Narratives & Analysis

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia and the Colonization Movement

Colonization Pictures as Primary Documents

Roberts Family

No family was more associated with the creation of the republic of Liberia than the Roberts family of Norfolk and later Petersburg, Virginia.

The Page Families

Ann Randolph Page was among the most benevolent of colonizationist emancipators, and the people she freed — most members of an extended family with the same Page surname — were among the most prepared of the newly emancipated emigrants. Some of the adults could read and write, many of the men practiced trades in addition to farming, and the women had learned a variety of domestic skills. Most, too, had embraced Christianity. The black and white families exchanged letters across the Atlantic for over a decade. The Liberians expressed longing to see family and friends of both races in Virginia and complained about high prices and difficulties in obtaining needed goods, but expressed overall satisfaction with their new home in Africa.