JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

History is past Politics and Politics present History—Freeman

NINTH SERIES

X

HISTORY OF LIBERIA

BY J.H.T. McPHERSON, Ph.D.

Fellow in History, Johns Hopkins University, 1889; Instructor inHistory, University of Michigan, 1890; Professor of History andPolitics, University of Georgia, 1891.

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1891

CONTENTS.

  I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE COLONIZATION IDEA
III. THE COLONIZATION MOVEMENT
IV. MARYLAND IN LIBERIA
  V. THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA
VI. THE HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE OF COLONIZATION
      1. As a Southern Movement toward Emancipation
      2. As a Check to the Slave Trade
      3. As a Step toward the Civilization of Africa
      4. As a Missionary Effort
      5. As a Refuge to the Negro from the Pressure of Increasing
         Competition in America
AUTHORITIES

PREFATORY NOTE.

This paper claims to be scarcely more than a brief sketch. It is anabridgment of a History of Liberia in much greater detail, presented asa dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the JohnsHopkins University. I have devoted the leisure hours of several years tothe accumulation of materials, which I hope will prove the basis of alarger work in the future.

J.H.T. McP.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, June, 1891.

HISTORY OF LIBERIA.

I.

INTRODUCTION.

There are but few more interesting spots in Africa than the littlecorner of the west coast occupied by the Republic of Liberia. It hasbeen the scene of a series of experiments absolutely unique inhistory—experiments from which we are to derive the knowledge uponwhich we must rely in the solution of the weighty problems connectedwith the development of a dark continent, and with the civilization ofhundreds of millions of the human race. Many questions have arisen whichhave not been settled to our complete satisfaction. Is the Negro capableof receiving and maintaining a superimposed civilization? Froudedeclares that "the worst enemies of the blacks are those who persist inpressing upon them an equality which nature has denied them. They mayattain it in time if they are fairly treated, but they can attain itonly on condition of going through the discipline and experience ofhundreds of years, through which the white race had to pass before itwas fit for political rights. If they are raised to a position for whichthey are unqualified, they can only fall back into a state ofsavagery."[1] Upon the truth or error of this view how much depends! Itis shared by many; some even believe that the condition of Liberia tendsto confirm it, thinking they discern signs of incipient decay. But thegreat preponderance of opinion is on the other side. The weight ofevidence shows the colonists have at the lowest estimate retained thecivilization they took with them. Many maintain that there has been asensible advance. A recent traveller describes them as "in mancherHinsicht schon hypercultivirt."

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