Liberia

The struggle

Liberia declared itself a sovereign republic in 1847, the first in Africa, after settlers freed from slavery in the United States founded colonies along the Grain Coast from 1822. Sovereignty came with a deep internal fracture: an Americo-Liberian settler elite governed indigenous peoples who were denied the vote until the twentieth century. Britain recognised the republic in 1848, the United States only in 1862.

Key people

• Joseph Jenkins Roberts

  1809–1876

  First president; read the declaration of independence

• Hilary Teage

  1805–1853

  Drafted the declaration of independence

• Edward Wilmot Blyden

  1832–1912

  Pan-African thinker who shaped Liberia's intellectual claim