Address delivered in Boston, New York and Philadelphia

The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the repatriation of freeborn people of color and emancipated slaves to sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Grain Coast. It was modeled on an earlier British Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor's colonization in sub-Saharan Africa, which had sought to resettle London's "black poor". Until the organization's dissolution in 1964, the society was headquartered in Room 516 of the Colorado Building in Washington, D.C. The American Colonization Society was established in 1816 to address the prevailing view that free people of color could not integrate into U.S. society; their population had grown steadily following the American Revolutionary War, from 60,000 in 1790 to 300,000 by 1830. Slave owners feared that these free Black people might help their slaves to escape or rebel. In addition, many White Americans believed that African Americans were inherently inferior and should be relocated.