INTRODUCTION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN
EMIGRATION
In 1866, interest in returning to Africa was ignited in Macon shortly after the
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and Civil Rights Act. Responding to a
difficult transition from slavery to freedom and feeling unwelcome in a nation slow
to accept freedmen as equals Maconites emigrated to Liberia in November 1866.
In 1867, Georgia’s largest cities, particularly where large black population
exists, were influxed with influential Radical Republicans. Blacks in Macon
formed alliances with white Radicals to work toward seizing full citizenship within
the United States. Consequently, emigration advocates in Macon temporarily
postponed their mobilization efforts to capitalize on the historic political elections
of 1867 and 1868. Blacks voted for the first time in their lives, worked to change
the Georgia Constitution, elected black men into office, and struggled to ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment. By contrast, blacks of Columbus lacked faith in the
promises offered by Congress and Radical Republicans. Witnessing blacks
throughout Georgia experiencing poverty and facing intimidation from planters and
investors, working as cheap farm laborers, and political and racial intimidation,
several hundred Columbusites packed their bags and sailed to Liberia in 1867 and
1868. Blacks in other parts of Georgia shared the same sentiments as those in
Columbus and emigrated as well. By May 1868, nearly 800 Georgians had
resettled in Liberia.
The post-bellum African-American emigration movement in Georgia has
received little attention from historians. Based on the primary documents within
the voluminous collection of the African Colonization Society Papers, I recognized
that conducting a study on those who chose to leave the United States for Liberia
during the nineteenth-century is very ambitious. Narrowing the scope of what is the
beginning of future studies of post-bellum black emigration, my primary goal in
this dissertation is to examine the motives for freedmen’s leaving during four
departures: November 1866, May 1867, November 1867, and May 1868.
Each departure occurred, not by coincidence, around heated election dates in
Georgia and the passage of historic Congressional legislation in Washington, D.C.
The departure of November 1866 coincided with Georgia’s first state election after
the Civil War and the General Assembly’s immediate rejection of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The May 1867 departure occurred shortly after Congress passed the
First and Second Reconstruction Acts, which established military presence in states
not yet admitted into the Union and granted suffrage to black men. In
November1867, blacks emigrated after Georgians elected delegates for the Georgia
Constitutional Convention. The May 1868 departure followed the late April 1868
election, which allowed Georgians to elected state officers and vote in favor of a
new Georgia Constitution.
The motives of blacks emigrating from the United States were not stimulated
exclusively by political push factors, but also by the hostile social environment and
unstable southern economy in which newly freed persons entered into following
the Civil War. As blacks pushed to assert themselves as citizens within the United
States, they experienced great opposition from resentful whites, who wanted to
assert and maintain their social, economic, and political control. The enticements
of living in a self-governing nation where education and land were not denied to
blacks were major factors that pulled freed families to Liberia. In the minds of
many post-bellum African Americans, Liberia was their “Promised Land.” It was
free of whites, land was granted to settlers, nation-building was possibly, and for
some African-born emigrants, they were returning “home.”
Based on the correspondence between Georgia emigrants and ACS leaders
from the African Colonization Society Papers and letters from Liberian settlers
published in the ACS’s monthly publication, African Repository, I identify the
motives that powered the nineteenthcentury “Back-to-Africa” movement in
Georgia and give voice to those emigrants who sought freedom in Africa during
the early years of Congressional Reconstruction. As well, I will address the
following research questions: Where was emigration sentiment strongest in
Georgia? How did grassroots leaders mobilize blacks to emigrate? What were the
sentiments of blacks toward emigration? What challenges did black emigrants
experience as they prepared to leave the United States? Why were the promises of
full citizenship and land not enough to convince some newly freed persons to
remain in America?
Contrary to Wilson Jeremiah Moses, who asserts in Classical Black
Nationalism that “there was not much interest in emigration from the end of the
Civil War to World War I,” African emigration interest did not almost fade into
oblivion after 1865. Instead, blacks continued to express a high interest in foreign
resettlement throughout the late-nineteenth century, especially during the years of
Reconstruction (see Table 1.2) Although, post-bellum emigrants did not surpass
the number of passengers who sailed to Liberia during the heyday of the ACS in
the 1850s, their numbers immediately following emancipation remained high and
were only 7% less than that of their predecessors who emigrated a decade or so
earlier. While the ACS provided passage to 3,184 African Americans between
1865 and 1877, the number of individuals who applied for passage to Liberia
during Reconstruction ran into the thousands and exceeded the number of
applicants who had expressed an interest in foreign migration during the
antebellum period. If additional ships and money had been available to transport
and sustain applicants who desired to go to Africa, more blacks would almost
certainly have left the United States during the late nineteenth-century. The
consequence of such actions might have reduced the South’s already struggling
economy or may have increased the Chinese and European indentured labor trade
to the South if its largest and most reliable labor source sought autonomy beyond
American shores.
In examining the mobilization efforts to transport blacks to Liberia, it is
important to note that high interest in African colonization following the Civil War
was not solely the result of the indefatigable efforts of the ACS leaders, Rev.
William McLain, Financial Secretary, and William Coppinger, Corresponding
Secretary. This enthusiasm reflected a broader and already existing desire among
newly freed people, who for multiple reasons doubted that America was their
promised land. The individuals who favored foreign migration were pained by
America’s treatment of African Americans. They lost faith in their lives ever
improving as long as they remained in the presence of whites. They desired land
ownership, political representation, and residency in a homogeneous black nation.
These key factors contributed greatly toward high black turnout at eastern docks
from New York to Georgia on scheduled dates of departure. Emancipation, black
male suffrage, full citizenship, and the promises of “40 acres and a mule” through
land redistribution were not enough to keep this group in the U.S.
It is also striking that the largest group of African Americans to resettle in
Liberia came from Georgia (their numbers comprised 31 percent of the total
number of passengers transported to West Africa by the American Colonization
Society during fragment Reconstruction). Although the number of annual
departures of Georgia emigrants oscillated throughout the postemancipation years,
numbers of emigrants remained consistently high when compared to other states
where emigration recruitment was present. Consequently, Georgia became the
epicenter of the African-American emigration movement throughout
Reconstruction
Methodology
In examining the motives of black Georgians leaving the United States
during Reconstruction, I rely primarily upon the American Colonization Society
Papers. Of the many types of records within the Society’s collections, I use two
types of sources: periodicals and correspondence.
In an effort to put black Georgia emigrants center stage and learn of their
organizational efforts and motives for leaving the United States between 1866 and
1868, I relied heavily upon the ACS’s monthly periodical, the African Repository
and specifically, letters written between black Georgians and ACS officers,
William Coppinger (Corresponding Secretary) and Rev.
William McLain (Financial Secretary).
The African Repository contains monthly financial reports and the names of
financial contributors, officers, and agents. In addition, the periodical served as a
successful tool of recruitment and media propaganda. Freed men and women, who
ascended to positions of leadership (sometimes by default because they were
literate or were a business owner or minister), galvanized support and recruited
blacks to sail to Liberia by distributing the Repository to members of their
immediate community. The African Repository informed potential recruits on how
best to prepare for the voyage and how best to acclimate to the new country. It also
offered maps of Liberia, which assisted blacks in determining where they would
most like to resettle.
The most important sections of the African Repository for blacks were: (1)
The “List of Emigrants,” which contained the numbers, names, dates of departures,
and former place of residence of passengers; and (2) “Letters from Liberia,” which
included published letters written from emigrants to friends and family in America
or to ACS agents. These letters offered inspiring accounts of their arrival and
successful resettlement, as well as encouragement to come “home” to the
“Fatherland” These letters contained tenets of Black Nationalism and described a
world that in the minds of some African Americans was a “utopia,” “Promised
Land,” “Star in the East,” or “Black Israel.” At best, the letters and lists of
emigrants served as motivating tools that helped ignite and stimulate “Liberian
fever,” a term used often in the correspondence of blacks to describe the interest of
emigration. At the least, they helped blacks contemplating going to Liberia to look
more closely at the possibility of leaving the U.S.
Thousands of letters were written between African Americans and ACS
officers and agents. These letters spanned from 1817 to 1935. The collection of
letters is massive and may be one of the largest repository of letters written by
freeborn and emancipated blacks of the antebellum era and freedmen of the
Reconstruction period. Possibly the size of the collection or the mistaken belief that
interest in emigration declined following the Civil War, scholars have failed to
examine these letters. Scholars may have assumed that blacks simply did not write
in large numbers to the ACS because literacy was not high amongst former slaves.
By using the letters in my research, I am able to show that blacks expressed
a high interest in returning to Liberia during Reconstruction. Despite their level of
literacy, they were able to articulate their desire to leave the U.S. Contained within
the letters is evidence of inquiries about going to Liberia; dates of departure; and
information on how grassroots emigration companies organized, mobilized, and
galvanized support from blacks within their immediate community. Most
importantly, these letters tell us, through the voices of black emigrants, their
reasons for leaving the United States.
Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and other leading blacks, such as
Congressman Jefferson F. Long and James Simms have long been recognized as
leading advocates of black emigration during Reconstruction and post-
Reconstruction. With the exception of Turner, most of the
“Back-to Africa spokesmen” of these eras did not sail to Africa. In fact, it was not
until November 1891 that Turner actually boarded a ship to West Africa. When he
arrived in Africa, he did not stay nor did he resettle there. Lesser known
individuals, who were former slaves, local preachers, and farmers, took on
grassroots leadership positions and were more successful in galvanizing and
mobilizing support for emigration than Turner and others. These individuals’
organizational efforts have gone unrecognized and challenge the notion that a wide
interest in African emigration died after the Civil War.
In examining the organizational efforts of black emigration advocates in
Georgia, the ACS correspondence offers us an intimate look at the lives of blacks
during Reconstruction and a fresh perspective on black emigration sixty years
preceding Marcus Garvey’s twentieth-century emigration movement. As well,
these letters allow us to look closely at what blacks in Georgia were experiencing
as they transitioned from slavery to freedom: displacement, poverty, a smallpox
epidemic, intimidation, denial of land, unfair wages, and lack of protection from
the military law enforcement. As black Georgians prepared for departure in 1866,
1867, and 1868, they described their disappointment with Republicans, the death of
the Georgia delegate George Ashburn and the failures to convict his murderers, and
Congress’s refusal to appropriate funds to assist blacks in emigrating to Africa. All
were factors that pushed blacks to emigrate from the United States.
While these letters offer us new ways in looking at freedmen during
Reconstruction, they also allows us to reexamine the motives of the white leaders
of the ACS, who have historically been accused of wanting to make the United
States more racially homogeneous. Correspondence between officers within the
ACS organization and emigrants tells us about the organization’s commitment to
improving the lives of blacks, their frustration with Congress for failing to
appropriate funds to resettle blacks in Africa, and their discontent with white
Republicans, Freedmen’s Bureau officers, and employers who hoped to see blacks
remain in the United States in a servile position. Most importantly, we see their
disappointment when blacks are deterred from leaving by the efforts of opponents
of emigration. While the ACS served as an ally of blacks, its members also
endangered their own lives and personal reputations in the pursuit of helping
blacks acquire autonomy.
Historiography
The historiography of the nineteenth-century African colonization movement is not
extensive but it is varied. Several books survey the history of Liberia.6 Others focus
on the country’s early history, the leadership and mission of the American
Colonization Society, and the emigrants who helped to make Liberia a sovereign
nation in 1847.7 Most of what has been published on the black repatriation
movement reflects the years 1817 to 1865.8 What little scholarship that covers the
later nineteenth century deals primarily with the post-Reconstruction years 1878 to
1899. This period, which saw black-led domestic and foreign schemes, was the
third wave of the nineteenth-century African repatriation movement.9 Despite the
steady growth of scholarship on the history of Liberia, the American Colonization
Society, and regional studies of Back-to-Africa movements, little research has been
conducted on the efforts of freed people who either emigrated to or entertained the
idea of resettling in Liberia during Reconstruction. What has been written thus far
on this period consists primarily of a small collection of theses and dissertations
that have gone unpublished. These works focus largely on missionary efforts in
Liberia.10 In the general scholarly literature on Reconstruction, black repatriation to
Africa receives cursory treatment when it is mentioned at all. My goal in writing
this dissertation is not only to fill this gap, but to contribute to making the subject
of black emigration, whether to Africa, Canada, Brazil, the Caribbean, or Mexico,
one of the central themes of Georgia’s Reconstruction history.
In the historiography of African colonization, one of the earliest scholarly works
is Early presents general facts concerning the early decades of the African
colonization movement: the mission and leadership of the ACS and the challenges
of functioning as an agency and colonizing Liberia. Fox glorifies the leadership of
the ACS, and he defends the intentions of the organization, whose initial mission
was praised by blacks and sympathetic whites as an attempt to improve the lives of
the free black population. He also asserts that, despite the ACS’s failure to remove
the entire black race from the country, the organization successfully colonized and
Christianized Liberia. Through his own admission, Fox’s empirical research
contains flaws and inconsistencies and, consequently, his work has never been
widely accepted by scholars of African Colonization.
In 1961, P. J. Staudenraus’s The African Colonization Movement, 1816-
1865 surpassed the scholarship of Fox. Derived from his dissertation, Staudenraus
relied heavily upon the American Colonization Society Papers to revise or rather
correct the initial research conducted by Fox and to better chronicle the genesis of
the colonization movement and the first fifty years of the ACS’s operation. What
makes Staudenraus’s work important to the study of black repatriation movements
and the colonization of Liberia is his use of primary sources to reconstruct the
organizational history of the ACS, the opinions of key opponents and advocates of
African colonization, and the financial and logistical challenges of the colonization
mission. Today, Staudenraus’s work is the foundation of all scholarship conducted
on the nineteenthcentury African colonization movement. But like Fox, he too
failed to write about the opinions of antebellum blacks on the subject of African
repatriation.
Following the modern civil rights movement in the U.S., scholars began to
direct their attention away from the white leadership of the colonization movement
and focused instead on the black émigrés who colonized Liberia. In 1969, Edwin S.
Redkey published Black Exodus: Black Nationalism and Back-to-Africa
Movements, 1890-1910. Unlike his predecessors, Redkey examined the origins of
black-led, grassroots, foreign and domestic migration schemes that served as a
prelude to Marcus Garvey’s twentieth-century movement. Recognizing the
importance of writing a history reflective of African-Americans’ participation in
the colonization of Liberia, Tom Shick published Emigrants to Liberia, 1820-1843:
An Alphabetical Listing, a log containing the names of African-American
emigrants who resettled in Liberia under the auspices of the American
Colonization Society. This list of emigrants served as the nucleus of his own
empirical research. In Behold the Promised Land, Shick recorded first generation
AmericoLiberians’ uneasy migration across the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of
West Africa, their arrival to Liberia, and their struggle to cohabitate peacefully
amongst the indigenous population. Along with his study of the social environment
of the early settlers, Shick also examined early maps of Liberia; population reports;
photos of emigrants; and illustrations of Masonic temples, churches, and homes
built by settlers. 1865: An Alphabetical Listing
The primary documents from the American Colonization
Society Papers
served as a reliable source for Shick and for future scholars who later
published
additional transcribed logs of nineteenth-century black emigrants, such
as
Immigrants to Liberia,1865 to 1904: An Alphabetical Listing and
Immigrants to
Liberia, 1844-1865: An Alphabetical Listing.
Following Staudenraus’s and Shick’s treatment of the American
Colonization Society Papers and Redkey’s social history of black participation in
the colonization of Liberia came the publication of two works based largely on
black emigrants’ letters to former masters and families (fictive and blood related)
in America. In Dear Master: Letters of a Slave Family, Randall M.
Miller edited the antebellum correspondence of the Skipworths, a family of former
slaves from Virginia and Alabama, to their former white owner, John Hartwell
Cocke. Inspired by Miller, Bell I. Wiley published his findings in Slaves No More:
Letters from Liberia, 1833-1869. The letters from emigrants to former masters
Wiley selected for his book were unpublished and unedited by the press or the
American Colonization Society. These letters revealed much about the
relationships between former slaves and the masters who granted them
manumission but in Liberia. Both Wiley and Miller identified common themes in
the correspondence: hardship, Christian conversion, self-determination, and
emigrants’ reliance upon former owners to assist in acclimating to a life of freedom
in a foreign land. In Sojourners in Search of Freedom: The Settlement of Liberia
by Black Americans, John Wesley Smith examined the ways in which first and
second generation settlers grappled with their new lives in Liberia. Relying heavily
upon the letters of emigrants as well, Smith discussed the settlers’ sentiments of
regret mixed with the support for colonization; their changing economic and social
conditions in the U.S. and Liberia; and their enterprise in establishing townships,
building schools, generating businesses and overcoming adversity in the
West African country. Underscoring the desire to resettle in Liberia, Antonio
Daniel’s Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in
the Nineteenth Century offers a statistical analysis of the fatalities amongst early
Liberian settlers. He argued that, in their pursuit of freedom, Liberia settlers may
have paid the highest “reliably recorded” mortality cost in the history of human
migration. While the statement is an exaggeration, the point it well made that
resettlement was difficult and fatalities were high among first generation Liberian
settlers.
Recent scholarship includes several regional studies of black emigration and
the émigrés who emigrated from America over the span of the nineteenth century.
Richard Hall’s On Africa’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857
provides a narrative history of the eleven hundred free-born and emancipated
blacks who chose to emigrate to Liberia during the antebellum years under the
auspices of the Maryland Colonization Society. Claude A. Clegg III’s The Price of
Liberty: African-Americans and the Making of Liberia examines the multifarious
tragedies black North Carolinians experienced in their pursuit of self-government,
autonomy, Christian conversion, and prosperity in Liberia. The price included
physical hardship, premature death, and opposition from the indigenous
population. Alan Huffman’s Mississippi in Africa:
The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and their Legacy in Liberia
Today describes the legal challenges endured by a group of enslaved
Mississippians following the death of their master who had promised them foreign
manumission and the cultural conflict they became embroiled in after their arrival
in Africa. In An African Republic: Black and White Virginians in the Making of
Liberia, Marie Tyler-McGraw explores the concerted efforts of blacks and whites
to support the African colonization movement in Virginia and the factors that led
more blacks to emigrate from there than any other state prior to the Civil War.
Kenneth Barnes’s Journey of Hope: the Back-to-Africa Movement in Arkansas in
the Late 1800s examines the postReconstruction surge in emigration from
Arkansas and why previously failed attempts and fraudulent schemes made by
black or white-led emigration societies did not deter these emigrants.
Like Clegg and Huffman, Tyler-McGraw takes a transnational approach to
exploring the lives of nineteenth-century emigrants to Liberia. She introduces a
trans-Atlantic debate over cultural identity, national identity, and citizenship, while
offering a narrative about the persons who came to be known as “Americo-
Liberians.” She shows that Liberian colonization was not the utopia blacks hoped
it would be. While hoping to civilize and proselytize native Liberians, black
American setters brought with them their own racist view of Africans and a social
paradigm they learned from whites in America. Sadly, they exploited the country’s
natural resources and the original inhabitants. The eventual result was a ruinous
civil war that continued up to 2003, when President Charles Taylor, the descendant
of an American emigrant, gave up power and went into exile in Nigeria.
In addition to the work of Clegg and Barnes, Steven Hahn’s A Nation Under
Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South, from Slavery to the Great
Migration, and Nell I. Painter’s Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas following
Reconstruction deal with the Backto-Africa movements after the Civil War. They
take the position that blacks’ interest in foreign resettlement did not die with their
recognition as citizens through post-bellum constitutional amendments. Clegg
asserts that Liberian fever remained consistent amongst blacks throughout most of
the nineteenth century. Despite financial challenges met by the American
Colonization Society, blacks’ interest in Liberian resettlement amongst North
Carolinians did not temper during Reconstruction and, in fact, their numbers made
up the second largest group of emigrants after Georgians to sail to Liberia during
this period. In his analysis of black interest in African resettlement, Hahn takes the
position that the post-Reconstruction Back-to-Africa movement was a grassroots
phenomenon supported primarily by landless farmers and rural workers. Painter
has a similar view. Her case study of post-Reconstruction black migration to
Kansas in 1879 show that “Exodustors” consisted of black separatists not only in
domestic but also in foreign resettlement. She asserts that Kansas, for many blacks,
was only a place for temporary settlement. Those who desired African emigration
were either waiting for the opportune moment or simply lacked the financial
resources to sail to Liberia. And despite negative reports, Liberia
consistently remained as a place for resettlement in the minds of blacks throughout
the postReconstruction decades. While the Exodus to Kansas caught the attention
of many farmers, migration to Arkansas was equally appealing. And like Painter,
Barnes highlights the desire of blacks who migrated to Arkansas to resettle in
Liberia under the auspices of the International
Migration Society led by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner in 1895.25
Scholars of black emigration recognize that Georgians have consistently taken part
in the multiple African colonization and Back-to-Africa movements of the
nineteenth century. Yet no single work has been published on its relevance to
Liberian colonization, particularly during Reconstruction when the largest group of
the black emigrants to sail to Liberia came from Georgia.26 Reconstruction
scholars, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul A. Cimbala, Donald L. Grant, and
particularly Mark V. Wetherington, mention black Georgians’ participation in
emigration schemes of the post-emancipation era, but this movement has never
received the attention it deserves.27 John Hope Franklin, Edmund L. Drago,
Kenneth Stampp, and Eric Foner do not discuss black emigration in their accounts
of Reconstruction.28 This neglect gives the impression that domestic migration and
foreign emigration were not viable options for blacks seeking autonomy, and that
the movement for African repatriation became inactive following the Civil
War and remained dormant until the explosion of Marcus Garvey’s United Negro
Improvement Association in the 1920s.29
Organization of Chapters
My dissertation is arranged into five chapters. “Chapter One: Introduction”
contains the dissertation’s argument, significance, scholarship, and methodology.
“Chapter Two: A Brief History of the African-American Emigration Movement,
17731865” offers, first, a historical overview of the organizational efforts and
motives of blacks who proposed resettling in Africa from the American Revolution
to the close of the Civil War (from its proto-emigration phase to the first wave of
the emigration movement). Second, I highlight the historical connection between
Georgia and the ACS’s earliest attempt to launch its organization’s mission, how
freeborn and emancipated black Georgians responded to Liberian fever, as it came
to be called, and their motives for seeking resettlement beyond the shores of the
United States prior to the close of the Civil War. The second wave, which covers
the years of Reconstruction (1865-1877), is discussed in the succeeding chapters.
“Chapter Three: The African-American Emigration Movement in Macon,
and Sparta, Georgia, 1865-1866” examines the economic conditions of blacks in
Macon following the Civil War and their motives and organizational efforts to
emigrate to Liberia in 1866. I will also examine black Spartans’ response to
Liberian resettlement and their efforts to emigrate. This chapter will demonstrate
how Maconites and Spartans prepared for departure and the challenges they faced
during growing opposition toward blacks’ resistance to field labor and their pursuit
to achieve political and economic autonomy.
“Chapter Four: The African-American Emigration Movement in Macon and
Columbus, Georgia, 1866-1867” is a continued examination of the African-
American emigration movement in Georgia, where mobilization efforts began to
wane in Macon but ‘took fire’ in Columbus in 1867. First, I examine how the rise
in black support for Republicanism severely curtailed grassroots efforts to emigrate
more Maconites after 1867. Second, I will explain how a lack of faith in their
quality of life improving in the United States pushed blacks from Columbus to
Liberia. Third, I will identify and analyze the motivating factors that stimulated
emigration and caused Columbus to become leaders of black emigration in
Georgia.
“Chapter Five: At the Crossroad of African-American Emigration in
Georgia, 1867- 1868” examines the recruitment and mobilization efforts of black
Georgians from Columbus, Sparta, Marion, and other surrounding areas during the
Georgia Constitutional Convention (December 1867 and March 1868) and the state
election of late April 1868. Mobilization efforts and interest in emigration were
great amongst blacks following the delegate election of
November 1867. As days drew closer to vote in favor of or against the proposed
Georgia Constitution and to elect new state legislators into office in April 1868,
political and racial tension escalated between Republicans and Democrats. The
events that preceded the election and Congress’s decision to stop appropriating
money to fund future voyages to transport blacks to Liberia affected emigration
numbers. Blacks were ambivalent about their future in America. Some teetered on
the subject of emigration and others were staunched supporters. Despite
challenges, blacks from Columbus, Sparta, and Marion resettled to Liberia in May
1868.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION
MOVEMENT, 1773-1865
Since 1619, black Americans fought to achieve two types of freedom:
personal and civic. According to author Orlando Patterson, personal freedom is that
which "gives a person the sense that … on the one hand, one is not being coerced
or restrained by another person in doing something desired and, on the other hand,
the conviction that one can do as one pleases within the limits of other person's
desire to do the same." Civic freedom is "the capacity… to participate in its life and
governance. A person feels free…to the degree that he or she belongs to the
community of birth, has a recognized place in it and is involved in some way in the
way it is governed." Believing the United States Government would never grant
them these freedoms, African Americans opted to seize them or create them
elsewhere by emigrating beyond the shores of the United States. Blacks proposed
various locations throughout the Americas, but the most favored place to resettle
for emigrationists was West Africa. The desire of blacks to live in a racially
homogeneous land as citizens with political, economic, and personal autonomy
coupled with the financial resources and organizational efforts of a group of
benevolent whites gave birth to the African-American emigration movement, the
American Colonization Society (ACS), and the nation-state Liberia.
