Will Jones
Most American literature on slavery solely focuses on emancipation. There are countless books written on what enslaved people went through and how they had to make difficult decisions to survive. As a result, the topic of how the most-sought-after freedom reshaped their lives gets little attention.
To fill this gap in the American literature, Gbitee Doryen Gbitee, in his book, Coming to Africa: Historical Figures in The Founding of Liberia, talks about how freed Black Americans helped establish a community which is now recognized as the Republic of Liberia.
Liberia’s founding is often reduced to a footnote. It is often termed as a 19th-century experiment driven by the American Colonization Society, which was a controversial organization as it promoted the relocation of free Black people from the United States to West Africa. As a former production and circulation manager of a leading newspaper in Liberia, Gbitee Doryen Gbitee has always been passionate about revisiting that history and presenting an objective viewpoint of the topic. He had always wanted to learn about the individuals who shaped the path that led to the creation of Liberia.
The book, published in May, 2025, has graced the shelves at a point in American history when migration and identity have become a hot dilemma once again.
Coming to Africa takes readers back to early 19th-century America. It sketches a vivid image of how many freed Black Americans faced discrimination, violence, and limited economic opportunity. Some believed that remaining in the United States and fighting for full rights was the only just path. Meanwhile, most people longed to have an ancestral homeland and to build something new where they could live their lives on their own terms.
Gbitee traces those debates through figures like Paul Cuffe, a shipowner and abolitionist who used his own resources to transport free Black Americans to West Africa years before Liberia formally existed. Cuffe’s efforts also raise a debate on the idea that the Back-to-Africa movement was driven solely by white interests.
The book also expands into highlighting the role of power. Leaders of the American Colonization Society, including prominent white politicians and clergymen, believed that Black and white Americans could not coexist as equals. The result of this was that Liberia was born.
One of the book’s strongest contributions is its attention to the African side of the encounter. Too often, indigenous communities appear only as background figures in colonial narratives. Gbitee foregrounds leaders like Zolu Duma, also known in historical records as “King Peter,” whose land negotiations with American agents shaped the earliest settlements. Gbitee has documented competing written and oral accounts to show how myth and misunderstandings have become entangled in Liberia’s origin story.
Coming to Africa presents various questions to its readers, which are worth asking. It stresses that the individuals who lived through that hardship era deserve more than simplified narratives. By restoring attention to overlooked figures and contested moments, Gbitee gives a new take on a story that has been repeated in books, movies, and TV shows multiple times.