Condition of the American Colored Population, and of the Colony at Liberia

by American Colonization Society

[1] See the Sixteenth Annual Report, 1833.

The agriculture of the Colony was never so thrifty as at the present time. Heretofore it has been to some extent neglected, as is always the case with new colonies; but the most vigorous measures have been recently adopted by the managers for its encouragement and permanent prosperity, and these efforts are attended with great success. To the cultivation of coffee, especially—of which the finest quality abounds spontaneously in this latitude—the attention of several of the most respectable colonists has been turned; and 20,000 coffee-trees have been planted by a single individual (a colored gentleman.) and farms of the recaptured Africans, at their two beautiful little villages near Caldwell, are in so prosperous a state that “they not only raise sufficient for their own consumption,” says the Colonial Agent, “but a considerable surplus for the market.” At one of these villages the same gentleman speaks of observing a tract of one hundred acres planted with cassada, interspersed with patches of Indian corn and sweet potatoes.”

The commerce of the Colony, in 1831, greatly exceeded that of any former year; within that period, forty-six vessels visited the port of Monrovia, and the exports were nearly $90,000. But from the last Report we learn that, while fifty-nine vessels had visited the port during the year preceding last May, the exports during the same period, (consisting chiefly of camwood, ivory, palm-oil, tortoise-shell and gold,) amounted to $125,549 16—of imports, to $80,000—and the merchandise and produce on hand on the 1st of January, 1832, to $47,000. New avenues have been recently opened with the interior tribes. Caravans from a considerable distance have visited the country. The Dey people, who number from six to eight thousand, occupying the coast immediately north of Monrovia, have in treaty agreed to allow a free passage to the Colony through their territories. There is now a commercial connexion extending from our settlement even to the borders of Foota Jallo.

It perhaps sufficiently indicates the moral condition of the Colony, that three churches have been erected during the past year; and that there are now six day schools for children, and one evening school for adults, comprising in all two hundred and twenty-six pupils. Two female schools, taught by well-qualified teachers, whose salaries are paid by ladies of Philadelphia, are attended by ninety-nine pupils. Among the re-captured Africans, also, a school is about to commence, under the patronage of the same ladies; and a Sunday school already exists. Towards the foundation of a high school, $2,000 have been recently given by Mr. Sheldon, of New York, and $400 by the Hon. C. F. Mercer, of Virginia. The Massachusetts State Society, at its last annual meeting, voted to appropriate $400 per annum, for the salary of a competent male instructer at Liberia, and half that sum for a female. This is well. It is more important to establish thoroughly the moral and intellectual character of the Colony, and especially of the rising generation, than even to extend the settlements themselves. The managers have taken a view of this subject, which merits the warmest sanction of all the friends of education, the friends of republicanism, the friends of freedom and truth. Whatever be the number of the emigrants, let their character be such, or let it be made such, as may serve fitly for the foundation-stone whereon, in after times, shall rest the firmest liberties of that continent, and the noblest glory of this. Slow though the building of the edifice may be,—and so has been the growth of every empire under heaven,—let it be sure, and let it be strong. No man will inquire, a century hence, how many colonists were carried out in any given twelve-mouth. Let it be built for the use of posterity, and for the praise of history. Let it be raised as the pyramids were raised, and it shall stand as the pyramids have stood. The light of orient civilization shall shine again, like the sunrise, upon its sides; and the last rays of freedom’s western orb, many an age hence, when our own republic may live but in name, shall still “linger and play on its summits.”

Abolition of Slavery.—The following letter, from an accomplished and intelligent gentleman in North Carolina to a distinguished gentleman in the city of Boston, is contained in the Columbian Centinel. It exhibits a specimen of the sentiments which generally, if not universally, prevail on this subject throughout the southern states, and may enable some of our infatuated agitators to perceive the folly and madness of their course:—

Salisbury, Rowan County, N. C., May 29th, 1833.

Dear Sir,—I shall offer no other apology for troubling you with a letter at this time, than the importance of its subject matter. I have chosen to address you as being a distinguished philanthropist; and on more than one occasion, a great sufferer in the cause of real humanity; and, from the past history of your life, I feel confident that I was not so deceived in the high estimate I formed of your character during our too short acquaintance, that I need fear you have turned a visionary.

It is frequently asserted in many of our southern newspapers, that there exists in the northern and eastern sections of our country, a disposition to interfere with slavery. This I have confidently denied on the strength of conversations I had with distinguished gentlemen when in your section; and on the authority of Mr. Webster’s gratifying assertion, that there prevails at the north such a feeling on this subject as the south would wish. More than two years since, in New England, I heard Garrison, whom I looked upon as a misguided enthusiast, and literally, a monomaniac, on the condition of the negroes in America; and I was happy to find that he was discountenanced by the sober and really benevolent portion of the community. I begin, however, to doubt, if I have not been somewhat in error. Something, I know not well by what class, nor as yet to what extent, surely is agitated among you. I am not a miscellaneous reader of newspapers, and I receive none from New England, so that my information is limited to extracts occasionally made into more southern journals. Among these, I was greatly struck by the following paragraph taken from the Boston Commercial Gazette: “At the last quarterly meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, the following resolution was adopted unanimously. Among the gentlemen who advocated the adoption was Mr. Amasa Walker, the candidate of the Anti-Masons for Congress.

‘Resolved, That the principles and measures of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, are consistent with every duty which we owe to our country, and that benevolence to the masters not less than to the slaves, requires us to advocate the doctrine of IMMEDIATE ABOLITION.’”

Here is the germ, I fear, (and I tremble while I think on it,) of what will work the dissolution of our glorious Union. For the moment that interference with the condition of our slaves is seriously attempted by any considerable party in the non-slave-holding states, that moment this Union is at an end. A determination not to suffer the free states to intermeddle in any manner, with the condition of the slaves, unites in the most perfect unanimity every political party, every religious sect, every class of society in the slave-holding states. And I pledge myself for the accuracy of the opinion, that not even an attempt to settle the question growing out of the agitation of slavery, would be made on the floor of Congress.