Americo-Liberian people (also known as Congo people or Congau people)Cooper, Helene, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood (United States: Simon and Schuster, 2008), p. 6 are a Liberian ethnic group of African American, Afro-Caribbean, and liberated African origin. Americo-Liberians trace their ancestry to free people of color and emancipated African Americans and West Indians who emigrated in the 19th century to become the founders of the state of Liberia. They identified themselves as Americo-Liberians.Liberia: History, Geography, Government, and Culture, Infoplease.com
Although the terms "Americo-Liberian" and "Congo" had distinct definitions in the nineteenth century, the title Congo is more diverse encompassing the descendants of the various free-born and formerly enslaved African American, West Indian, recaptive, and Sierra Leone Creoles who settled in Liberia from 1822.
The designation "Congo" for the Americo-Liberian, though originally an insult, came into common usage much later, even becoming the preferred term for most.Liberians integrated Africans liberated from slave ships who were called Congos because the slave ships entered the Atlantic from the mouth of the Congo River. Under Americo-Liberian leadership, the country was relatively stable, though the Americo-Liberians and indigenous West Africans maintained largely separate existences and seldom intermarried.
Though indigenous chiefs and royalty could gain representation in government which favored Indirect rule similar to practices and policies throughout colonial Africa, Americo-Liberians led the political, social, cultural, and economic sectors of the country and ruled until 1980 as a small but dominant minority. However, President William Tubman challenged the status quo and championed the cause of indigenous groups in the interior against the established oligarchy.
History and settlement
Americo-Liberians were descended from African American and Afro-Caribbean settlers, many of whom were freed slaves and their descendants who emigrated to Liberia with assistance from the American Colonization Society (ACS). The first black American settlers arrived in Liberia in 1822. The ACS's plan of encouraging black American migration to Africa was met with mixed responses at the time. Some members of the abolitionist movement, such as Gerrit Smith, opposed the idea, arguing that African-American families had lived in the United States for generations, and their prevailing sentiment was that they were no more sub-Saharan African than they perceived White Americans to be European. Other historians have argued that white Americans encouraged the emigration of people of color to Africa due to their opposition to integration. Additionally, some slave owners manumitted some of their slaves on the condition of emigration. However, other African Americans believed they would face better economic opportunities in Africa and be free from racial prejudice, a sentiment that was endorsed by the Back-to-Africa movement. As black American emigration to Liberia continued steadily into the mid to late nineteenth century, the movement gained support from an assortment of influential figures, including UNIA president Marcus Garvey, who would go on to become president of the Black Star Line which encouraged emigration and economic shipping commerce between the United States and Liberia.
The early African-American settlers who arrived in the region that was established as Liberia between 1820 and 1843 were mainly free blacks from Virginia, South Carolina, and Maryland, while smaller numbers came from northern states such as New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Subsequent movements also included emigrants from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida.
The Liberian exodus saw mass emigration of African Americans from South Carolina to Liberia. Congressman Richard H. Cain called for a million men to leave the injustices they suffered in the United States and leave for Africa. In 1877, the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company was formed in Charleston, South Carolina with a fund of $6,000 (~$ in ) to assist the emigration of black Americans to Africa. The company then purchased a bark called the Azor, which arrived in Charleston in March 1878 to start shipping African American migrants to Liberia. Enthusiasm for the Liberian exodus had been fed partly by exaggerated reports of Liberia's fertility, including claims that potatoes grew so large that a single one could feed a family for a day, and that certain trees produced bacon. However, 23 of the two hundred emigrants died during the journey and upon arrival, the passengers discovered that these claims were not true and many found themselves impoverished. Those who could afford it returned to the U.S. in 1879 and plans for a second voyage by the Liberian Exodus Company were scrapped. However, passengers from the Azor who stayed did find success and established themselves as some of the most prominent Americo-Liberians, including farmer and agricultural businessman Saul Hill, Liberian Senator Reverend David Frazier and Daniel Frank Tolbert, the latter of whom was the grandfather of future Liberian president William Tolbert.
The United States Navy was responsible for the capture of illegal slave vessels seeking to transport enslaved Africans to the Americas following the American abolition of the slave trade in 1808. These rescued Africans, dubbed Liberated Africans or Recaptives, were designated as 'Congoes' as many of them were from the Congo Basin (also the slave ships' point of departure), although the term encompassed others who were from modern-day Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ghana.
Over the course on the 19th century, roughly 20,000 settlers arrived in Liberia, comprising ~14,000 African-Americans and ~5,700 Recaptives. Of the 14,000 African American settlers, nearly half died of malaria in the 10 years after their arrival.
