JAMES MONROE WHITFIELD¹James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), barber and poet, was born in New Hampshire. During the winter of 1838-39, the Young Men’s Union Society of Cleveland appointed sixteen-year-old Whitfield to deliver an address on the subject of emigration. He urged that blacks establish separate settlements in the United States or on its borders. By the mid-1850s, he had become a major spokesman for black emigration. After he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1841, Whitfield worked as a barber and wrote poetry. Several of his poems had already been published in the North Star when Douglass visited Whitfield in Buffalo in late June 1850. Recounting their visit, Douglass lamented, “That talents so commanding, gifts so rare, poetic powers so distinguished, should be tied to the handle of a razor and buried in the precincts of a barber’s shop, and that he who possesses them should be consigned, by the malignant arrangements of society, to occupy a position so menial, is painfully disheartening.” Whitfield was a delegate to the black convention in Rochester in 1853. He endorsed and attended the 1854 emigration convention in Cleveland, which commissioned him to investigate Central America as a site for prospective black settlements. Convinced that “full and fair equality [could] be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations of the different races,” Whitfield hoped that the emigration of black Americans would contribute to the emergence of a powerful and independent black nation in the American hemisphere. Before leaving Buffalo around 1859, Whitfield published a volume of poetry, America, and Other Poems (Buffalo, 1853), which he dedicated to Martin R. Delany. Later poems appeared in the Liberator, the San Francisco Pacific Appeal, and the San Francisco Elevator. After the Civil War, Whitfield’s principal residence seems to have been in San Francisco, though he also lived in Portland, Oregon, and in Idaho. Between 1864 and 1869 he was Masonic Grand Master of California. FDP, 25 November 1853; Salem (Ohio) Anti-Slavery Bugle, 24 August 1850; Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852; New York, 1968), 132; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 137-40; Joan R. Sherman, “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair,” JNH, 57:169-76 (April 1972). TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

—Buffalo, N.Y. 15 Nov[ember] 1853.

MR. EDITOR,

Nothing can be more unpleasant than to differ in opinion upon impor
tant points, from those for whom we entertain the highest respect and the
kindest affection; but when, by such persons, our position is perseveringly
misunderstood, it is no more than just that we should claim the privi
lege of correcting such misrepresentations; and if in such case, the much
in little, (multum in parvo)²The phrase “multum in parvo” translates to “much information condensed into few words or into a small compass.” Whitfield disagrees with Douglass on the subject of emigration and appears to suggest that the issue warrants a lengthier discussion. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 941. principle should be apparently neglected, it
may be readily accounted for upon the ground that it is easier to make or
deny charges than it is to substantiate or refute them. That you would not
have been satisfied with such a summary disposition of your article as you
made with the call, is evident from the peculiar umbrage³Whitfield submitted for publication a notice entitled “Call for a National Emigration Convention of Colored Men” to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on 24-26 August 1854. Douglass printed the notice in the 26 August 1853 issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Douglass, who was opposed to emigration, also published an editorial notice in the same issue, suggesting that the convention was “uncalled for, unwise, unfortunate, and premature.” given to you by
the only portion of my letter in which such a disposition was made of any
part of your article, and that was the portion where you announced it to
be, in your opinion, uncalled for, unwise, unfortunate, and premature; and
I, in answer, quoted the well matured opinion of such men as Wm. Webb,⁴William Webb (1812-68), a free black, was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but spent his youth and young adulthood in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. An ordained African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) clergyman in Carlisle, Webb supervised the Young Men’s Debating Society, organized a black savings company, and worked as a subscription agent for the Colored American. Webb represented Carlisle at the black state conventions of 1841 and 1848. Moving to Pittsburgh in the early 1850s, Webb opened a grocery store and became a subscription agent for Mary Ann Shadd’s Provincial Freeman. Webb was a strong supporter of black emigration and worked with Martin R. Delany to organize the National Emigration Convention in 1854 in Cleveland. Webb moved to Detroit in 1858, where he again supported himself by running a grocery store. In Detroit, he assisted in helping fugitive slaves and participated in the Refugee Home Society affairs. Webb hosted a meeting in his home between John Brown and local black leaders in an attempt to generate support for Brown’s insurrectionary plans. Webb later helped found Detroit’s John Brown League. After the Civil War, Webb cofounded the Michigan Freedmen’s Aid Society. His posthumous autobiography, The History of William Webb, was published in 1873. Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:162.
J. J. G. BiasBias, James Joshua Gould

