Arthur Havelock, Sierra Leone’s Governor and British…

Arthur Havelock, Sierra Leone’s Governor and British consul to Liberia from February 1881, demands that Liberia cede disputed territory to the British colony.

The area in question is known as the Gallinas territory, an area lying between the Sewa River and the Mano River, and the vague border between Sierra Leone and Liberia has been unsettled for years.

On March 20, 1882, Havelock leads a flotilla of four British gunboats to the Liberian capital Monrovia, issuing a demand that Liberia cede all territories up to the Mafa River to Great Britain, and pay an indemnity of eighty-five hundred pounds to British merchant traders for injuries inflicted in 1871 by tribes inhabiting the area of the British claim.

A treaty is signed, but its ratification is refused by the Liberian Senate, and Havelock and his gunboats return to Monrovia in September this year, demanding immediate acknowledgment of the British claims, and ratification of the treaty.

The senate refuses once more, and although Havelock's diplomacy prevents a bloody conflict, ...