COLONIZATION AS A REMEDY FOR MIGRATION
Because of these untoward circumstances consequent to the immigration of
free Negroes and fugitives into the North, their enemies, and in some
cases their well-intentioned friends, advocated the diversion of these
elements to foreign soil. Benezet and Brannagan had the idea of settling
the Negroes on the public lands in the West largely to relieve the
situation in the North.[1] Certain anti-slavery men of Kentucky, as we
have observed, recommended the same. But this was hardly advocated at all
by the farseeing white men after the close of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. It was by that time very clear that white men would
want to occupy all lands within the present limits of the United States.
Few statesmen dared to encourage migration to Canada because the large
number of fugitives who had already escaped there had attached to that
region the stigma of being an asylum for fugitives from the slave States.
The most influential people who gave thought to this question finally
decided that the colonization of the Negro in Africa was the only solution
of the problem. The plan of African colonization appealed more generally
to the people of both North and South than the other efforts, which, at
best, could do no more than to offer local or temporary relief. The
African colonizationists proceeded on the basis that the Negroes had no
chance for racial development in this country. They could secure no kind
of honorable employment, could not associate with congenial white friends
whose minds and pursuits might operate as a stimulus upon their industry
and could not rise to the level of the successful professional or business
men found around them. In short, they must ever be hewers of wood and
drawers of water.[2]
To emphasize further the necessity of emigration to Africa the advocates
of deportation to foreign soil generally referred to the condition of the
migrating Negroes as a case in evidence. "So long," said one, "as you must
sit, stand, walk, ride, dwell, eat and sleep _here_ and the Negro
_there_, he cannot be free in any part of the country."[3] This idea
working through the minds of northern men, who had for years thought
merely of the injustice of slavery, began to change their attitude toward
the abolitionists who had never undertaken to solve the problem of the
blacks who were seeking refuge in the North. Many thinkers controlling
public opinion then gave audience to the colonizationists and circles once
closed to them were thereafter opened.[4]
There was, therefore, a tendency toward a more systematic effort than had
hitherto characterized the endeavors of the colonizationists. The objects
of their philanthropy were not to be stolen away and hurried off to an
uncongenial land for the oppressed. They were in accordance with the
exigencies of their new situation to be prepared by instruction in
mechanic arts, agriculture, science and Biblical literature that some
might lead in the higher pursuits and others might skilfully serve their
fellows.[5] Private enterprise was at first depended on to carry out the
schemes but it soon became evident that a better method was necessary.
Finally out of the proposals of various thinkers and out of the actual
colonization feats of Paul Cuffé, a Negro, came a national meeting for
this purpose, held in Washington, December, 1816, and the organization of
the American Colonization Society. This meeting was attended by some of
the most prominent men in the United States, among whom were Henry Clay,
Francis S. Key, Bishop William Meade, John Randolph and Judge Bushrod
Washington.
The American Colonization Society, however, failed to facilitate the
movement of the free Negro from the South and did not promote the general
welfare of the race. The reasons for these failures are many. In the first
place, the society was all things to all men. To the anti-slavery man
whose ardor had been dampened by the meagre results obtained by his
agitation, the scheme was the next best thing to remove the objections of
slaveholders who had said they would emancipate their bondsmen, if they
could be assured of their being deported to foreign soil. To the radical
proslavery man and to the northerner hating the Negro it was well adapted
to rid the country of the free persons of color whom they regarded as the
pariahs of society.[6] Furthermore, although the Colonization Society
became seemingly popular and the various States organized branches of it
and raised money to promote the movement, the slaveholders as a majority
never reached the position of parting with their slaves and the country
would not take such radical action as to compel free Negroes to undergo
expatriation when militant abolitionists were fearlessly denouncing the
scheme.[7]
The free people of color themselves were not only not anxious to go but
bore it grievously that any one should even suggest that they should be
driven from the country in which they were born and for the independence
of which their fathers had died. They held indignation meetings throughout
the North to denounce the scheme as a selfish policy inimical to the
interests of the people of color.[8] Branded thus as the inveterate foe of
the blacks both slave and free, the American Colonization Society effected
the deportation of only such Negroes as southern masters felt disposed to
emancipate from time to time and a few others induced to go. As the
industrial revolution early changed the aspect of the economic situation
in the South so as to make slavery seemingly profitable, few masters ever
thought of liberating their slaves.
