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diff --git a/old/13642-h/13642-h.htm b/old/13642-h/13642-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3855aaa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13642-h/13642-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20433 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<title>The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I</title> +<style type="text/css" title="Default"> + <!-- + + body { + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; + margin: 5%; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4 { + font-variant: small-caps; + } + + h1.title { margin-top: 5em; } + + .sc { font-variant: small-caps } + + a { text-decoration: none; } + a:hover { background-color: #ffffcc } + + div.chapter, #preface { + margin-top: 4em; + padding: 5px; + } + + hr { + height: 1px; + width: 80%; + } + + p.byline { + text-align: center; + font-variant: small-caps; + } + + .poetry { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; + } + + .stanza { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + + table { + width: 80%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + vertical-align: top; + } + + + /* **** Title Page **** */ + + .tp { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + + .issue>.tp { + width: 60%; + } + + .tp blockquote { + text-align: left; + width: 80%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + + .tp hr { + width: 20%; + height: 1px; + } + + .tp h3.vol .left { + display: block; + float: left; + } + + .tp h3.vol .right { + float: right; + } + + + /* **** Table of Contents **** */ + + .toc { + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + text-align: left; + } + + .toc>p, .toc>li { + margin-left: 5%; + text-indent: -5%; + } + + .toc>ul { + margin-top: 0px; + margin-left: -1em; + } + + .toc ul { + list-style-type: none; + } + + .toc>ul>li { + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + + /* **** Footnotes **** */ + + .footnotes { + width: 95%; + font-size: .95em; + } + + .fnr { + display: block; + float: left; + position: absolute; + left: 5px; + font-size: .6em; + } + + + + /* **** Articles **** */ + + .article { + margin-top: 4em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + + .article h2 { + margin-bottom: 3em; + } + + .article h3 { + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 2.5em; + } + + .article h4 { + margin-top: 2.5em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + + .article h5 { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em; + } + + .article .author { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-size: .9em; + text-align: right; + margin-right: 25%; + } + + + ul.nobullet { + list-style-type: none; + } + +--> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. +Jan. 1916, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: October 5, 2004 [EBook #13642] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEGRO HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Pam Mitchell, and the PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div id="issue1" class="issue"> +<div id="tp1" class="tp"> +<h1 class="title">The Journal <br />of<br /> Negro History</h1> + +<p class="byline">Edited By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Carter G. Woodson</h2> + +<hr /> + + +<h3 class="vol"><span class="left">VOL. I., No. 1</span> <span class="right">JANUARY, 1916</span></h3> + +<h3>PUBLISHED QUARTERLY</h3> + +<hr /> + + +<div id="toc1" class="toc"> +<h2>Contents</h2> + + +<ul> +<li><span class="sc">Carter G. Woodson</span>: <em><a href="#a1-1">The Negroes of Cincinnati Prior to the Civil War</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">W. B. Hartgrove</span>: <em><a href="#a1-2">The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Monroe N. Work</span>: <em><a href="#a1-3">The Passing Tradition and the African Civilization</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">A. O. Stafford</span>: <em><a href="#a1-4">The Mind of the African Negro as reflected in his + Proverbs</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Documents</span>:<ul> + <li><em><a href="#a1-5">What the Negro was thinking during the Eighteenth Century.</a></em></li> + <li><em><a href="#a1-6">Letters showing the Rise and Progress of the early Negro Churches + of Georgia and The West Indies.</a></em></li></ul></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Reviews of Books</span>:<ul> + <li><span class="sc">Steward's</span> <em><a href="#a1-7-1">Haitian Revolution</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Cromwell's</span> <em><a href="#a1-7-2">The Negro in American History</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Ellis's</span> <em><a href="#a1-7-3">Negro Culture in West Africa</a></em>;</li> + <li>and <span class="sc">Woodson's</span> <em><a href="#a1-7-4">The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861</a></em>.</li></ul></li> + +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a1-8">Notes</a></span></li></ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h4>THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE<br /> AND HISTORY, INCORPORATED</h4> + +<p>41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, PA.<br /> +2223 Twelfth Street, Washington, D.C.</p> + +<h4><span class="left">25 Cents A Copy</span> <span class="right">$1.00 A Year</span></h4> + +<h5>Copyright, 1916</h5> + +<p>Application made for entry as second class mail matter at the Postoffice +at Lancaster, Pa.</p> +</div> + + + +<div id="a1-1" class="article"> +<h2><a id="pg1"></a>The Negroes of Cincinnati Prior to the Civil War</h2> + + + +<p>The study of the history of the Negroes of Cincinnati is unusually +important for the reason that from no other annals do we get such striking +evidence that the colored people generally thrive when encouraged by their +white neighbors. This story is otherwise significant when we consider the +fact that about a fourth of the persons of color settling in the State of +Ohio during the first half of the last century made their homes in this +city. Situated on a north bend of the Ohio where commerce breaks bulk, +Cincinnati rapidly developed, attracting both foreigners and Americans, +among whom were not a few Negroes. Exactly how many persons of color were +in this city during the first decade of the nineteenth century is not yet +known. It has been said that there were no Negroes in Hamilton County in +1800.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-1" id="fna1-1-1">1</a></sup> It is evident, too, that the real exodus of free Negroes and +fugitives from the South to the Northwest Territory did not begin prior to +1815, although their attention had been earlier directed to this section +as a more desirable place for colonization than the shores of Africa.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-2" id="fna1-1-2">2</a></sup> +As the reaction following the era of good feeling toward the Negroes +during the revolutionary period had not reached its climax free per<a id="pg2"></a>sons +of color had been content to remain in the South.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-3" id="fna1-1-3">3</a></sup> The unexpected +immigration of these Negroes into this section and the last bold effort +made to drive them out marked epochs in their history in this city. The +history of these people prior to the Civil War, therefore, falls into +three periods, one of toleration from 1800 to 1826, one of persecution +from 1826 to 1841, and one of amelioration from 1841 to 1861.</p> + +<p>In the beginning the Negroes were not a live issue in Cincinnati. The +question of their settlement in that community was debated but resulted in +great diversity of opinion rather than a fixedness of judgment among the +citizens. The question came up in the Constitutional Convention of 1802 and +provoked some discussion, but reaching no decision, the convention simply +left the Negroes out of the pale of the newly organized body politic, +discriminating against them together with Indians and foreigners, by +incorporating the word white into the fundamental law.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-4" id="fna1-1-4">4</a></sup> The legislature +to which the disposition of this question was left, however, took it up +in 1804 to calm the fears of those who had more seriously considered the +so-called menace of Negro immigration. This body enacted a law, providing +that no Negro or mulatto should be allowed to remain permanently in that +State, unless he could furnish a certificate of freedom issued by some +court in the United States. Negroes then living there had to be registered +before the following June, giving the names of their children. No man +could employ a Negro who could not show such a certificate. Hiring a +delinquent black or harboring or hindering the capture of a runaway was +punishable by a fine of $50 and the owner of a fugitive thus illegally +employed could recover fifty cents a day for the services of his slave.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-5" id="fna1-1-5">5</a></sup></p> + +<p>As the fear of Negro immigration increased the law of 1804 was found to be +inadequate. In 1807, therefore, the legislature enacted another measure +providing that no Negro should be permitted to settle in Ohio unless he +could <a id="pg3"></a>within twenty days give a bond to the amount of $500, guaranteeing +his good behavior and support. The fine for concealing a fugitive was +raised from $50 to $100, one half of which should go to the informer. +Negro evidence against the white man was prohibited.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-6" id="fna1-1-6">6</a></sup> This law together +with that of 1830 making the Negro ineligible for service in the State +militia, that of 1831 depriving persons of color of the privilege of +serving upon juries, and that of 1838 prohibiting the education of colored +children at the expense of the State, constituted what were known as the +"Black Laws."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-7" id="fna1-1-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>Up to 1826, however, the Negroes of Cincinnati had not become a cause +of much trouble. Very little mention of them is made in the records of +this period. They were not wanted in this city but were tolerated as a +negligible factor. D. B. Warden, a traveler through the West in 1819, +observed that the blacks of Cincinnati were "good-humoured, garrulous, +and profligate, generally disinclined to laborious occupations, and +prone to the performance of light and menial drudgery." Here the traveler +was taking effect for cause. "Some few," said he, "exercise the humbler +trades, and some appear to have formed a correct conception of the +objects and value of property, and are both industrious and economical. +A large proportion of them are reputed, and perhaps correctly, to be +habituated to petit larceny." But this had not become a grave offence, +for he said that not more than one individual had been corporally +punished by the courts since the settlement of the town.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-8" id="fna1-1-8">8</a></sup></p> + +<p>When, however, the South reached the conclusion that free Negroes were an +evil, and Quakers and philanthropists began to direct these unfortunates +to the Northwest Territory for colonization, a great commotion arose in +Southern Ohio and especially in Cincinnati.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-9" id="fna1-1-9">9</a></sup> How rapid this movement was, +may be best observed by noticing the statistics of <a id="pg4"></a>this period. There were +337 Negroes in Ohio in 1800; 1,890 in 1810; 4,723 in 1820; 9,586 in 1830; +17,342 in 1840; and 25,279 in 1850.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-10" id="fna1-1-10">10</a></sup> Now Cincinnati had 410 Negroes +in 1819;<sup><a href="#fn1-1-11" id="fna1-1-11">11</a></sup> 690 in 1826;<sup><a href="#fn1-1-12" id="fna1-1-12">12</a></sup> 2,255 in 1840;<sup><a href="#fn1-1-13" id="fna1-1-13">13</a></sup> and 3,237 in 1850.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-14" id="fna1-1-14">14</a></sup></p> + +<p>It was during the period between 1826 and 1840 that Cincinnati had to +grapple with the problem of the immigrating Negroes and the poor whites +from the uplands of Virginia and Kentucky. With some ill-informed persons +the question was whether that section should be settled by white men or +Negroes. The situation became more alarming when the Southern philanthropic +minority sometimes afforded a man like a master of Pittsylvania County, +Virginia, who settled 70 freedmen in Lawrence County, Ohio, in one day.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-15" id="fna1-1-15">15</a></sup> +It became unusually acute in Cincinnati because of the close social and +commercial relations between that city and the slave States. Early in the +nineteenth century Cincinnati became a manufacturing center to which the +South learned to look for supplies of machinery, implements, furniture, +and food.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-16" id="fna1-1-16">16</a></sup> The business men prospering thereby were not advocates of +slavery but rather than lose trade by acquiring the reputation of harboring +fugitive slaves or frightening away whites by encouraging the immigration +of Negroes, they began to assume the attitude of driving the latter from +those parts.</p> + +<p>From this time until the forties the Negroes were a real issue in +Cincinnati. During the late twenties they not only had to suffer from +the legal disabilities provided in the "Black Laws," but had to withstand +the humiliation of a rigid social ostracism.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-17" id="fna1-1-17">17</a></sup> They were regarded as +intruders and denounced as an idle, profligate and criminal class with +<a id="pg5"></a>whom a self-respecting white man could not afford to associate. Their +children were not permitted to attend the public schools and few persons +braved the inconveniences of living under the stigma of teaching a "nigger +school." Negroes were not welcome in the white churches and when they +secured admission thereto they had to go to the "black pew." Colored +ministers were treated with very little consideration by the white clergy +as they feared that they might lose caste and be compelled to give up +their churches. The colored people made little or no effort to go to white +theaters or hotels and did not attempt to ride in public conveyances on +equal footing with members of the other race. Not even white and colored +children dared to play together to the extent that such was permitted in +the South.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-18" id="fna1-1-18">18</a></sup></p> + +<p>This situation became more serious when it extended to pursuits of labor. +White laborers there, as in other Northern cities during this period, +easily reached the position of thinking that it was a disgrace to work +with Negroes. This prejudice was so much more inconvenient to the Negroes +of Cincinnati than elsewhere because of the fact that most of the menial +labor in that city was done by Germans and Irishmen. Now, since the Negroes +could not follow ordinary menial occupations there was nothing left them +but the lowest form of "drudgery," for which employers often preferred +colored women. It was, therefore, necessary in some cases for the mother to +earn the living for the family because the father could get nothing to do. +A colored man could not serve as an ordinary drayman or porter without +subjecting his employer to a heavy penalty.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-19" id="fna1-1-19">19</a></sup></p> + +<p>The trades unions were then proscribing the employment of colored +mechanics. Many who had worked at skilled labor were by this prejudice +forced to do drudgery or find employment in other cities. The president of +a "mechanical association" was publicly tried in 1830 by that organization +for the crime of assisting a colored youth to learn a trade.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-20" id="fna1-1-20">20</a></sup><a id="pg6"></a> A young +man of high character, who had at the cabinet-making trade in Kentucky +saved enough to purchase his freedom, came to Cincinnati about this time, +seeking employment. He finally found a position in a shop conducted by an +Englishman. On entering the establishment, however, the workmen threw +down their tools, declaring that the Negro had to leave or that they +would. The unfortunate "intruder" was accordingly dismissed. He then +entered the employ of a slaveholder, who at the close of the Negro's two +years of service at common labor discovered that the black was a mechanic. +The employer then procured work for him as a rough carpenter. By dint of +perseverance and industry this Negro within a few years became a master +workman, employing at times six or eight men, but he never received a +single job of work from a native-born citizen from a free State.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-21" id="fna1-1-21">21</a></sup></p> + +<p>The hardships of the Negroes of this city, however, had just begun. The +growth of a prejudiced public opinion led not only to legal proscription +and social ostracism but also to open persecution. With the cries of the +Southerners for the return of fugitives and the request of white immigrants +for the exclusion of Negroes from that section, came the demand to solve +the problem by enforcing the "Black Laws." Among certain indulgent +officials these enactments had been allowed to fall into desuetude. These +very demands, however, brought forward friends as well as enemies of the +colored people. Their first clash was testing the constitutionality of the +law of 1807. When the question came up before the Supreme Court, this +measure was upheld.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-22" id="fna1-1-22">22</a></sup> Encouraged by such support, the foes of the Negroes +forced an execution of the law. The courts at first hesitated but finally +took the position that the will of the people should be obeyed. The Negroes +asked for ninety days to comply with the law and were given sixty. When +the allotted time had expired, however, many of them had not given bonds +as required. The only thing to do then was <a id="pg7"></a>to force them to leave the +city. The officials again hesitated but a mob quickly formed to relieve +them of the work. This was the riot of 1829. Bands of ruffians held sway +in the city for three days, as the police were unable or unwilling to +restore order. Negroes were insulted on the streets, attacked in their +homes, and even killed. About a thousand or twelve hundred of them found +it advisable to leave for Canada West where they established the +settlement known as Wilberforce.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-23" id="fna1-1-23">23</a></sup></p> + +<p>This upheaval, though unusually alarming, was not altogether a bad omen. +It was due not only to the demands which the South was making upon the +North and the fear of the loss of Southern trade, but also to the rise of +the Abolition Societies, the growth of which such a riotous condition as +this had materially fostered. In a word, it was the sequel of the struggle +between the proslavery and the anti-slavery elements of the city. This +was the time when the friends of the Negroes were doing most for them. +Instead of frightening them away a group of respectable white men in +that community were beginning to think that they should be trained to +live there as useful citizens. Several schools and churches for them were +established. The Negroes themselves provided for their own first school +about 1820; but one Mr. Wing had sufficient courage to admit persons of +color to his evening classes after their first efforts had failed. By +1834 many of the colored people were receiving systematic instruction.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-24" id="fna1-1-24">24</a></sup> +To some enemies of these dependents it seemed that the tide was about +to turn in favor of the despised cause. Negroes began to raise sums +adequate to their elementary education and the students of Lane Seminary +supplemented these efforts by establishing a colored mission school +which offered more advanced courses and lectures on scientific subjects +twice a week. These students, however, soon found themselves far in +advance of public <a id="pg8"></a>opinion.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-25" id="fna1-1-25">25</a></sup> They were censured by the faculty and to +find a more congenial center for their operations they had to go to +Oberlin in the Western Reserve where a larger number of persons had +become interested in the cause of the despised and rejected of men.</p> + +<p>During the years from 1833 to 1836 the situation in Cincinnati grew worse +because of the still larger influx of Negroes driven from the South by +intolerable conditions incident to the reaction against the race. To +solve this problem various schemes were brought forth. Augustus Wattles +tells us that he appeared in Cincinnati about this time and induced +numbers of the Negroes to go to Mercer County, Ohio, where they took up +30,000 acres of land.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-26" id="fna1-1-26">26</a></sup> Others went to Indiana and purchased large +tracts on the public domain.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-27" id="fna1-1-27">27</a></sup> Such a method, however, seemed rather +slow to the militant proslavery leaders who had learned not only to +treat the Negroes as an evil but to denounce in the same manner the +increasing number of abolitionists by whom it was said the Negroes were +encouraged to immigrate into the State.</p> + +<p>The spirit of the proslavery sympathizers was well exhibited in the +upheaval which soon followed. This was the riot of July 30, 1836. It was +an effort to destroy the abolition organ, <em>The Philanthropist</em>, edited by +James G. Birney, a Southerner who had brought his slaves from Huntsville, +Alabama, to Kentucky and freed them. The mob formed in the morning, went +to the office of <em>The Philanthropist</em>, destroyed what printed matter +they could find, threw the type into the street, and broke up the press. +They then proceeded to the home of the printer, Mr. Pugh, but finding +no questionable matter there, they left it undisturbed. The homes of +James G. Birney, Mr. Donaldson and Dr. Colby were also threatened. The +next homes to be attacked were those of Church Alley, the Negro quarter, +but when two guns were fired upon the assailants they withdrew. <a id="pg9"></a>It +was reported that one man was shot but this has never been proved. The +mob hesitated some time before attacking these houses again, several of +the rioters declaring that they did not care to endanger their lives. +A second onset was made, but it was discovered that the Negroes had +deserted the quarter. On finding the houses empty the assailants +destroyed their contents.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-28" id="fna1-1-28">28</a></sup></p> + +<p>Yet undaunted by this persistent opposition the Negroes of Cincinnati +achieved so much during the years between 1835 and 1840 that they +deserved to be ranked among the most progressive people of the +world.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-29" id="fna1-1-29">29</a></sup> Their friends endeavored to enable them through schools, +churches and industries to embrace every opportunity to rise. These +2,255 Negroes accumulated, largely during this period, $209,000 worth +of property, exclusive of personal effects and three churches valued at +$19,000. Some of this wealth consisted of land purchased in Ohio and +Indiana. Furthermore, in 1839 certain colored men of the city organized +"The Iron Chest Company," a real estate firm, which built three brick +buildings and rented them to white men. One man, who a few years prior +to 1840 had thought it useless to accumulate wealth from which he might +be driven away, had changed his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real +estate. Another Negro, who had paid $5,000 for himself and family, had +bought a home worth $800 or $1,000. A freedman, who was a slave until he +was twenty-four years old, then had two lots worth $10,000, paid a tax +of $40 and had 320 acres of land in Mercer County. Another, who was +worth only $3,000 in 1836, had seven houses in Cincinnati, 400 acres of +land in Indiana, and another tract in the same county. He was worth +$12,000 or $15,000. A woman who was a slave until she was thirty was +then worth $2,000. She had also come into potential possession of two +houses on which a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the +payment of $2,000 borrowed from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, <a id="pg10"></a>who +was on the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself +and family and had bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of +land in Mercer County, said to be worth $2,500.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-30" id="fna1-1-30">30</a></sup></p> + +<p>This unusual progress had been promoted by two forces, the development +of the steamboat as a factor in transportation and the rise of the Negro +mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the travelling +public amassed large sums received in the form of "tips." Furthermore, +the fortunate few, constituting the stewards of these vessels, could by +placing contracts for supplies and using business methods realize +handsome incomes. Many Negroes thus enriched purchased real estate and +went into business in Cincinnati.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-31" id="fna1-1-31">31</a></sup> The other force, the rise of the +Negro mechanic, was made possible by overcoming much of the prejudice +which had at first been encountered. A great change in this respect had +taken place in Cincinnati by 1840. Many who had been forced to work as +menial laborers then had the opportunity to show their usefulness to +their families and to the community. Colored mechanics were then getting +as much skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon for white +artisans to solicit employment of colored men because they had the +reputation of being better paymasters than master workmen of the more +favored race.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-32" id="fna1-1-32">32</a></sup> White mechanics not only worked with colored men but +often associated with them, patronized the same barber shop, and went to +the same places of amusement.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-33" id="fna1-1-33">33</a></sup></p> + +<p>In this prosperous condition the Negroes could help themselves. Prior to +this period they had been unable to make any sacrifices for charity and +education. Only $150 of the $1,000 raised for Negro education in 1835 +was contributed by persons of color. In 1839, however, the colored <a id="pg11"></a>people +raised $889.30 for this purpose, and thanks to their economic progress, +this task was not so difficult as that of raising the $150 in 1835. They +were then spending considerable amounts for evening and writing schools, +attended by seventy-five persons, chiefly adults. In 1840 Reverend Mr. +Denham and Mr. Goodwin had in their schools sixty-five pupils each paying +$3 per quarter, and Miss Merrill a school of forty-seven pupils paying the +same tuition. In all, the colored people were paying these teachers about +$1,300 a year. The only help the Negroes were then receiving was that +from the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, which employed one Miss Seymour +at a salary of $300 a year to instruct fifty-four pupils. Moreover, the +colored people were giving liberally to objects of charity. Some Negroes +burned out in 1839 were promptly relieved by members of their own race. +A white family in distress was befriended by a colored woman. The Negroes +contributed also to the support of missionaries in Jamaica and during +the years from 1836 to 1840 assisted twenty-five emancipated slaves on +their way from Cincinnati to Mercer County, Ohio.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-34" id="fna1-1-34">34</a></sup></p> + +<p>During this period they had made progress in other than material things. +Their improvement in religion and morals was remarkable. They then had +four flourishing Sabbath Schools with 310 regular attendants, one +Baptist and two Methodist churches with a membership of 800, a "Total +Abstinence Temperance Society" for adults numbering 450, and a "Sabbath +School or Youth's Society" of 180 members. A few of these violated their +pledges, but when we consider the fact that one fourth of the entire +colored population belonged to temperance organizations while less than +one tenth of the whites were thus connected, we must admit that this was +no mean achievement. Among the Negroes public sentiment was then such +that no colored man could openly sell intoxicating drinks. This growing +temperance was exhibited, too, in the decreasing fondness for dress and +finery. There was less tendency to strive merely to get a fine suit of +clothes and exhibit one's self on the streets. <a id="pg12"></a>Places of vice were not +so much frequented and barber shops which on Sundays formerly became a +rendezvous for the idle and the garrulous were with few exceptions closed +by 1840. This influence of the religious organizations reached also +beyond the limits of Cincinnati. A theological student from the State of +New York said after spending some time in New Orleans, that the influence +of the elevation of the colored people of Cincinnati was felt all the way +down the river. Travelers often spoke of the difference in the appearance +of barbers and waiters on the boats.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-35" id="fna1-1-35">35</a></sup></p> + +<p>It was in fact a brighter day for the colored people. In 1840 an observer +said that they had improved faster than any other people in the city. +The <em>Cincinnati Gazette</em> after characterizing certain Negroes as being +imprudent and vicious, said of others: "Many of these are peaceable and +industrious, raising respectable families and acquiring property."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-36" id="fna1-1-36">36</a></sup> +Mr. James H. Perkins, a respectable citizen of the city, asserted that +the day school which the colored children attended had shown by +examination that it was as good as any other in the city. He said +further: "There is no question, I presume, that the colored population +of Cincinnati, oppressed as it has been by our state laws as well as by +prejudice, has risen more rapidly than almost any other people in any +part of the world."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-37" id="fna1-1-37">37</a></sup> Within three or four years their property had +more than doubled; their schools had become firmly established, and their +churches and Sunday Schools had grown as rapidly as any other religious +institutions in the city. Trusting to good conduct and character, they +had risen to a prosperous position in the eyes of those whose prejudices +would "allow them to look through the skin to the soul."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-38" id="fna1-1-38">38</a></sup></p> + +<p>The colored people had had too many enemies in Cincinnati, however, to +expect that they had overcome all opposition. The prejudice of certain +labor groups against the <a id="pg13"></a>Negroes increased in proportion to the prosperity +of the latter. That they had been able to do as well as they had was due +to the lack of strength on the part of the labor organizations then +forming to counteract the sentiment of fair play for the Negroes. Their +labor competed directly with that of the whites and began again to excite +"jealousy and heart burning."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-39" id="fna1-1-39">39</a></sup> The Germans, who were generally toiling +up from poverty, seemed to exhibit less prejudice; but the unfortunate +Irish bore it grievously that even a few Negroes should outstrip some of +their race in the economic struggle.</p> + +<p>In 1841 there followed several clashes which aggravated the situation. In +the month of June one Burnett referred to as "a mischievous and swaggering +Englishman running a cake shop," had harbored a runaway slave. When a man +named McCalla, his reputed master, came with an officer to reclaim the +fugitive, Burnett and his family resisted them. The Burnetts were committed +to answer for this infraction of the law and finally were adequately +punished. The proslavery mob which had gathered undertook to destroy +their home but the officials prevented them. Besides, early in August +according to a report, a German citizen defending his blackberry patch +near the city was attacked by two Negroes and stabbed so severely that +he died. Then about three weeks thereafter, according to another rumor, +a very respectable lady was insultingly accosted by two colored men, and +when she began to flee two others rudely thrust themselves before her on +the sidewalk. But in this case, as in most others growing out of rumors, +no one could ever say who the lady or her so-called assailants were. At +the same time, too, the situation was further aggravated by an almost +sudden influx of irresponsible Negroes from various parts, increasing +the number of those engaged in noisy frolics which had become a nuisance +to certain white neighbors.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-40" id="fna1-1-40">40</a></sup></p> + +<p>Accordingly, on Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of August, <a id="pg14"></a>there broke out on the +corner of Sixth and Broadway a quarrel in which two or three persons were +wounded. On the following night the fracas was renewed. A group of ruffians +attacked the Dumas Hotel, a colored establishment, on McCallister Street, +demanding the surrender of a Negro, who, they believed, was concealed +there. As the Negroes of the neighborhood came to the assistance of their +friends in the hotel the mob had to withdraw. On Thursday night there took +place another clash between a group of young men and boys and a few Negroes +who seriously wounded one or two of the former. On Friday evening the mob +incited to riotous acts by an influx of white ruffians, seemingly from the +steamboats and the Kentucky side of the river, openly assembled in Fifth +Street Market without being molested by the police, armed themselves and +marched to Broadway and Sixth Street, shouting and swearing. They attacked +a colored confectionery store near by, demolishing its doors and windows. +James W. Piatt, an influential citizen, and the mayor then addressed the +disorderly persons, vainly exhorting them to peace and obedience to +the law. Moved by passionate entreaties to execute their poorly prepared +plan, the assailants advanced and attacked the Negroes with stones. The +blacks, however, had not been idle. They had secured sufficient guns and +ammunition to fire into the mob such a volley that it had to fall back. +The aggressors rallied again, however, only to be in like manner repulsed. +Men were wounded on both sides and carried off and reported dead. The +Negroes advanced courageously, and according to a reporter, fired down +the street into the mass of ruffians, causing a hasty retreat. This +mélée continued until about one o'clock when a part of the mob secured +an iron six pounder, hauled it to the place of combat against the +exhortations of the powerless mayor, and fired on the Negroes. With this +unusual advantage the blacks were forced to retreat, many of them going +to the hills. About two o'clock the mayor of the city brought out a +portion of the "military" which succeeded in holding the mob at bay.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-41" id="fna1-1-41">41</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg15"></a>On the next day the colored people in the district under fire were +surrounded by sentinels and put under martial law. Indignation meetings +of law-abiding citizens were held on Saturday to pass resolutions, +denouncing abolitionists and mobs and making an appeal to the people and +the civil authorities to uphold the law. The Negroes also held a meeting +and respectfully assured the mayor and citizens that they would use +every effort to conduct themselves orderly and expressed their readiness +to give bond according to the law of 1807 or leave the city quietly +within a specified time. But these steps availed little when the police +winked at this violence. The rioters boldly occupied the streets without +arrest and continued their work until Sunday. The mayor, sheriff and +marshal went to the battle ground about three o'clock but the mob still +had control. The officers could not even remove those Negroes who +complied with the law of leaving. The authorities finally hit upon the +scheme of decreasing the excitement by inducing about 300 colored men to +go to jail for security after they had been assured that their wives and +children would be protected. The Negroes consented and were accordingly +committed, but the cowardly element again attacked these helpless +dependents like savages. At the same time other rioters stormed the +office of <em>The Philanthropist</em> and broke up the press. The mob continued +its work until it dispersed from mere exhaustion. The Governor finally +came to the city and issued a proclamation setting forth the gravity of +the situation. The citizens and civil authorities rallied to his support +and strong patrols prevented further disorder.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-42" id="fna1-1-42">42</a></sup></p> + +<p>It is impossible to say exactly how many were killed and wounded on either +side. It is probable that several were killed and twenty or thirty +variously wounded, though but few dangerously. Forty of the mob were +arrested and imprisoned. Exactly what was done with all of them is not yet +known. It seems that few, if any of them, however, were severely punished. +The Negroes who had been committed <a id="pg16"></a>for safe keeping were thereafter +disposed of in various ways. Some were discharged on certificates of +nativity, others gave bond for their support and good behavior, a few were +dismissed as non-residents, a number of them were discharged by a justice +of the Court of Common Pleas, and the rest were held indefinitely.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-43" id="fna1-1-43">43</a></sup></p> + +<p>This upheaval had two important results. The enemies of the Negroes were +convinced that there were sufficient law-abiding citizens to secure to the +refugees protection from mob violence; and because of these riots their +sympathizers became more attached to the objects of their philanthropy. +Abolitionists, Free Soilers and Whigs fearlessly attacked the laws which +kept the Negroes under legal and economic disabilities. Petitions +praying that these measures be repealed were sent to the legislature. +The proslavery element of the State, however, was equally militant. The +legislators, therefore, had to consider such questions as extradition +and immigration, State aid and colonization, the employment of colored +men in the militia service, the extension of the elective franchise, and +the admission of colored children to the public schools.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-44" id="fna1-1-44">44</a></sup> Most of +these "Black Laws" remained until after the war, but in 1848 they were +so modified as to give the Negroes legal standing in courts and to +provide for their children such education as a school tax on the +property of colored persons would allow<sup><a href="#fn1-1-45" id="fna1-1-45">45</a></sup> and further changed in +1849<sup><a href="#fn1-1-46" id="fna1-1-46">46</a></sup> so as to make the provision for education more effective.</p> + +<p>The question of repealing the other oppressive laws came up in the +Convention of 1850. It seemed that the cause of the Negroes had made +much progress in that a larger num<a id="pg17"></a>ber had begun to speak for them. But +practically all of the members of the convention who stood for the Negroes +were from the Western Reserve. After much heated discussion the colored +people were by a large majority of votes still left under the disabilities +of being disqualified to sit on juries, unable to obtain a legal residence +so as to enter a charitable institution supported by the State, and +denied admission to public schools established for white children.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-47" id="fna1-1-47">47</a></sup></p> + +<p>The greatest problem of the Negroes, however, was one of education. There +were more persons interested in furnishing them facilities of education +than in repealing the prohibitive measures, feeling that the other +matters would adjust themselves after giving them adequate training. But +it required some time and effort yet before much could be effected in +Cincinnati because of the sympathizers with the South. The mere passing +of the law of 1849 did not prove to be altogether a victory. Complying +with the provisions of this act the Negroes elected trustees, organized +a system, and employed teachers, relying on the money allotted them by +the law on the basis of a per capita division of the school fund received +by the board of education. So great was the prejudice of people of the +city that the school officials refused to turn over the required funds +on the grounds that the colored trustees were not electors and, therefore, +could not be office-holders, qualified to receive and disburse funds. +Under the leadership of John I. Gaines, therefore, the trustees called +an indignation meeting and raised sufficient money to employ Flamen +Ball, an attorney, to secure a writ of mandamus. The case was contested +by the city officials, even in the Supreme Court, which decided against +the officious whites.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-48" id="fna1-1-48">48</a></sup></p> + +<p>This decision did not solve the whole problem in Cincinnati. The amount +raised was small and even had it been adequate to employ teachers, they +were handicapped by another decision that no portion of it could be +used for <a id="pg18"></a>building schoolhouses. After a short period of accomplishing +practically nothing the law was amended in 1853<sup><a href="#fn1-1-49" id="fna1-1-49">49</a></sup> so as to transfer the +control of such schools to the managers of the white system. This was +taken as a reflection on the blacks of the city and tended to make them +refuse to cooperate with the white board. On account of the failure of +this body to act effectively prior to 1856, the people of color were again +given power to elect their own trustees.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-50" id="fna1-1-50">50</a></sup></p> + +<p>During this contest certain Negroes of Cincinnati were endeavoring to make +good their claim to equal rights in the public schools. Acting upon this +contention a colored man sent his son to a public school which, on account +of his presence, became a center of unusual excitement. Isabella Newhall, +the teacher, to whom he went, immediately complained to the board of +education, requesting that he be expelled because of his color. After +"due deliberation" the board of education decided by a vote of 15 to 10 +that the colored pupil would have to withdraw. Thereupon two members of +that body, residing in the district of the timorous teacher, resigned.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-51" id="fna1-1-51">51</a></sup></p> + +<p>Many Negroes belonging to the mulatto class, however, were more +successful in getting into the white schools. In 1849 certain parents +complained that children of color were being admitted to the public +schools, and in fact there were in one of them two daughters of a white +father and a mulatto mother. On complaining about this to the principal +of the school in question, the indignant patrons were asked to point out +the undesirable pupils. "They could not; for," says Sir Charles Lyell, +"the two girls were not only among the best pupils, but better looking +and less dark than many of the other pupils."<sup><a href="#fn1-1-52" id="fna1-1-52">52</a></sup></p> + +<p>Thereafter, however, much progress in the education of the colored +people among themselves was noted. By 1844 <a id="pg19"></a>they had six schools of +their own and before the war two well-supported public schools.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-53" id="fna1-1-53">53</a></sup> +Among their teachers were such useful persons as Mrs. M. J. Corbin, Miss +Lucy Blackburn, Miss Anne Ryall, Miss Virginia C. Tilley, Miss Martha E. +Anderson, William H. Parham, William R. Casey, John G. Mitchell and +Peter H. Clark.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-54" id="fna1-1-54">54</a></sup> The pupils were showing their appreciation by +regular attendance, excellent deportment, and progress in the +acquisition of knowledge. Speaking of these Negroes in 1855, John P. +Foote said that they shared with the white citizens that respect for +education and the diffusion of knowledge, which has been one of their +"characteristics," and that they had, therefore, been more generally +intelligent than free persons of color not only in other parts of this +country but in all other parts of the world.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-55" id="fna1-1-55">55</a></sup> It was in appreciation +of the worth of this class to the community that in 1844<sup><a href="#fn1-1-56" id="fna1-1-56">56</a></sup> Nicholas +Longworth helped them to establish an orphan asylum and in 1858 built +for them a comfortable school building, leasing it with a privilege of +purchasing it within four years.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-57" id="fna1-1-57">57</a></sup> They met these requirements within +the stipulated time and in 1859 secured through other agencies the +construction of another building in the western portion of the city.</p> + +<p>The most successful of these schools, however, was the Gilmore High School, +a private institution founded by an English clergyman. This institution +offered instruction in the fundamentals and in some vocational studies. +It was supported liberally by the benevolent element of the white people +and patronized and appreciated by the Negroes as the first and only +institution offering them the opportunity for thorough training. It +became popular throughout the country, attracting Negroes from as far +South as New Or<a id="pg20"></a>leans<sup><a href="#fn1-1-58" id="fna1-1-58">58</a></sup> Rich Southern planters found it convenient to +have their mulatto children educated in this high school.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-59" id="fna1-1-59">59</a></sup></p> + +<p>The work of these schools was substantially supplemented by that of the +colored churches. They directed their attention not only to moral and +religious welfare of the colored people but also to their mental +development. Through their well-attended Sunday-schools these institutions +furnished many Negroes of all classes the facilities of elementary +education. Such opportunities were offered at the Baker Street Baptist +Church, the Third Street Baptist Church, the Colored Christian Church, +the New Street Methodist Church, and the African Methodist Church. Among +the preachers then promoting this cause were John Warren, Rufus Conrad, +Henry Simpson, and Wallace Shelton. Many of the old citizens of +Cincinnati often refer with pride to the valuable services rendered by +these leaders.</p> + +<p>In things economic the Negroes were exceptionally prosperous after the +forties. Cincinnati had then become a noted pork-packing and manufacturing +center. The increasing canal and river traffic and finally the rise of the +railroad system tended to make it thrive more than ever. Many colored +men grew up with the city. A Negro had in the East End on Calvert Street +a large cooperage establishment which made barrels for the packers. +Knight and Bell were successful contractors noted for their skill and +integrity and employed by the best white people of the city. Robert +Harlan made considerable money buying and selling race horses. Thompson +Cooley had a successful pickling establishment. On Broadway A. V. Thompson, +a colored tailor, conducted a thriving business. J. Pressley and Thomas +Ball were the well-known photographers of the city, established in a +handsomely furnished modern gallery which was patronized by some of the +wealthiest people. Samuel T. Wilcox, who owed his success to his position +as a steward on an Ohio River line, thereafter went into the grocery +business and built up <a id="pg21"></a>such a large trade among the aristocratic families +that he accumulated $59,000 worth of property by 1859.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-60" id="fna1-1-60">60</a></sup></p> + +<p>A more useful Negro had for years been toiling upward in this city. This +man was Henry Boyd, a Kentucky freedman, who had helped to overcome the +prejudice against colored mechanics in that city by exhibiting the +highest efficiency. He patented a corded bed which became very popular, +especially in the Southwest. With this article he built up a creditable +manufacturing business, employing from 18 to 25 white and colored +men.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-61" id="fna1-1-61">61</a></sup> He was, therefore, known as one of the desirable men of the +city. Two things, however, seemingly interfered with his business. In +the first place, certain white men, who became jealous of his success, +burned him out and the insurance companies refused to carry him any +longer. Moreover, having to do chiefly with white men he was charged by +his people with favoring the miscegenation of races. Whether or not this +was well founded is not yet known, but his children and grandchildren +did marry whites and were lost in the so-called superior race.</p> + +<p>A much more interesting Negro appeared in Cincinnati, however, in 1847. +This was Robert Gordon, formerly the slave of a rich yachtsman of +Richmond, Virginia. His master turned over to him a coal yard which he +handled so faithfully that his owner gave him all of the slack resulting +from the handling of the coal. This he sold to the local manufacturers +and blacksmiths of the city, accumulating thereby in the course of time +thousands of dollars. He purchased himself in 1846 and set out for free +soil. He went first to Philadelphia and then to Newburyport, but finding +that these places did not suit him, he proceeded to Cincinnati. He +arrived there with $15,000, some of which he immediately invested in the +coal business in which he had already achieved <a id="pg22"></a>marked success. He +employed bookkeepers, had his own wagons, built his own docks on the +river, and bought coal by barges.