Charles H. Lloyd to Samuel Breese Letter

The letter mentions the Reverend Rufus W. Bailey, the employer of Charles Lloyd and an agent of the American Colonization Society from 1847 to 1853 in the western part of Virginia. Bailey and the actions of the ACS were part of a plan to remove Black people from American society and send them to Liberia.

During the six years that Bailey served as an agent, starting in 1847, about 920 colonists, primarily free Blacks from Bailey's home region in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, left the state for Liberia, compared to a total of approximately 1,807 in the twenty years following the society's founding in 1817. The annual average from Virginia increased from approximately 95 to 153 persons. Bailey used coercive techniques and pressure to manipulate free and enslaved Black people to emigrate to Liberia. His goal was to create a completely white society and he did more for the American Colonization Society to reach this objective than any other single individual in Virginia.

The letter from Charles Lloyd mentions that Bailey was assembling 150 passengers to sail on the Morgan Dix to Liberia on November 1, 1851. Approximately 37 of those who had joined the Liberia Wagon and shipped out on the Morgan Dix were soon dead from one of the worst voyages in the history of the ACS. Others died from conditions once they were in Liberia. Emigrant mortality doomed Bailey's plans for future voyages. Bailey could not pay his bills or earn a living and retired from the agency in 1853. This is further proven by Lloyd mentioning that Bailey could not pay him back the money that Lloyd desperately needed to return to New York.

"Bailey's objective to eventually remove all free Blacks from Virginia received full ACS support. The national office was kept fully informed of his effort to dislodge potential free Black emigrants by applying the arm of the law." It is not known what Lloyd's attitudes were towards Bailey or the ACS, but he was not happy in Virginia and needed to return to New York to find better work. He claimed he was not good at writing or bookkeeping. After Bailey retired, the number of emigrants to Liberia substantially decreased. This letter and the mention of Mr. Bailey provokes a deeper dive into his work at the ACS and more importantly, to learn more about the lives of the Black people that Bailey and others persuaded and coerced to immigrate to Liberia.

More information including names and life details of Black emigrants to Liberia can be found in Eslinger's article "The Brief Career of Rufus W. Bailey, American Colonization Society Agent in Virginia."

Source: Eslinger, Ellen. "The Brief Career of Rufus W. Bailey, American Colonization Society Agent in Virginia." The Journal of Southern History , Feb., 2005, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp. 39- 74 Published by: Southern Historical Association. JSTOR website. accessed 10/19/23 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27648651 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27648651.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A61b32134896141b6912857d1c70ddf63&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1