ligion, customs and laws of this country as their models,
marketing their produce in this country and purchasing our manufactures.
In spite of its independence, therefore, Liberia would be American in
feeling, language and interests, affording a means to get rid of a class
undesirable here but desirable to us there in their power to extend
American influence, trade and commerce.[l9]

Negroes migrated to the West Indies in spite of this warning and protest.
Hayti, at first looked upon with fear of having a free Negro government
near slaveholding States, became fixed in the minds of some as a desirable
place for the colonization of free persons of color.[20] This was due to
the apparent natural advantages in soil, climate and the situation of the
country over other places in consideration. It was thought that the island
would support fourteen millions of people and that, once opened to
immigration from the United States, it would in a few years fill up by
natural increase. It was remembered that it was formerly the emporium of
the Western World and that it supplied both hemispheres with sugar and
coffee. It had rapidly recovered from the disaster of the French
Revolution and lacked only capital and education which the United States
under these circumstances could furnish. Furthermore, it was argued that
something in this direction should be immediately done, as European
nations then seeking to establish friendly relations with the islands,
would secure there commercial advantages which the United States should
have and could establish by sending to that island free Negroes especially
devoted to agriculture.

In 1836, Z. Kingsley, a Florida planter,[2l] actually undertook to carry
out such a plan on a small scale. He established on the northeast side of
Hayti, near Port Plate, his son, George Kingsley, a well-educated colored
man of industrious habits and uncorrupted morals, together with six "prime
African men," slaves liberated for that express purpose. There he
purchased for them 35,000 acres of land upon which they engaged in the
production of crops indigenous to that soil.

Hayti, however, was not to be the only island to get consideration. In
1834 two hundred colored emigrants went from New York alone to Trinidad,
under the superintendence and at the expense of planters of that island.
It was later reported that every one of them found employment on the day
of arrival and in one or two instances the most intelligent