Africa–United States relations

Africa-United States relations covers the diplomatic relationships between the United States and the independent African countries, with some information on political, economic and cultural ties.

Pre-1940

Before World War II, the United States dealt directly only with the former American colony of Liberia, the independent nation of Ethiopia, and the semi-independent nation of Egypt.

Liberia

Further information: Liberia–United States relations

U.S. relations with Liberia date back to 1819, when the US Congress appropriated $100,000 for the establishment of Liberia. The United States officially recognized Liberia in 1862, 15 years after its establishment as a sovereign nation, and the two nations shared very close diplomatic, economic, and military ties until the 1990s.

The United States had a long history of intervening in Liberia's internal affairs, occasionally sending naval vessels to help the Americo-Liberians, who comprised the ruling minority, put down insurrections by indigenous tribes (in 1821, 1843, 1876, 1910, and 1915). By 1909, Liberia faced serious external threats to its sovereignty from the European colonial powers over unpaid foreign loans and annexation of its borderlands.

President William Howard Taft devoted a portion of his First Annual Message to Congress (December 7, 1909) to the Liberian question, noting the close historical ties between the two countries that gave an opening for a wider intervention:

"It will be remembered that the interest of the United States in the Republic of Liberia springs from the historical fact of the foundation of the Republic by the colonization of American citizens of the African race. In an early treaty with Liberia there is a provision under which the United States may be called upon for advice or assistance. Pursuant to this provision and in the spirit of the moral relationship of the United States to Liberia, that Republic last year asked this Government to lend assistance in the solution of certain of their national problems, and hence the Commission was sent across the ocean on two cruisers.

In 1912 the U.S. arranged a 40-year international loan of $ 1.7 million, against which Liberia had to agree to four Western powers (America, Britain, France and Germany) controlling Liberian Government revenues for the next 14 years, until 1926. American administration of the border police also stabilized the frontier with Sierra Leone and checked French ambitions to annex more Liberian territory. The American navy also established a coaling station in Liberia, cementing its presence. When World War I started, Liberia declared war on Germany and expelled its resident German merchants, who constituted the country's largest investors and trading partners – Liberia suffered economically as a result.

In the largest American private investment in Africa, in 1926, the Liberian government gave a concession to the American rubber company Firestone to start the world’s largest rubber plantation at Harbel, Liberia. At the same time, Firestone arranged a $5 million private loan to Liberia.

In the 1930s Liberia was again virtually bankrupt, and, after some American pressure, agreed to an assistance plan from the League of Nations. As part of this plan, two key officials of the League were placed in positions to ´advise´ the Liberian government.

Ethiopia

Main article: Ethiopia–United States relations

U.S.-Ethiopian relations were established in 1903, after meetings in Ethiopia between Emperor Menelik II and an emissary of President Theodore Roosevelt. This first step was augmented with treaties of arbitration and conciliation signed at Addis Ababa 26 January 1929. These formal relations included a grant of Most Favored Nation status, and were good up to the Italian occupation in 1935.

Emperor Haille Sellasse and President Nixon in 1969.

Italy invaded and conquered Ethiopia 1935, and evaded League of Nations sanctions. The United States was one of only five countries which refused to recognize the Italian conquest. During World War II, British forces expel the Italians and restored independence to Ethiopia. In January 1944, when President Franklin Roosevelt met personally with Emperor Haile Selassie in Egypt. The meeting both strengthened the Emperor's already strong predilection towards the United States, as well as discomforted the British who had been at odds with the Ethiopian government over the disposition of Eritrea and the Ogaden. In the 1950s, Ethiopia became a minor player in the Cold War after signing a series of treaties with the United States, and receiving $282 million in military assistance and $366 million in economic assistance in agriculture, education, public health, and transportation. In 1957, Vice President Richard Nixon visited Ethiopia and called it "one of the United States' most stalwart and consistent allies". The economic aid came through Washington's "Point Four" program and served as a model for American assistance to the newly independent African nations. The original goal of "Point Four" was containing the spread of communism, which was not a major threat in Africa in the 1950s. More broadly it served as a political project to convince Africans that it was to their long-term interest to side with the West. The program sought to improve social and economic conditions without interfering with existing political or social order.

Others

In 1901, the Tuskegee Institute, a state college in Alabama directed by the national Black leader Booker T. Washington, sent experts to the German colony of Togo in West Africa. the goal was to introduce modern agricultural technology in order to modernize the colony, basing its economy on cotton exports.

Further reading

• Butler, L. J. "Britain, the United States, and the demise of the Central African Federation, 1959–63." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 28.3 (2000): 131-151.
• Duignan, P., and L. H. Gann. The United States and Africa: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1984)
• Rosenberg, Emily S. "The Invisible Protectorate: The United States, Liberia, and the Evolution of Neocolonialism, 1909–40." Diplomatic History (1985) 9#3 pp 191-214.

• Schraeder, Peter J. United States foreign policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, crisis and change (Cambridge UP, 1994).
• Zimmerman, Andrew. Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German empire, and the globalization of the New South (Princeton UP, 2010).