Scarcely any intelligent Negroes except those who, for economic or
religious reasons were interested, availed themselves of this opportunity
to go to the land of their ancestors. From the reports of the Colonization
Society we learn that from 1820 to 1833 only 2,885 Negroes were sent to
Africa by the Society. Furthermore, more than 2,700 of this number were
taken from the slave States, and about two thirds of these were slaves
manumitted on the condition that they would emigrate.[9] Later statistics
show the same tendency. By 1852, 7,836 had been deported from the United
States to Liberia. 2,720 of these were born free, 204 purchased their
freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of their going to Liberia and
1,044 were liberated Africans returned by the United States
Government.[10] Considering the fact that there were 434,495 free persons
of color in this country in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860, the colonizationists
saw that the very element of the population which the movement was
intended to send out of the country had increased rather than decreased.
It is clear, then, that the American Colonization Society, though regarded
as a factor to play an important part in promoting the exodus of the free
Negroes to foreign soil, was an inglorious failure.
Colonization in other quarters, however, was not abandoned. A colony of
Negroes in Texas was contemplated in 1833 prior to the time when the
republic became independent of Mexico, as slavery was not at first assured
in that State. The _New York Commercial Advertiser_ had no objection
to the enterprise but felt that there were natural obstacles such as a
more expensive conveyance than that to Monrovia, the high price of land in
that country, the Catholic religion to which Negroes were not accustomed
to conform, and their lack of knowledge of the Spanish language. The
editor observed that some who had emigrated to Hayti a few years before
became discontented because they did not know the language. Louisiana, a
slave State, moreover, would not suffer near its borders a free Negro
republic to serve as an asylum for refugees.[11] The Richmond Whig saw the
actual situation in dubbing the scheme as chimerical for the reason that a
more unsuitable country for the blacks did not exist. Socially and
politically it would never suit the Negroes. Already a great number of
adventurers from the United States had gone to Texas and fugitives from
justice from Mexico, a fierce, lawless and turbulent class, would give the
Negroes little chance there, as the Negroes could not contend with the
Spaniard and the Creole. The editor believed that an inferior race could
never exist in safety surrounded by a superior one despising them.
Colonization in Africa was then urged and the efforts of the blacks to go
elsewhere were characterized as doing mischief at every turn to defeat the
"enlightened plan" for the amelioration of the Negroes.[12]
It was still thought possible to induce the Negroes to go to some
congenial foreign land, although few of them would agree to emigrate to
Africa. Not a few Negroes began during the two decades immediately
preceding the Civil War to think more favorably of African colonization
and a still larger number, in view of the increasing disabilities fixed
upon their class, thought of migrating to some country nearer to the
United States. Much was said about Central America, but British Guiana and
the West Indies proved to be the most inviting fields to the latter-day
Negro colonizationists. This idea was by no means new, for Jefferson in
his foresight had, in a letter to Governor Edward Coles, of Illinois, in
1814, shown the possibilities of colonization in the West Indies. He felt
that because Santo Domingo had become an independent Negro republic it
would offer a solution of the problem as to where the Negroes should be
colonized. In this way these islands would become a sort of safety valve
for the United States. He became more and more convinced that all the West
Indies would remain in the hands of the people of color, and a total
expulsion of the whites sooner or later would take place. It was high
time, he thought, that Americans should foresee the bloody scenes which
their children certainly, and possibly they themselves, would have to wade
through. [13]
The movement to the West Indies was accelerated by other factors. After
the emancipation in those islands in the thirties, there had for some
years been a dearth of labor. Desiring to enjoy their freedom and living
in a climate where there was not much struggle for life, the freedmen
either refused to work regularly or wandered about purposely from year to
year. The islands in which sugar had once played a conspicuous part as the
foundation of their industry declined and something had to be done to meet
this exigency. In the forties and fifties, therefore, there came to the
United States a number of labor agents whose aim was to set forth the
inviting aspect of the situation in the West Indies so as to induce free
Negroes to try their fortunes there. To this end meetings were held in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston and even in some of the
cities of the South, where these agents appealed to the free Negroes to
emigrate.[l4]
Thus before the American Colonization Society had got well on its way
toward accomplishing its purpose of deporting the Negroes to Africa the
West Indies and British Guiana claimed the attention of free people of
color in offering there unusual opportunities. After the consummation of
British emancipation in those islands in 1838, the English nation came to
he regarded by the Negroes of the United States as the exclusive friend of
the race. The Negro press and church vied with each other in praising
British emancipation as an act of philanthropy and pointed to the English
dominions as an asylum for the oppressed. So disturbed were the whites by
this growing feeling that riots broke out in northern cities on occasions
of Negro celebrations of the anniversary of emancipation in the West
Indies.[l5]
In view of these facts, the colonizationists had to redouble their efforts
to defend their cause. They found it a little difficult to make a good
case for Liberia, a land far away in an unhealthy climate so much unlike
that of the West Indies and British Guiana, where Negroes had been
declared citizens entitled to all privileges afforded by the government.
