dissentcontinues
Banned
“I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life as easily, perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country, and hence you may come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case.”
"Central America is nearer to us than Liberia—not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel—it is a highway. The country is a very excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land—thus being suited to your physical condition.”
-Abraham Lincoln at a meeting with African-American church leaders in 1862 on a plan he had set aside funds for to send freed slaves from the South abroad
The equatorial sun came down on Linconia Freedmen's Colony in Chiriqui, Republic of New Granada. Eli Draper, a young man, got up to work his patch of land, where he grew some sugar cane and other foods. He'd been born here, though his father who was too injured to work much, had been a slave in the United States proverb before being freed, then exiled with some multitudes of thousands at the formal end of the War Between the States.
Once, Eli had asked his father about it.
"Pa? Pour que we here?"
His father stared at him a bit, still adjusting to the Spanish-English creole coming up among the second and third generations.
"Damn Lincoln freed us, then booted us clean out of America. Said it rankled the plantation owner folks, never mind the welts on my aching back. Fat lot of good it did him, when they said they was making us go, Southroners went apeshit and their army still's taking potshots up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near on forty years on."
"Pour que el diablo did they name the place after him, then?"
"He's the one that rigged this whole bamboozle ahead of time, so I guess he gets the privelege of his name upon it, though he is an old and forgetful man now from what I am told."
The Union mostly ignored it, though it was Union owned land in New Granadan territory. New Granada was however, in the midst of a revolution in which a new caudillo promised the peasants land reform and to crush unrest in New Granada's diverse provinces. Eli Draper though saw in the sea off in the distance a collumn of roiling steam and further saw it was attached to a large warship flying an American flag.
Later in the day, some white men in uniforms approached his farm.
"Howdy there, boy. I am Commander Larson of the United States Navy. You might've heard there's been some unpleasantness in Santa Fe De Bogota. We're just checking up on things."
"Things are all right. Ain't nothing bad happening here."
"You work this land?"
"Its mine, senor Commander."
"Here's the thing...see...we're looking to do some building... This place would be a mighty fine place to build a canal."
"You own this patch of land, but not the rest."
"Well...if things get much worse in Santa Fe De Bogota and the Granadine Confederation comes to blows with itself, we might say Linconia is tired of both Granadine maladministration and Union and Chiriqui Improvement Company paternalism and might wish to become an independent republic...one which would give us right of way to build a canal."
"How much would I be paid for this land, then?"
"Nada, as this is just your patch. Its all the Chiriqui Improvement Company's. But...you play along, you would have land of your own in the new nation hereabouts, and hell, we need a President, how'd you like to be our man down here?"
"Hold on a moment...you sound like you're just bamboozling me, like my pa said Senor Lincoln did when he sent us all down here after beating the South."
"Well, hell, what permission do we need from you anyhow? One way or the other this canal will be built and I'll see to it this here farm is razed to make way."
He walked back in, shaken.
"What's with you son?"
"White men. Sailors. Came around and said they want to built a grande canal and said they'd make me some puppet president of some new country here they'd take from the generals in Santa Fe De Bogota but I said they was bamboozling me like you said. Then they got all steamed and stormed off."
"Well, you were damn right they were briar patching you, son. Nobody gives you freedom, its our right, and freedom ain't freedom, if somebody uproots you by the bayonet instead of the whip and then takes your home to build himself a fancy new river."
"Central America is nearer to us than Liberia—not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel—it is a highway. The country is a very excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land—thus being suited to your physical condition.”
-Abraham Lincoln at a meeting with African-American church leaders in 1862 on a plan he had set aside funds for to send freed slaves from the South abroad
The equatorial sun came down on Linconia Freedmen's Colony in Chiriqui, Republic of New Granada. Eli Draper, a young man, got up to work his patch of land, where he grew some sugar cane and other foods. He'd been born here, though his father who was too injured to work much, had been a slave in the United States proverb before being freed, then exiled with some multitudes of thousands at the formal end of the War Between the States.
Once, Eli had asked his father about it.
"Pa? Pour que we here?"
His father stared at him a bit, still adjusting to the Spanish-English creole coming up among the second and third generations.
"Damn Lincoln freed us, then booted us clean out of America. Said it rankled the plantation owner folks, never mind the welts on my aching back. Fat lot of good it did him, when they said they was making us go, Southroners went apeshit and their army still's taking potshots up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near on forty years on."
"Pour que el diablo did they name the place after him, then?"
"He's the one that rigged this whole bamboozle ahead of time, so I guess he gets the privelege of his name upon it, though he is an old and forgetful man now from what I am told."
The Union mostly ignored it, though it was Union owned land in New Granadan territory. New Granada was however, in the midst of a revolution in which a new caudillo promised the peasants land reform and to crush unrest in New Granada's diverse provinces. Eli Draper though saw in the sea off in the distance a collumn of roiling steam and further saw it was attached to a large warship flying an American flag.
Later in the day, some white men in uniforms approached his farm.
"Howdy there, boy. I am Commander Larson of the United States Navy. You might've heard there's been some unpleasantness in Santa Fe De Bogota. We're just checking up on things."
"Things are all right. Ain't nothing bad happening here."
"You work this land?"
"Its mine, senor Commander."
"Here's the thing...see...we're looking to do some building... This place would be a mighty fine place to build a canal."
"You own this patch of land, but not the rest."
"Well...if things get much worse in Santa Fe De Bogota and the Granadine Confederation comes to blows with itself, we might say Linconia is tired of both Granadine maladministration and Union and Chiriqui Improvement Company paternalism and might wish to become an independent republic...one which would give us right of way to build a canal."
"How much would I be paid for this land, then?"
"Nada, as this is just your patch. Its all the Chiriqui Improvement Company's. But...you play along, you would have land of your own in the new nation hereabouts, and hell, we need a President, how'd you like to be our man down here?"
"Hold on a moment...you sound like you're just bamboozling me, like my pa said Senor Lincoln did when he sent us all down here after beating the South."
"Well, hell, what permission do we need from you anyhow? One way or the other this canal will be built and I'll see to it this here farm is razed to make way."
He walked back in, shaken.
"What's with you son?"
"White men. Sailors. Came around and said they want to built a grande canal and said they'd make me some puppet president of some new country here they'd take from the generals in Santa Fe De Bogota but I said they was bamboozling me like you said. Then they got all steamed and stormed off."
"Well, you were damn right they were briar patching you, son. Nobody gives you freedom, its our right, and freedom ain't freedom, if somebody uproots you by the bayonet instead of the whip and then takes your home to build himself a fancy new river."