As early as the eighteenth century, African Americans had articulated their
desire to resettle in West Africa. This desire was a response to the denial of civil
liberties and land and a way to claim personal autonomy against individual,
familial, and community subjugation and control. During the years between the
American Revolution and the Civil War, this response occurred in two phases:
proto-emigration and first wave.
The “proto-emigration” phase traces the years 1773 to 1814 when blacks
capitalized on the revolutionary thinking of the time and advocated for emigration
abroad and the end of slavery. African Americans residing in the U.S. and transient
Black Loyalists (American blacks who joined the British Army during the
Revolutionary War in exchange for freedom) in London and Nova Scotia sought to
emigrate to Africa. The desire for land and independence, and the reality of
poverty were the motives that pushed emigration for blacks on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean.
Following the American Revolution, free blacks from Massachusetts and
Rhode Island were inspired by the actions of Black Loyalists who emigrated to
Sierra Leone in 1787 and 1792 to pursue a more autonomous life. Faced with
similar social, economic, and political challenges as blacks in Canada and England,
free U.S. blacks formed emigration associations and petitioned legislators to assist
in transporting them to West Africa. Unfortunately, the necessary financial
resources of blacks, compassionate whites, or the government did not coalesce to
meet the growing demand by blacks to leave the U.S. during this period.
The “first wave” reflects the years, 1815 to 1865, which witnessed organized
endeavors by blacks and whites to resettle African Americans in a location beyond
the U.S. Suggested destinations were Canada, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and
various places throughout the Caribbean. The first successful resettlement of blacks
from the United States to Africa was led by Paul Cuffe, a wealthy black sailor, who
used his personal funds and ship to transport thirtyeight free blacks to Sierra Leone
in 1815. Plans for a second voyage by Cuffe were cut short due to his death in
1817. On January 31, 1820, the American Colonization Society (ACS), a white led
benevolent society formed in December 1816, transported nearly ninety free blacks
to Liberia. Funded by white northern abolitionists, religious leaders and slave
masters, the ACS wanted to resolve racial tension in the United States by assisting
free blacks in resettling in Liberia. There, free blacks could exercise personal and
civic freedoms and obtain land otherwise denied to them in the U.S. The
sentiments of free blacks and whites toward the mission of the ACS were mixed
and the debate over black resettlement remained a controversy up to the end of the
Civil War. Nearly 10,000 African Americans (50 percent of the emigrants were
newly emancipated slaves) and 5,000 illegally captured Africans emigrated to
Liberia through the auspices of the ACS from 1820 to 1865. Of the American
emigrants, the largest percentages were from Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia
(in that order).
This chapter offers a brief overview of the African-American emigration
movement from 1773 to 1865. First, I offer a brief historical overview of the
organizational efforts and motives of blacks who proposed resettling in Africa
from the American Revolution to the close of the Civil War (from the proto-
emigration period to the first wave of the emigration movement). Then, I highlight
the historical connection between Georgia and the ACS’s earliest attempt to launch
its organization’s mission, analyzing how freeborn and emancipated black
Georgians responded to Liberian fever, as it came to be called by blacks, and their
motives for seeking resettlement beyond the shores of the United States.
Proto-Emigration
During the American Revolution, four changes occurred as a result of white
colonists’ wanting to break away from the control of Great Britain: (1) the
Declaration of Independence was enacted; (2) the United States became an
independent nation; (3) the Constitution of the United States became the law of the
land; (4) and, most radical of all, the liberation of African slaves in some northern
states. As white colonists demanded their independence from King George III,
blacks did not sit idly by while white colonists fought for their own autonomy. The
dream of liberty and the ideology of revolution aroused their spirit and caused them
to want the same civic and personal freedoms cherished by whites advocating for
independence. They challenged legislators and slaveholders to grant emancipation.
Slaves escaped from their owners. They also sued for their freedom, arguing that
their enslavement contradicted the Constitution and their natural rights.
The founding of the United States, the subsequent drafting of the
Declaration of Independence, and the demand for emancipation by blacks during
the American Revolution opened the debate over slavery. With nearly one in five
persons in the U.S. being an enslaved person of African descent, the Founding
Fathers debated over the continued use of bondspersons as a form of labor (see
Table 2.1). Men of influence, including Thomas Jefferson, failed to confront
slavery head-on and, consequently, acquiesced by settling for a compromise. That
comprise resulted in the North, mostly a “society with slaves,” adopting two forms
of emancipation: immediate and gradual. The South, a “slave society,” pushed
forward to build an empire by the muscle and sweat of enslaved men, women, and
children.
The first three states to adopt immediate emancipation were Vermont (1777),
New Hampshire (1780), and Massachusetts (1783). The U.S. Census of 1790
shows that blacks never exceeded more than 2 percent of the total population in
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts (see Table 12.1). With the three
New England states lacking a large black population and an economy dependent
upon slave labor, they led the way in granting immediate emancipation.
Northern states favoring gradual emancipation were Pennsylvania (1780),
Rhode Island (1784), Connecticut (1784), New York (1799), and New Jersey
(1804). The black population ranged from 2.3 to 8 percent, relatively higher than
the states adopting immediate emancipation (see Table 2.1). Like Vermont, New
Hampshire, and Massachusetts, slave production did not substantially sustain their
economy either. Although the North did not possess the number of slaves as the
South, the region took a dawdling approach to granting manumission (see Table
2.1). Not all northern states or territories were quick to embrace immediate or
gradual emancipation. In fact, emancipation in the New England and Middle states
occurred over a span of three decades. New York did not grant freedom to all its
slaves until July 4, 1827. New Jersey did not completely abolish slavery till 1846
(a mere seventeen years prior to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation).
While the American Revolution opened the opportunity for abolishing slavery in
The U.S., it inadvertently ignited a transnational migration phenomenon among
American blacks. Beginning with the commencement of the Revolutionary War,
blacks sought freedom and autonomy with their feet. They migrated within and
across three continents on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean: throughout the U.S; to
Nova Scotia, the Caribbean, and London; and eventually to Sierra Leone. Testing
the limits of their mobility, post-Revolutionary blacks attempted to exercise what I
refer to as their freedom of movement, the right to migrate and resettle without any
legal restrictions.
Beginning first in 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia,
asked American blacks belonging to Whig supporters to turn against their masters
by running away and joining the British Army in exchange for freedom. Contrary
to Dunmore’s proposition, emancipation was not offered to slaves owned by
Loyalists. Instead, British masters took with them 30,000 to 50,000 slaves outside
of the U.S. during the war, yet further expanding the forced migration of blacks
across the Diaspora. The number of black soldiers who accepted Dunmore’s
proposal is uncertain. However, James W. Walker notes nearly 2,000 American
blacks were recorded in 1783 as enlisted soldiers within the British Army. Of the
Black Loyalists, 1,410 were runaways, 409 were free blacks, 83 were enrolled
involuntarily, and 49 were recruited as soldiers.
When the British Army made its presence in the colonies of the Carolinas
and Georgia, nearly 100,000 slaves (20 percent of the black population in the
American colonies) belonging to Whig supporters ran from their masters and
escaped to British lines. Thomas Jefferson noted Virginia alone lost 30,000 slaves
during the War of Independence. However, not all fugitives sought refuge amongst
the British. Many remained in the United States and sought refuge wherever they
could. Some migrated to northern cities where there existed a sizable free black
presence: Boston and New Bedford, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
and Providence, Rhode Island.
According to Michael Lee Lanning, nearly 1,000 blacks from Savannah and
Charleston were granted freedom by the British. Many of them migrated to East
Florida when territory was ceded to the Spanish in September 1783. When the
British were forced to evacuate the U.S, several hundred blacks emigrated to the
West Indies and Bahamas but faced the dangers of reenslavement. However, the
largest group of blacks to emigrate from the U.S. during this period were Black
Loyalists and their families (most from Staten Island, Boston, Savannah,
Charleston, and St. Augustine), who sought resettlement in England and Canada.
Enticed by the promises of land and independence, 200 blacks emigrated to
London and 3,000 to Nova Scotia.
As noted, the migration and emigration of blacks during the Revolutionary
and postRevolutionary years was vast and wide. It was also unsettling and testing.
Upon the arrival of blacks to Nova Scotia and London, the emigrants soon learned
there was no land to be granted. In both places, they faced racial discrimination,
unemployment, and poverty. The number of destitute blacks was so high they
became known by whites as the “Black Poor.” Frustrated and exhausted from
begging for land, blacks began seeking an alternative location for resettlement:
West Africa.
On April 9, 1787, 350 blacks sailed from Portsmouth to Sierra Leone. They
were joined by nearly a dozen white officials and artisans and sixty white women,
who were described as “chiefly women of the lowest sorts” simply because they
married black men. Half or more of the male passengers were identified as seamen
who served in the Royal Navy and “Rangers with the
Army in the American Woods.”
Championing black emigration was the white British abolitionist, Granville
Sharp, who petitioned the Treasury to provide transportation and provisions to
Poor Blacks of London wanting to return to Africa. Five years later, Sharp joined
forces with Thomas Peters (a former American slave residing in Nova Scotia) to
advocate on behalf of black Canadians favoring emigration to West Africa.
Recognizing their social, political and economic challenges, Sharp introduced
Peters to other white abolitionists, bankers, and politicians of London, who hoped
to assist transient blacks in receiving land and improving their quality of life.
Through the concerted efforts of blacks and whites, the Sierra Leone Company was
formed. In 1792, nearly 2,000 blacks from Nova Scotia embarked upon fifteen
vessels bound for Freetown, Sierra Leone.
The mobilization efforts made by black emigrationists of Canada and
London were not the first of its kind. On April 20, 1773, fourteen years prior to the
emigration of Black Loyalists from London, four Boston slaves, Peter Bestes,
Sambo Freeman, Felix Holbrook, and Chester Joie, addressed the following letter
to legislators asking to be allowed to work to pay their own transportation fees to
return to Africa:
We are willing to submit to such regulations and laws as may be made
relative to us, until we leave the providence, which we determine to do
as soon as we can from our joynt labours procure money to transport
ourselves to some part of the coast of Africa, where we propose a
settlement.
Although their request was not granted, the four men’s initiative, did set a
precedent for blacks, who would contemplate emigrating to Africa following the
American Revolution.
In January 1787, free blacks belonging to the African Union Society of
Newport, Rhode Island (AUSN) proposed that, “A number of men from among
ourselves shall be sent to Africa to see if they can obtain, by gift or purchase lands
sufficient to settle upon. And if such land can be contained, then some of these men
shall return and bring information back.” As the organizational efforts of the
AUSN gained momentum, benevolent whites began to take notice and hoped to
assist in any way possible. Motivations among whites varied, from the desire to
acquire personal glory, to the hope of promoting a Christian agenda. Reverend
Samuel Hopkins hoped to recruit and train black students within the theology
department at Princeton University to serve as missionaries along the Guinea Coast
of Africa. William Thornton, a white emigration advocate, wished to assist free
blacks from Newport and Boston in their pursuit of acquiring land in some part of
Africa, by serving as their spokesperson. Blacks belonging to the
AUSN had their own objectives: to seize land, to be self-reliant, and to be self-
represented. While free blacks of Newport hoped to return to Africa without the
financial assistance of sympathetic whites, they recognized they would not be able
to charter a ship “for want of money” and could not procure land “unless the right
of the land is first made over to our heirs.” Hoping to be completely self-sufficient,
blacks made it clear “this is the only reason of our troubling of our superiors for
assistance.” In other words, while prepared to accept the necessity of white
financial assistance, blacks were not willing to grant leadership to whites. Thornton
hoped to assist the Newport blacks in procuring land in Africa through purchase or
as a gift and reached out to members of the AUSN. Thornton also proposed
representing members of the African Company of Boston (ACB), who also hoped
to emigrate to Africa. Although the African Union Society and the African
Company thought highly of Thornton’s willingness to assist free blacks, they
respectfully had to decline his invitation. Blacks had no objection to petitioning or
receiving from benevolent whites or their state legislature financial assistance in
returning to Africa, but they hoped to do so on their own terms and using their own
voice, not that of a white representative.
On June 1, 1787, Samuel Stevens of the ACB addressed a letter to the
AUSN about their feelings toward Thompson. Stevens wrote:
Dear Brethren, We received your letter by the hand of Mr. Thornton.
We have conversed with the gentleman and find him, we think, a friend
of the blacks. . . . We do not approve of Mr. Thornton’s going [to]
settle a place for us.
The AUSN appreciated the efforts of Thornton as well, but the organization
supported the decision of the ACB who kindly expressed, “We think it would be
better if we could charter a vessel and send some of our blacks” to Africa.
During the same month, eighty members of the African Company of Boston
petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts to assist them in returning to Africa.
With the leading support of Prince Hall (a free black, Barbados-born Methodist
preacher and Masonic leader), Bostonian signatories expressed a desire “to return
to Africa, our native country . . . . where we shall live among our equals, and be
more comfortable and happy, than we can be in our present situation."62
Dissatisfied with their present conditions and the ill treatment toward all blacks in
the United States, Hall and other proponents of emigration believed West Africa
offered a more suitable weather for African Americans, would allow them to live
freer lives, and would create the opportunity to spread Christianity to their African
brethren.63
As interest in black emigration heightened within the New England area, so
too did the desire of whites to completely abolish slavery and the trans-African
slave trade. In October 1787, white abolitionists took a stance to brusquely end the
selling and importation of Africa slaves. The Proceedings of the General
Assembly” read:
The trade to Africa for slaves, and the transportation and selling of
them into other countries, is inconsistent with justice, and the
principle of humanity. . . . or citizens of this state . . . . or any other
person . . . . or owner of any vessel, directly or indirectly, import or
transport from their native country, any of the natives or inhabitants of
any state or . . . that part of the world called Africa, or slaves, or
without their voluntary consent.64
After witnessing, continuously, the selling of Africans as they arrived to the United
States and the separation of African families as they were sold, ripped from the
arms of loved ones, and transported to the South, members of the Providence
Society (a white-led association) proposed before the General Assembly a charter
for incorporation in 1790.
Capitalizing on the spirit of white abolitionists and members of the General
Assembly who hoped to abolish the international and domestic slave trade, free
blacks of Providence hoped to return to Africa to put an end to the trans-Atlantic
slave trade at its source and to find a suitable place to resettle in Sierra Leone.
They formed the African Society of Providence, Rhode Island (ASP) in 1789, and
in February 1794, the ASP joined forces with officers of the AUSN to draft an
“emigration bill” to present before the Rhode Island General Assembly.67
Possessing the signatures of free black men and women, both organizations
petitioned for the appropriation of funds to send representatives, “ready to embark
at a moment’s warning,” on an exploratory trip to Sierra Leone. 68
The African Union Society of Newport and the African Society of
Providence selected three men to travel to West Africa: William Olney and James
McKenzie, secretary of the ASP, and Newport Garner, secretary of the AUSN. In
1795, only McKenzie sailed to Sierra Leone. According to Dorothy Sterling, his
arrival to the West African company was met with disappointment. The colony was
barraged by French naval forces and the governor of Sierra Leone was willing to
admit and grant land to less than twelve American families. A precondition to their
arrival was the approval of their character by the white president of the Newport
Abolition Society, Reverend Samuel Hopkins, who would have to vouch that these
individuals were “pious Christians and not infected by ‘the poison of the Age of
Reason.’ ” This was a nuisance that self-determining blacks were unwilling to
accept.
Of the three persons nominated to return to Africa, the most suitable
representative was Newport Garner; born Ocreman Marycoo in 1760, kidnapped
from Africa, and brought to the United States at the age of fourteen. In 1791, he
won a portion of a shared lottery and with his winnings, he purchased his and his
family’s freedom; in addition to a singing school in Newport, Rhode Island.
Garner had previously been trained as a singer and composer. According to one
white townsman, “Garner used to say that he was very careful to cultivate his
recollection of his African tongue so that in case Providence should open a way, he
might return to Africa and find a people with whom he might converse
intelligently.” Although Garner did not return to Africa in 1795, he eventually
would in 1826.
Due to the U.S. consistently receiving African slaves up to the passing of the
1808 Slave Trade Act, a significant portion of the black population was African
born. In the post- revolutionary era free blacks embraced their African identity,
especially when naming their schools, churches, mutual aid societies, and Masonic
lodges. For blacks belonging to the emigration societies of Boston, Newport, and
Providence, the “return to Africa” ideology was a natural extension of their desire
to maintain a cultural and physical connection to their homeland.
After the exploratory trip of 1795, interest in emigration to Africa did not
cease. Lack of money kept blacks from resettling to Sierra Leone. The desire to
return to Africa, nonetheless, stayed with blacks for the next two decades.
Unfortunately, twenty-two years passed before American blacks were able to
successfully resettle in West Africa. Gardner, as noted earlier, finally returned as
well. In 1826, Gardner and his life-long friend, Salmar Nubia (African born and
first secretary of the AUSN) embarked upon the ship, Vine, from Boston to set sail
to Liberia with the white-led, American Colonization Society (ACS). Before his
departure, Garner, elderly and described as having white hair, said the following
words about his reasons for leaving the United State: “I go to set an example to the
youth of my race. I go to encourage the young. They can never be elevated here. I
have tried it sixty year – in vain. Could I by my example lead them to set sail, and I
die the next day, I should be satisfied.” A few months after landing in Liberia,
eighty year-old Gardner and seventy-two year-old Nubia died in their ancestral
homeland of Africa.
First Wave: African-American Emigration, 1815-1865.
The first successful enterprise to transport black Americans to Africa
occurred in 1815 when Paul Cuffe, a wealthy ship owner of West African and
American Indian ancestry, used $4,000 of his personal assets to assist thirty-eight
free blacks (three of whom paid for their own expenses) in resettling in Sierra
Leone. This launched what I refer to as the first wave of African-American
emigration, which extends from 1815 to the close of the Civil War. Cuffe’s effort
to return blacks to Africa was more than a romantic quest. The practical potential
of establishing a community of formerly enslaved and freeborn blacks in West
Africa was apparent, but Cuffe advanced moral, racial, and economic rationales for
black emigration. He argued a strong North American black presence in West
Africa was vital to bringing Christianity to Africa, eradicating the illegal trading of
African captives, and establishing commercial opportunities through land
ownership and global trade for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1816, Cuffe returned to America and reported news of the thirty-eight
emigrants’ successful resettlement. His voyage made believers out of once
ambivalent African Americans who questioned whether returning to Africa was
safe and beneficial for the black race. As Cuffe prepared for his second voyage,
his emigration mission gained approval from increasing numbers of both free
blacks and whites who espoused ideas of African resettlement. Unfortunately, this
black-led and black-funded movement came to a halt in 1816 when Cuffe became
ill and died of natural causes. As it was for emigration supporters of the
postRevolutionary era, lack of funds and ships prevented blacks from returning to
Africa through their own mobilization efforts and financial resources.
In response to the 1791 Haitian Revolution, Gabrielle Prosser’s 1800 slave
conspiracy in Virginia, Charles Deslondes’s 1811 slave rebellion in Louisiana, and
the growing free black population throughout the United States, white
philanthropic organizations began to capitalize on free blacks’ yearning to return to
Africa. Founded in December 1816, the American Colonization Society (ACS), a
white-led organization directed by Presbyterian minister and reformer Robert
Finley, introduced plans to resolve escalating racial tension in America by assisting
free (as opposed to enslaved) blacks in traveling to and resettling in West Africa.
Presenting itself as a benevolent organization, the ACS hoped that colonization,
together with the Christian conversion and civilization of Africans by African
Americans, would win the support of free blacks. The ACS argued that
resettlement outside the United States would allow blacks to vote, hold political
office, and serve on a jury; obtain land granted by the colonization society;
establish autonomous religious, educational, and economic institutions; and enjoy
life away from hostile whites. But despite these enticements, the ACS found it
difficult to recruit passengers. With the face of the leadership, leading advocates,
and financial contributors of black emigration changing from black to white, blacks
became less inclined to emigrate to West Africa. The reason was simple. Blacks
did not trust whites and for good reasons.
Blacks believed the ACS had a racist agenda and the organization struggled
for most of the nineteenth century to convince them otherwise. A majority of the
ACS’s earliest proponents were former slave owners. They did little to allay many
blacks’ concerns about emigration. Many did not want to be separated from their
own families. Some objected to the abandonment of their enslaved brethren in the
South. Last but not least, potential settlers feared recapture and sale by Europeans
and Africans involved in the ongoing illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Rejection of emigration efforts became a political declaration for many free blacks
during the Abolitionist years. They would not yield to coerced emigration from
America, despite the harsh and violent conditions in which many lived. Instead
they used the denunciation of African colonization to assert themselves as full
citizens.79
During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, African colonization
schemes remained unpopular amongst free blacks. It was not until the late 1820s
and early 1830s that migration and resettlement abroad gained momentum and,
simultaneously, received its greatest opposition.80 While the list of applicants
desiring to resettle in Africa remained less than one percent of the total free black
population, the ACS refused to concede defeat. Instead, white colonization agents
switched their focus from free blacks in the North to a new group of recruits:
slaves in the South.
Georgia and several other slaveholding states prohibited domestic
manumission.81 Therefore, ACS agents liaised with what I call apologetic masters.
Such slave owners believed, privately, that slavery was morally wrong and were
desirous of atoning for their enslavement and accompanying mistreatment of
human beings. They believed they could be redeemed by legally
granting manumission to those in bondage in their “last will and testament.” If
their request was properly carried out by their executrix they would be forgiven in
the eyes of God. As a result, half of the passengers transported from the U.S. to
Liberia under the auspices of the ACS were former slaves whose travel
arrangements were paid for by their former masters.
From the onset of its organization to the closing of the Civil War, the ACS
transported 16,486 Africans and persons of African descent to Liberia. Of that
number, 5,722 were “recaptured” or illegally captured Africans, 346 were from
Barbados, and 68 were persons with no place of residence or origin. The remaining
10,350 persons came from the U.S. Of these, one-half were free blacks (either
born free or purchased their freedom), and the other half were emancipated by their
owner. In addition, the Maryland State Colonization Society (independent from
the ACS) transported 1,227 persons to Liberia. Combined, a total of 17,713
passengers were transported from America to Liberia during the first wave. The
majority of the American emigrants were from Virginia, North Carolina, and
Georgia (in that order). Each of these states became synonymous with transporting
blacks to Liberia during the first wave of the African-
American emigration movement.
Georgia and the First Wave of African-American Emigration,
1817 to 1860
The African-American emigration movement became a meaningful force in
Georgia prior to the Civil War. The idea of African colonization was first
introduced to Georgia in 1817 when Robert Finley, founder of the American
Colonization Society (ACS), was appointed President of the University of Georgia
in Athens. When he arrived in Georgia in May 1817, six months following the
founding of the ACS, he was reluctant to discuss the subject of African
colonization with Southerners who relied heavily on slave labor. Finley was
concerned with the consequences of introducing such radical ideas to Georgians.
He privately expressed his reservations of taking on such a task. In a letter
addressed to Reverend George Woodhull, he wrote:
The thought of going to Georgia have very much filled my mind. . . .
After very many thoughts my present impression is that it is right to
go. . . . Should anything occur to make it seem right to me not to go it
will be most pleasant to remain with my fellow labours. . . . The
progress which the colonization scheme has made is to me a plain
indication that it is of God, and the deep interest I feel on this subject
has furnished at times a weeping objection to the expected removal to
Georgia. It may however happen that contrary to fear the subject may
be early opened there and forwarded, though they are at present much
opposed to everything that looks like improving the condition of the
black[s].
For Finley, his greatest challenge in the South would not be defending the
proposed plans of the Society. Rather, it was adjusting to the humid and hot
Georgia weather. Being from New Jersey, he was “unaccustomed to the climate,”
and “the excessive heat of the season added to the fatigue of traveling.” As he was
returning to Athens in July 1817, he became severely ill,
“suffering from a bilious attack” that soon claimed his life three month later.85
It is uncertain as to what level of influence Finley would have made on the
southern state prior to his death. However, he successfully won the support of one
influential Georgian, U.S. Secretary of Treasury, William H. Crawford, who was a
dear friend to Finley and was the first Vice-President of the ACS.
African colonization was officially introduced to Georgians in 1819 when
forty illegally captured Africans, referred to as “recaptures,” were apprehended
from Spanish kidnappers and left under the jurisdiction of the state. The 1808
Slave Trade Act prohibited slavers from importing additional Africans to the
United States. Uncertain about what to do with the recaptured Africans, federal
officers decided to deliver them to Georgia where they would be “exposed to
public sale, to the highest bidder” on May 4, 1819 “on the capitol steps in
Milledgeville.86 The arrival of the recaptures in Georgia and efforts to gain legal
possession of them caused a chain reaction. First, it formally introduced the idea of
African colonization to Georgians. Second, it provided the Society with the
opportunity it needed to approach the federal government about assisting in
implementing its mission. Third, it motivated colonization advocates to establish
auxiliary societies within the state.
A month prior to this event, Crawford was desperately trying to launch the
ACS’s mission to resettle blacks to Africa. Hoping to win favor with the United
States cabinet, he proposed the federal government purchase foreign territory
where illegally captured Africans could be sent. This plan would have a threefold
effect: (1) It relieved America from the burden of caring for future recaptured
Africans; (2) It reduced the risk of increasing the free black population by not
having the recaptured Africans remain in the United States, but returned to Africa;
(3) The removal of recaptured Africans would launch the process of resettling free
North American blacks in Africa.
In opposition to the proposal was United States Secretary of State John
Quincy Adams. As an opponent of African colonization, he contested, “the Slave
Trade Act contained no provisions for the purchase of land” for rescued Africans
and that it was unconstitutional to colonize and purchase foreign territory. Making
such a bold and persuasive argument, Adams convinced the majority of the
cabinet, including President James Monroe who was highly in favor of
colonization, to reject the plans proposed by Crawford.
