[R_G]

I am reading more about this.

I know it was an alternative option to allowing full blown emancipation.

To me it makes sense, it was the Americans who brought the africans into America, why could they not ship them back out?

[Wolfman]

How would you like it if we suddenly decided to send you back to Russia? It's an environment you aren't used to, surrounded by peoples you don't know, and using languages you don't speak. Not to mention you cann't just make a damn country. It has to be something that is fought for.

[Ombrageux]

Wolfman has it. Black people in America were completely de-Africanized by the process of slavery and the assimilation of American culture. They are even more out of place in Africa (any part of it) as if you'd shipped "back" the respective ethnic groups of New York to Sicilian villages and Ukrainian shtetls. In the case of Liberia, the process of "repatriation" was in an unequal form typical of settler colonialism, with the Black Americans subjugating the natives, creating systems of government and even architecture self-consciously imitating the oppression they were escaping in the United States of America.

[Smilin' Dave]

Were majority of the people who were shipped back even from Liberia originally? This would be more like sending R_G 'back' to Estonia and saying it was close enough.

[Ombrageux]

SD - That's a good point. The vast majority of people "returning" to Liberia would have had ancestors from all over West Africa.

[Okonkwo]

This would be more like sending R_G 'back' to Estonia and saying it was close enough.

That is a great analogy.
In any case, you are certainly correct - colonisation is colonisation no matter the colour of skin of the colonisers. Ironically enough, Liberia even became somewhat of a mirror image of the United States: a takeover of land by persecuted immigrants with an the introduction of their own customs, political system and religion which was resented by the native population. Coupled with the projection of absurd hopes and desires onto Africa, the reality of hardship and disease quickly shocked the newly arrived men and debunked the idea of 'repatriation' as a failure.

[KurtFF8]

To me it makes sense, it was the Americans who brought the africans into America, why could they not ship them back out?

[Ombrageux]

KF88 - Did you expect anything other from libertarians. They are so allergic to melanin they can only conceive of it once it has been firmly expulsed from the body politic, preferably placed beyond a suitably wide ocean.

[Wolfman]

R_G is a Libertarian? I thought he was a mild fascist of some kind.

[Smilin' Dave]

Wolfman is correct. Further I don't think even PoFo's most hypocritical libertarians would favour deportations of whole populations.

Back on topic, could the US in those days have even afforded to deport it's african-descended population? Aside from the cost of shipping everyone back etc. wouldn't this have drained off a fair chunk of the workforce (which would effect some parts of the US more accutely than others)?

[Ombrageux]

Well, all the problems of Emancipation (elimination of a sizeable chunk of national wealth) in additional to the logistical problems were present.

[Okonkwo]

could the US in those days have even afforded to deport it's african-descended population?

It would be quite interesting to take a look at the actual cost of transporting about 4 million people across the Atlantic ocean. Especially considering President Monroe's $100,000 weren't even close enough.

wouldn't this have drained off a fair chunk of the workforce (which would effect some parts of the US more accutely than others)?

Apparently, the loudest objections raised to the deportation were those of the Southern American slave-owners - they realised the massive economic effect this abolition of slavery (that was at least what the exodus of the large majority of African-Americans implicated) would have on the South's economy.
I would imagine that the Northern capitalists weren't exactly keen on losing a large amount of cheap labour either, even though I can't find a source for that idea right now.

[Smilin' Dave]

I think the North would be more likely to accept such a solution... but would be forced to ramp up immigration to compensate the loss of cheap labour.

It would really such to be a freeman in the US were such a plan implemented.

[Wolfman]

Well, all the problems of Emancipation (elimination of a sizeable chunk of national wealth) in additional to the logistical problems were present.

The problem was less what happened, as how it happened. If Lincoln had offered slave owners the market value of there slaves, and then gave the former slaves land in the Territories (40 acres and a mule) we probably would have been far better off. And, for less then the total monetary cost of the Civil War we could have done that, and given the former slaves 100 years of back wages.

Slavery was a dieing institution, and if no outside action were taken, it probably would have dried up anyways (the US economy was moving away from agriculture at the time, and most agriculture was shifting to the Midwest, and a decent chunk of Midwestern states were anti-slavery). So, regardless of the method, slavery was going to end. If we had done the 40 acres and a mule deal, we probably would have come out with a significantly stronger economy. And the myth of 'the south will rise again' wouldn't be around.

[Smilin' Dave]

Wasn't the '40 acres and a mule' thing pushed during Reconstruction but torpedoed but less radical/more conservative parties? Would the free soiler-type settlers in the new territories be all that keen on former slaves suddenly being given a heap of territory in their area?

[Wolfman]

I never said the idea would have flown in it's own time. But, had it happened, our economy probably would have been much better off.