a hotel known as Stewart House, which was considered the best hotel in the city. 59 The property which Roye and Dixon bought was contiguous to Stewart House. In addition to its location, what is interesting about this purchase, is the fact that the country and, as a consequence the city's banking institutions, suffered severely after the financial crash of 1837. 60 Thus it is notable that Roye and Dixon were able to pay the large sum of $750. 00 for the property. 61 On April 3, 1839, Roye was again involved in a land transaction. This time he bought out Dixon's portion of the half lot they owned jointly, paying $500. 00 for the northern half of it. 62 Yet just twenty- three days later, on April 26, Roye resold the whole property to Dixon. The deed states that it was for the sum of $546. 50. 63 However, on the same day a mortgage was signed by Dixon to pay for the property in which he agreed to pay an initial sum of $193. 00 and gave Roye three promissory notes for the next eighteen months due in three installments every six months, each payment being $186. 16. 64 Thus the total sum including interest to be paid by Dixon would have been $739. 48. Just what Roye's activities were in the city and why he was involved in these property transactions are not clear. Apparently it was during this time that he married his wife, Harriet. She was originally from Virginia, as Roye's mother also had been. 65 lltt when and where they were married is unknown. They are not listed in the marriage records of Vigo County for this period. During the summer of 1839, Roye returned to Newark, Ohio, where he termi­ nated the rental agreement on his lot in that town. 66 He remained there during the course of the following year, for in December of 1840 he is stated to be a resident of Newark. 67 . During this year his mother died. Accordi ng to the r ecords kept at the old city graveyard in Newark, Nancy Roye was seventy-six years old at the time of her death. From the records it is clear that she, as a black was not given a special place of burial but was interred along side the rest of the residents of the city. 68 Meanwhile, Roye's lawyers initiated action in Terre Haute to foreclose the mortgage agreement he had with John Dixon. Apparently Dixon came into severe

59. "Stewart Family" file, Vigo County F\Jblic Library, Terre Haute: "Colonel William H. Stewart, obituary, " Terre Haute Daily Gazette (June 14, 1895). 60. Condit, Early Terre Haute, 159; Albert B. Hart, "Slavery and Abolition 1831- 1841," The American Nation: !: History (New York, 1906), Vol .. XVI, 296- 308. 61. Deed Record, No. 7, Terre Haute Courthouse, f. 69. 62. Ibid.' f. 492. 63. Ibid. ' f. 525. 64. Ibid. ' f. 526. 65. "Address of President Roye, " 289-290. 66. Deedbook DD , Newark Courthouse, f. 370. 67. Edward J. Roy vs. John E. Dixon, Circuit Court Records, Terre Haute Courthouse, Box 36, No. 3600 filed December 14, 1840. 68. Nancy Roye, Plot No. 197 Graveyard Register, Newark. Unfortunately the Licking County courthouse burned in 1874 and thus possible records of Nancy Roye's will in the pr obate court were destroyed. EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PARENTS 49

financial difficulties as there were several court actions taken against him during 1841 and 1842 by creditors. 69 Jn fact in one case he even used the land that he mortgaged from Roye as collateral for a loan of $1,000. 00 from another person. 70 Roye, represented by the law firm in Terre Haute of Griswold and Usher, won his case. Dixon, being unable to pay the debt and interest due, was forced to sell the property at public auction. On December 25, 1841, through his lawyers Roye repurchased the northern half of the half lot for $205.00, appraised at the value of $300. 00. The southern half of the property remained unsold due to the lack of bidders. 71 In the meantime, Roye and his wife returned to Terre Haute and remained in the city for the next four years. Presumably during this period their 1:\vo children, &lward F. and Juliann were born. 72 Little is recorded about Roye's life while in Terre Haute. The 1835 census of Terre Haute lists 47 blacks out of a total population of about 1, 200. And the national census of 1840 shows 424 blacks in Vigo County out of a total population of 12,076. The total population for Terre Haute in that year was 2, 300; however, the number of blacks living in the city is unavailable. But if the increase in blacks was proportional to that of whites between 1835 and 1840, their total number was still quite small. 73 Thus due to his business activities, Roye must have been well known in the community. It is noteworthy that when he returned to Terre Haute in 1850 after having left the place five years previously, he was cordially welcomed and received attention in two issues of the local paper. 74 Just what his business activities were in the city is somewhat uncertain. His biographer, illyden, states that on the property which he owned stood a large 1:\vo-story building and in it he "opened a shop••• , hired barbers, and established the first bath house in••• town". 75 Other evidence supports the fact that he had a barber shop, 76 and his location next door to the most prominent hotel in the town must have been ad­ vantageous to his business.

69. Enock Walters vs. John E. Dixon, Circuit Court Records, Terre Haute Courthouse, Box 35, No. 3223, filed April 21 , 1841; A. F. Woodward vs. John Dixon, ibid., Box 35, No. 3611, filed February 28, 1842. - 70. John M. Gurney vs. John E. Dixon, ibid., Box 34, No . 3151, filed April 23, 1841. 71. Order Book No . 5 (August 1840 - November 1851), Circuit Court Records, May Term 1841, Terre Haute Courthouse, f, 96; &lward J. Roye vs. Jobn E. Dixon, Bill of Foreclosure, Circuit Court Records, Terre Haute Courthouse, Box 36, No. 3600 , filed December 14, 1840, plus enclosures; Deed Record, No. 9, Terre Haute Courthouse, f. 327. 72. "Letters from Colonists," AR, XXII (1847), 232; "Died," Liberia Herald (Monrovia), (April 28, 1848), 27; "Liberian Intelligence," AR, XL (1864), l~ 73. Bradsby, Vigo County, 433, 435; U. $. &ireau of Census, Sixth Census, 1840, Indiana (Washington, 1841), 80 - 81. ---"74. Wabash Courier (Terre Haute, Indiana), XVIll, No. 44 Gune 29, 1850); ibid. , XVIII, No. 45 Guly 6, 1850). 75. "Fifth President," AR, 122. 76. Wabash Courier, Gune 29, 1850). 50 SVEND E. HOl.SOE

Roye alludes, on his return visit to the city in 1880 to his "ancient benefactors". 77 Surely his father's old friend, James Farrington, who had continued to gain prominence in the community, was of assistance to him. Likewise when his· mortgage foreclosure case was brought to court, he was r epresented by the prominent lawyers Griswold and Usher. Thus with people like these assisting him, it was no wonder that, as the editor of the Wabash Courier wrote in 1850, "he was successful in business here". 78 H;;;ever, eventhough he was among the blacks fortunate to be well educated and even though his business prospered in Terre Haute, he apparently was troubled in mind. Why, is not clear. He wrote as a r eminiscence of his thoughts:

l have steadily had mind fixed upan a foreign land, since my early youth; a land of African• government; for there l believed our elevation would take place. 79

And in describing the kind of place he was looking for, he was to write later in a local newspaper:

l had avowed the intention not to put up with any kind of an African country, and to leave it to such another, if that sought measure of health, of prosperity, of happiness , and of the prospects of forming an asylum, from tyranny of every form, and wedded to religious and political independence, should not be full, both equally and satis­ factorily apparent as the lot of all. 80

Just what it was which finally triggered his decision to leave is unknown. During the early 1840's there was increasing debate in Indiana concerning blacks and their ability to live freely in the state. The "colonizationists" wanted to remove all blacks from the state and send them back to Africa. Opposing them were many groups, among them the Quakers. In addition, many blacks themselves were opposed to colonization and held at least two statewide conventions where they expressed their opposition. 81 One of these was held in Terre Haute in 1842. Roye very likely was involved in some way with the convention, being as he was, one of the leading blacks in that community. The discontent and discussion concerning the future fate of blacks in the state may well have been a reason to trigger Roye's decision to leave. Also he may have seen the handwriting on the wall for the future. Race relations had deteriorated so far by 1853 after he had left that one representative in the State legislature from

• The term "African" at this time meant any black of African origin whether in the U. s., West Indies, South America, or Africa. 77. Ibid. , (July 6, 1850). 78. Ibid. , (June 29, 1850). 79. "Letters from Colonists," AR, 232. 80. Wabash Courier, (July 6, 1850). 81. Emma L. Thornbrough, The Negro ..!:!! Indiana, ! Study .2!_ ~ .Mlnority, (Indianapolis, 1957), 74-80. EDWARD JAMES ROYE AND HIS PARENTS 51

