Why did Europeans not try to colonize Liberia?

This is something ive never gotten, why did Europeans not try to colonize Liberia? was it because it was already a long established Democracy, or is it hard to invade?
 
I know, but I never got it myself, since it was small and ripe for the picking, just always came as strange to me.

A lot of the later stage of colonizing Africa was just for prestige alone, and I guess no one wanted to sour things with the United States over a part of west Africa that really wasn't worth all that much.
 
It really wasn't worth the hassle of deliberately pissing off the US just for another patch of West African coast. By the time that Liberia was founded, the US had grown to if not a force to be reckoned with, but at least something like a bumblebee's nest. There may be some honey inside, but it certainly wasn't enough to be worth getting stung over.
 
A lot of the later stage of colonizing Africa was just for prestige alone, and I guess no one wanted to sour things with the United States over a part of west Africa that really wasn't worth all that much.

Didn't Liberia have diamonds and some other metal resources?
 
Because colonizing Liberia would constitute a declaration of war on the USA for the sake of a bunch of big shitty jungle?
 
Didn't Liberia have diamonds and some other metal resources?

There's still the U.S to worry about. America, besides using Liberia as a places for ex-slaves, also had financial interests in the country. Messing with the financial interests of the U.S is a really good way to get in trouble.

Add on to that, as others have pointed out, it wasn't worth it. Too westernized and Christian to justify taking it to civilize the people. Too tied in to U.S business to take without angering her. Not in a strategic location. All around a bad choice not worth the effort or consequences.
 
There's still the U.S to worry about. America, besides using Liberia as a places for ex-slaves, also had financial interests in the country. Messing with the financial interests of the U.S is a really good way to get in trouble.

Add on to that, as others have pointed out, it wasn't worth it. Too westernized and Christian to justify taking it to civilize the people. Too tied in to U.S business to take without angering her. Not in a strategic location. All around a bad choice not worth the effort or consequences.

Agreed, but one thing: If America doesn't set up a colony then (or not enough interest), then what is to stop colonization for prestige?

Also, is there a specific POD for this?
 
Agreed, but one thing: If America doesn't set up a colony then (or not enough interest), then what is to stop colonization for prestige?

Also, is there a specific POD for this?

If the US doesn't set up a colony in the area that turns into Liberia, it will almost certainly end up as part of a larger power.
 
Actually the European powers did start colonizing Liberia as they expanded their nearby colonies they started forcefully taking Liberian territory.

If they didn't liberia would be 3 times bigger than it is today.

The British or French never just took over the country because of the USA protection but that didn't stop them from taking resources and wealth from the country.

Union Mining Company was a british owned company that forced Liberia to sign a treaty to let them mine for minerals(unspecified minerals) in 1900.

In 1901 Union Mining Company changed its name to West Africa Gold. Liberia's small amount of gold mining was sending all the Gold to Britain.

France took a fairly diamond laden region.

The US did not allow Liberia to sign a contract with the Dutch to build a modern harbor in 1901, because it would have allowed the Dutch to mine for iron ore. Instead Liberia was forced to wait till WW2 to get Monrovia a port built by the US. The US forced Liberia to wait to sign a deal with US steel in 1936.

Firestone did not only run a rubber plantation with a 99 year contract, the deal also gave firestone the rights to any mineral wealth found on the plantation land(diamonds, gold, iron) and only paid off Liberia's 5 million dollar debt.:mad: Liberia has to wait another 13 years to get that land back.

It also nearly went bankrupt from declaring war on Germany in WW1 and got shelled by German ships and never got conpansation like France.
 
Actually the European powers did start colonizing Liberia as they expanded their nearby colonies they started forcefully taking Liberian territory.

If they didn't liberia would be 3 times bigger than it is today.

The British or French never just took over the country because of the USA protection but that didn't stop them from taking resources and wealth from the country.

Union Mining Company was a british owned company that forced Liberia to sign a treaty to let them mine for minerals(unspecified minerals) in 1900.

In 1901 Union Mining Company changed its name to West Africa Gold. Liberia's small amount of gold mining was sending all the Gold to Britain.

France took a fairly diamond laden region.

The US did not allow Liberia to sign a contract with the Dutch to build a modern harbor in 1901, because it would have allowed the Dutch to mine for iron ore. Instead Liberia was forced to wait till WW2 to get Monrovia a port built by the US. The US forced Liberia to wait to sign a deal with US steel in 1936.

Firestone did not only run a rubber plantation with a 99 year contract, the deal also gave firestone the rights to any mineral wealth found on the plantation land(diamonds, gold, iron) and only paid off Liberia's 5 million dollar debt.:mad: Liberia has to wait another 13 years to get that land back.

It also nearly went bankrupt from declaring war on Germany in WW1 and got shelled by German ships and never got conpansation like France.

Got a map for bigger Liberia?
 
Got a map for bigger Liberia?

Here is what I found.

http://personal.denison.edu/~waite/liberia/history/map2.htm

cyclic1_b.gif
 
Cool - so Liberia keeps those lands, does that change much, maybe give them more resources?
Liberia actually claim even more inland territory than on the map but its futher borders overlapped with French Guinea and Sierra Leone even more.
But it was growing faster than either of those two colonies and would have been able to settle on even larger borders in the interior till France and britain did their land grabs and decided how large Liberia was allowed to grow. This was because it was very likely Liberia would absorb or annex Sierra Leone if Britain had not restricted it.
British and American relations were not on the best of terms yet in Liberia's expansion period so the British Civilization Society refused to work with the American Colonization Society even though they had the exact same goals with the one exception being Britain wanted to exploit the African coast more.

1874caLiberia2.jpg
 
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