Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young

11. Military Assistance Mission in Liberia

11. Military Assistance Mission in Liberia I find that the coast has done all it can for the country and that if it ever is going to be developed and saved to my people we must get to the native man in the interior. charles young, 1915 W hen Captain Charles Young arrived at the U.S. Legation in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1912, the country was torn by internal strife and threatened by external incursion. Having previously served as the military attaché to Haiti and the Dominican Republic under similar difficult circumstances , Captain Young was up to the challenge for this assignment. As always, Young approached his new duty as a practical man and consummate professional military officer. But he must have been deeply moved to have the opportunity to go back to the home of his ancestors and help a small African democracy to survive and grow. The War Department assigned Young to Liberia based on significant geopolitical and military considerations. The United States had a special relationship with this troubled country that had been “colonized” by freed American slaves. Liberia, Africa’s first republic, also had the distinction of being older than any of the world’s other black republics except Haiti, where Young served his first attaché posting. Young’s second assignment as military assistance mission in liberia 205 a soldier-diplomat affords a fascinating glimpse of how well he functioned within the military attaché system. Liberia It is important to understand the history of the country to which Captain Young found himself posted in 1912. Liberia, a sovereign state since 1847, was an anomaly when compared to other African countries. While all the rest shared a legacy of having been colonized and exploited by white foreign powers , Monrovia’s ruling minority was made up solely of blacks. Liberia’s colonial era began in the early nineteenth century with the arrival of freed American slaves sent from the United States by private colonial societies to settle along the coast of West Africa. From the beginning, this ruling minority, who called themselves Americo-Liberians, discriminated against the indigenous Africans, who they referred to as “uncivilized” or “aborigines.” This tension between the two elements of Liberia’s population became an underlying source of social unrest and conflict. This was also the basis of many of Young’s later challenges , as he once again served as an agent of empire.1 The Liberian government created a Liberian Frontier Force (lff) in 1908 to defend its borders against threats from nearby European colonies and to suppress domestic unrest from the tribes in the interior of the country. Since it had no experienced military personnel to organize and lead this organization, the government of Liberia accepted the recommendation made by Capt. Braithwaite Wallis, the British consul general in Monrovia, to appoint as commander of the lff Capt. R. MacKay Cadell, an English militia officer who had seen action during the Boer War in South Africa. Cadell assumed command of the lff with the rank of major and was assisted by two other British officers who were appointed captains. Trouble soon followed.2 206 military assistance mission in liberia Major Cadell promptly betrayed the Liberian trust, enlisted veteran soldiers from the neighboring British colony of Sierra Leone, and openly began to wield too much personal power. The lff became so undisciplined and its tactics so ruthless against the tribes of the hinterland that it exacerbated domestic unrest . The final straw came in February 1909 when Major Cadell informed the president of Liberia that the soldiers of the lff were threatening to mutiny and that Cadell could do nothing about it. Instead of yielding to force, the Liberian government called out the militia, which forced Cadell and the rebellious lff troops to surrender. The Liberian government fired Cadell, who departed the country and took the officer corps with him. Monrovia then turned to the United States for help.3 In 1908, Liberia sent a mission to Washington to request American advice on Liberia’s dealings with Britain and France and for help in maintaining its independence and territorial integrity. President William Howard Taft appointed a commission to investigate Liberia’s problems and how they affected American interests. The commission discovered that the Liberian economy was so unstable that foreign nations might decide to use force to collect their debts. Germany in particular had a great deal of money invested in Liberia, and...