On this day in New York · February 6, 1820
The Elizabeth Sails for West Africa
A ship frozen in New York Harbor for a month finally sailed with 86 free Black New Yorkers and Philadelphians aboard, bound for a colony none of them had seen.
The facts
- Departure
- February 6, 1820, from New York Harbor (the Elizabeth had boarded passengers January 3 but sat held by ice)
- Aboard
- 86 free Black emigrants and 3 white American Colonization Society agents
- The agents
- Rev. Samuel Bacon, John B. Bankson, Samuel S. Crozer
- Landing
- Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone, March 1820
On February 6, 1820, the ship Elizabeth finally cleared New York Harbor after sitting iced in since early January. Aboard were 86 free Black emigrants, most of them from New York and Philadelphia, along with three white agents of the American Colonization Society: the Reverend Samuel Bacon, John B. Bankson, and Samuel S. Crozer. The Society wanted free Black Americans resettled in West Africa rather than living as citizens at home, a plan most Black leaders in the North denounced as a slaveholders' scheme, even as some passengers signed on hoping for land and a fresh start. The ship reached Sherbro Island off Sierra Leone in March, where fever swept the camp and killed all three white agents within months, Bacon last, on May 2. A Black minister among the emigrants, Daniel Coker, took charge of the survivors after Bacon died and later helped found the nearby village of Hastings.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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On February 6, 1820, the first ship, the Elizabeth, sailed from New York for West Africa with three white ACS agents and 86 African-American emigrants aboard.
Wikipedia entry on the American Colonization Society
Source: Wikipedia -
Just before dying, the expedition's leader (Samuel Bacon) asked Coker to take charge of the venture.
Wikipedia entry on Daniel Coker
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
This voyage launched the colonization movement that founded Liberia two years later, a plan that let slaveholding America dodge the real question of what free Black citizens deserved at home. It's also why a nation modeled in part on the United States sits on Africa's west coast today.
Sources
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