Chapter 16: A Movement Gets Underway to Send All Africans Back to Their Homelands

1816

In 1816 the American Colonization Society is formed by men, including U.S. House Speaker, Henry Clay, who regard slavery as a grievous violation of the nation’s “all men are created equal” credo.

Their answer lies in paying owners to free their captives, and then shipping them back across the Atlantic to Liberia, a West African colony they have organized.

But the massive funding required to buy freedom never materializes and only 7,000 ex-slaves settle there over the next fifty years.

Lincoln remains an advocate for colonization as late as 1859, before moving to Washington.