SOURCE: “In Search of International Support for African Colonization: Martin R. Delany's Visit to England, 1860,” in Canadian Journal of History, Vol. X, No. 3, December, 1975, pp. 307‐24.

[In the following essay, Blackett details the events of Delany's visit to England and his attempt to gain support for his separatist plans for American Blacks.]

Movements for social change invariably produce international support organizations, which through lobbying attempt to influence policies and action favorable to their cause. In the first half of the nineteenth century the many revolutionary and nationalist wars in Europe and South America had created their respective support movements in western Europe. Garibaldi's and Kossuth's, Louis Blanc's and Bolivar's and many more all found support in the main cities in Europe. Throughout this period, England which had remained relatively free from the pressures of domestic revolution, became the principal refuge for those fleeing the turmoil of revolution and counter‐revolution. The American antislavery movement falls squarely into this pattern and tradition, and especially so after the final emancipation of slavery in the British West Indian colonies in 1838.

After West Indian emancipation the British antislavery movement turned its attention and efforts to the United States. Every year numbers of Americans visited Britain in the hope of promoting their antislavery work and winning financial support for their movements. British abolitionists also visited America to get firsthand knowledge of American slavery. The continuing two‐way crossing of the Atlantic created a strong tradition of cooperation between the two antislavery movements. In Britain the Americans were courted and pampered by an aristocracy and middle class which was eager to see the abolition of slavery, while, with very few exceptions, it remained totally indifferent to the plight of its own working class. Black Americans from Phyllis Wheatley to Martin Delany were all given the red‐carpet treatment by British abolitionists. Britain also had a particular attraction for the black American after it had emancipated its slaves in the Caribbean. In fact emancipation day in the West Indies, August 1, became the national holiday for many black Americans. Throughout the North large parades and picnics were held to celebrate West Indian emancipation at which speakers extolled the merits of Britain's actions and condemned America and its 4th of July. As early as the 1780s, Phyllis Wheatley had visited Britain, and been recognized as one of the outstanding literary persons of her time. Nowhere in America could she find such recognition. In subsequent years other black Americans would visit Britain to win aid for the settlement of blacks in Africa, support for schools, churches and settlements in Canada, money to purchase their freedom and assistance for the Underground Railroad, to mention only a few reasons. In the 1850s alone, Douglass, Pennington, Garnet, Ward, Sarah Remond, Loguen, Kinnard and many more had visited Britain. There were so many blacks in Britain in this decade that one observer commented, “The subject of slavery is certainly being brought considerably before our people at this time, and subscriptions towards some branch of the cause are being levied in all directions. In one town we have Mr. Mitchell begging for a chapel and school in Toronto. In another, Mr. Troy, collecting for a similar object in Canada West. Here, there is Reverend William King [white], asking contributions for Buxton Settlement; and there is Mr. Day, raising funds towards starting a newspaper. Then we have a host of colored friends going up and down the country east, west, north and south, collecting money to buy their various relatives out of slavery.”¹ But even if, as this observer is suggesting, these visitors were taxing the benevolence of the British, she ignored the fact that they kept the British antislavery movement alive at a time when its importance and popularity were on the wane. This paper sets out to examine the activities of one of these visitors, Dr. Martin R. Delany, who along with his companion Robert Campbell, visited England in 1860 hoping to win support for their proposed colony of black Americans in Abeokuta, Nigeria and to assess the impact of the visit on the antislavery movements in Britain and the United States.

In the 1850s emigrationism had gained wider currency among black Americans. The Niger Valley Exploring Party, of which Delany and Campbell were Commissioners, had visited Liberia, Lagos and Abeokuta in 1859. On December 28, a treaty was signed between the Commissioners and the Alake of Abeokuta allowing for the settlement of a select group of black Americans in and around Abeokuta. In the eyes of the Commissioners this colony was to be the base for the promotion of civilization and Christianity on the West Coast of Africa. Its economy, based on the successful production of cotton and other tropical crops, would, it was argued, compete with slave‐grown cotton of the South in the markets of Europe, undermine the profitability of slavery and thus ultimately lead to the destruction of the “peculiar institution.”²

The Exploring Party had been the brainchild of Delany. As early as 1852 Delany had proposed an expedition to east Africa, but for the next six years had directed his efforts towards Central America and the Caribbean.³ Africa, which was associated with the efforts of the American Colonization Society, was studiously avoided by most emigrationists in this period. The publication of the Reverend Bowen's Central Africa and Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa in 1857 rekindled an interest in Africa and the prospects of African colonization. Sometime in 1857‐58 Delany began making arrangements for an exploration party to visit west Africa. The group was to consist of five members, Delany as chief Commissioner; Robert Douglass as Artist; Robert Campbell, Naturalist; Dr. Amos Aray, Surgeon; and James W. Purnell, Secretary and Commercial Reporter.⁴ By the time the Party sailed for Africa in the summer of 1859, however, its number had been reduced to two, Delany and Campbell.

