200 years ago: Black people protested African exile

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2 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2017 On Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 16, over 5000 people marched to a street rally outside Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The march was sponsored by a broad number of groups under the aegis of the MLK Day of Action and Resis­ tance (MLK-DARE) coalition, which presented to the public its comprehensive declaration of principles as “a vision for a more equal and just America.” The reason that the marchers assembled outside historic Mother Bethel was to mark the 200th anniversary of another ral­ ly at the same site. In January 1817, some 3000 Black people had gathered at the church to speak against efforts to expel free Black people from the United States and send them into exile in Africa. In early 1816, Charles Fenton Mercer, a Federalist legislator in Virginia, initiated a campaign to convince the federal gov­ ernment to colonize Black people into a new state on Africa’s west coast. It was an idea that some well-inten­ tioned whites had raised before: Why not give American Blacks a fresh opportunity in Africa, where they could develop their skills unhindered by white prejudices, and at the same time bring Christianity and civilized values to the untamed con­ tinent?

Historian Gary B. Nash (“Forging Free­ dom”) sums up the motivations of white “reformers” who were attracted to the colonization movement: “White racial prejudice was permanently relegating free blacks to a degraded position, which was a contradiction of the entire credo of the republican ideology emanating from effectiveness of mass action.

based on the trade unions. designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor. Name City State Phone E-mail the American Revolution. Caught in such an impasse, white reformers chose to re­ move the object of white racism rather than combat racism itself.”

Mercer soon caught the ear of Robert Finley, a Presbyterian clergyman and di­ rector of the Princeton Theological So­ ciety. Finley developed a plan to estab­ lish the American Colonization Society (ASC), based in the city of Washington, a location chosen to facilitate the task of lobbying members of Congress. It was not long before a number of Southern slave-owning planters and poli­ ticians joined the ASC—and indeed be­ came its major leaders. This became clear at the founding conference of the society, on Dec. 21, 1816, in Washington City, chaired by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, a slaveholder.

The elected president of the society was Bushrod Washington, nephew of the for­ Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Subscribe now!

Address Zip mer president, and a slaveholder at the Mount Vernon estate.

Although the language of the ASC con­ vention spoke of “ameliorating the con­ dition of the free people of colour in the United States,” less glowing opinions were voiced by many delegates. This was seen in the positions of Robert Goodloe Harper, from Maryland, who wrote in 1817 that the growing number of free Blacks in his region were a “nuisance and burden,” “a degraded, idle, and vicious population.”

Southern planters saw free Black people as worse than a nuisance; their very exis­ tence as “free” labor served as a constant threat to the institution of slavery. “King Cotton” was becoming supreme as an ex­ port crop, and slavery was being extended to new U.S. territories in the west.

It had become evident to Black people at the time that, as the abolition move­ Fourth International.

• Boston: socialistactionboston@gmail. com • Buffalo, NY: [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot.com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE, KY: [email protected], (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:

[email protected] • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 802-1482, [email protected] • New York City: (212) 781-5157 • Philadelphia: [email protected] ment steadily lost ground, white hostility to Blacks was rising in the North. What few equal rights they did have, such as the right to congregate in public parks on holidays, were often taken away. Accord­ ingly, many Black leaders were initially attracted to the goals of the Coloniza­ tion Society. The image of a haven in a free Black-ruled republic (like Haiti) had great attraction.

One strong supporter of the idea was Paul Cuffee, a New England merchant, ship owner, and sea captain of African and Native American parentage. As a po­ litical organizer, Cuffee used his ability to sail from port to port to spread the vision of “returning” to Africa.

At first, Philadelphia Black leader James Forten felt pulled toward Cuffee’s ideas. But the meeting at Mother Bethel Church—which he chaired—helped to steer him away from support to coloniza­ tion when he observed one speaker after another denounce it.

Most Black families in this country had lived here for generations and had no memory of the Africa of their ancestors. Most felt instead that they should have full rights in the very country that they had helped to build.

Soon, the role of Southern slave owners in the American Colonization Society be­ came clear to all. Moreover, not just a few Black Americans who had emigrated to western Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia) found themselves in conflict with local peoples. And whole families died from diseases to which they had no immunity. But as racism grew in the United States, the idea of exiling the free Black popu­ lation to a distant country continued to come to the surface. n For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, (510) 2689429, [email protected] Socialist Action newspaper editorial offices: [email protected] Website: www.socialistaction.org WHERE TO FIND US • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Providence: [email protected] (401) 952-5385 • Salem, Ore.: [email protected] • San Francisco Bay Area:

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