Thoughts on African Colonization

In the first place, it is by no means certain – nay, it is not probable, especially if the number of emigrants annually exported to Liberia swell from hundreds to thousands, (and this increase of transportation is positively promised by the Parent Society, and absolutely necessary to cause a perceptible diminution in the annual enlargement of our colored population) – I say, it is neither certain nor probable that the multiplication of literary and religious privileges will keep pace with the unnatural and enormous growth of the colony. Nine years after the first settlement of Liberia, it appears by the following extract of a letter from a highly respectable colored emigrant, (the Rev. George M. Erskine,) there was but the 'remnant of a school' left! This letter is dated 'Caldwell, Liberia, April 3, 1830.'

'Sir, the state of things, with regard to schools, is truly lamentable. The only school in the Colony at this time, is a remnant of one at the Cape. Among the present emigrants, there are seventeen out of forty-eight that can read the Holy Scriptures, leaving thirty-one that cannot. Now, Sir, suppose each company of emigrants to this place bring a like proportion of illiterate persons into the Colony, then what state, think you, it must be in? But again, Sir: I am greatly mistaken if this Colony is not, for several years yet to come, mostly to be peopled with slaves sent out by their present owners, without any education themselves, and without means and very little desire to have their children instructed; and add to the above, that this people is planted in the midst, and are daily conversant with, a people that are not only heathen, but a people extremely partial in favor of their grovelling superstition. My dear Sir, this being the case, whether is it probable that they will come over to us, or we go down to them? To me the latter is the most likely, as it is the very essence of human nature to seek the lowest depth of degradation. Permit me to say, Sir, there must be a great revolution in this Colony before it can have a salutary influence on the surrounding natives; that is, before it can have a moral influence over them.'8

Subsequent accounts, I am happy to state, present a better aspect in relation to the education of this outcast and persecuted people: their wants, however, are only partially supplied.

The annual increase of the free colored and slave population in the United States is variously estimated from sixty to seventy-five thousand. The American Colonization Society proposes the annual removal of this vast body, – and more, if it be possible, – provided the energies and patronage of the General Government be enlisted in this expulsive crusade. Now, suppose the entire transportation effected, let any candid man decide how extremely difficult, not to say impracticable, it would be to discipline and instruct such an overwhelming mass of ignorance, or any considerable portion of it – and how pernicious must be the consequences to the colony and the natives, if it should not receive immediate culture!

Secondly. It is neither certain nor probable that, allowing all that is assumed by colonizationists, the influence of secular and religious instruction would be sufficient to restrain the selfish desires and knavish propensities of those whose main object is, not to evangelize the natives, but to secure, by a summary process, competence and power for themselves. Indeed, their juxtaposition with the natives would be eminently calculated to induce the fever of avarice, and to generate the lust of dominion. It is well known that so eager are the colonists to acquire a rapid accumulation of wealth, by trafficking their paltry beads and poisonous rum and tobacco for ivory, camwood and gold dust, it is with the utmost difficulty any considerable portion of them are persuaded to cultivate the soil and engage in agricultural pursuits. Thus we are presented with the disgraceful, if not singular spectacle of a rivalry in cunning and trickishness between a colony of soi-disant missionaries (really avaricious and unscrupulous foreigners) and the tribes who are to come under their pious pupilage. If equal dexterity in trade is not apparent, each party is equally pleased with its successful attempts at deception, and both renew the fraudulent commerce with fresh alacrity – the one to gain a new triumph, and the other to retrieve an old defeat. And this is the mode of colonizationists to evangelize Africa! and this their mode to suppress the slave trade! and this their mode to elevate the free people of color! and this their mode to emancipate the slaves! It combines the folly and absurdity of a farce with the solemnity and murderment of a tragedy.

