THE UNITED COLONIZATION SOCIETIES OF NEW-YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AFRICAN COLONY OF BASSA COVE BY ELI SEIFMAN* ONE can but wonder whether any of the 126 Negro emigrants, most of them recently manumitted slaves, who sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, aboard the "Ninus" or. October 24, 1834, had any idea of the interaction of historical forces manifested in this attempt to establish a new colony on the coast of Africa. In any event, a spirit of excited optimism surrounded the sailing. There had been some talk by the sponsors of the expedition, the United Colonization Societies of New-York and Pennsylvania, that the colony might be called "Yorksylvania," as an expression of the hope that it would one day rival New York in commerce and Pennsylvania in fertility. Aside from its more obvious significance as a colonization venture, the expedition was an expression of the national and state conflicts over colonization procedures, methods and terms of manumission, and the growing influence of the temperance movement.1 The colonization societies of New York and Pennsylvania were auxiliaries to the American Colonization Society which had been established in December, 1816 with a view toward promoting and executing a plan for the colonization (with their consent) of the "free people of color" of the United States in Africa. The Coloniza- tion Society was a voluntary, philanthropic organization (national in scope and character) with membership open to every American *Dr. Seifman is associate professor of Education at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. This paper was read at the annual meeting of the Association in Beaver Falls and Old Economy, October 21, 1967. 1The African Repository and Colonial Journal, X (November, 1834), 284- 286; The Colonization Society of the City of New-York, Proceedings of the Colonization Society of the City of New-York at their Third Annual Meet- ing, Held on the 13th and i4th day of May, 1835, Including the Annual Report of the Board of Managers to the Society (New York: Wm. A. Mercein and Son, 1835), pp. 3-5. 23 24 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY citizen contributing the fixed annual fee of one dollar.2 By De- cember of 1821, the Society had acquired territory along the African coast from native chieftains and had named its colony "Liberia."8 With the propagation of the colonization cause, auxil- iaty colonization societies were established, considerable amounts of money were raised, and a good deal of colonization literature was disseminated. In 1825, Ralph Randolph Gurley assumed the leadership of the American Colonization Society and as the So- ciety's secretary embarked upon a vigorous program to build the colonization cause into a great national movement.4 Gurley's plan called for a central organization with auxiliary societies contributing advice and money, and a board of managers (the executive branch) correlating and directing the colonization cause. Witth Gurley's support, state colonization societies affiliated "2Unlike other benevolent societies of the day, the success of the Coloniza- tion Society was to depend largely on federal sponsorship. The national Society was established in Washington, D. C., and federal assistance was sought in both securing territory in Africa and the subsequent transportation of volunteer colonists. A board of managers, composed of a president, thirteen vice-presidents, a secretary, treasurer, recorder, and twelve other members of the Society constituted the central organization. Bushrod Wash- ington was elected as the Society's first president. The thirteen vice-presi- dents included William H. Crawford of Georgia; Henry Clay of Kentucky; William Phillips of Massachusetts; Col. Henry Rutgers of New York; John E. Howard, Samuel Smith, and John C. Herbert of Maryland; John Taylor of Virginia; General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee; Robert Ralston and Richard Rush of Pennsylvania; General John Mason of the District of Columbia; and the Society's founder, the Reverend Robert Finley of New Jersey. W. G. D. Worthington was elected recording secretary and David English, treasurer. The real responsibilities went to the board of managers and the executive secretary. Elected as managers were Francis Scott Key, Walter Jones, John Laird, the Reverend Dr. James Lauire, Edmund J. Lee, the Reverend Stephen B. Balch, James H. Blake, John Peter, and Reverend Obadiah B. Brown, William Thornton, Jacob Hoffman and Henry Carroll. Elias B. Caldwell ,was elected secretary. Henry Noble Sherwood, "The Formation of the American Colonization Society," Journal of Negro History, II (July, 1917), 220-228; Archibald Alexander, A History of Colonization ont the Western Coast of Africa (Philadelphia: W. S. Martien, 1846), pp. 89-95; P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colon ization Movement 1816-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 22-31. "'Liberia" is derived from the Latin word for freeman, liber. 