Welcome to Sumofarmers.com. We are the grand and greatgrand children of Chief Clar who along with his wife, Lorpu built and settled between the Woh and Balan Rivers with other villagers who joined them in the early 1900’s. I never met my biological grandfather but I met his brother, Namo who then began our grandfather and the new Chief of Clarta Village when Chief Clar died in 1955. Chief Namo raised my late father and all the grandchildren. I lived with Chief Namo and my grandmother, MaLorpu in the mud hut in Clarta Village until I was twelve years old before I went away to school in Voinjama, Lofa in 1975. I came back to Clarta Village in 1978 after Chief Namo passed away. When I came back to Clarta Village, my parent and I began investment in Clarta Village by planting banana plants, rice farms, raising animals until the 1989 when the Liberian Civil War began. Some of the grandchildren still live in Clarta Village and we have decided to open it for agriculture activities.
Growing up, I was interested in known when Clarta Village was established because Clarta Village was the center of trade among villagers and the Mandingoes traders that came from Gbarnga and Kokota. Since record keeping was done through oral history linked to specific events in Liberia among the local tribes, I asked my father whether “if Clarta Village was established before Firestone Rubber Plantaion came to Liberia in the 1920″s? My father said Clarta village was in existing long before Firestone came to Liberia. He told me that during President Edwin Barclay’s Administration, Liberian Government Tax Collectors came from Monrovia to Clarta to collect hut taxes. Once the taxes were collected, the big people in the village carried the tax collectors in hammock to Gbarnga through the village since it was shorter to Gbarnga. I asked him again, no paved road? He said yes there was no paved road to Gbarnga. Most people used Clarta Village as the short cut to Gbarnga.
Another story my father told me was that whenever the hut tax collectors used to come to Clarta, if Chief Namo didn’t have the money to pay, they could tied my grandfather and laid him in the center of the village on his back, facing the hot sun until all the villagers were compelled to collect the amount of hut taxes that were required. In addition, the hut tax collectors seized Chief Namo’s chickens, sheep, goat, and fruits and forced the some of men in the village to carry them on their heads while the other men carried the tax collectors in hammock to Gbarnga. Moreover, the women in the village usually hided on the farms because if they remain in the town, the tax collectors will seize them as their wives. This was terrible experience for our people. This practice continued into the Tubman’s Administration.
This is just a brief overview of Sumofarmers and our ancestors who inhibited this region in the early 1900’s.