No family was more associated with the creation of the republic of Liberia than the Roberts family of Norfolk and later Petersburg, Virginia. JOSEPH JENKINS ROBERTS and two of his brothers, HENRY and JOHN, were the dominant men in politics, medicine, and Methodism as the colony of Liberia became a republic and made policy decisions that would reverberate through generations. Henry Roberts, initially a trader, returned to the United States for a medical education and practiced in Liberia. John W. Roberts became bishop of the Liberia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.