“Liberia was founded by freed slaves from here in the U.S., and some from the Caribbean as well. I think that was in the early 1800s, more precisely in 1820. Even the name of the capital city, Monrovia, is a purely American name, purely because Liberia was founded at the time when James Monroe was the president of the U.S. So the name Monroe, the freed slaves decided to call the capital city Monrovia. So that tells you already the connection between Liberians and Americans.”