In April 1859, Campbell went to England in the hope of raising money for the Exploring Party. Opposition to the effort by black Americans had made it almost impossible for the Party to get the kind of financial support it needed.⁵ In May he issued a Circular calling for support from antislavery men and industrialists, especially Lancashire cotton manufacturers. A successful colony producing cotton for the English market, it said, would relieve Britain's dependence on the South.⁶ This approach was guaranteed to win some support. Concern with dependence on the South for its supply of cotton, fear of a general slave uprising which would destroy the source of cotton supply and the possibility of a bad cotton crop, were widespread among the cotton men of Lancashire. Campbell, therefore, was listened to with much interest. Thomas Clegg, a Manchester cotton spinner involved in promoting cotton cultivation in Africa since 1850, gave Campbell letters of introduction to a number of prominent philanthropists. Clegg had been aware of the efforts among black Americans to establish a colony in Africa, for a copy of a letter signed by Delany and two blacks from Wisconsin, J. J. Myers and Ambrose Dudley, had been sent to him in 1858 requesting information on the most suitable place for the location of a colony. The original letter under the heading of the “Mercantile Line of the Free Colored People of North America” was sent via an English Professor of History at the Wisconsin State University to the Royal Geographical Society in London.⁷ Campbell also had meetings with the British and Foreign Anti‐Slavery Society, which gave its support to the expedition and the proposed colony. Through the efforts of Edmund Ashworth, a prominent cotton manufacturer from Bolton and a member of the Manchester Cotton Supply Association, Campbell was given a free passage by the British Government on the packet sailing in June from Liverpool and letters of introduction by Lord Malmesbury, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the acting Consul in Lagos.⁸ In his brief visit Campbell raised £200 for the Exploring Party.⁹

By the time Delany and Campbell arrived in England in May 1860, textile manufacturers were openly expressing their concern for the continued supply of cotton from the South. Their concern had wider national implications, for manufactured textiles accounted for almost one third of the total value of British exports, rising from £22 million in 1840 to £36[frac12] million in 1856. The weekly consumption of cotton mills had risen from 30,000 to 45,000 bales between 1850‐56, and the dependence on American cotton was increasing at a time when American production was temporarily falling. This was reflected in sharp domestic price increases from 4d per lb. in 1856 to 8d by June 1857.¹⁰ By 1859 British mills were consuming five sevenths of American production at a cost of £30m, textile exports were valued at one half of all exports, and almost £25m were expended on wages for the employment of some 1,500,000 operatives. It was estimated that £150m was invested in mills and machinery and roughly 2m tons of shipping was used in the trade with a marine force of some 10,000.¹¹

The fear created by this dependence led to the formation of the Cotton Supply Association in April 1857. The Association was not to undertake the cultivation of cotton but “to obtain as full and reliable information as possible respecting the extent and capabilities of cotton cultivation in every country where it could be grown.”¹² Under Prime Minister Palmerston British representatives in cotton growing areas were instructed to cooperate with the C.S.A. in relaying information on the cotton growing potentials of their areas and in September 1858 Benjamin Campbell, Consul at Lagos, visited Manchester to brief the C.S.A. on the cotton potential of West Africa.¹³ Consul Campbell was instrumental in the increased exports of cotton from Lagos and Abeokuta in the 1850s. Between March 1858 and March 1859, 1,800 bales of cotton reached Liverpool and London, between 1859 and 1860, 1,600 bales were imported into Liverpool and 1,847 into London, an increase of approximately 100٪ in twelve months. As the first Report of the Association said, “Africa bids fair in a very few years to rival our best sources of supply. …”¹⁴

Interest in African cotton was in large measure promoted and sustained by Thomas Clegg. Clegg who employed about 1,500 workers in his mills on the outskirts of Manchester, had become involved in West African cotton in 1850 when he joined forces with the Church Missionary Society to encourage Africans to increase their cotton production for export to Britain. Under their joint efforts an Industrial Institution was established at Abeokuta and later an Onitsha and Lakoja to encourage the cultivation of cotton for export. Like Henry Venn of the C.M.S., Clegg was concerned to create an African middle class as an agency for the promotion of commerce, Christianity and civilization. He feared that “if Europeans took up the cultivation of cotton, or dealing in the interior, it would, in all probability, result in the revival of slave labor, or merely in a spasmodic effort or two, and then a slackening off, a failure and relinquishing the effort, after destroying, in all probability, the self‐reliance the native formally had.” In order to achieve his aim Clegg, with the help of the C.M.S. brought to his mill in Manchester two Sierra Leonians, Henry Robbins and Josiah Crowther, to teach them the skills of processing and packing cotton. It is no wonder that Clegg followed the efforts of Delany and Campbell in Africa with a keen interest. A colony of black Americans could now form part of his proposed native agency. When Clegg said “Africa for the Africans, Europe for the white man” he was articulating the sentiments of Delany.¹⁵

After 1858 English cotton manufacturers, abolitionists and government were becoming increasingly involved in West African developments. The cotton manufacturers sanctioned Delany's scheme in the hope that it would provide an alternative source of cotton, and the abolitionists because free labor and the promotion of tropical products would, it was argued, ultimately lead to the abolition of slavery. Delany, therefore, found an alert and responsive audience for his plans. His theories of economic development corresponded very closely to the conventional wisdom of laissez‐faire economic organization. Throughout his tour of England and Scotland he preached his theory of what he later called the “Triple Alliance”: land was available and free, labor was plentiful, and finally black Americans would provide the necessary expertise. With capital from Britain large profits would be made and divided equally between colonists, capitalists and the African owners of the land.¹⁶ As we shall see later, this rather naive analysis of economic development played into the hands of British cotton manufacturers and capitalists.

