The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960 Page: 47
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Benjamin Lundy in Texas
to propagate antislavery ideas, and during those years he had
personally helped to organize antislavery societies and to win
adherents to the antislavery cause. But progress had been ex-
tremely slow. Lundy soon became convinced that it was stubborn
racial prejudice which prevented general acceptance of any pro-
gram designed to free the slaves; some men, Lundy found, believed
Negroes to be inferior beings, unfit to live in a free society. If
this were true, it followed that setting the slaves free would en-
danger the white community and could produce no benefit for
the freedmen themselves. Before slavery could be ended, Lundy
concluded, something would have to be done to persuade men that
the Negro could progress as well as the members of any other
race, that his apparent inferiority resulted from slavery and not
from any inherent disability. Lundy and other philanthropists
soon came to believe that this could best be accomplished by
aiding the free Negroes. If Negroes could be helped to improve
themselves, two goals would be served. First of all, the principles
of humanitarianism demanded the extension of Christian charity
to the unfortunate; more important, any progress Negroes might
make would tend to remove the belief in their racial inferiority
and thus further the emancipation cause.
To accomplish these two purposes, Lundy had negotiated with
the government of Haiti in the late 1820's to transport free
Negroes to that island. But this project had not gone well.2 A little
later he had become interested in aiding a Negro settlement in
Upper Canada started by Negroes themselves." At the same time
he began to look toward Texas as a convenient spot for the loca-
tion of a Negro colony. "The time has come," he announced in
October, 18 1, "when we think it proper to say: That of all the
places ever mentioned, as suitable for the emigration of our
southern colored population, [Texas] is the most inviting, and the
most desirable."4 Recalling the Mexican government's antislavery
policy, he predicted that Texas ("that fine region where the rigors
2[Thomas Earle], The Life, Travels and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy, including
His Journeys to Texas and Mexico; with a Sketch of Contemporary Events, and a
Notice of the Revolution in Haiti (Philadelphia, 1847), 23-24, 29; Genius of
Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier, I (June 3, 1826), 313.
"Fred Landon (ed.), The Diary of Benjamin Lundy Written during His Journey
through Upper Canada, January, 1832 [Toronto, 1922].
4Genius of Universal Emancipation, XII (October, 1831), 87.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960, periodical, 1960; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101186/m1/75/?rotate=270: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.