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Samuel Ringgold Ward to Frederick Douglass, December 13, 1852

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Letter from S. R. Ward.
Toronto, Dec. 13th, 1852.
My Dear Friend:—
You speak of Rev. C. C. Foote, the Bibbs and the Refugee's Home Society. You ask me to write about them such facts as influenced my mind in respect to those persons and their organization. Allow me to say, that distinct from their actions in public matters, I have nothing to say against them. My opposition to the Refugee's Home Society, of course, is opposition to the official acts of Messrs. Foot and Bibb. But against them, personally, though differing much from them on many points, I have nothing to say in this letter.
I oppose the Refugee's Home Society for the following reasons, to wit:
1. There is no need of any other land-buying or land-selling organizations in Canada, for fugitives or others, than those provided by our laws. In the very neighborhood of Mr. Bibb's residence, [ ] township in the county of Essex, wherein he resides, the Government has lands quite as good as (if not better than) that owned by the Refugee's Home Society, for sale at a lower price than the Refugee's Home Society will sell, and the purchaser can obtain them with equal (if not greater) facility, and hold them by a much better tenure. Patrick McMullen, Esq., M.D., is the land agent of the Government for the county of Essex. He lives within a half hour's ride of Mr. Bibb's office door. I have examined maps of lands for sale, in his office. I have travelled over those lands. There are none better in North America.—They are for sale at $2.00, some of them, and others at $1.60 per acre. One hundred acres would, therefore, cost $160 or $200, as the case might be. One-tenth is to be paid down and the remainder in nine equal amount installments, with interest on sums unpaid. - Hence, you see, that with 16 dollars, a fugitive can obtain possession of one hundred acres of land, and in ten years, by paying 16 dollars per annum, and the interest, at six per cent, and erecting a small house, clearing five acres a year, &c., he has the entire possession, by patent, of the freehold.
The Refugee's Home Society bought at two dollars and a half, they therefore sell at that price, though without interest. ([ ] Constitution, Art. 5.) But they, the Fugitives, have but 25 acres, a very limited farm, and twenty acres of that will cost them 50 dollars, and when paid for they cannot transfer it in five years! Art 8. In the former

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case, the man has ample land for his family, to be his, and theirs as soon as paid for; in the latter, he is confined to 25 acres, which the R. H. S. may take from him at will, if he dares to transfer it. Art. [9].
It may be said, however, that five acres are given on certain conditions, to Fugitives by the R. H. S. This does not alter my proposition. For the Government, upon conditions quite as favorable, give to actual settlers, without distinction of color, fifty acre grants, in a fine agricultural district known as a part of Huron Tract, near Lake Huron. The R. H. S. give five acres, the Government give fifty. I have before me a letter from the Government agent, G. Jackson, Esq., to this effect. Besides, if you examine the August and September Numbers of the Voice, you will see that the Government offer lands for sale to actual settlers, at from three shillings to seven shillings and 6 pence the acre, i.e., from 60 cents to $1.50 per acre. The land is all in Upper Canada. In Lower Canada, it goes down to 20 cents the acre.
You may not agree with me, but my mind is that Fugitives who choose to be farmers, can find abundant facilities for acquisition of land in Canada without the aid of the Society in question.
2. I object to the Refugee's Home Society because it misrepresents, through its agent, the condition of the blacks in Canada. To go into no specifications, the fact that it sends an agent to the United States to beg money to buy lands for them, is of itself a representation that they cannot acquire such money for themselves. While the truth is, that so soon as Fugitives come here, they can get work at fair wages, and so can lay by enough to buy land for themselves, NEEDING AID ONLY, allow me to repeat, NEEDING AID ONLY upon their immediate arrival, until they can get work, which in no instance that I know of is longer than three days! To represent such a people, as having to have Rev. C. C. Foote beg money to buy lands for them, is sheer falsity, in my humble opinion. And I beg leave to add, that a free, friendly conversation, with the Fugitives, in their settlements and at public meetings, during the past summer, not only confirms me in this opinion, but assures me that it is theirs also. I repeat that immediately on their arrival, they are destitute, and most grateful are we for any aid we may have from the U. States, or elsewhere, in supplying their immediate needs. But we do not want boxes and barrels of old clothes, which cost twice as much for transportation as they are worth, nor do