Disregarding the decision made by Cabinet members, Crawford became
even more determined to find a means of procuring territory for transporting
blacks. Just weeks after President Monroe rejected the African colonization
project, Crawford learned about the sale of the recaptured Africans under the
jurisdiction of his home state in an article published in a Georgia newspaper. This
was the opportunity his organization needed. After learning of a state law granting
the Society the legal rights to claim possession of the captives, Crawford decided
again to approach the U.S. Cabinet with his new plan. At the same time, the
managers would intervene in stopping or postponing the slave auction. His request
to the Cabinet was granted, and Reverend William Meade was sent to
Milledgeville, Georgia to procure legal possession of the recaptured Africans.
When Governor William Rabun learned of Meade’s desire to purchase the
captives, he was not able to turn the individuals over to the immediate care of the
ACS. Fifty thousand dollars needed to be appropriated by the ACS before the
company of Africans could be purchased. In an effort to assist the colonization
society, the Governor agreed to delay the initial auction date until Meade and his
ACS secured the funding. Unfortunately, the short time allotted to secure the
money caused the ACS to not gain legal custody of the Africans. They were beat
by Spanish claimants who came forth to reclaim their “property.”89
Because of the attention Georgia received from this dramatic episode,
influential statesmen became supporters of the American Colonization Society.
Some became faithful financial patrons or agents. Among the new supporters were
Congressman Joel H. Crawford, exgovernor William Rabun, Judge J.H.
Montgomery, Supreme Court Judge J.B. Strong, and Congressman John A.
Cuthbert. In an effort to promote the ideology of the Society, Meade appropriated
$8,000 in 1819 to establish auxiliary societies in Milledgeville, Savannah, Augusta,
Fayetteville, Raleigh, Putnam County, and Chapel Hill.90
Initially, the colonization concept appeared to be well received by a vast
majority of white Georgians. This was possibly attributed to white planters
believing the ACS was interested solely in the removal of free blacks and illegally
captured Africans. Their removal which would in turn resolve racial tension in the
U.S. between free blacks and whites and , in planters’ minds, make the slave
system all the more secure. However, by the mid-1820s, initial supporters began
to have great reservations about the Society. It was alleged Northern agents were
coercing masters into emancipating their bondmen, thereby potentially destroying
the Southern economy.
Free black Georgians rejected African colonization at least until 1832. They
feared the possibility of being forced to leave the United States and abandoning
their enslaved brethren. According to Early L. Fox, the pioneer historian of the
American Colonization Society, no states were more hostile toward agents than
South Carolina and Georgia. Just as whites were uncertain about the true
intentions of the Society, free blacks were even more doubtful. Having little initial
success in recruiting free blacks, the ACS began focusing its efforts on slaves.
With Georgia banning domestic manumission, the ACS hoped to curry favor with
apologetic slave masters who wanted to emancipate their slaves either while alive
or after death by sending them to Liberia to live freer lives.
Mr. McDermit, a Georgia slaveholder, went against the norm and
emancipated twentyseven of his bondsmen by giving the American Colonization
Society permission to sail them to
Millsburg, Liberia aboard the Randolph in December 1827. This was the first
group of AfricanAmerican slaves from Georgia to sail to Africa. McDermit was
possibly inspired to use this method of manumission when he learned of a group of
one hundred fifty-two recaptured Africans who were illegally smuggled into
Georgia and were ordered to sail from Savannah to Monrovia, Liberia on July 10,
1827.
Taking Georgia by surprise, additional slaveholders used African
colonization as a means to grant foreign manumission to their slaves so they might
return and live in Liberia. By 1860 nearly 70 percent of the 1,194 black Georgians
who emigrated to Liberia were emancipated slaves. The remaining passengers were
free blacks whose departures were stimulated by keys moments of racial hostility:
the rise of the Abolition Movement, the Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and the years preceding the Civil War (see Table 2.2).
As noted above, free blacks of Georgia had mixed feeling about the ACS
and black emigration. Of 3,500 registered free black Georgians capable of taking a
stance to emigrate or to remain in America before 1860, 90 percent turned a deaf
ear toward the ideology of African colonization and rejected the plan to resettle
while the remaining 10 percent willingly chose to emigrate to Africa.94 Less than 1
percent of the slave population emigrated based on the premise they seek foreign
manumission in Liberia. Approximately 25 percent were listed as free blacks and
3 percent were former slaves whose freedom was purchased from slaveholders (see
Table 2.2).95
Liberian fever was not embraced by black Georgians prior to 1830. ACS
agents found difficulty in winning the support of the community. The rejection of
emigration by free blacks of Georgia was based on multiple reasons. By 1830, the
vast majority of black Georgians were Robert T. Brown, Immigrants to Liberia,
1844-1865: An Alphabetical Listing (Philadelphia, PA: Institute of Liberian
Studies, 1980); and Tom W. Shick, Emigrants to Liberia, 1820-1843: An
Alphabetical Listing (Newark, DE: Liberian Studies Association in America, Inc.,
1971). American born. They were two and three generation removed (physically,
spiritually, and culturally) from their ancestoral homeland in Africa. They had
assimilated to America’s customs and traditions. Regardless of their citizenship
status, they, for the most part, desired to enjoy all the civil liberties white men so
cherished. Out of protest, free blacks embraced the position later articulated by
Frederick Douglass, who believed that the removal of free blacks would make the
slave system more secure and that blacks had a moral and racial obligation to stay
in the U.S. to abolish slavery on behalf of their enslaved brethren and to demand
full citizenship.
As the abolition movement gained momentum and racial tension escalated,
free black Georgians began to revisit the Liberian question. The racial hostility free
and enslaved blacks confronted daily became difficult to endure. After harboring
many years of discontentment with the existing injustices, hundreds of black
Georgians refused to endure the hardship of remaining a second-class citizen and
chattel in the United States. Living with the challenges of racial discrimination,
racial hostility, and limited opportunities for political, social and economic
advancement, black emigrants chose to make provisions to make a new life for
themselves and their children in Liberia, West Africa.
Along with the above mentioned factors that pushed blacks to consider
emigrating to Africa, Liberian fever also increased amongst blacks in Georgia as a
direct result of the potential for political inclusion, religious autonomy, institution
building, racial pride, land, and economic and educational opportunities in Africa.
These pull factors enticed blacks to cross the Atlantic Ocean to resettle in Liberia.
After Liberia became a self-governing nation in 1847, Georgia
emigrationists strengthened their position to colonize Liberia. Black Americans
could now participate in its governance, vote, own land, and attend public school.
They could enjoy all the benefits of being a citizen regardless of their race or legal
status. Its government, comprised of black American settlers, agreed that the
country would “be regarded as a miniature representation of the Government of the
United States; and the citizens of that Republic enjoy equal privileges of white
citizens.” In an effort to maintain Liberia as a self-governing country, whites were
not allowed to become citizens, hold any office, or have the privilege of voting in
Liberia. Because of these factors, black Georgians began to flow into Liberia.
Political freedom thus attracted blacks to Liberia. Taking advantage of such
freedoms were freeborn and emancipated men from Georgia. In 1847, Samuel
Benedict served as President of the Constitutional Convention and was a candidate
of the first Liberian presidential election. During the same year, Henry B.
Whitefield, a carpenter, served as a member of the
House of Representatives. Seaborn Evans, a former slave of Josiah Sibley from
Richmond
County, served a two-year term as senator of Sinoe County from1861 to1863.
Georgians saw that the opportunity existed to own land in Liberia. Officers
of the
American Colonization Society promised that,
Each emigrant on his arrival receives five acres of good land, or if he
prefers it, a town lot. If he is the head of the family, the quantity of
land is increased according to the number of his family, not exceeding
ten acres.
. . . Any person who desires a greater quantity, can purchase it . . . .
from one to five dollars an acre, according to the location.
With land, economic opportunities existed. Future agriculturists saw Liberia
as a place to produce exportable goods: coffee, rice, and ginger. For those desiring
to just simply farm, Liberian offered such produce as sweet potatoes, lima and
butter beans, snap peas, cucumbers, and melons. In February 1847, a citizen from
Monrovia wrote an account of the agricultural success of the colony and provided a
list of items that were good for exportation: lumber, coffee, palm oil, and ivory.
Planning to cultivate coffee for the purpose of export, he wrote, “I have now
growing on my farm more than 5000 trees. . . . It is thought our trees at full
maturity will yield from 3 to 3 ½ lbs. . . . there are trees in this place . . . . which
have yielded from 5 to 7 pounds; besides this, a coffee tree will bear well from 10
to 12 years.”
Georgians who travelled to Liberia after 1848 were highly skilled and hoped
their talents could be of greater use in a new and developing country. The majority
of the free female emigrants were educated and skilled seamstresses, spinners,
weavers, and dressmakers. Many of the occupations of enslaved women went
unrecorded, with the exception of a few washers and seamstresses. However, listed
by agents of the American Colonization Society were the occupations of Sally
Lark, an elderly midwife, and Mary Cuthbert, a nurse of Albert Cuthbert of Jasper.
A significant portion of the male, both freeborn and emancipated, were carpenters,
brick masons, blacksmiths, coopers, and farmers. There were also those who
pursued unconventional careers normally denied to those of color, such as Moses
Dent, an elderly steamboat captain, and Jack Harris, a former slave who earned a
career as a druggist.
Taking advantage of the economic possibilities that existed in Liberia was
Edward Hall, a millwright of Savannah. Eager to become economically
independent, the insightful former slave managed to purchase his freedom and later
earned enough money to purchase his own steam mill. After learning of the
abundance of timber available in Liberia, he made provision to resettle in
Greenville so he could take advantage of the opportunity to export such goods to
America. In 1851, he sailed the Baltimore with his wife, Rebecca, and sister and
brother, Susan and Cyrus Garret (whose freedom was all purchased by Hall,
himself). A year after he and his family settled in Greenville, Liberia, Hall built his
steam saw mill that he transported with him from Georgia.
He would later use the vessels belonging to the ACS as a means to export his
timber to America. Also taking advantage of economic opportunities in Liberia
was Jesse Ramsey, a former female slave from Augusta. In Farmersville, she was
the owner of one of two looms in the small town. The presence of the loom and
saw mill provided by both Georgians contributed toward the economic
independence and to the development of Liberia.
Religious autonomy, however, motivated several Georgians to embrace the
idea of resettling in Liberia. The American Colonization Society noted, “perhaps in
no other country in the world are the ordinances of Christianity and the ceremonies
of divine worship observed with more strictness and regularity. . . . And several of
the pulpits are statedly [stately] filled by men brought up and educated in
Liberia.”As early as 1831, a highly skilled artisan from Savannah wrote, I have
always reviewed the principle on which the Society was grounded, as one of much
policy, though I saw it was aided by a great deal of benevolence. . . I have often
wondered what prevented [free Negroes] from rising and with one voice, saying,
we will accept the offer made us at the risk of sacrificing all the comforts that our
present situation can afford us. . . . According to the accounts from Liberia it wants
help, and such as I trust I could give, though ever so little . . . . I would add one to
the advocates for Religion.”
Also from Savannah was a twenty-nine year old bachelor, Adam Anderson.
Like agents of the American Colonization Society, he perceived colonization as a
means to introduce Christianity to the indigenous Africans. Four years after settling
in Monrovia, he assisted in organizing and formulating a Baptist church among the
Vai people of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In 1848 and 1849, four black ministers sailed to Liberia to serve as
missionaries:
Reverend A. J. Battice, Isaac Mason, Isaac Roberts, and Joseph Clay, an
emancipated slave. Mr. Roberts, shortly after his arrival, addressed a letter to
Reverend William McClain, acting secretary for the American Colonization
Society, which gave an account of his success with introducing Christianity to the
indigenous people of the region. He wrote,
With regard to spiritual affairs, we have one Presbyterian Church, one
Baptist, and one Methodist. On the 14th we had preaching for the first
time among the natives: I had the pleasure of opening the meeting: it
was a very interesting meeting. On the 20th, I went up the river to the
first settlement — preached up there to a goodly number, some of
them seem to be concerned about their soul’s salvation.
Other Georgia emigrants were so spiritually and emotionally moved by their
religious freedom in Liberia that they, too, felt the need to become preachers. In
1849, Henry Stewart from Savannah articulated his feelings with regard to his
newly found freedom by lamenting, “I can inJoy Equal
Rights and Woship my god without fear.”
Like political freedom, educational freedom was of importance to settlers. In
Liberia, black settlers, freeborn or formally emancipated, were most concerned
with the educational advancement of children in their colony. Motivated to assist in
educating those within the colony were four black female teachers that sailed the
Brig Col. Howard in 1848. Among the women were Catherine Jones, Rose Mann,
Elizabeth Simpson, and Arabella Morell. All were registered free persons of color,
with the exception of Arabella who was an emancipated slave. Assisting also in
educating others was Seaborn Evans. In a letter written to his former master, Josiah
Sibley, he humbled himself to ask “if it is not saying too much” to “send Some old
School books to the children for in the new country such things are thankfully
received for Some times they can not be had for money nor love.” Throughout his
life in Liberia, Henry Stewart of Savannah wrote numerous letters to agents of the
ACS espousing the promotion of educational advancement of emigrants, the blind,
and natives. Believing strongly in the pursuit of higher education, he later returned
his eldest son, Thomas, to the United Stated to attended Oberlin College in Ohio.
By 1852, the educational success in Liberia had increased tremendously. As noted
by the African Repository, public schools were in nearly every Liberian settlement
and there was the hope of establishing a university. Trying to motivate her siblings
to settle in Liberia because of the promise of free education, Elizabeth Clark from
Augusta wrote to her family in Burke County,
We can Safely Recommend our friend to Come to Africa for we Can
Enjoy as much Liberty here as heart can wish. We have fine Schools
here for the Educating of Children. Sister Eliza…. Come also for this
[is] the place to Raise your Children. I Would like to See them here
now going to School. Bro. [name undecipherable] is going to School
and are Learning very fast.
Of the pull factors mentioned previously, black Georgians were also
motivated by the writings of its black leaders and first-hand accounts of emigrants
who espoused expatriation. Present in their letters and speeches were the themes of
freedom for Black Americans and the advancement of Africa, which assisted in
encouraging dithering proponents to reassert their position to migrate to Africa.
By the 1850s, black emigration had reached an apex. Based on the number
of those who resettled in Africa during this period it appears as though black
Georgians heeded the words of its black colonization proponents during the
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Cautioning his brethren of the
consequences of remaining in America was Martin Delany, the leading black
proponent of African colonization of the decade, who bellowed the words, “This
bill had but one object in its provisions…. That is, the reduction of every colored
person in the United States…. placing each and every one of us at the disposal of
any and every white who might choose to claim us.” The consequences for
remaining in America meant that blacks were “liable to be claimed, seized and
taken into custody by the whites as his or property – to be enslaved for life – and
there is no remedy, because it is the law of the land!” Motivated by his words or
the premonition of being illegally captured as a run-away slave, eighty-four
Georgians agreed to embark the Baltimore in April1850, making it the largest
number of free blacks to emigrate from the state to Liberia during a single voyage.
In 1860, Alexander Crummell, educator and clergyman, hoped his letter addressed
to the “Free Colored Men of America” would encourage others to assist in the
advancement of Africa. He implored, “We need immigration. We are poor in men
and women. We do not need over 14,000 emigrant citizens… we need, I say, not
less than 50,000 civilized men…. As a race, we have work to do…. Let us
therefore call our skillful and energetic brethren to come to us and share the
suffering and the glory of saving Africa.” Although the numbers of black
emigrants were waning, 1,194 black Georgians sailed to Liberia before the
beginning of the America Civil War.
While the eloquent words of their leaders might have moved the spirit of
black proponents of colonization, letters from Liberian colonists were more
effective in motivating blacks, primarily Georgians, to resettle in Africa. Enclosed
in the writings of an emigrant were sentiments of freedom and liberation for the
black race. Isaac Roberts of Savannah wrote in 1850, “Liberia is the home of the
colored man.” Seaborn Evans of Augusta wrote to Josiah Sibley, his former master
in 1856, “Liberia is the Star in East for the free black man. Do rely upon what your
Servant Says about Liberia.” The greatest black advocate from Georgia to espouse
emigration during the antebellum years was, unquestionably, Henry Stewart of
Savannah. Over a course of twenty years in Liberia, he repeatedly wrote to agents
of the American Colonization Society, hoping his accounts of Liberia would
encourage other Georgians to “come to this land of Liberty.”
For some Georgia slaves, resettling in Liberia had long been a desire. Eager
to escape from bondage and to enjoy all the privileges Liberia promised, they
managed to persuade sympathetic masters to free them from bondage. This act of
manumission commonly occurred after the death of a slaveholder. However,
ambitious slaves could not wait so patiently for death to claim the life of his/her
master before receiving freedom. Instead, some slaves managed to convinced
masters to allow them to purchase their freedom as well as the freedom of family
members in an effort to settle in Africa. Successfully managing to do so were
thirty-nine Georgia slaves who emigrated to Liberia between the years of 1849 to
1856. One person was Jesse Ramsey, a sixty-year-old farmer from Augusta who
convinced his master to allow him to purchase his freedom as well as the freedom
of his wife, Jinsey. She, later, did the same for her son, Jesse. In 1851, the family
sailed to Liberia by embarking the Barque Baltimore to Africa with ninety-five
additional Georgians. Silas Pope of Greene County, described by the African
Repository as “a negro man of dark-complexion . . . forty-seven years old, active,
vigorous and healthy,” also dreamed of expatriating. He purchased his freedom
from his master, John Dawson, Esq. (brother William C. Dawson, U.S. Senator of
Georgia) for $1,072. Refusing to resettle without his family, he purchased his wife
and daughter’s freedom for a total of $667 before embarking the vessel, M.C.
Stevens, in May 1860.
Possibly the most poignant demonstration of black Georgians’ desire to
obtain freedom in Liberia was the action of slaves who chose a life of liberty
without their children or spouses over a life of servitude in America. In 1856,
Landon Williams sailed to Monrovia, Liberia with his wife, but due to adverse
circumstances, he left behind his three children who were to remain enslaved in
Savannah. Incapable of remaining in the state as a freed slave and incapable of
purchasing the freedom of his children, he was left with the only alternative of
emigrating immediately. Like many slaves, he too hoped his family would join him
in Africa someday. Eleven years later, he continued to harbor feelings of guilt for
leaving behind his two daughters and son and asked William McLain of the ACS
to assist him in relocating them:
Sir, I have three children in the state of Georgia, viz: Nancy McClow, Falla
McClow and David McClow, formerly owned by Francis McClow, a
Georgianowned a place on Ageeche road, fourteen miles from Savannah,
turn out at the eleven mile stone and the first plantation you come to
known as Wildhorn, a cotton plantation- He owned the next place on
Ageeche river known as “frog camp,” a rice plantation is the place where
I left my two daughters. The boy I left in Savannah, Georgia, but I leant
since he was in Athey [Athens], Georgia, near Macon.
Mr. Williams asked if his children were located to send them to Monrovia where
he resided. However, it appears he never saw his children again considering their
names were not listed in the rosters compiled by the ACS even years later.
In1860, Mary King and her four children (William H: 13 years old; Alfred:
8; Charles: 7; and Cora: 3) were emancipated by her mistress, Mrs. Martha
Moderwell of Augusta. Hoping to have her husband, Alfred B. King, accompany
her, she was not so fortunate as to have her desire granted. Mary’s mistress
attempted to purchase Alfred’s freedom for $3000, but unfortunately,
Mrs. Moderwell was able to raise only $2,000 after the amount was reduced to
$2,500. She died and Alfred was not purchased. Like Mr. Williams of Savannah,
Mary made the decision to emigrate hoping Liberia could offer her and her
children a more promising life.120 Based on a letter she wrote to an agent of the
ACS in March 1864, it seems Alfred could not bear being apart from or never
seeing his wife and children ever again. After the close of the Civil War, Mr. King
was found living safely in Macon. Free from bondage and still eager to leave
America, he sailed the Golconda in November1866 to reunite with his wife and
children who were residing in Sinoe, Liberia.121
During the Civil War the ACS transported 171 passengers to Liberia
between the months of April 1861 to February 1865. The organization was
extremely active in the North with the majority of emigrants originating from the
region. Overall, the ACS did not transport blacks to Liberia from seceded states
during the war, except one passenger from South Carolina. This was an intentional
act made by the Society. Departures from southern ports were dangerous.122 The
actions of the ACS were probably also influenced by the proposed emigration plan
of President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, for his part, was supportive of black
emigration. Yet, as the ACS was probably fully aware of, any emigration scheme
could only occur within the states under the authority and protection of the
President.
Before signing the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln supported
colonization efforts, but primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1862, he
influenced Congress to appropriate $600,000 for colonization. Scholars debate
whether Lincoln remained a colonization supporter following his signing of the
Emancipation Proclamation. Many take the position he did not espouse ideas of
blacks emigration between 1863 and 1865. Some argue James Mitchell, the
emigration commissioner during Lincoln’s presidency, exaggerated when he spoke
about Lincoln’s commitment to colonization after signing the Emancipation
Proclamation. If he espoused colonization, he did not favor mass black emigration.
Until recently, a few revisionists have taken the position that Lincoln’s support of
the British Honduras and the infamous Il’e a Vach’e (island off of Haiti) labor
projects in 1863 is enough evidence to support the notion that Lincoln supported
colonization after emancipation. Black laborers sent to the Caribbean in 1863
returned to the United States after suffering starvation. They were found bounded
by chains and living in unstable shanties. Regardless of whether Lincoln was a
colonizationist or not, 1864 marked the end of government-funded black
emigration labor projects during the antebellum period. It would also mark the
end of the first wave of the African-American Emigration Movement. 123
Conclusion
Since the eighteenth century, blacks living in the American colonies and the
eventual United States viewed the continent of Africa as a place of solace and
opportunity in the face of exploitation and oppression. As everyone else who
crossed the Atlantic Ocean, voluntarily or otherwise, blacks wanted to exercise
their personal and civic freedom. Unfortunately, even in the midst of social
upheaval and political change, African Americans were consistently denied the
right to experience the American belief of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of
happiness. The African-American emigration movement comprised an ideology
and acts that challenged the notion of blacks meekly accepting their condition. On
the contrary, the movement was an affirmation of their willingness to organize
communities, mobilize people to action, strategize to form a viable plan, rationalize
their reason for leaving, and exercise their freedom of movement to the shores of
Liberia.
The proto-emigration phase of the emigration movement occurred during the
height of the American Revolution, when blacks articulated their rights as free
people based on the philosophical notions of liberty and the inalienable rights of
man. Some blacks willingly fought alongside the British in order to secure their
freedom. The difficulties black communities in Nova Scotia and London faced led
to their advocating for emigration to Sierra Leone. Their actions triggered an
emigration movement in the United States with the establishment of black led
organizations whose sole purpose was leading an exodus to Liberia. Their
resources, however, were not equal to their passion, and the movement soon
dissipated.
The first wave witnessed the emergence of the American Colonization
Society, a white led benevolent organization funded by philanthropists, plantation
owners, and the U.S. Congress.
During the antebellum period, the ACS, unable to convince free blacks to emigrate,
assisted many manumitted slaves with passage and provision to Liberia.
Emigration was considered by whites as a logical option preventing the free black
population from growing and possibly undermining the institution of slavery.
Georgia was not only a catalyst for the establishment of the ACS, but also sent the
third most African Americans to West Africa.
Eventually, a second wave emerged. It was an African-American led
movement in response to the harsh economic conditions, political exploitation, and
racial violence of the Reconstruction period. Unable to fully capitalize on their
newfound freedom and federal statutes codifying their citizenship, blacks again
looked to Liberia as the only viable solution to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Georgia would again emerge as the epicenter of the movement producing key
emigration leaders, as well as sending the most blacks to Liberia. As the following
chapters well demonstrate, white officers of the ACS would play a less visible role,
offering transport and provisions, lobbying for federal funding, and delivering mail
to and from Liberia. But this movement would confront a wave of Republicanism.
That conflict, traced in Chapters Three and Four would lead to the delivery of the
decline of the American Colonization Society and the largest source of financial
support for African Americans who desperately wanted to enjoy a new
life.
THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN MACON
AND SPARTA, GEORGIA, 1865-1866
SONG FOR THE EMIGRANT
Almost as soon I’d be a slave,
As struggling with a treacherous wave,
A friend is but a foe;
Then fearless let us spread our sail,
To meet the unmolesting gale,
Come, Brother, let us go!
Let us desert this friendless place.
To stay is nothing but disgrace;
Few our friends we know;
LIBERIA! break from every mouth;
To leave the North and travel South,
Come, sister, let us go!
George Moses Horton
With the end of the Civil War, over 460,000 black men, women, and
children in Georgia found themselves displaced, destitute, at times disillusioned,
and without any clear plan of how to exercise their newly earned freedom. Eager
to become self-sufficient, freed people migrated from the countryside to try their
fortune in new cities. Upon their arrival, poor and nomadic blacks were viewed by
whites as undesirables, largely because they were destitute and homeless.
In an attempt to address poverty amongst freedmen in Georgia, as well as
address their own pressing labor needs, white planters and investors pressured
blacks to return to the fields as farm laborers. Refusing to remain in a servile
position and perform the work that once enslaved a race of people, thousands of
blacks rejected agricultural labor altogether. As a result, Georgia’s severe labor
shortage remained unresolved.
