A prominent Liberian human rights advocate and head of the Universal Human Rights International (UHRI) based in Boston, USA, Rev. Torli Krua has over the years repeatedly challenged some historical facts regarding United States role in the formational of Liberia and its aftermath.
“Liberians are suffering at home and abroad, thanks to the ongoing harm of officially sanctioned racism by the United States of America against Americans of color. According to the 2nd annual report of the Society for the colonization of the free people of color of the United States; “ Rev. Kru said in one of his publications.
That prompted him to write the US State Department, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia “for correction of inaccuracies and inclusion of facts”.
But now in reply to his request, the head of the office of Historian Foreign Service Institute at the US State Department has said they “no longer update or maintain the Milestone section of our website”.
See details of the whole exchange below:
Letter to Rev Krua:
“Dear Rev. Krua,
We no longer update or maintain the Milestones section of our website that you have referenced, for the reasons outlined here. Nevertheless, we do appreciate you bringing these issues to our attention.
Kind regards,
Sara E. Berndt, Ph.D.
Office of the Historian
Foreign Service Institute
U.S. Department of State History@State.gov “
From: Torli Krua <harlankrua@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, July 1, 2022 1:20 PM
To: The Office of the Historian <history@state.gov>
Subject: Correction Requested : https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia
Rev. Torli H. Krua
90 Antwerp Street
Boston, MA 02125
July 1, 2022
Fwd: Correction Requested : https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia
Subject: Request for Correction of inaccuracies and inclusion of facts: ( https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia )
Your document omitted the primary reason for which the United States Government founded the American Colony of Liberia and why in 2022, after two hundred years of American Colonization, Liberians are suffering at home and abroad, thanks to the ongoing harm of officially sanctioned racism by the United States of America against Americans of color. According to the 2nd annual report of the Society for the colonization of the free people of color of the United States; “…the colonization of the free people of color, will render the slave who remains in America more obedient, more faithful, more honest, and, consequently, more useful to his master, is it proper to regard this happy consequence to both, as the sole object which the Society (ACS) hope to attain…” This was an American Government project that required a law passed by Congress. According to the Speaker of the House at Congress where the Bill was passed, the purpose for colonization was plain and simple: “… to get rid of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous, portion of our population.”
After 200 years of atrocities of American Colonization, here are some of the missing facts:
- Liberian descendants of Americans have ties to America that predate the American Declaration of Independence
- Their ancestors participated in the American Revolution
- After the Nationality Act of 1790 was signed into law, slaveholders started looking for ways to remove, and banish Americans of color who have been disenfranchised by the law. They would now be trashed, removed, colonized, and banished to Liberia, and to Indian Reservations by law, in order to make room for European Immigrants.
- The deed for the land purchased for the colony of Liberia referenced reAmerican citizens as the residents who would live in the place
- The top founding fathers of the colony of Liberia were not “freed slaves” but all slaveholders who abused their office to protect their personal property slaves. Not only were slaves freed in 1865, but they’re also not a single monument erected for a single abolitionist in Liberia. On the other hand, there are cities named to honor slaveholders: Monrovia-James Monroe, Bushrod Island-slaveholder and Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Bushrod Washington, Marshall City, and Marshall Territory named in honor of slaveholder and Chief Justice John Marshall, Clay-Ashland, for slaveholder and Speaker of Congress henry Clay.
- Established by white men mostly white slaveholders who were high-ranking US Government officials, the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America was later named the American Colonization Society in 1837.
- Colonization was a project of the US Government, which used federal taxes, US Agent Samuel Bacon paid by the USA, gunboat escort for American Settlers, and the Land wasn’t purchased by African Americans. The “free man of color upon arrival in the colony was not able to govern themselves but was ruled by white men for over 2 decades in Africa because they were Black.
