The law of 1831 which recognised COLONIZATION as a part of the
public policy of Maryland was a compromise, though generally not so
regarded now, between the emancipation tendency then operative and the
slaveholding interest. The fanatical movement of the abolitionists
checked the progress of things here; all sides, all parties, all
tendencies were united to rebuke the insolent demonstrations of that
fanaticism.
COLONIZATION proposes to convey to the western coast of Africa, and
to establish there, on territory procured for the purpose, the free
colored people of Maryland, with their own consent. To carry out this
design the Legislature of Maryland, in 1831 appropriated ten thousand
dollars annually for twenty years, and constituted the Maryland
State Colonization Society the agent in the business. Three Managers
of the fund are appointed by the State, to act in concert with the
Colonization Board. Neither the managers nor the members of the board
receive any compensation; yet no enterprise was ever prosecuted with
more energy, prudence, and success.
It is not necessary that I should go into details here to show what
colonization has achieved under the auspices of the Maryland board. The
people of Maryland are familiar with this subject. The Colonization
Journal, published semi-monthly in Baltimore, under the charge of DR.
JAMES HALL, the board’s general agent, makes known to the public all
the particulars connected with colonization, and the affairs of the
settlement in Africa. It may be sufficient at present to say that a
most propitious fortune seems to have accompanied every step of this
great undertaking. The colony was planted by some thirty or forty
emigrants; it now has a population of more than seven hundred. It is
an organized community; in its form, constitution and laws it is a
republic; the governor, appointed by the State board, is a colored
man; the other officers, elected by the people or appointed by the
Executive, are all colored men. The little commonwealth is prosperous;
it has established its influence over the neighboring tribes; and
recently GOV. RUSSWURM procured by purchase a considerable and very
important territory, lying adjacent to Cape Palmas. The colony has its
schools, its houses of worship, its military organization, its tribunal
of justice, its officers of police, its administrative functionaries.
Roads have been opened into the interior, and a trade is carried on
in rice, camwood, palm oil, and other productions of the country. The
language of an eye witness will best testify to the condition of
affairs in our Maryland colony: I quote the Rev. JOHN SEYES, a minister
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, long a resident at the old colony of
Monrovia, and recently a visiter at Cape Palmas:
“I consider the colony of Maryland in Liberia, known as the one
receiving the exclusive patronage of the Maryland State Colonization
Society of the United States, as decidedly one of the most prosperous
of the American settlements on the western coast of Africa. It could
not have been otherwise. The organization and continued energetic
labors of the board representing the society, would lead us to expect
nothing less. Soon after the colony was founded by Dr. James Hall,
now the society’s general agent in Baltimore, and the machinery of
a colonial government set in motion, the selection of a colored man
as governor was made. This was just as it should be. It was called
an experiment, but it was one of the success of which no reasonable
fears could be entertained. From the commencement, the colony has been
progressing, if not rapidly, yet steadily and onwardly. The population
is now about seven hundred, and they receive an immigration every year.
All necessary preparation is made for the reception of an expedition
before its arrival. There is a public asylum or receptacle, consisting
of a number of separate rooms, and situated in a healthful part of the
colony, into which the new-comers are generally acclimated. Meantime
frame buildings are being erected on lots laid out for them, of
suitable size to afford them a good garden spot, and by the time the
immigrant is through the fever and can begin to take care of himself,
he has a home to go into--a dry, comfortable little framed and shingled
house, where he can have all the necessaries and comforts of life, if
he will only follow up his first advantages with economy and industry.
“It is a notorious fact _that there is not a single family, of all the
colonists in Maryland in Liberia, occupying a thatched house_; all
have buildings such as I have described. Let it be understood that
there is another point of sound and wise policy in this arrangement of
incalculable advantage to the settler. His house is not _given_ to him;
by no means. He would not value it as much if it were. He is charged
with all the expenses of its erection. When he is able, he is furnished
with work, work is found him by some means, and as he earns his wages,
he receives a part to live on, and a reasonable proportion is stopped
in the hands of the society’s agent to pay the debt due for the house.
As I am not writing a treatise on colonization, reader, I can not stop
here to notice one tithe of the many points of superiority which this
plan possesses over others which have been in vogue in other places.
But that it works well, one must go to Palmas, visit the people as I
did, go to their homes, eat and drink with them, inquire into their
condition, find out their contentedness, without seeming to intend any
such thing, and then he will be satisfied.”