By 1866, blacks were keenly aware that the United States was operating in
unchartered waters with how to integrate millions of freedmen into American
society. Repairing a fractured nation required more sacrifice and called for more
trust in Republican leaders and others who were charged with reconstructing the
South. Many blacks believed that suffrage, land ownership, and access to education
were forthcoming. However, blacks in Macon and Sparta grew frustrated with the
limitations their freedom included.
Foreseeing that their present condition was not going to improve and feeling
unwanted in a country in which they were born, blacks reexamined the possibilities
of Africa emigration. In July 1866, less than eight months following the
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, blacks in Sparta and Macon partnered
with the American Colonization Society to plan their return to their ancestral
homeland. In November 1866, 194 Maconites embarked upon the Golconda to
resettle in Liberia. Spartans emigrated two years later. Their grassroots
mobilization efforts renewed interest in African emigration amongst freed people
throughout Georgia during Reconstruction.
In this chapter, I examine the economic conditions of blacks in Macon
following the Civil War and their motives for and organizational efforts to
emigrate to Liberia in 1866. I also examine black Spartans’ response to Liberian
resettlement and their efforts to emigrate. This chapter traces how Maconites and
Spartans prepared for departure and the challenges they faced from growing
opposition toward blacks’ resistance to field labor and their pursuit of political and
economic autonomy.
Life after Emancipation for Freedmen in Macon, Georgia
In April 1865, Georgia witnessed a pivotal moment in human history when
nearly half a million formerly enslaved blacks became free at the close of the
American Civil War. In the midst of chaos, fear, and tragedy, freedmen found
strength in their dreams and aspirations to become part of the American
experience. Although many were penniless and destitute, black families
abandoned the countryside to test their newfound freedom of movement by
resettling and seeking solace in towns throughout Middle Georgia. Blacks trekked
across the state by wagon and by foot taking up shelter in dense pine forests,
charred plantation homes, and makeshift shanties until they reached their desired
destination. For thousands of black families,
Macon, Georgia became that place.
With an occupying military force and a sizable African-American population
in place, thousands of black families flocked to Macon with virtually nothing but
the clothes on their backs. Banking on Union protection and existing black social
networks and institutions to assist in their resettlement, incoming families were
unprepared for the opposition they received from the Freedmen’s Bureau and
military officials, as well as facing an onset of economic and public health crises
upon their arrival. For those black Maconites residing within the city prior to the
war, they too were equally as poor as the incoming population. Compounding the
situation, federal authorities were simply ill prepared to address the needs and the
traffic of freedmen that poured into the city.
Just weeks following Macon’s surrender to the Union, blacks were found
roming the city streets without sufficient food, shelter, or clothing. The destitution
and the perceived “idleness” were too much for many white residents to bear. After
receiving multiple complaints, the Macon Telegraph on May 12, 1865, caused
quite a stir and by suggesting that military and civil authorities remove the “the
great crowd of lazy Negroes who wander our streets.”
With the city experiencing bankruptcy and a labor shortage as a result of the
war, planters and city residents demanded the creation of local vagrancy laws to
put the indigent population to work or run them out of town. Despite the threats of
vagrancy and loitering laws, poor yet selfdetermining blacks simply refused to
work for whites. Out of protest, rather than alleged laziness, most blacks in the city
and throughout the state were refusing work to avoid subjecting themselves to the
servile positions once associated with slavery and certainly not for abashedly low
wages. On January 18, 1865, Special Order No. 15, issued by General William
Tecumseh Sherman, provided for the Confiscation of 400,000 acres of land to be
distributed among freedmen residing along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina,
Georgia, and Florida. With the widespread belief that land would eventually be
distributed to freedmen throughout the South by Christmas or following the
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865, blacks saw no
incentive to return to the countryside or work for others within the city when their
day of land ownership seemed so close. Instead, they held firm to their position,
made do with the resources available to them, worked when they wanted to work,
and sought temporary shelter in squalidly and crowded camps amongst other
blacks.
In June 2, 1866, Provost Marshall Colonel Frank White, Seventeenth Indiana
Volunteers, ordered freedmen not residing in Macon prior to April 20, 1865 to be
transported out of the city. While attempts were made to remove migrant blacks,
more simply continued flocking to the city. The “shanty towns” they created
became so congested that it was only a matter of time before their overcrowded
conditions worsened into a public health crisis. Traveler Sidney
Andrews described one Macon family as “an old man, a middle-aged man, three
women and six children,” taking shelter in what he described as “a hut.” They used
“a couple of bundle of old rags, which answered . . . . for beds.” Martha Ayers,
matron of the American Missionary Association teacher’s home stationed in
Macon, offered a description of the deplorable economic conditions facing one
freed family:
Sally Franklin, she is starving. . . . she is without covering, in an open
building, without windows. A baby is wailing at her side, and the
mother’s bosom is bare . . . . Lot, the sick husband had several hours
before he weakly tottered forth to beg for food . . . . Sally fears he will
perish by the way – I wait for a time, hoping he will come, but he does
not, and I leave the mother and her child alone.
Like Col. White, General Davis Tilson, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau for
the state of Georgia, was assigned to address the escalating tension stemming from
the wretched living conditions of transient blacks. But, instead of aiding freedmen,
Tilson was more concerned with putting blacks to work rather than feeding them.
In fact, reports from the Freedmen’s Bureau show Tilson failing to provide full
rations to black Georgians who refused to accept work that paid a mere one-tenth
of the respectable wage of white farm laborers.
As early as December 1865, Macon had witnessed an estimated 10,000
blacks living in the city. Their numbers were quickly reduced by nearly fifty
percent by July 1866, not as a result of the actions of Col. White and Gen. Tillson
alone but rather by a pervasive smallpox epidemic that claimed the lives of nearly
5,000 blacks over the course of ten months. Macon Mayor Stephen Collins
reported that as early as October 1865, blacks were beginning to die at alarming
rates. He claimed, “the city had buried thirty negroes in a week period, and of that
number nine or ten were picked up dead in the street and alleys of the city.” By
spring 1866, the Federal Hospital and city authorities were burying fifteen to
twenty bodies per day in addition to the number blacks were burying. One black
carpenter found it difficult to match the demands for coffins and consequently was
forced to hire four additional assistants.
The Macon Journal and Messenger blamed indigent blacks for the spread of
smallpox, claiming “. . . the disease mingles with their clothing, and they taint the
very air.” Members of the Board of Trade fired back by lamenting that black
fatalities were a result of poverty and substandard or limited housing provided to
the nomadic population when they entered into the city. The neglect of Macon’s
government and federal authorities forced families to “huddle together” and take
temporary shelter in what the Board described as “cells of death.” “The acres of
graves,” they argued, were a “silent testimony to the dreadful mortality,” which
quickly resulted in the burial and medical expenses reaching over $7,000. The
Board of Health convened in May 1866 to evaluate the status of the smallpox
epidemic. In the attempt to stop the spread of the disease, the City Marshall stated
that “the nuisances reported as existing in different parts of the city” had been
abated by the use of “lime and copper as disinfectants.” One doctor argued that
smallpox was most prevalent within the black community and that “no provisions
had been made for the sick and the indigent refugees.”
As poverty and smallpox claimed the lives of many blacks in Macon,
planters across Georgia witnessed a significant reduction in the labor population as
well. Monroe County reported, “There is about 40 percent less labor employed
upon the present crop than was worked in this country in 1860 under the most
favorable circumstances.” Augusta claimed that the overall number of black field
laborers available between seven southern states was approximately 400,000. The
city leaders further bewailed, “Thus we have for the production of the present crop
but a little over one-half of the labor employed in 1860. . . there cannot be more
than one-half of the land planted,” and “we do not believe that a crop of more than
eighteen hundred thousand bales can be possibly raised this year.” In Macon,
employers noticed the labor and crop shortage, too. Fearing what could possibly
become of Georgia’s economy, planters began to question who would till their soil
and tend to their crops during the subsequent months. With the New York Herald
making claims that the South produced merely 1/6 to 1/7 of the agricultural goods
reported in 1860, Georgia was certain to experience an even further blow to its
economy if farm labor was not soon stabilized.
As was true in Macon, disease and poverty claimed the lives of thousands of
blacks throughout the South. Newspapers queried the actual number of the black
population in America. General O. O. Howard, Chief of the Freedmen’s Bureau,
compiled a census of the freedmen’s population in eleven former slaveholding
states: Virginia: 500,000; North Carolina: 360,000; South Carolina: 375,000;
Georgia: 400,000; Florida: 62,000; Mississippi: 320,000; Louisiana: 350,000;
Texas: 200,000; Missouri: 100,000; Arkansas: 100,000; and Tennessee: 300,000.
In a report to the Secretary of War, Howard argued that the black population of
1866 consisted of 3,067,000 persons, and according to the U.S. Census of 1860,
their numbers were 3,335,000 but “should have been in June, 1866, 4,375,000 . . .
according to all statistical rules.” Investors and planters claimed that the deficit of
1,308,000 persons derived from the higher than normal death rates of African
Americans, which they believed was a direct result of the Freedmen’s Bureau
failure to provide adequate aid, as well as freedmen’s inability to sufficiently care
for themselves, and their objection to contractual labor. It must be taken into
consideration that during this period, black migration was so expansive that many
families went unaccounted for. All southern states witnessed a labor shortage and,
like Georgia, feared that poverty, disease, and displacement would significantly
reduce the black population.
With the labor question in place, Macon investors wondered what incentives
could keep blacks in the city to work the fields. Competition from Mississippi and
western states resulted in a further reduction of the state’s black labor population.
Left with few alternatives, the Freedmen’s Bureau ordered Georgia employers to
offer blacks higher wages than proposed by competing neighboring states. With
Georgia’s total property value reduced by $786,300,378 since 1860, employers
found it difficult to meet such high demands. The wages for freedmen were costly,
but the effort to sustain black labor proved to be even costlier.
“Liberia Fever” in Macon, Georgia
By June 1866, an organizational spirit, motivated by poverty and the desire
for full citizenship and suffrage rights, seized the attention of black Maconites.
Disturbed by the unwelcoming reception from the City of Macon, the factors which
caused smallpox to claim the lives of community members, and the Freedmen’s
Bureau’s replacing of black teachers in its newly established public schools with
northern white teachers, the removal of the 137th United
States Colored Troops and 103rd United States Colored Infantry, blacks in the city
decided that they could not sit idly by. Instead, they formed organizations and
attended conventions to determine the best political strategy for achieving
autonomy.
Realizing how vital their labor was to the southern economy, one camp of
black Maconites hoped to become a part of the political process and use black
labor to negotiate for suffrage, land, and education for its people. A second camp,
more nationalistic than its counterpart, was not so willing to compromise. They
were convinced that the Presidential Reconstruction plan was doomed for failure.
As well, the establishment of the Black Codes, which varied in degrees of racial
discrimination from state to state, and barriers preventing migration to the North or
West solidified their position. As a result, the black community of Macon met on
Independence Day 1866 to reexamine the question of African colonization posed
exactly one year earlier before 1,000 attendees at a Union League meeting.
This independent-minded class of black Maconites recognized the
importance of selfsufficiency and self-determination, which they knew could not
be achieved in a white-ruled, agriculturally-based economy that denied blacks
equitable access to education, land, suffrage, and equal protection under the law.
They reasoned that if African Americans were to ever be equal to their white
counterparts then they must be able to educate their own children, build their own
institutions, purchase and reside upon their own land, and elect their own into
office. For blacks in Macon and beyond, the most logical place to achieve the sort
of autonomy needed to be a truly free people was their “Fatherland,” Africa.
Hence, the Emigration Association of Macon Georgia (EAMG) was formed
informally on July 4, 1866 and became the city’s first black-led “Back-to-Africa”
association.
On July 5, 1866, Wyatt Moore, a former slave and deacon of the Second
Baptist Church, and Moses Pollock, a black watchmaker, wrote to the American
Colonization Society stating they were “authorized by the majority of the colored
citizens” of Macon to compose a letter asking the Society to furnish transportation
for those seeking resettlement in Liberia. Expressing the sentiments of the black
community, Moore and Pollock wrote:
For we are hastily sick of affairs since tis in our power to better our
condition We are a majority of the citizens (Cold) are tired of the
unprovoked scorn and prejudice we daily and heavily suffer And will
not continue to kiss the chains that binds us from being what other men
are [Dear] Sir you will also send such information as you think we
need in our contemplated move.
As witnessed by this letter, following the war, the South experienced an
attitude shift toward the ACS from blacks. Suspicious and critical of the Society’s
true intentions during the antebellum era, blacks began to seek out the
organization’s assistance by asking for aid to return to Africa. This is clearly
demonstrated by the number of blacks in attendance at the first meetings organized
by the EAMG. As Pollock and Moore pointed out, 500 to 1,000 could be recruited,
which would have resulted in the association removing 10 to 20 percent of the
city’s desperately needed black population.
During the week of July 13, black clergymen, mechanics, teachers,
domestics, and farmers met to officially elect officers to the EAMG. Moses
Pollock emerged as the Association’s first President and Wyatt Moore as its
Secretary. In a letter addressed to Rev. William McLain, Corresponding Secretary
of the ACS, the officers wrote, “We Are now forming ourselves into An
association and I think we can get five hundred or A thousand at the time to go to
our Fatherland as the spirit of Emigration seem to be Rising.” Frustrated with
their current conditions and feeling limited in where they could reside peacefully in
America, they lamented, “We the citizens of Macon have come to the conclusion
that we can never be What we Desire to be in this Country and we Determine to
leave this continent for the republic of Liberia.”
Besides the desire for political and economic autonomy, Black Maconites
were inspired by, and gained the confidence to sail to Africa from, the 1,194
freeborn and emancipated Georgians who emigrated to Africa during the
antebellum years. Now as freed people with larger social networks and resources
(which sometimes included benevolent and sympathetic whites), the desire of
blacks to return to their ancestral land of Africa was no longer a dream for
romantics, but rather a reality. The ACS and the monthly reports of the African
Repository contained accounts of five departures to Liberia in 1865: the Grey
Hound, M.A Benson, Cora, Thomas Pope, and H.P. Russell (see Table 3.1).
For freedmen throughout America, the most inspiring departure following
the American Civil War consisted of 172 members of the Lynchburg Emigration
Society of Virginia (LESV), who sailed on November 4, 1865 upon the H.P.
Russell. Led by John McNuckles, a master plasterer and bricklayer, freedmen
became empowered in their actions and desire to learn more about the
organization’s mobilization efforts. The LESV was seen as an example of a
successful grassroots effort to self-organize blacks in the pursuit of resettlement
abroad. As 300 additional blacks from Lynchburg and Abingdon, Virginia planned
for a second voyage scheduled for departure in May 1866, blacks throughout the
Black Belt penned letters of interest to the ACS expressing their desire to emigrate
to Africa, and subsequently began organizing local black-led emigration societies
throughout the southeast United States.
Testimonies published in the Repository from Liberian settlers served as
sources of inspiration for black Maconites. Henry W. Johnson, a barber turned
lawyer from Canandaigua, New York, sailed to Liberia in June 1865. Upon his
arrival, he composed letters encouraging African Americans to return to Africa and
declared that blacks living in a self-governing nation were not “a myth existing
only in the brain of the enthusiast.” He wrote, “It is a sober reality – a solemn
fact.” Johnson spoke of the potential of Liberia if blacks brought with them their
talents and resources. “The only question is,” he asked, “shall it . . . . remain for
some time weak and feeble, or shall it speedily become great and powerful?”
Suggesting that blacks had a racial obligation to return to the birthplace of their
forefathers, Johnson called on African-American men to aid in the colonization
pursuit of Liberia, exclaiming, “Blackmen of America! What a shame that you do
not come here and aid the young Republic.”
With the conditions of freedmen being dire and their future appearing bleak,
the ACS warned whites in 1865 that it was inevitable that blacks would look to
Africa as a legitimate place to resettle. In an article titled, “They Will Wish to
Emigrate” the Society wrote,
The equality of the colored with the white before the law must follow
ultimately, if not immediately. They must ultimately be allowed to
vote on the same terms as white men, and must be equally eligible to
office. Equal means of common and professional education must be
open to them. Some of them will enter the learned professions, and
become respectable in them; perhaps eminent in them. Some of them
will obtain offices, and fill them respectably. Many of them will
acquire wealth, and mingle with white men in the various pursuits by
which wealth is acquired . . . . whatever maybe their relations to white
men, they are still a people, and need a country; that, without “a
nationality of their own," they cannot be what they are capable of
being with one. They will wish to emigrate.
As expressed by the ACS, blacks needed to be self-reliant if they were to
achieve political and economic autonomy. To be independent and to improve their
quality of life, the ACS believed blacks must be a self-governing people with their
own nation beyond the presence of whites.
General Jacob D. Cox recognized the importance of self-government to
African Americans, but lobbied for blacks to reside in Native American styled
reservations throughout South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. The ACS
criticized the suggestion of a Negro reservation and warned that the fate of blacks
would be the same as it was for Native Americans.
“To settle the negroes permanently in the South,” the Society wrote, “you must
make them strong enough to protect themselves against you . . . . General Cox's
idea is to save the negro from the white man . . . . To do this, however, he must be
placed where the white man cannot follow him.”
As members of the EAMG were organizing themselves in July 1866, Macon
planters and investors were further feeling the impact of the labor shortage which
had worsened since spring. Also, planters found further difficulty in meeting the
required minimum wage ordered by the Freedmen’s Bureau. And when laborers
were found and paid, planters complained about the workers’ inconsistency, their
breeching of contracts, their leaving farms sometimes with crops ruined, or their
simple refusal to work altogether. Fearing what was to come during the upcoming
harvest season, Macon planters proposed a solution: white immigrant labor.
As planters contemplated a response to possible black emigration, Liberian
fever caught the interest of more blacks in Macon, including that of a future
Georgia legislator and postReconstruction “Back-to-Africa” advocate, the
Reverend Henry McNeal Turner. Turner’s first contact with Macon occurred
before the Civil War when he was assigned as a minister to the city’s only African
Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). After serving as Chaplain during the
Civil War, an appointment made by President Abraham Lincoln, he received a
commission in the U.S. Army and was assigned to work with the Freedmen’s
Bureau in Macon. But after his arrival to the city, he gave up his commission, and
regained his position as a minister of the
AME Church to work feverishly in establishing new churches across the state.
Upon returning to Macon, Turner became recognized as one of the most
influential black leaders in the city. His oratorical gift, coupled with his passion
for racial equality and political participation, caught the attention of blacks and
whites in the city and beyond. In need of repaying a debt to the ACS, Turner
propositioned the Society to hire him as a spokesperson for
African colonization. Scheduled to speak at the Liberian Independence Day parade
on July 26 in Macon, Turner wrote,
I am going to deliver a speech at a large Barbeque in favor of Liberia.
The colored people are waking up on the subject in every part of the
State. I am taking the ground that we will never get Justice here, that
god is, and will, withhold political rights from us for the purpose of
turning our attention to our fatherland, that we all are destined to be
missionaries to the millions of Africa.
During June 1866, Turner became a supporter of the African colonization
movement. His position on the subject was that the enslavement of blacks and
their denial of political freedom in America were for the divine purpose of
introducing Christianity to Africa through African-American missionaries. In his
letter to Rev. McLain, he did not specify, particularly, what caused him to take this
position, but he did profess, “I became a convert five weeks ago, while riding in
the [railroad] cars,” and “I expect to advocate it, hereafter as much as I can, with
my other duties.”
Turner hoped to assist in the recruiting process by serving as the leading
black emigration spokesman. He proposed to Rev. McLain that the ACS change
its organizational title “from colonization to emigration” to make it more appealing
to blacks. He wrote, “the term colonization has been somewhat odious among our
people, and a new dress would be more attractive now, especially under the free
regime.” What Turner was implying is that many African-American emigration
advocates did not want to be identified as colonists. Regardless of what actually
occurred when African Americans arrived to Liberia and their interaction with and
perception of the indigenous population, from their perspective they were not
foreigners taking up settlement and maintaining their cultural identity in a new
land. They were returning “home.”
As Turner was coming into his own as a minister for the African Methodist
Church, he recognized his emerging influence over black Maconites. Hoping to
reap the benefits of his dedication to an emerging movement, he asked Rev.
McLain if the ACS would offer him monetary compensation for his role as a “as a
lecturer on the subject.” Turner declared that he planned to introduce the concept
before “thousands of our people south …. who can’t read, and know nothing of it.”
Turner welcomed the challenge of arguing against the position of whites who
discourage blacks from entertaining ideas of self-sufficiency in an all-black, self-
governing nation. Turner informed McLain how whites “tells the colored people,
they would die, or the Africans will kill them and eat them up.” Boasting and
reminding the ACS of his level of influence on black Maconites, he offered the
proposition again: “Now if you will offer me some inducement, I will both speak
and write on the subject and I know I have as much influence as any man South of
color. He closed, “I have been offered a position in behalf of Hayti, but I refused
because I hate Hayti.”
Rev. McLain began inquiring about the talent and character of Turner
(possibly for a position with the ACS or as an attempt to retrieve the debt the
young minister owed to the organization). Feigning ignorance about his
relationship with Turner, Moore wrote, “Reverend H.M. Turner I have some little
acquaintance with him, I know nothing wrong of him he is look upon as Big
potatoes in our city.” Moore did inform McLain about Turner’s speech given at
the Liberian Day parade celebrated on July 26. He wrote, “he Tells us that his
Father in Law went there and he said that he had Six men From there and gives a
good account of the Country. He gives us an interesting Speech on the 26 in his
address he said that he was acquainted with you and that you was the right Sort of
man that what ever you said you would do it.”
It is doubtful that Turner was ever hired by or received pay from the ACS for
his advocacy work in 1866. It is possible he received remuneration during his
tenure as VicePresident of the ACS with 1876 but not before. Correspondence with
Rev. McLain reveals that blacks and whites alike looked to the ACS as a means to
generate a wage, acquire land, receive a promotion in the church, or publish their
book on their advocacy work with the ACS. Unlike the antebellum period, the
ACS simply lacked the financial resources to hire large numbers of agents,
recruiters, or administrators following the war. What funds were available were
used primarily in the transporting of emigrants to Liberia and providing the
provisions to assist in their resettlement once in the West African country.
Turner may have played a powerful and charismatic role in attracting large
groups of blacks to hear him speak on the subject of emigration. However, it was
Wyatt Moore, despite Turner’s proposition to the ACS, who was the most
influential officer of the EAMG and chief advocate of African emigration in
Macon during Reconstruction. Hoping Turner did not overshadow his efforts in
mobilizing and recruiting potential emigrants or become the spokesperson of the
movement he had commenced, Moore wrote to McLain, “So much for Turner. My
Dear Sir I have one request to make of you and that is this Whether I could get a
situation in this colonization Business.” He continued, “There are so many that
wants to go and are faint hearted they want to See a man Go and Come and I . . .
would go with my crew and this fall and then return and go again next Spring I
think that in this way I could do good I have to make a living.”
Following the Liberian Day parade of July 26, interest in emigration,
especially amongst the more skilled and literate members of the black community,
gained momentum and caught whites completely off guard. As blacks came to
realize that Liberian resettlement was indeed a viable option for those seeking
personal and civic freedom, it caught the attention of two groups of whites: those
who wanted to see freedmen remain in a servile position as laborers and those who
wanted to see freedmen excel in Africa through colonization efforts. Moore wrote,
“The white is very much opposed to us leaving the place we celebrated the 26 the
independence of Liberia and there is a considerable excitement among the white
people” and “I believe am fearful that there will be some Hinderance throwed in
our way to keep us Back.” G. W. Samson, an ACS supporter, was one of the more
benevolent whites of Macon who hoped to see the freedmen excel in their African
colonization pursuit. Although he urged that “all classes of white men [should] lead
off in African Colonization,” he recognized the difficulty of getting white planters
to support black colonization efforts including “those who wished to retain
laborers.”
Obviously, whites within the city underestimated the organizational efforts
of the freed community and were late to learn about the plans of the EAMG to
recruit passengers to Liberia. Unaware that the group had been contemplating the
Liberian question since 1865, Samson expressed in a letter to McLain that “the
movement is entirely spontaneous” and that “the head of the Freedman’s Bureau
and the [General] commanding the District had yesterday no information except
rumors about it.” Samson, however, did take note of the personality and character
of the leaders of the EAMC and wrote, “. . . . the leaders in it are that independent
class who fret at their old condition & don’t seem disposed to acknowledge
dependence on any class of white men.”
Hoping to assist the freedmen in their departure from America was
Reverend W. H. Robert, “a Charleston man of Huguenot descent” appointed as a
missionary for the American Baptist Home Missionary Society of New York. On
August 1, 1866, Robert wrote to Rev. McLain about the growing opposition
against the EAMG and the black population’s desire to return to Africa. He
concluded, “I regret very much that evil persons probably for wicked and selfish
purposes are making a bad use of this idea now.” Samson, who believed that Rev.
Robert could assist the EAMG in their endeavors, asked Rev. McLain how the
Society could best utilize him. But the decision to have Rev. Robert assist in
emigration endeavors was not entirely up to the ACS, but rather the EAMG.
