Against Wind and Tide. Ousmane K. Power-Greene
This did not deter Dewey, who, on his own, wrote to President Jean-Pierre Boyer inquiring about African American emigration. When the managers of the New York Auxiliary Society learned of Dewey’s correspondence with President Boyer, a special meeting was called to discuss his actions. White slaveholding members, and their sympathizers in Virginia and Washington, D.C., viewed Haiti with scorn, and many of them believed that a free black emigration movement to Haiti would threaten the perpetuation of slavery in America. Thus, the New York auxiliary was compelled to rebuke Dewey for his actions. On April 1, 1824, the New York Colonization Society Board of Managers claimed that “colonization is the only ‘remedy’ for slavery, the mighty ‘evil’ of our country. . . . Hayti, which at first would seem to offer great advantages, is found, by examination, to be encumbered with difficulties, which will probably for a long time prevent colonization there to any considerable extent.”60 This mild statement was soon followed up with a more forceful comment in the press, rejecting Dewey and his Haitian project. By May, the New York Colonization Society went on record to declare, “The New York Auxiliary Colonization Society has officially disavowed the proceedings of Mr. Dewey, the agent, in opening a correspondence with President Boyer, of Hayti, for the establishment of colonies in that Island, and recommended the removal of Mr. Dewey from this agency.”61
The New York Colonization Society accepted this recommendation for Dewey’s dismissal when they met in July. According to one account, “certain resolutions were passed disclaiming the correspondence of Mr. Dewey, and denouncing the plan of emigration to Hayti as contrary to the known wishes and interfering with the great national objects of the American Colonization Society.”62 Accordingly, Dewey was dismissed as an agent of the American Colonization Society. However, a representative of the parent organization stepped forward to establish a new society “to promote the emigration of the Blacks to Hayti.” Twenty-five members were appointed to create a committee to call for a closer look at black Americans’ interest in leaving for Haiti. In an unusual turn of events, these ACS members organized a “Haytian Emigration Society” of their own, perhaps to co-opt the movement.63 However, it took almost two months for the committee to establish the society and to begin recruiting blacks to emigrate to Haiti. It is unclear to what degree these efforts worked to undermine “legitimate” Haitian emigration efforts by free blacks or to stifle critics of the ACS who claimed that the organization needed to accept black interest in Haiti within the broad parameters of colonization. West Africa, after all, was not the only place to resettle the few blacks who sought to leave America.
Even if the New York Colonization Society had missed its opportunity to shape the destiny of Haitian emigration, the dismissed New York Colonization Society agent, Loring Dewey, met with others to consider President Boyer’s overtures towards black Americans. After discussing business matters, a Dr. J. Wainwright put forth a resolution recommending that “a Committee of Nine be appointed to take into consideration the documents submitted to this Meeting in relation to the Emigration of Coloured Persons to Hayti, and report to an adjourned meeting, to be held on Friday the 25th.”64
Peter A. Jay, the son of Founding Father John Jay and an active member of the New York Manumission Society, and eight others met to discuss the free and enslaved black population of the state, and the July 4, 1827, termination of slavery in New York.65 They wondered whether African Americans in the state would “cheerfully embrace any opportunity that may present to place the descendants of Africa in a situation which will furnish them with more powerful motives, than are offered among ourselves, to respectability of character, and intellectual improvement.” The goal, though, was still to convince free blacks to leave, whether to Africa or Haiti. Historian Leslie Harris explains that in 1826, delegates from the New York Manumission Society were perhaps influenced by this goal, and they called on members of the American Convention to promote “the transportation of the whole coloured population, now held in bondage, to the coast of Africa, or the island of St. Domingo.66
After discussing the prospects of Haiti as a suitable location for black emigration, the committee resolved “that it is expedient to form a Society, to be called ‘The Society for promoting the Emigration of Free Persons of Colour to Hayti.’” They established the price of subscriptions and membership, and their desire to create a board of directors. Before the meeting closed, Chairman Thomas Eddy read an “interesting communication” that described a meeting among notable African Americans, including Peter Williams and Samuel E. Cornish, that discussed President Boyer’s proposition as well as black interest in such a venture.67 Members also pointed out that African American “excitement” over Haitian emigration was intertwined with their anticolonization sentiment. Whites had come to believe that emigration to Haiti demonstrated black agency, and African Americans’ desire to participate in the success of a black republic that represented black people’s abilities and potential. This of course did not mean that the majority of free blacks felt so inclined to leave. However, for those free blacks who had come to the conclusion that New York City would never be a place where blacks could live in safety from white violence or discrimination, Haitian emigration seemed a much better alternative than the ACS’s Liberia colony.
When Loring Dewey sailed to Haiti toward the end of 1824 to gain a firsthand impression of the island, he was well aware that this would aid his recruitment campaign when he returned to the United States. By January 10, 1825, having arrived safely in Samaná, located in a part of eastern Hispaniola that had recently been occupied by Haitian troops, Dewey sent a letter back to the United States describing his experience and encouraging the continuation of the recruitment efforts of Haitian emigration societies. One hundred twenty free blacks sailed to Haiti with Dewey, and upon arrival they bore witness to what Dewey called the “abundance and luxuriance of the foliage of the trees and plants.” “I know no part of the new countries of our land,” he claimed, “from the earliest settlement till the present time, that presented to settlers so great and immediate advantages as are here offered to our emigrants.” He described the large plantations, which had been abandoned by Spanish residents after the area was occupied by Haitian troops, claiming that, with only seven hundred inhabitants, there would be plenty of room for African American settlers, since at one time the peninsula had provided space for thirty thousand residents.68
Such an account must have enraged his old colonizationist colleagues. By this point, nearly all members of the ACS believed that Haitian emigration threatened to destroy the project of African colonization because it shifted free blacks’ attention closer to home. In addition, African American emigration to Haiti seemed to stir up southern slaveholders’ fears that such a movement would unsettle their slaves, given Haiti’s radical legacy.69
The conflict between Dewey and the New York Colonization Society illustrates two important points about the colonization movement in the 1820s. First, individuals came into the colonization movement with diverse motives, creating a fragile alliance among whites from North and South who supported the ACS. Second, the Dewey-NYCS dispute shows the limits of the national ACS’s ability to monitor local auxiliaries from its national headquarters in Washington. Considering the range of backgrounds and interests among ACS members, and the different perspectives about the efficacy of West African settlement versus Haitian emigration, it’s little wonder that the state affiliates began to pull away from the national organization and act independently during the following decade.
As white colonizationists tried to undermine Dewey and others, black people met to organize a group to sail to Haiti and investigate the possibilities for black emigration there. On August 7, 1824, free blacks in New York gathered at the African Baptist Church to hear a report about Haitian emigration and President Boyer’s offer. One account of the meeting in the Columbian Star claimed, “The Committee reported the expediency of forming a Society in that city, for the general object of promoting emigration to Hayti . . . [and] having been read, it was unanimously voted to form a society.”70 Those in attendance moved quickly to select twenty people to form a board of managers to run the society. It appears that Thomas Paul, “a missionary from the Baptist Missionary Society” in Haiti, made a positive impression on the gathering. When he spoke to the group about his conversation with President Boyer, the audience seemed even more confident than before that the island was a suitable location for resettlement.71