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Any attempt to acknowledge all the specific and general assistance I have received in writing this book would turn the Acknowledgments into the Personals. I have had perceptive and energetic colleagues , and they have done what they could to encourage me and supply me with both arcane data and grand theories. They have caught many, but certainly not all, of my errors. I am particularly indebted to James O. Horton, who has been a colleague and friend for many years. He steadily supported my efforts to find time from heavy teaching loads and regular employment in public history in order to research and write. Svend Holsoe, now emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware, has been extremely generous with his time and his unparalleled collection of Liberian materials over many years and queries. Twice the National Endowment for the Humanities assisted me with Summer Seminar stipends. Directors Larry Levine and Jane DeHart, as well as Donald Mathews, supported my later work, as did Ed Ayers, Suzanne Lebsock, and Phyllis Palmer. A postdoctoral fellowship to the Afro American Communities Project at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History allowed me to do quantitative studies of the Richmond free black community and to investigate the material culture and folklife of antebellum Virginia’s African Americans. A fellowship at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities gave me access to the rich Virginia history collections of Alderman Library and expanded my list of colonization auxiliary societies as well as my knowledge of their members. Part of my work as historian at the Valentine Museum, now the Richmond History Center, was to produce a survey history of Richmond, Virginia. This gave me greater context for colonization and helped me to integrate new materials and approaches for explaining the American Colonization Society in Virginia. Staff historians at the Library of Virginia have maintained a professional interest in this enterprise for many years. The friendship and scholarship of Brent Tarter, Sandy Treadway, and John Kneebone , the latter then with the library, and Gregg Kimball, now at Acknowledgments the library, have been sustaining. Melvin Ely alerted me to the letters of Ann Rice. A Mellon Fellowship to the Virginia Historical Society gave me access to the papers of Virginia women in the colonization movement. I am indebted to the knowledgeable staff that assisted me, especially Nelson Lankford, Sarah Bearss, now at the Library of Virginia, Janet Schwarz, and Frances Pollard. A fellowship to the International Center for Jefferson Studies brought me full circle to where I began this study as a political history. My thanks to Zanne McDonald, Gaye Bower, and Rebecca Bowman at the center, and to Peter Onuf for discussions about Jefferson and the American Colonization Society. I shared research with Diane Swann-Wright, then director of African American and Special Programs, and Lucia Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the greater gain was mine. At the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library, Ervin Jordan, curator of special collections, was especially helpful, as was Lucious Edwards at Virginia State University. Dwight Pitcaithley, chief historian of the National Park Service, indulged and supported my desire for research and writing time, even when it meant more work for him and for the staff of the history section of the National Register, History and Education Office. While I was teaching in the American studies department at George Washington University, Shannon Thomas served as a very competent intern. At the National Park Service , I thank Lois Horton for sending me Sarah Amsler, who worked as an intern in the American Colonization Society records, and I thank the Afro American Communities Project of the Smithsonian Institution for sharing Sarah’s time and labors. Laurel Sneed of the Thomas Day Project, Jane Leigh Carter, and Claude Clegg generously shared material on the free black Day family and on North Carolina free blacks. Readers of certain chapters in various forms include Scott Casper, Doug Egerton, Stanley Harrold, Vivien Hart, Deborah Lee, Randall Miller, Peter Onuf, Phyllis Palmer, Jim Sidbury, Bronwen Souders, Tatiana van Riemsdijk, Brent Tarter, Sandra Treadway, and Trin Yarborough. Brent Tarter read the entire manuscript, and Tatiana and Deborah gave the final drafts much-appreciated close attention. Randall Miller was an engaged, patient, and very helpful reader, and Stanley Harrold showed me where I needed more clarity. My thanks to Charles Grench and Katy O’Brien at the University of North Carolina Press for guiding the manuscript through...

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