DISCUSS THE THREATS TO THE SECURITY AND INDEPENDENCE OF LIBERlA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY?

 DISCUSS THE THREATS TO THE SECURITY AND INDEPENDENCE OF LIBERlA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY?

Approach
• Brief background about Liberia.
• Identify and explain the challenges/difficulties/problems faced by Liberia in the struggle to preserve her independence.
• Logically conclude.
Background to the question;
• Liberia as a country was a creation of slave trade abolition movements.
•It was created with the assistance of the American government through the American colonization society (ACS) for freed slaves.
•On reaching Liberia the ex -slaves devoted all their efforts to preserving their independence from hungry foreign imperialists.
However they were faced with a number of problems as shown below;
1. The foreign influence of the American Colonization Society as the caretaker of Liberia.
2. Weak economy, Liberia was a forested country, with poor soils and many non-navigable rivers; this made it difficult to create strong economies which could sustain Liberian sovereignty.
3. Disunity between the Mulatoes and the native, in later political development .e.g. the Mulatoes supported the Liberian Republic Party while the natives supported the true Whings party.
4. The existence of the Ratron-client relationship between America and Liberia. Thus America continued to influence Liberian affairs.
5. Threat from European powers like Britain and France to colonize Liberia e.g. at one time Britain annexed a Liberian territory of Sheba and Palmas island to France.
6. Unfair distribution of resources especially land, most of the fertile land, was alienated by the ACS.
7. The initial Liberian constitution had been modeled basing on the American constitution, thus it had alien traits that were bound to lead Liberia to 100her sovereignty.
8. The low population of Liberia, e.g. in forty years of its founding only 150.000 settlers had arrived in Liberia in addition to the few local natives.
9. Weak, Inefficient, poor and corrupt administration.
1O. Clonical financial constraints, e.g. there were serious financial crises in 1906 and 1912.
11. Puppet and corrupt leaders like president J .Roye who had been elected 1869 and tried to violate the constitution when he extended his term of office from two to four years. He was consequently overthrown.
12. Problem of tropical diseases like malaria and sleeping sickness which claimed people's lives in great numbers.
13. Inter strife between the freed slaves and local people, the freed slaves werealways attacked by local people like the Gebros, Kru, Tiv and Vai.
14. The collaboration of the Creoles with the British imperialists e.g. against the Temne and Mende.
I5. Debt traps set by European imperialists e.g. inl906 Britain, German andFrance had persuaded Liberia to accept loans from them and if it was for America's intervention, Liberia had fallen prey of the trap
In conclusion, like other African countries in the struggle to preserve the sovereignty Liberia had numerous threats, fortunately the Liberians managed to out maneuver them and preserve their independence.