Jehu Jones, a free person of color, admits that he was induced to leave his "Happy Home" in South Carolina in 1832 "by promises of great Remuneration in money & valuable Lands, made by the Friends of the American Colonization Society to Engage my Services for Liberia." Forty-five-year-old Jones states that he was promised land, the assistant editorship of a newspaper, and a teaching position if he were “to Emigrate to Africa.” He laments, however, that upon his arrival in the North he discovered said promises were "merely a delusion" and that the Society "abandoned me to my fate, among Strangers Jealous of new commers, without friends, without funds & without Employment." Jones confides that he "should have returned home immediately in disgust with the Erroneous Philantrophy held up to me, But knowing The Laws of my Native State, which I Ever Respect forbid me, return," he instead stayed eight years in "diligent Search" for "a place that I can Reconcile myself to Live in." Now living in Philadelphia with his wife, who is also unhappy, Jones expresses "an ardent desire to visit the grave of my Father, the spot where I was Born, grew up & lived respectably for Nearly half a century." He therefore respectfully begs “the Legislature of my Native State to permit my Return to South Carolina."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
