Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Colonization, June 23, 1838

There is either a most strange delusion, or an obstinate wickedness in men, in relation to this matter of expatriating our colored people — probably both — for delusion — “strong delusion generally attends a long course of transgression. We believe, if there is any one crime in this land, on which the Father of the human family looks down with more displeasure than on any other, it is on this deliberate and malicious wrong and insult entertained by a portion of the proud people of this country towards their humbler brethren — a deliberate, premeditated, cool-blooded plot to banish them from their native land, and to send them to the most undesirable spot on earth. God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Christ our Lord tells us in the story of the good Samaritan, who is our neighbor, and what loving him is, in practice. We ask the reverends and honorables, who compose the official list of New Hampshire Colonization, if the good Samaritan would have joined the Colonization Society. The question need only be asked. The idea of such a man as he, entering into a conspiracy like this, is so absurd, as to be almost ludicrous on the very face of it. Colonization is hate of one's neighbor, of the very deepest and most far-reaching kind.

But the organization is getting to be matter of form merely — it can't act. It may raise contributions of some amount—but no widows' mites — and not from many hands. It is impotent malice now — and kept up, probably, as a set-off effort versus anti-slavery. We are loath to speak severely of the names who compose this benevolent enterprise, but cannot help it. If we feel justly towards the plot, we feel severely, and must speak as we feel. It is not only a wicked plot against our innocent and injured (ah, injured beyond reparation) brethren, but it is a most mean and dishonorable service, done at the bidding of the slaveholder of the South. He wants to get the free man of color away, so that he can the more securely grind down the colored bond man. Poor Mr. Observer remarks that “the colored man must have a soil of his own, before he can rise.” Pray, what does he mean by a soil of his own? soil that he owns? or a sort of black soil? Can't he own soil in this country? Truly he can, if these Observers will only get out of the way, and let us win him his liberty, and let him work for wages. Free colored people are rising now as rapidly and as palpably as water ever rose in a freshet. They rise, as fast as such philanthropists as the Observer fall. The Observer's fall is their rise, and his rise their fall. Colored men can earn money and buy and own soil, and do now buy and own it. They need not go to Africa for soil. The land they own here is their soil, and the country they are born in is their native country. A man's native country (this is said for the especial benefit of Observers and colonizationists) is the country a man is born in. He can't have but one. He can't be born in one country, and have a native land somewhere else — in some other country. The land he is born on, and no other, is his native land, and it is equally so with colored people, and those who have less or no color. No American, United States-born man can have two native lands, or can have one without the limits of America. He can no more be born here and have him a native land in Africa, than an African, born on the Gold Coast, can make him out a native land here in New England. This is really so — there is no mistake — there is no two ways about it. This is a cardinal point, and it ought to be settled and made clear to the minds of our colonization brethren. They have a strong notion of restoring colored people to their native Africa — to their own soil, as the Observer calls it — where they can rise. The soil of Africa is supposed to be theirs by a kind of nativity, though they were born here, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, and their fathers not only American-born, in some cases, but “as white,” as the African prince said of the Dane — the first creature of that complexion he ever saw — “as white as the very devil,” — not only white, but white slaveholders, owners of their own children — sellers of their own blood and bones. What soil have they in Africa then, on which they can rise? None, unless they go and buy it, which they will never do. And what does the Observer mean by rising? He means getting to be governor, councillor, general court man, deputy secretary, dancing master, clerk in a store, dandy, — any of these elevations, which whiteness of outside and total lack of inside, will give folks here.

Now colored people don't want this sort of elevation; all they want is common liberty common humanity — a common sort of human chance for their lives. They don't care about rising very high. As to rising out of the dust and dunghill, into which this inhuman people have trodden them that they will do, as soon as colonizationists will take their feet off of their necks and breasts, where they are now planted. They stand on the very breasts of the colored people, and look down and taunt them with incapacity to rise; and wickedly say to them, I'll step off of you, if you will creep away to Africa before you rise. You may go freely — with your own consent — mind that; you are not to be forced away; but unless you do most voluntarily and freely consent, I shall stand here, with both my Anglo-Saxon hind-feet plump on your breast bone, where the night-mare plants her hoof, shod all round with palsy, and you never can rise till you rise to the judgment. It is a pity you can't rise in this country; but you see how it is. God has placed you in an inferior position; you are evidently beneath me, and I above you. I am your friend. I belong to an “American Union for your race's relief,” and also to a “Liberian association, auxiliary to said Union;” and besides, your people, when they stand up straight here, and we are not standing on them, have an unpleasant fragrance which annoys our noses exceedingly; but as you lay now, right under our noses, somehow or other we do not seem to smell you. And moreover we are in the way of evangelizing the world; we've got that work on our hands, and are in a hurry about it — and we must take in Africa, and we don't want to go there. The climate is deadly, the people black and inferior, and we are not exactly on terms with them, and we want you to do what is to be done there; in the way of evangelizing. You can do it well enough for black people, though you can't rise to human level here. We want to colonize you for the sake of Africa — the millions of Africa. Oh, how our hearts bleed (now we think on't) for poor, benighted Africa! And then, that accursed, bloody slave trade — we want that stopped. Why, our Congress declares it piracy. We wont have the market stopped. We'll keep up slavery here, in an improved state. We'll ameliorate, and have it done "kindly;" but that traffic on salt water must be stopped, and you must go to Africa and put it down there. Q. E. D.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 48-51 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of June 23, 1838.

No comments: