At the Sources of the Contemporary African State: Late XIX Century Polity and Society in Monrovia and Freetown‪.‬

The political processes which were coming to an end in Africa on the eve of the colonial onslaught had either been manipulated, interrupted or destroyed by the Scramble. It is almost a commonplace to attribute the inauguration and organisation of the modern state in Africa to European colonialism. In just a few years the geopolitical map of Africa assumed a completely new profile adapting to the trends of the conquest, treaties with the African rulers, and bilateral or multilateral deals among European powers. However, the over-imposition of logics deriving from an external ratio did not eliminate all the internal dynamics that determined African history, since they too were affected by external inputs in various ways. The African way of thinking had to overcome difficult obstacles to bring about a consistent model of state. This resulted in societies developing around a group of former slaves that had returned to Africa from the Americas and England under the impulse of abolitionism and from which a landmark and a very instructive laboratory arose (1). Outstanding personalities emerged in the age of liberalism and nationalism, both in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as testimonials of the dramatic transformations needed to rid Africa completely of oppression, exploitation, degradation and distressful memory. They were blacks who belonged to two cultures and were, therefore, fully aware of the importance of interacting with Europe and the West. The cry raised from Africa was eloquent: "Come over and help us" (2). Because of the moral and material devastation inflicted by the slave trade and slavery, spiritual elevation was "the highest ambition of our people" (3). The Negro race was to be rescued for a special and imperative task in the future. They had to remove the malediction that was supposed to have been uttered against the descendants of Canaan justifying racism. "Europeans in the late eighteenth century had already had several centuries of contact with Africans [...]. Whatever their views in detail, one assumption was almost universal. They believed that African skin colour, hair texture, and facial traits were associated in some way with the African way of life (in Africa) and the status of slavery (in the Americas). Once this association was made, racial views became unconsciously linked with social views, and with the common assessment of African culture. Culture prejudice thus slid off easily toward colour prejudice [...]" (4).