Charles DB King

Charles DB King (1919)

Charles Dunbar Burgess King (born March 12, 1875 in Monrovia , † September 4, 1961 ) was a Liberian politician . He was the 17th President of Liberia from 1920 to 1930 and a member of the True Whig Party , which ruled the country from 1878 to 1980.

Life

Before he was elected president, King had been Secretary of State from 1912 . In this function he took part in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as a representative of Liberia and was a co-signer of the Versailles Peace Treaty .

Although he was a moderate supporter of reforms, he continued to support the dominance and rulership of the True Whig Party. He was challenged by Thomas J. Faulkner in the 1927 presidential campaign . The official election result gave a majority of 600,000 votes, even though there were only 15,000 registered voters. This victory earned King an entry in the English edition of the Guinness Book of Records for "Most Fraudulent Choice In History". After losing the election, Faulkner accused members of the government of selling workers as slaves in what became known as the Fernando Po Scandal . A League of Nations report prepared by a delegation headed by British doctor Cuthbert Christy supported many of Faulkner's claims and drew members of the government, including Vice President Allen N. Yancy , into the scandal. Yancy and King therefore resigned in December 1930.

From 1949 to 1951, King was Liberia's first ambassador to the United Nations .

Web links

• Bird's-eye View of Liberian History and Government (English)

literature

• Ibrahim K. Sundiata: From slaving to neoslavery: the bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the era of abolition, 1827-1930 . The Univ. of Wisconsin Press, Madison (WI) 1996, ISBN 0-299-14510-7 , The search for labor, pp. 119-145 (English).
• Cuthbert Christy: Report of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Existence of Slavery and Forced Labor in the Republic of Liberia (September 8, 1930) . Ed .: International Commission of Inquiry into the Existence of Slavery and Forced Labor in the Republic of Liberia. United States Government Printing Office , Washington DC 1931 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Died: Charles Dunbar Burgess King . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1961, pp. 99 ( online ).
2. ^ The Guinness book of records . Year 1982. Sterling Publ., 1981, ISSN  0072-9000 (English).
3. ↑ US Department of State (Ed.): Self Study Guide for Liberia . Washington DC 2003, The Early Twentieth Century, p. 12–13 (English, governmentattic.org [PDF; 1.5 MB ]).
4. ↑ Former Permanent Representatives of Liberia to the United Nations ( Memento of the original from April 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.