'In June of 1825, Elias B. Caldwell, secretary of the American Coloniza- tion Society, died. The logical successor as secretary was Ralph Randolph Gurley, who for many years had been Caldwell's clerical assistant in Wash- ington and had served as a special envoy to Liberia. It was Gurley, in fact. who had kept the Society's records and compiled the Annual Reports during Caldwell's long illness. Mason Noble, A Discourse Comnmeimorative of the Life and Character of Rev. Ralph Randolph Gurley (Washington: McGill and Witherow, 1872), pp. 7-11; Staudenraus, Africant Coloni;-ation, pp. 97-99. AFRICAN COLONY OF BASSA COVE 2 5 with the parent Society inl Washington-each with its own sub- ordinate county, town, and district auxiliaries-were formed in most of the states of the Union. It was in this setting that both the Pennsylvania and the New-York State colonization societies were created in 1829.5 The colonization movement was, however, not without its critics. There were many who were quite ready to expose the faults of the American Colonization Society. They challenged the motives of the colonizationists and warned that colonization would be made compulsory. Free Negroes of the United States not only were unenthusiastic toward colonization, but they, quite under- standably, even expressed outspoken antipathy. Where free Negro communities were large and well informed, anti-colonization sentiment tended to be strongest. Free Negro leaders in Philadelphia and New York declared that free Negroes were "by birth entitled to all the rights of free men and ought to be admitted here to a participation of the enjoyment of citizen- ship." They placed the blame for a new wave of anti-Negro sentiment directly on the Colonization Society and called Africa "a land of destruction where the Sword will cut off the few wretched beings whom the climate spares." Even slaves who were manumitted on condition that they be removed to Liberia some- times objected to emigration. At Savannah, one such slave and his wife ran away from the ship "Norfolk" and fled to the city of New York.6 An anti-colonization convention of free Negroes of New York City outspokenly charged the colonizationists with fostering and promoting prejudice. These Negro critics of colonization made it quite clear that they had no intention of leaving the country. STheAmerican Colonization Society, The Eleventh Annuoal Report of the American Society for Colonizaing the Free People of Colour of the United States (Washington: The American Colonization Society, 1828), pp. 24-26, and The Twelfth Annual Report of the American Society for Coloniring the Free People of Colour of the United States (Washington: The American Colonization Society, African Colonization, 1829), pp. 70-74; The New-York State Colonization Society, Africau Colon0'ition, Proceed- ings on the Formation of the New-York State ColoniszationI Societe: Together with an Address to the Public fromn the 114asoagers Thereof (Albany: Websters and Skinners, 1829), pp. 1-5. 'Chauncey Whittelsey, New York, to R. R. Gurley, Washington, October 18, 1827; W. B. Davidson, Philadelphia, to Gurley, Washington, February 6, 1827; Benjamin Brand, Richmond, Va., to Gurley, Washington, November 3. 1827, The American Colonization Society Papers, The Library of Con- gress, Washington, D. C. (hereafter cited as ACSP). 26 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY "This is our home," they said, "and this our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers: for it some of them fought, bled, and died. Here we were born, and here we will die."7 This lack of enthusiasm among the intended beneficiaries posed a serious threat to the movement and often placed the colonizationists in a rather embarrassing position. A powerful new voice was raised in the attack against the colonizationists. In Boston, on January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison launched The Liberator, designed to appeal chiefly to free Negroes and dedicated to the principle of immediate abolition. The columns of The Liberator were filled with anti-colonization statements. The following is an example: If I do not prove the Colonization Society to be a creature without heart, without brains, eyeless, unnatural, hypo- critical, relentless, unjust, then nothing is capable of demonstration-then let me he covered with confusion of face.s In fact, much more space was devoted to anti-colonization than immediate emancipation. During the spring and summer of 1831, Garrison toured the eastern states, presenting anti-colonization addresses before Negro audiences.9 The anti-colonization forces led by the powerful rhetoric of William Lloyd Garrison gathered strength. Charles Tappan, the Boston agent of the American Colonization Society, warned sec- retary Gurley that Garrison "is doing us all the harm he can" 'Robert Austin Warner, New Haven Negroes, A Social History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940). p. 51. 8The Liberator, July 30, 1831, p. 123. 'Garrison had not always been such an outspoken foe of colonization. In 1829, he had in fact delivered a procolonization address in the Park Street Church of Boston.