American Colonization Society Collection
Selected images from the collection
Selling life memberships was a standard fund-raising
practice of societies such as the American Colonization Society.
This certificate (ca. 1840) bears a facsimile signature of
Henry Clay, a founder of the ACS and its strong advocate
in Congress. Clay succeeded former president James Madison
as president of the society, serving from 1836 to 1849.
Manuscript Division. |
|
|
For many years the ACS tried to persuade the United States
Congress to appropriate funds to send colonists to Liberia.
Although Henry Clay led the campaign, it failed. The society
did, however, succeed in its appeals to some state legislatures.
In 1850, Virginia set aside $30,000 annually for five years
to aid and support emigration.
Manuscript Division. |
During the 1830s, William Lloyd Garrison's violent condemnations
of colonization as a slaveholder's plot to perpetuate slavery
created deep hostility between abolitionists and colonizationists.
Intended to encourage emigration and answer anti-colonization
propaganda, the ACS pamphlet answers questions about household
items needed in Liberia, climate, education, health conditions,
and other concerns about the new country.
Manuscript Division. |
|
|
In this 1849 letter, President Joseph Jenkins Roberts
of Liberia appeals to the government and people of the United
States for aid in purchasing the territory of Gallinas, enabling
Liberia to control the West-African coast from Sierra Leone
to Cape Palmas. As incentive, Roberts boasts of the eradication
of the slave trade in territories recently acquired by Liberia
and points out that adding Gallinas would enable the republic
to keep the whole coast "free from the demoralizing and wilting
influence of the Slave trade."
Manuscript Division. |
Congress made the importation of slaves into the United
States illegal in 1808. In 1819, Congress passed an "Act
in addition to the acts prohibiting the Slave Trade." This
act authorized the president to send a naval squadron to
African waters to apprehend illegal slave traders and appropriated
$100,000 to resettle recaptured slaves in Africa. At various
times, the ACS entered into agreements with the U.S. government
to settle these rescued victims of the slave trade in Liberia.
Manuscript Division. |
|
[51K JPEG] |
Joseph
Jenkins Roberts, President of Liberia. Augustus McCarty,
photographer. Sixth plate daguerreotype made between 1840
and 1860.
Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction
number: LC-USZ6-1945 (b&w film copy neg. post-1992) |
"Day's
Mission, Liberia." Photographer Unknown. Photographic
print made ca. 1900.
Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction
number: LC-USZ62-91964 (b&w film copy neg.) |
[60K JPEG] |
For additional images, see the online exhibit, The
African-American Mosaic A Library of Congress Resource Guide
for the Study of Black History and Culture section
on Colonization.
Back to Collection Overview
content
|