I had the honor to speak with an Army Reserve chaplain a couple years ago about his homeland of Liberia, and how it came to be as it is, from the Liberian side of things. Apparently we (the U.S. of A, then in the fervor of Reconstruction) sent a whole bunch of African-descended ex-slaves to west Africa with high hopes and the best of intentions, and essentially turned them loose. They were officially U. S. citizens, but we were Not Going To Have A Colony; they were free to go, and they went with no structure or support back home. But none of them were FROM Africa, and probably hadn't even KNOWN anyone who'd been taken thence. They only knew the plantation slavery system they'd grown up with, so things didn't go nearly as neatly as the Beecherites and other abolitionists had envisioned. We *SHOULD* have made a proper colony for them, but it essentially started as Africa's first post-colonial third-world shithole.
The freed slaves basically set up their own plantations and conscripted natives to work them, but I don't recall whether they had much in the way of workable cash-crops or food-crops, and there was no infrastructure to speak of. But one thing the re-plants had that their neighbors and natives did not was (per our own 14th Amendment) legal US citizenship *which was then passed down to their kids, and still is.* That gave and gives them a degree of freedom-of-movement, internationally, that the natives lack, along with various other advantages, and they're *still* dealing with the two-tiered caste system that it effected.
I had the honor to speak with an Army Reserve chaplain a couple years ago about his homeland of Liberia, and how it came to be as it is, from the Liberian side of things. Apparently we (the U.S. of A, then in the fervor of Reconstruction) sent a whole bunch of African-descended ex-slaves to west Africa with high hopes and the best of intentions, and essentially turned them loose. They were officially U. S. citizens, but we were Not Going To Have A Colony; they were free to go, and they went with no structure or support back home. But none of them were FROM Africa, and probably hadn't even KNOWN anyone who'd been taken thence. They only knew the plantation slavery system they'd grown up with, so things didn't go nearly as neatly as the Beecherites and other abolitionists had envisioned. We *SHOULD* have made a proper colony for them, but it essentially started as Africa's first post-colonial third-world shithole.
Interesting
The freed slaves basically set up their own plantations and conscripted natives to work them, but I don't recall whether they had much in the way of workable cash-crops or food-crops, and there was no infrastructure to speak of. But one thing the re-plants had that their neighbors and natives did not was (per our own 14th Amendment) legal US citizenship *which was then passed down to their kids, and still is.* That gave and gives them a degree of freedom-of-movement, internationally, that the natives lack, along with various other advantages, and they're *still* dealing with the two-tiered caste system that it effected.
If only
Worst of both outcomes; got the war and they stayed.
Better for all that they *did* stay, and (to a great extent, given their start-point as chattels) assimilated into the greater American culture.
Yeah just ask em, they'll tell you all about the reparations we owe.
I mean *actual outcomes,* not the self-ascribed miseries of race-hustlers and like grifters.
Let's send the BLM'ers, of all complexions, down to Zimbabwe for a summer Work-Projekt and lose the round-trip tickets back.
You've got my vote, Friend
“I’m no fan of Lincoln”
🫡
Liberia? Monrovia?