Although the number of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Liberia was relatively small in comparison to colonial Sierra Leone, at least 300 Afro-Barbadians settled in Liberia in 1865 and smaller numbers of Afro-Caribbean immigrants settled in Liberia between 1865 and 1930 from Caribbean islands such as Trinidad, Jamaica, and Grenada.
The early African American settlers did not relate well to the native African inhabitants they first encountered in Liberia due to cultural differences and soon began to establish a social and economic elite in the country. According to the website BlackPast, "They retained preferences for Western style of dress, Southern plantation-style homes, American food, Protestantism, the English language, and monogamous kinship practices." Demographically, the Americo-Liberians tended to concentrate in larger cities and towns while native Africans remained in more poorly developed areas before the two groups started to intermingle in the twentieth century.
Development of society The settler community developed an Americo-Liberian society, culture, and political organization that was strongly influenced by their roots in the American South as well as the Anglophone Caribbean.
Americo-Liberians were credited for Liberia's largest and longest economic expansion in the early to late twentieth century, especially William V. S. Tubman, who did much to promote foreign investment and to bridge the economic, social, and political gaps between the descendants of the original settlers and the inhabitants of the interior. Most of the powerful Americo-Liberian families fled to the United States in the 1980s after the last True Whig Party president, William Tolbert, was assassinated in a military coup.
Although Liberianist scholars have neglected internal stratifications such as class and geography among the Americo-Liberian society, regional and local socio-economic differences among the Americo-Liberians resulted in slight cultural differences between rural 'upriver' Americo-Liberians such as those based in Clay-Ashland and city-based Americo-Liberians, particularly those based in Monrovia who were sometimes referred to 'Monrovia Americo-Liberians.' Americo-Liberians based in Monrovia were portrayed as more urbane than their rural counterparts and were perceived by some Americo-Liberians as wielding too great an influence on national political affairs.
Settlements The Americo-Liberians settled in Monrovia, Careysburg, Clay-Ashland, Buchanan, Maryland, Mississippi-in-Africa, Cape Mount, Greenville, and in a number of small towns along the St. Paul River. Notably, the families originally from Barbados, which included the Barclays, Morgans, Bests, Thorpes, Weeks, and Portemans, settled in Crozierville.
The original "Congo people" were settled in New Georgia.Swanson:177-79 In 1821, the ship Elizabeth from New York landed on Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone with 86 freed African Americans, who were later resettled in Monrovia.Harris, Sheldon H. Paul Cuffee: Black America and the African Return. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.
Political influence in Liberia
Upper-class Americo-Liberians played a leading role in Liberian national politics from the country's founding. Upon the Liberian Declaration of Independence in 1847, Americo-Liberians controlled much of Liberia's political and social institutions. Political and educational institutions were inspired by United States framework. They established a government system with a constitutional republic and three branches of government (legislative, judicial, executive).The Republic of Liberia Constitution
From 1878 to 1980, the Republic of Liberia was a de facto one-party state, ruled by the True Whig Party (TWP) and the Masonic Order of Liberia, which were dominated by Americo-Liberians but later included a minority of Indigenous Liberians, most of whom had been adopted and assimilated into Americo-Liberian families. Liberia was initially dominated by two political parties that were supported by Americo-Liberians, the Republican Party and the TWP.
After TWP candidate Anthony W. Gardner was elected president in 1878, the TWP went on to govern Liberia for over a century, cementing Americo-Liberian political dominance. While opposition parties were never made illegal and Liberia was not classed as a dictatorship, the TWP more or less ran the country as a one party state and held a monopoly on Liberian politics. Liberian presidents from that date onwards were Americo-Liberian with Charles D. B. King being the first and only president of partial Sierre Leone Creole heritage."Liberia Country Study: The True Whig Ascendancy" Global Security
Elected as president in 1944, Americo-Liberian William Tubman was widely regarded as the father of modern Liberia. The Tubman administration embarked on a mass modernization program, including improving literacy among the population, agricultural development, updating the nation's infrastructure, courting close relationships with the United States, and attracting foreign investment to stimulate the economy.Rapport de l'Unesco sur l'alphabétisation (1965-1967) p.28 www.unesdoc.unesco.org.(french) Retrieved November 20, 2013."Literacy, 1965-1967", United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1968, p. 28 During his presidency, Liberia usually supported U.S. interests in foreign affairs including cutting off critical ties with Germany to side with the Allied powers and voting with the U.S. at the United Nations on Cold War matters. In return, Tubman secured $280 million in aid from the U.S., the greatest amount to any African country (per capita) at the time.