Against Wind and Tide. Ousmane K. Power-Greene
funds, in behalf of this unfortunate race among us, than all the emancipation societies put together.” Meanwhile, some of the letters used African American emigration to Haiti as an indication that black Americans supported colonization. This interest in Haiti, they argued, proved that blacks would leave America if they had the means to do so. Of course, this argument was nothing new, and when ACS members gathered at their ninth annual meeting, William H. Fitzhugh from Virginia asked his colleagues to “recollect the recent emigration to Hayti when invited to that Island: six thousand coloured persons in a few weeks were ready to embark. Let the arm of our government be stretched out for the defence of our African Colony, and this objection will no longer exist.”86 Although African Americans frequently declared their disapprobation of African colonization, members of the ACS used black interest in Haiti as a stepping-stone toward the means and ends of the organization.
Before the end of 1825, Haitian President Boyer had grown weary of American settlers’ complaints, and he was convinced that an African American emigration agent had stolen a significant portion of the money set aside to aid black American immigration to the island.87 In response, President Boyer ceased providing land for American settlers and officially withdrew financial support for African American emigration in April of 1825. This forced Lundy and others to take on the burden of raising money for the transportation expenses, which proved daunting. Lundy left his newspaper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation, under the direction of Daniel Raymond, and he sailed for Haiti in an attempt to persuade the government to change its policy.88
When Lundy met with Haitian officials, they explained that almost one-third of the six thousand black Americans had returned to the United States, and many of those who remained were proving burdensome. Desperate to salvage the movement, Lundy petitioned the Haytian Philanthropic Society for financial support for African American emigration. Although the members vowed to pay 150 dollars for the transportation of each black American émigré, those who accepted their offer would have to agree to repayment by laboring for three years and turning over one-half of their produce to the Society.89 After only a brief stay in Haiti, Lundy returned to the United States and arranged for a ship to transport African Americans to Haiti in February of 1828. Those who arrived in Haiti with Lundy soon realized the Haytian Philanthropic Society’s terms were absurd.
Ultimately, Haiti did not become the “promised land” that African Americans had anticipated, and some complained, among other things, about the derisive way in which Haiti’s new black elite treated American settlers. The climate was unsuitable for some immigrants, and others were frustrated by the language barrier and different religious practices.90 According to one account, black Americans were “infinitely worse off than the natives, having no commanity [sic] of language or feeling with them.”91 The Haitian government had promised to protect black American newcomers, yet, as this letter explained, “The fact, lamentable as it is, ought not to be disguised, that the American emigrant is not sure of protection, either in life or property in that island, under its present unquiet state.”92 And, for those black Americans eager to return to the United States, “the policy of the government there prevents their embarkation under severe penalties.” As far as this emigrant was concerned, Haiti had failed to live up to his expectations, and he called out to his African American brethren: “We trust for humanity’s sake that any further emigration of the free people of color to that island will be sedulously discouraged.”93
While Haitian emigration petered out towards the end of the 1820s, African Americans and their white allies began to move in new directions. The Haitian emigration movement forced Lundy to recognize the limitations of antislavery agitation in the South. As his hope for a massive emigration of blacks to Haiti dimmed, he abandoned the project altogether, claiming that slaveholders and their sympathizers were uninterested in any program, however benign it might be, which benefited blacks. Lundy’s views about abolitionism in the South reflected what historian Merton Dillon observes as “an ultimate shift in the geographical base of the antislavery movement from South to North, with a consequent increase in sectional antipathy.”94
Lundy lamented how few whites seemed interested in emancipation and expatriation, and he began to accept that, since slaveholders and planters profited—financially, materially, and socially—from slavery, any program designed to threaten those benefits would be met with scorn, and even, if necessary, force. Many slaveholders shuddered at the thought of the Haitian Revolution, and they feared an African American emigration movement could lead to unrest among slaves in the American South.95 Still, Lundy remained intent on developing a plan with economic incentives that would end slavery without violence and would provide for a settlement of manumitted African Americans in Haiti. In his view, freed blacks would work more efficiently than those enslaved, and through an experimental community in Haiti, he hoped to prove that there would be a financial benefit to slaveholders if they embraced the idea of freeing their laborers.96
Although the Haitian emigration movement of the late 1820s may have seemed a failure to some, such as Lundy, it did succeed in derailing the American Colonization Society, leading to what historian P.J. Staudenraus identifies as “a crisis” within the Colonization Society. The issue of Haitian emigration divided whites within the American Colonization Society over how best to deal with competition from Haitian emigration. This prompted managers of the ACS to send two agents, Dr. Eli Ayres of Baltimore and Reverend George Boyd, an Episcopal rector of Philadelphia’s St. John’s Church, into the North to recruit free blacks to leave for their settlement in West Africa. Through touring New York, Philadelphia, and some New England cities, they found that Haitian emigration overshadowed African colonization, and that many free blacks were hostile to the ACS program. Nevertheless, the two agents established “Corresponding Committees” in Boston and Providence, even though they had learned that many whites in the North hesitated to donate money to the colonization cause until the ACS could garner federal support for African colonization. Also, some whites claimed that they would not support the ACS until southerners took the initiative, since, as they argued, free blacks caused more problems in the South than they did in the North. With their small African settlement in Liberia struggling to create a viable presence in West Africa, the American Colonization Society remained stymied at home as a consequence of ideological rifts and a lack of clarity over the organization’s motives.97
Regardless, Haiti remained a symbol for African Americans, much to the dismay of southern planters and some white northerners. Black Americans continued to proclaim that Haiti illustrated African potential for nation building rooted in self-reliance, individual elevation, and racial progress. These were attributes that African American leaders believed were key for African progress in the United States and the world.
Such grandiose notions of Haiti as a potential crucible for African redemption became a cornerstone of John B. Russwurm’s own racial awakening as one of the few black students in American colleges or universities in the 1820s.98 When Russwurm gave the 1826 commencement speech to his white peers and their families at Bowdoin College, his address, entitled “The Condition and Prospects of Hayti,” extolled the first black republic, acknowledging “the irresistible course of events that all men, who have been deprived of their liberty, shall recover this previous portion of their indefeasible inheritance.”99 Russwurm argued that Haiti demonstrated the capacity of black men to rise from the depths of oppression to the heights of liberty—an overt challenge to prevailing racial assumptions. Concluding his speech optimistically, Russwurm explained to the audience that “We look forward with peculiar satisfaction to the period when, like the Tyre of old, her [Haiti’s] vessels shall extend the fame of her riches and glory, to the remotest borders of the globe; to the time when Hayti, treading in the footsteps of her sister republicks, shall, like them, exhibit a picture of rapid and unprecedented advance in population, wealth and intelligence.” With these final words, the audience exploded “with hearty applause” at what one newspaper reporter claimed “was one of the most interesting performances of the day.”100
While Russwurm’s words illustrate his awareness of the historical significance of Haiti in his own time, they also show the transnational character of the black protest tradition. Since his childhood Russwurm had been on the move, developing a pan-African identity. Born in Jamaica