Ebony and Ivy (66 page)

5
. See the preface and report of the founding meeting, 25 January 1785, “Standing Committee Minutes,” vol. V., Records of the New York Manumission Society; George E. Brooks Jr., “The Providence African Society's Sierra Leone Emigration Scheme, 1794–1795: Prologue to the African Colonization Movement,”
The International Journal of African Historical Studies
(1974), 184–87.

6
. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, ed.,
The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), I:39, 204, 213–14, 247–48, 355, III:78, 82, 102, 104, 400; Abiel Holmes,
The Life of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D.: A Fellow of the American Philosophical Society; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; of the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences; a Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Professor of Ecclesiastical History; and President of Yale College
(Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1798), 157–58; “The Constitution of the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage” (New Haven, 1790).

7
. Ashbel Green,
The Life of Ashbel Green, V.D.M., Begun to be Written by Himself in His Eighty-Second Year and Continued to His Eighty-Fourth
(New York, 1849), 417, 449–52; David C. Humphrey,
From King's College to Columbia, 1746–1800
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 298–302; Milton Halsey Thomas, comp.,
Columbia University Officers and Alumni, 1754–1857
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 282–83; John Howard Raven, comp.,
Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (Originally Queen's College) in New Brunswick, N. J., 1766–1916
(Trenton, NJ: State Gazette Publishing, 1916), 11;
The American Quarterly Register
, May 1836; Thomas Clap,
The Annals or History of Yale-College, in New-Haven, in the Colony of Connecticut, from the First Founding thereof, in the Year 1700, to the Year 1766: with an Appendix, Containing the Present State of the College, the Method of Instruction and Government, with the Officers, Benefactors and Graduates
(New Haven, John Hotchkiss and B. Mecom, 1766), 117; Jonathan Edwards,
The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade, and of the Slavery of the Africans: Illustrated in a Sermon Preached Before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage, at Their Annual Meeting in New-Haven, September 15, 1791
(New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1791).

8
. The College of Rhode Island did, however, confer honorary degrees to friends in Britain, particularly the wealthy Baptist merchants of Bristol.
Report of the Standing Committee, 9 November 1786, Records of the New York Manumission Society; “An Oration Delivered the Evening Previous to the Commencement 1786,” Wells Family Papers, 1738–1953, Box 5, MC 727, Special Collections and University Archives, Alexander Library, Rutgers University; posted in
Daily Advertiser
, 6 January 1787; see Rev. Thomas Clarkson,
An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, in Two Parts
(London: J. Phillips, 1788); Moses Brown to Samuel Hopkins, 20 January 1786, and Samuel Hopkins to Moses Brown, 7 March 1787, Moses Brown Papers, Rhode Island Historical Society; James T. Campbell et al.,
Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
(Providence: Brown University, October 2006), 23–24; Hywel Davies,
Transatlantic Brethren: Rev. Samuel Jones (1735–1814) and His Friends, Baptists in Wales, Pennsylvania, and Beyond
(Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1995), 127.

9
. Samuel Skudder's parents contributed $25, and Griffin promised to free the child after a decade. Rev. Griffin carefully secured his interests in the bargain. Samuel would have to serve faithfully for ten years, adding any time missed for illness or neglect to his term and compensating the reverend for medical costs, clothing beyond what he had when purchased, and other costs. His emancipation was also conditional: he had to provide surety of his independence to protect Griffin from being held liable for him. Reverend Griffin maintained the option of vacating the agreement for any cause. “If the said Samuel should become uneasy and wish to be sold, of if he should behave so as to render it necessary for me to sell him,” warned the pastor, “I shall sell him as I bought him, a slave for life.” In an amendment to the record, Griffin emphasized his and his heirs' right to sell Samuel for his remaining term if they ever needed money. The minister also agreed to repay Samuel's parents if any funds remained after he or his heirs recovered their investment.

Rev. Griffin assumed the presidency of Williams College during the tumult of 1821. Just before Griffin's arrival, a group of faculty and students divided and organized themselves across the Connecticut River as Amherst College.

Green,
The Life of Ashbel Green
, 326, 411; Harry B. Yoshpe, “Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods,”
Journal of Negro History
, January 1941, 91; Henry Rutgers's manumission record for Thomas Boston, 12 June 1817, Records of the New York Manumission Society; Certification from the Overseers of the Poor and Justices of the Peace of the Township of Franklin, New Jersey, dated 27 September 1821, Wells Family Papers, 1738–1953, Box 5. See “Articles of Agreement made this 22nd day of April 1807 between Edward D. Griffin of the one part and Samuel Skudder by black boy, and now my property, of the other part,” vol. III, Records of the New York Manumission
Society; John R. Fitzmier,
New England's Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752–1817
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 43–44; Sprague,
Memoir of the Rev. Edward D. Griffin
, 6, 90–94; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Edward D. Griffin, of Newark, N. Jersey, to the Rev. Dr. Green, of Philadelphia,”
Evangelical Intelligencer
, April 1808; Nash, “Memoir of the Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D.”