James Joshua Gould Bias (1807–60) was a physician and preacher living in Philadelphia. Born a slave in Maryland, he learned some medical knowledge while working with a physician there. When Bias obtained his freedom, he moved to Philadelphia, attending the Eclectic Medical School and graduating in 1852. He devoted much of his time before the Civil War tending to the medical and dental needs to fugitive slaves in Southeast Pennsylvania. Bias also was the pastor at the Bethel Church in Philadelphia. He played a leading role in the Colored Conventions movement, holding a number of positions. While Bias endorsed emigration, he rejected the policies of the American Colonization Society, rejecting its White leadership. “Our Philadelphia Letter,”(New York, N.Y.) Weekly Anglo-African, 7 July 1860; George F. Bragg, Jr., Men of Maryland (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1925), 54–55; Michael Dickinson, “Dr. J. J. Gould Bias,” Colored Conventions Project, Coloredconventions.org. ,⁵An early African American physician, James J. Gould Bias (?-1864) attended the Eclectic Medical College of Philadelphia in 1851 and 1852. An advocate of temperance and popular education, as well as a leading elder of the A.M.E. Church, Bias supported abolitionist activities in Philadelphia. 1848 Mail Book of the NS, 163, FD Papers Project, InIU; NS, 5 January 1849; Theophilus Gould Steward, Fifty Years in the Gospel Ministry: From 1864 to 1914 (Philadelphia, 1921), 20. M. M. Clark,⁶The Revered Molson M. Clark (or Clarke) (c. 1794-1874), born to free parents in Delaware, began school in Philadelphia and studied at Jefferson College in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, but apparently never graduated. Upon leaving college, Clark was hired as a teacher by black residents of Buffalo, New York, but left after eighteen months to establish schools for blacks in Ohio, where he helped circulate petitions requesting the state legislature to repeal discriminatory education laws. Clark occasionally attended meetings of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. He joined the Presbyterian Church in 1828 and the A.M.E. Church in 1840. He preached for two years on the Hillsboro Circuit before being ordained an elder. At the A.M.E. General Conference of 1844, Clark was named the church’s general book agent, but he resigned in 1845 to accept a pastorate in Washington, D.C. In 1846, he and the Reverend Daniel A. Payne of Bethel Church, Baltimore, were selected to represent the A.M.E. Church at the Evangelical Alliance meeting in London. Payne returned to Baltimore after his ship was disabled by a storm; Clark managed to reach London barely a day before the meeting adjourned. Alliance leaders appended fund-raising appeals on behalf of his church to their antislavery lectures. Although denounced by Douglass, Henry C. Wright, and a number of Scottish Garrisonians, Clark received enthusiastic support and cooperation from more moderate clergymen and abolitionists, forged close ties with many Free Church leaders, and visited Edinburgh in May 1847 at the invitation of Robert S. Candlish. Before leaving the British Isles, Clark published Tract on American Slavery (Bradford, Eng., 1847), which denounced Northern race prejudice and advocated emancipation. From 1852 to 1854, Clark served as editor of the newly founded Christian Recorder, and in 1856 he backed an unsuccessful attempt to strengthen the A.M.E. Church’s official stand against slavery. Later active in Missouri, Clark died in Alton, Illinois. Richard Thurrow to William Lloyd Garrison, 17 June 1847, in Lib., 9 July 1847; Aberdeen (Scot.) Banner, 30 October 1846; San Francisco Elevator, 31 October 1874; Daniel A. Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891; New York, 1969), 130, 145, 162, 167, 172, 190-92, 197-203, 274-76, 278-79, 315-16, 335-45; idem, Recollections of Seventy Years (Nashville, Tenn., 1888), 82-91; Charles Spencer Smith, A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church . . . From 1856 to 1922 (Philadelphia, 1922), 341, 413, 428-29, 464, 495-96, 525, 539-45; Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro in the Organization of Abolition,” Phylon, 2:234 (Autumn 1941). M. R. Delany,⁷Martin Robinson Delany. Wm Lambert,⁸William Lambert (1815-90) was a prominent Michigan abolitionist and a leader in the Detroit black community. He was a well-to-do tailor who died with an estate valued at $70,000. Active in the Underground Railroad, he helped escaped slaves cross Lake Erie to Canada. Lambert was a founding member of the Colored Vigilant Committee, a group of Michigan African Americans who petitioned the state government for greater African American freedoms and civil rights. Katherine Du Pre Lumpkin, “'The General Plan Was Freedom’: A Negro Secret Order on the Underground Railroad,” Phylon, 28:63-77 (Spring 1967). A. R Green,⁹Augustus R. Green (?-1878) was born in Virginia to free black parents. After his family settled in Pennsylvania, Green received a basic education and apprenticed as a blacksmith. He joined the A.M.E. Church in 1841 and unsuccessfully attempted to establish an A.M.E. manual labor school outside Columbus, Ohio. In 1848, Green became the editor of an A.M.E. publication, the Christian Herald. During the 1850s, he worked in favor of black immigration to Canada and was a leading delegate to the 1854 and 1856 National Emigration Conventions. Despite personal opposition to the separation of African Americans in Canada from the A.M.E. Church, he attended the British Methodist Episcopal Church’s founding convention in 1856. Moving to Windsor, Canada, in 1860, Green joined the B.M.E. Church. Attempting to strengthen the black Canadian press, Green published the True Royalist and Weekly Intelligencer, but it failed after only ten issues in 1860-61. In the latter year, Green challenged the B.M.E. leadership and was expelled from the denomination. After his expulsion, he presided as bishop of the Independent Methodist Episcopal Church, a splinter denomination composed of B.M.E. dissidents. Green rejoined the A.M.E. after moving to Washington, D.C. in the late 1860s. He died in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he had been assigned an A.M.E. pastorate, while providing medical assistance during a yellow fever epidemic. Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 2:495-96.
