The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (31 page)
Read The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation Online
Authors: David Brion Davis
Tags: #History, #United States, #19th Century, #Social History, #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #Slavery
James Forten, Richard Allen, and the black ministers
Absalom Jones and
John Gloucester—inspired in part by Cuffe—took a strongly positive view of colonization when they responded to the waves of fear and even panic that spread among Philadelphia’s black population in January 1817 in reaction to the recent founding of the ACS.
18
As a result of extensive press coverage, which included racist statements made by ACS leaders in the Washington meeting—
Henry Clay declaring that free blacks “are a dangerous and useless part of the community”—many blacks quickly accepted rumors that the most powerful whites had met in the nation’s capital to devise a plan for deporting all free African Americans to Africa, in part to protect
and strengthen the institution of slavery. As Forten put it, “the People of Colour here was very much fritened.” It is unclear exactly who called for the great meeting of some three thousand of
Philadelphia’s black men, around January 15, 1817, in Bishop Allen’s
Bethel Church. No formal record of the meeting has survived. But Forten chaired the meeting and he, Allen,
Jones, and
Gloucester all sought to appease the fears and respond to what they saw as the popular overreaction to proposals for
colonization. Forten believed that despite some unfortunate statements made in Washington, the main founders of the ACS were well-intentioned and he tried to assure the audience that no one planned to round them up and ship them off to Africa against their will.
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After the four leaders had done their best to convey such reassurance, Forten looked out at the thousands of blacks who jammed the main floor and packed the balcony and called for a vote of “ayes” from those who favored colonization. There was total silence. When Forten called on those who opposed colonization, there was a tremendous “No” that seemed, Forten wrote some years later, “as it would bring down the walls of the building.”
20
As he explained to
Paul Cuffe, “there was not a soul that was in favor of going to Africa.” Fearful that free blacks would be compelled to leave in a massive deportation scheme, they doubted that white ACS members wished “a great good” for a group that they both hated and feared. They were unanimous in the opinion that “the slaveholders want to get rid of them so as to make their property more secure.”
21
Forten and the other black leaders were clearly stunned by this response, which challenged their status as a wise elite capable of representing and directing the masses. Abandoning any pretense of paternalism, they immediately adopted a resolution endorsing the views of the black public, appointed a committee of eleven to correspond with their congressional representative, and in August issued a more detailed and eloquent
Address to the Inhabitants of the City and County of Philadelphia, attacking all aspects of colonization. But, as Forten’s few letters to Cuffe make clear, a gap remained between his public statements and private views. On January 25, 1817, Forten described the Bethel Church meeting to his “esteemed friend” Cuffe, concluding that “as the majority is decidedly against me I am determined to remain silent, except as to my opinion which I freely give when asked.”
22
He did not mention the crucial anticolonization
resolution he had signed as chairman. It took some months, perhaps reinforced by Cuffe’s death, for Forten to become an ardent opponent of colonization—and, given their sensitivity to the power of white racism, black leaders were usually open to thoughts about emigration to the West, Canada, and in the 1820s, to
Haiti.
Here is the substance of the Philadelphia meeting’s resolution, which
Garrison reprinted in 1832 in his extremely influential
Thoughts on
African Colonization
(Forten no doubt provided Garrison with copies of both the Resolution and the longer
Address to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia, which Garrison also reprinted):
Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil, which their blood and sweat manured; and that any measure or system of measures, having a tendency to banish us from her bosom, would not only be cruel, but in direct violation of those principles, which have been the boast of this republic.
Resolved, That we view with deep abhorrence the unmerited stigma attempted to be cast upon the reputation of the free people of color, by the promoters of this measure, “that they are a dangerous and useless part of the community,” when in the state of disfranchisement in which they live, in the hour of danger they ceased to remember their wrongs, and rallied around the standard of their country [in the American Revolution and War of 1812].
Resolved, That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population in this country; they are our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them, than fancied advantages for a season.
Resolved, That without arts, without science, without a proper knowledge of government, to cast into the savage wilds of Africa the free people of color, seems to us the circuitous route through which they must return to perpetual bondage.
Resolved, That having the strongest confidence in the justice of God, and philanthropy of the free states, we cheerfully submit our destinies to the guidance of Him who suffers not a sparrow to fall, without his special providence.
23
The later Address to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia by the city’s free people of color, also signed by Chairman Forten, is far more deferential, as the blacks “humbly and respectfully lay before you this expression of their feelings and apprehensions.” Relieved from the miseries of slavery, the free blacks are now reportedly happy and contented with their present situation and condition, but dedicated to the improvement and education of their children and to the benefits and blessings “which industry and integrity in this prosperous country assure to all its inhabitants.” Since this law-abiding and Christian people “have no wish to separate from our present homes, for any purpose whatever,” it is a tremendous shock to learn that some of “the wisest, the best, and the most benevolent of men, in this great nation,” have proposed a plan for colonizing the free people of color on the coast of Africa.
24
It should be noted that even Garrison, the outspoken radical, conceded that many supporters of the ACS were “men of piety, benevolence, and moral worth,” and affirmed that “Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.”
25
The authors of the Address, speaking for the city’s black population, want to assure the general public that if the plan of colonization is meant for the blacks’ benefit, that “with humble and grateful acknowledgements to those who have devised it, [we] renounce and disclaim every connexion [
sic
] with it; and respectfully but firmly declare our determination not to participate in any part of it.”
