Kentucky in Africa

{{Short description|Colony founded in Liberia, 1828, by American free people of color}}

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{{Infobox country

|conventional_long_name = Kentucky in Africa

|common_name = Natal

|era = Imperialism

|status = Colony

|empire = American Colonization Society

|event_start =

|year_start = 1828

|date_start =

|event_end =

|year_end = {{circa}} 1847

|date_end =

|event1 = Annexed by Liberia

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|p1 = American Colonization Society

|flag_p1 = Flag of Liberia (1827-1847).svg

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|capital = Clay-Ashland

|national_motto =

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|today = Liberia

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|area_km2= 100

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Kentucky in Africa was a colony in present-day Montserrado County, Liberia, founded in 1828 and settled by American free people of color, many of them former slaves. A state affiliate of the American Colonization Society, the Kentucky State Colonization Society raised money to transport people of color from Kentucky—freeborn volunteers as well as enslaved individuals set free on the condition that they leave the United States for Liberia.[https://www.ket.org/program/kentucky-in-africa/ "Kentucky in Africa" (special edition of Kentucky Life)], Kentucky Educational Television (August 15, 2005). The Kentucky society bought a {{convert|40|sqmi|km2|adj=on}} 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. named after Henry Clay's Ashland Plantation, was the colony's primary settlement.

Notable residents of Kentucky in Africa include Alfred Francis Russell, the 10th President of Liberia, and William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after emigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky.{{Cite web |url=http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org/ColemanWilliamDavid.htm |website=Liberia Past And Present|title=President William David Coleman 1896 – 1900 |access-date=2008-12-08 |archive-date=2020-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226183908/http://www.liberiapastandpresent.org/ColemanWilliamDavid.htm |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.bluegrass.kctcs.edu/LCC/HIS/scraps/liberia2.html |publisher=Bluegrass Community & Technical College|title=A Letter from Liberia: Reverend Alfred F. Russell to Robert Wickliffe in Lexington, Kentucky (July 3, 1855) |access-date=December 8, 2008 |archive-date=February 22, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090222000521/http://www.bluegrass.kctcs.edu/LCC/HIS/scraps/liberia2.html |url-status=dead }}

Kentucky in Africa was annexed by Liberia in about 1847.{{Cite book |last=Anyanwu |first=Ogechi E. |url=https://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=6&article=1002&context=ekuopen |title=Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience |last2=Day |first2=Lisa |last3=Farrington |first3=Joshua |last4=Graham |first4=Gwendolyn |last5=Powell |first5=Norman |publisher=Encompass Digital Archive and Eastern Kentucky University |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-7343289-1-2 |edition=2nd |location=Richmond, Kentucky |publication-date=2022 |pages=120 |language=en |chapter=6 |format=PDF |access-date=2024-03-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240314162543/https://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=ekuopen |archive-format=PDF |archive-date=2024-03-14 |url-status=live}}