INSTANCES ILLUSTRATING DIFFICULTIES 71 he writes, "but I remember the incident perfectly. I recall the weeping family that parted with these servants, who were very dear to us." Traverse Herndon, of Fauquier, who died in 1854, by his last will emancipated his slaves, some fifty in number, and made provision for their transportation to Liberia. Two years later his brother, Thaddeus Herndon, emancipated his slaves, some twenty in number, and the two groups of freedmen, except such as were too old to bear the dangers of the voyage and life in the new country, were sent to Liberia in the fall of 1857, under the care of an agent of the American Colonization Society. The Rev. Charles T. Herndon, of Salem, Virginia, has furnished the author with an account of the parting between these freedmen and his father, Thaddeus Herndon, which occurred on board of the ship "Euphrasia," written by the Rev. John Seys,' a former missionary to Liberia, 'Under date of March 19, 1907, Mr. Barton writes the author: "My father manumitted his slaves, or rather, certain of them, before the war. Under the law as I remember it, it was not necessary to put on record a deed of manumission of a slave who was sent out of the state. I was quite a small boy at the time, but I remember the incident perfectly. I recall the weeping family that parted with these servants, who were very dear to us. Many years after that I received a visit from one of the women who had been the assistant in the nursery, and to whom, as a child, I remember I was very devoted. I do not believe that two near relations could have had a more affecting greeting. She stayed in Winchester for nearly a week, coming to my house every day, and finally went away without bidding us good bye, writing back from her home that she had done so because she could not stand the parting. The other servants who went away also kept up with our family the most affectionate relations for many years, and the old ones, who could not get away, were supported by my brothers and myself after the war until they died." 'Mr. Seys records that his experience as a missionary in Liberia prompted him to visit these emigrants on board ship, just prepara 72 OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION who was present on the occasion. The subjoined extract from Mr. Seys' account of the separation, which was published soon afterwards in the Maryland Colonization Journal, presents in the most vivid manner the sorrow attending the parting of Thaddeus Herndon and his former slaves, and the reverence and affection with which the slaves of Traverse Herndon regarded their dead master. Not infrequently the many difficulties which embarrassed the efforts of Virginia slaveholders to colonize their exslaves at points beyond the state were increased by the attitude of the slaves themselves. The experience of John Thom, of Berry Hill, Culpeper County, as related in a letter to the author under date of July 15th, 1908, by his son Cameron E. Thom, of Los Angeles, Cal., will serve as an illustration. Mr. Cameron Thom is at present a man of venerable years who seems to retain a vivid impression of the scenes incident to the attempt at colonization made by his father in the later thirties. Mr. Thom, tory to their departure, and at the request of Mr. Herndon, make them a short address. He then writes: "I closed my remarks and Mr. Herndon followed me." The latter said: "I may not see you again, I may as well say all I have to say now." And then he became so choked for utterance, and tears fell so fast that a silence ensued only broken by sighs and sobs of the entire party. Again he continued: "My heart is too full. I can hardly speak. You know how we have lived together. Servants, hear me, we have been brothers and sisters, we have grown up together. We have done the best for you. For two or three years this has been contemplated and you are now on the point of starting for the land of your ancestors. Besides your freedom, we have spent $2,000.00 in procuring everything we could think of to make you comfortable-clothing, bedding, implements of husbandry, mechanics' tools, books for the children, Bibles, a family Bible for each family, all these have been provided, and when you have been there some few months, we will send you out another supply of provisions and will continue to do So. And now, you three brethren, who formed the committee OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION 73 after narrating that his father was a soldier in the War of 1812, where he gained his title as commander of a Virginia regiment, and was for thirty years a member of the State Senate, proceeds to write with reference to his father's attitude towards slavery as follows: "He was not satisfied with it, and was restive under it. In his discussions of the subject he often quoted as expressive of his views Mr. Jefferson, who declared that 'We have the wolf by the ears, and it is as dangerous to let go as it is to hold on.' I believe they were both gradual emancipationists. The idea of practical and immediate emancipation through the medium of colonization seems to have crystallized in his mind and stimulated him to action. He sent my eldest brother, Catesby Thom, to Pennsylvania to spy out the land and to make definite arrangements for the location, settlement and comfort of the proposed colony. After an absence of several weeks, he returned and reported that he had selected an ideal location for the experiment. Every desideratum seems to have been taken into consideration, climate, wood, water, fertility of the soil, products, neighbors, etc. "To carry out my father's plan, the next step was to call for eighteen volunteers to make up the colony. Here came a great disappointment. Of the number called for only one suitable man responded. . . . The volunteer idea was abandoned and conscription was resorted to. When the names of the eighteen chosen ones were announced the plantation was indeed a house of mourning. appointed by the church to watch over your brethren, a word to you. You are chosen to admonish, guide, counsel the others, not to lord it over them, but gently and kindly to watch over their souls; and now, may God bless you. I can never forget you. Write to me, Washington, you can write; I have provided you with paper. Keep a journal, put all of your names down, even the children, and write opposite to each one everything that happens concerning you. I shall feel much interested in hearing from youespecially will your Miss Frances. (Here the bare mention of their 74 OPPOSITION OF FREEDMEN TO COLONIZATION Prayers, protests and petitions came up, but were of no avail. A complete outfit was made up of three wagons, twelve oxen, three cows, tools, farming utensils, provisions, clothing, &c. The expedition got off all right, my brother Catesby being chief in command, and Uncle Billy Guinn, the only volunteer, a full second. Before the expiration of a week from the time of departure, two of the colonists had deserted and were back at Berry Hill, and in less than a year nearly all the others had found their way back. My brother, after some two months' absence, got back and reported that he would not go through with his experience again for all the negroes in Virginia. "I left Virginia for the South in 1848; returning in a few weeks, I took my final departure from the state in the early Spring of 1849 for California where I have resided ever since, never having seen my father again. I believe he manumitted all or nearly all of the servants by deed or will." almost adored mistress started their grief afresh.) Now, as we may never meet again, let us part with prayer, let all kneel down, and Brother Seys will lead in prayer to Almighty God for you all." We knelt there, and under feelings words but poorly express, engaged in prayer as best we could amid cries and sobs and tears. EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION: VIEWS OF Ir it be urged that Virginia had reached the conclusion that without the dispersion or colonization of the whole or a large portion of her slave population emancipation was impracticable, it may be acknowledged that to a qualified extent this was true. The position, however, did not involve an abandonment of the principle of emancipation, but rather the insistence that with emancipation should go the work of solving the race problem by a method which gave some assurance of complete success. That this attitude of Virginia cannot be regarded as wholly unreasonable or reactionary will appear when we consider the views of some of the leading friends of negro emancipation. From the number of those whose sanity kept pace with their zeal, we select Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Jefferson in 1820 wrote: "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain than that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." Writing to Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College, in 1824, he said: "In the disposition of these unfortunate people there 'Jefferson Manuscript, Raynor, p. 64. |