From North America to Hispaniola: First Free Black Emigration and Settlements in Hispaniola

FROM NORTH AMERICA TO HISPANIOLA: FIRST FREE BLACK EMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENTS IN HISPANIOLA Dennis R. Hidalgo A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, Michigan December, 2001 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3094671 UMI UMI Microform 3094671 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Accepted by the Faculty of the College of Graduate Studies, Central Michigan University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctoral degree Dissertation Co Chairperson Faculty Member Faculty Member Faculty Member Faculty Member Date: NjdVffWfe£ 2 .x , 'LaoX ■ Dean College of Graduate Studies 't Date: M ^ c -s 2^00 3 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Transforming Experience “My writing to his president [to Jean Pierre Boyer] was condemned, denatured... I was attacked as the one that wanted to remove the servants of the people and relocate in Haiti as many blacks that I could, so I could plot an insurrection in the South. The current was so strong against me, that I could not withstand it. I had to write to your father that ‘all was lost,’ and my own compatriots almost rejected me. In fact, I was tested with big disappointments and of big deprivations.” Loring D. Dewey recalling the immigration experience. “I trust that it will come the day in the future that we the missionaries in Haiti will enjoy the sympathies and prayers of the British Christians .... You provide us with what satisfies all our needs, but in this country,.. . many other things make that one would feel, sometimes, willing to exclaim: 'I am a forgotten man, and I feel like dead out of the view of the rest.” William Cardy in Samana with the immigrants. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Dennis R. Hidalgo 2001 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my wife, Griselle Vargas And to my children, Ricardo and Jared v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Big thanks for my main advisor Thomas Benjamin, a person of precise words, who regularly wrote urging me to write, and for the many times he trusted me more than I trusted myself. Our friendship is as valuable as gold. Thanks also to Timothy Hall, who probably never noticed it, but his drive for excellence and high standards was always a motivation to me. I sought his advice even in areas outside of his expertise because his thinking applied well to every form of scholarship. Professor Carol Green read my dissertation and counseled me on many other academic issues too. Her experience with researches similar to mine was crucial in directing me to practical approaches in my dissertation. Thanks Professor Green. I thank Professor Luis Martinez -Fernandez who constantly advised me regarding primary sources and historiography. His detailed knowledge of my area of study prompted me to consult him frequently. Thanks to B.R. Tomlinson, for his support, patience, and encouragement throughout my time in Strathclyde. Thanks to Marvette Perez at the Smithsonian Institution for her ability to open up new horizons in my imagination and for showing me a dynamic world that is usually hidden from mainstream thinking. Thanks to Margaret Stanton for her suggestions and support while in Sweet Briar College. Thanks also to James Schmiechem for his valuable support and guidance while the comprehensive examinations. None of these pages could have been printed without the logistical service of Annette Davis who from the office of the History Department at Central Michigan University. Thanks to all. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It is significant that I am writing this acknowledgement while my wife is in another office about 20 meters away receiving copies of my chapters electronically to proof read and reformat them. Yes, we have done many things “on the net.” She has been patient with me in my moments of self-doubt and vacillation and she has spent innumerable hours alone during the past years enduring the final stages of the dissertation process, often only able to watch from a distance as I ponder over each word, each comma, and each turn of phrase. Thank you Lissy, for everything. It is also important that while I am writing these last pages of my dissertation I am thinking and looking at my kids’ pictures. When I first started my doctoral program my main motivation was to set an example to them. Seemed odd since entering the program meant earning less money and having less time for them. But it was the thought that my kids in the future would have a valuable model that motivated me to go through the drilling courses and exams leading to the completion of this dissertation. The model I strived to be was not that of a superb human being, but that of a man that achieved goals that few thought he could. The thought of what they would think about their father gave me a strength that I never experienced before. Thank you Ricardo and Jared for the energy. I also want to thank the institutions of Central Michigan University, Smithsonian Institution, Sweet Briar College and the Hispanic Theological Initiative for their financial support through fellowships and grants. vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT FROM NORTH AMERICA TO HISPANIOLA: FIRST FREE BLACK EMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENTS IN HISPANIOLA By Dennis R. Hidalgo This archival study focuses on philanthropy and missionary activities concerning free blacks that settled in Haiti. From 1824 to 1826 about six thousand free blacks departed from the United States to settle on the multipart island of Hispaniola. The literature concerning this affair has emphasized its relationship to Black Nationalism in the United States or to the remnant community in the island. The present study differs from the little published work about the immigrants by analyzing the crossing of racial and cultural lines by those whites who aided the free blacks in the immigration and settlement processes. Loring Dewey helped organize the immigration in opposition to powerful interests. In researching the archival documents pertaining to his story this study found Cardy’s identity challenged when he glimpsed the blacks’ condition. A similarly experience, this research found, happened to William Cardy, a British missionary that lived among the immigrants after their settlement in Hispaniola. He felt detached from his homeland after a series of personal crises, and as a result, moved closer to those he tried to convert. This study was based on research done in archives in Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, and the United States. viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION Opening................................................ 1 The Study..........................................................................................................7 Timing............................................................................................................... 8 8 Thesis............................. Historiography................................................................................................11 Methodology........................................................................ 23 Format............................. 26 II. LORING D. DEWEY AND THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY: PHILANTHROPY AND IMPERIALISM Introduction.....................................................................................................35 Benevolence and the Revolutionary Age..................................................... 39 Repercussions of the Haiti an Revolution..................................................... 44 Haiti, North American Imperialism and the Origins of the American Colonization Society......................................................................................47 Formation of the American Colonization Society............... 54 Agent Loring D. Dewey.................................................................................59 III. LORING D. DEWEY AND THE BLACK EMIGRATION TO HAITI: PHILANTHROPY AND IMPERIALISM Introduction.....................................................................................................73 Dewey’s Insurrection and Communication with H aiti ..................... 78 Boyer’ Strategies.............................................................................................81 Granville’s Trip to the United States and Dewey’s Friendship................. 85 The New Philanthropic Societies................ 92 The Immigrants...............................................................................................99 Motivations, Immigration and Settlement................................................. 102 IV. THE HAITIAN SUPREMACY AND THE AMERICANOS Introduction................................................................................................... 117 Hispaniola Subjugated by European Colonialisms................... 120 The French and Haitian Revolutions..................................... 130 An Independent Haiti and the Spanish Territory.......................................135 Jean Pierre Boyer’s Land and Labor Program...................... 138 The Immigrant’s Reaction...........................................................................145 ix Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V. VI. THE BLACK AMERICANOS IN SAMANA AND WILLIAM CARDY Introduction........................................ 154 The Coming of the Missionaries....................... 159 Imperialism and Local Culture................................... 168 The Missionary's Conversion...................................................................... 178 Analysis......................................................................................................... 183 CONCLUSION.. 193 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................... 206 x Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Opening Between 1824 and 1826, a large group of free black North Americans took to the Atlantic Ocean in a direction few travelers were taking at that time. In the nineteenth century, most of the ships in the Atlantic carrying travelers seeking better lives went west from Europe toward the Western Hemisphere.1 However, these audacious free blacks were not heading west. Nor were they going east toward Africa, as some former slaves from the United States were doing under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. Since 1822, this society, the ACS, had been sponsoring voyages to Western Africa with the mission of relieving the United States of unwanted free blacks. This they did, ironically, while also claiming to provide them with better living conditions than those they found in North America. However, in 1824 these new groups of free blacks departing from Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and New York, were heading south to Haiti, thus opening a different route for black emigration.3 The mass emigration to Haiti began when an agent of the American Colonization Society, Loring D. Dewey, boldly and without permission from the Society contacted the President of Haiti to inquire about the benefits of his country for the North American blacks. Plans for the emigration started to move on strides after Jonathas Granville, a special envoy from Haiti, arrived on the United States to advance his government’s offers. Dewey and Granville labored in concert with other philanthropists and abolitionists, most of them Quakers that resisted the idea of sending free blacks to Africa. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. After farewells from churches throughout the east coast of the young republic of the United States a total of approximately 6000 emigrants parted intermittently for about two years in charted commercial vessels toward Haiti, the other brand new republic in the Americas. Haiti at that time included both the western French and eastern Spanish sections, thus, it comprised two separated societies under the government of Haitian President Pierre Boyer. Both populations, the Spanish speaking that later became the Dominican Republic, and the French speaking that freed itself from French rule in 1804, shared the island of Hispaniola since colonial times. Many of the black emigrants intending to move to this island embarked with their families, friends, and few belongings to set up house in the midst of this unique intermingle of cultures. They all left the country in which they were bom filled with hopes and encouragements from ministers and philanthropists that worked hard to help prepare their enthusiasm for this major occasion. The few literates among the emigrants promised to write back, and none thought of returning before fulfilling their duty with destiny. These free blacks were going to build new prosperous homes and demonstrate the world that they were capable of creating powerful nations. By staying in the Western Hemisphere these emigrants were challenging assumptions that blacks could only thrive in the yet unknown continent of Africa. Even so, they choose a nation of mostly blacks in the Americas believing that dwelling among people of the same facial appearance was the solution to their social problems. Most emigrants were confident that by taking this voyage toward the Caribbean they were bringing about a favorable turnaround in their lives. Some of these black settlers believed triumph over oppression in this new land of 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. freedom would be at their reach only by practicing the principles of Protestant Christianity, despite the fact that the majority of the population in the island was Catholic. After establishing settlements on Hispaniola some of the immigrants discovered that Haiti was no paradise as they have believed and started back to the U.S. The difference in language, religion, politics and culture in general made them uncomfortable with the country in a way they never imagined. Apparently these regretful immigrants have become accustomed to the way of life in the United States that they preferred it despite prejudices against their ethnic group. However, the majority of those individuals who came with the migration seeking better lives stayed in the island. Relocation was a painful process for most of the immigrants despite the power of any utopian promise they may have believed at the time of departure. Thus, they must have had strong reasons to leave the U.S. in such numbers. Those who stayed in the island may have likewise needed compelling motivations to return to the U.S. since relocating back would have been expensive, embarrassing and doubly disturbing. Moreover, many had come to believe that they had the responsibility of conveying a positive influence to the locals and helping the country of Haiti to come out of ignorance and backwardness. To make better use of their labor in agriculture the Haitian government spread the immigrants, now called by the locals “Americanos,” around precise rural locations throughout the island. Yet, after a short time most of them found their way to busy urban centers, typically to ports, while just a minority complied with the government orders and stayed in the countryside. No matter where they were established, the bulk of the “Americanos” decided to build with the materials available to them at hand. Some were successful in business and the military, but most simply blended with the ordinary 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. islanders following careers that profitably took advantage of their expertise, as the English language skills were badly needed for oversea trading at harbors. Aside from those who found a niche within the Spanish and French speaking communities, a minority of “Americanos” still clung badly to their Protestant religion and English language as markers of their cultural identity. These remnants wanted to recover the spiritual intensity they have achieved in the U.S. at the time of emigration and hoped to serve as examples of successful virtuous individuals to their communities. For this purpose a few of them requested missionaries from religious institutions back in the U.S. A group of “Americanos” on the Spanish side in the peninsula of Samana that had stayed away from large cities in their assigned rural positions sought with even greater yearning the prospect of establishing permanent Protestant communities in the island. Since the U.S. did not respond to their call for spiritual service the “Americanos” sent their request for attention to Britain instead. Fortunately for the remnants, the British Wesleyans did respond to their call from Hispaniola with eagerness. On their part, the Wesleyans set out to traverse the Atlantic toward Haiti motivated by a renewed concern for conditions in the Caribbean and a determination to prove that with the proper stimulus ex-slaves in these islands could regain their human worth. John Tindall was the first British missionary to arrived in 1835 at Puerto Plata, a northern port city on the Spanish speaking side and following him came William Cardy two years later. After a stint in Puerto Plata at Tindall’s side Cardy was assigned to Samana to care of the mostly rural “Americanos” there. Both reached Hispaniola with the intention of offering the best that Western Christianity could offer to the impoverished people in the Caribbean that were not profiting yet from the advantages of Western Civilization. The missionaries’ arrival 4 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. produced on these remnants a similar enthusiasm that had produced their own departure from the United States around ten years earlier. The reason was simple. With the missionaries at their side the “Americanos” could become a special people representing prudence and progress in the midst of the immorality and ignorance that seemed to plague the island. In the 1820s, humanitarians like Dewey and Granville that encouraged free blacks to dream of a better land in this earth believed themselves righteously by assisting those persecuted by racism to leave the United States, a prejudiced nation. They thought that instead of attempting to seek happiness in this northern nation as demoralized citizens the free blacks were better off settling in tropical Haiti, a hypothetically tolerant country suitable only for people of color. Similarly, those missionaries like Tindall and Cardy that in the next decade of 1830s were sent to give a hand to the black immigrants already established in the island trusted that their commission came from heaven because they carried the seeds of civilization and progress. By preaching their variation of the biblical gospel to these blacks settled in Hispaniola the Wesleyans would empower the immigrants to create moral and modem communities. By planting the seed of progress the missionaries were preparing the ground for this country to claim a place among the civilized nations once the majority of the population had chosen to follow their message. These humanitarians and missionaries shared a sense of a world that stretched beyond their localities. With this broaden social awareness came a longing to help improve their own communities and that of other distant societies as well. Their consciousness of an extended world and the existence of societies that were different and far from their own coincided with the spread of capitalism, the increase of 5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. industrialization, and the intensification of European hegemony over the world. Societies that were once in isolation, detached and protected from powerful centers of commercial, industrial and cultural enterprises were now being caught into a web of connections that brought them together on a seemingly enlarged world. These emergent labor, trading, and cultural links joined communities sometimes on drastically unequal terms producing in turn inequitable life conditions for many. The forces of industrialization and private enterprise that were at the heart of this new enlarging world were enhancing old forms of social malaises and creating new ones. Fragile dependent economies like Haiti’s, extreme urban poverty in all major Atlantic cities, and sprawling social dislocations wherever western powers moved were becoming customary sights. In this new brave world the philanthropists and missionaries felt the need to help progress by filling the moral gaps with benevolence. It seems that, a new enlarged world with new evils was motivating them to action for the benefit of humanity. With an awaken conscience and faith in the potential of all human races they strived to bring all men and women to a higher level of human achievement. However, these benevolent souls, individuals who dedicated themselves for the benefit of the blacks immigrants, did not know that their lives would be transformed as much by the experience. By helping others they were changed. As both the philanthropists and missionaries became involved in the plight of the immigrants some met personal tragedies that made it easier for them to reach critically intimate points of contact with the blacks’ condition. Loring D. Dewey became so close to the free blacks that his former network of friends abandoned him. Jonathas Granville suffered from public prejudice in the United States as most blacks habitually experienced. William Cardy lost his wife in Samana and had no other option but to 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. depend on the locals for survival. These proximities with the downtrodden enabled them to appreciate and appropriate some of the immigrants’ attitudes and viewpoints in a way that differed considerably from that of their peers. The story of all of them is one that highlights the complexities of the human spirit and its quest for freedom. This story has not been told enough. The Study This historical study about emigration and religion improves our sketchy knowledge of the history of Atlantic philanthropy and Protestantism in the Caribbean. It also helps view unusual details of the deployment and contestation of cultural and political power in that area during the early part of the nineteenth-century. For the purpose of this study, the context of imperial struggles in the early nineteenth century Caribbean offers a unique opportunity to investigate the relationship of foreign philanthropy and imported religions to cultural imperialism and host cultures. The main historical concerns of the following pages are the philanthropists that assisted the free blacks in their departure from the United States, the cultural politics of Haiti and the U.S. concerning the immigration, and the missionaries that service them after their settlement on the island of Hispaniola. More specifically, this work focuses on Loring D. Dewey, Jonathas Granville, Pierre Boyer and William Cardy. Their stories are told here from the beginning of the emigration as a philanthropic offshoot of the American Colonization Society, to the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries assigned to evangelize the immigrants, now called “Americanos” in Hispaniola. 7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Timing Aside from the historical backgrounds given with the intention of consigning the story to contexts of meaning, the core narrative focuses on the years from 1817 to 1842. In 1817 a group of eager philanthropists met in Washington D.C. to form the American Colonization Society for the purpose of ejecting as many free blacks as possible from the U.S. to western Africa. From 1824 to 1826 several small societies challenged the ACS by promoting emigration of free blacks to the isolated country of Haiti. The interest of these societies in assisting emigration to Haiti coincided with the Haitian government’s interest in seeking immigration to improve its own domestic and international situation. About a decade later, in 1837, William Cardy arrived in Hispaniola from Britain to convert and provide spiritual service to the immigrants residing in the Spanish section of the island. Although Cardy was the second British missionary in Haiti, he was the first to reside specifically with the immigrants living in the peninsula of Samana, on which the last chapter of this dissertation focuses. Cardy concluded his ministry and left Hispaniola by 1842. Thus, the main events considered in this story happened during the first half of the nineteenth century, spanning a period of 25 years. Thesis On the whole the arguments articulated in this dissertation suggest that philanthropists, politicians, missionaries and free blacks themselves had different, and sometimes even contradictory goals with the emigration to and settlement in Hispaniola. Several reasons encouraged North American blacks to settle in Haiti. Curiosity about the country and a desire to spread their kind of Christianity motivated some, while others aspired for personal aggrandizement. All, however, wanted to be free from social 8 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. constrains imposed on them by the racist society in which they lived. The North American philanthropists and religious leaders saw in the enterprise the most effective way of providing to an unwanted caste a place free of racial biases and an opportunity to choose their own destiny. Philanthropy in this way, however, was also being used to collaborate with imperialistic and nationalistic intentions that sought to create nations based on racial homogeneity. Instead of choosing reform of the North American society, as many other volunteer organizations were doing with their own projects, most of these philanthropic emigrationists accepted the belief that the U.S. was better off without the free blacks. By encouraging and hosting the emigration the Haitian government anticipated international recognition and the dispensing of first-rate workers that would contribute to its land modernization program. Jean Pierre Boyer, the Haitian President, appeared to believe that a fair amount of Protestant free blacks would also improve the morale and the enthusiasm for agricultural labor in his new nation. The missionaries that arrived in Haiti had intentions to recreate in the immigrants the values and ethos of their own North Atlantic Protestantism. The missionaries also intended to empower the immigrants by teaching them to read and by reforming their lifestyles. For them it was paramount that the immigrants should change their ways of thinking, move to a more individualistic lifestyle, and see themselves as a separate group from their Spanish and French speaking neighbors.4 Furthermore, all those involved with the emigration and with the immigrants saw in them free black’s cultivation of religiosity the key to foment an ideal social character. Indeed, black and white religious leaders used religion as a tool of social control with which potentially restless free blacks could canalize their energies toward 9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. more socially acceptable avenues. However, regardless of the diverse views about the purpose of the emigration, the totality of the project had aspects of opposition to the expansionist and racist trends evident in the North Atlantic economies of United States and Britain. Despite the strong and seemingly honorable objectives behind the efforts to relocate free blacks in Haiti the scheme did not generate most of the results that its supporters and participants projected. Both the Haitian government and the North American philanthropists became disillusioned with the project rather quickly and this contributed to its demise two years after it started. Illegal transportation of immigrants by captains, mismanagement in the relocation program by the Haitian government, and a supercilious attitude from some immigrants were responsible for the disillusionment. Most immigrants did not find the paradise they were anticipating in Haiti, so they abandoned their lands, and some even returned to the U.S. Consequently, the Haitian government did not get the workers it wanted nor the positive influence it was hoping to receive from the immigrants’ distinctive Protestant character. Moreover, the immigration did not yield international political recognition to the struggling Haitian government. A group of immigrants, however, settled in the remote peninsula of Samana and were able to create an almost Utopian religious community with peculiar social characteristics. Religion for them became a way of expressing their cultural differences from the rest of society. Also remarkable, two of the individuals involved in helping the immigrants settle in Haiti were profoundly transformed by the experience of philanthropy and compassion. Loring D. Dewey, a North American philanthropist largely responsible for starting the emigration project in the U.S. came to identify himself radically with the 10 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. immigrants. Something similar happened to a British Methodist missionary that about ten years later attempted to evangelize the immigrants already settled in a comer of Hispaniola. Despite living in different times and locations they both experienced social and cultural conversions after relatively long contact with the free blacks. Out of these experiences both the philanthropist and the missionary came to perceive reality similarly to the way that the immigrants perceived it and found themselves more comfortable among them than with their previous company. Personal loss and social rejections were the catalysts that propelled these changes in both the philanthropist and the missionary. This research, thus, also seeks to problematize the issue of religion and philanthropy by examining the experiences of philanthropists as well as of missionaries. Historiography Several writers have been concerned with the history of the North American immigrants and its descendants in Hispaniola. Most estimations place the number of immigrants around 6,000. Direct and self-aware descendants from the original immigrants presently live in the peninsula of Samana, where the most cohesive and enduring group have survived culturally and socially for close to two centuries. Members of this group still speak English (although most are bilingual, speaking English and Spanish), are Methodists and call themselves Americanos as their parents used to do for many years. The uncommonness of this particular group that settled in Samana has attracted the attention of a few ethnologists, anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Sali Tagliamonte and Charles E. De Bose both have researched their spoken English.5 Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons and Martha Ellen Davis have written about their music and 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. religious traditions from an anthropological perspective.6 More recently Soraya Aracena has taken a casual look at the group’s religion, games, culinary, and way of life in a book meant for the general public.7 A small number of works have focused on explaining the history of this group. George A. Lockward edited and translated to the Spanish the entire collections of letters from the first two Methodist missionaries that worked with the immigrants in Hispaniola. At the time when these two missionaries were in Hispaniola the immigrants were still noticeable in cultural clusters throughout the whole island, particularly in Puerto Plata, Samana, Santo Domingo, Port au Prince, and Cape Haitian. Lockward also wrote about the history of Protestantism in the Dominican Republic where he dedicated plenty of space to the establishment of the immigrants’ religious communities. Despite serious deficiency in historical analysis and lack of a useful methodology Lockward’s works are valuable for their amount of primary sources consulted.8 Also focused in the group’s history, the celebrated Caribbean historian Harry Hoetink wrote what is probably the best-known article about the immigrants in Samana from a socio-historical point of view. Hoetink presented a concise, readable and yet scholarly account of the immigrants based on historical documents, but mainly on interviews done among the descendants. He attempted to understand their uniqueness using sociological views, and presented some accurate perceptions of the groups’ historical developments. An important point Hoetink emphasized was the effect of the group’s Protestant religion on their own identity.9 Other historical works dedicate a chapter or a section to consider the history and impact of the immigrants. Most of the approaches the authors used on these works, however, are plagued with serious methodological shortcomings that failed to read the 12 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. primary sources critically. In this way these attempts to create the immigrants’ history just perpetuated ongoing speculative legends about this peculiar group. Of special interest is the prominent Dominican historian Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi and his piece on the Americanos of Samana because his manner denoted the otherness in the immigrants’ descendants, the distance most Dominicans have felt from the members of this group. Jose Augusto Puig Ortiz focused on the immigrants that settled in Puerto Plata, which constructed the first Protestant chapel in the island. Puig’s intentions were to bring to historical light the existence and development of this particular settlement in Puerto Plata, which has been ignored by other historians. He also wanted to offer badly needed criticism to Lockward’s apologist approach to the history of the missionaries among the immigrants. However, despite the importance of the Puerto Plata settlement to the immigrants’ entire story, Ortiz failed to write a coherent monograph and present any appealing arguments for his thesis.10 Differently from these previous works Julie Winch gave a well-researched paper in 1988, in San German, Puerto Rico about the emigration itself. This paper was published that same year in Puerto Rico in a booklet form. Winch, a recognized historian of African American history, consulted key sources and presented a straightforward narrative of the events in the U.S. leading to the emigration. Her work is important because she was the first to attempt explaining how the emigration started in the United States by critically looking at most of the primary sources available on that subject.11 Of late, Chris Dixon has written an outstanding work on the several North American black emigrations to Haiti throughout the nineteenth-century. The first chapter deals almost exclusively with the Haitian emigration project within the U.S. black community, and the 13 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. abolitionist movement. In his book Dixon attempted to understand the emigration projects as part of Black Nationalism and of the creation of black identity in the United States. His use of critical analysis and a wealth of social and political assessments make his work of great value to this dissertation, particularly where it focus on the North American side of the emigration of 1824-6. He argued that “For some blacks, emigrationism—coupled with the establishment of an assertive black nationality—was not only a means of achieving individual self-advancement, but was also a political expression of their racial identity.” 12 Within the context of these immigrants’ histories this dissertation attempts to draw attention to problems and historical details not cover by other authors. It brings to light, for example, the importance of several individuals to the understanding of the story as a whole—individuals that have been largely ignored by other authors.13 One of these names is Thomas Jefferson, who played an important role in influencing North Americans regarding the condition of free blacks. In this same role there is a list of other well-known North Americans who participated in the creation of the American Colonization Society and in the efforts to oust free blacks from U.S. soil. Another name this dissertation brings to the fore is Jonathas Granville, who was a Haitian official with great ideals for Haiti, and who had the unique experience of being a diplomat in the United States at a time that there was no official relations between both countries. Persuasively he presented the Haitian point of view on international affairs and gave a glimpse of the Haitian elite’s culture. An additional individual is Loring D. Dewey who was a minister and agent of the American Colonization Society, who, as mentioned before, bolted from this institution and sparked a series of events that helped lead to the 14 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. immigration to Haiti. This study bases the newly found importance of these persons in the information found in a collection of letters and news clips edited by Granville’s son, and in select documents from the African Repository, which contains the main collection of documents related to the American Colonization Society.14 Inspired by Dixon and Winch, but differently from other monographs this dissertation gives weight to the black leaders in the U.S. and the role black religion played in the determining the immigration. Here Thomas Paul, Peter Williams, Richard Allen, and the black community in general appear as vital figures in shaping opinions, resisting oppression, and making the emigration happen. Also differently from other works is this dissertation’s attempt to understand the Haitian President’s desire for the immigrants. While other works barely mention the President, Jean Pierre Boyer, and his intention, this work sees the immigration project from the wider perspective of interests in Hispaniola and in the Haitian government. These interests were rooted in a long history of colonialism, in previous attempts to attract immigration, and in earlier efforts to create an agricultural state in the island. Moreover, this dissertation attempts to see individuals that other authors have referred to in new light. For example, William Cardy, who was the second British missionary in the island, but the first to settled with the immigrants in Samana. His coming to the lives of the immigrants was conditioned by religious and social developments happening in Britain and throughout the whole British Empire. He stamped a clear mark in the character of the immigrant’s community there, but was also changed drastically by the close contact with them. This dissertation dovetails with themes in history that have been and continue to be considered in-depth by historians and other scholars. For example, the Haitian 15 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Revolution and its impact in the Caribbean and the Atlantic World has been the subject of fascinating discussions. Scholars like Robin Blackburn, David Geggus, Carolyn Fick, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, have persuasively argued for the inclusion of the Haitian Revolution in the understanding of the developments in the Atlantic World during the whole nineteenth century. These scholars maintain that the Haitian Revolution produced both hope and freedom among oppressed free and slave blacks within the Atlantic World, and fear among the white elite of the ability of the blacks to determine their future in opposition to oppression. The impact was big enough to produce paradigmatic shifts in all social and ethnic classes throughout the Atlantic coast. The main arguments in this dissertation accommodate comfortably with this perception of the events that happened in the island of Hispaniola after 1791.15 For example, Free blacks in the United States saw in Haiti the land where blacks could determine their own future without unwanted intrusion, and this helped persuade black leaders to support the emigration project while rejecting colonization in Africa. On the other hand, this same perception of Haiti as a potential black power base deterred the American Colonization Society to support the emigration project to Haiti. Furthermore, Jean Pierre Boyer’s forceful, yet unsuccessful efforts to seek international recognition is clearer within the context of how offended imperial powers perceived the Haitian Revolution. Another major historical theme paralleled to this dissertation is the rise of humanitarianism and the development of new social sensibilities in industrial nations across the North Atlantic World during the latter part of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th. This multifaceted transatlantic social movement helped produce the push for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery. It also helped create numerous social 16 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. programs with the aim of reforming industrializating nations like the United States and Britain, and creating a modem efficient society. The eighteenth-century rise of compassion had a powerful effect on the acceptance of the abolitionists’ tenets and in the rise of many philanthropic enterprises, including the American Colonization Society. An educated and superior man by nature should have to be compassionate, sensitive to the needs and sufferings of others, particularly to masculine pain. In 1957, as product of his own research interest in philanthropy and the human condition, Merle Curti, demanded more attention to the historical motivations behind philanthropic movements.16 A year later an all-masculine Curti wrote that the original usage in English of the word philanthropy was equal to “a loving man.”17 In this article Curti enthusiastically depicted North American philanthropy as an integral part of the United States’ national character, thus, subtly equating most North Americans as loving men. His position reflects a now passe optimistic view of some national histories of that time. Yet, he was correct when he cast doubts on the complexities behind philanthropic and humanitarian motivations. The fact that these movements coincided with the rise of industri alization and capitalism among the same Western nations that were experiencing the new sensitivity makes the subject rather thorny, thus, in need of a multi-view approach. John Locke and his followers’ writings about the sensation and moral philosophy may have something to do with this new sensitivity. I8 But the persuasive Social Control theory that explains humanitarianism as a way to normalize the conduct of the subaltern classes has been the most powerful explanation yet. Since Michael Foucault’s Discipline and Punish it is hard to believe that philanthropy always comes from a disinterested heart, and that there are 17 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. not always other insinuating purposes in the pursue of humanitarian deeds.19 The basic idea behind this theory is that the state and the people with political power to protect will find ways to exercise control over society through humanitarian measures, as in the case of prisons, which were meant to reform criminals. The amount of works on humanitarianism, philanthropy and social control is enormous and valuable. on There are complications to this lopsided view, however, because to ignore the sincerity of the giver is to mechanize the human act of compassion. Thus, we continue to search for a way to include more explanations. Authors like Thomas L. Haskell, David Brion Davis and Eric Eustace Williams, for instance, have discussed the relationship of capitalism to the new sensibilities that produced the abolition of the slave trade and slavery. Of course, the issue of social control and humanitarianism is at the heart of this debate. William vigorously explained the rise of the new sensitivity as a result of class struggle—tied unilaterally to the interests of the bourgeoisie. Whatever was an obstacle to profits and power for the middle class was to be removed, and as Adam Smith had already stated, slavery was not profitable. Davis explained the relation between the rise of Capitalism and the new sensitivity by pointing out that the virtues the bourgeoisie held in high esteem went against the standards promoted by slavery. He avoided presenting humanitarianism as a conspiracy issue, as Williams had done, by using the Gramiscian angle of hegemony. Yet, he believed that the new middle class’ values were incompatible to the pre-modem working standards inherent in slavery, and this weighed in favor of abolition. Haskell, on the other hand, prefers to deal without the Marxian paradigm of class straggles and sees the rise of sensitivity as a result of a new awareness of social responsibility (a change in 18 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cognitive style) developed by capitalism and the discipline demanded by the capitalist market.21 As we go about understanding the lives of those in our story, particularly those influenced by this wave of new sensitivity, we find evidence of each of these three descriptions at different moments and different times. In other words, the philanthropists and religious leaders concerned with the plight of the free black in the U.S. and with the immigrants already settled in Hispaniola evidenced concerns for profit, for capitalist virtues, while also confirming a new sincere awareness of social responsibility. Monetary profit was the main interest of Jean Pierre Boyer and that of some of the philanthropists. The propagation of a lifestyle compatible to capitalism was also the concern of the Philanthropists and religious leaders alike. Moreover, following Haskell’s suggestion of the dual impact of the perception-emotion correlation, the stories of Cardy and Dewey i come alive as examples of emotions affected by perception. In both, the original opinions toward the free blacks were changed by a closer examination of their lives. By learning more of the blacks’ plight, Cardy and Dewey altered their attitude toward them, and in this way demonstrated a genuine awakening to social responsibility. This dissertation also engages another historical theme, namely, the Americas’ religious history, particularly the Protestant expansion in Latin America. Since the immigrants of which we are concerned here settled on the Spanish section of the island and were the first Protestants to arrive in these lands, they provide a historical model to understanding the diversity of Protestantism in Latin America. Protestantism, originally an Anglo-Saxon religion, in Latin America has been the attention of new and increasingly numerous investigations. This is because in the last two decades Protestantism, in 19 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. various forms, has been vigorously challenging the longstanding and pervasive Catholic hegemony in Latin America. Today more people convert to Pentecostalism, Protestant’s most popular expression, than to any other religion south of the Mexico-United States’ border. In his study of Brazil, Andrew Chesnut asserts that religious plurality has created an omnipresent religious marketplace in which there are more Protestants attending church on an average Sunday than Catholics.22 Throughout human history, both gradual and sudden changes in cosmology and religion in any given society has unequivocally produced political and cultural changes. Religion provides society with a set of comprehensive values and principles in which to organize the community, individual lives, and to make sense of almost every event. In addition, religion also appropriates the sources of emotions that motivate big and small human behaviors. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that societal Teutonic movements always follow shifts in religious preferences, which explains such an interest in the sudden (from a historical point of view) growth of Protestantism in Latin America. One of the most important writers on the theme of Protestantism in Latin America is Jean Pierre Bastian. His publications, which are many, mostly deal with the history of Protestantism, Masonry and their relationship to liberalism in Latin America. Bastian shunned away early from the Catholic apologist long-standing position that presented Protestant missions as a conspiracy from the British and North American imperialisms. Still, in his earlier publications he saw the expansion of Protestantism in Latin America as the expansion of social and political liberalism as well, particularly, the North American kind. While Bastian was writing on these themes during the 1980s few historians were actually paying much attention to these developments, but the few writers that were 20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. concerned with the subject saw.it from another perspective. Among them there was an increasing inclination to champion Protestantism as the harbinger of prosperity and the duplication of Anglo-Saxon cultures in Latin America. Predictably enough this position came from writers affiliated to Protestant institutions.23 Although the 1980s saw the most popular display of these ideas in U.S. circles, this blatant partiality continues still in the form of scholarship. At the heart of this debate is a tension between northern and southern ethos, Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic cultures. Amy L. Sherman, for example, dares to write in the tradition of the Black Legend, “Hispanic culture tended to put a brake on development because the Hispanic worldview is anti-democratic, anti-social, anti-progress, anti-entrepreneurial, and at least among the elite, anti-work”24 Apparently as a reaction to this partisanism in the scholarship of Protestantism in Latin America, Bastian and other writers have lately been emphasizing the creolization of Latin American Protestantism. Here we assume a simple interpretation of the term creolization, namely, that it is the process in which an alien religion adopts cultural traits of the local culture, and adapts to local circumstances; that what has become local. The stress in most of the scholarship is now on the power of the local environment to affect the incoming missionaries and foreign religion, and in the continuity of local belief systems. Bastian gives an example of this new emphasis while referring to the form of religious mobilization among Pentecostals in Latin America. “From this point of view, Pentecostalism can be seen as more in continuity than rupture with the Catholic religious mentality that has structured and reinforced the corporatist political and social imagination.”25 To a large extent, then, the changes that a new religion brings are determined by the local needs. Scholars trying to show how the expansion is not 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. necessarily Americanization, then, have been highlighting the power of the receiver, the convert, in determining the mold of the religiosity that it accepts. In other words, the imported religion is not admitted unconditional since it goes through a syncretic process of accommodation. It should not be ignored, however, that the influence of foreign religions backed by powerful political and economic forces could prevail, at least temporarily, against most local attempts of selection and filtering the cultural tenets arriving with the new religiosity. The seed for cultural change has been present in the dissemination of the Protestant message, and conversion to Protestantism may have brought locals closer to North Atlantic cultures. Indeed, most of the criticism against Protestant missionary efforts as branches of cultural imperialism has been based on this premise. Referring to Protestant missionaries in Cuba during the North American occupation Theo Tschuy wrote, “They were often aided by members of the military occupation forces.” The plan was to produce a “cultural transformation, which would in due time lead to outright annexation.” The temporary success of this method is obvious by the “Americanization” of Cuban Protestantism during this period.26 Accommodation from any of the parts implicated in the reciprocity of religious and cultural ideas is, thus, not inevitable but negotiable, and always dependent on the circumstances of power. Virginia Garrard-Bumett put it this way, “if religious change is to be considered in transnational terms, we might do well to recall that the channels of change run in two directions.”27 This feature of ambivalence in the process of cultural exchange, where the contact occurs, enables us to better understand how in the story of the immigrants individuals were influenced by each other. When there was equality in 22 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the power to influence, the table of negotiation was always available. And since negotiations are always dependent on personal variables it always results in ambivalence. In our story we can see examples of odd interaction of ideas in Richard Allen’s ambivalent support for a colleague working for the American Colonization Society. Ambivalence explains well Thomas Jefferson’s position toward the free blacks, Jonathas Granville’s attitude toward both the free blacks and North American white as well, as many other interactions in the story. Yet, it is Cardy who characterizes best how in the arena of religious conversion change occurs on both sides of the encounter. Thus, at various moments this dissertation provides examples that confirm the principles of this new scholarship that attempt to emphasize that negotiation is what happens in the context of religious and cultural expansion. Methodology In 1934 Antonio Pedreira wrote about cultural insularism in the Caribbean saying, “We have to escape the contagiousness of isolationism and light up the connections to our loneliness.” Pedreira was concerned with the insular parochialism produced by the all- embracing separation of water around an island, something that could also happen in our modem scholarship when national histories are studied in isolation. He recommended writing always facing two antagonisms: Universalism and the Creole. True to this notion, in this dissertation the story’s narrative crosses over several national histories because its causes and effects are not limited by the artificial boundaries of nationalism.29 Its attention is on events that happened at about the same time in the island of Hispaniola and in the broader Atlantic World. This research recognizes how the story of these immigrants started in the United States, Hispaniola, and Europe in a complex context of 23 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. imperialism, resistance and adaptation. The multiplicity of origins makes this a multinational and transatlantic narrative. The rationale for this approach is the conviction that history reveals multiple pathways, and that historical processes shape communities both similarly and differently.30 The analysis of this story is not done within the margins of a single academic discipline either. To understand the motivations that urged collective actions as well as private behaviors within a diverse cultural and historical setting this investigation employs paradigms and analytical tools from across academic disciplines. The historical methodology of this dissertation overlaps with religion, politics, sociology, economics, and cultural studies with a strong bent toward approaches in postcolonial criticism.31 This research investigates the extent to which the emigration of free blacks and their settlement in Hispaniola went against the current of North Atlantic imperialisms and how missionaries and immigrants related to the endeavors and influences of the empire.32 For this purpose, this study utilizes questions from the Gramscian and postcolonial criticism regarding the deployment and contestation of political and social power. The forms of human activity that most appeal to this project are those arranged by religious discourse, philanthropic agencies, and those expressed through the constmction of race, nationality, ethnicity, and gender. Some of the questions are: What were the uses of religion and philanthropy? How did religion and philanthropy shape and interact with imperialism? What part did race and gender play in the organization of society? How did people define the differences between ethnicity and nationality and what do they have to do with the spread of Protestantism and North Atlantic imperialism? 