The Lincoln Administration’s Negotiations to Colonize African Americans in Dutch Suriname

The Lincoln Administration’s Negotiations to Colonize African Americans in Dutch Suriname

When historians in the twentieth century reviewed Civil War colonization, they arrived at a general consensus most clearly enunciated in the words of James McPherson: “As a practical solution of the Negro question, colonization was a failure from the beginning.”1 Indeed, if winners write history, or if historians concerned themselves only with victorious ideologies, then colonization should not take much of a place in the history of the war. But if historians desire a more complete understanding of the complexities of Civil War race relations and diplomacy, the topic of colonization is long overdue.