American Colonization Society
The
American Colonization Society (in full,
The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America) founded
Liberia, a
colony on the coast of
West Africa in 1820 and transported free blacks there, in an effort to remove them from the
United States. The Society closely controlled the development of Liberia until 1847, when it was declared to be an
independent republic. The organization was formally dissolved in 1964.
The ACS had its origins in 1816, when Charles Fenton Mercer, a Federalist member of the Virginia state assembly, discovered accounts of earlier legislative debates on black colonization held in the wake of
Gabriel's conspiracy. Mercer pushed the state to support the idea, and one of his political contacts in Washington City, John Caldwell, in turn contacted his brother-in-law, a
Presbyterian minister, the
Reverend Robert Finley, who endorsed the scheme. Finley suggested at the inaugural meeting of an
African Society 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. Rev. Finley meant to colonize
"(with their consent) 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. It was instrumental in the establishment of the colony of
Liberia.
Beginning in the 1830s, the society was harshly attacked by
abolitionists, who tried to discredit colonization as a slaveholders' scheme and the American Colonization Society as merely palliative propaganda for the continuation of slavery in the United States. The presidents of the ACS tended to be
Southerners. The first president of the ACS was the nephew of former
U.S. President George Washington,
Bushrod Washington.
Statesman Henry Clay of
Kentucky was ACS president from 1836 to 1849.
The ACS purchased the freedom of American slaves and paid their passage to Liberia.
Emigration was offered to already-free black people. For many years the ACS tried to persuade the United States Congress to appropriate funds to send colonists to Liberia. Although Henry Clay led the campaign, it failed. The society did, however, succeed in its appeals to some state legislatures. In 1850,
Virginia set aside $30,000 annually for five years to aid and support emigration. In its Thirty-Fourth Annual Report, the society 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.
Jehudi Ashmun, an early leader of the American Colonization Society colony, envisioned an American
empire in Africa. During 1825 and 1826, Ashmun took steps to lease, annex, or buy tribal lands along the coast and along major rivers leading inland. Like his predecessor Lt.
Robert Stockton, who in 1821 established the site for Monrovia by "persuading" a local chief referred to as "King Peter" to sell
Cape Montserado (or Mesurado) by pointing a
pistol at his head, Ashmun was prepared to use force to extend the colony's territory. His aggressive actions quickly increased Liberia's power over its neighbors. In a treaty of May 1825 deposited by the ACS in the
U.S. Library of Congress, King Peter and other native kings agreed to sell land in return for 500 bars of
tobacco, three barrels of
rum, five casks of
powder, five
umbrellas, ten iron posts, and ten pairs of
shoes, among other items.
In March 1825, the ACS began a quarterly,
The African Repository and Colonial Journal, edited by Rev.
Ralph Randolph Gurley (1797-1872), who headed the Society until 1844. Conceived as the Society's
propaganda organ, the
Repository promoted both colonization and Liberia. Among the items printed were articles about Africa, letters of praise, official dispatches stressing the prosperity and steady growth of the colony, information about emigrants, and lists of donors.
The Society controlled the colony of Liberia until 1847 when, under the perception that the
British might
annex the settlement, Liberia was proclaimed a free and independent state, and provided with a
constitution that was said to be fashioned after the American model. By 1867 the Society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants. After the
Civil War, when many blacks wanted to go to Liberia, financial support for colonization had waned. During its later years the society focused on
educational and
missionary efforts in Liberia rather than further emigration.
The aims of the society were various. It was supported not only by those who were abolitionists on moral grounds, but also by Southerners fearful of organized revolt by free blacks, and by Northerners concerned that an influx of black workers would hurt the economic opportunities of indigent
white.
As a former Whig and an admirer of Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln supported the Society throughout the 1850s. Early in his presidency, Abraham Lincoln tried repeatedly to arrange resettlements of the kind the ACS supported, but each arrangement failed (See
Abraham Lincoln on slavery). By 1863, however, Lincoln abandoned the idea following the use of black troops. As biographer
Stephen B. Oates has observed, Lincoln thought it immoral to ask black soldiers to fight for the United States and then remove them to Africa after their military service.
Three of the reasons the movement never became very successful were the objections raised by blacks and abolitionists, the enormous scale of the task of moving so many people (there were 4 million free blacks in the USA after the Civil War), and the difficulty in finding locations willing to accept large numbers of black newcomers.
In 1913 and again at its formal dissolution in 1964, the Society donated its records to the U.S.
Library of Congress. The material contains a wealth of information about the foundation of the society, its role in establishing Liberia, efforts to manage and defend the colony, fund-raising, recruitment of settlers, conditions for black citizens of the American South, and the way in which black settlers built and led the new nation.
*
History of Liberia*
Lott Cary, of
Richmond, Virginia, the first American
missionary to
Liberia*
U.S. Library of Congress exhibition, based on materials deposited by the ACS.*
A View of Liberian History and Government: a critical view of the ACS
*
Abraham Lincoln's Program of Black Resettlement: An article hosted by the Institute for Historical Review
*
PBS article*
Article at Slavery in the North
