THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090230
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
A serious debate over the abolition of slavery had begun before the American Revolutionary War as many small farmers, particularly those in areas like Norfolk County, saw the growth of larger, slave-labor-dependent plantations on the James River as a threat to their livelihood.
During and immediately after the Revolution, moral arguments over the ethics of the institution of slavery in the new democracy continued.
Proponents of ending slavery as well-known as Virginia's George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry proposed not only abolition but also the removal of free blacks from the Commonwealth since they concluded that ``freedmen'' would not be prepared ever to take their place in society.
Instead, they supported the idea of sending them to other former colonies like Maryland, Kentucky or Delaware.
By 1806, the argument over what to do with a growing population of freed slaves reached a critical stage. For many political leaders of the time, the number of blacks no longer in bondage - some 15,000 - had reached frightening proportions.
There had been slave uprisings and, though they weren't close to the violence of Nat Turner's in 1830 in Southampton County, the fear of that potential, due to numbers alone, was real nonetheless.
By 1816, several attempts by various Virginia governors to lobby the president to have the government help establish a system for resettlement outside the United States finally succeeded.
Thus, the future African nation of Liberia was founded in 1817 during the administration of President James Monroe, a former Virginia governor.
Shortly after that, Portsmouth was chosen as a principal port for the embarkation of those free blacks sponsored by what became known as the American Colonization Society - a tight-knit group of politicians, financial backers and Quaker clergymen who all had their particular reasons for backing the resettlement.
A chapter of the Virginia Colonization Society was chartered for Portsmouth and Norfolk County in 1823. The organization was lead by some of the city's and county's leading citizens, including Swepson Whitehead, president; Holt Wilson, vice president; William Langhorne, secretary; and Anson Brooks, treasurer.
During their initial meetings at the Presbyterian Church on Middle Street, a series of by-laws known as the Constitution of The Portsmouth Colonization Society were written and adopted.
Article I stated, ``The object of the society shall be to aid the American Colonization Society by raising funds and otherwise, in planting a colony of the free people of colour in the United States, on the coast of Africa.''
One of the first successful targets of the membership was to petition the state legislature for funding, which they received in the amount of $18,000 annually in the early years. This sum would reach $30,000 a year in 1850.
In addition to adopting their constitution, the society's board named eight local managers whose principal task would be to raise funds to hire ships for passage to Africa as well as recruit free slaves to settle there. The managers, many of whom were local ministers, also pleaded with farmers to release their slaves on the promise that those freed would subscribe for future colonization. Black ministers such as Abraham Cheeseman also volunteered to serve as managers hoping to spread the Christian gospel to Africa.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution, board members from the Portsmouth society urged all local ministers to ask for a special donation from their church membership to support the movement.
However, neither the Portsmouth Colonization Society nor those elsewhere silenced the state and nationwide debate over slavery. In fact, the colonization movement was attacked persistently and viciously by both the slave owners and free blacks.
Pro-slavery supporters feared that the Portsmouth group with its large number of Quakers would soon advocate the immediate and total abolishment of slavery. Many of the landed gentry further up the James saw the Portsmouth clergy, merchants and small farmers as the political enemy of large farmers who depended upon large numbers of slaves to harvest tobacco. To quell this fear, the society disclaimed any intention of doing so with their own editorial, which read, ``It is not true that our society is likely to interfere with the rights of masters over their slaves.'' Instead, they promised to defend the institution of slavery as long as masters wished to own them.
Answering the suspicions of free blacks, the society found itself in a public contradiction. To placate the free black leadership, the society announced that, ``It is not true as has been most falsely and injuriously charged . . . that the enterprise in which we are engaged is either intended or calculated to perpetuate the existence of slavery in our southern states . voluntarily manumission (freedom) and so to aid the cause of liberty and Humanity. . . .''
Indeed Portsmouth's Colonization Society comprised a strange mixture of bedfellows, all of whom were driven by some public ideal or private greed.
There also is evidence of naive idealists who engaged in fund-raising, debate and hiring ships to carry free American black citizens to Africa.
Unfortunately, they were sending them to an unknown fate where democracy and freedom were further away. ILLUSTRATION: A slave family works a plantation on the James River.
Thomas Jefferson
by CNB