| Abstract: | This article describes how the Americo-Liberians in Liberia used the military in the recruitment of Kru and Grebo labour and in the pacification of the hinterland during the interwar years (1926-1940). It shows that incompetence and the relative isolation of district commissioners led them to abuse their powers by using the Frontier Force to further their own economic and political aggrandizement. International criticism accused the Liberian government of practising forced labour and a system of deprivation 'analogous to slavery'. This caused Liberia some embarrassment and it asked the League of Nations to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate the charges. A Commission of Inquiry was established in 1930 and worked for four months in Liberia. Its report extricated the Republic of Liberia from the charges of practising slave trade in the classical definition of the term, but the findings indicted Liberia for a series of high crimes resembling slavery, forced labour, pawning, abuses of contract labour sent to Fernando Po, and forced labour without the payment of wages. As a result of these findings, the image of Liberia was greatly tarnished and the country suffered a series of reverses which almost undermined its political autonomy. Ref. |
AfricaBib 
Periodical article
Leiden University catalogue
WorldCat
