This chapter reframes Liberia’s history as a settler colonial project. It examines how freed and formerly enslaved Black Americans—later known as Americo-Liberians—established dominance over the Indigenous African nations. It traces the historical origins of both population groups: the long-settled Indigenous nations and the resettled Black Americans who founded the Liberian republic in 1847. The chapter argues that, while Americo-Liberians began as immigrants, they became settlers through practices of land appropriation, racialised governance, and institutional minoritisation and marginalisation of the Indigenous Africans. It explores how pre-existing Indigenous political structures were disrupted by settler-imposed systems of taxation, land tenure, and authority, leading to long-standing tensions. These settler colonial dynamics laid the foundation for Liberia’s 1980 coup and ensuing civil conflicts and continue to shape debates over identity and citizenship today. The chapter concludes by challenging earlier scholarly views that downplay colonial frameworks, instead asserting that Liberia’s formation must be understood through the structural logics of settler colonialism.