The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States and Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party

by Martin R. Delany, Toyin Falola (Introduction)

A preeminent African American abolitionist, author, public intellectual, physician, the highest ranking black officer during the Civil War, and a notable activist for the emigration of blacks to Africa, Martin Robison Delany has left an enduring legacy in his writings, the power of his ideas, and his political activism. So influential was he during the nineteenth century that a number of people now refer to him as the "Father of Black Nationalism." He spent most of his career working toward the goal of seeking black emancipation through practical projects aimed toward returning African Americans to Africa, where he hoped his people would make a new beginning within the context of political freedom and a society devoid of racism. Two of his most influential works on black nationalism are presented in this volume. The Condition, Elevation, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (1852) presents Delany's separatist views. To many scholars of African American political thought, this book marks the origin of black nationalism in print. However, its scope is much broader than this single focus might suggest. It is the first book-length study to present an account of the economic and political status of blacks in the United States. Because of the intractable nature of U.S. racism and the deplorable living conditions of most African Americans, Delany concluded by recommending emigration of African Americans to Central America. Some years later Delany turned to Africa as the better choice for relocation of black Americans. Based on an exploratory journey he took to West Africa in 1859, he wrote Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party. The report provides clear information on the conditions in West Africa of that time to give immigrants an idea of what they would encounter. He also provides an impressive amount of data on how to improve agriculture, land, ventilation, and housing to promote better living standards.



With an introduction by Toyin Falola, the Frances Higginbothom Nalle Centennial Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin, this new edition of these two provocative and intriguing nineteenth-century documents sheds much light on the black nationalism movement in the context of African American history.

Genres: History, Africa

397 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1968

About the author

Martin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, soldier, writer and proponent of black nationalism. Delany was born in Charles Town, Virginia and raised and in Chambersburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1850, Delany was among the first three black students admitted to Harvard Medical School, from which they were dismissed weeks after their admission due to student protests. Delany traveled throughout the South in 1839 to observe slavery there, and in 1847 started working with Frederick Douglass to publish North Star, an anti-slavery newspaper.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Delany returned to the United States after living in Canada and visiting Liberia. By 1863, Delany was recruiting blacks for the United States Colored Troops. In 1865, Delany became the first African-American field grade officer in the United States Army, having been commissioned as a major. After the American Civil War, Delany settled in South Carolina and pursued a political career before his death in 1885 as a member of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Reviews

[Jeff]

Seminal text of Abolitionist, Politician, Physician , Novelist, first Black Major Field Officer and early theoretician of Separatist Black Nationalism, Martin Robison Delany. In constant fear of slave catchers, critical of the American Colonization Society's scheme to purge free blacks from America, psychologically and emotionally taxed by American chattel slavery, Delany had decided enough was enough. Though a long standing abolitionist, Delany had become more open toward achieving abolition of chattel slavery through any means, including talks of insurrection and plans of emigration. He would theorize about and explore countries in which he along with other free blacks settle and develop a colony for space to operate properly without the stress of American society and eventually develop a plan to abolish chattel slavery. Such places included Canada, Cuba, Central America , Brazil , Liberia and eventually what's now known as Nigeria. On a voyage with a Jamaican journalist by the name of Robert Campbell, Delany headed to Abeokuta, a city in " Yorubaland" that had formed as a way for ethnic groups to escape slave trading. There he met with the Egba clan of the Yoruba people, and negotiated a successful plan to settle on land and produce cotton at a higher quantity and cheaper price which would threaten American chattel slavery and cause anti slavery advocates to buy and support his business initiative. Here we see an early formation of Pan Africanism, in which not only was a plan developed to weaken US hegemony, but the idea of free blacks to join with various African ethnic groups as an African nationality that would be autonomous and self governing utilizing its reources for its betterment. Though the plan was in fact negotiated successfully, the Egba reneged, in which sources point to the influence of colonial agents who had plans of colonizing the land for their interests. Delany would return to the US and recruit black soliders to the Civil War , eventually being appointed a Major and serving in combag himself. All I can say is Ase, eternally grateful for the warrior spirit of the black nationalist and Pan Africanist tradition as well as the radical imagination. If more black people knew of Delany than Douglass, we'd have much different conversations politically. May he rest in the ancestral realm, see you when I ge there!

[Sirad]

A bit heavy of a read, but it is a must-read political theory text that emphasizes how blacks should be pensive and reflect about the political nature of immigrating. And if they do immigrate, why they should go to Latin America (specifically Nicaragua).

[Robshelton365]

A primary source.