24 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation borrows from what is perhaps is the most valuable insight of postcolonial criticism. This is the notion of reciprocal construction of identity—the fabrication of the conceptual other— in the development of interactions between the colonizers and colonized. Edward Said’s seminal work, Orientalism, has, for the most part, been responsible for the common usage of this term within and outside postcolonial scholarship. Imperialism for Said is more than the obvious application of concrete power. Imperialism from a non-concrete angle works through symbols of difference and otherness, which has been exceptionally effective for domination.33 Another helpful insight this dissertation uses from postcolonial criticism is the notion that the relationship between colonizer and colonized is more complex and nuanced and politically fraught that what it appears to be. The powerful desires and fears the subaltern as much as the subaltern covets and detests him/her. Yet, the will power of the colonizer is always dependent on an unstable identity that actually develops from the contact with the other. In this dissertation the colonizers are those individuals that were in powerfully influential positions from where they affected the lives of the free blacks. Thus, the colonizers include the North American government, philanthropists, British missionaries and the Haitian government. The encounter between the colonizer and the free black can be described as a “contact zone,” in which the foreign and the local, the powerful and the weak, the philanthropists and the needy, mingled in paradoxical ways.34 Specific incidents of the story in this context helped develop hybrid identities— a sense of “in-betweeness,” that empowered those affected to empathize imaginatively with the other. 35 25 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Form at The proposal of this work is to reconstruct the history of the power relations, intentions, and consequences of those who invested themselves in helping or jeopardizing the immigrants. It does this in a sequence of four chapters, each chapter focusing chronologically on an important aspect of the story. The first chapter, for example, deals with the beginning of the American Colonization Society within the context of the North American nation-building. The rise of humanitarianism and the repercussions of the Haitian Revolution, which were upsetting the status of race relations all over the Atlantic, help explain the context in which the ACS came to be. To focus on particulars of personal dynamics this chapter takes a close look at how Coring D. Dewey became part of the African colonization project, what were his intentions and how philanthropy collaborated with the nascent imperial project in North America. The second chapter explains the beginning of the Haitian emigration project in the United States and the start of the mass movements of thousands of free blacks to the island of Hispaniola. The formation of this new emigration project, which was in opposition to the African colonization project, was an expression of resistance to the oppressive designs of North Atlantic imperialism that sought to determine the lives of free blacks by deciding their place of residence and by supporting Haiti. Loring D. Dewey’s decision to follow his compassionate instincts by opening an alternative for black emigration that ran against the objective of North American racial imperialism is the focus of this chapter. Part of the central plot also is the relationship of Dewey and Jonathas Granville, the Haitian diplomat. Dewey’s resulting identity crisis exemplifies how the channels of change flow both ways at the moment of cultural contact. 26 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The third chapter is concerned more directly with the island of Hispaniola and how the immigration was intended to assist the new nation of Haiti. The historical background of this chapter is vital to understanding how the free black immigration project fit the profile of previous projects meant to increase population, productivity and security. Free black Protestant emigration, however, took a heightened importance for the Haitian government as they sought to reform labor and adapt to modernity. Differently from other immigration and agricultural projects, these free blacks were to assist in the building of a new nation, something new on this island that had been colonized for more than 300 years. Their arrival reveals efforts of modernization and social control by the Haitian government. The occupation of the Spanish side of the island also highlights how the Haitian government, as similarly to the United States, sought imperialist and oppressive measures to improve its international status. In opposition to these plans the immigrants abandoned the lands or returned to the United States. Yet, the settlement in the peninsula of Samana developed into a distinctive group of individuals that identified themselves as Protestants and as Americanos in opposition to the local Catholic and Hispanic culture. The fourth chapter enters into the personal life of William Cardy as he ministered the immigrants of Samana. This chapter looks in detail at the dynamics in the relationships between the envoy of an imperialist culture and members of a dislocated community that sought to find security in Protestantism. The focus of this chapter is William Cardy’s personal ambivalence toward the immigrants and the influence that the local pressures exercised over him. Here the idea of the creole obtains importance as it attempts to explain Cardy’s change in perception and the causes of that change. Cardy, 27 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the missionary, arrived to change the immigrants, and to teach them how to be better individuals by adopting the British Protestant culture. But in the process he also changed in his ways and his outlook of the immigrants, which were not as backwards as he originally thought, but also of his outlook of life in general. In the conclusion the story of the immigrants continues up to the arrival of the North American annexation commission. All four parts of the story find their common place here while revisiting the main themes of the construction of the other, the dynamics of the colonizer-colonized relationships, and the immigration as a resistance to oppression. It is considering the immigrants as challengers to imperialism and other forms of oppression that we can see them in their most comfortable place in history. 28 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1 Walter Nugent offers a comprehensive view of European migration to the Western hemisphere. He studies the major New World hosts: the United States, Argentina, Canada, and Brazil. Walter T. K Nugent, Crossings the great transatlantic migrations, 1870-1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). 2 See for example, Amos Jones Beyan, The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1991) and John David Smith, The American Colonization Society and Emigration (New York: Garland Publishers, 1993). 3 Some emigration to Haiti predated those of 1824-26, but their numbers were never of much significance compared to the expeditions of this period. 4 In this work Spanish-speaking neighbors were those of Spanish culture living in the Hispaniola under the domination of the Haitian government. For more on the national classification of the inhabitants of the island at this time see note #2 of the third chapter. 5 Charles E. De Bose, “Be In Samana English,” Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper No. 21 (Augustine, Trinidad: Society for Caribbean Linguistics c/o Faculty of Education, The University of the West Indies; 1988); and Sali A Tagliamonte, A matter of time: Past temporal reference verbal structures in Samana English and the Ex-Slave Recordings (Ottawa: National Library of Canada; Bibliotheque nationale du Canada, 1992). 6 Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons, “Spirituals from the "American" colony of Samana Bay, Santo Domingo,” Journal of American Folklore; and Martha Ellen Davis, "That old-time religion": Religion v musica de los Afro-Norteamericanos de Samana, Republica Dominicana (Santo Domingo: Boletfn del Museo del Hombre Dominicano, 1981). 7 Soraya Aracena, Los inmigrantes norteamericanos de Samana (Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana: Helvetas Asociacion Suiza para la Cooperation Intemacional, 2000). 8George A. Lockward, El Protestantismo en Dominicana (Santo Domingo, R.D.: Editora Educativa Dominicana, 1982); Cardy William, Cartas del Primer Misionero en Samana. George A. Lockward, ed. (Santo Domingo, Imprenta Cetec; 1984); John Tindall, Correspondencia de Tindall, primer misionero Protestante en Dominicana George A. Lockward, ed. (Santo Domingo, R.D.: Universidad CETEC, 1981). 29 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 This dissertation owns much to this article and to his personal comments. His article has been printed in English and Spanish. The copy I used was the following, Harry Hoetink, “Los Americanos de Samana,” Cultura Y Folklore de Samana, Dagoberto Tejeda Ortiz (Santo Domingo: Editora Alfa & Omega, 1984), 60-93. 10 Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, Samana. pasado v porvenir (Ciudad Trujillo: Editora Montalvo, 1945); Santiago Godbout, Historia parroquial de Santa Barbara de Samana (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1987); Gregorio Elias Penzo Denvers, Compendio de la historia de Samana, 1493-1930 (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1998); Jose Augusto Puig Ortiz, Emigracion de Libertos Norteamericanos (Santo Domingo, D.N.: Editora Alfa y Omega, 1978); and Louis William Wipfler, The Churches of the Dominican Republic in the Light of History: A Study of the Root Causes of Current Problems (Cuernavaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural de Documentation: Sondeos, 1966). 11 Julie Winch, American Free Blacks and Emigration to Haiti (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Caribbean Institute and Study Center for Latin America. Paper presented in the Xlth Caribbean Congress, San German, Puerto Rico, August 1988). Another work that deserves proper mention is Jean Stephen’s article on the emigration project. Jean Stephens, “La Emigracion de Negros Libertos Norteamericanos a Haiti en 1824-25,” Revista Eme-Eme de Estudios Dominicanos 3, no. 14 (1974): 41-71. 12 Chris Dixon, African America and Haiti: Emigration and Black Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), 1. 13 Even though Julie Winch referred to both Granville and Dewey, she did so without explaining their significance. This, I believe, was because the scope and length of her work was limited by space. 14 Loring D. Dewey to Jonathas Granville, 11 May 1865, London. Reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 239; The American Colonization Society, The African Repository and Colonial Journal. (New York: Kraus, 1825-1850); and The American Colonization Society Extracts from the North American Review, the Reports of the Society, the African Repository, & C. (Maysville, KY: Office of “The Maysville Eagle,” 1826). 15 For works dealing directly with this subject see, David Barry Gaspar and David Geggus, editors, A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848 (London: Verso, 1988); Joan Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); David Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); David Geggus, editor, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001); Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The San Domingo Revolution From Below (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1990); Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 30 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Haitian Revolution, Impact on the Americas,” Address to the Third World Plantation and Conference, Lafayette LA, 27 October 1989; Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Silencing the Past: Layers of Meaning in the Haitian Revolution,” in Between History and Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemorations edited by G. Sider & G. Smith (Univ. of Toronto Press, 1997), 31-61; and Julius Scott, “Crisscrossing Empires: Ships, Sailors, and Resistance in the Lesser Antilles in the Eighteenth Century” in The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion, edited by Robert Paquette and Stanley Engerman, (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1996): 128-143. 16 “Closely related to religion as a dynamic factor in the history of American philanthropy is Humanitarianism. We have, of course, many competent studies of organizations and movements devoted to humanitarian enterprises- world peace, the abolition of slavery, temperance, prisons reform, aid for the handicapped, and the rehabilitation of social deviants. But we still need studies exploring some of the aspects of these movements that bear on the larger story of philanthropy. We need studies of motivation, conscious, and so far as it can be sensed, unconscious, in founders and workers.” Merle Curti, “The History of American Philanthropy as a Field Research,” The American Historical Review 62, no. 2 (January 1957): 354. “In 1875 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, better known for his championship of the slave and of women's rights than for his linguistic scholarship, reported that the term philanthropy had appeared for the first time as an English word in ‘The Guides of Tounges,’ published in 1628. The word was simply ‘Philanthropie; humanitie; a loving man’” Merle Curti, “American Philanthropy and the National Character,” American Quarterly 10, no. 4 (Winter 1958): 420. The culture of sensibility that was emerging in eighteenth-century England, and a new set of attitudes and emotional conventions at the heart of which was a sympathetic concern for the pain and suffering of other sentient beings. Shaped by John Locke's psychology of sensations and by the moral sense philosophy of his followers, the cult of sensibility took for its hero the "man of feelings," whose tender-hearted susceptibility to the torments of others was the mark of his deeply virtuous nature. Karen Halttunen, “Hanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture,” The American Historical Review 100, no. 2 (April 1995): 303. 18 19Michel Foucault, Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977). 20 These are some of the works on this area from the Social Control perspective. Gary M. Gould and Michael Lane Smith, Social work in the workplace: Practice and principles (New York: Springer Pub. Co., 1988); Richard Magat, Philanthropic giving: Studies in varieties and goals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); George E. Pozzetta, Americanization, social control, and philanthropy (New York: Garland Pub., 1991); and Mordechai Rozin, The rich and the poor: Jewish philanthropy and social 31 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. control in nineteenth-century London (Brighton; Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 1999). 21 See the classic, Eric Eustace Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, N.C. University of North Carolina Press, 1944). For the Haskell and Davis’s positions over the debate on the rise of humanitarianism and the acceptance of abolitionist ideals see, Thomas Bender, John Ashworth, David Brian Davis, Thomas L. Haskell, The Antislaverv Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 22 Andrew R. Chesnut, Bom Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997). 23 “This trend [the expansion of Protestantism in Latin America] was painted as revolutionary during the Reagan years when Jerry Fawell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's fundamentalist organizations attempted to politicize the phenomenon. Affiliation with Protestantism was projected as a rejection of Latin American culture and a choice for U.S. (read Republican Party) political values.” Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, “Latino Barrio Religion,” Catholic Issues (Available at https://home.adelphi.edu/~catissue/ARTICLES/ARROYQ96.HTM [16 August 2002]). 24 Amy L. Sherman, The Soul of Development: Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 34. Sherman is also cited in Virginia Garrard-Bumett, “Transnational Protestantism,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40. no. 3 (Fall 1998): 117-25, available online from https://firstsearch.oclc.org [5 March 2002] 25 Jean-Pierre Bastian and Joseph Cunneen, “The new religious map of Latin America: causes and social effects,” Cross Currents 48, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 330-46, available online from https://firstsearch.oclc.org [25 Febmary 2000] 26 Theo Tschuy, “Protestantism in Cuba, 1868-1968,” a chapter in Christianity in the Caribbean: Essays on Church History, edited by Armando Lampe, (Barbados: University of the West Indies Press, 2001); 234-5. For a discussion on the temporary “Americanization” of Cuban Protestantism see, Jason M. Yaremko, U.S. Protestant missions in Cuba: From independence to Castro (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000). Referring to the influence of Protestantism in Puerto Rico Samuel Silva Gotay wrote, “El Protestantismo evangelico aporto elementos culturales importantes para debilitar, desarticular y sustituir la cultura hispanica catolica que sirvio de base cultural al regimen hispanico por casi 400 anos y, en consecuencia, legitimo el nuevo regimen colonial norteamericano de dominio y explotacion de la tieira y el trabajo.” Samuel Silva Gotay, Protestantismo v Polftica en Puerto Rico, 1898-1930. (San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico), 4. 32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 Virginia Garrard-Bumett, “Transnational Protestantism,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 117-25, available online from https://firstsearch.oclc.org [25 February 2000] Antonio S. Pedreira, “Insularismo,” work contained in Obras de Antonio S. Pedreira (San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, 1970), 69. Translation is mine. 29 “The desire to vindicate a national tradition encouraged the confusion of history and hagiography.” Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “Nationalism and History,” Journal of Negro History 54, no. 1 (January 1969): 23. 30I took this insight from, R. Bon Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of the European Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 293. 31 Postcolonial Criticism “is a disciplinary project devoted to the academic task of revisiting, remembering and crucially interrogating the colonial past." Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 4. For another introductory monograph that explains the difference between postcolonial theory and postcolonial criticism see Bart Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory: Contests, Practices, Politics (London: Verson, 1997). For other concise explanations and bibliographies on postcoloniality see Florencia E. Mallon, “The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin American History,” The American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (December 1994): 1491-1515; Tejumola Olaniyan, “On "Post-Colonial Discourse": An Introduction,” Callaloo 16, no. 4, On "Post-Colonial Discourse": A Special Issue. (Autumn 1993): 743-749; and R. Radhakrishnan, “Postcoloniality and The Boundaries of Identity,” Callaloo 16, no. 4, On "Post-Colonial Discourse": A Special Issue. (Autumn 1993): 750-771. Influential publications, considered in this study, dealing with this issue are Calude-Jean Bertrand, “American Cultural Imperialism-A Myth?” American Studies International 25 (April 1987): 46-60; and Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. Legrand & Ricardo D. Salvatore, editors, Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.- Latin American Relations (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998). Authors that have worked on the dilemmas of alien religion and cultural exchange are Jean Comaroff & John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1991); and Silvia R. Frey & Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998). 33 Edward Said, Orientalism, Hardmondsworth, Penguin, 1995. 34 Professor Mary Louise Pratt tells us that “contact zone” is a space of colonial encounters where “peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish an ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of 33 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflicts.” A second key is transculturation, a phenomenon of the contact zone. Transculturation denotes “how subordinated and marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant metropolitan culture. Anti-conquest is another crucial concept she offers here. It refers to a European tactic of claiming innocence while consolidating hegemonic control. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eves: Travel Writing and Transculturation, (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 6. 35 Homi Bhabha argues that the location of culture is not in some pure core inherited from tradition, but at the borders of civilizations where cultures meet and where new “in-between,” or hybrid identities are constantly being forged. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994). 34 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II LORING D. DEWEY AND THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY: PHILANTHROPY AND IMPERIALISM Introduction In the summer and autumn of 1824, while Haiti was consolidating its power over the Spanish section of Hispaniola, some cities on the northeastern United States were concerned with an unusual philanthropic rivalry. One of the philanthropic projects, the older one, has had the support of an impressive array of politicians, national heroes, and religious leaders. The promoters have been saying since its beginning in 1817 that it was poised to become a North American success story because it represented the ideals of a manly bourgeoisie prestigious class. The other project, the recent one, had the support of a few renegade philanthropists and abolitionists, the black leadership and the country of Haiti. Despite the enthusiasm of those supporting the enterprise, most spectators supposed that it would fail because it went against the main currents of white and imperialist North American thought. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was behind the first project, which had the main object of sending free blacks far away to colonize and Christianize Western Africa. The second project, which was supported by smaller and humbler societies, such as the Haytien Emigration Society, was helping free blacks immigrate to Hispaniola and strengthen the new black republic of Haiti. This philanthropic strife, which fed many pages of newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, originated with a dissident within the ranks of the American Colonization Society. Loring D. Dewey, a dynamic agent of the ACS, succumbed to the idea of allowing free blacks to decide where to emigrate if they choose to leave at all. 35 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dewey’s failure to follow the proper channels of communication and decision-making within the organization was sufficient for dismissal. Yet it was the implication of his actions that went beyond the basic act of disobedience that produced such an outpour of retaliation. By allowing free blacks to decide where they wanted to go and by choosing an unwanted nation as recipient Dewey was challenging the racial hierarchy that the ACS supported, and was empowering blacks to determine their future. Furthermore, Dewey’s decision provoked a little-known international quandary that brought Jonathas Granville, a Haitian envoy plenipotentiary, to the U.S. although there was no official diplomatic relations arranged between both countries. The ideological and tactical debates concerning both contending humanitarian ventures spilled over into the press. Editors expressed different positions regarding the subject, kept the public informed about the developments, and readers sent their comments to the newspapers. An anonymous writer, supporter of the American Colonization Society and an avid opponent of the emigration to Haiti, in agitation wrote two letters to the editor of The National Gazette and Literary Register in Philadelphia. This unnamed writer was evidently upset with Dewey’s mutiny because his actions brought a Haitian emissary to U.S. soil, because it challenged the belief that the blacks belonged in Africa, and because it challenged the authority of self-proclaimed experts in matters of race. In an attempt to set apart the African from the Haitian project and to validate the virtues of his society the writer made public the proximity that the ACS had with the U.S. political leadership hoping that this would impress the readers. 36 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The managers have consulted the views and endeavored to engage the cooperation of the general government of our country. In selecting a spot upon the Western coast of Africa, the natural home of every black man, the agents of the society and the agents of government have gone hand in hand.1 The writer, who obviously had private knowledge of the society, also wanted to point out that the directors of the ACS felt absolute confidence on the imminent triumph of their plans. In another intervention he asserted that the managers of the society “have too much confidence in their cause to doubt the issue when the matter shall be brought fairly before an enlightened public.”2 Promoters of the ACS, privileged politicians and religious leaders with noticeable influence and power, constructed this belief as a shield against the highly unstable patterns and the uncertainty of power relations. At the personal level, this conviction reveals a truly anxious connection to the racial other.3 Ambivalence, the abhorring but also wanting the blacks, the fearing but also debasing of the free blacks helped produced this anxiety. So, to restrain this uncertainty these opinion makers constructed a false sense of security based simply on rank and enlightenment— which in it self meant their own form of logic. By the end of his letter, the anonymous writer ascribed the confidence of the ACS to nationalism and to an Anglo-American sense of cultural superiority. “An American,” he wrote, “whether bond or free, would probably prefer an American to a French foundation for his civil and political institutions.”4 The implication was that after being intimate with the North American culture an individual could not but chose to imitate it and reject all other system of ethos, no matter its background and location. Active opinion makers like this mysterious writer thought that by creating this mood of cultural superiority he would be assisting in the 37 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. creation of a legitimate sense of national identity, particularly when the comparison was with other respected cultures like the French. The quarrel in this humanitarian controversy represented an important aspect of the complex relationship between philanthropy and the Protestant North Atlantic imperialism of the nineteenth century. It not only reveals the humanitarians’ complicity to the goals of the bourgeoisie politicians and opinion makers that sought to create an imperial nation based on classifications of race and religion, but also underscores the lack of certainty in the imperialist frame of mind. This chapter concerns ideas and events just prior to the controversy with the longrange objective of understanding the dynamics between the strong and the weak, the imperialists and those enduring it, the confident and the insecure. More specifically, this chapter is concerned with the roles of Haiti, the American Colonization Society, and philanthropist Loring D. Dewey in the early construction of North American imperialism in the Atlantic. It argues that the early American Colonization Society originated in the midst of an intercontinental campaign for social reforms, and became a contributor to the white national identity and an imperial mindset in the United States. Haiti’s liberation from oppression stirred deep fears in the U.S. dominant class and assisted in their decision that free blacks definitively should not stay in North America. The ACS’s actions helped accentuate the racial exclusion already in progress from the North American colonial period. By deporting blacks to Africa, the U.S. attempted exporting its particular form of imperialism and started experimenting with colonialism. Such manipulation of power with the use of religion and philanthropy as ideological motivations was indicative of the forms and ideas that were to characterize United States’ 38 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. racial imperialism. Yet, by focusing on the early experiences of the ACS, this chapter demonstrates that the relationship between the hypothetical benefactor and the beneficiary, the people with facility and the people with need, is loaded with contradictions that reveal the instability and lack of confidence on both. The strong, but subtle influence of the other, exposes what has been so jealously guarded, namely, the insecurity and instability of those in power positions and their ideas. Dewey’s early experience as an agent for the ACS provides a vivid example of this ambivalence where sincerity toward the oppressed and the quest for exclusion merge. During the 1820s the ACS’s moves toward the free blacks was likewise one of ambivalence, in fact fractured, and destabilized by contradictory intuitive responses to the free blacks. Despite the contradictions, Dewey’s insubordination was undoubtedly a triumph for the voiceless. Benevolence and the Revolutionary Age The first decades of the nineteenth century was a time of apparent extraordinary reversals in the history of the Atlantic world. For more than three hundred years, the African slave trade had been playing an important role in stabilizing Europe and North America’s economy, its transition to capitalism, the development of the nation state, and the establishment of its imperial supremacy at the cost of African lives. Many sincere individuals criticized it and talked about its harms, but nothing was done to eliminate it effectively. The same North Atlantic empires involved with the trade, Britain, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal, United States and other European beneficiaries, were extracting wealth from its colonies on both sides of the ocean, many times upon the shoulders of Africans and indigenous people, to pay for its wars and affluence. At different times, 39 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. these empires had been exercising a nearly unrestrained control over the people living in those colonies by illegitimately appropriating their own lives, usurping their cultural identities, and manipulating their resources for their own aggrandizement. Their method of oppression was a combination of hegemony and violence. Hegemony, which is a steady form of dominance, does devastating damage to those subjugated by convincing them of their own inferiority and making them complicit of their own dominance.5 Since the time of Bartolome de las Casas humanitarians have not had such an impact in attempting to reverse the evils of European colonization and imperialism.6 Well into the eighteenth century a wave of humanitarian sensibility acquired large attention in Europe and across the North Atlantic as the interests of the emerging powerful bourgeoisie class developed fresh and convenient moral values. Drastic changes in the North Atlantic economies and societies, like industrialization and urbanization, produced a shift “in the conventional boundaries of moral responsibility.”7 As a result, individuals, with nervous consciences, armed with new sets of scruples, felt they could do something to improve the state of their societies. Increasingly popular ideas of freedom and equality started to make an effect on the political arena and challenge the ancient regime. The American and French revolutions came next, and at the turn of the nineteenth century, circumstances for the downtrodden all over the Atlantic appeared to be changing. Humanitarians became involved in all sort of social problems. Some reformers perceived the slave trade and slavery as one of the weightiest of social evils, and focused on abolishing it. Partially because of these abolitionists’ efforts Denmark abolished its slave trade in 1803. Then, in 1807, the British Parliament led by William Wilberforce and Lord Greenville finally banned their profitable trade. Other nations followed suit. Although 40 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the African slave trade was not actually suppressed until the 1860s, there was now an enthusiasm against the trade comparable to the previous enthusiasm for its profits. The British systematic program of eliminating the trade from the Atlantic seemed as the salvation Africans needed. The abolitionists’ zeal for social justice appeared so sincere that whiggist W. E. H. Lecky would say that the crusade against slavery “was among the three or four perfectly virtuous acts recorded in the History of the nations.” Q The milieu of the abolition of the slave trade coincided with an even more noticeable reversal in the Atlantic. Former colonies in the Americas, particularly those of the Spanish Empire, were gaining independence and establishing new nations. The blood and toils of patriots were lifting the yoke of colonialism, imperialism, and even slavery from most parts of the New World. These champions of freedom and equality sacrificed their lives, and that of many others, to terminate a system that legitimized oppression. Progress was not compatible with tyranny in this new era of freedom. All these changes even prompted Abraham Bishop to utter, “This seems to be the moment for all the liberating societies in Europe and America to come forward and to show the sincerity for their professions and their unwavering attachment to the Rights of Man.”9 Corresponding with the spirit of liberty and reform that permeated the waters of the Atlantic, in the early 1820s, with the help of the American Colonization Society, ex­ slaves crossed the Atlantic toward Africa, in the opposite direction of the Atlantic slave trade. The emigrants wanted a better way of life—total freedom and the opportunities of full citizenship. For this, they planned to create a black colony using European-style institutions in the continent of their ancestors. To many, particularly white abolitionists on both sides of the ocean and few black colonists, the actions of the ACS seemed a 41 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reversal to the oppression of slavery. What was ironic about the ACS ’ voyages was that for these immigrants to find freedom they had to leave the country that bragged the most about its own freedom. As with the ACS’ attempts to bring justice to the downtrodden, the reversals that sprouted throughout the Atlantic during the revolutionary period of the 1770s to 1830s were riddled with hidden motivations that betrayed their redemptive appearance.10 Eric Williams and others have argued that the slave trade and slavery were obstacles to the emerging capitalist global economy pursued by the foremost European commercial nations. Those seeking to abolish the slave trade were often part of a scheme to change the world according to their new liberal and capitalistic ideas. David Brion Davis asserts that abolitionism “was always related to the need to legitimize free wage labor.”11 The new format of existence proposed by the reformers was going to strengthen European and North Atlantic hegemonic power and impose their now prevailing bourgeoisie liberal ideologies throughout the entire Atlantic. Indeed, as Michel Foucault argued, the purpose of the humanitarian reforms in general was to exercise a more effective social control. 12 The abolition of the slave trade and slavery, then, was not motivated simply by the compassion of abolitionists, but by a striking combination of self-interest and desire for justice under new acquired values. These values recently acquired by Europeans and North Americans were now trumpeted as universal values that were to be imposed universally.13 Furthermore, the rebellion orchestrated by North American revolutionary leaders was supposedly based on the rhetorical claims of universal freedom and equality. Their actions, however, betrayed their own discourse because freedom and equality only came for few North Americans. Likewise, despite the bloody and lengthy wars for 42 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. independence, the rebellious leaders in Spanish America also sought to keep post­ emancipation freedom limited to a few. Slavery was abolished and democracy was promoted in many of the new nations, but tangible freedom from oppression did not arrive to the majority.14 Scholars like Thomas L. Haskell, responding to what they considered extreme views of revisionist historians who emphasize the duplicity of these movements, have pointed out that these reforms still contained measures of genuine goodwill.15 What should we think, then, about these revolutions and reforms, and about these radicals and philanthropists? The reformers, particularly the social humanitarians, exhibited an ambivalence that blended militant altruism with self-interest, which may be better understood within the context of power relations. The philanthropist was the voice and the hired hand of the cultural and intellectual trends within influential classes in North Atlantic nations that sought justice by deploying both power and relief with condescension to those in apparent need. These relationships prescribed by the dynamics of power are highly unstable since they are always structured in both sides by contradictory thoughts. The individuals in need, as well as the individuals with authority, move about in a sphere of conflictive discourses that portrays the other as both repulsive and attractive. In this context of ambivalence and contradictions, those individuals confident of their abilities to change society (the philanthropists) may want to award the weak (those in need) some control and freedom while also exercising over them new forms of coercion.16 On the other hand, the weak may want to both, topple and imitate the mighty— abhor and admire its master, all at the same time. 1n Following this same conflictive behavioral pattern over power struggle, the American Colonization Society was, in the hearts of many, a plan to 43 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. consolidate power, manipulate the racial other as well as of sincere philanthropy. Those whom the scheme was supposed to benefit also responded with ambivalence—wanting and not wanting to participate. The fact that in the beginning the ACS achieved so little of its lofty ideals and was always struggling with funds indicates two important matters about North American nascent racial imperialism in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. First, that during the early nineteenth century ideas of racial fixity18 were still fluid and consequently the mission of the ACS was still seen uncertain. Second, that despite its rhetoric of separation the North American dominant white culture felt it would lack something by the mass departure African decedents. Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution Like most reformation movements of the time, the ACS originated as a response to internal as well as external pressures. The most significant external threat that affected the formation of the ACS was a dramatic revolution that happened in a small island in the Caribbean. Roughly about the same time of the revolutions and abolitionism that rocked the world, another turnaround that sought and achieved definitive freedom from chattel slavery took place in the island that first hosted European settlement in the Americas. In 1804, the most productive sugar colony in the Caribbean, Saint Domingue, located on the western side of Hispaniola, gained its autonomy from France and created the first sovereign American nation of predominantly African lineage. The Haitian Revolution was a thorough revolution that resulted in a complete alteration of society. The lowest level of society— slaves—became equal, free, and independent citizens. These new citizens created the first independent state of non-European descendents to be carved out of the European worldwide empires anywhere. Haiti rose against all sorts of international 44 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. opposition. Within this new nation, however, persistent power struggles pitted mulattoes against blacks, Northerners against Southerners, and until the 1820s, it produced an ongoing state of instability. International imperialisms encouraged this state of domestic affairs.19 Their new name—Haitians—which defined all Haitians as “blacks,” was a direct assault to the increasingly racist ideologies of Europe and North America that saw a hierarchical human race perpetually ruled by types of their own physical images. In Haiti, all citizens were legally equal, regardless of color, race, or condition. The Haitians radically transformed their typical tropical plantation farming from a society dominated by large estates into a society of small-scale producers. They reoriented away from export dependency toward an internal marketing system supplemented by a minor export sector. The Haitians, however, accomplished these changes with extremely painful dislocations and severe long-term repercussions for both the state and the society.20 The nineteenth century was a historical period obsessed with imperialism and race, and the Haitian affront to an imperial power was not going to walk away unnoticed. Due to the fact that slavery was still the main labor force for cash crops in the hemisphere, the U.S. and European empires that benefited from this labor erected a long series of obstacles to avoid the prospect of a thriving black state in the Caribbean. The Haitian Revolution produced xenophobic fear in all white elites from Boston to Buenos Aires and shattered their complacency on their unquestioned superiority. This island, which symbolized both triumph over oppression and unflagging internal conflicts, produced a wave of clashing emotions throughout the Atlantic. Some admired the bravery demonstrated by these former slaves in defending the increasingly popular ideals 45 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of individual freedom. Bishop wrote with enthusiasm, “Let us be consistent Americans, and if we justify our own conduct in our late glorious Revolution, let us justify those, who, in a cause like ours, fight with equal bravery.”21 The fear, however, of a similar revolution came to overshadow any sense of admiration. Attempts to imitate the Haitians like Fedon’s rebellion in Grenada augmented and materialized those fears. 22 Even Simon Bolivar, who had been assisted twice by Haiti in his revolutionary career and was in part of African lineage, saw the Haitian model of revolution suspicious and did not want it for the new Spanish-American states. Instead he suggested was the best way to deal with the potential race problem was to free all slaves without giving them genuine social and political equality.23 This fear of Haiti and the now unambiguous aptitude of blacks to champion their own freedom almost single-handedly changed the direction of race relations in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, and helped shape ideologies of imperialism.24 The reaction to Abraham Bishop’s publications supporting the Haitian Revolution is indicative of the feelings most North Americans had toward the black’s attempt for freedom. Bishop wrote in his last article of the “Rights of Black Men,” “Every public transaction, and most private conversations have evinced a great zeal in favor of the whites and one can hardly wish the blacks to be victorious without exposing himself to censure, calumny, and opprobrious names.” Since racial equality was not part of the rhetoric of freedom in the youthful United States, the Haitian victory provoked a decisive backslash against the pro-abolitionist ideals of the American Revolution.26 Thanks to the Haitians, blacks and whites in the Atlantic’s perimeter could no longer live together in the same way. Suddenly every slave holding society in the hemisphere awoke to the potential of a post46 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. abolition future and its impending racial diversity—a blend of fear by the whites and hope by the blacks dominated the dynamics of their relations. In the United States, something had to be done to arrest that future. The American Colonization Society, the organization charged with repatriating free blacks to Africa, appeared largely as a response to the challenges presented by the Haitian Revolution. Haiti, North American Imperialism and the Origins of the American Colonization Society The free blacks that were immigrating to Africa in the 1820s with the American Colonization Society were leaving the country that was striving to become the beacon of liberty and progress to the entire world. From the beginning, the United States decided it had a destiny in world affairs. It had a cultural mentality grounded on “an imperium—a dominion, state or sovereignty that would expand in population and territory, and increase in strength and power.”27 It was going to start out quietly, but the strength of its international leadership would take off when the time was ripe and the nation ready. James Wilson of Pennsylvania articulated the mission in this way: “By adopting this system [of Republicanism] we shall probably lay a foundation for erecting temples of liberty, in every path of the earth.” The revolutionary generation in the United States was to build a human society for the rest of humanity to follow—not an easy task. During the early years of the nineteenth century the United States was taking steps toward improving its institutions, trimming down its excess baggage, and reforming its population. Voluntary organizations sprang up in every state with the purpose of perfecting society, making its population appreciate self-reliance, and homogenizing the population.30 47 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The colonists going to Africa left the US at a time of domestic adjustments in preparation for its “God-given” mission of expanding and exercising world hegemony. The 1820s was the time of origin for the Monroe Doctrine that challenged European supremacy in the Americas. Prematurely yet audaciously, the Monroe Doctrine declared Latin America to be in the United States “sphere of influence.”31 This was also the period when ideas of Manifest Destiny were brewing in the minds of many North Americans. These juvenile notions of self-importance provided the ideological justification for slashing against other cultures and imposing its political and cultural supremacy over other nations.32 William Earl Weeks demonstrated that early in the nineteenth century the federal government was deliberately supporting global commercial expansion, actively spreading American principles abroad, and aiding in developing mythological narratives of patriotic nationalism and imperialism. These often-subtle measures provided the framework for the extraordinary emergence of the United Sates in the late 19th century as a global hegemony.33 Why then decide to depart from a place with such potential to a place with an uncertain future? These free blacks were going away because the majority of the population who were of European extraction perceived their presence as an obstacle in becoming the greatest nation of all. Motivated by certain interpretations of classical Republicanism and racism many introspective leaders yearned for a society with equal economic opportunity and racial homogeneity. They thought that equality and homogenization would help keep the delicate balance of social order and personal freedom, and thus, make a great nation. Yet, their own identity was dependent on the creation of this opposite group they sought to get rid of. In the aftermath of the revolution, white North Americans increasingly identified 48 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. themselves as a “body politic.” This trend became even more noticeable after news of the Haitian Revolution started to electrify the minds of newspaper readers. The idea that North America should be a country of white folks was instinctively gaining wide acceptance. North Americans compared themselves to Europeans by identifying themselves with anti-Haitian feelings and by excluding nonwhites from membership in their republic.34 They would do their best to eliminate slavery, with the understanding that black ex-slaves would be excluded from the body politic.35 Yet, due to a growing number of emancipations, demographic changes were producing difficulties that appeared insoluble by conventional reforms. Everywhere, the free black population was increasing, perceived to have increased, or expected to increase. Everywhere, whites did not want free blacks near them. In a letter meant for publication directed to Charles F. Mercer, M. Carey warned about the menaces to their ideal society. “The dangers arising from the great increase of a caste in the nation, who are by custom cut off from all chance of amalgamation with their fellow beings of a different colour, are yearly augmenting.”36 Many speakers and writers shared Carey’s anxiety and exposed it as a national crisis. “There is not a State in the Union, not at this moment, groaning under the evil of this class of persons, a curse and a contagion wherever they reside. The increase of a free black population among us has been regarded as a greater evil than the increase of slaves.”37 Henry Clay stated publicly the reasons why the increase of this people was a threat to the nation. “Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free coloured. