Abolitionism

The ideas of abolitionism were linked to missionary, colonial, and commercial motives and ideologies of the French, British, and Americans. Quakers in the antislavery movement in the United States worked to settle slaves in Africa based on religious beliefs that slaves had the right to be free and that these political ideas only could be achieved through colonization in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The political ideas of justice, equality before the law, liberty, and the rule of law were meant to serve as the foundations of the colonies. It was equally important politically to utilize former slaves and re-captives in this endeavor to prove that people of African descent were capable of understanding laws, social responsibility, and the dignity of labor. The belief that people of African descent were inherently inferior to whites and could not be assimilated into a white society led many to advocate colonization. The connection between French abolitionism and colonization on the African continent were intimately linked according to some scholars. It has been argued that when the French government abolished slavery in 1848, it was merely replaced with colonization, starting with Algeria; therefore the master-slave relationship continued to leave the African in an inferior, subordinate position, and the French continued to gain from its economic exploitation of land and labor. The same argument can be made for Great Britain following its abolition of slavery, especially in Sierra Leone. Former slaves and recaptured Africans who ended up in Sierra Leone, along with indigenous Africans, were not viewed as having the same claim to citizenship and sovereignty as the British—otherwise the former slaves and recaptured Africans would not have been colonized. In sum, some Europeans advocated abolitionism, but they did not support full citizenship, equality, and freedom for Africans, and whenever and wherever the slave trade ended, missionaries and commercial enterprises entered the African continent with the backing of the colonial state.