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THE

AFRICAN REPOSITORY

Vol. xxxviii.] WASHINGTON, OGTOBER, 1862.

COLONIZATION.

No. 10.

LETTER FROM J. H. B. LATROBE, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

То Esq.-My Dear Sir: You ask me whether the plan of the President for the removal of the free people of color of the United States, with their own consent, to Central America, is, in any manner, the antagonist of the purposes of the American Colonization Society; and I reply, unhesitatingly, that it is not.

Africa was originally selected by this Society as the most desirable of all the localities that had been, at any time, suggested for the purpose in view. The selection was the expression of a most deliberate judgment. But the locality was not, necessarily, connected with the object of the Colonization Society, which is the preparation of a home to which the colored people may go, when circumstances beyond all human control, and rapidly accumulating, shall deprive them of all freedom of choice whether to go or stay, and leave them no alternative but removal.

The great merit of Colonizationists, since the organization of the Society, in 1816, has been that, foreseeing these circumstances, they have steadily persisted, through good and evil reports, in endeavoring to provide for them. The President admits that their endeavors have not failed, when he concedes, as he has lately done, that Liberia is a success. Now, if, in addition to the outlet which has been provided in Africa, another shall be opened in Central America, another in Hayti, and others in yet unthought of places, so much the better will it be for both white and colored people, when the necessity for the emigration of the latter, as the alternative to starvation here, becomes apparent to all men, whatever their complexion.

It would be otherwise were it the object of the American Colonization Society to build up settlements, to which settlements elsewhere would be rivals for a given trade. Then the President's plan would be antagonistic to ours. But our object being to provide a refuge

against a coming storm, for the sake of the parties exposed to it, those who provide other refuges, and so multiply the means of safety, are our fellow laborers and not our opponents. To suppose otherwise would be as idle as imagining that a boiler which had half a dozen safety-valves was inferior to a boiler which had but one. Indeed, the American Colonization Society should rejoice to see the President's plan tried. The Society was too poor to make experiments in 1816, nor has it since been in a condition to attempt them, even had it felt disposed.

Africa was selected, not because the constitution of the Society required it, but as a matter of judgment, and the selection has turned out so happily that no settlements have been attempted since in other regions. Still, it is within the range of possibility that it may not have been the best. The President, with means at his command which our Society never possessed, is going to test the question. If Central America turns out to be better than Liberia, as a home for the colored emigrant from the United States, every friend of the colored race will thank the President for his persistence.

The overriding success of Central America will still leave Liberia one of the great missionary agencies of the world; and if the American Colonization Society shall not have provided a home for a people, it will, at least, have done enough to entitle itself to the thanks and blessings of the Christian world.

I might stop now, with the reply thus given to your question, but I desire to say a few words in regard to considerations lying at the root of this matter, and in vindication of those who selected Africa for their earliest efforts.

The circumstances which will make the emigration of the free people of color a necessity hereafter, have already been generally referred to. They are embraced in the simple statement that, while the arable land of the United States is a fixed quantity, very little of which, comparatively, remains to be taken up, the population of the United States has increased from twenty-three millions, in 1850, to thirty-three millions, in 1860; and will, at the same rate, be one hundred millions at the end of the century, and two hundred millions in 1930, allowing even for the deductions to be made growing out of the present war. The effect of this rapid increase is, already, most apparent in the exclusion, by white men, of the free blacks from very many of their old employments. The pressure now felt is not going to diminish. On the contrary, it must increase, until a strife for bread takes place, in which the weaker of the two races, even now looking on each other as antagonists, must go to the wall; in other words, must emigrate or starve.

There is but one thing that can obviate this result-universal amalgamation-an amalgamation that would destroy the distinctions of caste, and make of the two races a mongrel, but homogeneous people.

On these grounds rests the whole theory of colonization, using the word here to express the purposes of the American Colonization Society-the fixed quantity of land, the rapid increase of population, and the impracticability of general amalgamation.

No one denies the first two of these propositions. It is the last, only, which is disputed. It is not necessary to discuss it here. Those who believe that the two races of white and black can be amalgamated into one: who would be willing that we should become mongrels, were amalgamation practical, or who fancy that, in a redundant population of distinct races, the white man will divide the loaf, already too little for himself, with the black man, cannot be affected by any argument that could now be made. At any rate, colonization assumes such an amalgamation to be impracticable.