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-62" id="fna1-1-62">62</a></sup></p> + +<p>Unwilling to see this Negro do so well, the white coal dealers endeavored +to force him out of the business by lowering the price to the extent +that he could not afford to sell. They did not know of his acumen and +the large amount of capital at his disposal. He sent to the coal yards +of his competitors mulattoes who could pass for white, using them to +fill his current orders from his foes' supplies that he might save his +own coal for the convenient day. In the course of a few months the river +and all the canals by which coal was brought to Cincinnati froze up and +remained so until spring. Gordon was then able to dispose of his coal at +a higher price than it had ever been sold in that city. This so increased +his wealth and added to his reputation that no one thereafter thought of +opposing him.</p> + +<p>Gordon continued in the coal business until 1865 when he retired. During +the Civil War he invested his money in United States bonds. When these +bonds were called in, he invested in real estate on Walnut Hills, which +he held until his death in 1884. This estate descended to his daughter +Virginia Ann Gordon who married George H. Jackson, a descendant of slaves +in the Custis family of Arlington, Virginia. Mr. Jackson is now a resident +of Chicago and is managing this estate.<sup><a href="#fn1-1-63" id="fna1-1-63">63</a></sup> Having lived through the +antebellum and subsequent periods, Mr. Jackson has been made to wonder +whether the Negroes of Cincinnati are doing as well to-day as Gordon and +his colaborers were. This question requires some attention, but an +inquiry as to exactly what forces have operated to impede the progress +of a work so auspiciously begun would lead us beyond the limits set for +this dissertation.</p> + +<p class="author">C. G. Woodson</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-1"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + +<p id="fn1-1-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-1" id="fnaa1-1-1">return</a>]</span>1. Quillin, "The Color Line in Ohio," 18.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-2" id="fnaa1-1-2">return</a>]</span>2. "Tyrannical Libertymen," 10-11; Locke, "Antislavery," 31-32; +Branagan, "Serious Remonstrance," 18.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-3" id="fnaa1-1-3">return</a>]</span>3. Woodson, "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861," 230-231.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-4" id="fnaa1-1-4">return</a>]</span>4. Constitution, Article I, Sections 2, 6.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-5" id="fnaa1-1-5">return</a>]</span>5. Laws of Ohio, II, 63.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-6" id="fnaa1-1-6">return</a>]</span>6. Laws of Ohio, V, 53.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-7" id="fnaa1-1-7">return</a>]</span>7. Hickok, "The Negro in Ohio," 41, 42.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-8" id="fnaa1-1-8">return</a>]</span>8. Warden, "Statistical, Political and Historical Account of the United +States of North America," 264.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-9" id="fnaa1-1-9">return</a>]</span>9. Quillin, "The Color Line in Ohio," 32.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-10" id="fnaa1-1-10">return</a>]</span>10. The Census of the United States, from 1800 to 1850.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-11" id="fnaa1-1-11">return</a>]</span>11. Flint's Letters in Thwaite's "Early Western Travels," IX, 239.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-12" id="fnaa1-1-12">return</a>]</span>12. Cist, "Cincinnati in 1841," 37; <em>Cincinnati Daily Gazette</em>, Sept. +14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-13" id="fnaa1-1-13">return</a>]</span>13. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn1-1-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-14" id="fnaa1-1-14">return</a>]</span>14. United States Census, 1850.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-15" id="fnaa1-1-15">return</a>]</span>15. <em>Ohio State Journal</em>, May 3, 1827; <em>African Repository</em>, III, 254.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-16" id="fnaa1-1-16">return</a>]</span>16. Abdy, "Journal of a Tour in the United States," III, 62.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-17" id="fnaa1-1-17">return</a>]</span>17. Jay, "Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery," 27, 373, 385, 387; +Minutes of the Convention of the Colored People of Ohio, 1849.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-18" id="fnaa1-1-18">return</a>]</span>18. Barber, "A Report on the Condition of the Colored People of Ohio," +1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-19" id="fnaa1-1-19">return</a>]</span>19. Proceedings of the Ohio Antislavery Convention, 1835, 19.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-20" id="fnaa1-1-20">return</a>]</span>20. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn1-1-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-21" id="fnaa1-1-21">return</a>]</span>21. Proceedings of the Ohio Antislavery Convention, 1835, 19.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-22" id="fnaa1-1-22">return</a>]</span>22. <em>African Repository</em>, V, 185.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-23" id="fnaa1-1-23">return</a>]</span>23. <em>African Repository</em>, V, 185.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-24" id="fnaa1-1-24">return</a>]</span>24. For a lengthy account of these efforts see Woodson's "The Education +of the Negro Prior to 1861," 245, 328, 329; and Hickok, "The Negro in +Ohio," 83, 88.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-25" id="fnaa1-1-25">return</a>]</span>25. Fairchild, "Oberlin: Its Origin, Progress and Results."</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-26" id="fnaa1-1-26">return</a>]</span>26. Howe, "Historical Collections of Ohio," 356.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-27" id="fnaa1-1-27">return</a>]</span>27. <em>The Southern Workman</em>, XXXVII, 169.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-28" id="fnaa1-1-28">return</a>]</span>28. For a full account see Howe, "Historical Collections of Ohio," +225-226.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-29" id="fnaa1-1-29">return</a>]</span>29. Barber, "Report on the Condition of the Colored People in Ohio," +1840, and <em>The Philanthropist</em>, July 14 and 21, 1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-30" id="fnaa1-1-30">return</a>]</span>30. These facts are taken from A. D. Barber's "Report on the Condition +of the Colored People in Ohio" and from other articles contributed to +<em>The Philanthropist</em> in July, 1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-31" id="fnaa1-1-31">return</a>]</span>31. In this case I have taken the statements of Negroes who were +employed in this capacity.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-32" id="fnaa1-1-32">return</a>]</span>32. <em>The Philanthropist</em>, July 14 and 24, 1840; and May 26, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-33" id="fnaa1-1-33">return</a>]</span>33. Hickok, "The Negro in Ohio," 89.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-34" id="fnaa1-1-34">return</a>]</span>34. <em>The Philanthropist</em>, July 14 and 21, 1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-35" id="fnaa1-1-35">return</a>]</span>35. <em>The Philanthropist</em>, July 21, 1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-36" id="fnaa1-1-36">return</a>]</span>36. <em>The Cincinnati Daily Gazette</em>, September 14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-37" id="fnaa1-1-37">return</a>]</span>37. <em>The Philanthropist</em>, July 21, 1840.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-38" id="fnaa1-1-38">return</a>]</span>38. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn1-1-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-39" id="fnaa1-1-39">return</a>]</span>39. <em>The Cincinnati Daily Gazette</em>, September 14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-40" id="fnaa1-1-40">return</a>]</span>40. A detailed account of these clashes is given in <em>The Cincinnati +Daily Gazette</em>, September 14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-41" id="fnaa1-1-41">return</a>]</span>41. <em>The Cincinnati Daily Gazette</em>, September, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-42" id="fnaa1-1-42">return</a>]</span>42. A very interesting account of this riot is given in Howe's +"Historical Collections of Ohio," pages 226-228.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-43" id="fnaa1-1-43">return</a>]</span>43. It was discovered that not a few of the mob came from Kentucky. +About eleven o'clock on Saturday night a bonfire was lighted on that +side of the river and loud shouts were sent up as if triumph had been +achieved. "In some cases." says a reporter, "the directors were boys who +suggested the point of attack, put the vote, declared the result and led +the way."--Cin. Daily Gaz., Sept. 14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-44" id="fnaa1-1-44">return</a>]</span>44. Hickok, "The Negro in Ohio," 90 et seq.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-45" id="fnaa1-1-45">return</a>]</span>45. Laws of Ohio, XL, 81.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-46" id="fnaa1-1-46">return</a>]</span>46. <em>Ibid.</em>, LIII, 118.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-47" id="fnaa1-1-47">return</a>]</span>47. The Convention Debates.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-48"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-48" id="fnaa1-1-48">return</a>]</span>48. Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1871, +page 372.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-49"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-49" id="fnaa1-1-49">return</a>]</span>49. Laws of Ohio.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-50"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-50" id="fnaa1-1-50">return</a>]</span>50. <em>Ibid.</em>, LIII, 118.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-51"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-51" id="fnaa1-1-51">return</a>]</span>51. <em>The New York Tribune</em>, February 19, 1855.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-52"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-52" id="fnaa1-1-52">return</a>]</span>52. Lyell, "A Second Visit to the United States of North America," II, +295, 296.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-53"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-53" id="fnaa1-1-53">return</a>]</span>53. <em>The Weekly Herald and Philanthropist</em>, June 26, 1844, August 6, +1844, and January 1, 1845.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-54"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-54" id="fnaa1-1-54">return</a>]</span>54. The Cincinnati Directory of 1860.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-55"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-55" id="fnaa1-1-55">return</a>]</span>55. Foote, "The Schools of Cincinnati," 92.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-56"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-56" id="fnaa1-1-56">return</a>]</span>56. <em>The Weekly Herald and Philanthropist</em>, August 23, 1844.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-57"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-57" id="fnaa1-1-57">return</a>]</span>57. Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 372.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-58"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-58" id="fnaa1-1-58">return</a>]</span>58. Simmons, "Men of Mark," 490.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-59"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-59" id="fnaa1-1-59">return</a>]</span>59. A white slaveholder, a graduate of Amherst, taught in this school. +See <em>Weekly Herald and Philanthropist</em>, June 26, 1844.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-60"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-60" id="fnaa1-1-60">return</a>]</span>60. These facts were obtained from oral statements of Negroes who were +living in Cincinnati at this time; from M. R. Delany's "The Condition of +the Colored People in the United States"; from A. D. Barber's "Report on +the Condition of the Colored People in Ohio," 1840; and from various +Cincinnati Directories.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-61"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-61" id="fnaa1-1-61">return</a>]</span>61. Delany, "The Condition of the Colored People in the United States," +92.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-62"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-62" id="fnaa1-1-62">return</a>]</span>62. The Cincinnati Directory for 1860.</p> + +<p id="fn1-1-63"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-1-63" id="fnaa1-1-63">return</a>]</span>63. For the leading facts concerning the life of Robert Gordon I have +depended on the statements of his children and acquaintances and on the +various directories and documents giving evidence concerning the business +men of Cincinnati.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-2"> +<h2><a id="pg23"></a>The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards<sup><a href="#fn1-2-1" id="fna1-2-1">1</a></sup></h2> + + + +<p>The State of Virginia has been the home of distinguished persons of both +sexes of the white and colored races. A dissertation on the noted +colored women of Virginia would find a small circle of readers but +would, nevertheless, contain interesting accounts of some of the most +important achievements of the people of that State. The story of Maria +Louise Moore-Richards would be a large chapter of such a narrative. She +was born of white and Negro parentage in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in +1800. Her father was Edwin Moore, a Scotchman of Edinburgh. Her mother +was a free woman of color, born in Toronto when it was called York. +Exactly how they came to Fredericksburg is not known. It seems, however, +that they had been well established in that city when Maria Louise Moore +was born.</p> + +<p>This woman was fortunate in coming into the world at that time. So +general had been the efforts for the elevation of the colored people +that free Negroes had many of the privileges later given only to white +people. Virginia then and for a long time thereafter ranked among the +commonwealths most liberal toward the Negro. The dissemination of +information among them was not then restricted, private teaching of +slaves was common, and progressive communities maintained colored +schools.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-1a" id="fna1-2-1a">1a</a></sup> In Fredericksburg such opportunities were not rare. The +parents of Maria Louise Moore fortunately associated with the free Negroes +who constituted an industrial class with adequate means to provide for +the thorough training of their children. Miss Moore, therefore, easily +acquired the rudiments of education and attained some distinction as a +student of history.</p> + +<p><a id="pg24"></a>In 1820 Miss Moore was married to Adolphe Richards, a native of the Island +of Guadaloupe. He was a Latin of some Negro blood, had noble ancestry, and +had led an honorable career. Educated in London and resident in Guadaloupe, +he spoke both English and French fluently. Because of poor health in +later years he was directed by his friends to the salubrious climate of +Virginia. He settled at Fredericksburg, where he soon became captivated +by the charms of the talented Maria Louise Moore. On learning of his +marriage, his people and friends marveled that a man of his standing had +married a colored woman or a Southern woman at all.</p> + +<p>Adjusting himself to this new environment, Mr. Richards opened a shop +for wood-turning, painting and glazing. It is highly probable that he +learned these trades in the West Indies, but having adequate means to +maintain himself, he had not depended on his mechanical skill. In +Fredericksburg he had the respect and support of the best white people, +passing as one of such well-to-do free Negroes as the Lees, the Cooks, +the De Baptistes, who were contractors, and the Williamses, who were +contractors and brickmakers. His success was in a large measure due to +the good standing of the family of Mrs. Richards and to the wisdom with +which she directed this West Indian in his new environment.</p> + +<p>They had in all fourteen children, the training of whom was largely the +work of the mother. All of them were well grounded in the rudiments of +education and given a taste for higher things. In the course of time when +the family grew larger the task of educating them grew more arduous. +Some of them probably attended the school conducted by a Scotch-Irishman +in the home of Richard De Baptiste. When the reaction against the teaching +of Negroes effected the closing of the colored schools in Virginia, +this one continued clandestinely for many years. Determined to have her +children better educated, Mrs. Richards sent one of her sons to a school +conducted by Mrs. Beecham, a remarkable English woman, assisted by her +daughter. These women were <a id="pg25"></a>bent on doing what they could to evade the +law interpreted as prohibiting any one from either sitting or standing +to teach a black to read. They, therefore, gathered the colored children +around them while they lay prostrate on the couch to teach them. For +further evasion they kept on hand splinters of wood which they had the +children dip into a match preparation and use with a flint for ignition +to make it appear that they were showing them how to make matches. When +this scheme seemed impracticable, one of the boys was sent to Washington +in the District of Columbia to attend the school maintained by John F. +Cook, a successful educator and founder of the Fifteenth Street +Presbyterian Church. This young man was then running the risk of +expatriation, for Virginia had in 1838 passed a law, prohibiting the +return to that State of those Negroes, who after the prohibition of +their education had begun to attend schools in other parts.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-2" id="fna1-2-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>It was because of these conditions that in 1851 when her husband died +Mrs. Richards sold out her property and set out to find a better home in +Detroit, Michigan. Some of the best white people of Fredericksburg +commended her for this step, saying that she was too respectable a woman +to suffer such humiliation as the reaction had entailed upon <a id="pg26"></a>persons of +her race.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-3" id="fna1-2-3">3</a></sup> She was followed by practically all of the best free Negroes +of Fredericksburg. Among these were the Lees, the Cooks, the Williamses +and the De Baptistes. A few years later this group attracted the Pelham +family from Petersburg. They too had tired of seeing their rights +gradually taken away and, therefore, transplanted themselves to Detroit.</p> + +<p><a id="pg27"></a>The attitude of the people of Detroit toward immigrating Negroes had +been reflected by the position the people of that section had taken from +the time of the earliest settlements. Slavery was prohibited by the +Ordinance of 1787. In 1807 there arose a case in which a woman was +required to answer for the possession of two slaves. Her contention was +that they were slaves on British territory at the time of the surrender +of the post in 1796 and that Jay's Treaty assured them to her. Her +contention was sustained.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-4" id="fna1-2-4">4</a></sup> A few days later a resident of Canada +attempted under this ruling to secure the arrest and return of some +mulatto and Indian slaves who had escaped from Canada. The court held +that slavery did not exist in Michigan except in the case of slaves in +the possession of the British settlers within the Northwest Territory +July 11, 1796, and that there was no obligation to give up fugitives +from a foreign jurisdiction. An effort was made to take the slaves by +force but the agent of the owner was tarred and feathered.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>Generally speaking, Detroit adhered to this position.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-4" id="fna1-2-4a">4a</a></sup> <a id="pg28"></a>In 1827 there +was passed an act providing for the registry of the names of all colored +persons, requiring the possession of a certificate showing that they +were free and a bond in the sum of $500 for their good behavior.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-5" id="fna1-2-5">5</a></sup> This +law was obnoxious to the growing sentiment of freedom in Detroit and was +not enforced until the Riot of 1833. This uprising was an attack on the +Negroes because a courageous group of them had effected the rescue and +escape of one Thornton Blackburn and his wife, who had been arrested by +the sheriff as alleged fugitives from Kentucky.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-6" id="fna1-2-6">6</a></sup> The anti-slavery +feeling considerably increased thereafter. The Detroit Anti-Slavery +Society was formed in 1837, other societies to secure the relief and +escape of slaves quickly followed and still another was organized to find +employment and purchase homes for refugees.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-7" id="fna1-2-7">7</a></sup> This change of sentiment +is further <a id="pg29"></a>evidenced by the fact that in 1850 it was necessary to call +out the three companies of volunteers to quell an incipient riot occasioned +by the arrest and attempt to return a runaway slave in accordance with the +Fugitive Slave Law. Save the general troubles incident to the draft riots +of the Northern cities of 1863,<sup><a href="#fn1-2-8" id="fna1-2-8">8</a></sup> Detroit maintained this benevolent +attitude toward Negroes seeking refuge.</p> + +<p>In this favorable community the Richards colony easily prospered. The Lees +well established themselves in their Northern homes and soon won the +respect of the community. Most of the members of the Williams family +confined themselves to their trade of bricklaying and amassed considerable +wealth. One of Mr. Williams's daughters married a well-to-do Waring +living then at Wauseon, Ohio; another became the wife of one Chappée, who +is now a stenographer in Detroit; and the third united in matrimony with +James H. Cole, who became the head of a well-to-do family of Detroit. Then +there were the Cooks descending from Lomax B. Cook, a broker of no little +business ability. Will Marion Cook, the musician, belongs to this family. +The De Baptistes, too, were among the first to get a foothold in this new +environment and prospered materially from their experience and knowledge +acquired in Fredericksburg as contractors.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-8a" id="fna1-2-8a">8a</a></sup> From this group came Richard +De Baptiste, who in his day was the most noted colored Baptist preacher +in the Northwest. The Pelhams were no less successful in establishing +themselves in the economic world. They enjoyed a high reputation in the +community and had the sympathy and cooperation of the influential white +people in the <a id="pg30"></a>city. Out of this family came Robert A. Pelham, for years +editor of a weekly in Detroit, and from 1901 to the present time an +employee of the Federal Government in Washington.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-9" id="fna1-2-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>The children of Mrs. Richards were in no sense inferior to the descendants +of the other families. She lived to see her work bear fruit in the +distinguished services they rendered and the desirable connections which +they made after the Civil War. Her daughter Julia married Thomas F. Carey +who, after conducting a business for some years in New York, moved to +Toronto, where he died. From this union came the wife of D. Augustus +Straker. Her daughter Evalina married Dr. Joseph Ferguson who, prior to +1861, lived in Richmond, Virginia, uniting the three occupations of +leecher, cupper and barber. This led to his coming to Detroit to study +medicine. He was graduated there and practiced for many years in that city. +Before the Civil War her son John D. Richards was sent to Richmond to learn +a trade. There he met and became the lifelong friend of Judge George L. +Ruffin, who was then living in that city.<sup><a href="#fn1-2-10" id="fna1-2-10">10</a></sup></p> + +<p>The most prominent and the most useful person to emerge from this group +of pioneering Negroes was her daughter Fannie M. Richards. She was born +in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1, 1841. As her people left that +State when she was quite young she did not see so much of the intolerable +conditions as did the older members of the family. Miss Richards was +successful in getting an early start in education. Desiring to have +better training than what was then given to persons of color in Detroit, +she went to Toronto. There she studied English, history, drawing and +needlework. In later years she attended the Teachers Training School in +Detroit. Her first thought was to take up teaching that she might do +something to elevate her people. She, therefore, opened a private school +in 1863, doing a higher grade of work than that then undertaken in the +public schools. About 1862, however, a colored public <a id="pg31"></a>school had been +opened by a white man named Whitbeck. Miss Richards began to think that +she should have such a school herself.</p> + +<p>Her story as to how she realized her ambition is very interesting. Going to +her private school one morning, she saw a carpenter repairing a building. +Upon inquiry she learned that it was to be opened as Colored School Number +2. She went immediately to William D. Wilkins, a member of the board of +education, who, impressed with the personality of the young woman, escorted +her to the office of superintendent of schools, Duane Dotty. After some +discussion of the matter Miss Richards filed an application, assured that +she would be notified to take the next examination. At the appointed time +she presented herself along with several other applicants who hoped to +obtain the position. Miss Richards ranked highest and was notified to +report for duty the following September. Early one morning she proceeded to +her private school in time to inform her forty pupils of the desirable +change and conducted them in a body to their new home.</p> + +<p>Miss Richards taught in this building until 1871, when by a liberal +interpretation of the courts, the schools were mixed by ignoring race +distinction wherever it occurred in the school laws of Michigan. She was +then transferred to the Everett School where she remained until last June +when she was retired on a pension after having served that system half a +century. Although she taught very few colored children she said to a +reporter several years ago:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "I have never been made to feel in any way that my race has been a + handicap to me. Neither my pupils nor the teachers have ever shown + prejudice; I do not doubt that it exists; I shall be in Heaven long + before it has all disappeared, but I say it is with a colored + teacher as it is with a white one. Her work is the only thing that + counts. I have never been called before the board for a reprimand in + all my years of teaching. The methods have changed a good deal since + the time that I started in and it would be easy to lag behind, but I + try not to. It means continual reading and study to keep up with the + modern way of doing things, but I manage to <a id="pg32"></a>do it, and when the + time comes that I cannot do my work in a satisfactory manner I want + the Board of Education to discharge me and get some one else."</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In testimony to these facts one of the daily papers of Detroit wrote her up +in 1910, saying that she had kept her interest in modern pedagogic methods, +maintained a high standard of scholarship in her school, and retained her +sympathy with little children, who had rewarded her devotion to her work +with their appreciation and love. To show how well she is loved by her +pupils the writer was careful to state that these children as a gay group +often surrounded her on her way to school, clinging to her hands, crowding +about her as best they may, all chattering and pouring out accounts of +their little doings. "Frequently," says this writer, "she is stopped on the +street by grown men and women who long ago were her pupils and who have +remembered her, though with the passing of the years, and the new classes +of little ones who come to her every term, she has forgotten them."<sup><a href="#fn1-2-11" id="fna1-2-11">11</a></sup> +Many have been accustomed to bring their children to the Everett School and +speak of how glad they will be when these little ones will be under the +care of their parents' former teacher.</p> + +<p>Miss Richards estimates that in the years of school work, she has had in +her room an average of fifty pupils a term, although sometimes the +attendance overflowed to a much greater number. With eighty-eight terms of +teaching to her credit, the number of pupils who owe part of their +education to "this gentle and cultured woman" amounts well up into the tens +of thousands, enough to populate a fair-sized city.</p> + +<p>We can not close this article with a better testimonial than the following +letter from one of her former pupils, the Honorable Charles T. Wilkins, a +lawyer and an influential white citizen, who addressed her on the occasion +of her retirement last June.</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><a id="pg33"></a>"<em>My dear Miss Richards</em>: The friendship of so long standing between your +family and mine, and the high esteem in which, as an educator, a woman, and +a Christian, you were always held by my father the late Colonel William D. +Wilkins, lead me to take the liberty of writing to <em>congratulate</em> you upon +the well-earned retirement from active work, which I have just learned from +the press that you contemplate after so many years well spent in faithful +service to our community. As a citizen and one who has always been most +interested in the education of our youth, I wish to add my thanks to those +which are felt, if not expressed by the many who know of your devotion to +and success in leading the young in the way in which they should go.</p> + +<p>"Though your active participation in this work is about to cease, may you +long be spared as an example to those who follow you is the earnest hope of</p> + +<div class="closing">"Yours very sincerely and respectfully,</div> +<div class="sig">(Signed) "Charles T. Wilkins"</div> +</div> + +<p class="author">W. B. Hartgrove</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-2"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn1-2-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-1" id="fnaa1-2-1">return</a>]</span>1. For many of the facts set forth in this article the writer is indebted +to Miss Fannie M. Richards, Robert A. Pelham, and C. G. Woodson.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-1a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-1a" id="fnaa1-2-1a">return</a>]</span>1a. Woodson, The Ed. of the Negro Prior to 1861, pp. 92, 217, 218.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-2" id="fnaa1-2-2">return</a>]</span>2. The law was as follows: Be it enacted by the General Assembly that if +any free person of color, whether infant or adult, shall go or be sent or +carried beyond the limits of this Commonwealth for the purpose of being +educated, he or she shall be deemed to have emigrated from the State and it +shall not be lawful for him or her to return to the same; and if any such +person shall return within the limits of the State contrary to the +provisions of this act, he or she being an infant shall be bound out as an +apprentice until the age of 21 years, by the overseers of the poor of the +county or corporation where he or she may be, and at the expiration of that +period, shall be sent out of the State agreeably to the provisions of the +laws now in force, or which may hereafter be enacted to prohibit the +migration of free persons of color to this State; and if such person be an +adult, he or she shall be sent in like manner out of the Commonwealth; and +if any persons having been so sent off, shall hereafter return within the +State, he or she so offending shall be dealt with and punished in the same +manner as is or may be prescribed by law in relating to other persons of +color returning to the State after having been sent therefrome. Acts of the +General Assembly of Virginia, 1838, p. 76.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-3" id="fnaa1-2-3">return</a>]</span>3. The following enactments of the Virginia General Assembly will give a +better idea of the extent of this humiliation:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> 4. Be it further enacted that all meetings of free Negroes or mulattoes + at any school house, church, meeting-house or other place for teaching + them reading or writing, either in the day or night, under whatsoever + pretext, shall be deemed and considered as an unlawful assembly; and + any justice of the county or corporation, wherein such assemblage shall + be, either from his own knowledge, or on the information of others, of + such unlawful assemblage or meeting, shall issue his warrant directed + to any sworn officer or officers, authorizing him or them to enter the + house or houses where such unlawful assemblage or meeting may be, for + the purpose of apprehending or dispersing such free Negroes or + mulattoes and to inflict corporal punishment on the offender or + offenders at the discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding + 20 lashes.</p> + +<p> 5. Be it further enacted that if any white person or persons assemble + with free Negroes or mulattoes, at any school house, church, + meeting-house, or other place for the purpose of instructing such free + Negroes or mulattoes to read or write, such person or persons shall, on + conviction thereof, be fined in a sum not exceeding fifty dollars, and + moreover may be imprisoned at the discretion not exceeding two months.</p> + +<p> 6. Be it further enacted that if any white persons for pay or + compensation, shall assemble with any slaves for the purpose of + teaching and shall teach any slave to read or write, such persons or + any white person or persons contracting with such teacher so to act, + who shall offend as aforesaid, shall for each offence, be fined at the + discretion of a jury in a sum not less than ten nor exceeding one + hundred dollars, to be recovered on an information or indictment. Acts + of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1831, p. 107.</p> + +<p> I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia that no slave, + free Negro or mulatto, whether he shall have been ordained or licensed + or otherwise, shall hereafter undertake to preach, exhort or conduct or + hold any assembly or meeting, for religious or other purposes, either + in the day time or at night; and any slave, free Negro or mulatto so + offending shall for every such offence be punished with stripes at the + discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding 39 lashes; and + any person desiring so to do, shall have authority without any previous + written precept or otherwise, to apprehend any such offender and carry + him before such justice.</p> + +<p> II. Any slave, free Negro or mulatto who shall hereafter attend any + preaching, meeting or other assembly, held or pretended to be held for + religious purposes, or other instruction, conducted by any slave, free + Negro or mulatto preacher, ordained or otherwise; any slave who shall + hereafter attend any preaching in the night time although conducted by + a white minister, without a written permission from his or her owner, + overseer or master or agent of either of them, shall be punished by + stripes at the discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding 39 + lashes, and may for that purpose be apprehended by any person, without + any written or other precept:</p> + +<p> <em>Provided</em>, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to + prevent the master or owner of slaves or any white person to whom any + free Negro or mulatto is bound, or in whose employment, or on whose + plantation or lot such free Negro or mulatto lives, from carrying or + permitting any such slave, free Negro or mulatto, to go with him, her + or them, or with any part of his, her, or their white family to any + place of worship, conducted by a white minister in the night time: And + provided also, That nothing in this or any former law, shall be + construed as to prevent any ordained or licensed white minister of the + gospel, or any layman licensed for that purpose by the denomination to + which he may belong, from preaching or giving religious instruction to + slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes in the day time; nor to deprive any + masters or owners of slaves of the right to engage, or employ any free + white person whom they think proper to give religious instruction to + their slaves; nor to prevent the assembling of slaves of any one owner + or master together at any time for religious devotion. Acts of the + General Assembly of Virginia, 1831-1832, pp. 20-21.</p></blockquote> + +<p id="fn1-2-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-4" id="fnaa1-2-4">return</a>]</span>4. Campbell, Political History of Michigan, 246.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-4a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-4a" id="fnaa1-2-4a">return</a>]</span>4a. Slavery did not immediately cease, however. The number of slaves in +the vicinity of Detroit in 1773 were ninety-six; 127 in 1778; and 175 in +1783. Detroit had a colored population of 15 in 1805 and two years later a +number had sufficiently increased for Governor Hull to organize a company +of militia among them. The increase had been due to the coming of refugees +from Canada. The Census of 1810 showed 17 slaves in Detroit; that of 1830 +shows 32 in Michigan and an enumeration subsequent to 1836 shows that all +were dead or manumitted. See Census of the United States.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-5" id="fnaa1-2-5">return</a>]</span>5. Laws of Michigan, 1827.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-6" id="fnaa1-2-6">return</a>]</span>6. This riot occurred on June 14, 1833. Thornton Blackburn and his wife, +the alleged runaways from Kentucky, were lodged in jail pending the +departure of a boat. A crowd of colored men and women, armed with clubs, +stones and pistols, gathered in the vicinity of the jail. Upon the pretext +of visiting Blackburn's wife a colored woman was admitted to the jail and +by an exchange of clothing effected the escape of the prisoner who +immediately crossed into Canada. Some time thereafter the sheriff attempted +to take his other prisoner to the boat, but was knocked down and badly +beaten. During the encounter the sheriff fired into the mob, but Blackburn +was rescued and carried to Canada. This caused a great disturbance among +the white people. They armed themselves and attacked the blacks wherever +they could be found. The city council convened and undertook to dispose of +the trouble by enforcing the law of 1827 requiring that colored people +should stay off the streets at night. Utley, Byron and McCutcheon, +"Michigan as a Province and State," II, 347.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-7" id="fnaa1-2-7">return</a>]</span>7. Five years after the organization of the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society +Henry Bibb, an ex-slave, came to the city and lectured for two years under +the auspices of the Liberty Association, which was promoting the election +of anti-slavery candidates. Public sentiment against slavery was becoming +such that the Legislature of Michigan passed a law prohibiting the use of +jails to detain fugitives. Frederick Douglass and John Brown found many +friends of their cause in Detroit. Of the many organized efforts made to +circumvent the law and assist fugitives one society purchased land and +established homes for as many as 50 families between 1850 and 1872. Farmer, +"History of Detroit and Michigan," I, Chapter XLVIII.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-8" id="fnaa1-2-8">return</a>]</span>8. The immediate cause of the riot in Detroit was the arrest, conviction, +and imprisonment of a colored man called William Faulkner charged with +committing an assault on a little girl. Feeling that the prisoner was +guilty, bands of ruffians swept through the streets and mercilessly beat +colored people. Seven years later it was discovered that Faulkner was +innocent and to reimburse him for his losses and humiliation the same +ruffians raised a handsome sum to set him up in business. See Farmer's +History of Detroit and Michigan, Chapter XLVIII.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-8a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-8a" id="fnaa1-2-8a">return</a>]</span>8a. A study of the directories of Detroit shows that a considerable number +of Negroes had entered the higher pursuits of labor. See especially the +Detroit Directory for 1865.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-9" id="fnaa1-2-9">return</a>]</span>9. Simmons, "Men of Mark," 356.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-10" id="fnaa1-2-10">return</a>]</span>10. In 1853 Judge Ruffin moved with his parents from Richmond to Boston, +where he became judge of the Charleston District. Simmons, "Men of +Mark," 469.</p> + +<p id="fn1-2-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-2-11" id="fnaa1-2-11">return</a>]</span>11. This information was obtained from newspaper clippings in the +possession of Miss Fannie M. Richards.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-3"> +<h2><a id="pg34"></a>The Passing Tradition and the African Civilization</h2> + + + +<p>A close examination shows that what we know about the Negro both of the +present and the past vitally affects our opinions concerning him. Men's +beliefs concerning things are to a large extent determined by where they +live and what has been handed down to them. We believe in a hell of roaring +flames where in the fiercest of heat the souls of the wicked are subject to +eternal burnings. This idea of hell was evolved in the deserts of the +Arabian Peninsula where heat is one of the greatest forces of nature with +which man has to contend. Among the native tribes of Northern Siberia +dwelling in the regions of perpetual ice and snow, hell is a place filled +with great chunks of ice upon which the souls of the wicked are placed and +there subjected to eternal freezings. This idea of hell was evolved in the +regions where man is in a continual battle with the cold.</p> + +<p>The beliefs of Negroes concerning themselves have to a large extent been +made for them. The reader no doubt will be interested to know that the +prevailing notions concerning the inferiority of the Negro grew up to a +large extent as the concomitant to Negro slavery in this country. The +bringing of the first Negroes from Africa as slaves was justified on the +grounds that they were heathen. It was not right, it was argued, for +Christians to enslave Christians, but they could enslave heathen, who as a +result would have an opportunity to become Christians. These Negro slaves +did actually become Christians and as a result the colonists were forced +to find other grounds to justify their continuation of the system. The +next argument was that they were different from white people. Here we +have a large part of the beginnings of the doctrine of the inferiority of +the Negro.</p> + +<p>When, about 1830, anti-slavery agitation arose in this <a id="pg35"></a>country, a new set +of arguments were brought forward to justify slavery. First in importance +were those taken from the Bible. Science also was called upon and brought +forward a large number of facts to demonstrate that by nature the Negro +was especially fitted to be a slave. It happened that about this time +anthropology was being developed. Racial differences were some of the +things which especially interested scientists in this field. The races +were defined according to certain physical characteristics. These, it was +asserted, determined the superiority or inferiority of races. The true +Negro race, said the early anthropologists, had characteristics which +especially indicated its inferiority. Through our geographies, histories +and encyclopedias we have become familiar with representations of this +so-called true Negro, whose chief characteristics were a black skin, woolly +hair, protuberant lips and a receding forehead. Caricaturists seized upon +these characteristics and popularized them in cartoons, in songs and in +other ways. Thus it happened that the Negro, through the descriptions that +he got of himself, has come largely to believe in his inherent inferiority +and that to attain superiority he must become like the white man in color, +in achievements and, in fact, along all lines.</p> + +<p>In recent years it has been asked, "Why cannot the Negro attain superiority +along lines of his own," that is, instead of simply patterning after what +the white man has done, why cannot the Negro through music, art, history, +and science, make his own special contributions to the progress of the +world? This question has arisen because in the fields of science and +history there have been brought forward a number of facts which prove this +possibility. First of all, the leading scientists in the field of +anthropology are telling us that while there are differences of races, +there are no characteristics which per se indicate that one race is +inferior or superior to another. The existing differences are differences +in kind not in value. On the other hand, whatever superiority one race has +attained over another has been largely due to environment.</p> + +<p><a id="pg36"></a>A German writer in a discussion of the origin of African civilizations +said some time ago "What bold investigators, great pioneers, still find to +tell us in civilizations nearer home, proves more and more clearly that we +are ignorant of hoary Africa. Somewhat of its present, perhaps, we know, +but of its past little. Open an illustrated geography and compare the +'Type of the African Negro,' the bluish-black fellow of the protuberant +lips, the flattened nose, the stupid expression and the short curly hair, +with the tall bronze figures from Dark Africa with which we have of late +become familiar, their almost fine-cut features, slightly arched nose, +long hair, etc., and you have an example of the problems pressing for +solution. In other respects, too, the genuine African of the interior +bears no resemblance to the accepted Negro type as it figures on drug and +cigar store signs, wearing a shabby stovepipe hat, plaid trousers, and a +vari-colored coat. A stroll through the corridors of the Berlin Museum of +Ethnology teaches that the real African need by no means resort to the +rags and tatters of bygone European splendor. He has precious ornaments of +his own, of ivory and plumes, fine plaited willow ware, weapons of superior +workmanship. Justly can it be demanded 'What sort of civilization is this? +Whence does it come?'"</p> + +<p>It is also pointed out that one of the most important contributions to the +civilization of mankind was very probably made by the Negro race. This was +the invention of the smelting of iron. The facts brought forward to +support this view are: that no iron was smelted in Europe before 900 B.C.; +that about 3000 B.C., there began to appear on the Egyptian monuments +pictures of Africans bringing iron from the South to Egypt; that at a time +considerably later than this iron implements began to appear in Asia; that +there is no iron ore in Egypt; and that in Negro Africa iron ore is +abundant. In many places it is found on top of the ground and in some +parts it can be melted by simply placing a piece of ore in the fire very +much as you would a potato to be roasted.</p> + +<p><a id="pg37"></a>Studies in the fields of ancient and medieval history are also showing +that in the past there were in Negro Africa civilizations of probable +indigenous origin which attained importance enough to be mentioned in the +writings of the historians and poets of those periods. The seat of one of +the highest of these civilizations was Ethiopia. Here the Negro nation +attained the greatest fame. As early as 2,500 years before the birth of +Christ the Ethiopians appeared to have had a considerable civilization. It +was well known to the writers of the Bible and is referred to therein some +forty-nine times. In Genesis we read of Cush, the eldest son of Ham. Cush +is the Hebrew word for black and means the same as Ethiopia. One of the +most famous sons of Cush was Nimrod, whom the Bible mentions as being "a +mighty hunter before the Lord; whereof it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty +hunter before the Lord." The Bible refers to Ethiopia as being far distant +from Palestine. In the book of Isaiah we read "the land of the rustling of +wings which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia that sendeth ambassadors by +the sea." The rivers of Ethiopia mentioned in Isaiah are the upper +tributaries of the Nile, the Atbara, the Blue Nile and the Sobat.</p> + +<p>The later capital of Ethiopia was Meroe. Recent excavations have shown +Meroe to have been a city larger than Memphis. The Temple of Ammon, where +kings were crowned, was one of the largest in the valley of the Nile. The +great walls of cut stones were 15 feet thick and 30 feet high. Heaps of +iron-slag and furnaces for smelting iron were discovered, and there were +magnificent quays and landing places on the river side, for the export of +iron. Excavations have also shown that for 150 years Egypt was a dependency +of Ethiopia. The kings of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth Egyptian +dynasties were really governors appointed by Ethiopian overlords, while the +twenty-fifth dynasty was founded by the Ethiopian king, Sabako, in order to +check Assyrian aggression. Palestine was enabled to hold out against +Assyria by Ethiopian help. Sennacherib's attempt to capture Jerusalem and +carry the Jews <a id="pg38"></a>into captivity, was frustrated by the army of the Ethiopian +king, Taharka. The nation and religion of Judah were thus preserved from +being absorbed in heathen lands like the lost Ten Tribes. The Negro +soldiers of the Sudan saved the Jewish religion.