The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States | Page 6

taskmasters, but being a race of
people raised to the sports of fishing, the chase, and of war, were
wholly unaccustomed to labor, and therefore sunk under the
insupportable weight, two millions and a half having fallen victims to
the cruelty of oppression and toil suddenly placed upon their shoulders.

And it was only this that prevented their farther enslavement as a class,
after the provinces were absolved from the British Crown. It is true that
their general enslavement took place on the islands and in the mining
districts of South America, where indeed, the Europeans continued to
enslave them, until a comparatively recent period; still, the design, the
feeling, and inclination from policy, was the same to do so here, in this
section of the continent.
Nor was it until their influence became too great, by the political
position occupied by their brethren in the new republic, that the
German and Irish peasantry ceased to be sold as slaves for a term of
years fixed by law, for the repayment of their passage-money, the
descendants of these classes of people for a long time being held as
inferiors, in the estimation of the ruling class, and it was not until they
assumed the rights and privileges guaranteed to them by the established
policy of the country, among the leading spirits of whom were their
relatives, that the policy towards them was discovered to be a bad one,
and accordingly changed. Nor was it, as is frequently very erroneously
asserted, by colored as well as white persons, that it was on account of
hatred to the African, or in other words, on account of hatred to his
color, that the African was selected as the subject of oppression in this
country. This is sheer nonsense; being based on policy and nothing else,
as shown in another place. The Indians, who being the most foreign to
the sympathies of the Europeans on this continent, were selected in the
first place, who, being unable to withstand the hardships, gave way
before them.
But the African race had long been known to Europeans, in all ages of
the worlds history, as a long-lived, hardy race, subject to toil and labor
of various kinds, subsisting mainly by traffic, trade, and industry, and
consequently being as foreign to the sympathies of the invaders of the
continent as the Indians, they were selected, captured, brought here as a
laboring class, and as a matter of policy held as such. Nor was the
absurd idea of natural inferiority of the African ever dreamed of, until
recently adduced by the slave-holders and their abettors, in justification
of the policy. This, with contemptuous indignation, we fling back into
their face, as a scorpion to a vulture. And so did our patriots and leaders

in the cause of regeneration know better, and never for a moment
yielded to the base doctrine. But they had discovered the great fact, that
a cruel policy was pursued towards our people, and that they possessed
distinctive characteristics which made them the objects of proscription.
These characteristics being strongly marked in the colored people, as in
the Indians, by color, character of hair and so on, made them the more
easily distinguished from other Americans, and the policies more
effectually urged against us. For this reason they introduced the subject
of emigration to Canada, and a proper institution for the education of
the youth.
At this important juncture of their proceedings, the afore named white
gentlemen were introduced to the notice of the Convention, and after
gaining permission to speak, expressed their gratification and surprise
at the qualification and talent manifested by different members of the
Convention, all expressing their determination to give the cause of the
colored people more serious reflection. Mr. Garrison, the youngest of
them all, and none the less honest on account of his youthfulness, being
but 26 years of age at the time, (1831) expressed his determination to
change his course of policy at once, and espouse the cause of the
elevation of the colored people here in their own country. We are not at
present well advised upon this point, it now having escaped our
memory, but we are under the impression that Mr. Jocelyn also, at once
changed his policy.
During the winter of 1832, Mr. Garrison issued his "Thoughts on
African Colonization," and near about the same time or shortly after,
issued the first number of the "Liberator," in both of which, his full
convictions of the enormity of American slavery, and the wickedness of
their policy towards the colored people, were fully expressed. At the
sitting of the Convention in this year, a number, perhaps all of these
gentlemen were present, and those who had denounced the
Colonization scheme, and espoused the cause of the elevation of the