H. Bibb,¹⁰Henry Bibb. J. T. Holley,Born free in Washington, D.C., James Theodore Holly (1829-1911) was a missionary and bishop who strongly supported black emigration. Holly married Charlotte Ann Gordon in 1851, and together they had five children. During the time he was coeditor of the Canadian-based newspaper Voice of the Fugitive, he argued that black emigration was the only solution to slavery, and worked for Henry Bibb’s Refugee Home Society. In 1854 he served as a delegate to the first National Emigration Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Holly abandoned his Roman Catholic upbringing and converted to the Protestant Episcopal Church, becoming a deacon in 1855 and a priest the following year. He then immigrated to Haiti with hopes of encouraging other African Americans to follow him and to join the Episcopal Church. He was the cofounder of the Convocation of the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Work among Colored People, a movement that actively supported black emigration and missions for the Episcopal Church. In 1857, Holly published A Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self Government and Civilized Progress. In 1874, he became the first African American to be consecrated bishop of the Episcopal Church at Grace Church in New York City, and later served as priest of the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Haiti. The Haitian population of his church never exceeded more than one thousand. Until his death, in Port-au-Prince, he maintained his belief that emigration was only solution to the problems created by slavery in the United States. EAACH, 1293; DANB, 319-20.
¹¹ W. C. Munroe,¹²Born in Ohio, the Reverend William Charles Munroe (c. 1834-?) was a black minister in Detroit, Michigan. In 1847, he attended the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York as part of the delegation from the Diocese of Michigan. Convention records indicate that Munroe was a deacon who officiated for a black congregation in Detroit. At the denomination’s 1853 convention, he was listed as the rector of St. Matthew’s Church located on Fort Street in Detroit. Munroe served as a delegate at the National Convention of Colored People held in Rochester in July 1853, and was appointed to the National Council. A supporter of the emigration of free African Americans, Munroe was elected president at the National Emigration Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, on 24 August 1854. The 138 delegates “adopted a platform favorable to the segregation of the colored race” by emigration from the United States “to some other country on the Western Continent.” Munroe was appointed chair of John Brown’s Constitutional Convention held in Chatham, Ontario, on 8 May 1858, and served as a missionary in Haiti. 1860 U.S. Census, Michigan, Shiawassee County, 858; James H. Wellings, Directory of the City of Detroit and Register of Michigan, for the Year 1846 (Detroit, 1846), 123; FDP, 15 July, 23 November 1853, 8 September 1854; Daily Cleveland Herald, 25 August 1854; James Theodore Holly, A Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self-Government, and Civilized Progress, as Demonstrated by Historical Events of the Haytian Revolution (New Haven, Conn., 1857), 3; Proceedings of the . . . Protestant Episcopal Church . . . in the City of New-York, from October 6th, to October 28th . . . 1847 (New York, 1847), 266; Proceedings of the . . . Protestant Episcopal Church . . . in the City of New York, from October 5th, to October 26th . . . 1853 (Philadelphia, 1854), 442; Proceedings of the National Emigration Convention of Colored People, Held at Cleveland, Ohio . . . 24th, 25th and 26th of August, 1854 (Pittsburgh, 1854), 6; Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present (New York, 1890), 591-92; Richard J. Hinton, “John Brown and His Men,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, 27:695 (January-June 1889); Philip S. Foner and Robert J. Branham, eds., Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1900 (Tuscaloosa, 1998), 288. A. M. Summer,¹³Alphonso M. Sumner was the editor of the Cincinnati Disenfranchised American. Formerly of Tennessee, Sumner was a free black barber who helped organize the first school for Nashville’s blacks. After being accused of aiding fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad in 1836, Sumner fled to Cincinnati, where he founded the Disenfranchised American, Cincinnati’s first black newspaper. Sumner played a leading role in the 1843 black state convention held in Columbus and was a delegate to the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo. Little information about Sumner’s newspaper has survived, other than that a committee of Cincinnati blacks served as its publisher, and a mob of whites destroyed its press during Cincinnati’s 1841 race riots. Sumner published the paper until 1863, when the Cincinnati Colored Citizen succeeded it. Bobby L. Lovett, The African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780-1930: Elites and Dilemmas (Fayetteville, Ark., 1999), 34-35; Armistead S. Pride and Clint C. Wilson, Jr., A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C., 1997), 62; Phillip S. Foner and George E. Walker, Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840-1865, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1979-80), 2:306-21. and others, sup
posing them to be worth as much on one side of a question, with which
they are equally conversant, as those of F. Douglass and W. J. Watkins¹⁴William James Watkins.
are on the other. In other words, that such men are capable of thinking
and acting for themselves, especially upon questions vitally connected
with their own interests, and to which their attention has been earnestly
devoted for years. In your reply to my letter, you, rather disingenuously,
I think, try to convey the impression that you are attacked for presuming
to differ in opinion from these gentlemen, when you very well know that
the letter was called forth by your severe attack upon those gentlemen
for presuming to differ in opinion from you.¹⁵Whitfield refers to the National Convention of Colored Men that was held at Corinthian Hall on 6 through 8 July 1853 in Rochester. Frederick Douglass printed a pamphlet of the convention’s proceedings. Interested readers could purchase a copy at the offices of Frederick Douglass’ Paper. FDP, 23 September 1853; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:xxxiii. But you are unwilling to
admit that you made many “severe and unjust strictures upon the emigra
tion movement, or commented upon it at length.” You must certainly be
aware that in an article like the one in question, consisting of bare asser
tion, unsustained by facts or arguments, “the multum in parvo principle”
may be carried to perfection, and without being lengthy, you can be both
severe and unjust. We may differ in relation to what number shall be de
nominated many, but I will arrange the charges in regular order, and ask
you to substantiate them, or do not blame us for characterizing them as
severe and unjust.

