2.18 Debates About Emigration, Colonization, and Belonging in America

Emigrationists believed that Black people would never be treated fairly in the US, especially after the Dred Scott decision (1857) denied them citizenship. Meanwhile, slavery was ending across much of Latin America and the Caribbean. So they supported building new communities outside the US as an alternative to slavery and discrimination.

They looked to places with large populations of African descent, shared histories and good climates, such as Haiti, Mexico, Central America and West Africa. An 1832 letter in The Liberator from 'A Colored Female of Philadelphia', a required source, argued for emigration to Mexico, which had abolished slavery.

Many emigrationists embraced Black nationalism, which promotes Black unity, pride and self-determination (the right of a people to govern themselves).

Paul Cuffe, a Black ship captain from Massachusetts, was the first person to relocate African Americans from the US to Africa. In 1815 he carried a group of nearly 40 African Americans to the British settlement of Freetown in Sierra Leone.

Martin R. Delany, a doctor, editor and abolitionist, described African Americans as 'a nation within a nation', a people held down inside the US. His 1852 book, a required source, argued for emigration. Delany later served as a major in the Union Army, the first Black field officer in the US Army.

Black-led emigration was different from the American Colonization Society (2.10). The ACS was white-led and aimed to remove free Black people. Black emigrationists wanted a homeland of their own choosing, beyond the reach of white supremacy.

Anti-emigrationists argued that abolition and racial equality were America's own ideals. They believed they would win freedom, political representation and full belonging in the US, the country of their birth. They saw themselves as having birthright citizenship.

They pointed out a painful contradiction: the nation celebrated almost a century of independence while excluding millions of people from citizenship because of their race and profiting from their labor.

Because of the Fugitive Slave Acts, Douglass and other formerly enslaved abolitionists could be recaptured even in the North. After publishing his first autobiography, Douglass spent nearly two years lecturing in Britain and Ireland, where supporters raised money to buy his freedom.

In his 'West India Emancipation' speech (1857), a required source, Douglass celebrated the end of slavery in the British Caribbean and urged Americans to keep fighting. He said, 'If there is no struggle there is no progress', and 'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.' Over time, Douglass moved from favoring only nonviolent moral persuasion to accepting that violence might be needed to destroy slavery.