Julia G[riffiths] Crofts to Frederick Douglass, December 19, 1860

LETTERS FROM THE OLD WORLD---NO. LXXII.

SALEM PARSONAGE, HALIFAX, (Eng.)

December 19th, 1860.

MY DEAR FRIEND:—I have commenced more than one letter recently for your columns, but have invariably been hindered in the conclusion, and thus have missed that week's mail; and when I found, last week, that the 18th was arranged for our friend Mr. W. H. Day's lecture in Halifax, I postponed an epistle then in hand, that I might make especial mention of the object Mr. Day is desirous to promote, when I had heard it stated from his own lips.

Hanover Chapel was the place appointed for the lecture, and there the Mayor (Daniel Ramsden, Esq., one of the friends you will remember) took the chair at eight o'clock, supported by your friends, Revs. Messrs. Carpenter, Grey, Dr. Crofts, and Mr. Souter, all of whom you will, I am sure, have in lively remembrance. Our audience was far smaller than I had hoped; but the week before Christmas is throughout England one of the busiest in the year, and probably to all, outside our anti-slavery associations, Mr. Day's name would in this region be unknown. In my mind he is so entirely associated with Ohio and the `Aliened American.` that I can scarcely realize the fact of his having entirely quitted the States, and become a British subject in Canada. The cause of the oppressed in the United States can ill afford to lose the talents and powers of such a man as Mr. Day;

but, while I regret his departure, I cannot wonder at it! My long sojourn in America gave me the full opportunity of seeing for myself the indignities heaped upon the heads of the proscribed race even in the so-called free North; and you may recollect how frequently I used to say that, had I been of that sable race, I could not, and would not have remained in a country where I was constantly liable to a repetition of such unprovoked outrage. 'All honor,' I then said, 'all honor,' I still say, to the faithful few, the noble little band of men, who count not their lives, nor their happiness dear unto themselves, but are ever on the battle field where the fight waxes the hottest, waving the banner of freedom, and shouting the watchword of liberty. These are the men worthy of our warmest sympathy, our highest esteem, and our largest amount of co-operation. I write this not enthusiastically, but calmly and advisedly.—While slavery continues to exist in the U. S; while nineteen out of ever twenty professed friends of freedom are so only in name; while the word Republicanism is but 'sounding brass and tinkling cymbal;' while universal suffrage is denied to the 'free colored people' of the Empire State of the Union, it is to this faithful little band of sable laborers in the home field of labor mainly that we look with earnest hope and confidence, and to them first we would tender our sympathy, our aid and our prayers, that He who, in times of old, looked down upon the children of Israel in their bondage, and 'had respect unto them,' may bless their labors and prosper their efforts for the redemption of their brethren in the Southern prison house. But I have been led away from Mr. Day. While my sympathy is largely given to those who are, like Abdiel `among the faithless faithful!,' I take a great interest (and if I mistake not, you do also, my dear friend) in the plans carrying forward

by that truly excellent man, Rev. W. King at the Elgin (in Buxton) settlement in Canada. I am rejoiced that his mission to this country has been successful, and I sincerely trust that the mission of his ally, Mr. W. H. Day, will prove equally so.

A great deal of money has, in the last few years, been subscribed by various anti-slavery organizations in this country, and also by individuals for aiding the fleeing fugitive to Canada; and it is a very natural thing for friends to inquire, 'What becomes of that poor fugitive after he reaches Canada?'—While I was in Rochester I was well able to answer this question, for I wrote and sent many scores of notes by fugitives, commending them to the especial protection of kind friends across Lake Ontario; and some of these simple-hearted people I afterwards saw in Canada comfortably located. I regret that I did not visit the Elgin settlement; but I remember that you deemed it, after inspecting it some years ago, the most interesting of the settlements you had seen; and we now learn from Mr. Day that one thousand people (or two hundred families) dwell there, and that one hundred children are in the schools connected with the settlement. All your British readers may not know that the Rev. Wm. King (a gentleman of Irish descent, and now a minister of the Free Church of Scotland) married a Louisiana lady, and thus became possessed of slaves. After emancipating these sixteen slaves, he, in 1848, took them with him to Canada, and there founded the settlement before mentioned, devoting his

time and talents to their well being, temporal and spiritual, and becoming at once their teacher, pastor and friend. An especial blessing seems to have rested on this interesting undertaking, and year after year has seen a large increase to the settlement. Mr. King came over last year to ask aid to erect a church and suitable school building, and Mr. Day yet remains in our land asking assistance towards establishing a press in connection with this settlement, which shall 'advocate the cause of the fugitive in the land of his adoption.' He gave us last evening an able, interesting and cogent address, and acquainted us with many important facts in regard to the fugitive slaves in Canada, whom, he says, now number forty thousand! If, without coercion, any men of energy among these forty thousand people, (especially any men who have been used to the cultivation of cotton in their days of bondage) can be educated and fitted for emigration to African for teaching or overseeing their former work (under more genial auspices) of the cultivation of cotton on the banks of the Niger, or elsewhere on that vast continent, surely none of us, how opposed soever we may be to Colonization in the abstract, and to the plan and purposes of the Colonization Society, can object. Do not mistake me, or think I have become converted to Colonization—far form it. I do not believe in the utter end of those smooth enemies who, on the one hand, try to show that slavery has been ordained for the purpose of bringing the poor heathen African from his own land to that land of liberty and stripes and stars, where the gospel is preached, and who, on the other hand are eager to dispatch all emancipated slaves, how ignorant soever they may be, and free colored people to Africa, to teach the gospel to the

brethren! I do believe that the opening up of Africa, and the widely spread cultivation of the cotton plant there by the natives well taught, will assuredly aim one great blow to that hydra headed monster, American SLAVERY; at the same time that the establishment of a lawful, permanent and extensive trade between Africa and Great Britain must in process of time entirely destroy the slave trade along the African coast, and tend to the promotion of habits of industry among the natives. But the natives should be the chief workers in these cotton fields, and I would only have free picked and competent men sent over to teach them—not hundreds, or thousands transported from Canada, or the work will be taken out of the hands of the natives, and they be left in poverty and indolence. I conversed with many hundreds of fugitive slaves, and I do not remember having heard one man among them express a wish to go to Africa. I find it, therefore, difficult to believe that 'there exists in America a strong and increasing desire of many of the colored people to return as freemen to the continent which their ancestors left as slaves' Let mention be made of the word 'Colonization' in a public meeting of colored people in the States, and sufficient testimony will be given of the mind and feeling of the people on any coercive banishment from the United States.