* teen expeditions had been fitted out, and 1,857 emigrants, including re-captured Africans, landing on the shores of Africa -averaging annually, for the ten years, about 186 persons, or since the organization of the Society, about 124 persons. The emigrants,' the Board of Managers inform us, in a recent address to Auxiliary Societies, for the last three years, average about 227, while the expenses, exclusive of transportation, and temporary subsistence of the new colonists, exceed TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS'!! In the very last number of the African Repository, (for April, 1832,) the Vice-Agent at Liberia, A. D. Williams, writes to the Rev. R. R. Gurley as follows :I think the price, say $35, fixed by the Board for the transportation of each emigrant, is entirely too low it should be at least $40, if not $45.' Why, then, does the Society attempt to impose upon public credulity, by stating that only $20 are requisite for every individual transportation, when the actual cost has been more than thrice, and is likely to be more than double that amount ?† tuous. * Of this number, nearly three-fourths were free persons of color. If the Society is anxious to emancipate 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 virAh! 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? †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 documents 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 " The Society has succeeded in making the people believe that the establishment of a colony or colonies on the coast of Africa is the only way to abolish the foreign slave trade on this account it has secured an extensive patronage. Here is another fatal delusion. I shall show not only that it has not injured this trade in the least, but that the trade continues to increase in activity and cruelty. Let us look at its own admissions. * * * 'We regret to say, that the slave trade appears to be carried on to a great extent, and with eircumstances of the most revolting cruelty.' The French slave trade, notwithstanding the efforts of the government, appears to be undiminished. The number of Spanish vessels employed in the trade is immense, and as the treaty between England and Spain only permits the seizure of vessels having slaves actually on board, many of these watch their opportunity on the coast, run in, and receive all their slaves on board in a single day.' * By an official document from Rio de Janeiro, it appears that the following importations of slaves were made into that port in 1826 and 1827. 1826, landed alive, 35,966....died on the passage 1,905 * 1827, landed alive, 41,384....died on the passage 1,643 Thus it would seem, (says the Boston Gazette,) that to only one port in the Brazils, and in the course of two years, seventy-seven thousand three hundred and fifty human beings were transported from their own country, and placed in a state of slavery.'-[African Repository, vol. i. v. pp. 179, 181.] It is not by legal arguments, or penal statutes, or armed ships, that the slave trade can be prevented. Almost every power in christendom has denounced it. It has been declared felony-it has been declared piracy; and the fleets of Britain and America have been commissioned to drive it from the ocean. Still, in defiance of all this array of legislation and of armament, slave ships ride triumphant on the ocean; and in these floating caverns, less terrible only than the caverns which demons occupy, from sixty to eighty thousand wretches, received pinioned from the coast of Africa, are borne annually away to slavery or death. Of these wretches a frightful number are, with an audacity that amazes, landed and disposed of within the jurisdiction of this republic.'-[Idem, vol. v. 274.] Notwithstanding all the efforts that have been made to suppress the slave trade, by means of solemn treaties and laws declaring it to be piracy; and not * * dollars per annum. Sums which would impose upon the people of this country, withstanding the attempts to exterminate it by the naval forces of the United States and Great Britain, the inhuman traffic is still pursued to as great an extent as at any former period, and with greater cruelty than ever.'-[African Repository, vol. vi. p. 345.] The slave trade, which many suppose has been every where abolished for years, there is reason to believe is still carried on to almost as great an extent as ever. It has been recently stated in the papers, that an association of merchants at Nantz, in France, had undertaken to supply the island of Cuba with thirty thousand fresh negro slaves annually! And in Brazil, it is well known, that for several years past, the importations have even exceeded this number.'