“American Amazon”? - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 130

ic insurrections and racial conflicts without a deluge of more or less indigent black ex-
patriates from the United States. Depending on how the Civil War went, taking in liber-
ated or free blacks as colonists might generate later questions about harboring fugitives
and “stolen property,” possible pretexts for invading colonies and countries distant from
the protective European military apparatus. 76 Predictably, the Central American coun-
triesregisteredcomplaintsabouttheunilateralnatureofthewished-forcolonizationand,
given the racist ideologies of the day, about the caliber and kind of colonist. 77 Seward
respondedtosuchconcernswithassurances thatconsentofthecolonized countrywould
always be sought.
Lincoln and Seward had pressed Kansas senator Samuel Clarke Pomeroy into service
to review possible colonization sites in northern South America and Central America
for a new “Deep South.” Pomeroy is best known today for his political bribery trial and
later for his chairmanship of the Santa Fe Railroad, but before his election to the Senate
he had been the financial agent for an emigrant aid society in Massachusetts. Respond-
ing to the agenda proposed by Lincoln and Seward, Pomeroy leaped into the fray after
a brief tropical inspection. He produced a pamphlet, Information for Persons Proposing
to Join the Free Colored Colony of Central America , that was widely circulated, much
to the irritation of the Central American republics, since Pomeroy's plan involved the
annexation of the Colombia province of Chiriqui on the northern rim of South Amer-
ica, later known as Panama. Seward, responding to outrage from Foreign Minister Mo-
lina, who represented Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras, asserted that Pomeroy was
merely acting as an agent, had no negotiating powers, and really was just carrying out a
survey. This, however, was not the impression the pamphlet gave: it included departure
dates from Baltimore, baggage rates, and it featured the usual hyperventilating prose of
the land salesman and speculator, describing the area as extremely productive, able to
producetemperateandtropicalcrops,a“semi-tropical California,”andaplaceofunpar-
alleled healthfulness. 78 Inlight ofthe staggering mortality that attended the construction
of the Panama Canal, this last was an especially dubious claim. 79
The Union triumphed at Antietam, and the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
wasdeclaredonSeptember22,1862.Itappearedthatindeedtherewouldbesoonbefour
million free blacks released in a destabilized, rancorous South and a war-weary Union.
Butthewarwasnotoveryet,anditwasnotthetimetoalienate allies, soofficials muted
US ambitions for colonization in the Latin America.
Deporting large numbers of “undesirables”—political prisoners, debtors, criminals,
vagrants—was not an unusual practice in the mid-nineteenth century. The tropics were
famousfortheirgulags:BotanyBayinAustraliaisprobablybestknown,andaswehave
seen, France shipped off revolutionaries from the 1848 revolts to French Guiana. Ban-
ishing desperate, insurgent, or incarcerated populations into peonage in the tropics was