The African-American Emigration Movement in Georgia During Reconstruction
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History Summer 6-20-2011 The African-American Emigration Movement in Georgia during Reconstruction Falechiondro Karcheik Sims-Alvarado Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Sims-Alvarado, Falechiondro Karcheik, "The African-American Emigration Movement in Georgia during Reconstruction." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/29 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN GEORGIA DURING RECONSTRUCTION by FALECHIONDRO KARCHEIK SIMS-ALVARADO Under the Direction of Hugh Hudson ABSTRACT This dissertation is a narrative history about nearly 800 newly freed black Georgians who sought freedom beyond the borders of the Unites States by emigrating to Liberia during the years of 1866 and 1868. This work fulfills three overarching goals. First, I demonstrate that during the wake of Reconstruction, newly freed persons’ interest in returning to Africa did not die with the Civil War. Second, I identify and analyze the motivations of blacks seeking autonomy in Africa. Third, I tell the stories and challenges of those black Georgians who chose emigration as the means to civil and political freedom in the face of white opposition. In understanding the motives of black Georgians who emigrated to Liberia, I analyze correspondence from black and white Georgians and the white leaders of the American Colonization Society and letters from Liberia settlers to black friends and families in the Unites States. These letters can be found within the American Colonization Society Papers correspondence files and some letters reprinted in the ACS’s monthly periodical, the African Repository . To date, no single work has been published on the historical significance of black Georgians who emigrated to Liberia during Reconstruction. What my research uncovers is that that 31 percent of the 3,184 passengers transported to West Africa by the American Colonization Society from 1865 to 1877 were Georgians, thereby making Georgia, the leading states to produce the highest numbers of blacks to resettle in Liberia and the logical focal point for the African-American emigration movement during Reconstruction. INDEX WORDS: American Colonization Society, African Colonization Movement, African- American Emigration Movement, Back-to-Africa Movement, Black migration, Columbus, Macon, Sparta, Georgia, Liberia, Reconstruction. v THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN GEORGIA DURING RECONSTRUCTION by FALECHIONDRO KARCHEIK SIMS-ALVARADO A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of the Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 vi Copyright by Falechiondro Karcheik Sims-Alvarado 2011 vii THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN GEORGIA DURING RECONSTRUCTION by FALECHIONDRO KARCHEIK SIMS-ALVARADO Committee Chair: Hugh Hudson Committee: Mohammed H. Ali Mary Rolinson Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies: College of Arts and Sciences: Georgia State University August 2011 viii DEDICATION To: Nation Shabazz-Alvarado & Joel Alvarado ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the dedication of my committee members: Drs. Hugh Hudson, Mohammed H. Ali, and Mary Rolinson. Together, they worked diligently to ensure that I produced a quality dissertation and gave voice to the freed men and women of Georgia who courageously sailed to Liberia in search of freedom. As well, I owe my deepest gratitude to three additional scholars who read and edited drafts of my dissertation, offered suggestions, and mentored me throughout the writing process: Drs. Ian Fletcher, Akinyele Umoja, and Jacqueline Rouse. It would have been next to impossible to write this dissertation without your guidance. Ms. Paula Sorrell, I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me. You are absolutely the best. I am thankful to Dr. Wesley Chenault, archivist at Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta, Georgia, whose assistance helped facilitate the telling of this story. It is always a pleasure working with you. Dissertation funding was made possible through Georgia State University and the Southern Regional Education Board. Dr. Andy Abraham, I am forever grateful to you. I appreciate your commitment to each SREB recipient. Drs. Henry L. Gates, Waldo E. Martin and Patricia Sullivan, my experience as a seminarian of the W.E.B. Du Bois NEH Summer Institute at Harvard University was incomparable. I am heartily thankful to those individuals who inspired me and played a role in shaping my academic development: Drs. Janice Sumler-Edmond, Vicki Crawford, Lita Hooper, Carole Merritt, Josephine Bradley, Jabari Simama, and Claude A. Clegg III. I am especially grateful to my friends who assisted in piecing together my dissertation after my computer and photocopies of over 300 letters written mostly by former Georgia slaves were stolen in December 2009. Thank you to Christi Jackson and Sonya M. Gomez for working alongside me in logging the