William Tubman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman

19th President of Liberia
In office January 3, 1944 – July 23, 1971
Vice President(s)	Clarence Simpson (1944-1952) William R. Tolbert, Jr. (1952-1971)
Preceded by	Edwin Barclay
Succeeded by	William R. Tolbert, Jr.

Born	November 25, 1895 Harper, Liberia
Political party	True Whig

William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman (November 29, 1895 – July 23, 1971) was President of Liberia from 1944 until his death in 1971.

He was born in Harper, Liberia. He was an Americo-Liberian, a descendant of former American slaves who had been returned to Africa under the auspices of the Maryland State Colonization Society, a group favoring the manumission of slaves on Christian grounds. His father, the Reverend Alexander Tubman, was a general in the Liberian army and a former Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives, as well as a Methodist preacher. His mother, Elizabeth Tubman, came from Atlanta, Georgia. William attended primary school in Harper, then the Methodist Cape Palmas Seminary, and finally Harper County High School. He enlisted in the Liberian army at the age of 15. Between 1910 and 1917 he took part in several punitive military expeditions, rising in the ranks from private to officer status. He studied law under private tutors, served as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court and as a collector of internal revenue, and in 1917 was appointed county attorney. He was a member of the True Whig Party, which was for over a century the nation's sole legal political organization and closely tied to the Masonic Order.

His career began to take off when President Charles D.B. King heard him speak at a Masonic banquet and praised his intelligence. King's influence led to Tubman's election as the youngest senator in Liberian history in 1921. He resigned from the Senate to defend Liberia before the League of Nations after allegations that the country was using slave labour surfaced. He was reelected to the Senate for the Monrovia district in 1934. He resigned in 1937 to become an associate justice of the Liberian Supreme Court.

He was elected President in 1943 on a platform of economic growth and increased civil and political rights for all Liberians. He almost immediately brought Liberia into World War II on the side of the Allies. He enfranchised native Liberians and women for the 1951 election. However, this fact, although pleasing to those groups and the international community, did not change the electoral outcome as Tubman used the True Whig-controlled electoral machinery to produce fraudulent results. This, however, did not significantly harm his popularity in Liberia throughout his lifetime. Regarded as a pro-Western, stabilizing influence in West Africa, he was courted by many Western politicians, notably U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

A gunman attempted to assassinate him in 1955 at the hire of his political opponents, after which he cracked down brutally on any known opposition politicians. His term is best known for the policies of National Unification and the economic Open Door. He tried to reconcile the interests of the native tribes with those of the Americo-Liberian elite, and increased foreign investment in Liberia to stimulate economic growth. These policies led to the crowning achievement of the Liberian economy during the 1950s, when it had the 2nd largest rate of economic growth in the world. At his death in 1971 in a London clinic, Liberia had the largest mercantile fleet in the world, the world's largest rubber industry, the third largest exporter of iron ore in the world and had attractred more than US$1 billion in foreign investment. He was succeeded as President by his long-time vice president William Tolbert. The economic prosperity of Liberia at this time would unleash political dissent with the autocratic rule of Tubman and the True Whig Party, leading to the overthrow of the True Whig oligarchy in 1980 by Samuel Doe. This would also destroy the economic prosperity of Liberia's golden age.