</p> + +<p>The old Greek writers were well acquainted with Ethiopia. According to them +in the most ancient times there existed to the South of Egypt a nation and +a land designated as Ethiopia. This was the land where the people with the +sunburnt faces dwelt. The Greek poet, Homer, mentions the Ethiopians as +dwelling at the uttermost limits of the earth, where they enjoyed personal +intercourse with the gods. In one place Homer said that Neptune, the god of +the sea, "had gone to feast with the Ethiopians who dwell afar off, the +Ethiopians who are divided into two parts, the most distant of men, some +at the setting of the sun, others at the rising." Herodotus, the Greek +historian, described the Ethiopians as long lived and their country as +extending to the Southern Sea.</p> + +<p>The great fame of the Ethiopians is thus sketched by the eminent historian, +Heeren, who in his historical researches says: "In the earliest traditions +of nearly all the more civilized nations of antiquity, the name of this +distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests were full +of them; the nations of inner Asia, on the Euphrates and Tigris, have +interwoven the fictions of the Ethiopians with their own traditions of the +conquests and wars of their heroes; and, at a period equally remote, they +glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily +by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets; they +spoke of them as the 'remotest nation,' the 'most just of men,' the +'favorites of the gods,' The lofty inhabitants of Olympus journey to them +and take part in their feasts; their sacrifices are the most agreeable +of all that mortals can offer them. And when the faint gleam of tradition +and fable gives way to the clear light of history, the luster of the +Ethiopians is not diminished. They still continue the object of curiosity +and admiration; <a id="pg39"></a>and the pens of cautious, clear-sighted historians often +place them in the highest rank of knowledge and civilization."</p> + +<p>Of these facts most modern historians know but little and Negroes in +general almost nothing. For example, how many have ever heard of Al-Bekri, +the Arab writer, who in the eleventh century wrote a description of the +Western Sudan of such importance that it gained him the title of "The +Historian of Negro Land"? How much, by means of research, might be learned +of the town of Ghana situate on the banks of the Niger, which the historian +Al-Bekri described as a meeting place for commercial caravans from all +parts of the world? This town, he said, contained schools and centers of +learning. It was the resort of the learned, the rich, and the pious of all +nations. Likewise, most of us have never heard perhaps of another Arab +writer, Iben Khaldun, who in writing about the middle of the fourteenth +century of Melle, another of the kingdoms of the Sudan, reported that +caravans from Egypt consisting of twelve thousand laden camels passed every +year through one town on the eastern border of the empire on their way to +the capital of the nation. The load of a camel was three hundred pounds. +12,000 camel loads amounted, therefore, to something like 1,600 tons of +merchandise. At this time we are told that there was probably not a ship in +any of the merchant navies of the world which could carry one hundred tons. +250 years later the average tonnage of the vessels of Spain was 300 tons +and that of the English much less. The largest ship which Queen Elizabeth +had in her navy, the <em>Great Mary</em>, had a capacity of a thousand tons; but +it was considered an exception and the marvel of the age.</p> + +<p>Another thing that is not generally known is the importance to which some +of these Negro kingdoms of the Western Sudan attained during the middle +ages and the first centuries of the modern era. In size and permanency +they compared favorably with the most advanced nations of Europe. The +kingdom of Melle of which the historian, Iben Khaldun, wrote, had an area +of over 1,000 miles in extent and existed for 250 years. It was the first +of the kingdoms of the West<a id="pg40"></a>ern Sudan to be received on equal terms with +the contemporary white nations. The greatest of all the Sudan states was +the kingdom of Songhay which, in its golden age, had an area almost equal +to that of the United States and existed from about 750 A.D. to 1591. +There is a record of the kings of Songhay in regular succession for almost +900 years. The length of the life of the Songhay empire coincides almost +exactly with the life of Rome from its foundation as a republic to its +downfall as an empire.</p> + +<p>The greatest evidences of the high state of civilization which the Sudan +had in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the attention that was +paid to education and the unusual amount of learning that existed there. +The university of Sankore at Timbuctu was a very active center of learning. +It was in correspondence with the universities of North Africa and Egypt. +It was in touch with the universities of Spain. In the sixteenth century +Timbuctu had a large learned class living at ease and busily occupied with +the elucidation of intellectual and religious problems. The town swarmed +with students. Law, literature, grammar, theology and the natural sciences +were studied. The city of Melle had a regular school of science. One +distinguished geographer is mentioned, and allusions to surgical science +show that the old maxim of the Arabian schools, "He who studies anatomy +pleases God," was not forgotten. One of these writers mentions that his +brother came from Jenne to Timbuctu to undergo an operation for cataract of +the eyes at the hands of a celebrated surgeon there. It is said that the +operation was wholly successful. The appearance of comets, so amazing to +Europe of the Middle Ages and at the present time to the ignorant, was by +these learned blacks noted calmly as a matter of scientific interest. +Earthquakes and eclipses excited no great surprise.</p> + +<p>The renowned writer of the Sudan was Abdurrahman Essadi. He was born in +Timbuctu in 1596. He came of learned and distinguished ancestors. He is +chief author of the history of Sudan. The book is said to be a wonderful +document. The narrative deals mainly with the modern his<a id="pg41"></a>tory of the +Songhay Empire, and relates the rise of this black civilization through +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and its decadence up to the middle +of the seventeenth century. The noted traveller, Barth, was of the opinion +that the book forms one of the most important additions that the present +age has made to the history of mankind. The work is especially valuable +for the unconscious light which it throws upon the life, manners, +politics, and literature of the country. It presents a vivid picture of +the character of the men with whom it deals. It is sometimes called the +Epic of the Sudan.</p> + +<p>From this brief sketch which I have given of the African in ancient and +medieval times it is clear that Negroes should not despise the rock from +which they were hewn. As a race they have a past which is full of interest. +It is worthy of serious study. From it we can draw inspiration; for it +appears that not all black men everywhere throughout the ages have been +"hewers of wood and drawers of water." On the contrary, through long +periods of time there were powerful black nations which have left the +records of their achievements and of which we are just now beginning to +learn a little. This little, however, which we have learned teaches us that +the Negroes of today should work and strive. Along their own special line +and in their own peculiar way they should endeavor to make contributions to +civilization. Their achievements can be such that once more black will be +dignified and the fame of Ethiopia again spread throughout the world.</p> + +<p class="author">Monroe N. Work</p> +</div> + +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-4"> +<h2><a id="pg42"></a>The Mind of the African Negro as Reflected in His Proverbs</h2> + + + +<p>As a study of folk literature of different races offers one way of +understanding their mental attitude toward life and its problems, the +folk literature of the Negro will reveal to us his inherent moral and +intellectual bias and the natural trend of his philosophy. Let us therefore +examine some phases of this subject, paying particular attention to that +part which relates especially to the proverbs. The sources of such +literature are abundant. A little research in a well-equipped library +brings one into a curious and informing mass of knowledge, ever increasing +in bulk, in the French, German and English languages, as well as in many +strange and highly inflected African tongues.</p> + +<p>A cursory reading of this literature discloses at once that our general +knowledge of Africa has been based in the past mainly on those external +facts that strike the sense of sight, such as the physical appearance of +the population, native dress and handiwork, musical instruments, implements +of warfare, and customs peculiar to the social and religious life of the +people. Only through the folk literature, however, can we get a glimpse of +the working of the mind of the African Negro. Professor Henry Drummond, +although he had traveled in Africa and had written at length about it, +still exhibited a longing for this insight when he observed: "I have often +wished that I could get inside of an African for an afternoon and just see +how he looked at things." At that time much of the folk literature of that +continent was not as now available. A deeper and more extensive reading of +it at present strengthens our belief in the ancient saying "Out of Africa +there is always something new," a rather disquieting thought, if we have +reached the conclusion that native culture on that continent has never +risen above the zero point. </p> + +<p><a id="pg43"></a>A critical examination of the content of this folk literature will result +in a division somewhat similar to that found in the same type of literature +of other races. Such a division discloses stories, poetry, riddles and +proverbs. The African folk literature is especially rich in proverbs. So +numerous are these proverbs that it has been said that there is scarcely an +object presented to the eye, scarcely an idea excited in the mind, but it +is accompanied by some sententious aphorism, founded on close observation +of man and animals and in many cases of a decidedly moral tendency. Lord +Bacon remarked many years ago that "the genius, wit and spirit of a nation +are discovered in its proverbs." Cervantes in <em>Don Quixote</em> says "Methinks, +Sancho, that there is no proverb that is not true, because they are all +judgments drawn from the same experience which is the mother of all +knowledge." If these sayings be true, then the proverbs of the African +Negro should be examined in order to see if they approach these +observations.</p> + +<p>For convenience of the reader an effort has been made to arrange these +sententious sayings under general subjects. These selected by no means +exhaust the mine of African proverbial lore but are only a few nuggets that +suggest the Negro's power to infer and generalize and to express himself in +a graphic and concise way relative to life as he observed and experienced +it.<sup><a href="#fn1-4-1" id="fna1-4-1">1</a></sup></p> + +<p><em>Anger</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Anger does nobody good, but patience is the father of kindness.</p></blockquote> + +<p><em>Assistance</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Not to aid one in distress is to kill him in your heart.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Birth</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Birth does not differ from birth; as the free man was born so was + the slave.</p> +<p><a id="pg44"></a> In the beginning our Lord created all. With him there is neither + slave nor free man, but every one is free.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Boasting</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Boasting is not courage. He who boasts much cannot do much. Much + gesticulation does not prove courage.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Borrowing</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Borrowing is easy but the day of payment is hard.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Chance</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who waits for chance may wait for a year.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Character</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Wherever a man goes to dwell his character goes with him. Every + man's character is good in his own eyes.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Charity</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Charity is the father of sacrifice.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Children</em></p> +<blockquote><p> There is no wealth without children. It is the duty of children to + wait on elders, not elders on children.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Condemnation</em></p> +<blockquote><p> You condemn on hearsay evidence alone, your sins increase.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Contempt</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Men despise what they do not understand.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Covetousness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If thou seeketh to obtain by force what our Lord did not give thee, + thou wilt not get it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Danger of Beauty</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who marries a beauty, marries trouble.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Danger of Poverty</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Beg help and you will meet with refusals; ask for alms and you will + meet with misers.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Danger of Wealth</em></p> +<blockquote><p> It is better to be poor and live long than rich and die young.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Disposition</em></p> +<blockquote><p> A man's disposition is like a mark in a stone, no one can efface it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Doing Good</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If one does good, God will interpret it to him for good.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a id="pg45"></a><em>Duty to One's Self</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Do not repair another man's fence until you have seen to your own.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Effort</em></p> +<blockquote><p> You cannot kill game by looking at it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Evil Doer</em></p> +<blockquote><p> The evil doer is ever anxious.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Experience</em></p> +<blockquote><p> We begin by being foolish and we become wise by experience.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Familiarity</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Familiarity induces contempt, but distance secures respect.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Faults</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Faults are like a hill, you stand on your own and you talk about + those of other people.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Faults of the Rich</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If thou art poor, do not make a rich man thy friend. </p> +<p> If thou goest to a foreign country, do not alight at a rich man's + house.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Favor of the Great</em></p> +<blockquote><p> To love the king is not bad, but a king who loves you is better.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Folly</em></p> +<blockquote><p> After a foolish action comes remorse.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Forethought</em></p> +<blockquote><p> A person prepared beforehand is better than after reflection.</p> +<p> The day on which one starts is not the time to commence one's + preparation.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Forgiveness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who forgives ends the quarrel.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Friends</em></p> +<blockquote><p> There are three friends in this world--courage, sense, and insight.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Friendship</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Hold a true friend with both of your hands.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Future</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Thou knowest the past but not the future. + As to what is future, even a bird with a long neck can not see it, + but God only.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Gossip</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Gossip is unbecoming an elder.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a id="pg46"></a><em>Gentleness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> A matter dealt with gently is sure to prosper, but a matter dealt + with violently causes vexation.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Hate</em></p> +<blockquote><p> There is no medicine for hate.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Heart</em></p> +<blockquote><p> It is the heart that carries one to heaven.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Heathen</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He is a heathen who bears malice.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Hope</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Hope is the pillar of the world.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Ignorance</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Lack of knowledge is darker than night.</p> +<p> An ignorant man is always a slave.</p> +<p> Whoever works without knowledge works uselessly.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Immortality</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Since thou hast no benefactor in this world, thy having one in the + next world will be all the more pleasant.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Injury</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who injures another brings injury upon himself.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Laziness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Laziness lends assistance to fatigue.</p> +<p> A lazy man looks for light employment.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Love</em></p> +<blockquote><p> One does not love another if one does not accept anything from him.</p> +<p> If you love the children of others, you will love your own even + better.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Meekness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If one knows thee not or a blind man scolds thee, do not become + angry.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Mother</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Him whose mother is no more, distress carries off.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Necessity of Effort</em></p> +<blockquote><p> The sieve never sifts meal by itself.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Old Age</em></p> +<blockquote><p> There are no charms or medicine against old age.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Opportunity</em></p> +<blockquote><p> The dawn does not come twice to wake a man.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a id="pg47"></a><em>Patience</em></p> +<blockquote><p> At the bottom of patience there is heaven.</p> +<p> Patience is the best of qualities; he who possesses it possesses + all things.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>People</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Ordinary people are as common as grass, but good people are dearer + than the eye.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Politeness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Bowing to a dwarf will not prevent your standing erect again.</p> +<p> "I have forgotten thy name" is better than "I know thee not."</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Poverty</em></p> +<blockquote><p> A poor man has no friends.</p> +<p> He who has no house has no word in society.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Riches</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Property is the prop of life.</p> +<p> A wealthy man always has followers.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Sleep</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Sleep has no favorites.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Strife</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Strife begets a gentle child.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Sun</em></p> +<blockquote><p> The sun is the king of torches.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Trade</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Trade is not something imaginary or descriptive, but something real + and profitable.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Truth</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Lies, however numerous, will be caught by truth when it rises up.</p> +<p> The voice of truth is easily known.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Unselfishness</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If you love yourself others will hate you, if you humble yourself + others will love you.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Valor</em></p> +<blockquote><p> Boasting at home is not valor; parade is not battle; when war comes + the valiant will be known.</p> +<p> The fugitive never stops to pick the thorn from his foot.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Wisdom</em></p> +<blockquote><p> A man may be born to wealth, but wisdom comes only with length of days.</p> +<p><a id="pg48"></a> A man with wisdom is better off than a stupid man with any amount of + charms and superstition.</p> +<p> Know thyself better than he who speaks of thee.</p> +<p> Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse.</p> +<p> A counsellor who understands proverbs soon sets matters right.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3>Proverbs Based on the Observation of Animals</h3> + + +<p><em>Butterfly</em></p> +<blockquote><p> The butterfly that brushes against thorns will tear its wings.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Dog</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If the dog is not at home, he barks not.</p> +<p> A heedless dog will not do for the chase.</p> +<p> A lurking dog does not lie in the hyena's lair.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Elephant</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who can not move an ant, and yet tries to move an elephant, shall + find out his folly.</p> +<p> The elephant does not find his trunk heavy.</p> +<p> Were no elephant in the jungle, the buffalo would be a great animal.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Fly</em></p> +<blockquote><p> If the fly flies, the frog goes not supperless to bed.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Fox</em></p> +<blockquote><p> When the fox dies, fowls do not mourn.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Goat</em></p> +<blockquote><p> When the goat goes abroad, the sheep must run.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Rat</em></p> +<blockquote><p> When the rat laughs at the cat, there is a hole. + The rat has not power to call the cat to account. + The rat does not go to sleep in the cat's bed.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><em>Wolf</em></p> +<blockquote><p> He who goes with the wolf will learn to howl.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="author">A. O. Stafford</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-4"> +<h3>Footnote</h3> + + +<p id="fn1-4-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-4-1">return</a>]</span>1. Among the works which have been consulted in the preparation of this +article are the following:</p> +<ul class="nobullet"> +<li> R. F. Burton, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. </li> +<li> S. W. Koelle, African Native Literature.</li> +<li> A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West +Africa.</li> +<li> Heli Chatelin, Folk Tales of Angola.</li> +</ul> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-5"> +<h2><a id="pg49"></a>What the Negro Was Thinking During the Eighteenth Century</h2> + + + +<h3>Essay on Negro Slavery<sup><a href="#fn1-5-1" id="fna1-5-1">1</a></sup></h3> + +<h4>No. 1</h4> + + +<p>Amidst the infinite variety of moral and political subjects, proper for +public commendation, it is truly surprising, that one of the most +important and affecting should be so generally neglected. An encroachment +on the smallest civil or political privilege, shall fan the enthusiastic +flames of liberty, till it shall extend over vast and distant regions, and +violently agitate a whole continent. But the cause of humanity shall be +basely violated, justice shall be wounded to the heart, and national honor +deeply and lastingly polluted, and not a breath or murmur shall arise to +disturb the prevailing quiescence or to rouse the feelings of indignation +against such general, extensive, and complicated iniquity.--To what cause +are we to impute this frigid silence--this torpid indifference--this cold +inanimated conduct of the otherwise warm and generous Americans? Why do +they remain inactive, amidst the groans of injured humanity, the shrill +and distressing complaints of expiring justice and the keen remorse of +polluted integrity?--Why do they not rise up to assert the cause of God +and the world, to drive the fiend injustice into remote and distant +regions, and to exterminate oppression from the face of the fair fields of +America?</p> + +<p>When the united colonies revolted from Great Britain, they did it upon +this principle, "that all men are by nature and of right ought to be +free."--After a long, successful, and glorious struggle for liberty, +during which they manifested the firmest attachment to the rights of +mankind, can they so soon forget the principles that then governed their +determinations? Can Americans, after the noble contempt they expressed for +tyrants, meanly descend to take up the scourge? Blush, ye revolted +colonies, for having apostatized from your own principles.</p> + +<p>Slavery, in whatever point of light it is considered, is repugnant to the +feelings of nature, and inconsistent with the original <a id="pg50"></a>rights of man. It +ought therefore to be stigmatized for being unnatural; and detested for +being unjust. Tis an outrage to providence and an affront offered to divine +Majesty, who has given to man his own peculiar image.--That the Americans +after considering the subject in this light--after making the most manly +of all possible exertions in defence of liberty--after publishing to the +world the principle upon which they contended, viz.: "that all men are by +nature and of right ought to be free," should still retain in subjection +a numerous tribe of the human race merely for their own private use and +emolument, is, of all things the strongest inconsistency, the deepest +reflexion on our conduct, and the most abandoned apostasy that ever took +place, since the almighty fiat spoke into existence this habitable world. +So flagitous a violation can never escape the notice of a just Creator +whose vengeance may be now on the wing, to disseminate and hurl the arrows +of destruction.</p> + +<p>In what light can the people of Europe consider America after the strange +inconsistency of her conduct? Will they not consider her as an abandoned +and deceitful country? In the hour of calamity she petitioned heaven to be +propitious to her cause. Her prayers were heard. Heaven pitied her +distress, smiled on her virtuous exertions, and vanquished all her +afflictions. The ungrateful creature forgets this timely assistance--no +longer remembers her own sorrows--but basely commences oppression in her +turn.--Beware America! pause--and consider the difference between the mild +effulgence of approving providence and the angry countenance of incensed +divinity!</p> + +<p>The importation of slaves into America ought to be a subject of the deepest +regret, to every benevolent and thinking mind.--And one of the greatest +defects in the federal system, is the liberty it allows on this head. +Venerable in every thing else, it is injudicious here; and it is to be much +deplored, that a system of so much political perfection, should be stained +with any thing that does an outrage to human nature. As a door, however, is +open to amendment, for the sake of distressed humanity, of injured national +reputation, and the glory of doing so benevolent a thing, I hope some wise +and virtuous patriot will advocate the measure, and introduce an alteration +in that pernicious part of the government.--So far from encouraging the +importation of slaves, and countenancing that vile traffic in human flesh; +the members of the late continental conven<a id="pg51"></a>tion<sup><a href="#fn1-5-2" id="fna1-5-2">2</a></sup> should have seized the +happy opportunity of prohibiting for ever this cruel species of reprobated +villainy.--That they did not do so, will for ever diminish the luster of +their other proceedings, so highly extolled, and so justly distinguished +for their intrinsic value. Let us for a moment contrast the sentiments and +actions of the Europeans on this subject, with those of our own countrymen. +In France the warmest and most animated exertions are making, in order to +introduce the entire abolition of the slave trade; and in England many of +the first characters of the country advocate the same measure, with an +enthusiastic philanthropy. The prime minister himself is at the head of +that society; and nothing can equal the ardour of their endeavours, but the +glorious goodness of the cause.<sup><a href="#fn1-5-3" id="fna1-5-3">3</a></sup>--Will the Americans allow the people of +England to get the start of them in acts of humanity? Forbid it shame!</p> + +<p>The practice of stealing, or bartering for human flesh is pregnant with the +most glaring turpitude, and the blackest barbarity of disposition.--For can +any one say, that this is doing as he would be done by? Will such a +practice stand the scrutiny of this great rule of moral government? Who can +without the complicated emotions of anger and impatience, suppose himself +in the predicament of a slave? Who can bear the thoughts of his relatives +being torn from him by a savage enemy; carried to distant regions of the +habitable globe, never more to return; and treated there as the unhappy +Africans are in this country? Who can support the reflexion of his +father--his mother--his sister--or his wife--perhaps his children--being +barbarously snatched away by a foreign invader, without the prospect of +ever beholding them again? Who can reflect upon their being afterwards +publicly exposed to sale--obliged to labor with unwearied assiduity--and +because all things are not possible to be performed, by persons so +unaccustomed to robust exercise, scourged with all the rage and anger of +malignity, until their unhappy carcasses are covered with ghastly wounds +and frightful contusions? Who can reflect on these things when applying the +case to himself, without being chilled with horror, at <a id="pg52"></a>circumstances so +extremely shocking?--Yet hideous as this concise and imperfect description +is, of the sufferings sustained by many of our slaves, it is nevertheless +true; and so far from being exaggerated, falls infinitely short of a +thousand circumstances of distress, which have been recounted by different +writers on the subject, and which contribute to make their situation in +this life, the most absolutely wretched, and completely miserable, that can +possibly be conceived.--In many places in America, the slaves are treated +with every circumstance of rigorous inhumanity, accumulated hardship, and +enormous cruelty.--Yet when we take them from Africa, we deprive them of a +country which God hath given them for their own; as free as we are, and as +capable of enjoying that blessing. Like pirates we go to commit devastation +on the coast of an innocent country, and among a people who never did us +wrong.</p> + +<p>An insatiable, avaricious desire to accumulate riches, cooperating with a +spirit of luxury and injustice, seems to be the leading cause of this +peculiarly degrading and ignominious practice. Being once accustomed to +subsist without labour, we become soft and voluptuous; and rather than +afterwards forego the gratification of our habitual indolence and ease, we +countenance the infamous violation, and sacrifice at the shrine of cruelty, +all the finer feelings of elevated humanity.</p> + +<p>Considering things in this view, there surely can be nothing more justly +reprehensible or disgusting than the extravagant finery of many country +people's daughters. It hath not been at all uncommon to observe as much +gauze, lace and other trappings, on one of those country maidens as hath +employed two or three of her father's slaves, for twelve months afterwards, +to raise tobacco to pay for. Tis an ungrateful reflexion that all this +frippery and effected finery, can only he supported by the sweat of another +person's brow, and consequently only by lawful rapine and injustice. If +these young females could devote as much time from their amusements, as +would be necessary for reflexion; or was there any person of humanity at +hand who could inculcate the indecency of this kind of extravagance, I am +persuaded that they have hearts good enough to reject with disdain, the +momentary pleasure of making a figure, in behalf of the rational and +lasting delight of contributing by their forbearance to the happiness of +many thousand individuals. </p> + +<p><a id="pg53"></a>In Maryland where slaves are treated with as much lenity, as perhaps they +are any where, their situation is to the last degree ineligible. They live +in wretched cots, that scarcely secure them from the inclemency of the +weather; sleep in the ashes or on straw, wear the coarsest clothing, and +subsist on the most ordinary food that the country produces. In all things +they are subject to their master's absolute command, and, of course, have +no will of their own. Thus circumstanced, they are subject to great +brutality, and are often treated with it. In particular instances, they may +be better provided for in this state, but this suffices for a general +description. But in the Carolinas and the island of Jamaica, the cruelties +that have been wantonly exercised on those miserable creatures, are without +a precedent in any other part of the world. If those who have written on +the subject, may be believed, it is not uncommon there, to tie a slave up +and whip him to death.</p> + +<p>On all occasions impartiality in the distribution of justice should be +observed. The little state of Rhode Island has been reprobated by other +states, for refusing to enter into measures respecting a new general +government; and so far it is admitted that she is culpable.<sup><a href="#fn1-5-4" id="fna1-5-4">4</a></sup> But if she +is worthy of blame in this respect, she is entitled to the highest +admiration for the philanthropy, justice, and humanity she hath displayed, +respecting the subject I am treating on. She hath passed an act prohibiting +the importation of slaves into that state, and forbidding her citizens to +engage in the iniquitous traffic. So striking a proof of her strong +attachment to the rights of humanity, will rescue her name from oblivion, +and bid her live in the good opinion of distant and unborn generations.</p> + +<p>Slavery, unquestionably, should be abolished, particularly in this country; +because it is inconsistent with the declared principles of the American +Revolution. The sooner, therefore, we set about it, the better. Either we +should set our slaves at liberty, immediately, and colonize them in the +western territory;<sup><a href="#fn1-5-5" id="fna1-5-5">5</a></sup> or we should immediately take measures for the +gradual abolition of it, so that it may become a known, and fixed point, +that ultimately, universal liberty, in these united states, shall +triumph.--This is the least we can do in order to evince our sense of the +irreparable outrages we have committed, to wipe off the odium we have +incurred, <a id="pg54"></a>and to give mankind a confidence again in the justice, +liberality, and honour of our national proceedings.</p> + +<p>It would not be difficult to show, were it necessary, that America would +soon become a richer and more happy country, provided the step was adopted. +That corrosive anguish of persevering in anything improper, which now +embitters the enjoyments of life, would vanish as the mist of a foggy morn +doth before the rising sun; and we should find as great a disparity between +our present situation, and that which would succeed to it, as subsists +between a cloudy winter, and a radiant spring.--Besides, our lands would +not be then cut down for the support of a numerous train of useless +inhabitants--useless, I mean, to themselves, and effectually to us, by +encouraging sloth and voluptuousness among our young farmers and planters, +who might otherwise know how to take care of their money, as well as how to +dissipate it.--In all other respects, I conceive them to be as valuable as +we are--as capable of worthy purposes, and to possess the same dignity that +we do, in the estimation of providence; although the value of their work +apart, for which we are dependent on them, we generally consider them as +good for nothing, and accordingly, treat them with greatest neglect.</p> + +<p>But be it remembered, that this cause is the cause of heaven; and that the +father of them as well as of us, will not fail, at a future settlement, to +adjust the account between us, with a dreadful attention to justice.</p> + +<p>Othello +Baltimore, May 10, 1788.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>American Museum</em>, IV, 412-415.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Essay on Negro Slavery</h3> + +<h4>No. II</h4> + + +<p>Upon no better principle do we plunder the coasts of Africa, and bring away +its wretched inhabitants as slaves than that, by which the greater fish +swallows up the lesser. Superior power seems only to produce superior +brutality; and that weakness and imbecility, which ought to engage our +protection, and interest the feelings of social benevolence in behalf of +the defenceless, seems only to provoke us to acts of illiberal outrage and +unmanly violence.</p> + +<p>The practice which has been followed by the English nation, since the +establishment of the slave trade--I mean that of stirring up the natives +of Africa, against each other, with a view of pur<a id="pg55"></a>chasing the prisoners +mutually taken in battle, must strike the humane mind with sentiments of +the deepest abhorrence, and confer on that people a reproach, as lasting +as time itself. It is surprising that the eastern world did not unite, to +discourage a custom so diabolical in its tendency, and to exterminate a +species of oppression which humbles the dignity of all mankind. But this +torpid inattention can only be accounted for, by adverting to the savage +disposition of the times, which countenanced cruelties unheard of at this +enlightened period. What rudeness of demeanor and brutality of manner, +which had been introduced into Europe, by those swarms of barbarians, that +overwhelmed it from the north, had hardly begun to dissipate before the +enlivening sun of civilization, when this infernal practice first sprang +up into existence. Before this distinguished era of refined barbarity, the +sons of Africa were in possession of all the mild enjoyments of peace--all +the pleasing delights of uninterrupted harmony--and all the diffusive +blessings of profound tranquility. Boundless must be the punishment, which +irritated providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has +prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature--this flowery +prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of never ending +misery, they shall in bitterness atone for the stab thus given to human +nature; and in anguish unutterable expiate crimes, for which nothing less +than eternal sufferings can make adequate retribution!--Equally iniquitous +is the practice of robbing that country of its inhabitants; and equally +tremendous will be the punishment. The voice of injured thousands, who +have been violently torn from their native country, and carried to distant +and inhospitable climes--the bitter lamentations of the wretched, helpless +female--the cruel agonizing sensations of the husband, the father and the +friend--will ascend to the throne of Omnipotence, and, from the elevated +heights of heaven, cause him, with the whole force of almighty vengeance, +to hurl the guilty perpetrators of those inhuman beings, down the steep +precipice of inevitable ruin, into the bottomless gulph of final, +irretrievable, and endless destruction!</p> + +<p>Ye sons of America, forbear!--Consider the dire consequences, that will +attend the prosecution, against which the all-powerful God of nature holds +up his hands, and loudly proclaims, desist!</p> + +<p>In the insolence of self-consequence, we are accustomed to esteem ourselves +and the Christian powers of Europe, the only<a id="pg56"></a> civilized people on the +globe; the rest without distinction, we presumptuously denominate +barbarians. But, when the practices above mentioned, come to be +deliberately considered--when added to these, we take a view of the +proceedings of the English in the East Indies, under the direction of the +late Lord Clive, and remember what happened in the streets of Bengal and +Calcutta--when we likewise reflect on our American mode of driving, +butchering and exterminating the poor defenceless Indians, the native and +lawful proprietors of the soil--we shall acknowledge, if we possess the +smallest degree of candor, that the appellation of barbarian does not +belong to them alone. While we continue those practices the term christian +will only be a burlesque expression, signifying no more than that it +ironically denominates the rudest sect of barbarians that ever disgraced +the hand of their Creator. We have the precepts of the gospel for the +government of our moral deportment, in violation of which, those outrageous +wrongs are committed; but they have no such meliorating influence among +them, and only adhere to the simple dictates of reason, and natural +religion, which they never violate.</p> + +<p>Might not the inhabitants of Africa, with still greater justice on their +side, than we have on ours, cross the Atlantic, seize our citizens, carry +them into Africa, and make slaves of them, provided they were able to do +it? But should this be really the case, every corner of the globe would +reverberate with the sound of African oppression; so loud would be our +complaint, and so "feeling our appeal" to the inhabitants of the world at +large. We should represent them as a lawless, piratical set of unprincipled +robbers, plunderers and villains, who basely prostituted the superior power +and information, which God had given them for worthy purposes to the vilest +of all ends. We should not hesitate to say that they made use of those +advantages only to infringe upon every dictate of justice; to trample under +foot every suggestion of principle, and to spurn, with contempt, every +right of humanity.</p> + +<p>The Algerines are reprobated all the world over, for their unlawful +depredations; and stigmatized as pirates, for their unreasonable exactions +from foreign nations. But, the Algerines are no greater pirates than the +Americans; nor are they a race more destructive to the happiness to +mankind. The depredations of the latter on the coast of Africa, and upon +the Indians' Territory make the truth of this assertion manifest. The +piratical depredations of <a id="pg57"></a>the Algerines appear to be a judgment from +heaven upon the nations, to punish their perfidy and atrocious violations +of justice; and never did any people more justly merit the scourge than +Americans, on whom it seems to fall with peculiar and reiterated violence. +When they yoke our citizens to the plow, and compel them to labour in that +degraded manner, they only retaliate on us for similar barbarities. For +Algiers is a part of the same country, whose helpless inhabitants we are +accustomed to carry away. But the English and Americans cautiously avoid +engaging with a warlike people, whom they fear to attack in a manner so +base and unworthy; whilst the Algerines, more generous and courageous +plunderers, are not afraid to make war on brave and well-disciplined +enemies, who are capable of making a gallant resistance.</p> + +<p>Whoever examines into the conditions of the slaves in America will find +them in a state of the most uncultivated rudeness. Not instructed in any +kind of learning, they are grossly ignorant of all refinement, and have +little else about them, belonging to the nature of civilized man, than mere +form. They are strangers to almost every idea, that doth not relate to +their labour or their food; and though naturally possessed of strong +sagacity, and lively parts, are, in all respects, in a state of most +deplorable brutality.--This is owing to the iron-hand of oppression, which +ever crushes the bud of genius and binds up in chains every expansion of +the human mind.--Such is their extreme ignorance that they are utterly +unacquainted with the laws of the world--the injunctions of religion--their +own natural rights, and the forms, ceremonies and privileges of marriage +originally established by the Divinity. Accordingly they lived in open +violation of the precepts of christianity and with as little formality or +restrictions as the brutes of the field, unite for the purposes of +procreation. Yet this is a civilized country and a most enlightened period +of the world! The resplendent glory of the gospel is at hand, to conduct us +in safety through the labyrinths of life. Science hath grown up to +maturity, and is discovered to possess not only all the properties of +solidity of strength, but likewise every ornament of elegance, and every +embellishment of fancy. Philosophy hath here attained the most exalted +height of elevation; and the art of government hath received such +refinements among us, as hath equally astonished our friends, our enemies +and ourselves. In fine, no annals are more brilliant than those of America; +nor do any more luxuriantly <a id="pg58"></a>abound with examples of exalted heroism, +refined policy, and sympathetic humanity. Yet now the prospect begins to +change; and all the splendor of this august assemblage, will soon be +overcast by sudden and impenetrable clouds; and American greatness be +obliterated and swallowed up by one enormity. Slavery diffuses the gloom, +and casts around us the deepest shade of approaching darkness. No longer +shall the united states of America be famed for liberty. Oppression +pervades their bowels; and while they exhibit a fair exterior to the other +parts of the world, they are nothing more than "painted sepulchres," +containing within them nought but rottenness and corruption.</p> + +<p>Ye voluptuous, ye opulent and great, who hold in subjection such numbers of +your fellow-creatures, and suffer these things to happen--beware! Reflect +on this lamentable change, that may, at a future period, take place against +you. Arraigned before the almighty Sovereign of the universe, how will you +answer the charge of such complicated enormity? The presence of these +slaves, who have been lost, for want of your instruction, and by means of +your oppression, shall make you dart deeper into the flames, to avoid their +just reproaches, and seek out for an asylum, in the hidden corners of +perdition.</p> + +<p>Many persons of opulence in Virginia, and the Carolinas, treat their +unhappy slaves with every circumstance of coolest neglect, and the most +deliberate indifference. Surrounded with a numerous train of servants, +to contribute to their personal ease, and wallowing in all the luxurious +plenitude of riches, they neglect the wretched source, whence they draw +this profusion. Many of their negroes, on distant estates, are left to +the entire management of inhuman overseers, where they suffer for the +want of that sustenance, which, at the proprietors seat of residence, +is wastefully given to the dogs. It frequently happens, on these large +estates, that they are not clothed, 'till winter is nearly expired; +and then, the most valuable only are attended to; the young, and the +labour-worn, having no other allowance, in this respect, than the +tattered garments, thrown off by the more fortunate. A single peck of +corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of +provision for a hard working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is +occasionally, tho' rarely, added. While those miserable degraded persons +thus scantily subsist, all the produce of their unwearied toil, is taken +away to satiate their rapacious master. He, <a id="pg59"></a>devoted wretch! thoughtless +of the sweat and toil with which his wearied, exhausted dependents +procure what he extravagantly dissipates, not contented with the ordinary +luxuries of life, is, perhaps, planning, at the time, some improvement on +the voluptuous art.--Thus he sets up two carriages instead of one; +maintains twenty servants, when a fourth part of that number are more than +sufficient to discharge the business of personal attendance; makes every +animal, proper for the purpose, bleed around him, in order to supply the +gluttonous profusion of his table; and generally gives away what his slaves +are pining for;--those very slaves, whose labour enables him to display +this liberality!--No comment is necessary, to expose the peculiar folly, +ingratitude, and infamy of such execrable conduct.</p> + +<p>But the custom of neglecting those slaves, who have been worn out in our +service, is unhappily found to prevail, not only among the more opulent but +thro' the more extensive round of the middle and inferior ranks of life. No +better reason can be given for this base inattention, than that they are no +longer able to contribute to our emoluments. With singular dishonor, we +forget the faithful instrument of past enjoyment, and when, by length of +time, it becomes debilitated, it is, like a withered stalk, ungratefully +thrown away.</p> + +<p>Our slaves unquestionably have the strongest of all claims upon us, for +protection and support; we having compelled them to involuntary servitude, +and deprived them of every means of protecting or supporting themselves. +The injustice of our conduct, and barbarity of our neglect, when this +reflexion is allowed to predominate, becomes so glaringly conspicuous, as +even to excite, against ourselves, the strongest emotion of detestation and +abhorrence.