Thoughts on African Colonization

Is not such language similar to the swearer's prayer!!

Great Britain and the United States, the two most favored, and the two most guilty nations upon earth, both need rebuke. They ought to be brethren, mutually dear and honorable to each other, in all that is true and kind. But never, never, let them support one another in guilt.

People of Great Britain, it is your business – it is your duty, – to give to negro slavery no rest, but to put it down – not by letting the trunk alone, while you idly busy yourselves in lopping off, or in aiding others to lop off, a few of the straggling branches – but by laying the axe at once to its roots, and by putting your united nerve into the steel, till this great poison-tree of lust and blood, and of all abominable and heartless iniquity, fall before you; and law, and love, and God and man, shout victory over its ruin.

Hearken – thus saith the Lord, "Rob not the poor, because he is poor; neither oppress the afflicted in the gate. For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them." Prov. xxii. 22, 23.

London, July 15, 1831. C. STUART.'[26 - 'We think the annual increase, as computed by Capt. Stuart, too low by 10 or 15,000. The estimate also of the expense of transportation is much below the actual cost. Besides, there is no provision made for the support of these helpless beings after their arrival in Africa, until they could provide for their own wants. Double the cost of transportation would be required for their subsistence till they could maintain themselves, without making any provision for implements of husbandry, mechanics' tools, &c. &c. without which they would all perish, even without the help of a pestiferous climate. But yet the table shows at one view the utter futility of the whole scheme of African Colonization. Slavery can no more be removed by these means than the waters of the Mississippi can be exhausted by steam engines. And the removal of slavery is the great consummation to which all benevolent efforts for benefitting the African race in this country, should ultimately tend. All schemes that do not promote this end will prove futile, and will end in disappointment. The axe must be laid to the root of the corrupt tree. It is a system that admits of no palliation, no compromise.' – ['Herald of Truth,' Philadelphia.]]

Sometimes the Society professes to be able to remove the whole colored population in less than thirty years! and the belief is prevalent that the project is feasible. Again it tells us —

'Admitting that the colonization scheme contemplates the ultimate abolition of slavery, yet that result could only be produced by the gradual and slow operation of CENTURIES.' * * 'How came we by this population? By the prevalence for a century of a guilty commerce. And will not the prevalence for a century of a restoring commerce, place them on their own shores? Yes, surely!' * * 'There are those, Sir, who ask – and could not a quarter century cease and determine the two great evils? You and I, my dear Sir, on whom the frost of time has fallen rather perceptibly, would say a century. And now, let me ask, could ever a century, in the whole course of human affairs, be better employed?' – [African Repository, vol. i. pp. 217, 347; vol. v. p. 366.]

'It is not the work of a day nor a year, it is not a work of one time, nor of two, nor of three, but it is one which will now commence, and may continue for ages.' – [A new and interesting View of Slavery. By Humanitas, a colonization advocate. Baltimore, 1820.]

Wild enthusiasts in the cause may respond – 'The Society never expected to accomplish much single-handed: it is about to enlist the energies of the General Government – and doubtless Congress will appropriate several millions of dollars annually for the purchase and colonization of the slaves.'

But are they sure, or is it probable, that Congress will make this appropriation? And if it should, what can they do without the consent of the people of color to remove? That consent can never be obtained. Is it, then, proposed to buy the slaves of their masters, as if the claim of property were valid? It were better that the money should rust at the bottom of the deep! – better to buy bank-notes, and convert them to ashes! To purchase slaves would only serve to make brisk the slave-market. Their value would immediately rise in all the slave States; especially in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, where they are now comparatively worthless —and there would be an end to voluntary emancipation: for who would sacrifice his 'property,' when he might obtain an equivalent for it? Slave traders and slave owners would be zealous to prevent any lack of miserable objects for the bounty offered by government: if the natural increase were not sufficient, they would be careful to make the importation from Africa exceed the exportation to that ill-fated continent. Such a purchase would be directly patronising the slave trade, at home and abroad, and bribing masters to keep their slaves for the highest bidder. Besides, it would be a gross violation of the great fundamental principle, that 'man cannot hold property in man.'