Two days after their arrival in London, Delany and Campbell were invited to a meeting called by the Reverend Theodore Bourne, agent of the African Civilization Society at the residence of Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, the noted physician and colonizationist.¹⁷ Hodgkin, a Vice‐President of the Pennsylvania State Colonization Society, had been a strong supporter of colonization in Africa since the 1830s. In fact many British abolitionists erroneously believed that the Niger Valley Exploring Party had visited Africa under the auspices of the Civilization Society. Since his arrival in England as agent of the Society, Bourne had fostered this position. He told a Bolton meeting in September 1859 that, “Several of its [A.C.S.] members were upon the West Coast of Africa and others at Yoruba, pioneering the way for those who were to follow. …” Garnet himself had helped to create this false impression. In an open letter to English supporters of the cause he said, “Some members of the Society have already gone there [Yoruba] and have made an agreement with the Kings and Chiefs of the Egba country. …”¹⁸ Although Campbell had associated briefly with Bourne and the Society before leaving for England, both he and Delany had continually declared their independence from the Society.¹⁹

But Bourne had been hard at work, since August 1858, creating support for the Society among British abolitionists. In August he attended a meeting chaired by Lord Brougham at which the aims of the Society were introduced by George Thompson, the well known English abolitionist. In September Bourne concentrated his efforts on Manchester. From the home of Thomas Clegg he announced the formation of the Society to Manchester cotton men claiming that through its activities in West Africa an alternative source of cotton would be found and new markets opened for British manufactured goods. At a meeting held in the Mayor's Parlor on the 21st and chaired by the President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce a resolution was adopted approving the objects of the Civilization Society and a committee formed to raise money for its efforts. At this meeting Bourne claimed the support of the British and Foreign Anti‐Slavery Society and the Congregational Society. Later in the month he gave a lecture in Bolton, attended the annual meeting of the Congregational Union, and issued a circular requesting funds to aid free blacks forced to leave Arkansas. The London Emancipation Committee gave its support to the Society in October. By the time Bourne returned to America for a short stay at the end of November he had effectively established the Society as the agent of colonization in Yoruba.²⁰

On his return to England, Bourne continued to promote the Society. He wrote A. A. Constantine, Corresponding Secretary of the Society, that Lord Alfred Churchill, who would later become Chairman of the African Aid Society, had developed a plan for the formation of a large joint‐stock company to assist in implementing the scheme of the Civilization Society. Sir Culling Eardly had promised to support this effort to the tune of some one million pounds. A circular issued by Bourne in April called for the formation of a British society with branches throughout the United Kingdom to aid the Society, “to carry out the objects of promoting the Christian Civilization of Africa, by means of Christian coloured settlers from America and to instruct the natives to improve modes of art, manufactures and the cultivation of the soil.” He proposed the creation of a commercial company, the Central African Commercial Company, to purchase, collect and forward African goods especially cotton to Britain, and in return selling British goods to Africa.²¹ More important, this circular was issued on the authority of a committee formed in March. This committee was later to be the nucleus of the African Aid Society. Among its members were Churchill, Eardly, Dr. Cummings, Minton, Richardson, Hale, McLeod and Dr. Hodgkin. All with the exception of Hodgkin would sit on the Executive Committee of the A.A.S.²²

On their arrival in England, Delany and Campbell were, therefore, confronted with an established organization allied to the Civilization Society. This group threatened Delany's determination to act independently of all other organizations. Consequently, he took the opportunity of the first meeting at Hodgkin's home to undermine Bourne's position and confirm his independence.²³ It is quite possible that Delany may have known of the strong opposition to the African Civilization Society by a number of prominent blacks in New York. The fight which left the Society bankrupt reached its bitterest heights between March and June of 1860. Bourne's position was made even more tenuous because he was white. He had been warned before leaving the United States of the English partiality for blacks promoting the antislavery cause. In a letter to the Reverend R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, Gerald Ralston, Liberian Minister in London, observed, “If Mr. Bourne were a black man and of good abilities and good character I have no doubt he might benefit the cause of the colored people by coming to this country. But being a white man he can do no good whatever. I believe public opinion against white Americans in advocating the cause of Negroes is still stronger than it was in your time. … I repeat none but a black man must come from America to speak on the subject of the American Negroes.” Delany, noted for his racial pride and his determination that blacks should act independently of whites, capitalized on this English partiality. At a meeting called by the Civilization Society at Clayland Chapel on May 30, Delany told the audience exactly how black he was and assured his listeners that his personal success was the surest vindication of his race's “superior intellectual gifts.”²⁴ He continued to use this line of approach with much success throughout his stay in Britain.

By June Delany had effectively destroyed Bourne's credibility with many abolitionists. Hodgkin observed that “Our friend Bourne is still labouring in the cause which brought him here but I fear that the presence of the travellers [Delany and Campbell] to which he looked for help in his advocacy may rather prove to have been an incumbrance.” In a later letter to Garnet, Hodgkin explained exactly what he meant: “No man can rely more than I on our friend Bourne's integrity, zeal, knowledge of the subject and perseverance. I think him far beyond Delany and in most respects they will not bear comparison yet Delany is courted for his colour and I fear that flattered by this he may stay to the injury of the cause.”²⁵ Although Bourne attended the founding meeting of the African Aid Society in July he had already lost his influence, and his mission was finally ended by the Civilization Society in late September.²⁶

After a series of meetings in May and June, the African Aid Society was formed on July 17, 1860. According to its first report the origins of the Society could be traced to the African emigrationist movement among black Americans. Its development was in large measure due to the activities of the Reverend Theodore Bourne and the interests of cotton manufacturers and capitalists in West Africa. Bourne had attracted most of the Society's leading figures to the cause of African colonization even before the arrival of Delany and Campbell. In addition, both Lord Alfred Churchill and J. Lyons McLeod, leading officers of the Society, were actively involved with the C.S.A. as early as 1859. With the removal of Bourne, Delany became the prominent American involved in the promotion of emigration and cotton cultivation in West Africa. It is quite clear that like the C.S.A. the formation of the A.A.S. was more a product of economic exigencies created by dependence on southern cotton, rather than the work of philanthropists and abolitionists, although many supported the effort. The Society aimed to develop the resources of Africa, Madagascar and the adjacent islands and promote the Christian civilization of the African races, which, it was hoped, would ultimately result in the destruction of the slave trade. This was to be achieved by encouraging the production of tropical crops through the introduction of skilled African or European labor “into those parts of the earth which are inhabited by the African race.” It would assist by means of loans to all blacks willing to leave Canada and the United States for the West Indies, Liberia, Natal and “such countries as may seem to offer a suitable field of labour.” These emigrants were to form industrial missions and join with those already in existence for the extension of Christianity, the Society in turn supplying mechanical tools and getting samples of native products to the manufacturing community in Great Britain, “with a view to the promotion of legitimate commerce.”²⁷