Unlike the first wave of the African colonization movement, recruitment
was no longer dominated by white agents of the ACS. Instead, the emigration had
evolved into a grassroots movement led predominately by black males. Although
the phrase had not been coined as of yet, emigration to Africa during
Reconstruction had become a “Back-to-Africa” Movement espousing ideals of
self-sufficiency, self-determination, Divine Providence, manhood, and family
reunification in a homogenous black nation. Recognizing the second wave of the
movement as an opportunity for free black men to become the voice and leaders of
their own people, the ACS encouraged benevolent whites to take on a less visible
role by offering instead funding, protection, transportation, and provisions for
Liberia–bound emigrants. For Rev. Robert, the EAMG had the power to determine
for itself whether whites should advocate on behalf of blacks or not. Luckily, the
EAMG had the foresight to work in concert with benevolent and philanthropic
whites as opposed to organizing and funding their resettlement in Liberia alone.
As African emigration gained momentum in 1866, white opposition grew toward
the EAMG and other emigration associations in Georgia.176 From Macon, Moore
informed McLain how whites were using fear tactics as a way to deter blacks from
going to Africa. He wrote, “if it were possible the whites would Discourage the
Blacks by Telling them that they are going to Cuba but it has no impression upon
the Enlighting patron of our Race . . . I tell them cubians would not have any use
for us . . . Free Negrose among their negrose in Bondage”
Rumors of blacks being sold into slavery emerged from negative newspapers
articles, such as the “The Alleged Kidnapping of Negroes,” which claimed that
blacks were being shipped and sold into slavery in Cuba. Moore and others
believed that articles such as these were not only “an unwarranted fabrication,” but
more significantly a ploy to simply keep blacks in the South. Nevertheless, rumors
about the failure of Liberia and blacks being transported to Cuba and resold into
slavery were enough to cause some blacks to develop anxieties about boarding any
ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean bound for Africa. The first Middle Passage (the
forced migration of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) and second Middle Passage
(the selling, trading, and transporting of enslaved Africans within the Americas)
were relatively familiar to freed people in the Unites States. The fear of
experiencing a possible third Middle Passage, one in which blacks would have to
relive the trauma (either their own or that of their ancestors) of traveling in reverse
across the Atlantic Ocean, was enough to cause some blacks to reject ideas of
emigration.
During July and August 1866, blacks continued to reject agricultural labor
and planters struggled to obtain their service. Fearing another year of economic
decline, planters seriously considered replacing black labor with white immigrant
labor. As white opposition increased toward those blacks making plans to emigrate
or simply refusing to work out of protest, equally did Moses Pollock’s reservations
about leading blacks out of America in November 1866. He brought before the
ACS his concerns associated with transportation expenses and medical resources
for passengers. Certainly, these were all legitimate, but what Pollock feared mostly
was the consequences of black emigration upon those left behind in America. He
wondered, how would whites respond following the group’s departure? In a letter
to McLain, Pollock wrote:
I write to you for advice for the whites here have a meeting and formed
a resolution to have white laborers if you fail to carry us all [off] what
are we to do if you cannot send us away and we will have to do the
best we can And sir if you fail to send all of us away and you have to
call on the government of the United States we understand that
President will oppose the Scheme for as certain as we make a move the
rest will be throwed out of employment and then what we going to do .
. . I do not want to do something that will cause those who stay behind
to suffer . . . . Sir please to give us your views what you think is best
for us to do whether you think it is best to emigrate to Liberia or to
stay here as the clouds are very dark and lowering.
Pollock brought his concern before the body of the EAMG, but only to
receive opposition from his friend, Moore, who interpreted his trepidations as a
ploy to interrupt plans for emigration. Outraged to say the least, Moore wrote to
McLain, “I fear that there are men in
this Body that are Dispose to do us harm and to [frustrate] our purpose” and “he
[Pollock] has many excuses that are not fit to Listen at and we do not want such
men.”
During the same or following meeting, Rev. Robert was introduced to
members of the EAMG. He was no stranger to the black community of Macon.
Since the end of the war, he had served as “a missionary to the Freedmen.”
Despite his relationship with black religious leaders, “some of the company was
afraid of him.” Hoping to comfort EAMG members, Moore said “he will do all he
can for us . . . he will do Right.”
Throughout August and September 1866, Pollock took on a less visible role
with the association and instead, Moore and Robert procured the lead in recruiting
and organizing emigrants. Regular meetings were held by the association,
sometimes three times a week to distribute literature, register families, and agree
upon a suitable place to reside in Liberia. By August 14, Moore had successfully
registered 120 persons.186 Capitalizing on the spirit of Maconites to become an
independent people and whites’ desire to see them return to the field, the EAMG
was certain they could recruit over 300 passengers by the anticipated departure
date of November 1866 and close to the same number for the succeeding voyage
scheduled for departure on March 1867.
By the end of August, Moore and Pollock had not reconciled their differences.
Letters from Moore to McLain asked to “please do not Give any attention to any
Communication you may receive from this association except it be from Rev. H.
Roberts or myself.” He claimed that “Mr. Pollock our former President has no
notion of going to Liberia and we do not want him mix up in our affairs.” Despite
Moore’s protest, Pollock continued to attend and provide reports of EAMG
meetings to Rev. McLain’s and by September 6, Pollock “had Gotten in the notion
again to go to Liberia.” For the next two months Moore remained doubtful about
Pollock’s intentions with the association and his plans to truly leave with those
registered for departure.
“Liberia Fever” in Sparta, Georgia
As the Macon group was preparing for the fall voyage, so too was a small
company of thirty-two freedpersons from Sparta, Georgia. During the summer of
1866, “Liberia fever” caught the attention of Richard Shaw and his family.
Following Independence Day 1866, blacks from the small town began to organize
themselves in an effort to emigrate to Africa. Shaw, described by E. M.
Pendleton, a white medical doctor and chemist, as a literate painter and “the best
informed colored man in the county,” began to reassess his life as well as the
future of his wife and their four children as free people in America. In July, he
and his wife formed an emigration association and recruited four additional
families to set sail to Liberia in November:
Maria Thomson (possibly Shaw’s sister-in-law), a seamstress, and her four
children; Augustus Kelsey, a wheelwright, his wife and three children; Alfred
Rogers, a farmer, his wife and five children; Wesley Hurburt, a shoemaker; and a
family of eight, whose names went unrecorded.
As word began to spread about the small company’s interest in African
emigration and their desire for self-determination, opposition began to brew. On
August 24, 1866, Pendleton, who was writing and advocating on behalf of black
Spartans, informed Rev. McLain that Shaw was being discouraged by his white
landlord from going to Liberia. Shaw informed Pendleton that he was presented
with a negative news article “written by an old sea Captain to a German
clergyman about Liberia.” But for Shaw, according to Pendleton, “it only made
him more anxious to go.”191
As it was in Macon, whites in Sparta had their own agenda for wanting
blacks to stay put and in their place. The spring of 1866 was the first time since
the war’s end that blacks had returned to work in the fields. With blacks
contemplating leaving in November, planters in Sparta questioned, too, who was
going to harvest and gin their cotton. As the harvest season drew closer,
opposition from landowners was to be expected. But what Pendleton was
unprepared for were the organized efforts of African Americans and the Radical
Republican party to keep blacks in the U.S.
While the Liberian company was preparing for the November 1866 voyage,
Pendleton feared the Republican’s new Homestead bill was going to “demoralize”
or rather discourage blacks from resettling in Africa. During the following two
months, Pendleton warned blacks to be wary of the legislative promises offered by
Republicans and explained how it would be in their best interest to seek freedom
abroad.
Black resistance toward Liberian emigration came unexpectedly to
Pendleton. He wrote to McLain, “A majority belong to what is called the anti-
Liberia party and will have nothing to do with it in any sense of the word.”
Republican promises of full American citizenship, along with land, suffrage, and
education certainly served as primary motives for blacks to reject plans of African
emigration. But the fears of death, re-enslavement, and separation from family
trumped all reasons to reject ideas of resettlement abroad. Pendleton wrote to
McLain about the sentiments of black Spartans:
These negroes themselves get up many bugbears – such as the dangers
of the ocean, the mermaids, the diseases of the climate, & etc. The
most serious difficulty & the one hardest to convince them of is the
fear of landing in Cuba to be sold into slavery.
Their qualms caused Pendleton to have his own reservations about the
group’s commitment to leave America. Nevertheless, he continued to advocate on
their behalf, regardless of the growing opposition toward the anticipated departure.
Emigrants Prepare for Departure
Back in Macon, the Liberian movement gained significant momentum. By
midSeptember, 288 persons from the city had applied for passage and according to
Rev. Robert, were most eager “to emigrate to Liberia in the first vessel which will
leave our Shores for Africa.” After weeks of convening, members of the EAMG
selected Sinou, Greenville as the place to resettle in Liberia, and it was determined
that a company of 30 to 40 persons would organize a Baptist church with Rev.
Jack Robinson, a freedman, upon their arrival.197
While the ACS was elated to learn of the black Maconites’ receptivity
toward African emigration, the Society had to deliver the unfortunate news to the
EAMG that only 200 of its 288 applicants would be eligible to embark upon the
Golconda in November. In 1866, hundreds of
African Americans made inquiries about resettling in Liberia, but limited financial
resources and ships caused the ACS to become selective for whom they could
provide free transportation and six months of provisions upon arrival to Liberia.
Serious consideration was given to those groups that had formed themselves into
emigration associations and individuals who were deemed industrious, literate,
Christian, and resolute in their decision to resettle in Liberia. Black resettlement
was an expensive enterprise. Resources could not be wasted on those considered
inept or unlikely to survive independently in a developing nation or those
ambiguous about leaving America. Besides, returnees and unfavorable testimonies
of life in Liberia worked against proponents of African colonization, and
strengthened the position of opponents who deemed African emigration an
inevitable failure. Even worse, returnees reinforced the racist notion that blacks
becoming a self-governing people were a preposterous fallacy.
In the year following the Civil War, inquiries came from across the U.S
regarding emigration, but blacks from Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio demonstrated the greatest interest in returning
to Africa. By October 1866, the ACS was courting 998 applicants registered for
the November 1866 departure. These numbers do not reflect the number of
inquiries made by those pondering the emigration question. Unfortunately, the
lack of provision and space available aboard the Golconda caused the ACS to limit
transportation to only 660 persons, the extent of her capacity. Of the applicants,
the Society agreed to grant passage to 250 Georgians and 400 South Carolinians,
whom they described as
“the better class of freedmen”
When EAMG officers received confirmation of the number of persons
allowed to travel to Liberia, it created quite a ruckus amongst blacks in Macon.
Moore expressed to McLain, “the People seem to be mighty beset because you say
you cannot take But the 200 the Spirit of Emigration is Still Rising.” It was
decided that the first 200 applicants or those most committed to leaving America
would be granted first priority in receiving transportation. All others would have
to wait for the subsequent voyage.
News about the EAMG’s successful recruitment soon reached the
Freedmen’s Bureau. Days following the registration of 288 passengers, Brent.
Brig General Ely, Agent of the F.M.B. of Columbia, South Carolina, approached
Moore with an enticing proposition. Making reference to the Southern Homestead
Act, Ely made claims “that there was a Large portion of government Land to be
disposed of in Florida and other places and that he Thought We would do well to
change our notion.” The Loyal Georgian of Augusta, Georgia supported Ely’s
claim by reporting:
We are happy to say that there is land in the South which will be given
away . . . to all loyal settlers, whether white or black. Our readers may
not all know that the Government owns million acres of land in the
unsettled portions of the country. Some of the land lies in the Southern
States; in Arkansas, there are nine million acres; in Alabama, six
millions; in Florida, nineteen millions; in Louisiana, six million; in
Mississippi, four Millions.
Hoping to discourage blacks from emigrating out of the country, the newspaper
warned:
According to a recent law of Congress, no more public lands in the South
will be sold until next January; but they will be given away to loyal men
who will go and settle on them. . . We hope that the freedmen will have
their share. But let nothing be done rashly. Those who are well supplied
with work, and fairly paid, should not wander off without a very definite
plan, and prospect of success.
Acutely aware of the motives of the Freedmen’s Bureau to keep blacks in
the U.S. and having the foresight to know that the Government would fail in
granting freedmen land, Moore fired back at Ely with the following statement:
I told him There was nearly 4 million of our race in the united states and
a Great many of us without land and that we had to seek an asylum
some Where . . . some of them can go to these Government lands as for
us here in macon many of us has made up our minds to go to Liberia . . .
I [know] We must act Like men We have made our arrangements to go
to Liberia We must go or Loose our Life in the attempt the Lord being
our helper . . . believe that it is a good thing.
While Moore was hastily recruiting and mobilizing emigrants, privately he
was troubled by $50 of personal debts he wished to pay prior to his departure. With
four weeks remaining until embarkation, Moore asked Rev. Robert to assist in
approaching the ACS for a loan, which he promised to pay once he had settled in
Liberia. Robert approached the ACS about the matter, but insisted that the society
simply “give him this as a payment for services.” After three weeks of requesting
the loan and not receiving a reply regarding the matter, Moore took the initiative to
write to McLain. Without mentioning his efforts of recruiting nearly 300
passengers for the upcoming departure, Moore implored the ACS for the loan. By
now, it was well understood by the ACS that Moore was the main impetus behind
the emigration movement in
Macon and that his followers would not leave the country if its leader failed to
accompany them.
Recognizing this, Moore used his influence as leverage for a loan by stating to the
Society, “I do not want to be left behind as I commence it I have spent the Rest
of my time in it and feel
Willing to loose my life in it in order to carry it out . . . if I land safe on the shore of
africa I Will try to pay it back.” One week later, Moore received the funds from
the ACS to pay off his debts and began making the necessary provisions to
mobilize Maconites for the historic voyage to Africa.
Opposition to Black Emigrants’ Departure
With two weeks remaining till embarkation, a crisis occurred among the
black Spartans bound for Liberia. Richard Shaw suddenly fell ill to fever. Making
matters worse, he was grieving from the recent death of one daughter and waiting
faithfully for a second daughter to recover from illness. With the Shaw family
postponing departure in November, the Sparta group was now reduced to merely
twenty-five applicants. As a result of the unanticipated setback, Dr.
Pendleton questioned whether the remaining group would emigrate without its
leader, Shaw.
Also during the week of Shaw’s illness, Rev. Robert of Macon suddenly fell
ill too. Arrangements were made by the ACS to have the Georgia emigrants board
trains from their city and to arrive at Charleston, South Carolina as one group. To
ensure that the emigrants arrived in Charleston safely, Rev. Robert and Dr.
Pendleton encouraged the ACS to have the Freedmen’s Bureau offer transportation
and protection from black and white opponents in Georgia. Hoping to demonstrate
that the dream of returning to Africa was achievable for this new generation of
freedmen, Rev. Roberts made one last proposal to the ACS to take the entire group
of 288 applicants. Once again, his request was denied. As the days of departure
brought about excitement amongst African Americans, last minute inquiries came
into the office of the ACS, including that of Ben Thornton and a host of twenty-
five blacks from LaGrange, Georgia. With the Society claiming that its number of
serious applicants could reach as high as 1,065 persons by November 1866, the
LaGrange emigration company was denied transportation as well.
On October 29, just two days prior to boarding a train to join the Liberia-
bound Maconites, Dr. Pendleton drafted a painful letter informing the ACS that the
“Sparta company has caved in.” Angered and disappointed, Pendleton lamented,
“I cannot now rely on a single man. It is what I feared since Dick Shaw backed
out.” Pendleton explained the events that led to the group suddenly altering their
plans of resettlement, but their decision to back out went beyond Shaw’s illness.
Pendleton wrote, “three families, 18 in number, had packed up and made their
division of crops etc., & came to town ready to start today for Macon.” And with
“nearly all the negroes as well as the whites in the community being opposed to it,
they could not resist.” Pendleton carried on to say, “Reports were circulated that I
got $2000 for every ship load I sent and that I trade ship in mid ocean . . . and take
them to Cuba and sell them.”
Although hurt by the efforts of blacks and whites to deter the group from
emigrating to Liberia, Pendleton did not give up on the African emigration scheme.
Examining the motives of black and white conspirators, he expressed to the ACS,
“The planters are afraid of a scarcity of labor and the negroes (poor fools) since the
radical success hope to get land and suffrage in this country.” With the Fourteenth
Amendment scheduled to be voted on and with blacks believing full citizenship,
land, and suffrage were in arms reach, Pendleton worried about future anti-Liberia
tactics deterring blacks from leaving the United States.
Hoping to see at least one group of blacks successfully sail to Africa,
Pendleton forewarned the Society about a statewide Georgia Equal Rights and
Education Association (GERA) convention scheduled to meet in Macon on
October 29, 1866 (two days prior to the EAMG’s scheduled departure to Liberia).
Recalling the intimidation by blacks and whites in Sparta, Pendleton feared the
GERA would conspire to discourage the Macon company from leaving for Africa.
Pendleton portended, “I fear out of all the applicants you will fail to get a ship
load.” It is uncertain if the convention’s date was a ploy to deter Macon blacks
from emigrating or not. Nevertheless, it had little to no impact on EAMG
members.
On October 31, 1866, Wyatt Moore and his company of nearly 200
applicants walked in procession from the Second Baptist Church to the home of
Jefferson Long, the soon-to-be first African-American Congressman of Georgia.
There, they prayed, received the blessings of the community and were presented
with the Liberian colors of red, white, and blue. During this celebratory moment,
twenty-nine emigrants convened and agreed to form a Baptist church in Liberia
with Rev. Jackson Robinson ordained as their pastor. The crowd then made its
way to the railroad depot where families said their goodbyes. Rev. Robert, due to
his sudden illness in October, instructed Lieutenant J. J. Smith to accompany the
group to Charleston, South Carolina. One by one, Smith called the names of those
registered for departure, and as quickly as the train arrived, blacks hurried onto
cars. Not present amongst the passengers was the EAMG’s president, Moses
Pollock. He remained behind and later joined Bishop Henry McNeal Turner in
organizing blacks support for the Republican Party in 1867 and 1868.
Describing the Maconites’ departure, Rev. Robert wrote to Rev. McLain,
“The Emigrants 184 left in quite a fine hurry about an hour since. Only one or two
from Sparta- Others from that [party] may join them in Gordon tonight and then
others in Augusta. . . They were somewhat crowded, but there was such a great
crowd around the cars I could not tell how they fixed.” Feeling confident about the
group’s departure, Robert bid them adieu and expressed to McLain, “I trust that
God’s blessing will attend them, and make them an instrument of great blessing to
Africa.”
Hoping to deter blacks from leaving Macon, Freedmen’s Bureau agents and
officers worked to place hurdles in their way. At the request of Gen. O. O.
Howard, a month’s worth of rations was to be transported to Charleston, South
Carolina for the Georgia emigrants. Gen. Tilson, who was unabashedly against
emigration, wittingly ignored the order. Refusing to allow Tilson’s scheme to
prevent the Georgians from having a sufficient supply of food and other provisions
aboard the Golconda, William Coppinger of the ACS ordered the requests be made
instantly. After he received a complaint from Gen. O. O. Howard, Gen. Tilson
fired back at Coppinger with the following words:
Instructions were forwarded to Capt. Hill, Macon, GA to draw the
rations . . . . It was therefore impossible to comply with your
telegraphic request to order the issue of rations at Charleston. I am
unconscious of having failed to obey the orders of General Howard in
letter or spirit, and suggest that the next time you presume to
[criticize] the acts of an officer, in no way responsible to you, it might
be well to inform yourself of the facts, and to make use of the
respectful language.
Whether negligent or not, Gen. Tilson could not believe the audacity of
Coppinger in accusing him of intentionally denying the emigrants rations and the
audacity in reporting a high ranking military official, such as himself, to the
executive of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Nevertheless, the Georgia emigrants soon
received their rations, but the Bureau was now well aware that their interactions
with future emigrants were being watched closely by members of the ACS.
After experiencing some travel difficulties, the group arrived in Charleston
and was soon joined by other blacks from South Carolina and Tennessee (see Table
3.3). Like the Georgians, emigrants from neighboring states experienced
opposition as well. Although Gen. O. O. Howard of the Freedmen’s Bureau was
gracious and sympathetic to grant emigrants defrayed transportation, bureau agents
and railroad officers stopped at nothing to make blacks’ departure difficult by
limiting luggage or comfort as they traveled by train to Charleston for embarkation.
Coppinger wrote how one railroad official, whom he described as “a more
unaccommodating and offensive official I never met,” unabashedly yelped, “Your
Government took our niggers and want the Rail Roads to carry them for almost
nothing. The niggers must come by the freight trains.” Despites challenges
Coppinger was successful in getting 621 passengers safely to Charleston For
Embarkation.
Upon the emigrants’ arrival, they learned the Golconda was delayed. It
remained so for three weeks. Although Coppinger feared he would lose passengers
as they awaited the arrival of the ship, there was little protest amongst them.
Besides, Georgians anticipated hearing the results of the legislature’s decision to
ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, which unfortunately was rejected almost
unanimously by the House and Senate on November 9. Consequently, Georgia
was disqualified from being readmitted into the Union. The legislature’s position
against granting African Americans full citizenship reaffirmed for black emigrants
that their future was in Liberia. On November 21, 1866, 194 Maconites embarked
upon the Golconda and sailed to West Africa, thereby making this historic voyage
the first departure of freed families from the southern Black Belt to return to their
ancestral homeland since the commencement of the American Civil War. Joining
the Georgians were 167 passengers from Newberry, South Carolina; 144 from
Knoxville, Tennessee; and 52 from Charleston, South Carolina. Despite the
educational limitation of blacks prior to and after emancipation, ninety-nine
passengers were literate. Seventy-seven could read; twenty could read and write;
and two possessed a college education. The group was also highly skilled. Their
occupation ranged from farming to professional dentistry. Among the emigrants
were seventy-eight farmers; thirty-three laborers; fifteen carpenters; three coopers;
three tailors; two millers; two cooks; one iron-moulder; one silversmith; one gin
maker: one waterman; one gunsmith; one engineer; one goldsmith; one goldsmith;
one dentist; and one goldsmith.
On January 15, 1867, Wyatt Moore penned a letter to his friend Lewis
Sherman of Macon about his experience in Liberia. Although near his death,
Moore described a world governed by blacks and free of whites. Two months
following his departure, he wrote: Greenville, Liberia
Mr. Louis Sherman—Dear Sir:
I suppose you would like to hear from us. I therefore take my
seat to-day to write you a few lines to inform you of the facts. You are
apprized that we left Macon on the 31st October last, and remained in
Charleston until the 21st November, when our flag was hoisted for the
Republic of Liberia. About sunset we crossed the bar and entered the
broad waters of the Atlantic. You may imagine the scene was grand to
those who never had seen the ocean. The Psalmist says: "They that go
down to the sea in ships behold the wonderful works of God."
God's infinite goodness has brought us safe to the land of our
fathers. On the 27th December, we came in sight of Cape Mount. It is
beautiful to behold. Of all countries in the world I have never seen one
to exceed Africa. We remained at that place a week, and set sail for
Monrovia, where we arrived after a pleasant day's sail. We spent a
week there. Brother J. Robinson preached in Monrovia on the Sabbath
we were there Myself and Brother Flagg accompanied him, and we had
a nice time of it. Monrovia is a fine place, beautifully situated on the
Cape, with Mesurado Bay and the ocean in full view. We arrived at
Greenville on the 15th January.
Greenville, Sinou County, is the finest place on the coast that I
have seen. We are all as well pleased as a people could be. I am filled
with admiration and gladness. January is our hottest month here. It is
like May in America. I have long heard talk of Liberia, but if you will
believe me, the half has not been told. I have one thing to regret, and
that is I have so few days to live, as all the best of my days are gone.
Talk about freedom; when a man comes to this country he is free sure
enough It is a land blest of the Almighty. The white man has no part
or lot here. It is the black man's home. We have our negro President,
Vice President, and Congressmen. Everything belongs to negroes, that
is one thing that excites my curiosity—to behold a negro nationality.
We have in the country all kinds of fruits; the lemon, orange,
pine-apple, peach, sour-sop, and the mango-plums. We have often read
in the Bible of the palm tree. I have the pleasure to see plenty of them
every day. From this tree is gotten butter, oil, and cabbage. It is a
beautiful tree to behold. We have coffee; it grows in the woods in
abundance. There is everything like fruit here and vegetables; hogs,
sheep, goats, and cows—with turkeys, chickens, &c. It is too tedious to
mention everything.
Yours, respectfully,
Wyatt Moore
For Moore and other emigrants, Liberia was their promised land; an
independent African nation governed by former slaves and their descendants taken
from their ancestral land. As returnees to Africa, they hoped to live in world free of
racial violence and discrimination, where their civil liberties were protected, and
where landownership was not denied to freed persons.
Inspired by Moore’s letter, Sherman registered a second emigration
company of Maconites for the May 1867 voyage to Liberia. The dream of
returning to Africa was real and possible. With the social, political, and economic
condition of African Americans remaining bleak, “Liberia fever” continued to
spread across Georgia. African emigration became a viable option for those blacks
who desired immediate civic and personal freedom. These emigrants exercised
their freedom of movement and set sail to Liberia, where they could live free lives.
