The American Colonization Society was made up of slave owners and slave merchants with a few well-meaning abolitionists and some free colored people thrown in for good measure. Why the American Colonization Society was founded was to set up a colony on the west coast of Africa and migrate American slaves to Africa. The American Colonization Society significance was that the colony started by the A.C.S. would eventually grow into the nation of Liberia (Liberia the Latin translation means a free place and is the same root for the English word Liberty) so if the Liberian flag looks a little familiar, this post will share that reason.
I believe the slave owners and merchants were trying to deal with the free-slave problem. Just like not all white people were slave owners, not all black people were slaves. The owners and merchants knew that a few free slaves offered to all slaves and that hope is a dangerous emotion to try to contain. To the slave merchants and owners, the slave was a valuable part of their personal wealth and free labor. Slaveholder could imagine what it would be like if too many slaves were allowed to live free, and own weapons. For those old enough to remember the stories of the tattered and blown nearly apart sailing-ship that limped into New Orleans carrying the remnant survivors of the slave revolt in Haiti the thought of free slaves with weapons was good enough reason to think that the best place for growing numbers of freed slaves was somewhere out of this country. Pulling together the resources to make it happen the A.C.S was born.
A slave could be freed by purchasing their own freedom, or by purchasing the freedom of a family member. The laws in the south were written so that in many places even a free slave had to pick a local master if they wanted to live free in that county. In the northern U.S. a free slave could live as a free man or woman but because of the color of their skin, and unscrupulous slave hunters even northern "free slave" could be kidnapped and sold into slavery. (See the movie 12 years a slave.) Another way a slave could be designated as free was through something called a Deed of Manumission. Most slave owners who had children by slave women did not want their children to live the rest of their life as a slave. So the children fathered by a slave master could be freed from slavery at some agreed-upon age, like 19 or 20.
Free slaves were looked at as a problem to the slaveholder and merchants, so they worked together to figure out how to deal with the issue of free salves and one of their solutions was the American Colonization Society. Many of the well-meaning abolitionists, and free colored people, that joined the slaveholder and merchants did so because they believed African Americans would never be allowed all of the freedoms granted to white people at that time and that meant slave children being denied an educated.
Some abolitionist bought into the fact that living a life of freedom, in another land, away from the racism and unfair laws in America was the best choice for American Africans willing to accept a ticket from the A.C.S. to live free. Even though most of the African Americans emigrating to Africa had never seen Africa before nor could they speak the African language they still made the choice to take the voyage to be able to live free. In many cases that also meant leaving family behind. The A.C.S. acquired ships and loaded with supplies, American families, and news from home began making regular voyages to the new colony on the west coast of Africa.
The A.C.S. opened offices and set up agents in the African colony to help newly arrived Americans learn about the people, places and things Africa was made of and overtime Africans taught the new arrivals to speak the African language, but more often than not, the new arrivals taught the African people how to speak English. A.C.S. ships continued to bring supplies, more people, and news from family members left behind. The news was not good because of talk about the growing threat of a war between the states. The American emigrants in Africa would eventually forge an uneasy connection with the African people in the land of their ancestors.
The Liberian flag well that is a little complicated. (for me anyway) Liberia is actually made up of several different counties and each county has its own flag. However, all of the country flags incorporate the red, white, and blue canton with a white star in the corner. The flag came into existence in 1847, when on July 16 Liberia Declared its Independence from the American basted A.C.S. With their new independence and their new flag, the Liberians used the American constitution as their template and built a society similar to the one in the U.S. that was, unfortunately, eventually accompanied by many of the same prejudices left behind in America.
News of the beginning of the Civil War, the end of the Civil War, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln would also make its way across the ocean to the colony of American living on African soil, along with news from their family members still living in America about a new holiday celebration they named Juneteenth to mark the end of slavery in the southern states.
Two years after the end of the Civil War, slavery had been abolished throughout all of the United States and the A.C.S. had delivered over 13,000 American emigrants to the west coast of Africa and the organization would continue to operate until about 1913. The A.C.S. wasn't the only group that decided to offer colored people living in their country a free ride to Africa. The British had a similar society that performed the same task of offering colored people in England a free cruise to the African west coast, and while I don't have the name of their society comparable to the A.C.S. the colony the British started on the west coast of Africa is today know as Sierra Leone.
When I worked with the Coast Guard back in the 80's I met a Liberian Ship captain whose ship was in Oakland waiting on a load of scrap metal. I remember telling them about someone I had met from their country when I was in college and that they had shared with me information about what they called the Americo Liberians and their feeling of superiority over the indigenous Liberian population due to the Americo Liberian belief in Christianity.
I also shared the fact that in my college days almost all of my American friends had changed their American names to African sounding names, making my friend from Liberia the only one of us with the truly American sounding name, hearing about the American students and their interest in African names made the ship's captain smile, I think she was impressed.
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