Annotated Bibliography
Captain Isaac Ross has a story like no other. When analyzing such a unique story, it is helpful to know the context and setting of the time in order to truly appreciate how special Ross was. After stumbling upon Alan Huffman’s Mississippi in Africa on Ross’s Wikipedia page, which tells Ross’s story in great detail, I began researching other topics by asking various questions, such as what was it was like to be an early 1800 abolitionist and plantation owner? By using a few unexpected sources, I further illustrate his impact today.
Mississippi in Africa tells the story, my next five sources analyze slave life in America, and my final 6 sources discuss the geopolitical state of present day Liberia. I hope you enjoy
Mississippi in Africa
Huffman, Alan. Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
My primary source: Mississippi in Africa by Alan Huffman. I was shocked to find a 300 page book that is all about Isaac Ross. The book mentions him on nearly every page, and the beginning of the book details a biography of his life with more information than I could ever get my hands on. Why? Why does Allan Huffman care about my ancestor that know one else has ever heard of?
Huffman got his hands on some interesting information, such as the fact that he served as a Captain in the battle of Kings Mountain and the battle of Camden in South Carolina. In the battle of Camden he lost his eye in 1781 at the age of 21 and wore a glass replacement for the rest of his life.
The biography begins detailing Huffman waking up in the middle of the night to a piano and the relationship he has with this piano. He loves that old hunk of wood and ivory. It was a gift from a close friend of his named Gwen Shipp, who I apparently am distantly related to through the Ross family.
To fully tell the story, Isaac Ross was an underground abolitionist, and at his death in 1836 he liquidated the very thing he had worked so hard to create — the 5,000 acre property of Prospect Hill Plantation — in order to pay for the voyage of his 225 formerly owned slaves back to Africa. Ross was a cofounder of the Mississippi Colonization Society, a sub branch of the American Colonization Society who assisted recently freed black people in emigrating back to Africa. Mississippi possessed a colony in Liberia, which was the destination for Ross’s freed slaves. However, Ross’s descendents followed the norm of southern antebellum culture and thought Ross had gone mad for his actions. They were frustrated, maybe rightfully so, because their share of fortune and wealth had unexpectedly vanished. They contested the will in court for the next decade. Between Isaac Ross’s death in 1836 and when the will was upheld by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in 1845, the Prospect Hill Mansion burnt down due to unknown causes, leading to the death of young family member. The immediate conclusion was a slave revolt due to the unrest from not being freed, resulting in several lynchings.
The fire is the key to Huffman’s curiosity. No one will ever really know the cause of the fire, but how on earth did the massive, several hundred pound piano make it out of the fire and a little girl did not? This was the foundation of Huffman’s research, which unfolded a unique story with greater implications than he thought imaginable.
The premise of the book is the aftermath and effect of Isaac Ross’s will two centuries later that spans two continents — “the unintended result of his effort to do what he believed was the right thing” (Huffman 5). Ross undeniably was trying to do what he believed to be the right thing, something everyone should respect; however, many of the abolitionists and members of the American colonization Society were embarrassed and shocked to hear that some of the freedmen who returned to Africa had turned around and enslaved natives of liberia. Some of these men included those that were freed from the Prospect Hill Plantation, although others were involved too. Some of the native tribes referred to these immigrants as “white.” Maybe because they occupied the masters role or maybe because they had lighter complexions. Some referred to them as “kwi” which means “western” or “civilized.” A new societal gap was forming on a different continent. Huffman’s argument is that these Americo-Liberians created a society of inequities with the Indigenous people that spurred the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars that were fought in the late 1900s and early 2000s.
It is interesting to question at what point was Ross sympathetic to the abolitionist movement. A grandson of Isaac Ross, Thomas Wade recalled a quote for Isaac — “During the Revolution Ross had fought alongside ‘several free negroes, who made good soldiers,’ and that ‘when he to Mississippi they followed him and settled near him on land he helped them to buy’” (25).
