James Spriggs Payne - Political Career

Political Career

Payne was elected as the fourth president in 1868 and served a two-year term. During his presidency, he worked to end the slave trade that still took place along Liberia's coast. (Other reports though (History of Liberia and Joseph Jenkins Roberts) say: “The slave trade from Liberian ports was ended by the British Navy in the 1850s.”) He improved government relations with the native communities and peoples, whom he believed the newer settlers and politicians had for the most part ignored.

He worked to extend Liberia's trading and political ties with Europe. Denmark was the first European nation to recognize the independent Liberia, either in 1849 or 1869 (accounts differ - provide sources for both, then).

Payne was elected a second time in 1876 and served until 1878. Escalating economic difficulties began to weaken the state's dominance over the coastal indigenous population. When the financially burdened ACS withdrew its support from the colony in the years after the American Civil War, conditions worsened as Liberia struggled to modernize its largely agricultural economy. The cost of imported goods was far greater than the income generated by the nation's exports of coffee, rice, palm oil, sugarcane, and timber. Payne increased the country's foreign trade.