Vigo County, where Terre Haute is located, proposed a bill to encourage a spirit of colonization by preventing Negroes and mulattoes from acquiring real estate. Another representative even had the audacity to propose that a bounty be offered for the taking of Negro scalps J82 None of these proposals carried, but they were indicative of the changing mood of whites towards blacks in the state, and surely th.is mood already manifest even in the preceding decade. Thus in 1845 Roye began disposing of his property with the intention of leaving the country. In March of that year he and his wife mortgaged their real estate in Terre Haute for $1, 000. 00 to be paid over a forty- month period at $25. 00 a month. The purchasers of the property were William Clark and his wife, Martha, and Joseph Patrick and his wife, Caroline. 83 Very likely these were black families, as Patrick was a barber, a traditional business for blacks during that time. 84 In May of that same year, 1845, Roye returned to Newark, Ohio, and at that time sold his town lot, receiving $528. 00 cash for it. 85 Shortly after settling his business there, he moved to Oberlin, Ohio. One ac=ount states that he attended Oberlin Coll¥e;86 however, the College itself does not retain any record of his attendance. 8 Roye tells us that his ostensible reason for attendance at the College was to learn French. His intention at the time was to emigrate to Haiti. While at Ober lin, he changed his mind. Although he had always looked upon the various colonization schemes to Africa only as a means of further encouraging slavery in the South by ridding it of unwanted free blacks and troublemakers who threatened the institution, he was per­ suaded by a fellow boarder at the College to visit Liberia. This man, himself, had lived in that country for three years and knew it well. 88 The conversations were sufficient to change Roye's plans. In the meantime his wife, Harriet, died, and he decided to, as he said, "take a little adventure to Liberia. "89 So his plans were formed and his future course set. Events moved quickly now. He went directly to New York in order to buy in a supply of goods to take out to Liberia for trading purposes. On May 1, 1846, at just over thirty-one years of age, Edward James Roye sailed on the Barque Chatham sponsored by the American Colonization Society from New York, and after a little over a month at sea, arrived at Monrovia, the capital of what was to be his future home. 90

82. lliid. ' 84' ftn. 53. 83. Deed Record, No. 10, Terre Haute Courthouse, ff. 298-299. 84. Wabash Courier, Gune 29, 1850). 85. Deedbook RR , Newark Courthouse, ff. 393-394. 86. "Late from Liberia," 56. 87. Secretary of Oberlin College to W. E. Burghardt DuBois, January 20, 1938, Oberlin College Archives. 88. "Letters from Colonists, " 232; "Fifth President, " AR, 123. 89. "Letters from Col onists, " 232. - 90. "Fifth President, " AR, 123. 52 SVEND E. HOl.SOE

Edward Roye and his father, John Roye, are not remembered in Vandalia, Illinois, or Terre Haute, Indiana, and memories of them have become vague in Newark, Ohio. Nevertheless, the life they led in that part of the United States demonstrates that individuals with enterprise and resolution could succeed in achieving a reasonably comfortable way of life. For Edward Roye, his early years in midwestern America were only a prelude to a new, active and full life in Liberia. A man of talent, as might be expected, will be notable anywhere, but the circumstances of his time and place will condition his chances, and these circumstances were obviously different in the two countries. Edward Roye's career illustrates some of these different dimensions. He bad risen in the United States to the position of a successful businessman. In Llberia he would become President of that Republic. LIBERIA'S POPULATION FIGURES

William B. Kory

In July 1964 , the results of the first population census for the Republic of Liberia showed that the country contained 1,016,443 people. Although the census was started in April of 1962, the full report was published only two years and four months later. The final and the long awaited outcome was impressive. This was the first step on the road to ·realistic figures for Liberia's population. No Ionr,r would a statement like: "The population of Liberia is estimated at 2, 500,000" , be taken seriously. Some people have even insisted that a million plus figure was too high for Liberia's total population. In this sense, Liberia's demographic s ituation is almost unique. Since the census figures for developing nations are, as a rule, undercounted, Liberia with Ethiopia shares the distinction of being only one of two nations where the opposite might have occurred. In any case, the 1962 census of Liberia has served as a base for further demo­ graphic study of the area. Tl'le census has also repudiated Liberia's grossly over­ estimated population figur es used by s ome early writers. These writers included Sir Harry Johnston who stated that in Liberia: "the population of indigenous Negroes may be placed at something like two million". 2 Charles M. Wilson pointed out that in Liberia : "the population is estimated at l ,600,000"? while R. E. Ander son said that: "The aboriginal tribes number perhaps a million and a half, perhaps two million".4 L. T. Badenhorst placed the population of Liberia at 1, 648,000 people in 1949 and stated that' "All official and unofficial estimates were carefully examined to appraise as far as possibl e this completeness and reliability and to correct any apparent errors and inadequacies". 5 Despite this kind of assurance, errors in the estimates of Liberia's population continued. These writers were not by any means the only ones who overestimated Liberia's population. The estimates made by the Liberian government were also inaccurate. It took the results of the 1962 census to lower the previous population guesses and to establish a uniform figure when dealing with the population of Liberia. The next national census will put Liberia on a more solid demographic foundation, and will ser ve as a supplement to the first.

1. Liberian Information SerVice, Liberia - Land of Promise (Moru:ovia, 1961), 14. 2. Harry Johnston, Liberia (New York, 1906), II, 884-.- - 3. Charles M. Wilson, Liberia (New York, 1947), 4. 4. R. Earle Anderson, Liberia, America's African Friend (Chapel Hill, N. C. , 1952), 4. ------5. L. T. Badenhorst, "Population Distribution and Growth in Africa," Population Studies, V (July 1951) , 34.

Liberian Studies Journal, III, 1 (1970- 71). 53 54 WILLIAM B. KORY

LIBERIA'S NATIONAL CENSUS OF 19626

The long delay in publishing the results of the 1962 Population Census of Liberia was said to have resulted from the huge amount of material which was collected and which had to be processed. Once the data was compiled, the results were published in two basic reports, designated as PC- A and PC-B. The twelve reports of the PC- A series dealt with the number of inhabitants in each of the 12 major administrative areas used for the 1962 census (see map l). The totals in each area were further subdivided based on age, sex, social and economic characteristics. These twelve reports, numbering PC-Al to PC-Al2, gave a detailed view of Liberia's population data on the de jure basis. The PC- B was a summary report dealing with the total popul;rt°ion of Liberia. Its twenty- eight tables presented Liberia's population by age, persons born 111 or outside the country, people's tribal affiliations (see table 1), school attendance, literacy, occupational status of the inhabitants, and the like. This was the first complete population census taken in Liberia, and the only one whose results were fully published. 7 It was also quite an undertaking. April 2, 1962 was designated as Census Day in Liberia, although the collection of data continued for some time after. By the end of the second week, 663 of the enumeration areas had been completed and by the end of the fourth week, 973. 8 Fifteen hundred volunteers were used to gather the data. Most of them were teachers and students; thus the educated portion of the population was utilized with the hope of minimizing errors. This group was checked at regular intervals by field supervisors and by technical obser vers who were in the field throughout the undertaking. The vehicles used to transport the enumerators in the field were supplied by the private companies in Liberia. These included the Firestone Rubber Co, , the Liberian Mining Co. , LAMCO , and others. The populace was prepared for the coming census by the news media which included Liberia's radio stations, its press, the U. S. Information Service in Liberia, and by the U. S. AID Communi­ cation Media in the country. The churches and the schools were also instrumental in explaining the purpose and the benefits of a national census. United Nations and American demographic experts helped to organize the taking of the census. They set up the schedule of events to be followed , supervised the taking of the data in the field, and helped to process the final results. The latter took place in the Census Office in Monrovia where the data was viewed, verfied and punched on the IBM cards. Obvious inconsistencies were eliminated

6. The following section is based on the material from the Summary Report for Liberia - PC- B, published by the Bur eau of Statistics, Office of National Plan­ ning, Liberia, 1964. 7. 1Wo limited censuses have been conducted in Liberia prior to the 1962 Census. ln 1956, the census in Monrovia was taken, and the followi!lg year a few coastal towns were enumerated. No results were published for the latter. 8. Summary Report, vii. LIBERIA'S POPULATION FIGURES 55

and every effort was made to correct errors. In the oper ation of this size, however, errors were bound to occur . Perhaps the greatest number of errors was made in establishing the ages of the individuals. A very large number of Liberians do not know their exact age. 9 'Jltis i s a fair ly common occurrence in the developing world, and Liberia is no exception. The census enumerators, however, were prepared to cope with this problem. They were instructed to assign approximate ages, if necessary, based on the following criteria. If a person could remember the date of some im· portant national event which occurred at the time of his bir th, it helped to estimate his age more precisely. An important local event could serve the same purpose. In some areas, reference to cir cumcision rights was used to estimate age. The relationship of parent's age to that of his child, if one was known, could also help in the estimate of age. 10 The tables were prepared to help the enumerator in arr iving at a reasonable age estimate for any individual. Events such as the Declaration of World War 1, presidential elections, and the IOOth anniversary of the independence of the Re public of Liberia were used to approximate the per­ son's age. These and other techniques used to estimate the ages of the population made this part of the census the least reliable. The place of birth was used as a crude indication of population movement. Other social characteristics were determined through the data obtained from citizenship, marital status, household relationship, and the education of the people. The economic characteristics were based on occupations, involvement in industry, and on the employment status of the individual.

