A Century of Negro Migration by Carter Godwin Woodson
page 67 of 227 (29%)
page 67 of 227 (29%)
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_The New York Sun_ reported in 1840 that 160 colored persons left Philadelphia for Trinidad. They had been hired by an eminent planter to labor on that island and they were encouraged to expect that they should have privileges which would make their residence desirable. The editor wished a few dozen Trinidad planters would come to that city on the same business and on a much larger scale.[24] N.W. Pollard, agent of the Government of Trinidad, came to Baltimore in 1851 to make his appeal for emigrants, offering to pay all expenses.[25] At a meeting held in Baltimore, in 1852, the parents of Mr. Stanbury Boyce, now a retired merchant in Washington, District of Columbia, were also induced to go. They found there opportunities which they had never had before and well established themselves in their new home. The account which Mr. Boyce gives in a letter to the writer corroborates the newspaper reports as to the success of the enterprise.[26] The _New York Journal of Commerce_ reported in 1841 that, according to advices received at New Orleans from Jamaica, there had arrived in that island fourteen Negro emigrants from the United States, being the first fruits of Mr. Barclay's mission to this country. A much larger number of Negroes were expected and various applications for their services had been received from respectable parties.[27] The products of soil were reported as much reduced from former years and to meet its demand for labor some freedmen from Sierra Leone were induced to emigrate to that island in 1842.[28] One Mr. Anderson, an agent of the government of Jamaica, contemplated visiting New York in 1851 to secure a number of laborers, tradesmen and agricultural settlers.[29] In the course of time, emigration to foreign lands interested a larger number of representative Negroes. At a national council called in 1853 to |
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