Week 3 Returning ‘home’? 19th Century ‘Back to Africa’ movements and becoming ‘African’ Lecture Week 2

Key Issues How is Africa ‘imagined’ by those in the diaspora who took an active interest in returning ‘Back to Africa’? In what ways is Africa considered ‘home’? Was this an attempt to become ‘African’? For whom?

Outline 1. Slavery and abolition in the 19th Century Characteristics of 19th Century ‘Back to Africa’ movements: language and emotion Race Belonging Redemption 3. Sierra Leone 4. Liberia 5. Other ‘Back to Africa’ movements

Slavery and Abolition in 19th Century End of slave trade to Eur passed via legislative or judicial acts: Portugal 1761, England 1772, several New England states 1780s, and France 1794. Where slave trade abolished but slavery existed: Br Carib (1808-1838), Fr Carib (1815-1848), US (1808-1865), Cuba (1851-1886), and Brazil (1851-1888). Number of black people in slavery throughout world rose from 13 milion 1800 to as many as 30 milllion in 1860 and then declined to 11 million by 1900. Slavery abolished in Latin America: Central Am 1824, Chile 1825, Mexico 1829, Bolivia 1831

‘Back to Africa’ Motivations RACE BELONGING REDEMPTION

Race No true home possible in the Americas, no possibility for proper treatment and therefore need to return to own land Paul Cuffe’s address to ‘my scattered brethren and fellow countrymen at Sierra Leone’ Writing from Virginia in 1848, Peter Butler informed the ACS that: ‘i wish to Goy to Liberia So as I may ... ingoy the Right of man. I have tride a great meny placeis in these united state and I find that none of them is the home for the Culerd man and So I ... wish to be and Emigrant for the land of man auntsestors.’

Belonging Support among Europeans and Americans to rid their land of blacks who did not ‘belong’ Based on belief in inevitability of racial prejudice (outlined in P. J. Staudenraus text, African Colonization Movements) e.g. Henry Smeathman and beginning of Sierra Leone Co Abraham Lincoln

Redemption To rejuvenate Africa through a ‘civilizing mission’, by bringing the best intellectual and spiritual aspects of European civilization, into Africa E.g. Samuel Benedict, president of the Liberian Constitutional Convention Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912) ‘Africa’s lot resembles Him also who made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Himself the form of a servant... And if the principle laid down by Christ is... that he who would be chief must become the servant of all, then we see the position which Africa and the Africans must ultimately occupy.’ (The African Problems and the Method of its Solution Hilary Teague

Sierra Leone 1786 Henry Smeathman concocted idea based on number of black beggars noticed on streets of London. 1787 Sierra Leone colonization began 1789: local Africans burnt the settlement to the ground 1791 (30th May): Sierra Leone settlement bill passed 87 votes to 9 – est. Sierra Leone Company 1792: 1,192 men, women and children left from Nova Scotia (64 died en route) 1794: French burned Freetown down 1799: settlers revolted 1800: Jamaican Maroons go via Nova Scotia 1801: indigenous inhabitants attacked colony

Liberia Paul Cuffe (1759-1817) 1816 American Colonization Society founded 1821 Lt. Robert Stockton ‘buys’ land for Liberia 1822 Monrovia 1824 officially christened Liberia 1847 independent nation

Other ‘Back to Africa’ movements Not just an English movement. Recent interest has fallen on Afro-Brazilian returnees, a new study called Back to Africa. Volume I. Afro-Brazilian Returnees and their Communities. Cape Town. Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society, 2009. 1920s Marcus Garvey. See Colin Grant, Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey (2008) Kevin Gaines, American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era (2006)