There is a tradition that the coast of what is now Liberia was reached by the Dieppois merchant-adventurers in the 14th cen tury. It is a fact that in the 15th century Pedro de Sintra and other Portuguese navigators mapped the whole coast, and nearly all the prominent features—capes, rivers, islets—off that coast still bear Portuguese names. From the i6th century onwards English, Dutch, German, French and other European traders con tested the commerce of this coast with the Portuguese and finally drove them away. In the 18th century France once or twice thought of establishing colonies here. At the end of the 18th cen tury, when the tide was rising in favour of the abolition of slavery and the repatriation of slaves, the Grain Coast (so called from the old trade in the "Grains of Paradise" or Amomum pepper) was suggested once or twice as a suitable home for repatriated negroes. Sierra Leone, however, was chosen first on account of its possess ing an admirable harbo'ir. In 1821 Cape Mesurado was selected by the American Colonization Society as an appropriate site for the first detachment of American freed negroes, who had been driven away from a still slave-holding America through difficulties in regard to extending the suffrage in that country. From that date, 1821, onwards to the present day, negroes and mulattos— freed slaves or the descendants of such—have crossed the Atlantic in small numbers to settle on the Liberian coast. The "great" migrations took place during the first half of the 19th century, but by 1925 the Americo-Liberians did not number more than 20,000; and half of them lived in Monrovia.
The real founder of Liberia was Jehudi Ashmun, a white Ameri can, who at the request of the Colonization Society went out in 1822 to aid the infant settlement at Cape Mesurado (where Mon rovia, the capital, is now). Ashmun inspired the colonists with courage, and fought and defeated the natives who molested them. He was joined for a time, in 1824, by the Rev. Robert Gurley (another white American), who invented "Liberia" as the name of the settlement. As the colony was seen to grow, other and in dependent settlements of negroes from the United States were made, and in 1833 the "independent African state of Maryland" was founded at Cape Palmas. Eventually, in 1857, it was by con sent annexed to Liberia and is now known as Maryland county. Meanwhile, in 1836, Thomas Buchanan (a cousin of James Buchanan, sometime president of the United States) went to Li beria as governor and helped to consolidate the young state, which was trying to establish itself on lines totally at variance with those of the aborigines, with whom they were repeatedly in conflict. Buchanan, the last of the white governors of Liberia, died at Grand Basa in Sept. 1841. He was succeeded by Joseph Jenkins Roberts, an octoroon, from Virginia, U.S.A., and a man of much ability. Roberts enlarged the boundaries of the colony and improved economic conditions.
Republic Proclaimed.—When the American Colonization So ciety intimated that Liberia should now cease to be dependent upon it, Roberts decided that the only thing to do was to declare it an independent republic. He had had trouble both with his British and French neighbours, who had denied the right of the colonists to exercise sovereign power. Independence was pro claimed in 1847, and was recognized in 1848-49 by most of the Great Powers, though formal recognition by the United States did not come until 1862.
At the time independence was declared a constitution based on that of the United States was drawn up. but the attempt of the immigrants from America and their descendants—who then num bered fewer than 3,000—was not very successful. Some of the tribes of the coast region adopted the religion (Protestant forms of Christianity) and the language (English) of the Liberians, but most of the natives retained their paganism and their freedom. Roberts, who had been elected the first president of the republic, retained that office till 1856; it was during this period that the slave trade, hitherto illicitly carried on from various ports nominally Liberian, was at length ended by the activity of the British navy.
From about this time (1856) there was a notable growth of the "Whig" party, which distrusted Europeans and sought devel opment on "national" lines, and, later, co-operation with the na tives, as against the liberals or republicans, who wished, broadly, for the co-operation of Europeans in the development of the state. In 1871 the first foreign loan was raised, being negotiated in Lon don nominally for f i oo,000. The loan was unpopular, and still more unpopular was the president E. J. Roye, who was seemingly aiming at a dictatorship. Roye was deposed and imprisoned at Monrovia ; he escaped, but in attempting to reach an English ship in the anchorage was drowned. The ex-president, J. J. Roberts, was called back to office. He served to the end of 1875, dying the following year.
Frontier Disputes.—After this the difficulties of the Liberians increased. British and other traders flouted their authority and dealt direct with the independent native tribes (chiefly in palm oil). There were constant frontier troubles with the French on the Ivory Coast and the British at Sierra Leone. The Liberians tried to extend their authority inland while still unable to control all the coast line they claimed. The Americo-Liberians, with mixed traditions of slavery, puritanism and Anglo-Saxon ideals of civiliza tion, proved indeed hardly able to govern themselves. With the era of the partition of Africa an effort was made to end the frontier disputes, by treaties with Great Britain in 1885 and with France in 1892. In the event, Liberian territory was made con tinuous, with a coast line of some 35o miles from the Mano river on the west to the Kavalli (Cavalla) river on the east. By this time the wealth of rubber in the Liberian forests was being exploited, though the staple industry was the cultivation of coffee. In 1904 Arthur Barclay, a man of pure negro blood, born in Barbadoes, be came president, and he initiated a policy of direct co-operation with the native tribes; he obtained in 1907 a loan from London and made real efforts at reform. His task was hard. The foreign debt was a burden, the Government was unable to control the regions in which it had granted concessions to foreigners; its authority indeed rarely extended more than 20 miles inland. The frontier regions adjoining French territory remained disturbed ; in consequence malcontents took refuge in the Liberian forests and thence raided across the border. The French insisted on se curity and in 1910 an agreement was signed transferring to France some 2,000sq.m. of hinterland which Liberia had claimed but could not control.