Kentucky in Africa was a colony in present-day Montserrado County, Liberia, founded in 1828 and settled by American free people of color, many of them former slaves. A state affiliate of the American Colonization Society, the Kentucky State Colonization Society raised money to transport people of color from Kentucky—freeborn volunteers as well as enslaved individuals set free on the condition that they leave the United States for Liberia.[1] The Kentucky society bought a 40-square-mile (100 km2) site along the Saint Paul River (quite near the site of the present-day capital city of Monrovia) and named it Kentucky in Africa.[1] Clay-Ashland. named after Henry Clay's Ashland Plantation, was the colony's primary settlement.[1]
Kentucky in Africa | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1828–c. 1847 | |||||||
| Status | Colony (American Colonization Society) | ||||||
| Capital | Clay-Ashland | ||||||
| Historical era | Imperialism | ||||||
• Established | 1828 | ||||||
• Disestablished | c. 1847 | ||||||
| Area | |||||||
• Total | 100 km2 (39 sq mi) | ||||||
| |||||||
| Today part of | Liberia | ||||||
Notable residents of Kentucky in Africa include Alfred Francis Russell, the 10th President of Liberia, and William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after emigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky.[2][3]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Kentucky in Africa" (special edition of Kentucky Life), Kentucky Educational Television (August 15, 2005).
- ^ "President William David Coleman 1896 – 1900". Liberia Past And Present. Archived from the original on February 26, 2020. Retrieved December 8, 2008.
- ^ "A Letter from Liberia: Reverend Alfred F. Russell to Robert Wickliffe in Lexington, Kentucky (July 3, 1855)". Bluegrass Community & Technical College. Archived from the original on February 22, 2009. Retrieved December 8, 2008.
- ^ Anyanwu, Ogechi E.; Day, Lisa; Farrington, Joshua; Graham, Gwendolyn; Powell, Norman (2022). "6". Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience (PDF) (2nd ed.). Richmond, Kentucky: Encompass Digital Archive and Eastern Kentucky University. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-7343289-1-2. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved March 14, 2024.