Recruiting Free American Blacks
Boyer tried to recruit free black Americans to emigrate to the Republic of Haiti. His government advertised the opportunities in newspapers: “promising free land and political opportunity to black settlers." Boyer sent agents to black communities in the United States to convince them that Haiti was a sovereign state and open to immigration only for blacks.
The American Colonization Society (ACS) noticed the recruitment effort. Concerned that free blacks could never assimilate to the United States, its members founded their society in 1816 to "repatriate" American blacks to Africa, regardless of where they had been born. It was an uneasy collaboration between abolitionists and slaveholders, who approached the issue from differing viewpoints. The ACS planned colonization in what became Liberia for former slaves. In 1817 Loring D. Dewey toured the East Coast to recruit emigrants, starting in New York. The organization hoped to resettle 100,000 free people of color within 10 years.
Dewey's meetings with people in New York convinced him to abandon the idea of colonizing Liberia. Most American blacks did not want to leave what they considered was fully their native country. Dewey met with Haitian citizens in New York, most of whom were refugee ethnic French and free people of color who had fled the revolution. They recommended Haiti as the ideal black homeland, due to its moderate weather conditions and independent black government. After Dewey wrote to Boyer to determine if he was still interested in receiving American immigrants, Boyer proposed that Haiti would seek blacks exclusively from the United States.
The ACS sent Boyer questions related to its goal of a colony for American free blacks. Boyer was confident that his government would be able to receive these people. The ACS tried to negotiate to have the Haitian government pay transportation costs for the emigrants. Boyer responded that the government would pay for those who could not afford it, but the ACS would have to take care of the rest of the finances. Haiti was already in debt to the French, which had exacted high payment for lost properties of planters, in essence making Haiti pay for its independence. The government did not have funds to transport American families to Haiti.
Dewey proposed establishing a colony for American free blacks that would be separate from the rest of the island, with its own laws, legislature, etc. Boyer was opposed to the idea of an American colony on the island, since the Haitians already feared re-colonization by the French. He told Dewey that the laws of the Haitian government applied to everyone across Haiti.
Beginning in September 1824, nearly 6,000 Americans, mostly free people of color, migrated to Haiti within a year, with ships departing from New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Due to the poverty of the island and the inability of Boyer's administration to help support the new immigrants in the transition, most returned to the United States within a short period of time.
Read more about this topic: Jean Pierre Boyer
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