ATLANTIC
The Kru/Krao—an indigenous group from southern Liberia and the Ivory Coast—became well known for their roles in Atlantic trade as sailors and stevedores and in anti-slavery naval patrols after abolition in 1807. Historically, the Kru gained fame for enlisting in wage labor aboard European ships as early as the 15th century, and they also brokered coastal trade with Europeans and Americans during several centuries of Atlantic trade. They achieved further recognition after Britain and the U.S. abolished the slave trade, as they joined the Africa Squadron of American and British naval ships patrolling West Africa for illegal slave traders.
The Kru Coast Heritage Initiative (KCHI) project aims to understand, document, record, analyze, and share the history of the Kru people starting in Sinoe County, Liberia, West Africa, which is a central region of the Kru ancestral land. The KCHI project aims to understand how people settled this area, traded with other groups on the ocean and inland, and moved around over time in response to changing environmental conditions and sociopolitical relationships. KCHI investigates historic village sites, coastal trade, and maritime networks with surrounding towns, working alongside students, community members, and mariners of all ages and genders.
Relevant Bibliography
Brooks, George E. 1972. The Kru Mariner in the Nineteenth Century: A Historical Compendium. Liberian Studies Association in America.
Burrowes, C. P. 2016. Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea: A History of the Liberian People Before 1800.
Crutcher, M. 2023. “‘For King and Empire’: The Changing Political, Economic, and Cultural Identities of Kru Mariners in Atlantic Africa, 1460-1945.” Journal of African History 64 (3). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853723000567.
Crutcher, M. 2025. “Dugouts in Liberia, West Africa.” INA Quarterly 51.3/4: 8-11.
Davis, R. W. 1976. Ethnohistorical Studies on the Kru Coast. Liberian Studies Association.
Frost, D. 1999. Work and Community Among West African Migrant Workers Since the Nineteenth Century. Liverpool University Press.
Gunn, J. 2021. Outsourcing African labor: Kru migratory workers in global ports, estates and battlefields until the end of the 19th century. De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
Massing, A. 1980. The Economic Anthropology of the Kru (West Africa). F. Steiner.
