Beautiful African scenes from an altruistically-founded country.

Liberia

The flag of Liberia is similar to the flag of the USA, with just one star in the blue canton. Source: Wikipedia.

Slavery, and slavery of Africans, has existed at least back to Roman times. Although not the largest destination for African slaves, slavery in the early days of the United States of America is well documented. Slavery was the primary cause of the American civil war of 1861-1865. Even before then, there was a push to reverse this movement of Africans.

It is commonly known that the United States of America had no African Colonies. Actually, that’s not 100% true. There was one.

In 1816, a group of white Americans founded the American Colonization Society (ACS), a private organisation whose goal was to deal with the “problem” of the growing number of free blacks in the United States by resettling them in Africa. The resulting state of Liberia would become the second (after Haiti) black republic in the world at that time. Haiti was the world’s first black-led republic and the first independent Caribbean state after it threw off French colonial control and slavery in the early 19th Century.

After its founding in 1822, Liberia grew into a colony and eventually became a commonwealth. Liberia achieved independence in 1847 with the help of the American Colonization Society. Descendants of the freed slaves, generally known as Americo-Liberians, remained in social and political control of the country until a coup d’état in 1980 (after several decades of instability following the coup, the country is again a republic with democratic elections).

Obverse

The obverse features an elephant walking left across the ground. The country name is around the top, “Republic of Liberia”, and a small, five-pointed star is at the bottom. The star is the same as on the flag of Liberia.

The white star from the flag represents the first independent republic in Africa, above the blue square representing the African continent. The eleven stripes on the flag symbolize the signatories of the Liberian Declaration of Independence and the red and white symbolize courage and moral excellence.

Reverse

The reverse features the denomination around the top and the year around the bottom of the coin, with a star either side. The main design: a ship, rising sun and palm tree, are all elements from the coat-of-arms of Liberia. The scene is said to represent the slaves coming back from America to Liberia.