On This Day
1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society depart New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia.
American Colonization Society (ACS), originally known as the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of free African Americans to the continent of Africa.
The American Colonization Society was founded in response to what was seen as a growing social problem: what to do with free Blacks. The number of free people of color grew steadily following the American Revolutionary War, from 60,000 in 1790 to 300,000 by 1830.[1]: 26 Slaveowners feared that these free Blacks might help their slaves to escape or rebel. In addition, most white Americans saw African Americans as an inferior race, a type of farm animal, whose brains were unable to understand abstractions like “democracy”. To these whites, “amalgamation,” or integration, of African Americans with mainstream American culture—giving them citizenship—was undesirable, if not impossible altogether. There was little prospect of changing these views. African Americans, therefore, should be relocated somewhere they could live in peace, free of prejudice, where they could be citizens.
The African-American community and abolitionist movement overwhelmingly opposed the project. In most cases, African Americans’ families had lived in the United States for generations, and their prevailing sentiment was that they were no more African than white Americans were European. Contrary to stated claims that emigration was voluntary, many African Americans, both free and enslaved, were pressured into emigrating.[2]: 343 Indeed, enslavers sometimes manumitted their slaves on condition that the freedmen leave the country immediately.[3][4]
According to historian Marc Leepson, “Colonization proved to be a giant failure, doing nothing to stem the forces that brought the nation to Civil War.”[5] Between 1821 and 1847, only a few thousand African Americans, out of millions in the US, emigrated to what would become Liberia. Close to half of them died from tropical diseases. In addition, the transportation of the emigrants to the African continent, including the provisioning of requisite tools and supplies, proved very expensive.[citation needed]
Starting in the 1830s, the Society was met with great hostility from white abolitionists, led by Gerrit Smith, who had supported the Society financially, and William Lloyd Garrison, author of Thoughts on African Colonization (1832), in which he proclaimed the Society a fraud. According to Garrison and his many followers, the Society was not a solution to the problem of American slavery—it actually was helping, and was intended to help, to preserve it.[6]
Born On This Day
1748 – Adam Weishaupt, German philosopher and academic, founded the Illuminati (d. 1830)
Johann Adam Weishaupt ([ˈjoːhan ˈaːdam ˈvaɪ̯s.haʊ̯pt], 6 February 1748 – 18 November 1830)[1][2][3][4] was a German philosopher, professor of civil law and later canon law, and founder of the Illuminati.
Early life
Adam Weishaupt was born on 6 February 1748 in Ingolstadt[1][5] in the Electorate of Bavaria. Many have suggested his family were of Jewish origin.[6][7][8][9][10] Weishaupt’s father Johann Georg Weishaupt (1717–1753) died[5] when Adam was five years old. After his father’s death he came under the tutelage of his godfather Johann Adam Freiherr von Ickstatt[11] who, like his father, was a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt.[12] Ickstatt was a proponent of the philosophy of Christian Wolff and of the Enlightenment,[13] and he influenced the young Weishaupt with his rationalism. Weishaupt began his formal education at age seven[1] at a Jesuit school. He later enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt and graduated in 1768[14] at age 20 with a doctorate of law.[15] In 1772[16] he became a professor of law. The following year he married Afra Sausenhofer[17] of Eichstätt.
After Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of canon law,[18] a position that was held exclusively by the Jesuits until that time. In 1775 Weishaupt was introduced[19] to the empirical philosophy of Johann Georg Heinrich Feder[20] of the University of Göttingen. Both Feder and Weishaupt would later become opponents of Kantian idealism.[21]
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- Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel June 12, 2026Firstly, thank you for the Jaffle love. 🥰 Hit the Jaffle button above to see what he got up to today! Secondly – cake. Specifically, Coffee Cake! A classic crumb cake with a jammy cinnamon ribbon, loaded with lots and lots of nubbly, extra crunchy cinnamon streusel. Outrageously good. Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel This... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 17 June 17, 2026Picture of the day Lt. Col. Nick Rutgers preparing his F-15 Eagle for flight
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 16 June 16, 2026Picture of the day View of Kirchberg an der Jagst, Germany, from the river Jagst. At the right the listed bridge, build in 1779; behind it the hill which supports Kirchberg Castle (top) and the old town of Kirchberg.
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