Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party | Page 7

below two extracts from letters of Professor Freeman. The Professor is now as he then was, the Principal of Avery College.
ALLEGHANY CITY, April 14, 1858
MY DEAR FRIEND--Your letter of condolence was duly received, for which we tender you our warmest thanks.
I have read Bowen's work, and shall to-day purchase Livingstone's. I am more and more convinced that Africa is the country to which all colored men who wish to attain the full stature of manhood, and bring up their children to be men and not creeping things, should turn their steps; and I feel more and more every day, that I made a great mistake in not going there, when I was untrammelled by family ties, and had the opportunity.
Respectfully yours, M. H. Freeman
Again the Professor says:
I see that Emigration has broken out in the East, and that ---- can notice one now without scoffing at, which he could not in 1854. Well, people can grow wondrously wise in four years. But it will take several more Olympiads to bring the leaders among us up to the old Cleveland Platform of 1854.
All the fault of that movement was this, that it was at least one generation ahead of the colored heads of our people. We may, if we please, refuse to emigrate, and crouch like spaniels, to lick the hand that beats us; but children's children at the farthest, will have outgrown such pitiful meanness, and will dare to do all that others have dared and done for the sake of freedom and independence. Then all this cowardly cant about the unhealthy climate, the voracious beasts, and venomous reptiles of Africa, will be at a discount, instead of passing current as now for wisdom and prudence.
Mr. Campbell, who finally agreed voluntarily to be one of the "Niger Valley Exploring Party," spent some time with us in New York and some time in Philadelphia, but finally, in consequence of the doubtful prospects of my success, left, it would seem, at the suggestion and with the advice and recommendation of parties in Philadelphia, disconnected with and unknown to me, from whom he received letters of introduction for England. In justice to myself and party as organized, as well as the great cause and people whom I represent, I here simply remark, that this was no arrangement of mine nor our party, as such at the time; and whatever of success the visit was attended with, and benefit thereby accrued mutually to us in Africa, I as frankly decline any authority in the matter and credit to myself, as I should had the result proved what it might have done otherwise. I am only willing to claim that which is legitimately mine, and be responsible for my own doings whether good or bad; but this act the integrity of the Party was forced to acknowledge, as the following circular published in England will show:
EXPEDITION TO AFRICA TO PROMOTE THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON AND OTHER PRODUCTS OF SLAVE-LABOR BY EMIGRANTS FROM AMERICA
A party, consisting of Martin R. Delany, M.D., Robert Campbell, J. W. Purnell, Robert Douglass, and Amos Aray, M.D., (the last two subsequently omitted) has been commissioned by a Convention of Colored Persons, held at Chatham, C.W., to proceed to Africa, and select a location for the establishment of an Industrial Colony.
While such an enterprise is of importance in the Evangelization and Civilization of Africa, and in affording an asylum in which the oppressed descendants of that country may find the means of developing their mental and moral faculties unimpeded by unjust restrictions, it is regarded as of still greater importance in facilitating the production of those staples, particularly Cotton, which now are supplied to the world chiefly by Slave Labor. The effect of this would be to lessen the profits of Slavery, to render in time the slave a burden to his owner, and thus furnish an irresistible motive to Emancipation. Africa possesses resources which, properly developed, must doubtless render her eventually a great, if not the greatest, producer of all the products of Slave Labor. And how would all good men rejoice to see the blow which shall effectually prostrate the giant Slavery, struck by the Black Man's arm! It is necessary, however, that civilized influences be diffused in her midst or, at least, that facilities for rendering available her products, be supplied equal to the demand for them.
It is the purpose of the party to proceed to Lagos, thence through Abbeokuta to Rabba, on the Niger, about 350 miles from the coast; to study the Agricultural and Commercial facilities of the country, and the disposition of the Natives towards strangers as settlers; also to negotiate for the grant or purchase of land, and to ascertain the conditions on which we might be protected in the usages of civilized life.
These objects