Thoughts on African Colonization Part 18

[AA] '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 a.s.sumed 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 debas.e.m.e.nt 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!

[AB] Of this number, nearly three-fourths were free persons of color. If the Society is anxious to emanc.i.p.ate 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?

[AC] '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 doc.u.ments 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 cla.s.s of productive labor.'--[Mr Tazewell's Report--U. S.

Senate, 1828.]

[AD] The following amusing anecdote is a capital ill.u.s.tration 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.'

END OF PART I.

THOUGHTS ON AFRICAN COLONIZATION.

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 a.s.sociations are not circ.u.mscribed, or that has not some favorite retreats. This universal preference, this love of _home_, seems to be the element of being,--a const.i.tutional 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 cla.s.sed, 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 a.s.saults than forest-trees?

'Men,' says an erratic but powerful writer[AE]--'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 dest.i.tute 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 t.i.tles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those t.i.tles, 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!

_There's no place like home!_

'An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain-- O give me my lowly thatched cottage again; The birds singing gaily that came at my call-- Give me them, with the peace of mind dearer than all!

Home--home!

Sweet, sweet home!

_There's no place like home!_'

No one will understand me to maintain that population should never be thinned by foreign emigration; but only that such an emigration is unnatural. The great ma.s.s of a neighborhood or country must necessarily be stable: only fractions are cast off and float away on the tide of adventure. Individual enterprise or estrangement is one thing: the translation of an entire people to an unknown clime, another. The former may be moved by a single impulse--by a love of novelty, or a desire of gain, or a hope of preferment: he leaves no perceptible void in society. The latter can never be expatriated but by some extraordinary calamity, or by the application of intolerable restraints. They must first be rendered broken-hearted or loaded with chains--hope must not merely sicken but die--cord after cord must be sundered--ere they will seek another home. Our pilgrim-fathers were driven out from the mother country by ecclesiastical domination: to worship G.o.d according to the dictates of their own consciences, was the only cause of their exile.

Had they been permitted to enjoy this sacred right,--no matter how great were their temporal privations, or their hopes of physical enjoyments,--they would not have perilled their lives on the stormy deep, to obtain an asylum in this western hemisphere.

It may be said, in reply to the foregoing remarks upon the love of home and of country, that the people of color cannot cherish this abhorrence of migration, because here they have no 'continuing city,' and are not recognised as fellow-countrymen. In PART I., I have shown, by copious extracts, that colonizationists artfully represent them as aliens and foreigners, wanderers from Africa--dest.i.tute of that _amor patriae_, which is the bond of union--seditious--without alliances--irresponsible--unambitious--cherishing no attachment to the soil--feeling no interest in our national prosperity--ready for any adventure--eager to absent themselves from the land--malignant in their feelings towards society--incapable of local preference--content to remain in ignorance and degradation--&c. &c. &c.

Every such representation is a libel, as I shall show in subsequent pages. The language of the people of color is,--'This is our country: here were we born--here will we live and die--we know of no other place that we can call our true and appropriate home--here are our earliest and most pleasant a.s.sociations--we are freemen, we are brethren, we are countrymen and fellow-citizens--we are not for insurrection, but for peace and equality.' This is not the language of sedition or alienated affection. Their _amor patriae_ is robust and deathless: like the oak, tempests do but strengthen its roots and confer victory upon it. Even the soil on which the unhappy slave toils and bleeds, is to him consecrated earth.

African colonization is directly and irreconcileably opposed to the wishes of our colored population as a body. Their desires ought to be tenderly regarded. In all my intercourse with them in various towns and cities, I have never seen one of their number who was friendly to this scheme--and I have not been backward in canva.s.sing their opinions on this subject. They are as unanimously opposed to a removal to Africa, as the Cherokees from the council-fires and graves of their fathers. It is remarkable, too, that they are as united in their respect and esteem for the republic of Hayti. But _this is their country_--they are resolute against every migratory plot, and willing to rely on the justice of the nation for an ultimate restoration to all their lost rights and privileges. What is the fact? Through the instrumentality of BENJAMIN LUNDY,[AF] the distinguished and veteran champion of emanc.i.p.ation, a great highway has been opened to the Haytien republic, over which our colored population may travel _toll free_, and at the end of their brief journey be the free occupants of the soil, and meet such a reception as was never yet given to any sojourners in any country, since the departure of Israel into Egypt. One would think, that, with such inducements and under such circ.u.mstances, this broad thoroughfare would present a most animating spectacle; that the bustle and roar of a journeying mult.i.tude would fall upon the ear like the strife of the ocean, or the distant thunder of the retiring storm; and that the song of the oppressor and the oppressed, a song of deliverance to each, would go up to heaven, till its echoes were seemingly the responses of angels and justified spirits. But it is not so. Only here and there a traveller is seen to enter upon the road--there is no noise of preparation or departure; but a silence, deeper than the breathlessness of midnight, rests upon our land--not a shout of joy is heard throughout our borders!

