Momulu Massaquoi was a Liberian politician and diplomat, and a prince of the Vai tribe of Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Background
Massaquoi was born on 6 December 1869 to King Lahai of the Gallinas Kingdom and his wife, Queen Fatama Bendu Sandemani. Massaquoi was the son of King Lahai of Gallinas and of Queen Sandemani of North’Jabacca. He was born in 1872, and was required by his mother to begin to study at an early age.
Education
He attended a mission school in Cape Mount, before traveling to the United States to attend Central Tennessee College.
Career
He served as Liberia"s consul general to Germany 1922–1930, and appears to be the first indigenous African diplomat to modern Europe. After several years’ residence at the mission, he was baptized and confirmed. In 1888, at the age of 16, he came to the United States and entered Central Tennessee College, at Nashville.
Before the completion of his college course, the death of his mother made him the rightful ruler of North’Jabacca, and he felt it to be his duty to return to his people, but again visited the United States to represent Africa at the Parliament of Religious and the African Ethnological Congress in connection with the World"s Columbian Exposition.
He opened, in May, 1900, an industrial school at Ghendimah, the capital of Gallinas. Here, the pupils were instructed in English, Vei, and Arabic, and in the industrial arts
He was endeavoring, in his own words, “to develop an African civilization independent of any, yet, like others, on a solid Christian principle.” Massaquoi and other Vai scholars developed a simplified script for the Vai language at the close of the 19th century, which was taught at Saint John"s Mission in Robertsport. He died on June 15, 1938.