PRE- CENSUS POPULATION OF LIBERlA

Since Liberia has had only one national census, it is almost impossible to arrive at any kind of a historical comparison of its population. As has already been pointed out, the pre- census figures , even for the total population, have been inconsistent and exaggerated. The figures for one group have, however, been fairly well know for a long time. 'Iltis group first appeared on the Grain Coast11 in 1822, and has since then been known as the Americo-Liberians.12 These people were former slaves from the United States who had been given their freedom and then transported to what was later to become the Republic of Liberia. The chief proponent of this back to Africa movement was the American Soci ety for the Colonization of Free People of Color of the United States. The

9. While teaching in Liberia in 1963, the author took a survey to find out the birth dates of his students. Only seven out of thirty-two knew their exact age. 10. Summary Report, x. 11. The name given by the Portuguese to the area which later became the Republic of Liberia. 12. Under President Tubman, every effort has been made to drop this term. 56 WILLIAM B. KORY

society was founded in 1816, with the nephew of George Washington serving as its first president. In addition, the society had as its members some of the leading citizens of that day. 13 There seemed to have been a growing concern on the part of some whites over the incr easing number of freed Negroes in the United States. Stories began to circulate about the unhealthy influence which these freed men exerted on the rest of the black population in the country. In 1816, there were approximately 200, 000 freed Negroes out of a total of two million blacks in the United States. 14 The "concerned" whites thus created this Society, with chapters in twenty- seven states. Its major objective was to ship blacks back to Africa; a plan for which the society even received some money from the federal government. Virginia and Maryland were the most active states, repatriating between them over 5,000 for­ mer slaves to Liberia. But the society's dream of removing an unwanted element of the population did not materialize. In over forty years, only a little over 13,000 men, women and children were shipped to Liberia. The peak year was 1832, when nearly 800 left the United States. A small number of Negroes from the West Indies were also sent to Liberia along with 5, 722 Africans who were rescued from slave ships by the United States Navy and deposited on the coast from 1822 to 1867 .15 The latter two groups were assimi­ lated with the Americo- Liberians, and together, they have constituted the elite class in Liberia. Immigration, on the large scale, to Liberia stopped after the American Civil War but by that time, Liberia had approximately 20,000 people who were either non- native or the descendents of this non- indigenous element. The authors of Growth Without Development have described this non-native group as follows:

Like the Portuguese in Angola and the Afrikaners in the Republic of South Afri ca, the rulers of Liberia are descendents of an alien minority of colonial settlers..• These Amedeo-Liberians, which comprise some 53 of the population, control the country and govern the tribes on a colonial pattern of indirect rule ••• Descrimination against tribal people hardened into a policy as well as the habit of mind. ln law as well as in fact, two distinct social classes were created - Americo- Liberian and Native. l6

The above description certainly over dramatizes the present situation in Liberia , although some class distinction exists in the country. For example, the native population was never counted pr ior to the 1962 Census. The gover nment was satis­ fied with the hut count, which had been done for the sole purpose of taxation. Need­ less to say, the hut count was often inaccurate and it was difficult to establish the number of people per hut. Earl Hanson, while doing an economic survey in the Western Province of

13. Two of the more famous ones were Francis Scott Key and Henry Clay. 14. Philip St. Laurent, Tuesday Magazine published by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 1969, 24. 15. Merran Fraenkel, Tribe and Class in Monrovia (Oxford, 1964), 6. 16. Robert W. Clower~~ ·, Growth Without Development (Evanston, Ill. , 1966), 7. LIBERIA'S POPULATION FIGURES 57

Liberia, 17 came amazingly close to the population figure given for that area in the 1962 census. Working nearly twenty years prior to the publication of the results of Liberia's first census, he estimated an average of six people per hut for the Western Province. Multiplying the six people by the government figure of 29, 359 huts on which the truces were collected in this area, Hanson obtained a total of 176, 150 people. The 1962 census gave the population of the Western Province as 170, 942. Hanson, however, was not happy with his low figure and footnoted it with the following statement: "It seems probable from general ob­ servations and reconnaissance that these figures are very low and that the total population may well be near 400, 000", 18 It was this type of doubt and uncertainty that the 1962 census had hoped to alleviate. To a large degree, it has succeeded.

RECENT POPULATION FIGURES ON LIBERIA

The 1970 World Population Data Sheet issued by the Population Reference Bureau of Washington, O. C. , gives t he following demographic estimates on Liberia:

Mid-1970 total population - I. 2 millions Number of births per 1, 000 population - 44 Number of deaths per 1,000 population - 25 Annual Rate of population growth -I. 93 Number of years to double the population - 37 Infant mortality rate - 188 (21 in the U. S. A. ) Population projection for 1985 - I. 6 millionsl9

It is interesting to note that Liberia's annual rate of growth is the lowest in all of West Africa, where the average is 2. 53. It is also interesting to speculate on the accuracy of this and other figures. The demographic information on Liberia, coming after the 1962 census has, in the main, been somewhat more reliable than the pre-census figures. But , it is far from perfect. Empirically, it is known that population shifts have occurred in Liberia since the last census. Two areas have remained as magnets which attract more and more people from the interior. These areas are metropolitan Monrovia and the areas of economic opportunity where the foreign companies have their concessions. Unfortunately, these areas cannot productively absorb the untrained and the unskilled people who come from Liberia's vast subsistance agricultural sector. How many come each year is difficult to estimate, but the

17. Earl Parker Hanson, "An Economic Survey of the Western Province of Liberia," Geographical Review, XXXVll (1947), 53- 69. 18. Ibid. ' 58' ftn. 6. 19. Population Reference Bureau, Inc. , 1970 World Population Data Sheet (Washington, D. C. , April 1970). 58 WILLIAM B. KORY

migrants are creating new, and expanding the old, slums and shanty towns in Mon­ rovia and around the foreign concessions. The shanty town near the Bong Mining Company, which is managed by Germans, is typical. It was created in the last decade and a half, and has far more people than can be supported directly or in­ directly by the mining company. Yet, more and more people are coming every year with the hope of finding employment. 'Three other iron ore areas are experiencing the same situation. These in­ clude the Liberian Mining Company at Bomi Hills, the National Iron Ore Company near the Sierra Leone border, and the LAMCO complex located near Saniquellie in the Nimba Mountains of northern Liberia. These four companies employ over 2,000 people each, but have nearly ten times that number of people living in the surrounding areas. The iron ore companies are not the only ones faced with the population incr ease in their immediate areas. Others are faced with the same problem. The Goodrich Rubber Company, the Liberian Agricultural Company, the Salala Rubber Corpora­ tion, and the African Fruit Company are foreign rubber concessions which employ nearly 2,000 workers each, but indirectly support a population many times that size. Another foreign company deserves a special mention. The Firestone Rubber Company is not only the oldest foreign rubber company in largest employer in the country. It employs nearly 20,000 people, and at the time of the 1962 census, had completed 12,50020 housing units for its workers. At five to six people per dwelling, a total of 75, 000 people could have resided on the plan­ tation. With increasing opportunities for the Liberians working for the company, with increasing migration to the area from the interior and with the expanding population in the surrounding areas, it would be reasonable to assume that the immediate area today contains nearly 10% of Liberia's total population. The coastal and the interior towns are also experiencing a population growth. The 1962 census revealed that only six localities in Liberia had a population of over 5, 000 people (see table 2). lt also mentioned the fact that only two thirds of the population lived in localities of over 100 people. This situation, however, is changing. Besides Monrovia, coastal towns like Robertsport, Harper, and Green­ ville along with the interior towns like Kakata, Salala, Kolahun, Voinjama, Zorzor, Gbanda, Canta, Saniquellie, Tappita and Tchien21 are gaining additional population. The growth is not as spectacular as in Monrovia, where the population is approaching the 100,000 mark, but it nevertheless exists. There are also indications that the foreign born population in Liberia is increas­ ing. Some 40,000 foreigner s , over 20% of whom are from neighboring Guinea, have enjoyed many privileges under President Tubman's Open Door Policy. All facts point to the continuation of this policy.

