The Americo-Liberian hegemony does not seem to have been based on any perception of racial purity, granted, more on simple ethnic supremacism rooted in the belief that their culture was superior.
Americo-Liberians amounted to a 5% of the population that managed to dominate the country's political life for a century and a half. This was not by accident.
That was kind of the case in Liberia, sadly.
That is not something that I am doing. How can pointing out the ultimately fragile nature of a Liberian state controlled by only a small minority of the people of Liberia justify European colonialism?
It is true, certainly, that an African country that in the 1920s was exporting its inhabitants as slaves to European colonial empires isn't exactly a champion for the rights of Africans or black people. It does not follow from this that the European colonization of Africa was justified.
The creation of Liberia and the formation of Americo/Congos is not straightforward, the foundations of funding and industry was step by step implemented by the white led ACS along with key mixed race and free elite who were minorities within the broader Congo society.
Stephen Allen Benson was amongst the first of only two presidents who were able to gain power as dark skin and truly pan-ethnic leaders of Liberia. Having grasped a number of languages and cultural institutions he actively sought to upend the ACS and ACS aligned Mulatto elite.
This of course ignores the persistent practice of enslavement Kru, Grebo, and further inland Mande performed and the great tension arising from a slave based economy vs one being put by Americos.
It also ignores the fall of palm oil in favor of whale oil, the rise of the sugarbeet and the drop in coffee grown by Congos colonists that put into motion the plantation society the ACS had sought all along. These were the cogs that forced the hands of Benson and the majority of the Congos that centered back ACS and Elite who refused to support smaller ventures.
Regardless the cultural aspect is also overly exaggerated, all throughout West Africa there had long been acculturation of European custom and knowledge. The main issues were slavery/slaving economy and paganism (which mind you decreased and Islam grew in the mid-19th century).
This also ignores the assimilation of Congos into local ethnic groups and the histories of mixed race and/or multicultural groups found elsewhere such as Portugee from Senegal to Angola and Shebro in Sierra Leone.
Youre creating starkness, no one is denying the power held by Congos but you are modeling that using a very trite European model of colonization in Africa that is not the same.