Their ancestors being slaves here was the best thing to ever happen for them.
What percent of freed Negroes went to Liberia?
My father used to say that. Had they been left in Africa..and I am NOT saying it was good they were enslaved....but more likely than not they or their family lines would be killed off, starved to death, or worse by now in that war and disease ravaged country.
When Liberia was founded in the 19th century, it was very hard to find black Americans who wanted to go there. Probably a lot of it was fear of early death—colonization ventures notoriously saw a high death rate in their early years. The only world they knew was America. I have run across at least one case of a slave being offered freedom if he would then emigrate to Liberia but preferring to remain a slave in America.