1. It is uncalled for. 2. Unwise. 3. Unfortunate. 4. Premature. 5. Will
please our enemies 6. It is ungentlemanly. 7 Opposed in spirit and in pur
pose to the Rochester Convention. 8 Narrow and illiberal. 9. Cowardly.

In my former letter I remarked that probably the opponents of emi
gration did not desire anything like a fair discussion of the question, but
would endeavor, to excite prejudice beforehand, by raising the cry of colo
nization, expatriation, &c.; and the result shows that my expectations were
well founded, for you inform your readers that “'Tis colonization after all
arrayed in the baptismal robes of emigration.” It matters but little to us
what name you give us, so long as you do not misrepresent our position.

You speak of my calling the condition of the colored people in this
country hopeless, and draw the inference that I “do not believe that the
two races can live, and move, and have their being together in this coun
try;” I would ask you to carefully look over my letter again, and see if
there is anything in it to justify such remarks. What are the fundamental
points laid down in that letter [illegible] the basis of any discussion on the
subject? 1st. That the mass of the colored people in this country must ever
remain here, and never can by any possibility be brought to emigrate en
masse; and that, therefore, the stereotyped arguments on the practicabil
ity, or impracticability, of en masse emigration, are a tissue of nonsense
on both sides, and unworthy a moment’s consideration. 2nd, That the ten
dency of political events is towards the formation of a great nation, or
family of nations, occupying the tropical regions of this continent and its
islands, in which the black is to be the predominant race, at least in num
bers; and that true policy requires that it should be rendered predominant
politically, as well as numerically. 3rd, That the reflex influence of such a
power, with the increased activity which its reaction will excite in the col
ored people of this country, will be the only thing sufficiently powerful to
remove the existing prejudice, unless the bleaching theory should prevail
in practice, and the Negro race be absorbed, and its identity lost in that
of the Caucasian. A consummation which our bitterest enemies, however
much they may oppose it in theory, are striving with all their might to
reduce to practice, and which every friend of liberty and morality should
endeavor to prevent. It must be evident to every one, that the brotherhood
and equality of mankind cannot be vindicated by a process, which leaves
an oppressed and degraded class at the mercy of the brutal lust of their
oppressors, until by an unlimited system of concubinage, steadily pursued
for ages, the differences of race and color are lost, and the heterogeneous
mass becomes moulded into a homogeneous people—nor by one race

