Liberia – Africa's oldest republic and its long road to peace
The land that is now Liberia was home for centuries to many African peoples, among them the Kpelle, Bassa, Gio, Kru, Grebo, Mano and Vai, whose trade networks reached far inland and along the coast. From the fifteenth century European traders visited the so-called Grain Coast, named after the melegueta pepper grown there.
A turning point came in 1822, when the American Colonization Society began settling freed and free-born African Americans on the coast. The settlement grew into a nation that declared its independence in 1847, making Liberia Africa's first modern republic, and it was never colonised by a European power. For more than a century, however, political and economic power remained concentrated among the descendants of the settlers, known as Americo-Liberians, while the Indigenous majority was largely excluded. Foreign concessions, especially rubber plantations, shaped the economy in the twentieth century.
In 1980 a military coup led by Samuel Doe ended the long rule of the True Whig Party. Liberia then suffered two devastating civil wars, from 1989 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2003, marked by great loss of life, displacement and the use of child soldiers. After the peace agreement, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected female head of state in 2006. The country also endured the Ebola epidemic of 2014 to 2016.
Today Liberia is shaped by its unique founding history, its many ethnic communities and the determination to preserve peace and rebuild.
Do you have stories or memories from your town or county in Liberia? Share them with other members in the Local History section.