- The USA has erroneously claimed “Freed American Slaves” founded Liberia covering up the role of the US Government & slaveholders
- Mr. Maybury, Deputy Chieh of Mission, Monrovia on Juneteeth repeated the “freed slaves” but dressed it up to say “FREED African Americans”. “Freed”? Joseph Jenkins Roberts wasn’t freed, he was born free-Roberts was an American citizen. James Payne was mixed race and he wasn’t freed, he was free, he was an American citizen! The Liberians being strangulated under Democrats and Republicans are entitled to all privileges enjoyed by Americans but racism continues to ravage our lives despite the fact that the slaveholders are dead. Who’s worse the US Government today or the one
- Thousands of Liberian refugees currently in the USA for years are still unjustifiably denied access to humanitarian assistance or permits to work. Liberians were granted work permits by President Biden on January 20, 2021, excluded Liberians with Continuous Physical Presence in the U.S. On January 20, 2021. Again, on June 27, 2022, the Biden Administration issued another work permit to Liberian refugees. This time around, the effective date is Continuous Physical Presence in the U.S. Since May 20, 2017, once again excluding thousands of Liberians for no justifiable reasons. Compare the treatment of Liberians to Ukrainian refugees who were granted TPS work permit on April 19, 2022, by the Biden Administration and extending benefits to all Ukrainians’ Continuous Physical Presence in the U.S. Since April 19, 2022. Check the record for Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) over the past 30 years and the pattern of discrimination against Liberians becomes apparent.
- Citizens from 40 countries enjoy visa waivers but not Liberians who are denied visa enmass
- President Biden’s and Congress’ Liberian Refugee Fairness Act is unfair because it departed from tradition and precedent used for decades in granting benefits to similarly situated nationals who were “physically present” in the USA. When awarding benefits of reprieve to Liberians, thousands of similarly situated Liberian refugees “physically present” were denied benefits for no justifiable reasons, aside from their skin color. Mostly, all foreign nationals benefiting from reprieve are granted benefits when they are “physically present” in the US on the date the law goes into effect. The unfair “Fairness” Act signed in December 2020 excluded thousands of Liberians in the USA in December when the law was signed by President Trump.
- American missionary agencies, refugee resettlement organizations, and nonprofits are mostly all white-led with federal tax exemptions continue racial discrimination and exploitation in Liberia because these entities are not regulated or required to include
Ladies & Gentlemen:
Please accept my compliments and best wishes as I write to request that you kindly re-examine the following information published on the website sponsored by American taxes: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia. The information published is not only inaccurate, but it is also offensive and harmful because many facts of history relevant to the story were omitted. This leaves the reader with conclusions that leads to ongoing harm against Liberians and may, in fact, constitute a conspiracy to commit hate crimes against descendants of African Americans and indigenous Africans colonized in the American Colony of Liberia.
Just so you may know, since Christmas eve of 1989, a brutal civil war originated from the United States targeting Liberia. Over 250,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of Liberians were displaced as refugees. The Liberians ended up in Sweeden, Australia, France, Denmark, Canada, the United States of America, and elsewhere. While the Liberians who fled the violence and sought refuge in foreign countries, including countries where English isn’t spoken were welcomed as human beings and refugees under the protection of International law.
Unfortunately, because of the ongoing harm of racism and hate crimes against Liberians that goes back to the first Apartheid Law of modern history codified by the US Congress on March 26, 1790, the first Nationality Act, Liberians who fled to the United States were discriminated against and continues to be discriminated against by Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, for absolutely no justifiable reasons, aside from the hate crimes codified by racist, white supremacists, and slaveholders who are all dead and no longer alive. These racists put in place laws, although are no longer on the books, unleashed ongoing harm against Americans because of their complexion. Removed and banished Americans whose ties and contributions predate the American Declaration of Independence!
According to the dead racists who envisioned, conceived, weaponized, and initiated officially sanctioned racism, the color of a person’s skin or complexion determines the quality of humanity a person possesses. White-skinned human beings are superior and darker complexion human beings are inferior. They didn’t stop with the branding, which says dark skin human beings were designed to be slaves due to their inferiority as humans and white skin individuals are superior and therefore must be masters. Blacks are slaves by nature and ineligible for citizenship in the United States.
They didn’t stop there. According to them, any Black person who is not yet enslaved is a “FREE SLAVE” waiting to be bought. Hence, after the American Revolutionary War in which Blacks fought on both sides, and after the American Declaration of Independence, which claimed that “all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” The United States Congress passed a law that disenfranchised Americans. Congress went further and passed two laws, the first created an American Colony in West Africa, using American taxes, an American Law, and the force of the US Navy to in colonizing Americans who happened to have a darker complexion on March 3, 1819. Congress didn’t stop there. In May of 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, to remove and banish Native Americans and make room for European Immigrants. Forget the Americans who died in the process of ethnic cleansing by American Colonization and the Indian Removal Acts. Forget the cruelty of President Andrew Jackson: ” By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay. ” President Jackson.