The inscription of Ross’s tombstone erected by the Mississippi branch of the American Colonization Society.
“His last will is graced with as magnificent provisions as any over which philanthropy has ever rejoiced and it will be erected on the shores of Africa a monument more glorious than marble and more enduring than Time.”
Unbeknownst to many, Isaac Ross has definitely left an enduring wake.
So to begin, what was 1800s Mississippi like and what was it like to be a slave in that culture?
Slavery and Frontier Mississippi
Libby, David J. Slavery and Frontier Mississippi: 1720–1835. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Prior to the Treaty of Madrid in 1795 in which the Spanish relinquished its claim in the Mississippi territory to the United States in 1798, the French, Spanish, and Natives — primarily the Natchez — fought for the territory starting in the 1720s when the French began to settle there. There are many pull factors that would spur one to move out to the Mississippi territory. For one there was an abundance of cheap and available land for anyone willing to move that far West. In addition unlike many of the coastal states in which settlers had been farming for three centuries, the Mississippi territory land had essentially been untouched since the Ice Age, which meant the top soil was immensely rich in nutrients even twenty feet below the surface.
Just like most of the Deep South, cotton was the primary crop in Mississippi. Especially when in 1793 the cotton gin was invented that made the removal of seeds much easier making the industry much more profitable.
Slave life in Mississippi was horrible. The typical day started two hours before sunrise and ended at dusk. During the Summer that can mean the working day lasts up to 16 hours. The overseer watched over the slaves and insured they were working efficiently. During earlier weeks of harvest, individuals were expected to turn in 15 to 20 pounds per day to their specific basket which was monitored by overseers. However, at the apex of picking season, “individual slaves brought in daily totals of over one hundred pounds only during a two- or three-week period” (43). Cotton is not a heavy crop. I cannot fathom what picking 100 pounds in one long day would be like. The overseer would check each slaves basket and punish those with insufficient returns. These slaves were ordered to lay face down and receive “10, 20, or even 50 stripes with the whip” (43).
Whipping Post
The Allman Brothers Band. “Whipping Post.” 7 Aug. 1969.
I am a big music guy; I especially love jam bands. For a paper in my 11th grade English class we had to write a paper on a song that had lyrics that were maybe overlooked and under the surface they were actually sketchy, creepy, malicious, etc. The best presentation I saw was a classmate that chose the Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” If you don’t know about it, look it up. There is absolutely a creepy vibe masked by an upbeat tune.
Naturally, I wanted to find a rockin’ song; I chose “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers Band. The lyrics are as follows.
I been run down, I been lied to,
I don’t know why I let that mean woman make me a fool.
She took all my money, wrecked my new car.
Now shes with one of my good time buddies,
They’re drinkin’ in some crosstown bar.
Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel,
Like I been tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Good lord, I feel like I’m dyin’.
My friends tell me, that Ive been such a fool,
And I have to stand by and take it baby, all for lovin’ you.
Drown myself in sorrow, and I look at what you’ve down.
But nothin’ seems to change, the bad times stay the same,
And I cant run.
Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel,
Like I been tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Good lord, I feel like I’m dyin’.
Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel,
Like I been tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post,
Tied to the whipping post,
Good lord, I feel like I’m dyin’.
The song fits perfectly into my discussion. Gregg Allman’s main lyric that makes up most of the song is “sometimes I feel like I been tied to the Whipping Post.” Gregg Allman compares heartbreak to being tied to the whipping post. Obviously a bit of an extreme comparison, Allman most likely does not know what it feels like to be repeatedly whipped. The reason I bring up this paper I wrote three years ago is that at the time I thought the comparison was a little dramatic; however, after reading more about the conditions these slaves faced in Mississippi, I question Allman’s lyric choice even more. Maybe the emotional pain for Allman rivals getting whipped; however, not only is it a sensitive subject, but also the conditions many of these slaves faced were beyond imaginable by us today. It’s difficult to find any comparison.
