After the American Revolution and in the early years of the American Republic, a strong abolitionist movement took hold, especially in the northern states. Even as the number of enslaved African Americans grew in the United States, a by-product was a correlated growth in free black people. As the national government wrestled with the overall question of slavery in an ever-expanding nation, some white politicians and influential figures tackled another question: veiled racism; what should the United States do with all these free black people? Their response: the American Colonization Society. What did the American Colonization Society do? Why did the American colonization society fail? And what are the lasting impacts of the American Colonization Society?
The Purpose of the American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society:
An organization was created in 1816 by members of the Virginia legislature and other prominent white Virginians to promote and support the efforts to migrate free African Americans back to Africa.
The Idea and History of the American Colonization Society
In the 1790s, the invention of the cotton gin started a massive expansion of cotton production in the Southern States. Along with this came the rapid growth of slavery in the South. As cotton became more profitable, more enslaved Africans could be purchased, thus producing more cotton. Even as the population of enslaved African Americans grew, so did the number of free African Americans.
Southern plantation owners and northern abolitionists saw an issue with more free African Americans. In the North, African Americans could be free. Still, they were not granted citizenship–many states did not extend rights to free African Americans, and discrimination and racism towards the free African Americans were rampant.
Fig. 1 Annual report of the American Society for Colonizing the Free people of Colour of the US
In the South, plantation owners saw the increase in free African Americans as a threat to the security of their institution of slavery and a destabilizing force in society. The more free African Americans there were, they felt, the more likely the enslaved African Americans would break out in rebellions.
Did you know?
The American Colonization Society was not the first organization to attempt to relocate freed African Americans. In the 1780s, Britain began a program, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, which looked to relocate free Africans from their American colonies to the colony of Sierra Leone.
American Colonization Society (ACS): Definition
Created by Charles Mercer, a member of the Virginia legislature, and his brother-in-law Quaker Reverend Robert Finley, the ACS met formally in December 1816. At this meeting, Finley promoted the core purpose of the society: to assist free African Americans in relocating back to Africa. He made it clear it would be under their consent, but those who wished to immigrate back to the continent would have their financial assistance. Using their status and influence in politics, they garnered the support of other influential politicians:
Fig. 2 Member certificate for the American Colonization Society
With the odd bipartisan coalition of plantation owners and abolitionists, the society quickly spread, with chapters opening up in every state. As the ACS grew, its mission became more focused and defined. The ACS’s goals were:
Create and provide a location in Africa for freedmen, formerly enslaved people, and those born free to live.
Provide the financial assistance for these people to relocate to the colony and ensure that the settlement would be financially and agriculturally stable to allow the project to succeed.
Be a watchdog organization to reduce the usage and dependence on the Atlantic slave trade.
American Colonization Society: Impact
Through military and financial persuasion, the ACS, with the Federal government's help, established a treaty to create the colony of Monrovia in 1821 on the west coast of Africa. This first colony was one of many, with different ACS chapters making similar colonies in the region. Eventually, by 1857, these colonies merged into the territory of Liberia.
Fig. 3 1863 map showing the colonies of the American Colonization Society in Liberia
Between 1816 and 1845, more than 4,500 free African Americans emigrated to the colony. However, nearly sixty percent of all emigrants died due to inadequate support for agricultural and infrastructure needs. Even with that knowledge, the ACS continued to promote the colony in the United States.
From the 1850s through to the First World War, the ACS continued to push for this migration. Though successful in earning funds from state legislatures, the ACS never received the full financial support of the federal government. Eventually, the ACS dissolved due to:
- Lack of interest from free African Americans (numbering close to four million at the end of the American Civil War).
- A severe lack of funding and the economic effects of WWI.
- The enormous costs of relocating those who did emigrate to Liberia.
By 1913, the ACS was nonfunctional, and the society officially ended in 1964.
American Colonization Society: Significance
It is easy to see the ACS as a positive movement attempting to right the wrongs and evils of slavery. However, upon closer inspection of the opposition to the ACS, you can see it as it was: a movement with racist undertones that attempted to be a solution to the massive issue of slavery in the United States.
Fig. 4 Japanese cartoon on the ACS
The ACS never received the full support it needed to succeed in its goals because its society was founded on a racist ideology that became a target of fierce opposition. For southern plantation owners and the northern abolitionists and Quakers who supported the Society, the ACS was a movement to remove an unwanted element of society: free African Americans. Instead of granting citizenship or extending rights to free African Americans in the north, the ACS saw removing an entire people from their society as the solution. Southern who supported the ACS wanted the removal of a people who they saw as a destabilizing force in their society that threatened their way of life and their economy. Again, their solution completely removes them from the nation. For both groups, free African Americans had no place in American society.
Frederick Douglass’s Opposition to the American Colonization Society
Fig. 5 Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was one of the most vocal opponents of the goals of the American Colonization Society. Below is an excerpt from his newspaper, The North Star, from January 1849:
“Given this proposition, we would respectfully suggest to the assembled wisdom of the nation that it might be well to ascertain the number of free colored people who will be likely to need the assistance of government to help them out of this country to Liberia, or elsewhere, beyond the limits of these United States—since this course might save any embarrassment which would result from an appropriation more than commensurate to the numbers who might be disposed to leave this, our own country, for one we know not of. We think that the free colored people generally mean to live in America and not in Africa, and to appropriate a hefty sum for our removal, would merely be a waste of public money. We do not mean to go to Liberia. Our minds are made up to live here if we can or die here if we must, so every attempt to remove us will be, as it ought to be, labor lost. Here we are, and here we shall remain. While our brethren are in bondage on these shores, it is idle to think of inducing any considerable number of the free colored people to quit this for a foreign land.
For two hundred and twenty-eight years, the colored man toiled over the soil of America under a burning sun. A driver's lash—plowing, planting, reaping, that white men might roll in ease, their hands unhardened by labor, and their brows unmoistened by the waters of genial toil. Now that the moral sense of mankind is beginning to revolt at this system of foul treachery and cruel wrong and is demanding its overthrow, the mean and cowardly oppressor is meditating on plans to expel the colored man entirely from the country. 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.” 1
American Colonisation Society - Key takeaways
The American Colonization Society: An organization created in 1816 by members of the Virginia legislature and other prominent white Virginians to promote and support the efforts to migrate free African Americans back to Africa.
Southern plantation owners and northern abolitionists saw an issue with more free African Americans. In the north, African Americans may be free. Still, they were not granted citizenship, many states did not extend rights to free African Americans, and discrimination and racism towards the free African Americans were rampant.
In the south, plantation owners saw the increase in free African Americans as a threat to the security of their institution of slavery and a destabilizing force in society. The more free African Americans there were, they felt, the more likely the enslaved African Americans would break out in rebellions.
Created by Charles Mercer, a member of the Virginia legislature, and his brother-in-law Quaker Reverend Robert Finley, the ACS met formally in December 1816. At this meeting, Finley promoted the core purpose of the society: to assist free African Americans in relocating back to Africa.
From the 1850s through to the First World War, the ACS continued to push for this migration. Though successful in earning funds from state legislatures, the ACS never received the full financial support of the federal government. Eventually, the ACS dissolved due, and the society officially ended in 1964
References
- Douglass on Colonization. (n.d.). University of Virginia Library.
- Ciment, J. (2014). Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It (Illustrated ed.). Hill and Wang.
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