Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page . Colonization after Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement . Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2011. Pp. x, 164. $34.95.

Abstract

This short book attempts to say something new or at least uncommon about Abraham Lincoln. Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page's thesis is clear: that Lincoln remained more interested in colonizing African Americans outside the United States than modern historians have wanted to see. The authors contend that Lincoln pursued efforts to export black laborers to the British or Dutch Caribbean for some months after his administration issued the Emancipation Proclamation and began arming black soldiers. The historiographic rationale for this work is strongly stated. Magness and Page suggest that Lincoln's progression toward enlightened racial views is one of the most politically freighted themes of modern Civil War scholarship, the sort of moral redemption narrative that has energized a host of academics. While historians have noted Lincoln's long antebellum support for colonization, and his ill‐fated experiments early in the war with resettlement efforts in Haiti and modern Panama, they have been less attentive to his interest after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. As the authors observe, “The postemancipation colonization literature remains noticeably underdeveloped, and indeed a topic that many scholars decline to pursue for simple doubt of its existence” (p. 7).