Take a look at this.
Looks a lot like the American flag, right?
So what you're doing all the way over here in Africa?
You may have learned the school that the U.S.
founded, Liberia, but the story is way messier than you heard.
That's thanks to the organization behind this colony.
The American Colonization Society, created by some of the most powerful people in America.
Their mission was to get free Black people out of the country and send them anywhere else, like Liberia.
This idea was hotly debated.
Was it a mass deportation scheme or a new path to freedom?
The movement had a truly wide range of support, from Black abolitionists to white enslavers to presidents, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln.
Over several decades, public support for the society rose and fell and came roaring back again while everyone argued over colonization and a question we're still fighting about today.
Who gets to be American?
So how did this organization attract both abolitionists and enslavers?
Let's take a look at who founded the American Colonization Society or the ACS in 1816.
These men came from the highest levels of power.
They were congressmen, clergymen, a Supreme Court justice, and apparently the lyricist of our national anthem.
Francis Scott Key.
The ACS founders were very concerned about the rising population of free Black people.
Since shortly after the Revolutionary War, this population grew 215%, from 59,000 to 186,000.
For comparison, the enslaved population had only increased by 70%, though it was much larger.
Most free Black people had either bought their freedom, fought for it through military service, or escaped to the north, where states had abolished slavery.
The way to deal with this growing population, according to the ACS, was, quote, to promote and execute a plan for colonizing with their consent, the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or such other places as Congress shall deem most expedient.
End quote.
The ACS pitched this to potential white members and it resonated across party lines.
Even respected Black abolitionists like wealthy businessman James Forten and Minister Richard Allen offered their cautious support.
However, ACS member support was subject to certain conditions.
For example, abolitionists insisted that colonization could only happen with free Black people's consent, while enslavers made the society promise not to promote or even mention emancipation.
Ultimately, there were three main things that United white ACS members.
The first thing was a core belief.
They believed that racial prejudice in white society was too deep to overcome.
The members reasoned that their plan was benevolent.
They were actually doing the best thing for Black people by sending them somewhere they could have equal rights.
We'll get to what the majority of Black folks thought about that in a minute.
The second was fear, although they feared different things.
Enslavers were afraid that free Black people would inspire and help enslaved people to revolt, especially after notable insurrections organized by Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey.
Abolitionists, on the other hand, feared a social disorder, something they thought would happen if black and white society were integrated.
The third and least controversial thing members agreed on was that colonization could resettle enslaved African people, recovered from slave ships since the transatlantic slave trade was now illegal.
However, they would send African people to a new colony and not the lands they were captured from.
It was this last goal that also won the crucial support of the federal government.
In 1819, President James Monroe, for whom Liberia's capital, Monrovia is named, gave the society seed money to officially start a colony.
For the next 47 years, 37% of ASU's funding came from the government.
In 1820, the first ACS ship set sail on the Mayflower of Liberia, carrying two federal agents, an ACS agent and 86 free Black colonists, mostly from New York and Pennsylvania.
They headed for Sierra Leone, the British colony for resettled, formerly enslaved people.
The chef landed in Sherbro Island off the west coast of Africa, where sadly many colonists died of malaria.
By 1821, the society secured the land that would become Liberia.
ACS Agent Eli Ayres, and Lieutenant Robert Stockton signed an agreement with six local leaders offering goods worth about $7,000, adjusting for inflation.
Throughout the 1820s, new ACS chapters sprung up in almost a dozen states.
Virginia, which had one of the largest populations of free Black people, was among the biggest supporters, with 21 chapters across the state.
A handful of states would sponsor their own small colonies named after themselves that later became part of Liberia.
Colonization had taken hold in white society, but to recruit Black colonists these members would face off against a powerful and organized resistance.
After the ACS launched, it immediately sparked debate in Black communities across the country.
By the 1820s, there were hundreds of free Black organizations, mutual aid societies, and service groups.
Here, community members could discuss the day's most pressing social, political, and economic issues, including, of course, slavery and colonization.