</p> + +<p>To whom are the wretched sons of Africa to apply for redress, if their +cruel master treats them with unkindness? To whom will they resort for +protection, if he is base enough to refuse it to them? The law is not their +friend;--alas! too many statutes are enacted against them. The world is not +their friend;--the iniquity is too general and extensive. No one who hath +slaves of his own, will protect those of another, less the practice should +be retorted. Thus when their masters abandon them, their situation is +destitute and forlorn, and God is their only friend!</p> + +<p>Let us imitate the conduct of a neighboring state, and immedi<a id="pg60"></a>ately take +measures, at least, for the gradual abolition of slavery.<sup><a href="#fn1-5-6" id="fna1-5-6">6</a></sup> Justice +demands it of us, and we ought not to hesitate in obeying its inviolable +mandates.--All the feelings of pity, compassion, affection, and +benevolence--all the emotions of tenderness, humanity, philanthropy, and +goodness--all the sentiments of mercy, probity, honour, and integrity, +unite to solicit for their emancipation. Immortal will be the glory of +accomplishing their liberation; and eternal the disgrace of keeping them +in chains.</p> + +<p>But, if the state of Pennsylvania is to be applauded for her conduct, that +of South Carolina can never be too strongly execrated.<sup><a href="#fn1-5-7" id="fna1-5-7">7</a></sup> The legislature +of that state, at no very remote period, brought in a bill for prohibiting +the use of letters to their slaves, and forbidding them the privilege of +being taught to read!--This was a deliberate attempt to enslave the minds +of those unfortunate objects, whose persons they already held in arbitrary +subjection:--Detestable deviation from the becoming rectitude of man.</p> + +<p>One more peculiarly distressing circumstance remains to be recounted, +before I take my final leave of the subject.--In the ordinary course of the +business of the country, the punishment of relatives frequently happens on +the same farm, and in view of each other:--The father often sees his +beloved son--the son his venerable sire--the mother her much-loved +daughter--the daughter her affectionate parent--the husband the wife of his +bosom, and she the husband of her affection, cruelly bound up without +delicacy or mercy, and punished with all extremity of incensed rage, and +all the rigour of unrelenting severity, whilst these unfortunate wretches +dare not even interpose in each other's behalf. Let us reverse the case and +suppose it ours:--all is silent horror!</p> + +<p>Othello +Maryland, May 23, 1788.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>American Museum</em>, IV, 509-512.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Letter on Slavery by a Negro</h3> + + +<p>I am one of that unfortunate race of men, who are distinguished from the +rest of the human species, by a black skin and wooly hair--disadvantages +of very little moment in themselves, but which prove <a id="pg61"></a>to us a source of +greatest misery, because there are men, who will not be persuaded that +it is possible for a human soul to be lodged within a sable body. The +West Indian planters could not, if they thought us men, so wantonly +spill our blood; nor could the natives of this land of liberty, deeming +us of the same species with themselves, submit to be instrumental in +enslaving us, or think us proper subjects of a sordid commerce. Yet, +strong as the prejudices against us are, it will not, I hope on this +side of the Atlantic, be considered as a crime, for a poor African not +to confess himself a being of an inferior order to those, who happen to +be of a different colour from himself; or be thought very presumptuous, +in one who is but a negro, to offer to the happy subjects of this free +government, some reflections upon the wretched condition of his +countrymen. They will not, I trust, think worse of my brethren, for +being discontented with so hard a lot as that of slavery; nor disown me +for their fellow-creature, merely because I deeply feel the unmerited +sufferings which my countrymen endure.</p> + +<p>It is neither the vanity of being an author, nor a sudden and capricious +gust of humanity, which has prompted this present design. It has long been +conceived and long been the principal subject of my thoughts. Ever since an +indulgent master rewarded my youthful services with freedom and supplied me +at a very early age with the means of acquiring knowledge, I have laboured +to understand the true principles, on which the liberties of mankind are +founded, and to possess myself of the language of this country, in order to +plead the cause of those who were once my fellow slaves, and if possible to +make my freedom, in some degree, the instrument of their deliverance.</p> + +<p>The first thing then, which seems necessary, in order to remove those +prejudices, which are so unjustly entertained against us, is to prove +that we are men--a truth which is difficult of proof, only because it is +difficult to imagine, by what argument it can be combatted. Can it be +contended that a difference of colour alone can constitute a difference of +species?--if not in what single circumstance are we different from the rest +of mankind? what variety is there in our organization? what inferiority +of art in the fashoning of our bodies? what imperfection in the faculties +of our minds?--Has not a negro eyes? has not a negro hands, organs, +dimensions, senses, affections, passions?--fed with the same food; hurt +with the same weapons; subject to the same diseases; healed by the same +<a id="pg62"></a>means; warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a white man? if +you prick us, do we not bleed? if you poison us, do we not die? are we not +exposed to all the same wants? do we not feel all the same sentiments--are +we not capable of all the same exertions--and are we not entitled to all +the same rights, as other men?</p> + +<p>Yes--and it is said we are men, it is true; but that we are men, addicted +to more and worse vices, than those of any other complexion; and such is +the innate perverseness of our minds, that nature seems to have marked us +out for slavery.--Such is the apology perpetually made for our masters, and +the justification offered for that universal proscription, under which we +labour.</p> + +<p>But, I supplicate our enemies to be, though for the first time, just in +their proceedings toward us, and to establish the fact before, they attempt +to draw any conclusions from it. Nor let them imagine that this can be +done, by merely asserting that such is our universal character. It is +the character, I grant, that our inhuman masters have agreed to give us, +and which they have so industriously and too successfully propagated, in +order to palliate their own guilt, by blackening the helpless victims of +it, and to disguise their own cruelty under the semblance of justice. Let +the natural depravity of our character be proved--not by appealing to +declamatory invectives, and interested representations, but by showing that +a greater proportion of crimes have been committed by the wronged slaves of +the plantation, than by the luxurous inhabitants of Europe, who are happily +strangers to those aggravated provocations, by which our passions are every +day irritated and incensed. Show us, that, of the multitude of negroes, who +have within a few years transported themselves to this country,<sup><a href="#fn1-5-8" id="fna1-5-8">8</a></sup> and who +are abandoned to themselves; who are corrupted by example, prompted by +penury, and instigated by the memory of their wrongs to the commission of +crime--shew us, I say (and the demonstration, if it be possible, cannot be +difficult) that a greater proportion of these, than of white men have +fallen under the animadversions of justice, and have been sacrificed to +your laws. Though avarice may slander and insult our misery, and though +poets heighten the horror of their fables, by representing us as monsters +of vice--the fact is, that, if treated like other men, and admitted to a +participation of their rights, we should differ from them in nothing, +perhaps, but in our <a id="pg63"></a>possessing stronger passions, nicer sensibility, and +more enthusiastic virtue.</p> + +<p>Before so harsh a decision was pronounced upon our nature, we might have +expected--if sad experience had not taught us, to expect nothing but +injustice from our adversaries--that some pains would have been taken, +to ascertain, what our nature is; and that we should have been considered, +as we are found in our native woods, and not as we now are--altered and +perverted by an inhuman political institution. But, instead of this, we +are examined, not by philosophers, but by interested traders: not as +nature formed us, but as man has depraved us--and from such an inquiry, +prosecuted under such circumstances, the perverseness of our dispositions +is said to be established. Cruel that you are! you make us slaves; you +implant in our minds all the vices, which are in some degree, inseparable +from that condition; and you then impiously impute to nature, and to God, +the origin of those vices, to which you alone have given birth; and punish +in us the crimes, of which you are yourselves the authors.</p> + +<p>The condition of the slave is in nothing more deplorable, than in its being +so unfavorable to the practice of every virtue. The surest foundation of +virtue is love of our fellow creatures; and that affection takes its birth, +in the social relations of men to one another. But to a slave these are +all denied. He never pays or receives the grateful duties of a son--he +never knows or experiences the fond solicitude of a father--the tender +names of husband, of brother, and of friend, are to him unknown. He has no +country to defend and bleed for--he can relieve no sufferings--for he looks +around in vain, to find a being more wretched than himself. He can indulge +no generous sentiment--for he sees himself every hour treated with contempt +and ridiculed, and distinguished from irrational brutes, by nothing but +the severity of punishment. Would it be surprising, if a slave, labouring +under all these disadvantages--oppressed, insulted, scorned, trampled +on--should come at last to despise himself--to believe the calumnies of his +oppressors--and to persuade himself, that it would be against his nature, +to cherish any honourable sentiment or to attempt any virtuous action? +Before you boast of your superiority over us, place some of your own colour +(if you have the heart to do it) in the same situation with us; and see, +whether they have such innate virtue, and such unconquerable vigour of +mind, as to be capable of surmounting such<a id="pg64"></a> multiplied difficulties, and of +keeping their minds free from the infection of every vice, even under the +oppressive yoke of such a servitude.</p> + +<p>But, not satisfied with denying us that indulgence, to which the misery of +our condition gives us so just a claim, our enemies have laid down other +and stricter rules of morality, to judge our actions by, than those by +which the conduct of all other men is tried. Habits, which in all human +beings, except ourselves, are thought innocent, are, in us, deemed criminal +and actions, which are even laudable in white men, become enormous crimes +in negroes. In proportion to our weakness, the strictness of censure is +increased upon us; and as resources are withheld from us, our duties are +multiplied. The terror of punishment is perpetually before our eyes; but we +know not, how to avert it, what rules to act by, or what guides to follow. +We have written laws, indeed, composed in a language we do not understand +and never promulgated: but what avail written laws, when the supreme law, +with us, is the capricious will of our overseers? To obey the dictates of +our own hearts, and to yield to the strong propensities of nature, is often +to incur severe punishment; and by emulating examples which we find +applauded and revered among Europeans, we risk inflaming the wildest wrath +of our inhuman tyrants.</p> + +<p>To judge of the truth of these assertions, consult even those milder and +subordinate rules for our conduct, the various codes of your West India +laws--those laws which allow us to be men, whenever they consider us as +victims of their vengeance, but treat us only like a species of living +property, as often as we are to be the objects of their protection--those +laws by which (it may be truly said) that we are bound to suffer, and be +miserable under pain of death. To resent an injury, received from a white +man, though of the lowest rank, and to dare to strike him, though upon the +strongest and grossest provocation, is an enormous crime. To attempt to +escape from the cruelties exercised upon us, by flight, is punished with +mutilation, and sometimes with death. To take arms against masters, whose +cruelties no submission can mitigate, no patience exhaust, and from whom no +other means of deliverance are left, is the most atrocious of all crimes; +and is punished by a gradual death, lengthened out by torments, so +exquisite, that none, but those who have been long familiarized, with West +Indian barbarity, can hear the bare recital of them without horror. And yet +I learn from <a id="pg65"></a>writers, whom the Europeans hold in the highest esteem, that +treason is a crime, which cannot be committed by a slave against his +master; that a slave stands in no civil relation towards his master, and +owes him no allegiance; that master and slave are in a state of war; and if +the slave take up arms for his deliverance, he acts not only justifiably, +but in obedience to a natural duty, the duty of self-preservation. I read +in authors whom I find venerated by our oppressors, that to deliver one's +self and one's countrymen from tyranny, is an act of the sublimest heroism. +I hear Europeans exalted, as the martyrs of public liberty, the saviours of +their country, and the deliverers of mankind--I see other memories honoured +with statues, and their names immortalized in poetry--and yet when a +generous negro is animated by the same passion which ennobled them,--when +he feels the wrongs of his countrymen as deeply, and attempts to avenge +them as boldly--I see him treated by those same Europeans as the most +execrable of mankind, and led out, amidst curses and insults to undergo a +painful, gradual and ignominious death: And thus the same Briton, who +applauds his own ancestors for attempting to throw off the easy yoke, +imposed on them by the Romans, punishes us, as detested parricides, for +seeking to get free from the cruelest of all tyrannies, and yielding to the +irresistible eloquence of an African Galgacus or Boadicea.</p> + +<p>Are then the reason and morality, for which Europeans so highly value +themselves, of a nature so variable and fluctuating, as to change with the +complexion of those, to whom they are applied?--Do rights of nature cease +to be such, when a negro is to enjoy them?--Or does patriotism in the heart +of an African, rankle into treason?</p> + +<p>A Free Negro</p> +<p class="cite">--<em>American Museum</em>, V, 77 et seq., 1789.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Remarkable Speech of Adahoonzou, King of Dahomey, an Interior Nation of +Africa, on Hearing What Was Passing in England Respecting the Slave Trade</h3> + + +<p>I admire the reasoning of the white men; but with all their sense, it does +not appear that they have thoroughly studied the nature of the blacks, +whose disposition differs as much from that of the whites, as their colour. +The same great Being formed both; and since it hath seemed convenient for +him to distinguish mankind by opposite complexions, it is a fair conclusion +to presume that there may <a id="pg66"></a>be as a great a disagreement in the qualitie +of their minds; there is likewise a remarkable difference between the +countries which we inhabit. You, Englishmen, for instance, as I have been +informed, are surrounded by the ocean, and by this situation seem intended +to hold communication with the whole world, which you do, by means of your +ships; whilst we Dahomans, being placed on a large continent, and hemmed in +amidst a variety of other people, of the same complexion, but speaking +different languages, are obliged by the sharpness of our swords, to defend +ourselves from their incursions, and punish the depredations they make on +us. Such conduct in them is productive of incessant wars. Your countrymen, +therefore, who alledge that we go to war for the purpose of supplying your +ships with slaves, are grossly mistaken.</p> + +<p>You think you can work a reformation as you call it, in the manners of +the blacks; but you ought to consider the disproportion between the +magnitude of the two countries; and then you will soon be convinced of +the difficulties that must be surmounted, to change the system of such a +vast country as this. We know you are a brave people, and that you might +bring over a great many of the blacks to your opinions, by points of your +bayonets; but to effect this, a great many must be put to death and +numerous cruelties must be committed, which we do not find to have been +the practice of the whites; besides, that this would militate against the +very principle which is professed by those who wish to bring about a +reformation.</p> + +<p>In the name of my ancestors and myself, I aver, that no Dahoman ever +embarked in war merely for the sake of procuring wherewithal to purchase +your commodities. I, who have not been long master of this country, have +without thinking of the market, killed many thousands, and I shall kill +many thousands more. When policy or justice requires that men be put to +death, neither silk, nor coral, nor brandy, nor cowries, can be accepted +as substitutes for the blood that ought to be spilt for example sake: +besides if white men chuse to remain at home, and no longer visit this +country for the same purpose that has usually brought them thither, will +black men cease to make war? I answer, by no means, and if there be no +ships to receive their captives, what will become of them? I answer, for +you, they will be put to death. Perhaps you may be asked, how will the +blacks be punished with guns and powder? I reply by another question, had +we not clubs, and bows, <a id="pg67"></a>and arrows before we knew white men? Did not you +see me make <em>custom</em>--annual ceremony--for Weebaigah, the third king of +Dahomey? And did you not observe on the day such ceremony was performing, +that I carried a bow in my hand, and a quiver filled with arrows on my +back? These were the emblems of the times; when, with such weapons, that +brave ancestor fought and conquered all his neighbors. God made war for +all the world; and every kingdom, large or small, has practiced it, more +or less, though perhaps in a manner unlike, and upon different principles. +Did Weebaigah sell slaves? No; his prisoners were all killed to a man. +What else could he have done with them? Was he to let them remain in this +country to cut the throats of his subjects? This would have been wretched +policy indeed; which, had it been adopted, the Dahoman name would have +long ago been extinguished, instead of becoming as it is at this day, the +terror of surrounding nations. What hurts me most is, that some of your +people have maliciously misrepresented us in books, which never die; +alledging that we sell our wives and children for the sake of procuring a +few kegs of brandy. No! We are shamefully belied, and I hope you will +contradict, from my mouth, the scandalous stories that have been +propagated; and tell posterity that we have been abused. We do, indeed, +sell to the white men a part of our prisoners, and we have a right to do +so. Are not all prisoners at the disposal of their captors? and are we to +blame, if we send delinquents to a far country? I have been told you do +the same. If you want no more slaves from us, why cannot you be ingenious +and tell the plain truth; saying that the slaves you have already +purchased are sufficient for the country for which you bought them; or +that the artists who used to make fine things, are all dead, without +having taught anybody to make more? But for a parcel of men, with long +heads, to sit down in England, and frame laws for us, and pretend to +dictate how we are to live, of whom they know nothing, never having been +in a black man's country during the whole course of their lives, is to me +somewhat extraordinary! No doubt they must have been biased by the report +of some one, who had had to do with us; who, for want of a due knowledge +of the treatment of slaves, found that they died on his hands, and that +his money was lost; and seeing that others thrived by the traffic, he +envious of their good luck, has vilified both black and white traders. </p> + +<p><a id="pg68"></a>You have seen me kill many men at the customs; and you have often observed +delinquents at Grigwhee, and others of my provinces tied, and sent up to +me. I kill them, but do I ever insist on being paid for them? Some heads I +order to be placed at my door, others to be strewed about the market place, +that the people may stumble upon them, when they little expect such a +sight. This gives a grandeur to my customs, far beyond the display of fine +things which I buy; this makes my enemies fear me, and gives me such a name +in the Bush.<sup><a href="#fn1-5-9" id="fna1-5-9">9</a></sup> Besides, if I neglect this indispensable duty, would my +ancestors suffer me to live? would they not trouble me day and night, and +say, that I sent no body to serve them? that I was only solicitous about my +own name, and forgetful of my ancestors? White men are not acquainted with +these circumstances; but I now tell you that you may hear and know, and +inform your countrymen, why customs are made, and will be made, as long as +black men continue to possess their country; the few that can be spared +from this necessary celebration, we sell to the white men; and happy, no +doubt, are such, when they find themselves on the Grigwhee, to be disposed +of to the Europeans. "We shall still drink water," say they to themselves; +"white men will not kill us; and we may even avoid punishment, by serving +our new masters with fidelity."</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The New York Weekly Magazine</em>, II, 430, 1792.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-5"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn1-5-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-1">return</a>]</span>1. "Othello," the author of these two essays, was identified as a Negro +by Abbé Gregoire in his "De la litterature des Nègres."</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-2">return</a>]</span>2. The writer refers here to the Convention of 1787 which framed the +Constitution of the United States.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-3">return</a>]</span>3. Here the writer has in mind the organization of the English Society +for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the support given the cause by +Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox and Burke in England and by Brissot, Clavière and +Montmorin in France.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-4">return</a>]</span>4. Rhode Island had failed to ratify the Constitution of the United +States.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-5">return</a>]</span>5. During the first forty years of the republic there was much talk about +colonizing the Negroes in the West.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-6">return</a>]</span>6. The writer refers here to the acts of Pennsylvania, providing for the +abolition of slavery.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-7">return</a>]</span>7. In 1740 South Carolina enacted a law prohibiting any one from teaching +a slave to read or employing one in "any manner of writing." Georgia +enacted the same law in 1770.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-8">return</a>]</span>8. This letter was originally published in England, where the number of +Negroes had considerably increased after the war in America.</p> + +<p id="fn1-5-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-5-9">return</a>]</span>9. The country expression for the woods was "Bush."</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6"> +<h2><a id="pg69"></a>Letters Showing the Rise and Progress of the Early Negro Churches of +Georgia and the West Indies<sup><a href="#fn1-6-1-1" id="fna1-6-1-1">1</a></sup></h2> + +<div class="article" id="a1-6-1"> +<h3>An Account of Several Baptist Churches, Consisting Chiefly of Negro +Slaves: Particularly of One at Kingston, in Jamaica; and Another at +Savannah in Georgia</h3> + +<p>A letter from the late Rev. Mr. Joseph Cook of the Euhaw, upper Indian +Land, South Carolina, bearing date Sept. 15, 1790, "A poor negro, commonly +called, among his own friends, Brother George, has been so highly favoured +of God, as to plant the first Baptist Church in Savannah, and another in +Jamaica:" This account produced an earnest desire to know the circumstances +of both these societies. Hence letters were written to the Rev. Mr. Cook at +the Euhaw; to Mr. Jonathan Clarke, at Savannah; to Mr. Wesley's people at +Kingston; with a view to obtain information, in which particular regard was +had to the <em>character</em> of this poor but successful minister of Christ. +Satisfactory accounts have been received from each of these quarters, and a +letter from brother George himself, containing an answer to more than fifty +questions proposed in a letter to him: We presume to give an epitome of the +whole to our friends, hoping that they will have the goodness to let a +plain unlettered people convey their ideas in their own simple way.</p> + +<p>Brother George's words are distinguished by inverted commas, and what is +not so marked, is either matter compressed or information received from +such persons to whom application has been made of it.</p> + +<p>George Liele, called also George <em>Sharp</em> because his owner's name was +Sharp, in a letter dated Kingston, Dec. 18, 1791, says, "I was born in +Virginia, my father's name was Liele, and my mother's name Nancy; I can +not ascertain much of them, as I went to several parts of America when +young, and at length resided in New Georgia; but was informed both by +white and black people, that my father was the only black person who +knew the <a id="pg70"></a>Lord in a spiritual way in that country: I always had a +natural fear of God from my youth, and was often checked in conscience +with thoughts of death, which barred me from many sins and bad company. +I knew no other way at that time to hope for salvation but only in the +performance of my good works." <em>About two years before the late war</em>, +"the Rev. Mr. Matthew Moore,<sup><a href="#fn1-6-1-2" id="fna1-6-1-2">2</a></sup> one Sabbath afternoon, as I stood with +curiosity to hear him, he unfolded all my dark views, opened my best +behaviour and good works to me which I thought I was to be saved by, and +I was convinced that I was not in the way to heaven, but in the way to +hell. This state I laboured under for the space of five or six months. +The more I heard or read, the more I" saw that I "was condemned as a +sinner before God; till at length I was brought to perceive that my life +hung by a slender thread, and if it was the will of God to cut me off at +that time, I was sure I should be found in hell, as sure as God was in +Heaven. I saw my condemnation in my own heart, and I found no way +wherein I could escape the damnation of hell, only through the merits of +my dying Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; which caused me to make +intercession with Christ, for the salvation of my poor immortal soul; +and I full well recollect, I requested of my Lord and Master to give me +a work, I did not care how mean it was, only to try and see how good I +would do it." When he became acquainted with the method of salvation by +our Lord Jesus Christ, he soon found relief, particularly at a time when +he was earnestly engaged in prayer; yea, he says, "I felt such love and +joy as my tongue was not able to express. After this I declared before +the congregation of believers the work which God had done for my soul, +and the same minister, the Rev. Matthew Moore, baptized me, and I +continued in this church about four years, till the vacuation" of +Savannah by the British. When Mr. Liele was called by grace himself, he +was desirous of promoting the felicity of others. One who was an +eyewitness of it, says, <em>That he began to discover his love to other +negroes, on the same plantation with himself, by reading hymns among +them, encouraging them to sing, and sometimes by explaining the most +striking parts of them</em>. His own account is this, "Desiring to prove the +sense I had of my obligations to God, I endeavoured to instruct" the +people of "my own color in the word of God: <a id="pg71"></a>the white brethren seeing +my endeavours, and that the word of the Lord seemed to be blessed, gave +me a call at a quarterly meeting to preach before the congregation." +Afterwards Mr. Moore took the sense of the church concerning brother +Liele's abilities, when it appeared to be their unanimous opinion, "that +he was possessed of ministerial gifts," and according to the custom +which obtains in some of the American churches, he was licensed as a +probationer. He now exercised at different plantations, especially on +those Lord's Day evenings when there was no service performed in the +church to which he belonged; and preached "about three years at Brunton +land, and at Yamacraw," which last place is about half a mile from +Savannah. Mr. Henry Sharp, his master, being a deacon of the church +which called George Liele to the work of the ministry, some years before +his death gave him his freedom, only he continued in the family till his +master's exit. Mr. Sharp in the time of the war was an officer, and was +at last killed in the king's service, by a ball which shot off his hand. +The author of this account handled the bloody glove, which he wore when +he received the fatal wound. Some persons were at this time dissatisfied +with George's liberation, and threw him into prison, but by producing +the proper papers he was released; his particular friend in this +business was colonel Kirkland. "At the vacuation of the country I was +partly obliged to come to Jamaica, as an indented servant, for money I +owed him, he promising to be my friend in this country. I was landed at +Kingston, and by the colonel's recommendation to general Campbell, the +governor of the Island, I was employed by him two years, and on leaving +the island, he gave me a written certificate from under his own hand of +my good behaviour. As soon as I had settled Col. Kirkland's demands on +me, I had a certificate of my freedom from the vestry and governor, +according to the act of this Island, both for myself and family. +Governor Campbell left the Island. I began, about September 1784, to +preach in Kingston, in a small private house, to a good smart +congregation, and I formed the church with four brethren from America +besides myself, and the preaching took very good effect with the poorer +sort, especially the slaves. The people at first persecuted us both at +meetings and baptisms, but, God be praised, they seldom interrupt us +now. We have applied to the Honourable House of Assembly, with a +petition of our distresses, being poor people, desiring to <a id="pg72"></a>worship +Almighty God according to the tenets of the Bible, and they have granted +us liberty, and given us their sanction. Thanks be to God we have +liberty to worship him as we please in the Kingdom. You ask about those +who," in a judgment of charity, "have been converted to Christ. I think +they are about four hundred and fifty. I have baptized four hundred in +Jamaica. At Kingston I baptize in the sea, at Spanish Town in the river, +and at convenient places in the country. We have nigh <em>three hundred and +fifty members</em>; a few white people among them, one white brother of the +first battalion of royals, from England, baptized by Rev. Thomas Davis. +Several members have been dismissed to other churches, and twelve have +died. I have sent enclosed" an account of "the conversion and death of +some. A few of Mr. Wesley's people, after immersion, join us and +continue with us. We have, together with well wishers and followers, in +different parts of the country, about fifteen hundred people. We receive +none into the church without a few lines from their owners of their good +behaviour towards them and religion. The Creoles of the country, after +they are converted and baptized, as God enables them, prove very +faithful. I have deacons and elders, a few; and teachers of small +congregations in the town and country, where convenience suits them to +come together; and I am pastor. I preach twice on the Lord's Day, in the +forenoon and afternoon, and twice in the week, and have not been absent +six Sabbath Days since I formed the church in this country. I receive +nothing for my services; I preach, baptize, administer the Lord's +Supper, and travel from one place to another to publish the gospel, and +to settle church affairs, all freely. I have one of the chosen men, whom +I baptized, a deacon of the church, and a native of this country, who +keeps the regulations of church matters; and I promoted a <em>free school</em> +for the instruction of the children, both free and slaves, and he is +the schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>"I cannot justly tell what is my age, as I have no account of the time +of my birth, but I suppose I am about forty years old. I have a wife and +four children. My wife was baptized by me in Savannah, at Brunton land, +and I have every satisfaction in life from her. She is much the same age +as myself. My eldest son is nineteen years, my next son seventeen, the +third fourteen, and the last child, a girl of eleven years; they are all +members of the church. My occupation is a farmer, but as the seasons in +this part of the country, are uncertain, I also keep a team of horses, +and waggons for the <a id="pg73"></a>carrying goods from one place to another, which I +attend to myself, with the assistance of my sons; and by this way of +life have gained the good will of the public, who recommend me to +business, and to some very principal work for government.</p> + +<p>"I have a few books, some good old authors and sermons, and one large +bible that was given to me by a gentleman; a good many of our members +can read, and are all desirous to learn; they will be very thankful for +a few books to read on Sundays and other days.</p> + +<p>"The last accounts I had from Savannah were, that the Gospel had taken +very great effect both there and in South Carolina. Brother Andrew +Bryan, a black minister at Savannah, has <span class="sc">two hundred members</span>, in full +fellowship and had certificates from their owners of <span class="sc">one hundred more</span>, +who had given in their experiences and were ready to be baptized. Also I +received accounts from Nova Scotia of a black Baptist preacher, Brother +David George, who was a member of the church at Savannah; he had the +permission of the Governor to preach in three provinces; his members in +full communion were then <em>sixty</em>, white and black, the Gospel spreading. +Brother Amos is at Providence, he writes me that the Gospel has taken +good effect, and is spreading greatly; he has about <span class="sc">three hundred +members</span>. Brother Jessy Gaulsing, another black minister, preaches near +Augusta, in South Carolina, at a place where I used to preach; he was a +member of the church at Savannah, and has <em>sixty members</em>; and a great +work is going on there.</p> + +<p>"I agree to election, redemption, the fall of Adam, regeneration, and +perseverance, knowing the promise is to all who endure, in grace, faith, +and good works, to the end, shall be saved.</p> + +<p>"There is no Baptist church in this country but ours. We have purchased +a piece of land, at the east end of Kingston, containing three acres for +the sum of 155 l.<sup><a href="#fn1-6-1-3" id="fna1-6-1-3">3</a></sup> currency, and on it have begun a meeting-house +fifty-seven feet in length by thirty-seven in breadth. We have raised +the brick wall eight feet high from the foundation, and intend to have a +gallery. Several gentlemen, members of the house of assembly, and other +gentlemen, have subscribed towards the building about 40 l. The chief +part of our congregation are <span class="sc">slaves</span>, and their owners allow them, in +common, but three or four <a id="pg74"></a>bits per week<sup><a href="#fn1-6-1-4" id="fna1-6-1-4">4</a></sup> for allowance to feed +themselves; and out of so small a sum we cannot expect any thing that +can be of service from them; if we did it would soon bring a scandal +upon religion; and the <span class="sc">free people</span> in our society are but poor, but they +are all willing, both free and slaves, to do what they can. As for my +part, I am too much entangled with the affairs of the world to go on," +as I would, "with my design, in supporting the cause: this has, I +acknowledge, been a great hindrance to the Gospel in one way; but as I +have endeavored to set a good example" of industry "before the +inhabitants of the land, it has given general satisfaction another +way.... And, Rev. Sir, we think the Lord has put it in the power of the +Baptist societies in England to help and assist us in completing this +building, which we look upon will be the greatest undertaking ever was +in this country for the bringing of souls from darkness into the light +of the Gospel.... And as the Lord has put it into your heart to enquire +after us, we place all our confidence in you, to make our circumstances +known to the several Baptist churches in England; and we look upon you +as our father, friend, and brother.</p> + +<p>"Within the brick wall we have a shelter, in which we worship, until our +building can be accomplished.</p> + +<p>"Your ... letter was read to the church two or three times, and did +create a great deal of love and warmness throughout the whole +congregation, who shouted for joy and comfort, to think that the Lord +had been so gracious as to satisfy us in this country with the very same +religion with ... our beloved brethren in the old country, according to +the scriptures; and that such a worthy ... of London, should write in so +loving a manner to such poor worms as we are. And I beg leave to say, +That the whole congregation sang out that they would, through the +assistance of God, remember you in their prayers. They altogether give +their Christian love to you, and all the worthy professors of Jesus +Christ in your church at London, and beg the prayers of your +congregation, and the prayers of the churches in general, wherever it +pleases you to make known our circumstances. I remain with the utmost +love ... Rev. Sir, your unworthy fellow-labourer, servant, and brother +in Christ.</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">George Liele</span></p> + +<p><a id="pg75"></a>P.S. We have chosen twelve trustees, all of whom are members of our +church, whose names are specified in the title; the title proved and +recorded in the Secretary's office of this island.</p> + +<p>I would have answered your letter much sooner, but am encumbered with +business: the whole island under arms; several of our members and a +deacon were obliged to be on duty; and I being trumpeter to the troop of +horse in Kingston, am frequently called upon. And also by order of +government I was employed in carrying all the cannon that could be found +lying about this part of the country. This occasioned my long delay, +which I beg you will excuse."</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-3, pages 332-337.</p> + + + +<h4>To the Rev. Mr. John Rippon</h4> + +<p class="date"><span class="sc">Kingston in Jamaica</span>, Nov. 26, 1791.</p> + +<p><em>Reverend Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>The perusal of your letter of the 15th July last, gave me much +pleasure--to find that you had interested yourself to serve the glorious +cause Mr. Liele is engaged in. He has been for a considerable time past +very zealous in the ministry; but his congregation being chiefly slaves, +they had it not in their power to support him, therefore he has been +obliged to do it from his own industry; this has taken a considerable +part of his time and much of his attention from his labours in the +ministry; however, I am led to believe that it has been of essential +service to the cause of GOD, for his industry has set a good example to +his flock, and has put it out of the power of enemies to religion to +say, that he has been eating the bread of idleness, or lived upon the +poor slaves. The idea that too much prevails here amongst the masters of +slaves is, that if their minds are considerably enlightened by religion +or otherwise, that it would be attended with the most dangerous +consequences; and this has been the only cause why the Methodist +ministers and Mr. Liele have not made a greater progress in the ministry +amongst the slaves. Alas! how much is it to be lamented, that a full +<span class="sc">quarter of a million</span> of poor souls should so long remain in a state of +nature; and that masters should be so blind to their own interest as not +to know the difference between obedience inforced by the lash of the +whip and that which flows from religious principles. Although I much +admire the <em>general doctrine</em> preached in the Methodist church, yet I by +no means approve of their discipline set up by Mr. Wesley, that reverend +man of God. I very early saw into the impropriety of <a id="pg76"></a>admitting slaves +into their societies <em>without permission of their owners</em>, and told them +the consequences that would attend it; but they rejected my advice; and +it has not only prevented the increase of their church, but has raised +them many enemies. Mr. Liele has very wisely acted a different part. He +has, I believe, admitted no slaves into society but those who had +obtained permission from their owners, by which he has made many +friends; and I think the Almighty is now opening a way for another +church in the capital, where the Methodists could not gain any ground: a +short time will determine it, of which I shall advise you.--I really +have not time to enter so fully on this subject as I wish, being very +much engaged in my own temporal affairs, and at present having no +clerk.--The love I bear to the cause of God, and the desire I have of +being any ways instrumental to the establishing of it in this land of +darkness, has led me to write this: but before I conclude, I have some +very interesting particulars to lay before you:--Mr. Liele has by the +aid of the congregation and the assistance of some few people, raised +the walls of a church ready to receive the roof, but has not the means +to lay it on and finish it; nor do I see any prospect of its going +further, without he receives the aid of some religious institution from +home. One hundred and fifty pounds, I think, would complete it; and if +this sum could be raised, it would greatly serve the cause of GOD, and +might be the means of bringing many hundred souls, who are now in a +state of darkness, to the knowledge of our great Redeemer. If this could +be raised the sooner the better. Our family contributed towards the +purchase of the Methodist chapel; nor shall our mite be wanting to +forward this work if it meets with any encouragement from home.--I am a +stranger to you, but you may know my character from Daniel Shea, Esq.; +and John Parker, Esq.; merchants in your city; or from Mr. Samuel +Yockney, tea-dealer, in Bedford Row.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you may expect me to say something of Mr. Liele's character. He +is a very industrious man--decent and humble in his manners, and, I +think, a good man. This is my opinion of him. I love all Christians of +every denomination, and remain, with respect and sincere regard,</p> + +<div class="closing"><div class="line">Reverend Sir,</div> +<div class="line">Your friend and servant,</div></div> +<div class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">Stephen Cooke</span>.</div> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, pages 338 and 339.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-6-1"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn1-6-1-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-1-1">return</a>]</span>1. Most of these letters were written by two colored preachers, George +Liele and Andrew Bryan.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-1-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-1-2">return</a>]</span>2. Mr. Moore was an ordained Baptist minister, of the county of Burke, +in Georgia; he died, it seems, some time since. EDITOR.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-1-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-1-3">return</a>]</span>3. 140 l. currency is 100 l. sterling.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-1-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-1-4">return</a>]</span>4. A bit was seven pence half-penny currency, or about five pence +halfpenny sterling.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-2"> +<h3><a id="pg77"></a>Sketches of the Black Baptist Church at Savannah, in Georgia; and of Their +Minister Andrew Bryan, Extracted from Several Letters</h3> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date"><span class="sc">Savannah</span>, July 19, 1790, &c.</p> + +<p><em>Dear Brother</em>,</p> + +<p>"With pleasure I receive your favor of the 20th ult. more particularly, +as I trust the correspondence may be of use to Brother Andrew's +church; concerning the origin of which, I have taken from him the +following account.</p> + +<p>"Our Brother <em>Andrew</em> was one of the black hearers of <em>George Liele,"</em> +of whom an account was given before; and was hopefully converted by his +preaching from chapter III. of St. John's Gospel, and a clause of verse +7, <em>Ye must be born again</em>; prior to the departure of <em>George Liele</em> for +Jamaica, he came up from Tybee River, where departing vessels frequently +lay ready for sea, and baptized our Brother <em>Andrew</em>, with a wench of +the name <em>Hagar</em>, both belonging to <em>Jonathan Bryan</em>, Esq.; these were +the last performances of our Brother <em>George Liele</em> in this quarter. +About eight or nine months after his departure, <em>Andrew</em> began to exhort +his black hearers, with a few whites. Edward Davis, Esq.; indulged him +and his hearers to erect a rough building on his land at <em>Yamacraw</em>, in +the suburbs of Savannah for a place of worship, of which they have been +very artfully dispossessed. In this their beginning of worship they had +frequent interruptions from the whites; as it was at a time that a +number of blacks had absconded, and some had been taken away by the +British. This was a plausible excuse for their wickedness in their +interruptions. The whites grew more and more inveterate; taking numbers +of them before magistrates--they were imprisoned and whipped. <em>Sampson</em>, +a brother of <em>Andrew,</em> belonging to the same master, was converted about +a year after him, and continued with him in all their persecutions, and +does until now. These, with many others, were twice imprisoned, and +about <em>fifty</em> were severely whipped, particularly <em>Andrew, who was cut +and bled abundantly</em>, while he was under their lashes; Brother +<em>Hambleton</em> says, he held up his hand, and told his persecutors that he +rejoiced not only to be whipped, but <em>would freely suffer death for the +cause of Jesus Christ</em>. "The chief justice <em>Henry Osborne,</em> Esq.; <em>James +Habersham</em>, Esq.;<sup><a href="#fn1-6-2-1" id="fna1-6-2-1">1</a></sup> and <em>David Montague</em>, <a id="pg78"></a>Esq.; were their examinants, +and released them. Their kind <em>master</em> also interceded for them; and +was much affected and grieved at their punishment." Brother <em>Hambleton</em> +was also an advocate for them; and further says, that at one of their +examinations <em>George Walton</em>, Esq.; spoke freely in favour of the +sufferers, saying, that such treatment would be condemned even among +barbarians. "The chief justice <em>Osborne</em> then gave them liberty to +continue their worship between sunrising and sun set; and their +indulgent <em>master</em> told the magistrate, that he would give them the +liberty of his own <em>house or his barn</em>, at a place called Brampton, +about three miles from town, and that they should not be interrupted +in their worship. In consequence hereof, they made use of their +masters <em>barn</em>, where they had a number of hearers, with little or +no interruption, for about two years. During the time of worship at +Brampton Brother Thomas Burton, an elderly baptist preacher, paid them +a visit, examined and baptized about <em>eighteen</em> blacks: at another period +while there they received a visit from our brother <em>Abraham Marshall</em><sup><a href="#fn1-6-2-2" id="fna1-6-2-2">2</a></sup> +who examined and baptized about forty and gave them two certificates +from under his hand;" copies of which follow:</p> + +<p>This is to <em>certify</em>, that upon examination into the experiences and +characters of a number of <em>Ethiopians</em>, and adjacent to Savannah, it +appears that God has brought them out of darkness into the light of the +Gospel, and given them fellowship one with the other; believing it is +the will of Christ, we have constituted them a church of Jesus Christ, +to keep up his worship and ordinances.</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">A. Marshall, V.D.M.</span></p> +</div> +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date"><a id="pg79"></a>Jan. 19, 1788.</p> + +<p>This is to certify, that the Ethiopian church of Jesus Christ at +Savannah, have called their beloved <em>Andrew</em> to the work of the +ministry. We have examined into his qualifications, and believing it to +be the will of the great Head of the church, we have appointed him to +preach the Gospel, and to administer the ordinances, as God in his +providence may call.</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">A. Marshall, V.D.M.</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date">Jan. 20, 1788.</p> + +<p>"After the death of their master his son, Dr. <em>William Bryan,</em> +generously continued them the use of the <em>barn</em> for worship, until the +estate was divided among the family. Our Brother <em>Andrew,</em> by consent of +parties, purchased his freedom, bought a lot at Yamacraw, and built a +residence near the dwelling house which their master had given <em>Sampson</em> +liberty to build on his lot; and which have ever been made use of for +worship. But by the division of their master's estate, the lot whereon +<em>Sampson</em> had built a house to live in, and which until this time +continues to be used for worship, by <em>Andrew</em>, fell into the hands of an +attorney, who married a daughter of the deceased Mr. Bryan, and receives +no less than 12 l. a year for it. <em>Sampson</em> serves as a clerk, but +frequently exhorts in the absence of his brother who has his +appointments in different places to worship.