Conclusion
Less than one year following the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment,
African Americans across the nation began to examine their prospects in the
United States. The aftermath of the Civil War brought about poverty, fatality, and
racial hostility for freedmen as they pushed to acquire land, American citizenship,
and suffrage. In Georgia, blacks exercised their freedom of movement by
migrating to cities where they hoped to improve their lives through education and
economic opportunities. In places where these opportunities did not exist or were
denied, blacks came together in concerted efforts (sometimes through the
assistance of whites) to create a world of their own, one in which they controlled
their own institutions, selfadvancement, and destiny within small townships and
small black communities. But as blacks pushed for autonomy and to exercise the
type of freedom they envisioned for themselves, some whites, both Union and
former Confederate supporters, had other plans for freedmen. Union supporters
(who presented themselves as more liberal and compassionate than their
Confederate counterparts) wished to have the type of paternal relationships where
they determined what was best for blacks. Former Confederates wanted freedmen
to remain in a servile position with limited rights and little room for social
advancement. Regardless of how each group presented themselves, freedmen
understood the need of the country to exploit blacks as cheap labor. And as Radical
Republicanism was on the rise in the South, blacks were learning, too, the need of
the party to exploit the freedmen as voters. On the one hand, many blacks
understood the motives of “Radical” and sympathetic whites and worked in concert
with them to negotiate ways in which blacks could secure education and full
citizenship for their race. This decision would come with a price and blacks
unfortunately received the shorter end of their negotiation. On the other hand, a
rising number of self-determining blacks were less accommodating. They were too
impatient to wait on whites to accept blacks as equals and for legislation to pass,
which would secure their rights as citizens. Instead, they looked to the black
independent nation, Liberia, as a means to live as full citizens. Blacks who
embraced African emigration wanted to create and exercise for themselves their
own definition of freedom, which was comprised of living within a selfgoverning
black nation void of whites.
THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN MACON
AND COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, 1866-1867.
While efforts in Macon began to wane, the African-American emigration
movement took fire in Columbus. In 1866, the rise of black support for
Republicanism severely undermined grassroots emigration efforts in Macon and
Savannah. As well, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and black male
participation in the Georgia constitutional convention convinced many African
Americans that the United States was changing for the better. In Columbus,
increased racial tension due to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the
existence of a nationalist spirit within the black community, strong pro-emigration
leadership, lack of faith in Republicans and their policies, and the pull of personal
testimonies from individuals who emigrated from Columbus combined to propel
the city to the forefront of emigration in Georgia. Within a year, the city of
Columbus organized two emigration groups which left on May 1867 and then in
November 1867, totaling over 240 people.
As a testament to the belief in the American democratic process and its
ideals, the U.S. Congress adopted its first Civil Rights Act in April 1866. The Act
granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and
guaranteed equal rights under the law. Passage of this landmark legislation made
the possibility of full citizenship and equality appear as a reality for black
Americans. Subsequently, blacks attempted to exercise those freedoms articulated
in the Civil Rights Act. The result led to a series of race riots throughout the South.
On May 1, 1866, what began as a minor brawl between black Union soldiers
and Irish policemen in Memphis, Tennessee escalated into a three-day race riot.
Forty-six persons were killed and over seventy were wounded. Reported also were
five cases of rape and one hundred robberies as well as the arson of ninety-one
homes, four churches, and a dozen schools. With the exception of one or two
whites, all the victims were black.
Motives and Initial Interest in Emigration, 1866
The politically and racially motivated Memphis riot caused blacks from
Georgia to seriously consider Africa as a place of refuge. Recognizing the growing
discontentment amongst blacks in Columbus, Oliver Sanders, a black agent of the
ACS, wrote a letter to William
Coppinger about his plan to encourage families in Columbus to look towards Africa
as a place of solace. Hoping to reignite interest in African emigration beyond
Columbus, Sanders planned to place an ad of the Golconda’s upcoming departure
from Charleston, South Carolina in the Loyal Georgian. While “most of the People
of this section are afraid of the [Liberia] fever,” stated Sanders, he hoped the ad
would strengthen the courage of blacks to emigrate and serve as a warning to
whites; if the conditions of freedmen are not quickly improved, blacks would leave
Georgia or even the United States.
Like blacks in Macon, black Columbusites pondered their next move,
whether to remain in America or leave the United States in pursuit of self-
determination. For Frank Simpson, a 24 year-old farmer, the exigency to leave the
U.S. was crystallized when yet another bloody race riot ignited between blacks and
whites in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 30, 1866. As a result, Simpson took the
lead in organizing an emigration company in Columbus.
Inspired by efforts of the Emigration Association of Macon Georgia
(EAMG) to successfully mobilize nearly 200 blacks for the upcoming November
voyage to Liberia, Simpson wrote to Coppinger on October 22, 1866 stating that
Liberia fever was present in the city and that the spirit of emigration was rising.
Capitalizing on black displeasure with the social, political, and economic
conditions of the United States, Simpson informed Coppinger, “There is a large
number of people hear who are anxious to emigrate to Liberia.” The actions of
Simpson led to 81 persons being registered for the November 1866 voyage:
Frank Simpson, wife, and 1 child;
Mary Bell;
Nora Bell;
Stewart Bell;
Bob Robert, wife, and 3 children;
Frank Simpson and one daughter;
Joe Riley, wife, and 8 children;
Jim Vinson, wife, and 4 children;
Jim Monroe, wife and children;
Bill King, wife, and 5 children;
William McManis, wife, and 6 children;
Warrick Curvington, wife, and child;
Gerry Cob, wife, and 6 children;
George Word, wife, and 5 children;
Albert Howard;
Ed Howard;
Isaac White;
Gary Carns, wife, and child;
Sam Carns, wife, and 3 children;
Riley Banks.
The emigration group of Columbus was unprepared to sail out with members
of the EAMG in November 1866. With the majority of the applicants being
farmers, Simpson expressed to Coppinger, “we cannot get [off] before Christmas
on account of our business on hand But we will be ready to go Aboard of the first
vessel.”
On November 21, 1866, the Golconda sailed to Africa carrying 621
passengers. News of the departure reached thousands across the United States.
According to the African Repository, this voyage made up “the largest number sent
in any one year since 1854.” For the
ACS and its black supporters, the black emigration movement was officially
reignited in the South. Interest in Liberia resettlement spread across the Black Belt
like a heat wave. Over a course of three months, from December 1866 to February
1867, the ACS received nearly 800 applications from persons who desired to
emigrate from the United States to Liberia. The Society noted that, “applications
have been received from 78 persons at Winnsboro, S.C.; 25 at
LaGrange, Georgia; 78 at Columbus, Georgia; 178 at Newberry, S.C.; and 291 at
Mullins Depot, S.C; in all 642, for passage to Liberia;” along with a minimum of
“150 from Macon, Georgia, Florence, SC, Apalachicola, FL, and Newborn, NC”
determined to sail in May 1867.
Regardless of the position held by Georgians on African emigration, news of
the first state voyage to return blacks to Africa since 1860 was inspiring. However,
with Republican political success, the African emigration movement was at risk of
becoming obsolete. For the next two years, the ACS would remain in a tug-of-war
with the Republican Party to recruit blacks, receive funding, and justify its
relevance now that slavery was abolished.
Republican Influence in Georgia, 1867
With Republicans gaining control of the U.S. House and Senate in 1867, the
promises offered to freedmen took center stage. Talk of Congress granting
suffrage, citizenship rights, and land was enticing to some blacks or a distraction to
those seeking autonomy in Africa. The proposed Reconstruction plan caused some
to vacillate on the subject of emigration and staking their future in America. With
full citizenship, universal suffrage, and full inclusion within the political process
seeming a realistic possibility, many black proponents for emigration decided to at
least provide Republicans a chance to prove themselves before making the decision
to leave the United States altogether.
By spring 1867, Republican influence on blacks in Georgia had increased
significantly. On March 2, Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act, thereby
placing Georgia under the military control of General J. Pope. Federal troops were
assigned to seven military posts in Georgia (Dahlonega, Macon, Savannah,
Augusta, Rome, Athens, and Columbus) to maintain the peace and enforce the law.
Support of the ACS and the Republican Party varied. Frank Simpson wrote
that his number of initial recruits dwindled from eighty-one to eighteen members.
Those numbers reduced further by the day of his departure to Africa. Obviously
disappointed, Simpson offered that “The greater part of them have given up the
idea of going to Liberia they think congress will yet pass a Bill that will enable
them to come [equal] with the white people But I think they are badley mistaken
they never can get their rights in this country.”
On March 23, the Second Reconstruction Act was adopted by Congress
requiring the military to register eligible male voters and ordered southern states to
hold conventions to draft and enact new state constitutions. After General Pope’s
arrival in Georgia on April 1, he ordered an October election to determine whether
to hold a constitutional convention in December. For the first time, black males
were allowed to vote for and become delegates to the state convention. At the
same time, a group led by Lewis Sherman (a painter and friend of Wyatt Moore,
leader of the first contingent of freedmen to emigrate to Africa from Macon) was
scheduled to leave for Liberia in May 1867. To his dismay, the group’s numbers
fell to forty five. In fact, some of the earliest and most visible supporters of the
emigration movement from Macon and Savannah, Jefferson Long, Rev. Henry
McNeal Turner, Moses Pollock, Charles L. Delamotta, and Rev. James E. Simms,
quickly fell under the influence of Republicans and forged strong political alliances
with white members of the Republican Party. These supporters did not denounce
emigration or discourage blacks from returning to Africa. Rather, they saw the
upcoming elections as an opportune moment to pressure Congress to adopt
legislation allowing African-Americans full citizenship rights and universal male
suffrage. As Turner and others recognized, blacks had to seize the moment by
demonstrating to the U.S. the power of their voting numbers, to organize and elect
blacks into office.
In May 1867, Rev. Henry McNeal Turner believed that black support of the
Republican
Party could assist in creating a state constitution free of Black Codes and secure the
Fourteenth Amendment, which would readmit Georgia back into the Union. To
that end, Turner formed the Republican Party of Georgia with black adult males
comprising 90 percent of the Party voters in 1867. Turner and other black leaders,
primarily from the Macon and Savannah regions, campaigned to galvanize black
support for the Party. Thinking an alliance with white Republicans would increase
the number of blacks elected into office, they publicly announced they were “ready
to unite with their white brethren.”
With Republicans successfully securing black support, the ACS’s anxiety
grew, not only for the sake of the Society but also for the future of African-
Americans. As early as March 1867, Coppinger began reaching out to blacks in
Sparta and LaGrange who expressed prior interest in returning to Africa. He hoped
to recruit passengers and began to mobilize support for the upcoming May 1867
departure. Coppinger addressed Dr. E.M. Pendleton about assisting him with
recruitment in Sparta. In response to the request, the doctor wrote,
I rendered myself unpopular last year with both white and blacks in
my support for your Society. The whites said I was injuring the labor
interests of the county. The blacks said I was paid by Yankees to get
all the negroes out of the country. Now they think that they will have
all their own way as [if] Congress has put them in power over the
whites.
Pendleton articulated his contempt for Congress and his position that the
condition of blacks would not improve even with the passage of the Reconstruction
bills. He warned Coppinger, “all will suffer alike. Gloom and despair now hangs
over the land and God only knows what will be the result . . . . I suppose however
this is all some of them want in order that they might have a pretext to finish up the
work in their own way.”
The sentiment of Robert Logan from LaGrange about the actions of
Republicans towards blacks within his city was similar to those of Pendleton. Both
men were concerned about the political motives of Republicans and the socio-
economic conditions of blacks which had not improved since gaining freedom.
Logan, in a letter dated April 9, 1867, brought his concerns to
Coppinger’s attention, stating:
The negro is now more off balance as he was when he first [became]
free. Political demagogues are already at work and there are those
among them who are seeking office. The plans of God will be
developed after a time and in their development he will see much
wicked instrumentally. Such has been the case in the history of the
world. Especially it been the care in the regard to the African race in
being brought here. . . . But God reigns and he will reign.
Like Logan and Pendleton, Coppinger saw the writing on the wall. Although
he favored Congress’s support of the Fourteenth Amendment, he feared blacks
might find less incentive to resettle in Africa if they believed these legislative acts
would bring land, educational opportunities, black political representation, and an
end to racial hostility for Africans Americans in the United States. Realizing the
attitudes of whites toward blacks would not change overnight, Coppinger also
feared Congress would discontinue funding the ACS by making claims that blacks
no longer needed to look to Africa once the Fourteenth Amendment was passed.
Such drastic action would end the transporting of African Americans to Liberia
altogether.
As black leaders rallied across the state in support of the Republican Party,
blacks from Macon and Columbus prepared for departure to Liberia. As some
blacks pushed for political rights during Reconstruction, others decided to leave
and enjoy full citizenship in Africa. Many Macon supporters of emigration fell
under the influence of black Republican leaders and postponed leaving with Lewis
Sherman’s company scheduled to depart within a couple of weeks.
Although Rev. Turner had publically articulated his support for blacks to
return to Africa in 1866 and continued to do so sporadically in 1867, his zealous
pursuit to galvanize blacks on behalf of the Republican Party was detrimental to
Macon’s emigration association, the EAMG, and the organization efforts of Lewis
Sherman.
Unlike in Macon, the influence of Radical Republicanism over blacks in
Columbus fizzled after the first half of 1867. Throughout the period, Frank
Simpson remained unwavering in his decision to return to Africa. Emboldened
with feelings of Black Nationalism, Simpson informed black Columbusites and
members of the ACS that, “Africa is the place for All of the coloured race to go.
We never will be of any importance in this country. this is Not the Africans home.
I believe that Every race must go home and we must All go to Liberia before We
Can be a people. I hope that the god of Justice may Bless your Society in Sending
this last of our race to Liberia.” Just weeks before his scheduled departure in May
1867, he sent a warning to the ACS about racial tensions teetering on explosion:
“many of the colard friends Seme too think that this is the country for them but I
think it will make them see trubble before thay gey through with it. . . . I do not
Belive that this is the country for the Black man. I Don’t care what the Extent of
the law may be of the white man because this is his country.” Simpson’s political
thinking resonated amongst blacks in Columbus, and for the next twelve months,
his departure encouraged over 500 of his friends and family to follow him. Their
numbers made up the largest group of blacks from a single city in the U.S. to
emigrate to Liberia during Reconstruction.
Although their numbers were small compared to the four million blacks residing in
the U.S., Georgia became the leader and center of the “Back-to-Africa” movement
of this period Departure May 1867 and a Difficult Challenge
On May 13, 1867, blacks from Columbus and Macon boarded trains bound
to Charleston, South Carolina. Family and friends gathered in Macon to say their
farewells. Blacks, advocates of African emigration as well as supporters of staying
and obtaining full citizenship in the U.S., wished the best for each other. Present
was Jefferson Long, proponent member of the ACS, tailor, leader of the Union
League, and future Congressman of Georgia, who penned a letter to his Liberian
bound friends, “ I hope that I will hear from you all when you arrive to your home.
I hope that the lord may be with you all.”
On May 15, 1867, fifty-three Georgians (Macon: 45 and Columbus: 8)
arrived in Charleston, South Carolina for embarkation. Their numbers were a
significant decline from the 206 who left Georgia in November 1866. Coppinger
wrote to William McLain of the ACS about the lack of passengers anticipated to
emigrate. He lamented, “the falling off have been great and I fear we shall not get
off 300 this ship.” Hoping to prevent their departure, local bureau agents
attempted to limit how much luggage the group could carry to Africa. Although
General O. O. Howard of the Freedmen’s Bureau made arrangements to defray the
transportation fees of Georgians to Charleston, Coppinger learned of the disruption
created by local bureau agents who enforced an 80 pound luggage limit on each
passenger scheduled to leave the country. Without tools, farming equipment,
sewing machines, and other personal possessions, passengers were sure to turn
around. Lewis Sherman responded lividly, “Something must be done or they will
not go.you see the condition we are in if we cannot carry our tools we are in a bad
fix for making a living.”
Opposition to emigration was not limited to white politicians. Prior to the
Georgians’ departure, a man identified as “one of the Cuthbert slaves,” affected the
turnout of the Maconites’ numbers to Charleston by making false claims that
Liberia was unsuitable for resettlement. Macon’s numbers were reduced by 50
percent. Coppinger lamented about the distractions created by the black
emigration opponent, the influence of the “Military Bill (the First Reconstruction
Act),” and the influence of the Republican Party, which he believed severely
affected the smaller than anticipated number of arrivals. While waiting impatiently
for the Golconda (two weeks behind schedule), Coppinger expressed the following
words to Rev.
Upon the Georgians’ arrival in Charleston, they were joined by other blacks
from South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. Collectively, their
number made up 321 passengers, half of what the ACS anticipated. Like the
Georgia emigrants, blacks from other states experienced similar distractions.
Feeling defeated, Coppinger expressed to Rev. McClain,
“A month later we would not get 150.”
Despite difficult period of recruitment, the Golconda sailed from the shores
of America on May 30, 1867 to Sinoe, Liberia. Following the Georgians’
departure, Maconites failed to organize an additional emigration company.
However, Columbusites quickly made plans to organize a second emigration
company. Farmers did not renew laboring contracts, families rid themselves of
personal possessions, and the few black landowners capable of doing so made
provisions to sell their properties. Heading the upcoming November 1867
departure was Chapman Abercrombie, Mary A. Bell, and Araminta C. Brooks
Emigration Mobilization Efforts from Columbus, November 1867
Less than one week following the departure of Frank Simpson and his
family, his sister Araminta Brooks, and his friends, Mary Bell and Chapman
Abercrombie, took on the leadership role of recruiting a mass emigration
movement in Columbus. Although a bridge builder, Abercrombie was not literate.
The literacy level of Bell was equally limited. But like her brother Simpson, Mrs.
Brooks was very capable of reading and writing and therefore was appointed as a
correspondent for the group. She handled all communication with the ACS,
registered all emigrants, and informed the community how best to prepare for the
upcoming voyage. Because of her familial relationship to Simpson, she was, by
default, recognized by the community as the natural leader of the movement and
would have more influence recruiting passengers than anyone in the city.
On May 19, 1867, Brooks forwarded to Coppinger the names of 129 persons
and said that she and the group’s leaders could get as many as 300 to 400 by
November. Liberia fever was so high in Columbus that the excitement spilled over
into Pike County, Alabama, where she hoped to secure up to fifty additional names
to join her party.
Weekly, Brooks provided Coppinger with names of additional recruits. By
July 1, she was expanding her movement to Atlanta. While in the city, during the
same week as Republican Party’s first state convention since the war, she
attempted to recruit blacks with the support of John H. McGee, family friend
residing in Atlanta.268 She reported to Coppinger “the colard people are geten more
incline for Liberia Evy day.” 269
But after being in Atlanta for six continuous weeks, Brooks did not have
much success with recruiting large numbers of blacks from the city. She returned
to Columbus where the movement was alive and well. By October, 1867, the
registered Columbusites had decided to settle along the St. Johns River, Grand
Bassa. Hoping to maintain the energy and interest of blacks desiring to return to
Africa, Brooks, Abercrombie, and Bell arranged for the Rev. Robert F. Hill, a
former Virginia slave and Liberian minister, to speak at Temperance Hall. On
October 7, Rev. Hill delivered a prodigious speech to the people of Columbus
encouraging blacks to return to their “Fatherland.” Brooks described the
enthusiasm experienced by those present at the meeting, “I just [heard] Amost
Elequent address from Mr. Hill of Liberia. We all
[are] very much please with him. I wish you would Ask Mr. Hill what the fair from
New York to Liberia as my party will go this fall.” Brooks informed Coppinger
that 200 persons were prepared to leave and if necessary, she could register up to
200 more by November. She assured Coppinger, “Tha will all go.”
Meanwhile, Coppinger was in Georgia hoping to make one last attempt to
recruit blacks from Macon and Savannah. He visited both cities, but left
disappointed. He learned that many of his former black supporters, Rev. Henry
McNeal Turner, Jefferson F. Long, Moses Pollock, Charles DelaMotta, Rev. James
Simms and others, were not recruiting passengers for the upcoming departure to
Liberia. While in Savannah attending a State Education Association meeting he
informed Rev. McLain about
. . . . a fine company of colored young men from Savannah,
engrossing the attention of the people of color of this City. The
former was attended by perhaps 100 representatives from different
parts of Georgia, some 20 of them white persons-mostly Northern
men- and they holding all the offices and Chairmanship of all the
Standing Committees, and directing and controlling the proceeding.
Gen. Lewis, Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau in the state, is
President of the Association, and it seemed very plain to me that he
and his white colleagues are using the organization and the negroes,
for their own political advancement hereafter.
He had an opportunity to speak with the black men attending the convention,
and said there was “Scarcely any opposition to emigration to Liberia manifested
itself among the blacks, while several stated their conviction that it was but a
question of time as to the return of the race to its own home.” But regardless of
what the men expressed to Coppinger, blacks from Macon and Savannah were
focusing their efforts, for the moment, on the upcoming state constitutional
convention and future state elections scheduled for October 29 - November 2,
1867. With 95,214 whites and 93,457 blacks registered as voters, Georgia
freedmen were certain that their turn out at the polls would bring victory for the
Representatives.
Coppinger left Savannah for Macon hoping to recruit passengers for the
upcoming November 1867 departure. Writing from the National Hotel in Macon
on October 11, 1867, Coppinger informed Rev. McLain, “Numbers” from the city
“are talking about it” and “a few are ready to go,” but “I regret to compel to say
that the prospect of any considerable number of emigrants from Macon is very
poor” and “the hindering causes are legion.” Nevertheless, Coppinger diligently
pushed forward to recruit passengers. He arranged to meet with remaining
members of the EAMG and others making inquiry about leaving to Africa, but
would not have much success.
Later that evening, Coppinger attended a “meeting of intending emigrants”
but returned to his hotel disappointed after learning “that only eleven names were
enrolled.” With less than four weeks remaining till departure and hoping to
galvanize additional support, he arranged for a second meeting to be held at the
“Colored Methodist Church” within a few days. Letters from emigrants had
recently arrived to friends and family in Macon, “all speaking favorably of the
country.” One of the letters address to Coppinger came from Lewis Sherman, who
wrote:
Greenville, Liberia
Dear Sir:
I am pleased with the country and find everything just as
represented by the Colonization Society. I believe Liberia to be the
home—the only home for the black man. It is his own country. He is
second to none here. I find more happiness among the Liberians than I
ever did in the United States. Many thanks to the Society for kindness
shown.
I remain your humble servant,
Lewis Sherman
Recognizing the powerful influence that correspondence from emigrants had
in recruiting passengers, Coppinger planned for the letters to be read aloud with the
hope of recruiting between forty to fifty passengers for the November 1867
departure.
Despite Coppinger’s tireless efforts to rally support for emigration in Macon,
he was unsuccessful in recruiting passengers from the city. The challenge was not
that Maconites had given up black emigration entirely. The reasons for blacks
failing to leave for Liberia varied. The most charismatic leaders of the EAMG and
staunchest separatists had already left to resettle in Africa; the EAMG either failed
to appoint a successor after the last departure or the appointed leader failed to take
on his role to recruit applicants. As well, with the ACS being reduced to a shoe-
string operation following the war, Coppinger could not match the political
influence of Republican leaders or the desire of black men to vote for the first time
in their lives. Like blacks in Savannah, Maconites were postponing emigration
efforts in hopes of securing a victory with the delegate election. Outnumbering
whites, they wanted to participate in electing black men as delegates and to witness
the outcome of the election.
In 1867, it became crystal clear that black leaders of Macon, such as Rev.
Henry McNeal Turner, Jefferson F. Long, and James M.C. Logan, favored
remaining in the United States, but only if the social, political, and economic
conditions of blacks improved. For these men, African emigration had become a
bargaining chip to secure full citizenship and autonomy for blacks in America. If
blacks were not successful in making significant improvements in achieving
equality in America, then they were prepared to leave. Describing the sentiments of
black Maconites,
James M. C. Logan addressed an op-ed to Rev. E. Weaver, editor of the Christian
Recorder, about their willingness to leave the United States if the results of the
upcoming elections and Congress’s Reconstruction plan proved to be
unsatisfactory. He wrote:
Several mass meetings have been held through Georgia this week and
resolutions adopted favoring a removal from this country. Our people
declare they will not remain here in a disfranchised condition, in other
words they will go out of the country unless even handed justice is
extended to them.
For us in the South to be deprived of our vote, would be to make our
condition worse than when we were in Slavery. . . . But now the
conservative element combined with the negro-hating Democrats, have
been so much encouraged and are boasting so strongly about Northern
reaction, that it will be a miracle if we carry the State, . . . We intend to
fight it out on this line till the battle's lost or gained. And, if we find
there is no hope for civil liberty here, we intend to go to Liberia and
trust to fate.
Why, Mr. Editor, we had better be dead than to remain in the South with
no rights which white men are bound to respect, for that would surely
bring on a war of races.
While Coppinger, on one hand, was not having much success with
recruitment in Macon and Savannah, he was nonetheless full of excitement after
learning that a letter from Frank Simpson had arrived in Columbus and that blacks
were eager to join him in Africa. This was just what the ACS needed to mobilize
blacks from Columbus for the upcoming departure.
Coppinger left Macon and headed for Columbus.
Hoping to encourage blacks to come to Liberia, Simpson asked his sister to
read his letter before their friends and family. Mrs. Brooks carried out her brother’s
request and on October 13, 1867 read the follow words before members of the
community at local black Baptist and Methodist churches:
Greenville, Liberia
My Dear Sister:
I write to inform you that we have arrived safely in Liberia, after
a voyage of thirty-nine days. We sailed from Charleston May 30, and
touched at Monrovia July 8, with all the passengers in good health. We
staid at Monrovia ten days. I visited it, and found it mostly built of
brick.
We brought three hundred and twenty emigrants. They all
seemed to be very much pleased with the country. The whole
country, from Monrovia to Greenville, is a rich and beautiful country.
