{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26418"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26418","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Exporting the racial republic: African colonization, national citizenship, and the transformation of U.S. expansion, 1776-1864","abstract":"The effort to create a colony of African Americans on the west coast of Africa was one of the most celebrated and influential movements in the United States during the first half of the 19th century. While historians have often viewed African colonization through the lens of domestic anti-slavery politics, colonization grew from an imperial impulse which promised to transform the identities of black colonists and indigenous Africans by helping them to build a democratic nation from the foundation of a settler colony. By proposing that persons of African descent could eventually become self-governing subjects, the liberal framework behind colonization offered the possibility of black citizenship rights, but only within racially homogenous nation-states, which some proponents of colonization imagined might lead to a “United States of Africa.” This dissertation examines how the notion of expanding democratic ideals through the export of racial nationhood was crucial to the appeal of colonization. It reveals how colonization surfaced in several crucial debates about race, citizenship, and empire in the antebellum United States by examining discussions about African Americans’ revolutionary claims to political rights, the bounds of US territorial expansion, the removal of native populations in North America, and the racialization of national citizenship, both at home and abroad. By examining African colonization from these perspectives, this dissertation argues that the United States’ efforts to construct a liberal democracy defined by white racial identity were directly connected to the nation’s emerging identity as a defender and exporter of political liberty throughout the world.","abstract_html":"The effort to create a colony of African Americans on the west coast of Africa was one of the most celebrated and influential movements in the United States during the first half of the 19th century. While historians have often viewed African colonization through the lens of domestic anti-slavery politics, colonization grew from an imperial impulse which promised to transform the identities of black colonists and indigenous Africans by helping them to build a democratic nation from the foundation of a settler colony. By proposing that persons of African descent could eventually become self-governing subjects, the liberal framework behind colonization offered the possibility of black citizenship rights, but only within racially homogenous nation-states, which some proponents of colonization imagined might lead to a “United States of Africa.” This dissertation examines how the notion of expanding democratic ideals through the export of racial nationhood was crucial to the appeal of colonization. It reveals how colonization surfaced in several crucial debates about race, citizenship, and empire in the antebellum United States by examining discussions about African Americans’ revolutionary claims to political rights, the bounds of US territorial expansion, the removal of native populations in North America, and the racialization of national citizenship, both at home and abroad. By examining African colonization from these perspectives, this dissertation argues that the United States’ efforts to construct a liberal democracy defined by white racial identity were directly connected to the nation’s emerging identity as a defender and exporter of political liberty throughout the world.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mills, Brandon"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"History","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Hoganson, Kristin","Roediger, David R.","Hoganson, Kristin L.","Burton, Antoinette M.","Hoxie, Frederick E."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-08-26T15:35:07Z","date_published":"2011-08-26T15:35:07Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:27Z","subjects":["race","Imperialism","citizenship","United States","African American","Native American"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Brandon Mills"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26418","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Hoganson, Kristin","Roediger, David R.","Hoganson, Kristin L.","Burton, Antoinette M.","Hoxie, Frederick E."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Mills, Brandon"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-08-26T15:35:07Z","2015-07-16T10:01:07Z","2011-08"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["History"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["race","Imperialism","citizenship","United States","African American","Native American"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Brandon Mills"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26418"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The effort to create a colony of African Americans on the west coast of Africa was one of the most celebrated and influential movements in the United States during the first half of the 19th century. While historians have often viewed African colonization through the lens of domestic anti-slavery politics, colonization grew from an imperial impulse which promised to transform the identities of black colonists and indigenous Africans by helping them to build a democratic nation from the foundation of a settler colony. By proposing that persons of African descent could eventually become self-governing subjects, the liberal framework behind colonization offered the possibility of black citizenship rights, but only within racially homogenous nation-states, which some proponents of colonization imagined might lead to a “United States of Africa.” This dissertation examines how the notion of expanding democratic ideals through the export of racial nationhood was crucial to the appeal of colonization. It reveals how colonization surfaced in several crucial debates about race, citizenship, and empire in the antebellum United States by examining discussions about African Americans’ revolutionary claims to political rights, the bounds of US territorial expansion, the removal of native populations in North America, and the racialization of national citizenship, both at home and abroad. By examining African colonization from these perspectives, this dissertation argues that the United States’ efforts to construct a liberal democracy defined by white racial identity were directly connected to the nation’s emerging identity as a defender and exporter of political liberty throughout the world.