20. Clower, Growth Without Development, 126. 21. At a conference on Liberian studies held at Stanford University August 1-2, 1969, a proposal was made by the participants to standardize the place names of the country. LIBERIA'S POPULATION FIGURES 59

CONCLUSION

In 1969, the Department of Planning and Economic Affairs, with techni­ cal and financial aid from the U. S. Agency for International Development, published a handbook under the title Liberian Population Growth Survey. It is an impressive piece of work, and was recently used as an important tool for conducting the preliminary sample survey on population in Liberia. It was "designed primarily to provide the Government of Liberia with accurate and current estimates of births and deaths .•• [and] to pr esent yearly data on fertility patterns, population movements, age and sex distribution, as well as estimates of marital status, literacy and school attendance". 22 The second national population census is scheduled to take place in Liberia early in 1972. The results should show the validity of the "current estimates" made in the above mentioned handix>ok. In addition, the second census will put Liberia on a much more solid demographic footing. Meaningful comparison with the data from the first national census can then be made, and a more systematic national planning program will undoubtedly result. The outcome from the second census will put Liberia well on the way to becoming an area whose population size, composition and distribution is one of the best known in Africa.

22. Depar tment of Planning and Economic Affairs, Liberian Population Growth Survey (Monrovia, 1969), 5. 60 WILLIAM B. KORY

TABLE I

Liberia's Population by tribes, from the 1962 Census Results

Tribe Number of People Per Cent of Total Population

Kpelle 211,081 20 Bassa 165 , 856 16 Gio 83,208 8 Kru 80,813 8 Grebo 77,007 8 Mano 72, 122 7 Loma 53, 891 5 Krahn 52,552 5 Gola 47,295 5 Kissi 34, 914 4 Mandingo 29, 750 3 Vai 28, 898 3 Gbandi 28,599 3 Belle 5,465 1/2 Dey 5, 396 1/2 Mende 4,974 1/2 Miscellaneous 2, 299 1/2 Total Tribal 984, 120 97 No Tribal Affiliation 23,478 2 Alien African 8, 875 l

Total Population 1,006,443 100

TABLE 2

Localities in the Republic of Liberia with 100 or more inhabitants

Size of the Localities Number of Localities Total Population % of Total Population

50, 000 or lore persons 1 80 ,992 12. 4 20, 000 tc ,9 , 999 persons 1 31,730 4. 9 10, 000 to 19, 999 persons l 11,909 1. 8 5,000 to 9,999 persons 3 20,323 3. 1 2, 000 to 4, 999 persons 17 55, 849 8. 5 1, 000 to 1, 999 persons 33 43,422 6. 6 500 to 999 persons 149 97, 058 14. 9 200 to 499 persons 632 189, 823 29.l 100 to 199 persons 864 122 , 111 18. 7

Total 1,701 653, 217 100. 0 TWELVE DIVISIONS Base map from the PC-B Report of the 1962 Liberia's Population Census. Number of 3 of Total Name People Population

l. Central Province 325,230 32. 0 2. Western Province 11. 70 ,942 16. 8 3. Montserrado 0 20 40 60 80 County 166,7~7 16.4 miles 4. Grand Bassa County 99 ,566 9. 8 5. Eastern N Province 63, 712 6. 3 6. Sinoe County 44 ,639 4. 4 7. Maryland w County 39,349 3. 9 8. Grand Cape Mount County 32,190 3. 2 s 9. River Cess +· Territory 28 ,756 2. 8 10. Kru Coas~ Territory 21,280 2.1 11. Marshall Territory 14 , 442 1.4 12. Sasstown Territory 9, 540 0. 9 2. I

1.

/ / I ------' >- / ' ' I '

9. I s.

Republic of Liberia with twelve major administrative areas used for the 1962 Population Census LIBERIAN STUDIES WORKING PAPERS

We are herewith announcing a new serial publication. The Liberian Studies

Working Papers will appear at varying intervals as material becomes available.

The series will be devoted to the publication of works which will serve as

reference sources. Thus the first work in this series which has just been

published is

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LIBERIA, PART I - BOOKS by Svend E. Holsoe

Th.is work .includes approximately 1100 entries on Liberia printed in the form of books and monographs. Not, included, but which will appear .in future volumes, are those books that refer either to the colonization movements to Liberia, or to works published prior to 1820.

The cost for this first volume is $3. 50, payable to LIBERIAN STUDIES.

Order from: Liberian Studies Department of Anthropology University of Delaware Newark, Delaware 19711 UTILIZING TRADITIONAL CO- OPERATIVES IN LIBERIA

John R. Kolkmeyer

Any program designed to increase rice production in Liberia would be wise to take into consideration the indigenous, traditional co- operatives which already exist. For these co-operatives could, with a litle initiative and imagination, be transformed into modern co-operatives which could greatly increase rice produc­ tion in Liberia. The present modernizing efforts should take a fresh look at these rather significant social groups an:l gear some of the future programs through them. There has been some study of these traditional co-operatives of Liberia es­ pecially among the Kpelle and Mano tribes. 1 They have been dissected from a historical-sociological standpoint; it is time their more practical aspects receive attention. The introduction to an article entitled "Traditiooal Co-operative Societies among the Mano in Liberia" states that "little attention has been paid 2 up to now to these structures, and hardly any practical use has been made of them". This present article is, then, an attempt to view them in relation to the existing government programs and then to offer some concrete suggestions for their modernization. With President Tubman's "Operation Production Policy'', Liberia's clarion call to increase rice production, there has been much interest in the growing of paddy rice. Although historically a very ancient method of rice cultivation, it is alien to most Liberians and appears to be a very tedious undertaking. Since farming is a way of life to most of Liberia's citizens, the acculturation process will be very slow unless geared to the grass roots level. "Operation Production" has given rise to major projects in Gbedin and Foya Kamara while the government Experimental Station at Suakoko and the University Farm at Johnsonville ar e carrying out much needed research. The initial progress is promising. Several local varieties, especially the Gissl variety, appear to have a high yield and other international varieties, including the renowned "miracle rice" IR-8, are growing well. These are pilot projects given substance by much technical aid from the United Nations F. A. 0. and an influx of Chinese (Taiwan) and Indian experts. Yet there is still only a spattering of paddy projects on the local level and

1. For a description of the agricultural cycle and function of the kuu among the Kpelle, refer to James L. Gibbs, Jr. , "The Kpelle of Liberia," in James L. Gibbs, Jr., ed. , Peoples ~Africa (New York, 1965). 2. H. Dieter Seibel, "Traditional Co-operative Societies among the Mano in Liberia, " mimeographed paper, 1.

Liberian Studies Journal, lll, 1 (1970-71). 63 64 JOHN R. KOLKMEYER

and rice is still imported in large quantities. The question is, of course, how to effect a profitable, lasting change from traditional methods to a more modern type of agriculture and meet the expecta­ tions of "Operation Production". Several ideas need to be reconsidered at this point: interest in traditional co-operatives, more incentive programs, and the availability of material and advice to the local farmer. The most favorable factor in Liberian rice production is that there is not one of the nine counties that is not suitable, at least in part, for high yield paddy rice production. A beginning has been made and the government infrastructure for implementation already exists. The crucial moment has been reached and any r elaxation of effort now might lead to the collapse of the program. Large scale programs have a tendency to intimidate the local farmer and appear out of reach of his more simplistic needs. Yet these farmers ar e the backbone of the nation's rice production and it is through them that farming will ultimately modern­ ize or be held at a subsistent level. History has taught us that an agrarian revo­ lution and an industrial revolution are directly related. There are several ways to appeal to the grass roots farmer in order to en­ courage him to increase production. One way is through the large government projects, provided these projects retain an element of reality for the farmer. Despite their gargantuan size, the local farmer must be able to visualize a like project on a more microcosmic level. If a large project does not contain this touchstone, then it completely bypasses the Liberian far mer. This element of reality can be retained in several ways: by incorporating local farmers in the actual labor of the project, by holding "seminars" at which local farmers can look and ask questions, by doing at least a portion of the work with hand tools to show the farmer that he can do the work himself and by assuring the farmer that rice seed and fertilizer will be available once he begins his own project. In a traditional, tribal society, agricultural change must be thought of in terms of social change. The most important way to appeal, then, to the traditional farmer is not to take his own way of farming out of context. If indigenous co- operatives already exist, then they should, as far as possible, be utilized. Since the farmer understands this method, it should be transferred as directly as possible to paddy rice production. A co-operative labor group devised by the Kpelle, the kuu, has a social function as well as being an agricultural timesaving device. It is asProfessor James L. Gibbs points out "the most time- consuming, if not the most important, corporate group in Kpelle life". 3 If this kuu could be retained and modernized, then it could certainly strengthen the appeal of paddy rice production. It is necessary then to take a closer look at just how a government agency might propose to initiate this change. The kuu as it presently exists among the Kpelle will be used to illustrate this example. Kuu can be formed by any person in a town who decides to do so. A plenary meet­ ing is held to discuss future plans. A general outline is prepared and those who then wish to join express such a desire. At successive meetings the rules and regulations are set for such things as tardiness, absence and breach of hospitality. Work begins as soon as all these details have been completed.

