Frederick Douglass Benjamin Coates, April 17, 1856
FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO BENJAMIN COATES1Benjamin Coates (c. 1808-87) mostly likely formed his opinions on slavery and abolition
under the influence of his devout Pennsylvania Quaker parents. A successful wool merchant and a publisher, Coates was active in many antislavery organizations in Philadelphia, such as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Despite his abolitionist connections, Coates argued that colonization was the best way to end slavery. From the 1840s until his death, Coates actively sought financial support from wealthy donors for colonization efforts in western Africa and started a correspondence with Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a successful immigrant to Liberia. In 1858 Coates published Cotton Cultivation in Africa: Suggestions on the Importance of the Cultivation of Cotton in Africa, in Reference to the Abolition of Slavery in the United States, through the Organization of an African Civilization Society, which advocated an increase in international cotton production in order to diminish the world’s dependence on cotton from the American South. Coates believed that with a decrease in profits, Southern slave owners would be compelled to free most, and perhaps all, of their slaves. Coates’s endorsement of colonization hurt his standing in the abolitionist movement, yet Douglass defended Coates, stating that he was a “humane and benevolent man” and “no more a negro hater than we.” , ser. 3, 1:538n; Ripley, 4:322.
Rochester[, N.Y.] 17 April 1856[.]
BENJAMIN COATES ESQR.
My DEAR SIR.
Your two letters have reached me, and should have been soon answered
but for my absence from home when they arrived here. You have, My
Dear Sir, given me many and striking proofs of an honest desire to assist
in changing the popular estimate in which my poor people are held in this
Country. I hope and believe, I am not wanting in gratitude to you for your
unostentatious labors to this end, although I am not able to agree with
you as to wisdom of Colonization as a means to that end. You think I do
not under Stand Colonization. Perhaps, I don’t. I am Sure, however, that
I underStand and appreciate your earnest and disinterested endeavors to
promote the welfare, happiness, and higher development of my unfortu-
nate race—whither in Africa or in America. This is to me a great satisfaction.
I know you less as connected with Colonization than as connected
with the improvement of the Character and Condition of the Colored people
here. I am not about to write you an argument against Colonization.
You are already acquainted with the argument. It has been repeatedly
pressed upon your attention far more ably than I am able to press it—and
I know to know, that when the truth strongly presented fails to convince—
convincement is not likely to follow when the Same truth is but feebly and
imperfectly stated—Still I am almost compelled by your own eloquent
plea for Colonization, briefly to State my Convictions touching the Colonization movement—I believe then, that the agitation of Colonization has
a direct tendency to devert attention from the great and paramount duty
of abolition—and Stands directly in the way of the latter; that it Serves
to deaden the national conscience—when it needs quickening to the great
and dreadful Sin of Slavery—that it furnishes an apology for delaying
emancipation until the whole four millions2According to the U.S. Census there were 3,204,313 slaves in the country in 1850 and 3,953,760 in 1860. Steckel, “The African American Population of the United States,” 438-39.
Can be sent to Africa—thus
interposing a physical impossibility, between the Slave and his deliverance
from Chains—that aims to extinguish the hope of ultimate elevation for
the free negro in this Country—and to unsettle all his plans of progress
here, that it robs his future in this country of all that can gladden his heart
and nerve him to manly endeavors— that it serves to confirm existing
prejudice as a thing natural and insurmountable—Believing all this and
more—however I may feel towards Liberia3Assisted by the American Colonization Society, free black American settlers arrived in what became the Republic of Liberia in 1822. Over the next twenty-five years, new settlements were established along the coast, most notably Moesurado, founded in 1822, which became Monrovia, the new nation’s capital. The settlers, who became known as “Americo-Liberians," declared the independence of Liberia in 1847. Along with the American emigrants, several groups of indigenous people lived in the territory, including the Kru and Grebo tribes. Immigration to Liberia from the United States continued well into the 1870s, and many of the new settlers were “recaptives," or Africans rescued from the now illegal slave ships. Despite their belief that Africa was a promised land, Americo-Liberians carried over many American customs and social standards. Both the Americo-Liberians and many of the recaptives considered themselves Americans and, consequently, superior to the indigenous tribal Africans. The government of Liberia was ostensibly democratic and was modeled after that of the United States. The True Whig Party, led by Americo-Liberians, dominated Liberian politics, often offering the only candidates for office, until 12 April 1980, when the military carried out a coup d’état and took control of the nation. J. Gus Liebenow, (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), 11-29, 88-92, 184-96; Robert Rinehart, “Historical Setting," , ed. Harold D. Nelson, 3d. ed. (Washington, D.C., 1985), 1-32; Irving Kaplan et al., “The Society and Its Environment,” , ed. Nelson, 70-72. as an existing fact— I can not
do other than oppose the Colonization movement. You have large views of
the future of Africa—So have I, he My heart can never be indifferent to
any legitimate movement for spreading the blessings of Christianity and
Civilization in that Country—But the effort must not be to get the negroes
out of this Country—but to get Christianity into that.
Please send me any names you may have to whom you think my Book
or paper will be recieved acceptable—and either Shall be promptly Sent
as you Shall derect,—
I am, My Dear Sir, Your True and grateful Friend
FREDERICK DOUGLASS—
ALS: Benjamin Coates Manuscripts, PHi.