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'And So Liberia Was Born'

In an exclusive excerpt from the Liberian president’s memoir, she recounts the birth of her nation as a colony for freed slaves sent “back” from America.

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Jerome Delay / AP Photo
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If asked to describe my homeland in a sentence, I might say something like this: Liberia is a wonderful, beautiful, mixed-up country struggling mightily to find itself.

The first inhabitants of the region now known as Liberia may have been Jinna, or pygmies, according to the Liberian historian Abayomi Karnga.

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