FREE COLOURED PEOPLE. 357 



free coloured people in the State of Virginia is a source 

 of much anxiety to the white population. At the 

 beginning of the present century, the number of this 

 class of people in Virginia was only 10,000 ; it is now 

 estimated at 60,000. Attempts have been made to 

 repress this increase by discouraging the emancipation 

 of the slaves, and forbidding such as are emancipated 

 from remaining in the State without the special permis 

 sion of the county courts. 



These freed men are also most numerous in eastern 

 Virginia ; and as the whites in this region are diminish 

 ing, while the free blacks are increasing, it is not un 

 natural that the former should dread the influence of the 

 latter upon the mind of the slaves, and should w y ish to 

 keep down their numbers. 



With a view to this end, the removal of the free 

 coloured people from the continent of America altogether, 

 and their settlement on the coast of Africa, has long 

 been a favourite scheme of the Virginian planters. It 

 was proposed as early as the close of last century, and 

 was approved of by President Jefferson if the scheme 

 did not altogether originate with him. No practical 

 steps were taken, however, to attain this object till 1817, 

 when the American Colonisation Society w\is established 

 at Washington, at a meeting presided over by Mr Clay. 



The wish of the Society at first was to be allowed to send 

 their free negroes to our colony of Sierra Leone, and, fail 

 ing this, to establish a colony on the coast of Africa under 

 the auspices of the United States, and with a guaranteed 

 perpetual neutrality on the part of Great Britain. The 

 republic of Liberia has been the result of this move 

 ment. To the land purchased by the agents of the 

 States and of the Colonisation Society, free negroes 

 have been sent from time to time, till the colony has 

 been fairly established ; and may now, it is hoped, be 

 considered out of danger. 



