 It took him a year to raise the funds to travel, and he moved in 1853 with his wife, Cordelia, and his two small children.He wanted to move to Liberia to join thousands of other African Americans in leaving the United States to start a new free black nation in Africa where they would no longer be discriminated against and would enjoy equal rights.The American Colonization Society started the process of moving African Americans to Liberia to help fund the colony.