The American Slave Trade (Spears)/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
FREE-NEGRO COLONIES AND THE SLAVE-TRADE
England Led the Way by Establishing a Colony at Sierra Leone to Provide a Home for Negroes Carried from the United States during the Revolutionary War — The Enterprise Saved by the Sturdy Maroons — Origin of the American Society for Colonizing Free People of Color — Life of the Colonists at Cape Mesurado — The Nation of Liberia Organized — An Ape of Philanthropy.
When Lord Mansfield declared on June 22, 1772, that the negro Somerset must be set free a new question arose for the consideration of the ruling race. It was a question of growing importance, as time went on, and it was eventually transferred to America, where it became, at Jast, for a time, the most serious subject of discussion before the people of the United States: What shall be done with the freed man?
It was easy to provide for Somerset and all those who were liberated, one at a time, under Lord Mansfield's order, but after our Revolutionary war the English had a larger share in the problem, because of the number of American slaves they had carried away during that war.
Most of the slaves thus taken had been landed in Nova Scotia, where there were no slaves. The negroes would have been more comfortable in the West India islands, but thither they could not be taken because the slave-owners were beginning to see that free negroes were a serious disturbing element among the plantations. It rarely occurred to a negro slave that he was born to any rights equal with those of his master, until he saw free negroes work or not at pleasure, and receive wages when they did work. Then he began to think. It was a serious matter for the owner when the slave began to think. It became most serious in Jamiaca when the slaves fled to the mountains for freedom and there organized communities that were naturally predatory — so serious, indeed, that troops were sent into the mountains to hunt out with bloodhounds these maroons, as they were called. The troops settled the question there temporarily by killing many of them and capturing more.
Meantime the British people found the ports of England swarming with negroes discharged from the navy at the end of the war. So three classes of free negroes were to be considered at the end of the eighteenth century — the slaves from America, the sailors from the navy, and the Jamaica maroons.
As a first step in solving the problem an Englishman named Smeatham, of London, who had lived for a time at the foot of the Sierra Leone Mountains, conceived the idea of forming an African colony with these freedmen. The subject appears to have been broached first in 1783; it is mentioned in Sharp's ”Memoranda” on August 1st of that year, and Sharp adopted the idea. Eventually the Government granted an allowance of £12 per head for the expense of transportation; a ship was chartered; a sloop-ofman-of-war — the Nautilus, Captain Thompson — was sent as convoy, and on April 8, 1787, away they sailed for Sierra Leone. There were more than four hundred ex-slaves gathered in English ports, and sixty Europeans in the party. Reaching the coast they purchased of a native chief, known as King Tom, the Sierra Leone colony site, and the African colonization scheme was inaugurated.
How the first colonists died by the score from malarial fever; how the Nova Scotia negroes were brought there to die in like fashion; how drunkenness and indolence helped on the anarchy; how a war with the natives nearly wiped out the remnants of the settlement, and how, at last, in 1800, a band of maroons from Jamaica, five hundred and fifty strong, came and saved the adventure from utter failure — all that is too long a story to be told here. We need only remember that the men who saved the colony were those who had been too proud to remain slaves, and had found liberty in the wilds of the Jamaica mountains until hunted down by bloodhounds set on by the Christian hosts of the king.
When the colony of Sierra Leone had been established as a refuge for freed negroes the story was told in the United States, where the slave-owners were ever in fear of a servile insurrection led by free negroes.
Here, then, was the solution of the most troublesome question known to slave communities! It appealed to the humanitarian who was willing to sacrifice his property in slaves whenever he could do so without violating the laws of his State, as well as to the slave-owner whose brutal tyranny was the result of innate cowardice. The one was glad of a chance to give freedom to his slaves; the other was glad to get rid of the free negroes, whom he hated because he feared them.
Still another class heard of the plan with joy — the indolent philanthropists, who would do something for unfortunate people if it did not involve too much trouble.