</p> + +<p>"Brother <em>Andrew's</em> account of his number in full communion is <span class="sc">two +hundred and twenty-five</span>, and about <span class="sc">three hundred and fifty</span> have been +received as converted followers, many of whom have not permission" from +their owners "to be baptized.--The whole number is judged to be about +five hundred and seventy-five, from the towns being taken to this +present July. I have consulted brother <em>Hambleton</em>, who thinks they have +need of a few Bibles, the Baptist Confession of Faith, and Catechism; +Wilson on Baptism, some of Bunyan's works, or any other that your wisdom +may think useful to an illerate people. They all join in prayers +for you and yours and beg your intercession at the throne of grace for +them, as well as for the small number of whites that dwell here; and +among them I hope you will not forget your poor unworthy brother, and +believe me, with sincere affections and brotherly love, your in the +bonds of the Gospel,</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">Jonathan Clarke</span><sup><a href="#fn1-6-2-3" id="fna1-6-2-3">3</a></sup></p> +</div> + + +<p>Concerning the church at Savannah, the late Rev. Mr. Joseph Cook, of the +Euhaw, upper Indian land, thus writes: "From the enclosed you will see +how it became a church, and what they have suffered, which is extremely +affecting, but they now begin to rise from obscurity and to appear +great. I have some acquaintance with their pastor, and have heard him +preach; his <em>gifts are small</em>, but he is <em>clear in the grand doctrines</em> +of the Gospel.--I believe him <a id="pg80"></a>to be <em>truly pious</em> and he has been the +instrument of doing more good among the poor slaves than all the learned +doctors in America."</p> + +<p>The friends of our adorable Redeemer will, no doubt, rejoice to find +that this large body of Christians negroes, under the patronage of some +of the most respectable persons in their city, "have opened a +subscription for the erecting of a place of worship in the city of +Savannah, for the society of black people of the Baptist denomination--the +property to be vested in the hands of seven or more persons in trust +for the church and congregation."</p> + +<p>Their case<sup><a href="#fn1-6-2-4" id="fna1-6-2-4">4</a></sup> is sent to England, recommended by</p> +<ul class="nobullet"> +<li><span class="sc">J. Johnson</span>,<sup><a href="#fn1-6-2-5" id="fna1-6-2-5">5</a></sup> Minister of the Union Church.</li> +<li><span class="sc">John Hamilton.</span></li> +<li><span class="sc">Ebenezer Hills.</span></li> +<li><span class="sc">Joseph Watts.</span></li> +<li><span class="sc">D. Moses Vallotton.</span></li> +<li><span class="sc">John Millene.</span></li> +<li><span class="sc">Abraham Leggett.</span></li></ul> + +<p>Since the preceding account has been in the press, other letters have been +received, of which the following is an extract.</p> + + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date"><span class="sc">Kingston, Jamaica</span>, May 18, 1792.</p> + +<p><em>Rev. and Dear Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>In answer to yours I wrote December 18 last, and as I have not received +a line from you since, I send this, not knowing but the other was +miscarried. Mr. Green has called upon me, and very kindly offered his +service to deliver a letter from me into your hands; he also advised me +to send you a copy of our church covenant, which I have done: being a +collection of some of the principal texts of scripture which we observe, +both in America and this country, for the direction of our practice. It +is read once a month here on sacrament meetings, that our members may +examine if they live according to all those laws which they profess, +<a id="pg81"></a>covenanted and agreed to; by this means our church is kept in scriptural +subjection. As I observe in my last the chiefest part of our society are +poor illiterate slaves, some living on sugar estates, some on mountains, +pens, and other settlements, that have no learning, no not to know so +much as a letter in the book; but the reading this covenant once a +month, when all are met together from the different parts of the island, +keeps them in mind of the commandments of God. And by shewing the same +to the gentlemen of the legislature, and the justices, and magistrates, +when I applied for a sanction, it gave them general satisfaction; and +wherever a negro servant is to be admitted, their owners, after the +perusal of it, are better satisfied. We are this day raising the roof on +the walls of our meeting house; the height of the walls from the +foundation is seventeen feet. I have a right to praise God, and glorify +him for the manifold blessings I have received, and do still receive +from him. I have full liberty from <em>Spanish Town</em>, the capital of this +country, to preach the Gospel throughout the Island: the Lord is +blessing the work everywhere, and believers are added daily to the +church. My tongue is not able to express the goodness of the Lord. As +our meeting house is out of town "(about a mile and a half)," I have a +steeple on it, to have a bell to give notice to our people and more +particularly to the owners of Slaves that are in our society, that they +may know the hour on which we meet, and be satisfied that our servants +return in due time; for which reason I shall be greatly obliged to you +to send me out, as soon as possible, a bell that can be heard about two +<em>miles</em> distance, with the price. I have one at present, but it is +rather small. The slaves may then be permitted to come and return in due +time, for at present we meet very irregular in respect to hours. I +remain, with the utmost regards, love and esteem,</p> + +<div class="closing">Rev. Sir, yours, &c.</div> +<div class="sig">George Liele.</div> +</div> + + +<p>Copy of a Recommendatory Letter of Hannah Williams, a Negro Woman, in +London. It is all in print, except the part of it which now appears +in Italics.</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>Kingston, Jamaica, we that are of the Baptist Religion, being separated +from all churches, excepting they are of the same faith and order after +Jesus Christ, according to the scriptures, do certify, that our beloved +<em>Sister Hannah Williams, during the time she was <a id="pg82"></a>a member of the +Church at Savannah, until the evacuation, did walk as a</em> faithful, +well-behaved Christian, and to recommend her to join any church of the +same faith and order. Given under my hand this 21st day of <em>December</em>, +in the year of our Lord, 1791.</p> + +<p class="sig"><span class="sc">George Liele.</span></p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, pages 339-344.</p> +</div> +<div class="footnotes" id="fn1-6-2"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn1-6-2-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-2-1">return</a>]</span>1. The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield's intimate friend.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-2-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-2-2">return</a>]</span>2. The Editor of the Baptist Annual Register said that he had not the +honor of a correspondence with this respectable minister but that his +name stood thus in the Georgia Association of 1788. At "Kioka, Abraham +Marshall, 22 baptized, 230" members in all.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-2-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-2-3">return</a>]</span>3. The character of Mr. Jonathan Clarke, according to the writer, might +be learned at May and Hill's, merchants, Church-row, Fenchurch-street.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-2-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-2-4">return</a>]</span>4. It was committed to the care of the Editor of the Baptist Annual +Register.</p> + +<p id="fn1-6-2-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna1-6-2-5">return</a>]</span>5. The Rev. Mr. Johnson was well known in London; he sailed for America +in the fall of 1790; and laboured in the <em>Orphan House</em> at Savannah, +built by Mr. Whitefield, and assigned in trust to the countess of +Huntingdon. On May 30, 1775, the orphan house building caught fire and +was entirely consumed, except the two wings which still remained. Editor +of the Baptist Annual Register.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-3"> +<h3>Account of the Negro Church at Savannah, and of Two Negro Ministers</h3> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date"><span class="sc">Savannah</span>, Dec. 22, 1792.</p> + + +<p><em>Dear Brother Rippon</em>,</p> + +<p>By return of Capt. Parrot in the ship Hannah, opportunity offers to +acknowledge receipt of your kind favour with two boxes of books +agreeable to invoice, which were very thankfully acceptable to our +Brother Andrew, as well as to myself, and were delivered agreeable to +your request. Within a month past a few of our Christian friends +providentially collected at my house, when it was thought necessary we +should commence a subscription for the building of a Baptist +Meeting-house in this city, as the corporation has given us a lot for +that purpose. Mr. Ebenezer Hills and myself were appointed trustees, and +we have subscribed £35. 6s. if we can get as much more, we intend to +begin the work, please God to smile on our weak endeavours, and the +place will be made sufficiently large to accommodate the black people: +they have been frowned upon of late by some despisers of religion, who +have endeavoured to suppress their meeting together on Thursday evening +in the week which was their custom, but is now set aside; so that they +only continue worship from the sun rise to sun set on Sabbath days.</p> + +<p>I copied brother Andrew's last return of members for brother Silas +Mercer, who was here since the association of Coosawhatchic, which is as +follows: Return made to the Georgia Association,</p> +<table summary="members of the Georgia Association"> +<tr><td>Supposed to be two or three years past</td><td>250</td></tr> +<tr><td>Baptized since (say 80 in this year 1792)</td><td>159</td><td>409</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Excommunicated</td><td>8</td></tr> +<tr><td>Dead</td><td>12</td><td>20</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td>—</td><td>—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Total remaining Nov. 26, 1792</td><td></td><td>389</td></tr> +</table> +<p><a id="pg83"></a>Brother Andrew lately brought me a letter from brother George Liele, of +Jamaica, expressive of the great increase of his church in that island. +Andrew is free only since the death of his old master, and purchased his +freedom of one of their heirs at the rate of 50 l. He was born at Goose +Creek, about 16 miles from Charleston, South Carolina; his mother was a +slave, and died in the service of his old master: his father, a slave, +yet living, but rendered infirm by age for ten years past. Andrew was +married nine years since, which was about the time he and his wife were +brought to the knowledge of their wretched state by nature: His wife is +named Hannah and remains a slave to the heirs of his older master; they +have no children; He was ordained by our Brother Marshall: he has no +assistant preacher but his Brother Sampson, who continues a faithful +slave, and occasionally exhorts. Some white ministers from the country +preach in his church. Jesse Peter, another Negro (whose present master +is Thomas Galphin), is now here, and has three or four places in the +country where he attends preaching alternately; a number of white people +admire him. While he is here, I propose to be informed more particularly +of his situation, etc. Although a slave his master indulges him in his +profession and gives him uncommon liberty. To return to Andrew, he has +four deacons appointed, but not regularly introduced. He supports +himself by his own labour. There are no white people that particularly +belong to his church, but we have reason to hope that he has been +instrumental in the conviction and converting of some whites. Amos, the +other Negro minister, mentioned by Brother George, resides at one of the +Bahama Islands, which is called New Providence, and is about four days +sail towards the southeast. There is one white church at Ogeechee, and +another at Effingham; each of these are about twenty miles from this, +which are the nearest and only ones. Perhaps fifty of Andrew's church +can read, but only three can write.</p> + +<p>For the present, accept of the sincere love and kind respects of the +Black Society, with Andrew's particular thanks. My ears have heard their +petitions to the throne of grace for you particularly, which no doubt +they will continue; and let me entreat your prayers for them, and for +the connected societies of this State.</p> + +<div class="closing">Your brother in the Lord Jesus,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Jonathan Clarke.</span></div> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, pages 540-541.</p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<div class="date"><a id="pg84"></a><span class="sc">Kingston</span>, Jamaica, Jan. 12, 1793.</div> + +<p>Our Meeting-house is now covered in and the lower floor was completed +the 24th of last month. We supposed we are indebted for lumber, lime, +bricks, &c. between 4 and 500 l. I am not able to express the thanks I +owe for your kind attention to me, and the cause of God. The +Schoolmaster, together with the members of our church, return their +sincere thanks for the books you have been pleased to send them, being +so well adapted to the society, they have given great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>I hope shortly to send you a full account of the number of people in our +societies in different parts of this island. I have baptized near 500.</p> + +<p>I have purchased a piece of land in Spanish Town, the capital of this +Island, for a burying ground, with a house upon it, which serves for a +Meeting-house. James Jones, Esq., one of the magistrates of this town, +and Secretary of the Island, told me, that the Hon. William Mitchell, +Esq., the Gustos, had empowered him to grant me license to preach the +Gospel, and they have given me liberty to make mention of their names in +any congregation where we are interrupted. Mr. Jones has given +permission for all his negroes to be taught the word of God. The gospel +is taking great effect in this town. My brethren and sisters in general, +most affectionately give their Christian love to you, and all the dear +lovers of Jesus Christ in your church at London, and beg that they, and +all the other churches, will remember the poor Ethiopian Baptists of +Jamaica in their prayers, I remain, dear Sir and brother, your unworthy +fellow labourer in Christ.</p> + +<p class="sig"><span class="sc">George Liele.</span></p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, page 542.</p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date">Kingston, Jamaica, April 12, 1793.</p> + + +<p><em>Rev. and Dear Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>I am one of the poor, unworthy, helpless creatures born in this island, +whom our glorious master Jesus Christ was graciously pleased to call +from a state of darkness to the marvelous light of the gospel and since +our Lord has bestowed his mercy on my soul, our beloved minister, by +consent of the church, appointed me deacon, schoolmaster, and his +principal helper.</p> + +<p>We have great reason in this island to praise and glorify the Lord for +his goodness and loving kindness, in sending his blessed Gospel amongst +us by our well-beloved minister, Brother Liele. <a id="pg85"></a>We were living in +slavery to sin and satan, and the Lord hath redeemed our souls to a +state of happiness to praise his glorious and ever blessed name; and we +hope to enjoy everlasting peace by the promise of our Lord and master +Jesus Christ. The blessed Gospel is spreading wonderfully in this +island; believers are daily coming into the church and we hope, in a +little time, to see Jamaica become a Christian country.</p> + +<div class="closing">I remain respectfully, Rev. and Dear Sir,</div> + +<div class="closing">Your poor Brother in Christ,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Thomas Nichols Swigle.</span></div> +</div> + + +<p>Mr. George Gibbs Bailey, of Bristol, now at Kingston, in Jamaica, writes +thus, under date May 9, 1793. "I have inquired of all those who I +thought could give me an account of Mr. Liele's conduct without +prejudice, and I can say with pleasure, what Pilate said, I can <em>find no +fault in this man</em>. The Baptist church abundantly thrives among the +Negroes, more than any denomination in Jamaica; but I am very sorry to +say the Methodist church is declining greatly."</p> + +<p>Another sensible Gentleman, of Kingston, in Jamaica, much attached to +Mr. Wesley's interest, also says, "I will be very candid with you and +tell you that I think the Baptist church is the church that will spread +the Gospel among the poor Negroes and I hope and trust, as there is +reason to believe that your church will be preferred before all others +by the Negroes, that those of you who are in affluence will contribute +and send out a minister and support him," &c.</p> + +<p>--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, pages 542-543.</p> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-4"> +<h3>From the Rev. Abraham Marshall, Who Formed the Negro Church at Savannah, +to Mr. Rippon</h3> + +<div class="letter"> +<div class="date">Kioka, Georgia, May 1, 1793.</div> + +<p><em>Rev. and Dear Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>Yours came safe to hand, and gave singular satisfaction. Neither +spreading plains, nor rolling oceans, can prevent us from weeping with +those that weep, and rejoicing with those that rejoice. I have had it +in contemplation for some time to open a correspondence with our dear +friend on the other side of the flood, but my constant travelling has +hitherto prevented; I am highly pleased that you have opened the way....</p> + +<p>As to the Black Church in Savannah, of which you had a par<a id="pg86"></a>ticular +account by Mr. Clarke, I baptized forty-five of them in one day, +assisted in the constitution of the church, and ordination of the +minister. They have given repeated proofs, by their sufferings, of their +zeal for the cause of God and religion; and, I believe, are found in the +faith, and strict in discipline.</p> + +<p>I am also intimately acquainted with Jessy Golfin; he lives thirty miles +below me, in South Carolina, and twelve miles below Augusta; he is a +negro servant to Mr. Golfin, who, to his praise be it spoken, treats him +with respect. His countenance is grave, his voice charming, his delivery +good, nor is he a novice in the mysteries of the kingdom.</p> + +<div class="closing">From less than the least,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Abraham Marshall.</span></div> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1790-1793, page 545.</p> +</div></div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-5"><div class="letter"> +<p>A Letter from the Negro Baptist Church in Savannah, Addressed to the +Reverend Doctor Rippon</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date">Savannah-Georgia, U.S.A., Dec. 23, 1800.</p> + +<p><em>My Dear and Reverend Brother</em>,</p> + +<p>After a long silence occasioned by various hindrances, I sit down to +answer your inestimable favour by the late dear Mr. White, who I hope is +rejoicing, far above the troubles and trials of this frail sinful state. +All the books mentioned in your truly condescending and affectionate +letter, came safe, and were distributed according to your humane +directions. You can scarcely conceive, much less than I describe, the +gratitude excited by so seasonably and precious a supply of the means of +knowledge and grace, accompanied with benevolent proposals of further +assistance. Deign, dear sir, to accept our united and sincere thanks for +your great kindness to us, who have been so little accustomed to such +attentions. Be assured that our prayers have ascended, and I trust will +continue to ascend to God, for your health and happiness, and that you +may be rendered a lasting ornament to our holy Religion, and a +successful Minister of the Gospel.</p> + +<p>With much pleasure, I inform you, dear sir, that I enjoy good health, +and am strong in body, tho' sixty-three years old, and am blessed with +a pious wife, whose freedom I have obtained, and an only daughter and +child who is married to a free man, tho' she, and consequently, under +our laws, her seven children, five sons and two daughters, are slaves. +By a kind Providence I am well provided <a id="pg87"></a>for, as to worldly comforts, +(tho' I have had very little given me as a minister) having a house and +lot in this city, besides the land on which several buildings stand, for +which I receive a small rent, and a fifty-six acre tract of land, with +all necessary buildings, four miles in the country, and eight slaves; +for whose education and happiness, I am enabled thro' mercy to provide.</p> + +<p>But what will be infinitely more interesting to my friend, and is so +much more prized by myself, we enjoy the rights of conscience to a +valuable extent, worshiping in our families and preaching three times +every Lord's-day, baptizing frequently from ten to thirty at a time in +the Savannah, and administering the sacred supper, not only without +molestation, but in the presence, and with the approbation and +encouragement of many of the white people. We are now about seven +hundred in number, and the work of the Lord goes on prosperously.</p> + +<p>An event which has had a happy influence on our affairs was the coming +of Mr. Holcombe, late pastor of Euhaw Church, to this place at the call +of the heads of the city, of all denominations, who have remained for +the thirteen months he has been here among his constant hearers and his +liberal supporters. His salary is 2000 a year. He has just had a +baptistery, with convenient appendages, built in his place of worship, +and has commenced baptizing.</p> + +<p>Another dispensation of Providence has much strengthened our hands, and +increased our means of information; Henry Francis, lately a slave to the +widow of the late Colonel Leroy Hammond, of Augusta, has been purchased +by a few humane gentlemen of this place, and liberated to exercise the +handsome ministerial gifts he possesses amongst us, and teach our youth +to read and write. He is a strong man about forty-nine years of age, +whose mother was white and whose father was an Indian. His wife and only +son are slaves.</p> + +<p>Brother Francis has been in the ministry fifteen years, and will soon +receive ordination, and will probably become the pastor of a branch of +my large church, which is getting too unwieldy for one body. Should this +event take place, and his charge receive constitution, it will take the +rank and title of the 3rd Baptist Church in Savannah.</p> + +<p>With the most sincere and ardent prayers to God for your temporal and +eternal welfare, and with the most unfeigned gratitude, I remain, +reverend and dear sir, your obliged servant in the gospel.</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">Andrew Bryan</span>.</p> + +<p><a id="pg88"></a>P.S. I should be glad that my African friends could hear the above +account of my affairs.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1798-1801, page 366.</p> +</div></div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-6"> +<h3>State of the Negroes in Jamaica</h3> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date">Kingston, Jamaica, 1st May, 1802.</p> + +<p><em>Rev. and Dear Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>Since our blessed Lord has been pleased to permit me to have the rule of +a church of believers, I have baptized one hundred and eleven: and I +have a sanction from the Rev. Dr. Thomas Rees, rector of this town and +parish, who is one of the ministers appointed by his Majesty to hold an +ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the clergy in this island, confirmed by +a law passed by the Legislative Body of this island, made and provided +for that purpose.</p> + +<p>Our church consists of people of colour and black people; some of free +condition, but the greater part of them are slaves and natives from the +different countries in Africa. Our number both in town and country is +about five hundred brethren, and our rule is to baptize once in three +months; to receive the Lord's supper the first Lord's-day in every +month, after evening services is over; and we have meetings on Tuesday +and Thursday evenings throughout the year. The whole body of our church +is divided into several classes, which meet every Monday evening, to be +examined by their Class-leaders, respecting their daily walk and +conversation; and I am truly happy to acquaint you, that since the +gospel has been preached in Kingston, there never was so great a +prospect for the spread of the fame as there is now. Numbers and numbers +of young people are flocking daily to join both our society and the +Methodists, who have about four hundred. Religion so spreads in +Kingston, that those who will not leave the Church of England to join +the Dissenters, have formed themselves into evening societies: it is +delightful to hear the people at the different places singing psalms, +hymns, and spiritual songs; and to see a great number of them who lived +in the sinful state of fornication (which is the common way of living in +Jamaica), now married, having put away that deadly sin.</p> + +<p>Our place of worship is so very much crowded, that numbers are obliged +to stand out of doors: we are going to build a larger chapel as soon as +possible. Our people being poor, and so many of them slaves, we are not +able to go on so quick as we could <a id="pg89"></a>without we should meet with such +friends as love our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, to enable us in going +on with so glorious an undertaking.</p> + +<p>I preach, baptize, marry, attend funerals, and go through every work of +the ministry without fee or reward; and I can boldly say, for these +sixteen years since I began to teach and instruct the poor Ethiopians in +this island, the word of God (though many and many times travelling +night and day over rivers and mountains to inculcate the ever-blessed +gospel), that I never was complimented with so much as a pair of shoes +to my feet, or a hat to my head, or money or apparel, or any thing else +as a recompense for my labour and my trouble, from any of my brethren or +any other person:--my intention is to follow the example set before me +by the holy apostle Saint Paul, to labour with my hands for the things I +stand in need of to support myself and family, and to let the church of +Christ be free from incumbrances.</p> + +<p>We have five trustees to our chapel and burrying-ground, eight deacons, +and six exhorters.</p> + +<p>I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. V. of his Majesty's ship Cumberland, in +this town, who has been at my house, and at our chapel, and has seen all +my church-books and the manner in which I have conducted our society. He +has lately sailed for England with Admiral Montagu; and when he sees you, +he will be able to tell you of our proceedings better than I can write.</p> + +<p>All my beloved brethren beg their Christian love to you and all your dear +brethren in the best bonds; and they also beg yourself and them will be +pleased to remember the poor Ethiopian Baptists in their prayers, and be +pleased also to accept the same from, Reverend and Dear Sir,</p> + +<p class="closing">Your poor unworthy Brother, in the Lord Jesus Christ,</p> + +<p class="sig">(Signed) T. N. S.</p> + +<p>P.S. Brothers Baker, Gilbert, and others of the Africans, are +going on wonderfully in the Lord's service, in the interior part of +the country.</p> + +<p>July 1, 1802.</p> + +<p>--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1801-1802, pages 974-975.</p> +</div></div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-6-7"> +<h3><a id="pg90"></a>Letter to Dr. Rippon</h3> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date">Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 9, 1802.</p> + +<p><em>Rev. and Dear Sir</em>,</p> + +<p>I take the liberty to give you a further account of the spread +of the Gospel among us.</p> + +<p>On Saturday the 28th August last we laid our foundation stone +for the building of the New Chapel; fifty-five feet in length, and +twenty-nine and half feet in breath. The brethren assembled together +at my house, and walked in procession to our place of worship, +where a short discourse was delivered upon the subject, taken +from Mat. XVI. 18. <em>Upon this rock I will build my Church, and +the gates of Hell shall not prevail against</em>. As soon as divine service +was over, we laid a stone in a pillar provided for that purpose, and +on the stone was laid a small marble plate, and these words engraven +thereon, St. John's Chapel was founded 28th August 1802, before a +large and respectable congregation. The bricklayers have just +raised the foundation above the surface of the earth. And as our +Church consists chiefly of Slaves, and poor free people, we are not +able to go on so fast as we could wish, for which reason we beg +leave to call upon our Baptist friends in England, for their help +and support of the Ethiopian Baptists, setting forward the glorious +cause of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, now in hand.</p> + +<p>My last return of the Members in our Society on the 10th August last +stood thus,</p> + +<table summary="members"> +<tr><td></td><td></td><td>595</td></tr> +<tr><td>Expelled</td><td>2</td></tr> +<tr><td>Dismissed</td><td>26</td></tr> +<tr><td>Dead</td><td>19</td><td>47</td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td></td><td>---</td></tr> +<tr><td>Members in society 10th August 1802</td><td></td><td>548</td></tr> +</table> +<p>Since which, we have had sixty-two more added to the Church, almost all +young people, and natives of different countries in Africa, which make +610 in Society.</p> + +<p>About two months ago, I paid my first visit to a part of our Church held +at Clinton Mount, Coffee Plantation, in the parish of Saint Andrew, +about 16 miles distance from Kingston, in the High Mountains, where we +have a Chapel and 254 brethren. And when I was at breakfast with the +Overseer, he said to me, I have no need of a book-keeper (meaning an +assistant), I make no use of a whip, for when I am at home my work goes +on regular, and when I visit the field I have no fault to find, for +every thing is conducted as it ought to be. I observed myself that the +brethren were very <a id="pg91"></a>industrious, they have a plenty of provisions in +their ground, and a plenty of live stock, and they, one and all +together, live in unity, brotherly love, and in the bonds of peace.</p> + +<p>Last Lords Day, the 3rd October, was our quarterly baptism, when we +walked from our place of Worship at noon, to the water, the distance of +about a half mile, where I baptised eighteen professing believers, +before a numerous and large congregation of spectators, which make in +all 254 baptised by me since our commencement.</p> + +<p>I am truly happy in acquainting you, that a greater spread of the gospel +is taking place at the west end of the island.--A fortnight ago, the +Rev. Brother Moses Baker visited me, he is a man of colour, a native of +America, one of our baptist brothers and a member of our church, he is +employed by a Mr. Winn, (a gentleman down in the country who possesses +large and extensive properties in this island), to instruct his negroes +in the principles of the Christian religion; and Mr. Vaughan has +employed him for that purpose, and both these gentlemen allow him a +compensation. Mr. Winn finds him in house room, lands, &c., &c., and by +his instructing those slaves at Mr. Vaughan's properties, several miles +from Mr. Winn's estate, a number of slaves belonging to different +properties (no less than 20 sugar estates in number) are become +converted souls.--Mr. Baker's errand to me was, that he wanted a person +to assist him, he being sent for by a Mr. Hilton, a gentleman down in +the parish of Westmoreland (50 miles distance from Mr. Baker's dwelling +place), to instruct his and another gentlemen's slaves, on two large +sugar estates, into the word of God, producing to me at the same time +the letters and invitations he received. I gave him brother George +Vineyard, one our exhorters, and old experienced professor (who has been +called by grace upwards of eighteen years) to assist him; he also is a +native of America, and this gentleman Mr. Hilton, has provided a House, +and maintainance, a salary, and land for him to cultivate for his +benefit upon his own estate, and brother Baker declared to me, that he +has in the church there, fourteen hundred justified believers, and about +three thousand followers, many under conviction for sin. The distance +brother Baker is at from me is 136 miles, he has undergone a great deal +of persecution and severe trials for the preaching of the gospel, but +our Lord has delivered him safe out of all--Myself and brethren were at +Mr. Liele's Chapel a few weeks ago at the funeral of one of his elders, +he is well, and we were friendly to<a id="pg92"></a>gether. All our brethren unite with +me in giving their most Christian love to you, and all the dear beloved +brethren in your church in the best bonds, and beg, both yourself and +them, will be pleased to remember the Ethiopian Baptists in their +prayers, and I remain dear Sir, and brother,</p> + +<div class="closing">Your poor unworthy brother, in the Lord Jesus Christ,</div> +<div class="sig">(Signed) <span class="sc">Thomas Nicholas Swigle</span>.</div> + +<p>P.S. These sugar estates, in the parish where Brother Baker resides, +are very large and extensive; and they have three to four hundred slaves +on each property.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>Baptist Annual Register</em>, 1800-1802, pages 1144-1146.</p> +</div> +</div> +</div><hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-7"> +<h2><a id="pg93"></a>Book Reviews</h2> + + +<div class="article" id="a1-7-1"> +<p><em>The Haitian Revolution, 1791 to 1804</em>. By T. G. Steward. Thomas Y. +Crowell Company, New York, 1915. 292 pages. $1.25.</p> + +<p>In the days when the internal dissensions of Haiti are again thrusting +her into the limelight such a book as this of Mr. Steward assumes a +peculiar importance. It combines the unusual advantage of being both +very readable and at the same time historically dependable. At the +outset the author gives a brief sketch of the early settlement of Haiti, +followed by a short account of her development along commercial and +racial lines up to the Revolution of 1791. The story of this upheaval, +of course, forms the basis of the book and is indissolubly connected +with the story of Toussaint L'Overture. To most Americans this hero is +known only as the subject of Wendell Phillips's stirring eulogy. As +delineated by Mr. Steward, he becomes a more human creature, who +performs exploits, that are nothing short of marvelous. Other men who +have seemed to many of us merely names--Rigaud, Le Clerc, Desalines, and +the like--are also fully discussed.</p> + +<p>Although most of the book is naturally concerned with the revolutionary +period, the author brings his account up to date by giving a very brief +resumé of the history of Haiti from 1804 to the present time. This +history is marked by the frequent occurrence of assassinations and +revolutions, but the reader will not allow himself to be affected by +disgust or prejudice at these facts particularly when he is reminded, as +Mr. Steward says, "that the political history of Haiti does not differ +greatly from that of the majority of South American Republics, nor does +it differ widely even from that of France."</p> + +<p>The book lacks a topical index, somewhat to its own disadvantage, but it +contains a map of Haiti, a rather confusing appendix, a list of the +Presidents of Haiti from 1804 to 1906 and a list of the names and works +of the more noted Haitian authors. The author does not give a complete +bibliography. He simply mentions in the beginning the names of a few +authorities consulted.</p> + +<p class="author">J. R. Fauset.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a1-7-2"> +<p><a id="pg94"></a><em>The Negro in American History</em>. By John W. Cromwell. The American +Negro Academy, Washington, D.C., 1914. 284 pages. $1.25 net.</p> + +<p>In John W. Cromwell's book, "The Negro in American History," we have +what is a very important work. The book is mainly biographical and +topical. Some of the topics discussed are: "The Slave Code"; "Slave +Insurrections"; "The Abolition of the Slave Trade"; "The Early +Convention Movement"; "The Failure of Reconstruction"; "The Negro as a +Soldier"; and "The Negro Church." These topics are independent of the +chapters which are more particularly chronological in treatment.</p> + +<p>In the appendices we have several topics succinctly treated. Among these +are: "The Underground Railroad," "The Freedmen's Bureau," and, most +important and wholly new, a list of soldiers of color who have received +Congressional Medals of Honor, and the reasons for the bestowal.</p> + +<p>The biographical sketches cover some twenty persons. Much of the +information in these sketches is not new, as would be expected regarding +such well-known persons as Frederick Douglass, John M. Langston, and +Paul Laurence Dunbar. On the other hand, Mr. Cromwell has given us very +valuable sketches of other important persons of whom much less is +generally known. Among these are Sojourner Truth, Edward Wilmot Blyden, +and Henry O. Tanner.</p> + +<p>The book does not pretend to be the last word concerning the various +topics and persons discussed. Indeed, some of the topics have had fuller +treatment by the author in pamphlets and lectures. It is to be regretted +that the author did not feel justified in giving a more extensive +treatment, as the great store of his information would easily have +permitted him to do.</p> + +<p>The book is exceptionally well illustrated, but it lacks information +regarding some of the illustrations. Not only are the readers of a book +entitled to know the source of the illustrations but in the case of +copies of paintings, and other works of art, the original artist is as +much entitled to credit as an author whose work is quoted or appropriated +to one's use.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a1-7-3"> +<p><a id="pg95"></a><em>Negro Culture In West Africa</em>. By George W. Ellis, K.C., F.R.G.S. The +Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914. 290 pages. $2.00 net.</p> + +<p>This study by Mr. Ellis of the culture of West Africa as represented by +the Vai tribe, is valuable both as a document and as a scientific +treatment of an important phase of the color problem. As a document it +is an additional and a convincing piece of evidence of the ability of +the Negro to treat scientifically so intricate a problem as the rise, +development, and meaning of the social institutions of a people. Easy, +yet forceful in style; well documented with footnotes and cross +references; amply illustrated with twenty-seven real representations of +tools, weapons, musical instruments and other pieces of handwork; +containing, incidentally, a good bibliography of the subject; and +finally, with its conclusions condensed in the last four pages, it is a +book excellent in plan and in execution. The map, however, which has +been selected for the book is overcrowded and, therefore, practically +useless.</p> + +<p>As a scientific study, its value is suggested by the topics emphasized, +viz., "Climate," "Institutions," "Foreign Influence," "Proverbs," +"Folklore," and "Writing System." Referring to the climate the author +says: "In West Africa the body loses its strength, the memory its +retentiveness, and the will its energy. These are the effects observed +upon persons remaining in West Africa only for a short time, and they +form a part of the experience of almost every person who has lived on +the West Coast. White persons,--with beautiful skin, clear and soft, and +with rosy cheeks,--after they have been in West Africa for a while +become dark and tawny like the inhabitants of Southern Spain and Italy. +If we can detect these effects of the West African climate in only a +short time upon persons who come to the West Coast, what must have been +the effect of such a climate upon the Negroes who for centuries have +been exposed to its hardships?"</p> + +<p>The moral life of the Vais appears to be the product of their social +institutions and their severe environment. These institutions grow out +of the necessities of government for the tribe under circumstances which +suggest and enforce their superstitions and beliefs. This is not so +with respect to education. It seems that the influence of the "Greegree +Bush" (a school system) is now considerably weakened by the Liberian +institutions on the one hand, the Mohammedan faith and customs on the +other. So that now this <a id="pg96"></a>institution falls short of achieving its aims, +and putting its principles into practice.</p> + +<p>The study as a whole gives evidence of the author's eight years of +travel and research, and can be read with profit by all friends of +mankind.</p> + +<p class="author">Walter Dyson.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a1-7-4"> +<p><em>The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861</em>. By C. G. Woodson, Ph.D. G. +P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1915. 460 pages. $2.00 net.</p> + +<p>The very title of Dr. Woodson's book causes one who is interested in the +race history to ask questions and think. There are comparatively few people +who know anything about the efforts made to educate the Negro prior to +1861. Consequently, from the first page of the book to the last, the reader +is continually acquiring facts concerning this most interesting and +important phase of the Colored-American's history of which he has never +heard before, and some of which seem too wonderful to be true. But it is +not possible to doubt anything which is found in Dr. Woodson's book. One +knows that every statement he reads concerning the education of the Negro +prior to 1861 is true, for the author has taken pains to substantiate every +fact that he presents.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to imagine any phase of race history more fascinating and +more thrilling than an account of the desperate and prolonged struggle +between the forces which made for the mental and spiritual enlightenment +of the slave and those which opposed these humane and Christian efforts +with all the bitterness and strength at their command. The reasons +assigned by those who favored the education of the slaves and the +methods suggested together with the arguments used by those who were +opposed to it and the laws enacted to prevent it furnish an illuminating +study in human nature.</p> + +<p>One is surprised to find that very early in the history of the colonies +there were scholars and statesmen who did not hesitate to declare their +belief in the intellectual possibilities of the Negro. These men agreed +with George Buchanan that the Negro had talent for the fine arts and under +favorable circumstances could achieve something worth while in literature, +mathematics and philosophy. The high estimate placed upon the innate +ability of the Negro may be attributed to the fact that early in the +history of the country there was a goodly number of slaves who had managed +to attain a <a id="pg97"></a>certain intellectual proficiency in spite of the difficulties +which had to be overcome. By 1791 a colored minister had so distinguished +himself that he was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church +(white) of Portsmouth, Va. Benjamin Banneker's proficiency in mathematics +enabled him to make the first clock manufactured in the United States. As +the author himself says, "the instances of Negroes struggling to obtain an +education read like the beautiful romances of a people in an heroic age."</p> + +<p>Indeed the reaction which developed against allowing the slaves to pick up +the few fragments of knowledge which they had been able to secure was due +to some extent to the enthusiasm and eagerness with which they availed +themselves of the opportunities afforded them and the salutary effect +which the enlightenment had on their character. The account of the +establishment of schools and churches for slaves who were transplanted +to free soil is one of the most interesting chapters in the book. The +struggle for the higher education shows that tremendous obstacles had +been removed, before the race was allowed to secure the opportunity +which it so earnestly desired. In the chapter on vocational training the +effort made by colored people themselves to secure economic equality, +and the determined opposition to it manifested by white mechanics are +clearly and strongly set forth. In the appendix of the book one finds a +number of interesting and valuable treatises, while the bibliography is +of great assistance to any student of race history.</p> + +<p>In addition to the fund of information which is secured by reading Dr. +Woodson's book, a perusal of it can not help but increase one's respect +for a race which under the most disheartening and discouraging +circumstances strove so heroically and persistently to cultivate its +mind and allowed nothing to turn it aside and conquer its will.</p> + +<p>"The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861" is a work of profound +historical research, full of interesting data on a most important phase +of race life which has hitherto remained unexplored and neglected.</p> + +<p class="author">Mary Church Terrell.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a1-8"> +<h2><a id="pg98"></a>Notes</h2> + + +<p>In the death of Booker T. Washington the field of history lost one of its +greatest figures. He will be remembered mainly as an educational reformer, +a man of vision, who had the will power to make his dreams come true. In +the field of history, however, he accomplished sufficient to make his +name immortal. His "<em>Up from Slavery</em>" is a long chapter of the story of +a rising race; his "<em>Frederick Douglass</em>" is the interpretation of the +life of a distinguished leader by a great citizen; and his "<em>Story of the +Negro</em>" is one of the first successful efforts to give the Negro a larger +place in history.</p> + +<p>Doubleday, Page and Company will in the near future publish an extensive +biography of Booker T. Washington.</p> + +<p>During the Inauguration Week of Fisk University a number of Negro scholars +held a conference to consider making a systematic study of Negro life. A +committee was appointed to arrange for a larger meeting.</p> + +<p>Dr. C. G. Woodson is now writing a volume to be entitled "<em>The Negro in the +Northwest Territory</em>"</p> + +<p>The Neale Publishing Company has brought out "<em>The Political History of +Slavery in the United States</em>" by J. Z. George.</p> + +<p>"<em>Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War</em>" by W. E. Doster, appears among the +publications of the Putnams.</p> + +<p>"<em>Black and White in the South</em>" is the title of a volume from the pen of +M. S. Evans, appearing with the imprint of Longmans, Green and Company.</p> + +<p>T. Fisher Unwin has brought out "<em>The Savage Man in Central Africa"</em> by +A. L. Cureau.</p> + +<p>"<em>Reconstruction in Georgia, Social, Political, 1865-1872"</em> by C. Mildred +Thompson, appears as a comprehensive volume in the Columbia University +Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law.</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<div id="issue2" class="issue"> +<div id="tp2" class="tp"> +<h1 class="title"><a id="pg99"></a>The Journal <br />of<br /> Negro History</h1> + +<p class="byline">Edited By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Carter G. Woodson</h2> + +<hr /> + + +<h3 class="vol"><span class="left">VOL. I., No. 2</span> <span class="right">April, 1916</span></h3> + +<h3>PUBLISHED QUARTERLY</h3> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="toc" id="toc2"> +<h2>Contents</h2> + + +<ul> +<li><span class="sc">Kelly Miller</span>: <em><a href="#a2-1">The Historic Background of the Negro Physician</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">W. B. Hartgrove</span>: <em><a href="#a2-2">The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">C. G. Woodson</span>: <em><a href="#a2-3">Freedom and Slavery in Appalachian America</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">A. O. Stafford</span>: <em><a href="#a2-4">Antar, The Arabian Negro Warrior, Poet and Hero</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Documents</span>: <ul> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5">Eighteenth Century Slaves As Advertised By Their Masters</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-1">Learning a Modern Language</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-2">Learning to Read and Write</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-3">Educated Negroes</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-4">Slaves in Good Circumstances</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-5">Negroes Brought from The West Indies</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-6">Various Kinds of Servants</a></em>; </li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-7">Negro Privateers and Soldiers Prior to The American Revolution</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-8">Relations Between the Slaves and the British During The Revolutionary War</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-9">Relations Between the Slaves And the French During The Colonial Wars</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-10">Colored Methodist Preachers Among the Slaves</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-11">Slaves in Other Professions</a></em>; </li> + <li><em><a href="#a2-5-12">Close Relations of the Slaves and Indentured Servants</a></em>.</li></ul></li> + +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a2-6">Reviews of Books</a></span>:<ul> + <li><span class="sc">Dubois's</span> <em><a href="#a2-6-1">The Negro</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Roman's</span> <em><a href="#a2-6-2">The American Civilization and the Negro</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Henry's</span> <em><a href="#a2-6-3">The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Steward and Steward's</span> <em><a href="#a2-6-4">Gouldtown</a></em>.