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Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s

Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s gale l. ken ny Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s In September 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law, and a new era in black emigration movements began. As thou- sands of African Americans fl ed to Canada, the new law prompted some black leaders to think about more permanent emigration to a number of places, including Central America, Haiti, and the British West Indies. In the words of Martin Delany, a leading black advocate of emigration, “the only true, rational, politic remedy for our disadvantageous position” was to seek “a new country, and new beginning.” To Delany and other black emi- grationists, the Fugitive Slave Act signaled American lawmakers’ renewed commitment to perpetuating slavery and racial prejudice, and black Americans would have to seek economic, political, and social equality else- where. In Jamaica, a group of white Americans and Britons who had long resided on the island agreed, and in late 1850 they organized a campaign to recruit African American emigrants to their adopted home. While the Jamaican emigrationists had little success, their campaign and Americans’ responses to it both relied on and made explicit the gendered http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of the Civil War Era University of North Carolina Press

Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s

The Journal of the Civil War Era , Volume 2 (2) – May 19, 2012

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright @ The University of North Carolina Press
ISSN
2159-9807

Abstract

gale l. ken ny Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s In September 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law, and a new era in black emigration movements began. As thou- sands of African Americans fl ed to Canada, the new law prompted some black leaders to think about more permanent emigration to a number of places, including Central America, Haiti, and the British West Indies. In the words of Martin Delany, a leading black advocate of emigration, “the only true, rational, politic remedy for our disadvantageous position” was to seek “a new country, and new beginning.” To Delany and other black emi- grationists, the Fugitive Slave Act signaled American lawmakers’ renewed commitment to perpetuating slavery and racial prejudice, and black Americans would have to seek economic, political, and social equality else- where. In Jamaica, a group of white Americans and Britons who had long resided on the island agreed, and in late 1850 they organized a campaign to recruit African American emigrants to their adopted home. While the Jamaican emigrationists had little success, their campaign and Americans’ responses to it both relied on and made explicit the gendered

Journal

The Journal of the Civil War EraUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: May 19, 2012

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