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The expansion of Whites into Africa, Asia and America created the background for the great slave traffic from Africa and Asia to Europe and America. From 1530 to the time of the abolition of the slave trade - as opposed to slavery - in 1870, at least 10 million Blacks were forcibly brought to the Americas: about 47 percent of them to the Caribbean islands and the Guianas; 38 percent to Brazil; and 6 percent to mainland Spanish America.

It must be said that the vast majority of the Black slaves purchased by White slave traders were sold into slavery by fellow Blacks: very few White slave traders had to actually go and find their own victims, there being more than enough local Black chiefs up and down the length of Africa willing to sell off their own and neighboring tribesmen.

The Portuguese first started importing large numbers of Blacks from their colonies in Africa in 1444 - primarily to work on agricultural plantations in rural Portugal. By 1460, the records show that they were importing over 1000 Black slaves every year to Portugal from trading posts and forts established on the African coast.

This process continued for many years - it is estimated that eventually just under 12 percent of Portugal's population by the end of the 19th Century was Black. While a large number of Black slaves died childless, a significant number had children with White Portuguese people (males and females): this, together with the influx of Moorish blood, has created the typical mixed race appearance of a number of Portuguese today.

By the time of the 20th Century, the intermingling of Black genes into the Portuguese gene pool was virtually complete: since that time Portugal has became famous as one of the most underdeveloped states on the European continent.

Spain soon followed Portugal's example, but imported far fewer Black slaves. Nonetheless, Spanish colonies in Africa provided a continuous source of manpower for Spain: right up to the 20th Century, when the Spanish dictator Franco was only able to launch his invasion of republican Spain with a non-White Spanish colonial army division from a base in North Africa. Elements of the modern Spanish population also exhibit the obvious signs of having absorbed significant amounts of non-White genes, the result of not only African slaves in Spain but also of the centuries long Moorish occupation of that country. The admixture of Black African genes is, however, not as high as amongst the Portuguese.

England's slave traders, having first practiced its slaving skills on its own lower White social classes, then entered the non-White slaving trade as well, fighting off stiff competition from slave traders from Portugal, France, Holland, Denmark, and the American colonies.

In 1713, a British slave-trading company, the British South Sea Company, actually won, on tender, (!) a contract to supply the Spanish colonies in South and Latin America with African slaves: the importation of Blacks into the new lands was turning into big business.

Of course the long term effects of this commercially driven practice was to create the nucleus of a non-White population in these territories which would one day grow to dominate the direction of those societies; in exactly the same way that slavery had changed the face of Egypt, Rome, Greece and Portugal.

The French had occupied large parts of northern and western Africa as their colonial slice, and had set about not only raising an elite of locals as Frenchmen, but had also enslaved all the forced labor that they needed. Black slaves were also imported into France where a small degree of intermingling with the White French population took place. This was nowhere near the scale of Spain, and certainly minute when compared to Portugal.

The practice of slavery was only abolished by France in 1848 - more than fifty years after the French Revolution which had proclaimed the brotherhood of man and liberty for all.

The Dutch waited until 1863 before they abolished slavery in all their colonies. By this time a small number of Malays had been imported in the Netherlands to work as domestic slaves. A tiny number of these were absorbed by the White Dutch population.

In southern America, the Spanish colonists at first turned their slave working-skills to use in putting the native Indian tribes to work in mines and agricultural projects. The South American Indians were however physically weak and could not survive the harsh life of slavery: as a result large numbers died out through a combination of ill treatment, execution, disease and exhaustion.

To meet their labor needs in the new colonies, Spain turned to the traditional source of slaves: Africa. This was the origin of the now large Black populations of South and Latin America. Although always (and still today) at the bottom of the social ladder, these Black slaves and their descendants physically mixed with the remains of the South American Indians and some Spanish colonists, creating the mixed race population which is still evident throughout South and Latin America to this day.

This mixing with Black slaves and Spanish colonists not only affected the White settlers in South America: it was also the direct cause of the collapse of the ancient Inca and Aztec civilizations in South and Latin America. These latter two groups, already weakened by the force of the White Spanish invasion of their lands, disappeared through a process of integration till today there are only very few scattered tribes of original Indians remaining in South America.

