After the American Civil War, 15,000 freed slaves emigrated to what African country?

The dream of a new home in Africa became a reality for thousands of African Americans following the end of the Civil War. This West African nation was established decades earlier by the American Colonization Society (ACS), a group with complex and often contradictory motives. Some ACS members, including abolitionists, believed that Black Americans would never achieve true equality in the United States and would be better off establishing their own self-governing society. Others, including many slaveholders, supported colonization as a way to remove free Black people from the country, believing their presence threatened the institution of slavery.

While emigration occurred before the war, the period after 1865 saw a significant wave of departures. Faced with the failure of Reconstruction, the rise of violent supremacist groups, and the implementation of discriminatory Jim Crow laws, about 15,000 freed slaves sought a better future abroad. For these individuals, the country, whose name is derived from the Latin word for "free," represented a powerful symbol of Black sovereignty and a refuge from American oppression. These settlers and their descendants, known as Americo-Liberians, would go on to form a political elite in their new homeland (Review).