Hilary Richard Wright Johnson
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Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (June 1, 1837 – 1901) served as the 11th
president of Liberia The president of the Republic of Liberia is the head of state and government of Liberia. The president serves as the leader of the executive branch and as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Liberia. Prior to the independence of Liber ...
from 1884 to 1892. He was elected four times.Benjamin Brawley, ''A Social History Of The American Negro''
/ref> He was the first Liberian president to be born in Africa. He had served three times as Secretary of State and once as
Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...
prior to becoming president.C. Abayomi Cassell, ''Liberia: History of the First African Republic''
p. 274


Early life and education

Of
Americo-Liberian Americo-Liberian people (also known as Congo people or Congau people),Cooper, Helene, ''The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood'' (United States: Simon and Schuster, 2008), p. 6 are a Liberian ethnic group of African Am ...
ancestry, Johnson was born in Monrovia in the colony.Donald A. Renard, editor; "Liberians: An Introduction To Their History And Culture"
, Center For Applied Linguistics, 2005.
His parents were Elijah Johnson, one of the original
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
settlers who founded the colony at
Cape Mesurado Cape Mesurado, also called Cape Montserrado, is a headland on the coast of Liberia near the capital Monrovia and the mouth of the Saint Paul River. It was named Cape Mesurado by Portuguese sailors in the 1560s. It is the promontory on which Afri ...
, and his second wife Rachel Wright (b. 1798), another early settler. Johnson was educated in the colony at Alexander High School and later taught at Liberia College, with his later political adversary,
Edward Wilmot Blyden Edward Wilmot Blyden (3 August 1832 – 7 February 1912) was an Americo-Liberian educator, writer, diplomat, and politician who was primarily active in West Africa. Born in the Danish West Indies, he joined the waves of Americo-Liberians ...
.Hollis R. Lynch, ''Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot'', Oxford University Press, 1967.


Marriage and career

After establishing his career, Johnson married and had a family. His son Frederick Eugene Richelieu Johnson, known as Frederick E. R. Johnson, became an attorney and a Chief Justice of the country, serving 1929–1933. Johnson became politically active. He was appointed as Secretary of State by President
Edward James Roye Edward James Roye (February 3, 1815 – February 11, 1872) was a Liberian merchant and politician who served as the fifth president of Liberia from 1870 until his overthrow in the 1871 Liberian coup d'état and subsequent death. He had previ ...
, an African-American who had emigrated to Liberia the year before independence in 1847. In 1884 Johnson was nominated by both the Republican Party and True Whig parties, Johnson ran unopposed in his first election. After his victory, he declared himself a True Whig. He was the first Liberian president to have been born on the African continent. The endorsement of Johnson by these two political parties—which generally represented opposite sides of the color divide within the Americo-Liberian community—signaled a truce regarding
colorism Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which individuals of the same race receive benefits or disadvantages based on the color of their skin. More specifcally, coloris ...
. There had been tensions between the
mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...
or
mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
settlers and those of darker skin, who had less obvious European ancestry, if any. The community worked together to concentrate their political power and economic wealth in the country.


Presidency (1884-1892)

In the decades after 1868, escalating economic difficulties weakened the state government's dominance over the coastal indigenous population. Conditions worsened, as the cost of imports was far greater than the income generated by exports of commodity crops such as
coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
,
rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
,
palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...
,
sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...
, and
timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
. Liberia tried desperately to modernize its largely agricultural economy. In 1885, Johnson agreed to the
annexation Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held t ...
of the Gallinas territory by the British Crown via their colony of Sierra Leone after the
US Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...
had advised him to yield to the British demands. In November of that year, the Havelock Draft Convention, which finalized the boundary between Liberia and
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
, was ratified by both Liberia and
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
. Since then, the
Mano River The Mano River is a river in West Africa. It originates in the Guinea Highlands in Liberia and forms part of the Liberia-Sierra Leone border. The districts through which the river flows include the Parrot's Beak area of Guinea, Liberia's Lofa ...
has formed the boundary between Liberia and Sierra Leone.


Internal uprising

In an 1886 message to the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...
, U.S. President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Hist ...
, spoke of the "moral right and duty of the United States" to help Liberia. "It must not be forgotten that this distant community is an offshoot of our own system," he said. But when Liberia asked for military assistance against an internal uprising, which the French were thought to have helped instigate, Cleveland's secretary of state refused. He said that Liberia lacked standing as a country to make such a request. Some indigenous Liberian peoples living in the hinterland of
Montserrado County Montserrado County is a county in the northwestern portion of the West African nation of Liberia containing its national capital, Monrovia. One of 15 counties that comprise the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has 17 sub p ...
and further north continued resistance and warfare until the late 1890s. The Gola and Mandingo fought over control of trading routes in the region. At the same time, various factions of the Gola people were fighting with each other.


See also

*
History of Liberia Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The ...


References


Archive Hilary Johnson
Royal Museum for Central Africa {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Hilary R. W. Americo-Liberian people 1837 births 1901 deaths Presidents of Liberia Politicians from Monrovia True Whig Party politicians 19th-century Liberian politicians Secretaries of the interior of Liberia