Random scenario coming to mind, based on this passage from Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia:
"[T]hey should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection."
Obviously Jefferson and many other "colonization" proponents based their support on racist theories/perceptions (the next several passages after the above make this brutally clear, in the former's case). Yet what if, perhaps due to a stronger (earlier?) show of support by Jefferson in particular, and "colonization" backers in general, this policy had been carried out on a much larger scale, and not necessarily limited to Liberia and (unsuccessfully) the Caribbean and Central America? Where else might this effort have been made, what might be the chances of success, and what would this "colony" have looked like? The image coming to mind for me is either an actual majority/all-black independent state eventually being formed, maybe west of the Mississippi as some early "colonization" ideas suggested (perhaps along the Rio Grande?), or a sort of puppet state a la the "homelands" in South African apartheid. Perhaps it's named "Jefferson", or has multiple place-names associated with him, out of respect or bitter sarcasm?
Any thoughts?
"[T]hey should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection."
Obviously Jefferson and many other "colonization" proponents based their support on racist theories/perceptions (the next several passages after the above make this brutally clear, in the former's case). Yet what if, perhaps due to a stronger (earlier?) show of support by Jefferson in particular, and "colonization" backers in general, this policy had been carried out on a much larger scale, and not necessarily limited to Liberia and (unsuccessfully) the Caribbean and Central America? Where else might this effort have been made, what might be the chances of success, and what would this "colony" have looked like? The image coming to mind for me is either an actual majority/all-black independent state eventually being formed, maybe west of the Mississippi as some early "colonization" ideas suggested (perhaps along the Rio Grande?), or a sort of puppet state a la the "homelands" in South African apartheid. Perhaps it's named "Jefferson", or has multiple place-names associated with him, out of respect or bitter sarcasm?
Any thoughts?