New Directions in the Study of African American Recolonization - (Southern Dissent) by Beverly Tomek & Matthew J Hetrick (Paperback)

About the Book

Beginning in 1816, the American Colonization Society worked to send American blacks to resettle in Africa. From inception, however, its foundational ethos has been debated. These debates continued long after the effective end of the ACS during WWI through the Civil Rights movement to today, when even historians among the Press's own authors respectfully hold opposing views. In this volume, Beverly Tomek and Matthew Hetrick gather essays from scholars with different opinions and divergent methodologies, offering not only new research to address some of the old questions about American colonization and missionary activities but also new questions to spur further debate.

Book Synopsis

This volume closely examines the movement to resettle black Americans in Africa, an effort led by the American Colonization Society during the nineteenth century and a heavily debated part of American history. Some believe it was inspired by antislavery principles, but others think it was a proslavery reaction against the presence of free Black people in society.

Moving beyond this simplistic debate, contributors link the movement to other historical developments of the time, revealing a complex web of different schemes, ideologies, and activities behind the relocation of African Americans to Liberia. They explain what colonization, emigration, immigration, abolition, and emancipation meant within nuanced nineteenth-century contexts, looking through many lenses to more accurately reflect the past.

Contributors: Eric Burin Andrew Diemer David F. Ericson Bronwen Everill Nicholas Guyatt Debra Newman Ham Matthew J. Hetrick Gale Kenny Phillip W. Magness Brandon Mills Robert Murray Sebastian N. Page Daniel Preston Beverly Tomek Andrew N. Wegmann Ben Wright Nicholas P. Wood

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller



Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Review Quotes

"The
starting point for anyone trying to understand the current field of the study
of African American recolonization."--Choice

"Succeeds
in demonstrating the importance of colonization to several aspects of early
American history and pushing scholarly conversations in new and exciting
directions."--Journal of the Early Republic

"[A]
well-curated collection."--Journal of American History

"A
set of remarkably concise and primary source-based analyses. . . . The volume
stands out most for widening our understanding of the significance of
colonization as a contemporary and current historiographical discourse."--Journal
of Southern History

"A
thought-provoking set of essays that brim with insights. . . . A valuable
launching pad for further studies investigating the broadscale significance of
African colonization to the history of the nineteenth-century Atlantic world."--Journal
of the Civil War Era

"An
excellent volume that challenges much of what scholars think they know about
colonization. . . . Tomek and Hetrick offer a powerful reminder to take
colonization seriously and illustrate how much more research needs to occur on
this subject."--Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research

About the Author

Beverly C. Tomek, associate chair of humanities at the University of Houston-Victoria, is the author of Colonization and Its Discontents: Emancipation, Emigration, and Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania. Matthew J. Hetrick is a history teacher at The Bryn Mawr School.