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites.”38 The main risk of abolition without 49 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the removal of the freed was that it enlarged a group of individuals that threatened the very fabric of society. They are dangerous to the community, and this danger ought to be removed. [...] The danger is not so much that we have a million and a half of slaves, as that we have [within] our borders nearly two millions of men who are necessarily any thing rather than loyal citizens—nearly two millions of ignorant and miserable beings who are banded together by the very same circumstances, by which they are so widely separated ino n character and in interest from all the citizens of our great republic. White North American opinion could hardly have been more unanimous: The increase of free blacks was a national scare. Calls to “Arrest their increase,” sounded everywhere. Without control of this population, North Americans should forget about having a “powerful empire.”40 Ironically, in the midst of the unceasing talk about their degradation some reformers also pointed out that this condition was not merely the fault of the free blacks. The idea of fixed differences between the races was not yet as firm in the minds of Northerners by the 1820s. Some reasoned that blacks could never be equal because white prejudice would not allow it, and not because it was inheritably determined. “The laws, it is true, proclaim them free; but prejudices, more powerful than any laws, deny them the privileges of freemen.”41 Reverend Robert Finley of Baskingridge, New Jersey said it this way, “Every thing connected with their condition, including their colour, is against them.”42 The key factor here was prejudice—the perception that the majority was under the spell of irrationality. The chains of prejudice were so mighty that its captives were powerless to change their biases despite any evidence to the contrary. Elias Boudinot Caldwell even asserted that their prejudice would resist acknowledging any changes in the behavior of blacks. 50 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Let him [a free black] toil from youth to age in the honorable pursuit of wisdom—let him store his mind with the most valuable researches of science and literature—and let him add to a highly gifted and cultivated intellect, a piety pure, undefiled, and ‘unspotted from the world’—it is all for nothing: he would not be received into the very lowest walks of society. If we were constrained to admire such uncommon being, our very admiration would mingle with disgust, because in the physical organization of his frame, we meet an insurmountable barrier, even to an approach to social intercourse, and in the Egyptian color, which nature has stamped upon his features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a communion either of interest or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent.43 Unfortunately, such a perception of people’s inability to change their own bigotry was used to justify separatism. In Lynchburg, Virginia, like in many other places in the country, reformers met to discuss solutions and found favorable only one. “The question arises, where shall these outcasts go?”44 If white prejudice could not be overcome—and few believed it could, at least not with any speed—the blacks should be removed, leaving whites on their own. Therefore, instead of reforming the prejudice against free blacks, reformers sought to get rid of the bodies that personified their problem. The solution was to recommend blacks that they move out to a black place so that they could cease being black and be humans like anyone else. The subtext was that in the presence of a large white population, blacks were not fully human, and having half humans in their midst created all sorts of problems for a new republic that wanted to prove the effectiveness of broad political participation. Yet political ideals of equality and full participation of society in politics were not the only, nor the most important concern. In 1787 in Monticello, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson had already written, “When freed, [the black] is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.”45 The possibility of 51 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. racial miscegenation was a terrible thought in Jefferson’s mind. He proposed a legislation that required white women having children from black men to leave the state within a year. The individual who violated these regulations was to be placed “out of the protection of the laws.”46 Jefferson’s obsession with racial thought and the regulation of sex for social control illustrates the ambiguous relation between the one in power and the racial other. The fascination for the racial “other” confirmed its desire for it.47 This contradictory interaction becomes even more revealing considering Jefferson’s relation to Sally Hemings.48 Ten Years after his attempt to legislate white women’s rights with black men, in the zenith of the Haitian Revolution, Jefferson now feared intensively the prospects of the annihilation of white North Americans by the hands of its own black population. Referring to the dreading possibility of a duplication of Saint Domingue’s massacres in the U.S. he wrote, “If something is not done, & soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children.”49 The thought of Haiti appeared to heighten the need for separation from the fascinating other. The retrospective view is one of constant push and pull. The Jeffersonian doctrine of no free blacks in North America was the foundation of a comprehensive system of racial separation.50 The purpose was to remove the racial other as far as possible from the self, while still keeping dominance and utilizing it for the self’s advantage. The story behind these attempts was the cultural movements provided by capitalist developments of the time that produced simultaneous processes of unification and differentiation. The globalization of the imperial capitalist powers of a single integrated economic and colonial system, and the imposition of a unitary time on the world, produced the dislocation of its peoples and cultures. This in turn produced an 52 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. increasing anxiety about racial difference and the racial amalgamation that was an effect of colonialism and enforced migration. These consequences for class and race were regarded as negative, and a good deal of energy was devoted to formulating ways in which to counter those elements that were clearly undermining the cultural stability of a more traditional, apparently organic, now irretrievably lost, society. Despite their evident rhetoric and deeds, this generation did not understand themselves as working to establish a nation for whites only. Ironically, at the heart of this program of separation were simultaneous feelings of need and rejection for the racial other. North American leaders suddenly discovered a new black previously unknown to them, and were not sure how to classify it. The Haitian Revolution has suddenly revealed that blacks were not of the submissive type. It was now painfully obvious that blacks were capable of overthrowing them and of surviving in the midst of international opposition. In an effort to calm their fears and distinguish the North American black from other African descendents, whites were constantly referring to them as “our blacks.” This classification meant an admission that blacks in the United States were already different from other African descendents because of their exposure to the Protestant North American culture and for having common histories. “Our free people of colour are in constitution and habits essentially American. It is nothing that their fathers and grandfathers were bom [with] in Africa.”51 Using the possessive pronoun “ours” also described how white North Americans unconsciously felt about North American blacks, as if they were an integral part of their own identity. Yet, politicians, religious leaders and other opinion makers, who yielded considerable cultural influence over society were attempting to install a white North American identity in contrast to the new perceived 53 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. identity of blacks. For them, everything that the blacks were not, the whites were; and everything the whites were, the blacks were not. It is because their need, however, to constantly define themselves against the characterization of the blacks that the whites actually had the need for the blacks. Formation of the American Colonization Society It was in the winter of 1816 in Washington DC that Robert Finley and a group of reformers in this Jeffersonian tradition founded the American Society fo r Colonizing the Free People o f Colour o f the United States to implement aggressively a plan of strategic separation from the free blacks. The location of the meeting was no coincidence. The reformers were seeking a broad moral and financial support for their ambitious and expensive project, and despite its small size, the nation’s capital was the locus of power and politics. Finley’s initiative was an early appearance of much wider national voluntary associations eager to reform society from the bottom up— what some may call the rise of civil society. Their underlying objectives were the general welfare and equity of the North American society. These associations were strongly influenced by millennialism and ideas of disinterested benevolence. The founders of the American Colonization Society sincerely believed that if the free blacks remained in the United States, they would never become valuable citizens because of prejudice. They supposed that it was their duty, as dedicated Christian patriots, to find them another place to live and convince them to go. Convincing them to go would not be such a difficult task, they thought at least until black demonstrators proved the contrary, because after all most free blacks lived a life of misery in the United States. 54 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The idea that removing the free black was good for the nation blended with the idea that colonization was also good for the free blacks themselves and for Africa too. The new colonization society would rescue free blacks from injustice by sending them away. In a tour around southern and western states, Samuel John Mills, an early proponent of the scheme, asserted, “We must save the Negroes or the Negroes will ruin us.”53 And as an aggregate benefit, Africa too would benefit from the talents and religion of the free blacks. Robert Finley explained it clearly to colonist pioneer Paul Cuffe.54 “The great desire of those whose minds are impressed with this subject is to give an opportunity to the free people of color to rise to their proper level and at the same time to provide a powerful means of putting an end to the slave trade and sending civilization and Christianity to Africa.”55 Then, again, the promoters of colonization recalled the nervous spirit of Thomas Jefferson and the ghost of Haiti. “It is the removal of the free blacks from among us, that is to save us, sooner o later, from those dreadful events foreboded by Mr. Jefferson, or from the horrors of St. Domingo.”56 Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), whose writings influenced the reformers, believed that since God’s nature was selfless, true Christians inevitably would practice disinterested benevolence. For an individual to make a sacrifice in this life for the sake of eternal salvation was like taking a loss in a short-term investment with the assurance of a long-term profit. Sacrifice solely for God as opposed to laboring to gain something from heaven was the main attribute of this early nineteenth-century philosophy of philanthropy.57 True disinterested benevolents will concern themselves “with the public interest, the greatest good and happiness of the whole.”58 Sending free blacks to Africa was true benevolence because it benefited the blacks a well as the country, without 55 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. apparently gaining personal profit from it. This socio-spiritual overtone adopted by the new organization made the enterprise both political and religious. In the name of the nation and God, and with public and private funds, the American Colonization Society began preparations to ship free blacks to western Africa. As it was conceived, however, the strongest motivation for the enterprise was to seek a painless way to remove the free black from the United States. Despite the hard work in securing government financial support, most of the funds had to come from private sources, and to add to the difficulties, colonization was still voluntary. Therefore, the society’s most arduous task was not the logistic of removing and establishing free blacks in Africa, which was hard enough, but was to persuade donors and prospective colonists alike. During the first years, the managers invested time and energy in trying to secure popular and federal support to finance their expensive crusade. They enlisted a large number of prestigious names in southern and northern states alike: Patrick Henry, Bushrod Washington, Henry Rutgers, and Charles Mercer among others. These individuals also regarded colonization as the most viable solution to their own racial concerns, though occasionally their agenda on slavery was on opposite sides. Southern slave-owners viewed colonization as a way to protect slavery and augment the value of their slaves. Northern industrialists viewed colonization as the most effective way to end slavery and have the country for whites only. To send free blacks away appeared to satisfy everybody’s wishes. It was a remarkable political feat in a time when the issue of slavery and race divided the nation. In the crusade for black colonization, the managers of the society brought together strange bedfellows: the 56 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. southern slave-owner and the northern abolitionist. In spite of the popularity of the Society among prestigious individuals, however, money was slow to come. The immediate reaction of the free blacks to the American Colonization Society was strident rejection. In a huge demonstration against the project, Bishop Richard Allen and merchant James Forten led hundreds of free blacks in Philadelphia protesting the intentions of the new organization. The black leadership read between the lines and noticed the ideological contradictions of a plan that sought to get rid of blacks by arguing that blacks were a pest while also proclaiming that the same blacks were agents of civilization to Africa. Already in 1789, black leaders in Philadelphia had written about African colonization saying, “every pious man is a good citizen of the whole world.” In their demonstration against the ACS in 1817, they challenged colonization by saying, “that they had been among the first to come to America and that they would not voluntarily leave their country.” The African Methodist Episcopalian church was becoming a strong social and political force under the leadership of Allen’s religious charisma, which communicated genuine passion for the black’s spiritual and social plight. In Protestantism, blacks found spiritual reassurances and ways to resist racial oppression. The formation of organizations such as AME aimed at fostering self-reliance, race pride, and empowerment. The AME’s reaction to the ACS demonstrated once more that the racial other was active in the negotiations. It is no surprise then, that since the demonstration the society managers felt a need to emphasize the voluntary aspect of the enterprise repeatedly.59 Still, many free blacks exchanged letters with the organization and inquired about the possibilities of moving away to Africa. A few volunteered for colonization too. Most 57 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interesting, however, was that despite his opposition to African colonization Allen would praise his colleague Daniel Coker’s missionary work in Liberia with the American Colonization Society. He wrote, “God has spread the work through our instrumentality upon the barren shores of Africa.” The possibility of spreading the North American black sort of Christianity to Africa made African colonization a rather ambiguous matter to Allen. His position on the issue mirrored that of many blacks who felt compelled to leave, but also disliked the domineering agenda behind the project.60 Despite the federal support and the response of some free blacks, the initial attempts to colonize free blacks in Africa did not achieve the expected results. In the face of setbacks, however, enthusiasm for the project did not dwindle among the managers. After failing to acquire absolute governmental support, the organization changed emphasis toward seeking more popular and voluntary cooperation. The first step was to create or renovate auxiliary societies in every state, and equip a body of agents that would seek financial support and help recruit colonists. The organization needed highly enthusiastic and effective persuaders to create robust and generous grassroots organization. The second step was to reconstruct convincing arguments that could be applicable across the ideological divides over slavery that plagued the nation at this time. Calls to civilize the “degraded” continent of Africa and to eliminate the slave trade with colonization started to appear in every state included in many sermons and political speeches. Preachers, politicians, and philanthropists started relating colonization with the reinvigoration of the North American society and spreading values of hard work and thrift inside and abroad. An interesting result of this discourse was an increase on the expressions of pity toward the free black population. 58 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Agent Loring D. Dewey It is in the midst of this carefully crafted revival campaign for African colonization that Reverend Loring D. Dewey joined the enterprise. He was a restless Presbyterian minister in New York City with an apparent desire for reforms and social work. He was bom to Stephen Dewey in July 28, 1791, at Sheffield, Massachusetts, and graduated from Williams College in 1814.61 Right after college, Dewey started to exhibit the skittish and independent characteristics that would turn out to be characteristic of his philanthropist career. In 1816, the board of directors expelled him from the Associate Reformed Church Theological Seminary of New York for not conforming to the institution’s view of spiritual salvation. His professors accused him of holding “radically subversive” ideas and of having a “misguided youth.” Immediately, Dewey shot back at the board writing ominously, that the eviction “debars me from some valuable privileges; but at the same time it takes away their benefits, it casts me without its further control, and affords an opportunity to embrace other advantages.”62 A year later, he was ordained as an evangelist and commissioned to work for the needy. In 1823, free blacks needed help finding a better place to live, the United States needed help in creating a homogenized society, and the continent of Africa needed missionaries to bring in Western civilization. Working as an agent for the American Colonization Society was an almost perfect arrangement for a passionate and idealistic religious man like Dewey. A person inclined to networking, he had many friends within the colonizionist circles—the group of humanitarians interested in sending free blacks to form Christian colonies like Liberia in Africa. It was one of them, Reverend Leonard Bacon, who recruited Dewey as the agent for the entire state of New York. As his first 59 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. task, he revamped the ailing auxiliary committee of the city of New York. He persuaded philanthropist Henry Rutgers, who became president of the New York auxiliary, to donate $100. Then, in less than a year Dewey traveled the whole state urging people to donate for the cause and trumpeting the customary arguments for colonization.64 One of Dewey’s early contributions to the colonization scheme was an elaborate plan to relieve the nation of free blacks in the course of 50 years. The idea was to do away with six thousands young free blacks every year and in this way dramatically curtail the number of newborns. The main targets for colonization were young men from the ages of fourteen to sixteen, and young women from the ages of twelve to fourteen. Like Jefferson, Dewey understood some of the dynamics of race and sexuality. Thus, by choosing and regulating sexual practices of blacks in this country the project of getting rid of free blacks could achieve faster results. The auxiliary came to believe that by ten years, their parent society could slash the entire free black population by 100,000. Evidently, Dewey was not only part of the movement against the proliferation of free blacks in the US, but he also became one of its most fervent proponents and for a short time, a grassroots’ intellectual.65 Dewey was not aware, but the American Colonization Society was a tool for the encouragement of internal colonialism and international race separation. The Society’s actions were informed by definitions of racial difference and practices of racial exclusion, influenced, in turn, by European aristocratic notions of “blood.” With the ACS, the United States was experimenting with its own adaptation of European racial imperialism. Ann Laura Stoler argues that bourgeois identity in the “age of empire” was European and “white,” secured through raced, classed, and gendered norms of conduct specifying 60 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “middle class morality, nationalist sentiments, bourgeois sensibilities, normalized sexuality, and a carefully circumscribed milieu.”66 For matters of studying black colonization and its relationship to imperialism and racism, the links between the ACS and the US government were strong enough to render both institutions as akin in purpose. Their relation to the free blacks was a relation of subjugation similar to colonial relations based on manipulation, usurpation, and illegitimate appropriations. The condition was one of “colonial rule without colonization.” Anticipating the rise of the European biopolitical state, black colonization was the North American variation of racial imperialism that effectively constructed the racial “others” as “enemies within.” For this task, as Jefferson and then later Dewey’s proposals exemplified, both institutions claimed the moral authority to give and take life through such projects as population regulation, sexual surveillance, and the ejection of “enemies within” and “racial deviants” who destabilized the formation of a imperial white state. Following this same line of thinking Dewey tried to persuade his New York constituency that black colonization was “the only possible means of gradually ridding ourselves of a mighty evil, and of obliterating the foulest stain upon our nation’s honor.68 Surprisingly, however, in a few months after creating societies in different parts of New York, attaining the support of prominent citizens and developing contacts with the free black community, agent Dewey’s enthusiasm ran amok. His efforts were yielding mixed results. He had energized the backing of New York for the Society. Yet, in the first year, he collected less than $900 and from this he had to reduce $600 for his salary. This left less than $300 for the headquarters in Washington DC. Moreover, Dewey found 61 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a tenacious resistance to colonization from some quarters in New York. A large and active number of black leaders responded with rage against the colonization crusade. These leaders campaigned to discourage the influence of the colonization society’s arguments among the free blacks by pointing out that free blacks were Americans too, and that African colonization would only strengthen slavery. Quakers and other abolitionists also suspected the project to be a tool of the southern slave-owners, and battled any attempt from the ACS wherever they were influential. The focus of the resistance was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but it was also present throughout the state of New York.69 Dewey’s quick disappointment could not have come only from the failure to collect the amount of money he expected. By 1823, the Society had already six full years of experience trying to harvest donations and it knew that the amount of money they always needed never came swiftly. Dewey was not the only agent struggling to collect an adequate amount of donations. Actually, he was the norm. The Society had serious troubles raising enough money to pay for simple operational procedures. Moreover, in his plans, Dewey had budgeted more time for the collection of funds. So, eight months of slow progress could have affected his enthusiasm somehow, of course, but should not have produced the intense disillusionment he experienced. Dewey’s frustration came more from learning that most free blacks actually did not want to go to Africa after all. He appeared to have the type of personality that placed much importance on human contact, and was deeply touched by relationships. He gave indications of realizing that free blacks were hurt by efforts from the white community to control the future of their “free” lives without even asking. When he was recruited as an 62 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. agent, Dewey believed wholeheartedly that free blacks would naturally prefer to live in Africa than in any other place. After listening to them, he was surprised to find out that free blacks would have preferred to stay or to immigrate to Haiti instead of colonizing western Africa.70 The emigration of free blacks to Haiti had been a topic of discussion in northern states before 1824, and there were some short and small successful instances where blacks immigrated to the island. Haiti’s chronic instability had discouraged philanthropists from funding and pursuing that option. The scheme, however, was now feasible with Jean Pierre Boyer’s relative peace in Haiti; and Dewey got deeply involved in it. In daring to experiment with a project of the black’s liking Dewey recognized the powerful influence of the other at the personal level. 63 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1A Friend to Colonization, “Letters to the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register. (Philadelphia) 19 June 1824, 12. 2 A Friend to Colonization, “Letters to the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register. 22 June 1824, 13. 3 Edward Said’s term of “other” is a valuable tool for historical interpretation. Following some developments in postcolonialist theory, this term suggests here the more simple, but significant behavior common in colonialism and imperialism of producing artificial differences in the midst of cross cultural and racial encounters. Edward Said, Orientalism. Hardmondsworth, Penguin, 1995. 4 A Friend to Colonization, 14. 5 For discussion on hegemony as an analytical tool see T. J. Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review 90, no. 3 (June 1985): 567-593; and Gwyn A. Williams, “The Concept of 'Egemonia' in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21, no. 4 (October - December 1960): 586-599. 6 For more on Las Casas see Bartolome Casas, Brevfsima Relation de la Destruction de las Indias. (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1999); Benjamin Keen, and Juan Friede, eds., Bartolome de Las Casas in History. (De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971); Francis Sullivan, Indian Freedom: The causes of Bartolome de las Casas, 1474-1566: A reader. (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1995); Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolome the Las Casas and the Restoration of the Indies (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, Ph.D. Dissertation, 1994); David M. Traoulay, Columbus and Las Casas: The Conquest and Christianization of America, 1492-1566, (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994). 7 According to Thomas L. Haskell “What happened was that the conventional limits of moral responsibility observed by an influential minority expanded to encompass evils that previously had fallen outside of anyone operative sphere of responsibility.” Thomas L. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1,” The American Historical Review 90, no. 2 (April 1985): 359-60. 8 Cited by David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, (Ithaca: University of Cornell Press, 1975), 353. 9 Abraham Bishops, “Rights of Black Men,” reproduced in Tim Matthewson, “Abraham Bishop, ‘Rights of Black Men,’ and the American Reaction to the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of Negro History 67 no. 2 (Summer 1982): 152. 64 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 Regarding the American Colonization Society’s sinister side William Lloyd Garrison stressed in 1832 that the ACS was not a benevolent institution since its purpose was to divert attention from abolishing slavery. “It looks to the banishment of the free people of color as the only means to abolish slavery and conciliate the feelings of the planters.” William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (New York: Amo Pres, 1968), 20-21. He later called all Colonizationists “apologists for the crime of slavery.” P.J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement 1816-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 194. 11 David Brion Davis, “Reflections on Abolitionism and Ideological Hegemony,” The American Historical Review 93, no. 4 (October 1987): 798. 12 See the classic Michel Foucault, Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1991). 13 For the abolition of the slave trade, see the classic Eric Eustace Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, N.C. University of North Carolina Press, 1944), and some of his articles: Eric Williams, “The British West Indian Slave Trade After Its Abolition in 1807,” Journal of Negro History 27, no. 2 (April 1942): 175-191; “Public Opinion” Journal of Negro History 25, no. 1 (January 1940): 94-106; “The Importance of the Sugar Interest” Journal of Negro History 25, no. 1 (January 1940): 79-94; “The Rise of the Slave System,” Journal of Negro History 25, no. 1 (January 1940): 60-66; “The Wealth from the Slave System,” Journal of Negro History 25, no. 1 (January 1940): 6678. Further reading on the Williams’ thesis’ debate see: John Ashworth, “The Relationship of Capitalism to Humanitarianism,” American Historical Review 93, no. 4 (October 1987): 813-828; David Brion Davis, “Reflections on Abolitionism and Ideological Hegemony,” The American Historical Review 93, no. 4 (October 1987): 797812; Philip D. Curtin, The rise and fall of the plantation complex: Essays in Atlantic history (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, Edition: 2nd ed, 1998); William Darity, Jr. “The Numbers Game and the Profitability of the British Trade in Slaves,” Journal of Economic History 45, no. 3 (September 1985): 693-703; Seymour Drescher, From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery. (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Seymour Drescher “The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective” The American Historical Review 99, no. 1 (February 1994): 44-69; Stanley L. Engerman “Slavery and Emancipation in Comparative Perspective: A Look at Some Recent Debates,” Journal of Economic History 46, no. 2. (June 1986): 317-339; David Eltis “Europeans and the Rise and Fall of African Slavery in the Americas: An Interpretation,” The American Historical Review 98, no. 5 (December 1993): 1399-1423; Judi Jennings, The Business of Abolishing the British Slave Trade. 1783-1807. (London & Portland, OR: Cass, 1997); Barbara Solow and Stanley Engerman, British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Lorenzo Dow Turner “The Anti-Slavery Movement Prior to the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade (1641-1808),” Journal of Negro History 14, no. 4 (October 1929): 373-402; Robin W. Winks “On 65 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Decolonization and Informal Empire,” The American Historical Review 81, no. 3 (June 1976): 540-556. 14 For the wars for independence in British, French and Iberian America, see Thomas C. Barrow “The American Revolution as a Colonial War for Independence,” William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd. Ser., 25, no. 3 (July 1968): 452-464; Charles Gibson & Benjamin Keen “Trends of United States Studies in Latin American History,” The American Historical Review 62, no. 4 (July 1957): 855-877; Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians. Debtors, Slaves, & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, The Omohundro Institute for American History and Culture, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Woloch, Isser, “Revolution and the meanings of freedom in the nineteenth century” (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996); Lester D. Langley, The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Jay Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America: Civil wars, revolutions, and underdevelopment (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000); Anthony McFarlane & Eduardo Posada Carbo, Independence and revolution in Spanish America: Perspectives and problems (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1999); Larry E. Tise. The American Counterrevolution: A Retreat From Liberty, 1783-1800, (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1999). 15 See for example a book he helped to edit, Thomas Bender, John Ashworth, David Brion Davis, Thomas L. Haskell, The Antislaverv Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and his article already cited here on the AHR’s antislavery forum, 93, no. 4 (October 1987). 16 For the ambivalence of the colonial relations, see Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: New York: Routledge, 1994). 17 Frantz Fanon made an enlightening explanation of the colonizer’s ambivalence. See Frantz Fanon, Black skin, white masks (New York: Grove Press, Edition: 1st Evergreen ed. 1991, 1967); and Denean T. Sharpley-Whiting, Frantz Fanon (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). 18 Alana Lentin, “'Race', Racism and Anti-racism: Challenging Contemporary Classifications,” Social Identities 6, no. 1 (2000): 91 19See for example David Brion Davis, “American Equality and Foreign Revolutions,” The Journal of American History 76, no. 3 (December 1989): 729-752; David Patrick Geggus, Thirty years of Haitian revolution historiography (Paramaribo, Surinam: Association of Caribbean Historians; 30th Conference, 1998 ); Tim Matthewson, “Abraham Bishop, “T h e Rights of Black Men,’ and the American Reaction to the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of Negro History 67, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 148-154; A. J. Williams-Myers, “Slavery, Rebellion, and Revolution in the Americas: A 66 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Historiographical Scenario on the Theses of Genovese and Others,” Journal of Black Studies 26, no. 4 (March 1996): 381-400. 20 See for example, Mats Lundahl, "Toussaint L! Ouverture and the War Economy of Saint Domingue, 1796-1802," and Robert LaCerte, "The Evolution of Land and Labour in the Haitian Revolution 1791-1820," both chapters in Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society From Emancipation to the Present (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996). 21 Abraham Bishop in “The Rights of Black Men,” reprinted in Matthewson, 151. 22Edward L. Cox, “Fedon's Rebellion 1795-96: Causes and Consequences” Journal of Negro History 67, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 7-19. For another example see also Douglass R. Egerton, Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies, 1800-1802 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 23 Antonio Cussen, Bello and Bolivar: Poetry and Politics in the Spanish American Revolution (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Clarence J. Munford, Michael Zeuske, “Black Slavery, Class Struggle, Fear and Revolution in St. Domingue and Cuba, 1785-1795,” Journal of Negro History 73, no. 1/4 (Winter Autumn, 1988): 12-32; and William Spence Robertson, “South America and the Monroe Doctrine, 1824-1828.” Political Science Quarterly 30, no. 1 (March 1915): 82-105. 24 Two essays on the AHR forum “Revolutions in America” discuss the experience of the Haitian Revolution and independence and compare it with other revolutions in the Western Hemisphere. These essays are: Franklin W. Knight, “The Haitian Revolution,” American Historical Review 105 no. 1 (February 2000): 103-115; and Jaime E. Rodriguez O., “The Emancipation f America,” American Historical Review 105 no. 1 (February 2000): 131-152. Some other recent publications on the Haitian Revolution are, Colin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848 (London, 1988); Carolyn Fick, The making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue revolution from below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); and John Carrigus, A Struggle for Respect: The Free Coloreds in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue, 1760-69 (PhD dissertation, John Hopkins University, 1988). 9 r Abraham Bishop in the “Rights of Black Men,” reprinted in Matthewson, 153. 26 David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 78. 27 Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (New York: Norton, 1974), cited in Donald E. Pease, “New Perspectives on US Culture and Imperialism,” a chapter in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, ed. Cultures of United States Imperialism, (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993), 22. 67 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 “This posture embodied John Quincy Adams’s dictum of the ‘ripe apple’: Cuba and other Caribbean islands, Adams believed, would fall naturally into the orbit of the United States once the right conditions arose. This did not mean that the U.S. policy in the region was one of inaction. Quite the contrary the United States sought actively to prevent any situation that would jeopardize its future expansion into the Hispanic Caribbean.” Luis Martinez Fernandez, Tom Between Empires: Economy, Society, and Patterns of Political Thought in the Hispanic Caribbean, 1840-1878 (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1994), 12. 29 Cited in Scott L. Malcomson, One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000), 285. 30 For a classic book on this subject see Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers: 1815-1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978). 31 For more on the Monroe Doctrine see Pantaleon Garcia, La Doctrina Monroe, el Destino Manifiesto, el Ferrocarril de Panama v las Rivalidades Anglosaionas nor el Control de America Central. (Panama: Universidad de Panama, Centro Regional Universitario de Code, Circulo de Historiadores de Panama, 1998); Ernest R. May, The making of the Monroe doctrine. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992, 1975); Gale W. McGee, “The Monroe Doctrine—A Stopgap Measure,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 38, no. 2. (September 1951): 233-250; Gretchen Murphy, Locating the nation: Literature, narrative and the Monroe Doctrine. 1823-1904: a genealogy of American exceptionalism (Dissertation: Thesis (Ph. D.)—University of Washington, 1999). 32 See Ellen M Boles, Manifest Destiny on the American frontier in the 1840s and the role of industrialism (Rohnert Park, California, 2000); Robert E. May, “Young American Males and Filibustering in the Age of Manifest Destiny: The United States Army as a Cultural Mirror,” The Journal of American History 78, no. 3. (December 1991): 857-886; Julius W. Pratt, “The Origin of "Manifest Destiny,” The American Historical Review 32, no. 4 (July 1927): 795-798; Serge Richard, The Manifest Destiny of the United States in the 19th Century, ideological and political aspects (Paris: Didier Erudition; CNED, 1999); Maria del Rosario Rodriguez Diaz, El destino manifiesto en el discurso polftico norteamericano: 1776-1849, (Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas, 1997); Richard Worth, Westward expansion and manifest destiny in American history (Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2001). 33 See William Earl Weeks, “American nationalism, American imperialism: an interpretation of United States political economy, 1789-1861,” Journal of the Early Republic 14 (Winter 1994): 485-95. Weeks develop his thesis even further in other works. See for example “John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire,” The American Historical Review 98, no. 3 (June 1993): 944; “New directions in the study of early American foreign relations,” Chapter in Michael J. Hogan, Paths to power: The 68 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. historiography of American foreign relations to 1941, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For another resource on the early rise of American Imperialism see Mansour Farhang, An inquiry into the sources and evolution of United States imperialism. Dissertation: Thesis (Ph. D.) Claremont Graduate School, 1980. Reproduction: Photocopy. (Ann Arbor, Mich. UMI Dissertation Information Service, 1992). 34 Jefferson opposed General Leclerc’s invasion of Saint Domingue to avoid a powerful French presence in the region, particularly because Napoleon Bonaparte’s dreams of an American Empire. His attempt was not a support of the Haitian Revolution since the moment that Leclerc left the Caribbean he reversed his policy toward the revolutionaries. See Tim Matthewson, “Jefferson and Haiti,” The Journal of Southern History 61, no. 2 (May 1995): 232-3. 35David M. Streifford, “The American Colonization Society: An Application of Republican Ideology to Early Antebellum Reform,” The Journal of Southern History 45, no. 2, (May 1979): 201-202. 36 M. Carey to Charles F. Mercer, Philadelphia, April 14, 1832 in Letters of the Colonization Society with a View of Its Probable Results. (Philadelphia: April 26, 1832), 13. 37 African Repository, Vol.III P. 203, 374, cited in William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (New York: Amo Press, 1968), 125. 38 American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States, The Tenth Annual Report (Washington, 1827), 21. 39 American Colonization Society, Seventh Annual Report, cited in cited in William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (New York: Amo Press, 1968), 125. 40 Reverend Baxter Dickinson’s Sermon delivered at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1829, reproduced in Garrison, 102-101. 41 African Repository. Vol. V. p. 238, cited by Garrison, 126. 42 Cited in Staudenraus, 15. 43 Ibid, Vol. Vn, pp. 230-1, Garrison, 126. 44 “Garrison, 127. 45 Cited by Staudenraus, 1. 69 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 See William Cohen, “Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” The Journal of American History 56, no. 3 (December 1969): 503-526. 47 “Disgust always bears the imprint of desire.” Robert J. C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hvbriditv Theory, Culture and Race (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 149. AO For Jefferson’s relation with Sally Hemings see Rebecca L McMurry and James F McMurry, Jefferson, Callender, and the Sally story: The scandalmonger and the newspaper war of 1802, (Toms Brook, Virginia: Old Virginia Books, 2000); Shannon Lanier Jane Feldman, Jefferson's children: The story of one American family (New York: Random House, 2000); Byron W Woodson, A president in the family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson, (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001). 49 From Thomas Jefferson to St. George Tucker, August 28, 1797, in Paul L. Ford, ed. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (10 Vols. New York: 1892-99), VII, 166. 50 Ben Verkaaik argues that for Jefferson “Black people had no future in America at all except as slaves. Once they ceased to be slaves, they were to be sent packing. Nor would other nonwhites be welcome (the American Indian excepted, whom Jefferson was at pains to "whiten"). Jefferson's bright vision of the future of America was a monoracial one: whites only.” Ben Verkaaik, “Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist,” The Atlantic Monthly 278, no. 4 (October 1996): 53-74. 51 “Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Philadelphia to a friend in New York,” National Gazette, (July 21, 1824), reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville par Son Fils (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 154. 52 See for example James D. German, “The Social Utility of Wicked Self-Love: Calvinism, Capitalism, and Public Policy in Revolutionary New England,” The Journal of American History 82, no. 3 (December 1995): 965-998; Joanna Innes, Hugh Cunningham, Charity, Philanthropy, and Reform: From the 1690s to 1850 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998); Robert I. Rotberg and Gene A. Brucker, Patterns of social capital: Stability and change in historical perspective. (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Robert Walker, Reform in America: The Continuing Frontier (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985). 53 Thomas C. Richards, "Samuel J. Mills, Missionary, Pathfinder, Pioneer and Promoter" (Boston, 1906), 190, 191; Spring, "Memoir of Mills," 129. 54 Prior to the establishment of the American Colonization Society Paul Cuffe, African and Native American descendent successfully transported several families of free blacks to Sierra Leone. He campaigned for black colonization in Africa. His efforts inspired, in large measure, the organization of the ACS. However, some scholars argue that Cuffe did not support the ACS because he saw colonization more as a self-help 70 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. measure. For this opinion see Ella Forbes, “African American Resistance to Colonization,” Journal of Black Studies 21, no. 2 (December 1990): 221. In 1923, Henry Noble Sherwood wrote an interesting series of chapters on Paul Coffe published in the Journal of Negro History 8, no. 2 (April 1923). For more on Paul Cuffe see Herb Boyd, Autobiography of a people: Three centuries of African American history told by those who lived it, (New York: Doubleday, 2000); Edward W. Devlin, A man bom on purpose: Captain Paul Cuffe of Westport, mariner, educator, African-American, 1759-1817, (Westport, Massachusetts: Westport Historical Society, 1997); Arthur Diamond, Paul Cuffe, (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989); Lamont Dominick Thomas, Paul Cuffe: Black entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); Sheldon H. Harris, “An American's Impressions of Sierra Leone in 1811,” Journal of Negro History 47, no. 1 (January 1962): 35-41; Amanda Lee Brooks, Captain Paul Cuffe (1759-1817) and the Crown Colony of Sierra Leone the liminalitv of the free black. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1988); Michael Westgate, Captain Paul Cuffe (1759-1817): A one-man civil rights movement, (Boston: Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and Education and Resources Group (ERG), 1989). 55 Robert Finley to Paul Cuffe, December 5, 1816, Paul Cuffe Manuscripts in the Public Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts. 56 African Repository Vol. V, 304, also reprinted in Garrison 99. 57 For this insight I am indebted to Christopher L. Miller in an email to H-Amrel dated Wednesday, May 09, 2001 9:54 AM. co Samuel Hopkins, The System of Doctrines, Contained in Divine Revelation, Explained and Defended... (Boston, 1811), 466-468. For more on early nineteenthcentury disinterested benevolence see David Harrowar, A sermon on the doctrine of disinterested benevolence (New York; Utica, Printed by George Camp 1816); and Samuel Hopkins, Papers, 1750-1802 Diary, memorandum book, letters (1764-1801), essays, and sermon notes (Andover Newton Theological Seminary, 1802). 59 The quotes in this paragraph are from Charles H. Wesley, Richard Allen: Apostle of Freedom (Washington DC: The Associated Publishers, 1935), 67 and 161. 60 Ibid., 154. For more on Allen’s work against the ACS see Vincent Bakpetu Thompson, “Leadership in the African Diaspora in the Americas Prior to 1860,” Journal of Black Studies 24, no. 1 (September 1993): 42-76; and Ella Forbes, “African-American Resistance to Colonization,” Journal of Black Studies 21, no. 2 (December 1990): 210223. 61 Adelbert Milton Dewey, Life of George Dewey, rear admiral, U.S.N., and Dewey family history: being an authentic historical and genealogical record of more than fifteen thousand persons in the United States by the name of Dewey, and their descendants, life of Rear Admiral George Dewey, (Westfield, Massachusetts: Dewey 71 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Publications Company, 1898). Loring D. Dewey and Stephen Dewey, Account Book (Massachusetts, 1828), is an account book of Stephen Dewey and Loring D. Dewey, his son and the administrator of his estate, with entries for the prices of hauling logs and wood, plowing, livestock, and various agricultural commodities. 62 Loring D. Dewey, Documents Relative to the Dismission of Loring D. Dewey from the Theological Seminary in New York (New York: 1816), 22, 24. 