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
skillfully 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.
A Century of Negro Migration, March 31, 1918