|
|
|
"The Outskirts of Our Happiness": Race and the Lure of Colonization in the Early Republic
Nicholas Guyatt
| On December 22, 1820, at Plymouth Rock, in commemoration of the bicentenary of the Mayflower's arrival, Daniel Webster addressed a large crowd on the subject of colonization. Since classical times, he argued, colonies had been the principal means for extending the reach of civilization. The Greeks and the Romans had opened northern Europe and Africa in this way; modern European nations had reached the Caribbean Sea and Asia with the same ambitions. The English settlement of North America, however, was "distinguished from other instances of colonization." Whereas the Greeks and the Romans used migration to increase their power and influence and contemporary European powers acquired new markets and resources in their distant colonies, the American Pilgrims sought only civil and religious liberty. Moreover, in America colonization continued unabated: "Two thousand miles westward from the rock where their fathers landed, may now be found the sons of the Pilgrims"; before long, those "sons" would "be on the shores of the Pacific." Spellbound by the incredible success of the original colonizing enterprise in America, Webster could only remark that "the imagination hardly keeps up with the progress of population, improvement, and civilization." When this oration was published the following year, it captivated many New Englanders and further cemented Webster's reputation as a seer of American achievement. John Adams was particularly impressed: "This Oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture, as it was heard; it ought to be read at the end of every Century, and indeed at the end of every year, for ever and ever."1 |
1
|
|
Daniel Webster said nothing about America's nonwhite peoples in his 1820 address, but at that very time thousands of Americans became fascinated by the potential of colonization to solve the problem of race in the United States. The founders of the Massachusetts Bay colony had escaped their quarrel with the Stuarts by planting a new colony, and the pioneers of Virginia had discovered economic opportunity in a new land. Perhaps colonization could also allow blacks and Indians to transform themselves into civilized nations. Between 1776 and 1840, the idea of "benevolent colonization" was proposed by a range of voices concerned about slavery or the conflicts between Indians and frontier settlers. After the War of 1812, it inspired the formation of voluntary societies such as the American Colonization Society (ACS), and it had a great impact on federal Indian policy.2 |
2
|
|
Benevolent colonization rested on two simple premises: the planting of colonies had been one of the major ways civilization had been advanced from classical times to the present, and nonwhites could plant colonies as profitably as whites. Proponents of benevolent colonization affirmed the racial potential of blacks and Indians; some even suggested that colonies would prove that the races were equal. The irony was marked. Blacks and Indians could become more like white Americans by removing from them, and they could create their own versions of the United States beyond the borders of a white republic. |
3
|
|
Although in the early nineteenth century significant attempts were made to remove both Indians and blacks from the United States, historians have usually treated the stories of African colonization and Native American removal as discrete phenomena. The separate treatment is explained in part by the divergent outcomes of the efforts: around 10,000 blacks, fewer than 1 percent of those in the United States in 1820, were removed to Liberia between 1820 and 1860, while the vast majority of Indians living east of the Mississippi River (who numbered around 100,000 in 1830) were removed to the western side in the 1820s and 1830s. African colonization was largely voluntary, whereas Indian removal was painful and often nonconsensual. During the 1830s, from the removal bill to the Trail of Tears, contemporary observers remarked on the difference between benevolent colonization and removal. But if we look beyond the obduracy of Andrew Jackson, a different picture emerges. Before 1829 the debate over the fate of the eastern Indians proceeded along remarkably similar lines to the discussion of African colonization. Even after the passage of the Removal Act in the summer of 1830, many removal advocates clung to the idea that Indians were moving to a western colony and a civilized future.3 |
. . . |
There are about 16223 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
