A speech by Eli Thayer (1819-1899) on the "Central American Question" is a peculiar Appendix tacked on near the end of a book about the Kansas Crusade, which mostly has to do with the Kansas Territory's appeal for statehood, which was attained in 1861. Thayer was a Massachusetts Congressman who did much to establish anti-slavery settlements in the Kansas, hoping that Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a free state. The result was "Bleeding Kansas," a series of violent clashes between anti-slavery and proslavery settlers that presaged the American Civil War soon to follow. Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861, about three months before the outbreak of hostilities between North and South.
Thayer's speech of January 1858 is quite peculiar and the printed version in the book even includes a laugh track, laughter cues inserted for no apparent reason because nothing that he says in the speech is at all funny, and neither is the subject of slavery in any way funny, which is why probably no one really laughed. The speech is horrifying, actually.
Thayer proposes that the central question is how to "Americanize" Central America, yet Thayer does not seem to know anything about Central America other than mainly that probably American interests should be protected there. He seems not to know that Central America abolished slavery in 1823. If he is such a proponent of abolition, why does he admit that slavery might be practiced in Central America and even says some peculiar things about the practice of slavery? It is fairly obvious, then, that he is probably talking about British Honduras, where large plantations were established along the Atlantic coast for the large-scale cultivation of bananas, and also probably Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, where bananas can be easily shipped to ports in the Gulf of Mexico such as New Orleans.
Thayer talks much about the possibility of organizing colonists to establish white settlements in Central America but also admits that most of the focus of immigration policies of the United States at the time was focused on directing incoming European immigrants to sparsely populated territories such as Kansas that had not yet attained statehood. Thus, there was no real impetus for Kansas to send settlers to Central America.
Thayer suggestst that perhaps the proslavery Gulf States would be interested in taking up the challenge of colonizing Central America and assuming the duties of slave master there. After all, slavery is legal in the Gulf States so those Deep South folks would not have a problem with assuming the duties of feeding and clothing the Negroes they purchase to harvest bananas.
Thayer basically says that a Yankee attempting to practice slavery would be too perplexed by the ethical dilemmas posed by owning Negroes and having to assume this tax on the sensitive conscience of the abolitionist.
