Slavery And American Colonization Society

Slavery was a topic we discussed greatly in this class, but it never got boring or repetitive because there was a great amount of interesting information in the book. During the 1830 's Americans thought that the “social violence of slavery” would disappear if they sent back all the slaves to where they came from (Foner). They called this the “American Colonization Society.” This society wanted to deport all slaves. However, this idea didn 't convince some people, like Lydia Maria. In her passage, “An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans” she let 's us know that not all people back then, like herself listened to what they were told, they liked to think for themselves, and for what seemed correct to them. It adds to what …show more content…
She wanted them to see all the good slaves actually brought, and not the bad that people seemed to think they caused. As more and more people started to believe in the colonization society, it convinced more to think it was the right thing to trust in. Since many “political leaders of the Jacknosian era- including Henry Clay, John Marshall, Daniel Webster, and Jackson..” (Foner) supported this, I am sure others decided to follow without finding out what could happen if all slaves were sent back. Lydia was one of the few that didn 't believe people should be letting others speak for them. She claims she doesn 't believe in Colonization Society “because it tends to put public opinion asleep, on a subject where it needs to be wide awake” she could not have phrased it better. (Foner) People had to think about all the good things slaves actually did for them though. It wasn 't right to make slaves feel that way. They were already put to work for many hours, and now they just wanted to kick them out of the country. Many had the idea that blacks were just seen lower when compared to whites, so there was no point to keep them in America …show more content…
Yet, they always did what was told for them to do and worked long hours. People weren 't seeing the good they brought. Lydia really believed slaves were too good to be working for their slave owners. She mentioned that if slaves had the attention they deserved they would be with their families or working in factories instead of where they were (Foner). Slaves didn 't receive many benefits from their slave owners other than a place to sleep, and most were not payed. Slave owners needed slaves more than slaves needed them. This wasn 't what people wanted others to believe though. Furthermore, I bet most didn 't think about the price of sending all these slaves back. Lydia did the math of how many would be going back, and she explained that it would “cost 3,500,000 dollars a year..” that was plenty of money back then. It could be used for much more important things. They would need plenty of ships to take them all back. All that money could be saved if they just left them where they were