The Back-to-Africa movement, in the 19th century called Black Zionism[citation needed][when?] or the colonization movement'[citation needed][when?], took the view that Americans of African ancestry should return to Africa—not to the homelands of their ancestors, which in most cases were unknown, but to the continent. In general the movement was an overwhelming failure; very few free slaves wanted to move to Africa, and the small number that did—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the abolitionist movement.