American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society (" American Colonization Society " ) was a political party in the United States, which had set itself the goal to repatriate part of living in the States free Africa by Africans.
History
The founding of the ACS
The American Colonization Society was founded in 1816 on the initiative of the American clergyman Robert Finley back. The foundation of the company represented an attempt to satisfy two main groups in the U.S., the faced each other in the beginning of the 19th century on the issue of slavery irreconcilable.
One of the two groups consisted of philanthropists and missionaries, whose intention it was to free the African slaves and their descendants and to enable them to return to Africa. The other group consisted of slaveholders and slave traders who already staggered so the very idea of free black citizens in trouble, that she wanted to know as much as possible away from America.
Common to both groups was the belief that free blacks were impossible to integrate into white society of the United States. John Randolph, a prominent slave owners, free blacks saw nothing else, as "facilitators of social unrest ." At this time lived about 2 million blacks in the U.S., of which about ten percent were free. Even Henry Clay, a congressman from the south, who sympathized with the free blacks, admitted that due to " insurmountable prejudices " against her skin color blacks would never be given the opportunity, the whites of the country to face equally.
Another motivation for the establishment of the colonial society was that a boom with African raw materials began to emerge, so that U.S. and British merchants wanted to establish a bridgehead in Africa.
On December 21, 1816 a group of selected representatives of the white upper class gathered establishing the company in the Davis Hotel in Washington DC Among other things, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key and Daniel Webster were present. Henry Clay chaired the inaugural meeting.
The first years
In the following three years, the company gained experience mainly through the sale of membership certificates considerable sums. In addition, members of the Colonial Society Congress and the President -pressed to support the company financially. So it was that they received the sum of $ 100,000 by Congress in 1819. In January 1820 eventually won the first ship, the Elizabeth, from New York to West Africa in the lake. On board were three white leaders of colonial society, and black 88 " returnees ".
The Liberia Project
Thanks to American and British military actions, the ACS received a concession on the West African coast, which has been called the Pepper Coast. The original calculus of ACS who use across transported slaves as cheap labor from America did not pan out. Instead, set up this with borrowed capital itself and trading houses built in Liberia a system of government that was based on forced labor and oppression, as they themselves had learned it the hard way in the U.S.. Over the decades, formed from it, the political elite of Liberia, which did not let the initial population of the country to share in the power.
Other colonies in Africa and North America
Already in 1829 was modeled on the ACS the Indiana Colonization Society. Also, this organization had the goal of African- Americans to create a new homeland, in this case, the Indiana Territory was chosen in the center of the North American continent, as it was realized that the repatriation to Africa can only be for a limited period and persons would be. Same time, several states had voted for their own projects on the West African coast in the ACS, but of these only managed Maryland in Liberia, a short self- governmental development before it went up in the State of Liberia.
The independence of Liberia
On July 26, 1847 First Congress of Liberia declared the independence of the country. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the former governor, was elected the first president. The political power remained at the expense of indigenous peoples in the hands of immigrants from the United States freed slave, a kind of "black" apartheid erected later. The hasty state independence of the colony was required, as the leading European colonial powers, Britain and France continued the ACS Governors in Monrovia under pressure, a substantial part of the income of the colony of Liberia came from these countries and has been " earned " with duties and fees. The Declaration of Independence of Liberia but had the consequence that a part of the American sponsor of the ACS saw reached their goals and the company withdrew financial support. The internal political situation in the U.S. has had a negative impact on the ACS, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which came into force caused great resentment, because it extended the rights of slaveholders and slaves catchers in terms of escaped slaves. With state recognition of Liberia in 1862 by the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, the number of over settlement consent African Americans rose again. One reason may be sought in the course of the American Civil War (1861-1865), won in the first, the Southern military successes. During this time, the Underground Railway, a secret organization that escaped and pursued African- Americans helped her escape to the North arose.
The ACS in the 20th century
In the 1920s, the ratio of the ACS to the Liberian government deteriorated. As a true low point of Fernando Po scandal, this blatant evidence of systematic human rights violations came up before the League of Nations and had a global ban Liberia result. A second indication was the declining willingness to admission of emigrants by the Liberian government. It apparently feared in Monrovia, by the re- growing influx of immigrants to the liberal-minded own power.
The ACS was as an organization in the United States until 1964. When they broke up, gave you the extensive archive material to the State Archives, Library of Congress. The almost complete collection contains the data of almost all moved to Liberia persons as well as extensive documentary material about the history of Liberia and the United States.
Publications of the ACS
The ACS has published as editor of the monthly magazine, The African Repository a variety of letters, reports and documents on the history of Liberia, Sierra Leone and the United States, this material is almost completely to Google Books searched for the period from 1821 to the early 1840s.
- Edward Wilmot Blyden: Hope for Africa, Liberia 's offering: being addresses, sermons, etc. New York, 1862, p 167 (as digitized on Google Books)
- J. W. Lugenbeel: The republic of Liberia: its geography, climate, soil and productions, witha a history of its early settlements. G. S. Stockwell, New York 1868, p 299 (as digitized on Google Books)
Personalities of the ACS
- Henry Clay (1777-1852), an influential politician, co-founder and first president of the ACS
- Lott Carey (1780-1828), first African -American missionary ( Providence Baptist Church ), founder of the first churches and schools in Monrovia - Governor of the ACS 1828
- Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876), businessman and entrepreneur, Governor of the ACS and the first president of Liberia
- Bushrod Washington (1762-1829), Constitutional Court judge and politician, co-founder of the ACS
- Samuel Wilkeson (1781-1848), mayor of the city of Buffalo (NY) - General Agent (CEO ) of the ACS since 1838