The following letter was written by Samuel Wilkeson (1781-1848), one of the most powerful and influential figures within the American Colonization Society (ACS). In 1840 when this letter was written, he was serving as the General Agent and Board President of the society. A former mayor of Buffalo and independently wealthy, Wilkeson eschewed a salary to aid the financially struggling society in recruiting and transporting free Blacks to Liberia.

Wilkeson datelined his 1840 letter from the “Colonization Rooms” of the society in Washington City. These rooms were located in downtown Washington near the US Navy Department and the White House complex. From their editorial office, the society published and distributed its monthly journal, the African Repository and Colonial Journal to keep its donors informed on the repatriation process.

Wilkeson wrote the letter to Nathaniel Chapman Crenshaw (1791-1866), a prominent Quaker minister and resident of Hanover county, Virginia. As an active member and leader of the Cedar Creek Quaker community and the Virginia Half Years Meeting, Crenshaw was a devout abolitionist. Because Virginia law strictly restricted the manumission of enslaved people and forced newly freed slaves to leave the state within a restricted timeframe, souther Quakers like Crenshaw devised a legal workaround. They would legally purchase or accept ownership of slaves through trusts and wills, but treat them as free and prevent them from being sold. They hired them out to others to pay for their subsistence until manumission and transport out of the state could be arranged—in this case, to send them to Liberia, Africa. [Source: In trust to Liberation, Nathaniel C. Crenshaw and Eliza Hopkins Crenshaw]

Pictured in header: Nathaniel Crenshaw and his wife, Eliza (Hopkins) Crenshaw, ca. 1846.

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Colonization Rooms
Washington [City, D. C.]
March 25, 1840

Mr. N. Crenshaw

Dear sir, yours of the 20th is at hand. I am sorry you have hired out your people beyond the first of August as I hope to be able to send an expedition by that time, and as I propose to send the ship from Norfolk, it will be convenient for your people to go at that time. I trust, however, that you may arrange to have them released.

Let me request you to furnish your people with such articles of kitchen furniture and farming utensils as they will need in the Colony, beside the money which will be provided for their passage and subsistence in Africa until they can raise a small crop. I will give you due notice of the time the vessel will be ready to receive them on board.

Will you my friend, take a little interest in extending the circulation of the Repository and commending our good cause to your benevolent neighbors! We are in great want of money. Respectfully yours, [Samuel] Wilkeson, Chairman Ex. Committee, A. C. S.