Wow! History #6 - Liberia

Hi everyone, welcome to another edition of the Wow History Channel. My name is Ron Guth and each week I bring you an item of historical interest that hopefully will spark a desire in you to learn more and even perhaps say wow that's something I hadn't learned before or I had not been taught that in school. This week's topic is the country of Liberia. Yesterday I created a video about the country of Liberia and for some reason it just didn't feel right so I didn't post it. Instead I ran it by a couple friends just to get their reaction and I said what do you what do you think about the country of Liberia? What do you know about the country of Liberia? Well obviously I got blank stares because most people couldn't even tell you where Liberia is and so I thought well I better have a hook. I better have a reason for them to keep listening or keep viewing this video so I said okay here's the hook and I ran this by them. I said in 1821 the country of Liberia was formed by the American Colonization Society who was a group of white people who raised money for the express purpose of purchasing land in Africa where freed black slaves could be sent to settle and of course when they heard that hook the first thing out of their mouth was wow that's that's pretty cool I never knew that before. So the American Colonization Society which was the big force behind the formation of the country of Liberia was a group that essentially raised money and they were supported by a number of prominent politicians including Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay who was a famous politician and President James Monroe. James Monroe was the inspiration for the name of the capital of Liberia which is Monrovia so that's an interesting connection there. Ironically James Monroe was the president who came up with the Monroe Doctrine which basically told all the other nations of the world keep your mitts off North and South America, keep out of our business, leave us alone and yet here he was supporting dabbling in Africa so that's a little little ironic. The reason that the American colonization was formed in the first place was because what is known as the black problem in America. What do you do with freed black slaves? The northerners were not so concerned about this because blacks you know existed in society in the north in fact most of the freed black slaves in America lived in the north at the time and they enjoyed a fairly successful life in the north. They could have jobs, they could own property, own businesses and they were not a problem there but in the south it's a whole different story. The southerners were very concerned that their own slaves would view the freed men with jealousy and envy and they would also want to be free and so they're very concerned about the slaves rising up in rebellion. The southern plantation owners had a legitimate concern because there had been a number of uprisings including the German coast uprising in 1811 where over a hundred slaves rose up and killed all kinds of white people and then Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 where the same thing happened this time it was approximately 60 slaves that rose up in rebellion. All of these rebellions were quashed of course and then were successful but the southern plantation owners still had a legitimate concern they said we've got to get the freed blacks out of here. How many freed blacks were in America? In the 1830 census there were 319,000 approximately freed black slaves in America and that represented about 13.7 percent of the total population of blacks in America. If you do the math that says that tells us that 2.3 million blacks lived in America in 1830. Most of them of course were enslaved but you had 319,000 freed black slaves living in America. The American colonization society by as I said by 1821 had raised enough money to purchase this land and that land became known as Liberia and they started shipping settlers over there. They estimate that between 1821 and 1840 that approximately 15 I'm sorry 5,000 settlers had been sent to Africa but unfortunately Africa was not the land of milk and honey and the settlers discovered there that there were tropical diseases that they had not encountered in their lifetime in their generations and they had a fairly high mortality rate. Of the 5,000 people that went over there initially or in the first few decades they estimate that only 18 or 1900 actually survived so you can see it was a very high mortality rate. To raise money and promote their cause the American colonization society had a one cent coin struck in 1833. Current research indicates that the coins may have been struck at the United States mint which would make them the very first coin struck at the U.S. mint for a foreign country which is pretty interesting, pretty important actually. The coins were the size of a U.S. large cent the same exact weight and size which is another indication they were made at the mint and they bore on their obverse of the front a ship sailing on the ocean with the sun rising in the horizon in the background and in the foreground there's a palm tree and there's a nude black man apparently gesturing towards the ship. It could be that one hand is on the palm tree but it's not really clear. On the top of the coin is the name of the country Liberia and on the bottom is the date 1833. We're not sure the significance of the date 1833 because there's really nothing that ties to anything in Liberia or that was happening in the American Colonization Society. It may just be that that was the year that they decided to have the coin struck. The back of the coin bears the legend American Colonization Society and on the bottom it says one cent and in the middle it has the legend founded A.D. 1816. There are approximately eight different dye varieties of this one cent token so there are a lot of collectors that try to get all eight varieties which just means that each dye or stamp that was made to make the coin was cut by hand cut individually so they have unique differences that that people find interesting to collect. When Liberia declared its independence in 1847 it created a new constitution which was patterned after the U.S. Constitution and it also created a coat of arms which was patterned in part on the coin that was struck in 1833. On the coat of arms you'll see the palm tree, the ship, the sun, but the black man is missing and there's also the addition of a plow at the bottom and in the sky above there is a dove holding a scroll which represents the new constitution. The slogan of the country of Liberia, the coat of arms, is the love of liberty brought us here and then on the bottom another scroll has the name of the country which is the Republic of Liberia. The Republic of Liberia is actually the first and oldest republic that still exists in Africa today so it's been around for a very long time. Interestingly the first country that recognized Liberia as an independent nation in 1847 was Great Britain. America didn't recognize it until 1862. Why did it take so long for America to recognize the new nation of Liberia when in fact it was Americans who created the country? Well it was again partly due to the fact that the southern plantation owners still had a significant influence in American government. They fought every effort to recognize the country of Liberia and it wasn't until they seceded in 1862, that's why 1862, that the U.S. government could say well they're not part of our government anymore they don't have a say so we're going to go ahead and recognize Liberia which was a big poke in the eye to the southern plantation owners. How successful was the American Colonization Society in their mission? Estimates of approximately 15,000 settlers went to Africa between 1821 and 1860 so you can see that that's a very small portion of the number of freed black slaves that existed in America. It's just a very tiny fraction so if anything the success could be judged as just limited. Once the slaves were freed in America, the whole point of the colonization disappeared because blacks theoretically would be integrated into American society and assimilated and be given opportunities which as we all know didn't exactly take place but the whole idea of colonization in Africa ended at the time and so Liberia was left to evolve onto its own. One of the interesting aspects of Liberia was the way that the free black slaves treated the indigenous Africans once they moved there. The free black slaves that settled in Liberia were known as Americo-Liberians and they brought with them the culture, the language, the religion that they had experienced in America and they kind of overlaid it onto the country of Liberia. The Liberian constitution as I said was patterned after the U.S. Constitution so that a lot of the rights and responsibilities were similar. The language of Liberia was English. Religion was mostly Protestant so this is what the free black slaves were used to in America and this is what they brought with them to Africa. Unfortunately they also brought with them a certain feeling of superiority in the way that they interacted with the native Africans that they encountered in Liberia. It wasn't a pretty picture. It wasn't until the early 1900s that the native Africans were even allowed to vote in Liberian elections. They were treated as second-class citizens and they were not allowed to participate in Liberian society as did the Americo-Liberians. That was one of the more interesting things that I learned about Liberia. We like to think that as humans that we aspire to higher ideals and goodness and greatness but sometimes that's not the case. We often lapse back into our baser instincts and sometimes that's just what happens. So anyway that's the story of Liberia. I encourage you to learn more about it and in future episodes I'm going to talk more about the American Colonization Society, the U.S. Constitution and how slavery was included in it. For some reason I'm focusing a lot on black history and slavery but they really are among my favorite topics and right now they're hot-button issues in America and I think the more that we can learn about them the better. If you like these videos please hit subscribe, hit the like button and please leave a comment below especially if you would like to me know about topics that you have an interest in hearing about. I want this to be a teaching channel and the best way for me to satisfy your needs is to know what they are so please let me know your comments below. Thank you very much for viewing and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye.