Liberia means the land of the free as it was formed by freed slaves from the United States and is Africa’s oldest republic, founded in 1822.
Essentially, it is the United States of America that created this nation. The American Colonisation Society (founded in 1816) assisted in the ‘repatriation’ of former American slaves. A colony was established in what became Liberia and former slaves were sent there, regardless of where their roots actually lay.
The society contended that the emigration of blacks to Africa was an answer to the problem of slavery and the incompatibility of the races. Over the course of forty years, about 12,000 slaves were voluntarily relocated.
Originally called Monrovia, the colony became the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia in 1847.
Though Liberia was Africa’s first republic, it became known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil war which left around 250,000 dead and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Liberia is mostly inhabited by indigenous Africans although it was founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, with the slaves’ descendants comprising 5% of the population.
Liberia was under control and as protectorate of United States. It retained its independence throughout the Scramble for Africa by European colonial powers during the late 19th century, and the country remained in the American sphere of influence.
Up until 1980, Liberia was dominated by the small minority of descendants of the free black colonists, known collectively as Americo-Liberians. Little economic development occurred. From the 1920s, the country became dependent on exploitation of natural resources, particularly the rubber industry and the Firestone Company.
The government of Africa’s first republic was modeled after that of the United States, and Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Virginia was elected the first president. Ironically, Liberia’s constitution denied indigenous Liberians equal to the lighter-skinned American immigrants and their descendants.
After 1920, considerable progress was made toward opening up the interior of the country, a process that facilitated by the 1951 establishment of a 43-mile (69-km) railroad to the Bomi Hills from Monrovia. In July 1971, while serving his sixth term as president, William V. S. Tubman died following surgery and was succeeded by his longtime associate, Vice President William R. Tolbert, Jr.
Tolbert was ousted in a military coup on April 12, 1980, by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe, backed by the U.S. government. Doe’s rule was characterized by corruption and brutality. A rebellion led by Charles Taylor, a former Doe aide, and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), started in Dec. 1989; the following year, Doe was assassinated.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) negotiated with the government and the rebel factions and attempted to restore order, but the civil war raged on. By April 1996, factional fighting by the country’s warlords had destroyed any last vestige of normalcy and civil society. The civil war finally ended in 1997.
In what was considered by international observers to be a free election, Charles Taylor won 75% of the presidential vote in July 1997.
The country had next to no health care system, and the capital was without electricity and running water. Taylor supported Sierra Leone’s brutal Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in the hopes of toppling his neighbor’s government and in exchange for diamonds, which enriched his personal coffers.
As a consequence, the UN issued sanctions against Liberia.Taylor also drew the enmity of the British and Americans.
In 2002, rebels—Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)—intensified their attacks on Taylor’s government. By June 2003, LURD and other rebel groups controlled two-thirds of the country.
The same year the women in Liberia were tired of seeing their country torn apart. Organized by social worker Leymah Gbowee, women started gathering and praying in a fish market to protest the violence.
They organized the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), and issued a statement of intent: “In the past we were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, and watching our children and families destroyed, war has taught us that the future lies in saying NO to violence and YES to peace! We will not relent until peace prevails.”
Their actions brought about an agreement during the stalled peace talks. As a result, the women were able to achieve peace in Liberia after a 14-year civil war and later helped bring to power the country’s first female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Taylor stepped down on August 11, 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria. By the time he was exiled, Taylor had bankrupted his own country, siphoning off $100 million and leaving Liberia the world’s poorest nation. Gyude Bryant, a businessman seen as a coalition builder, was selected by the various factions as the new president.
In a November 2005 presidential runoff election, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who had worked at the World Bank, defeated George Weah, a former world-class soccer star. In January 2006 she became Africa’s first female president.
