A Dumping Ground and a Colony.
Since the Act of 1807, the United States Navy, had served as a sea-going police force to ensure observance of American laws prohibiting the participation of American citizens in the slave trade.
This Law led to the rescue of many Africans from Slave Ships, but who were detained on U.S. soil. The U.S. Navy seized roughly 2,000 captured Africans from illegal slave ships and brought them to temporary camps in Key West and Charleston a few years after the Act was passed. So, the Act of 1819 was passed to dump them somewhere else besides the U.S.
In 1819 the United States Navy and the American Colonization Society entered into a Agreement that combined their talents for the purpose of suppressing the slave trade on the coast of Africa. It was hoped by the backers of the Society that a de facto as well as a de jure end of American participation in the slave trade could be facilitated by this marriage of convenience.
The second party, the American Colonization Society, joined the union through the efforts of Representative Charles F. Mercer, one of the sponsors of the Slave Trade Act of 1819, and one of the leaders of the newly organized Society. Although the act did not mention the Colonization Society, several provisions of the act were clearly beneficial to it. The act stipulated that the "officers and men [of the vessel capturing a slaver] • • • shall deliver every such negro, mulatto, or person of color, to the marshal of the district in which they are brought if into a port of the United States, or, if elsewhere, to such person or persons as shall be lawfully appointed by the President of the United States, • •
The act also appropriated one hundred thousand dollars "to carry this law into effect. It was hoped by the members of the Society that not only would what they considered a racial problem be solved by colonizing American blacks in Africa, but that the colony would also serve to inhibit the slave trade on the African coast.
A naval force, if deployed to Africa, could serve many functions: it would help protect the colony, give it aid, and help enforce American laws against the slave trade. A colony on the African coast would also indirectly benefit the United States government by providing a depository for blacks recaptured by American cruisers from slave ships.
To carry out these plans, the Colonization Society made overtures to President James Monroe's administration to gain some or all of the appropriation.
In December 1819 the President called his cabinet together to determine what policy should be followed by the government in interpreting the act. Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, who was also vice-president of the Society, urged that the entire appropriation should be transferred to the Society. Crawford was able to convince Smith Thompson, the Secretary of the Navy, of the advisability of this procedure.
However, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams objected on the grounds that there was no authority to spend money to support blacks in Africa, and that if the United States began doing so, it would plunge us deep enough into the plan to bind the honor of the nation to further appropriations." He also believed that the American people were unaware of the consequences of establishing colonies, and he felt that the people transported to Africa would suffer more than if they remained in bondage.
The President disregarded the opinions of Adams and agreed that fifteen hundred dollars should be paid for half the freight of a vessel then being readied to take colonists to Africa.
And in a memorandum dated 7 January 1820, President Monroe informed his Secretary of the Navy:
"As the execution of the law, for the suppression
of the slave trade, is so intimately connected with
our naval operations, I have, on full consideration,
thought it most advisable, to commit the supervision
of that portion of the duty which is to be performed
on the coast of Africa, likewise to your care."
This message authorized the Secretary to appoint the agent on the African coast responsible for receiving recaptured Africans and also to supervise the expenditure of the one hundred thousand dollars appropriated for enforcement of the act.
During the 1820s the initial appropriation was used in the most general manner and was often supplemented. Much of the initial and supplemental appropriations were used to transport colonists and to build the colony, functions not directly concerned with the suppression of the slave trade. After 18)4 the sum was used only to pay the salary of the government agent, an individual who was also the colony's governor.
To implement the Slave Trade Act of 1819 it was necessary to establish facilities for the reception of recaptured Africans. Several sites were established within the territory of the United States, but for two years none was created in Africa.
In 1821 Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton, a friend of the Colonization Society, persuaded the administration to assign him command of the schooner Alligator.
Stockton was given orders to proceed to the African coast in company with the agent, Dr. Eli Ayres, and establish a facility at which recaptured Africans could be maintained.
The Colonization Society also gave Stockton a free hand to act in its behalf to acquire territory for a colony.
Lieutenant Stockton and Dr. Ayres were successful in their mission.
Dr. Ayres reported their results to the Secretary of the Navy:
"I proceeded in company with Lieut. Stockton, down the Coast; and on the 15th day of Decem, 1821,
succeeded in accomplishing the long desired object, of procuring, • • • an establishment for captured
Africans.--"
Earlier investigators had recommended the island of Sherbro as a site for locating the colony, but after consultation with the British at Freetown, Sierra Leone, Stockton and Ayres were convinced that the territory around Cape Mesurado would be more fertile and more healthful for the colonists.
End.
And you know the rest.
The Constitution of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States.
Article 2_ The object to which its attention is to be exclusively directed, is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their consent) the free people of color, residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient. And the Society shall act to effect this object in co-operation with the general government, and such of these states as may adopt regulations upon the subject.
January 1818.
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Acts of the 15th Congress of the United States of America.
An Act in addition to the Acts prohibiting the Slave Trade.(a)
Sec. 2._ And be it further enacted, That the President of the United The President States be, and he is hereby, authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction:
And to appoint a proper person or persons, residing upon the coast of Africa, as agent or agents for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of colour, delivered from on board vessels, seized in the prosecution of the slave trade, by commanders of the United States armed vessels. '
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That all such acts, or parts of acts as may be repugnant to the provisions of this act, shall be, and the same are hereby repealed.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That a sum not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars, be, and the same is hereby appropriated to carry this law into effect.
March 3, 1819
Sources.,
* P. J. Staudenraus, ·rhe African Colonization Movement,
1816-1865.
* John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ed.
Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia,-rs74-1 77 , VI, 354,
356, 475-76.
* President James Monroe to Samuel L. Southard, 7 Jan.
1820, Correspondence of the Secretary of the Navy Relating
to African Colonization, 1819-1844 (M-205), Roll 2:3, Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library, Record Group 45, National Archives, hereafter cited African Letters.
* Eli Ayres to Smith Thompson, 15 Jan. 1823, African
Letters, Roll 2:98; and "Condition of the Navy and Marine
Corps," ASP:NA, I, 1005.
* Acts of the 15th Congress of the United States of America.