Looking the matter squarely in the face, a century after the plan was inaugurated, we can see unmistakably that the African freedmen colony scheme was founded chiefly on indolence and cowardice. If we speak of Liberia alone we must say it was founded on cowardice and indolence. At the same time many upright, sincere, self-sacrificing people were connected with both colonies. The tales of what some people sulfered to promote the interests of the unfortunate blacks are heart-rending.
It is true that the idea of forming a free-negro colony was considered in the American colonies before our Revolutionary war, but it was not until Sierra Leone was established that anything practical was done here. On December 31, 1800, the Virginia House of Delegates requested the Governor to correspond with the President "on the subject of purchasing lands without the limits of this State whither persons obnoxious to the laws or dangerous to the peace of society may be removed.” (Italics not in original.) Other State Legislatures considered the matter in similar fashion. There was talk of sending the free negroes to Hayti. A part of the Louisiana Territory was considered as a possible location. Finally, on December 21, 1816, a meeting was called in Washington "for the purpose of forming a colonization society." Henry Clay presided, and on the 28th the organization of the society was completed. The constitution adopted began as follows:
Art. 1. This society shall be called “The American Society for Colonizing the F’ree People of Color of the United States.”
Art. 2. The object to which its attention is to be exclusively directed is to promote and exeeute a plan for colonizing (with their consent) the free people of color, residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient. And the society shall act, to effect this object, in co-operation with the general Government, and such of the States as may adopt regulations upon the subject.
The constitution was written by Robert Wright, of Maryland. Elias B. Caldwell, Clerk of the United States Supreme Court, was the chief orator of the occasion, but John Randolph also spoke. Mr. Justice Bushrod Washington was elected President. Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson were among the seventeen Vice-Presidents, of whom, by the way, only five were from the free States. Itis asserted that all of the twelve managers were slaye-owners, and certainly nearly all were so, while Bushrod Washington was engaged in the domestic slave-trade when not hearing cases on the bench.
J. H. B. Latrobe, in an address delivered before the society on January 20, 1880, describes the organization and the motives of the original members accurately. He said that some "regarded it as a missionary enterprise only." Others "hoped that it would lead to a separation of the negroes from what the masters said was an injurious contact with their slaves." Others believed that it would tend to raise the negroes of the United States to civil and religious liberty in the land of their forefathers. Others again supported it as likely to promote emancipation. Others looked forward to the commerce that would follow the establishment of a colony on the borders ofa vast continent. . . and others again fancied that, in some undefined way, African colonization. would afford a solution of the negro question in this country.”
That is to say, those who “sincerely desired to afford the free black an asylum from the oppression they suffered here, and by their means to extend to Africa the blessings of Christianity and civilization”; those who wished to accelerate emancipation; those who expected to enhance the value of slaves by getting rid of the meddlesome free blacks; those who wanted to promote trade in ivory and palm-oil, and the half-hearted philanthropists who sought “relief from a bad population "without the trouble and expense of improving it,” all these were united in an organization for colonizing our free negroes in Africa. At their meetings "the devoted missionary, ready to pour out his life on the sands of Africa," was "jostled by the trafficker in human flesh," and the "humble, self-denying Christian listened to the praises of the society from the unblushing profligate." Mr. Latrobe, speaking to and for the society, says “it was well that all this was so. Co-operation, regardless of motive, was the necessity of the occasion.”
Congress by the act of March 3, 1819, authorized the President to employ naval ships "to cruise on any of the coasts of the United States or territories thereof, or of the coasts of Africa or elsewhere," to capture slave-ships; and, further, "to appoint a proper person or persons, residing upon the coast of Africa, as agent or agents for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slavetrade by commanders of the United States’ armed vessels.”
The Rev. Samuel Bacon, on the society’s recommendation, was appointed both Government and colonial agent. Mr. John P. Bankson and Dr. Samuel A. Crozer, agents of the society, were associated with him. The ship Elizabeth was chartered by the United States (Congress had appropriated $100,000) and eighty-six colored emigrants were picked up and carried to Boston. These agreed, “in consideration of their passage and other aid,” to “prepare suitable accommodations for such Africans as might be rescued from the slave-ships by American cruisers.”
