Samuel Doe

Samuel Kanyon Doe (May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was a Liberian politician who served as the Liberian leader from 1980 to 1990, first as a military leader and later as a politician. While a Master Sergeant in the army, Doe staged a violent coup d'etat in April 1980 that left him de facto head of state. During the coup, then president William R. Tolbert, Jr., and much of the True Whig Party leadership were executed. Doe then established the People's Redemption Council, assuming the role of general.Doe suspended the constitution and headed the country's military junta for the next five years. In 1985 he ordered an election and officially became the 21st President of Liberia. The election was marked by controversy as there was evidence of election fraud. Doe had support from the United States; it was a strategic alliance due to his anti-Soviet stance taken during the years of the Cold War prior to the changes in 1989 that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first native head of state in the country's history, Doe was a member of the Krahn ethnic group, a largely rural people. Before the 1980 coup, natives had often held a marginal role in society, which was dominated by the descendants of the Americo-Liberian Pioneers; composed primarily of free-born American blacks and freed slaves, the Pioneers were the immigrants who had established Liberia in the 1820s and led the country beginning with independence in 1847. Doe opened Liberian ports to Canadian, Chinese and European ships. This brought in considerable foreign investment from foreign shipping firms and earned Liberia a reputation as a tax haven. Doe attempted to legitimize his regime with passage of a new constitution in 1984 and elections in 1985. However, opposition to his rule increased, especially after the 1985 elections, which were declared to be fraudulent by most foreign observers. For political reasons, the US continued to support him. In the late 1980s, as the US government adopted more fiscal