In the great work of the American Colonization Society, the leading people of Virginia took a most active and sympathetic interest. This was evinced in the organization of Auxiliary Societies at Richmond, Norfolk, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Alexandria, Lynchburg, Wheeling, Charlestown, Shepherdstown, Hampton and Harper's Ferry and in the Counties of Isle of Wight, Sussex, Albemarle, King William, Dinwiddie, Amherst, Berkeley, Nansemond, Buckingham, Nelson, Fluvanna, Frederick, Augusta, Kanawha, Powhatan, Loudoun, Rockingham, Mecklenburg, Campbell, and others. The officials of these Societies numbered many of the most prominent men of Virginia; John Marshall, then Chief Justice of the United States, was President of the Richmond branch.
The Virginia Auxiliary Societies collected money by private subscription, and facilitated in every way the transportation of such free negroes as desired to emigrate. In 1826, upon the petition of the Societies, the Legislature of Virginia made its first appropriation to assist in their work. In addition to those in Virginia, Auxiliary Societies were organized in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky.
In 1828 the Colonization Society of Virginia was established and thereafter Virginians directed their energies largely through this Virginia organization. John Marshall was elected President of the Virginia Society, and James Madison, James Monroe, John Tyler and William H. Broadnax, were among its Vice-Presidents.
By an act passed in 1850 the General Assembly of Virginia appropriated the sum of $30,000.00 per annum for five years for the transportation and sustenance of free negroes who desired to emigrate. Certain qualifications of the measure limited its effectiveness, and in 1853, the Virginia Colonization Society secured its repeal and the enactment of a new law appropriating $30,000.00 per annum for five years, with much more liberal provisions as to the method of its expenditure. Private benevolence supplemented the state. The reports of the Society show that during the years 1850-51-52 private contributions from the people of Virginia aggregated over $21,000.00.[[85]]
The work of the Society was endorsed by the churches and more and more it assumed the character of a Christian enterprise. It was commended because it brought relief to Virginia, blessings to the ex-slaves, greater hope of freedom to those still in bondage, and carried Christianity and civilization to Africa. Among the first of many white men who gave their lives to the cause of colonization was Samuel J. Mills, who died at sea on his way home from Africa. Mills was the leader in the band of students at Williams College, Massachusetts, so well known for their missionary zeal and labours, and hence has a double claim upon our gratitude.
ABOLITIONISTS AND PRO-SLAVERY MEN
The problems and difficulties of colonization, admittedly great, were seriously augmented by the active opposition of the extreme pro-slavery men at the South and the Abolitionists at the North. Each of these two antagonistic forces strenuously opposed the work of colonization, the first because it facilitated eventual emancipation, the second, among other reasons, because it rendered conditions more tolerable and thus postponed the day of the universal and immediate abolition of slavery.
In addition to the colonizations made through the aid of the colonization societies, many Virginia slaveholders emancipated their slaves and at their own expense colonized them in some of the free states. A few instances will illustrate the custom and the difficulties often encountered by these emancipators and their ex-slaves.
| [80] | Virginian History of African Colonization, Slaughter, pp. 1-6. |