William Coppinger

Born in London on March 18, 1828, William Coppinger came to the United States as a young child. A memorial notice in Liberia states that he entered the office of the Pennsylvania Colonization Society in 1838, at only ten years old, later becoming secretary of the American Colonization Society in 1864 and serving in that role until his death on February 9, 1892.

Library of Congress records show Coppinger as the author of a run of pamphlets on Africa published in the 1880s, including The Continent of the Future, The Race for Africa, Winning an Empire, and A New World. These works were presented as annual papers and published through the Baltimore Sun, suggesting that he wrote for a broad public audience rather than only for specialists.

His writing is closely tied to the history of the American Colonization Society, an organization deeply involved in emigration to Liberia and the politics surrounding it. That context matters: Coppinger’s books can be valuable for readers interested in nineteenth-century views of Africa, colonization, and reform, while also reflecting the assumptions and agendas of the institution he served.