LIBERIA

LIBERIA.

Cape Mesurado (or Cape Palmas ?).
First stamp in a set of 12, issued in 1920.
Face value: 1 Liberian cent.

Catalogues
- Michel No. 191.
- Scott No. 183.
- StampWorld No. 251.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 402.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 168.

The place represented in the stamp is under discussion. It is mainly considered that it is the Cape Mesurado, but some catalogs mention the Cape Palmas.

The Cape Mesurado, also called Cape Montserrado, is a promontory on the Liberian coast, in the Mamba Point neighborhood, the northernmost of the capital, Monrovia, very close to the mouth of the Saint Paul River. It was named Cabo Mesurado by Portuguese sailors in the 1560s, who assured that the place was inhabited. The first African-American settlers settled in that place on April 22, 1822. In 1855 a lighthouse was built there. At the beginning of the 19th century and until 1815 there was a base for the slave trade.

The Cape Palmas is located in the southern Liberia town of Harper, just over 20 km (12 mi) from the Ivory Coast border. The International Hydrographic Organization considers this cape to be the westernmost point of the Gulf of Guinea and the dividing line of the Atlantic Ocean between North and South. The place was discovered in 1458 by the Portuguese navigator Diogo Gomes, who named it Cabo das Palmas.