5. James Monroe helped colonize Liberia with free African Americans
James Monroe was a living example of the conflicted views of many slave owners. During his lifetime he owned many slaves, but he viewed slavery as a necessary evil imposed on the southern economy by the colonizers before the American Revolution. Monroe made his views clear when serving as the President of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia in 1829, pointing out that even as a colony the Virginia legislature had attempted to prohibit the importing of African slaves, an act which was rejected by the governor, an appointee of the King of England. Monroe proposed emancipation of all slaves and deportation to African colonies with the financial assistance of the federal government.
Monroe’s proposal was rejected, but he continued to support the American Colonization Society, of which he was a member. For two decades, from 1820 through the 1830s, the Society worked to send freed slaves and other free blacks from the United States to colonies in Africa, which eventually became the nation of Liberia, its capital named Monrovia in honor of the former American president. The Society raised money from private donors and from the US government to purchase land in the colonies for the private ownership of the families sent there, all of whom were volunteers. As did Jefferson and Adams, Monroe died on Independence Day, five years after his two predecessors died on the Fourth of July.