Oldal 150 [150]
OCR
CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS of the United States government’s Indian Removal Act. This writer connected logically British Canada’s hospitality to refugees and the deterrence of forced colonization of both enslaved and free Blacks. Cited as desirable destinations for voluntary emigration were the Canadas, Hayti [sic] and the British Islands, all “infinitely superior asylums” at least when contrasted with “barbarous, pestilential Africa.” (“Commercial Enterprise”). One would find there the “climate, moral habits, [and] equality of rights” appealing to those with commercial ambitions (“Commercial Enterprise”). The question arises whether the newspaper’s conservatism on the Canadas meant it opposed other, popular revolutions. It did not. In 1837, editor Cornish praised the independence movements of the Greeks against Turks (1821-1832) and Poles against the Russians (1830-31). He asserted that, because these rebels, just like the Americans of the 1770s, had declared their grievances against their oppressors and their rights in writing, “they [were] worthy to be freemen” (Ripley 217). The Colored American also lauded the violent Haitian revolution against French colonial rule, highlighting the diverse republican society that it had produced (Yingling 344-345). However, as far as this newspaper was concerned, revolutions abroad were one thing, revolutions on one’s border were quite another. In sum, The Colored American throughout the latter 1830s depicts positively the continuation of British rule in Canada, not simply because it serves as a refuge for the escaped slave. Its editorials evince the effort to appeal to free Blacks for reasons they would view as relevant to their own interests as free but not yet equal citizens. While preserving imperial Canada as the ‘North Star’ terminus for the escaped slave was paramount, the paper’s writer(s) clearly felt that republican overthrow there would engender risks far outweighing the benefits. True, British Canada was not ruled by popularly-elected legislators and lacked a ‘Declaration’ enshrining Lockean consent and natural rights. That likely discomfited at least some of the newspaper’s editorialists and readers who ascribed to that sacred American creed. Ray, for example, admitted that he was a pragmatic royalist regarding the rebellions but was confident that Blacks would be able to realize the promise of the Declaration in the United States. Free Blacks, in his view, should reject a future in British Canada because of its foundation on ‘unnatural assumptions of the feudal system’ (Minutes 33). In holding this view, Ray was typical of many Northern Blacks who, prior to 1850, generally rejected emigration as a solution to their problems in the United States (Hepburn 101). Yet, as Ray and many free Blacks would surely have agreed, British rule served both continental and domestic stability, modeled racial integration, and helped deter United States governmental colonization. Given the circumstances, compromising ideological consistency for tangible benefits seemed a small price to pay. + 148 +