At the same time however, I have no disrespect for the song. It is arguably my favorite Allman Brothers song, and watching Gregg Allman perform it live at Atlanta’s annual music festival, Music Midtown, in 2014 is an experience I will not forget.
Conditions were undeniably terrible for Mississippi slaves. One can hope that an abolitionist such as Isaac Ross that viewed these slaves as people did not treat them so poorly, but it’s difficult to know the answer to that question. This leads me to my next question. What was it like to be an abolitionist in the antebellum South?
An Image of a Southern White Emancipator
Harrold, Stanley. The Abolitionists and the South: 1831–1861. Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1995.
As one might guess, a southern emancipator was much more conservative in his beliefs than their counterpart in the North. For the most part, including Ross, they kept quiet. In Ross’s case, he really portrayed his beliefs and made a statement through his death. It is difficult to fight when you are weak in number, and it’s a lot more difficult to go against the norm than it is to go with it. Stanley Harrold illustrates in his non-fiction book The Abolitionists and the South, 1831 -1861 what life as a southern emancipator was like. One of the main focuses of the book is that northern abolitionist gave southern abolitionists immense support because the knew the only way to win the war on slavery was to fight from within. In northern newspapers, southern abolitionists were lavished with attention and praise.
“It requires far more than ordinary strength of mind, a more than common spiritual discernment, and a high degree of moral excellence, to break the strong network of prejudice which education and the daily circumstance of life weave around us” — Sydney Howard Gay (early 19th century journalist/abolitionist)
It is interesting to note that a typical southern abolitionist, such as Ross, were in fact members of slave holding families. Maybe these people saw first hand the abuse these slaves faced which fueled them to destroy the institution of slavery.
In addition abolitionists also assumed that the Protestant religious revival spurred by the Second Great Awakening coupled with the advance of western civilization preordained the fall of slavery. “Abolitionists assumed God would raise up heroes to implement a providential plan to destroy slavery in the South” (31). It was assumed that the southern abolitionists were these heroes that could fight the issue at the heart of the problem, signaling the end to slavery.
Brown v Board of Education
Supreme Court. Brown v Board of Education. 17 May 1954.
One of the best ways to illustrate the abolition movement and the idea of pushing for change is through the monumental Supreme Court case Brown v Board of Education and the opinion given by Chief Justice Warren. At the time in 1864 it seemed as if the passing of the thirteenth amendment was the end of the enduring abolition movement. It is true that slavery had been outlawed, and that was the primary goal of abolitionists; however, equal rights seems like the obvious next step.
Once again there were few Southerners that supported equal rights, and once again these people had a conservative attitude in voicing their beliefs. I cannot be sure if Ross just wanted to end slavery or if he actually wanted equality, but evidence suggests that he was for equality. It is apparent that he respected his slaves and many free blacks he fought with in the Revolutionary War, and personally, I think that people who feel as if they are better than someone else in turn do not have respect for that person. Only a person that thinks of another as equal can have respect for him or her.
In 1896 the Supreme Court made a landmark decision in which they concluded the infamous “separate but equal” policy was unconstitutional. Up until 1954 the separate but equal policy was upheld. Blacks and Whites had different bathrooms, transportation, schools, and almost anything else you can imagine; if there is such a strong desire and a need to make something separate, than one version is probably better than the other. This is the conclusion of the opinion of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Warren.
“We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” — Chief Justice Warren
It is clear that the case violated many ethical beliefs we hold today, but the separate but equal policy was also inherently illegal under the fourteenth amendment. The end of slavery brought about new questions and was one of the first steps to equality. The equal rights movement and abolition movement go hand in hand and both challenged the societal norms.
Fourteenth Amendment
U.S. Constitution. Amend XIV, Sec 1.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Passed in 1868 and perhaps one of the most important amendments to the Constitution, the fourteenth amendment lists two clauses that protect a great deal of individual liberty: Equal Protection and Due Process.
