# Who Founded Liberia?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-founded-liberia/187801>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 11, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-founded-liberia/187801 "2003-07-11T20:11:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-founded-liberia/187801/1 "2003-07-11T20:11:36Z")

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Yeah, you didn’t know it was lost.

I’ve read that slaves founded Liberia, but Michael Graham says that it was founded by the American Colonization Society, a group of white slave owners who believed that slavery was destined to end in the U. S. but couldn’t imagine whites and blacks living together. Some 13,000 black Americans were sent to Liberia in the 1800s, many against their will. Today, descendants of slaves make up a small minority of the 3.3 million Liberians.

I ususally trust Michael Graham - with the facts, anyway -, but I’ve repeatedly have heard that slaves founded Liberia.

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**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-founded-liberia/187801/2 "2003-07-11T20:29:14Z")

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Slaves bought free, brought there, and assisted by the Colonization Society. From [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html:](http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html:)

[quote]  
With the wavering consent of the new immigrants, the American Colonization Society governed the colony through its representative. In time, however, some colonists objected strenuously to the authoritarian policies instituted by Jehudi Ashmun, a Methodist missionary who replaced Ayres as the ACS governing representative. Such disagreements created tensions within the struggling settlement. 8/quote]

And later on:

> [@](#):
>
> 1838- The colonies established by the Virginia Colonization Society, the Quaker Young Men’s Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, and the American Colonization Society merged as the Commonwealth of Liberia and claimed control over all settlements between Cestos River and Cape Mount. The Commonwealth adopted a new constitution and a newly-appointed governor in 1839.

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**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-founded-liberia/187801/3 "2003-07-11T20:41:21Z")

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So “many against their will” may be true, but apparently most of them went willingly.