The Lasting Legacy of American Colonization in Africa

“Break ’em off a lil’ democracy. Turn their whole culture [in]to a mockery.”

– Chicago-born, Atlantic Records recording artist Lupe Fiasco in the song “American Terrorist”[1]

Introduction

The exportation of American democracy and culture to other regions of the world has a long and undistinguished history. From the American exertion of control over Puerto Rico and Hawaii in the late 1800s — to the more modern attempts at spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan — it’s inarguable that the exportation of American “values” has divested native peoples of the rights to their ancestral lands and self-determination and, simultaneously, tainted the notion of American exceptionalism.

An example of this phenomenon can be found in our fiftieth state: Hawaii. In Hawaii, American imperialism resulted in the capture of vast tracts of land in Hawaii, only to have the American government offer to “lease” the land back to native Hawaiians.[2] The catch with the Hawaiian “lease” program, though, is that the leased land can only be passed along from one generation to the next if the succeeding generation is at least twenty-five percent native Hawaiian.[3] This means that any family wealth built through ownership of homes on leased property will be forfeited to the U.S. government if successors do not meet an American government-sanctioned blood-purity standard. That’s shocking to say the least. A more modern example of the use of American imperialism to deprive native peoples is Iraq. Though the United States has moved on from “land grabs,” American imperialism is still divesting native populations of the rights to control their own destinies. At this point, it’s nearly undeniable to say that the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not at least motivated by a desire to exercise control over Iraqi oil assets.[4] American companies (usually as subcontractors) now dominate the landscape of the Iraqi oil industry; from drilling existing wells to building new wells to repairing old equipment, Americans run the show.[5] Considering Iraq has undiscovered oil reserves that may match those of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer, the American domination of the Iraqi oil industry has the potential to create quite a windfall for the United States.[6]

Long before the American foray into Iraq, and even long before the American intervention in Hawaiian society, the United States was in the business of exporting the American way of life to foreign lands. Sixty years prior to the “Scramble for Africa,”[7] in which major European powers partitioned the African continent for exploitation without regard for African self-determination or pre-existing cultural and tribal boundaries,[8] the United States had already sponsored its own colony in Africa: Liberia.

Many people superficially know that Liberia was founded by freed American slaves but know little about the back story surrounding the arrival of these Americans in Africa or the society that they built for themselves thereafter. The “feel good” story of former slaves starting new lives for themselves on their native continent is, in fact, a nightmare. In this short essay, I argue that this initial exportation of the “American way” to a foreign land was one of the most debased of any of America’s imperial efforts. Not only did the United States deprive native Liberians from the full use of their land and natural resources (as they later would in both Hawaii and Iraq), the United States also exported agents empowered by the notion of American exceptionalism. Instead of actively running Liberia as a colony, the United States took a hands-off approach,[9] ostensibly empowering the former slaves to exercise dominion over the native Liberians in the American tradition (of a race-based hierarchical society) while maintaining de facto superiority over the former slaves.

Essentially, the United States was more than willing to let the former slaves think that they had power when they were simply being setup as middle-men to assist the United States in divesting Liberia of its natural wealth.[10] This colonial system setup not only divested native people of the rights to their land and to self-determination, but it also created a class of people, the Americo-Liberians, who demeaned others while they were being debased themselves. This legacy persisted in Liberia for over 130 years, and the effects of this unhuman system continue to be felt today. In the words of Lupe Fiasco, not only did the American exportation of democracy make a mockery of the culture of the native Liberians, it also made a mockery of the Americo-Liberians — reducing them from admirable refugees looking to start a new life to contemptable puppets of America’s imperial aspirations.

The lessons of Liberia’s history serve as a stark reminder that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Liberia story is a textbook example of Paulo Freire’s notions of how oppressed peoples, when given a taste of power, often stumble on their path to true freedom by becoming oppressors themselves. Unfortunately, in Liberia’s case, the oppressed peoples who “founded” Liberia, “stumbled” on their path to true freedom for over 100 years, causing the subjugation of the country’s native population and accruing extravagant wealth for themselves. In many ways, the Liberia story recounted below, is a story of human nature — a story that, even today, should give us pause as we endeavor as a society to become a fairer, more equitable people.

