Did Lincoln Want to Ship Black People Back to Africa?

The Root ^ | September 22, 2014 | Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage.

Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 92: When President Abraham Lincoln met with free black leaders in 1862, what did he propose?

Today marks the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s “shot heard ’round the world.” I’m referring, of course, to the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation he fired off from the White House on Sept. 22, 1862, five days after the real bullets had been fired 70 miles outside of Washington, D.C., at the Battle of Antietam (then and now the bloodiest day in American history, with close to 23,000 casualties).

What little Union victory there was in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s withdrawal from Maryland gave Lincoln the opening he needed to issue the Confederacy his ultimatum: If it remained in a state of rebellion come Jan. 1, 1863, he would sign an executive order rendering “all” of its “slaves … then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

For any student of American history, this is well-trod ground. But here’s what you may not know about those crowded days of late summer 1862. While weighing emancipation, Lincoln also had a very different kind of ultimatum on his mind—for African Americans. For much of his first years in office, Lincoln was obsessed with solving America’s seemingly intractable race problem by persuading free blacks to lead the way for an exodus that would wash the United States of the original sin of slavery—without having to live alongside those it had enslaved....

[Vendome]

Gates is offended Lincoln offered paid passage to Liberia or South America.

To him, it’s all about getting rid of blacks.

When I read this story, years ago and with Gates commentary, I understood Lincoln to be offering an array of options they might consider and it would cost them little out of pocket.

Gates colors outside the lines and divorced from reality, once again, as he continues his synthetic grievances.

[EEGator]

I thought that was Liberia.

[marron]

If someone offered me my own country on a tropical coastline, to be populated by me and like-minded people of whatever race, I’d have to consider it.

I wouldn’t complain about the injustice of it.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Was Abraham Lincoln Actually a Woman?

[dinodino]

You sure you aren’t thinking of Liberia?

[marron]

Per Wikipedia, the Brits sent slaves they freed from illegal slave ships, as well as blacks from America who fought on their side during the American Revolution, as well as blacks from various other places, Canada, London, etc.

[Gator113]

Well Gates, it might be interesting to put this “return” to a national vote...today. Do you feel lucky, Mr. Gates? Well, do you?

I am not wanting to sound racist, I simply want people to be happy. Imagine how pleased some of these folks would be to finally be living in what they see as their homeland and no longer having to put up with the country and the people they hate so much.

So Gates, the white man screwed up, lets fix that and help to get you home, where you and racist - American hating people, like you, belong.

Happy, happy, happy.....

[ruesrose]

You sure you aren’t thinking of Liberia?

Check it out on wikipedia. Liberia may have been as well. I know about Sierra Leone as I have a friend from there. She is very proud to be descended from one of those freed slaves who settled the country.

[RobbyS]

Both statements have merit, whether Lincoln said them or not. However, it can be argued that legalized intermarriage would have buffered the conflicts caused by the radical segregation policies of both North and South. by creating a sizable class of “coloreds” with property rights.

[Sherman Logan]

Pretty much what I was going to say. Thanks.

Lincoln proposed something and asked for volunteers. Yet Gates presents this as some sort of racist compulsion. AFAIK, Lincoln never once proposed making colonization compulsory. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of various other proponents of colonization such as Jefferson.

I’d also like Gates, or anybody else, to point to a single statement Lincoln made in this sales pitch that wasn’t 100% true at the time, and indeed that continues to be true to this day.

[Sherman Logan]

Sierra Leone was the British version of Liberia. Most of the slaves freed by USN and RN anti-slavery patrols were sent to these respective areas. Mostly because nobody knew how to get the slaves back to their original homes, which had often been destroyed in the slave raids anyway.

[Steamburg]

There they go trying to claim Lincoln as a Democrat, again!

[Usagi_yo]

Recollecting what I think I was taught in private grade school, Lincoln wanted the slaves to move to and form a country in liberia.

[driftless2]

If Lincoln was a racist for wondering if blacks wanted to go back to Africa, then so was Marcus Garvey.

[Baynative]

"The African country of Liberia was started as a country for freed American slaves, wasn’t it?"

Yes, and the original capitol of Monrovia was named after President James Monroe.

[marron]

Liberia already existed, from the early 1800s. But, yes, I think that was one of his ideas was to return them to Africa. At the time it probably seemed like a good idea. As it turned out, the post-war south was not a happy place for the former slaves, so an expanded Liberia, had it been backed by some investment, might not have been such a bad idea.

[Sherman Logan]

Even after making good on his ultimatum to the South in the final Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln supported one black minister’s Liberian plan while funding another venture to Ile a Vache, off Haiti, which quickly turned into a humanitarian crisis when the contracted agent, Bernard Kock, made himself “governor” and swindled the 450 black men and women he had conscripted from Fort Monroe, Va., or Freedom’s Fort, you’ll remember. Instead of building them houses, Foner writes, Kock purchased shackles for their further oppression—planting cotton outside the country.

At minimum, this is a very one-sided portrayal of this fascinating episode.

Though accounts vary, Kock appears to have been a sincere man left high and dry by his investors and the US government, neither of which followed through on their commitments.

In particular, Gates states the colonists were forced into this venture. AFAIK this is just not true. In fact, the expedition had an overabundance of volunteers who competed for space on the ship.

Here's an interesting article by one of BK's descendants.

http://thompsongenealogy.com/2011/12/bernard-kock-colonized-cow-island-with-freed-slaves/

Here's another article, from NYT, that paints a less flattering picture of BK.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/09/lincoln_s_back_to_africa_solution.5.html

[Usagi_yo]

There was investment in Liberia. I was just reading up on it.

[HandyDandy]

“I knew Fredrick Douglas. Fredrick Douglas was a friend of mine. Professor Gates ain’t no Fredrick Douglas”.

[NoLibZone]

Presenting the option to return would have been wise.