Liberia
POPULATION 3,288,198
CHRISTIAN (LUTHERAN, BAPTIST, EPISCOPALIAN, PRESBYTERIAN, ROMAN CATHOLIC, UNITED METHODIST, AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL [AME], AME ZION) 40 percent
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS 40 percent
MUSLIM 20 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Liberia in West Africa borders the North Atlantic Ocean, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Originally called the Grain Coast and subsequently the Slave Coast, the country has a population that is ninety-five percent from indigenous groups, including Kpelle, Bassa, Gio, Kru, Grebo, Mano, Krahn, Gola, Gbandi, Loma, Kissi, Vai, De, Mande, Mandingo, and Bella. The remaining 5 percent is almost evenly split between Americo-Liberians (descendants of former American slaves) and Congo people (descendants of former Caribbean slaves).
Liberia has the closest historical ties to the United States of all the African nation states. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, American freed slaves wanted to return to West Africa, their presumed homeland, and white Americans wanted to secure that return. In 1822 the American Colonization Society (established in 1816 by Robert Finley) sent the ship Elizabeth with three white agents and 88 black emigrants to West Africa. After a number of setbacks, including the death of all three whites and 22 emigrants from Yellow Fever, the party established a settlement at Mesurado Bay, naming it Perseverance.
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