Liberia Declared Independence / "Unua Libro" first published - July 26

Liberia Declared Independence - July 26, 1847 / On this day in 1887, "Unua Libro," the first book to describe the international language of Esperanto, was published in Warsaw.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. Heads up that you also might hear
two different hosts, Me and Tracy V. Wilson. With that said,
on with the show, Welcome to this day in History Class.
It's July twenty six. Liberia declared its independence on this

(00:21):
day in eighteen forty seven, making it Africa's oldest republic,
and Liberia occupies a complicated place in African history. It
is very widely cited as the only African nation never
subject to colonial rule, but that's not entirely accurate. It's
definitely true that it wasn't subject to white colonial rule

(00:41):
in the way that its neighbors were. The continent of
Africa is huge. It's incredibly diverse, home to an enormous
collection of people's and cultures, all with their own social systems,
their own art, their own cultures, their own languages. Literally
thousands of languages exist and have existed for thousands of
years on the continent of Africa. During the Scramble for

(01:04):
Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, major
European powers basically divided up the continent in this rush
to try to claim territory and resources, and basically drew
their own map of what Africa should look like without
really talking to any Africans about it. That's why people
usually think of when they hear colonial rule in the

(01:27):
context of Africa and Liberia was definitely different from that.
Liberia was founded as a home for the formerly enslaved
population of the America's but like the rest of the continent,
West Africa, where Liberia would be established, was already home
to its own cultures, its own people's people with their

(01:49):
own beliefs, their own art, their own languages. Again, here's
what happened and the years before the Civil War in
the United States, there was one prevailing motive thought at
Africans and their descendants either couldn't or shouldn't assimilate with
white society, and people who held this view were really
all over the map in terms of their feelings and

(02:10):
thoughts about race and slavery. There were black abolitionists and
other black leaders who thought that they and other black
people would be better off if they went back to Africa.
There were white abolitionists who thought that that was what
would be best. They had sort of a paternalistic view
towards the enslaved people and thought that it would be

(02:31):
better for them if they went back to Africa. And
then there were people, both slaveholders and non who were
just motivated by racism, and they if they thought if
Africans weren't going to be in the United States to
be enslaved anymore, that they should just go and get out.
So all of these people with these and other viewpoints

(02:51):
were united in this overall thought that there needed to
be a colony in Africa to receive these formerly enslaved people,
Africa ends and people of African descent. They formed organizations
to try to do this, and the most famous was
the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color
of the United States, also known as the American Colonization Society.

(03:13):
And this and in most of the other organizations that
were dedicated to this cause, pretty much all of the
leadership were white. In eighteen sixteen, the American Colonization Society
started trying unsuccessfully to buy land in what's now Liberia
to establish this home for the formerly enslaved. It took
them five years to convince local African leaders to let

(03:36):
them take possession of some land along the coast that
would eventually become the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Monrovia is
actually named for President James Monroe, who convinced the government
to provide some more funding for this project. For about
twenty years, people continued moving from the Americas and the
Caribbean uh and the American Colonization Society was heavily involved

(04:00):
in the administration of this colony. About fifteen thousand African
Americans wound up immigrating to Liberia during this time. Things
progressed from there, and then Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who was
a black man from Virginia, proclaimed Liberia to be an
independent republic on July eighteen forty seven. There had been

(04:21):
some talk within the American Colonization Society and elsewhere about
maybe trying to wean Liberia off of aid from the
United States and from these organizations. Other nations formally acknowledged
Liberian independence over the next couple of years, and while
the United States did to an extent, it wasn't until
eighteen sixty two that they really officially did so, so

(04:44):
it's really not completely accurate to say that Liberia was
free from colonial influence. White Americans were heavily involved in
its creation and its founding. The original constitution was modeled
after the United States Constitution. It's first president was from Virginia,
and for a long time, its official currency was the
American dollar. In its early years were marked by ongoing

(05:07):
conflicts between the indigenous African population and black colonists from
the Americas. Some of these divisions are still ongoing today.
They've never really been addressed. And while the indigenous population
was in the majority during this time, America Liberians that
was the people from the Americas that moved to Liberia,

(05:29):
they were completely controlling the government. They controlled the government
completely for decades. Today, America Liberrians make up about five
of Liberia's population, while sixteen other indigenous ethnic groups make
up the rest. So that's a very brief story of Liberia.
Thanks to Christopher Hasiotis for his research on today's episode

(05:50):
and to Tari Harrison for editing work on all of
these episodes. You can learn more about Liberia in the
September for episode of Stuff You Miss and History Class,
which is actually on Thomas Morris Chester who was a
war correspondent, And you can subscribe to the Day in
History Class on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and whatever else
you get your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow for the sixty

(06:13):
five anniversary of an Armistice. Hi, I'm eves and welcome
to This Day in History Class, a show that uncovers
history one day at a time. The day was July seven.

