How did this slave trade sustain itself? What was its nature before the colonial movement resulted in a huge influx of American colonists? How did that immigration change the slave trade, and how did the trade finally come to an end?
Part 1/2
There is a lot to talk about here, since this covers over a century of history, but I'll try my best to make it understandable.
First of all, the fact that slavery in Liberia lasted until the early 20th century is not a rarity in the context of West Africa. Despite slavery being banned in western countries, many kingdoms and empires in Africa had been built and flourished thanks to slave labour for centuries, and a large change of how local societies worked had to be undertaken before slavery could be abolished within Africa itself. In many cases, this change was gradual, from slave ownership to employing free labour, such as in the case of the Soninke (the famous founders of the Ghana Empire):
Baba and Tamba are two Soninke (or Serahule) elders living in the Upper River Region, Eastern Gambia. In narrating their family history, they shed light on the course of emancipation, which in this area of West Africa lasted from the end of the nineteenth until at least the middle of the twentieth century. Although in this region slavery began to be abolished in 1906 and ceased to have legal validity in 1930, actual changes in social relations took longer to sediment, as Baba’s and Tamba’s recollections indicate. Both speak of negotiations and resistances, openings and closures, changes and legacies accompanying the end of slave trading and slave ownership under the aegis of British colonialism. [1]
However, the process did lead to the collapse of some kingdoms, such as in Dahomey, where British anti-slaver ships attacked Porto-Novo in 1861 and caused a war which ultimately led to the fall and French colonisation of the Dahomey kingdom.
While Liberia was technically “founded as a haven”, and the decision to give over land was signed (possibly by force) by local African leaders in the Ducor Contract, the social dynamics between the dominant colonial class (black Americans) and the local Africans weren’t overall positive (despite a signed treaty, there was no centralised governing power in pre-colonial Liberia, so the signers had little authority over the actions of other groups).
The Kru (and Grebo, a subgroup of the Kru) people were the main ethnic groups that later fell victim to slavery in the hands of Libero-Americans.
The Kru established mutual and more transactional relationships with European traders and explorers. They were often hired as free sailors on European ships (many were pushed into this line of work by clan members as a means of obtaining “bride wealth”, especially considering they had experience as fishermen and maritime traders), whether that be on slave ships during the Atlantic slave trade, in warships against the slave trade or in trading material goods. They worked for contractual periods of between six months and five years for which they were paid wages. Most information we have on precolonial Kru is about their role on European ships. [2, 3]
We have some early mentions of what is today Liberia, for example by Pedro de Sintra in 1461 in his book Esmeraldo de situ orbis, describing the “Pepper Coast”. His description of inhabitants around the Cestos river was:
Three leagues beyond the Rio dos Cestos is a small island a quarter of a league from land called Ilha da Palma a name derived from the palm-tree which is still there in our day. We do not navigate between the island and the land, for conditions do not admit of it ; but if anyone wishes to anchor here in a small vessel he may do so in ten fathoms nearly a league from shore on a clean bottom. Here he will be able to buy and barter slaves. However, this is now ruined ; when it was properly conducted one could buy a bushel of pepper for a brass bracelet weighing about half a pound, and a slave for two basins such as barbers use, but now a bushel of pepper is worth five or six bracelets and a slave four or five basins. The negroes of this coast are uncircumcised and naked, and are idolaters, having neither religion nor goodness; they are great fishermen and go two or three leagues out to sea to fish, in canoes which, in shape, are like weavers’ shuttles.
This description may or may not be the Kru, or some of the other people in this area, but it’s what we have of the area at the time. While the Kru did play a part in the slave trade (as working on slave ships) and tribal warfare was rife as it was in many other parts of Africa, according to Spurgeon Johnson [4] they were one of the few groups that didn’t subject their own tribe to slavery, nor were enslaved by other tribes.
The style of slavery that was called out in the 20th century came as a new creation with political struggles with American colonists.