It has been suggested that List of Liberian flags be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2024. |
Use | National flag and ensign |
---|---|
Proportion | 10:19 |
Adopted | 24 August 1847 |
Design | Eleven horizontal stripes alternating red and white; in the canton, a white star on a blue field |
Use | Naval jack |
The flag of Liberia or the Liberian flag, sometimes called the Lone Star (not to be confused with "The Lone Star State", a nickname for Texas), [1] [2] bears a close resemblance to the flag of the United States, representing Liberia's founding by former black slaves from the United States and the Caribbean. [3] They are both part of the stars and stripes flag family.
The Liberian flag has similar red and white stripes, as well as a blue square with a white star in the canton. It was adopted on 24 August 1847. [4] [5]
On 9 April 1827, a resolution was made establishing the first flag of Liberia, during its time as a colony, which identified the flag the same as the United States, except with a white cross in the place of the canton’s stars. [6] In preparation for independence, the flag of Liberia was redesigned and hand-stitched by a committee of seven women. [1] Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, in a letter dated 10 July 1847, asked Susannah Elizabeth Lewis to head the committee. [7] The other members of the committee were Matilda Newport, Rachel Johnson, Mary Hunter, Mrs. J. B. Russwurm, Colonette Teage Ellis, and Sara Draper. All of the women were born in the United States, and many of them were wives of prominent men in Liberia. [1] [8] Lewis was the daughter of former vice colonial agent Colston Waring, the sister of the first First Lady of the Republic, Jane Roberts, and wife of John N. Lewis, one of the signers of the Liberian Declaration of Independence. [9] [10] [11] The flag they designed was adopted on 24 August 1847, about a month after Liberia had declared independence on 26 July 1847. [1] The day the flag was adopted, the nation held a celebration in Monrovia. There, the flag was unfurled to the public for the first time, and Susannah Lewis gave a patriotic speech. The ceremony also featured speeches by a number of notable Liberian politicians and religious leaders, as well as entertainment in the form of band music. [12]
In the 1850s and 1860s, the Eusibia N. Roye became the first Liberian-owned ship to display the flag in New York City and Liverpool ports. The vessel was owned by Edward James Roye. [13] In 1860, the Liberian flag was featured on the first known stamp to be issued by the Liberian government. [14] On 24 October 1915, President Daniel Edward Howard signed into law an act which proclaimed 24 August as Flag Day, a national holiday. [1]
On 22 July 1974, the Legislature of Liberia passed an act giving authorization to the president to establish a commission to give consideration to possible changes to a number of national symbols, including the flag and national anthem. The commission was headed by McKinley Alfred Deshield Sr. The commission sought to reexamine the symbols, and remove divisive aspects of them. President William Tolbert appointed 51 members to the Commission on National Unity. The commission was also called the Deshield Commission, after the man who headed it. The commission submitted their report on 24 January 1978. The report ultimately recommended no changes to the flag. [15]
In 2022, a new design for the five-hundred-dollar Liberian banknote featured an illustration of the seven-woman committee designing the Liberian flag. [16]
The flag is seen on many ships around the world as Liberia offers registration under its flag. Shipping companies do this to avoid taxes and restrictions that other countries enforce. As the second most popular flag of convenience (after the flag of Panama), it is estimated that 1,700 foreign-owned ships fly the Liberian flag. [17] This brings in much of the country's revenue. [18]
The eleven stripes symbolize the signatories of the Liberian Declaration of Independence and the red and white symbolize courage and moral excellence. The white star represents the first independent republic in Africa, above the blue square representing the African continent. The Liberian flag is modeled after and resembles the United States flag because Liberia was founded, colonized, established, and controlled by free people of color and formerly enslaved Black people from the United States and the Caribbean with the help and support of both the United States government and the American Colonization Society (ACS), a private organization dedicated to the removal of free people of color from across North America. Some time after the African Americans began arriving in Liberia in 1822, they came to be identified as "Americo-Liberians" in an effort to separate them from native groups and enslaved Africans rescued from illegal slaving ports and ships by the U.S. Navy. [18]
Keep the length 110 units and width as 209 units. The canton's each side is 50 units, the circumscribed square of the 5-point star has all sides 30 units and its center is 25 units from the left and upper edge of the flag of the canton/flag.[ citation needed ]
Liberia is subdivided into 15 counties, each of which is entitled to its own flag. Each county flag bears the national flag of Liberia in the canton. The county flags are flown at regional offices and together encircling the national flag of Liberia at the Executive Mansion.
The flags were introduced in 1965 by William Tubman for the purpose of promoting the counties as meaningful entities. [20] Their design was inspired by Liberia's quilting tradition.
The flags (particularly River Gee County) have been the subject of widespread ridicule by members of online vexillology communities on social media platforms such as Reddit and Facebook. However, vexillologist Steven A. Knowlton argues that these discussions demonstrate a lack of understanding of the political and cultural context of the flags and of the material construction of flags from textiles as opposed to digital creation. [21]
Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest among settlements reported with modern recordkeeping. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived (39.8%).