63 Ebenezer Fitch, The Design. Importance and Duties of the Christian Ministry: A Sermon at the Ordination of Abraham Forman and installation over the Church in Geneseo, July 2, 1817 and the Ordination of Loring D. Dewey as an Evangelist (Moscow, NY: H. Ripley, 1817). 64 Staudenraus, 79-81. 65 Ibid. 66 Ann Laura Stoler, Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things, (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995), 11, 44, 105. 67 Despite the obvious historical differences, the words of Jurgen Osterhammel for British rule in India are applicable to the condition of free blacks in the Antebellum US. Jurgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997), 8. 68 New York Colonization Society, First Annual Report of the New-York Colonization Society. Read at the Annual Meeting, October 29, 1823 (New York, 1823), 7; ACS Seventh Annual Report, 164-165. This information is also partially mentioned in Staudenraus, 80. 69 Staudenraus, 81. 70 Loring D. Dewey, “Notice,” June 15, 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 1. 72 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III LORING D. DEWEY AND THE BLACK EMIGRATION TO HAITI: PHILANTHROPY AND IMPERIALISM I thought that the project would triumph. Loring D. Dewey, London, May 11, 1865 Introduction In 1865, forty years after helping thousands of free blacks immigrate voluntarily to Hispaniola, Loring D. Dewey sent three letters to Haiti responding to a query from Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville. Granville, son of the Haitian emissary of the same name (Jonathas Pierre Joseph Marie Granville, 1785-1839) who came to the United States to facilitate black emigration to Haiti in 1824, was seeking Dewey’s help in understanding more about his father’s mission. In these letters, Dewey now a poor and old man living in London and with none of his previous connections, wrote about his personal involvement in the emigration scheme and his friendship with Granville senior. He was still concerned about the people he tried to help in 1824 when he set up contact with Haiti for the emigration crusade. In an emotional burst, Dewey penned, “I would be delighted to learn more about their [the immigrants’] history, after they settled in Haiti, and about their current situation.”1 We may not know if Granville junior actually wrote back to Dewey describing the condition of the North American blacks settled in Hispaniola. Yet, this sentence from Dewey tells us much of the motivations that moved this white Protestant minister to philanthropy in the background of the North Atlantic imperialism and race conflict of the nineteenth-century. 73 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. It is remarkable how well Dewey still remembered and vividly felt about the events of 1824-6. In his first letter to Granville junior, Dewey tried to explain why the Quakers did not have the best strategy toward black emigration and helping the downtrodden. They had the feeling that any measure concerning black people that would not come from them was wrong. They opposed their emigration, preached the doctrine that ‘if they were emancipated, raised and well-treated as domestics amongst the Quakers, it was well enough,’ and, as one of their female preacher says, ‘we need them as domestics.’ I do not want to assert nor suppose that no one, in their cult, had higher ideas on the well being of the oppressed; but these were very few.2 In censuring the Quakers’ approach, Dewey, a Presbyterian, was revealing a curious, but common example of religious rivalry among abolitionists. In this case Dewey was concerned with how much power the oppressed could have in deciding his or her avenue of relief. At this time, blacks were ambivalent about leaving the United States. Some clearly wanted to depart while others felt they belonged where they were, and preferred to work changing their social inequality. Somewhere in early 1824, Dewey changed his position from wanting all of them to leave for Africa to assisting them to go where they wanted to go. This line of thinking brought Dewey strong condemnation from his fellow abolitionists, especially Quakers, some of whom did not want blacks to leave at all. “I was, in this occasion, attacked as the man who was robbing them and stealing their domestics.”3 In fact, letting the blacks decide where to go in search of freedom was the original source of contention Dewey had with the American Colonization Society too. With sadness he also disclosed to Granville junior in 1865 the way he was treated by his former fellows from the ACS back in 1824. My writing to his president [to Jean Pierre Boyer] was condemned, denatured... I was attacked as the one that wanted to remove the servants 74 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of the people and relocate in Haiti as many blacks that I could, so I could plot an insurrection in the South. The current was so strong against me, that I could not withstand it. I had to write to your father that ‘all was lost,’ and I almost was rejected by my own compatriots. In fact, I was tested with big disappointments and of big deprivations.4 Whites were not the only ones that rejected Dewey. Not long after arriving to the U.S. Granville wanted to return, leaving the emigration scheme without the authoritative Haitian leadership he represented. After experiencing firsthand North American racism, Granville, the Haitian emissary, was not comfortable staying in the United States, but his excuse to return was his weakening health. However, the Haitian emigration project, both Dewey and Granville thought, needed a Haitian representative in U.S. soil. The reasons they gave to President Boyer were, The need to sign contracts for the vessels and for the provisions of emigrants, which contracts must be filled by your Government in Haiti, requires an authorized agent. This agent would feel obliged to consult and manage your interests. It appears also necessary to have someone who would travel in the country with the authorization of your Government, to encourage the emigrants, assuring them of the importance and reality of the offer you have given them or of which they would have heard of. To this end, it would be useful that the person named for this purpose have already obtained the confidence of the people of colour.5 Granville, curiously, did not suggest another Haitian to replace him, and despite his contacts with black leaders, he did not recommend an African American. Instead, Granville recommended Dewey for that position. It could have been partially because Dewey would have found his way easier around a white-dominated society than a black man would have, something Granville learned the hard way. It also could have been because the type of relationship Dewey had with the black community and the level of comfort blacks, including Granville, had around him as compared with other whites. Furthermore, it could have been because Granville developed a low opinion of his fellow 75 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. blacks in the United States, which in the end helped to stall Haitian enthusiasm for the project. He wrote to Boyer, “The people of color here are [...] in such a hopeless state that every time I find myself around them I feel that their depreciation reflects on me.”6 It seems, however, that the most important reason why Granville recommended Dewey, a white Protestant minister to an official position of a special emissary of Haiti in the United States was because Dewey wanted it ardently and most likely Granville felt he owed it to his new friend. After all, Dewey’s original letter to Boyer prompted his raise to temporary prominence, and Dewey’s companionship was his main source of comfort in the U.S. Moreover, Granville’s decision to endorse Dewey’s candidacy may have reflected his desire for whiteness and tendency for mimicry. After all, he was the epitome of Boyer’s mulatto class in Haiti, which ruled with a racist sense of superiority. So, while making preparations for his return, Granville wrote to President Boyer, “Dewey is favorably known to the men of colour, he appears devoted to our interests; he will be able do make much more than I.” Dewey himself wrote to President Boyer too. I have given a lot of consideration to this subject, and I am persuaded that I could have no greater impact on emigration to your island than by filling such duties. I have obtained the confidence of the people of colour I know this country perfectly well, I am known almost everywhere and I desire greatly to be useful to your cause and dedicate my life to it. I have therefore concluded, with the approval of citizen Granville and other sincere friends of the cause, to apply to you for authorization to act as agent of your Government to favour the emigration of coloured persons to Haiti.7 However, either because financial or strategic reasons, Boyer did not think Dewey was necessary. Boyer wrote back from Haiti to Granville explaining his reasons why it was not a good idea for Dewey to replace him as representative of Haiti. 76 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dewey, the one that you recommended to me as your replacement as agent of the Haitian Republic, undoubtedly deserves all my regard; but, since the [Emigration Society] Company of New York must be charged to direct the emigration in question, it does not appear necessary to me to name any other agent after your departure.8 In seeking his niche of usefulness, Dewey had a taste of what meant to be a hybrid. By crossing the line that divides the oppressor from the oppressed, mingling freely with the downtrodden, and getting rejections from almost every quarter, he carved for himself a position of in-betweeness. His former friends found in Dewey a threat to their designs; colleague abolitionists pushed him aside, and the Haitian government rejected his attempt to become a Haitian representative. He no longer thought that blacks were a “mighty evil” and “the foulest stain upon our nation’s honor,” the people that he should get rid of as he thought when he was a star agent for the American Colonization Society. His language after 1824 demonstrates a different kind of concern and an acquired respect for the other black. Dewey still believed, however, that blacks could improve their lot better in a place without such racial prejudices found in the United States. There were many blacks that believe similarly and wanted to leave the country, but not by travelling to Africa, and neither on a white dominated scheme. By crossing social and racial borders Dewey arrived to an ideological and social space that allowed him to inspect “reality” outside the bipolarity of power struggle between those in power and those at the bottom. By stepping into the “in-between” zone, Dewey challenged the dualism produced by the reflexive notions of otherness, and demonstrated that they were socially constructed.9 His actions and attitudes became a mode of resistance against the currents of racial domination and the deployment of imperial power in the Atlantic. This happened by siding with the blacks’ desires, by supporting a project in favor of the 77 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. despised country of Haiti, and by wanting to become a representative of Haiti in the United States. This chapter focuses on describing the emergence of the Haitian Emigration project in the United States that brought thousands of free blacks to Hispaniola while the entire island was under the Haitian government. It pays particular attention to Dewey’s role in helping initiate the project and in his collaboration with Jonathas Granville. It argues that the whole experience of bolting out of the American Colonization Society and championing a project that most of the black community supported, which was potentially favorable to Haiti, brought critical dislocations in Dewey’s life. These social and ideological disruptions affected Dewey by placing him in the dreading position of being rejected by his own, but at the same time brought him closer to the cause of the oppressed black and Haitian. So much was his change that he even tried taking up a position that under normal diplomatic circumstances would have belonged to a Haitian by wanting to become a Haitian representative in the U.S. And forty years after the project he still longed for news of those he helped to relocate in the tropical island. Dewey’s Insurrection and Communication with Haiti It may have all started with a widely circulated memorandum published on December 24,1823, in which Jean Pierre Boyer had expressed his wish “to increase in the country the number of agriculturalists, and in this [way] augment its population . .. with emigrants of colour.”10 Boyer aimed his appeal to North American blacks who were debating about the benefits and disadvantages of staying in a country that did no like them or leaving to a more comfortable place. Dewey found out about Boyer’s plan and talked with people attracted to the idea of immigrating to Haiti while he was recruiting 78 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. blacks for West Africa and raising funds for the American Colonization Society. He noticed the impact that Boyer’s offers had in the black community. These offers “afford [blacks] strong motives to emigrate,” 11 he wrote. The “strong” desire free blacks felt for Haiti contrasted sharply with the refusal of many to join the American Colonization Society in establishing new homes on the other side of the Atlantic. It appeared to Dewey that most free blacks that found their lives constrained in the United States preferred to immigrate to Haiti than to colonize West Africa. Thus, as Dewey grew increasingly uncomfortable enlisting blacks for settling in Liberia, Boyer immigration crusade sparked curiosity in him. Finally, meeting Haitian Secretary General Joseph B. Inginac in one of his tours to New York City tilted his mind toward emigration to Haiti instead of colonization in Africa. Without informing the ACS’ managers, Dewey sent a personal letter to contact Boyer on March 4, 1824. In this letter, he inquired about the conditions for the settlements that the president was proposing in Haiti. This surprising initiative prompted a sequence of events that ended in the relocation of thousands of North American blacks in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Dewey’s turnaround toward the black’s plight was an oddity among white abolitionists who were mostly concerned with dismantling slavery as an institution in the US, but cared less to risk personal prestige to satisfy blacks’ relocation wishes. Dewey started his letter to Boyer by explaining that his motivations for writing were twofold: professional and personal. “My duty as Agent of the American Colonization Society, as well as my own feelings, leads me to desire information on every point that looks like affording benefit to my unhappy coloured countrymen.” 79 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Months later, after the confrontation with the ACS, Dewey explained his motivations with more precision to the public. “In prosecuting an Agency in behalf of the noble object of the American Colonization Society, I found the public feeling generally was very favourable to the Emigration of the Coloured People to Hayti. Among the Coloured People themselves, a preference for Hayti over Africa was frequently expressed, and among the whites, there was not only an opposition to Colonization in Africa manifested by many, but an assurance given of their ready aid to promote emigration to Hayti.” 12 Two main reasons motivated Dewey to contact Boyer. First, he thought that it would be easier to raise funds for an emigration to Haiti than to Africa since some white philanthropists he met expressed interest in such a project. Secondly, he felt uncomfortable asking free blacks to go to a place they did not want to go, and preferred to arrange transportation to the country of their predilection. Dewey’s newly developed contacts and interactions with free blacks were appropriate circumstances for developing close relationships with the black community, and this familiarity should have had a bearing in his actions. But by doing this, he was taking a personal and professional risk since he was well aware that the predisposition of the ACS was against emigration to Haiti.13 In his letter to Boyer, Dewey asked if the Haitian government was willing to defray the emigrants’ travel “expenses, assign [them] land to cultivate and aid them to stock their farms.”14 He also wanted to know if there would be religious tolerance, schools, and favorable social conditions for the emigrants. Finally, he asked if the immigrants would be allowed a state-like colony with their own set of laws, similar to the ACS’ colonization practices in Africa. So, Dewey inquired about two possible actions: emigration and colonization. With emigration, free blacks would have to acquiesce to the 80 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. local government, and with colonization, the ACS and the North American government could exercise more control over the settlement. Almost two months later Boyer answered all of Dewey's questions favorably, except the last one. Boyer would not allow exemption for a state within a state in Haiti.15 Boyer’ Strategies Boyer promises were still tempting. He told Dewey that he was going to give immigrants free land, “as much as a family can cultivate.”16 Indeed, in his initial 1823 proclamation Boyer stipulated that “emigrants of colour [going] to Hayti, who may wish to establish themselves in the mountains or [sic] vallies to cultivate with their own hands the public lands, shall be authorized to cultivate the same for their own profit.”17 Authorities in Hispaniola had been taking initiatives to attract immigration long before the 1820s. Since early Spanish colonial times, there were instances in which the island was opened for settlement to any from a European stock who wanted free land and was willing to acknowledge the colonial authorities. Spanish officials stimulated mass migrations of Canary islanders and Andalusians to the most isolated sections of the island to cultivate, and most importantly, to discourage pirate settlements. This trend continued of stimulating emigration for farming and for security reasons continued with the Haitians. In 1804, Haitian President Jean- Jacques Dessalines sought immigration from the U.S. in order to discourage French invasion. He believed that France would think twice before invading a land that had US settlers. During the 1810s Prince Saunders, a prominent black New Englander, envisaged an emigration project in which black Americans, particularly teachers, would help reform Haiti’s politics and society. 81 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1R Boyer’s strategy was, then, similar to that of his predecessors. White landowners left rich lots of lands when Haitians troops invaded the Spanish side of the island in 1822. A large number of skilled laborers also fled, increasing the need for able workers in agriculture and industry. Boyer was also concerned with foreign invasions, which a more evenly spread population, he believed, would help deter.19 For Boyer, the isolated but strategic peninsula of Samana was a clear example of what could happen in a lightly populated territory. Remnants Creoles and foreign groups opposing Boyer's military occupation of the Spanish half of Hispaniola built a stronghold in this peninsula in 1822. They were waiting for French and Spanish reinforcements to back them up in an attempt to expel the Haitians. Knowing well the dangers of an enemy base in this location, Boyer swiftly sent his troops to the peninsula. The French ship that was supposed to provide military support to the rebels found the place occupied by 300 of Boyer's soldiers. The ship's only deed was to help escape several frightened landowning families.20 It is not surprising, then, that in 1824 Boyer sought immigrants for this remote peninsula. Samana had a town with less than 1000 inhabitants and a port with no significant international trade, but Boyer wanted to create a vibrant commercial port. He gave specific orders regarding the type and quantity of immigrants to settle there. You [plenipotentiary agent citizen Granville] will take the most efficacious measures to convey to the peninsula of Samana, forty artisans of African blood, such as carpenters, wood-sawyers, blacksmiths, caulkers, ropemakers, sail-makers, &c., who would be capable of working in a timberyard, at small vessels for cruising on the coasts of the country, which vessels will be bought from them by Government. If these workmen have wives and children, Government will give them land, suited to the cultivation of coffee, cane, and every other species of food, grain, and vegetables which will be to them a very great advantage.21 82 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another enticing offer from Boyer to US blacks was the opportunity for full citizenship: “I have prepared for the children of Africa, coming out of the United States, all that can assure them of an honourable existence in becoming citizens of the Haytien Republic.”22 Boyer promised full political rights and equality. “Those who come, being children of Africa, shall be Haytiens as soon as they put their feet upon the soil of Hayti: they will enjoy happiness, security, tranquility, such as we ourselves possess, however, our defamers declare the contrary.”23 This offer contrasted sharply with the situation of manumitted blacks in the US, where opportunity was constrained by limited rights and continuous discrimination.24 Boyer also promised “nourishment, tools and other things of indispensable necessity until they shall be sufficiently established to do without this assistance.” Moreover, Boyer guaranteed domestic and religious freedom “provided they do not seek to make proselytes or trouble those who profess another faith than their own.”25 Dewey's March 1824 letter gave the impression to Boyer that the American Colonization Society was seriously interested in experimenting colonization in Haiti. This was obvious when he wrote back to Dewey observing that his overtures “seemed to be authorised by the respectable Society of which you are the general agent.”26 Boyer must have been utterly shocked since he clearly knew the low esteem in which Haiti was regarded in the United States. This seemed a fantastic opportunity for the Haitian government since the ACS’ connections with the federal government could lead to better relations with Haiti. It was obvious that Boyer had been following the actions of the ACS for some time so. In his response to Dewey, Boyer wrote, “I was informed of the 83 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. resolution taken in the United States to transport into Africa our unhappy brethren, and thus to restore them to their native sky. [...] I have often asked myself, why Hayti, whose climate is so mild, and whose government is analogous to that of the United States, was not preferred as their place of refuge.” 97 So, when Dewey wrote his first letter, there were ample reasons to rejoice because at last the Society was considering Haiti for its projects. For some time, Boyer had been timidly trying to attract attention to Haiti as a replacement to Africa for black settlements and an opportunity like that given by Dewey’s letter was something he would grasp eagerly. He did not realize, however, that Dewey was acting independently. Nevertheless, a few months after receiving Dewey’s letter, Boyer wrote to Granville full of confidence in his project, asserting he was not hesitant anymore, because I received in the course of last April, an official communication from Mr. Loring. D. Dewey, General Agent of the Society for African Colonization, at New York, to ascertain the terms on which the Haytien 7Q Government would consent to the emigration of these sons of Africa. Dewey had neither signed his letter as “General Agent,” nor wrote in the name of the ACS. He simply articulated his personal and professional wish for “information” regarding Boyer’s proposals while also informing the president he was an agent of the ACS.29 Dewey implied, however, that the American Colonization Society might be involved in the emigration if the managers were convinced about the idea. Regardless of Dewey’s motivations, this was the opportunity Boyer was waiting for, and he did not think twice about using it to his advantage. In May, Boyer sent a high-ranking judge, Jonathas Granville, as charge d ’affaires for the Republic of Hayti to negotiate with the American Colonization Society the best way to transport at least 6,000 freed blacks. Boyer’s plenipotentiary arrived at Philadelphia on June 6, 1824. Granville carried to the 84 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. United States letters from Boyer, requesting the philanthropists' support, and took with him 50,000 pounds of Haitian coffee as currency. In a separate letter Boyer requested the philanthropist Mr. Charles Collins of New York to sell the coffee in order to provide Granville with the money for the emigration.30 Granville’s Trip to the United States and Dewey’s Friendship While Boyer was preparing Granville and the coffee for a trip to the US, Dewey was communicating Haiti's offers to the secretary and board of the American Colonization Society. Despite the strong opposition of black leaders to expatriating blacks to Africa, the society's administrators did not want to -change routes to send blacks to Haiti. Robert G. Harper,31 a prominent Maryland politician and a manager of the Society, was the first to respond directly to Dewey saying, I have no doubt, sir, that colonization of free blacks in Hayti would be very useful, and it will give me great pleasure to se it in progress, for the more avenues are open for the discharge of this species of population into places better suited to them, the better for them and for this country. Let all who prefer Hayti, therefore, go thither, and let all those Americans who think it a better asylum for them than Africa give that direction to their contributions. But the two plans are essentially different, having different objects in some very important respects, although the same in others. I am one of those who doubt the expediency of blending them.32 Harper’s suggestions indicated that he was concerned with the logistic of dealing with two different projects. The underlying motive was the urge to “discharge” the unwanted free black population. Yet, his suggestions also revealed some appreciation for the Haitian venture and showed that Harper was willing to provide free blacks with their own choice for emigration.33 Shortly after Harper’s reply, on June 5, an official letter from the ACS’s secretary informed Dewey “that the parent Society would have nothing to do with the propositions 85 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of President Boyer.”34 But Dewey had already started preparations to follow Harper’s recommendation of forming a separate institution. It later became obvious that the ACS not only wanted to avoid Haiti, but also would labor intensively against any type of emigration to the island. The managers in DC met on June 11 to discuss Boyer’s proposal. They scolded Dewey for contravening “the fundamental object” of the Society. The blacks were to be sent as far as possible from the United States to the native land of their ancestors. The managers also sent a letter to Boyer disclaiming any involvement with Dewey’s initiative. Dewey’s plan of convincing the Society to take on the Haitian project was now dead. This reaction may have been predictable. Many eminent politicians were connected to the ACS, and such a direct humanitarian relationship with such an undesirable country would have brought the wrath of Southern planters and those concerned with the influence of the Haitian Revolution in the U.S.35 Fortunately for those blacks wanting to leave the United States, by the time Granville arrived in Philadelphia on June 9 the circumstances were ready for him to receive a warm welcome within the black and abolitionist community. He was welcomed with pleasant language from some of the most influential papers. Granville, a gracious diplomat and military officer with experience in the Napoleonic wars, was poised to raise admiration within the white community in the United States accustomed to scorn people of his look as impolite and unrefined. Robert Walsh from the National Gazette and Literary Register wrote, “The agent referred [...] arrived in Philadelphia last week, with sufficient means to aid the immediate emigration of 6,000 at least of the people of colour [...] We have had the pleasure of conversing with him, and formed 86 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a very favourable opinion of his understanding and feelings. He himself is a man of colour, but his information, diction, sentiment and manners, place him upon the level of the good society of any country. [...] It deserves respectful consideration in every quarter.”36 The same editor later would write admirably about Granville’s train of ideas and how the diplomat had convinced them that Haitians were a good example of “people who had emerged from a state of ignorance servitude [...] and in the short space of twenty years made greater progress in civilization and improvement than this people have.”37 The editors of the Nile’s Register described the impact of Granville’s visit. The arrival of an agent from the Republic of Hayti for the purpose of facilitating the conveyance to that island of the free people of colour of the United States who may feel disposed to proceed thither on the liberal terms offered by President Boyer, has caused the subject to occupy a large share of the public attention, and induced me to make and publish in this sheet a collection of articles relative to the matter in general, which is truly one of great interest to the citizens of the Southern and middle States and not unimportant to every person of the Republic. •20 A small number of newspaper editors embraced the project, and one in particular even exhorted young black women to emigrate because in Haiti they would “become respectable matrons . . . the wives of grave and reverend senators perhaps, or gallant captains, independent land holders or thrifty merchants.” Logically, if the purpose of the emigration was to release the United States from the black population while providing the emigrants with better conditions the project should aim at females in particular. By moving a male, we only remove one person, but a female has an effect on the future as well as the resent population of the country, and if it is really desired to reduce the relative amount of the blacks compared with the whites, it may be surely yet imperceptible accomplished by a resort to this measure. Le the money that we are willing to expend for this purpose be almost exclusively appropriated to serve as marriage portions to such young free females of colour as will emigrate to Hayti, where in every respect it is to be expected that their condition will be much improved.39 87 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The arguments that supporters used for the project were consistent. For them Haiti was a fine place to send the free blacks because it was better than sending them to their death in Africa (reference to ACS’ failures) and because Haiti was a Republic in peace. As with the ACS’s discourse, those who wanted emigration for blacks in Philadelphia declared they wanted a place for blacks free of prejudices. The renowned Quaker abolitionist, Benjamin Lundy, argued that the free blacks’ social status, might be greatly meliorated by their removal to Hayti, where all would be placed strictly upon an equality; where they would no longer be tantalized with the idea of mental inferiority; and where of course they would feel themselves removed from the fancied chains of moral debasement.40 Lundy supported here the idea common among colonialists that in order for blacks to be considered colorless in any given society they should settle in a place where everybody would be of the same color. Others would not care to where would blacks go as long as they go. Some of these would not acknowledge their prejudice, but would simply expose their fear of free blacks being the “enemy within.” Every opportunity, therefore, tempting and beneficial to themselves, of getting them off, should be embraced, whether offered by President Boyer, or the government of France. Admitting that they might become enemies in Hayti or French Guiana, it should still be remembered that precautions could be more easily and effectually taken against an external than a domestic foe.41 Those who opposed the Haitian emigration project in Philadelphia did so motivated by similar fears. The “enemy within,” free blacks, should be moved as far as possible. “Hayti is too near [to] the United States to be strengthened by such an accession of population.”42 88 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Despite all the noticeable welcome Granville received in Philadelphia, he found some power struggle among the abolitionists. Dewey later explained that the problems were the Quakers. I was well informed that the Quakers, or a few of their women, were preaching against emigration and that, as many of their domestics refused the special offers to become farmers and had the emigration, they opposed emigration in Philadelphia, in New York and in other places.43 The diversity of opinions within the abolitionist community was a surprise to Granville. He thought that they would be more than happy to adopt his project, but the Philadelphian philanthropists were more cautious than what he expected. The happiest note in his stop in Philadelphia was the reaction of the black community. James Forten, Richard Allen, and the rest of the African Methodist Episcopalian community expressed an enthusiasm for the enterprise that justified his trip to this city. From Philadelphia Granville went to New York seeking more support for the Haitian emigration scheme and to meet the author of the letter that inspired his adventure to the United States, Loring D. Dewey. He carried with him a letter of introduction from Boyer to Dewey. In this letter, Boyer entrusted Granville to Dewey. “I recommend to your care, the citizen Granville, during his stay in the United states, begging you to give him all necessary advice, and make known to him all persons, who can aid him in the success of the mission with which he is charged.”44 Dewey did not need much insistence since with Granville it was friendship at first sight. On his way to New York Granville stopped at a public house in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for supper. He sat at a table to eat with other white guests, oblivious to the unwritten rules he was violating. A Southern army officer arrogantly reprimanded him for pretending to eat with whites at the same table. “Sir, are you not aware that it is 89 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contrary to our custom for white men and coloured people to eat at the same table?” Astonished, Granville did not respond. The officer reacted to his silence and with more force insulted Granville. Then, rising from the table the officer declared that he would not eat with a black to his side. At last, Granville arose too, and wounded, addressed those in the table. “I am informed that it is contrary to the custom of this country for whites and coloured people to eat at the same table. I am a stranger, gentlemen from Hayti, and my ignorance of the custom must be my apology.” The result was that about eighteen of those seated rose with him and requested a table to eat at the side of the Haitian diplomat. The next day the impertinent officer sent Granville a note apologizing, “Sir, I write insults in sand, favours in marble.” The press favorable toward the Haitian emigration took this incident and broadcasted it, exalting Granville’s behavior as an example of what etiquette free blacks would learn in Haiti. “If this is a specimen of Hayti an manners, it would not be amiss to send some of our young men to President Boyer, that hey may learn how to behave themselves like gentlemen and like Christians.”45 To Granville, however, this episode was to be one of the most humiliating experiences of his life. For a man who boasted of having been educated in reputable schools in France, of being a veteran officer of Napoleon’s army,46 and occupying one the highest juridical positions in Haiti, this incident was truly embarrassing. In his costmary polite tone, Granville wrote to one of the papers containing the story. He explained how those who followed him to the next table did everything they could to make him feel comfortable. “These gentlemen and many others whose names I regret not being able to call to mind have left nothing untried to make me forget a scene which must have so 90 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. painfully affected me.”47 About forty years later Dewey would write to Granville’s son, blaming himself for the incident. Dewey understood at this time the extent to which his initial correspondence with Boyer affected the lives of many people, that he even felt responsible for Granville’s visit, and consequently guilty for his sad experience in New Jersey. Some very singular circumstances are linked to our meeting. I had been for him an involuntary cause of incidents and emotions. My action paved the way to very flattering public services and honors. It also lead to the public knowledge concerning some treatments and disappointments that came in very unpleasant circumstances. I was very affected to have caused his noble soul the mortification of an intentional disrespect, even 48 though it was not voluntary. Dewey also explained to Granville’s son that his father reached New York City bewildered. “Your worthy father arrived in New York in a state of agitation. You know about the day's incidents when he distinguished himself as a gentleman and as a philanthropist.”49 Dewey mentioned that he immediately took Granville to meet people of philanthropy and prestige so the Haitian emissary could focus on his mission to bring freedom to thousands of North American blacks and forget the shameful incident. As soon as I heard about his arrival and what had happened, I did not lose a moment to introduce him to honorable men who gave him every consideration and paid serious attention to the object of his mission. I invited especially several distinguished gentlemen to have dinner with him, the Reverend Dr. Spring among them, one of the first ministers in New York. They greeted him with enthusiasm, were enchanted with him, and showed much interest in his mission.50 Dewey found himself desperately defending and protecting his new Haitian friend. Casual meetings with Dewey’s friends in New York prepared the way for the more consequential open meeting that would decide the future of the Haitian emigration in New York. 91 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The New Philanthropic Societies Dewey straggled with relating this new project to his friends of the American Colonization Society, but the parent society in Washington DC did not like the project, and neither the New York auxiliary. After all, the general secretary had already rejected the idea. “It proved impossible to have a public meeting of my friends and of the friends of the colonization only, but a meeting had to be convened.” ci Dewey then invited the New York community in general, including Quakers to discuss Boyer’s proposals. They met in the conference room of the New York Historical Society on June 18, 1824. Apparently, Dewey was able bring in some former ACS contributors from his personal roster. However, Granville did not attend because of health reasons. Granville informed a newspaper that he was confined to his bed “by a violent fever brought on by a cold.” Nevertheless, the meeting went as planned. “The business of the meeting was opened and explained by Mr. Dewey.”53 The New York Commercial Advertiser wrote about the assembly in this way, A meeting of a number of our most respectable citizens was held last evening at the New York Institution to take into consideration the proposition of President Boyer relative to colonizing our free blacks in the island of Saint Domingo. [...] It was expected that Citizen Granville would have been present to have explained more fully the objects of his government and the extent of his powers, but he was prevented attending by indisposition.54 Despite Granville’s absence, this meeting produced lively deliberations regarding the approaches toward black colonization and emigration. A free interchange of the views and opinions of gentlemen was had, and a very general opinions of gentlemen was had, and a very general opinion was expressed in favour of an organization of a society for the purpose of forwarding the views of the President of Haity.55 92 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The discussions centered on the legitimacy of a new society for promoting emigration to Haiti. General Mercer, an ACS manager, was invited to express his views. He deflected accusations that the ACS did not want them to send free blacks to Haiti because of fear of spreading a revolutionary spirit in the southern states. “He denied that this opposition [the ACS’] arose from any apprehensions of danger. He had never heard it objected that Hayti was too near.” Instead, he argued, that the Haitian project would not help “the complete extinguishment of the slave trade. Hayti would not afford room for the whole of this population, and the slave trade could not be effectually stopped without planting colonies upon the Western Coast [of] Africa.”56 At this point Dewey read Robert D. Harper’s letter, which contradicted Mercer’s position. “General Harper said that the great reason of the opposition of the South to Hayti as a colony was its proximity to us, and the facility of communication between the blacks of the two countries that would exist.” cn Those meeting that day concluded appointing a committee of nine to consider in detail all Boyer’s documents and study his offers in detail. That committee was to report its opinion to the larger assembly within a week. Well-known philanthropists as Thomas Eddy, H. Ketchum, Isaac Collins, and professor John Griscom were part of this committee. The next few days saw the debate started in the meeting spread throughout different papers in New York City and Philadelphia. The National Gazette reacted to Mercer’s comments with irritation. The objections of General Mercer to the plan as reported are of the most visionary nature. The colonization in Africa of all the free coloured people of the United states is but a ‘waking dream.’ Hayti will be found abundantly large for all who will consent to emigrate. Allowance should be made for the number that will prefer their country’s smoke before any ‘Outlandish fire.’58 93 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. At the same time that these philanthropists were deliberating, the “Committee of Coloured Persons” met in New York on Thursday June 24 to read Boyer's offer. To this meeting Granville was able to attend. His speech to the blacks assembled in the Presbyterian church of Elm Street was candid and sharp. It indicates that the propaganda against Haiti and the emigration scheme was affecting the black population somehow. Granville started saying, “The commission which I have been charged by my Government to execute in the United States appears to have been attended with difficulties which have hitherto excited fears and apprehensions in many minds.” He then admitted the ordeal immigrants from an English-speaking and Protestant background might experience in Haiti. To this he told them, “The acquisition of a new language adds to the dignity and pleasures of existence. [...] Your prayers and ours may ascend to Heaven by different modes, but they all reach the throne of the Eternal.” The purpose was to emphasize the advantages of emigration and similarities African Americans had with Haitians, while also admitting the differences in culture and potential cultural problems in emigrating. Then he added a strong amount of national pride to which most blacks could relate to, and a badly needed dose of optimism. I do not come here to obtain recruits. For more than 30 years the world has beheld us struggling alone against the tempests of despotism. Though we have not withheld from others we have received nothing from any; alone we have resisted the storm; the winds are now calm and our vessel glides smoothly upon an ocean of tranquility and happiness.59 The assembly appeared gratified with Granville’s words and embraced Boyer’s proposals for emigration. Their approval was important to white philanthropists, and was a feature that distinguished the new project from the American Colonization Society. 94 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. After reviewing the documents and conferring with a recuperated Granville, the committee appointed by the white assembly of June 18 presented its judgments on June 25. The political and social condition of Haiti was the philanthropists' major concern. Conversations with Granville and careful consideration of Boyer's remarks about his government put the matter to rest. Furthermore, the committee reported on the blacks’ meeting, “your committee have received information that a meeting of a number of respectable coloured persons in this city has been held, at which the propositions of President Boyer were read and highly approved.”60 The committee decided that emigration to Haiti “will furnish [blacks] with more powerful motives than are offered among ourselves, to respectability of character, and intellectual improvement.”61 On June 25, with the attendance of Granville this time, the New York philanthropists formed “The Society for Promoting the Emigration of Free Persons of Colour to Hayti.” Those interested in assisting blacks to immigrate to Haiti could now become lifetime members of the society with $20, or simply subscribe for the $3 annual fee. Immediately after the resolutions forming the new society were passed a joyful Granville spoke to the philanthropists. He expressed his support for the measures and requested permission for Haiti to become part of and to support the society monetarily. Those forming the society enthusiastically welcomed Granville's suggestions and passed them as a resolution. The meeting ended by reading a supportive letter from the committee appointed by a meeting of blacks held in the Presbyterian Church in Elmstreet. This letter articulated the intention of black leaders to form an “Auxiliary Society” to work alongside the philanthropists' society. 95 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Black leaders’ support for this project was paramount since they had the power to either discourage or stimulate emigration among freed blacks. In fact, this was the single most important reason why the Haitian Emigration project was able to send out more free blacks than what the American Colonization Society did in quarter of a century.62 In his letter to Granville junior, however, Dewey explained that those in the meetings did not give him the importance he thought he deserved. This is obvious when we look at the individuals elected for the different positions in the new society. Mathew Clarkson was elected president, H. Ketchum was elected secretary and Robert C. Cornell, treasurer. Other names also came up for different positions in several committee’s meant to run the society. Dewey’s name is relegated to the last committee. Curiously, however, the committee was designated to serve as a bridge of communication with the black community. He was “to confer with a Committee, appointed at a Meeting of Coloured Persons, who intend forming an Auxiliary Society.”63 For Dewey, the low profile assigned to him in the meetings was because “the Quakers had been so quick in taking up his project that they dominated the meeting.”64 When the American Colonization Society auxiliary in New York received noticed from the head quarters in Washington regarding the correspondence with Haiti, and realized Dewey’s initiatives in New York, they decided to meet and consider what to do with the renegade. The auxiliary met on June 21 and resolved that since the ACS’s judgment was against emigration to Haiti, they “publicly disclaim any knowledge, agency or assent [...] to this correspondence.” And since Dewey had acted without permission when he wrote to Boyer, and his correspondence was the cause of Granville’s arrival to New York, they will recommend Washington to supercede him on his agent’s 96 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. post.65 The auxiliary published its proceedings and the next day the ACS proclaimed Dewey an outcast. Dewey did not have to worry much yet, because he had good company for the moment. Granville’s presence had attracted such publicity that almost every major newspaper in New York was publishing his words and hosting lively debates over emigration versus colonization. These debates mirrored those of Philadelphia. The most important difference was that the debates in New York tended to center around answering why the ACS would not want to cooperate with Haiti.66 While Granville was in New York, the blacks In Philadelphia took the initiative of forming their own committee without being overshadowed by white philanthropists. It is significant that Bishop Richard Allen, who had been adamantly opposed to the ACS since 1817, was now fully supporting the emigration to Haiti. After reading Boyer’s proposals along with a letter from Thomas Paul, another black minister from Boston, Allen’s congregation organized the “Haytien Emigration Society,” to assist and encourage emigration to Haiti.67 It was a big and animated meeting in Philadelphia. A large number of the coloured people of this city assembled at Bethel Church on the 6th inst, and passed unanimously the following resolutions, the Rev. Allen being in the chair, Resolved, that we do approve of the proposals of President Boyer, also, heartily concur with him in the belief that the emigration to the island of Hayti will be more advantageous to us than to the colony in Africa.68 Reverend Thomas Paul, who had visited and lived in Haiti, had encouraging words for the enterprise. His statements regarding Haiti reveal the concerns that North Americans, even African Americans, had with subsistence in the Caribbean, and particularly, in the island of Hispaniola. 97 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I am fully persuaded that it is the best and most suitable place of residence, which Providence has hitherto offered to an emancipated people of colour, for the enjoyment of liberty and equality . . . I never received the least molestation from any person, but, on the contrary, was always treated with the greatest respect. [...] The island is delightfully situated, abounding with all the necessaries and even luxuries of life. It presents to the eye the most romantic and beautiful scenery . .. The staple productions are coffee, rice, tobacco, indigo and Indian com. The forests abound with the best mahogany, logwood and fustic, and the pastures are literally covered with flocks and herds. A yoke of well made oxen measuring six feet six inches may be purchased for $17 or $18; a handsome cow and calf for $7; and swine and poultry at the same rate. The markets are supplied with plenty of fresh and salt water fish, oysters, lobsters and turtles. A turtle weighting eighty or ninety pounds may be purchased for $2.. . I enjoyed as good health as at any period of my life.69 When referring to the Haitian society, Thomas Paul sought to strike a sensible cord within the African American community. He aimed at dispelling preconceptions regarding negative characterizations of Haitians as black people — something that African Americans could easily understand. The Haytians have made great progress in the mechanical arts, which received liberal encouragement. [...] a country possessing an enterprising population of several hundred thousands of active and brave men who have determined to live free or die gloriously in the defence of freedom, must possess advantages highly inviting to men who are sighing for the enjoyment of the common rights and liberties of mankind. 