The history of Liberia as a political entity begins with the arrival of the black American settlers — the Americo-Liberians, as they came to be known, to Africa — who established a colony of “free men of color” on its shore in 1822 under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. The historical roots from which a majority of present-day Liberians derive their identity, however, are found in the varied traditions of the several ethnicities of indigenous Africans whom the settlers confronted in their struggle to gain a foothold in Africa and, later, extend their control into the interior.

On July 26, 1847, the American settlers declared the independence of the Republic of Liberia. The settlers regarded the continent from which their forefathers had been taken as slaves as a "Promised Land," but they did not become reintegrated into an African society. Once in Africa, they referred to themselves as "Americans" and were recognized as such by local Africans and by British colonial authorities in neighboring Sierra Leone. The symbols of their state — its flag, motto, and seal — and the form of government that they chose reflected their American background and diaspora experience. Lincoln University founded as Ashmun Institute in 1854 played an important role in supplying Americo-Liberians leadership for the new Nation. The first graduating class of Lincoln University, James R. Amos, his brother Thomas H. Amos, and Armistead Miller sailed for Liberia on the brig Mary C. Stevens in April, 1859 after graduation.

The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. These ideals strongly influenced the attitudes of the settlers toward the indigenous African people. The new nation, as they perceived it, was coextensive with the settler community and with those Africans who were assimilated into it. Mutual mistrust and hostility between the "Americans" along the coast and the "Natives" of the interior was a recurrent theme in the country's history, along with (usually successful) attempts by the Americo-Liberian minority to dominate people whom they considered uncivilized and inferior. They named the land "Liberia," which in European languages, and in Latin in particular, means "Land of the Free," as an homage to their freedom from slavery.


The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American religious and philanthropic groups, but the country enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government. Liberia’s government, modeled after that of the United States, was democratic in structure, if not always in substance. After 1877 the True Whig Party monopolized political power in the country, and competition for office was usually contained within the party, whose nomination virtually ensured election. Two problems confronting successive administrations were pressure from neighboring colonial powers, Britain and France, and the threat of financial insolvency, both of which challenged the country’s sovereignty. Liberia retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa, but lost its claim to extensive territories that were annexed by Britain and France. Economic development was retarded by the decline of markets for Liberian goods in the late nineteenth century and by indebtedness on a series of loans, payments on which drained the economy.

In a late night raid on 12 April 1980, a successful military coup was staged by a group of noncommissioned Krahn officers led by Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe, and they executed the President of nine years William R. Tolbert, Jr. in his mansion. Constituting themselves the People’s Redemption Council, Doe and his associates seized control of the government and brought an end to Africa’s "first republic". Significantly, Doe was the first Liberian head of state who was not a member of the Americo-Liberian elite.

In the early 1980s, the United States provided Liberia more than $500 million for pushing the Soviet Union out of the country, and for providing the US exclusive rights to use Liberia's ports and land (including allowing the CIA to use Liberian territory to spy on Libya).

Doe favored authoritarian policies, banning newspapers and outlawing various opposition parties. His tactic was to brand popular opposition parties as "socialist", and therefore illegal according to the Liberian constitution, while allowing less popular minor parties to remain as a token opposition. Unfortunately for Doe, popular support would then tend to realign behind one of these smaller parties, causing them to be labelled "socialist" in their turn.

In October 1985, Liberia held the first post-coup elections, ostensibly to legitimise Doe's regime. Virtually all international observers agreed that the Liberia Action Party (LAP) led by Jackson Doe (no relation) had won the election by a clear margin. After a week of counting the votes, however, Doe sacked the count officials and replaced them with his own Special Election Committee (SECOM), which announced that Doe's ruling National Democratic Party of Liberia had won with 50.9% of the vote. In response, on 12th November, a counter-coup was launched by Thomas Quiwonkpa, whose soldiers briefly occupied the Executive Mansion and the national radio station, with widespread support throughout the country. Three days later, Quiwonkpa's coup was overthrown. Following this failed coup, government repression intensified, as Doe's troops killed more than 2000 civilians and imprisoned more than 100 opposing politicians, including Jackson Doe, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and BBC journalist Isaac Bantu.

Daughter of the first indigenous Liberian to be elected to the national legislature, Jahmale Carney Johnson, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was born in rural Liberia. Widely celebrated for being the first elected female head of state in Africa, Johnson-Sirleaf’s election focused much international attention on Liberia.
A former Citibank and World Bank employee, Johnson-Sirleaf’s impressive career also includes heading the U.N. Development Programme for Africa*. (Owing to the complexion inherited from her maternal Grandfather, a German who married a rural market woman, Johnson-Sirleaf has often been thought to be a member of the Americo-Liberian elite, although she is quite proud of her indigenous Liberian roots). Long involved in her country’s fight for peace and justice, Johnson-Sirleaf was jailed twice during the Doe administration. Jailed once for eight months, she narrowly escaped with her life before going into exile. Delivering a message of hope and reconciliation in her inauguration speech, Johnson-Sirleaf hopes to bring her credentials as an economist to bear and enlist the help of the international community in rebuilding Liberia’s economy and infrastructure. As of this writing, she is working to have Liberia’s external debt of $3.5 billion cancelled, and is inviting international investment. She has extended a special invitation to the Nigerian business community to participate in business opportunities in Liberia, in part as thanks for Nigeria’s help in securing Liberia’s peace. Exiled Liberians are also investing in their homeland and *participating in Liberia's rebuilding efforts.

