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‘Destiny seems to point me to that country’: early nineteenth-century African American migration, emigration, and expansion*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2012

Bronwen Everill
Bronwen Everill
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Warwick, Humanities Building, University Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK E-mail: B.Everill@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

Traditional American historiography has dismissed the Liberian settlement scheme as impractical, racist, and naïve. The movement of Americans to Liberia, and other territorial and extraterritorial destinations, however, reveals the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that influenced movement in the African diaspora. The reaction of different African Americans to these factors influenced the political and social development of Liberia as well as the colony's image at home. Africans migrating within and beyond US borders participated in a broader movement of people and the development of settler ideology in the nineteenth century.

Keywords

African AmericanemigrationexpansionLiberiasettler society
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 53 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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133 Ibid., p. 174.

134 Winks, Blacks in Canada, p. 143.

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