names of emigrants and transcribing letters. To my dear husband, Joel Alvarado, the brilliant and talented classmate who I secretly adored from afar while enrolled as a graduate student at Clark Atlanta University. We have been a pair since the inception of this research project fourteen years ago. Thanks for being a study partner, best friend, listening ear, editor, wonderful father, and the best husband any woman can have. You will forever be “my Malcolm.” To my handsome prince, Nation Shabazz-Alvarado, now that the writing process is over Mommy can assist you in rearranging the living room x furniture to play, creating science projects, and painting and drawing dinosaurs and dragons every day. To all my friends and family, I love you all. I thank you for all the encouragement you have shown throughout the past two decades. It has been a long and difficult journey. To my mother, Mildred Lee English-Sims, I live and work every day to be the best representation of a daughter for you. Finally, I thank my grandparents, Myrtice Richburg-English and William L. English, who died prior to my completing the doctoral program. You were my examples of torchbearers. Grandmother Myrtice, thank you for teaching me the importance of self- sufficiency. Grandfather William, thank you for instilling in me the value of education, a love for African-American history, and the pride of being the great, great-granddaughter of formerly enslaved Africans. xi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEMENTS v LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF TERMS ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER TWO: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT, 1773-1865 24 CHAPTER THREE: THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN MACON AND SPARTA, GEORGIA, 1865-1866 65 CHAPTER FOUR: THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN MACON AND COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, 1866-1867 108 CHAPTER FIVE: AT THE CROSSROADS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN EMIGRATION IN GEORGIA, 1867-1868 132 EPILOGUE 163 APPENDIX 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY 194 xii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1.1: PERCENTAGE OF ACS-SPONSORED GEORGIA EMIGRANTS TO OVERALL NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS WHO RESETTLED IN LIBERIA, 1865-1877 21 TABLE 1.2: NUMBER OF ACS-SPONSORED EMIGRANTS TO LIBERIA, 1817-1885 22 TABLE 1.3: ANNUAL ACS REPORT OF GEORGIA EMIGRANTS, 1865-1877 23 TABLE 2.1: FREE AND ENSLAVED BLACK POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1790 63 TABLE 2.2: NUMBER OF GEORGIA EMIGRANTS WHO SAILED TO LIBERIA DURING THE YEARS, 1827-1860 64 TABLE 3.1: VESSELS TO LIBERIA, 1865 105 TABLE 3.2: NUMBER OF PERSONS REGISTERED BY OCTOBER 1866 THE NOVEMBER 1866 DEPARTURE TO LIBERIA ON THE GOLCONDA 106 TABLE 3.3: NUMBER OF PASSENGERS ABOURD THE GOLCONDA , NOVEMBER 1866 107 TABLE 5.1: NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS ABOARD THE GOLCONDA , MAY 1868 162 xiii LIST OF TERMS Emigrant: An individual(s) who leaves from one country to reside in another. Emigration: To leave from one country or region to settle in another. Emigrationist: An advocate of the organization efforts of a group of people to leave from one country to resettle in another. Migration: The physical movement or relocation to a new location within the country in which he/ she resides. Resettle: The relocation or transportation of a group of people to a new settlement. Resettlement: The act of settling or taking up residency in a new place. Setter: A person who settles in a new country or colony. xiv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION God of high heaven will put a curse should we continue to live with our former masters and ex-slaveholders, who are not enjoying the same right as he has ordained that we shall enjoy in our own native soil; for God says in His Holy Work that he has a place and land for all his people, and our race had better to it. Henry Adams In 1866, interest in returning to Africa was ignited in Macon shortly after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and Civil Rights Act. Responding to a difficult transition from slavery to freedom and feeling unwelcome in a nation slow to accept freedmen as equals Maconites emigrated to Liberia in November 1866. In 1867, Georgia’s largest cities, particularly where large black population exists, were influxed with influential Radical Republicans. Blacks in Macon formed alliances with white Radicals to work toward seizing full citizenship within the United States. Consequently, emigration advocates in Macon temporarily postponed their mobilization efforts to capitalize on the historic political elections of 1867 and 1868. Blacks voted for the first time in their lives, worked to change the Georgia Constitution, elected black men into office, and struggled to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. By contrast, blacks of Columbus lacked faith in the promises offered by Congress and Radical Republicans.