LIBERIA: Bensonville, 25 miles north of Liberia's capital, Monrovia, has one foot in Africa but the other in antebellum America. Declan Walsh Examines the ties which still bind two nations.
Rickety, southern-style houses dot the roadside, their porches collapsing and their painted shutters peeling. The people inside speak a heavily-accented English with more than a hint of a southern lilt. On Sundays they attend the Zion Baptist church for a thundering sermon on the Word of God.
On a lush hillside, a small monument explains what brought their ancestors here - a model ship depicting the vessels which brought liberated slaves from the cotton fields of America to the lush jungles of Africa over 150 years ago.
As President George W. Bush mulls over whether he should send US troops to help end over 14 years of destructive violence, Liberia's slave descendants are fiercely proud of their historical link with America.
"The US is our big brother. We communicate with them and they come to our rescue," said Joseph D. Moulson (59), whose grandfather, Chersey Christian, set up home in Bensonville after being freed from slavery in Richmond, Virginia.
His wife, Sarah - whose grandfather was Benson Coaker, also of Virginia - was less sure. "First time we looked, America and Liberia were so close. But now it's become sour. We are just praying \ God that it will become like before."
Despite last week's successful five-day tour of Africa, President Bush is hesitating about whether to send up to 2,000 US troops to Liberia. He says that President Charles Taylor must leave office; Mr Taylor says that he will go, but only after US troops arrive. Meanwhile, the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), is threatening to fill the void with another military attack.
Practically all Liberians, but particularly the slave descendants - known as Americo-Liberians - say that the US has a duty to come to their aid in their hour of need.
Although most Americans are barely aware of its existence, Liberia is the closest they have to a former colony in Africa. The currency, the constitution and the flag - a stars and stripes - are all modelled on the US. The capital, Monrovia, is named after America's fifth president, James Monroe. The island where the first freed slaves landed in 1820 is called Providence Island; other placenames include Maryland County and Cheesemanburg.
Locals refer to the rutted road which runs north, now littered with gun-toting militiamen, as the "freeway".
Until about two decades ago the US and Liberia were tied by money and politics as well as by history. "We were like teeth and tongue," said Dr Joseph Saye Guannu, a former ambassador to the US and political scientist at the University of Liberia.
The American industrialist Harvey Firestone obtained one million acres of land for rubber extraction and went on to build a business empire. During the second World War, Liberia declared war on Germany at the behest of the US; it later became a crucial Cold War outpost. Spies disguised as teachers, aid workers and diplomats milled around Monrovia, home to the CIA's largest listening station in Africa. There was a Voice of America radio re-transmission facility, and an Omega Navigation Station, one of just seven in the world.
Thanks to a rubber and iron ore boom, Liberia had one of Africa's fastest-growing and most peaceful economies during the 1970s. Now it is one of the worst - the streets of Monrovia are lined with empty, dilapidated buildings, the economy has all but collapsed, and there is not even electricity. The blame falls largely on President Taylor, under whose six-year rule Liberia has slid deep into war and corruption.
But the freed slaves are also partly to blame. For the first 150 years of its existence, minority Americo-Liberians dominated Liberia. In the beginning, they treated native Africans like they had been treated by American slave masters - a classic case of abuse perpetuation. Native Africans were taken into domestic slavery and denied citizenship.
Liberia almost lost its sovereignty in the 1930s after revelations that the then president, Edwin Barclay, had been rounding up slaves for sale to cocoa plantations abroad.
Until an army coup in 1980, every president was an Americo-Liberian. Usually he was approved by the local Freemasons, a shadowy society which combined a cosy men's club with traditional practices including ritual killings.
Today, true Americo-Liberians only make up about 5 per cent of the population, and the divisions have largely dissipated. "The tension is there, but it is not as grave as it used to be," said the Rev Jospeh Roberts, of the Providence Baptist church, where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1847.
Instead, Liberians are virtually unanimous in their calls for US intervention. "The US has an obligation to help," said the Most Rev Michael K. Francis, Catholic archbishop of Monrovia. "We have a historical relationship and we were there for them. Now they owe this to us."