This is an interesting example of where racial mixing caused the downfall of another civilization, this time that of a non-White (Inca and Aztec) culture which disappeared when the original Aztecs and Inca peoples vanished.

Once they had obtained independence, the majority of the new republics of South America and Latin America for the largest part abolished slavery during the 19th Century. Only in Brazil was slavery not formally abolished until 1888. Between 1519 and 1650, Mexico imported about 120,000 Black slaves, or slightly fewer than 1000 per year. From 1650 to 1810, Mexico received an additional 80,000 Blacks, a rate of 500 slaves per year. Chile imported about 6000, about one-third of whom arrived before 1615. Argentina and Bolivia together imported about 100,000 Blacks over the same time period.

In North America, the first Black slaves were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. At first their numbers were relatively small, and legal recognition was only given to the existence of slaves in the colony of Massachusetts in 1641, in Connecticut in 1650, and in Virginia in 1661; these laws dealt with punishments for escaped slaves, both Black and White.

As more and more agricultural land was opened up in the southern states of America, so did the requirement for ever greater numbers of slaves. By the late 1700s, the number of imported Black slaves into America had increased dramatically. An important addition to the Black slave trade to America was the inclusion of female Black slaves. This step, seemingly insignificant at the time, was to cause an explosion in Black numbers beyond what the slave owners could have foreseen: retaining their high fertility rates, but with the benefit of White medicine, the infant mortality rates amongst Blacks in America, while still higher than the White level, were considerably lower than in Africa.

Very soon the first American born Blacks had made their appearance. To illustrate this effect, the official population count of the time serves as a sobering example of Black fecundity: according to the 1800 census, there were 893,602 Black slaves in America. By 1860 - just prior to the American Civil War, which was fought primarily over the issue of slaves, the Black population in America was counted at 3,953,760.

Seeing as all importation of Black slaves was forbidden after 1808, the virtual quadrupling of the Black population in just 60 years - a staggering feat by itself - is exclusively attributable to the natural population growth rate which exploded while the Blacks were held as slaves in the southern states - whatever else slavery did to them, it did not kill them.

By 1960 - only one hundred years later - this population had jumped to over 20 million - a staggering 2,300 percent increase in 160 years.

Above and below: The slaving mentality is well illustrated in this series of posters announcing slave auctions and a reward poster for a runaway slave from Maryland.

Contrary to what is commonly believed, Black slaves did have legal rights in early America, such as support in age or sickness, a right to religious instruction, and the right to bring lawsuits and appear in court in certain cases. Violent behavior on the part of slave owners towards slaves was prohibited by law: this did however not stop individual instances of great cruelty.

The American War of Independence saw the creation of the modern state of America in 1779. While the war had been fought for liberty by the White colonists, the Black slave population's sympathies lay largely with the British.

Thousands of slaves sought freedom by taking refuge behind British lines. When the British army evacuated Charleston and Savannah, more than 10,000 former slaves went with them. Some Blacks settled in Nova Scotia; others moved to Sierra Leone in West Africa. An armed Black unit - the Ethiopian Regiment - was raised by the British to fight the Americans.

Some Blacks took the opportunity to trade wartime loyalty to the American rebels for eventual freedom: between 1782 and 1790, American Virginia plantation owners freed almost 10,000 slaves as a result of such deals.

The American Constitution DENIES BLACKS CITIZENSHIP AND COUNTS THEM AS THREE FIFTHS OF A PERSON

Most of the originators of the American constitution were slave owners, and none believed in racial equality for a minute, despite all the subsequent propaganda to the contrary. As with the Amerinds - who were regarded as a completely separate alien nation all to themselves, the writers of the American Constitution - George Washington and others - wrote specific provisions into the original American Constitution to deal with the Black population.

None of the writers of the American Constitution even contemplated Blacks being accorded citizenship or voting rights in the new republic. When the Constitution was drafted at the Constitutional Convention held from 25 May to 17 September 1787, the delegates agreed that the US Congress should be elected on the basis of the size of the population in the various states making up the union - that those states with the larger populations should have more seats than those with smaller populations.

