William S. Tubman

William S. Tubman (1943)

William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman (born November 29, 1895 in Harper , † July 23, 1971 in London ) was the 19th President of Liberia from 1944 to 1971 .

youth

Tubman was born in Harper, Maryland County, the descendant of released and repatriated US slaves. Tubman's father, Reverend Alexander Tubman , was a general in the Liberian Army , a former chairman of the House of Representatives, and a Methodist minister . His mother Elizabeth was born in Atlanta ( Georgia ). He attended elementary school in Harper, then the Methodist Cape Palmas Seminary, and then Harper County High School . Tubman was a member of the Methodist Church until his death. At the age of 15 he enlisted in the army and between 1910 and 1917 took part in several punitive expeditions to the hinterland, which was only superficially controlled by the government in Monrovia .

Politician

He later studied with private teachers Jura and was district attorney. He joined the True Whig Party , which, founded as the Whig Party in 1860 , had ruled Liberia from 1871 to 1878. As is customary for members of the Liberian upper class, descended from released American slaves, he made a career in administration and politics at the same time. In 1923 and 1929 he became the youngest member of the ten-member Senate .

After 1930, then President Charles DB King , his Vice President Yancy and, indirectly, Tubman as Yancys lawyer were involved in a slavery scandal that was investigated by the League of Nations . All resigned, but Tubman was re-elected to the Senate in 1934 . From 1937 to 1943 he was deputy chairman of the Supreme Court. With the help of outgoing President Edwin Barclay , he became president in 1944.

Churchman

From 1928 he also worked as a lay preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church . In 1944 he attended the general conference of the United Methodist Church in Kansas City as a lay delegate .

president

As president, he devoted himself more than his predecessors to the hitherto neglected hinterland. The restriction to two terms in office (based on the American model ) was lifted, and the increasingly authoritarian administration led to sporadic unrest and coup attempts in the 1960s .

During his reign he became a controversial figure in Liberian society, adored by some and hated by others. This was probably mainly due to the fact that Liberia had to submit to more changes under his government than in the entire century before.

His most important political goals were the economic liberalization of the country ( Open Door Policy ) and the improvement of relations between the indigenous population and the Ameriko-Liberians, i.e. the descendants of American slaves who formed the upper class in Liberia ( National Unification Policy ), made. Many of his predecessors had already declared the latter to be their political goal. Normalizing relations between these two populations had proven difficult in Liberian history.

His reign lasted 27 years, making the country longer than any other president before or after him. In the 1955, 1963 and 1971 presidential elections, Tubman achieved record results of 100%.

Open door economic policy

Above all, his initiative on the question of opening the country up to foreign capital and investors made the president a controversial figure, especially since he was addressing a particularly sensitive issue. The disputes over the economic opening of Liberia were almost as old as the republic itself. The disagreements over this issue were so great even before Tubman's reign that in the past (at least for one of several reasons) it was the first coup in Liberian history which resulted in the death of the then President Edward J. Roye .

Tubman, however, was firmly convinced that Liberia would not develop economically on its own, which is why he was an absolute advocate of liberalization , which earned him the accusation from his opponents that he was selling the country to foreigners. They assassinated him on June 22, 1955 , which he survived.

Despite criticism, the country boasted no less impressive economic achievements during its reign. During the investment boom of the 1950s, Liberia had the fastest economic growth in the world after Japan .

Tubman survived several assassinations . When Tubman died, he left behind the country with the largest merchant fleet and the largest rubber plantations in the world. The country had become Africa's main exporter of iron ore . Liberia was even the third largest iron ore exporter worldwide. During Tubman's reign, more than $ 1 billion had been invested in Liberia from abroad. This included Sweden's largest foreign investment since 1945, as well as the largest German investment in Africa to date .

Consequences of his economic policy

The rapid economic development and the education of more and more people had increasingly unleashed political forces that had been suppressed for more than a century. During his lifetime, Tubman recognized the dangers of the newly emerging opposing forces and emphasized it on several occasions. After his death, his predictions were tragically confirmed several times: in the 1980s by the government of Samuel K. Doe and in the 1990s by the cruel civil war that shook the country and which finally ended in the terror regime of President Charles Taylor . These political developments also destroyed the economic advances that had been made under President Tubman.

Awards (selection)

• 1956: Special level of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1956: Grand Cross with chain of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• 1962: Royal Order of Seraphines

literature

• Robert H. Jackson, Carl G. Rosberg: Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant . University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles, London 1982, ISBN 0-520-04185-2 , William Tubman and William Tolbert, pp. 112-120 .

Web links

• Website about Willian S. Tubman (English)
• Political and Economic Developments in the 1950s and 1960s (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ WKSchneck: Liberia's President in the German service. In: The Evangelist, Sunday paper of the Methodist Church in Germany, Frankfurt / Main, November 11, 1956, No. 46, volume 107, page 365f
2. ^ Elections in Liberia (1955/1963/1971). In: African Elections Database. Retrieved December 29, 2010 .