Liberia (Twilight of a New Era)

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by British Sierra Leone on the west and French West Africa on the north and the east.

To some Liberia is Africa’s Banana Republic and to others the Spearhead of Pan-Africanism.

History
From America a large back to Africa migration of the 1920s sponsored by UNIA and shipped by the Black Star Line, however it did not had official support from Liberian authorities. The new emigrants established themselves in the North coast and interior of Liberia.

The black-americans, or Garveyites has they called themselves, were friendlier in their relationship with the natives, being treated in equal terms, instead of the denigratory and segregationist practices of Americo-Liberians.

In early phase of the emigration alliances were forged with the natives, resulting in no attacks made to Garveyites settlements. Cooperation in clearing and cultivating land were the most characteristic tasks of the first years of settlement. In exchange natives received medical assistance and schooling. Subsidiaries of the Negro Factories Corporation were established and an industrial and agricultural training school was founded and open to Liberians natives. A wage systems became commonplace. Intermarriage became common and so did syncretic religious practices and usage of Kreyol as a common medium of communication.

Large population and migration Garveyites became a threat to the long established order and sinecures of Americo-Liberian elites. Liberian Government was already troubled by constant foreign loans crisis and accusations of slave trading made to the League of Nations. The Daniel Edward Howard presidency had at least secured the frontiers of Liberia against the French and British expansion.

The Americo-Liberians by the 1930s started to impose immigration quotas, and judicial and police harassment of Garveyites became common and so did the seizure of lucrative lands a common legal practice. The Universal African Legions, organized by the UNIA and enlarged with native recruitment, began to provide guard services for Garveyite settlements and native villages. Clashes between the Liberian Frontier Force and Universal African Legions became increasingly common and so did the disfranchisement and persecution of Garveyites in coastal Liberia.

By the end of the 1930s political and social disputes of Natives and Garveyites with governing Americo-Liberian elites lead to the Civil War of 1934-1935. The spark of the conflict was the deportation of Marcus Garvey to America. The victorious alliance of Garveyism and inner tribes lead to a political enfranchisement of all Liberian habitants.