Liberia

“The love of liberty brought us here.” Those words were uttered by settlers who had crossed the Atlantic and landed on April 25, 1822, at tiny Providence Island on Africa’s western shore. Hardy freemen, pioneers under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, paved the way for the establishment in 1847 of Africa’s first black Republic, Liberia. About the size of the state of Louisiana, it is bordered by Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea and the Ivory Coast.

By the year 1867, twenty years after the republic’s formation, a total of 13,136 settlers had immigrated to Liberia, mainly from America. Coastal settlements sprang up outside Monrovia, the capital, from the Mano River to the Cavalla River​—Robertsport, Marshall, Buchanan, Greenville, and Harper in the “Maryland of Liberia.”