However a dispute arose: as the majority of Blacks were in the Southern states, and were specifically excluded from having the vote, the White leaders from the Northern states argued that the Black population should not be counted for purposes of representation, saying that the number of seats held by Southern states in the lower house of the national legislature should be based solely on their White population.

The White leaders from the Southern states however argued that this method of apportioning seats did not recognize the wealth and importance of their states; they wanted slaves to be counted equally with the Whites - then known by the phrase "free people."

Finally a compromise was reached and written into the Constitution: each Black would be counted as three fifths of a person for purposes of counting the population of a state. Thus it was written into Article 1, Section two of the American Constitution that:

"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States . . .

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

The founders of what was to become the most powerful and influential nation in modern history therefore not only refused to grant Black slaves citizenship of their new state, but then went on to only count them as part people.

The American Constitution also permitted the importation of slaves until 1808 but then gave Congress the power to ban the trade (which it then did in that year). In the interim the Constitution imposed ten dollar tax per head on all Blacks imported into the United States until that date. Article 1, section 9 of the constitution reads as follows:

"The Migration of Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the American Declaration of Independence, declared that "Blacks . . . are inferior to Whites in the endowments of both body and mind" (The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Modern Library, New York, 1944, page 262).

To his great credit Jefferson was opposed to slavery as a concept: but he was adamant that "(W)hen freed, the Black is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture" (ibid).

Jefferson's true views on the racial future of America have been deliberately hidden from modern view: on the famous Jefferson memorial in Washington DC, which has served as a rallying point for American Black right's activists for years, an inscription quotes Jefferson as saying "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."

However, this is not Jefferson's complete words: the sentence from which these words are taken does not end with a full stop, it carries on after a semicolon and says ";nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live under the same government." (Ibid).

The editing of Jefferson's words are evidence of a deliberate political agenda at work. Proof of the pudding came in the fact that Jefferson himself kept a huge number of slaves on his property - at one time the total reaching 212 in all. When George Washington died, he put a clause in his will which freed his slaves: Jefferson made no such allowance.

Abraham Lincoln, the American president who was eventually to issue the proclamation which formally abolished slavery throughout the United States in 1863 - and who is subsequently known as the "Great Emancipator" for this - was another who never believed in racial equality, again despite much propaganda to the contrary. Lincoln was, like Jefferson before him, firmly committed to racial separation, and came out in public support of a law in the state of Illinois which made marriage between Blacks and Whites a crime (Lincoln and the Negro, Benjamin Quarles, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962, pages 36-37).

Although Lincoln is best know for his abolition of slavery, his true political policy was one of emancipation and repatriation of all Blacks out of America to Africa. He made his views public knowledge: during a face to face meeting during an 1862 meeting with a Black group calling itself the "Deputation of Free Negroes" who had come to plead for full emancipation, Lincoln told the delegation that their best bet was to return to Africa and start a free Black colony there. He told them:

"You and I are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other races. Whether it be right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living amongst us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.

"Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on equality with the White race. On this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. I cannot alter it if I would.

"I need not recount to you the effects upon White men, growing out of the institution of slavery. See our present condition - the country engaged in war! - our White men cutting one another's throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there would be no war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated." (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Baler, Rutgers University Press, 1953, Vol. V, pages 371-375.)

As if this was not enough, when Lincoln finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he again called for the Black "colonization" (the creation of separate Black states) during his speech after the signing ceremony:

"I have urged the colonization of the Negroes, and shall continue. My emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of White men in America, much less for two distinct races of Whites and Blacks.

"I can conceive of no greater calamity that the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal. Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the Negro and give him our language, literature, religion, and system of government under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable." Ibid.)

So much for the image of the "Great Emancipator" then. The major difference between Lincoln and the Southerners then was that Lincoln wanted the slaves to be freed and sent away; the Southerners wanted the Black enslavement to continue and for the Blacks' continued presence in America.

