Kentucky in Africa Flag
*The founding of Kentucky in Africa is celebrated on this date in 1828. This colony in present-day Montserrado County, Liberia, was settled by American freedmen, many formerly enslaved Africans.
As a Kentucky state affiliate of the American Colonization Society, members raised money to transport black people from Kentucky to Africa. The Kentucky Society bought a 40-square-mile (100 km2) site along the Saint Paul River (quite near the site of the present-day capital city of Monrovia) and named it Kentucky in Africa. Clay-Ashland was the colony's main town.
Notable residents of Kentucky in Africa include William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after immigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky, when he was a boy. Alfred Francis Russell, the 10th President of Liberia, also resided in Clay-Ashland. Liberia annexed Kentucky in Africa in about 1847.
