The law of 1831 which recognisedColonizationas a part of the public policy of Maryland was a compromise, though generally not so regarded now, between the emancipation tendency then operative and the slaveholding interest. The fanatical movement of the abolitionists checked the progress of things here; all sides, all parties, all tendencies were united to rebuke the insolent demonstrations of that fanaticism.
Colonizationproposes to convey to the western coast of Africa, and to establish there, on territory procured for the purpose, the free colored people of Maryland, with their own consent. To carry out this design the Legislature of Maryland, in 1831 appropriated ten thousand dollars annually for twenty years, and constituted the Maryland State Colonization Society the agent in the business. Three Managers of the fund are appointed by the State, to act in concert with the Colonization Board. Neither the managers nor the members of the board receive any compensation; yet no enterprise was ever prosecuted with more energy, prudence, and success.
It is not necessary that I should go into details here to show what colonization has achieved under the auspices of the Maryland board. The people of Maryland are familiar with this subject. The Colonization Journal, published semi-monthly in Baltimore, under the charge ofDr.James Hall, the board’s general agent, makes known to the public all the particulars connected with colonization, and the affairs of the settlement in Africa. It may be sufficient at present to say that a most propitious fortune seems to have accompanied every step of this great undertaking. The colony was planted by some thirty or forty emigrants; it now has a population of more than seven hundred. It is an organized community; in its form, constitution and laws it is a republic; the governor, appointed by the State board, is a colored man; the other officers, elected by the people or appointed by the Executive, are all colored men. The little commonwealth is prosperous; it has established its influence over the neighboring tribes; and recentlyGov. Russwurmprocured by purchase a considerable and very important territory, lying adjacent to Cape Palmas. The colony has its schools, its houses of worship, its military organization, its tribunal of justice, its officers of police, its administrative functionaries. Roads have been opened into the interior, and a trade is carried on in rice, camwood, palm oil, and other productions of the country. The language of an eye witnesswill best testify to the condition of affairs in our Maryland colony: I quote theRev.John Seyes, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, long a resident at the old colony of Monrovia, and recently a visiter at Cape Palmas:
“I consider the colony of Maryland in Liberia, known as the one receiving the exclusive patronage of the Maryland State Colonization Society of the United States, as decidedly one of the most prosperous of the American settlements on the western coast of Africa. It could not have been otherwise. The organization and continued energetic labors of the board representing the society, would lead us to expect nothing less. Soon after the colony was founded byDr.James Hall, now the society’s general agent in Baltimore, and the machinery of a colonial government set in motion, the selection of a colored man as governor was made. This was just as it should be. It was called an experiment, but it was one of the success of which no reasonable fears could be entertained. From the commencement, the colony has been progressing, if not rapidly, yet steadily and onwardly. The population is now about seven hundred, and they receive an immigration every year. All necessary preparation is made for the reception of an expedition before its arrival. There is a public asylum or receptacle, consisting of a number of separate rooms, and situated in a healthful part of the colony, into which the new-comers are generally acclimated. Meantime frame buildings are being erected on lots laid out for them, of suitable size to afford them a good garden spot, and by the time the immigrant is through the fever and can begin to take care of himself, he has a home to go into—a dry, comfortable little framed and shingled house, where he can have all the necessaries and comforts of life, if he will only follow up his first advantages with economy and industry.
“It is a notorious factthat there is not a single family, of all the colonists in Maryland in Liberia, occupying a thatched house; all have buildings such as I have described. Let it be understood that there is another point of soundand wise policy in this arrangement of incalculable advantage to the settler. His house is notgivento him; by no means. He would not value it as much if it were. He is charged with all the expenses of its erection. When he is able, he is furnished with work, work is found him by some means, and as he earns his wages, he receives a part to live on, and a reasonable proportion is stopped in the hands of the society’s agent to pay the debt due for the house. As I am not writing a treatise on colonization, reader, I can not stop here to notice one tithe of the many points of superiority which this plan possesses over others which have been in vogue in other places. But that it works well, one must go to Palmas, visit the people as I did, go to their homes, eat and drink with them, inquire into their condition, find out their contentedness, without seeming to intend any such thing, and then he will be satisfied.”
