18th, 1854:

A GRAND SCHEME FOR THE COLORED RACE

In August last, a National Convention of colored people was held at
Cleveland, Ohio. It was composed of delegates from most of the
States. It was called the 'National Emigration Convention,' and its
objects were to consider the political destinies of the black race;
and recommend a plan of Emigration to countries where they can
enjoy political liberty, and form nations 'free and independent.'

The Committee then proceeds to mark out a grand scheme by which the
Negro race may be regenerated, and formed into free, intelligent,
and prosperous nations. The West India Islands, Central America,
and all the Northern and middle portions of South America,
including the whole of Brazil, are designated as the regions
desired; and that can be obtained as the seat of Negro civilization
and empire. These regions and islands together are represented as
containing twenty-four and a half millions of population; but
one-seventh of which, some three and a half millions, are whites of
pure European extraction; and the remainder, nearly twenty-one
millions, are colored people of African and Indian origin. This
immense preponderance of the colored races in those regions, it is
supposed, will enable them, with the aid of Emigration from the
United States, to take possession of all those countries and
islands, and become the ruling race in the empires to be formed out
of those wide and fruitful realms. The Committee expresses full
confidence in the practicability of this great undertaking; and
that nothing is wanting to its success at no distant day but
unanimity of sentiment and action among the masses of the colored
people. The climate of those regions is represented as entirely
congenial to the colored race, while to the European races it is
enervating and destructive; and this fact, added to the present
immense superiority of numbers on the part of the negroes, is
relied on as a sure guarantee of the success of the great
enterprise; and that their race could forever maintain the
possession and control of those regions.

Other great events, it is supposed, will follow in the train of
this mighty movement. With the West India Islands, and Central and
South America, composing free negro nations, slavery in