the civilizing ethos to the Liberian polity was being echoed. Former Vice President C.L. Simpson, Sr. (himself, a Liberian of mixed repatriate and Vai ancestry, though then a thorough assimilee) wrote in his memoir: Two courses were open to us: One was to merge at the outset the comparatively small advanced elements of the population into the mass of those who, for various reasons, were at a more primitive stage of development and to hope that in due course all would progress homogeneously and simultaneously. The other was to preserve the ideal of western democracy on however small and imperfect a scale and to direct our efforts at gradually improving the system and extending it to broader section of the population. We adopted the latter course.
The implications of the choice made were far-reaching, not only in the structuring of repatriate/repatriate relations, but particularly those of repatriate/indigene relations. Such relations, singly or in combinations, were to manifest themselves in political conflict, some of them deadly. As regards repatriate/repatriate relations, the choice meant competition between the two ideas of Liberia for ascendancy. In the 19 th, century it took the form of racial cleavages (mulatto versus black) that issued into the Roberts and Benson conflict of 1864 (former President Roberts leading charge for misappropriation of public funds by incumbent President Stephen Allen Benson), and the Roye affair of 1871 (mulatto overthrow in a coup d’etat of the first wholly black President E.J. Roye who attempted to shift from the ‘civilizing‛ orientations of the past). A striking comparison between Presidents E.J. Roye and William R. Tolbert should be of historical interest in this context. Roye was the First standard bearer of the TWP and Tolbert the last. Roye ascended to TWP leadership in 1871 advocating progressive change in relationship with the indigenous population whereas Tolbert ascended to TWP leadership 100 years later in 1971 advocating a progressive change that engaged the opposition. Both presidents were killed by coups d’état. Implicit in these episodes is the overriding theme of alienation and national identity. 5.2.
Evolution of a Settlers’ Hegemony (1822 – 1847)
The first group of settlers that arrived in Africa under aegis of the ACS, sailed on the Elizabeth in 1817. On board were eighty-six men, women and children from New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. These were seen as pioneers who would help build the colony. After a few weeks stay in Freetown, they moved on to Sherbo Island where all the agents namely Samuel A. Crozier, Samuel Bacon and John P Blankson, and about half the population of the colonists were wiped out by malaria. Amidst initial constraints, they were able to resettle some 13,000 African Americans and several thousand recaptured African slaves known as Congos from 1821-1867.
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