Initially founded as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1822 and declared an independent republic in 1847, the Republic of Liberia has challenged scholars across disciplines for almost as long as it has existed. Despite its territory being the home of Indigenous peoples for centuries, Liberia was imagined as a plan to relocate people of color primarily from the United States to West Africa as settler colonists. It then became a nation dominated by its original African-American founders and their descendants, who became known as Americo-Liberians. This group has shaped the political identity, social structure, and cultural standards of Liberia well into the 20th century, creating a remarkably complex legacy that both sparked and, in some ways, survived nearly two decades of civil conflict from which the nation is still rebuilding. Met by the Love of Liberty is an exploration of this complicated history, from Liberia's transatlantic origins to its complex and conflicted present. This collection of innovative essays emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach, combining African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, and cultural studies to produce a unique dialogue between the history of Liberia's national founding and its diverse contemporary historical memory and create a new, multifaceted understanding of Liberia's development and contemporary moment. Bringing together essays from leading scholars on Liberia's history and culture, Met by the Love of Liberty breaks new ground for discourse on how Liberia and other similar nations and communities can be studied today, telling a story of movement, displacement, national creation, and cultural and political memory and identity.
James Andrew Whitaker is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern Mississippi and an honorary research fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of The Shamanism of Eco-Tourism: History and Ontology among the Makushi in Guyana. He is the coeditor (with Mark Harris) of Indigenous Alliance Making: Histories of Agency in Colonial Lowland South America, (with Chelsey Geralda Armstrong and Guillaume Odonne) Climatic and Ecological Change in the Americas: A Perspective from Historical Ecology, and (with Matthias Lewy and Tarryl Janik) of Sorcery in Amazonia: A Comparative Exploration of Magical Assault. Andrew N. Wegmann is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University. He is the author of An American Color: Race and Identity in New Orleans and the Atlantic World and coeditor (with Robert Englebert) of French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875, which won the Wilson Prize for Canadian History. He is also coeditor of the journal History of Africa. Shawn P. Lambert is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Mississippi State University. His research focuses on community-engaged archaeology at late precontact and historic sites in the American southeast, with a special focus in the archaeology of enslavement. He is the coeditor (with Bretton T. Giles) of New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery and (with Giles and J. Grant Stauffer) of Archaeologies of Cosmoscapes in the Americas.
Foreword, by Jo M. Sullivan Acknowledgments Introduction: The Parallax of Americo-Liberian History and Memory, by Andrew N. Wegmann, James Andrew Whitaker, and Shawn P. Lambert Part I: History 1. The Monrovian Palimpsest: Race, Science, and American Identities in the Founding of Liberia, by Andrew N. Wegmann 2. Providentialism and White Imagination in the Construction of Liberia and the African Colonization, by Ruth Vida Amwe 3. Becoming Liberian in an American Settlement, by William E. Allen Interlude: Interview I From "Country Boy" to "Congo Man": An Americo-Liberian Adoptee Voice Part II: Commemoration 4. Mirrored Mythology: "Molly Pitcher," Matilda Newport, and the Imagery of Early Settler Women in the Formation of Liberian National Identity, by Marie Stango 5. Birth of a Nation: Matilda and Liberia, Memory and History, by Eric Burin 6. Commemorating African Diaspora Heritage: An Exploration of Liberia's National Days, by Luisa Schneider Interlude: Interview II "The Love of Liberty Met Me Here": An Indigenous Sapo Voice Part III: Legacies 7. Before They Were Settlers: Material Culture from Prospect Hill in Mississippi to "Mississippi in Africa", by Shawn P. Lambert, Andrew N. Wegmann, and James Andrew Whitaker 8. The African American Component of the Liberian Settler English of Sinoe County, by John Victor Singler 9. Historical Memory in Sinoe County, by James Andrew Whitaker
"Met by the Love of Liberty provides an important, yet neglected, perspectives about the formation and historical memory of Liberia from its colonial roots to the present. . . . Rather than continue the narrow archival approach to finding evidence to disprove or confirm any specific aspect of Liberia's history, this collection offers novel theoretical insights and innovative methods for uncovering Liberia's past . . . [offering] an interdisciplinary perspective about the way Liberia's history-as a colony and independent black nation-has shaped contemporary society. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary approach and inclusion of Liberian voices is its greatest strength."-Ousmane Power-Greene, author of Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle against the Colonization Movement "The multidisciplinary approach of this volume is novel, productive, and useful. Americo-Liberian settlers often occupy pride of place in histories of Liberia-perhaps too often-but the approach here generally provides a way of understanding the implications of this dominance rather than reinforcing it."-Leigh Gardner, coauthor of The Economic History of Colonialism
