In the 1820s, a small number of freed Black Americans settled in West Africa. They called their country Liberia, land of freedom. From the beginning, conflict with the more than 15 indigenous ethnic groups ensued, and the American-Liberians formed themselves into a new ruling class, dominating natives in the country for more than 150 years, until the nation exploded in anarchic violence. This is the story of that explosion. It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s the universal human yearning for sovereignty. It’s conflict and it’s pain. It’s all here and it’s all free on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its sociopolitical impact.

Download episode 85 here: download link

Maps and Images:

Extensive maps and images are posted to the historical atlas of Liberia located here

Music Source:

Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio /// website: karlcasey.bandcamp.com

References:

Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It by James Ciment. (2014). 

Degges, D.J. (2020). Black Skin, White Money. The Transatlantic Propaganda Campaign to Recolonize West Africa 1786-1863. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation/master’s thesis]. University of Texas at Arlington. 

Beyon, A.J. (1985). The American Colonization Society and the Formation of Political, Economic and Religious Institutions in Liberia, 1822-1900. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of West Virginia. 

Burin, E.A. (1999). The Peculiar Solution: The American Colonization Society and Antislavery Sentiment in the South, 1820-1860. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Allen, W.E. (2002). Sugar and Coffee: A History of Settler Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Liberia.  [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Florida International University. 

The Liberian Civil War by Mark Huband. (1998). 

The Mask of Anarchy by Stephen Ellis. (1999).

An African Republic by Marie Tyler-Mcgraw. (2007). University of North Carolina Press. 

Shick, T.W. (1977). The Social and Economic History of Afro-American Settlers in Liberia. 1820-1900. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Child Soldiers in Africa by Alcinda Honwana.

Akpan, M.B. (1973). Black Imperialism: Americo-Liberian Rule Over the African Peoples of Liberia, 1841-1964. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, 7(2), 217-236.

Käihkö, I. (2016). Bush Generals and Small Boy Battalions: Military Cohesion in Liberia and Beyond. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Uppsala University.

Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition and Atrocity in Africa’s Lone Star State by Colin Waugh. (2011).

Sellers, H.A. (2018). Rebel Governance in Civil War: Variations in Rebel Governance – A Case Study Analysis. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Louisiana State University. 

Scruggs, A. (2010). “The Love of Liberty Has Brought Us Here”: The American Colonization Society and the Imaging of African-American Settlers in Liberia. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Harvard University. 

Dennis, D.A. (2011). The Mississippi Colonial Experience in Liberia, 1829-1860. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Claremont Graduate University. 

Gallen, M.P. (2018). The Spirit of Enterprise: Christianity and Capitalism in the Colony and Republic of Liberia, 1816-1928. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation].Carnegie Mellon University. 

Varnie, J.N. (2004). Wealth Extraction, Not Economic Development: A Case Study on Liberia. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

Wilson, H.B. (2007). Firestone and Liberia: A Case Study in One-Sidedness. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

Somah, S.L. (1995). Historical Settlement of Liberia and its Environmental Impact. 

Ngovo, S.B. (2011). The Bandi of Northwestern Liberia: A Study of Change and Continuity in Bandi Society to 1964.  [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Western Michigan University. 

Clausewitz and African War by Isabelle Duyvesteyn. (2005). 

Reese, D.G. (2018). Liberia: America’s African Stepchild. 

Collins, T.Z. (2019). A Case Study of the Impact of Civil War on the Economic Development of Liberia. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Southern University. 

Lidow, N.H. (2011). Violent Order: Revel Organization and Liberia’s Civil War. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Stanford University. 

Murray, R.P. (2013). Whiteness in Africa: Americo-Liberians and the Transformative Geographics of Race. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Kentucky. 

Garcia, B. (2020). “We feel sadly the effects:” America’s Civil War, Colonization, and Liberia’s Struggle to Build up a Nation. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. George Mason University. 

Benda, E.M.V. (2004). The Internationalization of Civil War: Liberia as a Case Study.. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. American University.

Greenwood, R. (1993). The Presidency of William V.S. Tubman, President of Liberia 1944-1971.  [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Northern Arizona University.

Lyon, H.G. (1997). Liberia: The Quest for Democracy and the Politics of Ethnicity. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Southern Connecticut State University. 

Jones, S.S. (2016). The Sweet, Sweet Sound of Liberty: Black Settlers and Their Early Education Initiative in Liberia, 1820-1860. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Price, R.W. (1980). The Black Republic of Liberia, 1822-1912: A Ninety Year Struggle for International Acceptance. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Norris, E.P. (1961). United States and Liberia: The Slavery Crisis, 1929-1935. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Indiana University. 

Akingbade, H.O. (1977). The Role of the Military in the History of Liberia: 1822-1947.[Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Howard University. 

Walton-Hanley, J.A. (2009). Reversing the Middle Passage: The American Colonization Society and Race Relations, 1816 – 1964. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Kentucky. 

Dillon, E.C. (2007). The Role of Education in the Rise and Fall of Americo-Liberians in Liberia, West Africa (1980). [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Georgia State University. 

Sullivan, J.M. (1978). Settlers in Sinoe County, Liberia, and Their Relations with the Kru, c (sic), 1835-1920. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Boston University. 

Staudenraus, P.J. (1961). The History of the American Colonization Society. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] University of Wisconsin. 

Arnold, G. (1995). Wars in the Third World.