1373. COLONY (Penal), Sierra Leone and.—
The course of things in the * * * West
Indies appears to have given a considerable
impulse to the minds of the slaves in * * *
the United States. A great disposition to
insurgency has manifested itself among them,
which, in one instance, in the State of Virginia,
broke out into actual insurrection. This
was easily suppressed; but many of those
concerned (between twenty and thirty, I believe )
fell victims to the law. So extensive
an execution could not but excite sensibility in
the public mind, and beget a regret that the
laws had not provided for such cases, some
alternative, combining more mildness with
equal efficacy. The Legislature of the State
* * * took the subject into consideration, and
have communicated to me through the Governor
of the State, their wish that some
place could be provided, out of the limits of
the United States, to which slaves guilty of
insurgency might be transported; and they
have particularly looked to Africa as offering
the most desirable receptacle. We might, for
this purpose, enter into negotiations with the
natives, on some part of the coast, to obtain
a settlement; and, by establishing an African
company, combine with it commercial operations,
which might not only reimburse expenses,
but procure profit also. But there being
already such an establishment on that
coast by the English Sierra Leone Company,
made for the express purpose of colonizing
civilized blacks to that country, it would seem
better, by incorporating our emigrants with
theirs, to make one strong, rather than two
weak colonies. This would be the more desirable
because the blacks settled at Sierra
Leone, having chiefly gone from the States,
would often receive among those whom we
should send, their acquaintances and relatives.
The object of this letter is to ask * * * you
to enter into conference with such persons,
private and public, as would be necessary
to give us permission to send thither the persons
under contemplation. * * * They are
not felons, or common malefactors, but persons
guilty of what the safety of society, under
actual circumstances, obliges us to treat
as a crime, but which their feelings may represent
in a far different shape. They will be
a valuable acquisition to the settlement, * * *
and well calculated to cooperate in the plan
of civilization.—
To Rufus King. Washington ed. iv, 442.
Ford ed., viii, 161.
(W.
1802)
