On a crucial day in July, a nation declared independence. Years later, a day in November was reserved to celebrate Thanksgiving.
But while some of the residents of this new republic had ties to the United States, their year of birth was 1847, not 1776. The country was named Liberia by its founders, formerly enslaved Africans from the United States who returned to the continent earlier this year 19 Century.
Today, people of Liberian descent in the United States – around 120,000 in 2019, according to the Pew Research Center – are among the few immigrant groups who arrived with their own Thanksgiving tradition. Many have come over the past three decades to flee the violence and political turmoil that has torn the West African nation apart.
His Thanksgiving holiday, imposed in 1870, wasn’t patterned after the narrative or food that define the United States version. But the day can feel as stressful for Liberians in the United States as it does for many other Americans.
In interviews, many who grew up in Liberia or whose families were from that country said they are still grappling with its history of settlers from another continent taking control of an indigenous population. This tension takes place in the food, festivities and other holidays.
“Thanks, I don’t know, it’s always complicated for me,” said Bilphena Yahwon, an independent archivist in Baltimore. “There is an opportunity to celebrate and to indulge in the food and to be reminded of the festivals of our culture.”
On the other hand, she said, “I know that many Liberians see Thanksgiving as a way to celebrate freedom, and even then I question it because it is, ‘You were not free. We’re still not free. ‘”
In Liberia, Thanksgiving – which is celebrated on the first Thursday in November – is simply a day off for some. Others consider it a religious occasion with fasting and prayer. In the 1950s, a period of greater economic prosperity, food, and “flashy consumption” became a larger part of the celebrations, including Thanksgiving, said C. Patrick Burrowes, Liberian history expert and former vice president of academic affairs at Cuttington University in Liberia.
In 1980, a violent coup by a group of indigenous Liberians known as the People’s Redemption Council resulted in the assassination of President William R. Tolbert, a descendant of the founders. After years of civil unrest, the country has stabilized, although it is still struggling economically.
The cuisine, however, is rich and diverse, reflecting the different groups that have called the country home. It includes West African staples like rice and sweet potatoes; Foods brought back from the American South by formerly enslaved Africans, such as kale and cornbread; European exports such as dried fish and cassava; and ingredients like breadfruit and ginger beer brought back from Barbados by black immigrants.
Like some Liberians in the United States, Carleen Goodridge, 43, celebrates Thanksgiving on or around the American date. But it reminds them of the riots in Liberia.
Her family came to the United States in the early 1970s. In 1989, her father returned to Liberia to build a new home for them and was stranded there due to travel restrictions.
Ms. Goodridge, now a Baltimore cook, owns the beverage company Le Monade and the Liberian food pop-up Cōl Bōl, spent her childhood on Long Island and Staten Island. She remembers two kinds of Thanksgiving: the one with her stepmother, with whom she occasionally lived while her father was in Liberia; and the one she started celebrating with him when he returned to the United States in 1992.
Though her stepmother was partly Liberian, this Thanksgiving meal was all Western fare: turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole. “I don’t think they wanted to be reminded of Liberia,” said Ms. Goodridge. “All the news that came back from Liberia was just horrific.”
“When my father came back and I started spending more time with the family, I started seeing African food come into the market,” she added. “There was this feeling, there is hope. There were talks about a withdrawal. “
Still, she added, “Thanksgiving does not mean liberation for me.” There is not enough discussion about how the liberated blacks who founded Liberia treated the indigenous people as a lower caste. (Mrs. Goodridge is a descendant of Indigenous Liberians of the Kpelle and Congo tribes, liberated blacks from Barbados, and liberated people from the United States, also known as Americo Liberians.)
“The celebration of liberation, I think I personally have difficulty understanding it when I try to see where Liberia is now,” she said.
Instead, Ms. Goodridge focuses on Thanksgiving as a celebration of family and community. She always makes Liberian food: hot pepper chicken, spicy and full of herbs and garlic; Liberian style jollof rice with chicken, fish and pork; Rice bread; and sweet potato pone.
Dominique Tolbert, who lives in New Rochelle, NY, is a granddaughter of Mr. Tolbert, the former president, and a descendant of the Americo Liberians and Kpelle, indigenous to Liberia, and members of the Barbados African diaspora. She said celebrating Thanksgiving, like her family did in Liberia – with dishes like jollof rice and potato greens – keeps her attached to her heritage.
