The American Colonization Society (ACS), formed in 1817, actualized aspirations of some African American leaders who supported repatriation and settlement of free blacks in Africa.
African American participation in the American Revolutionary War did not yield anticipated results— emancipation and justice. Two main schools of thought, migration and integration, competed as solutions to the conditions of blacks in America. Black leaders like James Forten (1766-1842) and Paul Cuffe (1759-1817) supported migration to Africa, and in 1815 Cuffe transported thirty-eight African Americans to Sierra Leone.
The ACS was formed in 1817 by prominent Americans whose ranks included Supreme Court justice Bushrod Washington (1762-1829), Presbyterian clergyman and educator Robert Finley (1772-1817), Congressman Charles Marsh (1765-1849), and lawyer and writer Francis Scott Key (1779-1843). It was also supported by President James Madison (1751-1836), Henry Clay (1777-1852), and others. In 1820 the ACS acquired a parcel of land from a local chief on Sherbro Island near Sierra Leone, and in 1821 sent the first batch of eighty-six freed slaves on the ship Elizabeth to the new settlement. Sherbro Island and its swampy surroundings exacted a high mortality rate on the African American settlers.
To save the colonization project from collapse, the ACS sent Eli Ayres to look for a healthier site for the settlers. With the help of naval Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton (1795-1866) and the armed schooner Alligator, Ayres navigated the coast of Sierra Leone and Liberia in November 1821. The two men selected territory around Cape Mesurado in Liberia as the site for the new settlement. Through persuasion and threat of force, they obtained land from the Bassa people. Ayres and the remnant of the colonists at Sherbro moved to Cape Mesurado. However, fever and conflicts with the local people made life difficult for the settlers, and Ayres and some of the colonists returned to Sierra Leone.
In August 1822, a ship carrying immigrants from Baltimore (including recaptured Africans) arrived at Cape Mesurado under the leadership of Jehudi Ashmun (1794-1828), a Methodist missionary, as the new ACS representative and colony leader. Disease and problems with the local people continued to plague the settlement. On November 11 and November 30, 1822, the colonists fought against the local people, but a peace treaty later ushered in peace and stability.
In 1823 to 1824 some of the colonists rebelled against Ashmun, accusing him of unfair allocation of town lots and rations. The conflict forced him to flee. The following year, Eli Ayres took over from Ashmun. Ayres surveyed the land around Monrovia, Liberia, and distributed some of it to the colonists. Ill with fever, Ayres returned to the United States, to be replaced by Ashmun, who restored order in the new settlements. Stricken with disease himself, Ashmun left for the Cape Verde Islands to recuperate, leaving Elijah Johnson (1780-1849) in charge.
At Cape Verde, Ashmun met Reverend Ralph Gurley (1797-1872), who ”with full power from the United States Government” was to look into the conditions of the new settlement and help set up a system of government. Ashmun returned to the colony with Gurley, and the two men worked on a constitution for the colony, which was later adopted. Gurley returned to the United States in August 1822, leaving Ashmun in charge of the colony. Ashmun continued to work in the colony for five years, until his departure for the United States on March 25, 1828. He died later that year.
By 1830, the ACS had settled 1,420 African Americans in the new colony. In 1838 colonies established by United States slave states in Liberia (the Virignia Colonization Society, the Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, and the Maryland State Colonization Society had all established colonies) merged with the colony of the ACS to become the Commonwealth of Liberia. In 1839, it adopted a new constitution and named Virginian merchant and successful military commander, Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876), lieutenant governor. He became the first African-American governor of the colony in 1841. In 1847, the colony of Liberia declared its independence.
The ACS itself struggled along for several years and became moribund in the decade before the civil war, but not before many auxiliary societies had seceded from the parent organization. In 1964 the ACS was formally dissolved due partly to the objections of African Americans and abolitionists, partly to the scale of repatriation and the expense involved, and partly to the difficulty of finding new settlements for the large African American population.
