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Liberia was founded by free slaves on January 7, 1822. It was the first African republic to claim independence after breaking away from the American Colonization Society. The American Colonization Society was a program based on purchasing and then freeing slaves.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Colonization-Society

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Table of Contents

In full:

American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States

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American Colonization Society, American organization dedicated to transporting freeborn blacks and emancipated slaves to Africa. It was founded in 1816 by Robert Finley, a Presbyterian minister, and some of the country's most influential men, including Francis Scott Key, Henry Clay, and Bushrod Washington (nephew of George Washington and the society's first president). Support for it came from local and state branches and from churches, and the federal government provided some initial funding. The membership was overwhelmingly white-with some clergymen and abolitionists but also a large number of slave owners-and all generally agreed with the prevailing view of the time that free blacks could not be integrated into white America.

The society's program focused on purchasing and freeing slaves, paying their passage (and that of free blacks) to the west coast of Africa, and assisting them after their arrival there. In 1821, after a failed colonizing attempt the previous year and protracted negotiations with local chiefs, the society acquired the Cape Mesurado area, subsequently the site of Monrovia, Liberia. Some saw colonization as a humanitarian effort and a means of ending slavery, but many antislavery advocates came to oppose the society, believing that its true intent was to drain off the best of the free black population and preserve the institution of slavery. Reviled by extremists on both sides of the slavery debate and suffering from a shortage of money, the society declined after 1840. In 1847 Liberia, until then virtually an overseas branch of the society, declared its independence. Between 1821 and 1867 some 10,000 black Americans, along with several thousand Africans from interdicted slave ships, were resettled by the group, but its involvement with transport to Liberia ended after the American Civil War. The society focused on education and missionary activities until the early 20th century. It was dissolved in 1964.

Amy Tikkanen.

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American Colonization Society | Free African Americans, Liberia & Emigration

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American Colonization Society, American organization dedicated to transporting freeborn blacks and emancipated slaves to Africa. It was founded in 1816 by Robert Finley, a Presbyterian minister, and some of the country's most influential men, including Francis Scott Key, Henry Clay, and Bushrod

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https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/liberia#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Government%20lent%20some,its%20own%20laws%20governing%20commerce.

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Milestones: 1830–1860 - Office of the Historian

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Widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law characterized Liberia’s two brutal armed conflicts, which took place between 1989 and 2003.

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Negotiations to end the second civil conflict occured in Accra, Ghana in 2003

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Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to represent a compromise between a court and other accountability measures.

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https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/05/briefing-note-call-war-crimes-court-liberia

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Briefing Note on the Call for a War Crimes Court for Liberia

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Liberian President George Weah should act to create a war crimes court in Liberia that can fairly try alleged perpetrators of civil wars-era crimes.