SECTION I. SOCIAL BACKGROUND

CHAPTER 1

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE SOCIETY

The oldest republic in Africa, Liberia was founded by freed Negro slaves sent from the United States by private colonization societies to settle along the coast during the first part of the nineteenth century. Finding themselves in an anomalous political position because they were in no legal sense a colony of the United States, the settlers asserted sovereignty as an independent country in 1847. The republic led an isolated, impoverished and often precarious existence until well into the twentieth century, but after World War II, United States aid in building a modern seaport at Monrovia and an international airdrome brought the country into closer contact with the outside world. Thereafter, foreign investment set in motion rapid economic growth. By 1964, Liberia had entered the world market as a leading African producer of iron ore; new enterprises and towns were springing up; and national development along modern lines was reaching into the hitherto remote and primitive tribal interior.

The government is republican in form, headed by a president and patterned on that of the United States. Constitutionally separated into executive, legislative and judicial branches, it is a centralized rather than a federal type of government for local purposes. The counties into which the country is divided are administered and provided services by the central government. The local officials are appointed by and responsible to the president.

Citizenship is restricted to Negroes or persons of Negro descent. The government is composed of members of the True Whig Party, which has remained continuously in power without significant opposition for well over half a century. In January 1964, President William V. S. Tubman was sworn in for a new 4-year term after having held office without interruption since 1944.

Liberia lies a few degrees north of the equator at the southwest corner of the great western bulge of Africa. Its coastline extends about 350 miles along the Atlantic Ocean between Sierra Leone on the northwest and the Ivory Coast on the southeast. Inland the land ascends the seaward slopes of the Guinea Highlands to an irregular border with Guinea on the north. Its land area of about 43,000 square

miles (roughly the size of Tennessee) has extensive stretches of tropical rain forest. The climate is warm and humid with a seasonal rainfall pattern that provides ample moisture for all sorts of crops. Legal time is Greenwich Mean Time minus 45 minutes (see fig. 1).

Monrovia, on a promontory near the mouth of the Saint Paul River, is the country's capital, site of the principal seaport and the hub of a growing metropolitan area that housed over 80,000 people in 1964. The city is the focal point of a system of trunk roads which was being expanded in the early 1960's and beginning to reach most important parts of the interior. Terminus of newly built rail lines serving the mines in the northwest part of the country, Monrovia is served by the Robertsfield international airport about 50 miles to the east.

Other towns of fair size and importance are the seaports of Buchanan, terminus of a railroad connecting with the Mount Nimba mine about 165 miles to the northeast, Harper, Greenville, a number of administrative and road centers in the interior and new settlements near the iron mines. Except in these places, the greater part of the people lived in scattered, small villages in the early 1960's and like their ancestors gained a livelihood from the land. Expansion of the road system and establishment of new enterprises in undeveloped areas, however, were inducing growth of new communities and a redistribution of the population.

Practically all of the approximately 1 million inhabitants are of the Negro race, but for cultural and political reasons they have customarily been considered as forming two distinct groups. Some 25,000 (estimates vary rather widely) are the descendants of the settlers from overseas. Referred to as Americo-Liberians, they have historically been the leaders in government and business, are concentrated along the coast and share a culture that springs essentially from the United States. The rest of the population is made up of the tribal peoples, who are divided into 16 major ethnic groups, each of which has its own customs and dialect. No one tribal group predominates, and it is probable that the Kpelle, who are believed to be the largest, comprise no more than 10 percent of the total population. About 20,000 aliens from Lebanon, the United States, Europe and other African countries were registered in Liberia in 1963.

In 1964, because of the government's program to unify all the people and the impact of modern development, the old distinction between the Americo-Liberians and the tribal peoples was officially frowned upon as a divisive concept and was, in fact, becoming less valid. Between the two groups was a growing element, perhaps as large as several hundred thousand, whose values and ways of living were mixing and changing to form an amalgamation approaching the national in character. Nevertheless, a wide gap existed between most of the small, urbanized elite and the more primitive tribal people who

still clung to the traditional life of their forefathers. This situation hindered the emergence of a cohesive sense of nationalism and was a possible source of social unrest, if not of conflict.

The settlers who founded the republic were Christians representing Protestant denominations in the United States. The preamble to the Constitution they adopted specifically acknowledges "the blessings of the Christian religion," but there are also constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, and Liberia is essentially a secular state, tolerant of all faiths. Among the political and social elite, membership in a Christian, especially a Protestant, church is the accepted norm, and some of the higher government officials in 1964 were very active in church affairs. Christian missionaries have been working in the country for over a century, and Moslem influence was felt before the settlers arrived, but neither Christians nor Moslems had much success among the tribal peoples until well into the present century. In 1964, well over half the population adhered to local tribal religions and of the remainder there were probably more Moslems than Christians.

The educational system is patterned after that of the United States, and English is the language of instruction. Until after World War II, private and Christian missionary interests, mainly from the United States, operated or supported most of the limited educational facilities available in the country. In the last decade or so, increasing domestic revenue and foreign aid have permitted the government to assume the largest share of the burden in an effort to raise the general educational level of the people.

Between 1950 and 1963 the educational system had a threefold expansion in terms of the number of schools, students and teachers. In 1963 the government's education budget was 10 times higher than in 1950. Despite these advances, 85 to 90 percent of the population was estimated to be illiterate in the early 1960's, and much remained to be done to develop an adequate staff of teachers and administrators, make facilities available throughout the country and increase popular interest in modern education, especially among the tribal peoples.

In 1964 the economy was based almost entirely on subsistence agriculture and on the production of iron ore and crude rubber for export. In relation to the world economy the country was a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of manufactured goods. Economic growth had been rapid since World War II, but because of its recency less than a quarter of the population had entered wholly into the money economy. However, significant improvement in the country's infrastructure-transportation, power, utilities, schools and other public works-was in progress, offering long-term prospects of developing a more closely integrated, solid economic structure.

The government is committed to free enterprise with only the essential minimum of regulation and control. Foreign exchange