Virginia Emigrants to Liberia Project

FAIN: PW-269393-20

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Worthy N. Martin (Project Director: July 2019 to present)

The enhancement of a database that details the lives of 4,000 enslaved and formerly enslaved African Americans in Virginia who took part in the colonization and establishment of Liberia in the nineteenth century and provides data pertaining to 500 facilitators of their emigration.  The database would include links to digitized correspondence and other contextual and bibliographic information.

This project will enable online access to information about 4,000 African Americans, enslaved and free, who emigrated from Virginia to Liberia between 1820 and 1866, and about 500 former enslavers and/or facilitated their migration. Our recent scholarship provides an authoritative basis for the substantial demographic information that is rare for African Americans in this period—including enslaved people’s surnames, ages, and relationships. Most significantly, over 400 letters by and about the emigrants, written before and after their emigration, will be linked to the records for emigrants and their former enslavers/facilitators, with sophisticated online access to these letters (mostly American Colonization Society records archived by Library of Congress). Virginia Emigrants to Liberia will inform scholars, researchers and students in a variety of disciplines, as well as the general public, with regard to life, liberty, race and citizenship on both sides of the Atlantic.

Associated Products

Panel: Contested Justice for Virginia Emigrants to Liberia (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Panel: Contested Justice for Virginia Emigrants to Liberia
Author: Jane Ailes
Author: Deborah Lee
Author: W. N. Martin
Author: Stephanie Richmond (Chair)
Abstract: The three-presentation panel addressed the concepts of justice associated with the 19th century colonization effort through the details of the efforts surrounding particular groups of Virginians who emigrated to Liberia and through a discussion of the internet-accessible resource being created and possibilities for future extensions of it.
Date: 04/07/2022
Conference Name: Virginia Forum 2022

The Herndon Appeal: Revealing the Complexities of Antislavery and the Colonization Movement in Virginia (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Herndon Appeal: Revealing the Complexities of Antislavery and the Colonization Movement in Virginia
Abstract: The complex story of the effort, finally successful, for the Herndon family to emigrate to Liberia.
Author: Deborah Lee
Date: 06/14/2022
Location: Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County (AAHA) as part of their 30th Anniversary Celebration
Primary URL: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=4954152394713473
Primary URL Description: An online Zoom presentation as part of the Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County (AAHA) as part of their 30th Anniversary Celebration

Administrative interface and database (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Administrative interface and database
Author: Susanna Klosko
Author: Jane Ailes
Author: W. N. Martin
Abstract: primary resource to create and maintain the core dataset for the project.
Year: 2022

Virginia Emigrants to Liberia (Web Resource)
Title: Virginia Emigrants to Liberia
Author: Susanna Klosko
Author: W.N. Martin
Author: Jane Ailes
Author: Deborah Lee
Abstract: The complex responses of Black and white Virginians to African colonization, slavery, freedom, and citizenship on both sides of the Atlantic are revealed in this collection of documents and data. They contribute greatly to otherwise scarce data on 19th century Black Virginians, including surnames, family and community relationships, occupations, former enslavers, literacy, and religion.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://virginians-to-liberia.iath.virginia.edu/
Primary URL Description: the public interface for our project.

---