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  Transcriber’s Notes

  Texts printed in italics in the original work have been transcribed
  between underscores, _text_. Small capitals have been replaced by
  CAPITALS.

  More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of the text.




  LIBERIA

  DESCRIPTION
  HISTORY
  PROBLEMS

  BY
  FREDERICK STARR

  CHICAGO
  1913


  COPYRIGHTED, 1913
  BY FREDERICK STARR
  CHICAGO


  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
  WILLIAM N. SELIG
  OF CHICAGO
  IN EVIDENCE OF APPRECIATION AND AS
  A TOKEN OF REGARD




PREFACE


Africa has been partitioned among the nations. The little kingdom of
Abyssinia, in the north, and the Republic of Liberia, upon the west
coast, are all of the continent that remain in the hands of Africans.
Liberia alone is in the hands of <DW64>s. Will it remain so, or is it
destined to disappear? Is it a failure? The reports which have so
frequently been printed in books of travel and elementary treatises of
ethnology appear almost unanimous in the assertion that it is. Yet there
are those who believe that the Black Republic is far indeed from being a
failure. We are not willing to admit that its history and conditions
warrant the assumption that the black man is incapable of conducting an
independent government. A successful Liberia would be a star of hope to
the Dark Continent. In Liberian success there lies African Redemption;
redemption, not only in the religious sense, but redemption economic,
social, governmental. If the black men can stand alone