New Directions in the Study of African American Recolonization

This volume closely examines the movement to resettle black Americans in Africa, an effort led by the American Colonization Society during the nineteenth century and a heavily debated part of American history. Some believe it was inspired by antislavery principles, but others think it was a proslavery reaction against the presence of free Black people in society.

Moving beyond this simplistic debate, contributors link the movement to other historical developments of the time, revealing a complex web of different schemes, ideologies, and activities behind the relocation of African Americans to Liberia. They explain what colonization, emigration, immigration, abolition, and emancipation meant within nuanced nineteenth-century contexts, looking through many lenses to more accurately reflect the past.

Contributors: Eric Burin Andrew Diemer David F. Ericson Bronwen Everill Nicholas Guyatt Debra Newman Ham Matthew J. Hetrick Gale Kenny Phillip W. Magness Brandon Mills Robert Murray Sebastian N. Page Daniel Preston Beverly Tomek Andrew N. Wegmann Ben Wright Nicholas P. Wood

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller



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.

ISBN-13: 9780813080109

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Publication Date: 10-18-2022

Pages: 368

Product Dimensions: 9.25(w) x 6.13(h) x 0.82(d)

Series: Southern Dissent

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.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Never has the story of American African colonization been so thoroughly explored.”—Violet Showers Johnson, coauthor of African & American: West Africans in Post-Civil Rights America “Succeeds admirably in putting us back in touch with the diverse sources of support for the American Colonization Society. We learn much about the complex nature of human motivations and about the changes in attitudes, goals, and government policy that occurred over time.”—Paul D. Escott, author of Uncommonly Savage: Civil War and Remembrance in Spain and the United States “Thought-provoking and challenging. These deeply researched and gracefully written essays refine our understanding of this often misunderstood group.”—Douglas R. Egerton, author of Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America