Italian refugees from Libya Italy and soon most of them emigrated in the early 1950s to the Americas (mainly to Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and the United States) and to western Europe (France, Benelux, etc..). After several years under British mandate, on December 24, 1951 Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya (a constitutional, hereditary monarchy under King Idris). In 1952 started the exodus of most of the remaining Italian colonial settlers, mainly those in areas away from the main cities. Although in the late 1950s most of the 110000 Italians living in 1940 Italian Libya had already left the former colony,
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.