Flag Fact Friday: Liberia

The eleven stripes on the Librarian flag symbolize the signatories of the Liberian Declaration of Independence, red and white symbolizing courage and moral excellence. The white star represents the first independent western-styled republic in Africa, above the blue square representing the African continent. The Liberian flag is modeled after and resembles the American flag at the time in the 1820s and 1830s, (26 stars / states) because Liberia was founded, colonized, established, and controlled by free people of color and freed African-American and Caribbean / West Indies slaves as settlers from the United States and the Caribbean with the help and support from the American Colonization Society (ACS), which was a private organization that sent free people of color as well as freed slaves as settlers from the United States and the Caribbean. When the settlers from the United States arrived in Liberia in 1822, they identified themselves as "Americo-Liberians" in an effort to separate themselves from the native Africans and other settlers.