3. Gibbs, "Kpelle of Liberia," 223. UTILIZING TRADITIONAL CO-OPERATIVES IN LIBERIA 65

The kuu as it exists among the Kpelle of northeastern Liberia, is organized around a strong leader, kuu laa nu. The kuu is then sub-divided into smaller groups according to the working ability of its various members. A special category is reserved for any elder s who car e to "advise." It is on this leader or kuu Iaa nu that we must focus our attention. One feasible way of reaching these traditional co-operatives might be to invite all the kuu Iaa nu of a given district to one of the earlier mentioned "seminars" at the nearest government project. Once these leaders have been instructed and interested, they might become the most effective transfer agents. One problem which might occur in trying to organize a modern, "traditional" co-operative may well be with the local concept of land ownership. Traditionally, the kuu works on the farms of each member. Although the work is shared, the harvest belongs to the individual owner of the land. Since there might be a limited number of swamps suitable for paddy rice in a given area, it might prove necessary for several families or groups to farm one large area, sharing the harvest as well as the labor. The details would have to be worked out carefully and the end results made perfectly clear to each member. An extension aide should be especially sensi­ tized to these kind of problems and work them out with the kuu laa nu and the various members of the kuu. The most important way to get at modernizing these groups, however, is to get at the very core of their existence. This core is the social aspect of the kuu. Farm­ ing, among·the Kpelle, is more than an occupation, it is a way of life. A kuu, there­ fore, although hard working, is also one of the most meaningful social functions. Since this combination of work and enjoyment is sometimes different than the Western standards of rigid scheduling and time-tables, the two systems often come into con­ flict. The Liberian farmers are criticized for not being able to keep pace. This is an unfair, culture-bound criticism and shows a lack of insight into the mechanics of the traditional system. To overlook the esprit de corps of the kuu is to overlook its most basic el ement. On the village and town level, the music and hospitality should be kept intact along with the hard work and the new timetables of paddy rice production. The traditional co-operatives exist along rather rigid division of labor lines. Fortunately, paddy rice production is not so far removed from upland farming as to prove completely incompatible. For example, in upland farming the men are res­ ponsible for brushing the bush, cutting the trees, burning the dried sticks and building the fence and the rice kitchen or storage bin. The women are responsible for scratch­ ing or preparing the field, sowing the seed, weeding and harvesting. The children have the ignominious task of bird chasing. In some areas of Liberia these functions will vary slightly. Bandi and Mano women, for example, are often engaged in brushing the bush and felling the trees. This division of labor should transfer without difficulty to the newer method of paddy rice production. The men would still be responsible for the clearing process plus the building of the bunds or dikes, the digging of the drainage ditches and water control. The women would still be in charge of land preparation and their traditional fertility roles of sowing the seed, transplanting the seedlings and harvesting. The necessary infrastructure for this type of transfer already exists in the govern­ mental structure. The large demonstration projects lend credibility to this new type of farming and this is a most important first step - - the farmer must see that the rice grows. Since a Division of Extension exists within the Department of Agriculture, agents and aides should develop a method of reaching out to the farmer instead of waiting for him to come for information. Aides and agents should be familiar with local farming 66 JOHN R. KOLKMEYER

traditions and be able to help organize co-operatives at a local level. Another very suitable transfer agent is the community school and the 4-H program (Rural Youth Program) which is sponsored by the Department of Agri­ culture. The schools can undertake projects for their own benefit and in the process demonstrate to the townspeople new methods and techniques. Especi­ ally in the schools in the interior counties, students should be shown that farm­ ing is both profitable and respectable. Viable school programs could be set up in paddy rice, oil palm or vegetable production. A well organized program then has a tow-fold function. First, it provides the students with an opportunity to learn new farming methods and at the same time an opportunity to enrich the oft depleted coffers in order to provide needed repairs, textbooks and an entire­ ly self-sufficient lunch program. Secondly, it acts as a catalyst and transfer agent between the larger government projects and the local farmers. The child­ ren themselves would be acting as extension agents by relating their practical experiences to their parents. All the projects that the children undertake could be done according to the traditional methods in order to show the townspeople that it is possible to apply modern techniques without drastic change. There might be an increase in incentive type programs to encourage farm­ ers to change. Profit alone will not stimulate a farmer to give up a tried-and­ true method for a more dubious one. Some government incentives should be applied to assuage his fears. Perhaps free fertilizer and seed could be made available for initial projects. Certainly advice should be readily available. Free or minimal cost land clearing could be provided in areas where mechanization is feasible. Another possiblity are agricultural credit unions to which a farmer might repay a loan in kind or cash after the first years' harvest has proven successful and the profit re-invested. Availablity should be the key word in the entire program. If information and material are not accessible then the entire program will not succeed. One possiblity might be the establishment of special stores which would deal exclu­ sively in the sale of seeds, fertilizer, tools and insecticides. These stores could either be subsidized by the government or owned and operated by private enterprise. Once a demonstration project has been established and proven successful, all the materials used in the project should be made available to the local farmer. All of the above mentioned suggestions are offered to encourage an emphasis on local production. Projects, no matter how grandiose, should be aimed at the local farmer. Foreign donors should also take a renewed look at their investments. USAID and UNFAO projects although designed for overall effect should supply more technical and material aid to the local farmer. Organizations such as Peace Corps should encourage more volunteers to be assigned to work in the 4-H Program and in agriculture at the local level. These same groups could also aid tremendously in the area of supply and logistics. SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN LIBERIA

William Siegmann

The second annual Conference on Social Science Research in Liberia was held at Indiana University, May 1 - 3, 1970. The Conference \'/as jointly sponsored by the African Studies programs of DePauw University, Earlham College and Indiana University. A banquet for participants was sponsored by the Indiana University Foundation. Among the fifty-three registrants were three scholars, Mr. Thomas Ken and Dr. and Mrs. Kjell Zetterstr

The following panels were presented:

Linguistics and Language Study. Chairman: William L. Coleman (Indiana University)

Charles Bird (Indiana University), "Expansion of the Mande Languages" John Gay (Earlham College), "Use of Logic in Argumentation in Kpelle" J. 0. Robinson, Jr. (University of California at Los Angeles). & David Rosen, "The Non-Teaching of English in Liberia"

Political Life. Chairman: Ronald Kurtz (Grinnell College)

Thomas Wrubel (University of California at Berkeley), " Dynamics of Continuity in the Liberian Political System" Ronald Kurtz (Grinnell College), "The Methods for the Study of Political Change" Leon Weintraub (University of Wisconsin), "Land and Power in Liberia"

History. Chairman: Jane Martin (Milton Academy)

George Brooks (Indiana University), "The Kru Mariner" Cecily Delafield, "Recent Archaeological Finds on the Liberian Coast" Jane Martin (Milton Academy), "Samuel W. Seton, Liberian Citizen" Warren d'Azevedo (University of Nevada), "Tribe and Chiefdom on the Windward Coast" GUnter Schr

Liberian Studies Journal, III, 1 (1970-71). 67 68 WILLIAM SIEGMANN

Economic and Social Development. Chairman: Richard Fulton (Case Western Reserve)

William R. Stanley (University of South Carolina). "Transport Growth: Economic Improvement or Economic Change?" Richard Fulton (Case Western Reserve), "CUttington College Student Outlooks" Jeanette Carter (University of Oregon), "Loma Household Organization"

Persons interested in obtaining copies of papers should contact the authors directly.

An exhibition of photographs of Liberia by Harrison oWen and an exhibit of traditional masks and figures were presented in the University .Museum in conjunc­ tion with the Conference.

At a short business meeting on Saturday afternoon greetings were extended by Mr. Thomas Ken on behalf of the Liberian Research Association. A discussion followed on whether or not the Conference ought to formally incorporate and seek affiliation on an organizational basis with the Liberian Research Association. The decision was not to incorporate but to ur ge any participants not currently members of the Association to join on an individual basis. ln addition a contribution raised by donations was made to the Liberian Research Association by Conference participants who also sent a message of greetings.

