[2] Feeling that it would be wrong to
expatriate them, Benezet and Branagan[3] advocated the colonization of
such Negroes on the public lands west of the Alleghanies. There was
some talk of giving slaves training in the elements of agriculture
and then dividing plantations among them to develop a small class of
tenants. Jefferson, a member of a committee appointed in 1779 by the
General Assembly of that commonwealth to revise its laws, reported a
plan providing for the instruction of its slaves in agriculture and
the handicrafts to prepare them for liberation and colonization under
the supervision of the home government until they could take care of
themselves.[4]
[Footnote 1: _Writings of James Monroe_, vol. iii., pp. 261, 266, 292,
295, 321, 322, 336, 338, 349, 351, 352, 353, 378.]
[Footnote 2: Brissot de Warville, _Travels_, vol. i., p. 262.]
[Footnote 3: _Tyrannical Libertymen_, pp. 10-11; Locke,
_Anti-slavery_, etc., pp. 31-32; Branagan, _Serious Remonstrance_, p.
18.]
[Footnote 4: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol. iii., p. 296; vol.
iv., p. 291 and vol. viii., p. 380.]
Without resorting to the subterfuge of colonization, not a few
slaveholders were still wise enough to show why the improvement of the
Negroes should be neglected altogether.
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