0 Those listening to the reading of Paul’s letter in Allen’s church most have left with the impression that the Hispaniola was nothing short of a paradise for African Americans. The emigration society that they organized was one of the most active and effective in sending immigrants to Haiti. Following the examples of those in Philadelphia and New York, other societies supporting emigration to Haiti started appearing throughout other eastern cities.71 It is significant that these committees, like the American Colonization Society, focused on 98 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. finding better living opportunities for blacks abroad instead of changing the US ethnic fabric. In this instance, however, Boyer's initiative and Granville's presence muddled the cultural and racial contact zone because it made the project seemed less like a white scheme to get US rid of free blacks. Granville presented the project as cooperation between brothers who had both experienced prejudice and oppression. In his correspondence Boyer subtly tried to share his sentiments of Black Nationalism hoping it will strike a cord among blacks in the United States. Moreover, free blacks saw Haiti as an example of black success and survival. For many, Haiti represented the innate capacity blacks had to overthrow repressing governments and to survive against foreign forces.72 Some even celebrated Haiti’s independence day as a commemoration of black resilient spirit. The Immigrants Among immigrants, this enterprise had a conspicuously religious character from the beginning. By this time, black churches were already immensely important for African Americans. Most black leaders supporting the immigration were church leaders and many immigrants were themselves religious. Black religious leaders actively recruited emigrants from inside and outside of their congregations. In fact, one of the first groups departed from Allen’s church in Philadelphia in September 2, 1824 with 120 emigrants aboard the vessel Charlotte Corday toward Port Prince, Haiti. Another group departed from the Zion African Methodist Episcopal church in New York with the blessing of pastors Thomas Paul (a Baptist) and Peter Williams (a Methodist).73 The people leaving the US to settle in Hispaniola mainly wanted a better life, to be treated with respect, and to have equal chances for social mobility. Yet, a degree of religious 99 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enthusiasm pervaded most of the groups since there was hope that the values and institutions US blacks were taking to Haiti could help create a modem civilization in Haiti, and that at last Protestant Christianity could reach the French and Spanish Caribbean.74 Boyer was not looking for lazy and problematic people. He wanted people of “high” character and with productive skills. He had three “classes” of immigrants in mind. The land he was planning for the First Class was mostly “wild and uncleared lands.” For this type of lands, he needed people with “sobriety, industry and economy,” to which the government would reward with no “less than fifteen acres for every industrious farmer.” Boyer wanted clans of families or associations of twelve. They will have houses ready for occupation (probably a reference to Spanish abandoned residences on the East) and could “form communities of themselves. [...] Their conversations will be with one another, and they will not, in consequence, feel so sensibly their ignorance of the language of the country.” This class of immigrants will have their passage and four months of subsistence completely paid by the government. The Second Class of immigrants were, “Those who embark with a view of cultivating lands already planted with coffee, sugar canes, fruits, vegetables, &c belonging to other citizens, either by renting or working them upon shares.” These immigrants would have to repay their passage in six months. The Third Class of immigrants were, “Those who go as Mechanics, Traders, Clerks, or School Masters.” These immigrants would also have to repay their passage after six months. “But it is always to be understood, that the grants of land particularly will be proportioned to and considered as a regard for the characters 100 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which the different classes of emigrants may establish by their sobriety, industry and general good conduct.”75 The Haytian Emigration Society of Coloured People of New York, to which the white philanthropists referred to as “Auxiliary,” was even more unequivocal on the importance of conduct and character. Black ministers directed this society. Therefore, as oppose to Boyer’s appeal, it is not a surprise to find constant reference to Providence in their message toward those emigrating to Haiti with their help. You are going to a good country governed by good laws, where a dark complexion will be no disadvantage; where you will enjoy true freedom, and have as great advantages as any men in the world, to become independent and honourable, wise and good, respectable and happy. Should you not, under the ordinary blessings of Providence, become such, the fault will be your own, and your failure will discourage great mass, whom you leave behind from removing from this ‘house of bondage’ to that ‘promise land,’ and thus obstruct this good work in its commencement; bring a lasting disgrace upon our nation, and greatly prolong the period of their degradation and sufferings.76 The board of managers gave those preparing to leave for Haiti detailed advice from how to manage their finances, personal appearance, and religiosity, to how to work the land and practice their trade. The responsibility placed upon the immigrants was lofty. The managers concluded their message with, “Go, remembering that the happiness of millions of the present and future generations 11 depends upon your prosperity, and that your prosperity depends much upon yourselves.” These were clear attempts by black religious leaders to fight the prejudices of laziness and misconduct most of the society had against the free blacks. 101 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Motivations, Immigration and Settlement With the material support of the new societies and the spiritual encouragement of the Methodist and Baptist African churches, those venturing for Haiti left New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The exodus started in early September. The press in these cities tracked their stories and hosted debates regarding the emigration scheme. The most interesting records, however, were the news and letters from immigrants in Haiti who told about their conditions in the island. Most indicated that Boyer was fulfilling his promises and that life indeed was better in the tropics, but others revealed that Haiti was no paradise. In one of the voyages to Hispaniola, the potable water in the ship was placed in containers previously used to carry palm oil to the US, and many of the immigrants quickly became sick. Yet, despite the unpleasant trip, when they arrived in Santo Domingo, they wrote back to their supporters in Philadelphia and New York indicating that they would not change their new piece of land for all the land in the US. Loring D. Dewey stated his own sentiments and motives, and those of other philanthropists in supporting the emigration, in quite revealing terms. His confession points to a group of people that sincerely sought the welfare of the oppressed black and felt responsible for their condition. There are many whites who truly lament their [freed blacks] unhappy lot, mourn over their [white's] wrongs, and would gladly do anything to redress them; but they find that such is their degradation and public opinion towards the coloured people, that it is next to impossible to elevate them in moral character, and to benefit them in this country.78 Boyer’s reasons for the enterprise were similar. Animated with the desire to serve the cause of humanity, I have thought that a finer occasion could not have presented itself to offer an agreeable 102 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hospitality, a sure asylum, to the unfortunate men, who have the alternative of going to the barbarous shores of Africa, where the misery or certain death await them.79 There was in this enterprise an undeniable spirit moving against the grain that promised benefits for each of the groups involved in the project. The Haitians, people oppressed by imperialism because of their race, would benefit from suitable workers. Manumitted African Americans, people oppressed by social discrimination, would have the opportunity to achieve their dreams of a peaceful and fulfilling life. And, abolitionists and philanthropists would find their disturbed consciousness eased by atoning for the evils of their racist and oppressive culture. Not everyone's intentions in this project, however, were transparent or charitable, and not every objective was against the dominant political forces of the time. The words of the philanthropists promoting the delivery of blacks to Hispaniola indicate a genuine interest in the latter’s welfare. However, according to Dewey's correspondence, the abolitionists had more to gain from this immigration than absolved consciences. With the departure of an increasing number of blacks, the abolitionists’ cause would not be as damaged by restless emancipated slaves that were not adjusting well to the white dominated society. Their removal, moreover, would help maintain the racial status quo in the United States.80 With a sense of irony Boyer referred to the philanthropists' hidden intentions by writing, “I shall not develop the advantages which will result to the people of your country, from transporting to Hayti, the African population of which they wish to be delivered.”81 Obviously, Boyer could read between the philanthropists' humanitarian intentions to understand their segregationist impulses. 103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Similarly, the intentions of the Haitian government went beyond a simple gesture in favor of “blood brothers.” Besides having reliable artisans and workers for vast unused land, Boyer had two other internal reasons for promoting the immigration. With the arrival of a large group of black Protestants, he hoped to challenge the dominance of the Catholic Church on the Dominican side of the island. He also hoped to transplant to this Hispanic region a group of people without links to the Spanish culture who would be agreeable to his authority.82 Boyer’s concern with Haiti's international status is also evident in his correspondence and publications promoting the ex-slaves' immigration to Hispaniola. While explaining the favorable condition the immigrants would find in the island, he constantly called to the destructive international policies toward his country unfair, the foreign views of his country false and damaging, and named imperial powers as enemies of Haiti. But he also believed that with significant numbers of blacks from the United States his country would receive more sympathy and thus more commerce from the international community.83 US newspaper accounts and manumission papers of the period releasing slaves from Virginia and North Carolina for direct export to Hayti indicate that settlers included newly freed slaves.84 These blacks, as well as those who wanted to escape the way of life in the manumitted community, were brave enough to venture into an unfamiliar country. Boyer's government and the philanthropic society set the original number of settlers to 6000. Most settlements were established mainly around four major urban areas, and a large proportion was intended for the Spanish section. Enclaves of these immigrants in Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata survived as cultural groups for relatively long periods before being assimilated into the Dominican culture. However, it is difficult to track the 104 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. survival of the majority of those who emigrated since they were distributed throughout the island. Black and white leaders of the crusade traveled to Haiti to oversee the arrivals and settlements of the North American immigrants. Peter Williams and Peter Barker, black ministers leading The Haytian Emigration Society of Coloured People of New York went to examine the status of the settlers they had help send. Of Benjamin Lundy, the prolific abolitionist writer, also visited the island to be in a better position to write about it.86 Dewey was another who traveled to the Caribbean for the same purpose. In 1865 he wrote to Granville’s son, So as to see and relate the advantages obtained by the emigrants, I accompanied your father to Haiti, according to his wish. He facilitated my visiting several of the most important harbors of the island and the areas where the emigrants had settled and, before leaving him to go back home, I was full of hope that a lot of good would be accomplished. 0 -7 Naturally, not all the immigrants were happy with the conditions they found. Some of them became disillusioned rather quickly with the limited amenities and hard work they found in Haiti. These immigrants sought to return, and the Haitian government was happy to take them back. Many others died of tropical diseases. There was also constant reference to opportunists that saw in this venture a door for illegal trafficking and commercial exploitation. The negative reports coming from those who returned created problems for the emigrationists in the U.S. They found themselves defending their crusade against attacks from supporters of the American Colonization Society and from abolitionists alike. The negative rumors helped decrease the white philanthropists’ support, and the project had to depend increasingly more on the Haitian government. A consequential problem that the emigration project had, however, was that 105 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. many immigrants left the U.S. expecting to be received in Haiti as heroes by inferior blacks whom they would guide toward modernity. Despite the exhortation from their ministers toward meekness, many immigrants arrived to the island thinking of themselves as more civilized, and thus, more apt to dictate the Haitian way of living. This arrogance that North American blacks brought to the island annoyed the Haitian authorities, and Granville in particular, who felt responsible for their arrival. In his letter to Granville’s son in 1865 Dewey explained the matter more clearly. I fear to produce weakness in you while sharing with you my memories of your father. The enterprise, that promised so much good for Haiti and for our people to move abroad, became for him, you know, a matter of embarrassment and strong pain. The egotism of the white, only interested in extracting a profit, the ignorance and illusion of the blacks, that thought that because they were from America they had to be superior to their brothers in Haiti, and that by going there they would be gentlemen and rank first in society, that they would be seen there and received with happiness, by their Brothers inferior race in this country to be almost their masters and their bosses, caused him a lot of agony in New-York ando oto Philadelphia, and this did not finished when it arrived in his country. A sense that the religion, language, perceptions, and habits they brought from the United States were superior to the local culture in Hispaniola permeated most of the immigrants. The contrast was obvious. The North American blacks were accustomed to better roads, to a more stable economy, to live in peace, some were witness to a rising industrialism, and affluence that was no where to be seen in Haiti. The immigrants could easily assume that the reason for the different standards of living was because differences in culture. For those skilled workers who settled in the peninsula of Samana, the new life eventually provided rewarding experiences, despite their own haughtiness. By the end of the century, they were cultivating their own lands, raising their families with pride, and 106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. even participating at high levels of government. Furthermore, they showed more financial and social stability as a group than the average Dominican in the region did. They were content, better educated, and most interestingly, felt culturally superior to the rest of the population.89 The settlement in Samana became the symbol for all the immigrants, soon called “Americanos,” who arrived under Boyer. The group of immigrants that settled in Samana appears to have come directly from Philadelphia. The US Commission sent by Ulysses Grant to the Dominican Republic in 1871 reported that the immigrants and their descendents were around 600 in Samana, in a region with around 1000 inhabitants at the time. on Even though they were, in Boyer's term, “sons of Africa” they did not carry African names. Their names were Vanderhorst, King, Miller, Jones, Green, Anderson, Wilmore, Johnson, James, Hamilton, Milton, Jackson, Carey, Redman, Shepherd, Helly, Barret, Coates, Buck, Disney, Wright, Furchue, Simmons, Mitchell, Smith Henderson, Rodney, Paul, Berry, Banks, and Copeland. These names became permanent reminders of their otherness in a land where most names were either Spanish or French. Adherence to Methodist practices and beliefs was to a large degree responsible for the attitudes of the immigrants in Samana. Religious organizations in the US, most prominently the African Methodist Episcopalian Church, were from the beginning supporting those freed blacks searching for better lives in Haiti. The first group of emigrants departing from Philadelphia carried a letter from Bishop Richard Allen addressed to Boyer. In the letter he stated that the 58 people he was sending in this first trip to Haiti were “religious and pious persons.” According to this letter, Allen empowered two of the immigrants to preach and encourage the group. Regarding the 107 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. group's feelings toward the United States he wrote, “The immigrants are eager to abandon this country.” For a short period, Allen continued receiving correspondence from settlers in Hispaniola and even supported his son's decision to settle in the island. The fact that Dewey had been an agent of the American Colonization Society may have initially produced suspicions regarding his Haitian proposal in Philadelphia where black leaders were more in control of the Haitian emigration project.91 Yet, despite his association with a white hegemonic class trying to purge the United States of free blacks, Dewey’s unrelenting and frank search for solutions to blacks' troubles gained him the appreciation of Granville, Bishop Allen and other black leaders. In the letter Granville brought with him from Boyer, the President encouraged Dewey to put his best for the emigration because he could have the best reward of all, namely, the appreciation and gratefulness of others. You cannot better serve the cause of humanity, since those of our brethren, who drag out in the United States a painful and degrading existence, will become, on arriving at Hayti, citizens of the Republic, and can there labour with security and advantage to themselves and children. During the happy days, which await them here, they will preserve the memory of your devotion to their cause; they will bless your name, and the happiness they will enjoy will be your sweet reward.92 Forty years later Dewey was still seeking his reward when he wrote to Granville’s wanting to know about the immigrants and their condition. 108 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1 “Loring D. Dewey to Jonathas Granville,” 11 May 1865, London and reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 239. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 “Mr. Loring D. Dewey to President Boyer,” 17 November 1824, and reprinted in Granville, 217. 217. 6 “Jonathas Granville to President Boyer,” 21 July 1824, reprinted in Granville, 7 “Mr. Loring D. Dewey to President Boyer,” 17 November 1824, reprinted in Granville, 217. 8 “President Boyer to Citizen Jonathas Granville,” 5 December 1824, reprinted in Granville, 220. 9 Susan Gubar provides a comprehensive study on what she calls racial mutations and racial impersonations in her book Racechanges. She attempts to explain the “psychology of whites who have evolved through a series of oppositional identities predicated on black Others.” Susan Gubar, Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in American Culture (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2000), xv. 10 “Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Hayti, to the Commandants of the Districts,” December 24, 1823, reprinted in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 12. 11 “Loring D. Dewey to President Boyer,” 4 March 1824, in Documents Relative to the Dismission of Loring D. Dewey from the Theological Seminary in New York, Loring D. Dewey (New York: 1816), 22, 24. 12 Loring D. Dewey, “Notice,” 15 June 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 1. 13 The Auxiliary Society of the ACS in New York City later implied that Dewey was aware of the ACS’ position toward Haiti. “Whereas said correspondence [with Boyer] was commenced and carried on by Mr. Loring D. Dewey without the knowledge 109 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and contrary to the known views of the American Colonization Society, of which he is still an agent.” New York Auxiliary (African) Colonization Society, “Preamble and Resolutions” (New York) 21 June 1824, published on the National Gazette, (Philadelphia) 28 June 1824, and also printed in Jonathas Henri Theodore, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 136. 14 Ibid, 3. 15 Chris Dixon argues that Boyer’s reasons for this denial were related to what he expected Haiti’s function in the area would be. “Predicating these assurances on Haiti’s role in a nascent Pan-Africanism, and assuming that “African-ness” was based on racial affiliations and consciousness as well as on the legalities of citizenship, Boyer declared that those “who come, being children of Africa, shall be Haytians as soon as they put their feet on the soil of Hayti.” Christ Dixon, African America and Haiti: Emigration and Black Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), 33-34. 16 “Jean Pierre Boyer, to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,”30 April 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 9. 17 “Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Hayti, to the Commandants of the Districts,”12. 18 Arthur O. White, “Prince Saunders: An Instance of Social Mobility Among Antebellum New England Blacks,” Journal of Negro History 60 (1975): 527-528. For the detailed sources regarding Saunders projects in Haiti see Saunder, Haytian Papers (1816; reprint, Boston: Caleb Bingham & Co., 1818); Saunders, A Memoir Presented to the American Convention for the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Condition of the African Race. December 11th, 1818. .. (Philadelphia: n.p., 1818); and Julie Winch, Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787-1848, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). 19 Baur, 320-23, 26. 20 Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998), 124. 21 President Boyer, “Instructions to the Citizen J. Granville,” 30 May 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 12. 22 “Jean Pierre Boyer, to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 8. 23 Ibid, 10. 110 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South, (New York: Vintage Books, 1974). 25 “Jean Pierre Boyer, to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 10. 26 Ibid., 8. 27 Ibid., 7. 28 “President Boyer to Citizen J. Granville,” “Instruction,” 17 June 1824 in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 17. 9Q “Loring D. Dewey to President Boyer,” 3. Dewey apologized later for not clearly specifying that he was inquiring without the society’s approval. He may have been trying to use his position as an agent of the society to receive a respectful answer from the president of a republic. “I will add, that perhaps, I did not write as explicitly as to leave no room for doubt, whether I wrote as the agent, and at the direction of the American Colonization Society, or not.” Loring D. Dewey, “Notice,” in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 2. 30 Boyer wrote to Collins, “The knowledge that I have obtained of your philanthropic sentiments, has induced me to direct the citizen Imbert, Secretary of State to this Republic to send you fifty thousand weight of coffee, begging you to sell this commodity, and, after having realized the proceeds, to keep them on account of the Haytian government. This fund and others which shall be added to it, are destined to facilitate the emigration of such individuals of the African race, who, groaning in the United States, under the weight of prejudice and misery, should be disposed to come to Hayti and partake with our citizens the benefits of a liberal constitution, and paternal government.” “Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Hayti, to Mr. Charles Collins, New York,” May 25, 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States. Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 15. 31 For more on Harper see, Robert M. Weir, “The Evils of Necessity: Robert Goodloe Harper and the Moral Dilemma of Slavery,” The Journal of Southern History 64, no. 3 (1998): 539. 32 “Robert G. Harper to Loring D. Dewey,” 5 June 1824, printed in the Commercial Advertiser, (New York) 7 June 1824, and reprinted in Granville, 144. Loring D. Dewey, “Note,” in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 28. 34 Ibid. Ill Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 Douglas R. Egerton, “'Its Origin Is Not a Little Curious: A New Look at the American Colonization Society,” Journal of the Early Republic 5 (1985): 463-80. 36 Robert Walsh, National Gazette and Literary Register (Philadelphia) 21 June 1824, reprinted in Julie Winch, American Free Blacks and Emigration to Haiti (San German, Puerto Rico: Centro de la Investigation del Caribe y America Latina, 1988), 18. 37 “Extract 25th” Wednesday, 15 September 1824, reprinted in Granville, 168. 38Niles Register. (Philadelphia) 8 July 1824, reprinted in Granville, 194. 39 Nile’s Register, 8 July 1824. Quoted in note 29 in Julie Winch, American Free Blacks and Emigration to Haiti (San German, Puerto Rico: Centro de la Investigation del Caribe y America Latina, 1988), 11. 40 Benjamin Lundy, Genius of Universal Emancipation, October 1824. Also cited in Chris Dixon, 40. For more on Lundy’s participation on the debates see Benjamin Lundy, The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Beniamin Lundy, Including His Journeys to Texas and Mexico; With a Sketch of Contemporary Events, and a Notice of the Revolution in Hayti, compiled under the direction and on behalf of his children (1847; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), 23-24. 41 National Gazette, (Philadelphia) 21 June 1824, reprinted in Granville, 126. 42 Niles Register. (Philadelphia) 26 June 1824, reprinted in Granville, 186. 239. 43 “Loring Dewey to Monsieur Granville,” 11 May 1865, reprinted in Granville, 44 “Jean Pierre Boyer to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 25 May 1824, reprinted in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 14. 45 Quotes are from the Nile’s Register (Philadelphia, 26 June 1824), reprinted in Granville, 190-2. The New York Commercial Advertiser, 18 June 1824, reprinted in Granville, 118, 120, also carried the story, but asserted that the incident happened on a steamboat. 46 “I have commanded whites with honor and distinction in their own country.” “Jonathas Granville to Paul Boyer,” 21 July 1824, reprinted in Granville, 217. 47 “Jonathas Granville to the editor of the Commercial Advertiser,” (New York: 18 June 1824), printed in Granville, 132. 112 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 “Loring D. Dewey to Jonathas Henri Granville,” (London) 11 May 1865, printed in Granville, 239. Dewey wrote this letter originally in English, but the only copy available is reproduced in French. The translation back to English is mine. 49 Loring D. Dewey to Jonathas Henri Granville, “Second Letter,” London, 13 May 1865, printed in Granville, 241. Dewey wrote this letter originally in English, but the only copy available is reproduced in French. The translation back to English is mine. 50 Ibid 51 Ibid 52 Jonathas Granville, “letters to the Editor,” New York Commercial Advertiser, (New York) 18 June 1824, reprinted in Granville, 140. 53 This citation is contained in an unnumbered long postscript in Loring D. Dewey, Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti, 29. 54 New York Commercial Advertiser, 21 June 1824, New York. Reprinted in Granville, 120, as “Extract 5th.” 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid, 122. 57 Ibid, 122-123. 58 The National Gazette, 21 June 1824, Philadelphia. Reprinted in Granville, 124, as “Extract 6th.” 59 New York Daily Advertiser, 26 June 1824. Reprinted in Granville, 158-162. 60 Dewey, 30. 61 Dewey, “Note,” 29. 62 Dewey, 29-30. 63 Dewey, 31. 64 Ibid 65 National Gazette, Philadelphia 28, 1824. Reprinted in Granville, 136. 66 New York Commercial Advertiser, New York, 21 June 1824. Reprinted in Granville, 122. 113 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 Hayten Emigration Society, Information for the Free People of Colour, Who are inclined to Emigrate to Hayti (Philadelphia: J. H. Cunningham, 1825). 68 Published in Philadelphia, 13 July 1824 by an unnamed paper. Reprinted as “Extract 14th,” in Granville, 146. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Winch, 11-13. 72 “African American, of course, regarded the founding and survival of the island republic as tangible proof that blacks were not inferior to white, and were capable of shaping their own destiny.” Dixon, 26. 73 New York Daily Advertiser. 8 September 1824. 74 Gary Nash, Forging Freedom. 244. 75 Information for the Free People of Colour, Who are Inclined to Emigrate to Hayti, edited by Peter Barker, secretary of the Haytien Emigration Society, (New York: Mahlon Day, 30 July 1824), 1-9. 76 The Board of Managers of the Haytian Emigration Society of Coloured People, Address of the Board of Managers of the Havtian Emigration Society of Coloured People to the Emigrants Intending to Sail to the Island of Hayti in the Brig de Witt Clinton (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 1. 77 Ibid. 78 “Loring D. Dewey to President Boyer,” 4 March 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, 5. 79 “Jean Pierre Boyer to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 30 April 1824, in Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, 7. 80 Christopher Castiglia, “Pedagogical discipline and the creation of white citizenship: John Witherspoon, Robert Finley, and the Colonization Society,” Early American Literature 33 no. 2 (1898): 192-214. 81 “Jean Pierre Boyer to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 11. 82 J. G. Garcia, Compendio de la Flistoria de Santo Domingo vol. 1 (Santo Domingo, 1893), 121. 114 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 Writing to Mr. Collins, Boyer explained some of the positive consequences of the immigration to Haiti. “But the emigrants alone will not reap the fruit of your exertions. The United States will find their commerce with Hayti enlarged by the frequent intercourse which these new Haytiens will naturally hold with the country they have left.” “Jean Pierre Boyer, to Mr. Charles Collins,”16. 84 Genius of Emancipation, February 1825; June 1825; 3 December 1827; Manumission Society Papers. Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, N.C., Papers of 1826. 85 Granville, 237-238. 86 Meron L. Dillon, Beniamin Lundv and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966), 100-101. 87 “Loring D. Dewey to Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville,” (London) 23 May 1865, reprinted in Granville, 198. 88 Ibid. 89 In 1871, interviewed by the “Commission of Inquiry” sent by Ulysses Grant, Jacob James, one of the local pastors of the Methodist community in Samana, explained their favorable conditions. “Our American people here got their land from Boyer's government. . . They are glad they came. At first, a few were dissatisfied. They had not learned the language, the place was wild, and they were ignorant of the fruits and food, and crops and work; but after they had got well started, they became satisfied. The rising generation, which is taking their places, knows the maxims and ways of the country, and they are ten times better please to be here than in the States.” Commission of Inquiry to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Report of the Commission of Inquiry to Santo Domingo, (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1971), 230. The distinguished Caribbean scholar Harry Hoetink wrote about these people's pride. “The “Americanos” of Samana felt pride on being different. Their language, their isolation, but most importantly, their religion help them keep a sense of identity in opposition to the Dominican.” Harry Hoetink, “Los Americanos de Samana,” Chapter in Cultura y Folklore de Samana, Dagoberto Tejada Ortiz, ed., (Santo Domingo: Editora Alfa & Omega, 1984): 92. (Translation is mine) 90 Some members of this community reported to Frederick Douglass in 1871 that the “Americans” descendents were approximately 600 in Samana. William M. Gabb, one of the immigrants living in Santo Domingo, informed the commission that Samana had 1000 inhabitants. However, Jacob James told the commission that the Methodists in Samana numbered around 250 and were still “growing.” Commission of Inquiry, 231, 236, and 229. 115 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 Julie Winch suggests this thought based on Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (5 July 1824). Julie Winch, “American Free Blacks and Emigration to Haiti,” 12 . “Jean Pierre Boyer to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” 25 May 1824, reprinted in, Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Havti of the Free People of Colour in the United States, Loring D. Dewey ed. (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 14. 116 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV THE HAITIAN SUPREMACY AND THE AMERICANOS QUISQUEYA. Es el nombre de una bella isla caribena. Su historia es la primacfa de America. Introduction The emigration of North American free blacks to Hispaniola in 1824 played a vital role in the Haitian government’s attempt to attract international recognition. In a minor way, it might have also been an attempt to assist Haitian President Jean Pierre Boyer’s efforts to challenge the restless Catholic hierarchy of the Spanish side of the island. However, at the level of domestic national interest, the immigrants arrived to Hispaniola mainly to be an essential part of a visionary workforce intended to strengthen Haitian economy. The president and the elite’s philosophy of economic revival and national construction focused on the improvement and regulation of agriculture. The Code Rural, a body of laws passed in 1826, two years after the arrival of the North American immigrants, embodied this ideology of nationalism. The Code’s objectives were to standardize labor and to enlarge agricultural production.1 Even before passing the Code Rural the new Haitian emphasis on labor and agricultural production needed large numbers of laborers willing to work the land as small farmers to increase exports, and thus solidify the national economy and Boyer’s power. In his attempt to implement his vision of agricultural production, the President supposed that his new country would need a new sanguine perception about work that would motivate workers to follow his system of labor. Select free blacks from the United States, believed to be cultured in the 117 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ways of Protestantism and modem industry, would help spread enthusiasm for work while also sharing similar ethnic characteristics with the majority of the population. Boyer and his government did not plan to embrace Protestantism or the North American industrialization agenda, but believed that the best of free North American blacks would bring a desired element of work habits, and loyalty to his government for facilitating their emigration. Boyer’s land and labor program was especially important in the Spanish side of the island where he subjected the population to military government and had constant conflicts with the distribution of land—a territory he just occupied in 1822. The availability of land and the hesitancy of Dominicans (or Spanish Haitians) to cultivate it the way the Haitians wanted it made Boyer’s scheme of labor and agriculture the most urgent in the East. The culture of land has always been in fact, the primary form of colonization. Boyer’s focus on soil emphasized the physicality of the territory that he coveted, occupied, cultivated, by turning it into small yet industrious plantations, and making it unsuitable for those “indolent” peasants not following his national program for progress.3 The entire land and labor program, including the Code Rural, was a complete catastrophe. Nevertheless, the fact that it included free North American Protestant blacks as catalysts tells much about the contradictory perceptions on religion and crossculturalization at the beginning of the 19th century, about Haitian and Dominican relations history and about Haiti’s attempt to break free from an imposed international isolation. The majority of free North American immigrants did not become what Boyer intended for them. Beside the fact that many returned to the U.S., many more through time just blended in with Dominican or Haitian population and sought a life within the 118 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. urban centers instead of the countryside where Boyer assigned them. The only exception to this drive for urbanization was the immigrants that settled in the peninsula of Samana. The reasons for this exception are due to their unique settling experience. The immigrants assigned to Samana, and those who voluntarily followed there, lived very isolated from urban centers, became a large proportion of the inhabitants in the region, and were more cohesive as a cultural and religious group that any of the other immigrants. This chapter tries to understand Boyer’s domestic intentions with the immigrants and the way they responded to his labor and land agenda when they arrived in the island. It argues that Boyer saw in the immigrants an opportunity to increase the potential of his land and labor program. In the selection process, he focused on people of “good” character and strong working habits; a rare opportunity to “select” those who will belong to his realm. This was particularly important when Boyer’s main political challenge was to unite the island under his power. Northern Haiti (strictly the north of the French side) was still sensitive after Boyer’s takeover in 1820. The Spanish side, his newly occupied territory, was even more susceptible to upheavals because the cultural conflicts brought by the imposition of a French law system and Haitian culture. The Haitian administrative and political control over the entire island lasted for 22 years, from 1822 to 1844. The emergence of what some have categorized as Haitian imperialism is intelligible in light of the Spanish colonialism, and the repercussions in the island of the French and Haitian Revolutions.4 119 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Hispaniola Subjugated by European Colonialisms No writer of Dominican History ignores the impact of the Haitian Revolution, and consequently of French Revolution, in the Spanish portion of the island. There is a strong tendency to find in the effects of the experiences of 1791 to 1844 the explanations of whatever occurred to the Dominican Republic afterward. Most of the time, this is done at the expense of previous histories. However, a review of colonialism prior to the Haitian Revolution would yield understanding of precedents in immigrations, HaitianDominican confrontations over land use, and insularism. The free blacks coming from the United States arrived in a land with a long history in immigration used as an instrument for defense and improvement. They also arrived to a place where the use of land has been tainted by cultural colors, and a subsistence mentality has taken hold despite of efforts to the contrary by colonial powers. Quisqueya5, the Talno name for the Hispaniola, was the first piece of land in the Western Hemisphere to receive the full impact of the European conquest and colonization. Arriving not with the intentions of building a ubiquitous empire, but of emulating Italian and Portuguese patterns of spotted commercial colonies, feitorias, the Spanish arrived funded mostly by private money. Most colonists and explorers came from Iberia, but also came adventurers from every part of Southern Europe. Regardless of the sources of their funds, they always abode under the Spanish flag. This was because the Treaty of Tordesillas had imparted to the Spanish Crown the rights of lands beyond an imaginary line laying 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.6 The original intentions of commercial colonization, however, changed when dealings with the natives did not proceed as Europeans expected. The natives in the islands did not have 120 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the amount of gold or the products that Europeans wanted. An all-out expansive empire started to appear out of the ad hoc and calculated decisions of the crown, officers, and individual colonists alike. Differently from the Italian and Portuguese previous colonization experiences, the Spanish reconquista in Iberia had been one of full conquest and settlement.7 Francisco Lopez de Gomara, one of the first historians describing the Iberian conquest explained one of the purposes of such method, “Without settlement there is no good conquest, and if the land is not conquered the people will not be converted. Therefore the maxim of the conqueror must be to settle.”8 Religious expansion, thus, became one of the driving forces behind the aggressive Iberian occupation of the Western Hemisphere.9 A decisively settled society that attempted to recreate a microcosm of its maternal European society appeared after Nicolas de Ovando set out in 1502 to establish the new foundations of the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas—ten years after Columbus arrival. Ovando’s policies in Santo Domingo, backed by the crown as a correction to the previous failed attempts at colonization, abruptly ended the extensive feudal grant that Queen Isabel made to the Almirante (Christopher Columbus) a few years earlier. The Catholic Kings instructed Ovando to “work with diligence . . . with appropriate care and honor and reverence” in establishing a well-run colony in the New World.10 Ovando’s care came in his efforts to balance the Spanish colonists desires with the Crown’s interests, and his diligence brought a sense of permanence to Spanish supremacy in the Americas.11 Because it was the first object of European desire, Quisqueya carries the dubious honors of hosting in the Western Hemisphere the first European city (1496), the first 121 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. European cathedral (1523), and the first massacre by Europeans (1495). In the first years of exploration and colonization, vessels departing from Spain to the new lands regularly had Santo Domingo as their final destination, making Hispaniola tantamount to the idea of the New World. From the initial contacts in Quisqueya developed the rough draft of almost every conventional relationship between subalterns (either natives, Africans or other inferior people) and Europeans that later became typical of all colonial systems in the Americas. The Iberian authorities experimented and improved here an array of their own institutions, like the Encomienda, that were used later to strengthen European control in other newly conquered regions.12 They developed their initial notions of the natives, and learned fresh techniques of domination that served them well throughout the extended conquest of the Americas. 1T The Iberian expansion included not only individuals obsessed with power and riches, but also sincere persons worried about the morality of their actions that took extreme measures to counterbalance their peers’ evils. A clash was inevitable between those interested more in expansion and those disturbed by the way it was being done. On the one hand, Juan Gines de Sepulveda justified the brutal subjugation of the natives arguing that since a few Spanish were able to dominate a multitude of natives it proved that Indians were natural slaves. “Could there be a better or clearer testimony of the superiority that some men have over others in talent, skill, strength of spirit and virtue? Is it not proof that they are slaves by nature?”14 To placate guilty consciences Sepulveda suggested, as many were already doing, to make a perfunctory appeal for conversion and surrender before attacking the natives. To this practice Bartolome de las Casas responded with harsh criticism. “How could he [the Spanish Conquistador] think that Indians would 122 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. believe a mere statement unsubstantiated by proof, read by men held to be infamous and cruel evildoers?”15 The Hispaniola was the first American host to this struggle of finding a moral reason and guilt-free means for conquest—a genuine attempt for justice that resulted in utter failure. In the Caribbean, the progressive accumulation of tactical knowledge in military engagements only took place within one side of the opposing groups. The Spanish increasing knowledge regarding the natives’ weakness allowed them to be more effective after each encounter. Unfortunately, insubordinate natives like Enriquillo16 did not have a communication network with other groups and did not survive long enough to pass on effectively their recently acquired techniques of resistance to other natives starting to oppose the European advance in other regions.17 Like in most instances of European imperialism around the world, Spanish reign was cruel, exploitative, and hierarchical, despite efforts from people like the frays Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolome de las Casas. Early on, Quisqueya became the axis of the Iberian mounting authority in the Western Hemisphere. From this island’s strategic position, the mutating Spanish Empire extended its tentacles throughout the Caribbean and subsequently right through the continental territories. Within a few decades of establishing the Imperial center in Hispaniola, knightly adventurers like Heman Cortez and Francisco Pizarro found in Meso and South America inexhaustible sources of silver, gold and Indigenous labor. These were the minerals that Europeans needed to trade with the East and it was the only mode of international currency.18 Labor was even more valuable to the Europeans than silver and gold. Indeed, it was the 123 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. implementation of various forms of efficiently coerced labor that produced a sizeable surplus that made, in turn, colonization fiscally justifiable.19 Life in the former favorite island changed drastically as colonists as well as vital assets took off for more auspicious locations that promised to fulfill dreams of riches and greatness more effectively than what Quisqueya had been able to deliver so far. Nationalist historians seeking to connect Dominican identity to the Spanish heritage have elevated these early years of European encroachment to the status of “golden age.”20 When describing the time after the first 50 years of Spanish colonization in the island historians invariably explain the period as one of negligence and indifference by the Spanish crown. As an aged woman that had given her best years of her life to the Spanish conquistadores, Quisqueya laid down right in the middle of the Caribbean unwanted as with wrinkled skins, without precious natives and minerals. It did not take long for Havana to become the most important Caribbean city over Santo Domingo’s former glory. When the navy captains learned that throughout the Straits of Florida they could get much faster to Spain than navigating the pirates’ infested waters of the inner Caribbean, Hispaniola lost its last useful objective: that of being the roadhouse to and from the Americas. With the native population practically annihilated and with European settlers mostly gone, the island’s residents temporarily reached the record low of about 1,000 inhabitants.21 In 1535, when the crown attempted to deport Portuguese from its territories, in Hispaniola the authorities begged for an exemption. This was because the colony “suffers from under-population, because of the new discoveries and the lack of Indians: we want not only Portuguese, but indeed, population.”22 124 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Considered dispensable by the empire, Quisqueya became heaven for runaways, illegal trade, and pirates’ habitat. Slaves brought by slave traders from war-like tribes in Africa quickly threatened the Spanish settlements after their flight to the mountains where they copied Indian guerilla warriors like Enriquillo. The Spanish called them Cimarrones. It took critical monies from other parts of the colonial system to put down the runaway threat and to bring Canarians to populate the land. Despite some immigration from the Canary Islands, the colony’s population never again reached a considerable number. The decline in productivity, reputation and population continued occurring despite of Santo Domingo being the seat for the royal Audiencia, which was the colonial administration level that passed laws, served as Supreme Court and as check and balances to the viceroy’s power. Sugar and cattle were the most important sources of revenue for the legitimate colonial economy in which only a fraction of the population participated. Most individuals living in coastal villages traded tobacco, dyewood, meat, in exchange of European cloth, wine and African slaves with the British, French, and Dutch. Their ships more than supplemented the meager official commerce with Spain. Failure to impede these illegal and growing contacts stirred the crown to destroy the remote towns and move its population to Santo Domingo. Uprooting these isolated villages from these regions produced irritation among Spanish and Creole colonists that lost land and resources. The large amount of domestic animals that could not be repositioned within the capital’s adjacency produced large groupings of wild animals roaming throughout the island attracting even more illegal settlers. The availability of meat, free land, and lack of colonial posts helped create a type of subsistence life free from colonial scrutiny for those that were left behind. 