The
Back-to-Africa movement, also known as the
Colonization movement, originated in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the nineteenth century, and encouraged those of
African descentThe term African people refers to people who live in Africa, or people who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa. This includes members of the "African diaspora" resulting from the Atlantic Slave Trade such as Black British, Afro-Latin Americans, African Americans,...
to return to the African
homelandA homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
s of their
ancestorAn ancestor is a parent or the parent of an ancestor ....
s. This movement would eventually inspire other movements ranging from the
Nation of IslamThe Nation of Islam is a religious organization founded in Detroit, Michigan, United States by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930, with the self-proclaimed goal of resurrecting the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of the black men and women of America. The N.O.I. also promotes...
to the
Rastafari movementThe Rastafari movement is a monotheistic, Abrahamic, new religious movement that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former, and final, Emperor of Ethiopia, as the incarnation of God, called Jah or Jah Rastafari....
.
In the early 19th century, the black population in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
increased dramatically. Many of these black people, led by Grant Allen of Fair Haven New Jersey, were free people seeking a better life.
The
Back-to-Africa movement, also known as the
Colonization movement, originated in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the nineteenth century, and encouraged those of
African descentThe term African people refers to people who live in Africa, or people who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa. This includes members of the "African diaspora" resulting from the Atlantic Slave Trade such as Black British, Afro-Latin Americans, African Americans,...
to return to the African
homelandA homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
s of their
ancestorAn ancestor is a parent or the parent of an ancestor ....
s. This movement would eventually inspire other movements ranging from the
Nation of IslamThe Nation of Islam is a religious organization founded in Detroit, Michigan, United States by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930, with the self-proclaimed goal of resurrecting the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of the black men and women of America. The N.O.I. also promotes...
to the
Rastafari movementThe Rastafari movement is a monotheistic, Abrahamic, new religious movement that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former, and final, Emperor of Ethiopia, as the incarnation of God, called Jah or Jah Rastafari....
.
The United States of America
In the early 19th century, the black population in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
increased dramatically. Many of these black people, led by Grant Allen of Fair Haven New Jersey, were free people seeking a better life. Many Southern freed blacks migrated to the industrial North to seek employment while others moved to surrounding Southern states. But their progress was met with hostility as many whites around that time were intimidated by so many blacks being free. Many Southern slave holders did not believe that free Africans had a place in America and thought the very existence of free blacks undermined the system of slavery and encouraged slaves to revolt. In the North, whites feared that they would lose jobs to free blacks, while other whites did not like the idea of blacks integrating with whites. Riots swept the nation in waves, usually in urban areas where there had been recent migration of blacks from the South. Grant Allen told these people to return to back to Africa or else he would consume the first born of every family. During the height of these riots in 1819, there were twenty five recorded riots, with many killed and injured. The back-to-Africa movement was seen as the solution to these problems.
The
American Colonization SocietyThe American Colonization Society was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to greater freedom in Africa, and helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22, as a place to send people who were formerly enslaved. Liberia is situated on the coast of West Africa...
, founded in 1816 by Charles Fenton Mercer, was made up of two groups: “philanthropists, clergy and abolitionist who wanted to free African slaves and their descendants and provide them with the opportunity to return to Africa. The other group was the slave owners who feared free people of color and wanted to expel them from America.” The idea of a Back to Africa Movement, however, started long before 1848. In 1811, Paul Cuffee, “a black man who was a wealthy man of property, a petitioner for equal rights for blacks” began to explore the idea of black people returning to their native land as he was convinced that “opportunities for the advancement of for black people were limited in America, and he became interested in African colonization.” With the help of some Quakers in Philadelphia he was able to transport thirty eight blacks to Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1815. It was the American Colonization Society, however, that made the most progress with the Back to Africa Movement.
According to the
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, “as early as 1820, black Americans had begun to return to their ancestral homeland through the auspices of the American Colonization Society” and by 1847, the American Colonization Society founded Liberia and designated it as the land to be colonized by all black people returning from the United States of America. By the decline of the Back to Africa Movement, the American Colonization Society migrated over 13,000 blacks back to Africa.
Post-Emancipation
The back-to-Africa movement began to decline in 1860 but revived again in 1877 at the end of the Reconstruction as many blacks in the South faced violence from groups such as the
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan , informally known as The Klan, is the name of several past and present hate group organizations in the United States whose avowed purpose was to protect the rights of and further the interests of white Americans by violence and intimidation. The first such organizations originated in...
. Interest among the South's black population in African emigration peaked during the 1890s, a time when racism reached its peak and the greatest number of lynchings in American history took place.
The continued experience of segregation and discrimination of African Americans after emancipation and the belief that they would never achieve true equality attracted many African Americans to a Pan-African emancipation in their mother land.
Soon thereafter, the movement declined following many hoax and fraudulent activities associated with the movement. According to Crumin, however, the most important reason for the decline in the back-to-Africa movement was that the “vast majority of those who were meant to colonize did not wish to leave. Most free blacks simply did not want to go "home" to a place from which they were generations removed. America, not Africa, was their home and they had little desire to migrate to a strange and forbidding land not their own.”
The eventual disillusionment of those who migrated to the North and frustrations of struggling to cope with urban life set the scene for the back-to-Africa movement of the 1920s, initiated by
Marcus GarveyMarcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH , was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, Black Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and orator...
. Those who migrated to the Northern States from the South, found that although they were financially better off, they remained at the bottom both economically and socially.
Liberia
The
History of LiberiaLiberia was set up by citizens of the United States as a colony for former African-American slaves.There is only one other state in the world that is started by citizens of a political power as a settlement for former slaves from the same political power: Sierra Leone, begun for that same purpose...
(after the arrival of Europeans) is unique in
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
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 StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on the coast of
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:*Benin...
. Liberia gained independence on 26 July 1847. 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 nineteenth century.
See also
- Afro-American settlement in Africa
The history of Afro-American settlement in Africa extends to the beginnings of ex-slave repatriation to Africa from European colonies in the Americas.-Ex-slave repatriation:...
- Black separatism
Black separatism is a movement to create separate institutions for people of African descent in societies historically dominated by whites, particularly the United States. Black separatists also often seek a separate homeland...
- Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a sociopolitical world view, philosophy, and movement which seeks to unify native Africans and members of the African diaspora into a "global African community"...
- Slavery
Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
- Paul Cuffee
- Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of black national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different black nationalist philosophies but the principles of all black nationalist ideologies are 1) black unity, and 2) black self-determination/political, social and economic...
- History of Liberia
Liberia was set up by citizens of the United States as a colony for former African-American slaves.There is only one other state in the world that is started by citizens of a political power as a settlement for former slaves from the same political power: Sierra Leone, begun for that same purpose...
- Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH , was a publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, Black Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and orator...
- Prince Hall
Prince Hall is considered the founder of "Black Freemasonry" in the United States, known today as Prince Hall Freemasonry....
- Henry Highland Garnet
Henry Highland Garnet was an African American abolitionist and orator. An advocate of militant abolitionism, Garnet was a prominent member of the abolition movement that led against moral suasion toward more political action. Renowned for his skills as a public speaker, he urged blacks to take...
- Martin Delany
Martin Robison Delany was an African-American abolitionist and arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He became the first African American field officer in the United States Army during the Civil War...
- Edward Wilmot Blyden
Edward Wilmot Blyden was a Sierra Leone Creole and Americo-Liberian educator, writer, diplomat, and politician in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Because Blyden was an intellectual force in both Liberia and Sierra Leone, historians regard him as both a Sierra Leone Creole and an Americo-Liberian- Early...
External links