History of Liberia dates back to the period following the American War of Independence and the subsequent freedom of the slaves from colonial bondage. The freed African slaves were subjected to many hardships and inequality. This complex problem was greatly supported by a section of white people in the US who felt that the assimilation of the blacks in the American seemed a distant reality. So the y thought out a plan to segregate them and move them to safer place where they live in peace and enjoy their freedom. This ultimately began the process of rehabilitating the blacks in the western side of Africa near Sierra Leone. This was the beginning of the History of Liberia.
In 1815, Paul Cuffee, the African-American Quaker and maritime entrepreneurs financed voyage to Sierra Leone in which he carried group of black Americans to establish them with a firm belief that the Africans can themselves live more freely and develop better in Africa than by living in America under limited freedom. The idea was given a practical shape by the American Colonial Society that sent a team to buy land beyond Sierra Leone. A land was purchased and a settlement process began. However, due to unhealthy condition in the place, death rate increased and many volunteers of the American Colonization Society also died. This again forced the government of America to take measures to codify a system of local administration. As a result in 1824 Slavery and from of participation in Slave trade was declared illegal. The temporary settlement, which was called as Christopolis, was renamed Monrovia after the name of American President John Monroe who declared this as a colony and called it Liberia. This marked the beginning of the rehabilitation process of the blacks of US. Over the course of 40 years, some 12,000 blacks repatriated to Liberia, which was declared a free and Independent state and officially came to be called as the Republic of Liberia in 1847.
The history of Liberia began to get a new face. The government was modeled in the form of the US federal system and Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first elected President of the Republic of Liberia. The people began to enjoy equal rights irrespective of the color or creed. After this, Liberia began to make considerable progress. The entire country combined the 16 ethnic groups and began to lead a life based on equality and freedom.
The chronology of Liberia after 1980, was marked by political turbulence as a result of the Civil War, which came to an ultimate end in the 1997. Since then elections are held every five-year and in the year 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became the first female President of Liberia and Africa got its first lady President in history.
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