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we need a set of land jobbers to beg money to buy lands for them.
3. I object to the Refugee's Home Society, because of its injustice and tyranny, AND LAND JOBBING, under the sacred name of benevolence towards negroes.
It first sends forth an agent, (who is said to receive twenty per cent, of what he begs,) to beg for the poor refugee blacks money to ferring it, and if you transfer it, land and money both belong to us, and you shall be robbed of both." The Refugee's Society stands alone on this
"Bad Pre-eminence,"
At any rate, no other set of land-jobbers than the Refugee's Home Society, beg for their capital, in the name of the poor whom they thus victimize.
I have nothing to say about the honesty or the dishonesty of the agents and officers of the Society, as such. The Society, according to its own printed constitution, is a fair subject for criticism. If not, why is it published to the world? But I do say, that a Society of such professions, with such constitutional features, ought not to be expected to act any better than, through its constitution, it professes to act, nor ought the public or the Society to expect agents of such a concern to be any better than the Society employing them.
I have thus, as briefly as possible, given you my objections to the Refugee's Home Society and the reasons for them. I will only trouble you with an additional fact or two.
You see from the published proceedings that my name is among the names of those who discussed the Constitution, at Detroit, on the 25th of August last. My personal experience in that meeting was of great service to me, in enabling me to form an estimate of the Refugee's Home Society. The following facts impressed me. When it was objected to the locating of the Fugitives on very small pieces of land, as making them poor and dependent, a sort of peasantry, the answer was, that the money was begged partly from poor people in New England, who would regard 25 acres, as enough for a Fugitive family.
When I complained that to cause the land to revert to the society if transferred under 15 years from the time of being purchased, would be unjust, dishonest and tyrannical, reducing the Fugitive to a sort of serf, it was pleaded by Rev. C. C. Foote, and others, that unless the society maintained this sort of control over them, they would suffer speculators to get their lands away from them. When I complained that this was equivalent

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to saying that men who had bought 20 acres of land, were unable to take care of themselves—the old pro-slavery story of the negroes—they virtually admitted it. Expressing my astonishment at such doctrines, from the lips of professed abolitionists, and declaring my belief that none other [illegible] C. C. Foote replied that were they legislating for white men they would make the rule still more stringent. When I expressed my gratification that the reversion clause had been omitted, as it had, in one of the readings of the Constitution. Rev. M. Baker, of Detroit, Editor of the Wesleyan Evangelist, and a Wesleyan Minister, and a professed abolitionist, immediately moved the adoption of that abominable clause. When I entreated them to make the inability to transfer to apply only to the time the land was unpaid for, the Treasurer, Mr. Hallock opposed it, and said that should a man pay for his in one year he ought not to have the power of transferring it under 14 years from the date of his deed.
Being utterly disgusted with so monstrous a piece of unprecedented land-jobbing and tyranny, I refused, when a committee reported to that effect, to allow my name to appear before the public, as one of the officers of such a concern, whereupon the name of Hon. J. R. Giddings was moved as a substitute for my own. Rev. C. C. Foote objected to Mr. G. on the ground that he had to beg the money of many persons opposed to Mr. G.'s course, and such persons would not give so readily, if that gentleman were an officer of the Society. I then saw the whole concern to be not only pro-slavery in its doctrines concerning the capacity of negroes to hold and take care of property, but false in its declarations concerning the condition of Fugitives, and mean enough to pander to the pro-slavery appetites of such men as oppposed Mr. Giddings on account of his anti-slavery course in Congress. To give aid, countenance or support to such a Society, nay, to withhold my solemn and earnest protest against it, were to be false to any abolitionism, to my love of truth, and to my manhood.
And now, my dear friend, you are at liberty to use this letter, as Lord Carlisle says,

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"just as publicly, or just as privately as you may deem most fit."
I am, with sincere regard, Your obedient servant,
Samuel R. Ward.
P.S. - You will observe that I refer to the Constitution, as published in pamphlet form by Bibb and Holley. In The Voice the reversion clause does not appear. Why the very same publishers should omit it in their paper, is not explained by them.
S. R. W.

Creator

Ward, Samuel Ringgold

Date

1852-12-13

Description

Samuel Ringgold Ward to Frederick Douglass. PLSr: Frederick Douglass' Papers, 21 January 1853. Explains his opposition to Refugee Home Society in Canada.

Publisher

This document was calendared in the published volume and has not been published in full before. 

Collection

Frederick Douglass' Paper

Type

Letters

Publication Status

Unpublished

Source

Frederick Douglass' Paper