The Equal Protection Clause explicitly grants “equal protection of the laws” “to any person” within that State’s jurisdiction. That means that a decision by the Supreme Court that promotes different facilities that are inherently unequal is illegal under the Constitution.
In addition the Due Process Clause explicitly states “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This means that any person is subject to the same trial system as another. For example, a black man can not be lynched for committing a crime that would result in a fine if a white man were to commit that same crime. He could still be executed in States that enforce the death penalty, but so would a white man if the punishment fits the crime.
It interesting that the primary author, John A. Bingham, of the first section of the amendment explicitly used the words citizen and person. It is clear Bingham wanted to illustrate the specificity of his word choice and that the two words are not interchangeable. For that reason under United States law, no person can be denied life, liberty, and property without due process, and no person can be denied equal protection. This would therefore include noncitizens, which sheds light on a current hot political debate regarding the rights granted to suspected and confirmed terrorists.
Moving forward, what has been the impact of these freed slaves on Liberia? After all, that is why the story is so fascinating.
Liberia: “Tumult and Transition in ‘Little America’”
Huffman, Alan. “Tumult and Transition in ‘Little America.’” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, Nov. 2003, www.smithsonianmag.com.
Since 1980, civil war in Liberia has killed over a quarter million and left over a million in refuge. Why? Alan Huffman, the man who wrote Mississippi in Africa, delved into the geopolitical environment that has caused conflict in Liberia in his article Tumult and Transition in “Little America.”
Founded in December of 1816 by a group including Francis Scott Key, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, the American Colonization Society’s (ACS) goal was to establish a homeland for African-Americans. In addition, the societies first elected president was Bushrod Washington, George Washington’s nephew. Some of the members believed that black Americans would have more success in Africa as opposed to living in the slave riddled Americas as they faced oppression.
However, slaveholders dominated the colonization movement. The American Colonization served the interests of these slaveholders, as many feared the potential retaliatory uprisings and socioeconomic rise of the black community if slavery were to be abolished. While some abolitionists favored colonization, others opposed it as just another form of discrimination. Henry Clay, “The Great Compromiser” and one of the societies founders, supported the colonization movement because he believed that due to the “unconquerable prejudice resulting from their color,” freed slaves “never could amalgamate with the free whites of this country.”
Liberia’s recent conflict and civil war originates from these waves of Americans that immigrated to Liberia. Initially the Liberia colony was owned by the United States. Starting in 1820 for nearly 5 decades, about 13000 freed American slaves and their families colonized the region. Many conflicts broke out when the new settlers arrived, and the settlers were undeniably outnumbered; however, the settlers were backed by the American military, and the mere presence of a U.S. ship offshore was enough to intimidate the natives and defuse a potential conflict.
In 1847 Liberia became the first independent nation in Africa.
Although the Americo-Liberians, those who immigrated from the United States, made up close to 2% of the population, the Americans had set up the colony; therefore, they had the ability to pass the power down to the new settlers. However, historians agree that settlers abused their power.
“The way the Americo- Liberians lived — building these grand houses for which they needed labor and servants, trying to live like the wealthy people back home, oppressing some of the indigenous people, whom they saw as heathens — that was enough, over the years, to cause this destabilization” — Roger Davidson (Historian and Liberia Expert)
It is interesting to note that although many of the Indigenous people in Liberia spoke some 20 languages and were sparsely populated, both on the coast and inland, many of them were accustomed to Western culture. Many had been negotiating with slave traders and other European traders for centuries due to Liberia’s desirable west African location.