There is no instance of colonization, that I know of, which has proved more successful in every respect than this. The history of the settlement of our own country shows no parallel to it—especially when we consider the materials with which colonization in Africa had to work. Yet the colonists, humble indeed, and unaccustomed to self-government, have acquired from their residence with an Anglo-Saxon race so much of the rudiments, forms, and habits of a self-governing people, that, when thrown upon their own exertions, they have exhibited qualities of patience, endurance and good sense, which give assurance of their capacity to do well in their new abode. Removed, moreover, from their position of inferiority, and possessed with a true spirit of freedom and with a feeling of self-respect thence arising, they behold themselvesmen, with the power of rising to the highest stature of humanity. This, in itself, is a great thing; it is the chief thing. A people who can entertain such feelings and ideas have their destiny sure and a noble one.
With the State’s annual appropriation of ten thousand dollars, and the contributions of individuals, the board has carried on the operations incident to colonization.The debts contracted by the outlays necessary for the beginning of the enterprise of founding a new commonwealth, and of sustaining it in its early days, have all been paid off. An annual expedition with emigrants sails from Baltimore to Cape Palmas. An enterprise is now on foot, with every prospect of success, to start a packet vessel to run regularly between this city and Cape Palmas. A number of colored persons are engaged in this undertaking, and when its success is established, it will probably be surrendered entirely into their hands. The facilities for emigration will be much increased under this arrangement, by which a regular communication will be kept up with the colony. The trade between the two points, it is believed, will give abundant employment to a vessel of considerable tonnage.
Now, if we look merely at what colonization has done in the way of removing the colored population from Maryland, it would seem to be an utterly hopeless project. But let us see what colonization really proposes; and for this purpose I quote the language ofMr.Latrobe, under whose able superintendence, as President of the Colonization Board, the affairs of the colony have so wonderfully prospered:
“If colonization proposed by any probable means at its command, even with the most munificent assistance of Congress, State Legislatures and individuals, to remove the whole colored population of the United States to Africa, it would well deserve to be considered visionary, as idle indeed as to attempt to ladle Lake Erie dry. No means that could be obtained would be competent to this end. But the means, scant as they were, continuedMr.L., were ample to establish colonies on the coast of Africa, capable of self-support and self-government—moral and religious communities, where wealth and station would be offered to the colored man as the incentives and rewards for labor—colonies that would be as attractive to him as America is to the European. In 1832 the immigration to America was said to be upwards of two hundred thousand, more than double, nearly treble the annual increase of the entire colored population of theUnion. These immigrants, with few exceptions, came at their own expense. In point of means they were in no way superior to the corresponding class of free colored people in the United States—they came, because America presented attractions which their home did not. It is in the power of colonization to invest Africa with the same attractions for the colored immigrant, that America presents to the white one. Where the latter has one inducement to remove the former has ten. In Europe there are few avenues to worldly honor which are closed to those, who, nevertheless, leave them all behind. In America there are few, if any, avenues open to those for whom colonization labors.
“The object of colonization, therefore,” saidMr.Latrobe, “may be stated as the preparation of a home in Africa, for the free colored people of the State, to which they may remove when the advantages which it offers, and, above all, the pressure of irresistible circumstances in this country shall excite them to emigrate.”
Rightly understood then, as to its views and purposes, colonization may not be so impracticable a scheme after all. At any rate, whatever it does accomplish, is so much of good achieved, practical, permanent, substantial good. What the future may disclose to urge, nay, to compel, the separation of the two races now dwelling together in this country, no one can tell. ButCOLONIZATIONlooks with an anxious eye to such a future contingency, and in the meantime it will do all it can to prepare the way for the easy accomplishment of that consummation, if it should become inevitable.
It is the belief of some very intelligent persons that the black population of the United States will gradually move towards the south-west, along with the cotton culture, and be finally absorbed in the mixed races of Central America, and that thus Slavery will cease.Mr.Rives, of Virginia, advanced some such idea as this in the Senate of the United States, a year or so ago. But it seems clear to my mind that the white master will go as fast in that direction as the negro laborer, and wherever both are found together, one must be a slave. There isno spot on this continent where the negro can be put so as to be removed from the domination of the white man; no remote spot which the negro will reach unless the white man carries him thither. The colored race in this country can never exert their energies in an independent way; they are and must be under the overshadowing influence of a controlling race.