Far be it from me to leave the impression upon the mind of the reader, from these representations, that all the colonists are actuated by the same selfish motives, or that they have exhibited any new and extraordinary traits of character in their commerce with the Africans. Many of them, I believe, are men who fear God and desire the welfare of his creatures: all of them have behaved as honorably, perhaps, and trafficked as equitably, as any other body of men, white or yellow, would have done in the same situation and under the same circumstances. Dishonesty in trade is no prodigy, even in this country. To bring accusations of fraud, cupidity and cunning against human nature, is not libellous. I am persuaded that robbery, – well contrived, deliberately executed robbery, – is perpetrated in every community among ourselves, without any due estimate of its moral turpitude, by reputable merchants and traders upon their customers, to a larger extent than all the avowed and heinous thefts collectively, which are committed against society. It is lamentable to see how studiously conscience and fair dealing are excluded from the secular business of the world. If we see, every day, illustrations of this dishonest conduct, given by men of refinement, intelligence and good character, what should we expect from those whose fetters have hardly fallen from their limbs; who have been systematically degraded by slavery; who have not consequently that lively sense of moral obligation which accompanies intelligence; who are beyond the influence of public sentiment, and surrounded by a barbarous people?

The establishment of a colony of speculators, then, to evangelize Africa, does not discover much wisdom or promise much success; but, on the contrary, exhibits a total blindness of vision and a most unfavorable aspect.

Let it be remembered, however, that rum and tobacco (two poisons which are exactly adapted to destroy both soul and body) are the principal articles given to the natives – because pertinaciously demanded by them – in exchange for their own. Their appetite for spirituous liquor, first created by the slave traders and subsequently excited by the colonists, is insatiate. Even the justly lamented Ashmun, if I do not mistake, for I have not his letter now before me, was so imprudent in one of his epistles to the Board of Managers as to concede the fatal necessity of selling rum freely to the natives, in order to maintain a commercial intercourse with them. Rum they would have, or nothing; and rum they obtained then, and do now obtain. Any one who will take the trouble to read the advertisements in the Liberia Herald will discover that ardent spirits form a prominent item in the list of articles offered for sale. Of the sobriety of the colonists, however, common report speaks in the most gratifying manner; but as their number is to be increased by a redundant importation, we have reason to fear a declension of morals.

Thirdly. Colonizationists strenuously contend that our colored population are destined always to remain a degraded class in this country. If educated any where, they must be educated in Africa. We must take them in their ignorance, and just released from bondage, and translate them to another continent on the wings of the wind. Delay would be injurious to ourselves, and calamitous to them. They must go in large bodies – by thousands and tens of thousands annually – till the whole be expelled from our shores. For it seems, according to the logic of colonizationists, every individual tainted with black blood must be transported, to insure the regeneration of Africa! Neither fifty thousand, nor one hundred thousand, nor half a million of these missionaries will be able to accomplish the task; but two millions of slaves and four hundred thousand free people of color, and all their descendants in time to come, here – even little babes (pretty prattling reformers!) and children – the maimed, the halt, and the blind – all must be sent off – else alas! alas! for poor benighted Africa! This is no caricature. An ugly face is sure to quarrel with its own likeness. But what is the portrait worth, if it bear no resemblance to the living original? They who place themselves in a ridiculous attitude must not claim exemption from ridicule.

Let us turn to the picture once more. It is worth our while to contemplate it a few moments longer.

What do we see? More than one-sixth portion of the American people – confessedly the most vicious, degraded and dangerous portion – crowded on the shores of Africa, by means which are hereafter to be considered, and at an expense which we shall not stop now to calculate, for the purpose of civilizing and evangelizing Africa, and of improving their own condition! Here, then, are two ignorant and depraved nations to be regenerated instead of one! – if we may call all the natives that occupy that vast continent a nation – two huge and heterogeneous masses of contagion mingled together for the preservation of each! One of these nations is so incorrigibly stupid, or unfathomably deep in pollution, (for such is the argument,) that, although surrounded by ten millions of people living under the full blaze of gospel light, and having every desirable facility to elevate and save it, it never can rise until it be removed at least three thousand miles from their vicinage! – and yet it is first to be evangelized in a barbarous land, by a feeble, inadequate process, before it can be qualified to evangelize the other nation! In other words, men who are intellectually and morally blind are violently removed from light effulgent into thick darkness, in order that they may obtain light themselves and diffuse light among others! Ignorance is sent to instruct ignorance, ungodliness to exhort ungodliness, vice to stop the progress of vice, and depravity to reform depravity! All that is abhorrent to our moral sense, or dangerous to our quietude, or villanous in human nature, we benevolently disgorge upon Africa for her temporal and eternal welfare! We propose to build upon her shores, for her glory and defence, colonies framed of materials which we discard as worthless for our own use, and which possess no fitness or durability! Admirable consistency! surprising wisdom! unexampled benevolence! As rationally might we think of exhausting the ocean by multiplying the number of its tributaries, or extinguishing a fire by piling fuel upon it.

