The masculinist rhetoric undergirding the push for the establishment of autonomous African American communities in the West, following the participation of African Americans in conflicts that contributed to American expansion, namely the Indian Wars, worked in tandem with religious rhetoric, like what Andre E. Johnson calls Turner’s “prophetic pessimism,” meant to catalyze emigration to Liberia. In some ways, this performance of masculinity is in line with ideals of muscular Christianity. Yet, “manhood,” while including individual performances of masculinity, also indicates a collective and nationalistic understanding of African American power and dignity, evidenced by imperial expansion and nation-building.
Evidence also suggests parallels between encounters with Native Americans during westward migration and encounters with indigenous Africans as African American emigrants settled in Liberia, suggesting a sort of eastward Manifest Destiny idea, connected to what I call the two-ness of African American experience in relation to state power and state interests. This paper explores the relationship between African American involvement in the process of American expansion, the civilizing mission in Africa, particularly in Liberia, and the rhetoric of manhood in the American South in the nineteenth century.