Incomplete Freedom: Marriage and Family Separation in Liberian Colonization

This paper explores the ways that formerly enslaved settlers in Liberia attempted to secure the freedom of kin who remained enslaved in the United States. Liberia (founded by Black American settlers under the auspices of the American Colonization Society and its related state societies) was established in 1822 at Cape Mesurado on West Africa’s shore. While free Black Americans in the U.S. mobilized against colonization and launched the campaign for abolition, over six thousand formerly enslaved individuals were manumitted for the purposes of colonization in the era before the U.S. Civil War. Yet, their freedoms remained incomplete while family relations remained in slavery.

This paper examines the attempts of freedpeople—before and after they voyaged to Liberia—to secure the freedom of family members, and in particular, spouses. Through petitions and campaigns to enslavers as well as the Colonization Society, subscriptions and fundraisers to attempt to purchase the freedom of kin, and letters sent from Liberia to the U.S., newly freed people attempted to reconstitute their families in this incomplete freedom, but were not always successful in doing so. In a cruel twist, one of the central freedoms that Liberia did claim to offer to settlers (and require of them) was legal marriage, which remained unavailable to already-separated spouses divided by legal status and the Atlantic. Using records from the Colonization Society, manuscript letters written by settlers, and documents from the Liberian legislature, the paper argues that Liberian colonization forced painful separations in order for settlers to obtain freedom.