What they may become in Africa, their native home, carrying with them to those shores, the vigorous elements imbibed during their apprenticeship of servitude here, other generations yet to come will know better than we of the present. The part which the African is to perform in the progress of civilization, and the development of the entire character of humanity, is a problem which has begun to attract the attention of enlightened men.Mr.Kinmont, whose discourses on the Natural History of Man show so large and comprehensive a mind, dwells with much interest upon the characteristics of the African race. A portion of his remarks, so beautiful, so humane, I can not but quote:
“It is certainly a remarkable fact that the negro family of the human species should have been naturally confined to the peninsula of Africa, and should never have travelled beyond it from voluntary choice. Philosophers have found a constitutional adaptation in this case to the climate and local circumstances of this their native and allotted home, and there can be no question that there is, and that when the epoch of theircivilizationarrives, in the lapse of ages, they will display in their native land some very peculiar and interesting traits of character, of which we, a distinct branch of the human family, can at present form no conception. It will be—indeed it must be—a civilization of a peculiar stamp; perhaps we might venture to conjecture, not so much distinguished by art as a certain beautiful nature, not so marked or adorned by science as exalted and refined by a certain new and lovely theology;—a reflection of the light of heaven more perfect and endearing than that which the intellects of the Caucasian race have ever yet exhibited. There is more of thechild, of unsophisticated nature, in thenegro race than in the European, a circumstance, however, which must always lower them in the estimation of a people whose natural distinction is a manly and proud bearing, and an extreme proneness to artificial society, social institutions. The peculiar civilization which nature designs for each is obviously different, and they may impede, but never can promote the improvement of each other. It was a sad error of the white race, besides the moral guilt which was contracted, when they first dragged the African, contrary to his genius and inclination, from his native regions; a voluntary choice would never have led the negro into exile; the peninsula of Africa is his home, and the appropriate and destined seat of his future glory and civilization,—a civilization which, we need not fear to predict, will be as distinct in all its features from that of all other races, as his complexion and natural temperament and genius are different. But who can doubt that here also humanity, in its more advanced and millenial stage, will reflect, under a sweet and mellow light, the softer attributes of the divine beneficence? If the Caucasian race is destined, as would appear from the precocity of their genius and their natural quickness, and extreme aptitude to the arts, to reflect the lustre of the divine wisdom, or, to speak more properly, the divine science, shall we envy the negro, if a later but far nobler civilization await him,—to return the splendor of the divine attributes of mercy and benevolence in the practice and exhibition of all the milder and gentler virtues? It is true, the present rude lineaments of the race might seem to give little warrant for the indulgence of hopes so romantic; but yet those who will reflect upon the natural constitution of the African may see some ground even for such anticipations. Can we not read an aptitude for this species of civilization I refer to, in that singular light-heartedness which distinguishes the whole race,—in their natural want of solicitude about the future, in them a vice at present, but yet the natural basis of a virtue,—and especially in that natural talent for music with which they are pre-eminently endowed, to say nothing of their willingnessto serve, the most beautifultrait of humanity, which we, from our own innate love of dominion, and in defiance of the Christian religion, brand with the name ofservility, and abuse not less to our own dishonor than their injury. But even amid these untoward circumstances there burst forth occasionally the indications of that better destiny, to which nature herself will at last conduct them, and from which they are at present withheld, not less by the mistaken kindness of their friends, than the injustice of their oppressors: for so jealous is nature of her freedom, that she repels all interference, even of the most benevolent kind, and will suffer only that peculiargoodor intelligence to be elicited, of which she has herself deposited the seeds or rudiments in the human bosom.”
I have in another place alluded to the consideration that the residence of a portion of the negro race in this country may be, under the overruling dispensation of Providence, the means of great good to the whole race. It may be that the civilization of Africa will receive its first quickening elements by the return of her sons from a servitude which proved to them a school of useful acquirements. Some touch of Caucasian energy thus infused into the African mind may be the awakening impulse that shall arouse a whole people from the torpor of ages.
At all events, leaving these speculations, one thing is certain, viz. thatMarylandis doing a good thing in promoting the work of colonization in Africa. She is providing a home for the bondsmen of her fields, where they may enjoy in reality the blessings of freedom which can never be their heritage here. To what extent soever this work is done, to such extent will positive good be done. We can not now foresee the circumstances which may, in time, give aspect and character to colonization; but of this we may be assured, that in proportion as the home of the emancipated African is more and more enlarged in Africa, and made more and more attractive, in such proportion will the way be opened for the deliverance of Maryland from one of her most serious embarrassments.
FOOTNOTES:[1]This subject of “Rights,” in connection with servitude, I have considered more fully in a little treatise entitled “Some Thoughts concerning Domestic Slavery,” published a few years ago.[2]SeeTable, Appendix.
[1]This subject of “Rights,” in connection with servitude, I have considered more fully in a little treatise entitled “Some Thoughts concerning Domestic Slavery,” published a few years ago.
[1]This subject of “Rights,” in connection with servitude, I have considered more fully in a little treatise entitled “Some Thoughts concerning Domestic Slavery,” published a few years ago.
[2]SeeTable, Appendix.
[2]SeeTable, Appendix.