History
The modern Armed Forces of Liberia grew out of a militia that was formed by the first black colonists from the United States. The militia was first formed when in August 1822 an attack was feared on Cape Mesurado (where Monrovia now is) and the agent of the settlements directed the mobilization of all "able-bodied males into a militia and declared martial law." By 1846, the size of the militia had grown to two regiments. In 1900, Liberian men between the ages of sixteen and fifty were considered liable for military service. The navy consisted only of two small gunboats.
On February 6, 1908, the militia was established on a permanent basis as the 500-strong Liberian Frontier Force (LFF). The LFF's original mission was "to patrol the border in the Hinterland and to prevent disorders." The LFF was initially placed under the command of a British officer, who was quickly replaced after he complained the Force was not being properly paid. In 1912, the United States established military ties with Liberia by sending some five black American officers to help reorganize the force. The LFF in its early years was frequently recruited by inducing men from the interior forcibly. When dispatched to the interior to quell tribal unrest, units often lived off the areas that they were pacifying, as a form of communal punishment. The Force's officers were drawn from either the coastal aristocracy or tribal elites.
Read more about this topic: Military History Of Liberia
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“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)