The colonizationists could do no more than to express doubt that the
Negroes would have there the opportunities for mental, moral and social
betterment which were offered in Liberia. The promoters of the enterprise
in Africa did not believe that the West Indian planters who had had
emancipation forced upon them would accept blacks from the United States
as their equals, nor that they, far from receiving the consideration of
freedmen, would be there any more than menials. When told of the
establishment of schools and churches for the improvement of the freedmen,
the colonizationists replied that schools might be provided, but the
planters could have no interest in encouraging education as they did not
want an elevated class of people but bone and muscle. As an evidence of
the truth of this statement it was asserted that newspapers of the country
were filled with disastrous accounts of the falling off of crops and the
scarcity of labor but had little to say about those forces instrumental in
the uplift of the people.[16]
An effort was made also to show that there would be no economic advantage
in going to the British dominions. It was thought that as soon as the
first demand for labor was supplied wages would be reduced, for no new
plantations could be opened there as in a growing country like Liberia. It
would be impossible, therefore, for the Negroes immigrating there to take
up land and develop a class of small farmers as they were doing in Africa.
Under such circumstances, they contended, the Negroes in the West Indies
could not feel any of the "elevating influences of nationality of
character," as the white men would limit the influence of the Negroes by
retaining practically all of the wealth of the islands. The inducements,
therefore, offered the free Negroes in the United States were merely
intended to use them in supplying in the British dominions the need of men
to do drudgery scarcely more elevating than the toil of slaves.[l7]
Determined to interest a larger number of persons in diverting the
attention of the free Negroes from the West Indies, the colonizationists
took higher ground. They asserted that the interests of the millions of
white men in this country were then at stake, and even if it would be
better for the three million Negroes of the country gradually to emigrate
to the British dominions, it would eventually prove prejudicial to the
interests of the United States. They showed how the Negroes immigrating
into the West Indies would be made to believe that the refusal to extend
to them here social and political equality was cruel oppression and the
immigrants, therefore, would carry with them no good will to this country.
When they arrived in the West Indies their circumstances would increase
this hostility, alienate their affections and estrange them wholly from
the United States. Taught to regard the British as the exclusive friends
of their race, devoted to its elevation, they would become British in
spirit. As such, these Negroes would be controlled by British influence
and would increase the wealth and commerce of the British and as soldiers
would greatly strengthen British power.[l8]
It was better, therefore, they argued, to direct the Negroes to Liberia,
for those who went there with a feeling of hostility against the white
people were placed in circumstances operating to remove that feeling, in
that the kind solicitude for their welfare would be extended them in their
new home so as to overcome their prejudices, win their confidence, and
secure their attachment. Looking to this country as their fatherland and
the home of their benefactors, the Liberians would develop a nation,
taking the religion, customs and laws of this country as their models,
marketing their produce in this country and purchasing our manufactures.
In spite of its independence, therefore, Liberia would be American in
feeling, language and interests, affording a means to get rid of a class
undesirable here but desirable to us there in their power to extend
American influence, trade and commerce.[l9]
Negroes migrated to the West Indies in spite of this warning and protest.
