favor of Haitian emigration was, of course, taken as a challenge to those who favored African colonization, and this led to a counterattack against Lundy in white pro-colonization newspapers. One supporter of the ACS wrote a letter to Lundy claiming that Lundy’s “interesting paper, endeavours to prejudice your readers against the members of the American Colonization Society, by remarks, as unfounded as uncharitable . . . [and] there has been no opposition of any description, to the emigration to Hayti, of such free blacks, as may prefer the government of President Boyer.” According to the letter, the American Colonization Society applauded President Boyer’s offer regarding African American emigration to Haiti. Furthermore, it stated that “what has been denominated ‘strenuous opposition’ was in fact, applause for the object of President Boyer: but a persevering adherence to the ends, which the Colonization Society have kept steadily in view; the formation on the coast of Africa, of a line of colonies already existed in Sierra Leone . . . the advocates for African colonization have never opposed the wishes of any, but their own members, to aid by money, or moral influence, the emigration to Hayti.”81
In his defense, Lundy explained that “In the first place, I have ever been aware, that a considerable portion of its [the ACS’s] members were averse to the abolition of slavery in this country. This has been admitted by one of the managers. Secondly, although many of them desire the riddance of the whole of the black population, it appears very unwise to choose a situation for that purpose, so far distant, that it will be almost impossible to effect the object.”82 Certainly Lundy’s abolitionist network provided him with inside information about the Colonization Society. As an advocate of gradual emancipation, Lundy had supported the principles behind colonization, yet he believed that the ACS was controlled by southern slaveholders. In his response to one claim that the ACS never discouraged blacks from Haitian emigration, he asked with a hint of sarcasm, “Why did an influential member of the Society aforesaid, from Virginia, repair to New York, and ‘strenuously’ oppose the emigration to Hayti, in a meeting [not of the Auxiliary Colonization Society, but] of the citizens generally, who had assembled for the purpose of considering the propriety of seconding the propositions of President Boyer?”83
This conflict between Lundy and the American Colonization Society foreshadowed the battle between the ACS and William Lloyd Garrison, Nathanial Paul, and other advocates of “immediate” emancipation in the early 1830s. And, like other well-known white abolitionists, Lundy’s opinions mirrored those of black leaders who often voiced their anticolonization views at public meetings or, after 1827, in Freedom’s Journal.84 Lundy challenged ACS members to prove that their mission on the coast of West Africa sought to end the illegal practice of trading slaves nearly two decades after Great Britain and the United States had banned it in 1807 and 1808, respectively. He also doubted the credibility of colonizationists who claimed to share anti–slave trade beliefs, arguing that they only “talk loudly” about their efforts to end the slave trade “now as [the slave trade] has become unpopular.” Lundy argued: “Even those among them who are opposed to emancipation, make [the slave trade] the frequent theme of declamation . . . because the measures adopted for its annihilation do not prevent them from procuring as many slaves as they desire.”85
Colonizationists refused to give up, and they continued to mail Lundy letters defending the ACS, which Lundy regularly published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation. One letter claimed that “the Colonization Society have expended more money, out of their private 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
