Back-to-Africa movement in the context of "Pan-Africanist"

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⭐ Core Definition: Back-to-Africa movement

The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the regions of the African continent below the Sahara. The small number of freed slaves who settled in sub-Saharan Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.

In the late 18th century, thousands of Black Loyalists joined British military forces during the American Revolutionary War. In 1787, the British Crown founded a settlement in Sierra Leone in what was called the "Province of Freedom", beginning a long process of settlement of formerly enslaved African Americans in Sierra Leone. During these same years, some African Americans launched their own initiatives to return to Africa, and by 1811, Paul Cuffe, a wealthy New England African-American/Native-American shipper, had transported some members of the group known as the "Free African Society" to Liberia. During these years, some free African Americans also relocated to Haiti, where a slave revolution had effected a free black state by 1800. On 18 November 1803, Haiti became the first nation ever to successfully gain independence through a slave revolt. In the following years, Liberia was founded by free Africans from the United States. The emigration of African Americans both free and recently emancipated was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS), which hoped that slavery could be ended as an institution, without releasing millions of former slaves into American society. The mortality rate of these settlers was high. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived.

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Back-to-Africa movement in the context of Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism is an ideology that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous peoples of Africa along with all peoples of African descent. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, slavery in the Cape Colony, Inboekstelsel, slavery in Mauritius, and the Khoikhoi-Dutch Wars, the belief extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.

Pan-Africanism is said to have its origins in the struggles of the sub-Saharan Africans against enslavement and colonization. This struggle may be traced back to the first resistance on slave ships, including rebellions and suicides, through the constant plantation and colonial uprisings and the "Back to Africa" movements of the 19th century. Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to unify and uplift people of African ancestry. However, it was in the twentieth century that Pan-Africanism emerged as a distinct political movement that was initially formed and led by people from the Diaspora (people of African heritage living outside of the Continent). In 1900, Henry Sylvester Williams, a Trinindadian barrister, called a conference that took place in London's Westminster Hall to "protest stealing of lands in the colonies, racial discrimination and deal with other issues of interest to Blacks".

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Back-to-Africa movement in the context of Black nationalism

Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for Black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for Black people. Modern Black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of Black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric cultures.

As an ideology, Black nationalism encompasses a diverse range of beliefs which have variously included forms of economic, political and cultural nationalism, or pan-nationalism. It often overlaps with, but is distinguished from, similar concepts and movements such as Pan-Africanism, Ethiopianism, the back-to-Africa movement (also known as Black Zionism), Afrocentrism, and Garveyism. Critics of Black nationalism compare it to white nationalism and white supremacy, and say it promotes racial and ethnic nationalism, separatism and Black supremacy. Most experts distinguish between these movements, saying that while white nationalism ultimately seeks to maintain or deepen inequality between racial and ethnic groups, most forms of Black nationalism instead aim to increase equality in response to pre-existing forms of white dominance.

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Back-to-Africa movement in the context of Black separatism

Black separatism is a race-based separatist political movement that seeks separate economic and cultural development for people of sub-Saharan African descent in societies, particularly in the United States. Black separatism stems from the idea of racial solidarity, and it also implies that black people should organize themselves on the basis of their common skin color, their race, culture, and African heritage. There were a total of 255 black separatist groups recorded in the United States as of 2019.

Black separatism in its purest form asserts that black people and white people ideally should form two independent nations. Additionally, black separatists often seek to return to their original cultural homeland of Africa. This sentiment was spearheaded by Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s. Black separatists generally think that black people are hindered in a white-dominated society.

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