Today's committee meeting in Philly, for example, in response to the ACS's formation, James Forten, a sail maker and civil rights leader, called a gathering in Minister Richard Allen's church.
These were two respected Black leaders who were weighing whether or not to support colonization.
Personally, they were leaning towards it, but they wanted to put the issue to a vote.
The result a resounding and wall shaking no.
Forten, who now firmly sided with his community, later wrote, quote 3000 at least attended, and there was not one soul that was in favor of going to Africa.
End quote.
So why did the vast majority of the free Black community oppose the ACS?
Well, for lots of reasons, but here are the top four.
First of all, activists rejected ACS's main claim.
They argued that it was possible for Black and white people to live side by side with equal rights, if only those in power would remove the barriers of discrimination and racism.
Secondly, the Colonization Society was a white led movement.
Its founders were white enslavers who had inflicted unimaginable suffering and were deeply distrusted by the Black community.
Because when white leadership wasn't involved, some white people did entertain the idea of leaving the U.S.. Black leaders like Prince Saunders and James Vaughan called for a Black led movement of emigration to Haiti.
Forten was also influenced by abolitionist Paul Cuffe, a Black and Wampanoag sea captain.
He personally sponsored three emigration trips to Sierra Leone in the 1810s that inspired the ACS, but he never gave them his support.
Although emigration didn't gain widespread traction, they did successfully draw potential colonists away from the ACS.
Third, colonization had a completely impractical price tag.
Some estimates said it would cost $28 million to remove all free Black people.
This was a sticking point for people like Maria Stewart, who was one of the first Black women to speak publicly on abolition and women's rights.
She argued the ACS's money would be way better spent on education and improving the lives of Black people in America.
Last but definitely not least, free Black people rejected colonization because of slavery.
Going to Liberia or even Haiti to some people, would mean abandoning the nearly 2 million Black people who were still enslaved in America.
This separation would undermine free Black people's ability to support enslaved people and push towards their most important shared goal: Universal emancipation.
Writer David Walker summed up the case against colonization in a series of highly publicized public essays.
He called out colonization as a way to deny African-Americans citizenship.
Rights which they deserved.
He wrote, quote, do they think to drive us from our country and homes after having enriched it with our blood and tears?
End quote.
By the early 1830s, collective rebuke by Black activists had beaten back the ACS's recruitment efforts.
President Andrew Jackson, who was a former ACS vice president, cut their funding after an audit revealed that the society had been paid more than a quarter of $1 million and had only resettled 260 recaptured Africans.
Up to this point, there were 3000 people who went with ACS to become colonists in Liberia, while about 8000 people emigrated to Haiti.
Among the people who went to Liberia was John Russworm.
He co-founded Freedom's Journal, the first African American newspaper, which David Walker wrote for.
After much reflection, Russworm ultimately came to see Liberia as an opportunity to build Black institutions, and prove white narratives about Black inferiority wrong.
While many Black leaders disagreed with his choice, it's worth recognizing that he and others who've left were facing unchecked violence at the hands of white people.
Two years after Walker published his essays, he was killed in Boston and his murderer was never caught.
Even William Lloyd Garrison, a white abolitionist who became a passionate opponent of the ACS thanks to Walker, was dragged on the end of a row by an anti abolitionist mob until local Black people saved him.
Reputationally, the ACS was running on fumes.
As tensions over slavery ratcheted up, the volatile state of the nation would give the ACS an opening to make one last run.
In the mid 1830s to early 1840s, the ACS continued to send small numbers of mostly formerly enslaved colonists to Liberia from the rural South.
This was happening through manumission, where white enslavers freed enslaved people on the condition that they would be colonized somewhere else.
This typically took place when enslavers were on their deathbed after a lifetime of practicing slavery.
One enslaver, Margaret Mercer, who saw slavery as evil and supported manumission, also wrote, quote, I would rather die with every member of my family than live in a community mixed up of Black and white.
End quote.
Going into the late 1840s, many white people's anxieties were higher than ever.
