The facts are meagre with respect to the reception accorded these negroes and the measure of success which attended the colonization. From the best information obtainable, it seems that they were treated in no very friendly manner and that, in time, the negroes lost most of the lands provided for them by their former owner.
Edward Coles, of Albemarle County, inherited from his father a large number of slaves. Determining to give them their freedom, he conducted them in April, 1819, to Illinois, where he established them in their own homes near the town of Edwardsville, giving to each head of a family a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land.[[87]] Mr. Coles, like many other Virginians, who attempted a like emancipation, not only incurred the great pecuniary loss resulting from the liberation of his slaves and the expenses of their removal and establishment, but he incurred the ill will and opposition of the inhabitants of the state in which they settled.
The biographers of Abraham Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, referring to the attitude of the people of Illinois towards free negroes, record:
"Even Governor Coles, the public-spirited and popular politician, was indicted and severely fined for having brought his own freedmen into this state and having assisted them in establishing themselves around him upon farms of their own."[[88]]
Mr. Coles was a neighbor and friend of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. He was Madison's private secretary and was appointed by President Monroe Registrar of the Land Office at Edwardsville, Ill., in March, 1819, a position of influence and importance. Three years later he was elected Governor of the state and his career as such was notable for the great part he bore in defeating the movement to change the state constitution of Illinois so as to permit the introduction and maintenance of slavery within that state. In 1832 Governor Coles removed to Philadelphia where he lived until his death. When Virginia seceded, his son, Roberts Coles, volunteered in her service and was killed at the Battle of Roanoke Island.
By his will, admitted to probate on the 20th of November, 1826, John Ward, Sr., of Pittsylvania, emancipated all of his slaves, giving to each of them over fifteen years of age twenty dollars, except to certain enumerated ones, to whom the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each was bequeathed.[[89]] In April, 1827, these freedmen, emancipated under the will of Ward (seventy in number), were transported to Ohio and settled in Lawrence County.[[90]]
By his will, John Randolph of Roanoke, who died in 1833, emancipated all of his slaves and directed his executor, Judge William Leigh, to transport them to some one of the free states and settle them upon lands which he was directed to purchase for the purpose. The will bequeathed the sum of thirteen thousand dollars to defray the expenses incident to their colonization and to pay for the land.
Howe in his Historical Collections of Ohio (Edition of 1891) says:
"In 1846 Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3200 acres of land in this settlement for the freed slaves of John Randolph of Roanoke. These arrived in the Summer of 1846 to the number of about four hundred but were forcibly prevented from making a settlement by a portion of the inhabitants of the county. Since then acts of hostility have been commenced against the people of this settlement and threats of greater held out if they do not abandon their lands and homes."
"From a statement in the county history issued in 1882 we see that a part of the Randolph negroes succeeded in effecting a settlement at Montezuma, Franklin Township, just south of the reservoir."[[91]]