There is no instance of colonization, that I know of, which has
proved more successful in every respect than this. The history of the
settlement of our own country shows no parallel to it--especially
when we consider the materials with which colonization in Africa
had to work. Yet the colonists, humble indeed, and unaccustomed to
self-government, have acquired from their residence with an Anglo-Saxon
race so much of the rudiments, forms, and habits of a self-governing
people, that, when thrown upon their own exertions, they have exhibited
qualities of patience, endurance and good sense, which give assurance
of their capacity to do well in their new abode. Removed, moreover,
from their position of inferiority, and possessed with a true spirit of
freedom and with a feeling of self-respect thence arising, they behold
themselves _men_, with the power of rising to the highest stature of
humanity. This, in itself, is a great thing; it is the chief thing. A
people who can entertain such feelings and ideas have their destiny
sure and a noble one.
With the State’s annual appropriation of ten thousand dollars, and
the contributions of individuals, the board has carried on the
operations incident to colonization. The debts contracted by the
outlays necessary for the beginning of the enterprise of founding a new
commonwealth, and of sustaining it in its early days, have all been
paid off. An annual expedition with emigrants sails from Baltimore
to Cape Palmas. An enterprise is now on foot, with every prospect
of success, to start a packet vessel to run regularly between this
city and Cape Palmas. A number of colored persons are engaged in this
undertaking, and when its success is established, it will probably be
surrendered entirely into their hands. The facilities for emigration
will be much increased under this arrangement, by which a regular
communication will be kept up with the colony. The trade between the
two points, it is believed, will give abundant employment to a vessel
of considerable tonnage.
Now, if we look merely at what colonization has done in the way of
removing the colored population from Maryland, it would seem to be
an utterly hopeless project. But let us see what colonization really
proposes; and for this purpose I quote the language of Mr. LATROBE,
under whose able superintendence, as President of the Colonization
Board, the affairs of the colony have so wonderfully prospered:
“If colonization proposed by any probable means at its command, even
with the most munificent assistance of Congress, State Legislatures
and individuals, to remove the whole colored population of the United
States to Africa, it would well deserve to be considered visionary, as
idle indeed as to attempt to ladle Lake Erie dry. No means that could
be obtained would be competent to this end. But the means, scant as
they were, continued Mr. L., were ample to establish colonies on the
coast of Africa, capable of self-support and self-government--moral
and religious communities, where wealth and station would be offered
to the colored man as the incentives and rewards for labor--colonies
that would be as attractive to him as America is to the European. In
1832 the immigration to America was said to be upwards of two hundred
thousand, more than double, nearly treble the annual increase of the
entire colored population of the Union. These immigrants, with few
exceptions, came at their own expense. In point of means they were in
no way superior to the corresponding class of free colored people in
the United States--they came, because America presented attractions
which their home did not. It is in the power of colonization to invest
Africa with the same attractions for the colored immigrant, that
America presents to the white one. Where the latter has one inducement
to remove the former has ten. In Europe there are few avenues to
worldly honor which are closed to those, who, nevertheless, leave them
all behind. In America there are few, if any, avenues open to those for
whom colonization labors.
“The object of colonization, therefore,” said Mr. LATROBE, “may be
stated as the preparation of a home in Africa, for the free colored
people of the State, to which they may remove when the advantages which
it offers, and, above all, the pressure of irresistible circumstances
in this country shall excite them to emigrate.”
Rightly understood then, as to its views and purposes, colonization
may not be so impracticable a scheme after all. At any rate, whatever
it does accomplish, is so much of good achieved, practical, permanent,
substantial good. What the future may disclose to urge, nay, to compel,
the separation of the two races now dwelling together in this country,
no one can tell. But COLONIZATION looks with an anxious eye to such
a future contingency, and in the meantime it will do all it can to
prepare the way for the easy accomplishment of that consummation, if it
should become inevitable.
It is the belief of some very intelligent persons that the black
population of the United States will gradually move towards the
south-west, along with the cotton culture, and be finally absorbed in
the mixed races of Central America, and that thus Slavery will cease.
Mr. RIVES, of Virginia, advanced some such idea as this in the Senate
of the United States, a year or so ago. But it seems clear to my mind
that the white master will go as fast in that direction as the negro
laborer, and wherever both are found together, one must be a slave.
There is no spot on this continent where the negro can be put so as
to be removed from the domination of the white man; no remote spot
which the negro will reach unless the white man carries him thither.
The colored race in this country can never exert their energies in an
independent way; they are and must be under the overshadowing influence
of a controlling race.