occupying everywhere a secondary and dependant position, while the
other occupies a primary and independent one—but full and fair equality
can be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations
of the different races, each occupying the same manly, independent, self
governing position. Then, and not until then, can amalgamation, or social
intercourse, take place without disgrace to either party; but in the present
condition of the races, all such amalgamation, or social intercourse, must
be conducted in such a manner as to be shameful and humiliating in the
utmost degree, to the proscribed class. Yet we have men among us, who,
on general subjects, evince sufficient intelligence and self-respect, men
that act as leaders of the people, who when colored conventions are called,
to labor for the rights which have been wrested from us, or colored insti
tutions are proposed, for the purpose of enabling colored youth to obtain
some of the facilities for instruction so unjustly withheld from them, while
so liberally awarded to the whites—condemn such conventions and insti
tutions as being proscriptive, not for excluding white men from equal par
ticipation in their privileges, but for not giving a special invitation to the
class who have cast us out from among them with contempt, and would
hardly shake hands with us with a pair of tongs. With just as much reason
might the beggar in his wretched hovel be accused of proscription, who
should sit down to his meagre repast without sending a special invitation
to the wealthy banker who would kick him out of doors if he attempted to
enter his premises to share it with him.

You say that “colonizationists are resolved to drive us from the coun
try, and care but very little where we go. That they don’t dread so much
our emigration to the West Indies, or Central and South America, or the
Canadas, as our proximity to those of our brethren who are in bonds;”
and declare your intention to remain here where God has placed you. Did
you really mean what you wrote then? I think not. Let us examine and
see. God placed you in Maryland,¹⁶Douglass’s grandmother Betsy Bailey raised him on a farm owned by their master, Aaron Anthony, along the banks of the Tuckahoe Creek near Hillsborough, Talbot County, Maryland. Tuckahoe Creek is a tributary of the Choptank River, which forms part of the eastern boundary of Talbot County. Tuckahoe is an Algonquin term for “root” or “mushroom.” Dickson J. Preston and Norman Harrington, Talbot County: A History (Centreville, Md., 1983), 140, 191, 256; Paul Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland (Indianapolis, Ind., 1931), 104-05; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 3, 9-10. right by the side of your “brethren in
bonds,” where you could remember them as being bound with them in
the most literal sense. Why did you not remain in that proximity instead
of going to Massachusetts and New York? Was it not because in spite of
that proximity you found you could not help yourselves, much less your
“brethren in bonds;” and by removing to a free State you could do more
to elevate yourselves and improve your own condition, and as a neces
sary consequence to benefit your brethren also? If such be the case, why
should you censure us for following out the same logical deductions a step
farther, and drawing the conclusion that we can exercise a greater influ-