This was a boon for the ACS who stoked fears especially in the West and Midwest, of free Black people flooding their states and competing with a working class white people for land and jobs.
In 1851, the ACS raised $100,000, their best year to date.
One newspaper reported that more than 40 churches in the area had started taking up collections for the ACS.
Money also came pouring in from state coffers in Virginia, New Jersey and Maryland.
Free states began introducing strict legislation to tighten their grip on free Black people.
Indiana revised its state constitution to ban free Black people from living in the state.
Illinois went so far as to prevent enslavers from setting enslaved people free.
Then the federal government powers were prominent activist Martin Delaney called, quote, the most disgraceful act of legislation ever enacted.
End quote.
The Fugitive Slave Act.
The act allowed law enforcement officers to arrest any Black person suspected of escaping slavery.
In theory, officers needed, at minimum, a sworn testimony from enslavers to seize someone.
In practice, Black people were taken without due process.
Anyone caught helping so-called fugitives face steep fines and jail time.
Abolitionists and ordinary people of all races were outraged.
Despite the risk, even moderate citizens raised support funds and took to the streets to defend their Black neighbors.
By the mid 1850s, conditions had become so unsafe for free Black people that many began looking to colonization.
In this short time frame, from 1848 to 1854.
About 4000 Black colonists left for Liberia, which is now an independent nation.
Compare that to the roughly 5800 people who left in the first 30 years of ACS existence.
For people like Martin Delaney, the final straw came in 1857, when the Supreme Court ruled in the infamous Dred Scott case that enslaved people were not, and could not be citizens.
Delaney now advocate for emigration to modern day Nigeria.
He partnered with the African Civilization Society, a Black nationalist organization, and ended up accepting money for white colonizationists.
While the ACS has had a resurgence in the 1850s, it's luck would run out by the end of the decade.
Enslavers were less supportive of colonization as slavery became too controversial.
Still, the ACS hung on to some high profile a nd surprising supporters.
Confederate General Robert E Lee freed most of the people he enslaved and offered to pay their way to Liberia.
President Abraham Lincoln supported the ACS by allotting federal money for a Black colony off of Haiti's shores.
Frederick Douglass, one of the leaders who did not waver in his rejection of the ACS, blasted Lincoln's support.
He wrote extensively about colonization.
Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose and all that couched in such a proposition.
We live here.
Have lived here.
Have a right to live here and mean to live here.
End quote.
In a letter to Lincoln's postmaster in charge of colonization, Douglass suggested that white people should move instead.
The postmaster replied that whites rule America and quote, the controlling racists will not abdicate their power or surrender their country.
End quote.
With those ominous words in the air, by 1861, the nation was thrust into a civil war.
On the 50th anniversary of the ACS this was the final tally of their efforts to colonize Liberia.
Approximately 5700 colonists were recaptured Africans, 4500 were free Black people, 5957 were people freed by manumission.
The society had spent more than $2 million.
For Liberian settlers, life was difficult.
20% of the first generation colonists died from disease.
They would face attacks from indigenous peoples like the De, Bassa, and Kru who were among the 16 ethnic groups defending their homelands.
Despite the hardship, some colonists preferred their new life.
William Burke, who had been enslaved by Robert E Lee, arrived in Liberia with his wife Isabella and four young children.
He wrote that quote, the Lord has blessed me abundantly since my residence in Africa, for which I feel that I can never be sufficiently thankful.
End quote.
The society sent its last colonists in 1904 and continued on as a Liberian aid group.
It wasn't dissolved until the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Although the ACS may have faded, the ideas behind colonization, of removing groups based on race, were potent and repeatedly put into practice by the US government.
Many communities of color were pressured or forced to leave by law from the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to Filipino repatriation and mass deportations of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression to Japanese incarceration during World War Two.
Today, the US is a multiethnic and multiracial nation, and while that may have seemed like an impossibility to the ACS, those who oppose colonization held on to their vision for freedom and equal rights.
Their struggle shows us that a more just future is possible, so long as you fight for it.
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