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How a Movement to Send Freed Slaves to Africa Created Liberia

Starting 50 years before the end of slavery, the American Colonization Society moved 12,000 people from America to West Africa.

BECKY LITTLE

The biggest question facing the leaders of the United States in the early 19th century was what to do about slavery. Should it continue or should the U.S. abolish it? Could the country really be home to free black people and enslaved black people at the same time? And if the U.S. ended slavery, would freed men and women remain in the country or go somewhere else?

Many white people at this time thought the answer to that last question was to send free black Americans to Africa through “colonization.” Starting in 1816, the American Colonization Society—which counted future presidents James Monroe and Andrew Jackson among its members—sought to create a colony in Africa for this purpose. This was 50 years before the U.S. would abolish slavery. Over the next three decades, the society secured land in West Africa and shipped people to the colony, which became the nation of Liberia in 1847.

How a Movement to Send Freed Slaves to Africa Created Liberia
The New York chapter of the Colonization Society began in 1817.  The New York Historical Society/Getty Images

The society spent its first few years trying to secure land in West Africa. In 1821, it made a deal with local West African leaders to establish a colony at Cape Mesurado. The strip of land was only 36 miles long and three miles wide (today, Liberia stretches over 38,250 square miles) The next year, the society began sending free people—often groups of families—to the colony. Over the next 40 years, upwards of 12,000 freeborn and formerly enslaved black Americans immigrated to Liberia.

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