Loan misunderstanding?

When I read of President Roye years ago his fate seemed goofy: He took out a loan on behalf of the country for \$1M, but the terms were that the country got \$900,000 and had to pay back \$1M. Riots ensued, on the assumption that he had eaten the \$100,000, and he died fleeing the country.

Or maybe it wasn't quite that way.

There was more to his story than that one incident. A newspaper article gives some of his background, and says it was a \$500,000 loan with only \$90,000 cash and the rest bonds (and 7%). The revolt started when he "tried to extend his 2-year term of president by edict." This site doesn't mention the sums but says that he may have drowned thanks to the money belt he wore, or may have been dragged naked through the streets of Monrovia to be beated to death (the latter was designated the official version when Tubman named the True Whig Party building after Roye. Or maybe he was shot after escaping from prison. (He was there for several months.)

He was a free black man of Ibo descent living in Ohio, who learned how precarious life was for even free black men. He inherited his father's wealth, and went to Liberia in 1846, where he became a very prosperous merchant. When he was elected president he had a plan to build railroads to link the hinterland with the coast for trade, and to build new schools. But... That takes money, and the terms of the 100,000 pound loan were harsh. And the restrictions on trade weren't calculated to spur the economy (in fact, the restrictions sparked wars with tribes whose traditional trade was squelched: including slave trade, btw).

In October 1871 the dispute over this issue and the dissatisfaction with his handling of the financial affairs of the country resulted in riots, street fights between supporters of the two rival political parties, the Republican Party and the True Whig Party, and the shelling of the President's residence. Reportedly, President Roye himself started the actual fighting by flinging hand grenades to the crowds in the streets of Monrovia.

In fact, the underlying cause of the fighting was the "colour-conflict", the struggle for political power between the mulattoes and the people of darker complexion.

Roye was pure Ibo, while the ruling elite were "mulatto." Many of the settlers were more dark-skinned--they were lower caste than the elite. Lower than they were the "Congos" who were those liberated from slave ships and dumped in the country. Lowest of all were the indigenous tribes. So Roye was rich and of the second tier caste. He'd just borrowed a huge amount with at best a very long term return (assuming the money was spent wisely and honestly) and a great deal of short-term pain. Declaring that an election had just been held to change the constitution to allow 4-year terms was the last straw.

My memory may have turned 100K pounds to 1M dollars, but I'm pretty sure most of the rest of this wasn't in the textbook I read.

This was in it, though: One of the things Liberia was dealing with was encroachments by the English and French. The Liberians still remember.