This political position was given legal status as late as 1857, when the U.S. Supreme Court, hearing an application by a runaway slave against his extradition across state boundaries, ruled in what became known as the famous "Dred Scott" case that the Black slave could not avail himself of the protection of the Constitution because Blacks were not recognized as citizens of the United States of America.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 was the turning point in the "colonization" policy: deprived of its major proponent, it was put on the back burner and other political issues came to dominate domestic politics in America.

Finally in 1869, in a move which would certainly have been opposed by Abraham Lincoln himself, Blacks were finally granted citizenship of the United States of America, by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on 9 July of that year.

Although "what if" speculation is pointless, the reader of history cannot help but at this point speculate on "what if" Lincoln had not been assassinated: it is most certainly possible that he would have implemented his policy of repatriation. The history of America may well have been irreparably changed by his assassination in a theater booth in Washington DC in 1865.

However, Blacks did not only enter the Americas as slaves. Many came during the 19th Century in a British abolitionist effort to provide an alternative for slave labor. All told, some 50,000 "free Blacks" settled in the British and French West Indies, their numbers being swelled by an ever increasing amount of freed slaves.

By the beginning of the 19th Century, the free Black population was a feature of every slave society in the Americas. In the New Granada provinces of what today are the independent states of Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, the free Black population in 1789 was 420,000, whereas Black slaves numbered only 20,000. Free Blacks also outnumbered Black slaves in Peru, Argentina, and Brazil. In Puerto Rico they numbered nearly half the total population in 1812.

In Cuba free Blacks made up 15 percent of the Black population in 1827; in Saint-Domingue they made up five per cent of the Black population - and in Jamaica three per cent of all Blacks were formally free men.

Contrary to the popular image portrayed of the American South as a place of medieval slavery, it was in the South that the free Blacks prospered most: they had greater opportunities than Northern Blacks to work as artisans and even to acquire property. In New Orleans, Louisiana, for example, 753 Blacks owned slaves, according to the 1830 census.

The existence of growing numbers of free Blacks was met with hostility in most states on the continent of North America. For the greatest number illiterate, they were unable to settle as farmers or tradesmen, and very often turned to crime as the only way to make a living. The high rate of free-Black criminality resulted in several anti-Black riots across the United States: the most serious occurred in Cincinnati in 1829.

The growing problem led the majority of American states to restrict or prohibit the entry of free Blacks into their areas; an Ohio law required entering Blacks to post $500 bonds - a fortune by standards of the time.

Just how deadly slave keeping could be was dramatically illustrated by the slave uprising on the Caribbean island of Haiti in 1791. By 1804, the combined effect of 13 years of uprisings, murder and terrorism had destroyed the dominant White population, all agricultural production on the island and the economy of the most prosperous colony of the Western Hemisphere.

Originally called Hispaniola, the island now known as Haiti had become a center of Spanish activity during the time of the conquistador Hernando Cortes. Shortly thereafter the Spanish had moved on to the South American mainland, and the island was only populated by small numbers of Spaniards; the local Amerinds, the Canibales, being reduced to insignificance in numbers by a combination of Spanish force of arms, slavery and European diseases to which they had no immunity.

The western part of the island was settled by French traders in 1697 and renamed Saint-Domingue: the eastern portion remained under Spanish control, known as Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. On this island was to play out one of the most ferocious Black on White race wars yet seen in the Western Hemisphere - ferocious because it resulted in the total extermination of the island's entire White population.

In 1789, the island of San Domingo was widely known as the jewel in the French colonial crown - extremely wealthy - in fact producing more sugar, coffee and cotton than all of the then existing colonies in North America put together. San Domingo's output in these three areas in fact supplied not only all of France's requirements, but half of the entire European continent's needs as well.

This was so because the island has to this day, wonderful soil and a good rainfall which makes it ideal agricultural land. In 1789, the island had a population of some 40,000 Whites, mostly French, although there was a smattering of Dutch, Germans and Spanish amongst the Whites.

