First Presidency (1847-1856)
Roberts was re-elected three more times to serve a total of eight years, until he lost the election in 1855 to the vice president Benson.
Attempts to found a state based upon some 3000 settlers proved difficult. Some coastal tribes converted to Christianity and learned English, but most of the indigenous Africans retained their traditional religion and language. The slave trade continued illicitly from Liberian ports, but the British Navy finally closed it down in the 1850s.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Jenkins Roberts
Famous quotes containing the word presidency:
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)