125 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The colonial government’s tactic for protecting its scarce population from Spain’s enemies actually exposed fecund land to buccaneers’ control. These freelance seafarers and meat brokers came to dominate the northern and western sides of the island while directing most of their raids from Turtle Island. Eric Williams described their conditions and intentions well. Of no fixed abode, they concentrated in the neighborhood of the wild cattle, used sheds covered with leaves as protection from the rain, wore only a pair of trousers and a shirt, and slept in sacks to keep off the insects. They looked, said a French observer after seeing some who had returned from hunting wild cattle, like “the butcher’s vilest servants, who have been eight days in the slaughter-house without washing themselves.” Brave, well armed, fairly numerous, operating from Tortuga, off the coast of Hispaniola, their mission civilisatrice was to constitute a terror to the Spaniards and a valuable auxiliary to Spain’s rivals.23 The Spanish colony cornered on the East of the island was a potpourri of villages in the form of tiny dots surrounding Santo Domingo and the southern coast line, and moving up through the Cibao reaching the interior city of Santiago. It was during the long seventeenth-century, in the midst of poverty and colonial laxity produced by the modus operandus of the imperial mercantile system that Hispaniola developed lasting social characteristics. Spanish commercial ships passed somewhat close to the island when they left Havana for Iberia, but they would not stop in Santo Domingo because the risks of pirates and because the colonists there did not have enough to trade with. The Situado, an annual subsidy coming from the treasure of the richer colony of New Spain, embodied the economic downturn of the colony. These monies paid for government officials, soldiers, and the colony’s business. Since the colony’s economy never recovered to the level of becoming self-sufficient, this financial support became a permanent and essential economic ingredient.24 126 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To survive the flat yet stiffed economy of the colonial system people turned to subsistence fanning. Colonists attempted to produce everything they consumed without much motivation to work for exports or accumulation. Since land had lost its value as a commodity, officials and individuals often did not feel the need to legally define private land. Consequently, people held most of the land in common and passed hereditary real estate properties through family lines without much attention to boundaries and commercial value. The ordinary Dominican colonist, and even key institutions as the church and the military, turned inward seeking within their isolated society fulfillment to basic social and cultural needs. This time saw the growing importance of local entertainment with cockfights and bullfights. Even coffee, cocoa, and cattle, the products in which most of the colonists invested their energies, also helped encourage the insular mentality that was slowly taking hold in the colony. An 18th Century French observer who believed that industrialization and mass production would lead to a more satisfying life could not understand the colonists’ mentality when he saw the inhabitants of the Spanish side as idlers living a life without meaning. “Insensible to all the treasurers which surround them, they pass their lives without wishing to better their lot.”25 During the long seventeenth-century northern Europeans as Francis Drake invaded the Spanish colony in Hispaniola exposing in this way the weakness of its structures. Earthquakes and other natural calamities also made their way through the island testing the limits of the colonists’ endurance. After barely surviving without an effective infrastructure at the periphery of the Empire for most of the seventeenthcentury, the Spanish colony of Hispaniola experienced its most radical change since 1492. Through the treaty of Ryswick the Spanish Crown ceded the western side of the 127 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. island to France in 1697.26 French buccaneers were living in the western side for a long time in constant conflict with the Spanish authorities. Indeed, both camps have been trying to capture the other and occupy the whole island in several occasions. Yet, it were European political affairs that motivated the signatures of the treaty, which ended a war between France and a coalition of European powers, and made French settlement in the island legitimate. The western part of the island became officially the French colony of Saint Domingue many times existing in opposition to the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo on the east. The French side became the site of numerous sugar, cotton, and coffee plantations worked by an increasing number of African slaves. The Spanish side continued being a backwater colony concerned with cattle, subsistence production, and simply survival. Since then, the two colonial cultures have divided the island in more ways than political. It was not until a border agreement in 1731 that the Spanish colony on the East started to recognize in practicality the French colony on the East. Yet, even before the Ryswick treaty these two European settlements in the island have been developing a symbiotic relationship that harmonized with each other’s ways of life.27 On the west, French settlers had easy access to European goods and capital something that the Spanish colony lacked due to the sporadic appearance of Spanish merchant ships, which monopolized the entire official foreign trade of the colony. On the other hand, the Spanish colonists on the east produced large amounts of meat that the French on the west badly needed to maintain their growing number of slaves. Both settlements quickly developed a busy and profitable underground trade that satisfied their own economic needs. In spite of the rules of mercantilism that prohibited trade with colonies owned by other powers, the Dominican ranchers smuggled their cattle to the 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. West while the French smuggled their European products to the East.28 The maxim “Obedezco pero no cumplo” (I obey but I do not execute), became a way of life out of necessity. Moreover, the Spanish on the east learned to cultivate tobacco and other crops the way the French did, while also benefiting from French technology, and slaves runaways that settled peacefully on the east. The French, however, became an unending threat of expansion, with a population constantly growing and seeking to control more land. It was like saying that the island was too small for both settlements to coexist. The menace of French expansion strained the Spanish colonial resources while officials attempted to hold back a fluid and unpredictable border. This state of affairs in turn helped create a siege mentality in the Spanish population, particularly in the northern and Cibao region, and a persistent desire for eastern expansion among the French. To withstand what appeared to be the inevitable French expansion the Council of the Indies agreed to renew the Canarians immigration. Poor families from the Canary Islands arrived periodically to Santo Domingo. The local government gave them land, seed and livestock. Through this scheme, the Spanish colonial authorities populated strategic municipalities like Puerto Plata, Dajabon, Samana, San Juan de la Maguana, and San Juan de Barn. These immigrants helped increase the colonial agricultural and cattle production, and decisively imprinted a permanent mark in the Dominican cultural and social life. These early attempts to satisfy needs related to production and defense became a prevailing practice through the history of the island 29 Throughout the eighteenth century, the French colony in the west expanded and evolved into the envy of all European powers. The labor organization and the technological advances applied by French colonists helped make effective use of the land 129 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and of the increasing number of African slaves. The astonishing economic development of its colony had a profound effect on the French economy. It was by the re-export of colonial produce that the French maintained a favorable balance of trade with the world. The soils of Saint Domingue were far more productive and required a much smaller proportion of labor than those of others in the Caribbean. Despite the fact that French planters were heavily in debt, they undersell the British in the European market.30 On the meantime, the Spanish colony continued on the Spanish colonial backbumer, existing mainly to contain the French ambition even as it lived from it. Yet, it was this relationship that it had with the French side that brought some level of economic prosperity to the island. During the 18th Century, the Spanish colony achieved some level of economic stability and population growth due to the steady cattle trade with the French settlements. Despite the constant military engagements with French colonists challenging the border and threatening to cross over to the East, the Spanish colony was the primary source of meat to the ever-growing population of the West. The French and Haitian Revolutions In his introduction to his seminal book on Dominican History Sumner Wells portrayed a romantic view of the Spanish colony before the Haitian Revolution. “Existence in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in the earlier years of the latter half of the 18th century had a flavour of romance not equaled nor perhaps approached, in other colonies of the New World.”31 Wells continued presenting his vision of the country in the pre-Haitian Revolution period calling it a “terrestrial paradise” in several occasions with the specific purpose of blaming the Haitians for all the Dominicans problems thereafter. Bertita Harding followed a similar path when writing about the arrival of the French and 130 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Haitian Revolutions in the island. “The day of reckoning . . . descended upon the sunbathed dual island of Haiti and Quisqueya with a pall of horror and darkness that has not faded from the pages of West Indian history.”32 Ian Bell, with a more racialist tone made a similar statement. The existence in Saint-Dominigue of a large, black, French-speaking population in contrast to a smaller white, Spanish-speaking population in Santo Domingo was to be the root of the enmity between Haiti and the Dominican Republic over the next two centuries.33 The French and Haitian Revolutions doubtless produced a lasting impression on the history of the entire island. But despite their powerful pressure and innovation, the revolutions operated through the intensification of patterns of behavior and concerns that were already common in the island. The constant dispute for the border and control over the entire island; the need for organized labor and land management; the struggle over insularism and international attention, were all at the heart of the events sparked after 1791. It all started when influenced by developments in the French Revolution the mulattos in the French side attempted to gain rights unique to the whites and triggered the Haitian Revolution. The revolution in Haiti though affected and in some ways a reaction to the revolution in France, was not simply an extension of the French affairs, but a consequence of problems with roots in Haitian soil. The French Revolutionary government vacillated in its stand for equality and slavery. This was taken in the French colony as an indication that their fate could not be left in the hands of officials that lived on the other side of the Atlantic. The four social groups of the western colony, the slaves, the free mulattos, the poor whites and the rich whites, decided to take matters onto their own hands. It was not long before the social 131 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. divisions were strictly racial and whites united against mulattos who were attempting to obtain equality. The groups shifted alliances as a reaction to decisions coming from France, but also according to their own interests in the colony. Colonial authorities 1790 first executed Vincent Oge, the mulatto leader. The most important catalyst appeared when the slaves took advantage of the situation and rebelled against plantation owners and the slavery system. A network of maroons, with decades of battle experience, and the fervor for resistance produced by the Vodou religion, were behind the success of the slave rebellion. The Spanish authorities in the East sought to capitalize in the confusion and acquire territory by supporting the rebellious slaves, but never achieved their objectives. The British also attempted to make some political and territorial gains by supporting white royalists, but they were also beaten. The mulattos with the support of the French commissioners battled for their own rights. For a time the only side with tangible advantage were the rebellious blacks under the leadership of Toussaint L’Overture. After France abolished slavery in the territory in 1794, Toussaint supported the French rulers of the country against British invaders and was made a general in 1796. A new group of French commissioners appointed Toussaint commander in chief of all French forces on the island. The Spanish crown had ceded its portion of the island to France in that same year, but the violent developments in Europe have delayed its occupation. In 1801, L’Overture occupied the entire island. Toussaint saw that the survival of his homeland depended on an export-oriented economy. He therefore re­ imposed the plantation system and utilized nonslaves, but he still essentially relied on forced labor to produce the sugar, coffee, and other commodities needed to support economic progress. He directed this process through his military dictatorship, the form 132 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of government that he judged most efficacious under the circumstances. A constitution, approved in 1801 by the then still-extant Colonial Assembly, granted Toussaint, as Govemor-general-for-life, all effective power as well as the privilege of choosing his successor. When Toussaint took control of Santo Domingo in 1801, he abolished slavery and moved to incorporate the Spanish portion to the structure of his realm. One of his main concerns was the attention people in the east placed to agriculture. For a sparse population like those living in the Spanish colony that were accustomed for centuries to live without restricting land tenures and making their livelihood out of cattle, agriculture was not an attractive activity. Among the most unconventional measures L’Overture brought to the Spanish colony was forcing the colonists to agricultural production for export. For this purpose, Toussaint ordered all the landowners to cultivate sugar cane, coffee, cotton, and cacao for export. Toussaint's interval of freedom from foreign confrontation was unfortunately brief. Toussaint never severed the formal bond with France, but his de facto independence and autonomy rankled the leaders of the mother country and concerned the governments of slave-holding nations, such as Britain and the United States. French first consul Napoleon Bonaparte resented the temerity of the former slaves who planned to govern a nation on their own. Moreover, Bonaparte regarded Saint-Domingue as essential to potential French exploitation of the Louisiana Territory. Taking advantage of a temporary halt in the wars in Europe, Bonaparte dispatched to Saint-Domingue forces led by his brother-in-law, General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. These forces, numbering between 16,000 and 20,000—about the same size as Toussaint's army—landed 133 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. at several points on the north coast in January 1802. With the help of white colonists and mulatto forces commanded by Petion and others, the French outmatched, outmaneuvered, and wore down the black army. Two of Toussaint's chief lieutenants, Dessalines and Christophe, recognized their untenable situation, held separate parleys with the invaders, and agreed to transfer their allegiance. Recognizing his weak position, Toussaint surrendered to Leclerc on May 5, 1802. The betrayal of Toussaint and Bonaparte's restoration of slavery in Martinique undermined the collaboration of leaders such as Dessalines, Christophe, and Petion. Convinced that the same fate lay in store for Saint-Domingue, these commanders and others once again battled Leclerc and his disease-riddled army. Leclerc himself died of yellow fever in November 1802, about two months after he had requested reinforcements to quash the renewed resistance. Leclerc's replacement, General Donatien Rochambeau, waged a bloody campaign against the insurgents, but events beyond the shores of SaintDomingue doomed the campaign to failure. By 1803, war had resumed between France and Britain, and Bonaparte once again concentrated his energies on the struggle in Europe. In April of that year, Bonaparte signed a treaty that allowed the purchase of Louisiana by the United States and ended French ambitions in the Western Hemisphere. Rochambeau's reinforcements and supplies never arrived in sufficient numbers. The general fled to Jamaica in November 1803, where he surrendered to British authorities rather than face the retribution of the rebel leadership. Dessalines and the black generals determined to discard Toussaint’s guidelines of adaptation to France and in January 1, 1804 they proclaimed the 134 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. independence of Haiti. The era of French colonial rule in Haiti had ended, but it continued in the Spanish side. An Independent Haiti and the Spanish Territory With the ambivalent support of the Creole and Spanish population the French general, Jean Louis Ferrand had taken control of the former Spanish colony. In 1805, in response to threats of hunting young blacks for slavery Dessalines and Christophe descended upon the east, flattening every resistance they could find and arrived to a fortified, but weak Santo Domingo. By the second week of the siege the resources were depleted and the city defenders were eating even horses. Some French sails heading west saved the French colonial authorities in Santo Domingo, because Dessalines and Christophe decided to defend their territory instead. In their way out the Haitian troops did not spare any town they found from destruction. This first invasion of an independent Haiti into Dominican territory has been sealed in the collective memory of the people as the most horrific contact with the Haitians. In 1808, when Napoleon invaded Spain, the Spanish colonists, exhausted with Ferrand’s policy of no cattle commerce with Haiti, felt that it was enough of French government. With no king in Spain Sanchez Ramirez, a mahogany trader, raised an effective resistance to the French rule. With some troops from Puerto Rico and an aggressive proselytism his troops destroyed Ferrand’s army and laid siege to Santo Domingo. With the help of the British navy blockading the port, the Spanish and Creole colonists forced the French to surrender—something that they actually did with the British instead than yielding to the Spanish. This was the end of the French rule in Hispaniola. 135 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. When the inhabitants of the eastern section expelled the French from their territory after the War of Re-conquest in 1809, they voluntarily re-imposed Spanish rule instead of seeking independence. This was the second attempt at Spanish colonization in Hispaniola, which lasted from 1809 to 1821. This period has been called in Dominican history as the time of Espana Boba, or Stupid Spain. Unfortunately for the SpanishDominican leader Sanchez Ramirez and his followers, this was not the best of times to seek Spanish protection. There was no king in Spain and the large Spanish colonies in America were starting to rebel against its colonial system. The Haitian Revolution and armed conflicts with the French and British since 1789 had destroyed the entire island’s economy and infrastructure, and decimated the population. This helps explain why throughout all the period of Espana Boba the colonial treasury lacked enough funds to work effectively. By 1821, the main exports were still Tobacco and Mahogany, and ranching was making a slow comeback in the south. Nonetheless, they were not enough to pay for imports or to even maintain the colonial army. Spain was stranded by European conflicts and the wars for independence in the Americas. Therefore, the crown was not capable of helping reinvigorate the economy and social life. Until 1818 Haiti, who occupied only one third of the island, was bitterly divided between southern and northern rival governments. With cunning military and political maneuvers, Jean Pierre Boyer, who was the new president of the south of Haiti was able to gain unqualified control of the country. In 1821, animated by the concern of a French invasion and motivated by modest imperialist aspirations, he made alliance with a group of Dominican revolutionary leaders and immediately planned to overtake the Spanish colonial government. Haitian revolutionary leaders had traditionally claimed the whole 136 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. island as indivisible. Jose Nunes de Caceres, one of the white revolutionary leaders in Santo Domingo learned about Boyer’s plans and in November 1821 hurried to expel the Spanish governor, Sebastian Kindelan. With the insurrection Nunes de Caceres’ intention was to align the Spanish speaking territory, called now “the Spanish Haiti,” to the Gran Colombian Republic of Simon Bolivar. The great Libertador had come to Haiti twice in search of refuge and support. Nunes de Caceres and his followers thought that they would have more in common with the Spanish-speaking revolutionaries in South America than with Haiti. However, Haiti’s president had other plans. After learning about the fate of the Spanish colonial government in Santo Domingo Boyer now wanted to strike against the fledging government of Nunes de Caceres. The obstacle of confronting a European power directly was out of the way. Not that his forces were not a match to the Spanish, but by having Nunes de Caceres whacked down the colonial administration Boyer saved himself from a possible diplomatic showdown in the midst an increasing European refusal to accept his government. With a lively international trade, but politically isolated the situation of Haiti in the global arena was a delicate one. Jonathas Granville, the special Haitian envoy to the United States, summarized it this way; “We are not recognized by any potentate, yet we keep up an intercourse with all commercial nations... We are not recognized by anybody and everybody knows us.” 34 To achieve his purpose in eastern Hispaniola, instead of war and blazing his way to the capital President Boyer preferred assertive diplomacy. He wrote to the Dominican leaders, “Two separate states can neither exist nor maintain themselves independently of each other in our native island.” He then explained his plans. “I shall proceed to visit, 137 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with powerful forces, the whole of the Eastern Part, not as a conqueror (God forbid that I shall entertain such a thought) but, consistently with the laws of the state, as the pacificator and conciliator of the interests of all.”35 In February 1822 Boyer fulfilled his promise and knocked at the Santo Domingo’s doors. Nunes de Caceres, without resources and unity among Dominicans, turned in the keys of the capital city. Despite nominal resistance from the Dominican Creole elite the Haitians troops took control of the Spanish-speaking territory. Haitian rule over the Eastern territory lasted until 1844, when a matured revolutionary ferment expelled Haitian control. Boyer was not longer in power, but the liberal Charles Herard was President. A secret organization named Los Trinitarios with Pablo Duarte at the helm and a cowboys’ army from the south led by Pedro Santana initiated the successful insurrection, which formed the political origins of the Dominican Republic. Jean Pierre Boyer’s Land and Labor Program In the course of the 22 years of Haitian authority Boyer promoted a policy of Haitianization in the East by extending there the Haitian civil, land and criminal codes. French became the official language and many Haitians, government officers and ordinary citizens, settled in the Spanish speaking section. Under these conditions the international community perceived the island as a single political and national entity. However, the Spanish speaking side differed in culture and population dramatically, and these were important variations that the missionaries realized upon their arrival. They were, however, influenced by local racists’ prejudices that were cultivated in the east to resist Haitian cultural domination. In 1838 John Tindall, the Wesleyan missionary in charged of the Haitian district, commented about the differences he found between 138 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dominicans and Haitians. “Regularly we encounter a repulsive brutality from those that speak French Creole in this island, very contrary to the pleasant hospitality so generally displayed by those that speak Spanish.”36 From the same start, the Dominicans resisted the Haitian political and homogenization program. The most obvious example was the continuous opposition the Dominicans posed to Boyer’s land tenure project. Boyer wanted to impose the French meticulous system of land tenure to lands that have not been surveyed for centuries in the Spanish-speaking side. The Dominicans used a system of communal lands: lands, which were simultaneously owned and used by multiple owners. Because the population of the east had been low for centuries, there was little use to divide lands for inheritance. Boyer, who wanted to make effective agricultural use of the land, and also wanted to reward some of his military chiefs with fertile properties on the east, understood the importance of issuing land titles. To this, however, the Dominicans resisted successfully. The elite and white middle class, who recognized in Boyer a racial antagonism toward their sway in the Dominican society and also acted on their own prejudices against Haitian influence and control, resisted the Haitians also in matters of language, religion and lifestyles. Boyer’s rule, which lasted long by any standards, brought political stability and certain economic strength to an island that had seen anything but dislocations since the start of the Haitian Revolution in 1789. He abolished slavery for the second time in the east and to some extent broke the racial oppression that the white Creole class had over the rest of the Dominican population, and produced a relative redistribution of wealth. Freed slaves were given land, and people of color were offered significant positions in government and in the army. In this context we can understand when Jonathas Granville 139 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. declared in the United States, “The people of the east have never enjoyed such happiness as at present: for the truth of this I appeal to all who have seen that country in both epochs.”37 Most of the common islanders’ fortunes, however, continued to disintegrate nonetheless. The educational system in the island was a total farce. There were only two public schools, and as expected, most of the population was illiterate. The republic was so only in name since Boyer personally controlled almost every branch of government and decided every single legislative measure. There were very few avenues of social mobility besides the army, which was poorly paid and suffered serious discipline problems. And religious freedom was never fully enacted. It is in the midst of these circumstances, of Boyer’s effort of homogenization and consolidation of power that the free black immigrants from the United States arrived in 1824-26. These immigrants departed the North American eastern shores expecting to find in Hispaniola the social paradise they were denied in the colder North. The propaganda for Haitian emigration had built an image of a prosperous Haiti where blacks of any background could find equality and respect; where an abundance of resources and land was there for the taking. In his first letter to Loring D. Dewey, Boyer wrote to property-hungry black North Americans, “The quantity of ground shall be as much as each family can cultivate.” This implied that there was no end to the amount of fine soil. But, even thought the east of the island had a large amount of unused land, the infrastructure and economic system of the country did not induced an effective use of such land. Regarding the type of government Haiti would offered to the politically disfranchised blacks seeking emigration Boyer wrote, 140 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Such individuals of the African race, who, groaning in the United States, under the weight of prejudice and misery, should be disposed to come to Hayti and partake with our citizens the benefits of a liberal constitution, and a paternal government. In an animated exchange about the advantages and problems of the Haitian emigration project published in Philadelphia, Jonathas Granville, the special Haitian envoy to the United States, fielded questions about how the emigrants would be treated in Haiti. With his unique forceful but tactful style Granville pointed out that there should be no doubts about how well the emigrants would be in the island since Haiti might be the best place to live in the entire world. Mr. ... doubts that the emigrants will be settled on fertile lands, is apprehensive they may be secluded in barren deserts, remote from markets, where they might dispose of their productions in case they should have any; whether they may receive sufficient succour until they be capable of supporting themselves. [...] How can it be supposed that a nation will invite the unfortunate to its bosom in order to render them still more unhappy than they were before? Does not the felicity of a country consist in the prosperity of its inhabitants? Let Mr. [...] peruse the instructions I have received from the President of Hayti, and let him judge of others himself. As regards those who may not be content amongst us, they may withdraw at their own expense, for should they not find comfort in our great family, in vain may they seek for it in other countries.38 Dissatisfaction, however, was common among some immigrants who did not like Boyer’s program of agricultural production. Most of the immigrants were city dwellers who had come from eastern cities in the United States and did not adapted well to life in the countryside. What was going on was that the whole country was being forced into a program of labor-intensive agricultural production. In 1826, after years of preparation, Boyer had passed through Congress a new Rural Code, which bound cultivators to their land, and placed production quotas on them. In some cases this program required peasants to work for mostly mulatto landowners and in others it attempted forcing small141 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. lots landowners to work their own land for exportation in an effort to prevent working only for subsistence living. Abolitionists in the United States published the Haitian Rural Code in its entirety in an effort to convince the North American population of the blacks’ capacities for self-improvement. The introduction to the translated document states, “The object of this publication is to assist in dispelling some popular errors respecting the capacity of the colored race to govern themselves, and to enjoy the blessings of freedom.” It might have not been obvious to North American readers, but the language of the Code is clearly authoritarian and depicts a state of force labor. North American readers, accustomed to relate blacks to agricultural labor may have seen the Haitian effort to create a highly regulated farming state as a natural affair. The English translation, which did not differed substantially from the original French, put the issue of agriculture as a national priority right at the beginning. Immediately after, the document described how that priority should be pursued. Law, No. 1 Article 1. Agriculture, being the main source of the prosperity of the state, shall enjoy the special protection and encouragement of the Civil and Military authorities. 2. The citizens, of the profession of agriculture, cannot be taken off from their pursuits, except in the cases point out by law. 3. All the citizens being bound to give their aid towards supporting the state, either by their services or their industry; those who shall not be employed in civil offices, or called out on military services; those who shall not be engaged in any business subject to the patent; those who shall not be employed as working artificers, or as domestic servants; those who shall not be employed in the cutting of wood fit for exportation; and those, in time, who shall not be able to show that they possess the means of subsistence, shall be bound to cultivate the earth. 4. Citizens of the agricultural profession shall not be at liberty to quit the country, in order to reside in cities or towns without the authorization of the Justice of Peace of the Commune they with to quit, and of that of the Commune where they mean to fix themselves; and the justice of Peace shall not give his authorization, until he has assured himself that the 142 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. applicant is a person of good behavior who has correctly conducted himself in the cannot he desires to quit, and that he has the means of subsistence in the tow where he wishes to reside. All who shall not conform to these rules shall be considered and dealt with as vagrants. Under these conditions, any citizen that was not indispensable for the immediate welfare of the state was to be placed in agricultural forced labor. This program will even attempt to circumscribe the freedom and mobility of farm workers with hurdles calculated to restrict their residence. The internal and external financial pressures that the state had to satisfy, and the image of a well-run country that the government had to create to achieve recognition abroad and acceptance within were the main motivations behind such an ambitious yet repressive scheme. In a way, Boyer’s vision was similar to that of Thomas Jefferson, who preferred a country of farmers than a country of urban industrialists. The main difference was that Boyer believed he had the influence to actually implement a comprehensive plan of national agricultural!zation. The language here is important since the word “vagrants,” was usually set in opposition to the phrase “good behavior.” The “good” citizen was that which would take the country’s interest above personal wishes and work the land for the nation’s prosperity first and for individual interest second. This verbal confrontation between the “vagrants” and those of “good character” became pivotal in the attempt to construct an environment leading to the acceptance of the agriculturalization program. The immigration program was supposed to help supply some hardworking laborers for this project. In his orders regarding the immigration from the United States Boyer clearly indicated that he wanted agriculturalists more than anything else. Desirous to increase in the country the number of agriculturalists, and thus augment its population, I have decided, my dear General, that emigrants of colour to Hayti, who may wish to establish themselves in the mountains or 143 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vallies to cultivate with their own hands the public lands, shall be authorized to cultivate the same for their own profit. Even though he welcomed teachers and artisans, these should have to pay their ticket six months after settling. On the other hand, those who would work in the land would have their ticket free and non-reimbursable government support for about six months.40 This program of tying the laborer to the land was eerily similar to serfdom and slavery. Actually, this new project was not dramatically different from previous projects of agricultural production, and former Haitian rulers had unsuccessfully tried versions of it before. Soldiers were assigned to different farms to make sure that workers would do their labor and produce their quote. Boyer’s government spent energy and material resources trying to convince Dominicans and Haitians alike to implement this program. With the revenues coming from this large-scale program the Haitian government planned to pay its debt to France, gain international reputation for having an excellent economy, and consolidate power at home. Yet, before this could be done the country as a whole had to steer clear of “vagrancy.” Haitians and Dominicans of the lower classes were to develop a love for working and advancing the national interest. This was not an easy task since quantity production had never been a Dominican concern, and ordinary Haitians felt uncomfortable with anything that resembled the slavery system. Curiously, in the correspondence and propaganda produced by the Haitian government in relation to the emigration project there was an unfailing emphasis on the virtues of work and the evils of vagrancy. Boyer asserted, All those, I repeat it, who will come shall be received, no matter what may be their number, provided they submit themselves to the laws of the state, 144 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which are essentially liberal and protecting, and to the rules of the Police which tend to repress vagrancy.41 In a letter written by the black Association for the Haitian Emigration in New York carried the instructions of Boyer and Granville to the prospective emigrants. These directives did not leave doubts about the type of individuals the Haitian government was seeking. They were to be people of “industry and good conduct,” and have “sobriety, industry and economy.” The Haitian government was willing to recompense liberally for such characteristics. The “sober industrious farmer” would have no “less than fifteen acres” of land.’42 The instructions to one of the first groups of immigrants to leave the eastern coast of the United States, which they did in the ship “Brig De Witt Clinton” are revealing. The words of advice given by their fellow black North Americans emphasized more than any other document the importance the good conduct of the emigrants. The success of the plan of the Haytian government in relation to the Free People of Colour of the United States depends much upon your conduct, who are the first from this port... We entreat you, therefore, brethren, to consider the greatness of the responsibility which you assume... Be industrious and economicl. By industry and economy, you cannot fail to become independent. The climate naturally indisposes men to labour. Therefore, beware, lest you should be degrees sink into indolence, and so into poverty, though settled in a fertile region.43 The Immigrant’s Reaction Some critics in the United States became aware of fractions of the attempt of the Haitian government to bring the best and the brightest to Haiti in order to assist their program of agriculturalization. The National Gazette published an interesting letter in which the inquisitive author stated, “It is evident that President Boyer does not mean to receive our idle, vicious, and vagabond blacks, but to cull the very best from among our 145 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. coloured population.”44 Emigrants leaving the United States to Haiti could have had a sense that in Haiti they will be joining an huge farm where they would be measured more by their capacity to work than by the color of their skin. Most did not know, however, that the government would try to curtail their labor freedom by assigning them to specific lots and expecting quotas. No wonder, then, thousands of immigrants returned to the United States. For this, however, they were depicted as lazy. Many of the immigrants that settled somewhat near to the big urban centers like Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, Cape Haitian, and Port of Prince ended leaving their land and moving to the cities. In a letter from Haiti Granville wrote to Richard Allen describing how immigrants gathered around the towns ignoring attempts to settle them in rural areas. He stressed, however, that those who “attend to their business are happy with the pleasing prospect of a plentiful crop, and enjoying that liberty, which was denied them in America.”45 Colonies of these immigrants were present in Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo even in 1871 when the commission of enquiry from the United States came to evaluate the status of the island. They occupied different types of careers. Some tried to keep their culture, language, and religion that distinguished them from the rest of the Haitian and Dominican society. However, this was not an easy task with the strong influence they found in the cities. Many were slowly absorbed, particularly the second generation, by the dominant culture of the place and ceased to meet. The group of Puerto Plata is an example of slowly assimilation to the local culture. It lasted, however, longer than in Santo Domingo, which we only find a record of a very humble congregation in 1871. 146 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Differently from the other groups, the immigrants that established themselves in Samana appeared to have come from the same place and thus had some unity from the same beginning. But most importantly, this group was geographically isolated from the rest of the nation. Because access to the peninsula of Samana was so difficult and far from Port of Prince it was difficult for the central government, which tended to be centralistic, to exercise enforcement of the rural code. Another important aspect is that the number of immigrants, which was originally around 200, increased by the influx of some disaffected North American blacks that moved from other parts of the island. Samana was attractive to them because its isolation that would allow them to easily keep their own cultural bubble, and because the tracks of lands given by Boyer there were larger. So, the rate of North Americans blacks, or Americanos, which was how they called themselves in Samana, was high compared to the local population that was around 1200. Their fertility was high, so in a matter of 47 years their numbers appeared to have more than doubled. Thus, the isolation and their numbers allowed them to create their own cultural space where the local authorities would respect them. Examples of admiration and respect abound in travelers’ accounts and in government notes. They participated actively in the local economy and in politics. At the end of the of Boyer’s rule, this was the only group of immigrants that continued working the land that the Haitian government gave to them when they arrived in 1824. 147 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1 For an English copy of the Code see, The rural code of Haiti: Literally translated from a publication by the Government Press, together with letters from that country, concerning its present, Nathaniel A Ware, translator and editor, (Granville; Middletown, N.J.: G.H. Evans, 1837). For a more recent edited French copy see Code Rural de Bover, 1826, Roger Petit-Frere, Jean Vandal, and Georges E.Werleigh, editors (Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Archives nationales d'Haiti: Maison H. Deschamps, 1992). 2 Labeling those living on the East at this time is quite difficult. During the first quarter of the 19th century, the Spanish portion of the island did not have a pervading and inclusive sense of national identity. In a neo-liberal manner, Frank Moya Pons asserts that in 1809 most of the Spanish colony’s progressive class, “responsible for its economic revival” left the island. This in turn, produced a social vacuum on a “populace mainly of colored people who perceived themselves as white, Hispanic, and Catholic, and who did not want to be abandoned by Spain.” Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998), 116. Ian Bell dares to credit the Haitian occupation with the responsibility of forming the modem Dominican National Identity. “Twenty-two years of Haitian occupation was needed to create the idea of Dominican nationality.” Ian Bell, The Dominican Republic, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981), 25. It was not until the separation from Haiti in 1844 that the inhabitants of the East started to call themselves “Dominicans.” For differentiating from their French-speaking counterparts in this work, I will refer to them as “Dominicans” despite the anachronism of the term. 3 For the idea of agriculture as a form of colonization see Robert J. C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (London: Routledge, 1995), 31. 4 John Edward Baur was the first one to explain Boyer’s expansionism as imperialism. See John Edward Baur, “Mulatto Machiavelli: Jean Pierre Boyer and the Haiti of his Day,” Journal of Negro History 32, no. 3 (July 1947): 316.1 think, however, that “colonialism” may be a better term than imperialism. 5 In this work, I will use the terms “Quisqueya” and “Hispaniola” interchangeably. 6 For a copy of the treaty, see Catholic Church, Pope (1492-1503: Alexander VI), The earliest diplomatic documents on America: the papal bulls of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas, translated and edited by Paul Gottschalk. (Berlin, 1927). For a scholarly discussion of the relevancy and impact of the treaty, see Juan Perez de Tudela y Bueso, Tomas Marin Martinez, Jose Manuel Ruiz Asencio, Tratado de Tordesillas (Madrid: Testimonio, 1985); and H. Vander Linden, “Alexander VI and the Demarcation of the Maritime and Colonial Domains of Spain and Portugal, 1493-1494,” The American Historical Review 22, no. 1 (October 1916): 1-20. 148 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 The Reconquista is the term given by most Spanish historians to the centurieslong struggle between Moros and Christians in the Iberian Peninsula, which ended with the Catholic Kings’ victory over the Granada kingdom in 1492. For recent literature on the subject see Philippe Conrad, Histoire de la Reconquista, (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1999); and Maria Jose Hidalgo de la Vega, Dionisio Perez y Perez and Manuel J. Dionisio, "Romanizacion" y "Reconquista" in Peninsula Iberica: Nuevas Perspectivas (Salamanca, Espana: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1998. 8 Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Historia General de las Indias (Madrid: 1852), 181, cited in J. H. Elliott, “The Spanish Conquest and Settlement of America,” a chapter in The Cambridge History of Latin America Vol. 1, edited by Leslie Bethell, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 149. 9 For the Spanish method of full conquest, colonization, and the use of religion within their imperialism see John E. Kicza, “Patterns of Early Spanish Oversea Expansion,” William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, 42 no. 2 (April 1992): 229-253. 10 These were the written words of Queen Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon in “Royal Instructions to Ovando,” which appears in The Spanish Tradition in America, edited by Charles Gibson, (Columbia, S. C. University of South Carolina Press, 1968), 55. 11 Ovando was Hispaniola’s governor from 1501-1509. Regarding the Indians treatment he ignored Queen Isabella’s desire that Indians should be treated equally as Spanish and lived among Spanish. See the classic work, Ursula Lamb, Frey Nicolas de Ovando, gobemador de Las Indias (Santo Domingo: Editora de Santo Domingo, 1977); and the more recent Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, El pleito Ovando-Tapia: Comienzos de la vida urbana en America (Santo Domingo: Editora del Caribe, 1978). 12 For the Encomienda system and the exploitation of the natives see Lynne Guitar, No more negotiation: Slavery and the destabilization of colonial Hispaniola's encomienda system (Universite Antilles Guyane, Groupe de recherche AIP-CARDH, 1997); Esteban Mira Caballos, El indio antillano : Repartimiento, encomienda v esclavitud (1492-1542) (Sevilla: Munoz Moya Editor, 1997); and Patricio Hidalgo Nuchera, and Felix Muradas Garcia, La encomienda en America v Filipinas: Su impacto sobre la realidad socio-economica del mundo indfgena, [Madrid]: [s.n.], 1999. 13 For what Gordon Lewis called the “Caribbean Thought” of this time see Gordon K. Lewis, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1983), 43. 14 Juan Gines de Sepulveda. Democrates Segundo o De las Justas Causas de la Guerra Contra los Indios Angel Losada, ed., (Madrid: Instituto Francisco de Citoria de Derecho International, 1951), 35; Translated by Charles Gibson in The Spanish Tradition in America (Columbia, SC: University of South Caroline Press, 1968), 119. 149 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 The citation comes from Bartolome de las Casas, History of the Indies, translated and edited by Andree Collard (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971), 291. For Las Casas admirable work for the natives’ right see Rolena Adorno, The intellectual life of Bartolome de las Casas (New Orleans, LA.: Graduate School of Tulane University, 1992); Stephen Greenblatt, New world encounters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Lewis Hanke, All mankind is one: A study of the disputation between Bartolome de Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda in 1550 on the intellectual and religious capacity of the American Indians (DeKalb, 111.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994); Alvaro Huerga, Fray Bartolome de las Casas, vida v obras (Madrid: Alianza, 1998); Benjamin Keen, Essays in the intellectual history of colonial Latin America (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1998); Barbara E. Stevens, The Black Legend: Bibliography (Colorado Springs, Co.: [s.n.], 1992); David M. Traboulay, Columbus and Las Casas: The conquest and Christianization of America, 1492-1566 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994); and Agustrn Yanez, Fray Bartolome de las Casas: El conquistador conquistado (Mexico: Planeta, 2001). 16 An Indian rebellious chief, Enriquillo, have acquired mythological proportions in Dominican popular identity. See for example, Santiago Arauz de Robles, De como Enriquillo obtuvo victoria de su maiestad Carlos V (Madrid: Akal, 1984); Manuel de J. Galvan, Enriquillo: Levenda historica dominicana (1503-1533), (Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispanica, 1996); Franklin Gutierrez, Enriquillo: Radiograffa de un heroe galvaniano, (Santo Domingo: Editora Buho, 1999); Manuel Arturo Pena Batlle, and Fray Cipriano de Utrera, La rebelion del Bahoruco (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Pena Batlle, 1996); Manuel Arturo Pena Batlle, La Rebelion del Bahoruco (Santo Domingo, R.D., Librerfa Hispaniola, 1970); and Guillermo Pina Contreras, Enriquillo, el texto v la historia (La Romana, R.D.: Santo Domingo, R.D.: Museo Arqueologico Regional de Altos de Chavon; Editorial Alfa y Omega, 1985). 17 For the natives’ struggles with the Europeans see John E. Kicza, The Indian in Latin American history: Resistance, resilience, and acculturation, (Wilmington, Del: SR Books, Rev. ed. 2000); James Lockhart, Of things of the Indies: Essays old and new in early Latin American history (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); Murdo J. MacLeod and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, European intruders and changes in behaviour and customs in Africa, America, and Asia before 1800 (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998); and N. Wachtel, “The Indian and Spanish conquest,” chapter in Cambridge History of Latin America: Colonial Latin America, vol. 1, ed. L. Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 18 For the use of gold and silver as currencies see Aziza Hasan, “The Silver Currency Output of the Mughal Empire and Prices in India during the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 6 (1969):85-116; Pierre Vilar, A history of gold and money, 1450-1920 (London and New York: Verso, 1991); and Douglas Fisher, “The Price Revolution: A Monetary Interpretation,” Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4. (December 1989): 883-902. 