Establishment of Liberia as the First Settlement by Society

From around 1800, in the United States, people opposed to slavery were planning ways to liberate more slaves and, ultimately, to abolish the practice. At the same time, slaveholders in the South opposed having free blacks in their states, as they believed the free people threatened the stability of their slave societies. Slaves were gradually freed in the North, although more slowly than generally realized; there were hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 census, and in New Jersey, in the 1860 census. The former slaves and other free blacks suffered considerable social and legal discrimination; they were not citizens and were seen by many as unwanted foreigners who were taking jobs away from white people by working for less. Like Southern states, some Northern states and territories severely restricted or prohibited altogether entry by free blacks. This was, for example, the case in Illinois, and was proposed for Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. Some abolitionists, including distinguished blacks such as ship builder Paul Cuffe (or Cuffee), believed that blacks should return to 'the African homeland', as if it were one ethnicity and country, despite many having generations of ancestors living in the United States. Cuffe's dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves 'could establish a prosperous colony in Africa,' one based on emigration and trade. In 1811, Cuffe founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a cooperative black group intended to encourage 'the Black Settlers of Sierra Leone, and the Natives of Africa generally, in the Cultivation of their Soil, by the Sale of their Produce.' As historian Donald R. Wright put it, 'Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel each year to Sierra Leone, transporting African-American settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products.' However, Cuffe died in 1817, and with him his project. The first ship of the American Colonization Society, the Elizabeth, departed New York on February 6, 1820, for West Africa carrying 86 settlers. Between 1821 and 1838, the American Colonization Society developed the first settlement, which would be known as Liberia. On July 26, 1847, Liberia declared itself a (free) sovereign nation.