ence for bettering the condition of ourselves, and our enslaved brethren
by moving into a free nation than we can by remaining in a slaveholding
one; especially when our proximity to our brethren in bonds will be no
wise diminished thereby; for if either Canada, the West Indies or Central
America, be chosen, particularly the two latter, we shall be at least as near
to the mass of our “brethren in bonds” as you will be in Rochester. Our
enemies are not so ignorant as not to see that the existence of an indepen
dent community of negroes upon their southern frontier, is a dangerous
example to be held out to their slaves; hence their threats of going to war if
necessary to prevent the abolition of slavery in Cuba—their machinations
to foment discord in and prevent the growth and prosperity of Hayti¹⁷Southern concerns over the possibility that slavery might end in the Caribbean—and the explosive impact that event might have on their own slaves—dated back to the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s. Indeed, Southern fears of a Haitian-type uprising ran so deep that it was not until 1862, during the Civil War, that the United States officially recognized Haiti’s independence. Nonetheless, American merchants conducted trade with Haiti, but only on terms most beneficial to their own interests. As a result, while the United States provided most of Haiti’s imports in the early nineteenth century, very little was purchased in return. The trade imbalance that followed, along with its ongoing diplomatic isolation, ensured that both Haiti’s economy and its people would struggle for survival for decades. Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (New York, 1986), 90-92; Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Haiti’s Nightmare and the Lessons of History,” in Haiti: Dangerous Crossroads, ed. North American Congress on Latin America (Boston, 1995), 123.
—
and their systematic attempts to spread erroneous impressions relative to
the efforts of emancipation in the British and French islands. They also see
that the surest way of keeping the negroes down is to prevent their concen
tration, as much as possible, when they might learn to know and respect
each other, and become acquainted with their own strength and resources,
and keep them “scattered and peeled,” “meted out and trodden down’’¹⁸Isa. 18:7. in
their midst, constrained to engage in the lowest and most menial occupa
tions, and by the pressure of circumstances around them deprived of the
power of acting with energy and efficiency or unitedly upon any subject;
and to turn the course of those who may be disposed to emigrate towards
Africa where it will be impossible for them to exert the same influence
upon slavery here, that they would if located in the West India islands, or
the adjacent parts of the continent. In accordance with this policy we see
that they are ready to go to war or at lest to threaten it, for the purpose of
preventing the abolition of slavery in Cuba¹⁹Southern fears regarding slavery in Cuba arose initially out of concern over British efforts in the 1840s to extract an agreement from Spain that would allow a mixed Spanish-British commission to take a census of all slaves illegally introduced into Cuba since 1820, when the two European powers had agreed to halt the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves so classified were to be freed. Since that category represented the bulk of Cuba’s slaves, however, such a treaty would in effect have emancipated most of the island’s enslaved population. Although the treaty was never ratified, the fear that Spain might eventually agree to a similar proposal in the future aroused the interest of proslavery forces in the United States. Following a failed attempt by the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain in 1848, a series of U.S.-based invasions of Cuba were attempted between 1849 and 1851. Led by Venezuelan-born Narciso López and supported by both Southerners and expansionists alike, but lacking the support of either the government of the United States or the people of Cuba, all such efforts failed. Although it is unknowable whether Cuba would have been annexed by the United States had one of these invasions proved successful, it is certain that the fate of Cuba remained an object of keen interest in the United States long after the Civil War and the end of slavery in both nations. Robert E. May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854-1861 (Gainesville, Fla., 2002), 22-76, 163-89; David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (Columbia, Mo., 1973), 571-75. which would secure negro
ascendancy there, and at the same time are willing to pay $100,000,000,²⁰Fearing that the British were preparing to seize Cuba as security for interest on Spanish bonds held in England, the Polk administration in June 1848 authorized its minister to Spain, Romulus M. Saunders, to approach that government’s minister of foreign affairs. Saunders informed the Spanish authorities that although the U.S. government would “never permit Cuba to pass into the hands of any European Power . . . whilst the Island remained a possession of Spain, the U.S. would in no way interfere with it.” But Saunders was also to “stipulate” that the United States was “willing to purchase the Island if it would be agreeable to Spain to cede [it] for a pecuniary consideration.” The amount proffered by the Polk administration was $100 million, which was to be paid in installments over a period of years. The Spanish government, however, rebuffed the offer. Once it became clear that neither Great Britain nor any other foreign power was going to acquire Cuba, the matter was allowed to quietly drop. Eugene Irving McCormac, James K. Polk: A Political Biography to the End of a Career, 1845-1849 (1922; Newton, Conn., 1995); Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk during His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 (Chicago, 1910), 492-93; May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 23.
for the purpose of admitting Cuba into the Union, where the whole power
of this great confederacy can be wielded to crush the black, and keep him
forever in a state of servile dependence upon the white.

It is rather amusing to see the course pursued by the enemies of this
movement; public meetings and individuals have expressed their opinion
in sorrow, or in anger, according to the mood of the different persons; yet
not one of them have ventured to attack any of the positions laid down by
us, but each erects his man of straw, names him emigration movement,
and fires away at him with all his might. Mr. David JenkinsJenkins, David