I know it is easy to make calculations. I know it is an old maxim, that 'figures cannot lie:' and I very well know, too, that our philanthropic arithmeticians are prodigiously fond of FIGURING, but of doing nothing else. Give them a slate and pencil, and in fifteen minutes they will clear the continent of every black skin; and, if desired, throw in the Indians to boot. While they depopulate America, they find not the least difficulty in providing for the wants of the emigrating myriads to the coast of Africa: we have ships enough, and, notwithstanding the hardness of the times, money enough. O, the surpassing utility of the arithmetic! it is more potent than the stone of the philosopher, which, when discovered, is to transmute, at a touch, base metal into pure gold!

In one breath, colonization orators tell us that the free blacks are pests in the community; that they are an intemperate, ignorant, lazy, thievish class; that their condition is worse than that of the slaves; and that no efforts to improve them in this country can be successful, owing to the prejudices of society. In the next breath we are told what mighty works these miserable outcasts are to achieve – that they are the missionaries of salvation,[27 - 'Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions'!! – [Speech of H. Clay – Tenth Annual Report.] – Why does not Mr Clay increase this band of missionaries, by sending out some of his own slaves? Is he consistent?] who are to illumine all Africa – that they will build up a second American republic – and that our conceptions cannot grasp the result of their labors. Now I, for one, have no faith in this instantaneous metamorphosis.[28 - 'As to the morals of the colonists, I consider them much better than those of the people of the United States. That is, you may take an equal number of inhabitants from any section of the Union, and you will find more drunkards, more profane swearers and Sabbath breakers, &c., than in Liberia. Indeed I know of no country where things are conducted more quietly and orderly than in this colony; you rarely hear an oath, and as to riots or breaches of the peace, I recollect of but one instance, and that of a trifling nature, that has come under my notice since I assumed the government of the colony. The Sabbath is more strictly observed than I ever saw it in the United States.' – [Letter from J. Mechlin, Jr. Governor of the Colony of Liberia.]'I saw no intemperance, nor did I hear a profane word uttered by any one.' [Letter of Capt. William Abels.]If these statements be a true representation of the moral condition of the colonists; if 'their morals are much better than those of the people of the United States;' let us immediately bring back these expatriated missionaries to civilize and reform ourselves; for, according to our own confession, we need their instruction and example as much as any heathen nation. If these 'missionaries,' who, in this country, could 'scarcely be reached in their debasement by the heavenly light;' if these 'most degraded, most abandoned beings on the earth,' have actually risen up to this exalted height of intelligence and purity, in so brief a period after a separation from ourselves, how desperately wicked and corrupt does the fact make our own conduct appear!] I believe that neither a sea voyage nor an African climate has any miraculous influence upon the brain. I believe that ignorant and depraved black men, who are transported across the ocean, will be ignorant and depraved black men on reaching the coast of Africa. I believe, also, that they who are capable of doing well, surrounded by barbarians, may do better among a civilized and christian people.

