Colonial Quarter

The oldest part of Greenville preserves a handful of buildings from the 19th-century American-Liberian settlement period. The architecture follows the patterns the freed slaves brought with them from the American South: timber-framed houses with wide verandas, raised above the ground, with louvred shutters against the tropical heat. Many are in poor condition, but several remain inhabited and maintained.

Walking through the colonial quarter takes an hour and is a reminder of the unusual history of this stretch of coast — a settlement of people who had been enslaved in the United States, returning to West Africa to build something new, in a style shaped by the American South but placed in equatorial West Africa. The local community is proud of this history and welcoming to visitors who approach it with genuine interest.

things to do sight
A story
Greenville was established in 1838 by the Mississippi Colonization Society and named after James Green, a Mississippi judge who helped organise the colonisation. The freed American slaves who settled here brought with them a culture that was neither African nor American but something new — what Liberians call Americo-Liberian — with its own architecture, churches, churches, and social hierarchies that shaped the country for over a century.