What they may become in Africa, their native home, carrying with
them to those shores, the vigorous elements imbibed during their
apprenticeship of servitude here, other generations yet to come will
know better than we of the present. The part which the African is to
perform in the progress of civilization, and the development of the
entire character of humanity, is a problem which has begun to attract
the attention of enlightened men. Mr. KINMONT, whose discourses on the
Natural History of Man show so large and comprehensive a mind, dwells
with much interest upon the characteristics of the African race. A
portion of his remarks, so beautiful, so humane, I can not but quote:
“It is certainly a remarkable fact that the negro family of the human
species should have been naturally confined to the peninsula of Africa,
and should never have travelled beyond it from voluntary choice.
Philosophers have found a constitutional adaptation in this case to
the climate and local circumstances of this their native and allotted
home, and there can be no question that there is, and that when the
epoch of their _civilization_ arrives, in the lapse of ages, they
will display in their native land some very peculiar and interesting
traits of character, of which we, a distinct branch of the human
family, can at present form no conception. It will be--indeed it must
be--a civilization of a peculiar stamp; perhaps we might venture to
conjecture, not so much distinguished by art as a certain beautiful
nature, not so marked or adorned by science as exalted and refined
by a certain new and lovely theology;--a reflection of the light of
heaven more perfect and endearing than that which the intellects of
the Caucasian race have ever yet exhibited. There is more of the
_child_, of unsophisticated nature, in the negro race than in the
European, a circumstance, however, which must always lower them in
the estimation of a people whose natural distinction is a manly and
proud bearing, and an extreme proneness to artificial society, social
institutions. The peculiar civilization which nature designs for each
is obviously different, and they may impede, but never can promote
the improvement of each other. It was a sad error of the white race,
besides the moral guilt which was contracted, when they first dragged
the African, contrary to his genius and inclination, from his native
regions; a voluntary choice would never have led the negro into exile;
the peninsula of Africa is his home, and the appropriate and destined
seat of his future glory and civilization,--a civilization which, we
need not fear to predict, will be as distinct in all its features from
that of all other races, as his complexion and natural temperament
and genius are different. But who can doubt that here also humanity,
in its more advanced and millenial stage, will reflect, under a sweet
and mellow light, the softer attributes of the divine beneficence? If
the Caucasian race is destined, as would appear from the precocity of
their genius and their natural quickness, and extreme aptitude to the
arts, to reflect the lustre of the divine wisdom, or, to speak more
properly, the divine science, shall we envy the negro, if a later
but far nobler civilization await him,--to return the splendor of
the divine attributes of mercy and benevolence in the practice and
exhibition of all the milder and gentler virtues? It is true, the
present rude lineaments of the race might seem to give little warrant
for the indulgence of hopes so romantic; but yet those who will reflect
upon the natural constitution of the African may see some ground even
for such anticipations. Can we not read an aptitude for this species
of civilization I refer to, in that singular light-heartedness which
distinguishes the whole race,--in their natural want of solicitude
about the future, in them a vice at present, but yet the natural
basis of a virtue,--and especially in that natural talent for music
with which they are pre-eminently endowed, to say nothing of their
willingness _to serve_, the most beautiful trait of humanity, which
we, from our own innate love of dominion, and in defiance of the
Christian religion, brand with the name of _servility_, and abuse
not less to our own dishonor than their injury. But even amid these
untoward circumstances there burst forth occasionally the indications
of that better destiny, to which nature herself will at last conduct
them, and from which they are at present withheld, not less by the
mistaken kindness of their friends, than the injustice of their
oppressors: for so jealous is nature of her freedom, that she repels
all interference, even of the most benevolent kind, and will suffer
only that peculiar _good_ or intelligence to be elicited, of which she
has herself deposited the seeds or rudiments in the human bosom.”
I have in another place alluded to the consideration that the residence
of a portion of the negro race in this country may be, under the
overruling dispensation of Providence, the means of great good to the
whole race. It may be that the civilization of Africa will receive its
first quickening elements by the return of her sons from a servitude
which proved to them a school of useful acquirements. Some touch
of Caucasian energy thus infused into the African mind may be the
awakening impulse that shall arouse a whole people from the torpor of
ages.
At all events, leaving these speculations, one thing is certain,
viz. that MARYLAND is doing a good thing in promoting the work of
colonization in Africa. She is providing a home for the bondsmen of her
fields, where they may enjoy in reality the blessings of freedom which
can never be their heritage here. To what extent soever this work is
done, to such extent will positive good be done. We can not now foresee
the circumstances which may, in time, give aspect and character to
colonization; but of this we may be assured, that in proportion as the
home of the emancipated African is more and more enlarged in Africa,
and made more and more attractive, in such proportion will the way be
opened for the deliverance of Maryland from one of her most serious
embarrassments.