It is stated in a Circular put forth by the Society last year, that 'from the actual experience of the Society, it has been found that $20, or less, will defray the whole expense of transporting an individual to the Colony.' This is a very deceptive statement. The receipts of the Society from 1820 to 1830, amounted to $112,841 89; the expenses during the same period were $106,457 72; balance on hand, $6,384 17. Nineteen expeditions had been fitted out, and 1,857 emigrants,[29 - Of this number, nearly three-fourths were free persons of color. If the Society is anxious to emancipate the slaves, why does it not confine its efforts exclusively to their transportation, seeing so many are offered for that purpose? Doubtless the reply will be – 'O, it is important, in the incipient state of the colony, to send free persons of color, because they are more intelligent and virtuous.' Ah! is it so? What! give the preference to those whom it elsewhere brands as 'more corrupt, depraved and abandoned than the slaves can be,' and who 'contribute greatly to the corruption of the slaves?' 'O!' it may reply, 'a careful selection is made between the virtuous and vicious – none are sent whose character is not reputable.' But what is to become of this choice selection, when it is able (as it hopes to be) to send off even as many as seventy thousand annually?]including re-captured Africans, landing on the shores of Africa – averaging annually, for the ten years, about 186 persons, or since the organization of the Society, about 124 persons. 'The emigrants,' the Board of Managers inform us, in a recent address to Auxiliary Societies, 'for the last three years, average about 227, while the expenses, exclusive of transportation, and temporary subsistence of the new colonists, exceed TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS'!! In the very last number of the African Repository, (for April, 1832,) the Vice-Agent at Liberia, A. D. Williams, writes to the Rev. R. R. Gurley as follows: – 'I think the price, say $35, fixed by the Board for the transportation of each emigrant, is entirely too low: it should be at least $40, if not $45.' Why, then, does the Society attempt to impose upon public credulity, by stating that only $20 are requisite for every individual transportation, when the actual cost has been more than thrice, and is likely to be more than double that amount?[30 - 'The expense of transporting such persons from the United States to the coast of Africa, has been variously estimated. By those who compute it at the lowest rate, the mere expense of this transportation has been estimated at $20 per head. In this estimate, however, is not comprehended the expense of transporting the persons destined for Africa, to the port of their departure from the United States, or the necessary expense of sustaining them, either there or in Africa, for a reasonable time after their first arrival. All these expenses combined, the Committee think they estimate very low, when they compute the amount at $100 per head. It has been estimated by some at double this amount; and if past experience may be relied upon as proving any thing, the official documents formerly furnished to the Senate by the Department of the Navy, show that the expenses attending the transportation of the few captured slaves who have been returned to Africa by the United States, at the expense of this government, far exceeds even the largest estimate. But taking the expense to be only what the Committee have estimated it: Then the sum requisite to transport the whole number of the free colored population of the United States, would exceed twenty-eight millions of dollars; and the expense of transporting a number, equal only to the mere annual increase of this population, would exceed seven hundred thousand dollars per annum. Sums which would impose upon the people of this country, an additional burthen of taxation, greater than this Committee believe they could easily bear; and much greater than ought to be imposed upon them for any such purpose.' * * 'The annual increase of the slave population, at present, is at least 57,000. Now allow the same sum per head for the transportation of these persons, that has been estimated for the transportation in the other similar case; and the sum requisite to defray the expense of the transportation of all the slaves in the United States, would be one hundred and ninety millions of dollars; and that requisite to defray the expense of the transportation of a number only equal to their mere annual increase, would be five millions seven hundred thousand dollars per annum. But to either of these sums must be added the reasonable equivalent, or necessary aid, to be paid by the United States to humane individuals, in order to induce them voluntarily to part with their property. The Committee have no 'data' by which they can measure what this might be. But any sum, however small, will make so great an augmentation of the amount, as almost to baffle calculation, and to exhibit this project at once, as one exceeding, very far, indeed, any revenue which the United States could ever draw from their citizens, even if the object was to increase and multiply, instead of reducing the numbers of the class of productive labor.' – [Mr Tazewell's Report – U. S. Senate, 1828.]]

The Society has succeeded in making the people believe that the establishment of a colony or colonies on the coast of Africa is the only way to abolish the foreign slave trade: on this account it has secured an extensive patronage. Here is another fatal delusion. I shall show not only that it has not injured this trade in the least, but that the trade continues to increase in activity and cruelty. Let us look at its own admissions.

'We regret to say, that the slave trade appears to be carried on to a great extent, and with circumstances of the most revolting cruelty.' * * * 'The French slave trade, notwithstanding the efforts of the government, appears to be undiminished. The number of Spanish vessels employed in the trade is immense, and as the treaty between England and Spain only permits the seizure of vessels having slaves actually on board, many of these watch their opportunity on the coast, run in, and receive all their slaves on board in a single day.' * * 'By an official document from Rio de Janeiro, it appears that the following importations of slaves were made into that port in 1826 and 1827.

'1826, landed alive, 35,966 … died on the passage 1,905
'1827, landed alive, 41,384 … died on the passage 1,643

'Thus it would seem, (says the Boston Gazette,) that to only one port in the Brazils, and in the course of two years, seventy-seven thousand three hundred and fifty human beings were transported from their own country, and placed in a state of slavery.' – [African Repository, vol. i. v. pp. 179, 181.]

'It is not by legal arguments, or penal statutes, or armed ships, that the slave trade can be prevented. Almost every power in Christendom has denounced it. It has been declared felony – it has been declared piracy; and the fleets of Britain and America have been commissioned to drive it from the ocean. Still, in defiance of all this array of legislation and of armament, slave ships ride triumphant on the ocean; and in these floating caverns, less terrible only than the caverns which demons occupy, from sixty to eighty thousand wretches, received pinioned from the coast of Africa, are borne annually away to slavery or death. Of these wretches a frightful number are, with an audacity that amazes, landed and disposed of within the jurisdiction of this republic.' – [Idem, vol. v. 274.]