The Liberia Saga

Despite the American Colonization Society’s dubious and disparate motivations[11] for repatriating blacks to Africa, a return to Africa nominally represented an opportunity to start over in a land free from the taint of chattel slavery. The ACS-sponsored group of black Americans left the United States on the “Elizabeth” and arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone,[12] in 1820.[13] These settlers, the freed blacks from America and their ACS patrons, searched for suitable places for their settlement for nearly two years[14] before settling in what is modern day Liberia.

Many African kings were unwilling to allow the settlers on their land, fearing that, once established, the American settlers, black and white, would be hard to control.[15] The very beginning of the settlement in Liberia was an example of this fear — and of the air of superiority that surrounded the settlers, both black and white. The location of modern day Monrovia, Liberia, was ruled by a leader known as King Zolu Duma — better known as “King Peter.”[16] In negotiations with King Peter to buy land for the settlement, American ACS emissary and naval officer Lieutenant Robert Stockton held a gun to King Peter’s head, demanding that King Peter sell land to the American settlers or else face death.[17] After capitulating,[18] Stockton and the black settlers moved inland, founded Monrovia, and fought fiercely to defend their settlement from attack by natives unhappy with King Peter’s decision to sell the property.[19] Settlers killed over 100 natives in one attack and moved to consolidate their power over the region. The date of the attack repelled by the “Americo-Liberians” became a national holiday in Liberia — much to the chagrin of the native peoples who were killed by the settlers on that day.[20]

The black American exodus to Liberia continued in the 1820s and 1830s. It is estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 black Americans fled the United States and settled in Liberia.[21]

Much like European settlers elsewhere in Africa, the colonists saw themselves as bringing civilization, Christianity, and commerce to the unenlightened Africans. This conviction of cultural superiority — and a constant acquisition of land — led to continual friction and warfare between the Americo-Liberians and the indigenous groups. The blacks from America who went to Liberia took with them the worst lessons of the antebellum South . . . . They treated the Africans they met there the way the slaveholders in the American South treated them.[22]

Liberia eventually dissociated itself from the ACS’s control and declared its independence from the United States in 1847.[23] The Americo-Liberians dominated Liberia’s social and political life for the next 133 years.[24]

Caught between two very different cultures, the Americo-Liberians didn’t belong anywhere. With no genuine place or roots on either continent, they were outsiders in American and Liberia. The “African” had been taken out of them in slavery. . . . They never fulfilled their glorious goal to redeem Africa because they came to reform and reinvent it, not to become a part of it. The white Americans they couldn’t be . . . . [and s]ince they couldn’t be racially white, being culturally white was the next best thing. They were “Americans” seeking the liberties and opportunities denied them in their “homeland.”[25]

In the early years of Liberia’s history, Americo-Liberians largely ignored the people of inland Liberia away from the capital in Monrovia. Indigenous people were not granted Liberian citizenship until 1904 — fifty-seven years after independence.[26] The grant of citizenship, though, did little to improve the standing of indigenous Liberians or to loosen the grip of the Americo-Liberians on power. Americo-Liberians limited membership in the ruling party was limited to those who could prove American ancestry.[27]

The elite were descendants of Southern Free Negroes with some small means and education. . . . The leading families in Monrovia . . . . set the standard for Americo-Liberian society. They consolidated and retained power through intermarriage. They maintained their status by social exclusivity . . . . [t]hey controlled everything through family alliances. . . . Status was based on family ties and “who you knew.”[28]

The arrival of foreign investment in Liberia, beginning in the 1920s with the opening of a Firestone rubber plant, and expanding after World War II brought wealth to its ruling elite.[29] At the same time, the indigenous Liberians were frozen out of Liberia’s newfound economic windfall.[30] This economic disparity, along with the systematic exclusion of indigenous Liberians from advancement in Liberian society, led to the military coup that ended Americo-Liberian domination and ushered in years of instability and economic downturn that Liberia is still recovering from today.

The Psychology of American Colonization in Liberia

A s mentioned in the introduction, Liberia is a classic example of the oppressed becoming oppressors. It’d be easy to lay the fate of Liberia solely at the feet of its historical ruling class, the Americo-Liberians, but I think story goes deeper than that. In my opinion, I think that the Americo-Liberians became oppressors because they had been so degraded by the experience of slavery. Having been taken from their homes, transported to America under unspeakable conditions, and subjected to indignity and abuse at the hands of American colonial settlers, these Americo-Liberians were indoctrinated in the ways of a perverse and immoral society. According to Paulo Freire, for these oppressed Americo-Liberians, “[t]he very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity.”[31]

