Met by the Love of Liberty

James Andrew Whitaker is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern Mississippi and an honorary research fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of The Shamanism of Eco-Tourism: History and Ontology among the Makushi in Guyana. He is the coeditor (with Mark Harris) of Indigenous Alliance Making: Histories of Agency in Colonial Lowland South America, (with Chelsey Geralda Armstrong and Guillaume Odonne) Climatic and Ecological Change in the Americas: A Perspective from Historical Ecology, and (with Matthias Lewy and Tarryl Janik) of Sorcery in Amazonia: A Comparative Exploration of Magical Assault. Andrew N. Wegmann is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University. He is the author of An American Color: Race and Identity in New Orleans and the Atlantic World and coeditor (with Robert Englebert) of French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600–1875, which won the Wilson Prize for Canadian History. He is also coeditor of the journal History of Africa. Shawn P. Lambert is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Mississippi State University. His research focuses on community-engaged archaeology at late precontact and historic sites in the American southeast, with a special focus in the archaeology of enslavement. He is the coeditor (with Bretton T. Giles) of New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery and (with Giles and J. Grant Stauffer) of Archaeologies of Cosmoscapes in the Americas.

• Foreword, by Jo M. SullivanAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Parallax of Americo-Liberian History and Memory, by Andrew N. Wegmann, James Andrew Whitaker, and Shawn P. LambertPart I: History1. The Monrovian Palimpsest: Race, Science, and American Identities in the Founding of Liberia, by Andrew N. Wegmann2. Providentialism and White Imagination in the Construction of Liberia and the African Colonization, by Ruth Vida Amwe3. Becoming Liberian in an American Settlement, by William E. AllenInterlude: Interview IFrom "Country Boy" to "Congo Man": An Americo-Liberian Adoptee VoicePart II: Commemoration4. Mirrored Mythology: "Molly Pitcher," Matilda Newport, and the Imagery of Early Settler Women in the Formation of Liberian National Identity, by Marie Stango5. Birth of a Nation: Matilda and Liberia, Memory and History, by Eric Burin6. Commemorating African Diaspora Heritage: An Exploration of Liberia's National Days, by Luisa SchneiderInterlude: Interview II"The Love of Liberty Met Me Here": An Indigenous Sapo VoicePart III: Legacies7. Before They Were Settlers: Material Culture from Prospect Hill in Mississippi to "Mississippi in Africa", by Shawn P. Lambert, Andrew N. Wegmann, and James Andrew Whitaker8. The African American Component of the Liberian Settler English of Sinoe County, by John Victor Singler9. Historical Memory in Sinoe County, by James Andrew Whitaker

"Met by the Love of Liberty provides an important, yet neglected, perspectives about the formation and historical memory of Liberia from its colonial roots to the present. . . . Rather than continue the narrow archival approach to finding evidence to disprove or confirm any specific aspect of Liberia's history, this collection offers novel theoretical insights and innovative methods for uncovering Liberia's past . . . [offering] an interdisciplinary perspective about the way Liberia's history—as a colony and independent black nation—has shaped contemporary society. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary approach and inclusion of Liberian voices is its greatest strength."—Ousmane Power-Greene, author of Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle against the Colonization Movement"The multidisciplinary approach of this volume is novel, productive, and useful. Americo-Liberian settlers often occupy pride of place in histories of Liberia—perhaps too often—but the approach here generally provides a way of understanding the implications of this dominance rather than reinforcing it."—Leigh Gardner, coauthor of The Economic History of Colonialism