The_Open_Door_deel1

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earthenware, and muskets or other firearms. This law affected
primarily the tribal population who were the main buyers of these
products. Eventually, difficulties with foreign traders caused
this law never to be implemented (25).
Already in 1851 President Roberts complained about the behaviour
of certain foreign traders whom he accused of inciting the
African tribes to rebellion against the Liberian Government which
claimed jurisdiction over the territory in which they were living
(26). In 1852 he reported that foreigners were trading with some
Liberian tribes, notably the Bassa and the Krus, and supplying
them with weapons (27).
At the end of the 1850's the Liberian Government showed increasing
irritation at British trading activities involving tribal people
(Vai, Mano) in the western part of Liberia, in the Galinhas
territory. These traders refused to pay the customs duties and
other fees introduced by the Liberian Government. One British
trader who notoriously refused to recognize Liberian authority
was one John Meyers Harris, in the north of the Galinhas
territory. Harris was supported by his Government through the
authorities in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
This is explained by the fact that the British and Liberian
Governments had become involved in a boundary dispute over the
Galinhas territory. The Liberian Government, from 1864 onwards
represented by Secretary of State Edward Wilmot Blyden, in vain
tried to settle the dispute (28).
The foreign Governments, notably the British, played a strange
role in Liberian affairs. They came frequently to the rescue of
the colonists when Liberia's own means proved insufficient to
enforce its laws with respect to foreign traders and/or the
rebellious tribal people. In 1850 the British Government gave
Liberia an armed schooner to patrol the coast. Nine years later
it gave another, replacing the first one. Ironically, in 1860
this gunboat was used to seize the boat of Harris (29). The
French Government also gave the Liberians a gunboat (30).
The U.S.A. intervened several times militarily, e.g. in 1851 and
1863, to fight the Bassa. In the first case (1851) the U.S.
intervention took place when the Government of the U.S.A. had
not yet recognized Liberia as an independent State. However, as
from the 1860's the support of the settler Republic by notably
Great-Britain and France changed into attempts to add the
territory of the republic to their colonies in West Africa.
Customs revenues had always been the most important revenue item
of the Liberian Treasury - despite the evasion of the republic's
revenues laws by foreign traders (31). Its financial problems
had induced the Liberian Government to introduce various other
taxes. Thus, e.g. a tax on the export of labour was enacted"(32).
However, the Government lacked the means to enforce these taxes.