that Liberia would have been completely absorbed by the European colony-holding powers.*

The purpose of the Liberian government, the democratic principles of its Bill of Rights and Constitution, the doctrine that black people have a right to rule, and the message of equality, liberty and self-respect, which the Liberian people bear not only to the Native races but to the Negroes of the world, calling them through self-government to a dignified and enlightened manhood, are inconsistent with the temper and spirit of the colonial government of subject races in the interest of the governed and with the doctrine of permanent subordination and natural inferiority of the black peoples to the white, for which most of the European colonial governments stand in Africa.

EUROPEAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS LIBERIA

Before the partition of Africa Great Britain and France gave many and signal proofs of their friendship and good will toward Liberia and there seems little or no doubt that the governments at Paris and London were sincere in their expressed good wishes for the future good fortune of the Liberian state. But subsequent events indicate that this friendly attitude of these two governments has been considerably modified. A complete knowledge of all the facts forces the conviction that the local government at Sierra Leone has been, perhaps, the largest single factor in this change The colony of Sierra Leone was established by British philanthropists-among them Clarkson and Wilberforce as an asylum for oppressed Negroes in the British colonies of the West Indies, during the latter part of the 18th century. And it was from this experiment that American philanthropists obtained the idea of the Liberian colony for American freedmen.

It is important here to recall that in founding the Liberian colony in 1820, the government of Sierra Leone refused to

4 Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation, Journal of Race Development, Clark University, Worcester, Mass., January, 1911, George W. Ellis. Political Importance of the International Loan in Liberia, Journal of Race Development, Clark University, July, 1912, George W. Ellis.

permit the American emigrants to even land at Freetown, and they were forced to locate on the fever-stricken Island of Sherbro, south of Sierra Leone, where most of the Americans died before they secured the more suitable site at Monrovia. Beginning with this act of unfriendliness the Sierra Leone government supported and encouraged British subjects in their meddling with tribal and intertribal matters and in their resistance to the enforcement of Liberian customs revenue laws, which resulted in the first great so-called AngloLiberian boundary dispute, starting about 1856 and ending in 1883, when over the diplomatic activity of the United States government, extending earnestly through many years, the Liberian northwest territory between the Sherbro and Mano rivers was added to the colony of Sierra Leone.

The triumph of the Sierra Leone government for its part in the working up of the complications of this first boundary dispute and so reporting the situation as to bring the London government to the unchangeable determination of settling the difficulties only by taking this northwest territory, over the opposition of both Liberia and the United States, has had, perhaps, more influence upon the course of Liberian destiny than any other single fact since the declaration of Liberian independence.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the development of African exploration and the pressure of European population suddenly changed the attitude of practically all Europe toward Africa. European governments acquired almost the whole of the continent, during which expansion was excited and encouraged by rewarding explorers and administrators, responsible for territorial expansion, with promotions and titles of rank and nobility. During the height of this European fever for African territory, the first successful attack upon the territorial integrity of Liberia was made, and the London government was at last prepared to follow, after a long and tireless effort on the part of the colonial government of Sierra Leone, religiously and with firmness the advice of what is now so often called "the man on the spot." Great Britain had no more right to take this Liberian northwest territory in 1883 than in 1856, but the

passion for African territory had become so strong among European nations, that it seemed unable to permit Liberia to escape, even from so great and just a nation as Great Britain. Heretofore, Liberia had been largely protected because of European respect for the known American origin and interest in Liberian welfare. But the final British attitude in this northwest difficulty showed that the time had arrived when something more than American diplomacy was necessary to save Liberia from the European desire for African territory. This was regarded as a test case and it was believed that in it in a way, America disclosed the extent to which she would go to protect Liberia. The bad effects of this case have continued to the present time.

To maintain her political parity with Great Britain in West Africa, France soon followed the bad example set by Great Britain and in 1892, after a few preliminaries, added the Liberian territory from the Cavala to the San Pedro River to the French West African possessions.