Greenville, is a small village at the mouth of Sinou river. We are now
located about two miles up this river, in houses given to the emigrants
to stay in for six months period. We have six months provision given
to us by the Colonization Society. The people here are very kind to
us. Maria and Lottie are very well. Albert is well and sends his love
to all. Pa and all are very well period. I have a fine daughter, born at
sea, June nineteen. We have named her Araminta Caroline. I hope
that I may see you again. Give my love to the people at the plantation,
and tell them if they can get to Liberia, they must come, for Liberia is
a country where a man can make a support by working half of his
time. Everything grows here wild in the woods. Coffee grows all
over the woods. Cotton grows here into a tree. The sugar cane grows
larger than any I have ever seen. Potatoes grow all the time. Pine
apples, cocoa nuts, oranges, lemons, and everything else grows wild
in the woods.
I have long heard of Liberia, but now I see it, and I will say
positively that Liberia is one of the best countries in the world. I wish
that every colored person in America would come here. If a man
cannot make a support here he will not make it anywhere. I expect to
draw my land about nine miles up the river. Give my respects to
Chapman, and let them all read this letter.
Your brother,
Frank Simpson
Coppinger was moved by the grassroots efforts of the black Columbusites.
Describing the energy around black emigration in the city, he was happy to report
to Rev. McLain, “I am gratified to be able to state that Liberia stands high in the
affection of the colored people of the region. Indeed there is a considerable
excitement in the subject & parties are forming to remove to that Republic next
month and in the spring of 1868.” He also stated, “Much of this feeling has been
created by the lecture last Monday night of Rev. Mr. Hill and by a letter received
from Frank Simpson, an emigrant to Liberia, from this place, last Spring.”
Coppinger arranged for blacks to assemble at the home of Lucious M. Monroe,
described as “one of the most respectable and wealthy colored men in this place.”
There, the names of applicants, “old and young,” were registered. Just two days
prior, Mrs. Brooks offered to Coppinger a list of 161 applicants committed to
leaving the following month. The list, composed by Coppinger and Brooks, soon
grew to 235.
Liberia fever was so intense in Columbus that an additional emigration
group formed simultaneously to prepare applicants for the May and November
1868 voyages. Judge Cook, pastor of the Colored Baptist Church wished “to be
‘booked’ with 300 of his Congregation for the spring 1868 expedition” and Mr.
Monroe, prepared to sell his estate valued at $10,000, proposed to sail in the fall of
1868 “with 100 of his friends.”290 Cook and Monroe’s son, Phillip, agreed to
register the names of all for the succeeding voyages.
Departure
On November 3, 1867, after four days of campaigning and voting, blacks
across Georgia learned the results of the delegate election. Of the 169 delegates
elected, thirty-seven were black, including Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, Aaron
Bradley, and Tunis Campbell. Of the white delegates, twelve were Democrats;
nine were white northern Republicans (“carpetbaggers”) and the remaining 111
were white Georgia converts to the Republican Party (“scalawags”).
Blacks made up nearly 44 percent of the state population, and 49 percent of
registered voters. With the exception of Atlanta, political participation was higher
amongst blacks than whites in Georgia’s largest cities: Savannah: 3,091 blacks,
2,240 whites; Macon: 1,851 blacks, 1,353 whites; Augusta: 1,777 blacks, 1,574
whites; Columbus: 653 blacks, 635 whites; and Atlanta: 1,653 blacks; 1,829
whites. Of the 106,410 persons who cast a ballot, 102,283 favored holding a state
constitutional convention, while 4,127 voted against it. White conservatives
boycotted the election with little to no voter turnout in counties with large black
populations and high black voter participation. For example, in Baldwin County,
only seven whites voted from the 1,700 voters registered; in McIntosh County,
three whites voted compared to 524 blacks; and in Liberty County only seven out
of the 575 people who voted were white.
Despite the election results and the success of black male voter turnout,
some black Georgians continued to prepare for departure to Liberia. On November
11, 1867, 235 blacks from Columbus, along with two passengers from Macon,
boarded trains bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Their departure sent a strong
political message to Georgia delegates and the federal government. Despite
promises made by Congress, Republicans and local leaders, blacks in Columbus
were convinced that suffrage, protection from racial violence, land, or equality
could not be guaranteed by a new state constitution or the ratification of Fourteenth
Amendment. Therefore, their future rested in Liberia.
Lucious M. Monroe described the attitude of whites and blacks from
Columbus about the group’s departure. He wrote to Coppinger, “My dear sir, you
will please excuse these few lines as Every boddy almost is in a [stink] this
morning about the Emigrants leaving . . . . all the Emigrant seem to be very
cheerful and in good spirits and I wish them a successful voyage and pleasant
time.”293
Upon their arrival in Charleston, the Georgians were joined by seventy-
seven emigrants from Mars Bluff, South Carolina and Philadelphia and Dover
C.H., Tennessee. Georgians made up 75 percent of the 312 passengers bound for
Liberia.294 On November 18, 1867, the group, making up 50 percent of the
anticipated number of passengers the ACS wished to send to Liberia, embarked
upon the Golconda. The Georgians made up an impressive group. Of the 235
passengers from Columbus, forty were literate. Among them were forty-four
farmers, three ministers, two carpenters, two bricklayers, two laborers, and one
bridge builder, brick maker, cook, blacksmith, gardener, miller, and shoemaker.
Unfortunately, the skills and profession of adult females were unrecorded by the
ACS. Collectively, these individuals possessed the character, skills, and intellect
the ACS and Liberian settlers hoped to attract to the West African country to build
a black nation.295
Conclusion
The years of 1866-1867 were pivotal for African-Americans in Georgia and
the United States as a whole. The concentration of power within the hands of the
Republican Party allowed for the passage of Reconstruction laws that changed the
political landscape of Georgia and the South. Black men were given the chance to
represent the interests of their community and help shape public policy as delegates
to the state constitutional convention. More importantly, African Americans were
allowed to participate in the electoral process. This political shift witnessed black
leaders working to support Republican efforts and emboldened blacks to become
active voters. Such change produced challenges. Passage of the Civil Rights Act
in 1866 led to a series of violent riots in Memphis and New Orleans. Still, the
majority of blacks were excited about their future in the United States.
The political shift resulted in Macon no longer being the center of the
emigration movement. Leaders such as Rev. Turner persuaded black Maconites to
capitalize on their newfound political power in order to obtain the rights and
resources they deserved. In the place of Macon, the city of Columbus emerged as
the nexus of the emigration movement. With strong leadership such as that of
Frank Simpson and his sister Araminta Brooks, distrust for Republicans and their
policies, and a nationalist fervor to be independent and free, blacks in
Columbus were able to organize themselves to emigrate to Liberia twice in 1867.
AT THE CROSSROADS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION IN
GEORGIA, 1867-1868
This chapter examines the recruitment and mobilization efforts of black
Georgians from Columbus, Sparta, Marion, and other surrounding areas during the
Georgia Constitutional Convention (December 1867 and March 1868) and the state
election of late April 1868. The changes occurring within Georgia politics resulted
in a severe backlash from whites who used violence and intimidation to mitigate
the potential impact of blacks voting in large numbers. Recognizing the
importance of the black vote, both Republicans and Democrats sought to influence
blacks in order to achieve their political agendas and dictate the future of the state.
This changing political environment pushed some blacks to emigrate and
altered the plans of others. It also lessened the relevance and necessity of the ACS
as it struggled to fund future trips. Overall, the emigration movement in Georgia
reached a crescendo, but plummeted quickly by May 1868 when only half of the
registrants who signed to leave were actually at the port in Savannah ready to
board the Golconda.
On November 3, 1867, one day following the delegate election, blacks
across Georgia celebrated the results of the election for the state Constitution
Convention. Also on this day, a small but significant group of blacks from
Columbus decided to demonstrate their political and economic frustration by
registering to obtain passage to Liberia. With 235 passengers prepared to leave the
United States in eight days, Philip Monroe, a painter and son of the wealthy black
landowner, Lucious M. Monroe, penned a letter to William Coppinger in which he
promised that he and Reverend Judge Cook “ will have 600 [passengers] by
spring” 1868. The fear of conservative opposition during and immediately
following the election caused many black emigration advocates to have little faith
in the Georgia delegates who were elected to draft a new state constitution. They
also had little faith in a Congress responsible to work in the best interest of African
Americans to protect their families and civil rights. As an example of the sentiment
existing among those blacks who prepared to leave for Liberia if white opposition
continued and if their social, political, and economic conditions failed to improve
in Georgia was a letter from J. Dick, who wrote to the editor of the Christian
Recorder on December 5, 1867:
A thought upon the future destiny of the colored man, after hearing
and seeing so much that is against him from those of our pretended
Southern friends, makes my heart burn within me to think of what
awaits my race. . . . Their object, I suppose you are aware, is to defeat
the ratification of the Constitution that will be framed in the
Convention at Atlanta. They have declared that if the Constitution is
ratified, they will live under it only by bayonets and a standing army.
Now, under these circumstances, what is a colored man to do? I think
it would be better, far better, if it would come to this, that every
colored man would emigrate at once to the Republic of Liberia,
though I am in favor of staying here in this country, with my rights
before the law in every respect; for without that, we cannot live in this
country, nor have we any protection. . . . Therefore the colored man
must have a law for a protection, equal in all respects.
Black resistance to remaining in the U.S. existed among otherse in
Columbus, Sparta, and Marion. Despite promises made by Radical Republicans,
black emigrationists were not convinced that suffrage, protection from racial
violence, land, or equality could be guaranteed by a new state constitution or the
ratification of Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, they were prepared to leave the
United States.
As 1867 came to a close, white opposition towards black emigration in
Georgia grew considerably compared to November 1866 when the first group of
Macon emigrants departed. With Georgia steadily experiencing a labor shortage
since 1865, planters continued to harbor resentment towards blacks for abandoning
the countryside, migrating to urban areas in Georgia, other states that offered
higher wages, or emigrating to Africa. Still grappling over who would best serve as
labor in the United States (European immigrants, white Americans, or black
Americans) Whitelaw Reid wrote in After the War about the unwillingness of
whites to perform the backbreaking labor once performed by slaves. He exclaimed,
“Work is for niggers – not for white men.”
Radical Republicans were no different than their conservative political
counterparts or planters. With political tension brewing in the state and hoping to
render Democrats powerless, Republicans needed black voters to assist the Party in
approving the new Georgia Constitution and in acquiring additional seats in the
Georgia General Assembly during the April 1868 election. With the number of
black and white registered voters almost equal in Georgia,
Republicans needed every black voter and his family to remain in the U.S.
As Liberia fever intensified, organizers of emigration companies continued
to update the ACS with news of recruitment. Phillip Monroe informed Coppinger,
“The Spirit of the people in the city and its Vicinity is very [good] . . . . and we will
make up a lively party . . . . if there is no providential occurrences to prevent us
from going.” From Sparta, Dr. E. Pendleton wrote that despite rumors that he and
the ACS were conspiring to sell emigrants into slavery in Cuba and Sparta
applicants reneging on leaving the U.S. a year prior, “There seems to be another
Liberia excitement in this county originating among the negroes themselves, which
I think will [leave] the country this time.”
On December 3, Seaborn Ashley, a former slave and blacksmith residing in
Marion, Twiggs County (located 19 miles south of Macon, Georgia), informed the
ACS that he and forty members of his immediate family, the Kings, refused to
reenter into labor contracts. After struggling with poverty for two years since
passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, the group chose “living a camp life” as
opposed to remaining as tenants upon the land of their former employer. They were
thus preparing to leave in May 1868 with other Georgia emigrants. Residing
without proper shelter, Ashley reminded Coppinger of their eagerness to leave
when he wrote, “we will be very disappointed if we cannot go.”
Ashley had attempted to form an emigration company with blacks from
Macon earlier in the year. However, Macon blacks were well under the influence
of Rev. Henry McNeal Turner and Jefferson F. Long, both eager for blacks to
participate in the election of delegates to the
Georgia Constitutional Convention. Unable to gain support from former members
of the Emigration Association of Macon Georgia, which had become inactive due
to the changes within the political environment and from other emigration
advocates, Ashby decided to postpone his recruitment and resettlement efforts.
Coppinger, who was in Georgia prior to the delegate election, hoped to rally
support from ACS advocates in Savannah and Macon, but was unsuccessful. It
was then in October 1867 that Coppinger learned of Ashley’s organizational
efforts. He hoped to meet with Ashley to convince his company to leave in
November. With less than six weeks to prepare for departure, Ashley disappointed
Coppinger with the news that he and his family could not “get through [their] crops
in time to go” but would be better prepared for the spring 1868 departure.
News of Ashley’s and other blacks’ inability to emigrate to Liberia was but
part of new challenges facing the ACS as it sought to expand emigration to Liberia.
As delegates prepared for the Georgia Constitutional Convention, it was only a
matter of time before Republican supporters experienced a backlash from
Democrats hoping to regain political, economic, and social control in Georgia.
Caught between the crossfire of two rivaling political parties were black male
voters and their families. Whether being seduced or antagonized, blacks
experienced the impact of the political tug-of-war between Republicans and
Democrats hoping to exploit the race for two purposes: as voters or as laborers.
Although blacks were not politically experienced, they were astute enough to
identify the weaknesses and motives of the Republican Party, which, they realized,
could not sustain political power without their support. More importantly, the
party could not combat white conservative opposition without the full political
participation of blacks. Hoping to seize this political moment by negotiating and
establishing relationships with white Republicans, some ambitious blacks wanted
to acquire political office to secure the Fourteenth Amendment as a Constitutional
Act, protect the life and political rights of blacks, and ensure that social mobility
was possible through equal educational and economic opportunities. Certainly,
some black Republicans had personal agendas like their white counterparts, but
most engaged in politics with the hope of representing the interest of blacks and
moving the race closer to being an autonomous people respected as equal citizens
in America.
As blacks examined their future in America, the two political ideologies that
had been at odds since the end of the war remained in conflict: to reside in the
United States and be recognized as full citizens or to leave and enjoy full
citizenship in Africa. As one group of blacks pushed for their rightful place in
America, a second group was not so optimistic. Both groups shared a concerted
goal of achieving civil and personal freedoms and embraced ideals of what
scholars have termed Black Nationalism. The historical and political debate during
the early years of Reconstruction amongst African Americans had centered on the
question of how best to achieve autonomy and where best to exercise freedom. For
blacks who favored emigration during Reconstruction, they believed their rights
would not be protected or enforced as long as they remained governed by whites.
Despite the achievements made by Radical Republicans to ratify the Thirteenth
Amendment in December 1865 and toward ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment,
these laws were not enough to make those who looked to Africa as a promised land
and a place of refuge to remain in the United States.
Motives for Emigration in Georgia, November 1867-May 1868
In examining Columbus, Sparta, and Marion where black mobilization
efforts to emigrate were most prevalent in Georgia between late 1867 to mid-1868,
the motives for leaving the United States were at least one of the following: escape
from poverty, acquisition of land, freedom from racial hostility and violence,
establishment of and control over black institutions (religious, political, economic,
and educational), and black political power to define, protect, and enforce their
rights.
Letters published by the African Repository from Liberian settlers became
another motive for blacks in the United States wanting to leave. Hearing first-hand
the stories of safe journeys, access to healthy food, ability to obtain land, and life in
a welcoming environment free of racial hostility and tension influenced black
emigration. These letters answered many of the questions that African Americans
had about Liberia and dispelled myths that evoked fear within the minds of
freedmen. These letters clearly expressed the desires of blacks in Georgia who
wanted more than what the United States was willing to offer or had available.
Following the delegate election of 1867, freedmen and their families hoped
to see immediate improvement in their socioeconomic condition that did not occur.
Impatient, starving, and languishing in poverty, blacks in Sparta inquired about
leaving the United States. On November 28, 1867, Pendleton lucidly noted:
The negroes have tried freedom this time & starvation long enough.
They find out that they are much worse off as to provisions & clothing
& money than when they were slaves, and the more intelligent are
convinced that if they remain here, they are doomed . . . . They have
voted & see that it won’t pay, [if] the “40 acres of land and mule”
don’t come.
Correspondence from Seaborn Ashley contains accounts of the Marion
blacks experiencing extreme forms of economic hardship. Recognizing the ACS
was experiencing financial difficulty in transporting black emigrants from the
Unites States to Africa, Ashley forwarded a letter to John Sherman, Commissioner
of Finance and brother of Gen. William T. Sherman. He begged the federal
government to continue supporting blacks’ desire to emigrate. He described the
economic condition of blacks in Marion as follows:
Mr. Hon. John Sherman,
I write with sorrow in my heart to Congress to let them know my
case. I have been corresponding with the colonization society to go to
Liberia. They have two thousand applications. I now ask you as a Ban
of Christians to help us as they have not the means to carry one-forth. I
would want to go to Liberia to help my condition. I see nothing more
nor less than starvation here. We feel like that it is our duty to go where
we can be of use to our people but we have and cannot move unless
you will help us. We are poor. We can help one another and in still
[position]. We are going back. Help us. God will help you I hope in the
days to come. Please give us the same passage as the last settlement in
Liberia.
As with many sharecroppers, Ashley and his company of emigrants
experienced poverty due to low wages and the unfair labor contracts they entered
into with a landowner and the denial of land to be self-sufficient. Recognizing that
sharecropping forced blacks to remain in a servile position similar to slavery,
Ashley and the King family, a company of blood-related farmers, experienced
difficulty in securing their settlement from their landholding employer, whom
Ashley referred to as their “enyemes.” In a letter to Coppinger, Ashley lamented,
“We so afraid.
We find it a hard matter to git [sic] our money”
These unfair labor practices were not uncommon to sharecroppers. Blacks
refusing to reenter into labor contracts, particularly those who were contemplating
leaving the U.S. altogether, caused planters to protest by not granting them their
rightfully earned money.
Despite the susceptibility associated with their wretched living conditions and
labor contracts, Marion blacks, like many newly freed families of the
Reconstruction period, recognized they could avoid poverty, the vulnerability of
being exploited, and the threat of arrest or death, if they were self-sufficient. Yet,
to be self-sufficient, blacks understood they needed land. The acquisition of land
would not only address the issue of poverty, but also other push factors leading to
emigration.
Poverty and lack of aid following the war caused a can-do attitude to
manifest itself amongst freed people. Marion blacks recognized that even with
suffrage, financial assistance from government agencies and benevolent societies,
such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the American Missionary Association
(AMA), they would never be equal to whites in America as long as they remained
powerless to build, fund, and govern their own institutions. To be respected as
citizens, they needed to be self-reliant. All that they could receive from outside
sources, they needed to create for themselves. This included black-controlled
schools, churches, and other institutions.
As it was in Savannah, Macon, Augusta, and soon to be in Columbus and
Atlanta, whites belonging to the Republican Party, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and
American Missionary Association had a vested interest in blacks. The number of
blacks in these cities was numerous. They were politically astute with a strong
organizational history. Thus were able to establish relationships with and
negotiated with whites in securing suffrage and to obtain aid to build schools and
churches.
Ashley who resided nineteen miles outside Macon’s city limit witnessed five
schools emerged in Macon by 1866. But schools initially led by black teachers
were soon controlled and replaced by northern whites. The same was true for
schools, colleges, and universities that received aid from the Freedmen’s Bureau
and American Missionary Association. Even amongst religious institutions, some
of the earliest buildings where blacks worshipped were given to them by whites.
For example, by 1868, Columbus had established two African-American churches,
the First African Baptist Church and the Girard Colored Mission and one school
for blacks, the Chaplan School which later became known as St. James African
Methodist Episcopal School. The building in which members of the First African
Baptist Church worshipped belonged to a white congregation. 311 Its first public
school was funded by the Freedmen’s Bureau rather than by blacks alone.
Ashley recognized that self-sufficiency and self-representation was
important to black institution building. If blacks were ever going to be truly
autonomous, they would have to discontinue relying on the largesse of whites. As
an example of Ashley’s independent spirit, he used $550 of his personal money to
build a church “thinking tha and the government pay me.” After two years of
attempting to build a school, the community, “so poor they cannot pay anything
more,” managed to pull their resources together “to cover a school for 20 days” for
twenty-five children, which “tha have not had a dollar from the government.”312
As assistance from the federal government and missionary associations was
either slow to reach or never reached blacks in the countryside during
Reconstruction, rural blacks, like those in Marion, had to rely on themselves to
offer their children the type of education they believed they deserved.
Consequently, a spirit of self-sufficiency manifested amongst them. Lack of
outside resources was not enough to deprive them of educating their children.
With what collective resources they did possess, rural blacks made do with what
they had to educate their own community and establish educational, religious, and
business institutions.313
Ashley and his family concluded that their skills, resources, and collective
effort could be of better use amongst other blacks who shared the same political
ideology and creed as they did. Therefore, they decided to set sail to Liberia and
take their desire for black institution building with them. In Liberia, they dreamed
that they could live in a racially homogenous land where social mobility was
achievable, escape the daily reminders of slavery, and not have children see their
parents face the humiliation that came with racial hostility and the acceptance of
low and exploitative wages.
Like blacks in Marion, Macon, and Sparta, Columbus blacks were by no
means living in a utopia. In fact, a significant number of blacks in Columbus
embraced African emigration as a result of experiencing poverty, casualties from
the small pox epidemic of 1865 and 1866, their desire for landownership, their
refusal to be exploited as cheap laborers, and intimidation from Democrats.314 As
delegates from Muscogee County were convening in Atlanta (December 1867 to
March 1868) blacks and white scalawags in Columbus were experiencing racial
political agitation from an aggressive Democratic Club, which became known in
April 1868 in Georgia as the Ku Klux Klan.315
While external forces, such as low wages, mortality, racial hostility and
political intimidation were obvious motivating factors that pushed blacks to resettle
in Africa, black
Georgians were also being pulled by the internal forces of family and community
reunification.
The desire to return to their ancestors’ homeland was influenced by Georgia
emigrants living in Liberia. Black settlers wrote zealously to friends and family in
Georgia encouraging them to come to Liberia. Examples of influential letters were
published monthly in The African
Repository.
In a letter from Mrs. Eliza Sullivan, a 23 year old female from Columbus, who
left the
United States on the Golconda on November 1867, to Mrs. Nellie Ferguson and
Mrs. Sallie Davis, she offered insight as to her journey, accessible to various foods,
the welcoming environment created by Americo-Liberians, and the positive
transition towards permanent settlement. Mrs. Sullivan dispelled rumors of
emigrants being sold into slavery in Cuba, which was a legitimate fear of many
blacks. She also highlighted the array of fruits and vegetables she enjoyed on a
daily basis recognizing that in the United States such items would be a luxury.
Last, the idea of her family building a home must have resonated with her friends
since that was the desire of all blacks residing in the United States a place of their
own. On January 13, 1868.
In a letter from Rev. Alexander Herron, a 45 year-old Methodist minister
From Columbus, who also left the United States on the Golconda on
November 1867, to Rev. Judge Cook he wrote about his safe journey across
the Atlantic, the temperate weather, friendliness of the indigenous
population, and the opportunities to become self-sufficient. He did not
conceal any of the challenges of the journey or health complications
associated with traveling or resettlement. Whatever shortcomings he might
have experienced in Liberia Rev. Herron was adamant that “I have nothing
to discourage me, but everything says come.” His message was simple;
there was nothing for him in the United States. All he wanted and needed
existed in Africa. The ACS published Rev. Herron’s letter in the African
Repository, hoping to encourage other African Americans to come to
Liberia.
Black Petitions for Funding to Emigrate and Political Tension in
Georgia
Since November 1867, Columbus, Sparta, and Marion emigration
organizations had been busy registering the names of applicants and preparing to
leave America in May 1868. Meanwhile, the ACS was pondering the future of its
organization. As Congress was aggressively pushing for and awaiting the adoption
of the Fourteenth Amendment in former Confederate states, the ACS recognized
their days of receiving funds from Congress were coming to a close. During the
antebellum years, the ACS’s funding came primarily from religious institutions,
Congress, and apologetic slaveholders. Religious institutions desired to see blacks
spread Christianity in Liberia through missionary efforts. Congress appropriated
money for the society as a means to transport free blacks and “recaptured” or rather
illegally captured Africans to the Continent. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln,
along with Congress, actually appropriated $600,000 to transport emancipated
blacks beyond the shores of Africa ($100,000 of which were to be use specifically
for black emigration from Washington, D.C.). Lincoln proposed resettlement of
blacks to Panama, the Republic of Columbia, Central America, and Haiti. The plan
was rebuffed as a result of signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Masters
desiring to free their slaves in states where domestic manumission was banned paid
for transportation fees associated with the resettlement of blacks to Liberia as an
alternative to offering emancipation. Now that slavery was abolished, funding to
the Society was significantly reduced with Congress becoming less inclined to
support the mission of the ACS, arguing that resources were limited and “The day
of that idea has passed away forever.”
A year prior, in March 1867, the ACS proposed before the Thirty-Ninth
Congress the appropriation of $50,000 to fund a future voyage after receiving
1,815 applications for the May 1867 voyage. For the applicants, the Society had
become less able to fund multiple voyages a year and was only capable of
accommodating 600 passengers per ship. With Thaddeus Stevens serving as
Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the ACS hoped to
have some success in appropriating funds for the Society. While the ACS received
some support, opposition came from Representatives who believed they were
advocating in the best interest of freedmen. They argued expatriation to Africa
would no longer appeal to African Americans once Congress’ proposed
Reconstruction Acts were passed. Members of the ThirtyNinth Congress
attempted to redefine for blacks the definition of freedom. They believed suffrage
and full citizenship were enough for the formerly enslaved population and once the
Fourteenth Amendment became law, it would be the responsibility of African
Americans to exercise their rights as citizens. While some African Americans
believed they had a rightful place in the United States as citizens, Congress failed
to acknowledge that other blacks desired to expatriate to Africa, which was a result
of freedmen’s lack of faith in Congress to protect their rights and grant them
respect and resources equal to that of whites.
