The Jeffersonian Democrat

SEPTEMBER 12, 1862

The President's Colonization Scheme.

The President has offered Senator Pomeroy the fine steamer Vanderbilt for the conveyance of his first colony of free negroes to Central America, which is to start on the 1st of October from Washington. It will carry one hundred families, selected from among those who offer to go. A printing press is to be a part of the cargo, which is furnished by an African freeman of Baltimore, who goes with it. Under the rules and regulations for the government of the colony, which Senator Pomeroy has been preparing, sixty acres are to be given to a family of over five members, forty acres to one of less than that number, and twenty acres to single adults. One-eighteenth of the land is to be reserved for school purposes, and is to be forfeited unless a school and church be built within three years. All the children are required to go to school. General Pomeroy is authorized by the President to erect storehouses and all other buildings, including arsenals for the storage of arms, with which he hopes the infant colony will be able to defend itself against an attack. The place at which the experiment is to be tried is the Isthmus of Chiriqui. The Chiriqui Transit Company offered the Government, some years ago, four millions of acres for $300,000, and have recently offered it to Mr. Lincoln for $150,000. They were, however, persuaded by General Pomeroy that it was for their interest to give it to the United States, reserving a right of way, a town site, and the mines. The land thus appropriated stretches from sea to sea, and is represented to be fertile and productive of rice, coffee, cotton and sugar. There is said to be a harbor on each coast. The planting season commences in the middle of November, within a month after the colony will arrive. Senator Pomeroy, who will issue a pamphlet setting forth the nature of the country, is sanguine of his success in the enterprise. He says that an African journal will be issued from the Baltimorean's press within eight days after the colony lands, and that he will himself return within twenty days with full proofs that the colony is well under way. Senator Pomeroy, it will be remembered, had charge of the settlement of Kansas.