The tenth president of Liberia was Alfred Francis Russell who was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1817. His father was his owner’s son. His mother was enslaved. This meant that Alfred, also, was enslaved from birth. In 1833, his mistress emancipated him so that he could join 200 other emancipated former slaves on the ship, Ajax, bound for Liberia. Russell was also a clergyman. He was an Episcopalian priest who had started his ministry as a Methodist minister. He was elected vice president of Liberia and assumed the office of president for one year, 1883-1884, after the elected president resigned. As president, he made a proclamation that combined his commitment to the native peoples of Liberia with his faith this way: “ Our aboriginal citizens…are important, nay indispensable, to us in building up this national fabric, and the redemption of land, so long under the dominion of the devil ” [1] . While the role of emancipated slaves from Kentucky in the formation of the nation o...