Well Known Abolitionists
...ipated slaves and free black people to Liberia. Prominent black abolitionists initially shared this positive assessment of the ACS. They were part of a black nationalist tradition dating back at least to Prince Hall (prominent black abolitionist of the 1770s), that disappointed with the repeated rebuffs from white people, endorsed black Americans migration to Africa. During the early 1800s, the most prominent advocate of the point of view was Paul Cuffe of Massachusetts. The ACS argument that appealed to Cuffe and many other African Americans was that white prejudice would never allow black people to enjoy full citizenship, equal protection under the law, and economic success in the United States. Black people born in America could enjoy equal rights only in the continent of their ancestors. AME Church bishop Daniel Coker led the first eighty-six African-American colonists to Liberia in 1820. Pro-ACS sentiment was especially strong among African Americans in Coker’s home city of Baltimore and other Chesapeake urban areas. Despite the efforts of such Black Nationalist advocates as Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummel, only about ten thousand African-American immigrants had gone there by 1860. Other African Americans saw Haiti as a potential refuge from the oppression they suffered in the United States and by the end of the 1820s, between eight and thirteen thousand African Americans had arrived there. But African Americans found Haitian culture to be more alien then they had anticipated so, by 1826 about one-third of the emigrants had returned back to the US. Some African Americans had always opposed overseas colonization. As early as 1817, such influential black leaders as James Forten were wavering their support of the ACS. As the racist and proslavery nature of the organization became clear, northern black and white abolitionists called for immediate, uncompensated general emancipation that would not force former slaves to leave the United States. Black women, of course, joined black men in opposing slavery. When considering their role, we need to remember that the United States in the early nineteenth century was a society with a rigid gender hierarchy. One of the most striking and controversial women abolitionists was Maria Stewart. She had a brief but striking career as an abolitionist, feminist, and advocate of racial justice. In 1830, she caught up with the Second Great Awakening and was determined to dedicate herself to Christian benevolence. When William L. Garrison (a young white abolitionist and temperance advocate who became the most influential of all the American antislavery leaders) began publishing the Liberator in 1831, she began visiting him in his office and he later published her pamphlet, which advocated abolition and bla...