Lastly. Any scheme to proselytize which requires for its protection the erection of forts and the use of murderous weapons, is opposed to the genius of christianity and radically wrong. If the gospel cannot be propagated but by the aid of the sword, – if its success depend upon the muscular power and military science of its apostles, – it were better to leave the pagan world in darkness. The first specimen of benevolence and piety, which the colonists gave to the natives, was the building of a fort, and supplying it with arms and ammunition! This was an earnest manifestation of that 'peace on earth, good will to man,' which these expatriated missionaries were sent to inculcate! How eminently calculated to inspire the confidence, excite the gratitude, and accelerate the conversion of the Africans! Their 'dread of the great guns of the Islanders,' (to adopt the language of Mr Ashmun,) must from the beginning have made a deep and salutary impression upon their minds; and when, not long afterward, 'every shot' from these guns 'spent its force in a solid mass of living human flesh' – their own flesh – they must have experienced a total regeneration. Bullets and cannon balls argue with resistless effect, and as easily convert a barbarous as civilized people. One sanguinary conflict was sufficient to spread the glad tidings of salvation among a thousand tribes, almost with the rapidity of light! – But even irony, though appropriate, is painful. I forbear.

But – says an objector – these reflections come too late. The colony is planted, whatever may be its influence. What do you recommend? Its immediate abandonment to want and ruin? Shall we not bestow upon it our charities, and commend it to the protection of Heaven?

I answer – Let the colony continue to receive the aid, and elicit the prayers of the good and benevolent. Still let it remain within the pale of christian sympathy. Blot it not out of existence. But let it henceforth develope itself naturally. Crowd not its population. Let transportation cease. Seek no longer to exile millions of our colored countrymen. For, assuredly, if the Colonization Society succeed in its efforts to remove thousands of their number annually, it could not inflict a heavier curse upon Africa, or more speedily assist in the entire subversion of the colony.

But – the objector asks – how shall we evangelize Africa?

In the same manner as we have evangelized the Sandwich and Society Islands, and portions of Burmah, Hindostan, and other lands. By sending missionaries of the Cross indeed, who shall neither build forts nor trust in weapons of war; who shall be actuated by a holy zeal and genuine love; who shall be qualified to instruct, admonish, enlighten, and proselyte; who shall not by their examples impugn the precepts, or subject to suspicion the inspiration of the Word of Life; who shall not be covered with pollution and shame as with a garment, or add to the ignorance, sin and corruption of paganism; and who shall abhor dishonesty, violence and treachery. Such men have been found to volunteer their services for the redemption of a lost world; and such men may be found now to embark in the same glorious enterprise. A hundred evangelists like these, dispersed along the shores and in the interior of Africa, would destroy more idols, make more progress in civilizing the natives, suppress more wars, unite in amity more hostile tribes, and convert more souls to Christ, in ten years, than a colony of twenty-thousand ignorant, uncultivated, selfish emigrants in a century. Such a mission would be consonant with reason and common sense; nor could it fail to receive the approbation of God. How simple was the command of our blessed Saviour to his disciples! – 'Go ye forth into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' Not – 'Send out from among yourselves those whom you despise or against whom you cherish a strong antipathy; those who need to be instructed and converted themselves; those who are the dregs of society, made vicious and helpless by oppression and public opinion; those who are beyond the reach of the gospel in a Christian land; those whose complexions are not precisely like yours, or who have any personal blemishes whatever that excite your dislike; – send out all these to evangelize the nations which sit in darkness and in the regions of the shadow of death!'