Sadly, I argue that the Americo-Liberians were not truly free. Upon taking control in Liberia, the black American settlers became oppressors “because of their identification with the[ir] oppressors” — they did not aspire to true liberation, but merely to identification with the opposite pole of their former state as oppressed people.[32] The United States led Americo-Liberians to feel special and separate from the indigenous people of Liberia, and these differences were critical to what transpired in Liberia from its founding until the military coup of 1980. The Americo-Liberians had different social traditions, a different religion, and a “civilized” way of life that was starkly different from that of the indigenous people of Liberia. The “elite” class used these divisions to subjugate native Liberians for over 100 years. I assert that, over time and with the consolidation of power, the Americo-Liberians lost sight of themselves as oppressed people. Even with independence, the Americo-Liberians were never truly free as people. In many ways, they remained under the thumb of American imperialism.

Americans . . . built infrastructure in Liberia related to business or defense interests. It was America’s need for a guaranteed source or rubber during wartime that brought Firestone to Liberia. It was the need for a military base during World War II that brought Robertsfield Airport . . . in Monrovia. . . . Since the Americo-Liberians were always in desperate need of revenue, it was easy for America and other foreigners to exploit Liberia. The Americo-Liberians essentially derived their livelihood from serving as business middlemen between foreigners and natives [.] Foreigners easily manipulated the Americo-Liberians by catering to them and flattering them with empty praise.[33]

The Americo-Liberians had no pedagogy to free themselves. Instead, they unwittingly became the tools of their true oppressors, the United States. The United States was happy to standby as the Americo-Liberians denied freedom to the native Liberians, because, in the words of Freire, it was in the interest of the United States to “continue in a state of submersion, impotent in the face of oppressive reality.”[34]

Lessons Learned from the American Colonization of Africa

After Samuel Doe’s coup in 1980 ended Americo-Liberian control over the country, sectarian violence plagued the country during two civil wars. Forces led by Americo-Liberian (and infamous war criminal) Charles Taylor fought to regain control from the native Liberian controlled government now led by Samuel Doe.[35] Taylor eventually gained control over the country, but the fighting in Liberia did not end until 2003 with his removal from power.[36] More than a decade removed from the end of the hostilities, Liberia is struggling to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and provide essential services.[37] This internal strife, and the hardship left in its wake, is directly attributable to Liberia’s colonial history. The creation and encouragement of the division between Americo-Liberians and native Liberians has caused damage that is impossible to accurately capture; American colonialism degraded Liberia’s soul.

In retrospect, it is easy to judge American colonialism in Africa harshly. It is equally easy to stand back and judge the Americo-Liberians harshly as well. In many ways, both deserve the extremely harsh treatment they receive. Regarding the Americo-Liberians, though, it is also important to remember that oppressed peoples frequently stumble into becoming oppressors themselves. They never become free because they lack the tools necessary to see themselves as free people outside of the context of their relationship with their oppressors. Honestly, if anyone should have not become oppressors, it should have been the Americo-Liberians! Only a matter of years had lapsed between when these people left the United States and when they started down the road of oppression of another people. This goes to show the fickle nature of human beings, and especially oppressed people. Anxious to rise above their previous lot in life, oppressed people frequently turn into oppressors.

Take, for instance, the downtrodden factory worker that becomes a tyrannical supervisor when given the chance. Or, perhaps, the successful minority judge or academic who then chastises his fellow minority citizen to “stop being lazy and work harder” and implores them “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Humans, when given a whiff of power or success, will invariably lord that power over their fellow man in the pursuit of more power or success. The Liberia saga is a reminder for downtrodden people everywhere to not let power corrupt them when they acquire it. Oppressed people, when breaking out of their oppression, must not stop in their quest for freedom when their situation becomes comfortable. They must continue to reach down and pull up their fellow man out of the degraded state from which they just escaped. This is the only way to achieve true freedom and to break the bonds of oppression — unfortunately, this did not happen in the Liberian experiment, and it forever changed the course of that country.

[1] Lupe Fiasco, American Terrorist, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Y_rJhjCLM.

[2] Brittany Lyte, Native Soil, The Atlantic (Sept. 25, 2016), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/native-soil/501419/.

[3] Id.

[4] Antonia Juhasz, Why the War in Iraq was Fought for Big Oil, CNN (Apr. 15, 2003), https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html.

