African American Colonial Society In The 1800s

American Colonial Society

The colonization movement, the relocating of African Americans from the mainstream of white American society, had its beginnings in the eighteenth century. As early as 1713, Quaker abolitionists begun to advocate that freed blacks be returned to African; and later by blacks, themselves, around 1787 by the likes of Anthony Benezet and Benjamin Rush. Some plans that later emerged, included the establishment of a separate colony for blacks west of the Mississippi River, others called for the “new” black colony to be located in Mexico or South America, and others for the location to be in Africa, the land blacks originated from. In addition, during this period, some free blacks would petition the legislatures of their colonies for return to their homelands. In the early 1800s, Paul Cuffe, of Massachusetts, a free black shipping merchant, became an active participant in the colonization movement. Cuffe did not believe that blacks living in the United States would ever receive the same rights and privileges of whites. Africa, to him, seemed the idea location for African
William Lloyd Garrison, the impassionate abolitionist, was at first in support of the idea, too. However, later, in 1832, he attacked the American Colonization Society with his denunciations in his pamphlet, Thoughts on African Colonization. The colonization movement had many forms and plans that would be the source of disagreements among blacks for years to come. In fact, during the early years of the movement, the concepts of emancipation and colonization were widely interpreted and confusing to whites as well. By this time, English abolitionists, that included William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, had established a colony in Sierra Leone, Africa for blacks from England, and those “Black Loyalists” who found life too oppressive in Nova