According to the author, Liberia's story begins not in Africa but in the United States and its struggle to deal with the race problem. A fast growing black population, both slave and free, coupled with slave uprisings, spread near paranoia in some areas. It also strengthened the resolve of many Americans who were intent on abolishing slavery and for a number of them wanting to bring Christianity and "civilization" to the entire continent of Africa. Most of this country's leaders (including President Abraham Lincoln) saw the answer to these problems in colonization. The colony would be Liberia. Reese begins his chronicle with the story of a remarkable individual, a mulatto named Paul Cuffe, born on a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts, who can be said to be the "spiritual father" of Liberia.The author details the rise of the idea of colonization, creation of the American Colonization Society, and the society's quest to find a home for the colony. He traces the birth Of Liberia in 1821, and its progression from colony (although never formally declared as such by the United States) to commonwealth to Africa's first independent republic in 1847. It was a progression marked by deadly fevers, threats of starvation, and clashes and wars with the native Africans. The author moves on to chart the vicissitudes of the republic as it grappled with financial crises, tribal wars, scandals, accusations of slavery, and the emergence of a society based on inequality and discrimination. Not to mention fending off the rapacious advances of European powers in their "scramble for Africa." The last several chapters center on William Tubman's twenty-seven-year presidency, the iron ore-fueled economic bonanza and resultant "growth without development," the mounting unrest against the long-term rule of the America-Liberian colonists, and its conclusion in the bloody military coup in 1980. Reese in closing points out that the end of Americo-Liberian 130 year-old dominance over the vastly larger native African population fired hopes for a better future. A new constitution was adopted, and the new regime held elections. But the country still would have to endure two decades of brutal rule, of warring tribes and military factions, a devastating civil war, and an Ebola epidemic of epic severity before the future brightened at all. With the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female head of state, followed by the democratic election of her successor as president, one can hope that America's African step child, having suffered a painfully uncertain childhood, will now emerge as a mature, diverse nation ready to take its rightful place in the family of nations. The book's approach to telling Liberia's history is different from most histories. It includes healthy doses of socioeconomic and cultural discussions and biographical sketches of important figures in Liberia's history. Some such as Robert F. Stockton and Marcus Garvey are not generally associated with Liberia. The firsthand accounts from unpublished diaries, long-out of print books, and newspapers and other periodicals can be fascinating--- especially those of the battles between the settlers and natives and the interactions of the missionary-minded founders and the tribal "kings" (chiefs). An entire chapter is devoted To Benjamin Anderson's observations on his epic 1868 explorations.Finally, Reese includes brief background pieces on various subjects in the book (e.g., slavery, Liberia's military, secret societies, etc.) that can be read or skipped depending on the reader's interests.

In nineteenth-century America, the belief that blacks and whites could not live in social harmony and political equality in the same country led to a movement to relocate African Americans to Liberia, a West African colony established by the United States government and the American Colonization Society in 1822. In The Price of Liberty, Claude Clegg accounts for 2,030 North Carolina blacks who left the state and took up residence in Liberia between 1825 and 1893. By examining both the American and African sides of this experience, Clegg produces a textured account of an important chapter in the historical evolution of the Atlantic world. For almost a century, Liberian emigration connected African Americans to the broader cultures, commerce, communication networks, and epidemiological patterns of the Afro-Atlantic region. But for many individuals, dreams of a Pan-African utopia in Liberia were tempered by complicated relationships with the Africans, whom they dispossessed of land. Liberia soon became a politically unstable mix of newcomers, indigenous peoples, and "recaptured" Africans from westbound slave ships. Ultimately, Clegg argues, in the process of forging the world's second black-ruled republic, the emigrants constructed a settler society marred by many of the same exclusionary, oppressive characteristics common to modern colonial regimes.

The enthralling story of the eleven hundred brave souls who chose to emigrate back to the west coast of Africa under the auspices of the Maryland Colonization Society. In spite of terrible hardships, the colonists created a settlement that exists to this day.

Winner of the 2020 Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award from the Public Address Division of the National Communication Association The African colonization movement occupies a troubling rhetorical territory in the struggle for racial equality in the United States. For white colonizationists, the movement seemed positioned as a welcome compromise between slavery and abolition. For free blacks, colonization offered the hope of freedom, but not within America's borders. Bjørn F. Stillion Southard indicates how politics and identity were negotiated amid the intense public debate on race, slavery, and freedom in America. Operating from a position of power, white advocates argued that colonization was worthy of massive support from the federal government. Stillion Southard pores over the speeches of Henry Clay, Elias B. Caldwell, and Abraham Lincoln, which engaged with colonization during its active deliberation. Between Clay's and Caldwell's speeches at the founding of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1816 and Lincoln's final public effort to encourage colonization in 1862, Stillion Southard analyzes the little-known speeches and writings of free blacks who wrestled with colonization's conditional promises of freedom. He examines an array of discourses to probe the complex issues of identity confronting free blacks who attempted to meaningfully engage in colonization efforts. From a peculiarly voiced "Counter Memorial" against the ACS to the letters of wealthy black merchant Louis Sheridan negotiating for his passage to Liberia to the civically minded orations of Hilary Teage in Liberia, Stillion Southard brings to light the intricate rhetoric of blacks who addressed colonization to Africa.

Freedmen — Liberia — Correspondence.
African Americans — Colonization — Liberia.
Liberia — History — To 1847 — Sources.
Liberia — History — 1847-1944 — Sources.