In conformity with a decision made at last year's Conference at Stanford, copies of all paper s presented at the Conference wer e sent to the Liberian Research Association for deposit at the University of Liberia, Cuttington College, the Tubman Center of African Culture, and the Department of Information and Cultural Affairs.

The invitation of the University of Delaware to hold the third annual conference there in the Spring of 1971 was accepted. BOOK REVIEWS

Elizabeth Bowne, THEIR SILENT MESSAGE. New York: McGraw- Hill Book Co. , 1968.

Mrs. Bowne has written a book describing the influence which the people of Sanoyea, Liberia have had on her own life as a result of a tragic plane crash near that village which claimed the life of her husband some ten years before publication of Their Silent Message. After the crash Mrs. Bowne traveled to Sanoyea and was received by the people of the village with warmth and express­ ions of compassionate understanding for her personal tragedy. This visit made the author aware that the villagers' own lives showed the scars of deepest pov­ erty. She r eturned to America determined to alleviate some of the suffering she saw manifested in Sanoyea. Her efforts helped to establish a medical dispensary in the town under the administration of missicnaries already in the area. Some ten years later, Mrs. Bowne returred to Sanoyea to view at first hand the results of her efforts. In exploring the apparent failure of the dispensary to fulfill the role she envisaged for it, she has presented us with a case study of the complex of ideas and relationships involved in any program designed to offer aid or service to peoples of tre technologically undeveloped areas of the world. This is a critical problem of our time and Mrs. Bowne offers valuable and needed insight. The book is written about Liberia but the implications of the problem extend beyond the boundaries of any one nation. She begins the exploration of her subject with an analysis of Sister Lena, the nurse in charge of tre dispensary, a religious woman of northern European back­ ground who has made a conscious commitment of her life to a "noble cause". As a skilled member of a technologically "superior" culture she is certain that if people will but follow her expert advice, positive change cannot fail to follow. The inability of the people whom she serves to understand or to follow her advice be­ comes in her eyes a rejection of her dedicated efforts. In Sister Lena, the author has a ready-made scapegoat on whom to hang an explaination for the failure of the dispensary to function in an effective way. The importance of the book, it seems to me, is that the author is unwilling to settle for the obviously easy answer. Sister Lena's limitations and insensitivities are merely a dramatic example of the kind of fatal flaw which destroys so many well intentioned programs of assist­ ance. Mrs. Bowne explores the problem through the lives of a number of other service workers and village people in Sanoyea, and she uncovers repeated ex­ amples of similar misunderstanding and failure. She comes to the conclusion that our western conception of "help" is basic to the problem. Our own culture is permeated with an attitude about help which defines it as something done to or for another. The basic relationship expressed is one of the "active", (and, it is implied, dominant) person who gives to, or does for the passive, (and implied submissive) person who receives. It is but another playing out of the old roles

Liberian Studies Journal, Ill, 1 (1970-71). 69 70 BOOK REVIEWS

of the past based on unconscious attitudes of superiority and control. Although the author does not make the connection, she is pointing out the same attitude which minority peoples in the United States attack as "institutionalized racism". It is this attitude which Mrs. Bowne feels must be discarded if the establish­ ment of a better relationship between the technologically advanced nations and the new nations of the world is to occur. She points out that "help" is something done with others in a relationship of mutual involvement and effort. --The silent message which the author received from the people of Sanoyea is the same urgent message she has received from the people of the new nations wherever she has traveled. It is a plea for hope. The kind of hope that springs from an individual's sense of dignity and worth. It is only from s uch an inner­ resource of self-esteem that people succeed in changing their lives. What the peoples of the new nations really want is help in finding ways to help themselves. The hoary paternalism of the colonial era must go. Mrs. Bowne's book. is a valuable contribution to those who seek a new understanding of international relationships.

Kathleen d'Azevedo

Esther Warner, 11-lE CROSSING FEE. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1968.

The Crossing Fee is Esther Warner's third and most recent book about her experiences in Liberia. Like her earlier work this is a lively well written story. In this book, however, she introduces a new and serious theme: her concern for social change as it effects the lives of tribal Liberians. Esther Warner is not a social scientist, she is an artist and she writes as an artist. She does, however, write explicitly about tribal life and tribal Liberians as she remembers them from an early period of her life when she lived in Liberia. Her earlier books, while quite enjoyable, were simply novels cast in a Liberian setting rather than rounded presentations of village life. This is not to imply that the rich and vivid detail with which she describes tribal life is inaccurate, but rather that her previous books, written from a highly nostalgic and subjective point of view, were romantic tales of an idealized tribal paradise. It is the author's conflict with this romantic viewpoint which permeated her past work, and the profound changes with which she came in contact during her recent return to Liberia, which gives this bo()k its particular vitality. In the present book the author begins with a story based on events and characters of the time when she lived in Liberia. It is a familiar tale of an idealized tribal people and tribal life which exists in a world far from the distorting influence of western material values. However, into this ideal setting the author introduces a new type of character, that of Nike, an arrogant tribal youth, as a symbol of a new generation of Liberians. Nike is described as a person who is offensive to his elders, his peers, and to the author. The explanation for his unfortunate personality is a complex part of the story but the central theme is Nike's alienation from tribal society. His final BOOK REVIEWS 71

corruption, the author implies, can be attributed to his experiences in the urban coastal settlements of Liberia. Although the reader is encouraged to see the death of this character as tragedy, the event appears more as a welcome release for a life hopelessly corrupted by the forces of change which have corroded the idealized culture of the past. The other characters of the story are all persons of specialized status in the village, the chief, the elders, a female craftsman, and a child with leprosy. The ordinary people of the village are scarcely touched upon, and the author's relation­ ship to the village women is almost entirely ignored. The reader is left to speculate about what might have been their reaction toward the author as she lived in their midst. ln a village where insufficient food is a common experience and any kind of meat a luxury, anyone who could order the capture of six chimpanzees, then pro­ vide each animal with a blanket for warmth, a daily diet of rice, and a local youth hired as its around the clock nurse, must have appeared as remarkable and power­ ful indeed. The fact that all of these measures were taken to insure the author a good price when she delivered the animals to the coast must have provided subject matter for a good deal of speculation among the people of the village. The fact that the author was herself a source of experience in western values for the village people and that she must look upon her past self as an agent of change is a dimen­ sion of the story which is left unexplored. The last half of the book deals with a continuation of the story when the author returns to Liberia some twenty years later. It is not surprising to discover her shock at the changes which have occurred during her long absence. Monrovia is no longer a picturesque village of unpaved streets but a modern city. Upcountry, the high bush bas been cut to make way for the motor road, young men are not making traditional rice farms but are raising cash crops, and even the power of Poro is diminished. 1his section of the story is more vital because in it the author must come to grips with her feelings about change. She does produce one character who represents change and with whom she can identify in a positive way, a young tribal woman wlio is fighting against a traditionally arranged marriage arid for her right to pursue an education. Although the author seems to understand and to accept the need for change in the realistic context of this young woman's life, she abhors it everywhere else. Once the problems of this character are resplved, the author retreats into a nostalgic tale of the past in which a white man scorned and defiled a village sacrifice ritual made to insure the rice harvest. This blasphemous act caused the death of a village chief, brought leprosy to a child, and ultimately des­ troyed a way of life. The reader is told that on his death bed the old chief said, "See that none of the children of our people learn white ways. When he said this three times, as the custom is, he died." (pp. 289-290). It seems that if Esther Warner continues to write about Liberia she is faced with two alternatives; one, she can continue to write stories which are imaginative, romantic, and interesting but in which the people and the setting of the storie.s is left unidentified; or, she can become involved with today's tribal Liberians and discover their aspirations and problems as they are being expressed in contemporary Liberian life. Tribal Liberians are not passive victims being destroyed by changes imposed upon them against their will. They are sturdy peoples with a long history of survival in a context of rapid social change. It is tribal Liberians who are most actively seek­ ing change today and their role in Liberia's future is a critical one. For a writer of Esther Warner's skill, the drama of contemporary Liberian life can provide new areas of challenge. Kathleen d'Azevedo SOME TERMS FROM LIBERIAN SPEECH

by Warren d'Azevedo

Second Edition

Revised and Expanded

1970

76 pages

The cost for this work is $3. 00

Please make your check payable to LIBERIAN STUDIES.

Order from: Liberian Studies Department of Anthropology University of Delaware Newark, Delaware 19711 BOOK REVIEWS

Joseph Conrad Wold, GOD'S IMPATIENCE IN LIBERIA. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co. , 1968.

