Colonization

The North Star, January 26, 1849

About

Douglass' vigorous denunciation of colonization is an outstanding example of the contribution he made as an editor to clarifying problems confronting the Negro people. For some time after 1835, colonization agitation was unable to get much of a hearing in the North, as it came to be considered, to paraphrase Cornish and Garrison, merely an effort to strengthen the props of slave institutions. In the late 1840s, however, Henry Clay and the various compromise groups around him renewed the colonization program in the hope that it might lessen the tensions growing in the country over the slavery question. When Douglass founded The North Star, colonization agitation was again in full swing. Immediately he dedicated the journal to the battle against the colonizationists....

In editorial after editorial Douglass hammered away at the theme that colonization was the "twin sister of slavery"; that the United States was the native land of the Negro; that "he, of any one has a right to the soil of this continent" having for more than two hundred years "toiled over the soil of America, under a burning sun and a driver's lash -ploughing, planting, reaping, that white men might loll in ease," and having "fought and bled for this country"; that "his attachment to the place of his birth is stronger than iron," and that those who advised the Negro to emigrate were "his worst and most deadly enemies."¹...

The capstone of Douglass' argument and his most useful contribution to the discussion of colonization was his claim that Negroes and whites could live and work together as equals; that prejudice against color was not invincible; that it was already giving way "and must give way"; that it was an inevitable by-product of slavery and would be overcome as soon as the Negro people were given the same opportunities as their white brothers. The free Negroes, he declared, were making rapid advances in this direction, and were being retarded by the colonizationists who strengthened prejudice against the Negro people by declaring that it was inevitable and God-ordained because of "the natural inferiority of the colored race." It was the duty of the Negro people to defeat the vicious campaign which sought to prove that they were a blight upon American civilization, to "help free their brethren, rather than leave them in chains, to go and civilize Africa." We are Americans, cried Douglass, and we want to live in America on equal terms with all other Americans. "Brethren" he appealed, "stay where you are, so long as you can stay. Stay here and worthily discharge the duties of honest men, and of good citizens." ² [I: 97-99]

Colonization

In order to divert the hounds from the pursuit of the fox, a "red herring" is sometimes drawn across the trail, and the hounds mistaking it for the real scent, the game is often lost. We look upon the recent debate in the Senate of the United States, over this wrinkled old "red herring" of colonization as a ruse to divert the attention of the people from that foul abomination which is sought to be forced upon the free soil of California and New Mexico, and which is now struggling for existence in Kentucky, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The slaveholders are evidently at a stand to know what trick they shall try next to turn the scorching rays of anti-slavery light and truth from the bloodshot eyes of the monster slavery. The discussion of it is most painful and agonizing; and if it continues, the very life of this foul, unnatural and adulterous beast will be put in imminent peril; so the slaveholding charmers have conjured up their old familiar spirits of colonization, making the old essence of abomination to flounder about in its grave clothes before the eyes of Northern men, to their utter confusion and bewilderment. A drowning man will catch at a straw. Slavery is sinking in public estimation. It is going down. It wants help, and asks through Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, how much of the public money (made by the honest toil of Northern men) will be at its service in the event of emancipation, "as some are in favor of emancipation, provided that the Negroes can be sent to Liberia, or beyond the limits of the United States."

Here we have the old colonization spirit revived, and the impudent proposition entertained by the Senate of the United States of expelling the free colored people from the United States, their native land, to Liberia.

In view of this proposition, we would respectfully suggest to the assembled wisdom of the nation, that it might be well to ascertain the number of free colored people who will be likely to need the assistance of government to help them out of this country to Liberia, or elsewhere, beyond the limits of these United States -since this course might save any embarrassment which would result from an appropriation more than commensurate to the numbers who might be disposed to leave this, our own country, for one we know not of. We are of opinion that the free colored people generally mean to live in America, and not in Africa; and to appropriate a large sum for our removal, would merely be a waste of the public money. We do not mean to go to Liberia. Our minds are made up to live here if we can, or die here if we must; so every attempt to remove us, will be, as it ought to be, labor lost. Here we are, and here we shall remain. While our brethren are in bondage on these shores; it is idle to think of inducing any considerable number of the free colored people to quit this for a foreign land.

For two hundred and twenty-eight years has the colored man toiled over the soil of America, under a burning sun and a driver's lash -plowing, planting, reaping, that white men might roll in ease, their hands unhardened by labor, and their brows unmoistened by the waters of genial toil; and now that the moral sense of mankind is beginning to revolt at this system of foul treachery and cruel wrong, and is demanding its overthrow, the mean and cowardly oppressor is meditating plans to expel the colored man entirely from the country. Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here —have lived here —have a right to live here, and mean to live here.

—F. D.

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