(06:43):
Unoa Libro, the first book to describe the international language
of Esperanto, was published in Warsaw. Esperanto is now the
most popular international auxiliary language in the world. International auxiliary languages,
or i a L are relatively simple and easy to
learn languages created to facilitate communication between people who do

(07:07):
not have any other languages in common. I a l
s have been criticized as being useless because of the
use of English as the international language of business, but
i a l s are designed to be additional, culturally
neutral languages that people used to make international communication easier.

(07:27):
So we're so. An auxiliary language based on musical notes,
created in the nineteenth century, was one of the first
to gain widespread attention. In the late nineteenth century, the
auxiliary language Volapook also gained a large following around the world.
Polish physician and oculist L. L. Zamenhoff grew up in

(07:48):
what was then the Russian Empire. He saw how much
ethnic and religious conflict was happening when he was growing up,
including anti Semitic violence. In a letter to nicol Ibarafco,
Zalmenhoff wrote about the division between Russians, Poles, Germans, and
Jewish people in the town where he was born and
grew up, and how each group spoke its own language

(08:11):
and viewed other groups as enemies. He said, the diversity
of languages is the first, or at least the most
influential basis for the separation of the human family into
groups of enemies. Zamenhoff spoke several languages, and as he
began to believe that a common language could help promote
peace and unity, he decided to construct a language that

(08:33):
would bring people together. While he was studying medicine in Moscow,
he worked on Esperanto, and he attempted to standardize Yiddish.
Though he later gave up his efforts on Yiddish, Esperanto
was the language that Zamenhoff would continue to develop. The
word esperanto means one who hopes. Zamenhoff translated literature into

(08:56):
Esperanto and wrote original works in the language. When Zalmenhoff
was ready to publish the first book on Esperanto after
he'd worked on it for years. The Russian Empire was
censoring all books. First, a book had to be permitted
to publish based on a manuscript. Then, once the book
was printed, the authorities had to grant a permit to

(09:18):
release it. Authorities allowed the book, titled International Language to
be published on June two seven, and it was allowed
to be released on July. The next version published was
the Polish one, released on September six. Zamenhoff published the
book under the name Dr Esperanto. He used his wife's

(09:40):
dowry to publish and promote his book and language. Though
the language was initially called the International Language, early adopters
were fond of the name Esperanto. The title Unua Libro
was retroactively applied to the first book at this point.
Esperanto was made up of about nine roots and fixes

(10:00):
that could form ten thousand to twelve thousand words. The
vocabulary of the language was taken mainly from the Romance languages.
Some words also came from Germanic and Slavic languages. The
grammar of the language resembles Chinese and Turkish do a
Libro or second book was published in eighteen eighty eight,
and Fundamento de Esperanto or Foundation of Esperanto was published

(10:25):
in nineteen o five. Nineteen o five was also the
year that the first World Congress of Esperanto was held
in France. After World War One. It was proposed to
the League of Nations that Esperanto should be the body's
working language, but the French delegate was the only one
to reject the proposal. Stalin's Soviet Union viewed Esperanto as

(10:47):
an international spy organization. Hitler said it was a Bolshevist
plot in mine coomp Esperantis were executed in the Holocaust. Italy,
on the other hand, embraced Esperanto to a agree because
of the similarities it had with Italian conscientious objectors in
Britain during wartime, anarchists and socialists in China and Imperial

(11:09):
Japan studied Esperanto. Esperanto supporters have included names such as
Helen Keller, Leo Tolstoi, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Though
it had a mixed reception, with some embracing it and
others mocking and even persecuting people for it, Esperanto grew
in popularity in the twentieth century. Other languages were developed

(11:32):
from and branched off of Esperanto. Esperanto publications and groups
formed around the world, and it is still used as
a first and second language around the globe. The World
Esperanto Congress still takes place annually. I'm Eve Jeff Coote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today

(11:53):
than you did yesterday. If there's something that I missed
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C podcast. Thank you for joining me today. See you
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(12:17):
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