Liberia

Liberia stamps for sale at Io Collezionista. Liberia is the oldest state on the African continent. The first contacts between European merchants and the local peoples date to the 15th century. The area would later become known as the Pepper Coast. The birth of the modern country dates, however, to the 19th century, at the wish of the American Colonization Society, a philanthropic association founded to help former slaves return to their countries of origin. Liberia declared its independence in 1847, but the United States, whose flag clearly inspired Liberia's own, recognised it only in 1862, after the bloody civil war between North and South. The country's first president was Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a well off Black man born free in Virginia.