Republic of Maryland

The Republic of Maryland, also called Maryland-in-Africa or Maryland in Liberia, was a country in West Africa that existed from 1834 to 1857, when it was merged into what is now Liberia. The area was first settled in 1834 by freed African-American slaves and freeborn African Americans, mostly from the U.S. state of Maryland, under the auspices of the Maryland State Colonization Society. That society had broken away from the American Colonization Society, which had founded Liberia at Monrovia in 1822, because it wanted its own settlement and a trade monopoly on the region. The Maryland colony remained separate when the other settlements united as the Commonwealth of Liberia in 1838, and on 2 February 1841 it became the Independent State of Maryland. After an independence referendum in 1853, the state declared independence on 29 May 1854, taking the name Maryland in Liberia, with its capital at Harper. Its economy rested on trade in palm oil, camwood and other forest products, and its rulers struggled to extend authority over the neighbouring Grebo and Kru peoples. In 1857 the republic was annexed by Liberia, ending its brief separate existence.