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Letter from Joshua Levitt to Thomas Fowell Buxton

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A letter from Joshua Leavitt informing Thomas Fowell Buxton that the Amistad Committee seeks his advice regarding questions related to Africa and the possible return of the Africans to their homes, since, he is doubtlessly familiar with the Amistad Case and decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Leavitt writes that the Committee is "anxious for their happiness and desirous to ensure their safe return to their own country, if possible. The Committee are apprehensive that the dreadful slave trade along the West Coast, with its dire consequences in turning the hand of every man against his fellow in the intensions, will render it impossible for them to penetrate to Mendi, even if landed on the coast." The Committee thinks it would best if the Africans remained in the United States and do not wish to send them home unless "there is a reasonable prospect that they will be able to get home." Leavitt states that although Colonizationists have talked in favor of Africa, "they have gained but very little knowledge of its actual condition in the detail." Thus, Leavitt asks a series of questions concerning the existence and location of the country of Mendi like, for example, how to travel there and whether the British government would offer aid in restoring the Africans if the U.S. government will not.
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Created Date:
1841 03 29
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Slavery and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Amistad Case

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