On February 6, 1820, the Elizabeth sailed. A landing was made at Sherboro, where a New Bedford negro named Kizel had established a colony of eight families at his own expense. Then “fever made its appearance among the people, who were loud in their complaints,"[1] and with very good reason, too, because twenty-five of them died of it, and Bacon himself fell a victim. The remaining emigrants went to Sierra Leone, and colonization was in a bad way.
But meantime the warship Cyane and others had sent several slavers loaded with wild negroes to the United States for adjudication, and to get rid of those negroes further efforts were made to establish an A frican colony. The Government sent the war schooner Alligator, Captain R. F. Stockton, to explore the African coast, and Captain Stockton selected Cape Mesurado as a suitable location, on December 12, 1822.
When an attempt to get the land by treaties with the natives was made the chiefs foresaw that the colony would interfere with their profitable slave-trade, but Stockton’s diplomacy prevailed, and a tract, including Cape Mesurado, that lay between the Mesurado and Junk rivers, "thirty-six miles along the sea-shore with a breadth of two miles" was secured,
To this site Dr. Ayres carried the remaining colonists who had gone to Sierra Leone, landing them on a small island "amidst the menaces of the natives." Then, by an arrangement with a neighboring chief, they crossed the river to the north and "erected a number of comparatively comfortable buildings.”
Meantime many colonists had been attacked with the unavoidable fever, and while this was spreading they had a fight with the natives. An English crew on a captured slaver let her drive ashore. The natives came to loot her and the colonists helped the English, with loss of life on both sides. They saved the vessel but incurred the hatred of the natives. The truth is the scheme would have failed then and there but for the courage and fortitude of Elijah Johnson, one of the colored men.
When Dr. Ayres, the white agent, and a number of the emigrants returned to Sierra Leone, "almost in despair" (as the society’s records say, but wholly in despair, probably), Johnson said:
“I have been two years searching for a home and I have found it, and I shall stay.” And he did stay. Neither the Pilgrim fathers nor the followers of Lord Baltimore nor the French Huguenots had worse troubles to face than he, nor did any one of them all show a manlier front.
Not to follow all the distressful details of the founding of the colony, it may be said that the inevitable fever was their chief enemy, even though at one time they had to fight so many natives that the balls from their nine-pounder cannon literally passed through so many bodies as to spend their entire force in that fashion.
Until 1824, the colonists were, on the whole, acting in self-defence. In 1824, no less than fifteen slavers were loading, under the guns, almost, of the colony, and there was a contract between one slave-trader and a native chief by which eight hundred slaves were to be delivered within four months. Thereat the colonists assumed the offensive, attacked the chief who had made this contract, destroyed the slave-pen, released the slaves, and compelled the chief to sign an agreement to abandon the trade.
Following this a slaver settlement called Tradetown, where there were three slave factories and two armed slave-ships, was attacked. The fighting lasted from April 10th to April 12th, inclusive (1824), the settlement was captured, and “the explosion of two hundred kegs of powder consummated the destruction of Tradetown.”
“The annihilation of Tradetown and of the slave factories was a severe blow to the traffic, which was felt as far south as the Bight of Benin,” says Commodore Foote.
This much was done by free colored men. In view of that fact the reader will find the following extracts from publications of the Colonization Society remarkable reading. Said Henry Clay in a speech found in the African Repository, Vol. VI., p. 12:
"Of all the descriptions of our population the free persons of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned." "The same periodical, Vol. VII, p. 230, called them "an anomalous race of beings, the most depraved upon earth" An editorial Vol. 1, p. 68, said: "There is a class among us, introduced by violence, notoriously ignorant, degraded and miserable, mentally diseased, broken-spirited.”
Meantime the colony had been named Liberia by the home society, from the Latin word liber, a free man.
