July 26, is the independence anniversary of Liberia, Africa’s first and oldest republic.
Today, July 26, 2026, Liberia turns 179. Hail Liberia hail!
The colonization adventure of a few thousand African-Americans – free-born Blacks and recently freed enslaved men, women and children who were unwanted in the country of their birth – started in 1822 when a first group of 88 settlers sailed to West Africa. A few thousand African-Americans would follow their example. Twenty-five years later, in 1847, they created the first African republic: Liberia.
But the African-American colonists were not settling in empty land, and this wasn’t without serious problems. Moreover, slave trade in the region was still rife despite a growing international opposition to this nefarious traffic, and the colonists clashed with slave traders operating on the Upper Guinea Coast. To make matters worse, in the second half of the 19th century the Liberian state was seriously threatened by land-hungry European counties who wanted to expand their colonial empire in Africa by seizing (part of) the territory claimed by the Liberian government, in particular after the Berlin Conference (1884/85) and the subsequent ‘Scramble for Africa’.
Read about the origin and rise of the Republic of Liberia, created in 1847 by African-American colonists, in my latest book ‘Liberia in the 19th Century; From American Colony to African Republic‘, just published by the African Studies Centre in the Netherlands.
Shortly after its publication, the book was reviewed by one of Liberia’s most outstanding and widely read newspapers, FrontPage Africa. To read the book review, click here.
