Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia [B1502]

2020 HC in excellent condition. Between 1820 and 1913, thousands of black people left the United States to start new lives in Liberia, Africa, in what was at the time the largest out-migration in US history. When Tolbert Major, a Kentucky slave and single father, was offered his own chance for freedom, he accepted. He, several family members, and almost seventy other people boarded the Luna on July 5, 1836. After they arrived in Liberia, Tolbert penned a letter to his former owner, Ben Major: "Dear Sir, We have all landed on the shores of Africa and got into our houses.... None of us have been taken with the fever yet."

Drawing on extensive research and fifteen years' worth of surviving letters, author Susan E. Lindsey illuminates the trials and triumphs of building a new life in Liberia, where settlers were free, but struggled to acclimate in an unfamiliar land, coexist with indigenous groups, and overcome disease and other dangers. Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia explores the motives and attitudes of colonization supporters and those who lived in the colony, offering perspectives beyond the standard narrative that colonization was solely about racism or forced exile.

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Brings history alive - a screenplay waiting to be discovered. The author explores a seldom discussed (or even remembered) chapter in America's history with slavery - the recolonization movement. In the first half of the 19th Century, the American Colonization Society sent about 16,000 freed Black Americans to live on the west coast of Africa. Those formerly enslaved Americans became the nucleus of an emerging country that is recognized today as Liberia. While her research is impeccable and will be valuable to scholars of this period, this is a book that is also very accessible to an audience outside of academia. Reading heartfelt words penned by men long dead, the reader vicariously feels the hope that propelled these Black Americans to Liberia as well as the hurt at the overwhelming difficulties and disappointments they encountered there. While this is the story of the Liberian immigrants, it is also a uniquely American tale providing the reader insight into the frustrations and discouragements that Ben Major - and others who opposed slavery - experienced as the country moved closer and closer to Civil War. I truly think this book provides material for a good screenwriter. It is a story that needs to be widely heard."; "Lindsey has handled a difficult topic with grace, reading the letters she pulls from carefully and interpreting them as only a true historian can. Her command of prose, in scene-setting paragraphs is matched by her ability to switch to the perspective of a historian and analyze the issues at hand."; "I read this book like a detective story, in one sitting. The most moving chapter, to me, contains a letter in which one of the emigrants describes heartbreaking losses: the death of one of his sons and a nephew, and the loss of his home to fire. Yet he is not complaining or asking for help. Instead, he says that Liberia is the place for him. His coffee plantation is producing well; and he wants to know how to send Ben some coffee as a gift."; "I can realy feel the humanity, compassion, and desperation which led people to take the radical step of moving to Liberia. The author's meticulous research brings the situation in the US and in Liberia to light with colorful description. It feels so real. The work to resolve problems, transition to a productive life, and create a government are well-documented in a way that brings the lives of the people involved into this reader's awareness in a powerful way."