150 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 See Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modem World-Svstem I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of European World-Economy in the 16th Century (New York: Academic Press, November 1997). 20 See for example, Luis Padilla d’Onis, Historia de Santo Domingo, (Ciudad Mexico, Talleres de la Editorial cultura, 1943); Jacinto Gimbemard, Historia de Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Sarda, 1971); Bernardo Pichardo, Resumen de Historia Patria (Santo Domingo: Editora del Caribe, 1969); Frank Pena Perez, Cien Anos de Miseria en Santo Domingo, 1600-1700 (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Universidad APEC, 1986); Frank Moya Pons, La Espanola en el siglo XVI, 1493-1520; Trabaio, sociedad v polftica en la economia del oro (Santiago, R.D.: UCMM, 1973); and Frank Moya Pons, Historia colonial de Santo Domingo (Santiago, R.D.: UCMM, 1974). 21 “The depletion of the gold mines and the extinction of the Indian population produced a radical socioeconomic transformation in Espanola. Cattle raising and sugar production replaced gold mining as the main economic activities. Almost exclusively the bureaucratic elite of Santo Domingo dominated these new enterprises since many of the colonists decided to emigrate after learning that in Mexico there were new lands containing an abundance of silver and many Indians. Emigration was so intense that by 1528, seven Spanish towns had completely disappeared and those remaining held a combined population of only 1,000 Spaniards.” Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998), 37-38. 22 Citation found in Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969 (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 61. 23 Ibid, 83. 24 For more on the Situado in other parts of the Spanish Colonial system see Leslie E. Bauzon, Deficit Government: Mexico and the Philippine situado, 1606-1804 (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1981); Amy Turner Bushnell, The king's Coffer: Proprietors of the Spanish Florida Treasury, 1565-1702 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1981); and Santiago Gerardo Suarez, Evolucion historica del situado constitucional (Caracas, 1965). 25 Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de St. -Mery, a French who spent a decade in Hispaniola published his comments about the people living on the Spanish side of the island. Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de St. -Mery, A Topographical and Political Description of the Spanish Part of Santo-Domingo. translated by William Cobbet (Philadelphia, 1796), 307. Also cited in Selden Rodman, Quisqueya: A History of the Dominican Republic (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964), 25. -JS For a reading on the treaty see, William Thomas Morgan, “Economic aspects of the negotiations at Ryswick,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 cm. 4th ser., 14(1931): 225-249. 151 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Frank Moya Pons makes an excellent description of the economic and social developments during this time. He also explains the intercolonial exchanges and how they affected the nature of both colonies. Frank Moya Pons, 51-90. 98 For the purposes and rigidity of Spanish Mercantilism see, Andres Villegas Castillo, Spanish Mercantilism: Geronimo de Uztariz, Economist, (New York: Porcupine Press, 1980); and P. C. Emmer and F. S Gaastra, The organization of interoceanic trade in European expansion, 1450-1800, (Brookfield, Vt., USA: Variorum; Ashgate Pub. Co., 1996) 29 For the study on Canary migration to the Americas see Felix Rodriguez Mendoza, Estudio de una cadena migratoria a America: Icod de Los Vinos, 1750-1830 (La Laguna, Tenerife: Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria, 1998); Manuel Hernandez Gonzalez, La emigracion canaria a America. 1765-1824: Entre el libre comercio v la emancipation, (Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria, 1995); and Francisco Morales Padron, Las Canarias y la polftica emigratoria a Indias (S.I.: s.n., 1976). For a Marxian and well-developed view of Haiti’s effect in the world economy at this time see, Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean (New York: Vintage, 1984), 240. 31 Sumner Wells, Naboth’s Vineyard: The Dominican Republic 1844-1924 (New York: Paul P. Appel, Publisher, 1966), 1. 32 Bertita Harding, The Land Columbus Loved: The Dominican Republic (New York: Coard-McCann, 1949), 34. 33 Ian Bell, 22. 34 “Jonathas Granville to the editor,” The National Gazette, (15 September 1824). Also reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 176. 35 British and Foreign State Papers. (British Record Office 1821-1822, 960-62). Also cited in John Edward Baur, “The Mulatto Machiavelli, Jean Pierre Boyer, and the Haiti of his Day,” Journal of Negro History 32, no. 3 (July 1947): 317. 36 Tindall in Cabo Haitiano, May 1838. 37 “Jonathas Granville to the Editor of the National Gazette,” The National Gazette, September 1824. Also reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 180. 152 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 “Jonathas Granville to the Editor of the National Gazette,” The National Gazette, September 1824. Also reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 178. 39 “Jean Pierre Boyer to Commandants of the Districts,” 24 December 1823. Reprinted in Dewey, Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti. 12. 40 See Peter Baker, Information for the Free People of Colour who are inclined to emigrate to Hayti, (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 5-8. 41 “Jean Pierre Boyer to Mr. Loring D. Dewey,” April 30, 1824. Reprinted in Loring D. Dewey, Correspondence Relative to the Emigration to Hayti of the Free People of Colour in the United States (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 9. 42 Peter Baker, Information for the Free People of Colour, 4,6, and 9. 43 The Board of Managers of the Haytian Emigration Society of Coloured People, Address of the Board of Managers of the Haytian Emigration Society of Coloured People to the Emigrants Intending to Sail to the Island of Hayti in the Brig de Witt Clinton (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 3 and 6. 44 “Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Philadelphia to a friend in New York,” National Gazette, 21 July 1824. Reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 239. 45 United States Gazette, April 18, 1825. Also cited in Julie Winch, American Free Blacks and Emigration to Haiti, (San German, Puerto Rico: Centro de la Investigacion del Caribe y America Latina, 1988), 16. 153 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V THE BLACK AMERICANOS IN SAMANA AND WILLIAM CARDY Introduction It was in the fall of 1837, during the long zenith of the British Empire, that the British William Cardy decided to take a boat from Puerto Plata to the town of Samana located in the peninsula of the same name. The other option Cardy had to get to his destiny was on the back of a horse through inhospitable trails. He had less than a year in the island, and was going without his family to meet a group of English speaking blacks that had came from the United States in 1824. Traveling through the island was a real challenge given that Hispaniola is markedly uneven with the highest mountains, deepest valleys and wildest rivers of the Caribbean. At that time a horse rider would have had compounded inconveniences because there were few roads and even fewer bridges. The inland route would have taken him inland through the northern mountain range and crossing the leafy Cibao valley. He would have had to pass near Santiago, La Vega, and San Francisco de Macons, to arrive at the mountains of Samana. The shoreline route would have taken him for even more difficult paths, forcing him to leap over a few wild estuaries and to open his way through unfrequented spaces, with the town of Nagua as the only stopping post with substantial sources of comfort. For a person that did not speak Spanish, the common language of the people in the East, and was not familiar with the culture and topography of the island, breaking through such countryside would have been a feat. At a time that many British travelers were roaming 154 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. about the non-Westem world, Cardy’s wandering may have seem typical of a Westerner entering in contact with exotic countries. Cardy will have plenty of opportunities to struggle for dominance over the density of the Dominican landscape in the future. As a matter of fact, he will return home to Puerto Plata by land after this first journey to Samana, but at the moment, during the fall of 1837, the water route to the unordinary peninsula felt the best choice. It would free his time for reading and meditation while traveling; sumptuous activities for most people in this land, but daily necessities for the labor-intensive life of a Wesleyan missionary in nineteenth-century Haiti. Taking the boat, however, was not truly much easier. Commercial boats either on the Spanish or French speaking side of the island were small, very insecure, old (since there had been few shipping constructions since the time of European colonization), and supremely uncomfortable. Captains were known for their piratical tendencies and for their lack of concern with time record. The traveler should also have been concerned with nature’s behavior, since the Caribbean weather at sea would have tested the limits of physical resistance in any neophyte British trailblazer. I left this place for Samana on the 8 of Sept. and after contending with wind and waves in a small Haitian craft which had sixteen persons on board we reached our destination on the evening of the 15 being seven nights and days on the craft—during each night I was under the necessity of sleeping in the long boot—with two other persons—the boot of course was the deck so that each day from sunrise till sunset I was exposed to its [sun’s] searching rays and each night was exposed to wind, rain, and occasional moonshine, which latter is often ... more injurious than the two [previous] forms.1 In his first days in the island Cardy complained constantly about the hot sun, the rain and the wind. That same sun, however, soon gave him a tan. The strong wind of the 155 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dominican coast transformed his hair, and after his many trips between Samana and Puerto Plata he got used to the rain falling upon him. Not long after his arrival he also protested about the insanitary and nauseating conditions in which people lived. The odors of the people were much different from those found in Britain, where new hygiene reforms were transforming the British society and where the climate was cooler than in the Caribbean, and thus existed less open decomposing. The aromas of hot open markets, of decayed tropical fruits, of villages without sewers or without trash collection, and of people with little bathing were too strong scents for Cardy and his family.2 People in Hispaniola did not—and could not— have the same concern that educated and fine British missionaries had with keeping a community clean of stagnated water and animal carcasses, of keeping their bodies washed and odor free, of urinating only in latrines.3 In his way to Samana, Cardy slept in a boot-like deck of a small and fragile vessel sandwiched between two other islanders (which could have been Dominicans or Haitians), with nowhere to go for a week.4 This incident made Cardy’s contact with the Other islander an extraordinary sensorial experience by intimately smelling, listening, and touching the persons that he came to evangelize. In the boat Cardy was irremediably trapped with the natives of Hispaniola. I could not find another place to sleep but the same box in which I open a mattress and there I slept until morning. How did I sleep? I do not know, because the box was filled with people, that with difficulties I found a place to sleep. A man slept on top of one of my hands and another on my feet.5 He had to sleep packed in between people who were very different from him in their smell, their appearance, and their outlook in life. By coming to Hispaniola to spread the gospel and help convert uncivilized people to the glories of the Protestant culture Cardy 156 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. also placed himself in a position of no escape. He had to inhale the same air, eat the same food and look at the same scenery as the natives he considered to be in need. Cardy had to mingle with the natives if he wanted to reach them with his message. The more he will intimate with those he ministered to, the more they will listen. But the more he intimate with them, also, the more they will transform him. Coming too close to the Other at times will lure him out of his sense of moral overconfidence and toss him among the conscious hybrids; those who somehow become aware of their own fluidity. The mystifying ambivalence created by this hybridization undermined the purist and binarist principle of European-North American imperialism that divided the world in strict categories of the normative Self and the other. Cardy arrived in Samana a Sunday at four in the afternoon, with not much time to locate his next bed. The sun sets strictly around six PM in these realms. Of course, there were no hotels in that village of 1,200 inhabitants, and nobody was waiting at the port for him either. “I had ahead of me a state of insecurity, and without hope of knowing were to sleep, either in the deck of the boat or in the bare streets. Finally, politely a native offered his house to me, and personally opened the doors.” The envoy of the North Atlantic civilization was totally in the hands of the natives now. The Samanians felt understandably apprehensive yet curious and attracted to the foreigner who was brave enough to come to such a poor and unappealing (for Western standards) place. Cardy should have felt the scrutinizing gaze of the people while he searched for a hospice. He might have something that they may need. He might show them something new. He might teach them something good. Cardy’s first impressions were both of disgust and pity. How could people live like this? They have little sense of responsibility with their 157 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. time, their bodies and their resources. For a disciplined Methodist this was a lifestyle that should be changed. Briefly I will describe how the natives of this country live here. .. I slept in the back of the house. Below the bed I was sleeping was a dog that have given birth to four puppies, animals that kept producing noises most of the night, and not far from my head, laying on mats, were sleeping an old lady, a woman with her little son, and a girl 12 or 11 years old, and two small boys.6 The next day, after such a noisy night, Cardy came across the Americanos, or the free blacks that have immigrated from North America in 1824, the ones to which he had come all the way from Puerto Plata to meet. They welcomed him in English and invited him to their homes, and thus began his ministry with this forgotten group of unusual people. Cardy’s description of his first nautical experience in Hispaniola and his first arrival at Samana is indicative of his experience as a missionary among Dominicans and Haitians. He had come with the purpose of transforming the people of Haiti to his own ways; to teach them how to live better lives; to exemplify a lifestyle accepted by God. He felt that even though he was in a strange country at the mercy of the natives, he was in control of his commission: he was the teacher. Little did he know that, as the natural environment had an effect on him, the circumstances in which he had gotten himself in by going to Hispaniola would also throw him in the hands of the natives from whom he will learn more than he initially wanted. This chapter attempts to explain the motivations that Wesleyan missionaries had in coming to Hispaniola and their relation to the North Atlantic imperialism of the time. The experiences of William Cardy as the first Protestant missionary in Samana are the focus of the narrative. It argues that as envoys of North Atlantic cultural expansion the missionaries, particularly those with keen empathy toward the natives, were caught in a 158 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. state of ambivalence that challenged their initial notions of rigid dichotomies of good and bad, of periphery and core, of them and me. The narratives of Cardy’s experiences in Puerto Plata and Samana reveal vividly these issues and illustrate the difficulties of easy categorization both by imperialists and by contemporary historians. Where to draw the line of who is the colonizer or the colonized? Who got converted, the missionary or the natives? This chapter asserts that these questions, though in the minds of some living the narratives, are more examples of our modem preoccupation with binarism and Western dichotomies fabricated to exercise power and domination; that there were other concerns that could only be addressed outside of this line of enquiry. At the center of the dynamic relations between the missionaries and the natives was a complex set of desires of being useful, of improving the personal and community lot, of expanding understanding and of connecting to others. This chapter tells the story of the free blacks that arrived in Samana from the United States places Cardy’s story into historical context and leads the reader to his most traumatic experience of all. At the end of this chapter the natives and Cardy are brought together in a singular experience of loss that illustrates how the West meets the periphery without the advantage of military or political supremacy in which the strong becomes weak and leam to appreciate and respect those who were despised. The Coming of the Missionaries Accompanying the original group sent to Samana was Rev. Isaac Miller from the African Methodist Episcopal Church with the responsibility of watching over the spiritual needs of the immigrants. He established himself in Samana, but died few months later. At his death, a group from the newly established “Americanos” community in Samana, as locals called them, requested another missionary from the AME Church. Part of the 159 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 reasons for requesting a missionary, they said, was to “better their temporal conditions.” With no reply from the United States, they directed their appeal to the Wesleyan Society in London, which was not ready to respond yet. While the Wesleyan Society struggled to find ways to include Haiti within their mandate, a few of the immigrants close to the Miller family kept yearning for a Methodist community of faith. It was not until 1837 that William Cardy fulfilled their desire by arriving in Samana. Before Cardy, however, John Tindall arrived in Puerto Plata in 1835 to lead the Wesleyan ministry throughout the entire island as part of their aggressive missionary advance in the Caribbean islands. The society in London had just re-organized to include Haiti as part of the missionary district along with the Turks islands. The purpose of the advance was to lift Haiti and other Caribbean islands from the spiritual and cultural darkness resulting from years of slavery and imperial negligence. Now that chattel slavery had at last been eliminated from the British Empire, Methodist leaders felt the strong need not to abandon the ex-slaves, but to civilize and prepare them for success in a modem age. Even though Haiti was not part of the formal British Empire, the Missionary Society felt that the plight of former slaves in the Caribbean was intimately linked to the fate of Haiti. This initiative meant going against the political grain of both US and European empires, but this did not deter the disciplined missionaries who were moving to supply much needed cultural and social education. The Wesleyan missionary advance was also in part a response to the Haitian government's continued efforts to break through its international isolation and to upset the insubordinate Catholic power on the Dominican side of the island. Not long after his arrival to Puerto Plata, Tindall built the first 160 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Protestant temple in Haiti. Wanting to reach the diverse residents of northern cosmopolitan city of Puerto Plata, the dexterous missionary preached in English and French, and requested an assistant who could preach in Spanish. The Society in London sent William Cardy, a native of Salisbury, England, to help Tindall. It is important to note that Cardy's social origins in Britain came from the working class, a section of the British population usually sensitive to social injustices. As part of his circuit, he quickly traveled to Samana from Puerto Plata to visit those “Americanos” that had requested a missionary. At his departure from his first visit to the peninsula, Cardy left a group of more than 30 members organized as a Methodist society (church). Cardy's missionary efforts here focused mainly on the English speaking “Americanos,” but he also preached in French to reach the Francophones. Even though Cardy did not speak Spanish, he attempted to reach many curious native Spanish speakers too. Regarding the people he encountered in Samana, he wrote to the headquarters in London, “For want of my journal I cannot be so particular as I wish, respecting the time I spend in Samana—but this I can say with certainty, I never seen a people whom case affected my heart more than theirs.” On his first visit Cardy thus developed strong affective links with those in Samana, where he would soon relocate his family.8 The perceived need to teach governed the relationship between Cardy and the Samanians. They marveled at the preaching of a white European who, at least in Cardy's eyes, contrasted sharply with that of any other. With an obvious cultural and ethnic sense of superiority he declared, “these people have never heard a white man preach since they have been in the country until brother [Tindall] visited them.” According to Cardy, those who were listening to him expressed a powerful yearning to learn how to read, about 161 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. religion, and how to pursue a more rewarding way of life. On December 19, 1837 he wrote to London, “they are willing people, they are far more than willing, they are anxious—exceedingly anxious [...] and if possible many of the children are more anxious about themselves than their parents are about them.”9 The Samanians’ desire for learning was particularly noticeable through the warm reception they gave to the missionary and by their consistent attendance at his meetings. The intensity of Cardy's work during his first weeks on the peninsula reciprocated their longing for religious instruction. From the moment Cardy first arrived to the small Samana town news of his arrival spread fast among the “Americanos,” and immediately many made their way through town to see him. When the missionary traveled by horse deep into the Samana's countryside to hold meetings at farms and bohios, English and Spanish speaking persons also traveled great distances to listen to a friendly European speak about a better way of living and a different spiritual paradigm. The Sugar Farm, located several miles outside of town, was an important gathering site for some rural “Americanos.” Cardy held his first meeting there six days after arriving at Samana, and he marveled at the amount of attendees from all around the countryside. They came on foot, on horses and even on cattle from distant locations expressing their satisfaction with the missionary's presence in their midst, and their enthusiasm was such that Cardy felt his arduous trip justified. Starting on Mondays he would tour the countryside preaching and teaching, and on Thursday mornings he would return to town. Cardy's schedule was filled with teaching and preaching activities from dawn to midnight, and there was not a night he did not convene a public meeting wherever he was. Meetings in the small town of Samana had a peculiar mood due to its diverse 162 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. population. In an effort to reach larger numbers Cardy held three public services on Sundays. One was in the morning, which appeared to be the liveliest. He then preached in the afternoon for those that could not attend or did not fit in the crowded morning service. In the evening Cardy preached in French and this meeting was even attended by some high profiled Haitian authorities. One night in town he was gladly surprised to learn about a centenarian lady who traveled thirty miles from the countryside just to attend the meeting.10 It was not easy being a missionary in la Hispaniola during the nineteenth century, however, and only those Europeans with a strong sense of calling would have tolerated conditions that were inhospitable for those accustomed to life at industrialized countries. Cardy recounted in his letters the many times he slept in the open field with rain falling upon him; sailing and sleeping pressed next to strong-smelling natives; walking for eight hours straight up to his knees in the mud; being without food for days; almost drowning several times. All these troubles he tolerated in an effort to keep with the Methodist tradition of regular circuit visitation. In addition to physical challenges he had to face religious intolerance and prejudice from the Catholic and governmental authorities. A Haitian general unfriendly to European missionaries was the highest governmental authority in the Samana political district, and he presented Cardy with various barriers to his work. The local Catholic priest also provided his own share of troubles. The day after Cardy's first meeting in Samana, the priest gathered a group of Catholics and warned them that he would excommunicate any person attending the missionary's preaching.11 There was also frustration when people did not respond with personal conversions after great efforts, or 163 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. when the church did not grow as fast as originally conceived. Nevertheless, what Cardy feared most, as with most missionaries worldwide, were the tropical diseases that could terminate their work in the area more effectively than human obstructions. Fevers would come from nowhere and local doctors would usually find no cure. When Tindall fell sick, Cardy wrote: “my own mind has been profoundly affected by these circumstances .. . I palpate the horrible possibility of being surprised by a sudden loss of health or life.” 19 The natural remedy for these circumstances was to leave the country, whose climate, in the missionaries' opinion, was responsible for the diseases. Indeed, in 1843, Cardy had to leave when he also fell seriously ill. The most tragic events recorded in the missionaries' letters were the deaths of spouses. In 1839, the leaders in London authorized the return of Tindall and his wife. Both had been sick for years, but Tindall's wife was weaker and died in the middle of the Atlantic.13 About the same time, Cardy moved from Puerto Plata to Samana. His wife, Harriet, had been sick since her arrival. Yet, even without medical assistance they waited and hoped that her chronic diarrheas would somehow disappear. On February 10, 1839, Cardy wrote to London six days before moving his family from Puerto Plata and establishing residence in Samana. This letter exhibited a sense of urgency beyond his typically emotional style requesting assistance for Harriet. “This disease is endless in her, since it has possessed her for the last 18 months and has reduced her to a perfect skeleton.” He then specified what he needed. “I immediately need, that you dispatch, from now own, the medicines that I will now cite, which I will be very grateful, if you get them sent in the first opportunity.” He listed more than 20 items from “tartar's lotion” to 164 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “nitric acid.” Unfortunately, none of the 68 medications he requested from London ever came. 14 Not long after establishing their home in Samana and seeing his wife recover, Cardy's ministry experienced the most formidable resistance from the local government. Officials supported by the Catholic leadership prohibited him from preaching. Therefore, he made the remarkable and arduous trip to the other comer of the island by land to request a personal endorsement from President Boyer in Puerto Principe. When he came back after seven weeks of traveling, bringing the authorization to preach and establish a school, he found Harriet succumbing to a “malign fever” that killed her seven days later. He reported to London his pain: Oh! My dear sirs, this has been the end for her, according to the will of her savior, whom she loved since she was fifteen, leaving me with two children, being the oldest girl three, and the youngest a year and four months, and with them I will have to fight against the difficulties in this world, and face in Haiti tribulations that I previously ignored.15 He was troubled that the Society's headquarter in London never replied to his call for help. “I feel more depressed to say that I had no medicine of any kind in our house to provide her with relief, or assistance in her condition. None could be bought and I fear that despite of writing three times for them to my country, they were forgotten, or have been lost in the way.”16 After this, Cardy's letters ceased to carry the same enthusiasm for the utopia he originally envisioned. Yet, his correspondence reveals a growing passion for the pains of the natives and a closer affinity to those he ministered to. He becomes less of an outsider from Protestant Europe, while, for him the leaders of the church in Britain became more estranged. Hereafter Cardy refers to them as “you, the British Christians” and to his own 165 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. context “we, the missionaries in Haiti.”17 This new use of terms reveals the fragile and ambivalent association that missionaries developed with the core of the empire. At the personal level, this means a re-arrangement of priorities in which the missionary stands increasingly more affiliated to the locals than to those who originally sent him. Missionaries such as Cardy that were not supported by economically or politically powerful institutions back home at times expressed some distancing from imperial objectives and were prone to pass judgments on their own culture. This underscores the ambiguous position of the missionary as a historical agent who did not fit well into the polarity of core versus periphery in imperial history. Of course, this reorganization of Cardy’s inner life did not happen suddenly. Despite initial difficulties, there was profound satisfaction in Cardy’s missionary’ labor. Satisfaction came from the feeling of being needed and from the belief that there was something that he, as the enlightened emissary of a presumed superior culture, could provide to the local population. Behind this satisfaction was the missionaries' creation of the “other,” the Haitian/Dominican who was inferior culturally and racially to the missionary. “Here there are thousands, certainly tens of thousands, that are so wild and ignorant as could not be found in the whole earth.”18 The locals were “grossly ignorant as it was to be expected.”19 In sum, “their ignorance was such that it is difficult to imagine it.”20 Evidently, Cardy was a passionate man. Once, while preaching, he had to pause and in reaction to the unusual excited congregation, he fell on his knees to pray out for the salvation of these souls. Later he wrote, “This was a moment I will never forget.” Cardy was agonizing on two things in the lives of the locals. First, he was concerned 166 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 01 with the material condition of those he ministered. One day, while galloping toward town, Cardy entered a bohio searching for protection against a sudden storm. Inside he noticed that the family did not even have a chair. The man, wearing only a long tom shirt, explained to Cardy that he did not have the opportunity to make a chair. Then Cardy cried: “Lord, look at the material situation of these people!”22 For Cardy, there was a direct relationship between immorality and unfortunate living. In his version of the white man’s burden he was there to fix morality, which in turn would fix the material condition of Haiti. The trouble was, however, that the sinful nature of the people living in Hispaniola was more complicated than expected. Still referring to the same case of the family without a chair, he continued crying in the inside for what he believed was the reason of their deprivation. “Poor of me! [These people] are addicted to all kinds of immoralities that could be mentioned. Lord, have mercy!” It is interesting to note that the missionary actually felt worse for his overwhelming task than for the people’s condition. Cardy also wrote to London that in this country “sin and iniquity still abound horribly. I shall think that there is no other place of the same size that would be worse under heaven.”24 Cardy's preaching, then, focused on warning his congregation from what he perceived to be their natural inclinations. In one occasion he preached powerfully about how mothers should educate their children against vice, “as they were actually doing.” Cardy reported that because of that sermon “many mothers cried for their own children.”25 This incident is one example of Cardy's efforts to teach an individual accountability that would hopefully move listeners away from the local corporatist mentality. Raising a family was everybody's work in the community, but Cardy viewed 167 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the surrounding society as a threat to the values he was trying to nurture in his listeners. In his teaching, mothers were to be the gatekeepers against immoral influences, and in this way, he attempted to trim down the local family size to the British nuclear family of husband, wife, daughter and son residing together.26 Imperialism and Local Culture The implication of Cardy's teaching was that if those living in the island would follow the moral codes of Protestantism, a modem civilization would flourish. If more people would choose marriage instead of consented living; if more people would keep the Sabbath instead of going to the market; if more people would avoid going to all-nightparties and dedicate their time to work, then the Haitian/Dominican society would raise itself from the darkness to a high place among world civilizations. The missionaries were so convinced about the social power of the Methodist lifestyle that they believed that despite of their race and years of backwardness the Haitians and Dominicans could become as good as other Western Europeans. Their teaching stressed personal discipline and abstinence as the panacea for all social problems. While he was helping duplicate bourgeoisie values among the Dominicans and Haitians, Cardy felt wholeheartedly that his mission was in favor of the underdog. He came to la Hispaniola to teach ex-slaves how to read in an attempt to redress the damage slavery and colonization had produced through years of oppression. And he came to bring spiritual knowledge to those who lived in ignorance. Cardy left cozy Britain to teach the manners and secrets of modem civilization and Christianity in the country that imperial powers despised the most, and in the process he fell in love with its people. However, regardless of how close Cardy moved toward the plight of the Haitian168 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dominicans, he could not appreciate the ways in which the attitudes of the imperialistic culture to which he belonged were destructive. Probably the most damaging attitude of the missionaries was their relegation of Haitians and Dominicans to the lower levels of humanity. They equated the lack of Victorian etiquette and economic progress as indications of inferior intelligence and cultural hollowness. To the missionaries, the Haitians and Dominicans were the “other,” blacks who at times acted more like children than mature adults. 97 Cardy's support for European political and economic initiatives in the island also indicates how difficult it was for the missionary to understand the role of imperialism in the Caribbean. On February 10,1839, Cardy wrote to London about a “French affair,” wishing it a friendly solution.28 The status of Haiti within the competing Atlantic imperialisms was at the heart of this affair. For the Atlantic powers Haiti, the second free nation in America, was a contradictory symbol of black defiance and unstable civilization. Boyer and all of Haiti lived on the edge, dreading and fearing the return of the French or some other European power and their colonial rule and slavery. From the start, Haiti struggled for international recognition, and it was not until 1825 that Boyer was able to buy recognition from the French by agreeing to pay a high indemnity for the property that French colonizers had lost at the time of the rebellion. The agreement stipulated that Haiti would pay 150 million francs within 5 years. This measure not only undermined Haitian national pride, but also was one of the most important reasons for Haiti's continuing economic underdevelopment.29 In 1839 when Cardy was writing about the affair, however, the problem was that Boyer had not been able to fulfill his end of the bargain and was trying to re-negotiate the debt. 169 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A month after his first comment regarding the “French affair,” Cardy wrote to London a report that revealed the missionary’s intrinsic association with Atlantic imperialisms. “It will be a pleasure for you to know that the 'French affair,’ that had produced so much uncertainty in occasions, has been repaired, as much as I know honorably for the French and for the satisfaction of the Haitians in general.” 30 He then expressed profound happiness for what he perceived were the favorable results of the treaty. Yet, this renegotiation of the tyrannical obligation was no relief for Haiti. Indeed, it forced Haiti to start making payments to France again for damages that planters and French authorities incurred when their former slaves ousted them. France lost the war, yet still claimed payments for their losses! By supporting this treaty and believing its conditions were favorable for the Haitians in general, Cardy, perhaps, demonstrated his unintentional collaboration with the imperialistic spirit that sought to bring Haiti to its knees. Still, Cardy’s reaction to the “French Affair” also suggests that he was experiencing the perspective of the periphery. Europe saw itself as the center of the world, and thus critical issues at the periphery of European imperialism were seldom important at the core. For France “affair” did not have the same significance as it had in Haiti. This radical discrepancy in perspective on world affairs was one factor in the lopsided distribution of resources throughout the Atlantic World. While living among the people of Hispaniola, however, Cardy was able to see how small things in Europe could become big in Haiti. Interestingly, however, is that from the four British Methodist missionaries in Haiti at that time, Cardy was the only one who mentioned the case and acknowledged its importance. 170 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Still, Cardy presumed that he represented a superior way of life, and his mandate was to bring change, not to be changed. As a part of this mandate, Cardy circulated his worldview of the relationship between the core and the periphery of civilization. For example, at one evening class someone asked him the reason he had come to the island, and how life was where he came from. Cardy used this opportunity to describe Europe as the center of world civilization, and how other missionaries were getting training in London to bring the light of knowledge and development to other parts of the world.31 By helping to form the idea of a world where the locals were at the periphery of a European culturally dominated world, and by insisting that locals had to conform their lifestyle to those of the missionaries, the missionaries were practicing their own form of cultural imperialism. In the same way, by championing the brand of North Atlantic Protestant culture Cardy was teaching in Samana as the lone path to a better way of life, Cardy brought a cultural arrogance that ignored both its own weaknesses and any value in the native way of life. This produced cultural antagonisms between those trying to follow his teachings and those accustomed to the ways of the island. In one instance Cardy prohibited an old lady from attending church class because her daughter was living with a man in her own house. Regarding this case, he reported to the Society in London “We need to and shall face this vicious and prevalent habit.” Indeed, for Cardy before his wife's death, the main moral problem in Haiti was the poor reputation of the marital institution, and he dealt with this “problem” harshly and vehemently.52 Wesleyan missionaries in Hispaniola partook in a broader colonization scheme that extended beyond their appointed location. Anne McClintock argues that intrinsic to 171 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in the nineteenth century European colonization project was a cult for domesticity. McClintock asserts that this cult “was crucial in helping to fashion the identity of a large class of people (hitherto disunited) with clear affiliations, distinct boundaries and separate values—organized around the presiding domestic values of monogamy, thrift, order, accumulation.”33 Ann Laura Stoler points out that colonialism “was not only about the importation of middle-class sensibilities to the colonies, but about the making of them.” The cult of domesticity centered around a discourse on the family that advertised the magnitude of maternity, good childbearing, home environment, public hygiene, and moral upbringing. For it is, Stoler argues, “in the domestic domain, not the public sphere, where essential dispositions of manliness, bourgeois morality, and racial attribute could be dangerously undone or securely made.”34 As with most of the Caribbean, a high incidence of consensual conjugal unions characterized Hispaniola throughout the nineteenth century. Cardy attributed the shortage of formal marriages in part to the Catholic Church's high wedding fees and to the unavailability of priests in remote areas. His natural distrust of human nature also made him believe that people preferred living in mutual consent rather than in marriage because the local culture had inbuilt a destructive tolerance for immorality. Protestant missionaries were not the only religious leaders concerned with the locals' tendency to avoid formal marriage. When the Spanish Archbishop Bienvenido Monzon arrived on Hispaniola at the time of the Spanish re-colonization of 1861, he was deeply disturbed by this social dilemma, and used coercive (though largely unsuccessful) measures to pressure Dominicans to seek religious marriages. -5 C The Catholic Church taught that marriage is a natural association created by God, a contractual unit formed by 172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the mutual consent of the parties, which through the sanction of the church rises to the dignity of a sacrament. This theological doctrine placed marriage and the family firmly inside the social hierarchy of the church, which claimed exclusive authority over its arrangement, preservation, and termination. Although celibacy was regarded as life's most exalted estate, the Archbishop considered religious marriage vital to preserve the church's authority and to bring believers into a more sacred standard of living.36 Cardy, however had a slightly different social and religious purpose in mind when he compelled his listeners to seek marriage rather than consensual living. Protestant Reformers replaced the sacramental model of marriage and the family with a social model. Protestants rejected both the subordination of marriage to celibacy and the celebration of marriage as a sacrament. Marriage was an independent social institution ordained by God, equal in dignity and social responsibility with the church, state and other social units. Marriage and the family was a covenantal association for the sake of the entire community. The family is indispensable to the integrity of the individual and the preservation of the social order. It preserves the human species by providing structured forms for the procreation of children and the preservation of cultural traditions. It deters what Protestants considered “vices” by furnishing preferred options to prostitution, promiscuity, and other forms of sexual behaviors. Thus, Cardy sought to reform the pervasive practice of consensual living in order to promote social order and advance a modem society. Concurrent with Cardy's ideas of marriage were his assumptions oabout gender roles. The missionary's most powerful lecture regarding the tasks and boundaries between women and men drew examples from the way his own family behaved. As with 173 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the families of the other missionaries in the Spanish side of Haiti, Tindall and Towler, the organization of Cardy's family was firmly stratified the man at the head and woman and children as subordinated members. In the nuclear Protestant European family the mother was supposed to bear the primary responsibility for childbearing and any other domestic task, while the man was to be in charge of all external household tasks. This principle not only came through in Cardy's sermons, but also in his letters. While his wife was alive he only wrote about his two children once, and then only because he was frightened at the possibility of his wife dying and leaving him alone with the childbearing responsibility on such a frightful island.57 These gender constructions strengthened any patriarchal leanings that already existed in the native Dominican culture of the time. Cardy's concept of matrimony also aimed to form new cultural constructions of femininity and masculinity in the religious arena. Masculinity was seldom discussed, but was expressed more through assumptions and actions. For example, Cardy, the male missionary assumed the responsibility of leading, preaching, and traveling. His wife, the female assistant missionary, was responsible for training young females in the virtues of marriage and counseling other women on matrimonial problems. Cardy, with the help of his wife’s religious and social instruction wholeheartedly expected to eradicate the practice of consensual living. By limiting the female missionary to a supportive role in Cardy was not only curtailing his wife's leadership and spiritual potential, but also conveying specific gender constructions to the converted locals. Although aimed to promote social security, the missionaries' assault on consensual unions was patriarchal in nature, asserting male predominance in the religious arena and in marital relationships. Historians and anthropologist have debated over the advantages 174 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and disadvantages women had in consensual relationships in Latin America without much agreement.38 Nevertheless, Cardy's experiences in Sam ana suggest that most women here exercised a striking control over their consensual unions. While Cardy counseled men against drunkenness, stealing, adultery, and violence, every single one of his reprimands against consensual living was directed toward women. His letters also suggest that these couples lived in the woman’s household, which was run by the family matriarch. Moreover, Cardy's comments regarding these couples demonstrate that they had an extraordinary marital stability, producing a large number of who were card for in a large extended household. Nevertheless, Cardy perceived these practices as immoral and instead insisted upon the European patriarchal marriage model. Women's resistance to Cardy's crusade, then, may have stemmed from the desire to defend their meager power they had acquired through more matriarchal household arrangements. The mission of reforming the Haitian/Dominican culture was not limited to promoting marriage, but also included the tasks of cultivating a love for education and building a “modest” character. Fostering appreciation for literacy and schooling was not so difficult among the “Americanos” that had emigrated from the United States in 1824. Considering that the majority of them arrived at the peninsula as skilled settlers with the explicit encouragement of religious organizations and schools in Philadelphia, this group was disposed toward education. Indeed, one of the reasons some community leaders urged Cardy to move from Puerto Plata to Samana was so the missionary could establish a permanent school in the area for the education of their children. The Spanish and French speaking locals were not as interested in educating their children or themselves. Cardy reasoned that this was because during the Haitian 175 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. occupation of the Spanish side of the island, French was the dominant foreign language and his classes were mostly in English.39 He also complained that the locals were not concerned with the future or with education in general, but preferred to live a life of subsistence.40 Regardless of the levels of interest in education among the different segments of the Haitian/Dominican society, however, Cardy considered literacy to be pivotal for the understanding and subsequent acceptance of the Methodist message. Cardy consistently condemned the “ignorance” and superstition of the locals, and lamented at his powerlessness to make his mission significant to them. He observed how the Catholic priest extracted spiritual meaning from religious rituals and from superstitious beliefs that were already part of the local culture.47 On the other hand, the Protestant missionary was not able to make much association between the local conventional wisdom and the message he wanted to teach. His message ran against basic local principles like collective social and religious responsibilities, oral traditions, and corporatist political notions of government. Yet, the fact that few people could read the Bible or visualize the missionary's abstract conceptions of spiritual reality without the need for external references to the local culture, made Cardy's job even more difficult. Not surprisingly, then, he made extraordinary efforts to lure the non-English speakers with education, either in Spanish or in French. On more than four occasions Cardy requested Spanish and French textbooks for his classes so new students could find the school valuable. He understood that the Methodist spiritual understanding was based on the logic of literacy for the truth was contained in the written word of the Bible that prescribed a world governed by causes and consequences that often clashed with the flexibility of the local mentality.42 In Cardy's mind, then, the key to entice the Spanish 176 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and French speaking locals to the Methodism was to attract them to the benefits of literacy and Western education. He constantly referred to how much the local culture would benefit from having a larger number of people who could read. This would mean that people would become more refined, more productive, and harmonious, resulting in universal social order.43 More importantly, literacy would bring a better understanding of the Bible and a rejection of what Cardy considered “commercialized” Catholic practices. Cardy perceived his mission to be in antagonism with Catholicism, which for him had betrayed the scriptures by integrating elements of the local popular religion, thus