26
Along with the superficial deference, the authors succeed in subtly exposing the most threatening aspect of colonization by turning to the seemingly benevolent argument that a colony would also “provide a refuge and dwelling for a portion of our brethren, who are now held in slavery in the south.” Indeed, the authors’ strongest concern is the way colonization could block, rather than aid, what they see as the otherwise inevitable progress toward “the ultimate and final abolition of slavery in the United States”:
27
Nor do we view the colonization of those who may become emancipated by its operation among our southern brethren, as capable of producing their happiness. Unprepared by education, and a knowledge
of the truths of our blessed religion … those who will thus become colonists will themselves be surrounded by every suffering which can afflict the members of the human family.
Without arts, without habits of industry, and unaccustomed to provide by their own exertions and foresight for their wants, the colony will soon become the abode of every vice, and the home of every misery. Soon will the light of Christianity, which now dawns among that portion of our species, be shut out by the clouds of ignorance, and their day of life be closed, without the illuminations of the gospel.
To those of our brothers, who shall be left behind, there will be assured perpetual slavery and augmented sufferings. Diminished in numbers, the slave population of the southern states, which by its magnitude alarms its proprietors, will be easily secured. Those among their bondmen, who feel that they should be free … and who thus may become dangerous to the quiet of their masters, will be sent to the colony; and the tame and submissive will be retained, and subjected to increased rigor. Year after year will witness these means to assure safety and submission among their slaves, and the southern masters will colonize only those whom it may be dangerous to keep among them. The bondage of a large portion of our brothers will thus be rendered perpetual.…
Nor ought the sufferings and sorrows, which must be produced by an exercise of the right to transport and colonize such only of their slaves as may be selected by the slaveholders, escape the attention and consideration of those whom with all humility we now address. Parents will be torn from their children—husbands from their wives—brothers from brothers—and all the heart-rending agonies which were endured by our forefathers when they were dragged into bondage from Africa, will be again renewed, and with increased anguish. The shores of America will, like the sands of Africa, be watered by the tears of those who will be left behind. Those who shall be carried away will roam childless, widowed, and alone, over the burning plains of Guinea.
28
EMIGRATION TO
HAITI
The 1817
Philadelphia Resolution and Address, quoted in the future by many prominent blacks, including Frederick Douglass, became part of the anticolonizationist
African American culture.
29
They also
raised issues of defining black identity at the beginning of a period when the vast majority of blacks had no memory of Africa or connection with a given African ethnic group.
30
In fact, the period following the
War of 1812–1815 marked a new search for identity on the part of the American population as a whole. By 1820, nearly half the white population was under the age of sixteen and barely 12 percent over age forty-three—old enough perhaps to remember the
Battle of Yorktown, only thirty-seven years earlier. There was thus a national obsession, shared by many African Americans, over keeping knowledge of the
American Revolution alive and relevant.
31
Black identity was of course shaped in a context of rising racism, of being negatively defined by whites as an unwanted group that did not belong. Partly in reaction against this, black spokesmen idealized the
Declaration of Independence and the principles upon which the nation was founded, and affirmed an American identity based on the patriotism of their parents or grandparents who had fought in the Revolution or the War of 1812. As we have seen, they also stressed the physical labor of their ancestors who had helped create America.
On the other hand, large numbers of black churches and secular organizations and institutions adopted the moniker “African” beginning in the late eighteenth century.
32
The black physician
James McCune Smith later wrote that “It was in after years, when they set up protest against the American Colonization Society and its principles that the term ‘African’ fell into disuse and finally discredit.”
33
Among blacks as well as whites, there was profound ignorance concerning Africa, a continent associated with stereotypes of ignorant and barbarous heathen living in uncultivated jungles. There was also a tradition, exploited by the
ACS, of celebrating ancient Egypt as a “black” civilization. And of course African Americans, whose genealogy provided some word-of-mouth traditions, were involved in the discovery and settlement of
Liberia. The main point, however, is that by the 1820s, black churches, organizations, and communication networks—including a newspaper—were contributing to a new black American identity that centered on the abolition of slavery and opposition to the ACS.
34
Yet a large number of
free blacks—some historians estimate as many as 20 percent—remained open to various opportunities for emigration.
35
As we noted at the end of
chapter 2
, Haiti became a major site for free black emigration in the 1820s. The image of the country was
transformed when President Jean Pierre
Boyer, a mulatto veteran of the
Haitian Revolution, united the North and South in 1820, invaded Santo Domingo and united all of Hispaniola under one government in 1821, and then won recognition from France by making a staggering indemnity payment of 150 million francs. Eager to attract productive workers, Boyer offered American black immigrants thirty-six acres of land, four months of provisions, and other perks in the hope of stimulating the nation’s economy. No less important, he sent some highly effective agents to the United States to recruit black immigrants.
Jonathan Granville, in particular, attracted crowds of free blacks in
New York,
Baltimore,
Boston, and especially
Philadelphia, with the establishment of the
Haitian Immigration Society in 1824. By 1826, more than six thousand American blacks had emigrated to Haiti, and it is estimated that by the end of the decade the number ranged from eight to thirteen thousand.
36
But the experiment was probably doomed to failure from the start. Even apart from Haiti’s poverty and dismal economy (weakened by the indemnity payment to France), there were formidable barriers of language and religion, and many urban American blacks sold or abandoned their homesteads and headed for towns when they faced the realities of farming and the lack of quick success. Haitian animosity toward the Americans, and even accusations of criminality, led Boyer to reconsider the scheme. By 1826, one-third of the immigrants had returned to America, many complaining that the rural work was equivalent to plantation slave labor.
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