On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
lowest and most degraded of your people , wrfn . all the vices and none of the virtues of a civilized society « jkdd incapable of being even ' located * without displacing , urobably by violence , the original occupiers of the soil . Fofit must be remembered ^ that Africa is not occupied like America two centuries ago , by wandering tribes of hunters , but bpsiationary communities , and is ,
comparatively speaking , tj >« 5 kly inhabited ; presenting no trackless wastes on which twp ^ millions and a half of people could be suddenly planted , ^ rtnout creating the most tremendous disturbances . What consequence , then , must follow from such an attempt ? Surely this , that the present harmony and good feeling must give way to hostile jealousy ;—when they see these intruders threatening to come among them , not by thousands , but by millions , the native
powers will take the alarm , and will do their best to drive them into the sea . The probability is , that in the destructive contest which will then ensue , civilization will display its usual advantage over a rude and uncultivated people ;—you will make a desert and call it peace ;—but is this the way , I would ask , in which you propose to civilize Africa ? You may , indeed , make room in this way for your swarms of degraded negroes ; and whether the community
you will there establish under such circumstances will be very superior to that which you will have destroyed , time must show . But at any rate , it will be accomplished at an expense at which humanity shudders , and the economist stands aghast ; and the object is one which , however interesting it may be to you , it can hardly be
expected that we should exert ourselves to promote . In fact , the political considerations which might arise out of the success of such an undertaking , and which would probably lead European statesmen to look with no favourable eye on a powerful dependency of the United States , established on this side of the Atlantic , are not unworthy of attention .
It is true , indeed , that no such object as this is ever likely to be accomplished ; the expense is far too great , and the sacrifice such as the slave-holders are not at all likely to submit to . That they may be induced to part with such slaves as the Colonization Society can purchase , with a view to emancipation on condition of their removal to Liberia , I can easily believe ; but that they will ever consent to dismiss gratuitously the labourers on whom depends the cultivation of their valuable rice and cotton
plantations , in a climate unhealthy m itself , and where whites have never yet been found capable of undergoing the labours of the field , appears quite incredible . In short , I hold it to be an impossibility to remove even the free blacks ; and as for expatriating the -whole slave population of America , and establishing them on the coast of Africa , it is the wildest chimera that ever entered into the brain of any man pretending to be rational . The Colonization Society think they have done great things in sending in the course of ten years , three thousand persona to form a
Untitled Article
156 American Colonization Societyy /
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/12/
-