In his relations with the A.A.S. Delany insisted that decisions and actions affecting the proposed black settlements were to be inspired by blacks. All loans made to the settlers were to be repaid in “produce or otherwise.” He saw the role of the Society as mainly aiding “the voluntary emigration of colored people from America in general, and our movement as originated by colored people in particular.”²⁸ Whether or not a colony of this nature could maintain its independence in the light of the interest of British capital remains a moot point. The composition of the Society reflected its interest; its Executive Council was heavily weighted with businessmen, a few clergymen and missionaries. The Glasgow Branch Committee and the Birmingham Auxiliary Committee had a similar composition, while the proposed Manchester Branch Committee was to include a large representation from the C.S.A. and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. In memorials sent to the Foreign Office by the A.A.S. requesting the establishment of a consulate at Abeokuta, 110 of the 167 signatories were businessmen.²⁹ By 1862, two years after the occupation of Lagos by the British, and with the falling off of cotton imports from the South due to the Civil War, the A.A.S. turned its full attention to West Africa. The Manchester Committee petitioned the Foreign Minister suggesting “that your Lordship should impress upon Her Majesty's Government the necessity of immediately occupying the fort at Whydah with a force sufficient to put an end to the slave traffic and to protect the legitimate trader in his intercourse with the inhabitants. …” In the words of the African Times, organ of the A.A.S., it was high time that the Niger was made the Mississippi of Africa “as regards cotton and other valuable produce.”³⁰

It is highly unlikely that Delany or his proposed colony could have maintained their independence of action under these circumstances. Delany's position to the contrary, the evidence suggests that these cotton manufacturers and capitalists saw the Abeokuta colony as an easy way of establishing their presence and influence in the area. Although as Robinson and Gallagher suggest, Africa was still peripheral to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the eyes of Britain, there is a perceptible shift after 1850 to an expansion of colonial influence in that area.³¹

Delany and Campbell were voted £167 by the Executive Committee to “continue their labours and to lay before the coloured people of America the report of their pioneer expedition into the Yoruba country.”³² But before Delany could leave on his tour of England and Scotland an event of international significance occurred at the International Statistical Congress, which was to propel him into the limelight for the next six months. The Congress, a meeting of the leading minds in the scientific world, had the approval and support of most European governments and the United States. In fact delegates to the Congress were elected by their respective governments. At the opening session of the Congress, Lord Brougham, turned to the American Minister, George Mifflin Dallas, and commented on Delany's presence in the audience. The comment and Delany's reply created an absolute sensation in the meeting. The Manchester Weekly Advertiser reported that “Lord Brougham, seeing Mr. Dallas, the American Minister, present said: I hope my friend Mr. Dallas will forgive me reminding him that there is a negro gentleman present, a member of the congress. (Loud and vociferous cheering) After the cheering had subsided, Mr. Dallas made no sign; but the negro in question, who we understood to be a Dr. Delany, rose amid the cheers and said: I pray your Royal Highness will allow me to thank his lordship, who is always a most unflinching friend of the negro, for the observation he has made, and I assure your Royal Highness and his lordship that I also am a man. This unexpected incident elicited a round of cheering very extraordinary for an assemblage of sedate statisticians.”³³ Judge Augustus Longstreet, of South Carolina, the United States official delegate to the meeting walked out in protest; Dallas, however, kept his seat.

The major newspapers in both countries joined the debate over the implications of the incident. The Morning Star waxed poetic, seeing Delany's presence at the meeting as symbolic of changes for the better and “a vigorous protest and a timely warning to those who still outrage Christianity by grinding the African under their heel.” Punch satirized that Brougham's comments would have little effect on the United States for “they no more cared about being twitted on the subject of slavery than Thugs would mind being ‘chaffed’ about murder.”³⁴ But not all English newspapers supported Brougham; a leader in the Morning Chronicle called his statement a pointed insult “thrown at the head of Mr. Dallas,” and observed that such an insult coming from someone who was once a Lord Chancellor and a member of the House of Lords and directed at the American Minister was sure to have some detrimental effect on the relations between the two countries.³⁵

American newspapers in most cases condemned Brougham and praised Dallas for his diplomatic and effective silence, some attributing Brougham's comments to senility.³⁶ Others saw Brougham's actions as part of a larger attack on the social and political mores of the United States. Harper's Weekly offered a rather spurious defense of these American traditions: “There are points concerning slavery and the Negro race about which we are agreed. We are all agreed that it does not suit our tastes to sit at table with colored persons, or to mix with them in society on equal terms.”³⁷ Frederick Douglass disagreed. He thought that Brougham's comment was saying, “Mr. Dallas, we make members of the International Statistical Congress out of the sort of men you make merchandise of in America. Delany in Washington, is a thing; Delany, in London, is a man. You despise and degrade him as a beast; we esteem and honor him as a gentleman. Truth is of no color, Mr. Dallas, and to the eye of science a man is not a man because of his color, but because he is a man and nothing else.”³⁸ All in all the incident aroused a furious debate over the issues of slave labor vs. wage slavery and the merits of slavery.