</li></ul></li> + +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a2-7">Notes</a></span></li> + +<li><span class="sc">How The Public Received The Journal Of Negro History</span> + <em><a href="#a2-8">Various Letters and Reviews</a></em></li></ul> +</div> + + + +<h3>THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE<br /> AND HISTORY, INCORPORATED</h3> + +<p>41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, PA.<br /> +2223 Twelfth Street, Washington, D.C.</p> + +<p><span class="left">25 Cents A Copy</span> <span class="right">$1.00 A Year</span></p> + +<p>Copyright, 1916</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="article" id="a2-1"> +<h2>The Historic Background of the Negro Physician</h2> + + + +<p>In a homogeneous society where there is no racial cleavage, only the +selected members of the most favored class occupy the professional +stations. The element representing the social status of the Negro would, +therefore, furnish few members of the coveted callings. The element of +race, however, complicates every feature of the social equation. In India +we are told that the population is divided horizontally by caste and +vertically by religion; but in America the race spirit serves both as +horizontal and vertical separations. The Negro is segregated and shut in +to himself in all social and semi-social relations of life. This isolation +necessitates separate ministrative agencies from the lowest to the highest +rounds of the ladder of service. During the days of slavery the interests +of the master demanded that he should direct the general social and moral +life of the slave, and should provide especially for his physical +well-being. The sudden severance of this tie left the Negro wholly without +intimate guidance and direction. The ignorant must be enlightened, the +sick must be healed, and the poor must have the gospel preached to them. +The situation and circumstances under which the race found itself demanded +that its professional class, for the most part, should be men of their +own blood and sympathies. The needed service could not be effectively +performed by <a id="pg100"></a>those who assumed and asserted racial arrogance, and bestowed +their professional service as cold crumbs that fell from the master's +table. The professional class who are to uplift and direct the lowly must +not say, "So far shalt thou come, but not any farther," but rather, "Where +I am, there ye shall be also."</p> + +<p>There is no more pathetic chapter in the history of human struggle than +the emergence of the smothered ambition of this race to meet the social +exigencies involved in the professional needs of the masses. In an +instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the plowhand was transformed into a +priest, the barber into a bishop, the housemaid into a schoolmistress, the +day-laborer into a lawyer, and the porter into a physician. These high +places of intellectual and professional authority, into which they found +themselves thrust by stress of social necessity, had to be operated with +at least some semblance of conformity to the standards which had been +established by the European through the traditions of the ages. The higher +place in society occupied by the choicest members of the white race, and +that too after long years of arduous preparation, had to be assumed by +black men without personal or formal fitness. The stronger and more +aggressive natures pushed themselves into these higher callings by sheer +force of untutored energy and uncontrolled ambition.</p> + +<p>An accurate study of the healing art as practiced by Negroes in Africa as +well as its continuance after transplantation in America would form an +investigation of great historical interest. This, however, is not the +purpose of this paper. It is sufficient to note the fact that witchcraft +and the control of disease through roots, herbs, charms and conjuration are +universally practiced on the continent of Africa. Indeed, the medicine man +has a standing and influence that is sometimes superior to that of kings +and queens. The natives of Africa have discovered their own materia medica +by actual practice and experience with the medicinal value of minerals and +plants. It must be borne in mind that any pharmacopeia must rest upon the +basis of practical experi<a id="pg101"></a>ment and experience. The science of medicine was +developed by man in his groping to relieve pain and to curb disease, and +was not handed down ready made from the skies. In this groping, the +African, like the rest of the children of men, has been feeling after the +right remedies, if haply he might find them.</p> + +<p>It was inevitable that the prevailing practice of conjuration in Africa +should be found among Negroes after they had been transferred to the new +continent. The conjure man was well known in every slave community. He +generally turned his art, however, to malevolent rather than benevolent +uses; but this was not always the case. Not infrequently these medicine men +gained such wide celebrity among their own race as to attract the attention +of the whites. As early as 1792 a Negro by the name of Cesar<sup><a href="#fn2-1-1" id="fna2-1-1">1</a></sup> had gained +<a id="pg102"></a>such distinction for his curative knowledge of roots and herbs that the +Assembly of South Carolina purchased his freedom and gave him an annuity of +one hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>That slaves not infrequently held high rank among their own race as +professional men may be seen from the advertisements of colonial days. A +runaway Negro named Simon was in 1740 advertised in <em>The Pennsylvania +Gazette</em><sup><a href="#fn2-1-2" id="fna2-1-2">2</a></sup> as being able to "bleed and draw teeth" and "pretending to be +a great doctor among his people." Referring in 1797 to a fugitive slave of +Charleston, South Carolina, <em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em><sup><a href="#fn2-1-3" id="fna2-1-3">3</a></sup> +said: "He passes for a Doctor among people of his color and it is supposed +practices in that capacity about town." The contact of such practitioners +with the white race was due to the fact that the profession of the barber +was at one time united with that of the physician. The practice of +phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the doctor's work. As the +Negro early became a barber and the profession was united with that of +the physician, it is natural to suppose that he too would assume the +latter function. That phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the +practice of the medi<a id="pg103"></a>cine is seen from the fact that it was practiced upon +George Washington in his last illness. An instance of this sort of +professional development among the Negroes appears in the case of the +barber, Joseph Ferguson. Prior to 1861 he lived in Richmond, Virginia, +uniting the three occupations of leecher, cupper, and barber. This led to +his taking up the study of medicine in Michigan, where he graduated and +practiced for many years.</p> + +<p>The first regularly recognized Negro physician, of whom there is a +complete record, was James Derham, of New Orleans. He was born in +Philadelphia in 1762, where he was taught to read and write, and +instructed in the principles of Christianity. When a boy he was +transferred by his master to Dr. John Kearsley, Jr., who employed him +occasionally to compound medicines, and to perform some of the more humble +acts of attention to his patients. Upon the death of Dr. Kearsley, he +became (after passing through several hands) the property of Dr. George +West, surgeon to the Sixteenth British Regiment, under whom, during the +Revolutionary War, he performed many of the menial duties of the medical +profession. At the close of the war, he was sold by Dr. West to Dr. Robert +Dove at New Orleans, who employed him as an assistant in his business, in +which capacity he gained so much of his confidence and friendship, that +he consented to liberate him, after two or three years, upon easy terms. +From Dr. Derham's numerous opportunities of improving in medicine, he +became so well acquainted with the healing art, as to commence practicing +in New Orleans, under the patronage of his last master. He once did +business to the amount of three thousand dollars a year. Benjamin Rush, +who had the opportunity to meet him, said: "I have conversed with him upon +most of the acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives and +was pleased to find him perfectly acquainted with the modern simple mode +of practice on those diseases. I expected to have suggested some new +medicines to him; but he suggested many more to me. He is very modest and +engaging in his manners. He speaks <a id="pg104"></a>French fluently and has some knowledge +of the Spanish language."<sup><a href="#fn2-1-4" id="fna2-1-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>The most noted colored physician after the time of James Derham was Doctor +James McCune Smith, a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He began the +practice of medicine in New York about 1837, and soon distinguished himself +as a physician and surgeon. He passed as a man of unusual merit not only +among his own people but among the best elements of that metropolis. That +he was appreciated by the leading white physicians of the city is evidenced +by the fact that in 1852 he was nominated as one of the five men to draft a +constitution for the "Statistic Institute" of which he became a leading +member. For a number of years he held the position of physician to the +colored orphan asylum, serving on the staff with a number of white doctors.</p> + +<p>Living in a day when the Negro was the subject of much anthropological +and physiological discussion, Doctor Smith could not resist participating +in this controversy. There were at this time a number of persons who were +resorting to science to prove the inferiority of the Negro. Given a +hearing extending over several evenings, Doctor Smith ably discussed "The +Comparative Anatomy of the Races" before an assembly of the most +distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the city, triumphing over his +antagonist. In 1846 he produced a valuable work entitled "The Influence +of Climate on Longevity, with Special Reference to Insurance." This paper +was written as a refutation of a disquisition of John C. Calhoun on the +colored race. Among other things Doctor Smith said: "The reason why the +proportion of mortality is not a measure of longevity, is the following: +The proportion of mortality is a statement of how many persons die in a +population; this, of course, does not state the age at which those persons +die. If 1 in 45 die in Sweden, and 1 in 22 in Grenada, the age of the dead +might be alike in both countries; here the greater mortality might +actually accompany the greater longevity."<sup><a href="#fn2-1-5" id="fna2-1-5">5</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg105"></a>The first real impetus to bring Negroes in considerable numbers into the +professional world came from the American Colonization Society, which in +the early years flourished in the South as well as in the North. This +organization hoped to return the free Negroes to Africa and undertook to +prepare professional leaders of their race for the Liberian colony. "To +execute this scheme, leaders of the colonization movement endeavored to +educate Negroes in mechanic arts, agriculture, science and Biblical +literature. Exceptionally bright youths were to be given special training +as catechists, teachers, preachers and physicians. Not much was said about +what they were doing, but now and then appeared notices of Negroes who had +been prepared privately in the South or publicly in the North for service +in Liberia. Dr. William Taylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in the +District of Columbia. In the same way John V. DeGrasse, of New York, and +Thomas J. White, of Brooklyn, were allowed to complete the medical course +at Bowdoin in 1849. In 1854 Dr. DeGrasse was admitted as a member of the +Massachusetts Medical Society. In 1858 the Berkshire Medical School +graduated two colored doctors who were gratuitously educated by the +American Educational Society."<sup><a href="#fn2-1-6" id="fna2-1-6">6</a></sup> Dr. A. T. Augusta studied medicine at the +University of Toronto. He qualified by competitive examination and obtained +the position of surgeon in the United States Army, being the first Negro to +hold such a position. After the war he became one of the leading colored +physicians in the District of Columbia. Prior to 1861 Negroes had taken +courses at the Medical School of the University of New York; Caselton +Medical School in Vermont; Berkshire Medical School in Pittsfield, +Massachusetts; the Rush Medical School in Chicago; the Eclectic Medical +School in Philadelphia; the Homeopathic College of Cleveland; and the +Medical School of Harvard University.</p> + +<p>The next colored physician of prominence was Martin R. Delany. Delany grew +to manhood in Pittsburgh, where early in his career he began the study +of medicine, but aban<a id="pg106"></a>doned it for pursuits in other parts. In 1849 he +returned to that city and resumed his studies under Doctors Joseph P. +Gazzan and Francis J. Lemoyne, who secured for him admission to the +medical department of Harvard College after he had been refused by the +University Pennsylvania, Jefferson College, and the medical colleges of +Albany and Geneva, New York. After leaving Harvard, he, like Dr. Smith, +became interested in the discussion of the superiority and inferiority of +races, and traveled extensively through the West, lecturing with some +success on the physiological aspect of these subjects. He then returned to +Pittsburgh, where he became a practitioner and distinguished himself in +treating the cholera during the epidemic of 1854. About this time his +worth to the community was attested by his appointment as a member of the +Subcommittee of Referees who furnished the Municipal Board of Charity with +medical advice as to the needs of white and colored persons desiring aid. +In 1856 he removed to Chatham, Canada, where he practiced medicine a +number of years. Doctor Delany thereafter like William Wells Brown, an +occasional physician, devoted most of his time to the uplift of his +people, traveling in America, Africa and England. He became such a worker +among his people that he was known as a leader rather than a physician. He +served in the Civil War as a commissioned officer of the United States +Army, ranking as major.</p> + +<p>Up to this point the colored physician had appeared as an occasional or +exceptional individual, but hardly as forming a professional class. +Following the wake of the Civil War colleges and universities were planted +in all parts of the South for the sake of preparing leaders for the newly +emancipated race. Several medical schools were established in connection +with these institutions. The rise of the Negro physician as a professional +class may be dated from the establishment of these institutions. The School +of Medicine of Howard University, Washington, D.C., and the Meharry Medical +College at Nashville, Tennessee, proved to be the strongest of these +institutions and today are supplying the Negro medical profession with a +large number of its annual recruits.</p> + +<p><a id="pg107"></a>Dr. Charles B. Purvis, who was graduated from the Medical College of +Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1865, is perhaps the +oldest colored physician in the United States; and by general consent ranks +as dean of the fraternity. He shared with Dr. A. T. Augusta the honor of +being one of the few colored men to become surgeons in the United States +Army. Shortly after graduation he was made assistant surgeon in the +Freedmen's Hospital at Washington, D.C., with which institution he was +connected during the entire period of his active professional life. The +development and present position of the medical school at Howard University +is due to Dr. Purvis more than to any other single individual. For several +years he has been retired upon the Carnegie Foundation. Dr. George W. +Hubbard, a distinguished white physician, dean of the Meharry Medical +College, Nashville, Tennessee, has also been a great pioneer and promoter +of the medical education of the Negro race.</p> + +<p>At first, the Negro patient refused to put confidence in the physician of +his own race, notwithstanding the closer intimacy of social contact. It +was not until after he had demonstrated his competency to treat disease +as well as his white competitor that he was able to win recognition among +his own people. The colored physician is everywhere in open competition +with the white practitioner, who never refuses to treat Negro patients, +if allowed to assume the disdainful attitude of racial superiority. If +the Negro doctor did not secure practically as good results in the +treatment of disease as the white physician, he would soon find himself +without patients.</p> + +<p>According to the last census there were in the United States 3,077 Negro +physicians and 478 Negro dentists. When we consider the professional needs +of ten millions of Negroes, it will be seen that the quota is not over one +fourth full. There is urgent need especially for an additional number of +pharmacists and dentists. It must be said for the Negro physician that +their membership more fully measures up to the full status of a +professional class than <a id="pg108"></a>that of any other profession among colored men. +Every member of the profession must have a stated medical education based +upon considerable academic preparation, sufficient to enable them to pass +the rigid tests of State Boards in various parts of the country. The best +regulated medical schools are now requiring at least two years of college +training as a basis for entering upon the study of medicine. Under the +stimulus of these higher standards the Negro medical profession will become +more thoroughly equipped and proficient in the years to come.</p> + +<p>These physicians maintain a national medical association which meets +annually in different parts of the country and prepare and discuss papers +bearing upon the various phases of their profession. There are under the +control of Negro physicians a number of hospitals where are performed +operations verging upon the limits of surgical skill. The profession has +developed not a few physicians and surgeons whose ability has won +recognition throughout their profession. A number of them have performed +operations which have attracted wide attention and have contributed to +leading journals discussions dealing with the various forms and phases of +disease, as well as their medical and surgical treatment.</p> + +<p>By reason of the stratum which the Negro occupies, the race is an easy prey +to disease that affects the health of the whole nation. The germs of +disease have no race prejudice. They do not even draw the line at social +equality, but gnaw with equal avidity at the vitals of white and black +alike, and pass with the greatest freedom of intercourse from the one to +the other. One touch of disease makes the whole world kin, and also kind. +The Negro physician comes into immediate contact with the masses of his +race; he is the missionary of good health. His ministration is not only to +his own race, but to the community and to the nation as a whole. The white +plague seems to love the black victim. This disease must be stamped out by +the nation through concerted action. The Negro physician is one of the most +efficient <a id="pg109"></a>agencies to render this national service. During the entire +history of the race on this continent, there has been no more striking +indication of its capacity for self-reclamation and of its ability to +maintain a professional class on the basis of scientific efficiency than +the rise and success of the Negro physician.</p> + +<p class="author">Kelly Miller</p> + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn2-1"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn2-1-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-1">return</a>]</span>1. THE NEGRO CESAR'S CURE FOR POISON</p> +<blockquote> +<p> Take the roots of plantane and wild hoarhound, fresh or dried, three + ounces, boil them together in two quarts of water to one quart, and + strain it; of this decoction let the patient take one third part, + three mornings fasting, successively, from which, if he finds any + relief, it must be continued until he is perfectly recovered. On the + contrary, if he finds no alteration after the third dose, it is a sign + that the patient has not been poisoned at all, or that it has been + with such poison that Cesar's antidote will not remedy, so may leave + off the decoction.</p> + +<p> During the cure the patient must live on spare diet, and abstain from + eating mutton, pork, butter, or any other fat or oily food.</p> + +<p> N. B. The plantane or hoarhound will either of them cure alone, but + they are most efficacious together.</p> + +<p> In summer you may take one handful of the roots and of the branches of + each, in place of three ounces of the roots each.</p> + +<p> For drink during the cure let them take the following: Take of the + roots of goldenrod, six ounces or in summer, two large handfuls of the + roots and branches together, and boil them in two quarts of water to + one quart, to which also may be added, a little hoarhound and + sassafras; to this decoction after it is strained, add a glass of rum + or brandy, and sweeten with sugar for ordinary drink.</p> + +<p> Sometimes an inward fever attends such as are poisoned, for which he + ordered the following: Take one pint of wood ashes and three pints of + water, stir and mix well together, let them stand all night and strain + or decant the lye off in the morning, of which ten ounces may be taken + six mornings following, warmed or cold according to the weather.</p> + +<p> These medicines have no sensible operation, though sometimes they work + on the bowels, and give a gentle stool.</p> + +<p> The symptoms attending such as are poisoned, are as follows: A pain of + the breast, difficulty of breathing, a load at the pit of the stomach, + an irregular pulse, burning and violent pains of the viscera above and + below the navel, very restless at night, sometimes wandering pains + over the whole body, a reaching inclination to vomit, profuse sweats + (which prove always serviceable), slimy stools, both when costive and + loose, the face of pale and yellow color, sometimes a pain and + inflamation of the throat, the appetite is generally weak, and some + cannot eat anything; those who have been long poisoned are generally + very feeble and weak in their limbs, sometimes spit a great deal, the + whole skin peels, and lastly the hair falls off.</p> + +<p> Cesar's cure for the bite of a rattlesnake: Take of the roots of + plantane or hoarhound (in summer roots and branches together), a + sufficient quantity; bruise them in a mortar, and squeeze out the + juice, of which give as soon as possible, one large spoonful; this + generally will cure; but if he finds no relief n an hour after you may + give another spoonful which never hath failed.</p> + +<p> If the roots are dried they must be moistened with a little water.</p> + +<p> To the wound may be applied a leaf of good tobacco, moistened with + rum.</p> + +<p> <em>The Massachusetts Magazine</em>, IV, 103-104 (1792).</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn2-1-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-2">return</a>]</span>2. <em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 11, 1740.</p> + +<p id="fn2-1-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-3">return</a>]</span>3. <em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, June 22, 1797.</p> + +<p id="fn2-1-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-4">return</a>]</span>4. <em>The Columbian Gazette</em>, II, 742-743.</p> + +<p id="fn2-1-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-5">return</a>]</span>5. Delany, "Condition of the Colored People," 111.</p> + +<p id="fn2-1-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-1-6">return</a>]</span>6. C. G. Woodson, "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861."</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a2-2"> +<h2><a id="pg110"></a>The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution</h2> + + + +<p>The facts as to the participation of Negroes in the American Revolution +have received the attention of several writers. Yet not one of them has +made a scientific presentation of the facts which they have discovered. +These historians have failed to consider the bearing of the status of the +free Negro during the colonial period, the meaning of the Revolution to the +Negro, and what the service of the Negro soldiers first enlisted effected +in changing the attitude of the people toward the blacks throughout the +original thirteen colonies.</p> + +<p>To a person who has lived in the nineteenth or twentieth century it would +seem incredible that Negroes, the majority of whom were then slaves, should +have been allowed to fight in the Continental Army. The layman here may +forget that during the eighteenth century slavery was a patriarchal +institution rather than the economic plantation system as it developed +after the multiplication of mechanical appliances, which brought about the +world-wide industrial revolution. During the eighteenth century a number of +slaves brought closely into contact with their masters were gradually +enlightened and later emancipated. Such freedmen, in the absence of any +laws to the contrary, exercised political rights,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-1" id="fna2-2-1">1</a></sup> among which was that +of bearing arms. Negroes served not only in the American Revolution, but in +every war of consequence during the colonial period. There were masters who +sent slaves to the front to do menial labor and to fight in the places of +their owners. Then there were slaves who, finding it easier to take +occasional chances with bullets than to bear the lash, ran away from their +masters and served as privateers or enlisted as freemen.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-2" id="fna2-2-2">2</a></sup> <a id="pg111"></a>The newspapers +of the colonial period often mentioned these facts in their advertisements +of fugitive slaves. In 1760 a master had considerable difficulty with a +slave who escaped from New England into New Jersey, where he said he would +enlist in the provincial service.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-3" id="fna2-2-3">3</a></sup> Advertising for his mulatto servant, +who was brought up in Rhode Island, James Richardson of Stonington said +that the fugitive had served as a soldier the previous summer.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-4" id="fna2-2-4">4</a></sup> A few +free Negroes found their way into the colonial militia along with white +soldiers. This passed, of course, not without some opposition, as in the +case of Massachusetts. In 1656 that colony excluded Negroes and Indians +from the militia, and according to Governor Bradstreet's report to the +Board of Trade in 1680 and subsequent action taken by that colony in 1775 +and 1776, it adhered to this policy.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-5" id="fna2-2-5">5</a></sup></p> + +<p>Favorable as this condition of Negroes during the colonial period seemed, +the situation became still more desirable during the Revolution itself. +This upheaval was social as well as political. Aristocracy was suddenly +humiliated and the man in the common walks of life found himself in power, +grappling with problems which he had long desired to solve. Sprung from the +indentured servant poor white class, the new rulers had more sympathy for +the man farthest down. The slaves, therefore, received more consideration. +In the heat of the excitement of war the system lost almost all of its +rigor, the slave codes in some cases falling into desuetude. The contest +for liberty was in the mouths of some orators of the Revolution the +cause of the blacks as well as that of the whites, and the natural rights +of the former were openly discussed in urging the independence of the +United States. When men like Laurens, Henry, Hamilton and Otis spoke for +the rights of the American colonies, they were not silent on the duty +of the American people toward their slaves.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-6" id="fna2-2-6">6</a></sup> <a id="pg112"></a>In 1774 a patriot in the +Provincial Congress of Massachusetts spoke of the "propriety, that while we +are attempting to free ourselves from slavery, our present embarrassments, +and preserve ourselves from slavery, that we also take into consideration +the state and circumstances of the Negro slaves in this province."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-7" id="fna2-2-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>When the Revolution came the Negro was actually in the army before the +question of his enlistment could be raised by those who had not yet been +won to the cause of universal freedom. Feeling the same patriotism which +the white man experienced, the Negro bared his breast to the bullet and +gave his life as a sacrifice for the liberty of his country. According to +Bancroft, "the roll of the army of Cambridge had from its first formation +borne the names of men of color." "Free Negroes," said he, "stood in the +ranks by the side of white men. In the beginning of the war they had +entered the provincial army; the first general order which was issued by +Ward had required a return, among other things, of the complexion of the +soldiers; and black men, like others, were retained in the service after +the troops were adopted by the continent."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-8" id="fna2-2-8">8</a></sup></p> + +<p>Before the various officials had had time to decide whether or not the +Negro should be enlisted, many had numbered themselves among the first +to spill their blood in behalf of American liberty. Peter Salem had +distinguished himself at Bunker Hill by killing Major Pitcairn,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-9" id="fna2-2-9">9</a></sup> a +number of other Negroes under the command of Major Samuel Lawrence had +heroically imperilled their lives and rescued him when he had advanced so +far beyond his troops that he was about to be surrounded and taken +prisoner,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-10" id="fna2-2-10">10</a></sup> and Salem Poor of Colonel Frye's regiment had acquitted +himself with such honor in the battle of Charlestown that fourteen American +officers commended him to the Continental Congress for <a id="pg113"></a>his valor.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-11" id="fna2-2-11">11</a></sup> But +great as were the services rendered by these patriots of color, the +increase in the number of blacks in the Continental Army gave rise to +vexatious questions. There were those who, influenced by the theories which +had made the Revolution possible, hailed with joy the advent of the Negro +in the role of the defender of his country, which they believed owed him +freedom and opportunity. Some, having the idea that the Negro was a savage, +too stupid to be employed in fighting the battles of freemen, seriously +objected to his enlistment. Others were fearful of the result from setting +the example of employing an uncivilized people to fight the British, who +would then have an excuse not only for enlisting Negroes<sup><a href="#fn2-2-12" id="fna2-2-12">12</a></sup> but also the +Indians. A still larger number felt that the question of arming the slaves +would simply reduce itself to one of deciding whether or not the colonies +should permit the British to beat them playing their own game.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-13" id="fna2-2-13">13</a></sup></p> + +<p>In the beginning, however, those who believed the Negroes should be +excluded from the army triumphed. Massachusetts officially took a stand +against the enlistment of slaves. The Committee of Safety, of which John +Hancock and Joseph Ward were members, reported in May, 1775, to the +Provincial Congress the opinion that as the contest then between Great +Britain and her colonies respected the liberties and privileges of the +latter, that the admission of any persons but freemen as soldiers would be +inconsistent with the principles supported and would reflect dishonor on +the colony.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-14" id="fna2-2-14">14</a></sup> They urged that no slaves be admitted into the army under +any consideration whatever. No action was taken. This was not seemingly +directed at the enlistment of free Negroes; but it must have had some +effect, for in July of the same year, when Washington took command of the +army at Cambridge, there were issued from his headquarters to recruiting +officers instructions prohibiting the <a id="pg114"></a>enlistment of any Negro, any person +not native of this country, unless such person had a wife and a family and +was a settled resident.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-15" id="fna2-2-15">15</a></sup></p> + +<p>This matter became one of such concern that the officials of the +Continental Army had to give it more serious consideration. Communications +relative thereto directed to the Continental Congress provoked a debate in +that body in September, 1775. On the occasion of drafting a letter to +Washington, reported by a committee consisting of Lynch, Lee and Adams, to +whom several of his communications had been referred, Rutledge, of South +Carolina, moved that the commander-in-chief be instructed to discharge from +the army all Negroes, whether slave or free.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-16" id="fna2-2-16">16</a></sup> It seems that Rutledge had +the support of the Southern delegates, but failed to secure a majority vote +in favor of this radical proposition.</p> + +<p>The matter was not yet settled, however. On the eighth of the following +month there was held a council of war consisting of Washington, Ward, Lee, +Putnam, Thomas, Spencer, Heath, Sullivan, Greene and Gates, to consider the +question whether or not it would be advisable to enlist Negroes in the new +army or "whether there be any distinction between such as are slaves and +those who are free." It was unanimously agreed to reject all slaves and by +a large majority to refuse Negroes altogether.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-17" id="fna2-2-17">17</a></sup> Upon considering ten +days later the question of devising a method of renovating the army, +however, the question of enlisting Negroes came up again before a Committee +of Conference. The leaders in this council were Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin +Harrison, Thomas Lynch, the Deputy Governors of Connecticut and Rhode +Island, and the Committee of Council of Massachusetts Bay. They were asked +the question whether Negroes should be excluded from the new enlistment, +especially such as were slaves. This council also agreed that Negroes +should be rejected altogether.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-18" id="fna2-2-18">18</a></sup> Accordingly, the general <a id="pg115"></a>orders from +Washington, dated November 12, 1775, declared that neither Negroes, boys +unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure fatigues of the campaign +should be enlisted.</p> + +<p>The men who had taken this position had acted blindly. They had failed to +consider the various complications which might arise as a result of the +refusal to admit Negroes to the army. What would the Negroes think when +they saw their offering thrown away from the altar of their country? Were +the Revolutionary fathers so stupid as to think that the British would +adopt the same policy? They could not have believed that the situation +could be so easily cleared. Before the Revolution was well on its way +the delegates from Georgia to the Continental Congress had already +experienced certain fears as to the safety of Georgia and South Carolina. +They believed that if one thousand regular troops should land in Georgia +under a commander with adequate supplies and he should proclaim freedom +to all loyal Negroes, twenty thousand of them would join the British in a +fortnight. It was to them a matter of much concern that the Negroes of +these provinces had such a wonderful art of communicating intelligence +among themselves as to convey information several hundred miles in a week +or in a fortnight.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-19" id="fna2-2-19">19</a></sup> The colonists, too, could not ignore the bold +attempt of Lord Dunmore, the dethroned governor of Virginia, who issued +a proclamation of freedom to all slaves who would fight for the king, +endeavored to raise a black regiment among them, and actually used a +number of Negroes in the battle at Kemp's Landing, where they behaved like +well-seasoned soldiers, pursuing and capturing one of the attacking +companies.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-20" id="fna2-2-20">20</a></sup> Referring thereafter to Lord Dunmore as an arch-traitor who +should be instantly crushed, George Washington said: "But that which +renders the measure indispensably necessary is the Negroes, if he gets +formidable numbers of them, will be tempted to join" him.</p> + +<p>Subsequent developments showed that these misgivings were justified. In +July, 1776, General Greene learned on <a id="pg116"></a>Long Island that the British were +about to organize in that vicinity a regiment of Negroes aggregating +200.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-22" id="fna2-2-22">22</a></sup> Taking as a pretext the enrollment of Negroes in the Continental +Army, Sir Henry Clinton proclaimed from Philipsburgh in 1779 that all +Negroes taken in arms or upon any military duty should be purchased from +the captors for the public service, and that every Negro who would desert +the "Rebel Standard" should have full security to follow within the +British lines any occupation which he might think proper.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-23" id="fna2-2-23">23</a></sup> In 1781 +General Greene reported to Washington from North Carolina that the British +there had undertaken to embody immediately two regiments of Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-24" id="fna2-2-24">24</a></sup> +They were operating just as aggressively farther South. "It has been +computed by good judges," says Ramsey, "that between the years 1775 and +1783 the State of South Carolina lost 25,000 Negroes,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-25" id="fna2-2-25">25</a></sup> that is, one +fifth of all the slaves, and a little more than half as many as its entire +white population. At the evacuation of Charleston 241 Negroes and their +families were taken off to St. Lucia in one transport, the Scimitar."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-26" id="fna2-2-26">26</a></sup> +Yet in Georgia it is believed that the loss of Ne<a id="pg117"></a>groes was much greater, +probably three fourths or seven eighths of all in the State. There the +British were more successful in organizing and making use of Negroes. One +third of the 600 men by whom Fort Cornwallis was garrisoned at the siege +of Augusta were Negroes. So effective were some of these Negroes trained +by the British in Georgia that a corps of fugitive slaves calling +themselves the "King of England's Soldiers," so harassed the people on +both sides of the Savannah River, even after the Revolution, that it was +feared that a general insurrection of the slaves there would follow as a +result of this most dangerous and best disciplined band of marauders that +ever infested its borders.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-27" id="fna2-2-27">27</a></sup></p> + +<p>The leaders of the Revolution, therefore, quickly receded from their +radical position of excluding Negroes from the army. Informed that the +free Negroes who had served in the ranks in New England were sorely +displeased at their exclusion from the service, and fearing that they +might join the enemy, Washington departed, late in 1775, from the +established policy of the staff and gave the recruiting officers leave to +accept such Negroes, promising to lay the matter before the Continental +Congress, which he did not doubt would approve it.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-28" id="fna2-2-28">28</a></sup> Upon the receipt of +this communication the matter was referred to a committee composed of +Wythe, Adams and Wilson, who recommended that free Negroes who had served +faithfully in the army at Cambridge might be reenlisted but no others.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-29" id="fna2-2-29">29</a></sup> +In taking action on such communications thereafter the Continental +Congress followed the policy of leaving the matter to the various States, +which were then jealously mindful of their rights.</p> + +<p>Sane leaders generally approved the enlistment of black troops. General +Thomas thought so well of the proposition that he wrote John Adams in +1775, expressing his surprise that any prejudice against it should +exist.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-30" id="fna2-2-30">30</a></sup> Samuel Hop<a id="pg118"></a>kins said in 1776 that something should be speedily +done with respect to the slaves to prevent their turning against the +Americans. He was of the opinion that the way to counteract the tendency +of the Negroes to join the British was not to restrain them by force and +severity but by public acts to set the slaves free and encourage them to +labor and take arms in defense of the American cause.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-31" id="fna2-2-31">31</a></sup> Interested in +favor of the Negroes both by "the dictates of humanity and true policy," +Hamilton urged that slaves be given their freedom with the swords to +secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and influence those +remaining in bondage by opening a door to their emancipation.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-32" id="fna2-2-32">32</a></sup> General +Greene emphatically urged that blacks be armed, believing that they would +make good soldiers.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-33" id="fna2-2-33">33</a></sup> Thinking that the slaves might be put to a much +better use than being given as a bounty to induce white men to enlist, +James Madison suggested that the slaves be liberated and armed.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-34" id="fna2-2-34">34</a></sup> "It +would certainly be consonant to the principles of liberty," said he, +"which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty." John +Laurens, of South Carolina, was among the first to see the wisdom of this +plan, directed the attention of his coworkers to it, and when authorized +by the Continental Congress, proceeded to his native State, wishing that +he had the persuasive power of a Demosthenes to make his fellow citizens +accept this proposition.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-35" id="fna2-2-35">35</a></sup> In 1779 Laurens said: "I would advance those +who are unjustly deprived of the rights of mankind to a state which would +be a proper gradation between abject slavery and perfect liberty, and +besides I am persuaded that if I could obtain authority for the purpose, +I would have a corps of such men trained, uniformly clad, equipped and +ready in every respect to act at the opening of the next campaign."</p> + +<p>All of the colonies thereafter tended to look more favor<a id="pg119"></a>ably upon the +enlistment of colored troops. Free Negroes enlisted in Virginia and so +many slaves deserted their masters for the army that the State enacted in +1777 a law providing that no Negro should be enlisted unless he had a +certificate of freedom.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-36" id="fna2-2-36">36</a></sup> That commonwealth, however, soon took another +step toward greater recognition of the rights of the Negroes who desired +to be free to help maintain the honor of the State. With the promise +of freedom for military service many slaves were sent to the army as +substitutes for freemen. The effort of inhuman masters to force such +Negroes back into slavery at the close of their service at the front +actuated the liberal legislators of that commonwealth to pass the Act of +Emancipation, proclaiming freedom to all Negroes who had thus enlisted +and served their term faithfully, and empowered them to sue <em>in forma +pauperis</em>, should they thereafter be unlawfully held in bondage.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-37" id="fna2-2-37">37</a></sup></p> + +<p>In the course of time there arose an urgent need for the Negro in the +army. The army reached the point when almost all sorts of soldiers were +acceptable. In 1778 General Varnum induced General Washington to send +certain officers from Valley Forge to Rhode Island to enlist a battalion +of Negroes to fill the depleted ranks of that State.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-38" id="fna2-2-38">38</a></sup> Setting forth in +the preamble that "history affords us frequent precedents of the wisest, +freest and bravest nations having liberated their slaves and enlisted +them as soldiers to fight in defense of their country," the Rhode Island +Assembly resolved to raise a regiment of slaves, who were to be freed upon +their enlistment, their owners to be paid by the State according to the +valuation of a committee. Further light was thrown upon this action in the +statement of Governor Cooke, who in reporting the action of the Assembly +to Washington boasted that liberty was given to every effective slave to +don the uniform and that upon his passing muster he<a id="pg120"></a> became absolutely +free and entitled to all the wages, bounties and encouragements given to +any other soldier.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-39" id="fna2-2-39">39</a></sup></p> + +<p>The State of New Hampshire enlisted Negroes and gave to those who served +three years the same bounty offered others. This bounty was turned over to +their masters as the price of the slaves in return for which their owners +issued bills of sale and certificates of freedom.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-40" id="fna2-2-40">40</a></sup> In this way slavery +practically passed out in New Hampshire. This affair did not proceed so +smoothly as this in Massachusetts. In 1778 that legislature had a committee +report in favor of raising a regiment of mulattoes and Negroes. This action +was taken as a result upon receiving an urgent letter from Thomas Kench, a +member of an artillery regiment serving on Castle Island. Kench referred to +the fact that there were divers of Negroes in the battalions mixed with +white men, but he thought that the blacks would have a better esprit de +corps should they be organized in companies by themselves. But the feeling +that slaves should not fight the battles of freemen and a confusion of the +question of enlistment with that of emancipation for which Massachusetts +was not then prepared,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-41" id="fna2-2-41">41</a></sup> led to a heated debate in the Massachusetts +Council and finally to blows in the coffee houses in lower Boston. In +such an excited state of affairs no further action was taken. Finding +recruiting difficult it is said that Connecticut undertook to raise a +colored regiment<sup><a href="#fn2-2-42" id="fna2-2-42">42</a></sup> and in 1781 New York, offering the usual land bounty +which would go to the masters to purchase the slaves, promised freedom to +all slaves who would enlist for the time of three years.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-43" id="fna2-2-43">43</a></sup> Maryland +provided in 1780 that each unit of £16,000 of property should furnish one +recruit who might be either a freeman or a slave, and in 1781 resolved to +raise 750 Negroes to be incorporated with the other troops.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-44" id="fna2-2-44">44</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg121"></a>Farther South the enlistment of Negroes had met with obstacles. The best +provision the Southern legislatures had been able to make was to provide +in addition to the allotment of money and land that a person offering to +fight for the country should have "one sound Negro"<sup><a href="#fn2-2-45" id="fna2-2-45">45</a></sup> or a "healthy +sound Negro"<sup><a href="#fn2-2-46" id="fna2-2-46">46</a></sup> as the laws provided in Virginia and South Carolina +respectively. Threatened with invasion in 1779, however, the Southern +States were finally compelled to consider this matter more seriously.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-47" id="fna2-2-47">47</a></sup> +The Continental Army <a id="pg122"></a>had been called upon to cope with the situation but +had no force available for service in those parts. The three battalions +of North Carolina troops, then on duty in the South, <a id="pg123"></a>consisted of drafts +from the militia for nine months, which would expire before the end of +the campaign. What were they to do then when this militia, which could +not be uniformly kept up, should grow impatient with the service? Writing +from the headquarters of the army at this time, Alexander Hamilton in +discussing the advisability of this plan doubtless voiced the sentiment +of the staff. He thought that Colonel Laurens's plan for raising three or +four battalions of emancipated Negroes was the most rational one that +could be adopted in that state of Southern affairs. Hamilton foresaw the +opposition from prejudice and self-interest, but insisted that if the +Americans did not make such a use of the Negroes, the British would.</p> + +<p>The movement received further impetus when special envoys from South +Carolina headed by Huger appeared before the Continental Congress on March +29, 1779, to impress upon that body the necessity of doing something to +relieve the Southern colonies. South Carolina, they reported, was suffering +from an exposed condition in that the number of slaves being larger than +that of the whites, she was unable to effect anything for its defense with +the natives, because of the large number necessary to remain at home to +prevent insurrections among the Negroes and their desertion to the enemy. +These representatives, therefore, suggested that there might be raised +among the Negroes in that State a force "which would not only be formidable +to the enemy from their numbers and the discipline of which they would +readily admit but would also lessen the danger from revolts and desertions +by detaching the most vigorous and enterprising from among the Negroes." At +the same time the Committee expressed the opinion that a matter of such +vital interest to the two States concerned should be referred to their +legislative bodies to judge as to the expediency of taking this step, and +that if these commonwealths found it satisfactory that the United States +should defray the expenses.