Introduction

Most historical narratives about Africans in America begin with Jamestown, Virginia, where enslaved Angolans were sold in 1619. However, this book commences with blacks as explorers in the Americas before Christopher Columbus arrival. The point here is to demonstrate that slavery robbed Africa of its heritage and impoverished the continent.

Once Africans landed in America as slaves, state laws denied them civil rights and humane treatment. The hopelessness, brutalization, and alienation of blacks aroused the conscientiousness of humanitarian groups to seek the repatriation of freed men to their ancestry homeland in Africa, away from Anglo Americans. This became a risky rescue mission, which put the ACS in direct opposition with anti-colonizationists. This book highlights the complicity of the precarious endeavor and the founding of the first African Republic on the continent.