Conflicting Predictions

10/24/2018 Colonization - 18.FA.HIS.1105.5B0 AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

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Please, Send Them Somewhere Else

The American Colonization Society was founded for the express purpose of sending free Blacks, both those born free and those emancipated, to Africa, speci�cally Liberia. Founded in 1816, ironically this group saw itself as creating a win-win solution for all. For southern slavemasters who lived in constant fear, the perceived threat (real or not) of the free Black population was unbearable. David Walker summarized their fear when he wrote:

That is to say, to �x a plan to get those of the coloured people, who are said to be free, away from among those of our brethren whom they unjustly hold in bondage, so that they may be enabled to keep them the more secure in ignorance and wretchedness, to support them and their children, and consequently they would have the more obedient slaves. For if the free are allowed to stay among the slaves, they will have intercourse together, and, of course, the free will learn the slaves bad habits, by teaching them that they are MEN, as well as other people, and certainly ought and must be FREE.

In other words, by their very freedom, free Blacks demonstrated to slaves the injustice of their condition.

The second group making up the American Colonization Society were the abolitionist, clergy, and philanthropist who perhaps sincerely saw colonization as a way of providing free Blacks with an opportunity to achieve. Believing that free Blacks would never reach the level of equality alluded to in the Declaration of Independence or fully meld into American society, these individuals saw colonization as a viable choice. Later in 1858, Abraham Lincoln, who �t into the category of abolitionist, stated it this way:

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold of�ce, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.

The Land of Liberty

In 1815, Paul Cuffee, an African-American Quaker and naval entrepreneur (ship-owner), �nanced and captained a successful voyage to Sierra Leone where he helped a small group of African-American immigrants establish themselves. Cuffee believed that African Americans could more easily "rise to be a people" in Africa than in America due to slavery and laws that limited freedom in America. He also envisioned a black trade network organized by Westernized Blacks who would return to Africa to develop its resources and educate African natives in the skills they had gained during their captivity.

While Cuffee died before his vision was realized, his dream in part was adopted by the American

10/24/2018 Colonization - 18.FA.HIS.1105.5B0 AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

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Colonization Society. The �rst group of black immigrants was sent to Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone in 1820. The island's swampy, unhealthy conditions resulted in a high death rate among the settlers as well as the society's representatives. The British governor allowed the immigrants to relocate to a safer area temporarily while the ACS worked to save its colonization project from complete disaster.

In 1821, Dr. Eli Ayres, with the assistance of Robert Stockton, was sent to purchase land farther north, up the coast from Sierra Leone. Negotiations with leaders of the Dey and Bassa peoples were met with reluctance. Some accounts say the native population was eventually persuaded/forced to surrender their land at gun-point. The coastal land was approximately 36 mile long and 3 mile wide and intended to be used to trade goods such as weapons.

Needless to say, the relationship between the black colonizers, white colonial agents, and native Africans was tumultuous, at best. Believing that the colonial agents had allocated plots of land and rationed provisions unfairly, a few of the settlers armed themselves and forced the society's representative to �ee the colony. The disagreements were resolved temporarily when another ACS representative came to investigate the colony's problems and steps were taken to institute a political system and a system of law and order. A year later, the Constitution, Government, and Digest of the Laws of Liberia was established based largely on American systems. In this document, absolute power rested with agents of the ACS and the colony was to operate under common law. The settlement previously known as Christopolis was renamed Monrovia after President James Monroe, and the colony was formally renamed Liberia.

In 1847 the Liberian Declaration of Independence was adopted. In it Liberians charged the United States with injustices that made it necessary for the colonizers to leave America and make new lives for themselves in Africa. The international community was asked to recognize Liberia as a sovereign state, with Great Britain taking the lead. The United States did not recognize Liberia as a sovereign state until after the Civil War (Library of Congress, 1998).

Works Cited: Library of Congress. (1998, March 12). History Of Liberia: A Time Line. Retrieved July 9, 2010, from

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html

I, Too, Am An American

Let's get back to David Walker's article. Walker sees himself as an American who is adamantly opposed to leaving the nation. He seems to �nd it ironic that Henry Clay, a self-identi�ed Christian, would make some of the statements quoted in the �rst few paragraphs of Article 4. For example, They [free Blacks] neither enjoyed the immunities of free men, nor were they subjected to the incapacities of slaves. Clay in this quote acknowledge that free Blacks in America in the 19th century were slaves without masters - without the freedoms and rights of American citizens

(Whites), but not forced to suffer the indignity and inhumanity of slavery.

Further in the paragraph, Clay was quoted as saying it is desirable [that] the residences of the country draw them [free Blacks] off. Walker continued to quote Clay, who did not want those Blacks to stay in this

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[America] country, but in Africa, where they could be used to plant the seeds of civilization, religion, and culture for an uncivilized people. What a blessing Clay thought the presence of free Blacks would be for Africans. He saw this as a moral obligation for the United States as a payment for its role in bringing harm to the Continent (inadvertently, of course). - May we hope that Americans will extinguish a great portion of that moral debt she has contracted to the unfortunate Continent. Walker saw this as literally a bunch of crap, and he wondered how someone had the audacity to see the nation as innocent. Again, as in many other places within his text, Walker warns that even if the nation is naive enough to see itself in that light, God would not, and ultimately would bring condemnation to the nation.

David Walker saw through the plan to colonize free Blacks in Africa. He quoted Clay when he stated for if they are allowed to stay they [free and slave] will have intercourse together, and of course the free will learn the slaves bad habits by teaching them they are MEN as well as other people or certainly ought and must be FREE. Clay's argument was that if the free are allowed to interact with the slave, they will give them bad ideas about their state of slavery and they would become more miserable and unhappy. Think about that statement - through his speech he acknowledged that slaves were kept in a horrible state and that the humane thing to do was not to give them false hope of freedom, because then they would become more miserable than they were. So, Clay saw colonization as a good thing because potentially these free men and women, simply by virtue of their freedom, would make life unbearable for the slaves. Wow, what a hypocrite, David Walker seemed to say, and he [Clay] called himself Christian!