Colonization and Its Discontents: Emancipation, Emigration, and Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania (Early American Places, 3)

Pennsylvania contained the largest concentration of early America’s abolitionist leaders and organizations, making it a necessary and illustrative stage from which to understand how national conversations about the place of free blacks in early America originated and evolved, and, importantly, the role that colonization—supporting the emigration of free and emancipated blacks to Africa—played in national and international antislavery movements. Beverly C. Tomek’s meticulous exploration of the archives of the American Colonization Society, Pennsylvania’s abolitionist societies, and colonizationist leaders (both black and white) enables her to boldly and innovatively demonstrate that, in Philadelphia at least, the American Colonization Society often worked closely with other antislavery groups to further the goals of the abolitionist movement. In Colonization and Its Discontents , Tomek brings a much-needed examination of the complexity of the colonization movement by describing in depth the difference between those who supported colonization for political and social reasons and those who supported it for religious and humanitarian reasons. Finally, she puts the black perspective on emigration into the broader picture instead of treating black nationalism as an isolated phenomenon and examines its role in influencing the black abolitionist agenda. “Tomek offers a brilliant and provocative analysis of the antislavery network. By using individual Pennsylvanians, black and white, as case studies, Tomek demonstrates the enormous diversity of the political and social motivations driving schemes of colonization. Her work illuminates the interplay of idealism and pragmatism, of competition and cooperation among advocates for gradual emancipation, colonization, and immediate abolition. This work is an extraordinary contribution to the historical understanding of American colonization.” --Orville Vernon Burton, author of Age of Lincoln “Colonization and Its Discontents challenges historians of the antebellum period to reconsider basic questions—questions about distinctions between abolitionist versus antislavery, between immediatist versus gradualist, and between competing versions of African colonization. By concentrating on the full spectrum of antislavery ideology within a single state and by questioning long-held assumptions, Tomek offers an expansive and revealing analysis of the antislavery impulse.” --James Brewer Stewart, James Wallace Professor of History, Emeritus, Macalester College Pennsylvania contained the largest concentration of early America's abolitionist leaders and organizations, making it a necessary and illustrative stage from which to understand how national conversations about the place of free blacks in early America originated and evolved, and, importantly, the role that colonization--supporting the emigration of free and emancipated blacks to Africa--played in national and international antislavery movements. This book explores the archives of the American Colonization Society, Pennsylvania's abolitionist societies, and colonizationist leaders (both black and white) to demonstrate that, in Philadelphia at least, the American Colonization Society often worked closely with other antislavery groups to further the goals of the abolitionist movement