Note (return) — Chapter IX

In the very early years of the colony the raids of slave-traders gave some excuse for the first aggression on the part of a European power. "Driven from the Pongo Regions northwest of Sierra Leone, Pedro Blanco settled in the Gallinhas territory northwest of the Liberian frontier, and established elaborate headquarters for his mammoth slave-trading operations in West Africa, with slave-trading sub-stations at Cape Mount, St. Paul River, Bassa, and at other points of the Liberian coast, employing numerous police, watchers, spies, and servants. To obtain jurisdiction the colony of Liberia began to purchase from the lords of the soil as early as 1824 the lands of the St. Paul Basin and the Grain Coast from the Mafa River on the west to the Grand Sesters River on the east; so that by 1845, twenty-four years after the establishment of the colony, Liberia with the aid of Great Britain had destroyed throughout these regions the baneful traffic in slaves and the slave barracoons, and had driven the slave-trading leaders from the Liberian coast."149 The trade continued to flourish, however, in the Gallinhas territory, and in course of time, as we have seen, the colony had also to reckon with British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independence in 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberian revenue-laws by Englishmen. While President Roberts was in England not long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives of philanthropy, undertook to raise £2000 with which he (Roberts) might purchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured the title and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to Sherbro Island. The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informed England of his acquisition, and his right to the territory was not then called in question. Trouble, however, developed out of the attitude of John M. Harris, a British merchant, and in 1862, while President Benson was in England, he was officially informed that the right of Liberia was recognized only to the land "east of Turner's Peninsula to the River San Pedro." Harris now worked up a native war against the Vais; the Liberians defended themselves; and in the end the British Government demanded £8878.9.3 as damages for losses sustained by Harris, and arbitrarily extended its territory from Sherbro Island to Cape Mount. In the course of the discussion claims mounted up to £18,000. Great Britain promised to submit this boundary question to the arbitration of the United States, but when the time arrived at the meeting of one of the commissions in Sierra Leone she firmly declined to do so. After this, whenever she was ready to take more land she made a plausible pretext and was ready to back up her demands with force. On March 20, 1882, four British men-of-war came to Monrovia and Sir A.E. Havelock, Governor of Sierra Leone, came ashore; and President Gardiner was forced to submit to an agreement by which, in exchange for £4750 and the abandonment of all further claims, the Liberian Government gave up all right to the Gallinhas territory from Sherbro Island to the Mafa River. This agreement was repudiated by the Liberian Senate, but when Havelock was so informed he replied, "Her Majesty's Government can not in any case recognize any rights on the part of Liberia to any portions of the territories in dispute." Liberia now issued a protest to other great powers; but this was without avail, even the United States counseling acquiescence, though through the offices of America the agreement was slightly modified and the boundary fixed at the Mano River. Trouble next arose on the east. In 1846 the Maryland Colonization Society purchased the lands of the Ivory Coast east of Cape Palmas as far as the San Pedro River. These lands were formally transferred to Liberia in 1857, and remained in the undisputed possession of the Republic for forty years. France now, not to be outdone by England, on the pretext of title deeds obtained by French naval commanders who visited the coast in 1890, in 1891 put forth a claim not only to the Ivory Coast, but to land as far away as Grand Bassa and Cape Mount. The next year, under threat of force, she compelled Liberia to accept a treaty which, for 25,000 francs and the relinquishment of all other claims, permitted her to take all the territory east of the Cavalla River. In 1904 Great Britain asked permission to advance her troops into Liberian territory to suppress a native war threatening her interests. She occupied at this time what is known as the Kaure-Lahun section, which is very fertile and of easy access to the Sierra Leone railway. This land she never gave up; instead she offered Liberia £6000 or some poorer land for it. France after 1892 made no endeavor to delimit her boundary, and, roused by the action of Great Britain, she made great advances in the hinterland, claiming tracts of Maryland and Sino; and now France and England each threatened to take more land if the other was not stopped. President Barclay visited both countries; but by a treaty of 1907 his commission was forced to permit France to occupy all the territory seized by force; and as soon as this agreement was reached France began to move on to other land in the basin of the St. Paul's and St. John's rivers. This is all then simply one more story of the oppression of the weak by the strong. For eighty years England has not ceased to intermeddle in Liberian affairs, cajoling or browbeating as at the moment seemed advisable; and France has been only less bad. Certainly no country on earth now has better reason than Liberia to know that "they should get who have the power, and they should keep who can."