The Hard Work of Labor

Established in 1822 by the American Colonization Society, Liberia holds a contested place in American history and memory. Nineteenth-century apologists for the colony extolled its civilizing virtues, identifying it as a space where both African American settlers—freeborn and formerly enslaved—and Africans could elevate themselves. Detractors viewed it as little more than a disease-riddled deathtrap designed to buttress slavery by removing free people of color from the United States. Liberia’s supporters and opponents pointed to labor within the colony to prove their point. Some believed the use of bound African labor by Christian settlers promised salvation and invaluable lessons in “civilization”; others only saw a poor mimicry of the American South on Liberian farms and households. The reality on the ground was even more complex.

While chattel slavery was prohibited under the various constitutions of Liberia, there was a smorgasbord of labor options in line with other Atlantic societies filled with mobile subjects. Both African and settler youths were frequently bound to settler households; illegally enslaved Africans “liberated” from slave ships by the U.S. Navy were unceremoniously deposited in Liberia to likewise be bound by settlers. African labor could be acquired cheaply in the colony. This paper will explore the complexities of labor in Liberia, with a particular focus on colonizationist rhetoric that claimed labor could lift up both settler—through the control of African workers—and African—through their unfree labor for the settlers.