Any information about Liberian pre-WWI military?

by Antigonius

I'm trying to learn more about Liberian (both the country Liberia and the tribes living there) military forces from it's creation to WWI for the purposes of knowledge and creating an RTS game design document as close to real as humanly possible. But the problem is that because I live in Ukraine and don't have a credit card to pay for some books or articles (some of the books don't even have a digital version) so far I have found little of value about how Liberians operated pre-Civil wars.

Just so that I won't come here empty-handed, here are the books and articles that I found most useful:

https://archive.org/details/tribesofliberian00schw

  • Tribes of Liberian Hinterlands is a comprehensive (and old) book written by missionaries, but has an impressive chapter about native military practices (as well as way of life in general).
  • The Uncontrollable Force: A Brief History of the Liberian Frontier Force, 1908—1944: an article from "The International Journal of African Historical Studies" I found (and read) in jstor.

Are there any other good sources in the internet about Liberia and their military? Or if there are none such - than about Sierra Leone or Ivory Coast, because I'm desperate.

kidsweekend

  • Warren d'Azevedo wrote a series of articles for the Liberian Studies Journal entitled "A Tribal Reaction to Nationalism" that focuses on relations between the Americo-Liberian government and existing communities in Western Liberia. IIRC he examines some of the armed conflicts between these groups in the series.

  • More generally, I suspect that the Liberian Studies Journal has published material that would be of interest to you. The problem is that you'd probably need the help of a university library to retrieve any articles. Here's an index of some of the earlier issues.

  • One of the most detailed studies of early Liberia IMO is C. Abayomi Cassell's Liberia: History of the First African Republic, 1970. You might check whether a local library has or can get access to this book. I don't have my copy with me, but I seem to remember some extended discussion about military matters.