Today the Americo-Liberians make up about 5% of the population, and this powerful group looks up to America as its oldest ally. For over a century Americo-Liberians denied many indigenous people the right to vote and forced them to work in subservient roles in (ie. field workers, house servants, forced labor). It was not until 1935 under president Edwin Barclay that forced labor was banned. Barclay was ironically pressure by the League of Nations and the United States, which refused to recognize Barclay’s administration (1930–1944) until forced labor was outlawed. In 1931, the League of Nations described Liberia as “a Republic of 12,000 citizens with 1,000,000 subjects.”
Tensions since the outright oppression of the natives have continued to build a societal gap. The Firestone company, which is a manufacturer of tires negotiated a 99 year lease with the Americo-Liberians in 1926 to establish a 1 million acre rubber plantation at 6 cents per acre. The 99 year lease expires in 2025, making it still active. The minority Americo-Liberians allowed an American corporation to take a massive chunk of land and abuse the natives for cheap labor. This is one of many examples that shows that the natives feel marginalized, which thus creates violence.
Another example that exemplifies the tension is the similarity between the Liberian flag and the United States flag. The design is nearly identical, containing only one big star and two less red and white stripes. Their national motto still in effect: “The love of liberty brought us here” This motto blatantly ignores the native majority, and the flag mimics a place that only a miniscule portion of the population feels close to.
Isaac Ross was a cofounder of the Mississippi chapter of the American Colonization Society. I do not believe Ross had the typical slaveholder motivations of a member of the American Colonization Society. As many accounts illustrate, such as his respect for blacks in the Revolution, his migration to Mississippi with freed blacks at his side, and his wish for change for blacks after his death, he seems to be a genuine abolitionist.
It is apparent the Americo-Liberians abused the natives. How does psychology come into play on why the Americo-Liberians took such a discriminative view towards the natives?
The Superiority Complex
Chua, Amy, and Jed Rubenfeld. The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. Penguin Books, 2015.
Amy Chua’s book The Triple Package discusses the psychology behind superiority, which fits right into the discussion of Liberian conflict.“The desire to see one’s group as superior may be one of those rare universals in human culture.” After years of oppression in the America’s, the recently freed blacks had the opportunity to to play a role in being superior. Whether or not they were taught these power complexes and the right to deem the natives inferior from the Americas is debatable.
“Anthropologists today confirm that the impulse to paint ‘one’s own group (the in-group) as virtuous and superior…and out-groups as contemptible and inferior’ is a ‘syndrome’ found in human societies virtually everywhere.” Everyone has the impulse to feel superior to someone, but who you feel superior to has extraneous social factors. For example many religions base their ideology that they are the chosen people, and God specifically chose them. The other religions in turn are viewed as incorrect, and a sense of superiority emmerges where it should not. This mindset can often create conflict.
With the case of the Americo-Liberians, they felt superior to the natives, potentially due to social factors taught by the Americans. A group that had been treated as inferior their entire lives finally had the opportunity to satisfy their innate desire to be superior. What better way to be superior than do the exact same thing the Americans did to gain superiority?
Ethnocentrism
Kinder, Donald R., and Cindy D. Kam. Us against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Tying closely to the topic of superiority, the term ethnocentrism plays a role in people’s opinions. Ethnocentrism is an Anthropological term defined as the evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture. It is “a deep human predisposition to reduce all of social life to in-groups and out-groups” (vii).
Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam examine four theories about ethnocentrism in their book Us Against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion.
1) It is a consequence of intergroup conflict
2) It relates to the process of psychological repression
3) It expresses a universal desire for self-regard
4) It has developed into a biological adaptation
Similar to the discussion regarding superiority, some of the former slaves had grown accustomed to Southern American culture prior to immigration. They began to accept southern american traditions such as clothes, architecture, and manners and, they began to reject their African culture. When arriving in Liberia, it seems as if many of the Americo-Liberians judged the natives as inferior because they were different. Based on the four theories, anthropologically speaking, it is likely the Americo-Liberians enslaved the natives due to their intergroup conflict, their history of repression regarding exploitation, and their desire for self-regard and self-fulfillment.