Denham, Clapperton, and Lander, travellers in Africa, represent the natives in a light most favorable for the introduction of christianity; as eager to learn and become a civilized and great people like the Europeans. Excepting the followers of Mohammed, they are not tenacious of their forms of religious worship; and a considerable portion of them are totally indifferent to devotional exercises. It seems apparent, that the fruits of a mission in Africa would be thrice as numerous as those of one in India, because the obstacles to be surmounted are far less formidable.

But – says the objector – the climate of Africa is fatal to white men.

So is the climate of India. But our missionaries have not counted their lives dear unto themselves; and, as fast as one is cut down, another stands ready to supply his place.

I do not believe that the Creator has immoveably fixed the habitations of any people within a boundary narrower than the circumference of the globe. I believe that rapid transitions from intensity of heat and cold, and cold and heat, are destructive to animal life; but I also believe that the human body is easily acclimated, in any region of the world. I believe the time is swiftly approaching when empires and continents shall as freely commingle their population as do states and neighborhoods. To limit or obstruct this intercourse, is to impoverish and circumscribe human happiness. Civilization will remove those causes which now engender pestilence and death, and neutralize the effects of atmospherical contagion.

Hence it will be seen that I do not assail the Colonization Society, as many others have done, simply because the settlement at Liberia is unhealthy. It is true, the mortality among the emigrants has been excessive; and so it was among the first settlers of New-England. But the climate of New-England is no longer pestiferous; and the climate of Africa will grow sweet and salubrious as her forests disappear, and the purifying influences of Christianity penetrate into the interior. I expressly contend, however, that it is murderous, indiscriminately to colonize large bodies of men, women and children, in a foreign land, before the natives are to some extent elevated by missionary effort: and therefore I consider the Colonization Society as responsible for the lives of those who have perished prematurely at Liberia.

But the objection is fallacious. If white missionaries cannot, black ones can survive in Africa. What, then, is our duty? Obviously to educate colored young men of genius, enterprise and piety, expressly to carry the 'glad tidings of great joy' to her shores. Enough, I venture to affirm, stand ready to be sent, if they can first be qualified for their mission. If our free colored population were brought into our schools, and raised from their present low estate, I am confident that an army of christian volunteers would go out from their ranks, by a divine impulse and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to redeem their African brethren from the bondage of idolatry and the dominion of spiritual death.

Whatever may be the result of this great controversy, I shall have the consolation of believing that no efforts were lacking, on my part, to uproot the prejudices of my countrymen, to persuade them to walk in the path of duty and shun the precipice of expediency, to unloose the heavy burdens and let the prisoners go free at once, to warn them of the danger of expelling the people of color from their native land, and to convince them of the necessity of abandoning a dangerous and chimerical, as well as unchristian and anti-republican association. For these efforts I have hitherto suffered reproach and persecution, and must expect to suffer till I perish. This book will doubtless increase the rage of my enemies; but no torrent of invective shall successfully whelm it, no sophistry impair its force, no activity destroy its influence, no misrepresentation defeat its usefulness.

I commend it, particularly, to the candid attention of the two most powerful classes in this country – editors of newspapers and the clergy. It is not a light matter for either of them to propagate false doctrines and excite delusive hopes, on the subject of politics or religion. Although the press is committed to a wide extent, I place too much reliance upon the good sense and liberal patriotism of its conductors to believe that the evidence which is presented in these pages of the inefficiency and injustice of the colonization scheme, will fail to convince their understanding. I cherish still higher expectations of its salutary influence upon ministers of the gospel. It may grieve them to discover that they have been misled themselves, and that they have unwittingly misled others. To say to their flocks – 'We have erred in this matter; we have solicited your charities for an institution which is built upon prejudice and persecution; we have hastily adopted the mistaken opinions of others' – such a confession may indeed require much grace in the heart, but this grace, I am persuaded, they will obtain. As apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, sustaining high and awful responsibilities, and exerting an influence which measurably decides the eternal destiny of the souls of men, they will not shut their eyes, or stop their ears, or refuse to examine, or disregard the truth, in a case involving the temporal and eternal happiness of millions of their fellow creatures.