Since then other valuable territories in the Liberian hinterlands have been taken by France, touching both the Saint Paul and Kavala basins. And only a few years ago Great Britain succeeded in getting the district of Kaure Lahun, which the American commissioners to Liberia reported in 1909 was being wrongfully occupied by British authorities. In this forced process of territorial contraction, under the circumstances, Liberia has been exceedingly fortunate in maintaining her sovereignty and this was done only with the greatest difficulty.5

PRE-WAR OUTLOOK IN WEST AFRICA

Notwithstanding the frequent loss of territory and the difficulties which thus far have attended the history and efforts of the Liberian people to establish a self-governing democracy for black men on the border of the greatest Black

Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation, Journal of Race Development, January, 1911, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, George W. Ellis.

THE JOURNAL OF RACE DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 9, NO. 3, 1919

Belt of the world, there is still a great future dawning before the nation. Like other portions of West Africa, Liberia is rich in the wealth and wonder of mine, field and forest.

By the terms of an international agreement between the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany Liberian sovereignty has been preserved, and with her territorial limits defined the Republic now enters upon an era of industrial and political progress which will make the Liberian ideal an ever increasing factor in West African development."

While Liberia settles down to her high mission, West Africa continues in beneficial changes in the policy of the colonial governments toward the Native races. More and more the truth is gaining ground that Africa is the black man's land and that he is entitled to an increasing participation in the government of himself and his country. More and more Native institutions are being respected, and instead of trying to make a European out of an African in Africa, more attention is given to the development of the Native along his own lines and institutions, for a high and glorious destiny in his tropical environments.

When Dr. Blyden, one of the best informed if not the greatest authority on West Africa, was retiring from the Directorship of Mohammadan Education in Sierra Leone, January 24, 1907, he described the net results of European control upon the African under the old and new régimés and then added:

"Africa may congratulate herself, thank God, and take courage."

Aside from the many authoritative works which in recent years have poured a torrent of compelling facts upon the European world concerning the true condition and value of the African and his continent, in The Making of Northern Nigeria, and Nigeria: Its Peoples and its Problems, Capt. C. W. J. Orr, R.A., and Editor E. D. Morel have made two

Political Importance of the International Loan in Liberia, Journal of Race Development, July, 1912, Clark University, Worcester, Mass., George W. Ellis.

7 Journal of the African Society, No. 43, Vol. 11, p. 364, April, 1912.

more very valuable contributions to the serious discussion of African problems and peoples.

With a wealth of facts these two writers, though from different points of view, are most convincing witnesses in a remarkable field for the industry and service of the Natives and for those later policies which preserve the Africans from demoralization and decay. With such splendid and able administrators as M. Du Ponty, governor general of French West Africa, and with the announcement that Sir Frederick Lugard was returned to West Africa to amalgamate the

Xtwo Nigerias as the governor of both Northern and Southern

Nigeria, West African colonial policies, in the two greatest West African fields, were most hopefully turned before the war toward the dawn of a better day for the African and for those who had assumed control of these affairs.

LIBERIA THREATENED BY THE WAR

Notwithstanding the growing new attitude of Europeans toward the government and development of West Africans in the interest of the African races, and the influence of such a social and political environment upon the ultimate mission and destiny of Liberia, yet, at the very beginning of the war the Liberian domain was seriously threatened to be divided between Great Britain and France, neighbors on the north, east and south.

-*

It was contended by Great Britain and France that Liberia had permitted Germany to use Liberian territory as a base of operation and for this reason the state should be overthrown and its domain and peoples divided, as early as December, 1914, according to La Marquise de Fontenoy.

In an editorial on "Liberia and the Philippines," December 25, 1914, the Chicago Tribune substantially committed the United States to this program of Anglo-French absorption of Liberia."

The making of Northern Nigeria, Capt. C. W. J. Orr, R.A. Macmillan & Co., London.

Nigeria: Its Peoples and its Problems, E. D. Marel, Smith, Elder & Co., London.

• Economic and Political Factors in Liberian Development, Journal of Race Development, 1915, George W. Ellis.