In the days of President Jackson, unlike in the 21st Century, there was no United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no protocols, treaties, and conventions universally accepted as the International Order. Fast forward to the 21st Century when we have International Order, treaties, protocols, and conventions, and President Obama-What has changed for Americans of color removed and banished by racist acts of Congress? What happened to the Americans who fled to the United States, compared to Liberians who fled to Denmark or France, where the language was unknown? What happened since 1990? What happened when President Trump left office and President Biden became President? A classified cable from Washington to the US Embassy in Monrovia ordered no visa for Black Liberians but ordered visas for Lebanese and Indians. The head of President Biden’s Malaria Initiative Dr. Panjabi was born in Liberia and was granted a visa to come to the USA, but Liberians with relatives in the USA were denied visas and allowed to die in Liberia.
In the 21st Century, not only are the slaveholders and white supremacists dead, we now have a body of protections and laws both national and international. Sadly, Liberians are not suffering in a strange country but in the United States of America, the only superpower in the world! How is the United States leading? Yes, by example:
The United States of America undermines global peace by failing to sign and rectify so many commonsense treaties such as the Optional Protocol To The Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), Civil Law Convention on Corruption, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against women (OP-CEDAW)…and many many more. It’s time to put humanity first over profit for the Military-Industrial Complex. President Biden and members of Congress must immediately sign the treaties, protocols, and conventions they claim to be protecting with billions of dollars by first signing and rectifying the Order before paying to defend unsigned orders.
In the USA for 30 years, many Liberians were denied permits to work while other Liberians were granted TPS but citizens from other countries were given green cards and US citizenship: The 102nd (1991-1992) Congress passed a law that allowed 52,968 Chinese nationals to get permanent residency status. The 105th Congress (1997-1998) passed legislation known as NACARA. Under this law, 150,000 Nicaraguans, 5,000 Cubans, 200,000 El Salvadorans, and 50,000 Guatemalans get permanent residency status. The Liberian Refugee fairness Act was passed on December 20, 2019. Unemployed Liberian Refugees must pay filing fees of $1250.00-under section 245(i) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, refugees are exempt from paying filing fees for green cards. Right now millions of citizens from 40 countries enter the United States without visas. The United States embassy denies most Liberian visa applicants and takes $160 from them.-million from poor Liberians yearly while the top politicians and their families enjoy America. Citizens from 57 countries enter the United States to work temporarily and take millions of dollars home while Liberians are born to live and die in poverty.
So given the new rules and international law and the continuous suffering of Americans of color and descendants, who is really uncivilized? The slaveholder or the people governing America today? Congress today includes descendants of slaves, refugees, prisoners, and immigrants. Yet not a single one of these politicians in American Congress in the 21st Century is willing or able to propose a change that aims to mitigate the ongoing harm put in place by racist white supremacists, and slaveholders who are dead and gone, leaving their dirty work for you to do.
Thanks for your careful consideration of working with us to correct the narrative that has killed countless Americans, is ravaging the lives of millions and is destined to destroy the United States. Alas, “United we stand. Divided we fall. ”
Sincerely Yours,
Rev. Torli H. Krua
Legal Justification for healing and uniting the United States of America and ending the ongoing suffering of countless descendants of Americans hidden in plain sight at Indian Reservations across the United States, including the impoverished Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and poverty-stricken West Point, Monrovia, Liberia. Please take time to travel to these places to get a glimpse of the living Hell.
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Legal Justification for healing & Uniting The United States of America
By Rev. Torli Krua
Long before the advent of the United States of America, indigenous peoples known as Native Americans established their families, tribes, communities, and nations across the land we now know as North America. On August 20, 1619, Africans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and were sold to English colonists, marking the beginning of slavery in America. In 1641 Massachusetts became the first state to legalize slavery.
“Liberia was the first colony created by the United States,” said Massachusetts State Representative, Honorable Ben Swan in Tappita, Nimba County, Liberia, during his first visit to Liberia in 2008. “All Liberians are entitled to American citizenship”, Hon. Swan concluded.