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-06-30T22:06:03Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Mills_Brandon.doc: 832000 bytes, checksum: 55592c7930891c6777f9dfe100c7ac75 (MD5) Mills_Brandon.pdf: 1066548 bytes, checksum: 53903d7b47bce1da435b61b8ca6ede79 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-08-26T15:35:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Mills_Brandon.pdf: 1066548 bytes, checksum: 53903d7b47bce1da435b61b8ca6ede79 (MD5) license.txt: 4062 bytes, checksum: 3d834c84cca4648a6802e0bbe43d9da5 (MD5) Mills_Brandon.doc: 832000 bytes, checksum: 55592c7930891c6777f9dfe100c7ac75 (MD5)","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:10:07-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: 2015-07-16 09:30:43 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system. Requested an extension to UofI only for 2 years through the graduate college. sshreeve 07-16-2013","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-08-26T15:35:56Z Item is restricted until 2013-08-26T15:35:26Z","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-07-16T14:30:26Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-07-16T14:30:43Z Item is restricted until 2015-07-16T14:30:43Z","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 26621 on 2015-07-16T10:01:07Z."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Exporting the racial republic: African colonization, national citizenship, and the transformation of U.S. expansion, 1776-1864"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Hoganson, Kristin","Roediger, David R.","Hoganson, Kristin L.","Burton, Antoinette M.","Hoxie, Frederick E."],"dc:creator":["Mills, Brandon"],"dc:date":["2011-08-26T15:35:07Z","2015-07-16T10:01:07Z","2011-08"],"dc:description":["The effort to create a colony of African Americans on the west coast of Africa was one of the most celebrated and influential movements in the United States during the first half of the 19th century. While historians have often viewed African colonization through the lens of domestic anti-slavery politics, colonization grew from an imperial impulse which promised to transform the identities of black colonists and indigenous Africans by helping them to build a democratic nation from the foundation of a settler colony. By proposing that persons of African descent could eventually become self-governing subjects, the liberal framework behind colonization offered the possibility of black citizenship rights, but only within racially homogenous nation-states, which some proponents of colonization imagined might lead to a “United States of Africa.” This dissertation examines how the notion of expanding democratic ideals through the export of racial nationhood was crucial to the appeal of colonization. It reveals how colonization surfaced in several crucial debates about race, citizenship, and empire in the antebellum United States by examining discussions about African Americans’ revolutionary claims to political rights, the bounds of US territorial expansion, the removal of native populations in North America, and the racialization of national citizenship, both at home and abroad. By examining African colonization from these perspectives, this dissertation argues that the United States’ efforts to construct a liberal democracy defined by white racial identity were directly connected to the nation’s emerging identity as a defender and exporter of political liberty throughout the world.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-06-30T22:06:03Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Mills_Brandon.doc: 832000 bytes, checksum: 55592c7930891c6777f9dfe100c7ac75 (MD5) Mills_Brandon.pdf: 1066548 bytes, checksum: 53903d7b47bce1da435b61b8ca6ede79 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-08-26T15:35:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Mills_Brandon.pdf: 1066548 bytes, checksum: 53903d7b47bce1da435b61b8ca6ede79 (MD5) license.txt: 4062 bytes, checksum: 3d834c84cca4648a6802e0bbe43d9da5 (MD5) Mills_Brandon.doc: 832000 bytes, checksum: 55592c7930891c6777f9dfe100c7ac75 (MD5)","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:10:07-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: 2015-07-16 09:30:43 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system. Requested an extension to UofI only for 2 years through the graduate college. sshreeve 07-16-2013","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-08-26T15:35:56Z Item is restricted until 2013-08-26T15:35:26Z","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-07-16T14:30:26Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-07-16T14:30:43Z Item is restricted until 2015-07-16T14:30:43Z","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 26621 on 2015-07-16T10:01:07Z."],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26418"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2011 Brandon Mills"],"dc:subject":["race","Imperialism","citizenship","United States","African American","Native American"],"dc:title":["Exporting the racial republic: African colonization, national citizenship, and the transformation of U.S. expansion, 1776-1864"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["History"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:27Z"}