American Colonization Society
The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, commonly known as the American Colonization Society, was founded in 1816 by Robert Finley, to encourage and support the voluntary migration of free African-Americans to the continent of Africa.
There were several factors that led to the establishment of the American Colonization Society. The number of freed slaves and their descendants grew steadily since the American Revolutionary War, from 60,000 in 1790 to 300,000 by 1830, and slaveowners were concerned that free Blacks might encourage or help their slaves to escape or rebel. It was also believed by many that the "amalgamation," or integration, of African Americans with mainstream American culture was out of the question. They needed to relocate elsewhere, where they could live free of white prejudices.
The African-American community was overwhelmingly opposed to the project; in many cases, their families had lived in the United States for generations, and their prevailing sentiment was that they were no more African than the white Americans were British. Contrary to stated claims that emigration was voluntary, some blacks were pressured to emigrate; in several scenarios, slaves were manumitted on condition that they emigrate immediately.
Historian Marc Leepson has stated that "colonization proved to be a giant failure, doing nothing to stem the forces that brought the nation to Civil War."
Between 1821 and 1847, only a few thousand African-American blacks, out of the then millions in the US, emigrated to what would become Liberia. Many of them died from tropical diseases. In addition, the transportation of the emigrants to the African continent, including the provisioning of requisite tools and supplies, proved very expensive.
Starting in the 1830s, the Society was met with great hostility from white abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, who proclaimed the Society a fraud. According to Garrison and his many followers, the Society was not a solution to the problem of American slavery—it actually was helping, and was intended to help, to preserve it.
Background
Growth of slavery in the South
After the invention of the cotton gin in the 1790's, the growth and export of cotton became a highly profitable business. Central to the business was the setting up of plantations, staffed by enslaved laborers. Due to the increased demand, imports of African slaves grew until legal importation was barred in 1808, after which time Maryland and Virginia openly bred slaves, "producing" children for sale "South", through brokers such as Franklin and Armfield, to plantation owners. This resulted in the relocation of about one million enslaved people to the Deep South, The Africans and African Americans became well established and had children, and the total number of the enslaved reached four million by the mid-19th century.Growth in the number of free blacks
Due in part to manumission efforts sparked by revolutionary ideals, Protestant preachers, and the abolitionist movement, there was an expansion in the number of free blacks, many of them born free. Even in the North, where slavery was being abolished, they faced legislated limits on their rights.Some slave owners decided to support emigration following an aborted slave rebellion headed by Gabriel Prosser in 1800, and a rapid increase in the number of free African Americans in the United States in the first two decades after the Revolutionary War, which they perceived as threatening. Although the ratio of whites to blacks overall was 4:1 between 1790 and 1800, in some Southern counties blacks were the majority. Slaveholders feared that free blacks destabilized their slave society and created a political threat. From 1790 to 1800, the number of free blacks increased from 59,467 to 108,398, and by 1810 there were 186,446 free blacks.
Early colonization in Africa
In 1786, a British organization, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, launched its efforts to establish the Sierra Leone Province of Freedom, their colony in West Africa, for London's "black poor". This enterprise gained the support of the British government, which also offered relocation to Black Loyalists who had been resettled in Nova Scotia, where they were subject to harsh weather and discrimination from white colonists. Britain further deported Jamaica maroons to this colony, as well as captives which its navy took from illegal slave ships after the Atlantic slave trade was banned in 1807.Paul Cuffe
or Cuffee was a successful Quaker ship owner and activist in Boston. His parents were of Ashanti and Wampanoag heritage. He advocated settling freed American slaves in Africa and gained support from the British government, free Black leaders in the United States, and members of Congress to take emigrants to the British colony of Sierra Leone. In 1815, he financed a trip himself. The following year, Cuffe took 38 American blacks to Freetown, Sierra Leone. He died in 1817 before undertaking other voyages. Cuffe laid the groundwork for the American Colonization Society.Efforts to relocate free blacks other than to Africa
Although little remembered as ultimately nothing came of them, there were a number of other proposals for relocating former slaves to somewhere other than Africa. One option discussed was settling them in the new, sparsely-populated Western territories acquired with the Louisiana Purchase: creating a black reservation, similar to an Indian reservation. Abraham Lincoln's plan was to settle them in what is today Panama. As American blacks themselves said, rather than going to an undeveloped corner of Africa, it would make more sense for them to go to Canada or Mexico, if they were going to go anywhere. Even Florida Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward proposed sending Blacks to a land the federal government would purchase, there to live permanently, in isolation from whites.Early history of the ACS
Founding
The ACS had its origins in 1816, when Charles Fenton Mercer, a Federalist member of the Virginia General Assembly, discovered accounts of earlier legislative debates on black colonization in the wake of Gabriel Prosser's rebellion. Mercer pushed the state to support the idea. One of his political contacts in Washington City, John Caldwell, in turn contacted the Reverend Robert Finley, his brother-in-law and a Presbyterian minister, who endorsed the plan.On December 21, 1816, the society was officially established at the Davis Hotel in Washington, D.C.. Among the Society's supporters were Charles Fenton Mercer, Henry Clay, John Randolph, Richard Bland Lee, and Bushrod Washington. Slaveholders in the Virginia Piedmont region in the 1820s and 1830s comprised many of its most prominent members; slave-owning United States presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison were among its supporters. Madison served as the Society's president in the early 1830s.