[5] Andrew E. Kramer, In Rebuilding Iraq’s Oil Industry, U.S. Contractors Hold Sway, N.Y. Times (Jun. 16, 2011), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/business/energy-environment/17oil.html.

[6] Gal Luft, How Much Oil Does Iraq Have?, Brookings Institute (May 12, 2003), https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-much-oil-does-iraq-have/.

[7] The Scramble for Africa, The Economist (Dec. 23, 1999), https://www.economist.com/node/347120.

[8] Saul David, Slavery and the Scramble for Africa, BBC (Feb. 17, 2011), http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/scramble_for_africa_article_01.shtml.

[9] Judson M. Lyon, Informal Imperialism: The United States in Liberia, 5 Diplomatic History 221, 223–224 (1981).

[10] Id. at 243.

[11] Stefan Lovgren, History Haunts War-Torn Liberia, National Geographic News (Jul. 21, 2003), https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0721_030721_liberia.html.

[12] Interestingly, Freetown was initially founded as a British colony for the black poor of London in 1787 (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/poor.htm). Blacks from the Americas arrived in Freetown in 1792. These blacks, known as the “Nova Scotians” or “Black loyalists” (blacks in America who supported Britain in the Revolutionary War and who had subsequently moved after the war to Birchtown, Nova Scotia, Canada), helped setup Freetown after accepting an offer from the British government to repatriate to Africa (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/08/world/birchtown-journal-for-nova-scotia-blacks-veil-is-ripped-from-past.html).

[13] Helene Cooper, In Search of a Lost Africa, N.Y. Times (Apr. 6, 2008), http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06Liberian-t.html.

[14] Id.

[15] See Cooper, supra n. 13.

[16] Zolu Duma, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolu_Duma.

[17] Craig Hollander, Navigating Slavery: Robert Stockton and the Limits of Antislavery Thought, Princeton & Slavery, https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/navigating-slavery.

[18] King Peter, and surrounding chiefs, agreed to sell to Stockton and the ACS for the equivalent of $300. See Cooper, supra n. 13.

[19] Id. (These natives disagreed with the King’s notion that the settlement should not be attacked, because its inhabitants were Africans with a right to live on the African continent. The natives who attacked the settlement disagreed, arguing that if the settlers wanted to live in Africa, they should be content with subjecting themselves to African rulers).

[20] Id.

[21] Former American Slaves Played an Oppressive Role in Liberia’s Past, The Grio, Feb. 1, 2010 (https://thegrio.com/2010/02/01/former-american-slaves-played-oppressive-role-in-liberias-past/).

[22] Lovgren, supra n. 11.

[23] Id.

[24] A military coup led by native Liberians in 1980 ended Americo-Liberian rule. Native troops, led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, entered the home of the President, William Tolbert (a descendent of black American immigrants hailing from Charleston, SC, my hometown), and bayoneted him, gouged out his eyes, and disemboweled him. See Cooper, supra n. 13; see also Jesse N. Mongrue, Liberia: America’s Footprint in Africa: Making the Cultural, Social, and Political Connections 31 (2011).

[25] Benjamin G. Dennis and Anita K. Dennis, Slaves to Racism: An Unbroken Chain from America to Liberia 11 (2008).

[26] Settlement of Liberia and Americo-Liberian Rule, Peacebuildingdata.org, http://www.peacebuildingdata.org/research/liberia/about-liberia/americo-liberian-rule.

[27] Id.

[28] Dennis, supra n. 25 at 13.

[29] See Settlement of Liberia and Americo-Liberian Rule, supra n. 16.

[30] See Mongrue, supra n. 24 at 33.

[31] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition 45 (2005).

[32] Id. at 46.

[33] Dennis, supra n. 25 at 16.

[34] Freire, supra n. 31 at 52.

[35] Kenneth B. Noble, Negotiations to End Liberian War End in Failure, N.Y. Times (Aug. 23, 1990), https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/23/world/negotiations-to-settle-liberian-war-end-in-failure.html.

[36] Karl Vick, Liberia’s President Agrees to Leave, Washington Post (July 7, 2003), https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/07/07/liberias-president-agrees-to-leave/32dd5857-7ce9-4be1-bed8-f386a51dcc69/?utm_term=.903574961b33.

[37] Helene Cooper, Living in Darkness, but Holding onto Hope in Liberia, N.Y. Times (Feb. 14, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/africa/living-in-darkness-but-holding-on-to-hope-in-liberia.html.