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THE COLORED AMERICAN AND THE CANADIAN REBELLIONS
newly-opened Wisconsin lands. Having been designated a U.S. territory in
1836, Wisconsin bordered British Canada. Were the Crown ousted and the
established practice of United States treatymaking with Britain abandoned,
those lands lay vulnerable to Canadian republican designs.
In December 1837, the editors of The Colored American criticized some of
their Fourth Estate colleagues for compromising American neutrality by sup¬
porting the rebels. Its author(s) attacked unnamed ‘Western’ newspapers who
supported the “Canada patriots or more correctly the Canada rebels” (“Dan¬
gerous Spirit”). The newspaper’s editors understood the potency of the press,
whether for good or ill. Those ‘zealots’ expressing support for the uprisings,
“will find to their sorrow when it is too late to recall the mischief they have
done” (“Dangerous Spirit”). The editorial continued:
Their restless ambition and lust for power will result in a general explosion, and we
shall very soon compromise, if we engage a rebellious spirit, southern and western,
northern and eastern governments... Let us but pass resolutions and contribute our
means to furnish men, ammunition and arms for the Canadian rebels and we shall
soon find business and rebels too within our own borders. Citizens of the United
States, BEWARE at this critical and trying period, how you encourage a restless,
rebellious spirit in any one mis-step [sic] may be an overstep which may not be
recalled (“Dangerous”).
Whether this writer was exaggerating the danger of revolts against the U.S.
or state governments, Black readers likely understood that civil disorder of any
sort portended danger for those, like themselves, at the bottom of society. No
doubt fresh in their minds was the violence of the so-called “Tappan’ riots in
New York City, where whites targeted both blacks and abolitionists in 1834.
Yet another argument for imperial Canada was made by the editors linking
the situation to the newspaper’s consistent, anticolonization stance. Coloni¬
zation was a popular national policy proposal which particularly worried free
blacks, especially those with farms and businesses. By early 1839, an editorial
writer, most likely Van Rensellaer, noted the national rivalry of Whigs with
Democrats. He averred that the American people “wish to see the Canadas
wrested from the British government” (“From a Fugitive”). The Whig political
party, he claimed, was both pro-slavery and pro-colonization. Thus the party
was supporting Henry Clay for President in the hopes that his election would
initiate an official policy of “carry[ing] off these free blacks, by steam, with the
surplus revenue” (“From a Fugitive”). Yet, with Canada remaining under Brit¬
ish control and immigrants welcomed, “these enemies of equal rights [would]
dare not undertake to force us, as they forced the poor Indians from their
homes” (“From a Fugitive”). Not lost upon the readers was the reference to the
treatment of the Seminoles, Chocktaw and Cherokee tribes, all recent victims
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