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The history of the country we now know as Liberia began in the 1800s, when abolitionists and slaveholders discussed the idea of setting up a colony in Africa for freed African-American slaves. To this end, the American Colonization Society was founded in 1816.

Through fundraisers, the Society managed to fund the enterprise and on February 6, 1820, the “Mayflower of Liberia” (formerly “Elizabeth”), departed New York for West Africa with eighty-eight free black emigrants and three white ACS agents on board. They decided to name their first settlement Monrovia, after U.S. President James Monroe. In December 1821, an agreement was signed between the Society and local chiefs granting the Society possession of Cape Mesurado, a 36-mile long strip of land near present-day Monrovia. The natives felt they had been forced to give up Mesurado and they did not like the fact that the fiercely abolitionist settlers kept interfering in the lucrative business of smuggling slaves.

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