After the attack on her grandfather, “life changed overnight,” she said, “not just for my family, but for the whole country”. Her family fled Liberia and settled in New York State and Maryland. Ms. Tolbert, 28, now runs Mesean Spices, a line of spice blends inspired by the flavors of the African diaspora. On every Thanksgiving festival, they gather together and their relatives and give thanks for the life and the opportunities they have.
She grew up reading pictures of pumpkin pie and pilgrims in elementary school, but the American Thanksgiving story never caught on. “In America, Thanksgiving was a holiday created by whites,” said Ms. Tolbert. “In Liberia it was a public holiday created by blacks. So it’s different for me. “
Princess Wreh associates Thanksgiving with her family’s resilience in the face of upheaval in Liberia. In 1989 they fled the country and lived in a refugee camp in Waterloo, Sierra Leone. Even there, they celebrated Thanksgiving as they remembered it – with a Baptist service followed by a big meal with everyone in the area.
People in disguise. There was a kickball game. Her mother raised chickens and grew sweet potatoes and cassava in a garden so she could cook Liberian food.
When the family sent Ms. Wreh to Utah and then Dallas as a teenager to go to school, they were surprised to find that American Thanksgiving was much less lively than the Liberian version. “Everyone was in their homes and there was nothing but food and television,” she said.
Her parents immigrated seven years later, and together they recreated childhood Thanksgiving making sweet potato greens with smoked turkey, chicken, and shrimp, and buttery Liberian shortbread. They held dance competitions and played board games.
Ms. Wreh, 41, whose family is Indigenous of the Krahn and Kru tribes, now runs the Monrovia Lounge, a Liberian restaurant in Dallas, and hosts a Thanksgiving celebration for her extended family. It has all of these Liberian traditions and a turkey because their five children want one. But it makes its way for the bird – seasoned with plenty of butter, onions, herbs and Cajun spices.
She sees Liberian Thanksgiving as an improvement over American. “I like things to turn out for the better because Thanksgiving has a very bittersweet history in the United States,” she said. “This is not our story.”
Always looking forward to the holidays, Thalmus Hare enjoys both traditional Liberian and American dishes at his family’s Thanksgiving table in Atlanta. Mashed potatoes and candied yams are served alongside palm butter stew and chicken sauce.
The opportunity to celebrate the holiday in the United States “is a blessing because we come from a war-torn country,” said Hare, who immigrated with his family when he was 2 years old. His company, LibFood, delivers Liberian dishes around the world and is doing brisk business around Thanksgiving – especially for the kale, which is cooked in a stash of dried fish, ham knuckles and smoked Cajun turkey.
“The food shows who we are,” said Mr Hare, whose family is both indigenous Liberians of the Grebo and Bassa tribes and Americo Liberians. “We are partly Americans because we were founded by Americans, but we kept our flair.”
But Ms. Yahwon, 28, the Baltimore archivist, believes Liberia’s genesis needs further interrogation. “The belief is that Liberia and Ethiopia are the only two countries on the continent that have not been colonized,” she said. “That’s a complete lie.”
“One of the reasons we celebrate Thanksgiving is because of colonialism,” she said. “It was forced upon us too.”
Liberia was originally a colony of the American Colonization Society, a group founded in 1816 to send formerly enslaved people back to Africa. The society, which included both slave owners and abolitionists, was motivated by the racist belief that blacks could not be integrated into American society.
The Liberians eventually drafted their own constitution and declared their independence from society in 1847. They played a role in the abolition of slavery in Britain – their militias fought against slave traders who landed in the area. But the American Liberians were the ones in power.
Ms. Yahwon, whose family are both Americo-Liberians and Indigenous Liberians of the Bassa tribe, recently embarked on an archival project that focuses, in part, on exposing indigenous food traditions and holidays that existed before Liberia was founded.
Dr. Burrowes, the historian, noted that there is a tendency in Liberian studies to highlight the differences between indigenous and non-indigenous Liberians. But these groups have long shared similarities in their language, clothing, and staple foods like yucca and rice.
Ms. Yahwon is still preparing a Thanksgiving dinner of Liberian food. And she understands why some Liberian Americans love the holiday. “We have to hold onto things that remind us of home,” she said.
However, she hopes more Liberians will think more critically about how and why they are celebrating. “It takes a little nuance,” she says. “It requires us to tell the truth.”
Recipes: Liberian chicken sauce | Fried kale
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