s of
the country. Our true mission lies not in the building here in Africa
of a Negro state based solely on Western ideas, but rather a Negro
nationality indigenous to the soil, having its foundation rooted in the
institutions of Africa and purified by Western thought and development."

3. _International Relations_

Our study of the history of Liberia has suggested two or three matters
that call for special attention. Of prime importance is the country's
connection with world politics. Any consideration of Liberia's
international relations falls into three divisions: first, that of
titles to land; second, that of foreign loans; and third, that of
so-called internal reform.

In the very early years of the colony the raids of slave-traders gave
some excuse for the first aggression on the part of a European power.
"Driven from the Pongo Regions northwest of Sierra Leone, Pedro Blanco
settled in the Gallinhas territory northwest of the Liberian frontier,
and established elaborate headquarters for his mammoth slave-trading
operations in West Africa, with slave-trading sub-stations at Cape
Mount, St. Paul River, Bassa, and at other points of the Liberian coast,
employing numerous police, watchers, spies, and servants. To obtain
jurisdiction the colony of Liberia began to purchase from the lords of
the soil as early as 1824 the lands of the St. Paul Basin and the Grain
Coast from the Mafa River on the west to the Grand Sesters River on the
east; so that by 1845, twenty-four years after the establishment of the
colony, Liberia with the aid of Great Britain had destroyed throughout
these regions the baneful traffic in slaves and the slave barracoons,
and had driven the slave-trading leaders from the Liberian coast."[1]
The trade continued to flourish, however, in the Gallinhas territory,
and in course of time, as we have seen, the colony had also to reckon
with British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independence
in 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberian
revenue-laws by Englishmen. While President Roberts was in England
not long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives of
philanthropy, undertook to raise L2000 with which he (Roberts) might
purchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured the
title and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to Sherbro
Island. The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informed
England of his acquisitio