</p> + +<p>Congress passed a resolution complying with these recom<a id="pg124"></a>mendations.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-48" id="fna2-2-48">48</a></sup> +Laurens, the father of the movement, was made a lieutenant-colonel and +he went immediately home to urge upon South Carolina the expediency of +adopting this plan. There Laurens met determined opposition from the +majority of the aristocrats who set themselves against "a measure of so +threatening aspect and so offensive to that republican pride, which +disdains to commit the defence of the country to servile bands or share +with a color to which the idea of inferiority is inseparably connected, +the pro<a id="pg125"></a>fession of arms, and that approximation of condition which must +exist between the regular soldier and the militiaman." It was to no +purpose too that Laurens renewed his efforts at a later period. He +mustered all of his energy to impress upon the Legislature the need of +taking this action but finally found himself outvoted, having only reason +on his side and "being opposed by a triple-headed monster that shed the +baneful influence of avarice, prejudice, and pusillanimity in all our +assemblies." "It was some consolation to me, however," said he, "to find +that philosophy and truth had made some little progress since my last +effort, as I obtained twice as many suffrages as before."</p> + +<p>Hearing of the outcome, Washington wrote him that he was not at all +astonished at it, as that spirit of freedom, which at the commencement +of the Revolution would have sacrificed everything to the attainment of +this object, had long since subsided, and every selfish passion had taken +its place. "It is not the public but the private interest," said he, +"which influences the generality of mankind, nor can Americans any longer +boast an exception. Under these circumstances it would have been rather +surprising if you had succeeded."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-49" id="fna2-2-49">49</a></sup> It is difficult, however, to +determine exactly what Washington's attitude was. Two days after Hamilton +wrote Jay about raising colored troops in South Carolina, the elder +Laurens wrote Washington: "Had we arms for three thousand such black men +as I could select in Carolina, I should have no doubt of success in +driving the British out of Georgia, and subduing East Florida before the +end of July." To this Washington answered: "The policy of our arming +slaves is in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example. +For, should we begin to form Battalions of them, I have not the smallest +doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and +justifying the measure upon our own ground. The contest then must be who +can arm fastest, and where are our arms? Besides I am not clear that a +discrimination will not render slavery more irksome to those who remain +in it. Most of the good <a id="pg126"></a>and evil things in this life are judged by +comparison; and I fear a comparison in this case will be productive of +much discontent in those, who are held in servitude. But, as this is a +subject that has never employed much of my thoughts, these are no more +than the first crude Ideas that have struck me upon ye occasion."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-50" id="fna2-2-50">50</a></sup></p> + +<p>What then resulted from the agitation and discussion? The reader naturally +wants to know how many Negroes were actually engaged in the Continental +Army. Here we find ourselves at sea. We have any amount of evidence that +the number of Negroes engaged became considerable, but exact figures are +for several reasons lacking. In the first place, free Negroes rarely +served in separate battalions. They marched side by side with the white +soldier, and in most cases, according to the War Department, even after +making an extended research as to the names, organizations, and numbers, +the results would be that little can be obtained from the records to show +exactly what soldiers were white and what were colored.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-51" id="fna2-2-51">51</a></sup> Moreover the +first official efforts to keep the Negroes out of the army must not +be regarded as having stopped such enlistments. As there was not any +formal system of recruiting, black men continued to enlist "under various +laws and sometimes under no law, and in defiance of law." The records of +every one of the original thirteen States show that each had colored +troops. A Hessian officer observed in 1777 that "the Negro can take the +field instead of his master; and, therefore, no regiment is to be seen +in which there are not negroes in abundance, and among them there are +able-bodied, strong and brave fellows."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-52" id="fna2-2-52">52</a></sup> "Here too," said he, "there +are many families of free negroes who live in good homes, have property +and live just like the rest of the inhabitants." In 1777 Alexander +Scammell, Adjutant-General, made the following report as to the number +and placement of the Negroes in the Continental Army:</p> +<table summary="Return of Negroes in the Army, 24th August, 1778"> +<caption><a id="pg127"></a>Return of Negroes in the Army, 24th August, 1778</caption> + +<tr><th>Brigades</th><th>Present</th><th>Sick, Absent</th><th>On Command</th><th>Total</th></tr> +<tr><td>North Carolina </td><td> 42 </td><td> 10 </td><td> 6 </td><td> 58</td></tr> +<tr><td>Woodford </td><td> 36 </td><td> 3 </td><td> 1 </td><td> 40</td></tr> +<tr><td>Muhlenburg </td><td> 64 </td><td> 26 </td><td> 8 </td><td> 98</td></tr> +<tr><td>Smallwood </td><td> 20 </td><td> 3 </td><td> 1 </td><td> 24</td></tr> +<tr><td>2d Maryland </td><td> 43 </td><td> 15 </td><td> 2 </td><td> 60</td></tr> +<tr><td>Wayne </td><td> 2 </td><td> .. </td><td> .. </td><td> 2</td></tr> +<tr><td>2d Pennsylvania </td><td> 33 </td><td> 1 </td><td> 1 </td><td> 35</td></tr> +<tr><td>Clinton </td><td> 33 </td><td> 2 </td><td> 4 </td><td> 62</td></tr> +<tr><td>Parsons </td><td> 117 </td><td> 12 </td><td> 19 </td><td> 148</td></tr> +<tr><td>Huntington </td><td> 56 </td><td> 2 </td><td> 4 </td><td> 62</td></tr> +<tr><td>Nixon </td><td> 26 </td><td> .. </td><td> 1 </td><td> 27</td></tr> +<tr><td>Paterson </td><td> 64 </td><td> 13 </td><td> 12 </td><td> 89</td></tr> +<tr><td>Late Learned </td><td> 34 </td><td> 4 </td><td> 8 </td><td> 46</td></tr> +<tr><td>Poor </td><td> 16 </td><td> 7 </td><td> 4 </td><td> 27</td></tr> +<tr><th> Total </th><td> 586 </td><td> 98 </td><td> 71 </td><td> 755</td></tr> +</table> +<p> Alexander Scammell, + <em>Adjutant-General</em>.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-52a" id="fna2-2-52a">52a</a></sup></p> + +<p>But this report neither included the Negro soldiers enlisted in several +other States nor those that joined the army later. Other records show that +Negroes served in as many as 18 brigades.</p> + +<p>Some idea of the number of Negroes engaged may be obtained from the +context of documents mentioning the action taken by States. Rhode Island +we have observed undertook to raise a regiment of slaves. Governor Cooke +said that the slaves found there were not many but that it was generally +thought that 300 or more would enlist. Four companies of emancipated +slaves were finally formed in that State at a cost of £10,437 7s 7d.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-53" id="fna2-2-53">53</a></sup> +Most of the 629 slaves then found in New Hampshire availed themselves +of the opportunity to gain their freedom by enlistment as did many of the +15,000 slaves in New York. Connecticut had free Negroes in its regiments +and formed also a regiment of colored soldiers assigned first to Meigs' +and afterward to Butler's command. Maryland resolved in 1781 to raise +750 Negroes to be incorporated with the other troops. Massachusetts +thought of forming a separate battalion of Negroes and Indians but had no +separate Negro regiment, the Negroes <a id="pg128"></a>having been admitted into the other +battalions, after 1778, to the extent that there were colored troops from +72 towns in that State. In view of these numerous facts it is safe to +conclude that there were at least 4,000 Negro soldiers scattered +throughout the Continental Army.</p> + +<p>As to the value of the services rendered by the colored troops we have +only one witness to the contrary. This was Sidney S. Rider. He tried to +ridicule the black troops engaged in the Battle of Rhode Island and +contended that only a few of them took part in the contest.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-54" id="fna2-2-54">54</a></sup> On the +other hand we have two distinguished witnesses in their favor. The +Marquis de Chastellux said that "at the passage to the ferry I met a +detachment of the Rhode Island regiment, the same corps we had with us +the last summer, but they have since been recruited and clothed. The +greatest part of them are Negroes or Mulattoes; but they are strong, +robust men, and those I have seen had a very good appearance."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-55" id="fna2-2-55">55</a></sup> +Speaking of the behavior of troops, among whom Negroes under General +Greene fought on this occasion, Lafayette said the following day, that +the enemy repeated the attempt three times (tried to carry his position), +and were as often repulsed with great bravery.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-56" id="fna2-2-56">56</a></sup> One hundred and +forty-four of the soldiers thus engaged to roll back the lines of the +enemy were, according to the Revolutionary records, Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-57" id="fna2-2-57">57</a></sup> Doctor +Harris, a Revolutionary soldier, who took part in the Battle of Rhode +Island, said of these Negroes: "Had they been unfaithful or even given +away before the enemy all would have been lost. Three times in succession +they were attacked with more desperate valor and fury by well disciplined +and veteran troops, and three times did they successfully repel the +assault and thus preserved our army from capture."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-58" id="fna2-2-58">58</a></sup> A detachment of +these troops sacrificed themselves to the last man in defending Colonel +Greene in 1781 <a id="pg129"></a>when he was attacked at Point Bridge, New York. A Negro +slave of South Carolina rendered Governor Rutledge such valuable service +that by a special act of the legislature in 1783 his wife and children +were enfranchised.<sup><a href="#fn2-2-59" id="fna2-2-59">59</a></sup></p> + +<p>The valor of the Negro soldiers of the American Revolution has been highly +praised by statesmen and historians. Writing to John Adams, a member of the +Continental Congress, in 1775, to express his surprise at the prejudice +against the colored troops in the South, General Thomas said: "We have some +Negroes but I look on them in general equally serviceable with other men +for fatigue, and in action many of them had proved themselves brave." +Graydon in speaking of the Negro troops he saw in Glover's regiment at +Marblehead, Massachusetts, said: "But even in this regiment (a fine one) +there were a number of Negroes."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-60" id="fna2-2-60">60</a></sup> Referring to the battle of Monmouth, +Bancroft said: "Nor may history omit to record that, of the 'revolutionary +patriots' who on that day perilled life for their country, more than seven +hundred black men fought side by side with the white."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-61" id="fna2-2-61">61</a></sup> According to +Lecky, "the Negroes proved excellent soldiers: in a hard fought battle that +secured the retreat of Sullivan they three times drove back a large body +of Hessians."<sup><a href="#fn2-2-62" id="fna2-2-62">62</a></sup> We need no better evidence of the effective service of +the Negro soldier than the manner in which the best people of Georgia +honored Austin Dabney,<sup><a href="#fn2-2-63" id="fna2-2-63">63</a></sup> a mu<a id="pg130"></a>latto boy who took a conspicuous part in +many skirmishes with the British and Tories in Georgia. While fighting +<a id="pg131"></a>under Colonel Elijah Clarke he was severely wounded by a bullet which in +passing through his thigh made him a cripple for life. He received a +pension from the United States and was by an act of the legislature of +Georgia given a tract of land. He improved his opportunities, acquired +other property, lived on terms of equality with some of his white +neighbors, had the respect and confidence of high officials, and died +mourned by all.</p> + +<p class="author">W. B. Hartgrove</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn2-2"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn2-2-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-1">return</a>]</span>1. Bancroft, "History of the United States," VIII, 110; MacMaster, +"History of the United States."</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-2">return</a>]</span>2. See "Documents" in this number.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-3">return</a>]</span>3. <em>The New York Gazette</em>, Aug. 11, 1760.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-4">return</a>]</span>4. Supplement to the <em>Boston Evening Post</em>, May 23, 1763.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-5">return</a>]</span>5. Moore's "Slavery in Mass.," 243; Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., VII, 336.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-6">return</a>]</span>6. Adams, "Works of John Adams," X, 315; Moore, "Notes on Slavery in +Mass.," 71. Hamilton, Letter to Jay, March 14, 1779.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-7">return</a>]</span>7. Moore, "Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American +Revolution," 4.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-8">return</a>]</span>8. Bancroft, "History of the United States," VIII, 110.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-9">return</a>]</span>9. Washburn, "History of Leicester," 267.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-10">return</a>]</span>10. Washington, "The Story of the Negro," I, 315.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-11">return</a>]</span>11. Manuscript, Massachusetts Archives, CLXXX, 241.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-12">return</a>]</span>12. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1775, pp. 221, 263; 1776, pp. +60, 874; 1779, pp. 386, 418.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-13">return</a>]</span>13. Ford, "Washington's Writings," VIII, 371.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-14">return</a>]</span>14. Journal of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 553.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-15">return</a>]</span>15. Moore, "Historical Notes," 5.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-16">return</a>]</span>16. <em>Ibid.</em>, 6.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-17">return</a>]</span>17. <em>Ibid.</em>, 6.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-18">return</a>]</span>18. <em>Ibid.</em>, 7.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-19">return</a>]</span>19. Adam's Works, II, 428.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-20">return</a>]</span>20. Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed, I, 135.</p> + +<p>21. [Transcriber's note: There is no note 21 in the text.]</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-22">return</a>]</span>22. Force, American Archives, I, 486. Fifth Series.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-23">return</a>]</span>23. "By his Excellency, Sir HENRY CLINTON, K.B., General and +Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's Forces within the Colonies lying on +the Atlantic Ocean, from Nova Scotia to West Florida, inclusive, etc.</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "PROCLAMATION</p> + +<p> "Whereas, The Enemy have adopted a practice of enrolling NEGROES among + their troops: I do hereby give Notice, that all NEGROES taken in Arms, + or upon any military Duty shall be purchased for the public service at + a stated price; the Money to be paid to the Captors.</p> + +<p> "But I do most strictly forbid any Person to sell or claim Right over + any Negroe, the Property of a Rebel, who may take refuge with any part + of this Army: And I do promise to every Negroe who shall desert the + Rebel Standard full Security to follow within these Lines any + occupation which he may think proper."</p> + +<p> "Given under my Hand at Head-Quarters, Philipsburgh, the 30th day of + June 1779.</p> + +<p> H. CLINTON.</p> + +<p> By his Excellency's Command, JOHN SMITH, Secretary."</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn2-2-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-24">return</a>]</span>24. The Journal of the Continental Congress, II, 26.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-25">return</a>]</span>25. Ramsay, "The History of South Carolina" [Edition, 1809], I, 474-475.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-26">return</a>]</span>26. <em>The Gazette of the State of South Carolina</em>, Nov. 22, 1784.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-27">return</a>]</span>27. Moore, "Historical Notes," 14.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-28">return</a>]</span>28. Sparks, "Washington's Works," III, 218.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-29">return</a>]</span>29. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn2-2-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-30">return</a>]</span>30. Letter of General Thomas to John Adams, Oct. 24, 1775.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-31">return</a>]</span>31. Moore, "Historical Notes," 4.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-32">return</a>]</span>32. Hamilton's "Works," I, 76-78.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-33">return</a>]</span>33. Moore, "Historical Notes," 13.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-34">return</a>]</span>34. Madison's Papers, 68.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-35">return</a>]</span>35. Letter of Hamilton to Jay, March 14, 1779; and Journals of the +Continental Congress.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-36">return</a>]</span>36. Hening, Statutes at Large, IX, 280.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-37">return</a>]</span>37. <em>Ibid.</em>, XI, 308, 309.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-38">return</a>]</span>38. Rhode Island Colonial Records, VIII, 640, 641.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-39">return</a>]</span>39. <em>Ibid.</em>, 358-360.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-40">return</a>]</span>40. Moore, "Historical Notes," 19.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-41">return</a>]</span>41. Manuscripts in the Archives of Massachusetts, CXCIX, 80.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-42">return</a>]</span>42. Moore, "Historical Notes," 20.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-43">return</a>]</span>43. Laws of the State of New York, Chapter XXXII, Fourth Session.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-44">return</a>]</span>44. Sparks, "Correspondence of the American Revolution," III, 331.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-45">return</a>]</span>45. Moore, "Historical Notes," 20.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-46">return</a>]</span>46. <em>Ibid.</em>, 21.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-47">return</a>]</span>47. Taking up the Southern situation, Hamilton in 1779 wrote Jay as +follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "<em>Dear Sir</em>: Colonel Laurens, who will have the honor of delivering + you this letter, is on his way to South Carolina, on a project which I + think, in the present situation of affairs there, is a very good one, + and deserves every kind of support and encouragement. This is, to + raise two, three, or four battalions of negroes, with the assistance + of the government of that State, by contributions from the owners, in + proportion to the number they possess. If you should think proper to + enter upon the subject with him, he will give you a detail of his + plan. He wishes to have it recommended by Congress to the State; and, + as an inducement, that they would engage to take their battalions into + Continental pay.</p> + +<p> "It appears to me, that an expedient of this kind, in the present + state of Southern affairs, is the most rational that can be adopted, + and promises very important advantages. Indeed, I hardly see how a + sufficient force can be collected in that quarter without it: and the + enemy's operations there are growing infinitely serious and + formidable. I have not the least doubt, that the negroes will make + very excellent soldiers with proper management: and I will venture to + pronounce, that they cannot be put in better hands than those of Mr. + Laurens. He has all the zeal, intelligence, enterprise, and every + other qualification, requisite to succeed in such an undertaking. It + is a maxim with some great military judges, that, with sensible + officers, soldiers can hardly be too stupid; and, on this principle, + it is thought that the Russians would make the best soldiers in the + world, if they were under other officers than their own. The King of + Prussia is among the number who maintain this doctrine, and has a very + emphatic saying on the occasion, which I do not exactly recollect. I + mention this because I have frequently heard it objected to the scheme + of embodying negroes, that they are too stupid to make soldiers. This + is so far from appearing to me a valid objection, that I think their + want of cultivation (for their natural faculties are as good as ours), + joined to that habit of subordination which they acquire from a life + of servitude will enable them sooner to become soldiers than our white + inhabitants. Let officers be men of sense and sentiment, and the + nearer the soldiers approach to machines, perhaps the better.</p> + +<p> "I foresee that this project will have to combat much opposition from + prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to + entertain for the blacks, makes us fancy many things that are founded + neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with + property of so valuable a kind, will furnish a thousand arguments to + show the impracticability, or pernicious tendency, of a scheme which + requires such sacrifices. But it should be considered, that if we do + not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that + the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out, will be + to offer them ourselves. An essential part of the plan is, to give + them their freedom with their swords. This will secure their fidelity, + animate their courage, and, I believe, will have a good influence upon + those who remain, by opening a door to their emancipation.</p> + +<p> "This circumstance, I confess, has no small weight in inducing me to + wish the success of the project; for the dictates of humanity and true + policy equally interest me in favor of this unfortunate class of men.</p> + +<p> "While I am on the subject of Southern affairs, you will excuse the + liberty I take in saying, that I do not think measures sufficiently + vigorous are pursuing for our defence in that quarter. Except the few + regular troops of South Carolina, we seem to be relying wholly on the + militia of that and two neighboring States. These will soon grow + impatient of service and leave our affairs in a miserable situation. + No considerable force can be uniformly kept up by militia, to say + nothing of the many obvious and well-known inconveniences that attend + this kind of troops. I would beg leave to suggest, sir, that no time + ought to be lost in making a draught of militia to serve a + twelve-month, from the States of North and South Carolina and + Virginia. But South Carolina, being very weak in her population of + whites, may be excused from the draught, on condition of furnishing + the black battalions. The two others may furnish about three thousand + five hundred men, and be exempted, on that account, from sending any + succor to this army. The States to the northward of Virginia, will be + fully able to give competent supplies to the army here; and it will + require all the force and exertions of the three States I have + mentioned, to withstand the storm which has arisen, and is increasing + in the South.</p> + +<p> "The troops draughted, must be thrown into battalions, and officered + in the best possible manner. The best supernumerary officers may be + made use of as far as they will go. If arms are wanted for their + troops, and no better way of supplying them is to be found, we should + endeavor to levy a contribution of arms upon the militia at large. + Extraordinary exigencies demand extraordinary means. I fear this + Southern business will become a very <em>grave</em> one.</p> + +<p> "With the truest respect and esteem, I am, sir, your most obedient + servant,</p> + +<p> Alexander Hamilton."</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn2-2-48"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-48">return</a>]</span>48. The resolutions of Congress were as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That it be recommended to the States of South Carolina + and Georgia, if they shall think the same expedient, to take measures + immediately for raising three thousand able-bodied negroes.</p> + +<p> "That the said negroes be formed into separate corps, as battalions, + according to the arrangements adopted for the main army, to be + commanded by white commissioned and non-commissioned officers.</p> + +<p> "That the commissioned officers be appointed by the said States.</p> + +<p> "That the non-commissioned officers may, if the said States + respectively shall think proper, be taken from among the + non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the continental battalions + of the said States respectively.</p> + +<p> "That the Governors of the said States, together with the commanding + officer of the Southern army, be empowered to incorporate the several + continental battalions of their States with each other respectively, + agreeably to the arrangement of the army, as established by the + resolutions of May 27, 1778; and to appoint such of the supernumerary + officers to command the said negroes, as shall choose to go into that + service.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That Congress will make provision for paying the + proprietors of such Negroes as shall be enlisted for the service of + the United States during the war, a full compensation for the + property, at a rate not exceeding one thousand dollars for each + active, able-bodied negro man of standard size, not exceeding + thirty-five years of age, who shall be so enlisted and pass muster.</p> + +<p> "That no pay or bounty be allowed to the said negroes; but that they + be clothed and subsisted at the expense of the United States.</p> + +<p> "That every negro, who shall well and faithfully serve as a soldier to + the end of the present war, and shall return his arms, be emancipated, + and receive the sum of fifty dollars."</p> + +<p> In connection with this Congress passed also the following resolution:</p> + +<p> "WHEREAS John Laurens, Esq., who has heretofore acted as aide-de-camp + to the commander-in-chief, is desirous of repairing to South Carolina, + with a design to assist in defence of the Southern States:</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That a commission of lieutenant-colonel be granted to the + said John Laurens, Esq."</p> + +<p> Journals of the Continental Congress, 1779, pp. 386, 418.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn2-2-49"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-49">return</a>]</span>49. Sparks, "Writings of Washington," VIII, 322, 323.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-50"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-50">return</a>]</span>50. Ford, "Washington's Writings," VII, 371.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-51"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-51">return</a>]</span>51. Letter from the Adjutant General of the U.S. War Department.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-52"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-52">return</a>]</span>52. Schloezer's "Briefwechsel," IV, 365.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-52a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-52a">return</a>]</span>52a. The Washington Manuscripts in the Library of Congress.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-53"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-53">return</a>]</span>53. "The Spirit of '76 in Rhode Island," 186-188.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-54"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-54">return</a>]</span>54. Sidney S. Rider, "An Historical Tract in the Rhode Island Series," +No. 10.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-55"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-55">return</a>]</span>55. Marquis de Chastellux, "Travels," I, 454.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-56"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-56">return</a>]</span>56. Moore, "Historical Notes," 19.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-57"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-57">return</a>]</span>57. "The Spirit of Rhode Island in '76," 186-188.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-58"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-58">return</a>]</span>58. Washington, "The Story of the Negro," I, 311, Note.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-59"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-59">return</a>]</span>59. Moore, "Historical Notes," 22.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-60"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-60">return</a>]</span>60. <em>Ibid.</em>, 16.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-61"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-61">return</a>]</span>61. Bancroft, "History of the United States," X, 133.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-62"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-62">return</a>]</span>62. Lecky, "American Revolution," 364.</p> + +<p id="fn2-2-63"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-2-63">return</a>]</span>63. Austin Dabney, a remarkable free man of color, died at Zebulon. His +remains repose, we understand, near those of his friend Harris. The +following account of Dabney, as given by Governor Gilmer, may be +interesting:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> In the beginning of the Revolutionary conflict, a man by the name of + Aycock removed to Wilkes County, having in his possession a mulatto + boy, who passed for and was treated as his slave. The boy had been + called Austin, to which the captain to whose company he was attached + added Dabney.</p> + +<p> Dabney proved himself a good soldier. In many a skirmish with the + British and Tories, he acted a conspicuous part. He was with Colonel + Elijah Clarke in the battle of Kettle Creek, and was severely wounded + by a rifleball passing through his thigh, by which he was made a + cripple for life. He was unable to do further military duty, and was + without means to procure due attention to his wound, which threatened + his life. In this suffering condition he was taken into the house of a + Mr. Harris, where he was kindly cared for until he recovered. He + afterwards labored for Harris and his family more faithfully than any + slave could have been made to do.</p> + +<p> After the close of the war, when prosperous times came, Austin Dabney + acquired property. In the year 18--, he removed to Madison County, + carrying with him his benefactor and family. Here he became noted for + his great fondness for horses and the turf. He attended all the races + in the neighboring counties, and betted to the extent of his means. + His courteous behavior and good temper always secured him gentlemen + backers. His means were aided by a pension which he received from the + United States.</p> + +<p> In the distribution of the public lands by lottery among the people + of Georgia, the Legislature gave to Dabney a lot of land in the county + of Walton. The Hon. Mr. Upson, then a representative from Oglethorpe, + was the member who moved the passage of the law, giving him the lot + of land.</p> + +<p> At the election for members of the Legislature the year after, the + County of Madison was distracted by the animosity and strife of an + Austin Dabney and an Anti-Austin Dabney party. Many of the people + were highly incensed that a mulatto negro should receive a gift of + the land which belonged to the freemen of Georgia. Dabney soon after + removed to the land given him by the State, and carried with him + the family of Harris, and continued to labor for them, and + appropriated whatever he made for their support, except what was + necessary for his coarse clothing and food. Upon his death, he left + them all his property. The eldest son of his benefactor he sent to + Franklin College, and afterwards supported him whilst he studied law + with Mr. Upson, in Lexington. When Harris was undergoing his + examination, Austin was standing outside of the bar, exhibiting great + anxiety in his countenance; and when his young protégé was sworn in, + he burst into a flood of tears. He understood his situation very + well, and never was guilty of impertinence. He was one of the best + chroniclers of the events of the Revolutionary War, in Georgia. Judge + Dooly thought much of him, for he had served under his father, Colonel + Dooly. It was Dabney's custom to be at the public house in Madison, + where the judge stopped during court, and he took much pains in + seeing his horse well attended to. He frequently came into the room + where the judges and lawyers were assembled on the evening before the + court, and seated himself upon a stool or some low place, where he + would commence a parley with any one who chose to talk with him.</p> + +<p> He drew his pension in Savannah where he went once a year for this + purpose. On one occasion he went to Savannah in company with his + neighbor, Colonel Wyley Pope. They traveled together on the most + familiar terms until they arrived in the streets of the town. Then + the Colonel observed to Austin that he was a man of sense, and knew + that it was not suitable to be seen riding side by side with a + colored man through the streets of Savannah; to which Austin replied + that he understood that matter very well. Accordingly when they came + to the principal street, Austin checked his horse and fell behind. + They had not gone very far before Colonel Pope passed the house of + General James Jackson who was then governor of the state. Upon + looking back he saw the governor run out of the house, seize Austin's + hand, shake it as if he had been his long absent brother, draw him + from his horse, and carry him into his house, where he stayed whilst + in town. Colonel Pope used to tell this anecdote with much glee, + adding that he felt chagrined when he ascertained that whilst he + passed his time at a tavern, unknown and uncared for, Austin was the + honored guest of the governor.</p> + +<p> White's "Historical Collections," 584.</p> +</blockquote></div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a2-3"> +<h2><a id="pg132"></a>Freedom and Slavery in Appalachian America</h2> + + + +<p>To understand the problem of harmonizing freedom and slavery in Appalachian +America we must keep in mind two different stocks coming in some cases from +the same mother country and subject here to the same government. Why they +differed so widely was due to their peculiar ideals formed prior to their +emigration from Europe and to their environment in the New World. To the +Tidewater came a class whose character and purposes, although not altogether +alike, easily enabled them to develop into an aristocratic class. All of +them were trying to lighten the burdens of life. In this section favored +with fertile soil, mild climate, navigable streams and good harbors +facilitating direct trade with Europe, the conservative, easy-going, +wealth-seeking, exploiting adventurers finally fell back on the institution +of slavery which furnished the basis for a large plantation system of +seeming principalities. In the course of time too there arose in the few +towns of the coast a number of prosperous business men whose bearing was +equally as aristocratic as that of the masters of plantations.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-1" id="fna2-3-1">1</a></sup> These +elements constituted the rustic nobility which lorded it over the +unfortunate settlers whom the plantation system forced to go into the +interior to take up land. Eliminating thus an enterprising middle class, +the colonists tended to become more aristocratic near the shore.</p> + +<p>In this congenial atmosphere the eastern people were content to dwell. +the East had the West in mind and said much about its inexhaustible +resources, but with the exception of obtaining there grants of land nothing +definite toward the conquest of this section was done because of the +handicap of slavery which precluded the possibility of a rapid expansion of +the plantation group in the slave States. Separated thus by high ranges of +mountains which prevented <a id="pg133"></a>the unification of the interests of the sections, +the West was left for conquest by a hardy race of European dissenters +who were capable of a more rapid growth.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-2" id="fna2-3-2">2</a></sup> these were the Germans and +Scotch-Irish with a sprinkling of Huguenots, Quakers and poor whites who +had served their time as indentured servants in the east.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-3" id="fna2-3-3">3</a></sup> The unsettled +condition of Europe during its devastating wars of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries caused many of foreign stocks to seek homes in America +where they hoped to realize political liberty and religious freedom. Many +of these Germans first settled in the mountainous district of Pennsylvania +and Maryland and then migrated later to the lower part of the Shenandoah +Valley, while the Scotch-Irish took <a id="pg134"></a>possession of the upper part of that +section. Thereafter the Shenandoah Valley became a thoroughfare for a +continuous movement of these immigrants toward the south into the uplands +and mountains of the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-4" id="fna2-3-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>Among the Germans were Mennonites, Lutherans, and Moravians, all of whom +believed in individual freedom, the divine right of secular power, and +personal responsibility.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-5" id="fna2-3-5">5</a></sup> The strongest stock among these immigrants, +however, were the Scotch-Irish, "a God-fearing, Sabbath-keeping, +covenant-adhering, liberty-loving, and tyrant-hating race," which had +formed its ideals under the influence of philosophy of John Calvin, John +Knox, Andrew Melville, and George Buchanan. By these thinkers they had been +taught to emphasize equality, freedom of conscience, and political liberty. +These stocks differed somewhat from each other, but they were equally +attached to practical religion, homely virtues, and democratic +institutions.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-7" id="fna2-3-7">7</a></sup> Being a kind and beneficent class with a tenacity for the +habits and customs of their fathers, they proved to be a valuable +contribution to the American stock. As they had no riches every man was to +be just what he could make himself. Equality and brotherly love became +their dominant traits. Common feel<a id="pg135"></a>ing and similarity of ideals made them +one people whose chief characteristic was individualism.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-8" id="fna2-3-8">8</a></sup> Differing thus +so widely from the easterners they were regarded by the aristocrats as "Men +of new blood" and "Wild Irish," who formed a barrier over which "none +ventured to leap and would venture to settle among."<sup><a href="#fn2-3-9" id="fna2-3-9">9</a></sup> No aristocrat +figuring conspicuously in the society of the East, where slavery made men +socially unequal, could feel comfortable on the frontier, where freedom +from competition with such labor prevented the development of caste.</p> + +<p><a id="pg136"></a>The natural endowment of the West was so different from that of the East +that the former did not attract the people who settled in the Tidewater. +The mountaineers were in the midst of natural meadows, steep hills, narrow +valleys of hilly soil, and inexhaustible forests. In the East tobacco +and corn were the staple commodities. Cattle and hog raising became +profitable west of the mountains, while various other employments which +did not require so much vacant land were more popular near the sea. +Besides, when the dwellers near the coast sought the cheap labor which the +slave furnished the mountaineers encouraged the influx of freemen. It is +not strange then that we have no record of an early flourishing slave +plantation beyond the mountains. Kercheval gives an account of a settlement +by slaves and overseers on the large Carter grant situated on the west side +of the Shenandoah, but it seems that the settlement did not prosper as +such, for it soon passed into the hands of the Burwells and the Pages.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-10" id="fna2-3-10">10</a></sup></p> + +<p>The rise of slavery in the Tidewater section, however, established the +going of those settlers in the direction of government for the people. The +East began with indentured servants but soon found the system of slavery +more profitable. It was not long before the blacks constituted the masses +of the laboring population,<sup><a href="#fn2-3-11" id="fna2-3-11">11</a></sup> while on the expiration of their term of +service the indentured servants went west and helped to democratize the +frontier. Caste too was secured by the peculiar land tenure of the East. +The king and the proprietors granted land for small sums on feudal terms. +The grantees in their turn settled these holdings in fee tail on the oldest +son in accordance with the law of primogeniture. This produced a class +described by Jefferson who said: "There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, +pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, +yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and <a id="pg137"></a>lowest, a seculum of beings +called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always +cap in hand to the Dons who employed them for furnishing material for the +exercise of their price."<sup><a href="#fn2-3-12" id="fna2-3-12">12</a></sup></p> + +<p>In the course of colonial development the people of the mountains were +usually referred to as frontiersmen dwelling in the West. This "West" was +for a number of years known as the region beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains +and later beyond the Alleghenies. A more satisfactory dividing line, +however, is the historical line of demarcation between the East and West +which moved toward the mountains in the proportion that the western section +became connected with the East and indoctrinated by its proslavery +propagandists. In none of these parts, however, not even far south, were +the eastern people able to bring the frontiersmen altogether around to +their way of thinking. Their ideals and environment caused them to have +differing opinions as to the extent, character, and foundations of local +self-government, differing conceptions of the meaning of representative +institutions, differing ideas of the magnitude of governmental power over +the individual, and differing theories of the relations of church and +State. The East having accepted caste as the basis of its society naturally +adopted the policy of government by a favorite minority, the West inclined +more and more toward democracy. The latter considered representatives only +those who had been elected as such by a majority of the people of the +district in which they lived; the former believed in a more restricted +electorate, and the representation of districts and interests, rather than +that of numbers.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-13" id="fna2-3-13">13</a></sup> Furthermore, almost from the founding of the colonies +there was court party consisting of the rich planters and favorites +composing the coterie of royal officials generally opposed by a country +party of men who, either denied certain privileges or unaccustomed to +participation in the affairs of privileged classes, felt that<a id="pg138"></a> the +interests of the lowly were different. As the frontier moved westward the +line of cleavage tended to become identical with that between the +privileged classes and the small farmers, between the lowlanders and the +uplanders, between capital and labor, and finally between the East and +West.</p> + +<p>The frontiersmen did not long delay in translating some of their political +theories into action. The aristocratic East could not do things to suit +the mountaineers who were struggling to get the government nearer to them. +At times, therefore, their endeavors to abolish government for the people +resulted in violent frontier uprisings like that of Bacon's Rebellion +in Virginia and the War of Regulation in North Carolina. In all of these +cases the cause was practically the same. These pioneers had observed +with jealous eye the policy which bestowed all political honors on the +descendants of a few wealthy families living upon the tide or along the +banks of the larger streams. They were, therefore, inclined to advance +with quick pace toward revolution.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-14" id="fna2-3-14">14</a></sup> On finding such leaders as James +Otis, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, the frontiersmen instituted such +a movement in behalf of freedom that it resulted in the Revolutionary +War.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-15" id="fna2-3-15">15</a></sup> These patriots' advocacy of freedom, too, was not half-hearted. +When they demanded liberty for the colonists they spoke also for the +slaves, so emphasizing the necessity for abolition that observers from afar +thought that the institution would of itself soon pass away.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-16" id="fna2-3-16">16</a></sup></p> + +<p>In the reorganization of the governments necessitated by the overthrow +of the British, however, the frontiersmen were unfortunate in that +they lacked constructive leader<a id="pg139"></a>ship adequate to having their ideas +incorporated into the new constitutions. Availing themselves of their +opportunity, the aristocrats of the coast fortified themselves in their +advantageous position by establishing State governments based on the +representation of interests, the restriction of suffrage, and the +ineligibility of the poor to office.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-17" id="fna2-3-17">17</a></sup> Moreover, efforts were made +even to continue in a different form the Established Church against which +the dissenting frontiersmen had fought for more than a century. In the +other Atlantic States where such distinctions were not made in framing +their constitutions, the conservatives resorted to other schemes to keep +the power in the hands of the rich planters near the sea. When the +Appalachian Americans awoke to the situation then they were against a +stone wall. The so-called rights of man were subjected to restrictions +which in our day could not exist. The right to hold office and to vote +were not dependent upon manhood qualifications but on a white skin, +religious opinions, the payment of taxes, and wealth. In South Carolina a +person desiring to vote must believe in the existence of a God, in a future +state of reward and punishment, and have a freehold of fifty acres of land. +In Virginia the right of suffrage was restricted to freeholders possessing +one hundred acres of land. Senators in North Carolina had to own three +hundred acres of land; representatives in South Carolina were required +to have a 500 acre freehold and 10 Negroes; and in Georgia 250 acres +and support the Protestant religion.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-18" id="fna2-3-18">18</a></sup> In all of these slave States, +suffering from such unpopular government, the mountaineers developed into +a reform party persistently demanding that the sense of the people be taken +on the question of calling together their representatives to remove certain +defects from the constitutions. It was the contest between the aristocrats +and the progressive westerner. The aristocrats' idea of government was +developed from the "English Scion--the liberty of kings, lords, and +commons, <a id="pg140"></a>with different grades of society acting independently of all +foreign powers." The ideals of the westerners were principally those of the +Scotch-Irish, working for "civil liberty in fee simple, and an open road to +civil honors, secured to the poorest and feeblest members of society."<sup><a href="#fn2-3-19" id="fna2-3-19">19</a></sup></p> + +<p>The eastern planters, of course, regarded this as an attack on their system +and fearlessly denounced these rebellious wild men of the hills. In taking +this position, these conservatives brought down upon their heads all of the +ire that the frontiersmen had felt for the British prior to the American +Revolution. The easterners were regarded in the mountains as a party bent +upon establishing in this country a régime equally as oppressive as the +British government. The frontiersmen saw in slavery the cause of the whole +trouble. They, therefore, hated the institution and endeavored more than +ever to keep their section open to free labor. They hated the slave as +such, not as a man. On the early southern frontier there was more prejudice +against the slaveholder than against the Negro.