Another reason why Lincoln in the end decided against largescale colonisation in Liberia, which I discovered in the course of preparing a tutorial paper on the Emancipation Proclamation when I did American Hist from Settlement to Civil War, was the largescale contribution of black soldiers to the Union cause, which thereby morally prevented Lincoln from supporting any plan to ship the blacks back to Africa after they'd already shown so much loyalty to their country and their willingness to fight and die for the Union. But WI for the purposes of this qn, blacks hadn't had the opportunity to contribute so greatly to the ACW- would this provide a greater groundswell for resettling blacks in Africa ?
Resource-wise, Liberia's economic potential IIRC was actually quite substantial, with rubber plantations run by the Firestone Rubber Co. being 1 of the major sources of wealth to Liberia thruout the 20th C- although regrettably the Americo-Liberian elite siphoned off the vast majority of the profits to line their own pockets, and there was also during the 1920s allegations of virtual rubber slavery being operated by the Americos exploiting local indigenous tribes-ppl. This traditional Americo exploitation of the indigenous 'tribes' (AFAIK, the term was derogatorily utilised by the descendants of freed slaves to refer to the local indigenous ppl) continued until 1980 (although in 1944 Pres William Tubman introduced enfranchisement and citizenship laws to grant greater rights to the indigenous population), when Staff Sgt Samuel Doe, a Krahn, mounted a coup against the admin of Pres William Tolbert, massacred the entire cabinet thru public executions on the beach of Monrovia, and instituted his own oligarchy and kleptocracy favouring the Krahn as the new ethnic group in control. Then in 1989, Charles Ghankay Taylor (an Americo with Gola ancestry), a disaffected former govt minister under Doe, returned with his NPFL movement to overthrow the Doe admin, and began the civil war whose effects are still being felt today.
BTW, Adm Matt, Carlton Bach a couple mths back posted a thread on African-Americans being settled in the Congo during the 1870s instead of Liberia.
quote: 'I suspect that having a place on US Territory where entrepenurial free blacks could go to bring civilization to the savages would be a great boost for race-relations'.
In this vein, does anybody know why African-Americans by the start of the 20th C weren't encouraged to involve themselves in such 'civilising' of the locals in new US territories like the Philippines or Samoa ?