History Blog form 3 to form 6: Back-to-Africa movement

Back-to-Africa movement

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Sunday, September 3, 2017

Back-to-Africa movement

Not to be confused with American Coloni

The Back-to-Africa movement, also known as the Colonization movement or Black Zionism, originated in the United States in the 19th century. It encouraged those of African descent to return to the African homelands of their ancestors. This movement would eventually inspire other movements ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement, and proved to be popular among African-Americans.

The United States of America

Liberia

The history of Liberia (after the arrival of Europeans) is unique in Africa as it started neither as a native state nor as a European colony, but began in 1821 when private societies began founding colonies for free blacks from the United States on the coast of West Africa. The first American ships were very uncertain of where they were heading. Their plan was to follow the paths that the British had taken hand, or simply take a chance on where they would land. At first, they followed the previous routes of the British and reached the coast of Sierra Leone. After leaving Sierra Leone, the Americans slowly reached the southern part of the African coastline. Eventually, the Americans found what they were looking for, what the British called the Grain Coast. This region was called the Grain Coast because of the type of ginger spice used for medicine flavoring that it provided, which was called aframomum meleguete. In the Grain Coast, local African chiefs willingly gave the Americans tracts of land. It took the Americans the next 20 years to gain a series of fragmented settlements across Liberia's barely settled beach. Along with the difficulty of gaining enough land, life was not easy for these early settlers. Disease was rampant, along with the lack of food. Hostile tribes presented the settlers with great struggle, destroying some of their new land settlements. Almost half of the new settlers had died over the first 20 years since their arrival in Liberia.^[20] Liberia gained independence on 26 July 1847.^[21]^:5 With an elected black government and the offer of free land to African American settlers, Liberia became the most common destination of emigrating African Americans during the 19th century.^[21]^:2^[22] Once African Americans arrived in Liberia, they faced a whole host of challenges, which included broken family ties, high mortality rates, and a difficult adjustment period. A group of 43 African Americans from Christiansburg, Virginia, left for Liberia in 1830 and suffered high mortality rates. "Eighty percent of the emigrants were dead within ten years of landing there, most of them victims of malaria; another ten percent quit the colony, with the majority fleeing to Sierra Leone.^[23]African Americans who survived this period of adjustment in Liberia usually ended up liking the country.^[24]

Blacks' interest in Liberia emigration emerged when the Civil War promised the end of slavery and meaningful change to the status of Black Americans. Some 7,000 enslaved people were freed by their masters, so at that point those free African Americans left the U.S. to escape racism and have more opportunities (mainly because they had lost all hope of achievement). In the 1830s, the movement became increasingly dominated by slave owners who wanted Liberia to absorb the free blacks of the South. Slaves freed from slave ships were sent here instead of their country of origin. The emigration of free blacks to Liberia particularly increased after the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831. Middle-class blacks were more resolved to live as black Americans, many rural poor folks gave up on the United States and looked to Liberia to construct a better life. Liberia provided freedom and equality; it also represented a chance for a better life for the South's black farmers. The Liberian government promised 25 acres of free land for each immigrant family, 10 acres for a single adult, who came to the Black Republic. In the early 19th century, Liberia evoked mixed images in the minds of black Americans. They viewed Liberia as a destination for black families who left the United States in search of a better way of life, returning to their ancestral homeland of Africa.^[21]^:2–9

As noted by researcher Washington Hyde, "Black Americans - who in the time of slavery lost their original languages and much of their original culture, gained a distinctly American, English-speaking Christian identity, and had no clear idea of precisely where in the wide continent of Africa their ancestors had come from - were perceived by the natives of Liberia as foreign settlers. Having an African ancestry and a black skin color were definitely not enough. Indeed, their settlement in Liberia had much in common with the contemporary white settlement of the American Frontier and these settlers' struggle with Native American tribes (...). The Liberian experience can also be considered as anticipating that of Zionism and Israel - with Jews similarly seeking redemption through a return to an ancestral land and similarly being regarded as foreign interlopers by the local Arab tribes. It would take Americo -Liberians a century and more to become truly accepted as one of Liberia's ethnic groups(...). All of which certainly contributed to most Black Americans rejecting the Back-to-Africa option and opting instead for seeking equal rights in America."^[25]

Ex-slave repatriationEdit

Ex-slave repatriation or the immigration of African American, Caribbean, and Black British slaves to Africa occurred mainly during the late 18th century to mid-19th century. In the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone both were established by former slaves who were repatriated to Africa within a 28-year period.

Sierra Leone

The first attempt by the British government to settle people in Sierra Leone in 1787 sent 300 former slaves on the Sierra Leone peninsula in West Africa. Two years later most members of the settlement were killed off by disease and complications with the local Temne people. In 1792, a second attempt was made when 1,100 freed slaves established Freetown behind the British abolitionist
Thom.as Clarkson.

Many of these inhabitants were unhappy with where they were resettled in Canada after the American Revolution and were eager to return to their homeland.

In 1815 the first freed slaves from the United States arrived in Sierra Leone, when Paul Cuffe brought the first group of thirty-eight migrants. Five years later, in 1820, minister Daniel Coker lead a group of ninety free blacks in hopes of founding a new colony in Sierra Leone. He intended to proselytize Christianity among the Africans. After leaving New York on the ship Elizabeth, his voyage ended on an island just off the coast of Sierra Leone. Arriving just before the rains of spring, the group of immigrants were soon stricken with fever. The survivors soon fled to Freetown, and the settlement disintegrated.

The American Colonization Society came under attack from American abolitionists, who insisted that the removal of the freed slaves from the United States strengthened the institution of slavery.

The repatriation of slaves to Africa from the United Kingdom, and its dependencies, was initiated by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, and was later on taken up by the Sierra Leone Company. In time, African American Black Loyalists and West Indians would immigrate to the colony of Freetown, Sierra Leone, in smaller numbers in efforts led by black merchants or beneficiaries such as Paul Cuffe.

Notable repatriated peopleEdit

Joseph Jenkins Roberts – first President of Liberia and founding fatherThomas Peters (black leader) – African-American Black Loyalist leader and founder of Freetown, Sierra Leone William Coleman – President of LiberiaStephen Allen Benson – President of LiberiaDavid George – African-American Baptist preacherBoston King – African-American Methodist missionary Henry Washington – African-born slave to first U.S. President George Washington Daniel Coker – African-American missionary to Sierra LeoneEdward Jones (missionary) – American missionary to Sierra LeoneEdward J. Roye – President of Liberia, and first president from the True Whig Party John Russwurm – founder of Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States