'Notwithstanding all the efforts that have been made to suppress the slave trade, by means of solemn treaties and laws declaring it to be piracy; and notwithstanding the attempts to exterminate it by the naval forces of the United States and Great Britain, the inhuman traffic is still pursued to as great an extent as at any former period, and with greater cruelty than ever.' – [African Repository, vol. vi. p. 345.]

'The slave trade, which many suppose has been every where abolished for years, there is reason to believe is still carried on to almost as great an extent as ever. It has been recently stated in the papers, that an association of merchants at Nantz, in France, had undertaken to supply the island of Cuba with thirty thousand fresh negro slaves annually! And in Brazil, it is well known, that for several years past, the importations have even exceeded this number.' – [Idem, vol. vii. p. 248.]

'Africa, for three long centuries, has been ravaged by the slave trade. Notwithstanding all that has been done to suppress that traffic, notwithstanding its formal abolition by all civilized nations, it is carried on at the present hour, with all its atrocities unmitigated. The flags of France, Portugal, Brazil, and Spain, with the connivance of those governments, afford to the slave trader, in spite of laws and treaties and armed cruisers, a partial protection, of which he avails himself to the utmost. And with what cruelty he carries on his war against human nature, every year affords us illustrations sufficiently horrible.' – [Christian Spectator for September, 1830.]

'This horrible traffic, notwithstanding its abolition by every civilized nation in the world, except Portugal and Brazil, and notwithstanding the decided measures of the British and American governments, is still carried on to almost as great an extent as ever. Not less than 60,000 slaves, according to the most moderate computation, are carried from Africa annually. This trade is carried on by Americans to the American states. And the cruelties of this trade, which always surpassed the powers of the human mind to conceive, are greater now than they ever were before. We might, but we will not, refer to stories, recent stories, of which the very recital would be torment.' – [Seventh Annual Report.]

'Notwithstanding the vigilance of the powers now engaged to suppress the slave trade, I have received information, that in a single year, in the single island of Cuba, slaves equal in amount to one half of the above number of fifty-two thousand have been illicitly introduced.' * * 'Mr Mercer submitted the following preamble and resolutions: – Whereas, to the affliction of the Christian world, the African slave trade, notwithstanding all the efforts, past and present, for its suppression, still exists and is conducted with aggravated cruelty, by the resources of one continent, to the dishonor of another, and to an extent little short of the desolation of a third,' &c. – [Tenth Annual Report.]

'It is painful to state, that the Managers have reason to believe that the slave trade is still prosecuted, to a great extent, and with circumstances of undiminished atrocity. The fact, that much was done by Mr Ashmun to banish it from the territory, under the colonial jurisdiction, is unquestionable; but, it now exists, even on this territory; and a little to the north and south of Liberia, it is seen in its true characters – of fraud, rapine, and blood! In the opinion of the late Agent, the present efforts to suppress this trade must prove abortive.' – [Thirteenth Annual Report.]

'Some appalling facts in regard to the slave trade have come to the knowledge of the Board of Managers during the last year. With undiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now carried on all along the African coast. Slave factories are established in the immediate vicinity of the Colony, and at the Gallinas (between Liberia and Sierra Leone) not less than nine hundred slaves were shipped during the last summer, in the space of three weeks.' – [Fourteenth Annual Report, 1831.]

'In defiance of all laws enacted, it is estimated that no less than fifty thousand Africans were, during the last year, (1831,) carried into foreign slavery. During the months of February and March of the same year, two thousand were landed on the island of Cuba.' – [Circular published by the Massachusetts Colonization Society for 1832.]

