What was the upshot of the matter is not known but the significance of the affair is well pointed out by the Real Cuffe in a letter to the impostor:
"I think it looks as though thou art arrested from thy labors, and thy words do follow thee. How canst thou, a sinful impostor, call me thy father when I never saw thee to my knowledge. It appears that thou art a scribe, but hath missput the name that thee presumed to assume. It is a great pity that thou who hath been so well treated should make such ill use of it. This I speak to thy shame. The great evil that thou hast embarked upon is not only against me as an individual. It is a national concern. It is a stain to the whole community of the African race. Wilt thou consider, thou imposter, the great number thou hast lifted thy head against, would not it have been good that thou had never been born. Let me tell thee that the manumission of 1,500,000 slaves depends on the faithfulness of the few who have obtained their freedom, yea, it is not only those who are in bondage, but the whole community of the African race, which are according to best accounts 30,000,000. If nothing better can be obtained from thee than the fruit that thou produced, let me intreat thee to petition for a prison for life; Awake thou imposter unto righteousness and pray God to forgive thee, if happily thou may find firgiveness before the door of mercy is closed against thee. Thus thou hast the advise of one who wishes well to all mankind."
Paul Cuffe.[52]
CHAPTER IX
A Friend in Need
There is no evidence in the Cuffe papers that he was acquainted with the history of the Negro deportation projects in America. It is altogether likely that the one hundred years of individual propaganda, religious and humanitarian exertions, were unknown to him. Means for the dissemination of knowledge were not so well perfected in his day as in ours; the plans for deportation were isolated; not until 1816 did private movements unite with governmental organizations,—facts which further explain why Cuffe knew nothing about the history of the movements to colonize the Negro.
Many of his friends and many persons whose lives were dedicated to Negro emancipation were connected with his plans. But whatever he did appears to have been done wholly on his own initiative. It is the first time, apparently, in the history of colonization that a Negro becomes prominent in the movement. He leads the way in an effort not only to bless the free Negroes, but also to liberate the slaves. It is a constructive effort on the part of the Negro race.
When Cuffe returned from Africa in the early summer of 1816 the cause for which he had given so much time and made so many sacrifices was more prominent than it had ever been in its history. The Union Humane Society, founded in Ohio in 1815 by Benjamin Lundy as an anti-slavery organization, had declared for the removal of the Negro beyond the white man's pale. The Kentucky Colonization Society had petitioned Congress to settle, at public expense, on some unappropriated tract of public land, the Negroes already free and those who might subsequently obtain their freedom. The Virginia Assembly, also, had presented a memorial to Congress praying that the National Government find a place on the North Pacific or African coast for colonizing the free blacks of the State. Finally, the inhabitants of New Jersey petitioned their Legislature to instruct their representatives in Congress to lay before that body at its next meeting as a subject for discussion "the expediency of forming a colony on the coast of Africa, or elsewhere, where such of the people of color as are now free, or may hereafter be set free, may, with their own consent, be removed."[53]
Cuffe returned from Africa about June 1, 1816. The New Jersey meeting was on the sixth of the following November. Final action by the Virginia Assembly was taken on the twenty-first of December of that year. A graduate of Princeton, Robert Finley, then engaged in the Presbyterian ministry and later president of the University of Georgia, participated in the New Jersey meeting. He now took a leading part in the deliberation of a body of men in Washington, D.C., where a national organization was launched for the purpose of deporting to Africa or elsewhere the free blacks of the United States. A preliminary meeting was held on December 21, 1816; the constitution was adopted on December 28, 1816, and on New Year's Day 1817, the officers were elected. This was the beginning of the American Colonization Society.
At this meeting the enthusiasm of Reverend Mr. Finley was boundless. He offered five hundred dollars from his savings to insure the success of the movement, and when some, thinking the plan foolhardy, laughed, he declared, "I know the scheme is from God." The one practical colonizationist, at this time, was Paul Cuffe, and to him Rev. Mr. Finley went for advice and help.