At the inaugural meeting of the Society, Reverend Finley suggested that a colony be established in Africa to take free people of color, most of whom had been born free, away from the United States. Finley meant to colonize " the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress may deem most expedient". The organization established branches throughout the United States, mostly in Southern states. It was instrumental in establishing the colony of Liberia.
The ACS was founded by groups otherwise opposed to each other on the issue of slavery. Slaveholders, such as those in the Maryland branch and elsewhere, believed that so-called repatriation was a way to remove free blacks from slave societies and avoid slave rebellions. Free blacks, many of whom had been in the United States for generations, also encouraged and assisted slaves to escape, and depressing their value. The Society appeared to hold contradictory ideas: free blacks should be removed because they could not benefit America; on the other hand, free blacks would prosper and thrive under their own leadership in another land.
On the other hand, a coalition made up mostly of evangelicals, Quakers, philanthropists, and abolitionists supported abolition of slavery. They wanted slaves to be free and believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States, since they were not welcome in the South or North. The two opposed groups found common ground in support of what they called "repatriation".
Leadership
The presidents of the ACS tended to be Southerners. The first president was Bushrod Washington, the nephew of U.S. President George Washington and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1836 to 1849 the statesman Henry Clay of Kentucky, a planter and slaveholder, was ACS president. John H. B. Latrobe served as president of the ACS from 1853 until his death in 1891.Goals
The colonization project, which had multiple American Colonization Society chapters in every state, had three goals. One was to provide a place for former slaves, freedmen, and their descendants to live, where they would be free and not subject to racism. Another goal was to ensure that the colony had what it needed to succeed, such as fertile soil to grow crops. A third goal was to suppress attempts to engage in the Atlantic slave trade, such as by monitoring ship traffic on the coast. Presbyterian clergyman Lyman Beecher proposed another goal: the Christianization of Africa.Fundraising
The Society raised money by selling memberships. The Society's members pressured Congress and the President for support. In 1819, they received $100,000 from Congress, and on February 6, 1820, the first ship, the Elizabeth, sailed from New York for West Africa with three white ACS agents and 88 African-American emigrants aboard. The approaches for selecting people and funding travel to Africa varied by state.Opposition to colonization
Originally, colonization "had been pushed with diligence and paraded as the cure for theevils of slavery, and its benevolence was assumed on all hands. Everybody of consequence belonged to it." The following summary is from April of 1834:
The colonization movement "originated abolitionism", by arousing the free blacks and other opponents of slavery.
Opposition from blacks
From the beginning, "the majority of black Americans regarded the Society enormous disdain." Black activist James Forten immediately rejected the ACS, writing in 1817 that "we have no wish to separate from our present homes for any purpose whatever".Frederick Douglass, commenting on colonization, "Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here, and mean to live here." Martin Delany, who believed that Black Americans deserved "a new country, a new beginning", called Liberia a "miserable mockery" of an independent republic, a "racist scheme of the ACS to rid the United States of free blacks". He proposed instead Central and South America as "the ultimate destination and future home of the colored race on this continent".
While claiming to aid African Americans, in some cases, to stimulate emigration, it made conditions for them worse. For example, "the Society assumed the task of resuscitating the Ohio Black Codes of 1804 and 1807....Between 1,000 and 1,200 free blacks were forced from Cincinnati." A meeting was held in Cincinnati on January 17, 1832 to discuss colonization, which resulted in a series of resolutions. First, they had a right to freedom and equality. They felt honor-bound to protect the country, the "land of their birth", and the constitution. They were not familiar with Africa, and should have the right to make their own decisions about where they lived. They recommended that if black people wish to leave the United States, they consider Canada or Mexico, where they would have civil rights and a climate that is similar to what they are accustomed. The United States was large enough to accommodate a colony, and would be much cheaper to implement. They question the motives of ACS members who cite Christianity as a reason for removing blacks from America. Since there were no attempts to improve the conditions of black people who lived in the United States, it is unlikely that white people would watch out for their interests thousands of miles away.
Opposition from whites
Wm. Lloyd Garrison
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, as he always signed himself, began publication of his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, in 1831, followed in 1832 by his Thoughts on African Colonization. President Lincoln credited Garrison with "first putting emancipation on the country’s political agenda". Garrison, himself, joined it in good faith." All the important white future abolitionists supported it: besides Garrison, Gerrit Smith, the Tappans, and many others, as can be seen in the pages of the Society's African Repository.Garrison objected to the colonization scheme because rather than eliminating slavery, the key goal was to remove free black people from America, thereby avoiding slave rebellions. Besides not improving the lot of enslaved Africans, the colonization had made enemies of native people of Africa. He did not approve of the marketing of alcohol and guns in Liberia. He questioned sending African-Americans to an unhealthy climate, which would also become populated with missionaries and agents, resulting in deaths. Colonization is expensive. In addition, "it hinders the manumission of slaves by throwing their emancipation upon its own scheme, which in fifteen years has occasioned the manumission of less than four hundred slaves, while before its existence and operations during a less time thousands were set free."
Gerrit Smith
The philanthropist Gerrit Smith had been, as put by Society Vice-President Henry Clay, "among the most munificent patrons of this Society".This support changed to furious and bitter rejection when he realized, in the early 1830s, that the society was "quite as much an Anti-Abolition, as Colonization Society". "This Colonization Society had, by an invisible process, half conscious, half unconscious, been transformed into a serviceable organ and member of the Slave Power." It was "an extreme case of sham reform". In November of 1835, he sent the Society a letter with a check, to conclude his existing commitments, and said there would not be any more from him, because:
Colony of Liberia
Preparations
In 1825 and 1826, Jehudi Ashmun, an early leader of the ACS, took steps to lease, annex, or buy tribal lands in Africa along the coast and along major rivers leading inland in Africa to establish an American colony. In 1821, Lt. Robert Stockton, Ashmun's predecessor, had pointed a pistol to the head of King Peter, which allowed Stockton to persuade King Peter to sell Cape Montserrado and to establish Monrovia. Stockton's actions inspired Ashmun to use aggressive tactics in his negotiations with King Peter and in May 1825, King Peter and other native kings agreed to a treaty with Ashmun. The treaty negotiated land to Ashmun and in return, the natives received three barrels of rum, five casks of powder, five umbrellas, ten pairs of shoes, ten iron posts, and 500 bars of tobacco, as well as other items.First colony
The ship pulled in first at Freetown, Sierra Leone, from where it sailed south to what is now the northern coast of Liberia. The emigrants started to establish a settlement. All three whites and 22 of the emigrants died within three weeks from yellow fever. The remainder returned to Sierra Leone and waited for another ship. The Nautilus sailed twice in 1821 and established a settlement at Mesurado Bay on an island they named Perseverance. It was difficult for the early settlers, made of mostly free-born blacks who had been denied the full rights of United States citizenship. In Liberia, the native Africans resisted the expansion of the colonists, resulting in many armed conflicts between them. Nevertheless, in the next decade 2,638 African Americans migrated to the area. Also, the colony entered an agreement with the U.S. Government to accept freed slaves who were taken from illegal slave ships.Expansion and growth
According to J. N. Danforth, "General Agent" of the Society, as of 1832 "The legislature of fourteen States, among which are New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, and Indiana, and nearly all the ecclesiastical bodies in the United States have recommended the Society to the patronage of the American people."From the establishment of the colony, the American Colonization Society had employed white agents to govern the colony. In 1842, Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first non-white governor of Liberia. In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared itself an independent state, with Roberts as its first President.
The society in Liberia developed into three segments:
- Settlers from the United States, or Afro-Americans,
- Freed slaves from slave ships and the West Indies, and
- Indigenous native peoples like the Mande.