David Jenkins (c. 1816–76) was a Black abolitionist from Columbus, Ohio. Born in Virginia and educated at Oberlin College, Jenkins was described by Martin R. Delany as a highly skilled craftsman: “[He] received by contract, the painting, glazing, and papering of some of the public buildings of the State, in autumn 1847. He is much respected in the capital city of his state, being extensively patronized, having on contract, the great ‘Neill House,’ and many of the largest gentlemen’s residences in the city and neighborhood, to keep in finish. Mr. Jenkins is a very useful man and member of society.” Interested in the elevation of Black people in Ohio, Jenkins organized a debating society in Columbus and was active in the Masonic Lodge and in the temperance and abolition movements. He organized the first state convention for Blacks in Ohio in 1844 and was elected vice president and appointed to the central committee during Ohio’s State Colored Convention held in Cleveland on 11 September 1852. Jenkins was a delegate from Ohio at the Colored National Convention held in Rochester in July 1853 and was appointed to its finance committee. During the Civil War, he served as a recruiting agent at Camp Delaware. Jenkins was elected vice president of the Equal Rights League Convention held on 21 September 1865 in Cleveland and was appointed sergeant at arms for the 1867 State Convention of Colored People in Columbus. Jenkins removed to Mississippi in 1872 and became a member of that state’s legislature. He died suddenly in Canton, Mississippi in 1876 and foul play was immediately suspected. Frederick Douglass' Paper, 15 September 1843, 1 October 1852, 20 May, 15 July 1853; Liberator, 21 July 1865; Daily Cleveland Herald, 25 July 1863, 21 September 1865; Ripley (Ohio) Bee, 10 July 1867; Ohio State Journal, 25 February 1870; Cincinnati Commercial, 17 April 1872; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 27 September 1876; Cincinnati Daily Times, 13 September 1876; New York Age, 16 January 1892; 1870 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, 55; Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People, 118; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:73. ²¹David Jenkins (c. 1816-?) was a black abolitionist from Columbus, Ohio. Born in Virginia and educated at Oberlin College, Jenkins was described by Martin R. Delany as a highly skilled craftsman: “[He] received by contract, the painting, glazing, and papering of some of the public buildings of the State, in autumn 1847. He is much respected in the capital city of his state, being extensively patronized, having on contract, the great ‘Neill House,’ and many of the largest gentlemen’s residences in the city and neighborhood, to keep in finish. Mr. Jenkins is a very useful man and member of society.” Interested in the elevation of black people in Ohio, Jenkins organized a debating society in Columbus and was active in the Masonic Lodge and in the temperance and abolition movements. He organized the first state convention for blacks in Ohio in 1844, and was elected vice president and appointed to the central committee during Ohio’s State Colored Convention held in Cleveland on 11 September 1852. Jenkins was a delegate from Ohio at the Colored National Convention held in Rochester in July 1853, and was appointed to its finance committee. During the Civil War, he served as a recruiting agent at Camp Delaware. Jenkins was elected vice president of the Equal Rights League Convention held on 21 September 1865 in Cleveland and was appointed sergeant at arms for the 1867 State Convention of Colored People in Columbus. 1870 U.S. Census, Ohio, Franklin County, 55; FDP, 15 September 1843, 1 October 1852, 20 May, 15 July 1853; Lib., 21 July 1865; Daily Cleveland Herald, 25 July 1863, 21 September 1865; Ripley (Ohio) Bee, 10 July 1867; New York Age, 16 January 1892; Ohio State Journal, 25 February 1870; Delany, Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People, 118; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:73. of Columbus,
Ohio, in a letter to the Aliened American²²The Aliened American was published and edited by William Howard Day in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1853 to 1854. It was created at the National Emigration Convention as a rival to Frederick Douglass’ Paper. The paper, which served as the official mouthpiece of both the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society and the emigration movement, met with much criticism and ceased publication when it failed to obtain adequate funding. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds., African American Lives (New York, 2004), 219; Todd Mealy, Aliened American: A Biography of William Howard Day, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 2010), 1:204-05, 209, 224; Levine, Politics of Representative Identity, 97; Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, 76, 114.
works himself up into a perfect
frenzy; and in language similar to that of the New York Herald,²³Founded in 1835, the New York Herald was owned and edited by James Gordon Bennett. In 1850 the newspaper editorially supported the Whig party, but had a reputation for balanced reporting of news events. Richard Kluger and Phyllis Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Death of the “New York Herald Tribune” (New York, 1986), 44-46, 63-64. when
stirring up the ruffians of that city to mob anti-slavery meetings, calls on

the people of Cleveland not to suffer the Convention to be held there.²⁴No issue of the Aliened American with Jenkins’s statement has survived. He
may rest assured that the Convention²⁵At the time J. M. Whitfield penned his letter to Douglass, plans were being made to hold the National Emigration Convention in Cleveland. The event eventually took place on 24-26 August 1854, with William C. Munroe presiding. Proceedings of the convention were later published. Proceedings of the National Emigration Convention of Colored People, 1854, 9; FDP, 18 November 1853. will be held. A public meeting also
held at Columbus, over which the same gentleman presided, informs us
that it “no longer sees us as friends, but inveterate enemies and haters of
the cause we once advocated,” and invokes “shame and indignation” upon
us. The answer to these brethren is that in whatever light they may see us,
we shall continue to be, as we have been heretofore, the staunch friends
of every thing in our judgement calculated to promote the elevation of our
race, and the uncompromising enemies of every thing which, in our opin
ion, tends to degrade it. Many of the signers of that call, have entertained
for years the same opinion of the policy of emigration which they now
advocate. The writer of this article at least, (and I may say the same of
several others,) has entertained the same opinion from boyhood, and time
has but served to strengthen his convictions. The first article I ever wrote
for publication, was as Chairman of a Committee appointed by a meet
ing of the colored citizens of Cleveland, held in the winter of 1838-9 to
prepare an address on the subject of emigration, recommending a concen
tration upon the borders of the United States, having particular reference
to California. That address was adopted, nearly or quite, unanimously by
the meeting, and published in some of the papers; and was assailed on all
sides with the fiercest animosity. I have lived to see men who ridiculed
the idea of going to California, to build up the country, and be possessors
and owners of the soil, the makers of its laws, and controllers of its des
tiny; after waiting until white men have gone in and possessed the soil,
and made laws to degrade the negro below the level of the brute, while
welcoming the men of every other race and nation—after all this, you
can see these same men flocking in crowds to California, to perform the
menial services of white men, and no warning voice is heard from any of
our mentors, probably because they are satisfied with that state of things,
as one to which they are accustomed. To see the white independent, the
black dependent; the white filling the high, the black the low positions in
society; the white making and executing the laws, the black not allowed
to testify in a court of justice; in short the white the master, the black the
servant. If such a course as this is pursued, what stronger proof could
be desired by our enemies in support of their favorite argument, that the
negro is incapable of self- government, and aspires no higher than to be a
servant to the whites.

