Thoughts on African ColonizationGarrison, William Lloyd
Philosophy
Thoughts on African Colonization
Garrison, William Lloyd
African Americans -- Colonization -- Africa; American Colonization Society; Slavery -- United States
'It must appear evident to all, that every endeavor to divert
the attention of the community, or even a portion of the means,
which the present crisis to imperatively calls for, from the
Colonization Society, to measures calculated to bind the colored
population to this country and seeking to raise them (_an
impossibility_) to a level with the whites, whether by founding
colleges or in any other way, tends directly in the proportion
that it succeeds, to counteract and thwart the whole plan of
colonization. Although none would rejoice more than myself to
see this unhappy race elevated to the highest scale of human
being, it has always seemed to me that this country was not the
theatre for such a change. Far happier they, far happier we, had
they never touched our soil, or breathed our air. As it is, to
attain solid happiness and permanent respectability, they should
now remove to a more congenial clime.'--[New Haven Religious
Intelligencer for July, 1831.]
'The recent murderous movements of the people of color in some
of the southern States, evinces the dreadful consequences of
slavery, and the absolute necessity of colonizing all free
blacks immediately, and of manumitting and colonizing slaves as
fast as circumstances will justify the measure. We believe, and
have for many years, that this is the only course, which will
ensure prosperity and safety to our southern
brethren.'--[New-Hampshire Observer.]
'The removal annually of one hundred thousand, it may be safely
calculated, would sink the parent stock forty thousand in each
year, and this in thirty years would reduce the blacks of the
Union to a very small number--perhaps not one would
remain.'--[National (Ohio) Historian.]
'We will demonstrate, that the conveyance of the present annual
increase would, in less than thirty years, remove the whole to
Africa. Let all, for instance, born in any single year, say of
the age of twenty, be removed to Africa; and in each succeeding
year, let all of that age be removed in the same manner.--Then,
admitting, what is far too much to admit, that a generation
lasts fifty years, on an average, the generation on the stage
when the process commenced, would have become extinct at the end
of thirty years, and all their increase or offspring would have
been removed to Africa. Thirty years would, even in this way,
clear them entirely from this country.--But there are two
circumstances which would, in fact, make the time much shorter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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