'From motives of generosity, as well as self-preservation': Thomas Branagan, Colonization, and the Gradual Emancipation Movement
Titel:
'From motives of generosity, as well as self-preservation': Thomas Branagan, Colonization, and the Gradual Emancipation Movement
Auteur:
Tomek, Beverly
Verschenen in:
American nineteenth century history
Paginering:
Jaargang 6 (2005) nr. 2 pagina's 121-147
Jaar:
2005-06
Inhoud:
The idea of colonizing free blacks in areas distant from white settlement has had a long history in the American antislavery movement. A decade before the American Colonization Society formed in 1817, an Irish immigrant in Philadelphia, Thomas Branagan, argued that creating a black settlement in the newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase territories would encourage slaveholders to emancipate their bondspersons while also saving white society from a number of ills he associated with a biracial society, most notably racial mixing, poverty and violence. Branagan's plan never gained acceptance, but the idea of sending free blacks to the American West to encourage emancipation did catch the attention of gradual emancipationists associated with the American Convention of Abolitionists. This group considered a similar scheme as the lesser of two evils once the Colonization Society began its campaign to send America's blacks “back” to Africa. Neither plan met with success, but their existence reveals an important link between colonization and the early antislavery movement.
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