Abraham Lincoln: Friend of Slaves?
by The man had other plans.
Traditional image of Lincoln: Image via Wikipedia
Documents discovered in British archives in 2011, imply that Lincoln did not relish the idea of free non-whites in the United States.
The 16th President, who was in charge during the American Civil War, wanted to send the country’s slaves to British colonies in the Caribbean rather than emancipate them, according to academics Phillip Magness and Sebastian Page.
Historians in year past have admitted Lincoln did propose sending some of the freed slaves to new colonies, but they say it was a ploy to win votes. However, evidence from the British Delegation of them time, held in the UK National Archives, demonstrates that Lincoln wanted his plan to be put into action until the day he was killed in 1865. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, in which 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the US were freed, he sanctioned plans to set up freed slave settlements in what is now Belize and Guyana. Documents show that Lincoln met with agents of the British Honduras and British Guiana to arrange for camps for ex-slaves who would work on sugar and cotton plantations there. He had sent 453 freed slaves to colonise an island off Haiti, only they died in a smallpox epidemic. Fighting on behalf of the US, there were black soldiers, especially from the northeastern states. Lincoln wanted to send the former militiamen to Panama to build the canal.
The academics have surmised that Lincoln was trying to avoid racial strife that would be caused by the influx of so many people needing housing, food and work. His pans never came to fruition because Britain and the US Congress had concerns. Britain was worried that the South might win the war and plantation owners would then demand compensation for lost slaves. Congressmen felt that earlier colonisation attempts were failures and they did not want to be accused of being a colonial power.
See also: http://socyberty.com/society/were-the-chinese-on-the-us-coast-before-columbus/
http://socyberty.com/military/the-betsy-ross-thirteen-stars-n-stripes/
Lincoln: Image by The U.S. National Archives via Flickr
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