In the light of old national jealousies between Britain and the United States this incident was potentially very explosive. The matter was made worse by the fact that the invitation to attend the Congress had come directly from the British government.³⁹ Dallas's long‐standing differences with the Buchanan Administration made him liable to recall should the government disapprove of his actions. His position was made worse by negative reports sent by Benjamin Moran, Secretary of the Legation, a Buchanan protégé, who had set his sights on some day becoming Minister to the Court of St. James. It was, therefore, with obvious concern that Dallas wrote Secretary of State Lewis Cass explaining his actions and hoping for his government's sanction. He rather pathetically told Cass, “You will, of course, perceive the extremely unpleasant position in which this matter places me socially here. …”⁴⁰

Although the initial reaction of the American government was to issue a strongly worded protest to the British Foreign Office, by September the mood had become critical of Dallas. Prominent figures like the Ingersolls were convinced that Dallas should have followed Longstreet's lead. Cass's reply to Dallas although not openly critical made it quite clear that the government expected a different strategy from their Minister. While agreeing with Dallas's views on Brougham, Cass thought that if he were in Dallas's position he would have lodged an official complaint to the Foreign Office once it became clear that the British government had no intention of apologizing.⁴¹ The obvious censure galled Dallas who thought of possible resignation, but by October the issue was effectively dead and as Moran observed, Dallas's defense of his actions had come too late to gain any open support from the Buchanan Administration. It is quite possible that United States official policy may have been dictated by a desire not to offend the Prince of Wales who was then on a goodwill tour of North America.⁴²

With the furor of the opening day over, the Congress moved on to discuss a series of papers on the merits of statistics in aiding educational, social and other national policies. In the Sanitary Section Delany was invited to give his views on the problems of cholera epidemics and the best means for their control. His work in the great cholera epidemic in Pittsburgh in 1854 and the minor outbreak in Chatham, Ontario, in 1858 lent some weight to his views. A leader in the Lancet, organ of the British Medical Association, praised Delany for his opinions.⁴³ At the end of the Congress Brougham issued an invitation to all those present to attend the Congress of Social Science to be held in Glasgow in October and hoped that Delany would attend. According to the Morning Post, Delany rose “to express his gratitude for the manner in which he had been received. He said he was not foolish enough to suppose that the reception which had been given him was intended for himself individually, for he knew that the outburst of sentiment was intended as an expression of sympathy for the race to which he belonged, who, though they had undergone for ages the process of degeneration, he was glad to think were now being fast regenerated.”⁴⁴ This uncharacteristic show of modesty further enhanced Delany's reputation. Over the next six months he was invited to lecture in most of the major cities of England and Scotland.

His lecture tour was only to be broken by social gatherings at which he was the center of attraction. In such situations Delany's independent spirit flowered. One suspects that Delany's popularity was a great boost to the flagging fortunes of the British antislavery movement, although like most of the black Americans who visited Britain in the 1850s, Delany studiously avoided being drawn into the schismatic wranglings plaguing the abolitionist movement. His first major appearance was at the annual Peace and Temperance Festival held at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire. Delany was elected chairman at the opening of the Festival. As chairman, he gave the feature address on Africa and its future. As he would do so often in subsequent speeches, Delany attempted to refute the false images of Africa as the home of savages, uncivilized men and deadly diseases. On the following day he addressed an estimated crowd of 3,000 on the dangers of drinking and smoking and warned the children to abstain at all times.⁴⁵

At the end of August Delany was in Brighton, summer resort of the rich, where he gave two lectures on “Africa and the African Race.” The Brighton Herald had this to say of Delany: “He is unmistakably black—not brown or middle‐tinted, but black—and his features are of the Negro type: but of that type they are a most favourable specimen. The forehead is high and well‐shaped, and the features generally decidedly pleasing. We may add that Dr. Delany speaks freely, often with great animation, and that his language is altogether that of an educated Englishman.” This must have been the ultimate in praise from an Englishman! Delany opened his lecture on August 30 with the remark that the topic of Africa and the African race had always been of interest to him as the audience would no doubt realize by looking at his face. He then argued against the negative images of Africa created by writers bent on degrading the Africans, who were a most industrious people, highly susceptible to greater civilization if only the Bible and political economy would be introduced there. This could be achieved he thought, by the introduction of skilled black Americans promoting the production of cotton and other tropical products for the markets of Europe. Through this brand of Manifest Destiny the African would be restored to his rightful place in the world community. One society columnist could not avoid the observation that Delany's audience consisted mostly of rich women “whose attention appeared riveted on the lecturer's clever delineations!”⁴⁶

On his way to Glasgow to attend the Social Science Congress Delany gave a series of lectures in Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne. Like his previous lectures these covered the topic of “Africa and the African Race” and the prospects for development through commerce. On the issue of African commerce one local newspaper observed that “The subject is one of vast importance to England and we must trust that we may witness ere long a proper appreciation of it. …”⁴⁷ By the beginning of October, Delany was in Glasgow, where he was a guest on the speaker's platform at a lecture given by French revolutionary, Louis Blanc.⁴⁸ He gave a series of lectures on “Africa and the African Race” and “The Civilization of Africa.” In his lecture on October 9, Delany placed heavy emphasis on the need for Scottish businessmen to involve themselves in West African trade for “Although there were some 1500 civilized blacks in Lagos, who were raised in the missionary schools, there was not much commercial ability about them, and a higher degree of intelligence was wanted there.” He observed that if any white man conducted business in Lagos he stood to make £10,000 yearly. Delany was convinced that money was to be made in Africa and through commerce and Christianity, civilization established. The civilizing vanguard was to be a colony of skilled black Americans ultimately numbering about 1,000. Delany told his audience that he intended to sail from Canada the following spring with a party of about ten or twelve people for which he needed £300. At his lecture on the 24th a committee was formed to raise funds to help him “carry out his mission in Central Africa.”⁴⁹