By this time there was also a mixed-race population on the island of some 27,000, many of whom were freemen and property owners themselves. It was however the astonishing number of Black slaves on the island - some 450,000 - who not only provided the labor for the vast agricultural output, but also the demographic time bomb which was to engulf not only the Whites but the mixed race population as well.

The French Revolution of 1789 was to serve as the spark to San Domingo's population pressures. A decree by the new French national assembly in Paris of 15 May 1791, gave the right to vote for a government in San Domingo to the White and mixed race population on the island.

The White settlers on the island immediately protested, with the governor general of the island, the aptly named Blanchelande, sending a message to Paris warning that the implementation of such a form of government would result in "a frightful civil war" and the loss of the colony for France.

The French National Assembly then rescinded the earlier decree, issuing a new one saying that the colonists themselves could decide on what form of government was best for their own particular circumstances. When this news was made known in San Domingo, it heightened tensions: the mixed race population reacted very badly to being told they had the vote one week and then being denied it a few weeks later. Racial tension began to build up.

One of the results of the French Revolution was the creation of a political lobby in the National Assembly known as the Friends of the Blacks ("Amis des Noirs"). The Amis des Noirs reacted with outrage to the second decree on San Domingo, and applied sufficient pressure in the French National Assembly to not only have the second, earlier, decree withdrawn, but to have a new one put in its place which gave the vote to not only the mixed race population of San Domingo but also to all Blacks who were not under any form of indentured labor - that is, to the free Blacks as well.

When this news was received in San Domingo, the Black population, which had somehow managed to seize a shipment of weapons, went over to a fully-fledged race war, attacking Whites, burning plantations and plunging the island into chaos. The mixed race population first sided with the Whites, then with the Blacks, only to ultimately find that neither side accepted them.

This chaos continued until 1802, when a detachment of 20,000 White French troops sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to restore order to the island, landed and crushed the long boiling race war. Black insurgents were hunted down and the leaders of the Black rebellion surrendered, pledging allegiance to the new French government.

Then in 1802, yellow fever broke out amongst the French troops, at one stage killing as many as 160 per day. By 6 August 1802, four fifths of the French troops who had arrived earlier in the year, were dead from the disease. Napoleon sent 10,000 fresh troops to bolster the beleaguered French garrison. The Blacks, seeing the ravages of the disease amongst the White troops (the Blacks were largely immune to it) relaunched their racial rebellion, and the security situation on the island had once again descended into near anarchy, with Whites and mixed race persons being targeted at random by Black rebels.

The conflict then took a nasty turn: the French troops decided that the only way to bring the now 12 year old race war to an end, was to kill all Black inhabitants over the age of 12 years - since they reasoned that any adult Black who for the previous twelve years of the conflict had been a rebel waging racial war against the Whites, would never again meekly go back to working in the fields and would be, forever, a potential rebel and insurgent. The same applied to Black women, the French decided, as the female Blacks had proved themselves to be even more vicious and cruel to captured Whites than what the men had been.

With ruthless energy, the new French troops pursued this task, and many Blacks were indeed killed in this arbitrary fashion. It was however not a one way affair: both sides reacted to each others' atrocities by committing even greater ones: the murderous situation escalated exponentially.

Then the Napoleonic Wars intervened: with France being at war with Britain, the French colonial possession came under attack from the British navy. The English fleet blockaded the island, not only cutting off supplies to the French garrison from France, but also aiding the Black rebels on the island with supplies of guns and ammunition.

The new Black rebel leader, one Dessalines, led a number of vicious attacks on isolated French garrisons on some coastal towns, during which all the White inhabitants were put to death. By 10 November 1803, the French could no longer hold out, and surrendered to the English Fleet off the coast. Of the 50,000 French troops sent to island, only a few thousand ever made it back to France - and this loss was to sorely count against Napoleon at later battles in Europe itself.

With the surrender of the French, the Black rebel leader Dessalines immediately set about slaughtering those Whites unfortunate enough not to have left the island. San Domingo was renamed Haiti in December 1803 and declared a republic - the second in the Western Hemisphere after the United States of America and the first independent Black ruled nation in the Caribbean.