God's Impatience in Liberia is a work written for the Christian missionary and those who support his work. The author, J. C. Wold, seeks to explain the limited impact of tre Christian Church in Liberia, and to suggest ways by which the company of believers can be rapidly expanded. "Slow growth," he remarks, "is a serious but curable disease. Its needless continuance surely tests God's patience. "(p. 10). This quotation, as well as the title, gives insight into the author's orientation. 111e book is one of a series originating at the Fuller Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist institution in Pasadena, California, and the plan which the author would apply to Liberia, "the rapid 'spontaneous' expansion of the Church in non­ Christian lands by people movements," has been developed by members of the seminary faculty. Beneath Mr. Wold's theological language and assumptions are observations and examples of interest to African scholars. Repeated references to "the field that is ripe for God's harvest" should not obscure Wold's descriptions of the way Christian influence has spread and what its limitations have been. The emphasis on God's will as a key to change should not keep the reader from seeking practical plans for conversion presented in the book. The work lacks a thorough analysis of the situation facing the missions in Liberia today and of their work. Yet, read from within its framework, Wold's book does offer the student of Africa a view of how one mission theorist and worker approaches the mission field today, and how theory has been influenced by the concepts of anthropology and the mass movements of the twentieth century. Mr. Wold begins his discussion with a brief survey of the land and history of Liberia, or rather, of the impact of outside forces on Liberia's history. He continues with a chapter on Liberia's peoples which concentrates on the example of the Loma, a people among whom Wold has lived and worked. The next chapters describe the history of various church missions, relying on John Cason's helpful dissertation, "The Growth of the Church in the Liberian Environment", l Wold has contributed information from his own investigations and his interviews with church leaders to this section. In the course of these chapters Wold discusses the reasons which seem to account for the limited progress of the church in Liberia, including the conflict between indigenous peoples and settlers, and the church's primary orientation toward the coastal societies. He notes, for instance, that church leaders whom he interviewed felt that the resilience of traditional ways and the narrowness of the pure Biblical doctrine were responsible for the limitations of the churchs' work. The interviews are described in the appendix, but a more thorough analysis of them within the text might have been of value.

l. Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1962.

Liberian Studies Journal, III, 1 (1970-71). 73 74 BOOK REVIEWS

The remainder of the book (chapters 5 - 9) is principally devoted to the plan whereby men can be brought to Christ. Wold, unlike Livingstone, is 2 concerned with conversion rather than "the diffusion of better principles". He stresses evangelism and the spread of the Gospel, not the spread of western civilization, and denies tlat one must be literate and "civilized" to comprehend the message. Wold speaks reprovingly of those mission societies and stations which stress institutions such as schools and hospitals and place self-help above evangelization. "The institutions," be says, "are to be the servants of the Church and not the masters. " (p. 164). Unlike the early evangelical missionaries whom Livingstone criticized, Wold respects the significance of kinship and clan attachments and would use those at­ tachments to promote the spread of Christianity. It is not the individual but the group which should be approached, often through its elders. ln this way he feels that Christian "people's movements", like tlD se which came into the church as a result of William Wade Harris' activities, can be developed by the church. Wold feels that such a mission approach can prevent the destructive divisions of society which have characterized mission villages and "gathered groups" in the past. Wold underplays urbanization in his plan because he feels that, in Liberia, village laborers who go to Monrovia or Firestone to be wage earners will return permanently to the village community. He feels that one should concentrate on the evangelization of corporate groups since those \vho become Christian in the village maintain their faith in the city, a point which might be examined more thoroughly. 1bis deemphasis on the urban scene seems questionable when one notes the trends in most African countries, the impact that the urban way of life. can have on a whole population, and Wold's own estimate that coastal society will have an increasing impact on the interior in the future. One wishes that the author had delineated his plan more clearly early in his discussion. Only in the last chapter is it set forth in some detail. More disturbing is the lack of clear definition of the true kernel of Christianity, of the essence of the Christian message which the plan is designed to carry to others. Although Mr. Wold does not make the message explicit, references indicate that he veers toward a conservative and somewhat narrow view of the Christian message. Although he takes a sympathetic and understanding view of polygamy, he cannot recognize it as Christian. Although he believes that Christian Church should discard their "sacred cows" or western trappings, he does not often stress or elaborate the new African features which might be incorporated into the Church. Although be recognizes the importance of clan relationships, he feels that ancestral cults cannot be accomodated into Christianity and should be replaced by alternate institutions which he himself admits is an exceedingly difficult task. David Barrett, in a recent analysis of independent Churches in Africa found a significant correlation between societies

2. Livingstone to Tidman quoted in Roland Oliver, The Missionary Factor ~ East Africa, 2nd. edition (London, 1965), 10. BOOK REVIEWS 75

with ancestor cults and those with independent churches, and a similar corres­ pondence between polygynous societies and those with independent churches. 3 One wonders how Mr. Wold views this phenomenon. Evidence indicates that he might feel these were non-Christian churches. His own discussion of . Christian missions in Liberia does not mention the most well known independent church there, the Church of the Lord Aladura. Moreover, Wold feels that any "peoples movement" must be carefully supervised. Churches should be financially independent and should rely on African leadership, but he stresses that "more indigenousness and more self-reliance in the church do not mean less missionary planning", (p. 202) and indeed more missionary effort and planning may be necessary in times of expansion. ln his approach to groups rather than to individuals, Wold finds agreement with such African scholars as John Mbiti who favors addressing the Gospel to whole gorporate groups. 4 Yet Dr. Mbiti's brief essay in Christianity~ Tropical Africa indicates a rather different attitude toward non- Christian African peoples. Mbiti gives African Christians a special place, recognizing where they can con­ tribute to the Christian Church. Thus he notes that one can make the church indi­ genous by giving traditional rites a Christian context and blessing. Wold might well agree with Dr. Mbiti but his own language has a different flavor. He tends to treat the Africans as subjects and to speak of them in a distasteful manipula­ tory way. This reader felt that the greatest deficiency of the book was its failure in general to describe the African response to mission effoi;ts and to discuss any part which African Christians may have taken in determining the ways to evangelize among their people. The most interesting parts of the book were those sections which did describe the particular situations of Loma contact with Christianity. It is extremely diffi­ cult to talk generally about the encounter of Christianity and African culture. As Rev. F. B. Welbourn has said "We still need particular studies of particular societies". 6 One hopes that Mr. Wold will follow up these observations about the Loma and in so doing give us a clearer feeling than he has in the present work for the way in which an African culture can be effected by the essence of the Christian idea and contribute to its development.

3. C. G. Baeta, ed. , Christianity~ Tropical Africa (London, 1968), 275. 4. Ibid •• 337. 5. Ibid. ' 329-342. 6. lbid. • 127.

Jane J. Martin Milton Academy 76 NEWS AND NOTES

RESEARCH INFORMATION NEEDED

Dr. Richard M. Fulton is editing a special issue of Rural Africana (a quarterly publication devoted to current research in the SOclal and economic development in rural Africa) to be entitled "Research on Lib.eria: an Appraisal". It will appear in early summer. He is most interested in gathering as much in­ formation as possible about current research projects and/or recently completed works on Liberia concerned with rural themes. He is also soliciting short papers and/or research reports on rual topics. Please contact Dr. Fulton if you are working in the fields of Liberian ethnography, political anthropoloty, local politics, economics, rural agriculture, geography, migration, and/ or history. He is interested in evaluating the progress being made in rural research in Liberia. Send all information to Dr. Fulton, Government Department, King's College, Wilkes Barre, Pa. 18702.

CONFERENCE HELD

The Liberian Research Association held its semi- annual conference on November 21 , 1970 at Bong Mines. The following are a list of papers read at this conference.

John Gay (Cuttington College), "Kpelle Uses of Kpelle Logic. "

Agnes von Ballmoos (University of Liberia), "The Collection, Notation and Arrangement of J.,.iberian Folk Songs. "

Robert Curry (Cuttington College), "Liberian Land Development's Impact on External Trade and Internal Income. "

Jeremiah Walker (Cuttington C:ollege), "Basic Trust Among the Kpelle. "

Rolf Garms (Tropical Institute, Hamburg), "The Epidemiology of Oncho­ cerciasis. "

Charles Templin (Cuttington College), "Value Orientations and Rural Schools. "

Toye C. Bernard (University of Liberia), "Dower's Right Under Liberian Customary Law. "

Ruth Reeves (W. V. S. Tubman High School) , "Report of the Monrovia Con­ solidated School System (MCSS) Liberian Studies Curriculum Materials Research Project in Seven Major Curricul um Areas. "

James Beckman (Cuttington College), "Words, Tilings and Economic Change." NEWS AND NOTES 77

CURRENT RESEARCH

Lloyd N. Beecher, Jr., Assistant Professor of History, California State Polytechnic College, has sucessfully defended his University of Georgia doctoral disseration, "The State Department and Liberia, 1908 - 1941: A Heterogeneous Record", 1970.