How shall we account for this amazing apathy but on the ground that our colored population are unwilling to leave their native homes, no matter how strong soever are the inducements held out to them abroad?

If it be said that they are not compelled to emigrate against their wishes--I answer, it is true that direct _physical force_ is not applied; but why are they induced to remove? Is it because they instinctively prefer Africa to their native country? Do they actually _court_ the perils of the sea,--the hostilities of a savage tribe,--the sickening influences of an African climate? Or are they not peremptorily a.s.sured that they never can, _and never shall_, enjoy their rights and privileges at home--and thus absolutely compelled to leave all that is dear behind, and to seek a shelter in a strange land--a land of darkness and cruelty, of barbarism and wo?

The free people of color, and even the slaves, have on numerous occasions given ocular demonstration of their attachment to this country. Large numbers of them were distinguished for their patient endurance, their ardent devotion, and their valorous conduct during our revolutionary struggle. In the last war, they signalized themselves in a manner which extorted the applause even of their calumniators--of many who are doubtless at the present day representing them as seditious and inimical to the prosperity of the country. I have before me a Proclamation in the French language, issued by General Andrew Jackson, of which the following is a translation:

'PROCLAMATION TO THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR.

'Soldiers!--When on the banks of the Mobile, I called you to take up arms, inviting you to partake the perils and glory of your white fellow citizens, _I expected much from you_; for I was not ignorant that you possessed qualities most formidable to an invading enemy. I knew with what fort.i.tude you could endure hunger and thirst, and all the fatigues of a campaign. _I knew well how you loved your_ NATIVE _country_, and that you had, as well as ourselves, to defend what man holds most dear--his parents, relations, wife, children and property. YOU HAVE DONE MORE THAN I EXPECTED. In addition to the previous qualities I before knew you to possess, I found, moreover, among you _a n.o.ble enthusiasm_ which leads to the performance of great things.

'Soldiers!--The President of the United States shall hear how praiseworthy was your conduct in the hour of danger, and the Representatives of the American people will, I doubt not, give you the praise your exploits ent.i.tle you to. _Your General antic.i.p.ates them in applauding your n.o.ble ardor._

'The enemy approaches; his vessels cover our lakes; our brave citizens are united, and all contention has ceased among them.

Their only dispute is, who shall win the prize of valor, or who the most glory, its n.o.blest reward.

'By order.

'THOMAS BUTLER, _Aid de Camp_.'

In commenting upon the above Proclamation, an intelligent writer in the New-Orleans 'LIBERALIST' of March 15, 1830, very expressively remarks:--'Those who served in the memorable campaign of 1814 will know if the hero of the west was guilty of exaggeration. Just as fatal as was every glance of his keen eye to the English lines, so is every word of this Proclamation a killing thunderbolt to the detractors of this portion of our fellow beings, now so inhumanly persecuted.' Yes--when peril rears its crest, and invasion threatens our sh.o.r.es, then prejudice is forgotten and the tongue of detraction is still--then the people of color are no longer brutes or a race between men and monkeys, no longer turbulent or useless, no longer aliens and wanderers from Africa--but they are complimented as intelligent, patriotic citizens from whom much is expected, and who have property, home and country at stake! Ay, and richly do they merit this compliment.

A respectable colored gentleman in the city of New-York, referring to this famous Proclamation, makes the following brief comment: 'When we could be of any use to the army, we possessed all the cardinal virtues; but now that time has pa.s.sed, we forsooth are the most miserable, worthless beings the Lord in his wise judgment ever sent to curse the rulers of this troublesome world! I feel an anathema rising from my heart, but I have suppressed it.'

How black is the ingrat.i.tude, how pitiful the hypocrisy, manifested in our conduct as a people, toward our colored population! Every cheek should wear the blush of shame--every head be bowed in self-abas.e.m.e.nt!

From the organization of the American Colonization Society, down to the present time, the free people of color have publicly and repeatedly expressed their opposition to it. They indignantly reject every overture for their expatriation. It has been industriously circulated by the advocates of colonization, that I have caused this hostility to the African scheme in the bosoms of the blacks; and that, until the Liberator was established, they were friendly to it. This story is founded upon sheer ignorance. It is my solemn conviction that I have not proselyted a dozen individuals; for the very conclusive reason that no conversions were necessary. Their sentiments were familiar to me long before they knew my own. My opponents abundantly overrate my influence, in acknowledging that I have overthrown, in a single year, the concentrated energies of the mightiest men in the land, and the perpetual labors of fifteen years. They shall not make me vain. Such a concession affords substantial evidence of perverted strength and misapplied exertion.

If the people of color were instantly to signify their willingness to emigrate, my hostility to the American Colonization Society would scarcely abate one jot: for their a.s.sent could never justify the principles and doctrines propagated by the Society. Those principles and doctrines have been shown, I trust, to be corrupt, selfish, proscriptive, opposed to the genius of republicanism and to the spirit of christianity.