10
. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,
Instructions to the Missionaries About to Embark for the Sandwich Island: And to the Rev. Messrs. William Goodell and Isaac Bird, Attached to the Palestine Mission
(Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1823); James Madison, “Notes for a Speech to Indian Tribes,” 1812, General Correspondence, James Madison Papers, Library of Congress; John A. Andrew III,
From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation, and the Search for the Soul of America
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 99–100, 113–25;
A Narrative of Five Youth from the Sandwich Islands, Now Receiving an Education in This Country
(New York: J. Seymour, 1816), 7–29; L. Vernon Briggs,
History and Genealogy of the Cabot Family, 1475–1927
(Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed, 1927), II:525; William Elliot Griffis,
A Maker of the New Orient: Samuel Robbins Brown, Pioneer Educator in China, America, and Japan: The Story of His Life and Work
(New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1902), 57–62; Yung Wing,
My Life in China and America
(New York: Henry Holt, 1909); also see Amy Bangerter, “The New Englandization of Yung Wing: Family, Nation, Region,” in Monica Chiu, ed.,
Asian Americans in New England: Culture and Community
(Lebanon: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009), 42–60; Bernd C. Peyer,
The Tutor'd Mind: Indian Missionary-Writers in Antebellum America
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 177–79; Constance K. Escher, “She Calls Herself Betsey Stockton,”
Princeton History
, 1991, 98–102; “Betsey Stockton” clipping file, New York State Historical Association.

11
. The society's formal name was the “American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States.” Douglas Egerton has persuasively argued that Charles Fenton Mercer was the originator of the African colonization plan. Jared Sparks,
A Historical Outline of the American Colonization Society, and Remarks on the Advantages and Practicability of Colonizing in Africa the Free People of Color from the United States
(Boston: O. Everett, 1824), 5–6; Rev. Isaac V. Brown, A.M.,
Memoirs of the Rev. Robert Finley, D.D., Late Pastor of the Presbyterian Congregation at Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and President of Franklin College, Located at Athens, in the State of Georgia, with Brief Sketches of Some of His Contemporaries, and Numerous Notes
(New Brunswick, NJ: Terhune and Letson, 1819), 75–77; “Address of the American Colonization Society to the People of the United States,”
Christian Herald
, 13 September 1817; General Charles Fenton Mercer's history of the origins of the ACS,
African Repository and Colonial Journal
,
November 1833; Douglas R. Egerton, “‘Its Origin Is Not a Little Curious': A New Look at the American Colonization Society,”
Journal of the Early Republic
, Winter 1985, 463–480; Lacy K. Ford,
Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 70–72; Hampton Lawrence Carson,
The History of the Supreme Court of the United States; with Biographies of All the Chief and Associate Justices
(Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler, 1891–92), II:630–31.

Liberia would be America's Sierra Leone. About 1786 men of rank in London, frustrated with what they saw as the growing presence and poverty of black people in the city, launched a campaign to colonize Africa. In its initial phase it brought four hundred black Britons to the African coast along with about sixty white English, mostly women of poor health and “bad character.” Grants of land were secured from the neighboring chiefs and a captain in the Royal Navy transported the settlers. Slaving wars threatened the original encampment and caused the colonists to flee. A year later, only sixty-four settlers remained. While this first venture failed, the commitment to removing black people survived.
Substance of the Report of the Court of Directors of the Sierra Leone Company to the General Court, Held at London on Wednesday the 19th of October, 1791
(London: James Phillips, 1791), 3–8;
Reasons Against Giving a Territorial Grant to a Company of Merchants, to Colonize and Cultivate the Peninsula of Sierra Leona, on the Coast of Africa
[a handwritten note on the title page gives the author's name as “Mr. Campbel”] (London, 1791), 2–7, collection of the British Library.

12
. Donna L. Akers,
Living in the Land of Death: The Choctaw Nation, 1830–1860
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004), 10–22; Peyer,
Tutor'd Mind
, 173–74; Anthony F. C. Wallace,
The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 5–11; James Monroe, Second Inaugural Address, 5 March 1821.

13
. “Message of the President of the United States, to Both Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the Second Session of the Twenty-first Congress,” 7 December 1830; Ronald N. Satz,
Tennessee's Indian Peoples from White Contact to Removal, 1540–1840
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979), 36–43; Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green,
The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears
(New York: Penguin, 2007), 42–68.

14
. “An Act to Provide for an Exchange of Lands with the Indians Residing in Any of the States or Territories, and for Their Removal West of the River Mississippi,” 28 May 1830; Perdue and Green,
The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears
, 44;
The Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia
, Supreme Court of the United States, 18 March 1831; Wallace,
Long, Bitter Trail
, 50–56. On Jackson's history with Indian warfare, land policy, and removal, also see Robert V. Remini,
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
(New York: Viking, 2001).

15
. “Miscellanies,”
The Missionary Herald
, August 1824;
First Report of the New-York Colonization Society
(New York: J. Seymour, 1823); Andrew,
Revivals to Removal
, 113–25.

16
.
Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 6, 1830, on the Bill for an Exchange of Lands with the Indians Residing in Any of the States or Territories, and for Their Removal West of the Mississippi
(Washington, DC: Office of the National Journal, 1830), 3–15.

17
. Josiah Quincy, “Remarks on the Visit of President Andrew Jackson to Harvard University, 1834,” Papers of Josiah Quincy, Box 6, Harvard University Archives; Ronald N. Satz,
American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 97–115; Michael Paul Rogin,
Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1991), 206–48; Ronald N. Satz, “Rhetoric Versus Reality: The Indian Policy of Andrew Jackson,” in William L. Anderson, ed.,
Cherokee Removal: Before and After
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 36–44; Tim Alan Garrison,
The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002), 1–13; Gary E. Moulton,
John Ross, Cherokee Chief
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978), 42–44.

18
.
Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey … April 6, 1830
, 4–13;
Speech of Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, on the 14th and 21st of February, 1831, on the Execution of the Laws and Treaties in Favor of the Indian Tribes
(Washington, DC, 1831), 18–19.

19
. Everett's signed copy is in the collection at Widener Library, Harvard University.
Speech of Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts … on the 14th and 21st of February, 1831
, 1–8;
Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey … April 6, 1830
, 23–24; Louis P. Masur,
1831: Year of Eclipse
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 118–19.