John Latrobe

Maryland Historical Society

In the context of African-American history before the Civil War, colonization referred to the various proposals and schemes to resettle black people outside the United States, usually in Africa. The Maryland State Colonization Society had the particular distinction of being a quasi-governmental agency, funded for twenty-seven years by the state without regard to constitutional barriers to such arrangements. The Society acquired and managed a territory in Africa to which it sent about a thousand settlers, the majority from Maryland. In the process it generated a powerful propaganda of black nationalism which would have an influence far beyond Maryland for generations.

From the earliest days of slavery in America, Africans dreamed of returning to their fatherland. Africa remained a symbol of freedom even as slaves became more tightly bound to their American identity. With the Revolution and founding of the American Republic, opposition to slavery became more pronounced, and in some areas slavery became less prevalent. By contrast, the use of slaves in production remained lucrative in other areas and the institution expanded. Individuals with a compromising turn of mind, who sought ways to end slavery, viewed Africa as the natural place to settle American blacks, out of reach of oppression, in a place where their experience of civilization could rescue heathen and barbarous Africans from the devastation caused by the slave trade. Others, who supported slavery, saw Africa as a place where unwanted former slaves could be packed off, where they would do no harm to the stability of the slave community.

The American Colonization Society
Sporadic proposals and projects crystallized into a national political movement in 1816. At the end of the year, representatives from all over the country met in the hall of the House of Representatives in Washington to create an organization with the express purpose of resettling African Americans in West Africa. The American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States--soon shortened to the American Colonization Society--embarked on this program with broad support from parties who would soon find themselves in bitter conflict. The new organization glossed over the question of slavery, however, and in the interest of expedience, everyone worked together. An initial venture in 1820 was a disaster, but a second expedition to Africa in 1822 succeeded in acquiring a tract of land at Cape Mesurado, where they established the city of Monrovia.

The American Colonization Society spawned numerous local affiliates. These raised money and solicited emigrants for the new colony. One such auxiliary colonization society existed in Baltimore as early as 1818. This was the pet of Robert Goodloe Harper, a Revolutionary War veteran, sometime Congressman from South Carolina, and later a prominent Baltimore lawyer. He had participated in the first meetings of the national organization in Washington and believed that colonization offered a way to end slavery. He brought into the organization his young clerk, John Latrobe, son of the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Together they drafted the map that named "Liberia" and its main town "Monrovia."

Maryland Society Attempts Colonization
The Maryland Auxiliary Colonization Society was a sporadic organization during its first few years; its fortunes rose and fell with shifts in public opinion regarding slavery. In the 1820s, they helped send a few Baltimoreans to Haiti, but many of them returned. In 1827, they persuaded two prominent members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Remus Harvey and George McGill to emigrate to Liberia, but most of Baltimore's black population opposed the scheme. They resented a group of powerful white men telling them that they had no future in America, where they and their ancestors had struggled for freedom and where their unpaid labor had made such white men rich. They suspected that Liberia was a poor place indeed, or even a pretext to sell them into slavery someplace else.

The Society languished until 1831, when Nat Turner's Rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, not so far away, reminded Marylanders that an unhappy, oppressed racial minority could explode into violence. Suddenly, colonization gained wide acceptance as a means of preventing similar outbreaks in Maryland. Slaveowners offered to send their property to Africa; free blacks came forward, fearing reprisals from paranoid whites. The Maryland General Assembly chartered the local society with a grant of $10,000 per annum, to be continued for 20 years, with authorization to create a new colony in Africa, if necessary, to accommodate the state's black population.

Dissenting Views
Colonization got a boost in Maryland, but the national organization foundered. The colony more than doubled its population in a year. The American Colonization Society could not handle so many requests to emigrate. It almost bankrupted itself arranging their transportation, and the mortality in Africa was devastating. Members of the Society fell to arguing whether the purpose of their organization was to end slavery or make slave property more secure by removing the threat of free black people. William Lloyd Garrison initiated his attack on colonization about the same time. The American Colonization Society's annual meeting in January 1833 was so contentious the Maryland delegation believed they had no course but to withdraw and create their own colony.

Prominent Baltimoreans Devise a Plan
Over the next ten months, they devised a plan of government and a code of laws, largely the work of Latrobe and the jurist Hugh Davey Evans. The Quaker Moses Sheppard was of counsel throughout the process and was instrumental in creating the temperance standard. Solomon Etting, Charles Howard , and other prominent Baltimoreans also lent their assistance in the theoretical and logistical preparations for an expedition which would have to get under way in November. The Society hired Dr. James Hall, a physician with two years experience in Liberia to lead their expedition. They chartered the brig Ann and enlisted a group of eighteen emigrants, who represented a cross-section of slave and free Marylanders from diverse parts of the state. After delays, the ship left Baltimore on November 27, 1833.

The Ann finally reached Cape Palmas, close to the present border of Liberia and the Ivory Coast on February 11, 1834. Dr. Hall was able to quickly negotiate the purchase of rights to share the territories of three Grebo states in the vicinity and settlers quickly went ashore to lay out a town and farm plots, thus putting into action months of speculative planning. From the first day of settlement, there evolved a struggle between the idealistic policies of the Society, the practical needs of the colony, and the aspirations of settlers.

Despite Debt, Society Funded by General Assembly
The Society threw itself into debt to mount the first expedition, and for most of its existence thereafter it was barely solvent. Abolitionists mounted their withering attack on colonization at the same time the Society was beginning its most active phase of operation. As mentioned, black Marylanders were skeptical of colonization, and the Society had a difficult time persuading anyone that emigration was a good thing. They persevered, however, sending canvassers throughout the state to solicit emigrants and raise money. They also generated an extensive printed propaganda under the direction of James Hall, who believed that black Americans in Africa could develop a great nation.

In 1853, the Society succeeded in having its annual grant from the General Assembly continued for another seven years. In 1854, twenty years after their colony's establishment, the Society granted independence to Maryland in Liberia, which relieved it of the expense of governing the place. The state grant was continued again in 1860, but the outbreak of the Civil War effectively ended their operations. Afterwards, the remnants of the Society administered an educational fund in James Hall's name.

The records of the Maryland State Colonization Society are preserved at the Maryland Historical Society. Indeed, the first meeting of the Historical Society was held in the Colonization Rooms in 1847, a storefront still standing at the corner of Mulberry Street and Park Avenue in Baltimore City. The colonizationists believed that their activities in Africa were of great historical significance, and they volunteered their archive to the Historical Society almost at its creation.

Wiley, Bell I., ed. Slaves No More: Letters from Liberia, 1833-1869. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, c1980.

Putnam, Lewis H. A review of the cause and the tendency of the issues between the two sections of the country, with a plan to consolidate the views of the people of the United States in favor of emigration to Liberia… Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1859.

Hynson, Jerry M. Maryland Freedom Papers. Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1996.

Beyan, Amos J. The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900. Lanham: University Press of America, c1991.