Liberia: viable solution, or pipe dream?

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(American Colonization Society)

Did Abraham Lincoln and co. latch on to something feasible?

Or was it just trying to put toothpaste back in the tube?

The ACS would have done wonders as well to greatly enrich West Africa with more needed cultural diversity, if nothing else. The West African natives surely would have benefited greatly from the cultural and genetic exchange induced by the introduction of more freed-immigrant communities into their environment.

With their needed and unique agricultural skills learned in the USA, the immigration of these communities to the Pepper coast would have proved incredibly mutually beneficial and welcome for both peoples.

It would be an awesomely stimulating and enriching experience for all of West Africa and no doubt all would have accepted all with open arms, and perhaps a picnic?

In a human-populated world the outcome of a given series of decisions and actions is in no way predictable from the highmindedness, wisdom, and informed planning of the actors and decision makers.

Simpson and Sampson Rule.

Liberia turned out to be another African hell hole.

ruveyn

I do hope you were speaking for the sake of hearing your voice and not out of mature sophistication.

Liberia is a unique situation, where Rhodesia meets Israel meets Kosovo. It is neither typical of Africa nor of hell holes.

Hell holes - like other holes - are typologically diverse.

For over a century, Americo-Liberians dominated the country despite being a tiny minority. The Khran Master Sergeant Samuel Doe seized power in 1980 and had the former cabinet stripped to the waist, tied to telephone poles on the beach and shot after the deposed president was disemboweled in his bed. Halfway in his rule one of his assistants tried to depose him so Doe vowed revenge on the tribes of Nimba County from which he came and massacred many people. After Charles Taylor escaped from an American prison, he landed in Liberia in Nimba County where he attracted many supporters from the Gio and Mano tribes. With these people, he marched to the capital but on the way there a group led by Prince Johnson broke away and they seized the capital. They seized President Doe and sliced off his ears and videotaped this. Prince Johnson later led a press conference where he played 'rivers of babylon' on the guitar and sang before showing the video. Journalists were horrified to discover that the torture took place in the very room where they were watching the video.

Philologos wrote

Ruveyn -

Liberia, whatever the benevolence and understanding of human nature of those who established it, is NOT a place I want to be however intriguing its languages - and they are. I have no hesitation in including Liberia in its recent incarnations among my top 40 hell holes.

But "just another African hell hole" is rather dismissive.