With regard, next, to the wisdom of selecting Africa as the future home of the free colored people of the United States.

In the first place, Africa was the home of their forefathers, and its climate one, which, hostile to the white race, was congenial to the black.

Again, although distant, yet distance has not prevented the importation of the race into America, and the length of the voyage, after all, in 1816, was less than the voyages which brought the Pilgrims to this country, and whose length interposed no difficulty in the way of emigration to the early settlements in America. Even now it is far shorter than the voyages which are peopling California and Australia with emigrants whose motives for removal are far less cogent than those which operate now, and will operate hereafter with irresistible force, upon the free colored population.

Again, Africa was a home for the free blacks, to which the white man could not follow them, to revive in the Old World the contests of the New. In Africa, climate stands in the place of armies and fortifications, and this was a consideration peculiar to Africa, and not connected with any part of the American continent or its adjacent islands.

And again, colonization was to depend at last upon commerce, and Africa was a virgin market, access to which was a desideratum, and no better access to which, for commercial purposes, could be obtained, than through colonies of free colored people from the United States, accustomed, for generations, to the habits and dealings of civilized society, and competent to conduct the commerce, which, while it enriched them pecuniarily, would make them strong and powerful by the numbers which, through its aid, would find their way to them.

All these considerations, which entered into the judgment formed in 1816, have since operated in the building up of Liberia. It is to them that the "success "referred to by the President is to be attributed. In this connection, let us look at this Central American plan; the reasons urged in support of it.

In the first place, Central America is not the home of the black man, but of a wholly different race, as distinct from his as is the white race, and its climate is one in which the white man can live and thrive.

In the next place, although it is nearer to this country than Africa, which is one of the main arguments urged in its favor, yet this proximity operates both ways. It has taken the power of Spain, and the existence of a strong party in the United States, and the powers of

France and England to prevent the annexation of Cuba to this country; and how long, is it thought, will the feeble colony of Central America, or even a nation of free blacks there, be able to resist the inroads of the whites into a land where they can live, where the precious metals and coal, which, when in the right place, is more precious than all, may be found, perhaps, to offer the same temptations that have carried thousands and tens of thousands from the Eastern to the Western shores of the continent of America, and this, too, when a seven-days' voyage is all that intervenes.

Such a result may not take place for years; the present generation may pass away and not see it, and the next generation too; but, when the increase of population shall crowd all classes in the United States, Central America, if it possesses the attractions for the blacks which its friends claim for it, will not be the only place where the white man can live exempt from the overflow of a population that has "o'erborne its continent." In truth, proximity, looking to the future, and colonization has few relations except with the future, is an objection rather than a recommendation to the Central American scheme.

In the next place, as has been already said, the white man can live and thrive in Central America, whose climate, therefore, affords no protection against the raids and forays and intrusions of his restless and ambitious race.

Peopled originally by the Spaniards, after the Mexican conquest, it remained under their control until revolution made it independent. White men, and men crossed with Indian blood, still hold rule there. The white population is scant only because there are other places where the white man can do better.

It is left in its present condition only until these places shall be filled up, and Central America becomes attractive enough to invite emigration, or the pressure of population at home causes a requisition there that compels it. For, after all, it is either the attraction of the new or the repulsion of the old home, or both combined, that has effected all the colonizations that have taken place from the days of the Phoenicians to the present time. In this view of the case, then, emigration to Central America will result in little more than the continuation of the labor of the black man for the white that has been going on for centuries, with this difference, however, that while heretofore the labor has been around and about existing homes, in the case of Central America it will be in the preparation of homes for future generations of white men. It is not the bee alone who toils for others than itself, as Virgil knew and said, and as experience, since his day, has continued to demonstrate.

And in the next place, Central America possesses in a very small degree the elements of that commerce upon which, alone, can colonization safely depend. Congress may appropriate money enough to make the Central American experiment, but it cannot be expected to continue these appropriations beyond a limited period. After that, emigration must be self-paying and voluntary. Such has been the case with every successful emigration in the history of the world.