Liberia Emigration and Immigration
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Online Sources
- 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
- 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
- 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Liberia
British Overseas Subjects
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Liberia, index and images, ($)
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Liberia, index and images, ($)
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Liberia, index and images, ($)
Liberia Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.
Immigration into Liberia
- Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta ("Pepper Coast") but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast, due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders would barter commodities and goods with local people.
- Liberia began in the early 19th century as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States.
- Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born people of color who faced social and legal oppression in the U.S., along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia.
- In 1822, the American Colonization Society began sending free people of color to the Pepper Coast voluntarily to establish a colony.
- Mortality from tropical diseases was high — of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived.
- By 1867, the ACS (and state-related chapters) had assisted in the migration of more than 13,000 people of color from the United States and the Caribbean to Liberia. These free African Americans and their descendants married within their community and came to identify as Americo-Liberians.
- Similar state-based organizations established colonies in Mississippi-in-Africa, Kentucky in Africa, and the Republic of Maryland, which Liberia later annexed.
- An insurrection in December 1989 triggered the First Liberian Civil War. From 1989 to 1997 around 60,000 to 80,000 Liberians died, and by 1996 around 700,000 others had been displaced into refugee camps in neighboring countries.
Emigration From Liberia
KNOMAD Statistics: <ref>"Liberia", at KNOMAD, the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development
Records of Liberia Emigrants in Their Destination Nations
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One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to immigration records for major destination countries below. |