Harper, Liberia

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Harper
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Harper in 2004
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Harper
Location in Liberia
Coordinates: 4°22′N7°43′W / 4.367°N 7.717°W / 4.367; -7.717
Country Flag of Liberia.svg Liberia
County Maryland County
Population
 (2008)
  Total17,837
Climate Af
Shell of Morning Star Masonic Lodge, Harper, Liberia Masonic Lodge in Harper, Liberia.jpg
Shell of Morning Star Masonic Lodge, Harper, Liberia

Harper, situated on Cape Palmas, is the capital of Maryland County in Liberia. It is a coastal town situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the Hoffman River. Harper is Liberia's 11th largest town, with a population of 17,837. [1]

Contents

Name

The town is named after Robert Goodloe Harper, a prominent U.S. politician and member of the American Colonization Society. It was he who proposed the name Liberia for the American Colonization Society's settlement in Africa, and the town of Harper was named in honor of him. [2] Harper was the capital of the short-lived Republic of Maryland (1834–1857).

Geography

A warm ocean temperature is present year round. Fish are found in abundance, as well as whales, dolphins, and large oysters. Fanti canoes sail from Harper to Monrovia via Greenville. This trip can take from 3 to 6 days depending on the wind and weather. A UNMIL ship, the MV Catarina, sails fortnightly between Harper and Monrovia. From the Ivory Coast, Harper is accessible from Tabou.

Local landmarks are the old, ruined mansion of William Tubman, President of Liberia, and the shell of the Morning Star Masonic Lodge, also built by Tubman. [3]

History

Americo-Liberian period

Harper was the capital of the Republic of Maryland, an independent country (1834–1857), the last component of modern Liberia.

Cape Palmas, the region of which Harper is the center, is one of the traditional hometowns of the Americo-Liberians, descendants of free people of color and freed slaves from the United States who settled in Liberia and declared it an independent country in 1847. John Brown Russwurm, an African-American abolitionist and governor of Monrovia, was buried in Harper after his death. There is a statue to commemorate his gravesite.

Harper as it existed prior to the Civil Wars was based on the plantation architecture of the southern United States, where many of the Americo-Liberians came from. [4] "Today [2016], no place captures the ambiguous world of the Americo-Liberians better than Harper, whose oldest neighborhoods are reminiscent of New Orleans. Once occupied by the ruling elite, houses in the style of plantation mansions now stand silent and ghostly." [4]

One of the town's most famous citizens is President William Tubman (1895-1971), who was born in Harper. In 2021, his mansion lies in ruins and is occupied by squatters. [4]

Civil War and after

Before the First Liberian Civil War, Harper was an important administrative centre.

During the 1970s, Harper was terrorized by Maryland ritual killings. The crimes have been regarded as "Liberia's most notorious ritual killing case" due to the number of murders, the involvement of high ranking government officials, and their subsequent public executions. [5]

Tubman University, one of only two public universities in Liberia, is located in Harper.

Harper is also home to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cape Palmas, one of three dioceses of the Catholic Church in Liberia.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It has a population of around five and one-half million and covers an area of 43,000 square miles (111,369 km2). The country's official language is English; however, over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. The capital and largest city is Monrovia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Liberia</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Tolbert</span> President of Liberia from 1971 to 1980

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monrovia</span> Capital, chief port, and the largest city of Liberia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Tubman</span> President of Liberia from 1944 to 1971

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">True Whig Party</span> Political party in Liberia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryland County</span> County of Liberia

Maryland County is a county in the southeastern portion of Liberia. One of 15 counties that comprise the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has two districts. Harper serves as the capital with the area of the county measuring 887 square miles (2,300 km2). As of the 2022 Census, it had a population of 172,202, making it the ninth most populous county in Liberia.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Palmas</span> Headland in Liberia

Cape Palmas is a headland on the extreme southeast end of the coast of Liberia, Africa, at the extreme southwest corner of the northern half of the continent. The Cape itself consists of a small, rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus. Immediately to the west of the peninsula is the estuary of the Hoffman River. Approximately 21 km (15 mi) further along the coast to the east, the Cavalla River empties into the sea, marking the border between Liberia and the Côte d'Ivoire. It marks the western limit of the Gulf of Guinea, according to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).

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The Republic of Maryland was a country in West Africa that existed from 1834 to 1857, when it was merged into what is now Liberia. The area was first settled in 1834 by freed African-American slaves and freeborn African Americans primarily from the U.S. state of Maryland, under the auspices of the Maryland State Colonization Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catholic Church in Liberia</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grebo people</span> Ethnic group in West Africa

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryland State Colonization Society</span> Organization for "repatriation" of African Americans to Africa

The Maryland State Colonization Society was the Maryland branch of the American Colonization Society, an organization founded in 1816 with the purpose of returning free African Americans to what many Southerners considered greater freedom in Africa. The ACS helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22, as a place for freedmen. The Maryland State Colonization Society was responsible for founding the Republic of Maryland in West Africa, a short lived independent state that in 1857 was annexed by Liberia. The goal of the society was "to be a remedy for slavery", such that "slavery would cease in the state by the full consent of those interested", but this end was never achieved, and it would take the outbreak of the Civil War to bring slavery to an end in Maryland.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">1980 Liberian coup d'état</span> Military overthrow and execution of President William Tolbert

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Thomas John Jackson was an African-American former slave from Frederick County, Maryland, United States, who emigrated to Cape Palmas in the 19th century. Thomas Jackson was one of the most prominent early Americo-Liberian and was among the early American settlers of Liberia. Thomas Jackson is mentioned in the African Repository by the American Colonization Society and the Maryland State Colonization Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Americo-Liberian people</span> Ethnic group of Liberia

Americo-Liberian people, are a Liberian ethnic group of African American, Afro-Caribbean, and liberated Africans. Americo-Liberians trace their ancestry to free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans who emigrated in the 19th century to become the founders of the state of Liberia. They identified themselves as Americo-Liberians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Liberia</span>

Squatting in Liberia is one of three ways to access land, the other two being ownership by deed or customary ownership. The informal settlement West Point was founded in the capital Monrovia in the 1950s and is estimated to house between 29,500 and 75,000 people. During the First Liberian Civil War 1989–1997 and the Second Liberian Civil War 1999–2003, many people in Liberia were displaced and some ended up squatting in Monrovia. The Ducor Hotel fell into disrepair and was squatted, before being evicted in 2007. In the early 2020s, over 9,000 Burkinabés were squatting on remote land and the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) announced a plan to title all land in the country.

References

  1. 2008 National Population And Housing Census. Archived 2012-02-13 at the Wayback Machine Government Of The Republic Of Liberia.
  2. "Maryland Historical Society Library: Harper-Pennington Papers, 1701-1899, MS. 431". Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  3. "William Tubman mansion | Harper, Liberia Attractions". Lonely Planet. Archived from the original on 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  4. 1 2 3 MacDougall, Clair (July–August 2016). "These Abandoned Buildings Are the Last Remnants of Liberia's Founding History". Smithsonian Magazine . Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  5. Aimé Muyoboke Karimunda (16 March 2016). The Death Penalty in Africa: The Path Towards Abolition. Taylor & Francis. pp. 82–. ISBN   978-1-317-03633-3. Archived from the original on 3 November 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2019.

Further reading

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Harper, Liberia at Wikimedia Commons

4°22′N7°43′W / 4.367°N 7.717°W / 4.367; -7.717