To provide personal insight to further explain ethnocentrism, as a southern American I am more likely to think that a Japanese man eats weird food or that someone from Boston has an odd accent. Everything I do is “normal” and what other people do is different and strange. Maybe other people think that it is weird to have fried chicken everyday, but to me that is far from strange. Because people are so used to their manners and ways of acting, they often judge others for not being the same. It seems as if the early Americo-Liberians had this innate mindset, and that it has carried over for over a century now, leading to present day conflict.
I have discussed the tension between the Americo-Liberians and the natives, now I am curious what happened at the climax of conflict in Liberia?
The Liberian Civil War
Huband, Mark. The Liberian Civil War. Cass, 2005.
Although tensions had existed for over a century, major conflict issues did not erupt until 1980. Mark Huband details this conflict in his book The Liberian Civil War.
It has been illustrated that the Americo-Liberian minority exploited their power and discriminated against the native majority. Initially they enslaved the natives in the 19th century, and they later restricted their rights and forced them away from the coast and into the interior. Even though it gained independence in 1847, Liberia was arguably a colonial like state until the coup of the Americo-Liberians in 1980. Rebel movements began to arise, and Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe successfully overthrew the Americo-Liberian government controlled by president William Tolbert in 1980.
President Tolbert was immediately executed in the office of the president. In addition, “after a bout of euphoric drinking, the new leaders of Liberia brought 13 of Tolbert’s ministers to the golden beach…and [they] were stripped to their underwear and tied to the poles. Pleading for their lives, they were shot, while an enormous crowd looked on and television cameras rolled” (xvii). It was a bloody coup backed by the native majority which brought a spark of hope to the nation.
Warning: Video is graphic
Sam Doe assumed the position of president, and he became the head of the People’s Redemption Council (PRC) government. While the rule of the Americo-Liberians was filled with prejudice and racial discrimination, Doe’s rule was literally bathed with blood from the day it started.
Samuel Doe on the surface looked like a righteous leader; however, behind the scenes he was an illiterate man with no political experience. Doe and his other fellow coup-makers realized the money involved in government, all holding various positions. The PRC became a government that attracted bounty hunters due to the lack of experience of the government officials. Men could easily bribe their way into contracts and take advantage of the banking laws to fuel earnings from drug trade. “By 1889 the nine-year presidency of Samuel Kanyon Doe had become a showpiece of brutality” (xvi).
In the 1980s Liberia realized they did not have as special of a relationship with the United States as they thought they did. “Little America” did receive some funding, but the United States refused to send troops to stop the conflict. Without external help, various warlords guided mini rebellions to overthrow the corrupt politicians. Charles Taylor, a Liberian native, was a leader who had an American education, yet his mother was a native of the Gola tribe of north-western Liberia. He had the intelligence, yet also had the native Liberian connections. He instrumented the overthrow of Sam Doe
Violence erupted in Liberia and the First Liberian Civil War lasted between 1989–1997. Prince Johnson, current Senator in Liberia and ally of Charles Taylor, publicly tortured and executed Sam Doe on camera in 1890. The presidential seat was vacant until the end of the war in 1997 when Charles Taylor was elected president after gruesome conflict between warlords.
Lingering conflict with a rebel group backed by the Government of Guinea led to the Second Liberian Civil War between 1999 and 2003. This war ended in Charles Taylor’s resignation, and Taylor was flown into exile. Vice president Moses Blah took over the presidency where he had little control over the country, as about 80% of the country still consisted of rebel groups. Tensions and violence still exist today but there has yet to be a third civil war fortunately.
Once again it is important to point out that the beginning of the Liberian conflict officially emerged with the attack on the Americo-Liberians. The hate towards the ancestors of the people Isaac Ross freed eventually created a slew of violence.
The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia
“The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia.” Vice, 13 June 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuSS0iiFyo.
