5 Ugly Abraham Lincoln Facts No One Likes to Talk About

Lincoln Wanted to Relocate Freed Black Americans to a Colony in Central America

*“Lincoln at home,” an Andrew O’Connor portrait of Lincoln and family. Library of Congress*

“There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh at it may be, for you, free colored people, to remain with us,” Lincoln added. “It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. The place I am thinking about having for a colony is Central America.”

Yes, at one point, Lincoln wanted to remove Black people from the U.S. altogether.

“Part of what Lincoln is doing here is trying to get at that gnawing uncertainty in Black people that maybe we can’t actually belong in this country,” Bonner notes. “He’s saying, we all understand that equality is what this country’s supposed to be about, but really, racial equality is not gonna happen, so get with the program.”