o2 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
clan system that will be referred to later. But as they become more and more 
civilized these special customs are fast disappearing. 
The native houses are usually built of the raffia palm ribs and fronds. They 
are generally plastered with clay on the outside and decorated with striking 
patterns in black and white. The floor is raised above the level of the ground 
outside, and is of solid clay, not of planks as is often the case among the other 
Kru peoples. Their dwelling houses are often circular in shape, but are some- 
times oblong. 
The Grebos especially in the past have resisted Americo-Liberian adminis- 
tration and control, sometimes to the point of revolt. As late as 1915, hostilities 
between the Liberian Government forces and the Grebos occurred, in which the 
Liberian Government found it necessary to ask for the assistance of the United 
States and for the services of an American warship.! The American officials in 
Monrovia declared, however, that they would only make this request of the 
United States on condition that the Liberian Government would reform its 
administration of the interior. Upon this promise being given, the request was 
forwarded to the American State Department. In November, 1915, the United 
States S. S. “Chester” arrived in Monrovia. The President of Liberia then ap- 
pointed a Commission made up of three Liberians and the American General 
Receiver of Customs to settle the Kru (Grebo) dispute. This Commission pro- 
ceeded on the ‘‘Chester”’ to the scene of the revolt, and Captain Schofield, the 
commander of the vessel went to the armed camp of the Krus to investigate 
the trouble. He reported that the administration of the natives had been tyran- 
nous, that only twenty-five per cent of the taxes collected had ever reached the 
central Government, and that the Krus had been subjected to a large number of 
petty abuses. The Krus insisted that the Liberian soldiers should be taken 
back to Monrovia, and that no taxes should be imposed on those of their towns 
for which the Liberian Government did nothing. The Commissioner ordered 
the Krus to cease hostilities, to give up their guns, and to surrender, but the 
rebels, confident in their strength and expecting to receive help from the British, 
decided to fight. Liberia, not being in a position for hostilities, again implored 
ald from the United States with the result that our War Department sent five 
hundred Krag carbines and two hundred and fifty thousand rounds of ammu- 
nition to be sold to Liberia at half price. Thus supplied with arms, the Liberian 
frontier force decimated the Kru population and subsequently hanged some Kru 
chiefs. The severity of the punishment was so great that some Catholic mission- 
aries made a protest to the British Foreign Office. The Liberian Government, 
having received the aid from the United States which enabled it to crush the re- 
bellion, then declined to carry out those reforms in its methods of dealing with 
the indigenous tribes, which it had accepted and agreed to when in need of help.2 
The Mandingoes constitute a tribe that accepts the Mohammedan religion, 
and that is perhaps the most intelligent in Liberia. In the main they probably 
owe their racial characteristics to interbreeding between the Fulas and the 
1 Foreign Relations of the United States (1915), p. 627; (1916), p. 455. 
2 Ibid. (1917), p. 878. 
