A Brief History
On February 6, 1820, The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America (better known as the American Colonization Society) sent the first 86 African Americans back to Africa to form a new country of freed slaves and free born African Americans known today as Liberia. (Note: February is Black History Month!)
Digging Deeper
Obviously, not all White Americans were enamored of the “peculiar institution” that was human slavery, and some of these people actually did something about their strongly held moral convictions. Robert Finley of New Jersey was such a man, and he founded the ACS in order to allow free African Americans the opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland. Finley had begun a career as a professor, and had briefly held the position of President of the University of Georgia. His time in the South exposed him to the horror of human bondage and led to his founding of the ACS. Unfortunately he died in 1817 before his organizational and fund raising efforts had yielded actual relocation of African Americans.
Other contributors and supporters of Finley included John Randolph (Congressman and Senator), Henry Clay (Congressman and Senator), Richard Bland Lee (Attorney General and member of THE Lee family), and the colorfully named Bushrod Washington (nephew of George Washington and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court).
Liberia was originally founded as an American colony for the purpose of relocating free African Americans, and by 1847 after thousands of African Americans had moved there declared its independence. The movement to repatriate sub-Saharan Blacks back to Africa had started right after the American Revolution, with a British outfit known as Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, an organization that settled free Black people in Sierra Leone, in a conclave known as Province of Freedom, mainly for escaped slaves.
As the number of free African Americans grew, southern slave owning Whites started to support the relocation of free African Americans to Liberia, as having large numbers of free African Americans was seen as a threat to the peaceful compliance of African slaves. John Randolph was one of the slave owning whites that saw free Blacks as a “problem” in America, and oddly enough such bigoted Whites thus supported the movement! Things actually deteriorated to the point that some abolitionists labeled the ACS as a pro-slavery organization and denounced the efforts to relocate African Americans. Still, the ACS remained in existence even after slavery was outlawed in the US until it was finally dissolved in 1964.
The native people of West Africa were none too glad to have Americans plunk other Africans on their doorstep, displacing the residential populations and creating conflict. (It seem Whites were not too particular about returning Africans to exactly where they had come from in the first place.) The transplanted Blacks, called “Americo-Liberians,” dominated Liberian politics until the 1980’s when native people garnered more power. Sadly, Liberia has devolved into the typical African model of Civil War and unrest, abuse of power, exploitation by foreign businesses and general malaise. In 2014 the Ebola Epidemic reached Liberia. Liberia is a small (43,000 square miles) West African equatorial country of 4.5 million people. The 3rd poorest country in the world, the main products of Liberia are Iron Ore, Timber, and Rubber. The capital and largest city is named Monrovia in honor of the former US President, James Monroe.
Question for students (and subscribers): Was it right to send free Africans back to Africa? Should a larger effort to do so have been made, especially with government involvement after the Civil War? Was the transport of free African Americans really racist after all? Please share your thoughts and opinions about the ACS and its efforts to relocated free African Americans in Liberia in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see PBS.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="15229 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=15229">13 Comments
Didn’t know that Liberia was originally founded as an American colony and for the purpose of relocating free African Americans,
I was surprised that Liberia was founded by America and used as a colony.
It is so sad that Liberia was ruined because Americans took something that was supposed to help African Americans and made it bad.
It’s bad that they sent African Americans back to Africa when they were free from slavery. Why couldn’t they stay in America?
Our country isn’t as friendly as what people make it to be.
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If the freed slaves WANTED to travel back to Africa to live there, then I don’t see the problem. If the slaves were forced there, then there is a problem. If the whites were taking the slaves to Africa, thinking that they were doing the right thing by reuniting them with their “native country” without consulting with the newly freed slaves, then this seems that the whites may have only been doing this to make themselves feel better. As if they were undoing a wrong that had been done so long ago. If the blacks are now free, then they should have a say so in where their lives are going and no longer be told by the whites. Unless there is concern about what the southern whites would do if the blacks would stay in the US…? Either way, the blacks should still have that choice if they are truly free.
Natives of Liberia to this day resent the ex-slaves dumped there by Americans.
That’s interesting…why is that?
Never knew there were slaves sent back to Africa to start a new country.
I find this topic very touchy one because you could view it either way.
African slaves sent back is equivalent to how people return and exchange items like clothing, and that thought along is sensitive and sad.
I never really thought that africans were sent back to Africa. I believe that returning black people back to Africa should be up to their choice. They would be going back to extreme culture shock and it would be difficult for them to colonize back.