Today, July 26, is the independence anniversary of Liberia, Africa’s first and oldest republic.
It started a long time ago, the colonization adventure of a group of 88 African-Americans – Free Blacks and recently freed enslaved men, women and children – who sailed to West Africa in 1822. A few thousand African-Americans would follow their example. Twenty-five years later they created the first African republic: Liberia.
But they were not settling in empty land. This wasn’t without serious problems. Read about this and other problems of the young republic 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.
To read the book review, published by Liberia’s widely read newspaper, FrontPageAfrica, click here