From Thomas Jefferson to John Page, 27 December 1804
To John Page
Washington Dec. 27. 04
Dear Sir
Resuming the subject of the resolutions of the House of Delegates of Dec. 31. 1800. Jan. 16 1802. and Feb. 3. 1804. I have it not in my power to say that any change of circumstances has taken place which enables me yet to propose any specific asylum for the persons who are the subjects of our correspondence. the island of St. Domingo, our nearest and most convenient recourse, is too unsettled in the conditions of it’s existence to be looked to as yet for any permanent arrangements: and the European nations having territories in the same quarter, and possessing the same kind of population, are not likely to risk any change in the present state of that population. Whether the inhabitants of our late acquisition beyond the Missisipi, or the national legislature, would consent that a portion of that country should be set apart for the persons contemplated is not within my competence to say.
My last information as to Sierra Leone is that the company was proposing to deliver up their colony to their government. should this take place it might furnish occasion for another effort to procure an incorporation of ours into it. an attack during the war has done the settlement considerable injury.
I beg you to be assured that having the object of the House of Delegates sincerely at heart, I will keep it under my constant attention, & omit no occasion which may occur of giving it effect. Accept my affectionate salutations and assurances of great respect & consideration.
Th: Jefferson
RC (Vi); addressed: “Governor Page Richmond”; franked and postmarked. PoC (DLC).
The resolutions asked that the governor correspond with the president about locating a place outside of Virginia “to which free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as may be emancipated may be sent or choose to remove as a place of asylum” (Vol. 36:577n). Former governor James Monroe began correspondence on the subject in 1801, and Page continued it, last writing to TJ about it on 29 Oct. 1804. See Vol. 34:345-7; Vol. 37:531-3.
A French naval attack on Sierra Leone in 1794 caused damages valued at £55,000, prompting the directors of the Sierra Leone Company to ask Parliament for financial support and, in 1802, to petition the government to take over responsibility for the colony (Joe A. D. Alie, A New History of Sierra Leone [New York, 1990], 62-3; Vol. 38:473-6).