New Directions in the Study of African American Recolonization

Examining the nineteenth-century movement to resettle Black Americans in Africa

This volume closely examines the movement to resettle Black Americans in Africa, an effort led by the American Colonization Society during the nineteenth century. Over a century later, the subject remains vigorously debated: while some believe recolonization was inspired by antislavery principles, others view it as a proslavery reaction against the presence of free Black people in society.

Moving beyond this simple duality, the contributors to this volume link the movement to other historical developments of the time, revealing a complex web of different schemes, ideologies, alliances, and motives behind the relocation of African Americans to Liberia and other parts of Africa. Considering the perspectives of both Black and white Americans, as well as indigenous Africans, these essays address the many religious, political, and social aspects that influenced the recolonization project. Within nuanced nineteenth-century contexts, the contributors explain what colonization, emigration, immigration, abolition, and emancipation meant to the many different factions that supported or opposed recolonization.

Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Beverly C. Tomek, associate provost for curriculum and student achievement and associate professor of history at the University of Houston-Victoria, is the author of Colonization and Its Discontents: Emancipation, Emigration, and Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania.

Matthew J. Hetrick is a history teacher at The Bryn Mawr School.