The recent history of Liberia may well be reckoned to have followed a course so obvious that it is not only easily explained, but could have been almost equally readily predicted. The Americo-Liberian oligarchy, by which Liberia had been governed since its independence in 1847, had managed to survive the initial explosion of anti-colonial nationalism in the neighbouring territories; but despite its efforts to expand its scope to include elements drawn from the indigenous population, it always provided far too narrow a base for any assimilationist strategy of political integration to have any reasonable chance of success. Sooner or later, the extension of education, migration and the cash economy were bound to foster increasing demands for political participation which such a system could not meet – or not without, at any rate, a rapid and voluntary abandonment by Americo-Liberian politicians to representatives of the indigenous community of key posts, including, notably, the presidency. Otherwise, even though the distinction between immigrants and indigenes had been blurred by intermarriage, and by the growth of a common Liberian political culture based on jobbery and graft, the ability of disgruntled hinterland leaders to appeal to the powerful rhetoric of ethnic exclusion would threaten the dominant coastal minority for long into the future – or until it fell.