The popular Vice documentary “The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia” that has 17 million views on Youtube shows detailed footage of current day Liberia and shows many unsightly images. The eye catching name “The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia” originates from the old warlords of Liberia during the Civil War. One in particular that our journalist, Shane Smith, follows is General Butt Naked. Not only did he get his name from running into battle naked, he also sliced open a living child before battles, ripped his heart out, and cut it into pieces to feed the other children that fought in the wars. In addition they drank the child’s blood. These rituals were believed to make them immune to bullet fire.
Following the decade and a half of civil war, Liberia fell to the fourth poorest country in the world. Today 50% of the country is illiterate, 70% of the females have been raped, 80% of all citizens are unemployed, and a large portion has tasted human flesh.
The journalist in the video was at a serious risk multiple times during the filming of the video. Cops pursued him, and in addition, multiple times the word money was mentioned and a dangerous swarm of violent people would appear from thin air.
Money is a valuable commodity in Liberia. Smith visited a brothel and learned that women prostitute themselves to feed themselves and family for 50 to 100 Liberian dollars per act. This shockingly equates to less than 1 US dollar. Following the wars people were so impoverished that 4000 people went to one cemetery, emptied out the graves, and actually lived in the graves. In an area known as West Point, because there are no toilets due to a lack of government funding, everyone goes to the bathroom on the beach. A shot of the beach showed a minefield of human poop. “Rule number 1: Don’t shit where you eat.” This is unfortunately a problem in Liberia.
The documentary interviews what appears to be a young teenager. He told the camera crew he had just raped a woman and stolen her money in order to buy some heroin and cocaine. He then proceeds to smoke the heroin on camera. It seems confusing that such expensive drugs find their way in to the Liberian community; however, most of these drugs are funneled into the country from Nigeria. In addition, South Americans trade weapons and drugs for local Liberian diamonds.
While violence, poverty, and drugs run rampant through Liberia today, a large percentage of the population attempts to follow good morals and turn to religion. As seen there is almost a church on every corner. The people have hope for a better tomorrow.
The President Speaks
Weah, George. “George Weah: Don’t Forget About Liberia.” New York Times, 22 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/george-manneh-weah-liberia.html.
George Weah, the current president of Liberia as of 2018, wrote an article about the current state of Liberia. To give insight about Weah, he grew up in a slum in Monrovia just as many other people have. He struggled. Because it has not been mentioned, Monrovia is the capital of Liberia and is named after American president James Monroe. He played soccer whenever he could and became very successful. His 18 year professional career garnished a lot of attention. He played for clubs in both Africa and Europe, and he received the award for the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1995, the first and only African to win this award.
Although he was playing for club teams in Europe during the 90s, Weah knew of the troubles and the warfare that tore the country apart. In the mid to late 90s he served as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund to work to disarm child soldiers. When he retired from the game in 2003, Weah returned home and wanted to spur change. “Liberia’s people were traumatized, the public sector virtually decimated and the infrastructure reduced to rubble.”
Leading up to his election to office where he took oath in January of 2018, Weah recognized the issues with Liberia; however, he believes things will get better. He believed “it was the nation’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power in almost 75 years.” He gives credit to his predecessor Ellen Sirleaf for the work she did. She played an integral role in the development of the nation, and Weah wishes to continue in that direction.
According to the World Bank, Liberia’s GDP per capita in 2016 was $455 compared to the United States’s $57,588. The average person’s income in Liberia is $455 per year…
Weah discusses his efforts for reform in order to support economic growth. The government does not have a lot of money to work with; however, he intends to disburse the funds he has for education and a better means to access upper level education, and he wants to establish reliable infrastructure to increase connectivity. He plans on removing unnecessary regulations and other bureaucratic hurdles to encourage growth. The goal is to make the government as transparent as possible. Corruption is a thing of the past.
In the end, George Weah asks for the continued support of international partners. “We are not asking for charity; we are looking for a chance.”
