Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

David EiLzzcznjlaw Racial C;overrznzentalitj~: 7'howzus JL.J&-,-.son irllrl /IJI.icnn ~ . ~ l ~ ~ j , ~
beg the gellealogical questions we must consider here: how did 'fervent
eclualitarianis& 'lead directly' to colonisation? HOW did colonisation colne 'to be
regarded' 'the logical outcome of manuinissioil"! HOW, in effect, did colollisation
come to be valued 'directly', 'logically', and self-evidently as emancipato~? When
Walker wrote of 'some friellds to the sons of Africa' being drawn 'ilnperceptibly' into
colonisatioll, he was referring, 1 would argue, to precisely this self-evidence that
emerged before 1 8 16. Our task, then, is to sketch a genealogy of this 'striking' selfevidence
of 'einancipatory colonization'.
Walker's Appeal also urges an analysis ofwhat can be called the imperial form
ed as either essentially radical and emancipatory,
tive and pro-slavery. The question is not an easy one
posal brought together an odd, shifting, and uneasy
ite, and abolitionist white advocatesi". In the fBce
counts have offered what might be called 'political
of colonisation. That is, they have explained colonisation
nto distinct groups-such as pro-s]avely whites, black
, and abolitionists-each of which is said to have viewed colonisation as an
of colonisation's al-ticulation with emancipation. The full title of Walker's Appeal, as
well as the persistently global terms of his analysis1', illustrate the two interrelated
levels, dolnestic and foreign, on which early pro-colonisationists operated. As 1 have
a cl-ucial aspect of colonisation during this period was the collcen1 of its
advocates with the status and developinellt of African Americans in their new location,
particularly when that new location was imagined to be Africa. The eln~hasis of
colonisation was not on returning Africans who had been taken from Africa to their
'llomeland', as inuch as it was on establishi~lg settlernellts of Christian African
Americans in 'uncivilized' and 'undeveloped' regions of the globe. This ilnperial
vision sought not only to fo1-m a racially and nationally particular, white American
nation, but also to begin spreading that which was understood to be ulliversal and
exelnplaly white America: its Christianity, its capitalist econonlY, and its
governmental system of national statehood. Thus, colonised African Alnericans were
represented not only as racially particularised sublects to be separated fro111 white
America, but also, paradoxically, as abstract bearers of American national form to be
sent out as global agents of American universality and exelnplarity among Africalls
tended to dominate the discussions over the actual
esult, colonial and ante-belluln co]onisatioll has allnost
riabl~ been represented in one oftwo ways: firstly, as aproposal without substantial
elluille support among Ati-ican Americans, which was a too) of pro-slavery or
ho managed to dupe some naive free blacks and antielY
whites into co-operating with them, and whose real interest was to deport the
black population to keep them from 'inciting' a desire for fi-eedorn alnong enslaved
early or proto black nation~list~ who, out oftlleir
tically and warily with pro-slavely ~v~litcslx,
These historical accounts are not cluite 'wrol1g'. The,-e certainly were procry
forces who advocated colonisation as a way to deport free blacks whom they
asathreatto the slave system--especially, as I inentioiled above, aftel- ] 81 6. M~~~
from African Americans were also in some sense distinct. 1 will examille this
dual role in more detail later in this essay. For now, however, I silnply wanttoemphasise
that the term also carries the trace of these dual, interrelated roles-racial
of a domestic space and imperial power over foreign spaces-and that
these roles give colonisation a colnplexiq that the terms 'depoliation', 'trans~o*ation',
or 'exile' fail to capture.
unfol-tunately, most twentieth-century historians of colonisation have neither
addressed the genealogical question of colonisation's articulation with emancipation,
nor examined tile imperial form of colonisation, nor considered the specificity of pre-
1816 colonisation discourse in any detail". Instead, they have been most c~xerned
asters. The efforts Walker went tflrougll to
te his Appeal, particularly throughout the South, would seem to suggest illat had
s of support among slaves for colonisation-support he risked his life to discourage,
efforts, see Aptheker (1965:1,45-53); Eaton (1936); Harding (1981:92-94): Hillks
with delemining whether post- 18 16 colonisation, considered in a dolnestic artney (1992): Miller (1975); Stuckey (1972: 1-29),
" ~ ~ ~ f ~ r ~ ~alker(l995:1-3,7.12f,16-18,20,35-37.46.63,72f),
~ a m ~ l e ,
ly unsophisticated enough to realize the proposal-see, for
15 F~~~~ (1975:579-594; 1983:290-308) ~ordan (1968:542-569) and Miller (1975:3-53)
discuss 1 g 16 in any detail. alld only they struggle to evaluate the relalions1li~s amollg
953); FOX (1919); Frederickson (197 1); Opper (1972);
the
). There is also mucli scholarship on colonisation and its
mixed intel-ests ofcolollisationists (tllougl~ they still consider the interests to be discrete) and the
from the mid nineteenth to the lnid twentieth centuries,
curious connectioll between 'e~nancipation' and 'colo~lizatioll'. ugh this period raises issues outside the scope of study.