1817

The American Colonization Society was made up of white men from the North and the South. They believed that free Blacks and enslaved Blacks could not populate the same area. Colonization was their answer to this problem. For the next 30 years, they worked to create a colony on the west coast of Africa where free blacks could live in peace. In 1847, it became the nation of Liberia. More than 12,000 freeborn and formerly enslaved Black Americans immigrated to Liberia by 1861.