Mortality
Tropical diseases were a major problem for the settlers, and the new immigrants to Liberia suffered the highest mortality rates since accurate record-keeping began. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 to 1843, only 1,819 were alive in 1843. The ACS knew of the high death rate, but continued to send more people to the colony. Professor Shick writes:Publications
Beginning in 1825, the Society published the African Repository and Colonial Journal. Ralph Randolph Gurley, who headed the Society until 1844, edited the journal, which in 1850 simplified its title to African Repository. The journal promoted both colonization and Liberia. Included were articles about Africa, lists of donors, letters of praise, information about emigrants, and official dispatches that espoused the prosperity and continued growth of the colony. After 1919, the society essentially ended, but it did not formally dissolve until 1964, when it transferred its papers to the Library of Congress.Civil War and emancipation
Since the 1840s, Lincoln, an admirer of Clay, had been an advocate of the ACS program of colonizing blacks in Liberia. Early in his presidency, Abraham Lincoln tried repeatedly to arrange resettlement of the kind the ACS supported, but each arrangement failed.The ACS continued to operate during the American Civil War, and colonized 168 blacks while it was being waged. It sent 2,492 blacks to Liberia in the following five years. The federal government provided a small amount support for these operations through the Freedmen's Bureau.
Some scholars believe that Lincoln abandoned the idea by 1863, following the use of black troops. Biographer Stephen B. Oates has observed that Lincoln thought it immoral to ask black soldiers to fight for the U.S. and then to remove them to Africa after their military service. Others, such as the historian Michael Lind, believe that as late as 1864, Lincoln continued to hold out hope for colonization, noting that he allegedly asked Attorney General Edward Bates if the Reverend James Mitchell could stay on as "your assistant or aid in the matter of executing the several acts of Congress relating to the emigration or colonizing of the freed Blacks". Mitchell, a former state director of the ACS in Indiana, had been appointed by Lincoln in 1862 to oversee the government's colonization programs.
By late into his first term as president, Lincoln had publicly abandoned the idea of colonization after speaking about it with Frederick Douglass, who objected harshly to it. On April 11, 1865, with the war drawing to a close, Lincoln gave a public speech at the White House supporting suffrage for blacks, a speech that led actor John Wilkes Booth, who was vigorously opposed to emancipation and black suffrage, to assassinate him.
Decline and dissolution
Colonizing proved expensive; under the leadership of Henry Clay the ACS spent many years unsuccessfully trying to persuade the U.S. Congress to fund emigration. The ACS did have some success, in the 1850s, with state legislatures, such as those of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. In 1850, the state of Virginia set aside $30,000 annually for five years to aid and support emigration. The Society, in its Thirty-fourth Annual Report, acclaimed the news as "a great Moral demonstration of the propriety and necessity of state action!" During the 1850s, the Society also received several thousand dollars from the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Maryland legislatures. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Mississippi set up their own state societies and colonies on the coast next to Liberia. However, the funds that ACS took in were inadequate to meet the Society's stated goals. "For the fourteen years preceding 1834, the receipts of that society, needing millions for its proposed operations, had averaged only about twenty-one thousand dollars a year. It had never obtained the confidence of the American people".Three of the reasons the movement never became very successful were lack of interest by free blacks, opposition by some abolitionists, and the scale and costs of moving many people. There were millions of black slaves in the United States, but colonization only transported a few thousand free blacks.
In 1913, and again at its formal dissolution in 1964, the Society donated its records to the U.S. Library of Congress. The donated materials contain a wealth of information about the founding of the society, its role in establishing Liberia, efforts to manage and defend the colony, fundraising, recruitment of settlers, conditions for black citizens of the American South, and the way in which black settlers built and led the new nation.
Following the outbreak of the First World War, the ACS sent a cablegram to President Daniel Howard of Liberia, warning him that any involvement in the war could lead to Liberia's territorial integrity being violated regardless of which side might come out on top.
In Liberia, the Society maintained offices at the junction of Ashmun and Buchanan Streets at the heart of Monrovia's commercial district, next to the True Whig Party headquarters in the Edward J. Roye Building. Its offices at the site closed in 1956 when the government demolished all the buildings at the intersection for the purpose of constructing new public buildings there. Nevertheless, the land officially remained the property of the Society into the 1980s, amassing large amounts of back taxes because the Ministry of Finance could not find an address to which to send property tax bills.