Firebell in the Night

When Missouri appealed for statehood in 1819 the issue of slavery in the Union was thrown on the table, where it would writhe for decades, first as an economic issue with moral implications and later as a more-nearly pure moral issue, not so much about the institution of slavery, but as the smoldering issue of race relations. Thomas Jefferson called the appeal a "firebell in the night” that struck terror in him. Smoldering. From the establishment of the colonies slavery was a moral issue.

  A few years before the “firebell” rang for Jefferson, a cadre of forward-looking citizens, including statesmen, businessmen, and even plantation owners, launched a society to address “the negro problem.” With the likes of Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, and James Monroe—some of the notables in a group with a host of activists—the American Colonization Society began its arduous work to address the nearly impossible challenges of slavery. The Society was founded in 1816 and was disbanded in 1964. Along the way there was a remarkable success—the founding of Liberia in 1822—and a long string of failures.

  My time in Liberia as I am “looking for Blyden” has demanded that I also explore the formative period of US history that saw the mercurial rise and fall of slavery. As I do I am nearly overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues and, too, the courageous attempts to address them.

  Early Lee Fox (The American Colonization Society: 1817-1840, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1919) has helped me grasp the magnitude and gravity of the issues. Through an impressive array of primary sources he lays out the “ultra-abolitionists” and the “radical pro-slavery” camps that hemmed in the ACS.

  The story of the ACS is, of course, centered upon the establishment of the colony of Liberia that, in 1847, became the Republic of Liberia. It is a story of vision, ambition, moral courage, racial cooperation, high ideals, and the depth of human suffering.

  My subject, Edward Wilmot Blyden, was enmeshed with the ACS. Because of his experiences in the Union—rejected as a student at Rutgers and elsewhere in the 1850s, mistreatment in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, in the 1860s—he gladly became an advocate for the repatriation of freed slaves to Liberia. In the 1860s Blyden accepted the task of being an itinerant among “the coloreds” in the North of the Union  at the behest of the President of Liberia. From the 1860s through the 1890s Blyden addressed the annual convention of the ACS now and then, offering challenges and perspectives on the ever-changing nuances of repatriation.

  Blyden became the Negro Patriot who, on the one hand, encouraged all of African descent to return to Liberia and, on the other hand, affirmed the hopes of those who chose to remain in the US that there would come a day of racial reconciliation.

  My time in Liberia, my time with Blyden’s works, my time with the history of the 19^th century, all are changing me day-by-day.

  It is not new. For more than 30 years I have been steeped in Liberation Theology. Now I am looking back, looking for Blyden, and finding deep mines that demand digging and assaying.