bore it grievously that any one should even suggest that they should be
driven from the country in which they were born and for the independence
of which their fathers had died. They held indignation meetings throughout
the North to denounce the scheme as a selfish policy inimical to the
interests of the people of color.[8] Branded thus as the inveterate foe of
the blacks both slave and free, the American Colonization Society effected
the deportation of only such Negroes as southern masters felt disposed to
emancipate from time to time and a few others induced to go. As the
industrial revolution early changed the aspect of the economic situation
in the South so as to make slavery seemingly profitable, few masters ever
thought of liberating their slaves.

Scarcely any intelligent Negroes except those who, for economic or
religious reasons were interested, availed themselves of this opportunity
to go to the land of their ancestors. From the reports of the Colonization
Society we learn that from 1820 to 1833 only 2,885 Negroes were sent to
Africa by the Society. Furthermore, more than 2,700 of this number were
taken from the slave States, and about two thirds of these were slaves
manumitted on the condition that they would emigrate.[9] Later statistics
show the same tendency. By 1852, 7,836 had been deported from the United
States to Liberia. 2,720 of these were born free, 204 purchased their
freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of their going to Liberia and
1,044 were liberated Africans returned by the United States
Government.[10] Considering the fact that there were 434,495 free persons
of color in this country in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860, the colonizationists
saw that the very element of the population which the movement was
intended to send out of the country had increased rather than decreased.
It is clear, then, that the American Colonization Society, though regarded
as a factor to play an important part in promoting the exodus of the free
Negroes to foreign soil, was an inglorious failure.