20 to 1833 only 2,885 Negroes were sent to
Africa by the Society. Furthermore, more than 2,700 of this number were
taken from the slave States, and about two thirds of these were slaves
manumitted on the condition that they would emigrate.[9] Later statistics
show the same tendency. By 1852, 7,836 had been deported from the United
States to Liberia. 2,720 of these were born free, 204 purchased their
freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of their going to Liberia and
1,044 were liberated Africans returned by the United States
Government.[10] Considering the fact that there were 434,495 free persons
of color in this country in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860, the colonizationists
saw that the very element of the population which the movement was
intended to send out of the country had increased rather than decreased.
It is clear, then, that the American Colonization Society, though regarded
as a factor to play an important part in promoting the exodus of the free
Negroes to foreign soil, was an inglorious failure.

Colonization in other quarters, however, was not abandoned. A colony of
Negroes in Texas was contemplated in 1833 prior to the time when the
republic became independent of Mexico, as slavery was not at first assured
in that State. The _New York Commercial Advertiser_ had no objection
to the enterprise but felt that there were natural obstacles such as a
more expensive conveyance than that to Monrovia, the high price of land in
that country, the Catholic religion to which Negroes were not accustomed
to conform, and their lack of knowledge of the Spanish language. The
editor observed that some who had emigrated to Hayti a few years before
became discontented because they did not know the language. Louisiana, a
slave State, moreover, would not suffer near its borders a free Negro
republic to serve as an asylum for refugees.[11] The Richmond Whig saw the
actual situation in dubbing the scheme as chimerical for the reason that a
more unsuitable country for the blacks did not exist. Socially and
politically it would never suit the Negroes. Already a great number of
adventurers from the United States had gone to Texas and fugitives from
justice from Mexico, a fierce, lawless and turbulent class, would give the
Negroes little chance there, as the Negroes could not contend with the
Spaniard and the Creole. The editor believed that an inferior race could
never exist in safety surrounded by a superior one despising them.
Coloni