The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the repatriation of freeborn people of color and emancipated slaves to the continent of Africa. It was modeled on an earlier British Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor's colonization in Africa, which had sought to resettle London's "black poor". Until the organization's dissolution in 1964, the society was headquartered in Room 516 of the Colorado Building in Washington, D.C.
"All Hail, Liberia, Hail!" is the national anthem of Liberia. The lyrics were written by Daniel Bashiel Warner (1815–1880), who later became the third president of Liberia, and the music was composed by Olmstead Luca (1826–1869). It became the official national anthem upon Liberia's independence in 1847.
Jehudi Ashmun was an American religious leader and social reformer from New England who helped lead efforts by the American Colonization Society to "repatriate" African Americans to a colony in West Africa. It founded the colony of Liberia in West Africa as a place to resettle free people of color from the United States.
Ralph Randolph Gurley was an American clergyman, an advocate of the separation of the races, and a major force for 50 years in the American Colonization Society. It offered passage to free black Americans to the ACS colony in west Africa. It bought land from chiefs of the indigenous Africans. Because of his influence in fundraising and education about the ACS, Gurley is considered one of the founders of Liberia, which he named.
Lott Cary was an African-American Baptist minister and lay physician who was a missionary leader in the founding of the colony of Liberia on the west coast of Africa in the 1820s. He founded the first Baptist church in 1822, now known as Providence Baptist Church of Monrovia. He served as the colony's acting governor from August 1828 to his death in November that year.
Stephen Allen Benson was a Liberian politician who served as the second president of Liberia from 1856 to 1864. Prior to that, he served as the third vice president of Liberia from 1854 to 1856 under President Joseph Jenkins Roberts. Born in the United States, Benson was the first president to have lived in Liberia since childhood, having arrived with his family in 1822.
James Skivring Smith was a Liberian politician who served as the sixth president of Liberia from 1871 to 1872. Prior to this, he served as the eighth vice president of Liberia from 1870 to 1871 under President Edward James Roye and as Secretary of State from 1856 to 1860 in the cabinet of President Stephen Allen Benson. He was a member of the True Whig Party.
The coat of arms of Liberia consists of a shield containing a picture of a 19th-century ship arriving in Liberia. The ship represents the ships which brought the freed slaves from the United States to Liberia. Above the shield, the national motto of Liberia appears on a scroll: The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here, and below the shield another scroll contains the official name of the country, Republic of Liberia.
The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.
John Kizell was an American immigrant who became a leader in Sierra Leone as it was being developed as a new British colony in the early nineteenth century. Believed born on Sherbro Island, he was kidnapped and enslaved as a child and shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was sold again. Years later, after the American Revolutionary War, during which he gained freedom with the British and was evacuated to Nova Scotia, he eventually returned to West Africa. In 1792, he was among 50 native-born Africans among the 1200 predominantly African-American Black Loyalists resettled in Freetown.
An independence referendum was held in Liberia on 27 October 1846. The result was 52% in favor, with independence being declared on 26 July 1847.
The Ministry of Finance is a government ministry of the Republic of Liberia. As of 2024, the Liberian Finance Minister is Boima Kamara, who was appointed in January 2024. The minister is appointed by the President of Liberia, with the consent of Senate of Liberia.
The following lists events that happened during 1847 in Liberia.
Luvenia V. Ash-Thompson is a Liberian judge, academic and educator.
James Hall was an American physician who founded the colony of Maryland-in-Africa. Hall served as its governor from 1833 to 1836.
Liberia–United Kingdom relations refer to the bilateral relations between Liberia and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberian independence. Liberia has a history of border disputes with the British Colony of Sierra Leone, as well as cumbersome British loans which have at times compromised Liberian sovereignty.
France-Liberia relations are the bilateral relations between France and Liberia.
James Washington Lugenbeel was an American physician, who worked for the American Colonization Society. He served as colonial physician in Liberia as well as an agent for the United States government. Lugenbeel's account of the 1847 Liberian constitutional convention in his journal became the only known record of the convention's proceedings.
Ephraim Titler was a Liberian politician and missionary who served as a delegate to the 1847 Constitutional Convention from Grand Bassa County.
Paul Cuffee advocated settling formerly enslaved African Americans in Africa. He gained support from free black leaders in the US, and members of Congress for an early emigration plan. From 1815 to 1816, he financed and captained a successful voyage to British-ruled Sierra Leone, where he helped a small group of African-American immigrants establish themselves. Cuffee believed that African-Americans could more easily "rise to be a people" in Africa than in the US, where slavery and legislated limits on black freedom were still in place. Although Cuffee died in 1817, his early efforts to help repatriate African-Americans encouraged some free blacks and the American Colonization Society (ACS) to lead further settlements. Some free blacks in the Upper South created independent institutions dedicated to the idea of repatriation to Africa. The ACS was made up mostly of Friends (often called Quakers) and slaveholders, who disagreed on the issue of slavery but found common ground in support of repatriation. Friends opposed slavery but believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the US. The White Americans slaveholders opposed freedom for blacks but saw repatriation as a way of avoiding rebellions
This symbol of Negro liberty was first unfurled on August 24, 1847