History Conversations | The Maryland Colonization Society

With Jim Johnston| Virtual Event|

 

African colonization today is considered a misguided blip in American racial history, but it is an instructive, misguided blip worth studying as in recent times the United States has been sending aliens “back to where they came from.” In 1816, the America Colonization Society (ACS) was founded to establish colonies for free, African Americans. A year later, the Maryland Society was formed as a fundraising arm of the ACS. The colonization movement brought together odd bedfellows. On the one hand were Northern liberals who feared a biracial society was not possible. On the other hand were Southern enslavers who wanted to get rid of free Blacks, whom were said to be the rabblerousers behind slave rebellions. With help from President James Monroe, ACS began a settlement at Monrovia, Liberia. About 6,000 Americans moved there. In 1832, the Maryland society secured funding from the state legislature and began settling people at Cape Palmas, four hundred miles to the south. Only 1,100 went there with the vestige of the colony now called “Maryland County, Liberia.” Jim Johnston personalizes this overlooked racial history by focusing on the experiences of Mary Ann Tritt Cassell, a Georgetown woman of mixed race who went to Cape Palmas.