But as it respects three million that are now in the United States, and the eight millions that in twenty or twenty five years, will be in this country, we think it in no wise calculated, to meet their wants or ameliorate their condition.110
The American Colonization Society wasted little time publicizing Russwurm’s “Candid Acknowledgment of Error” in the African Repository and Colonial Journal, where an editorial explained that “The Editor of Freedom’s Journal, Mr. Ruswurm [sic], who has for several years, been decidedly and actively opposed to the Colonization Society, in his paper on the 14th of February, candidly and honourably confesses that his opinions in regard to our Institution, have become entirely changed.” There is little question that Russwurm was welcomed as an important ally for the ACS, and his support must have boosted the spirits of many colonizationists.111
What led John Russwurm to shift from interest in emigration to Haiti and anticolonization beliefs, toward supporting the American Colonization Society and colonization? According to his editorial on February 21, 1829, Russwurm explained, “We have generally wrong ideas of the society and the members thereof. . . .” After reflecting on the successes of the ACS in southern manumissions, he came to believe that “The society have done much in favor of emancipation; for it is a fact, that there are many in the colony, who are indebted for that liberty which they now enjoy to the door which the establishment offers to liberal and humane slave holders to emancipate their slaves.” Regardless of how many ACS members held firm in their opposition to interfering “with the legal rights and obligations of slavery,” Russwurm observed that “as we well know, there are four or five hundred slaves now waiting [for want of funds] to be landed on the shores of Liberia, to become freemen.”112
When one considers the plight of African Americans in bondage, it should not be too surprising that some would support colonization as a condition of freedom. Russwurm’s account of blacks waiting for passage to Liberia, having never lived as free men and women in territories or states where slavery was illegal, failed to convince the vast majority of northerners that Africa generally, and Liberia specifically, offered more opportunity than Haiti or Canada. Thus, even while some black anticolonizationists recognized the benefit of forming a separate nation or colony outside of U.S. borders, they stood in firm opposition to an organization so closely aligned with slaveholders.
What complicates the matter is that Russwurm’s positions on slavery and emancipation differed from those of many white colonizationists. While some ACS members believed that colonization must never be allowed to threaten the existence of slavery, Russwurm and his white northern emancipationist associates viewed gradual emancipation as one of the most important reasons to support the ACS. Several notable antislavery advocates came to regard gradual emancipation and colonization as the only realistic way to promote their cause. So he concluded, “As the work of emancipation has thus commenced under the immediate auspices of the society, we cannot consider it out of the natural course of things to conclude that as the means and patronage of the society extend, this great and glorious work will also advance in the same ratio, until the blessed period come, so ardently desired by the Friends when the soil of this happy land shall not be watered by the tears of poor Afric’s sons and daughters.”113 Russwurm continued to argue in favor of colonization after he moved to Liberia and became the editor of the Liberia Herald. Besides, within the ACS there were people pushing its other members to move beyond their evasive stance on emancipation.114
John Russwurm’s transformation from advocate of Haiti to colonization to Liberia demonstrates the complexity of black emigrationist and colonizationist thought during the 1820s. Once Russwurm decided he was going to “quit America,” the next question centered on where he should go. Haitian emigration remained an option, yet, as Sandra Sandiford Young points out, “the collapse of the Haitian emigration venture and the severely limited opportunities for black economic advancement posed a serious dilemma” for Russwurm. Liberia, while tainted by the antiblack views held by many ACS members, still had potential. However, Russwurm was well aware that the decision to leave America for Liberia meant the loss of his esteem among black leaders in the United States. In the eyes of free blacks whose respect he had earned, he was abandoning not only America but also the community that had acknowledged his leadership. Soon, James Forten and others would claim that Russwurm’s support for colonization would add credence to the view of some white state officials that the colonization of free blacks in Liberia remained a viable and desirable plan.115
The African American–led Haitian emigration movement of the 1820s illustrates several crucial points about early anticolonization agitation. First, it pioneered a tradition of African American internationalism as a feature of the struggle for black rights in the United States and against African colonization. Second, it showed the ACS that those few thousand blacks who wanted to leave had shown a preference for Haiti over Liberia. Through this Haitian emigration movement, black Americans forged a transnational alliance with venerated abolitionists willing to lend support. For the next three decades, black Americans would travel to Britain for a variety of causes, seeking support in their attempt to demonstrate that African-descended people were as capable as Europeans of building a great nation. This nation-building project sought to undermine one of the chief justifications—that is, black inferiority—for maintaining slavery in the U.S. South.
The Haitian emigration movement also highlighted how far blacks would go to attain citizenship and live in a place where racial prejudice was not the central obstacle to personal advancement. While those free blacks who remained in America continued to fight against racial inequality, those who left for Haiti hoped they had finally found a way to transcend it. Over the next three decades, African American community leaders, activists, and journalists continued to regard the first black republic as a symbol of African-descended people’s potential, a symbol particularly potent for black Americans struggling against slavery and for equality in a nation that questioned their humanity and whether they had the prerequisite abilities ever to contribute to the nation equally with whites. Even for those with no intention of leaving for Haiti, the Caribbean nation continued to be a point of reference in their struggle for equal rights and against white supremacy in the United States.
Although African Americans and white antislavery advocates failed to initiate a widespread movement to Haiti, the movement did present an alternative to colonization in Africa. When recruiters spoke in churches and halls to discuss the benefits of emigration to Haiti, they used this as an opportunity to condemn Liberia and to argue that the American Colonization Society posed a serious threat to black advancement in the United States. In a way, the Haitian emigration movement spread anticolonization ideology due in large part to the advocacy of its chief promoters, men such as Prince Saunders.
However, the American Colonization Society would not give up in the face of this concerted challenge to their African project. When it came down to it, the ACS had the resources to provide a better alternative for black Americans who wanted to leave. John Russwurm remained the pro–Haitian emigration contingent’s greatest loss. Having spoken of Haiti in glorious terms, and having actually tried to raise funds for those who sought to leave for Haiti, John Russwurm chose instead to “quit America” and sail for Monrovia, Liberia, in the fall of 1829. This was obviously a major blow to anticolonizationists.
Just as the Haitian emigration movement died out, a new brand of antislavery activism took root throughout the North. By the end of 1820, the majority of the American Convention’s antislavery activist members had come to embrace colonization. Yet a new sort of antislavery advocate emerged, making the anticolonization sentiments widely held in black communities throughout the nation a cornerstone of their ideology. These men and women heeded the argument that ending slavery was not enough. As David Walker explained in his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, those who battled against slavery needed also to combat the “wretchedness in consequence of the colonizing plan” if they hoped for justice and equality in the United States. Soon the man most associated with the “immediatist” strain of antislavery advocacy, William Lloyd Garrison, would work to organize a regional and national antislavery society