Jeanette E. Carter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Iowa, has completed her Ph. D. disseration, "Household Organization and the Money Ec·onomy in a Loma Community, Liberia", at the University of Oregon, 1970.

Jyotirmoy Pal Chaudhuri, Graduate Student, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, U. K. , is currently working on a Ph. D. dissertation entitled, "Anglo- Liberian Relations, 1912 - 1939".

Robert A. Cotner, Assistant Professor of English, Montgomery College, Rockville, Md. ,is currently writing a biography of Alexander Crummell.

Ronald W. Divis, Head, African Studies Program, Western Michigan Uni­ versity, is currently working on a monograph on Kru ethnohistory.

John H. Gay, Cuttington College, continues his research on l) belief systems among the Kpelle, and 2) education and social change in rural Liberia.

W. Penn Handwerker, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology, Uni­ versity of Oregon, expects to complete his Ph. D. disseration in June 1971, en­ titled, "Liberian Internal Market System".

Thomas Hayden, Graduate Student, Department of Sociology, Howard Univer­ sity, expects to spend the summer of 1971 doing preliminary research .on the effect on the kinship system of the extended family as the result of rural-urban migration with particular reference to the migration of Grand Cess Kru people to Monrovia.

Helen Hollyer, instructor in Anthropology, Lane Community College, Eugene, Oregon, spent five months in 1968 - 1969 collecting materials for a study of spatial and social mobility among rural Bassa.

Svend E. Holsoe, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Delaware, continues his research and writing on Liberian history with two papers currently in press, one on the Vai script and the second on settler- native relations in western Liberia, 1820-1847.

Michael G. Kitay, Attorney wi th Kornish, Lieb, Shainswit, Weiner & Hellman, New York, is currently working on a book entitled, "The Legal System of Liberia".

Frederick D. Mc Evoy, Instructor of Anthropology, University of North Caro­ lina, is doing library research pertaining to relations between native uprisings in Liberia (and elsewhere in West Africa) and depressions or wars in Europe. 78 NEWS AND NOTES

Bruce L. Mouser, Assistant Professor of History, Wisconsin State University, La Crosse, is currently working on a study of Theodore Canot's activities in the Rio Pongo before he moved to the Liberian coast.

Timothy J. O'Leary, Chairman, History Department, Mount Saint Clare College, has been working on a study of John Russwurm's career in the United States and his life in Liberia as it affected his family in Maine and Tennessee.

Yves Person, Professor, University of Paris, is writing up his research on the ethnohistory of the southern Mandingo (Konianke, Kuranko) and Kisi as it relates to the peoples of northern Liberia.

Amos Sawyer, Graduate Student, Political Science Department, Northwestern University, is currently preparing a work entitled, "Socialization and National Development: A Case Study".

Willi Schulze, Professor of Geography, University of Giessen, is working on a textbook on Liberian geography.

Eli Seifman, Chairman, Department of Education, State University of New York at Stony Brook, is updating his earlier work on the history of the New York State Colonization Society.

Thomasyne Wilson, Graduate Student, International Development Education Center, Stanford University, is doing a study entitled, "An Exploration of Factors Relevant to Differential Patterns of Social Instruction: Implications for Moderni­ zation in Liberia".

Thomas P. Wrubel, Graduate Student, Political Schence, University of Cali­ fornia, Berkeley, has tentatively titled his current research, "Ideology and Conflict Resolution, Comparative Analysis - West Africa".

Kjell Zetterstrllm, Research Fellow, Frobeniusinstitut, Frankfurt/M, is presently working on his field material collected among the Mano. RECENTLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL ON LIBERIA 79

Azango, .Bertha Baker. Education Laws of the Republic ~ Liberia (Through the 1966-67 ~£!the National Legislature). Monrovia, 1969. 173 Pp.

Azikiwe, Nnamdi. Liberia in World Politics. Westport, Corui. : Negro Universities Press, 1970. 406 Pp. $14. 50. Originally Published: London, 1934.

Boon, Clinton C. Liberia as I Know It. Westport, Conn. : Negro Universities- Press, 1970. 152 Pp. $8. 50. Originally Published: Richmond, Va. , 1929.

Church, R. J. Harrison. "The Firestone Rubber Plantations in Liberia, '' Geography (November 1969), 430~437 .

Dormu, Alfonso K. The Constitution~ the Republic~ Liberia, and the Declaration of Independence. New York: Exposition, 1970. 119 Pp. $5. 00.

Hill, Adelaide_ Cromwell & Mar tin Kilson, comps. & eds. Apropos of Africa, Sentiments of Negro Ameri­ can Leaders on Africa from the 1800's to the 1950's. London: Frank Cass &Co., Ltd~,1969. 390 Pp.

Kay, Joanne B. "Liberia: Increase of 293 in U.S. Sales Fore­ cast Despite Slower Growth, More Competi­ tion," International Commerce, LXXVI, 3 (January 19, 1970), 62.

"Liberia: United States Continues to Hold First Place in Market that Shows Steady Growth," In­ ternational Commerce, LXXVI, 26 (June 29,- 1970), 60.

Lawrence, Robert de T. "Rural Mimeo Newspapers," Development Digest, VIII, 4 (October 1970), 27-32.

Liberia. Department of Planning and Economic Affairs. Bulletin~ the Population Growth Survey. Mon­ rovia, November 1970. ix + 4 Pp.

Economic SUrvey 1968. Monrovia, 1969. 132 Pp.

Public Foreign Assistance~ Liberia, 1965-1967. Monrovia, 1968. 127 Pp. 80 RECENTLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL ON LIBERIA

No author. "Liberia : A Special Report," Times Supple­ ~ (March 19, 1970), 1-8.

No author. Liberian Writing, Liberia as Seen by Her Own Writers~ well~~ German Authors. TUb ­ ingen, Federal Republic of Germany: Horst Erdmann Verlag, 1970. 240 Pp.

Lynch, Hollis, ed. Black Spokesman: Selected Published Writings of Edward Blyden. New York: Humanities Press, 1970. 372 Pp. $9. 50.

Schulze, Willi. "Liberia," Meyers Kontinente und Meere. Edi­ ted by Geographisch.kartographisches lnstitut Meyer, Bibliographisches lnstitut. Mannheim/ ZUrich, 1968. Vol. Afrika, pp. 202- 207.

"Liberia. Bev(llkerungsstruktur und BevtHker­ ungsverteiling, " Geographisches Taschenbuch 1966/69. Wiesbaden, 1968. pp. 147-159.

"The Por ts of Liberia: Economic Significance and Development Problems," Seaports and De­ velopment~ Tropical Africa. Edited by B. S. Hoyle and D. Hilling. London: Macmillan, 1970. pp. 75-101.

"Sozialgeographische und wirtschaftliche Aspekte der Eisenerzbergbaues in Liberia unter besonderer BerUcksichtigung der Binnenwanderung der Bev!llk­ erung," Die Erde, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fUr ErdkUnde zu Berlin, XCVIII (1967), 31-60.

Schulyer, George Samuel. Slaves Today:~ Story of Liberia. College Park, Md . : McGrath Publishing Co. , 1969. 200 Pp. Or iginally Published: New York, 1931.

Stanley, William R. "The Cost of Road Transport in Liberia: A Case Study of the Independent Rubber Farmers," Journal of Developing Areas (Macomb, Ill.), II, 4 Ouly 1968), 495-510.

"Transport Expansion in Liberia," The Geo­ graphical Review, LX (1970), 529-547.'"" -- RECENTLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL ON LIBERIA 81

Sylvester, Anthony. "Liberia: Not Just an Iron Economy on Rubber Wheels," African Development, (August, 1970), 23-25.

Warner, Esther. Trial ~ Sasswood. Oxford: Pergamon, 1970. 254 Pp. 10 s . Originally Published: London, 1955.

Wilson, Charl es Morrow. Liberia: Black Africa in Microcosm. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. $8. 95

Wilson, Henry S. , ed. Origins of West African Nationalism. London: Mcmillan and Co. , Ltd. , 1969. 391 Pp.

Zetterstrtlm, Kjell. House and Settlement iu Liberia. Robertsport, Liberia: Tubman Center of African Culture, 1970. 27 Pp.