Throughout his stay in Great Britain, Delany's efforts to procure a market for the products of his African colony were based on the rather naive assumption that his proposed alliance between British capital, African labor and black American expertise was an alliance of equal parts, in which profits would be shared equally. Commercial relations were established with some of the leading firms in Glasgow “for an immediate, active and practical prosecution of our enterprise, and whose agency in Europe for any or all of our produce, may be fully relied on.”⁵⁰ In an open letter addressed to the people of Glasgow two days before he left the city, Delany said, “You will be pleased to learn that I have succeeded in the object of my mission to Glasgow, to obtain means in aid of my African scheme; and I take pleasure in making the announcement, as well as to return my sincere thanks to the clergy and other gentlemen and ladies who interested themselves in behalf of the project which (I fondly promise, by Divine aid) shall not only bring the staples of commerce to British markets, but regeneration to a people who form even now an important element in the social system.”⁵¹

In his two month stay in Scotland Delany attended the many sessions of the Social Science Congress and delivered lectures in other Scottish cities. On October 3 he attended the meeting of the British Anti‐Tobacco Society held in Glasgow. As the former chairman of the Hartwell Festival his views on the damage of smoking were solicited. In typical Delany fashion he spoke without reservation: “It [smoking] impaired the appetite and the digestive powers, caused torpidity of the liver, disturbed the circulation of the blood, vitiated the moral nature, injured the nervous system, affected the memory, induced lunacy, apoplexy and many other diseases, all of which might be hereditarily transmitted.”⁵²

Delany left Glasgow on December 3rd flushed with success, and two days later gave a lecture sponsored by the Leeds Anti‐Slavery Committee. His reputation as an antislavery fighter had preceded him. In 1848 Wilson Armistead, a well‐known Quaker abolitionist, had commended Delany's work as joint editor of the North Star. Armistead had quoted Delany's work “as evidence of considerable intellect existing in the Negro race.”⁵³ In his speech Delany promised to provide the Leeds Chamber of Commerce with the facts he had gathered in Africa.⁵⁴

Delany sailed from Liverpool on December 13, 1860 on the Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia Steamship Co.'s ship the “City of Manchester” after spending seven very fruitful months in Great Britain.⁵⁵ The prospects of successfully implementing his colonization scheme seemed enhanced by his contacts in Britain. He summed up his efforts in Africa and Britain with his usual grandiloquence: it was the culmination of his determination on self‐reliance and the need for a Black Nationality, “conceived in my youth, many years ago, matured in manhood, promulgated in public document in the great Emigration Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, in 1854, have since been proclaimed in tones unmistakably upon the high seas, in the capital of the Liberia, for 2,500 miles along the coast of Africa, in the Metropolis of the world, and through the United Kingdom until they ‘careen against the wind’ reverberating from the top, and rippling the surface of Ben and Loch Lomond, the home and haunt of the gallant highlander, where the slogan of the Campbells and Camerons and of the McDonalds have long since been heard against the strife of battle and the groans of death.”⁵⁶

Delany's optimism, although understandable, was unfounded. The reality of American politics, British imperialist designs in Africa, British cotton manufacturing interests and the undying suspicion of any form of colonization among a significant sector of the free blacks all militated against the successful conclusion of the Abeokuta scheme. On his return to North America Delany found the Yoruba project under heavy attack from some of the foremost black leaders. Dr. James McCune Smith thought that the Abeokuta treaty was in fact a recognition of African slavery. Reverend Holly in reply to Delany's attack on the appointment of James Redpath agent for Haitian emigration as an affront to black men, observed that Delany had shown an amazing inconsistency in his choice for the colony: “Really your inconsistency in this whole matter is so glaring and so unlike my old friend Dr. Delany that I am almost tempted to believe that you are practicing upon me some fetish trick, learned perhaps from some savage tribe in the jungles of Central Africa.”⁵⁷ In addition, those in favor of emigration had now turned their attention to Haiti; even Frederick Douglass contemplated a visit to Haiti before the outbreak of the Civil War put paid to that. The secession of South Carolina and the outbreak of the Civil War effectively killed all schemes of emigration.

In the first four months of 1861, the combined pressure of the missionaries in Abeokuta led by the Reverend Henry Townsend of the Church Missionary Society and the growing interest of Britain in the interior of West Africa forced the Alake to rescind his agreement with Delany and Campbell. When Delany wrote Lord John Russell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, requesting a free passage out to Lagos he was met with a cold refusal. A few months later the Foreign Office informed the African Aid Society that they should forget Abeokuta as the site of the colony and turn their interest elsewhere.⁵⁸ British colonialist designs had begun slowly but surely to penetrate Africa, a movement that twenty years later would precipitate the infamous scramble for Africa. It is an irony of history that Delany survived, by only a few months, the Berlin Conference at which Africa was divided among the European powers.