Having disposed of the Whites on the island, the Blacks and mixed race population then turned on each other in yet another race war, ending with the virtual annihilation of the mixed race peoples. In October 1804, Dessalines declared his people to be the winners and to mark the occasion, declared himself emperor for life of Haiti.

The same year, Dessalines issued an invitation to the Whites who had left the island, to return and help rebuild the economy, which had been utterly destroyed as a result of the thirteen years of race war. A surprisingly large number of Whites took up his offer, but soon discovered, to their cost, the nature of their error.

Scarcely had the new year, 1805, begun when the Black population once again rose up against the Whites, although this time there was no reason to do so apart from sheer racial hatred. The handful of Whites appealed to the emperor, but he was powerless to control the mobs: Whites were slaughtered if they were found.

Finally on 18 March 1805, the very last White man, woman and child on Haiti was killed. The Black rebels had for the second time succeeded in killing or driving out every single White on the island.

Above: The Haitian army on parade in 1899 - a comical collection of "generals" with almost no soldiers, as vividly captured in the book "Where Black rules White" by H.H. Prichard, (Thomas Nelson & Sons, London, 1910).

Above: A typical scene from Haiti in 1899- this despite the Black island state having been independent since 1803. Picture from H.H. Prichard's book.

Below, two photographs of street scenes in Haiti, taken in 2005: There seems to have been little progress since H.H. Pritchard visited the island in 1899.

The history of Haiti after 1805 is not the subject of this book : suffice to say that Haiti, which as San Domingo under the French, was the richest land in all the Caribbean; is today still a shambles of poverty, anarchy and chaos, despite being only 35 years younger than the United States of America: a devastating counter argument to the "environmental" theory of development.

Slavery was formally abolished in 1772 in England: by this time approximately 15,000 Black slaves had been imported into that country.

In 1787, a society for the abolition of the slave trade was formed with Member of Parliament William Wilberforce as its parliamentary spokesman - almost immediately a policy of repatriation was started, the second one in Britain's history (the first total expulsion of Blacks having taken place under Queen Elizabeth I).

The abolitionists - as the opponents of slavery were known - lost no time in implementing their repatriation program: in 1787, a large transfer took place to West Africa where the town of Saint George's Bay (in present day Sierra Leone) was created, in the abolitionist society's words, as refuge for the "London Black poor."

The emancipated slaves were however unable to sustain the town, and by 1790, it had collapsed.

Undeterred, the British then launched a new repatriation settlement, founding the aptly named town of Freetown in 1792, in Sierra Leone. This time a number of Whites moved to the town with a large number of former Black slaves, and the town has survived to the present day.

The large repatriations of the already small Black population in England by the end of the 1700s meant that Britain would in the 19th and second half of the 20th Centuries remain an overwhelmingly White county.

Although many of the states making up the United States of America also abolished slavery in 1808, a large number did not, an issue which would later lead to a White civil war in that country. The success of the Freetown settlement served as a beacon to many Blacks and Whites in North America.

An alliance of White anti-slavery activists (called abolitionists) and Blacks became known as the American Colonization Society which actively promoted the repatriation of Blacks to Africa.

In 1815, a small group of free North American Blacks was transported to Sierra Leone where they supplemented the British Sierra Leone settlement, with further repatriation ventures undertaken in the 1850's.

By 1822, the American Colonization Society had established a significant former North American Black slave settlement in Africa, called to this day Liberia (Latin for Liberty), using an almost word for word copy of the American Constitution as the founding charter of that state.

The capital city, Monrovia, was named in honor of the then US president, James Monroe, who was an enthusiastic sponsor of the project. Liberia is the oldest independent Black state in Africa, but is nonetheless still prone to the usual Third World chaos which is so typical of Africa - yet another devastating argument against the "environmental" and "opportunity" based theories of development.

For Liberia had all the "opportunities" and physical assets of the United States of America - even down to a word for word constitution - yet still has dropped out of the First World with remarkable speed.

Liberia is in fact an excellent example of the truth that the nature of a people in a society, determine the nature of that society, never mind what "environmental" factors there may be present.