Leaving their chains behind them: Freed slave colonization and emigration

Joseph Jenkins Roberts
Roberts arrived in Liberia in 1829 from Virginia.
Served as the first and seventh president of Liberia. The roots of most of our exploration of black history are deeply embedded in the enslavement of Africans brought to the New World via the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Growing up, much of what I learned from oral histories passed down in the family about my own enslaved ancestors, and in school during what was then "Negro History Week" about the enslavement of Africans in the New World, was focused on slavery in the United States, and painted as a one-way street.

It wasn't until one of my uncles mentioned a possible link between my Virginia Roberts family (my maternal grandfather's line) to the Liberia colonization, that I began to look at U.S. efforts to resolve what was described as "the Negro Problem."

While schoolbooks taught me to revere Abraham Lincoln as "The Great Emancipator," and my grandparents clung to the Republican Party since it was "the party of Lincoln," as I dug deeper into history I found more evidence of forced migration to Liberia as one of the only options for those who desired emancipation, during a time when the Black Codes were tightened, in order to limit the growth of the free black population. I was moved when I read the letters between Mars Lucas in Liberia and Townsend Heaton, his former owner in Loudoun County Virginia. Lucas writes, "...I. may state to you. that I. am much deceiv'd, with, this Country the reports, is all a lie, mearly to Encourage people. to come to this Country..."

Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln
 and the Movement for Black Resettlement For an examination of Lincoln's racial attitudes I suggest you read Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream by Lerone Bennett, Jr.'noted historian and author of "Before the Mayflower"'which sparked a furor when published in February of 2000. For more on Lincoln's support of colonization, long after his supporters claim he had abandoned the idea, I suggest Colonization after Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement, which:

explores the previously unknown truth about Lincoln's attitude toward colonization. Scholars Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page combed through extensive archival materials, finding evidence, particularly within British Colonial and Foreign Office documents, which exposes what history has neglected to reveal'that Lincoln continued to pursue colonization for close to a year after emancipation. Their research even shows that Lincoln may have been attempting to revive this policy at the time of his assassination.

It wasn't until around 10 years ago that I learned of an historical tie between Frederick Douglass and the Dominican Republic area of Samaná. It was also a few years ago that I learned about the "two-way trafffic in trade" between freed slaves in Brazil and those who returned to the West Coast of Africa, who are called "Agudas."

To learn what I found, follow me below the fold.