Here, then, is the acknowledgment of the Society, that it has accomplished nothing toward the suppression of the slave trade in fifteen years! Nor has the settlement at Sierra Leone effected aught in thirty years! Nor have the untiring labors of Wilberforce and Clarkson, for a longer period, produced any visible effect! The accursed traffic still continues to increase – and why? Simply because the market for slaves is not destroyed. Break up this market, and you annihilate the slave trade. Keep it open, and you may line the shores of Africa and America with naval ships and armed troops, and the trade will continue. No proposition in Euclid is plainer. So long as there is a brisk market for goods, that market will be supplied. The assertion has been made in Congress by Mr Mercer of Virginia, (one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society,) that these horrible cargoes are smuggled into our southern states to a deplorable extent. In 1819, Mr Middleton, of South Carolina, declared it to be his belief 'that 13,000 Africans were annually smuggled into our southern states.' Mr Wright of Virginia estimated the number at 15,000!!! – [Vide Seventh Annual Report – app.] – This number is seven times as great as that which the Colonization Society has transported in fifteen years![31 - The following amusing anecdote is a capital illustration of the folly of those colonizationists, who are endeavoring to suppress the rising tide of our colored population by extracting a few drops annually with their 'mop and pattens.' Dame Partington is clearly outdone by them, in regard to pertinacity of purpose and feebleness of execution. Rev. Sidney Smith, in his speech at the Taunton meeting, (England,) said:'The attempt of the House of Lords to stop the progress of Reform, reminded him of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington, during the great storm at Sidmouth, in 1824. The tide rose to an incredible height; the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threatened with destruction. In the midst of the fearful commotion of the elements, Dame Partington, who lived upon the sea beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and pattens, trundling her mop and sweeping out the sea water, and vigorously pushing back the Atlantic. The Atlantic was roused, and so was Mrs. Partington; but the contest was unequal. The Atlantic beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she could do nothing with a tempest.'] By letting the system of slavery alone, then, and striving to protect it, the Society is encouraging and perpetuating the foreign slave trade!

END OF PART I

PART II

SENTIMENTS OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOR

If the American Colonization Society were indeed actuated by the purest motives and the best feelings toward the objects of its supervision; if it were not based upon injustice, fraud, persecution and incorrigible prejudice; still if its purposes be contrary to the wishes and injurious to the interests of the free people of color, it ought not to receive the countenance of the public. Even the trees of the forest are keenly susceptible to every touch of violence, and seem to deprecate transplantation to a foreign soil. Even birds and animals pine in exile from their native haunts; their local attachments are wonderful; they migrate only to return again at the earliest opportunity. Perhaps there is not a living thing, from the hugest animal down to the minutest animalcule, whose pleasant associations are not circumscribed, or that has not some favorite retreats. This universal preference, this love of home, seems to be the element of being, – a constitutional attribute given by the all-wise Creator to bind each separate tribe or community within intelligent and well-defined limits: for, in its absence, order would be banished from the world, collision between the countless orders of creation would be perpetual, and violence would depopulate the world with more than pestilential rapidity.

Shall it be said that beings endowed with high intellectual powers, sustaining the most important relations, created for social enjoyments, and made but a little lower than the angels – shall it be said that their local attachments are less tenacious than those of trees, and birds, and beasts, and insects? I know that the blacks are classed, by some, who scarcely give any evidence of their own humanity but their shape, among the brute creation: but are they below the brutes? or are they more insensible to rude assaults than forest-trees?

'Men,' says an erratic but powerful writer[32 - John Neal.]– 'men are like trees: they delight in a rude [and native] soil – they strike their roots downward with a perpetual effort, and heave their proud branches upward in perpetual strife. Are they to be removed? – you must tear up the very earth with their roots, rock and ore and impurity, or they perish. They cannot be translated with safety. Something of their home – a little of their native soil, must cling to them forever, or they die.'

This love of home, of neighborhood, of country, is inherent in the human breast. It accompanies the child from its earliest reminiscence up to old age: it is written upon every tangible and permanent object within the habitual cognizance of the eye – upon stone, and tree, and rivulet – upon the green hill, and the verdant plain, and the opulent valley – upon house, and garden, and steeple-spire – upon the soil, whether it be rough or smooth, sandy or hard, barren or luxuriant.

'Like ivy, where it grows, 'tis seen
To wear an everlasting green.'

The man who does not cherish it is regarded as destitute of sensibility; and to him is applied by common consent the burning rebuke of Sir Walter Scott:

'Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.'

Whose bosom does not thrill with pleasurable emotion whenever he listens to that truest, sweetest, tenderest effusion, – 'Home, sweet home?'

''Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek thro' the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home – home!
Sweet, sweet home!