Hayti, at first looked upon with fear of having a free Negro government
near slaveholding States, became fixed in the minds of some as a desirable
place for the colonization of free persons of color.[20] This was due to
the apparent natural advantages in soil, climate and the situation of the
country over other places in consideration. It was thought that the island
would support fourteen millions of people and that, once opened to
immigration from the United States, it would in a few years fill up by
natural increase. It was remembered that it was formerly the emporium of
the Western World and that it supplied both hemispheres with sugar and
coffee. It had rapidly recovered from the disaster of the French
Revolution and lacked only capital and education which the United States
under these circumstances could furnish. Furthermore, it was argued that
something in this direction should be immediately done, as European
nations then seeking to establish friendly relations with the islands,
would secure there commercial advantages which the United States should
have and could establish by sending to that island free Negroes especially
devoted to agriculture.
In 1836, Z. Kingsley, a Florida planter,[2l] actually undertook to carry
out such a plan on a small scale. He established on the northeast side of
Hayti, near Port Plate, his son, George Kingsley, a well-educated colored
man of industrious habits and uncorrupted morals, together with six "prime
African men," slaves liberated for that express purpose. There he
purchased for them 35,000 acres of land upon which they engaged in the
production of crops indigenous to that soil.
Hayti, however, was not to be the only island to get consideration. In
1834 two hundred colored emigrants went from New York alone to Trinidad,
under the superintendence and at the expense of planters of that island.
It was later reported that every one of them found employment on the day
of arrival and in one or two instances the most intelligent were placed as
overseers at the salary of $500 per annum. No one received less than $1.00
a day and most of them earned $1.50. The Trinidad press welcomed these
immigrants and spoke in the highest terms of the valuable services they
rendered the country.[22] Others followed from year to year. One of these
Negroes appreciated so much this new field of opportunity that he returned
and induced twenty intelligent free persons of color living in Annapolis,
Maryland, also to emigrate to Trinidad.[23]
_The New York Sun_ reported in 1840 that 160 colored persons left
Philadelphia for Trinidad. They had been hired by an eminent planter to
labor on that island and they were encouraged to expect that they should
have privileges which would make their residence desirable. The editor
wished a few dozen Trinidad planters would come to that city on the same
business and on a much larger scale.[24] N.W. Pollard, agent of the
Government of Trinidad, came to Baltimore in 1851 to make his appeal for
emigrants, offering to pay all expenses.[25] At a meeting held in
Baltimore, in 1852, the parents of Mr. Stanbury Boyce, now a retired
merchant in Washington, District of Columbia, were also induced to go.
They found there opportunities which they had never had before and well
established themselves in their new home. The account which Mr. Boyce
gives in a letter to the writer corroborates the newspaper reports as to
the success of the enterprise.[26]
The _New York Journal of Commerce_ reported in 1841 that, according
to advices received at New Orleans from Jamaica, there had arrived in that
island fourteen Negro emigrants from the United States, being the first
fruits of Mr. Barclay's mission to this country. A much larger number of
Negroes were expected and various applications for their services had been
received from respectable parties.[27] The products of soil were reported
as much reduced from former years and to meet its demand for labor some
freedmen from Sierra Leone were induced to emigrate to that island in
1842.[28] One Mr. Anderson, an agent of the government of Jamaica,
contemplated visiting New York in 1851 to secure a number of laborers,
tradesmen and agricultural settlers.[29]
In the course of time, emigration to foreign lands interested a larger
number of representative Negroes. At a national council called in 1853 to
promote more effectively the amelioration of the colored people, the
question of emigration and that only was taken up for serious
consideration. But those who desired to introduce the question of Liberian
colonization or who were especially interested in that scheme were not
invited. Among the persons who promoted the calling of this council were
William Webb, Martin R. Delaney, J. Gould Bias, Franklin Turner, Augustus
Greene, James M. Whitfield, William Lambert, Henry Bibb, James T. Holly
and Henry M. Collins.
