“Back to Africa is a terrific collection of letters, one of the most important to emerge on nineteenth-century reform in years. The numerous letters from well-known black and white abolitionists, coupled with the retrieval of letters written as well as received by Coates, makes this an indispensable book for anyone interested in nineteenth-century race relations and reform.” —John Stauffer, Harvard University

"This collection is a welcome contribution to the study of colonization and African Americans."—T. D. Hamm, Choice

Benjamin Coates was one of the best-known white supporters of African colonization in nineteenth-century America. A Quaker businessman from Philadelphia, and a sometime officer of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, he was committed to helping Black Americans relocate to West Africa. This put him at the center of a discourse with abolitionists, at home and abroad, that included such leading thinkers as Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, Alexander Crummell, George L. Stearns, and William Coppinger. Creative and restless, cantankerous and charismatic, these men and women dominated the struggle to end slavery and to achieve respect for African Americans. Back to Africa sheds new light on these remarkable personalities and their tireless efforts at reform.

At the heart of the volume is a collection of over 150 recently recovered letters, either written by Coates or addressed to him between 1848 and 1880, the years when Coates was most active in racial reform. Lapansky-Werner and Bacon have provided a far-reaching essay that places them in the context of nineteenth-century African American colonization ideas, and the editors have led a team of young scholars who annotated the letters. Taken together, the letters provide fascinating insight into the alliances and divisions within America’s antislavery movement, making Back to Africa essential reading for every student of black studies, abolitionism, Quaker history, and nineteenth-century reform in general.