Henry Highland Garnet to Frederick Douglass, January 21, 1849
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET1Born into slavery in Maryland, Henry Highland Garnet (1815–82) escaped to New York at an early age. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, Garnet became pastor of the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy in 1841. He advocated political abolition, supporting the Liberty party and fighting for the black franchise in New York state. In 1843 at a black national convention in Buffalo, Garnet earned notoriety when he delivered an “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” in which he advocated violence as a means of seizing freedom. In the late 1840s and 1850s, he clashed with established black leaders through his support of black immigration with his African Civilization Society. Joel Schor, Henry Highland Garnet: A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Conn., 1977); ANB, 8:735–36. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Geneva, [N.Y.] 21 Jan[uary] 184[9].2The printed letter erroneously lists the year as 1848.
FRIEND DOUGLASS:—
I am happy to find that the principles and facts of my former communication were agreeable with your opinion; and that the small objection which you make, relates only to the propriety of a term. But after I shall have called your attention to my full meaning and design, I do not apprehend that even that objection will remain in your mind. By “a Christian Convention,” I meant a meeting in which the principles of the gospel of our Saviour should be exhibited and his doctrines enforced. This is the extent of my idea, and no more. You know, my esteemed friend, that in these times upon which we are cast, it is customary for men when they are about to act in public capacities, to define their positions, and to erect their platforms. My position is defined by Christ, and by him was my platform laid. He came not to call the righteous ones, but sinners to repentance.3Mark 2:17. On this principle, I would have a general meeting called, and invite men and women to come to the rescue—yes, let sinners come as well as saints. Such a meeting at first, I presume, would be small, but that would not be discouraging. There are not many majestic streams that spring from large sources. They are usually small at first, but as they flow onward, they receive additions from various tributaries. So it may be with an enterprise like ours. At the first, we must start in an apparently insignificant and frail vessel; but when we are about to approach the great ocean of a nation’s improvement, we can launch a ship which shall be freighted with the best interests of our race. From her masts shall stream the standard of the cross; the Captain of our Salvation shall guide the helm, and the breath of heaven will swell her sails. I am thoroughly convinced that the colored race in America must, in their ascent, avoid the old beaten and narrow path. We must organize anew, on the broad platform of the gospel. In such an organization, the Church, the Press, Science, Literature, the Arts and Agriculture, will be promoted.
The brightest stars of our people on this continent, will arise in the West and South. Many will doubt this; but whoever shall write our history
a hundred years hence, will record as a fact what may now be regarded as a mere chimera. Those who dwell in the Eastern and Middle States will be crushed to death by old aristocratic arrangements, and by the ponderous wheels of wealth and the various forms of monopoly. The more sensible will seek the shores of the Great Lakes, or fix their homes on the green prairies; the unwise will stand still and die. In the South, the chains will fall off, and freedom will dawn; and on the ground where my people shall be emancipated, they will become the artisans and laborers, and, as is the case in the West Indies, many of them will become the owners of the fields which they once cultivated without requital.4Emancipated slaves in the West Indies gained greater access to land in the 1840s. Following completion of a required apprenticeship, many continued to work on sugar plantations until they had raised enough money to purchase small plots of land called freeholds. Christian missionaries working in the region helped a number of former slaves to purchase land. Green, British Slave Emancipation, 298–99.
These being my views, I find myself conflicting with a doctrine which you advanced last week, wherein you say that “we must banish all thoughts of emigration from our minds, and resolve to stay just where we are.”5Garnet accurately quotes a passage from a lengthy editorial by Douglass titled “A Few Words to Our Own People,” which condemned recent proposals to colonize black people in the New Mexico Territory. NS, 19 January 1849. Wherever other men immigrate, there should we be found. Emigration is often the source of wealth, prosperity, and independence. Indeed, we do colonize where other people go, but we generally wait until they have had the first choice, and then we come in for the scraps. I would to God that we were scattered over the entire West and South-west: then should we have had homes in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.—My heart would rejoice if I could see many of our New England brethren following the good example of Frederick Douglass and Wm. C. Nell, and making Western New York their homes. They have intelligence, piety, and some pecuniary means. You have, my brother, most gloriously proved my point, by coming amongst us, and establishing in the sky of our long unbroken night, that peerless gem—the NORTH STAR. Thank heaven for it! Long may its rays scatter tokens of redemption on the pathway of the fugitive, and on the minds of the sons and daughters of Africa. I hesitate not to say, that my mind, of late, has greatly changed in regard to the American Colonization scheme.6In the late 1840s Garnet reversed his initial opposition to colonization by founding the African Civilization Society, which supported voluntary immigration to Africa and Haiti. Never insisting upon the wholesale exodus of blacks from America, Garnet argued that black people should move anywhere they might improve their economic opportunities. Moreover, he hoped to use emigration as a support for American abolition by encouraging emigrants to grow cotton in direct competition with southern slaveholders, thereby weakening the slaveholders’ influence on the American economy and political life. Schor, Henry Highland Garnet, 91, 103; Lysle E. Meyer, “T. J. Bowen and Central Africa: A Nineteenth-Century Missionary Delusion,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 15:247–60 (1982); Vincent Bakpetu Thompson, “Leadership in the African Diaspora in the Americas Prior to 1860,” Journal of Black Studies, 24:63–64 (September 1993). So far as it benefits the land of my fathers, I bid it God-speed; but so far as it denies the possibility of our elevation here, I oppose it. I would rather see a man free in Liberia, than a slave in the United States. In every country and in every nation, I desire to see men living in the love of God. In Western New York, we have the means of our elevation around us, and all that we need are men. May God send them in the fullness of his spirit!
HENRY H. GARNET
PLSr: NS, 26 January 1849.