To Go or Not to Go to Africa

The purpose of this assignment is to think about the vigorous and extensive debate held among free African Americans during the 1830s over the issue of whether or not to leave the United States and emigrate to Liberia in West Africa.

Read the two documents posted below on Blackboard. One document is the Liberian Declaration of Independence. In this document, written in 1847 by the Richmond, Virginia-born Hilary Teague (1802-1853), the African Americans who founded the new Liberian republic explain the reasons they left the United States and moved to Africa.

The second document (also below) is an excerpt from David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. In this document, first published in 1829, David Walker (1785-1830), a free black tailor and journalist, argues against the idea of African Americans going to live in Liberia.

Now, imagine that you were a free African American living in Baltimore city in 1830 and you were approached to go to Liberia. What would you do after reading the two documents? Would you go to Africa or stay in America? Why or why not?

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