There developed in this assembly three groups, one believing with Martin
R. Delaney that it was best to go to the Niger Valley in Africa, another
following the counsel of James M. Whitfield then interested in emigration
to Central America, and a third supporting James T. Holly who insisted
that Hayti offered the best opportunities for free persons of color
desiring to leave the United States. Delaney was commissioned to proceed
to Africa, where he succeeded in concluding treaties with eight African
kings who offered American Negroes inducements to settle in their
respective countries. James Redpath, already interested in the scheme of
colonization in Hayti, had preceded Holly there and with the latter as his
coworker succeeded in sending to that country as many as two thousand
emigrants, the first of whom sailed from this country in 1861.[30] Owing
to the lack of equipment adequate to the establishment of the settlement
and the unfavorable climate, not more than one third of the emigrants
remained. Some attention was directed to California and Central America
just as in the case of Africa but nothing in that direction took tangible
form immediately, and the Civil War following soon thereafter did not give
some of these schemes a chance to materialize.
[Footnote 1: _The African Repository_, XVI, p. 22.]
[Footnote 2: _The African Repository_, XVI, p. 23; Alexander, _A
History of Colonization_, p. 347.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., XVI, p. 113.]
[Footnote 4: Jay, _An Inquiry_, pp. 25, 29; Hodgkin, _An
Inquiry_, p. 31.]
[Footnote 5: _The African Repository_, IV, p. 276; Griffin, _A Plea
for Africa_, p. 65.]
[Footnote 6: Jay, _An Inquiry_, passim; _The Journal of Negro
History_, I, pp. 276-301; and Stebbins, _Facts and Opinions_, pp.
200-201.]
[Footnote 7: Hart, _Slavery and Abolition_, p. 237.]
[Footnote 8: _The Journal of Negro History_, I, pp. 284-296;
Garrison, _Thoughts on Colonization_, p. 204.]
[Footnote 9: _The African Repository_, XXXIII, p. 117.]
[Footnote 10: _The African Repository_, XXIII, p. 117.]
[Footnote 11: _The African Repository_, IX, pp. 86-88.]
[Footnote 12: _Ibid._, IX, p. 88.]
[Footnote 13: "If something is not done, and soon done," said he, "we
shall be the murderers of our own children. The '_murmura venturos nautis
prudentia ventos_' has already reached us (from Santo Domingo); the
revolutionary storm, now sweeping the globe will be upon us, and happy if
we make timely provision to give it an easy passage over our land. From
the present state of things in Europe and America, the day which begins
our combustion must be near at hand; and only a single spark is wanting
to make that day to-morrow. If we had begun sooner, we might probably have
been allowed a lengthier operation to clear ourselves, but every day's
delay lessens the time we may take for emancipation."
As to the mode of emancipation, he was satisfied that that must be a
matter of compromise between the passions, the prejudices, and the real
difficulties which would each have its weight in that operation. He
believed that the first chapter of this history, which was begun in St.
Domingo, and the next succeeding ones, would recount how all the whites
were driven from all the other islands. This, he thought, would prepare
their minds for a peaceable accommodation between justice and policy; and
furnish an answer to the difficult question, as to where the colored
emigrants should go. He urged that the country put some plan under way,
and the sooner it did so the greater would be the hope that it might be
permitted to proceed peaceably toward consummation.--See Ford edition of
_Jefferson's Writings_, VI, p. 349, VII, pp. 167, 168.]
[Footnote 14: _Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce;_ and _The African
Repository._]
[Footnote 15: _Philadelphia Gazette,_ Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842;
_United States Gazette,_ Aug. 2-5, 1842; and the _Pennsylvanian,_
Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842.]
[Footnote 16: _The African Repository_, XVI, pp. 113-115.]
[Footnote 17: _The African Repository,_ XXI, p. 114.]
[Footnote 18: _The African Repository,_ XVI, p. 116.]
[Footnote 19: _The African Repository,_ XVI, p. 115.]
[Footnote 20: _Ibid.,_ XVI, p. 116.]