-[Idem, vol. vii. p. 248.] • Africa, for three long centuries, has been ravaged by the slave trade. Notwithstanding all that has been done to suppress that traffic, notwithstanding its formal abolition by all civilized nations, it is carried on at the present hour, with all its atrocities unmitigated. The flags of France, Portugal, Brazil, and Spain, with the connivance of those governments, afford to the slave trader, in spite of laws and treaties and armed cruisers, a partial protection, of which he avails himself to the utmost. And with what cruelty he carries on his war against human nature, every year affords us illustrations sufficiently horrible.'-[Christian Spectator for September, 1830.] This horrible traffic, notwithstanding its abolition by every civilized nation in the world, except Portugal and Brazil, and notwithstanding the decided measures of the British and American governments, is still carried on to almost as great an extent as ever. Not less than 60,000 slaves, according to the most moderate computation, are carried from Africa annually. This trade is carried on by Americans to the American states. And the cruelties of this trade, which always surpassed the powers of the human mind to conceive, are greater now than they ever were before. We might, but we will not, refer to storics, recent stories, of which the very recital would be torment.'-[Seventh Annual Report.] Notwithstanding the vigilance of the powers now engaged to suppress the slave trade, I have received information, that in a single year, in the single island of Cuba, slaves equal in amount to one half of the above number of fifty-two thousand have been illicitly introduced.' 'Mr Mercer submitted the following preamble and resolutions :-Whereas, to the affliction of the Christian world, the African slave trade, notwithstanding all the efforts, past and present, for its suppression, still exists and is conducted with aggravated cruelty, by the resources of one continent, to the dishonor of another, and to an extent little short of the desolation of a third,' &c.-[Tenth Annual Report.] 6 * 'It is painful to state, that the Managers have reason to believe that the slave trade is still prosecuted, to a great extent, and with circumstances of undiminished atrocity. The fact, that much was done by Mr Ashmun to banish it from the territory, under the colonial jurisdiction, is unquestionable; but, it now exists, even on this territory; and a little to the north and south of Liberia, it is seen in its true characters-of fraud, rapine, and blood! In the opinion of the late Agent, the present efforts to suppress this trade must prove abortive.'— [Thirteenth Annual Report.] 'Some appalling facts in regard to the slave trade have come to the knowledge of the Board of Managers during the last year. With undiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now carried on all along the African coast. Slave factories are established in the immediate vicinity of the Colony, and at the Gallinas (between Liberia and Sierra Leone) not less than nine hundred slaves were shipped during the last summer, in the space of three weeks.'--[Fourteenth Annual Report, 1831.] 'In defiance of all laws enacted, it is estimated that no less than fifty thousand Africans were, during the last year, (1831,) carried into foreign slavery. During the months of February and March of the same year, two thousand were landed on the island of Cuba.'-[Circular published by the Massachusetts Colonization Society for 1832.] Here, then, is the acknowledgment of the Society, that it has accomplished nothing toward the suppression of the slave trade in fifteen years! Nor has the settlement at Sierra Leone effected aught in thirty years! Nor have the untiring labors of Wilberforce and Clarkson, for a longer period, produced any visible effect! The accursed traffic still continues to increase-and why? Simply because the market for slaves is not destroyed. Break up this market, and you annihilate the slave trade. Keep it open, and you may line the shores of Africa and America with naval ships and armed troops, and the trade will continue. No proposition in Euclid is plainer. So long as there is a brisk market for goods, that market will be supplied. The assertion has been made in Congress by Mr Mercer of Virginia, (one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society,) that these horrible cargoes are smuggled into our southern states to a deplorable extent. In 1819, Mr Middleton, of South Carolina, declared it to be his belief that 13,000 Africans were annually smuggled into our southern states.' Mr Wright of Virginia estimated the number at 15,000 !!!-[Vide Seventh Annual Report-app.] -This number is seven times as great as that which the Colonization Society has transported in fifteen years! * By letting the system of slavery alone, then, and striving to protect it, the Society is encouraging and perpetuating the foreign slave trade ! * The following amusing anecdote is a capital illustration 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 associations are not circumscribed, or that has not some favorite retreats. This universal preference, this love of home, seems to be the element of being, a constitutional 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 [PART II.] 1 |