Back to Africa Movement

The 19th Century

One of the earliest organized efforts to advance emigration to Africa was led by Paul Cuffe, a wealthy African American businessman. Born in 1759 near Bedford, Massachusetts, Cuffe became an avid sailor, traveling extensively to and from West Africa during the early 1800s. In 1811, he visited Sierra Leone, where he began to forge ties with the nation's leaders and arrange plans for relocation. Convinced that African Americans could not live without discrimination in the United States, Cuffe worked tirelessly to recruit black men and women willing to emigrate. In 1815, he successfully led a group of 38 Africans from the United States to Sierra Leone, using his own funds to cover expenses. While his plans for additional trips fell through as a result of his untimely death in 1817, his actions sparked a growing interest in emigration. In the years following Cuffe's voyage, the Back to Africa movement gained significant momentum throughout the United States.

One of the most significant efforts to send African Americans back to Africa was led by members of the American Colonization Society (ACS). A religious organization, the ACS was initially founded in 1816 by Reverend Robert Finley and a coalition of white slave owners and Quakers who opposed slavery in the United States. Finley, a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey, believed that slavery was a national sin and openly called for its abolition. While Finley and the other members of the ACS supported abolitionism, they maintained certain racial prejudices and founded the organization on the premise that blacks and whites could not peacefully coexist.

Believing that emigration was the next viable step after abolitionism, members of the ACS played a central role in relocating African [Page 310]Americans to West Africa. Between the period of 1817 and 1866, the ACS sent an estimated 13,000 African Americans to Liberia and established the nation as a colony for free blacks in 1847. During the Civil War and the early years of Reconstruction, emigration from the United States to Liberia gradually declined as African American leaders such as Frederick Douglass openly criticized the ACS and African Americans’ efforts to relocate.

The history of Liberia is unique and began when private societies started founding colonies for free blacks from the United States. Liberia had an elected black government and offered free land to African American settlers, making Liberia the most common destination for emigrating African Americans in the 19th century. American influence is often seen in the culture and architecture of Liberia. This former Masonic lodge is located in Monrovia, Liberia.

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