The American Colonization Society was established with the aim of 'returning' freed African Americans slaves and also free African Americans and their descendants to Africa. A colony was established in Liberia for this purpose, after initial attempts to found a colony in Sierra Leone were unsuccessful. Though members of the ACS were largely pro-abolitionist Quakers who believed 'repatriation' offered African Americans the best opportunities, support for the society came from mixed quarters. Anxieties over a rapidly growing African American population and the subsequent impact on the economy, as well as fears over slave rebellions, fuelled a less than idealistic desire to see a large scale immigration of black people. This meant that the society would later be discredited by abolitionists and the black population. In practice the ACS could never realistically really achieve its aims,...

158 words