Slavery in Maryland briefly considered

by John L. Carey

“I consider the colony of Maryland in Liberia, known as the one receiving the exclusive patronage of the Maryland State Colonization Society of the United States, as decidedly one of the most prosperous of the American settlements on the western coast of Africa. It could not have been otherwise. The organization and continued energetic labors of the board representing the society, would lead us to expect nothing less. Soon after the colony was founded by Dr. James Hall, now the society’s general agent in Baltimore, and the machinery of a colonial government set in motion, the selection of a colored man as governor was made. This was just as it should be. It was called an experiment, but it was one of the success of which no reasonable fears could be entertained. From the commencement, the colony has been progressing, if not rapidly, yet steadily and onwardly. The population is now about seven hundred, and they receive an immigration every year. All necessary preparation is made for the reception of an expedition before its arrival. There is a public asylum or receptacle, consisting of a number of separate rooms, and situated in a healthful part of the colony, into which the new-comers are generally acclimated. Meantime frame buildings are being erected on lots laid out for them, of suitable size to afford them a good garden spot, and by the time the immigrant is through the fever and can begin to take care of himself, he has a home to go into—a dry, comfortable little framed and shingled house, where he can have all the necessaries and comforts of life, if he will only follow up his first advantages with economy and industry.

“It is a notorious fact that there is not a single family, of all the colonists in Maryland in Liberia, occupying a thatched house; all have buildings such as I have described. Let it be understood that there is another point of sound and wise policy in this arrangement of incalculable advantage to the settler. His house is not given to him; by no means. He would not value it as much if it were. He is charged with all the expenses of its erection. When he is able, he is furnished with work, work is found him by some means, and as he earns his wages, he receives a part to live on, and a reasonable proportion is stopped in the hands of the society’s agent to pay the debt due for the house. As I am not writing a treatise on colonization, reader, I can not stop here to notice one tithe of the many points of superiority which this plan possesses over others which have been in vogue in other places. But that it works well, one must go to Palmas, visit the people as I did, go to their homes, eat and drink with them, inquire into their condition, find out their contentedness, without seeming to intend any such thing, and then he will be satisfied.”

There is no instance of colonization, that I know of, which has proved more successful in every respect than this. The history of the settlement of our own country shows no parallel to it—especially when we consider the materials with which colonization in Africa had to work. Yet the colonists, humble indeed, and unaccustomed to self-government, have acquired from their residence with an Anglo-Saxon race so much of the rudiments, forms, and habits of a self-governing people, that, when thrown upon their own exertions, they have exhibited qualities of patience, endurance and good sense, which give assurance of their capacity to do well in their new abode. Removed, moreover, from their position of inferiority, and possessed with a true spirit of freedom and with a feeling of self-respect thence arising, they behold themselves men, with the power of rising to the highest stature of humanity. This, in itself, is a great thing; it is the chief thing. A people who can entertain such feelings and ideas have their destiny sure and a noble one.

With the State’s annual appropriation of ten thousand dollars, and the contributions of individuals, the board has carried on the operations incident to colonization. The debts contracted by the outlays necessary for the beginning of the enterprise of founding a new commonwealth, and of sustaining it in its early days, have all been paid off. An annual expedition with emigrants sails from Baltimore to Cape Palmas. An enterprise is now on foot, with every prospect of success, to start a packet vessel to run regularly between this city and Cape Palmas. A number of colored persons are engaged in this undertaking, and when its success is established, it will probably be surrendered entirely into their hands. The facilities for emigration will be much increased under this arrangement, by which a regular communication will be kept up with the colony. The trade between the two points, it is believed, will give abundant employment to a vessel of considerable tonnage.

Now, if we look merely at what colonization has done in the way of removing the colored population from Maryland, it would seem to be an utterly hopeless project. But let us see what colonization really proposes; and for this purpose I quote the language of Mr. Latrobe, under whose able superintendence, as President of the Colonization Board, the affairs of the colony have so wonderfully prospered:

“If colonization proposed by any probable means at its command, even with the most munificent assistance of Congress, State Legislatures and individuals, to remove the whole colored population of the United States to Africa, it would well deserve to be considered visionary, as idle indeed as to attempt to ladle Lake Erie dry. No means that could be obtained would be competent to this end. But the means, scant as they were, continued Mr. L., were ample to establish colonies on the coast of Africa, capable of self-support and self-government—moral and religious communities, where wealth and station would be offered to the colored man as the incentives and rewards for labor—colonies that would be as attractive to him as America is to the European. In 1832 the immigration to America was said to be upwards of two hundred thousand, more than double, nearly treble the annual increase of the entire colored population of the Union. These immigrants, with few exceptions, came at their own expense. In point of means they were in no way superior to the corresponding class of free colored people in the United States—they came, because America presented attractions which their home did not. It is in the power of colonization to invest Africa with the same attractions for the colored immigrant, that America presents to the white one. Where the latter has one inducement to remove the former has ten. In Europe there are few avenues to worldly honor which are closed to those, who, nevertheless, leave them all behind. In America there are few, if any, avenues open to those for whom colonization labors.

“The object of colonization, therefore,” said Mr. Latrobe, “may be stated as the preparation of a home in Africa, for the free colored people of the State, to which they may remove when the advantages which it offers, and, above all, the pressure of irresistible circumstances in this country shall excite them to emigrate.”

Rightly understood then, as to its views and purposes, colonization may not be so impracticable a scheme after all. At any rate, whatever it does accomplish, is so much of good achieved, practical, permanent, substantial good. What the future may disclose to urge, nay, to compel, the separation of the two races now dwelling together in this country, no one can tell. But COLONIZATION looks with an anxious eye to such a future contingency, and in the meantime it will do all it can to prepare the way for the easy accomplishment of that consummation, if it should become inevitable.

It is the belief of some very intelligent persons that the black population of the United States will gradually move towards the south-west, along with the cotton culture, and be finally absorbed in the mixed races of Central America, and that thus Slavery will cease. Mr. Rives, of Virginia, advanced some such idea as this in the Senate of the United States, a year or so ago. But it seems clear to my mind that the white master will go as fast in that direction as the negro laborer, and wherever both are found together, one must be a slave. There is no spot on this continent where the negro can be put so as to be removed from the domination of the white man; no remote spot which the negro will reach unless the white man carries him thither. The colored race in this country can never exert their energies in an independent way; they are and must be under the overshadowing influence of a controlling race.

What they may become in Africa, their native home, carrying with them to those shores, the vigorous elements imbibed during their apprenticeship of servitude here, other generations yet to come will know better than we of the present. The part which the African is to perform in the progress of civilization, and the development of the entire character of humanity, is a problem which has begun to attract the attention of enlightened men. Mr. Kinmont, whose discourses on the Natural History of Man show so large and comprehensive a mind, dwells with much interest upon the characteristics of the African race. A portion of his remarks, so beautiful, so humane, I can not but quote: