Diaspora: the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland.
Estate settlements, estate sales and slaveholder migrations could scatter enslaved families and communities to the winds. Today, the Internet may have the reach to reunite extended families across time and miles. Here we present records of enslaved ancestors who were taken from their ancestral homes in the Lowcountry, or who were separated from extended family by estate settlements.
Emigrants to Liberia by the Barque Chieftan from Savannah, GA, Feb 14, 1850 for Sinou, Liberia
On February 14, 1850, 167 African Americans set sail for Sinou, Liberia from Savannah, Georgia aboard the Barque Chieftan. Of the 167 passengers 154 had been emancipated by the will of Major Jacob Wood, of Darien, Georgia. Their names and family relationships were preserved in the list of passengers below, excerpted from the book The African Repository, digitized by Google Books. Accompanying them were 8 free African Americans and 5 formerly enslaved people which the American Colonization Society had purchased in Charleston, South Carolina. MORE