[Footnote 21: Speaking of this colony Kingsley said: "About eighteen
months ago, I carried my son George Kingsley, a healthy colored man of
uncorrupted morals, about thirty years of age, tolerably well educated, of
very industrious habits, and a native of Florida, together with six prime
African men, my own slaves, liberated for that express purpose, to the
northeast side of the Island of Hayti, near Porte Plate, where we arrived
in the month of October, 1836, and after application to the local
authorities, from whom I rented some good land near the sea, and thickly
timbered with lofty woods, I set them to work cutting down trees, about
the middle of November, and returned to my home in Florida. My son wrote
to us frequently, giving an account of his progress. Some of the fallen
timber was dry enough to burn in January, 1837, when it was cleared up,
and eight acres of corn planted, and as soon as circumstances would allow,
sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, rice, beans, peas, plantains, oranges, and
all sorts of fruit trees, were planted in succession. In the month of
October, 1837, I again set off for Hayti, in a coppered brig of 150 tons,
bought for the purpose and in five days and a half, from St. Mary's in
Georgia, landed my son's wife and children, at Porte Plate, together with
the wives and children of his servants, now working for him under an
indenture of nine years; also two additional families of my slaves, all
liberated for the express purpose of transportation to Hayti, where they
were all to have as much good land in fee, as they could cultivate, say
ten acres for each family, and all its proceeds, together with one-fourth
part of the net proceeds of their labor, on my son's farm, for themselves;
also victuals, clothes, medical attendance, etc., gratis, besides
Saturdays and Sundays, as days of labor for themselves, or of rest, just
at their option."
"On my arrival at my son's place, called Cabaret (twenty-seven miles east
of Porte Plate) in November, 1837, as before stated, I found everything in
the most flattering and prosperous condition. They had all enjoyed good
health, were overflowing with the most delicious variety and abundance of
fruits and provisions, and were overjoyed at again meeting their wives and
children; whom they could introduce into good comfortable log houses, all
nicely whitewashed, and in the midst of a profuse abundance of good
provisions, as they had generally cleared five or six acres of their land
each, which being very rich, and planted with every variety to eat or to
sell on their own account, and had already laid up thirty or forty dollars
apiece. My son's farm was upon a larger scale, and furnished with more
commodious dwelling houses, also with store and out houses. In nine months
he had made and housed three crops of corn, of twenty-five bushels to the
acre, each, or one crop every three months. His highland rice, which was
equal to any in Carolina, so ripe and heavy as some of it to be couched or
leaned down, and no bird had ever troubled it, nor had any of his fields
ever been hoed, or required hoeing, there being as yet no appearance of
grass. His cotton was of an excellent staple. In seven months it had
attained the height of thirteen feet; the stalks were ten inches in
circumference, and had upwards of five hundred large boles on each stalk
(not a worm nor red bug as yet to be seen). His yams, cassava, and sweet
potatoes, were incredibly large, and plentifully thick in the ground; one
kind of sweet potato, lately introduced from Taheita (formerly Otaheita)
Island in the Pacific, was of peculiar excellence; tasted like new flour
and grew to an ordinary size in one month. Those I ate at my son's place
had been planted five weeks, and were as big as our full grown Florida
potatoes. His sweet orange trees budded upon wild stalks cut off (which
every where abound), about six months before had large tops, and the buds
were swelling as if preparing to flower. My son reported that his people
had all enjoyed good health and had labored just as steadily as they
formerly did in Florida and were well satisfied with their situation and
the advantageous exchange of circumstances they had made. They all enjoyed
the friendship of the neighboring inhabitants and the entire confidence of
the Haytian Government."
"I remained with my son all January, 1838 and assisted him in making
improvements of different kinds, amongst which was a new two-story house,
and then left him to go to Port au Prince, where I obtained a favorable
answer from the President of Hayti, to his petition, asking for leave to
hold in fee simple, the same tract of land upon which he then lived as a
tenant, paying rent to the Haytian Government, containing about
thirty-five thousand acres, which was ordered to be surveyed to him, and
valued, and not expected to exceed the sum of three thousand dollars, or
about ten cents an acre. After obtaining this land in fee for my son, I
returned to Florida in February, in 1838."--See _The African
Repository_, XIV, pp. 215-216.]
[Footnote 22: _Niles Register_, LXVI, pp. 165, 386.]
[Footnote 23: _Niles Register_, LXVII, p. 180.]
[Footnote 24: _The African Repository_, XVI, p. 28.]
[Footnote 25: _Ibid._, p. 29.]
[Footnote 26: _Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce._]
[Footnote 27: St. Lucia and Trinidad were then considered unfavorable to
the working of the new system.--See _The African Repository_, XXVII,
p. 196.]
[Footnote 28: _Niles Register_, LXIII, p. 65.]
[Footnote 29: _Ibid._, LXIII, p. 65.]
[Footnote 30: Cromwell, _The Negro in American History_, pp. 43-44.]