The vision of the American Colonial Society was slaveholders freeing their slaves and sending them to Africa. The ACS was an organization that was set up to transport African Americans to African continent, in the early 1800s. The organization was made up of slave merchants, and slaveowners, with some well-meaning abolitionists sprinkled in. Just prior to the Civil War General Robert E. Lee freed some of his slaves and offered to pay for those slaves interested in a trip to Africa. The American Colonization Society had established a colony on the west coast of Africa. Robert E. Lee had been aware of the growing divide in the Union of States even before he and his associate Jeb Stewart had been called upon to put down the armed raid on Harpers Ferry. The raiding party Lee was sent to put an end to was made up of black and white men, and led by the abolitionist, dubbed domestic terrorist, John Brown.
The thing that stood out to me about Robert E. Lee's assistance to his former slaves William and Rosabella Burkes was the fact that the Lee family and the Burkes family maintained a friendship and communications across a vast Atlantic Ocean that would allow Rosabella Burkes, to exchange messages with her family members still living in the area through Mary Custis Lee. Mary Custis Lee was able to share news and information about what was happening politically in the U.S. which was not good. Robert E. Lee who was at the time in the Union Army, was forced to choose a side when the Civil War broke out.
Rosabella also shared information with Mary Custis Lee about the trials and tribulations of the Burkes who were learning to live in Africa, which after more than 400 years of slavery in the U.S. was a foreign land to all the African Americans that ended up in the little colony set up by the American Colonization Society. During the days of slavery in the U.S. all African Americans could be slaves, but the fact was, not all African Americans were slaves. Millions of Africans born in America lived as free people, and free from slavery.
The American Colonization Society was set up in part to deal with the situation of the African Americans living as free people. Slaves could be freed by purchasing their freedom, or the freedom of a family member from a master. White slave owners who had children by slave women could free their own children with a deed of manumission, once a child reached an agreed-upon. There were slaves who simply self-emancipated themselves by escaping slavery in one place to reside in an area free of slavery.
Overall, the ACS believed the presents of free blacks in the United States was a threat to the nation's wellbeing. There were also those members of the ACS that included the sprinkling of abolitionists who believed African Americans would only be able to fulfill their potential as human beings, in Africa and believed sending American Africans to Africa would allow them to live free of discrimination. The Burke family went to the ACS colony for the chance to raise their children in a place free of discrimination.
Over the years Rosabella and Mary Custis Lee shared stories about family and friends. Rosebella would learn from Mary that war seemed inevitable. Much of what the two women shared in letters between them was later published in the Colonization Society's Journal, the Colonial Journal, and the African Repository, in 1859. Starting all over again for the Burkes family in Africa would be hard and take years. Eventually, the differences between the African American people deposited on the West Coast of Africa, and the African people in Africa would fade into each other forming a dependence on the other. The Burkes would open their home up to African people in need and in return the African people taught the Burkes the customs and traditions to prosper in Africa. The tiny ACS colony would grow into the country of Liberia. That fact alone fascinated and answered a question I had since learning about Liberia: Why do so many people in Liberia have American sounding names?
Robert E. Lee would go on to prosecute a war against the Union Army he had once fought for. That would over many battles and much blood shed in the north and the south result in his surrender and the end of the Civil War. Lee's home would be captured by Union Forces, and a detachment of African American soldiers would be tasked with guarding Robert E. Lee's property and wife Mary Custis Lee. A pregnant Rosabella Burke would read about the war between the states on the other side of the ocean from her peaceful settlement in Africa. She would give birth to another child, and her first child to be born in the land of her ancestors, and she would name her newborn baby daughter, Mary Custis Burke.
