253:. Grice has been credited with being the first person to call for a national convention to discuss the idea of mass immigration to Canada. However, Martha S. Jones has written that it is not clear whether Grice was the first person to suggest such a conference, or if he was simply responding to and amplifying a call for a convention that had previously been made by activists in New York. But Jones writes that what is obvious is that Grice's leadership was foundational in turning the conference into a reality and in creating a national conversation on the colonization proposals. Grice has therefore been called "the moving spirit" of the national convention idea, and he organized it by sending letters to Black leaders across the United States. The meeting itself was called by the Philadelphia bishop
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convention did not produce any clear consensus on these issues even among the 40 attendees, it has been studied as an early example of
African American activists freely assembling to plan concerted action to combat their oppression, and it kickstarted the Colored Conventions Movement. The conference also suggested possible legal remedies to ensure citizenship rights for free African Americans, as well as practical tools for communal self-sufficiency like the promotion of mechanical trades and agriculture.
237:, when large African American organizations first began to consider the prospect of mass immigration from the United States to countries with less restriction on the freedom of Black people. Around 1830, one proposal that was the topic of national discussion among African American activists was the possibility of emigrating to a region in Canada to which many formerly enslaved people
328:, the capital of Haiti. His motivation was to acquire the full citizenship rights that the United States had refused to grant him, and which he had come to believe would not be granted in the near future. He had a family in Haiti, and became known as a skilled worker due to his expertise as a machinist. Grice's biography in
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that all eleven of his children were likely born in Haiti, and that by 1867 three of his sons and an unknown number of his daughters had emigrated to
America. All of his children were thought to be native French speakers who were also educated in English. One of his children, George Grice, was known
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and James Deaver. The Legal Rights
Association has been identified as probably the first legal rights convention among African Americans. Continuing on the work of the Convention of 1830 during the previous year, the Legal Rights Association studied the question of what rights African Americans were
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during the early 19th century. While working as a machinist in
Baltimore, he was either the first person or one of the first people to suggest holding a National Negro Convention to discuss the possibility of mass emigration by African Americans away from the United States. This was the beginning of
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asserts that he was well known to the rulers of the country and was trusted because he did not engage in
Haitian politics. Most notably, Grice became a confidant of Faustin Soulouque, despite Grice's well-known republican ideals. He was particularly prominent in Haiti for inventions that related to
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Grice is known to have attended at least one
National Negro Convention after the one that he initiated. In 1831, Grice missed the second National Negro Convention because at the time he was in Baltimore founding the Legal Rights Association. He was present in 1832, and some sources identify that as
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wrote that, when he was young, Grice had "thrown off the obligations of apprenticeship" and migrated to
Baltimore, where he was living by the 1820s. Through his formal education and his work as a machinist Grice became a skilled mathematician, and he was noted for talent as an inventor. He was also
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Although the politics of colonization were contentious and the idea became sharply less popular in the following years, Grice published a map of potential locations in Canada that free
African Americans could relocate to. Grice also set up trading partnerships with transportation networks between
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in
Philadelphia. The agenda of the convention included general discussion on the advisability of mass emigration by African Americans away from the United States, the possible locations that they could move to, and the specific feasibility of the salient proposal to move to Canada. Although the
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by 1867. Francis Grice, a sculptor, wrote on the question of
Haitian self-governance. Grice's daughter Elizabeth Grice was the first wife of the abolitionist preacher William Douglass.
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Much of Grice's activism focused on the denial of full citizenship rights to free African Americans. To understand how African Americans were being denied their rights under
196:, listed his date of birth as being "in the early part" of the 19th century, but not exactly known. The same biography stated that Grice was "of free parentage".
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the last National Negro Convention that Grice attended; others assert that, in 1833, he attended the third Convention in Philadelphia with his son-in-law
184:, in the early 1800s. The historian Lucien Holness gives Grice's year of birth as 1801. A biographical sketch of Grice written in 1867 and published in
160:, which has been credited with helping to clarify citizenship rights in America, as well as with pioneering several important tactics in American
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made it clear over the ensuing few years that the aim of many prominent White lawyers and lawmakers, among them Octavius Taney (the brother of
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the manufacture of sugar. Although Grice never moved back to the United States, he did visit it; he was sent by the government of Haiti to
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Grice did not remain in the United States long after his activism. In either 1834 or 1835, he chose to move from Baltimore to
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fluent in French. As he grew more politically active, Grice became affiliated with contemporary abolitionist editors like
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Volk, Kyle G. (1 August 2019). "Review of Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America".
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entitled to, and how they were being denied those rights. Actions by the American Colonization Society and the
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where he could secure full citizenship rights. There he became a prominent tradesman and a confidant of
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683:. American Academy of Political and Social Science, Negro Universities Press. 1913. p. 130.
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Bell, Howard H. (1957). "Free Negroes of the North 1830-1835: A Study in National Cooperation".
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Grice had eleven children: six sons and five daughters. It was speculated by his biographer in
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to acquire machine parts to build and maintain his sugar manufacturing inventions in Haiti.
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A National Colored Union Convention, one of a series of conferences that Grice co-founded
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Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle against the Colonization Movement
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483:. Vol. 3, no. 20. California Digital Newspaper Collection. 16 August 1867
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Grice was an activist and businessman in Baltimore during the beginnings of the
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activist, machinist, and businessman, noted for his political activity in
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Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America
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American Citizens' Equal Rights Association of the State of California
207:, Grice did receive some formal education and he became a machinist.
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241:. This proposal was a response to the events surrounding the
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156:. Grice was also a leading figure in the founding of the
375:. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 146–166.
298:, Grice co-founded the Legal Rights Association, with
656:"Reverend William Douglass Second Rector (1834-1862)"
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The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865
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Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy
249:to pressure African Americans to leave America for
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296:Article Four of the United States Constitution
502:Power-Greene, Ousmane K. (5 September 2014).
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287:. He remained close to
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