President john hanson biography

African American politician (died 1860)

John Hanson (died c. 1860) was an African American politician in Liberia. He served in Colonial Council and as a senator from Grand Bassa County following Liberia's independence in 1847. He was born into slavery, but he purchased his freedom and emigrated from Baltimore to Liberia at age thirty-six.^[2] In Liberia, he joined the growing mercantile class. He also served as Commissary in the same county for several years, furnishing a house for the storage of arms and ammunition.^[3] Hanson died in 1860, and was mourned as a "faithful and patriotic servant" by Liberian president Stephen Allen Benson.

Senator Hanson has sometimes been misidentified as being John Hanson of Maryland, a white^[4] politician who served as a President of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution.

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When we think of the President of the United States, many people do not realize that we are actually referring to presidents elected under the U.S. Constitution. Everybody knows that the first president in that sense was George Washington. But in fact the Articles of Confederation, the predecessor to the Constitution, also called for a president- albeit one with greatly diminished powers. Eight men were appointed to serve one year terms as president under the Articles of Confederation. In November 1781, John Hanson became the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled, under the Articles of Confederation.

Many people have argued that John Hanson, and not George Washington, was the first President of the United States, but this is not quite true. Under the Articles of Confederation, the United States had no executive branch. The P

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