You say that your “trust is not in an arm of flesh, but in Him who
maketh the clouds His chariot, and rides upon the wings of the wind; that

He is just, and His justice shall not sleep forever;” and express your belief
that “He will yet declare concerning us, as of His oppressed people of old,
I have seen, I have seen, the afflictions of my people, and am come down
to deliver them[.]” Did you mean to carry out the parallel to its full extent,
and intimate that He will deliver us “as He did His oppressed people of
old,” by bringing us out in a body, “with a high hand, and with an out
stretched arm?” If so, you are greater emigrationists than I am. I too have
implicit faith in the justice of the same Almighty Being, and that faith is
none the less strong because I believe that in the natural world, He works
by natural means, and uses arms of flesh to work out His own Omniscient
purposes, or to use your own words, in another column of the same paper,
that He helps those who help themselves. To call upon the Lord to do that
for us which we should perform ourselves, is but a solemn mockery, too
much akin to the hypocritical cant of the pious knaves who defend slavery,
with all its train of hellish abominations, as a Heaven-ordained institution,
and traffic in the bodies and souls of men for the glory of God. What we
have to do then, is, to put our own hands to the plow, assured that if we
do our share of the work, God will not fail to perform His; remembering
that “who would be free themselves must strike the blow;”²⁶Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818), canto 2, stanza 76. George Gordon Lord Byron, The Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron, ed. Jerome J. McGann and Barry Weller, 7 vols. (New York, 1980-93), 2:105. “and work
out their own salvation.”?²⁷Phil. 2:12.

Respectfully Yours,
J. M. WHITFIELDWhitfield, James Monroe

James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), barber and poet, was born in New Hampshire. During the winter of 1838-39, the Young Men's Union Society of Cleveland appointed Whitfield to deliver an address on the subject of emigration. Thus, as a youth of sixteen, Whitfield urged that blacks establish separate settlements in the United States or on its borders. By the mid-1850s he had become a major spokesman for black emigration. After he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1841, Whitfield worked as a barber and wrote poetry. Several of his poems had already been published in the North Star when Douglass visited Whitfield in Buffalo in late June 1850. Recounting their visit, Douglass lamented, “That talents so commanding, gifts so rare, poetic powers so distinguished, should be tied to the handle of a razor and buried in the precincts of a barber‘s shop, and that he who possesses them should be consigned, by the malignant arrangements of society, to occupy a position so menial, is painfully disheartening." A delegate to the black convention meeting in Rochester in 1853, Whitfield also endorsed and attended the 1854 emigration convention in Cleveland and was commissioned to investigate Central America as a site for prospective black settlements. Convinced that “full and fair equality can be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations of the different races," Whitfield hoped that the emigration of black Americans would contribute to the emergence of a powerful and independent black nation in the American hemisphere. Before leaving Buffalo around 1859, Whitfield published a volume of poetry, America and Other Poems (Buffalo, 1853), which he dedicated to Martin R. Delany. Later poems appeared in the Liberator the San Francisco Pacific Appeal and the San Francisco Elevator. After the Civil War, Whitfield's principal residence seems to have been in San Francisco, though he also lived in Portland, Oregon, and in Idaho. Between 1864 and 1869 he was Masonic Grand Master of California. Joan R. Sherman, “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair," JNH 57: 169-76 (April 1972); Miller, Search for a Black Nationality 137-40; Delany, Condition of the Colored People 132; J. M. Whitfield to Editor, 15 November 1853, in FDP 25 November 1853; ASB 24 August 1850

PLSr: FDP, 25 November 1853.