In 1834 the Maryland Colonization Society, formed on the same lines as the original association, sent out an expedition on the brig Ann. She called at Monrovia, got twenty-five acclimated citizens, and, going down to Cape Palmas, formed an independent colony, landing on February 11th. “A very valuable tract of land at Bassa Cove was purchased for the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania," this year, and the ship Ninus landed one hundred and twenty-six emigrants there, of which one hundred and ten were "slaves, freed by the will of Dr. Hawes, of Virginia.” Meantime the original colony was widening its borders.
Then came (in 1836) Thomas Buchanan, a colored man, agent of the New York and Pennsylvania societies to Monrovia. He was a born leader. He saw the evil likely to arise through trade jealousies between the separate and independent though neighboring colonies, and a union of all was effected under a constitution providing for a government somewhat like that of the United States. No white man could become a land-owner under the laws, but all adult black males were voters, and slavery was absolutely prohibited. It failed of making a nation of the colonies only because "the American Colonization Society retained the right to veto the acts of the local legislature."
This was an anomalous condition of affairs, but it served very well until Buchanan, as governor of the united colonies, began levying duties on goods imported at old-established trading posts lying within the territory over which his people had obtained control. There were factories for legitimate trade that had been in existence longer than the Liberian settlements. The traders having made the establishments by the same sort of contract that existed between the natives and the Liberians, believed themselves to have as good rights to free trade there as the Liberians had. Buchanan acted on the theory that the Liberian Government had the same control over its territory as our Government has over the United States.
As a matter of fact Liberia had then no standing as a government. It consisted merely of a lot of settlements controlled by a society of private American citizens. So when Buchanan seized by force the property of certain British citizens he went too far. The British Government naturally protected its citizens, and the John Seyes, a colonial schooner, was taken by way of reprisal.
This led to an appeal to the American Government. It was proposed that the United States adopt the colony as Great Britain had adopted Sierra Leone; but we would have no entangling over-sea alliances, and so missed a chance to get a foothold on what is nowa continent well worth exploiting. So a compromise was effected with the British.
After a time Buchanan died in the harness and Joseph J. Roberts succeeded him as Governor. He was, a statesman as well as a natural leader. He had been trained under the masterful Buchanan, and the region under his control continued to flourish, after a fashion, until the evil of its anomalous position among nations compelled an organization as a republic. Accordingly a convention was called, a Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, a new constitution written and adopted, and on August 24, 1847, the lone-star flag of the Republic of Liberia was flung to the breeze.
A census report published in the African Repository for 1847 (p. 192) shows that in 1845 the immigrant population amounted "to nearly 5,000," to which was added a native population of which “estimates vary from 10,000 to 15,000. Of these about 300 are so far civilized" that they were permitted to vote at elections. In this report the startling statement is made that of all the emigrants from the United States to Liberia no less than one-fifth had died of the socalled acclimatizing fevers! The average life of a white man there, as learned on another authority, was three years.
Ten years later (1857) the Rev. Charles W. Thomas, the naval chaplain already quoted, reported Liberia as having a coast line of "over 600 miles, embracing a country of 30,000 square miles, and a population of over 10,000 civilized blacks and 200,000 natives" (uncivilized). This may be considered a friendly estimate.
In 1857 the Government income was $47,556; disbursements, $47,048. Said Thomas: "There is a surplus in the treasury of $500; but truth demands the statement that many of the Government officials, noble and patriotic men, have deferred drawing the full amount of their salaries, small as these are, until the country is more able to pay them."
Of the history of Liberia since that time little need be said. Perhaps as a last item the fact that it stood, hat in hand, before Congress in 1879, begging for the pitiful sum of $25,000, will suffice.
The old society has still life enough to support a secretary and publish an annual report, but its power for creating discontent among the American negroes is well-nigh ended. It was an ape of philanthropy from the day of its organization, and the industrial schools for colored men that are flourishing at the end of the nineteenth century will soon strangle or starve it to death, when its memory will be found worth preserving only as a warning.
See page 144.
- ↑ Foote’s Africa and the American Flag, p. 113, line 18.