Indeed, the first Constitution of Liberia was approved by the Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society in Washington City on May 23, 1825. The American Colonization Society (ACS), originally known as the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was founded by white people dominated and led by slaveholders who desired to uproot and colonize free Negros, born and bred in the United States while welcoming European immigrants to the “Land of Opportunities”. American Colonization is a gigantic fraud, perpetrated by the US Congress, financed by American taxes, and enforced by the UN Navy, but objected by the Attorney General, William Wirt, Opinion of the Attorney General #229, October 16, 1819.
In the past thirty (30) years, the United States of America under Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, carried out systematic discrimination against Liberian refugees, while offering preferential treatment to other similarly situated immigrants and refugees. Even after the signing of the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act that aimed to mitigate the harm of discrimination, thousands of Liberians were excluded from the benefits of the unfair “Fairness” act, which failed to follow the precedents of extending benefits to all foreigners “physically present” in the United States on the date such laws came into force. President Biden’s two Executive Orders in two years, granting work permits to Liberians still excluded thousands of similarly situated Liberians “physically present” on American Soil, for no justifiable reasons.
Liberians are entitled to all privileges enjoyed by Americans, including citizenship if they so desire because of five significant reasons:
Firstly, The use of “freed American slaves” or “freed African Americans” to describe the free Negros or “free men of color” who were settled in West Africa by the United States is a hate crime because it conveys falsely the idea that Africans or people of color are inferior and unfit to for US citizenship because of their complexion. The colonization of free Negros to take away their inalienable rights as human beings is illegal because the free Negros in question held ties and contributions that predated the American Declaration of Independence. As human beings, their rights were confirmed by the American Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness.”
Secondly, on March 26, 1790, the Nationality Law of 1790 (the first Apartheid Law) of modern history codified officially sanctioned racism and stole the rights of all people of color whose ties and contributions to America predated the advent of the United States as well as rights identified by the American Declaration of Independence, when the US Congress, dominated by slaveholders and white supremacists made the skin color of a human being the requirement for US citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1795 repealed and superseded the 1790 Act. Even so, the harm of the 1790 law that resulted in the removal and banishment of African Americans and Native Americans by the Indian Removal Act are still ongoing and still ravaging the lives of countless descendants of Americans in Liberia and in Indian Reservations across the United States as well as elsewhere worldwide, where Americans of color sought refuge.
Thirdly, colonization was illegal and constitutes an abuse of public office and corruption by the white supremacists and slaveholders because by colonizing free Negros, these high-ranking United States Government officials were using public funds, the US Navy, and legislation to protect their private properties-African Slaves. These Government officials who never freed their slaves, including slaveholding leaders of American Colonization; Slaveholder and US President James Monroe, Slaveholder and Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Bushrod Washington, President of the American Colonization Society, Slaveholder, and US President James Madison, also President of the American Colonization Society. According to the 2nd annual report of the American Colonization Society, the purpose was the perpetuation of slavery and disenfranchisement of Americans:
Fourthly, the Attorney General, Hon. William Wirt, in The Opinion of the Attorney General #229 stated clearly that American colonization of American natives could not be funded by American taxes: Liberia, the surreptitious American colony originated from an illegal act of the United States because the Attorney General Hon. William Wirt wrote the Opinion of Attorney General #229 on October 14, 1819. According to Hon. Wirt, American taxes in the amount of $100,000.00 could not be used to buy land for colonization of free Negros, pay for transport of African Americans from the United States to Africa, nor used to pay the salaries of African Americans working in the colony to build barracks for the US Navy.
Fifthly, The first Constitution of Liberia was approved in Washington City, not Africa. Furthermore, it was approved by US Government officials acting in their official capacities at a time when Liberia was not an independent country and also happened at a time when the society for colonizing the free men of color or the American Colonization Society had not received its charter from the state of Maryland. Therefore the first constitution of Liberia and its citizenship rights was in fact, the United States of America extending citizenship to natives of the United States in a colony purchased by American taxes and facilitated by members of the US Navy. Article 1 of the Constitution:
“All persons born within the limits of the territory held by the American Colonization Society, in Liberia, in Africa, or removing there to reside, shall be free, and entitled to all such rights and privileges, as are enjoyed by the citizens of the United States.”