Timeline

Date

Events

1619

The first enslaved people from Africa enter the American colonies.

1776-1783

American Revolution.

1816

The American Colonization Society (ACS) is founded to fund the migration of African-Americans to Liberia.

1822

The colony of Liberia was founded by the ACS, one of three sovereign countries across the world that were founded by former slaves. Others inlcude Haiti (former French colony), and Sierra Leone (former British colony located next to Liberia). 

1826

Muscogee County, on the banks of the Chattahoochee River at the fall line (highest navigatable city on the river) is established by Georgia legislature. Columbus will be located in this county). 

1828

The city of Columbus, Georgia is founded and its where many of the Liberian emergres were to originate in this community. 

1837

Columbus residents first appear in the donor and subscriber lists of the ACS’s monthly journal.

1840

The population of Columbus (3,114). More than 40% of white families in the city own slaves.

1847

The colony of Liberia gains independence.

1853

The ACS actively recruits for emigrants in Middle Georgia.

1860

• Columbus (population 9,621), is now a major producer of textiles, paper, furniture, and iron, a major slave-trading center, with at least three slave auction houses.
• The city includes 3,547 enslaved people and 141 free blacks. An additional 557 whites and 912 slaves lived in the subuurb of Wynnton. 

1861

• The Civil War begins over the economic and political systems that were intimately tied ot the institution of slavery.
• The city of Columbus was divided over the issue of secession but eventually voted to support it in 1861.

1864

• The city expanded massively in industrial output ranking among the top five producers of material for the confederacy.
• Cotton prices increased from a dime per pound before the war to one dollar per pound by 1864.
• White elites directed the local government to control African Americans in the city through ordinances to stop “servants” (a euphemism for an enslaved person) from having parties. The city council passed an ordinance targeting Negro street peddlers and shopkeepers.

1865

• The end of the Civil War represents a time of potential empowerment for African Americans in the South during the short period know as Reconstruction. 

1866

• The Civil Rights Act (July) was the first federal U.S. law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It conferred citizenship on African Americans and granted equal rights to whites. 

• South state governments were dissolved and placed under military rule. Goeriga was part of Military District 3.
• Military District Three saw voter registration begins (summer) for November elections. 
• First significate group of 235 emigres leave Columbus and Eufala (Alabama) for Liberia (November). 

1868

• Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former confederate general and first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) comes to Columbus.
• George Ashburn, local, white radical Republican is assassinated by the KKK (March). The Constitutional Convention is dominated by radical republicans and produces a constitution guaranteeing Freedmen’s rights, provoking a power struggle in Columbus.
• The second significant Chattahoochee Valley Emigration to Liberia takes place. including 204 African Americans (May)
• Ex-confederates expel all black members from the Georgia state legislature. (Summer)
• Georgia ratifies the 14th amendment and is readmitted to the Union. (July)
• In Columbus, whites fire into a political rally and kill at least nine blacks. (September)
• Georgia poll tax effectively disfranchises blacks and the number of black voters plummets. Conservatives use intimidation, fraud, and violence to regain control of the presidential election. (November)

1869

Congress reinstates military rule in Georgia, indicating the instability and uncertainty in southern society after losing the war.

1870

• The 15th amendment is ratified, giving African Americans the right to vote.
• The Liberian economy had peaked and the country’s trading economy went into decline.

1877

• A deal is made with southern democratic leaders which makes Rutherford B. Hayes president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South ending efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans. 
• White southerners (Democratic Party) had re-established racial, economic, and political control.

1878

Negative press coverage of Liberia in white-owned Columbus newspapers

1879

Columbus' first confederate monument is erected in what was then known as Salisbury Park, in the median of the 700 block of what is now known as Broadway Avenue. 

1881

Tennessee passes the first of the “Jim Crow” segregation laws. Similar laws are passed over the next 15 years throughout the Southern states.

1904

The American Colonization Society (ACS) disbands.