Congressman Josiah Bushnell Grinnell of Iowa was the loudest opponent of
appropriating funds for the ACS. Addressing the fifty year effort of the Society,
Bushnell told Chairman Stevens and members of the House of Representatives:
I give them credit for their motives, and for such good accomplished.
But sir, the times have changed; we are living in a new era. We now
have no money to spend in this direction for such good accomplished.
I am opposed to the appropriation of $50,000 for this purpose, in the
first place, because we have no money to spare; and secondly, because
I believe that those who have heretofore desired to leave our country
will desire now to remain with us. . . . the colored people who have
migrated to Liberia would not desire to go there now, in this year
1867, if they wiped out the institution of slavery. Ay sir, when they
have learned in Liberia of the passage of the reconstruction bill, which
places the negro, from a slave and the servant of a master for fifty
year, upon an equality with the proud oppressor, they will rather throw
up their hands and thank God, and wait for the vessel that shall bring
them back to their native land.
Opposition towards the relevance of the ACS in a post-slavery America was
growing from some of its former white supporters and so-called Radicals. The
Boston Herald printed an op-ed from a “‘special correspondent’ at Washington,”
stating the following about the ACS:
There is an antiquated concern in Washington called the American
Colonization
Society. Its ostensible object is to carry all the colored people in this
county to Africa to colonize them, but its real object is to support a lot
of old fossilized office-holders, who get together once in a year and talk
about their own humanity as illustrated in the sending off, once in
twelve months, of a cargo of colored men to Liberia. They go begging
around the lobbies of Congress once a year for an appropriation of fifty
thousand dollars, and seem to have influence to get it.
The ACS fired back at the position of the anonymous correspondent with the
following words:
Congress spends millions a year for the “freedmen,” paying large sums
for their transportation to Florida, and whenever they wish to go to
Florida, and whatever they wish to go to better their condition, it was
thought that a trifle out of those millions might as well be expanded in
aiding those who wish to go to Liberia
“One of the fossils”
The ACS would not receive the requested funds from Congress, forcing it to use its
remaining resources within its treasury to send as many applicants possible to
Liberia over the next two years.
The months of January to April 1868 brought further political excitement to
Georgia. Many blacks in Columbus, Sparta, and Marion were becoming less
enchanted by the leadership of Republicans, especially as delegates negotiated over
whether to forgive former Confederates of their debts and to specify the eligibility
of blacks to hold office – a decision blacks attending the convention would later
regret. As Georgians anticipated the result of the convention, Liberia fever
emerged again. From December 26-30, 1867, Isaac Yancey of Sparta assisted 94
persons in applying for passage to Liberia. By February 11, 1868, his numbers had
expanded to 125. Dr. Pendleton described the sentiment of blacks in his city as
unbending in their refusal to accept only suffrage without land or the resources to
eradicate poverty. He wrote, “A number more are getting anxious on the subject,
but they are waiting to see what the convention will do for them. As to the right of
voting without land or something to eat, they would not give much for it. In
Marion, Ashley maintained the support of his company of forty emigrants. Philip
Monroe and Reverend Judge Cook of Columbus managed to register the names of
520 persons by January 19, 1868. Of that number, one hundred belonged to an
emigration company led by Willis Fort, A.W. Williams, and William Rhodes of
Eufaula, Alabama. James M.C. Logan, former EAMG founder turned Freedmen’s
Bureau agent, informed the ACS that Liberia fever was now present in Atlanta.
Despite the convening of delegates in the city and unprepared to leave in spring,
black Atlantans were expressing a growing interest in emigrating to Africa as well.
Hoping to capitalize on the political frustration of freedmen, Coppinger
asked leaders of emigration companies from North Carolina to Mississippi to draft
a petition asking their Representatives to continue financial support for Liberian
resettlement. Collectively, the ACS received over 2,000 signatures from black
applicants. Of that number, 164 were from Sparta and Marion. Receiving over
620 combined signatures were leaders of the Columbus and Eufaula Emigration
Company, which drafted the following appeals to the Senate of the United States.
Blacks from neighboring southern states petitioned federal and state
legislators for aid to return to Africa. Attempting to ensure that their
Representatives read their petitions before Congress and understood the depths of
their desire to leave America, multiple petitions circulated throughout black
communities resulting in the ACS receiving 7,500 signatures. The
ACS learned the signatures were unintentional duplicates of mostly the original
2,000 supporters. Nevertheless, the number of signatures was an indication of
blacks’ obvious displeasure with their current condition in America and how life in
Africa was a viable and attractive alternative to secure the types of freedom and
opportunities they so desired.
At the same time, tension between conservatives and radicals increased in
Georgia following a series of political events on the federal and state level. In
January, 1868, General
Pope was replaced by General Meade as commander of the Third Military District,
a decision celebrated by Democrats. As constitutional convention delegates
convened in Atlanta, Governor Charles J. Jenkins, out of protest, failed to
appropriate $40,000 from the state treasury to pay for costs associated with the
constitutional convention. Consequently, Meade ordered the abrupt removal of the
Governor and Treasurer. On January 15, both officers were replaced by Brigadier
General Thomas H. Ruger as Provisional Governor and Captain Charles F.
Rockwell as Provisional Treasurer. Protesting Meade’s decision, Governor
Jenkins took the state seal to Washington (and eventually to Halifax, Nova Scotia)
and deposited $400,000 in New York to pay off the Georgia’s debt. On February
24, Georgia learned of the impeachment of President
Andrew Johnson by the House of Representative for his failure to support a series
of Reconstruction Acts proposed by Congress. Before the Georgia convention
delegates adjourned in March, Meade called for a special four day election for
voters to ratify the state constitution and elect a Governor and members of the
General Assembly on April 20, 1868.
In preparation for the upcoming election, delegates returned to their districts
to rally support for Republican candidates, many of whom were placed on the
Republican ticket (including Rufus B. Bullock, nominee for Governor). At the
same time, Democrats, who heavily opposed the constitutional convention and its
delegates, mobilized to regain political power in the state. With almost an equal
number of registered voters being black, Democrats believed they could secure
political seats if blacks were deterred from going to the polls. One tactic for
Democrats was voter intimidation through acts of racial violence.
On the night of March 31, 1868, the Ku Klux Klan made its first appearance in
Georgia.At the stroke of midnight, thirty to forty masked white men invaded the
dwelling of Republican George W. Ashburn of Columbus, Georgia, where
Ashburn was shot and killed by twelve to fifteen bullets. Ashburn was white, poor,
and a former overseer of slaves, who ironically, was elected as a delegate by black
Columbusites in December 1867 to represent their interest at the state and
Republican Constitutional Convention. C. Mildred Thompson described Ashburn
as the type of Radical leader murdered by Democrats: “a leader of the negro” and
“lowest sort of white man,” living as a tenant within a boarding house owned by a
black woman, Hanna Flourney.
Following his return from the convention in Atlanta in March, Ashburn had
become a target for white Democrats in Columbus. The political motive and main
conspirators responsible for his murder have remained unsolved to this date. While
the Democratic Speaker accused black and white Radicals of the murder the
Radical Rule, reported that Democrats, both black and white, may have been
responsible for Ashburn’s murder. Several historians posit various motives for
Ashburn’s murder: miscegenation, voter intimidation, attempt to combat Loyal
Leaguers’ influence over black voters, and an appearance by Nathan Bedford
Forrest, founder of the Ku Klux Klan, in Columbus. However the Radical Rule,
which offered a transcription of the persons taken in for questioning and detained at
the Fort McPherson Barracks in Atlanta, provides some clues: One, Ashburn’s
influence over black voters; two, the likelihood of becoming elected to the Senate
of the United States; and three, in the words of one of the accused, “He was highly
opposed to the majority of the people, sir.”
From April to July, 1868, Ashburn’s murder investigation became less about
the political motives of the accused Democrats and more so about the alleged
relationship between Ashburn and Flourney. Because Flourney was present the
night of Ashburn’s murder, conservatives hoped to defame and intimidate the star
witness by circulating rumors the landowner-tenant relationship was a sexual
interracial affair. Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, who shared the stage at a rally with
Ashburn on the night of his murder, defended the character of both individuals by
saying that Ashburn “was above such acts” and Flourney “too religious a woman to
be guilty of it.” Flourney, after suffering much humiliation and intimidation from
conservatives, abandoned her Columbus property altogether and resettled in
Atlanta.
Enraged, blacks hoped to avenge Ashburn’s death and to defend the honor
of Ms. Flourney by conspiring to burn the city. On April 1, 1868, within hours of
learning of the murder, A.E. Williams of the Columbus-Eufaula emigration
company hastily penned a letter to Coppinger about “this Secret Society the K.K.K.
. . . going on outrageous.” Incensed by the political and racial drama unfolding,
Williams wrote, “Everybody wants to Leave This country.” He vented how he
“sent three different petitions to Congress,” expressing the desire of blacks to leave
the U.S. Disappointed – to say the least about Congress’ failure to financially
support the efforts of the Society and to assist in black resettlement – Williams
exclaimed how the ostensible – champions of freedmen, “Pretended friend
Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner Did Not appreciate to Read them [the
petition] in Congress.” Obviously hurt and disenchanted, Williams forewarned
Coppinger, “I have Not any idea that they Will assist you in this Enterprise because
they want us to keep them in office. . . . please send me word how we will get our
transportation.”
Williams was correct in his assessment of Congress. Despite blacks
petitioning Congress from January to March 1868, the annual support of $50,000
was denied to the ACS and discontinued from this point forward. Nevertheless, the
emigrants prepared to leave for Africa. Unbeknownst to blacks from Columbus and
Eufaula, the departure of the Golconda in May 1868 would be the last voyage to
transport blacks from this region to Liberia through the auspices of the ACS.
Black Georgians Prepare for Departure to Liberia
While the accused men associated with Ashburn’s murder were detained in
Atlanta awaiting trial, blacks in Columbus prepared for emigration and the
upcoming April election of 1868. With less than two weeks remaining before the
state election, free transportation was offered by General O. O. Howard of the
Freedmen’s Bureau to all preparing to leave for Liberia. William Coppinger and
Rev. McLain anticipated the arrival of over 600 passengers from Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. Possibly because of the
number of persons registered for passage from Georgia and to make it convenient
for those from Mississippi and Alabama to sail out, transportation was arranged to
leave from Savannah.
From April 12 to April 28, 1868, the ACS witnessed a decrease in the
number of blacks Georgians who registered for the May 1868 departure. The
reasons for this decrease included internal conflicts within local emigration
companies, leaders rescinding their decision to leave for personal reasons, political
drama on the federal, state, and local level, and the possibility of their lives
improving following the state election.
Beginning first with the Columbus-Eufaula company, half of the 100 blacks
registered to emigrate from Alabama reneged on their decision to leave on April 26
with their Columbus cohorts for Savannah, where they were scheduled to embark
upon the Golconda. A.E. Williams, after expressing his displeasure with the death
of Ashburn, the arrival of the KKK, and his disappointment with Congress not
reading the petition to fund the ACS, informed Coppinger that the group’s leader,
Fort, had switched to the Democratic Party and was accused of conspiring with
Coppinger to sell the passengers into slavery for $1000. Williams, the second
leader of the company, decided that he and his family would not leave as
anticipated due to his wife’s pregnancy. Although Williams was unable to leave
the United States as planned in May 1868, he promised to organize another
company because blacks in Eufaula were still eager to emigrate with their
Columbus allies. Williams penned to Coppinger on April 27, 1868.
The concerns articulated by William, especially the murder of Ashburn, also
influenced the number of applicants who left from Columbus. Initially, more than
400 black Columbusites registered for the May 1868 departure, but following the
April election, the number was reduced to only 204. The emigration company in
Sparta also became a victim of the changing political and social climate in Georgia.
Pennington wrote “I fear we will not be able to send more than 40 old and young.
Four days of elections this week has demoralized the negro, & made him hope for
better things than Liberia.” Although confident that all forty applicants were
committed to leaving for Liberia, at the day of departure only twenty-five actually
made the trip to Savannah. Despite the low turnout from Sparta, Pennington still
believed he could muster up a second group for an anticipated November 1868
departure. Marion’s numbers were reduced by only three passengers (total of
thirty-seven passengers committed to leaving), and remained relatively consistent
from recruitment to the day of departure, despite the challenges of being displaced
and lacking adequate shelter during the winter months. Seventeen additional
blacks from Augusta (5) and Savannah (12) joined the Georgia emigrants from
Columbus, Sparta, and Marion right before departure, but their numbers were
slightly higher a month prior.
On May 1, 1868, a total of 451 emigrants from Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi,Tennessee and South Carolina arrived in Savannah to embark upon the
Liberia-bound Golconda (see Table 5.1). Coppinger and Williams were upset with
the low passenger turnout, especially after receiving over 2,000 signatures from
blacks who supported emigrating to Africa. In a letter to Rev. McClain, Coppinger
stated “you will perceive that there has been a large falling off and the indications
are that our expected 650 will dwindle to 450!” He said he would “be glad if we
now get off 500 all total. The recent election in this State has operated to produce
this [result] among those pledged to go from Georgia.” In response to the letter
from Coppinger, Rev. McClain exclaimed that “I suppose there is no use writing to
you after this date!” He continued by indicating “I received your telegram
yesterday. I have been sad and disheartened ever since. . . . to the effect that while
2,000 were waiting to start we only had four hundred fifty!” His anger more than
likely was a result of his confronting the inevitable: the ACS could no longer
compete with the policies being implemented by the Republican Party.
On May 14, 1868, the Golconda successfully sailed from Savannah to
Liberia. Despite the disappointment in the low number of blacks who made the
journey, the ACS was impressed by the character of those who left. Of the
passengers, sixty-eight could read and forty could read and write. Of their
occupations, sixty-five were farmers, eleven were carpenters, seven were
blacksmiths, four were shoemakers, four were barbers, two were house painters,
and two were confectioners. Also among the passengers were one plasterer, one
brick-layer, one butcher, one coppersmith, and one engineer. Of the church
communicants, sixty-two were Baptists and fortyfour were Methodists. One of the
five ministers aboard the Golconda was Rev. Judge Cook of the colored Baptist
Church of Columbus, who encouraged thirty of his members to join him in
Africa. The African Repository reported that the emigrants arrived prepared with
tools to build Liberia. They came with “turning lathes and requisite machinery for
grist and saw mills. . . . were taken by some of the well-to-do of them.” Women
also came with their sewing machines.
Their departure was bitter-sweet. While one group of African Americans
remained to work toward acquiring full citizenship in the United States, a second
group said their farewells and sailed to Liberia, where full citizenship was granted
upon arrival. For Rev. Cook, his departure was indeed a special one. Before the
ship sailed into the Atlantic Ocean, he offered a brief address before the emigrants
left the wharf at Savannah. He stated that “his parents were torn from Africa and
brought to the United States as slaves.” Believing in Divine Providence, he told a
story of how his freedom and that of others leaving were “wrought out by the war,”
and how he was going forth bearing a high civilization and the blessed religion to
his brethren in Africa. For many emigrants like Rev. Cook, Africa was their
Promised Land.
Conclusion
As seen in previous chapters, African Americans in Georgia proactively
identified new ways to capitalize on political and economic opportunities during
the early years of Reconstruction — supportive federal policy, inclusion within the
political process, and full utilization of their freedom of movement. Although
suffering from poverty, exploitative working conditions, and hostile southerners
who vehemently objected to change in the social and political order, their actions
exuded hope and at times yielded some semblance of success.
With passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the First and Second
Reconstruction Acts in 1867, blacks finally had a voice in matters of politics and
policy. Leaders in the AfricanAmerican community encouraged black males to
champion the Republican cause with the hope of obtaining a new state constitution,
passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, access to land, and the right to hold public
office. Still, some blacks in Columbus, Sparta, and Marion remained wary of
Republican efforts to improve the lives of African Americans and continued to
push for emigration.
In the minds of Rev. Judge Cook, Philip Monroe, and Seaborn Ashley, the
political gains enjoyed by blacks during Reconstruction could not trump the lack of
resources and opportunities undermining the ability of African Americans to be
independent and self-sufficient. ACS members were also unimpressed by the
actions of local and federal officials. They continued to aggressively push for
blacks to consider emigration as the only viable means of obtaining the freedom
they desperately wanted. Equally important, the ACS fully recognized the
proverbial “writing on the wall” about the continued efficacy of their organization.
With little to no support from Congress and the lack of private donors, it became
apparent that the ACS was becoming a part of history as opposed to making
history.
By May 1868, only half of the people who applied for transport actually left
for Liberia. As the second wave came to a close, the spirit of emigration still
lingered in the hearts and minds of blacks in Georgia and throughout the United
States.
EPILOGUE
Eric Foner notes that “the passage of the Reconstruction Act inspired blacks
with a millennial sense of living at the dawn of a new era. Former slaves now
stood on an equal footing with whites.” By 1867, Foner indicates, “politics
emerged as the principal focus of black aspirations.” This is definitely true in
Georgia where black leaders rallied behind the
Republican flag to persuade black male voters to support party efforts to rewrite
the State Constitution, ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, and champion federal
legislation that would improve the lives of African Americans. Through tireless
campaigning and organizing, especially from the black church which was “the
focal point of black political life during Reconstruction,” by April of the same year
twenty nine African American males were elected to serve in the Georgia General
Assembly. Among those who were voted into office were Tunis
Campbell, Aaron Campbell, and Rev. Henry McNeal Turner. Unfortunately, the
sweetness of victory was short lived for both the new members of the state
legislature and blacks who sought inroads within the political process.
In July 1868, the men accused of murdering George Ashburn were released
by Columbus authorities. The entire handling of the murder was dubious at best,
orchestrated at worst. Edmund L. Drago recounts that “despite the testimony of
eyewitnesses to the killing, a local jury ruled that he had died by shots fired by
persons unknown. The military intervened and arrested a number of suspects . . . .
but when Georgia was readmitted into the Union, the defendants were turned over
to civilian authorities in Columbus who dropped the matter.” Drago further points
out that “the black politician was the special object of the conservatives’ campaign
of violence and intimidation.” To his knowledge, “at least one-fourth of Georgia’s
black legislators were threatened, bribed, beaten, jailed, or killed during the
period.”
September 19, 1868, witnessed a horrific race riot in Camilla, Georgia where
seven blacks were killed. African Americans in Camilla were attending a political
rally when whites began to open fire on them. A reason for the attack was “the
anti-Negro rhetoric of the conservative politicians and press [which] fostered a
climate hostile to blacks.”
In the same month, the twenty nine black state legislators were removed
from office by Democratic opposition despite there being a Republican majority in
both chambers. Democrats were able to easily destroy the weak alliance between
black and white Republicans, especially with the assistance of a Democratic
leaning newspapers launching “a vitriolic attack on the evils of “negro
government.” The pressure mounted by the minority party and their public
supporters led to Republicans voting to oust their own party members from office.
The “final vote in the house was eighty-three to twenty-three in favor of expulsion,
with thirty Republicans supporting the measure or declining to vote.”
As the challenges to black political inclusion and representation mounted, so
too did the difficulties of continuing the emigration movement. In 1868, the ACS
again tried to lobby for federal funding to supplement the $55,000 estimated annual
cost for transporting blacks to Liberia. Specifically the requested funds would
assist the organization in carrying the mail monthly to and from Liberia, sailing
vessels, and $100 for each emigrant. Their request fell on deaf ears as the focus for
Congress was Reconstruction and maintaining political power through black
enfranchisement. In an act of desperation, the ACS sold their Illinois property of
330 acres for $8,000.
The commitment of Republicans in Congress to protect their political
interests was evident with passage of the Congressional Reorganization Act of
1869. Under this law, “the Georgia Legislature of 1868 was reconvened, the
expelled blacks reseated, and a number of Democrats purged under the terms of the
Fourteenth Amendment.” Again, victory was short lived. Drago states that “the
Congressional Reorganization Act of 1869 only delayed Bullock’s ultimate defeat.
The Democrats, with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, had reduced the Republican
vote to the point where a Democratic victory in the December 1870 elections as a
foregone conclusion.”
By January 1871, Democrats regained political power in Georgia through an
alliance of politics, propaganda, and terror. Just five years earlier, the political
environment in Georgia, at least to blacks, had become more inclusive and full of
opportunity. In the new decade, political tension, violence, and exclusion became
the new norm.
During this period of political setbacks, blacks in Georgia continued to
express an interest to emigrate from the United States. In 1871, sixty six
Georgians from Sparta and Savannah emigrated to Liberia. In 1872, 150 from
Valdosta, Sparta, Milledgeville, and Hawkinsville left for the West African nation
as well. Unbeknownst to them, they would be the last group of emigrants to leave
Georgia during Reconstruction.
With economic, social, and political conditions worsening for African
Americans in Georgia, emigration again became a popular alternative. But by the
1870s, the ACS was incapable of providing financial support to emigrants thereby
requiring blacks to rely upon themselves to organize and fund their own emigration
movement. In 1878, Martin Delany became a staunch supporter of the Liberian
Exodus Joint Stock Exchange Company comprised of black investors who
purchased a ship called the Azor to transport blacks to Liberia. As with any new
endeavor there were challenges to overcome. The leaders of the company were
unable to surmount them. First, they were unprepared to deal with the great
demand from blacks throughout the South. Over 200 blacks embarked upon the
ship, but approximately 300 potential passengers were stranded on the port with no
chance of sailing on the Azor since it made only one trip. Second, the company
was inexperienced in transporting passengers to Liberia resulting in several
individuals dying, becoming ill, or returning back to the United States. Nell Irvin
Painter offers a telling account of the failed Azor sailing in her work Exodusters:
Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction:
The apparent success of the Azor’s departure soon faded in delays,
deaths, and unexpected expenses incurred in Sierra Leone. After a
passage of forty-two days, the emigrants arrived in Liberia, short of
money and supplies. The disastrous crossing devastated the hundreds
still waiting to leave for Liberia, for the debtridden Azor made just one
trip.
Yet, despite the failures incurred by Delany and the company, blacks continued to
express an interest in emigration.
Considering the limited opportunities for transatlantic emigration, many
blacks chose to migrate to Arkansas and Kansas. In the 1870s, Benjamin “Pap”
Singleton launched a Kansas emigration movement where thousands of blacks
chose to leave the South for opportunities to own land and be self-sufficient.
While black southerners focused on Liberia, “blacks in
Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee established small colonies on the western
prairies or in Kansas cities and towns.” By 1879, “the Kansas Fever Exodus the
most remarkable migration in the United States after the Civil War – took some six
thousand Blacks from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to Kansas in the space of
a few months.”
In the late nineteenth century there was another attempt by blacks to
organize and fund an emigration movement to Liberia. Rev. Henry McNeal
Turner, who thirty years earlier had advocated for African Americans to leave the
United States, was again at the forefront of this third wave. For Turner, his “dream
came to fruition in January 1894 with the chartering of the International Migration
Society, which was owned and led by four white businessmen of
Birmingham, Alabama.”385 To fund the movement, “applicants for emigration
could join the IMS for a one dollar membership fee and then make monthly
payments of a dollar or more until they accumulated forty dollars. For that amount
the IMS promised to transport the emigrant and provide three months of support in
Liberia.”386 His society sponsored two voyages in 1895 and 1896 to Liberia
carrying a total of 500 passengers. Like the Liberian Exodus, this emigration
company was also ill prepared to transport blacks to Africa. Many of the
passengers suffered from disease and a number of them returned. Specifically,
“upon arrival on the shores of Africa, the emigrants endured another round of
confusion and disorganization on the part of the IMS.”387
The African American Emigration Movement in Georgia endured for almost
two centuries under the auspices of various organizations, supporters, and leaders.
It is a clear and resounding example of black discontentment with their political
and socioeconomic condition in American society and willingness to act in their
own self-interest. For a movement to sustain itself as long as the African American
Emigration Movement did, there must have been the continued existence of strong
motivational factors that drove blacks towards fully embracing emigration as the
only pathway towards freedom.
A major factor pushing African Americans to emigrate was the harsh and
limiting economic conditions of post-Civil War Georgia that forced many blacks
into abject poverty. White landowners used the law and terror to coerce freedmen
back into fields as paid laborers while Republican leaders in Congress ignored
pleas for blacks to acquire homesteads as a means of securing their independence
and preserving their freedom. Another reason was the lack of confidence some
blacks had in whites to support them as they transitioned to becoming citizens of
the United States. Their wariness was mostly directed to two groups, white
landowners and white politicians. Both had a vested interest in determining the
scope and depth of African American autonomy. Last, the constant presence of
racial violence and hostility dulled the luster of emancipation and eventual
citizenship. Any action taken to improve the political, social, economic, and
educational condition of blacks was countered with swift and unrelenting brutality.
The difficult and challenging transition from “slavery to freedom” did bear
positive fruit for African Americans. During Reconstruction, the building blocks
towards developing strong communities emerged-churches, schools, newspapers,
skilled professionals, advocacy organizations-all playing a major role in the
transition and transformation process. Yet, there was a significant segment of the
population, especially in Georgia, who wanted more than the United States was
willing to offer. They were tired of waiting, tired of hoping, tired of preparing for
a tomorrow reflective of the dreams they desired today. In Liberia, blacks would
not be regulated to second class citizenship nor be at the mercy of white
landowners and politicians. In Liberia, they could live as free people who were the
masters of their own destiny. This is the story of the thousands of black Georgians
who, during Reconstruction, looked eastward to find home.
