Siege of Saïo the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, proclaimed the colony of "Africa Orientale Italiana" (AOI, Italian East Africa), formed from Ethiopia (after the Italian victory in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, fought 3 October 1935 – May 1936) and the existing Italian possessions of Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France, which made Italian military forces in Libya a threat to Egypt and those in Italian East Africa a danger to the British and French colonies in East Africa. Italian belligerence also closed the Mediterranean to Allied merchant ships and endangered British supply routes
Mississippi-in-Africa the colony and its neighbors, Liberia (which annexed Mississippi-in-Africa in 1842) and Republic of Maryland (which also merged with Liberia, in 1857) developed as the Americo-Liberians, an ethnic group who formed a political and economic elite. They dominated what became the independent country of Liberia into the late 20th century, having taken power over the indigenous natives. The Mississippi colony was located in what is present-day Sinoe County, Liberia. The American Colonization Society was founded in the United States in 1817 as a joint project by abolitionists and slaveholders to establish a colony for free American blacks in West Africa.