Today July 26 Liberia celebrates 172 years of its independence
The history of Liberia is that of a kind of geopolitical experiment that, however, ended up becoming in practice the first republic, the oldest on the African continent. On July 26, 1847, its independence was recognized by the world.
It all started when the fight against slavery was gaining ground in American society, although there were still slavers in Uncle Sam's land, people gradually ceased to sympathize with this practice and the Virginia Congress decided to order the release of more than 195,000 slaves.
It is then that the North American Colonization Society decides to use some land that in somewhat dark conditions, they acquired from African tribes around 1820. Everything ended in the repatriation of thousands of slaves to Africa, where they settled immediately.
However, internal struggles have been unleashed several times in the history of the country, on the part of some natives of populations in the area there was rejection of those who arrived from the United States, then in the same population sympathizers of the group or elite of Americo-Liberian government and others that supported the natives. This degenerated into coups and many deaths.
The rejection of those who arrived from America was such that for many decades they had to settle on the coasts and be protected by the American navy. In 1835 there were burns of premises and houses to foreigners and Americo-Liberians and in 1841 the United States appointed a president, thus sealing a long era of tutelage to that African people. Although they declared independence in 1847, Liberia has lived through stages that in some way mark or define the country's history.
One of these key moments was the 1980 coup, when for the first time a native assumed the presidency of the Republic of Liberia, however, doing so by force only created more friction between groups and troubled times dominated the country, this until the arrival of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the presidency, the country's first female president. Until today, when George Weah, a well-known athlete in retirement, rules the country, peace has been relatively stable in the area.
Liberia has recently been featured in the world news for the unfortunate news of the Ebola epidemic that wreaked havoc on both the country's population and its neighbors in and around Sierra Leone.
In honor of the historical truth, the first free black republic in the world was Haiti, but in Africa, the first to declare its independence was Liberia, on July 26, 1847.