As the Civil War progressed and cotton exports from the South fell, large sections of Lancashire experienced severe unemployment. In Lancashire alone some two million people were dependent on cotton mills and ancillary industries. The resulting cotton famine brought hunger to the families of cotton workers. In the famine the Cotton Supply Association led the way in the search for alternative sources of cotton and although Africa remained peripheral its importance as a cotton producer led the C.S.A. to involve itself with the African Aid Society, which until its demise remained one of the principal organs of British colonialist expansion in Africa. As we have seen, the A.A.S. had plans for making the Niger the Mississippi of Africa; by June 1861 it had recommended to the government the erection of forts and settlements along the Bight of Benin to protect British trading interests in the area. In their scheme of things, the Abeokuta settlement was to be just one facet of a larger colonial plan. Delany's proposed “triple alliance,” never a tenable theory of economic organization, would have failed in Africa as it failed in the reconstruction of South Carolina after the Civil War.

Benjamin Quarles has suggested that Delany and other black Americans, who visited Britain in the 1850s helped to influence the British government's neutrality in the initial stages of the Civil War.⁵⁹ This is difficult to determine, and more so since the political clout of the British antislavery movement in the 1850s was significantly weakened by internal schisms. Moreover, antislavery as a national issue had lost much of its importance in this period. But while these visitors may not have influenced government policies in any significant way they were a rejuvenating and sustaining force for the British antislavery movement. By their lectures they kept the issue of slavery to the forefront of British philanthropy, more concerned in the 1850s with seeing and hearing from the victims of slavery and discrimination than their white supporters. In fact they lent a certain authenticity to the fight against slavery. The welcome these black Americans received in Britain only enhanced the image of the English as determined abolitionists and further strengthened the links between American and British abolitionism. Although it is impossible to quantify the extent of British support for the American effort, this international contact helped to sustain those efforts morally. Delany, although acting independently of any American organization, contributed significantly to this link.

Notes

1. Julia G. Crofts to Frederick Douglass, Douglass Monthly, November 1860; see also another letter in which the same point is made in Douglass Monthly, June 1861.

2. For copies of the treaty see Martin R. Delany, “Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party” and Robert Campbell, “A Pilgrimage to My Motherland: An Account of a Journey Among the Egbas and Yorubas of Central Africa in 1859‐60” H. H. Bell, ed., Search for a Place: Black Separatism and Africa, 1860, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1971, pp. 77 and 248‐250; Enclosed, African Aid Society to the British Foreign Office, February 7, 1861, FO 84/1159. Foreign Office Documents, Public Records Office, London.

3. Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Politically Considered, New York: Arno Press, 1969, pp. 209‐215.

4. Official Report, p. 39.

5. Until the late 1850s, most of the prominent black and white Abolitionists strongly opposed any form of emigration or colonization. Association by implication with the American Colonization Society also worked against emigrationists winning wide financial support.

6. Circular, May 13, 1859. British and Foreign Anti‐Slavery Society (BFASS) Papers, Rhodes House Library, Oxford University; Official Report, pp. 43‐44.

7. Manchester Weekly Advertiser, July 17, 1858; Joseph Hobbins to the Secretary, Royal Geographical Society, June 7, 1858; Myers, Delany and Dudley to Hobbins, May 31, 1858. Archives, The Royal Geographical Society, London; Anti‐Slavery Reporter, June 1, 1859.

8. Pilgrimage, p. 162; Edmund Ashworth to Foreign Office, May 20, 1859, FO2/30. Foreign Office Documents.

9. Henry Christy to Lord John Russell, July 29, 1859, FO2/30. Foreign Office Documents.

10. Arthur Silver, Manchester Men and Indian Cotton, 1847‐72, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966, pp. 77‐79; Cotton Supply Association, Third Annual Report, Manchester Guardian, 1860.

11. Anti‐Slavery Reporter, April 2, 1860.

12. Isaac Watts, The Cotton Supply Association: Its Origin and Progress, Manchester: Tubbs and Brook, 1861, p. 10; W. O. Henderson, “The Cotton Supply Association, 1857‐1872,” The Empire Cotton Growing Review, Vol. 9 (1932), p. 133.

13. Watts, Cotton Supply, p. 98; Cotton Supply Association: First Annual Report, Manchester Guardian, 1858, pp. 8‐9.

14. Anti‐Slavery Reporter, March 1, 1858; C.S.A. Third Report: Enclosure “Slave Trade Conference” in BFASS to Foreign Office, June 22, 1861, FO84/1159. Foreign Office Documents; C.S.A. First Report, p. 11.

15. James A. Mann, The Cotton Trade of Great Britain, London: Simkin, Marshall, 1860, p. 84; Anti‐Slavery Reporter, May 1, 1858; J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841‐1891: The Making of a New Elite, London: Longmans, 1965, p. 156; Douglass Monthly, August 1859.

16. Glasgow Mercantile Advertiser, October 30, 1860; Cotton Supply Reporter, November 2, 1860.

17. The African Civilization Society was founded in 1858 with Henry Highland Garnet as President. Like Delany's efforts, those of the A.C.S. aimed to stimulate the emigration of a select number of skilled free blacks to Africa.

18. Bolton Chronicle, October 1, 1859; Garnet's letter in African Civilization Society Circular, C28/47f, BFASS Papers; Weekly Anglo African, March 31, 1860.

19. Reverend Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society told the head of the C.M.S. mission in Abeokuta, Reverend Henry Townsend, that in a meeting with Bourne he [Bourne] was unable to show a link between the A.C.S. and Delany and Campbell, “except that if Mr. Campbell succeeded in establishing friendly relations with the Chiefs and obtained territory (!) the Society would be glad to avail themselves of his position;” Venn to Townsend, October 23, 1859, CA2/085. See also C. F. Buhler to Venn, Germany, February 24, 1860, “The Americans, Mr. Campbell and Dr. Delany go ahead without us, they are indeed not the white man's friend though they will take his money; they rail against Reverend Theodore Bourne … who collected funds in England …,” CA2/024. Church Missionary Society (CMS) Papers. Archives, Church Missionary Society, London.