In addition to focusing her early efforts to restore basic services like water and electricity to the capital of Monrovia, Johnson-Sirleaf has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission * to address crimes committed during the later stages of Liberia's long civil war. She is also working to re-establish Liberia's food independence. view recent presidential speeches, go to: http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=sirleaf&image1.x=21&image1.y=14. Johnson-Sirleaf also tackled head-on the greatest looming threat to Liberia's peace and stability early in her presidency by requesting that Nigeria extradite Liberia's most infamous war criminal and war profiteer, Charles Taylor.

In March 2006, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf sent a letter formally requesting the extradition of Charles Taylor from Nigeria to face justice. While Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo confirmed receipt of the request and notified the Chairman of the African Union, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mamadou Tandja on March 17, 2006, Nigeria’s plans to comply with the request were not immediately clear. After representatives from Liberia and Nigeria met to discuss the issue, Nigeria announced on March 25, 2006 that it would allow Liberian authorities to arrest Taylor. It was long feared that Taylor, a multi-millionaire, could easily slip into hiding to escape charges before the UN International War Crimes Tribunal sitting in Sierra Leone, and by March 28 Taylor had reportedly disappeared from his Nigerian compound. He was recaptured by alert border guards at dawn on March 29 trying to cross into Cameroon. Taylor was quickly flown to Liberia, where he was shuffled onto a waiting UN helicopter to face charges for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone (although the venue for this trial has since shifted to The Hague and Taylor was flown out of Sierra Leone on June 20, 2006). The timing of Taylor’s appearance before the tribunal is crucial as the court’s mandate is set to expire later in 2006. The web site, Trial Watch, reports that in September 2006, a provisional date of April 2, 2007, was set for the trial.

Liberia is situated in Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. The landscape is characterized by mostly flat to rolling coastal plains, which rise to rolling plateau and low mountains in the northeast. The climate is hot and humid with a lot of rain fall. Winters are dry with hot days and cool to cold nights. Summers are wet and cloudy with frequent heavy showers.

Historically, the Liberian economy depended heavily on iron ore and rubber exports, foreign direct investment, as well as the export of other of its natural resources, such as timber. Foreign trade was primarily conducted for the benefit of the Americo-Liberian elite, with trade between foreigners and indigenous Liberians severely restricted throughout most of its history by the 1864 Ports of Entry Act. Little foreign direct investment benefited the 95% majority population, who were often subjected to forced labor on foreign concessions. Liberian law often did not protect indigenous Liberians from the extraction of rents and arbitrary taxation, with the majority surviving on subsistence farming and low wage work on foreign concessions.

While official export figures for commodities declined during the 1990’s civil war as many investors fled, Liberia’s wartime economy featured the exploitation of the region’s diamond wealth, with the country acting as a major trader in Liberian, Sierra Leonian and Angolan conflict diamonds, exporting over $300 million in diamonds annually. Timber, iron ore, rubber, and other commodity exports continued during the war, in part due to illicit agreements struck between Liberia’s warlords and foreign concessionaires. Looting and war profiteering destroyed nearly the entire infrastructure of the country, such that the Monrovian capital was without running water and electricity (except for fuel-powered generators) by the time the first elected post-war government began to institute development and reforms in 2006. Although some official exporting and legitimate business activity resumed once the hostilities ended (for instance, Liberia signed a new deal with steel giant Mittal for the export of iron ore in summer 2005), as of mid-2006 Liberia is dependent on foreign aid, and carries a debt overhang of $3.5 billion. The UN ban on Liberian diamond exports, which was renewed at the end of 2005, as well as the enforcement of the Kimberly Process by international diamond traders has effectively shut down Liberia’s diamond industry, (although there are fears that foreign traders are hoarding the country’s diamonds during the ban). The country currently has an approximate 85% unemployment rate, the worst in the world.


The Liberia dollar currently trades against the US dollar at a ratio of 57:1. Liberia used the US dollar as its currency from 1943 until it reversed dollarization in 1982. Its external debt ($3.5 billion) is huge in comparison to its GDP (approx $2.5 billion/year); it annually imports approximately $4.839 billion in goods while it exports only about $910 million. Inflation is falling, but still significant (dropping from 15% in 2003 to 4.9% in the 3rd quarter of 2005); interest rates are high, with the average lending rate listed by the Central Bank of Liberia at 17.6% for 3rd quarter 2005 (although the average time deposit rate was only 4.4%, and CD rate only 5%, barely keeping pace with inflation). It continues to suffer with poor economic performance due to a fragile security situation, the devastation wrought by its long war, its lack of infrastructure, and necessary human capital to help the country recover from the scourges of conflict and corruption.

In 2005, lawsuits were brought against the company Bridgestone/Firestone for its alleged role in using slave labor in its rubber plantations in Liberia. Workers also briefly staged a strike at the company’s million-acre (4,000 km²) plantation at Harbel in early 2006, but the strike could not be sustained by the poorly funded labor union. Liberia has one of the world's largest national registries of ships, due to its status as a "flag of convenience".