abandoning its civilizating mission.44 The circumstances surrounding a young Spanish-speaking local that converted to Methodism illustrates the almost insurmountable breach between oral and written cultural thinking and its religious consequences. “Recently I have seen the marvelous example of the power of God's word when it is read with interest,” wrote Cardy. The young man, who was the son of the most important female Catholic leader in the region and who could read French, had been reading the Bible with great curiosity. He approached Cardy and expressed his disillusionment with Catholic practices. His reading had helped him understand the logic of the missionary thinking, and now he wanted to be admitted into the Methodist society as a full member. But the social consequences of this decision were catastrophic for him. He lived with his wife and near to his mother and both women chastised him for his decision to leave the family's beliefs. They expelled him from house, concealed his Bible, and declared him an outcast before the whole Spanish­ speaking community. The power that these women had in asserting their control and 177 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. spiritual influence was startling. This example, however, also illustrates the importance of literacy for Protestant conversion.45 The Missionary's Conversion In intercultural encounters, or “contact zones,” every individual changes because everyone has something to give and receive. Locals and immigrants in Samana were not passive beneficiaries of the Wesleyan arrival, nor was the missionary unaffected by them or by the circumstances surrounding him. Cardy’s initial emotional ambivalence regarding his labors in the island indicates the discomfort of living among people he could yet not understand or feel part of. In his first letters to the Society in London Cardy showed a particularly high level of enthusiasm for his missionary assignment. Reporting of his first trip to Samana, Cardy reported that he “tried to make the best of his time,” preaching. “I trust to employ my health and everything I have to His blessed service, and to His holy work to which He has happily appointed me.”46 He would often start letters with similarly undeniable excitement, “I feel happy to have the privilege of writing to you from this place enjoying health.”47 Cardy's early fervor, however, ran into disillusionment when observing that his efforts were not producing the expected results. While attending to the ill Tindall in Puerto Plata Cardy lamented “We work day and night, but in this place we have not had much encouragement lately. In each season we expect to harvest good fruits, but instead are disappointed.” Cardy’s enthusiasm for the gospel contrasted sharply with “the indifference of the people [which was] almost incredible.” After venting his frustrations, however, he would regularly reason to an attitude of intense zeal. “I feel the will to do whatever helps attract these black Haitians to the enjoyment of the gospel's light.”48 Yet, these erratic feelings toward his missionary 178 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. work were characteristic only of his first two years of ministry in the island. A momentous personal loss marked the beginning of more stable emotional relationship to his missionary work. With Cardy’s new emotional equilibrium, however, came a growing ambivalence toward his status as an agent of Western civilization. In his third year in the island Cardy went through the traumatic experience of losing his wife. He was alone with two little kids and immediately became seriously sick himself. At this moment, the missionary was forced to take charge of all the household tasks that previously belonged to his wife. Moreover, during the next five months of illness he had to depend on his local congregation for a whole array of chores, and had to delegate the preaching and teaching to the local leaders. On November 15, 1839 Cardy wrote his first letter after his wife’s death, and while still with feeble, he felt enthusiastic again. On this occasion, however, the enthusiasm stemmed not from what he had been doing, since he had been virtually paralyzed since his last contact with London. His gratification arouse rather from admiring what the locals were accomplishing by themselves. “It is my pleasure to say that the totality of the people (I refer to the members of the Society) has known how to conduct themselves very good during my illness. They have celebrated the services and attended the school by themselves. There are good perspectives among the youth; various of them have found peace with God and various have voluntarily accorded to dedicate one day a week to fast and pray until God restore my health and vigor.”49 The Samana Methodist community had been progressing without his direct assistance in such a way that the house they have been renting for services “it now resulted too small.” This suggests that interest grew considerably during the time the local leaders were in charge of their own faith community. In his next letter Cardy admitted that he had moved 179 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. temporarily to Puerto Plata because he saw himself “pressured by some of the brothers to make the trip” to seek a better location for his frail health. SO Even before his wife's death Cardy had noticed that the Society's leaders in London were not as eager to respond to his letters and requests as he had expected. They did not send the books the school needed, or attended many of his personal requests, including his wife's need for medicine. Not surprisingly, then, in a momentous letter of November 15, 1839, he articulated for the first time a feeling of abandonment. “You, apparently, have forgotten that I am in Haiti.” He restated his hunch at the end of the letter using a self-pity tone new to his exchanges with London: “waiting sincerely you hold sympathies for me and that you may have me in your prayers.”51 This sentiment of desertion was conspicuously linked to some subtle but key changes in Cardy's language that reflected new attitudes toward his leaders in London and the locals. While in his early letters he would have referred to the locals as ignorant people for not possessing the drive for material acquisition or for lacking better roads or buildings, he now tried to vindicate their behavior. For example, in explaining why in 1840 the Samana's offering had been meager, Cardy attempted to justify them by describing their difficult socio-economic conditions. The people of this town where I am a missionary I think are the poorest of the world. This is not due to indolence, nor general bad habits, but to peculiar circumstances of the settlement and the neighborhood. Here each person has a small track of land and consequently nobody has the need to buy anything, and with the port being close to foreign ships there is no commerce.5 The missionary continued struggling for the “gospel” and for his “empire of discipline” against what he considered the low levels of morality in Haiti, but there was now a 180 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. noticeable respect and compassion for the people to whom he was ministering. “I try to do all the good that I can to the poor and neglected but valuable people of Samana.” Suddenly he noticed that the children's nakedness was due to their parent's lack of money and not to their immorality. Moreover, his emphasis on marriages and on mothers rearing children is no longer prominent. There is no mention of reprimands against consensual living, and he even reported spending time nurturing his sons at the time of the 1842 earthquake.53 As time went by, Cardy perceived the growing emotional gap between his friends in Britain and his friends in Samana, between his former life and his new developing identity. He wrote in June 1841, “I feel like in the middle of a storm, totally alone, and don't see that any of my brothers have sent me a letter of my loved ones in London even once a year, which would be of enormous blessing to me.”54 Cardy's distancing from the core of the empire and the consequent relationships he developed with his local friends was probably one of the reasons why the Methodist community in Samana stayed together and continued growing. In 1841 a group of immigrants that had settled in Port o' Prince was attempting to startup an independent organization without the assistance of foreign missionaries. Cardy reported that one from this group arrived in Samana to persuade the faithful to dissociate themselves from the missionaries.55 They claimed that if the local immigrants continued their association with the missionaries they would remain in a state of oppression. This seemed to be a justified contention considering that Tindall, Towler, and even Cardy at the beginning were extremely condescending, headed all of the services, taught all the classes with their spouses and tried to be in every place at all times. Although their energy was admirable, it allowed little space for the local leaders to develop their own native leadership. 181 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Nonetheless, due to Cardy's many extended trips out of Samana and to his long illness, the local leaders on the peninsula had the opportunity to preach many times, lead the school and assert their rights as contributors. Due to the cooperative mood that developed between the missionary and the local leaders in Samana, particularly after Harriet's death, the locals did not feel the need to rebel against the missionary's leadership. In that same letter, Cardy reflected not only his growing disaffection and isolation from his country of origin, but also hints of new identity. In explaining the difficult nature of his work he wrote, “I trust that it will come the day in the future that we the missionaries in Haiti will enjoy the sympathies and prayers of the British Christians . . . You provide us with what satisfies all our needs, but in this country,.. . many other things make that one would feel, sometimes, willing to exclaim: 'I am a forgotten man, and I feel like dead out of the view of the rest.”56 That he called himself a “missionary in Haiti” instead of a British missionary in Haiti for example, and that he identified the church in Britain with the impersonal term “British Christians” instead of “our Christian Brethren in Britain” as he did before, strongly underscores a change in attitude. Cardy was already calling the believers in Samana “brothers” instead of Haitians or immigrants as he used to. And his letters to London, which were increasingly sparse, always included kind words of appreciation for the capacity of the locals. Another important event that altered Cardy's missionary perspective and approach to the locals was the terrible earthquake of 1842, which destroyed the cities of Santiago and Cap Haitian and severely impacted Samana.57 The earthquake was followed by 182 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. several weeks of continuous aftershocks that kept Cardy's churches full to capacity. He celebrated three services per day while the Catholic priest led daily religious marches. After the earthquake Cardy's reports to London showed that he had to rely more on local leaders, many of them women. The services became gatherings where locals and official members shared their frustrations and solutions, and where the homeless found refuge. Worship services also became more emotive, emulating to a certain extent the popular celebrations so common among the locals. Analysis The sizeable Protestant community of North American blacks in Hispaniola was an anomaly. Its existence was due to apparently contradictory motives. First, it was due to the philanthropic organizations in the US that attempted to assist disfranchised blacks, but were also assisting in the creation of North American white nationalism.58 Second, it was due to Boyer’s efforts to assist his “blood brothers,” which was also an attempt to secure control of domestic problems and win the good will of imperial powers. Third, it was due to the initiative of the immigrants themselves, who risked their lives to start anew in a foreign country that welcomed them for their skills and ethnicity. For many of them this was more than an impulse toward separation from European-American society. This mobilization was part of a larger interaction between African-American thinkers and their negotiation of race and national identity.59 Throughout the mass departure of freed slaves to Haiti from 1824 to 1826 Loring Dewey, who had been an agent of the American Colonization Society, positioned himself in an awkward situation that exemplifies the ambiguous position of compassionate philanthropists of the period. By supporting black settlements in Haiti, he moved against 183 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. his country’s imperial attitude of hostility toward Haiti. Moreover, by working closely with black leaders in the US, and even traveling to the island, he demonstrated a genuine empathy with the cause of the oppressed black that ostracized him from his former friends and colleagues. By confiding in Bishop Allen his sense of separation, Dewey acknowledged his new friends and his difficult “in-between” position. On the island of Hispaniola, British Wesleyan missionaries played an important role in the cultural and social formation of the group established in Samana. The cultural clashes between the immigrants, locals, and missionaries affected everyone. The missionaries brought the teachings of the British Protestant culture that emphasized individual moral responsibility, literacy, patriarchal marriages, nuclear families, and an abstinent life. With some exceptions, the Spanish and French speaking locals resisted such ideas with indifference because they did not find them relevant to their own cultural and social context. Catholic and popular religious ceremonies were more akin to the locals' understanding of their reality, and they perceived English Protestantism to be foreign elements. Literacy and the reading of the Bible, however, at times changed their paradigm in radical ways, and helped them appreciate and accept some of the missionaries' teaching. Nevertheless, the missionaries had greater influence over the black immigrants in Samana who were in many ways already predisposed toward Protestantism because of their previous contacts with Methodist and Baptist organizations in the US. Cardy noted that in their first years in Samana (1824-1836) the immigrants had developed their own religion “without light, morality and decency.”60 It was the missionaries’ task, then, to bring them things. With a sense of cultural superiority the 184 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. missionary slashed against the local culture, ridiculed their ethnicity and denigrated potential converts in an effort to re-create British Protestant culture in Hispaniola. Yet, in the process, Cardy’s own identity and social views were changed. After his wife Harriet died, he increasingly identified himself as something other than a British Christian, as reflected in the drastic change in language, tone, and content in his letters. He settled with the Samanians, ate their food, counted on them to run the congregations, to pray for him, and to provide him with morale support and guidance. Obviously, Cardy found a new nurturing relationship with his local friends that led him to see their reality in a new way. This, in turn, distanced Cardy from the imperialistic goal of overhauling the local culture by admitting the local leaders as active contributors in the creation of new religious and cultural forms in Samana. Cardy might not have experience the same type of transformation that some Protestant missionaries underwent in China at the beginning of the 20th century, when they rejected most forms of Western missionary activities.61 Yet, Cardy's rearranging of priorities, and Dewey's relationship to the black's plight, demonstrates how each party in the context of imperialism and its cross-cultural encounters is transformed by the experience. Europeans placed their values well above those of the natives, but in Cardy there was a rare acknowledgement of local skills and leadership. By doing this, Cardy, as with Dewey, began to move away from imperialism’s requirements that expected the imposition of foreign power to govern and direct even religious systems at the periphery. The direction that Cardy’s and Dewey’s transformation took them, however, was assured only by their intense compassion and difficult personal experiences that would allow them to share and identify their plight with that of the oppressed. Interestingly, in 185 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1844 Cardy left for North America seeking healing from fevers, and never went back to Britain. Instead, he returned to Port- au Prince, and other Caribbean sites to continue his work as missionary until he died in Chicago in 1871. 186 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206,1836-1837), 1. All of Cardy’s letters are referred to the same archival citation. 2 Rachel S. Herz argues that odors are powerful memory cues and important variables for choices and assessments. From a scientific stance, odors are guides that assist in deciding what is good and bad. This is so, because the relation between the limbic system and “the olfactory system, the emotional dichotomy between good (survival, love, reproduction) and bad (danger, death, failure).” Marguerite Holloway, “The ascent of scent,” Scientific American 281, no. 5 (November 1999): 42. 3 David N. Livingstone, “Tropical climate and moral hygiene: The anatomy of a Victorian debate,” The British Journal for the History of Science 32, no. 1 (1999): 93110. 4 Cardy corrected himself in a letter sent to the general secretary. Instead of seven days he spent 5 days in the vessel. “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 12 January 1838, 1. 5 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837, 1. 6 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837, 2. 7 George A. Lockward, El Protestantismo en Dominicana (Santo Domingo, R.D.: Editora Educativa Dominicana, 1982), 166. 8 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837, 1. 9 Ibid., 1-2. 10 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 1 March 1838, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1836-1837), 3-4. 11 Ibid. 12 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 10 February 1838, 3-4. 187 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 John Tindall, Correspondencia de Tindall, Primer Misionero Protestante en Dominicana. George A. Lockward, editor, (Santo Domingo, R.D.: Universidad CETEC, 1981), 147. 14 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 10 February 1839, 2. 15 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 22 July 1839, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West IndiesHaiti, Box no. 206, 1839), 1. 16 Ibid. 17 Two of these instances showed up on letters he sent to the mission office on 1840 and 1841. “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 13 April 1840, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1839-40), 1, and “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 13 January 1841, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206,1840-41), 1. 18 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 22 July 1839, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West IndiesHaiti, Box no. 206, 1839-1840), 2. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Christine Barrow asserts that the shared history of discovery, plantation slavery, insularism, and colonialism among the islands in the Caribbean has produced a family history difficult to understand. “Within this Caribbean complex, family systems have consistently defied scholarly analysis, though it is quite clear that they are well188 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. understood by those who live in them.” Christine Barrow, Family in the Caribbean: Themes and Perspectives. (Princeton: Marcus Wiener Publishers, 1996), xi. 27 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 22 July 1839, 6. 28 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 March 1839, 2. -JQ See Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the World Economy: Class. Race and Underdevelopment since 1700 (Boulder, Westview Press, 1989). “The initial indemnity, extracted as the price of independence from France, was the basis of perennial financial crises in Haiti for the next century.” Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti 1915-1934 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995), 24. 30 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 March 1839, 2. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Anne McClintock, Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. (New York: Routledge, 1995), 167-68. 34 Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. (Durham: Duke UP, 1995), 99, 108. 35 “The majority of the population, including the priests, came to accept concubinage as natural. Monzon, however, considered this an immoral situation that needed to be corrected and wanted the Dominicans to marry within the Church and within a prescribed period of time.” Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998), 208. 36 Ibid. 37 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 March 1839, 2. See for example, Thomas Calvo, "Concubinato y mestizaje en el medio urbano: El caso de Guadalajara en el siglo XVII," Revista de Indias 44 no. 173 (1984): 204-12; Karen Glaser, “Consensual unions in two Costa Rican communities: an analysis using focus group methodology,” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 30, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 57-77; Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage. Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); "The Warmth of the Hearth: Seventeenth-Century 189 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Guadalajara Families," in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asuncion Lavrin (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); Robert McCaa, "Marriageways in Mexico and Spain, 1500-1900," Continuity and Change 9, no. 1 (1994): 11-43; Muriel Nazzari, “Concubinage in colonial Brazil: the inequalities of race, class, and gender,” Journal of Family History 21 (April 1996): 107-24; David M. Stark, “Discovering the invisible Puerto Rican slave family: demographic evidence from the eighteenth century,” Journal of Family History 21 (October 1996): 395-418. 39 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 March 1839, 2. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 18 December 1838, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206,1837-1838),1. 45 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 24 November 1841, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1841-1842), 1-3. 46 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837 , Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1837-1838), 1-3. 47 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 20 August 1838, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1838), 1. 48 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 10 February 1838, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1837-1838), 1-4. 49 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 15 November 1839, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist 190 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1839), 1. 50 Ibid 51 Ibid., 2-3. 52 Ibid 53 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 10 August 1842, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1841-1842), 1. 54 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 3 June 1841, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive. (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West IndiesHaiti, Box no. 206, 1840-1841), 1-2. 55 “William Cardy, Samana, to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 21 February 1843, Correspondence of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1843), 1-3. 56 Ibid. 57 This earthquake even affected the authority of the Haitian President Jean Pierre Boyer. The opposition used the resulting confusion to produce general discontent that ended in a successful revolt two years later. Frank Moya Pons, 140. co “African Americans were marginalized politically and socially by an increasingly rigid connection between color and status that was developing in the United States, and they were marginalized ideologically by a developing European-American sense of national identity. European Americans perceived African Americans as a useful "other"—an inferior people who, by their imputed "unfitness," helped define the demands of a free society.” Dickson, D. Bruce, “National identity and African-American colonization, 1773-1817,” The Historian 58 (Autumn 1995): 5. 59 John H. Bracey, August Meier, and Elliott Rudwick, eds., Black Nationalism in America (Indianapolis, 1970), xxxi-xxxii; and Christ Dixon, African America and Haiti: Emigration and Black Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), 33-34. 60 “William Cardy, Puerto Plata to Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, London,” 19 December 1837, Correspondence of the Wesleyan 191 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Methodist Missionary Society (London) Archive, (Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co.: West Indies-Haiti, Box no. 206, 1837-1838), 5. 61 Li an Xi, Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 192 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION The immigration and settlements of free blacks from the United States to Hispaniola during 1824-26 happened in a distinctive contact zone of power struggle. It was marked by an ideological and physical resistance to a life that was both under subtle manipulation and outright control. In addition to the daily oppression that marked their lives, in the first decades of the 19th century free blacks in the U.S. were being asked to leave because they were considered an unwanted element in an egalitarian society. Without consulting their preference, white colonizationists were telling them that it would be better for them to leave for Africa. This was a form of domination inspired by the sense that considered blacks as persona non grata and by the contrary notion that these same blacks could become agents of North American civilization in Africa. Those preoccupied with getting rid of all the free blacks justified their intentions by saying that the climate in the United States was not favorable for them, but that Africa was “the natural home of every black man.”1 Colonizationists also argued that free blacks acculturated and exposed to U.S. way of life once settled in western Africa would benefit abolitionism by encouraging “the complete extinguishment of the slave trade.” This was a time when the U.S. claimed to imitate Britain’s eagerness in halting the slave trade along the African coast, but in reality its efforts were halfhearted. These blacks that were rejected in the U.S. were supposed to have such a powerful civilizing and positive influence over other Africans that they were sent to change the ways of those slavers living in the western coast of Africa. In a place where everybody was black these 193 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. immigrants were assumed to have advantages over the local population since they had already learned something good from the U.S. culture. These efforts to relocate free North American blacks were to be a controlled experiment of the influence of U.S. culture over other primitive ones. It was meant to stealthily sway the minds of those presumed responsible for the slave trade, namely, corrupted African leaders that sold their brethrens to European slave traders. For this reason “A colony is planted [in western Africa], American in its foundation and designed to be American in all its departments.” Promoters of the ACS believed that this colony in Africa, settled by former U.S. free blacks, would possess North American institutions that would promote “civil and religious liberty such as we ourselves enjoy.” However, the main reason why blacks were being shipped to Africa was that they were not welcomed as an integral part of the U.S. social fabric, despite the reflexive desire for the other black. When the black community rejected the plans of African colonization, hence, they were resisting control over their minds and bodies. Yet, their rejection of African colonization was not absolute since many blacks chose to depart with the ACS while some black leaders supported it with ambivalence. Thus, despite the obvious efforts of domination in the ACS’s designs, free blacks were not always sure of how to respond to it. Then in 1823 came Jean Pierre Boyer’s invitation to settle in Haiti. Choosing to immigrate to Haiti was another form of challenge to the authority and judgment of white politicians, community leaders and complicit philanthropists that saw in Haiti a threat to their racial biases and imperialistic designs in the Caribbean. Not only were they challenging the notion that blacks belonged in Africa by settling instead in the Americas, 194 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. but they were also planning to assist in constructing a nation that was not suppose to exists: Haiti. “The agitation of the question tends to aggravate the jealousy and ill will in relation to Hayti which exists on a large portion of the United States.”4 These feelings of “jealousy and ill will” toward Haiti were due to “its proximity to us, and the facility of communication between the blacks of the two countries that would exist.”5 Haiti could prove racism wrong and challenge the power of European and North American imperialisms by succeeding as an independent nation. It may also empower slaves and free blacks all around the Atlantic and Caribbean coast and inspire them to reclaim their natural rights for freedom. As one of the philanthropists put it, “The naked example of a flourishing black empire established through a bloody but successful revolt of slaves on the very confines of our Union is in itself of terrible import to those whose misfortune it is to be slaveholders.”6 The defiance appears complete when the emigration to Haiti did not follow the standard outlets created for the disposal of the black population by a white dominated society (i.e. ACS), and instead occurred under the auspices of independent black leaders, renegade white philanthropists, and the Haitian government. All these sponsors were seen as confrontational to those concerned with creating of the U.S. an internationally powerful and all-white nation. One representative model of these confrontational black leaders was Richard Allen who had been challenging the white ideological supremacy in religious circles by creating a powerful black church that resisted facile accommodation to traditional forms of religiosity. In 1817 a large portion of his followers demonstrated its dissatisfaction by publicly rejecting the proposals of the American Colonization Society and producing an impact inside the ACS circles and among the general 195 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. n population. By supporting the Haitian emigration Allen was continuing his challenge to schemes that treated blacks as inferior and incapable of making independent decisions. We cannot ignore the philanthropist Loring D. Dewey and those that followed him and challenged the designs of the ACS and chose to yield to the blacks’ wishes instead. His conversion to the plight of the free blacks is a testimony of the fluidity inside the contact zone of power relations and the weakness of the dominant ideology. Haiti was perceived as a thom and a threat to imperialist strategies in the Caribbean. Jonathas Granville, the Haitian representative visiting the U.S. for the purpose of promoting the emigration explained the awkward situation between Haiti and the powerful North Atlantic countries. Our political state it is said is vacillating, our government not settled, we are not acknowledged. This political state, this government, this acknowledgement are mere words. We are not recognized by any potentate, yet we keep up an intercourse with all commercial nations... If our government is not seated, it is because we prefer to remain standing... Trahit sua quemque voluptas} Granville did not say it outright, but the implication of his speech was clear enough to his listeners. United States, Britain, France and Spain were among those seeking to ignore and debilitate Haiti. In response to their international rejection Haitians continued with a stubborn willingness to exist as an independent nation seeking viable ways for selfimprovement. One of these ways was recruiting free blacks in the U.S., which in turn was another challenge to the ACS’s plans in Africa. Still, complicity complicates simple labeling of the immigration as a pure form of resistance. All three oppositional groups opted to promote emigration, the departure from the problem of oppression, instead of fixing the social problem right where it was. In other words, these attempts at resistance by challengers to the racist dominant class in the 196 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. U.S. actually followed the dominants’ program of disposing of the unwanted elements in society. So, this act of resistance was also in complicity with the ideas of racial homogenization that permeated the U.S. and Haitian governments alike. As a Quaker abolitionist wrote about the emigration schemes, They cure not the sore disease with which slavery and its train of festering concomitants affects the body politic. It is neither Africa nor Hayti that will relieve the United States of its coloured population... our policy should be to fit them to become useful citizens. This unnamed abolitionist revealed the collaboration of all the black emigration schemes with those who wanted to dispose U.S. society of free blacks. The alternative to emigration was to properly include free blacks into U.S. society. Pointedly the abolitionist asked, “Why should the avenues of productive industry be closed to men because their skins are black?” This thoughtful writer, however, also thought of himself as belonging to a superior class of civilized humanitarians with the task of patronizing free blacks, people considered by him an obstacle to society. We have been at much labour and expense in educating them. It was our bounden duty... We should then have the satisfaction and the benefit of seeing these degraded people—instead of being, as too many of them are a pest to society, —rank among the most useful of our mechanics and artists.10 The implication was that philanthropists could alter the habits of these same free blacks that colonizationists were trying to expel. This appears to be a noble idea. With dedication from the white helpers these same people could become assets to their society. What lied beneath this well-intended abolitionist’s thoughts was the belief that free blacks were inferior to whites, the same belief that incited the colonizationists to oust them from their land. The term “pest” became common currency in the language used by opponents and supporters alike when referring to free blacks. None of them had intention of treating 197 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. them on equal terms, but instead as subalterns, which always carries the consequence of domination. Complicity in domination, in having a stake in controlling the lives of free blacks, it seems, ran as an undercurrent in almost all those involved with the emigration to Haiti. Even Granville who claimed to come to the rescue of his blood brothers came to think the same of the free blacks. On his part, Boyer, the President of Haiti, had appealing plans for the immigrants that seemed to go against the trend of debasing the free blacks. These plans ran parallel to his plans to revitalize the economy in the island and create a society that valued agricultural work. Boyer did not know, however, that most of these free blacks that were to come to his country were city-dwellers and would not adjust well to the tribulations of a rural life. These were not the class of laborer he wished to have. Boyer attracted them by stirring hopes of full political and social participation in society, and by encouraging dreams of financial independence. Immigrants “may have the great satisfaction of seeing their children filling in society the stations of respectable and independent farmers.”11 Yet, these dreams included a subtext. Those accepting the generous grants of land the Haitian government was providing were to be attached to these lands without the possibility of leaving unless a judge allowed them to. Moreover, the Haitian government was going to impose a quota on their farming production effectively eliminating the independence element that Boyer so much promised. After settling in Hispaniola the immigrants were quick to react to the designs behind Boyer’s promises. Although they were getting full citizenship there was not much use of it since the political participation of the common people in Haiti was practically none existing. Although, their skin color was shared by most of the island’s inhabitants 198 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. they were still being look down as inferior, particularly on the Spanish side. As Granville, and many others before the emigration predicted it, the immigrants’ language also contributed to their otherness, to being classified as different. Indeed, they were soon called Negros Americanos (American Blacks), and not ordinary Haitians. Furthermore, the drastic change of climate, water and food affected many with illness. These conditions killed many immigrants since they did not have the defenses to tropical diseases. Most importantly, however, despite the politeness and painstaking care of the authorities upon some immigrants who kept continuous contact with religious leaders in the U.S., the treatment that most immigrants received in the island was not the one they expected. The land tenure program that Boyer had in mind for the working class of the whole nation, including the immigrants, did not contain the freedom and opportunities that the original promises implied. In reality they were moving from one form of oppression based on race to a domination based on class and political status. As early as 1824, disaffected emigrants were expressing serious concerns with the administration of the movement. In particular, a number of emigrants found the government’s system of granting land both inefficient and burdensome. The Haitian General, B. Inginac wrote back from Haiti to Richard Allen informing him that the emigration has been a success and that the immigrants were satisfied, despite the fact that some were unhappy.12 Even Loring D. Dewey, who traveled with Granville to Hispaniola, also wrote to Allen from there saying that he had seen many things to lament, but still felt encouraged by the immigration. 1^ Many emigrants realized that in the short term their destiny in Haiti was as agricultural laborers, rather than as independent farmers. Later in 1824, an increasing numbers of emigrants were choosing to return to the 199 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. United States. Many of those who decided to stay simply left their fields to find jobs in the city. For this reason a large number of immigrants migrated from the fields to the northern city of Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital in the south. In port cities they found work in overseas commerce because of their ability to speak English. Thus, the immigrants opposed Boyer’s controlling labor scheme with disobedience. By the mid 1830s, the time that the first Methodist missionaries arrived at the Spanish portion of the island, there was a small group in Santo Domingo that kept its own identity as Protestant immigrants. The largest groups were in Puerto Plata and Samana where less than 30 in each location maintained their sense of community around the notion that they spoke English and were Protestants. The rest must have decided to fit in with the locals and eschew their distinctiveness as English speaking immigrants. Since the death of the AME reverend Isaac Miller in 1825 to the arrival of the British missionary John Tindall in 1835, these immigrants in Samana did not have a unique religious identity and carried out a variety of practices common among the islanders. William Cardy, the second British missionary to visit Samana, commented that the immigrants developed a syncretic religion influenced by local ideas and practices. The Catholic Church in the area was the center of religious activities, but most members of this group did not feel attracted to it. They spoke English while the religious services were in Spanish, and most of them lived in the countryside far from the church. In the meantime, Miller’s family continued requesting a missionary. It was the London based Wesleyan Missionary House that responded to the call, and they sent John Tindall. Yet, Tindall’s main concern was the group of immigrants in Puerto Plata. Before traveling to Samana for the first time he had already helped building the first Protestant temple on the 200 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Spanish side of the island in Puerto Plata. This group of immigrants, however, proved harder to maintain as a cohesive group than the people of Samana. About a year after Tindall’s arrival William Cardy came to assist in the work. Tindall occasionally sent his new assistant to Samana to revive the religious enthusiasm kept hardly by the Miller and James’ families. At first the congregation in Samana was really small, about 30, but after Cardy moved his family there in matters of few years the group increased to over 100. The missionaries had a clear objective with the immigrants. They were going to reform their way of life; make them more efficient, better citizens, and good Christians. Of course, this meant that the immigrants would have to abstain from participating in the local culture, like the local parties called Fandangos, and from going to the market on Sundays, among many other things. To achieve the ideals of the missionaries, the immigrants would have to adopt entirely the mentality of the North Atlantic, particularly of the British Methodists, action that could rightly be considered cultural imperialism. They would have to act differently than the local Dominicans and Haitians in their manners, in their work habits and even in their sexual practices. Missionaries constantly pressed upon the immigrants the importance of being different from the rest of the population. They would be different with their dressing, with their eating habits, with the organization of their daily schedule, and with their sense of being as well. It helped that the immigrants spoke a different language than the local population, that they felt foreign, and that some of them had practiced Protestantism in the U.S. Immigrants living in Puerto Plata did not respond readily to the missionaries call for difference and improvement. Some immigrants resisted the pressures to imitate the Protestant culture because they did not see a benefit for them. The condescending way in 201 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which the missionaries referred to and treated the locals, immigrants included, may have had something to do with the resistance. The cosmopolitan influence of the city of Puerto Plata, which had one of the most important ports in the island, had an added effect on the refusal. Tindall constantly complained about the difficulty he had in keeping the church and the school running. Maintaining attendance at levels over 30 was not easy. In fact, most of the time there were less than 20 attending Sunday services, and the school often had less than 10 for its weekly instructions. This missionary outpost reached its largest number of 51 in 1843 with the leadership of a new missionary by the name of William Tawler who spoke Spanish. In Samana the immigrants responded a little bit differently by welcoming the influence of the missionaries and by responding more enthusiastically to the call for difference and produced more lively worship meetings. The Samanian immigrants attended in larger numbers to Cardy’s meetings. The missionary school was more successful there than in Puerto Plata. At the end of Cardy’s tenure in this isolated paradise the number of Methodist believers, most of them immigrants, was over a hundred. Credit for the organization of religious activities, however, could not be completely assigned to Cardy. For Cardy had had a change of heart by the loss of his wife, the isolation he experienced in the peninsula and by the close relationship he developed with the local leaders of the group, particularly with James family. This family lived in a farmhouse called the “Sugar farm,” and it was here where Cardy spent most of his time preaching. This change of heart did not mean that he did not seek converts to Methodism, but that instead of blindly rejecting the local’s contribution he accepted it as vital for the community. It also meant that he became more aware of the 202 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. circumstances surrounding the pitiful conditions of the black immigrants and the limitations they had to improve it. At the end of Cardy’s missionary labors in Samana the congregation was spiritually self-sufficient and Cardy had learned to appreciate the ways of the immigrants. It was as if Cardy went to convert the immigrants to his own way of looking at life, but in the process he was also converted. His conversion, as with the case of Loring D. Dewey, confirms the plasticity of the contact zone; where ideas and practices are exchanged indiscriminately; where new identities are formed as a result of changes in mentality, and where those who believe themselves powerful learn about their weaknesses and the power of the weak. This dissertation has how domination occurs in many forms like in the case of philanthropists that sought to assist free blacks while at the same time they were attempting to manipulate their lives and maintain racially oppressive divisions. In addition, while Jean Pierre Boyer attempted to relief the misery of the free blacks in the U.S. he actually brought them to another type of oppression led by him. Furthermore, while William Cardy thought he came to improve the welfare of the immigrants in Hispaniola his actions and preaching at the start helped to maintain a sense of dependency and subaltemity among those who followed him. Surprising things occur in the midst of the struggle for philanthropy and domination. The same whites that wanted to have all blacks shipped out to Africa demonstrated a need for them. And the Haitians, who were mistreated by the same people who mistreated the free blacks, passed on their prejudices against their brethren in oppression by categorizing free blacks as pests too. It seems ironic that complicity with manipulation was present among those who appeared to care for the downtrodden. The philanthropists were complicit when they adopted the 203 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. language of the oppressor by calling the free blacks pests to society. As implied above, Granville fell into the same trap when trying to explain the condition of the free blacks in the U.S. to Boyer. Resistance to the subtle forms of oppression hidden beneath philanthropy, however, was always present. From the first moment that the black community opposed the ACS’s plans the oppressed started to argue back to the schemes that treated them as less than humans. The resistance continued this time in collaboration with Haitians plans for emigration, and with convincing Dewey of the feasibility of such plans. Dewey’s bolting out of the ACS was a major triumph for the resistance that sought to find a solution to the colonization pressures. Emigration to Haiti was a solution that considered the wishes of the oppressed and by implication attempted to assist a nation mistreated by international powers. In Hispaniola the immigrants resisted pressures for control by walking away from their lands and by leaving the island. To the missionaries’ pressure to conform to a foreign mentality and ignoring their own experiences the immigrants responded sometimes by ignoring it, by adapting it to their experiences and by adopting it as a shield against other more negative pressures. Dewey and Cardy’s changes of heart were a welcome addition to the resistance free blacks and future immigrants waged against the controlling influences of those who sought to manipulate their lives. Thus, in the history of the first immigration and settlements of free blacks in Hispaniola, a story about an extended contact zone, we see specific responses of different groups to racially motivated and class, status, or interest-based exercises of power. From the point of view of the immigrants this was a about how this group of people seized chances they were offered for someone else's purposes and turned those opportunities to their own advantage. 204 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ENDNOTES 1A Friend to Colonization, “Letters to the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register, (Philadelphia) 19 June 1824: 12. 2 Citation of General Mercer, “Colonization of Hayti,” New York Commercial Advertiser (New York: June 21, 1824) and reprinted as “Extract 5th.” in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biogranhie de Jonathas Granville par Son Fils (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 120. 3 A Friend to Colonization, 12. 4 “Letters to the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register, (Philadelphia) 22 June 1824: 13. 5 Citation of General Mercer, “Colonization of Hayti,” New York Commercial Advertiser (New York: June 21, 1824) and reprinted as “Extract 5th.” in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biogranhie de Jonathas Granville par Son Fils (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 120. 6 “Letters to the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register, (Philadelphia) 19 June 1824: 11. 7 The National Gazette reported that, “A large number of coloured people... the Rev. R. Allen being in the chair... approved the proposals of President Boyer.” The National Gazette and Literary Register. (Philadelphia) 13 June 1824: 5. 8 Johnathas Granville, “To the Editor,” The National Gazette and Literary Register, (Philadelphia) 17 September, 12: 13. 9 “From a gentleman in Philadelphia to a friend in New York,” (July 21, 1824), Reprinted in Jonathas Henri Theodore Granville, Biographie de Jonathas Granville (Paris: Imprimerie De E. Briere, 1873), 154. 10 Ibid, 154-156. 11 See Peter Baker, Information for the Free People of Colour who are inclined to emigrate to Hayti, (New York: Mahlon Day, 1824), 6. 12 Haitian Secretary General Joseph B. Inginac Genius of Universal Emancipation. (Baltimore) 4 January 1825: 4. 13 Loring D. Dewey, The National Gazette and Literary Register, (Philadelphia) 18 April 1825: 3. 205 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Archival Materials Archivo General de la Nacion, Santo Domingo Coleccion Los Americanos de Samana Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. American Colonization Society Collection (The African Repository) Rare Book Room Broadsides, portfolio 174 Maryland State Archives George Van Dusen Collection National Archives, Washington, D. C. RG 43 General Records of the Department of State, Diplomatic Dispatches, Samana vol. 1.; Notes from Foreign Missions, Dominican Republic, vols. 1-2. Public Record Office, Kew, England FO 140 Embassy and Consular Archives, Dominican Republic, Correspondence, nos. 1-5, 8. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Jose Vigo Collection Contemporary Sources Barker, Peter, ed. 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