style="font-size:15px;"> 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
President Jean-Pierre Boyer’s agent, “Citizen” Jonathan Granville, attended a meeting of New York black leaders and expressed “satisfaction” about free blacks’ efforts to initiate a Haitian emigration movement in New York.72 Described in the mainstream press as “a man of respectable talents and acquirements, possessing all the finer feelings of men in polished society, and exhibiting the elevated deportment of a gentleman,” Granville explained that Boyer had offered to “defray part of the expense of the transportation of the colonists.”73 Furthermore, Granville claimed to have the authority to arrange for six thousand black American emigrants to set sail to Haiti. Once they arrived, according to Granville, they would be provided with land, citizenship, and temporary provisions.74
In Baltimore, white antislavery newspaper editor Benjamin Lundy had been following Granville’s recruitment efforts in northern cities, writing in one editorial that “it is now supposed, that between four and five thousand coloured persons have already embarked for Hayti, or will have done so before the end of this month, under the direction of citizen Granville, whose arrival in New York was announced on the 13th day of June last.”75 Black American interest in Haiti encouraged Lundy and reinforced his belief that “the prejudice of the white people, against the blacks, operates as an almost insurmountable barrier to the progress of emancipation.” This conviction motivated Lundy to put all his efforts behind Haitian emigration. Some whites with power and influence joined Lundy’s Haitian emigration cause, and, according to a report describing a meeting of the Baltimore Emigration Society on September 4, 1824, “the Board proceeded to the election of officers, when the honorable Edward Johnson, Mayor of the city, was chosen President . . . [and] Citizen Granville, Agent from the Haytien [sic] was then introduced to the Society, and explained in a very lucid manner the object of the Government of the Hayti, in sending him on his present mission.” The previous day, the article stated, Baltimore’s “respectable men of colour” met with Granville at the Bethel Church to discuss President Boyer’s offer and African American interest in Haitian emigration. According to an article in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, those who gathered resolved “That we highly appreciate the liberal offers of President Boyer, and that we will use all honourable means to procure a speedy and effectual emigration of the free people of colour . . . [and] That Robert Cowley be appointed to take the names of persons disposed to emigrate, to whom application may be made as early as possible, at the African Bethel Church, in Fish street.”76
In New York, Peter Barker wrote a letter to Lundy explaining that he planned to travel to Haiti as a representative of the Haytien Emigration Society of New York. The letter claimed that he intended to “make definitive arrangements with president Boyer for the future transportation of coloured persons to Hayti.” Prominent African American leader Peter Williams joined Barker “as agents of this Society, to confer with President Boyer on this important subject of Emigration, investigate the situation of the emigrants, and settle upon a solid basis the order and arrangement of our future transactions.”77
By January 1825, African American emigrants living in Haiti had begun to send letters describing their experiences to family and friends in the United States. While, according to Lundy, “they are generally well pleased with their new situation,” and although “the government has completely fulfilled the reasonable expectations of all who have thus sought an asylum from the tyranny of prejudice under the fostering wing of its protection,” nevertheless, rumors were circulating in the United States that African American emigrants were miserable in Haiti. Lundy seemed relieved that the most recent letters he had received “contain a complete refutation of many of those rumors,” which he felt should put to rest potential emigrants’ fears about embarking on a voyage to the Caribbean island. One letter from a black man from Baltimore claimed, “I like the place much; we have been sick, but are all well at this time. It is much better here than I expected to find it.” In another letter, an emigrant remarked, “The district is well watered by numerous streams, and seems only to require the art and industry of man.” He concluded that “it appears that our choice of this place was wisely directed.”78
Lundy believed that the negative rumors he had encountered only reflected a growing resentment from certain segments of the nation that did not want to see Haitian emigration succeed. According to Lundy, “Late accounts from every quarter, in fact, tend to corroborate the sentiment expressed in the last number of this work, viz. that the unfavourable reports respecting the situation of the emigrants to Hayti, were circulated by persons unfriendly to the removal of our coloured people to that island.”79 This group, he deduced, represented slaveholding interests and others who simply failed to understand the great benefit of Haitian emigration. Lundy explained that “there are, it is true, some honest well-meaning persons who are conscientiously scrupulous as to the propriety of it; but these are, comparatively, few in number; and I hesitate not to believe that their doubts arise from a want of the necessary information.”80
