8-th, 2004 - 14: 0   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Jose de Olivares to Frank Billings Kellogg

Jose de Olivares, American Consul,
Kingston, Jamaica, to Frank Billings Kellogg,
Secretary of State
AMERICAN CONSULATE,
Kingston, Jamaica, March 13, 1925

Sir:

I have the honor to report that on February 10, 1925, the steamer GENERAL G. W. GOETHALS, owned by the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company, a Negro organization of which the president is one Marcus Garvey, reported to be a convict now in the United States Federal Prison at Atlanta, Georgia, arrived at Kingston, Jamaica from New York via Havana, Cuba, and on March 10, 1925, departed from this port for Colón, Panama. Throughout the entire month of the steamer's stay at Kingston the experiences of its passengers, officers and crew were of a very turbulent character.

Among the passengers on board the GOETHALS was one G. Emonei Carter, Secretary of the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company and General Secretary of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, of which latter the aforesaid Marcus Garvey is President General.

The general headquarters of the last named association is in the Universal Building, 56 West 135th Street, New York.
It would appear that the principal object of the GOETHALS voyage was some sort of proselyte propaganda conducted by the aforesaid G. Emonei Carter and other passengers among the Negro populations of the various ports at which the vessel was scheduled to call, in favor of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, and that it was originally planned that the monetary obligations contracted in connection with the cruise, including the operating expenses of the vessel, were to be financed chiefiy from funds collected at mass meetings of Negroes held at the various ports of call.

It was reported to me that at Havana an attachment was placed on the GOETHALS in an effort to satisfy certain obligations alleged to have been contracted by the vessel on the occasion of a previous visit of a similar character, but that the suit failed upon proof having been produced to the effect that the GOETHALS was, at the time the said obligations were incurred, the property of the Black Star Navigation Company, and that the Black Cross Navigation and Trading Company, Incorporated, was an entirely different concern. The GOETHALS arrived at Kingston apparently without funds and with very little provisions, so that the passengers, officers and crew were subsisting on short rations.

Moreover, the coming of the GOETHALS and her deputation awakened little interest on the part of the Negro population, due, it is believed[,] to the fact that a previous unsuccessful visit of the same character was made by a delegation headed by Marcus Garvey, who is a native of Jamaica of an unsavoury reputation in the Island.

Hence, it transpired that during the first two days of the vessel's stay here only about $200 were collected at the meetings held on shore by Secretary General Carter, which was insufficient to defray overhead expenses for a single day.
At this juncture results of a widely different character than had been looked for by the promoters of the voyage began to develop with alacrity.

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