Christianity was brought to Liberia primarily by freed American slaves. In the early 1800s, the American Colonization Society established Liberia as a colony for freed slaves from the United States. Many of these settlers were already Christians, and they brought their faith with them to Liberia. The first formal Christian mission in Liberia was established in 1821 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, with other Protestant denominations following in the years that followed. While there were some British consuls and freed British slaves who settled in Liberia, they did not have the same significant impact on the spread of Christianity in the country as the freed American slaves did.