20. Weekly Anglo African, September 3, 1859; Manchester Guardian, September 5 and 21, 1859; Bolton Chronicle, October 1, 1859; Anti‐Slavery Reporter, November 1, 1859; Bourne to Chemerovzow, March 2, 1860, BFASS Papers; Bourne to Brougham, February 24, 1860. Brougham Papers, University College, University of London; New York Colonization Journal, December 1859.

21. New York Colonization Journal, May 1860; Anti‐Slavery Reporter, June 1, 1860.

22. Anti‐Slavery Reporter, April 2, 1860.

23. Official Report, pp. 122‐123.

24. New York Colonization Journal, July 1860.

25. Thomas Hodgkin to William Coppinger, June 30, 1860; Hodgkin to Garnet, August 29, 1860. Letters from Dr. Hodgkin, 22. VI 1859‐24. II 1866, Thomas Hodgkin Papers. Held privately by the Hodgkin family, Warwickshire, England.

26. Anti‐Slavery Reporter, October 1, 1860; A. A. Constantine to Chermerovzow, September 1, 1860, BFASS Papers.

27. African Aid Society, First Report from July 1860 to the 31st March 1862, London: Printed by W. J. Johnson, n.d. pp. 2‐3; See also Lord Alfred Churchill's letter to G. R. Haywood, November 8, 1860, in the Cotton Supply Reporter, November 16, 1860.

28. Official Report, pp. 124‐125.

29. Circular enclosed with Appeal from the A.A.S. to Foreign Office, March 23, 1861; Memorial from A.A.S. to Foreign Office, February 8, 1861, FO84/1159. Foreign Office Documents; A.A.S. Report, pp. 31‐32.

30. A.A.S. Report, p. 31; African Times, February 23, 1863.

31. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism, London: Macmillan, 1965, p. 17.

32. A.A.S. Report, p. 4.

33. Manchester Weekly Advertiser, July 21, 1860. The reports of exactly what Brougham said vary, but it appears that this report comes closest to the truth. See also Frank A. Rollin, Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany, Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1868, p. 102 and Judge Longstreet's letter in the Morning Chronicle, July 23, 1860. In trying to piece together the aspects of this incident I examined 13 British and 12 American newspapers.

34. The Morning Star, July 18, 1860; Punch, July 28, 1860.

35. The Morning Chronicle, July 17, 1860.

36. The (Philadelphia) Press, August 4, 1860; Journal of Commerce, reprinted in the Liberator, August 17, 1860.

37. Harper's Weekly, August 11, 1860.

38. Douglass Monthly, September 1860; Liberator, August 17, 1860.

39. Russell to Lyons, January 27, 1860, FO115/220; Lyons to Russell, April 23, 1860, FO115/223; Lyons to Hammond, June 23, 1860, FO115/227. Foreign Office Documents.

40. Dallas to Cass, July 10, 1860. Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to Great Britain 1791‐1906, Vol. 75, December 23, 1859—August 30, 1860, No. 276. National Archives Microfilm Publications; Francis Markoe to Dallas, August 8 and 10, 1860. George Mifflin Dallas Political and Business Papers 1849‐1860. George Mifflin Dallas Collection, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Sister Theresa A. Donovan, “Difficulties of a Diplomat: George Mifflin Dallas in London,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 92 (October 1968), 427‐430.

41. Cass to Dallas, September 11, 1860. Department of State Diplomatic Instructions, Great Britain, Vol. 17:341.

42. Moran to Buchanan, October 9, 1860; In a letter to Buchanan dated September 29, 1860, Moran said, “The Times has been rather ugly in its tone of late towards us, and Mr. Dallas thinks they fear a controversy between the two governments on the Brougham affair after the Prince of Wales shall have left the U.S. but this idea seems to me mere speculation.” James Buchanan Collection, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

43. The Lancet, July 28, 1860.

44. The Morning Post, July 23, 1860; The Lancet, July 28, 1860; Rollin, op. cit. pp. 127‐130.

45. The Bucks Chronicle and Bucks Gazette, August 11, 1860.

46. The Brighton Herald, September 1, 1860; The Brighton Gazette, September 6, 1860; The Brighton Observer, Fashionable Arrival List and County Intelligencer, August 31, 1860.

47. The Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser, September 17, 1860; The Newcastle Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser, September 22, 1860.

48. Glasgow Examiner, October 6, 1860.

49. Glasgow Examiner, October 13 and 27, 1860.

50. Official Report, p. 142.

51. Glasgow Examiner, December 8, 1860.

52. Glasgow Examiner, October 6, 1860.

53. Wilson Armistead, A Tribute for the Negro: Being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Coloured Portion of Mankind: With Particular Reference to the African Race. Illustrated by Numerous Biographical Sketches, Facts, Anecdotes, etc. and Many Superior Portraits and Engravings,Manchester: William Irwin, 1848, p. 140.

54. The Leeds Mercury, December 8, 1860; Official Report, pp. 139‐142.

55. The Daily Post (Liverpool), December 13, 1860; Official Report, p. 142.

56. Delany to Reverend Theodore Holly, Chatham, January 15, 1861, Chatham Weekly Planet, January 26, 1861.

57. Weekly Anglo African, January 26, 1861; Holly to Delany, January 29, 1861, Weekly Anglo African, February 9, 1861.

58. The series of letters on this point are in Foreign Office Documents, FO84/1159 and FO84/1158.

59. Benjamin Quarles, “Ministers Without Portfolio,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 39, 1954.