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-20" id="fna2-3-20">20</a></sup> There was the feeling +that this was not a country for a laboring class so undeveloped as the +African slaves, then being brought to these shores to serve as a basis for +a government differing radically from that in quest of which the +frontiersmen had left their homes in Europe.</p> + +<p>This struggle reached its climax in different States at various periods. +In Maryland the contest differed somewhat from that of other Southern +States because of the contiguity of that commonwealth with Pennsylvania, +which early set such examples of abolition and democratic government that +a slave State near by could not go so far in fortifying an aristocratic +governing class. In Virginia the situation was much more critical than +elsewhere. Unlike the other Atlantic States, which wisely provided +roads and canals to unify the diverse interests of the sections, that +commonwealth left the trans-Alleghany district to continue <a id="pg141"></a>in its own way +as a center of insurgency from which war was waged against the established +order of things.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-21" id="fna2-3-21">21</a></sup> In most States, however, the contest was decided by +the invention of the cotton gin and other mechanical appliances which, in +effecting an industrial revolution throughout the world, gave rise to the +plantation system found profitable to supply the increasing demand for +cotton. In the course of the subsequent expansion of slavery, many of the +uplanders and mountaineers were gradually won to the support of that +institution. Realizing gradually a community of interests with the eastern +planters, their ill-feeling against them tended to diminish. Abolition +societies which had once flourished among the whites of the uplands tended +to decline and by 1840 there were practically no abolitionists in the South +living east of the Appalachian Mountains.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-22" id="fna2-3-22">22</a></sup></p> + +<p>Virginia, which showed signs of discord longer than the other Atlantic +States, furnishes us a good example of how it worked out. The reform party +of the West finally forced the call of a convention in 1829, hoping in +vain to crush the aristocracy. Defeated in this first battle with the +conservatives, they secured the call of the Reform Convention in 1850 only +to find that two thirds of the State had become permanently attached to the +cause of maintaining slavery.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-23" id="fna2-3-23">23</a></sup> Samuel McDowell Moore, of Rockbridge +County in the Valley, said in the Convention of 1829-30 that slaves should +be free to enjoy their natural rights,<sup><a href="#fn2-3-24" id="fna2-3-24">24</a></sup> but a generation later the +people of that section would not have justified such an utterance in behalf +of freedom. The uplanders of South Carolina were early satisfied with such +changes as were made in the apportionment of representation in 1808, and +<a id="pg142"></a>in the qualifications of voters in 1810.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-25" id="fna2-3-25">25</a></sup> Thereafter Calhoun's party, +proceeding on the theory of government by a concurrent majority, vanquished +what few liberal-minded men remained, and then proceeded to force their +policy on the whole country.</p> + +<p>In the Appalachian Mountains, however, the settlers were loath to follow +the fortunes of the ardent pro-slavery element. Actual abolition was +never popular in western Virginia, but the love of the people of that +section for freedom kept them estranged from the slaveholding districts +of the State, which by 1850 had completely committed themselves to the +pro-slavery propaganda. In the Convention of 1829-30 Upshur said there +existed in a great portion of the West (of Virginia) a rooted antipathy +to the slave.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-26" id="fna2-3-26">26</a></sup> John Randolph was alarmed at the fanatical spirit on +the subject of slavery, which was growing up in Virginia. Some of this +sentiment continued in the mountains. The highlanders, therefore, found +themselves involved in a continuous embroglio because they were not moved +by reactionary influences which were unifying the South for its bold +effort to make slavery a national institution.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-27" id="fna2-3-27">27</a></sup></p> + +<p>The indoctrination of the backwoodsmen of North Carolina in the tenets of +slavery was effected without much difficulty because of less impediment in +the natural barriers, but a small proportion of the inhabitants of the +State residing in the mountainous districts continued anti-slavery. There +was an unusually strong anti-slavery element in Davie, Davidson, Granville +and Guilford counties. The efforts of this liberal group, too, were not +long in taking organized form. While there were several local organizations +operating in various parts, the efforts of the anti-slavery people centered +around the North Carolina Manumission Society. It had over forty branches +at one time, besides several associations of women, all extending into +seven or eight of the most<a id="pg143"></a> populous counties of the State. This society +denounced the importation and exportation of slaves, and favored providing +for manumissions, legalizing slave contracts for the purchase of freedom, +and enacting a law that at a certain age all persons should be born +free.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-28" id="fna2-3-28">28</a></sup> That these reformers had considerable influence is evidenced by +the fact that in 1826 a member of the manumission society was elected to +the State Senate. In 1824 and 1826 two thousand slaves were freed in North +Carolina.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-29" id="fna2-3-29">29</a></sup> Among the distinguished men who at times supported this +movement in various ways were Hinton Rowan Helper, Benjamin S. Hedrick, +Daniel R. Goodloe, Eli W. Caruthers, and Lunsford Lane, a colored orator +and lecturer of considerable ability.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-30" id="fna2-3-30">30</a></sup> They constituted a hopeless +minority, however, for the liberal element saw their hopes completely +blasted in the triumph of the slave party in the Convention of 1835, which +made everything subservient to the institution of slavery.</p> + +<p>In the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee conditions were a little more +encouraging, especially between 1817 and 1830. The anti-slavery work in +Kentucky seemed to owe its beginning to certain "Emancipating Baptists." +Early in the history of that State six Baptist preachers, Carter Tarrant, +David Darrow, John Sutton, Donald Holmes, Jacob Gregg, and George Smith, +began an anti-slavery campaign, maintaining that there should be no +fellowship with slaveholders.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-31" id="fna2-3-31">31</a></sup> They were unable to effect much, however, +because of the fact that they had no extensive organization through +which to extend their efforts. Every church remained free to decide for +itself and even in Northern States the Baptists later winked at slavery. +More effective than these efforts of the Baptists was the work of the +Scotch-Irish. Led by David Rice, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, +the anti-slavery element tried to exclude slavery <a id="pg144"></a>from the State when +framing its first constitution in the Convention of 1792.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-32" id="fna2-3-32">32</a></sup> Another +effort thus to amend the fundamental law was made at the session of the +legislature of 1797-98, and had it not been for the excitement aroused by +the Alien and Sedition Laws, the bill probably would have passed.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-33" id="fna2-3-33">33</a></sup></p> + +<p>Many successful efforts were made through the anti-slavery bodies. The +society known as "Friends of Humanity" was organized in Kentucky in 1807. +It had a constitution signed by eleven preachers and thirteen laymen. +The organization was in existence as late as 1813. The records of the +abolitionists show that there was another such society near Frankfort +between 1809 and 1823.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-34" id="fna2-3-34">34</a></sup> Birney then appeared in the State and gave his +influence to the cause with a view to promoting the exportation of Negroes +to Liberia.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-35" id="fna2-3-35">35</a></sup> A number of citizens also memorialized Congress to colonize +the Negroes on the public lands in the West.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-36" id="fna2-3-36">36</a></sup> In the later twenties an +effort was made to unite the endeavors of many wealthy and influential +persons who were then interested in promoting abolition. Lacking a vigorous +and forceful leader, they appealed to Henry Clay, who refused.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-37" id="fna2-3-37">37</a></sup> They +fought on, however, for years to come. A contributor to the <em>Western +Luminary</em> said, in 1830, that the people of Kentucky were finding slavery +a burden.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-38" id="fna2-3-38">38</a></sup> Evidently a good many of them had come to this conclusion, +for a bill providing for emancipation introduced in the Legislature was +postponed indefinitely by a vote of 18 to 11.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-39" id="fna2-3-39">39</a></sup> So favorable were +conditions in Kentucky at this time that it was said that Tennessee was +watch<a id="pg145"></a>ing Kentucky with the expectation of following her lead should the +latter become a free State as was then expected.</p> + +<p>The main factor in promoting the work in Tennessee was, as in Kentucky, +the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock. They opposed slavery in word and in +deed, purchasing and setting free a number of colored men. Among these +liberal westerners was organized the "Manumission Society of Tennessee," +represented for years in the American Convention of Abolition Societies by +Benjamin Lundy.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-40" id="fna2-3-40">40</a></sup> The Tennessee organization once had twenty branches and +a membership of six hundred.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-41" id="fna2-3-41">41</a></sup> Among its promoters were Charles Osborn, +Elihu Swain, John Underhill, Jesse Willis, John Cannady, John Swain, David +Maulsby, John Rankin, Jesse Lockhart, and John Morgan.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-42" id="fna2-3-42">42</a></sup> They advocated +at first immediate and unconditional emancipation, but soon seeing that the +realization of this policy was impossible, they receded from this advanced +position and memorialized their representatives to provide for gradual +emancipation, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the +prevention of the separation of families, the prohibition of the interstate +slave trade, the restriction of slavery, the general improvement of colored +people through church and school, and especially the establishment among +them of the right of marriage.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-43" id="fna2-3-43">43</a></sup> To procure the abolition of slavery by +argument, other persons of this section organized another body, known as +the "Moral Religious Manumission Society of West Tennessee."<sup><a href="#fn2-3-44" id="fna2-3-44">44</a></sup> It once +had a large membership and tended to increase and spread the agitation in +behalf of abolition.</p> + +<p>In view of these favorable tendencies, it was thought up to 1830 that +Tennessee, following the lead of Kentucky, <a id="pg146"></a>would become a free State.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-45" id="fna2-3-45">45</a></sup> +But just as the expansion of slavery into the interior of the Atlantic +States attached those districts to the fortunes of the slaveholding class, +it happened in some cases in the mountains which to some extent became +indoctrinated by the teaching of the defenders of slavery. Then the ardent +slavery debate in Congress and the bold agitation, like that of the +immediatists led by William Lloyd Garrison, alienated the support which +some mountaineers had willingly given the cause. Abolition in these States, +therefore, began to weaken and rapidly declined during the thirties.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-46" id="fna2-3-46">46</a></sup> +Because of a heterogeneous membership, these organizations tended to +develop into other societies representing differing ideas of anti-slavery +factions which had at times made it impossible for them to cooperate +effectively in carrying out any plan. The slaveholders who had been members +formed branches of the American Colonization Society, while the radical +element fell back upon organizing branches of the Underground Railroad to +cooperate with those of their number who, seeing that it was impossible +to attain their end in the Southern mountains, had moved into the +Northwest Territory to colonize the freedmen and aid the escape of +slaves.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-47" id="fna2-3-47">47</a></sup> Among these workers who had thus changed their base of +operation were not only such noted men as Joshua Coffin, Benjamin Lundy, +and James G. Birney, but less distinguished workers like John Rankin, of +Ripley; James Gilliland, of Red Oak; Jesse Lockhart, of Russellville; +Robert Dobbins, of Sardinia; Samuel Crothers, of Greenfield; Hugh L. +Fullerton, of Chillicothe, and William Dickey, of Ross or Fayette County, +Ohio. There were other southern abolitionists who settled and established +stations of the Underground Railroad In Bond, Putnam, and Bureau Counties, +Illinois.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-48" id="fna2-3-48">48</a></sup> The Underground Railroad was thus enabled to extend into +the heart of the South by way of the <a id="pg147"></a>Cumberland Mountains. Over this Ohio +and Kentucky route, culminating chiefly in Cleveland, Sandusky, and +Detroit, more fugitives found their way to freedom than through any other +avenue.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-49" id="fna2-3-49">49</a></sup> The limestone caves were of much assistance to them. The +operation of the system extended through Tennessee into northern Georgia +and Alabama, following the Appalachian highland as it juts like a +peninsula into the South. Dillingham, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman used +these routes.</p> + +<p>Let us consider, then, the attitude of these mountaineers toward slaves. +All of them were not abolitionists. Some slavery existed among them. The +attack on the institution, then, in these parts was not altogether +opposition to an institution foreign to the mountaineers. The frontiersmen +hated slavery, hated the slave as such, but, as we have observed above, +hated the eastern planter worse than they hated the slave. As there was a +scarcity of slaves in that country they generally dwelt at home with their +masters. Slavery among these liberal people, therefore, continued +patriarchal and so desirous were they that the institution should remain +such that they favored the admission of the State of Missouri as a slave +State,<sup><a href="#fn2-3-50" id="fna2-3-50">50</a></sup> not to promote slavery but to expand it that each master, having +a smaller number of Negroes, might keep them in close and helpful contact. +Consistently with this policy many of the frontier Baptists, Scotch-Irish +and Methodists continued to emphasize the education of the blacks as the +correlative of emancipation. They urged the masters to give their servants +all proper advantages for acquiring knowledge of their duty both to man and +to God. In large towns slaves were permitted to acquire the rudiments of +education and in some of them free persons of color had well-regulated +schools.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-51" id="fna2-3-51">51</a></sup></p> + +<p>Two noteworthy efforts to educate Negroes were put forth in these parts. A +number of persons united in 1825 to found an institution for the education +of eight or ten <a id="pg148"></a>Negro slaves with their families, to be operated under the +direction of the "Emancipating Labor Society of the State of Kentucky." +About the same time Frances Wright was endeavoring to establish an +institution on the same order to improve the free blacks and mulattoes +in West Tennessee. It seems that this movement had the support of a goodly +number of persons, including George Fowler, and, it was said, Lafayette, +who had always been regarded as a friend of emancipation. According to +a letter from a clergyman of South Carolina, the first slave for this +institution went from the York district of that State. Exactly what these +enterprises were, however, it is difficult to determine. They were not well +supported and soon passed from public notice. Some have said that the +Tennessee project was a money-making scheme for the proprietors, and that +the Negroes taught there were in reality slaves. Others have defended the +work as a philanthropic effort so characteristic of the friends of freedom +in Appalachian America.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-52" id="fna2-3-52">52</a></sup></p> + +<p>The people of Eastern Tennessee were largely in favor of Negro education. +Around Maryville and Knoxville were found a considerable number of white +persons who were thus interested in the uplift of the belated race. Well +might such efforts be expected in Maryville, for the school of theology at +this place had gradually become so radical that according to the <em>Maryville +Intelligencer</em> half of the students by 1841 declared their adherence to the +cause of abolition.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-53" id="fna2-3-53">53</a></sup> Consequently, they hoped not only to see such +doctrines triumph within the walls of that institution, but were +endeavoring to enlighten the Negroes of that community to prepare them for +the enjoyment of life as citizens in their own or some other country.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-54" id="fna2-3-54">54</a></sup></p> + +<p>Just as the people of Maryville had expressed themselves through <em>The +Intelligencer</em>, so did those of Knoxville <a id="pg149"></a>find a spokesman in <em>The +Presbyterian Witness</em>. Excoriating those who had for centuries been finding +excuses for keeping the slaves in heathenism, the editor of this +publication said that there was not a solitary argument that might be urged +in favor of teaching a white man that might not be as properly urged in +favor of enlightening a man of color. "If one has a soul that will never +die," said he, "so has the other. Has one susceptibilities of improvement, +mentally, socially, and morally? So has the other. Is one bound by the laws +of God to improve the talents he has received from the Creator's hands? So +is the other. Is one embraced in the commands search the scriptures? So is +the other."<sup><a href="#fn2-3-55" id="fna2-3-55">55</a></sup> He maintained that unless masters could lawfully degrade +their slaves to the condition of beasts, they were just as much bound to +teach them to read the Bible as to teach any other class of their +population.</p> + +<p>From a group in Kentucky came another helpful movement. Desiring to train +up white men who would eventually be able to do a work which public +sentiment then prevented the anti-slavery minority from carrying on, the +liberal element of Kentucky, under the leadership of John G. Fee and his +coworkers, established Berea College. Believing in the brotherhood of man +and the fatherhood of God, this institution incorporated into its charter +the bold declaration that "God hath made of one blood all nations that +dwell upon the face of the earth." This profession was not really put to a +test until after the Civil War, when the institution courageously met the +issue by accepting as students some colored soldiers who were returning +home wearing their uniforms.<sup><a href="#fn2-3-56" id="fna2-3-56">56</a></sup> The State has since prohibited the +co-education of the races.</p> + +<p>With so many sympathizers with the oppressed in the back country, the South +had much difficulty in holding the mountaineers in line to force upon the +whole nation their policies, mainly determined by their desire for the +continuation of slavery. Many of the mountaineers accordingly <a id="pg150"></a>deserted the +South in its opposition to the tariff and internal improvements, and when +that section saw that it had failed in economic competition with the North, +and realized that it had to leave the Union soon or never, the mountaineers +who had become commercially attached to the North and West boldly adhered +to these sections to maintain the Union. The highlanders of North Carolina +were finally reduced to secession with great difficulty; Eastern Tennessee +had to yield, but kept the State almost divided between the two causes; +timely dominated by Unionists with the support of troops, Kentucky stood +firm; and to continue attached to the Federal Government forty-eight +western counties of Virginia severed their connection with the essentially +slaveholding district and formed the loyal State of West Virginia.</p> + +<p>In the mountainous region the public mind has been largely that of people +who have developed on free soil. They have always differed from the +dwellers in the district near the sea not only in their attitude toward +slavery but in the policy they have followed in dealing with the blacks +since the Civil War. One can observe even to-day such a difference in the +atmosphere of the two sections, that in passing from the tidewater to the +mountains it seems like going from one country into another. There is still +in the back country, of course, much of that lawlessness which shames the +South, but crime in that section is not peculiarly the persecution of the +Negro. Almost any one considered undesirable is dealt with unceremoniously. +In Appalachian America the races still maintain a sort of social contact. +White and black men work side by side, visit each other in their homes, and +often attend the same church to listen with delight to the Word spoken by +either a colored or white preacher.</p> + +<p class="author">C. G. Woodson</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn2-3"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn2-3-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-1">return</a>]</span>1. Wertenbaker, "Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia," 31.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-2">return</a>]</span>2. Exactly how many of each race settled in the Appalachian region we +cannot tell, but we know that they came in large numbers, after the year +1735. A few important facts and names may give some idea as to the extent +of this immigration. The Shenandoah Valley attracted many. Most prominent +among those who were instrumental in settling the Valley was the Scotchman, +John Lewis, the ancestor of so many families of the mountains. The +Dutchmen, John and Isaac Van Meter, were among the first to buy land from +Joist Hite, probably the first settler in the Valley. Among other +adventurers of this frontier were Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore, and William +White, of Maryland, who settled in the Shenandoah in 1734; Robert Harper +and others who, in the same year, settled Richard Morgan's grant near +Harper's Ferry; and Howard, Walker, and Rutledge, who took up land on what +became the Fairfax Manor on the South Branch. In 1738 some Quakers came +from Pennsylvania to occupy the Ross Survey of 40,000 acres near Winchester +Farm in what is now Frederick County, Virginia. In the following year John +and James Lindsay reached Long Marsh, and Isaac Larne of New Jersey the +same district about the same time; while Joseph Carter of Bucks County, +Pennsylvania, built his cabin on the Opequon near Winchester in 1743, and +Joseph Hampton with his two sons came from Maryland to Buck Marsh near +Berryville. But it is a more important fact that Burden, a Scotch-Irishman, +obtained a large grant of land and settled it with hundreds of his race +during the period from 1736 to 1743, and employed an agent to continue the +work. With Burden came the McDowells, Alexanders, Campbells, McClungs, +McCampbells, McCowans, and McKees, Prestons, Browns, Wallaces, Wilsons, +McCues, and Caruthers. They settled the upper waters of the Shenandoah +and the James, while the Germans had by this time well covered the +territory between what is known as Harrisonburg and the present site of +Harper's Ferry. See Maury, "Physical Survey," 42; <em>Virginia Magazine</em>, IX, +337-352; Washington's Journal, 47-48; Wayland, "German Element of the +Shenandoah," 110.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-3">return</a>]</span>3. Wayland, "German Element of the Shenandoah," 28-30; <em>Virginia +Historical Register</em>, III, 10.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-4">return</a>]</span>4. See Meade, "Old Families of Virginia," <em>The Transalleghany Historical +Magazine</em>, I and II; De Hass, "The Settlement of Western Virginia," 71, 75; +Kercheval, "History of the Valley," 61-71; Faust, "The German Element in +the United States."</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-5">return</a>]</span>5. Dunning, "The History of Political Theory from Luther to Montesquieu," +9,10.</p> + +<p>6. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote 6 was not in the original text.]</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-7">return</a>]</span>7. Buchanan, the most literary of these reformers, insisted that society +originates in the effort of men to escape from the primordial state of +nature, that in a society thus formed the essential to well-being is +justice, that justice is maintained by laws rather than by kings, that the +maker of the laws is the people, and that the interpreter of the laws is +not the king, but the body of judges chosen by the people. He reduced the +power of the ruler to the minimum, the only power assigned to him being to +maintain the morals of the state by making his life a model of virtuous +living. The reformer claimed, too, that when the ruler exceeds his power he +becomes a tyrant, and that people are justified in rejecting the doctrine +of passive obedience and slaying him. See Buchanan, "De Jure Apud Scotos" +(Aberdeen, 1762); Dunning, "History of Political Theories from Luther to +Montesquieu"; and P. Hume Brown, "Biography of John Knox."</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="fn2-3-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-8">return</a>]</span>8. Just how much the racial characteristics had to do with making this + wilderness a center of democracy, it is difficult to estimate. Some + would contend that although the Western people were of races different + from this aristocratic element of the East, their own history shows + that this had little to do with the estrangement of the West from the + East, and that the fact that many persons of these same stocks who + settled in the East became identified with the interests of that + section is sufficient evidence to prove what an insignificant factor + racial characteristics are. But although environment proves itself + here to be the important factor in the development of these people + and we are compelled to concede that the frontier made the Western + man an advocate of republican principles, heredity must not be + ignored altogether.</p> + +<p> Exactly how much influence the Scotch-Irish had in shaping the destiny + of Appalachian America is another much mooted question with which we + are concerned here because historians give almost all the credit to + this race. Even an authority like Justin Winsor leaves the impression + that Virginia cared little for the frontier, and that all honor is due + to the Scotch-Irish. Their influence in shaping the destiny of other + States has been equally emphasized. The facts collected by Hanna + doubtless give much support to the claims of that people to the honor + for the development of Appalachian America. His conclusions, however, + are rather far-sweeping and often shade into imagination. On the other + hand, a good argument may be made to prove that other people, such as + the Germans and Dutch, deserve equal honor. Furthermore, few of the + eulogists of the Scotch-Irish take into account the number of + indentured servants and poor whites who moved westward with the + frontier. Besides, it must not be thought that the East neglected the + frontier intentionally simply because the Tidewater people could not + early subdue the wilderness. They did much to develop it. The records + of the time of the Indian troubles beginning in 1793 show that the + State governments answered the call for troops and ammunition as + promptly as they could, and their statute books show numerous laws + which were enacted in the interest of the West during these troubles. + The truth of the matter is that, whatever might have been the desire + of the East to conquer the wilderness, the sectionalizing institution + of slavery which the colony had accepted as the basis of its society + rendered the accomplishment of such an object impossible. There was + too great diversity of interest in that region.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn2-3-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-9">return</a>]</span>9. Jefferson's Works, VI, 484.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-10">return</a>]</span>10. Kercheval, "History of the Valley," 47 and 48.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-11">return</a>]</span>11. It soon became evident that it was better to invest in slaves who had +much more difficulty than the indentured servants in escaping and passing +as freemen.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-12">return</a>]</span>12. Jefferson's Works, VI, 484.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-13">return</a>]</span>13. This statement is based on the provisions of the first State +constitutions. See Thorpe's "Charters and Constitutions."</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-14">return</a>]</span>14. Grigsby, "Convention of 1788," 15, 49.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-15">return</a>]</span>15. The people living near the coast desired reform under British rule. +The frontiersmen had to win them to the movement. A certain Scotch-Irish +element in the Carolinas was an exception to this rule in that they at +first supported the British.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-16">return</a>]</span>16. The letters and speeches of most of the Revolutionary leaders show +that they favored some kind of abolition. Among the most outspoken were +James Otis, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and John +Laurens. See also Schoepf, "Travels in the Confederation," 149; and Brissot +de Warville, "New Travels," I, 220.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-17">return</a>]</span>17. See the various State constitutions in Thorpe's "Charters and +Constitutions."</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-18">return</a>]</span>18. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn2-3-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-19">return</a>]</span>19. Foote, "Sketches of Virginia," 85.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-20">return</a>]</span>20. Hart, "Slavery and Abolition," 73; Olmsted, "The Back Country," +230-232. <em>Berea Quarterly</em>, IX, No. 3.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-21">return</a>]</span>21. See the Speeches of the Western members of the Virginia Convention of +1829-30, Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1829-30.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-22">return</a>]</span>22. This is proved by the reports and records of the anti-slavery +societies and especially by those of the American Convention of Abolition +Societies. During the thirties and forties the southern societies ceased to +make reports. See Adams, "A Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery," 117.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-23">return</a>]</span>23. The vote on the aristocratic constitution framed in 1829-30 shows +this. See Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1829-30, p. 903.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-24">return</a>]</span>24. Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1829-30, p. 226.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-25">return</a>]</span>25. Thorpe, "Charters and Constitutions, South Carolina."</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-26">return</a>]</span>26. Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1829-30, pp. 53, 76, +442, 858.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-27">return</a>]</span>27. See Calhoun's Works: "A Disquisition on Government," p. 1 et seq.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-28">return</a>]</span>28. Adams, "Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery," 138.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-29">return</a>]</span>29. <em>Ibid.</em>, 34.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-30">return</a>]</span>30. Bassett, "Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina," 72.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-31">return</a>]</span>31. Adams, "Anti-Slavery, etc.," 100-101.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-32">return</a>]</span>32. Speech of David Rice in the Constitutional Convention of Kentucky, +1792.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-33">return</a>]</span>33. Birney, "James G. Birney," 96-100.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-34">return</a>]</span>34. Reports of the American Convention of Abolition Societies, 1809 +and 1823.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-35">return</a>]</span>35. Birney, "James G. Birney," 70.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-36">return</a>]</span>36. Adams, "The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America," 129-130. +Annals of Congress, 17th Congress, 1st ses., 2d ses., 18th Cong., 1st ses.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-37">return</a>]</span>37. <em>Ibid.</em>, 20.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-38">return</a>]</span>38. "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," 11. 35.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-39">return</a>]</span>39. <em>Ibid.</em>, 10. 145.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-40">return</a>]</span>40. See Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-41">return</a>]</span>41. Adams, "The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery," 132.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-42">return</a>]</span>42. <em>Ibid.</em>, 131.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-43">return</a>]</span>43. "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," 1. 142; 5. 409.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-44">return</a>]</span>44. "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," 4. 76, 142; Birney, "James G. +Birney," 77; Minutes of the American Convention of Abolition Societies, +1826, p. 48.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-45">return</a>]</span>45. "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," 11. 65, 66.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-46">return</a>]</span>46. See The Minutes and Proceedings of the American Convention of +Abolition Societies, covering this period.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-47">return</a>]</span>47. This statement is based on the accounts of a number of abolitionists.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-48"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-48">return</a>]</span>48. Adams, "A Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery," 60, 61.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-49"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-49">return</a>]</span>49. Siebert, "The Underground Railroad," 10. 346.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-50"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-50">return</a>]</span>50. Ambler, "Sectionalism in Virginia," 107-108.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-51"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-51">return</a>]</span>51. Woodson, "The Education of the Negro," 120-121.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-52"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-52">return</a>]</span>52. "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," 5. 117, 126, 164, 188, 275, +301, 324, 365; 6. 21, 140, 177.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-53"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-53">return</a>]</span>53. The Fourth Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837, +p. 48; The New England Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1841, p. 31.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-54"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-54">return</a>]</span>54. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn2-3-55"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-55">return</a>]</span>55. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXXII, 16.</p> + +<p id="fn2-3-56"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-3-56">return</a>]</span>56. The Catalogue of Berea College, 1897.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="footnote" id="a2-4"> +<h2><a id="pg151"></a>Antar, the Arabian Negro Warrior, Poet and Hero</h2> + + + +<p>That men of Negro blood should rise to distinction in Arabia is not at all +singular. By language and ethnological conformation the people of the +Arabian Peninsula belong to the great Semitic group of the human family. +But the proximity of Africa to Arabia carried the slave trade at a very +early period to that soil. Naturally, as a result of intermarriage, +thousands of Negroes with Arabian blood soon appeared in that part of Asia. +This was especially true of the midland and southern districts of the +peninsula. To-day, after several centuries of such unions, there is found +in southwestern Arabia, in northern and central Africa an ever-increasing +colored population of vast numbers, known as Arabised Negroes. Many of +these have become celebrities whose achievements form an integral part of +Arabian civilization and Mohammedan culture.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-1" id="fna2-4-1">1</a></sup> Emerging from this group +came Antar, the most conspicuous figure in Arabia, a man noble in thought, +heroic in deed, an exemplar of ideals higher than those of his age and a +model for posterity.</p> + +<p>Antarah ben Shedad el Absi (Antar the Lion, the son of the Tribe of +Abs), the historic Antar, was born about the middle of the sixth century +of our era, and died about the year 615. Some accounts give the year +525 as the date of his birth. By Clement Huart, a distinguished +Orientalist, he is described as a mulatto.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-2" id="fna2-4-2">2</a></sup> "Goddess born, however," +says Reynold A. Nicholson, "he could not be called by any stretch of the +imagination. His mother was a black slave."<sup><a href="#fn2-4-3" id="fna2-4-3">3</a></sup> All authorities agree that +Shedad, his father, was a man of noble blood and that his mother was an +Abyssinian slave.</p> + +<p>The manner in which they became attached to each other <a id="pg152"></a>is interesting. As +a result of tyrannical action upon the part of King Zoheir, chief of the +Absians, several chieftains seceded to attack and rob other tribes and +establish their own kingdom. Among these chieftains was one Shedad. In +their wanderings they attacked and conquered a certain tribe, among the +prisoners of which was a black woman of great beauty named Zebiba. Shedad +fell in love with this woman and to obtain possession of her yielded all +rights to the spoils. She then had two sons. Shedad lived in the fields +with her for a time, during which she gave birth to a son. As a boy his +strength was prodigious and courage unparalleled.</p> + +<p>In his early life Antar was assigned to the lowly task of a keeper of +camels. Here he followed the usual routine incident to such a task while +the clan of his father roved from place to place, clashing with rivals in +quest of the prizes of the chase or the spoils of war, or rested in some +vale of Arabia and devoted itself to the simpler pastoral life. Following +this sort of occupation, he so distinguished himself as to impress the +woman whom he later married. This was Ibla, the beautiful daughter of +Malek, another son of King Zoheir. She was, therefore, Antar's cousin. +Antar's growth in courage, in bodily strength, sense of justice, and +sympathy for the weak excited her admiration and high esteem. His love for +Ibla found expression in deeds of valor and poems dedicated to her virtues, +but the jealousy of chieftains and his lowly birth prevented their union. +The magnanimity of Antar in the face of bitter opposition, however, and his +undying love finally won him Ibla as his bride.</p> + +<p>Favored by great strength and a leonine courage, Antar soon passed from +the duties of a keeper of camels to those of a first-class fighting man. +By these virtues, so highly prized by the warlike Arabs, he ingratiated +himself both with his father and his tribe. Much of the life of Antar +is lost to authentic history, but that part which remains shows that he +followed the career of a great chieftain endowed with military qualities, +poetic gifts, and a talent for leadership of extraordinary order. +According to Huart, he took <a id="pg153"></a>part in the terrible wars of the horses +arising out of the rivalry between the stallion Dahis and the mare +Ghabra.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-4" id="fna2-4-4">4</a></sup> Treachery alone prevented the famous courser from winning the +race, and in his vengeance Qais, chief of the tribe of Abs, waged bitter +war against his enemies. Antar was the rhapsodist as well as a participant +in these contests. Success in war rapidly followed. His kinsmen forgot his +lowly birth and former menial occupation and regarded him as the first +warrior of his day. His deeds of heroism increased his prestige and after +his father's death he became the protector of his tribe and the pattern of +Arabic chivalry.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile he had shown such rare poetic gifts that his fame spread +beyond the circle of his clan and in due course of time he was selected +as a contestant in those poetic trials that were peculiar to the Arabs +in the pre-Islamic days. So successful was Antar's effort that he was +acknowledged the greatest poet of his time and one of his odes was +selected as one of the Mu 'Allakât, the seven suspended poems, while +judged by the assemblage of all the Arabs worthy to be written in letters +of gold and hung on high in the sacred Kaabah at Mecca, as accepted models +of Arabian style.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-5" id="fna2-4-5">5</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg154"></a>The death of Antar is enshrouded in obscurity. Antar perished about the +year 615 while fighting against the tribe of the Tai. According to one +authority he had grown old and his youthful activity had forsaken him. He +is said to have fallen from his horse and to have been unable to regain +his feet in time. His death was a signal for peace and the end of the +long-drawn hostility. In spite of the tribe's desire to avenge its hero +and its bard, a compensation of 100 camels was accepted for the murder of +one of its scions and the poets celebrated the close of the long struggle. +Another author says the hero, stricken to death by a poison shaft sped by +the hand of a treacherous and implacable foe, remounted his horse to insure +the safe retreat of his tribe and died leaning on his lance. His enemies, +smitten with terror by the memory of his prowess, dared not advance, till +one cunning warrior devised a strategem which startled the horse out of its +marble stillness. The creature gave a <a id="pg155"></a>bound and Antar's corpse, left +unsupported, fell upon the ground.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-6" id="fna2-4-6">6</a></sup></p> + +<p>His fame as a literary character transcends that of the modern authors of +black blood, such as Pushkin in Russia, and the elder Dumas in France. +After his death the fame of Antar's deeds spread across the Arabian +Peninsula and throughout the Mohammedan world. In time these deeds, like +the Homeric legends, were recorded in a literary form and therein is found +that Antar, the son of an Abyssinian slave, once a despised camel driver, +has become the Achilles of the Arabian Iliad, a work known to this day +after being a source of wonder and admiration for hundreds of years to +millions of Mohammedans as the "Romance of Antar." The book, therefore, +ranks among the great national classics like the "Shah-nameh" of Persia, +and the "Nibelungen-Lied" of Germany. Antar was the father of knighthood. He +was the champion of the weak and oppressed, the protector of the women, the +impassioned lover-poet, the irresistible and magnanimous knight. "Antar" in +its present form probably preceded the romances of chivalry so common in +the twelfth century in Italy and France.<sup><a href="#fn2-4-7" id="fna2-4-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>This national classic of the Arabian world is of great length in the +original, being often found in thirty or forty manuscript volumes in +quarto, in seventy or eighty in octavo. Portions of it have been translated +into English, German and French. English readers can consult it best in a +translation from the Arabic by Terrick Hamilton in four volumes published +in London in 1820. This translation, now rare, covers only a portion of the +original; a new translation, suitably abridged, is much needed. The fact +that its hero is of Negro blood may have chilled the ardor of English +translators to meet this need.</p> + +<p>The original book purports to have been written more than a thousand years +ago--in the golden prime of the Caliph Harún-al-Rashid (786-809)--by the +famous As-Asmai <a id="pg156"></a>(741-830). It is in fact a later compilation probably of +the twelfth century. The first Arabic edition was brought to Europe by an +Austro-German diplomat and scholar--Baron von Hammer Purgstall--near the +end of the eighteenth century. The manuscript was engrossed in the year +1466. The verses with which the volumes abound are in many cases +undoubtedly those of Antar.</p> + +<p>One enthusiastic critic of this romance has said: The book in its present +form has been the delight of all Arabians for many centuries. Every wild +Bedouin of the desert knew much of the tale by heart and listened to its +periods and to its poems with quivering interest. His more cultivated +brothers of the cities possessed one or many of its volumes. Every +coffee-house in Aleppo, Bagdad, or Constantinople had a narrator who, night +after night, recited it to rapt audiences. The unanimous opinion of the +East has always placed the romance of Antar at the summit of such +literature. As one of their authors well says: "'The Thousand and One +Nights' is for the amusement of women and children; 'Antar' is a book for +men. From it they learn lessons of eloquence, of magnanimity, of generosity +and of statecraft." Even the prophet Mohammed, well-known foe to poetry and +poets, instructed his disciples to relate to their children the traditions +concerning Antar, "for these will steel their hearts harder than stone."<sup><a href="#fn2-4-9" id="fna2-4-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>Another critic has said: "The Romance of Antar is the free expression of +real Arab hero-worship. And even in the cities of the Orient today, the +loungers over their cups can never weary of following the exploits of +this black son of the desert who in his person unites the great virtues of +his people, magnanimity and bravery, with the gift of poetic speech. Its +tone is elevated; it is never trivial, even in its long and wearisome +descriptions, in its ever-recurring outbursts of love. Its language +suits its thought: choice and educated, and not descending--as in the +'Nights'--to the common expressions or ordinary speech. It is the Arabic +<a id="pg157"></a>romance of chivalry and may not have been without influence in the spread +of the romance of mediæval Europe."<sup><a href="#fn2-4-10" id="fna2-4-10">10</a></sup></p> + +<p>An idea of this romance may be obtained from the following:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Years and years ago King Zoheir ruled Arabia. Now Shedad, a son, nettled +under the stern sway of his sire and longed for the chase and the combat. +The green plains becked, the murmuring streams sang until the heart of +Shedad grew sad. When the sun rose one morn he gathered his camels and +warriors and departed.</p> + +<p>Far from the home of King Zoheir dwelt the tribe Djezila in peace but +Shedad fell upon them and slew them. As beautiful as a goddess was a black +woman named Zebiba who was captured. Now it came to pass that Shedad loved +Zebiba and dwelt with her and her two sons in the fields. In time she bore +him a son, as dark as an elephant, with eyes as black as night and a head +of shaggy hair. They called him Antar.</p> + +<p>Antar grew in strength, in courage and in mind until the chieftains +disputed his possession, for his mother was a slave and Antar must tend the +herds. Zoheir summoned the chieftains and Antar and when he was brought +before him he marveled and threw him a piece of meat. But a dog that +chanced to be in the tent was quicker than he and seized it and ran off. +Rage gave Antar the fleetness of the wind. With mighty leaps he bounded +after the dog. Swifter darted no eagle upon its prey than Antar pursued the +rogue. With a mighty spring he caught it and seizing its jaws tore them +asunder down to the beast's shoulders, and in triumph he held the meat +aloft. But the King grew afraid and let Shedad depart with Antar. At ten +years of age he slew a wolf that harassed his flock and later killed a +slave who had beaten an old woman. Thus did the women find in him a +protector and they hung upon his words and recounted his deeds and his acts +of justice.</p> + +<p>Now Shedad's brother, Malek, had a daughter named Ibla, who was as fair as +the moon. The ladies were wont to drink camel's milk morning and evening +when Antar had cooled it in the winds. It chanced one morning that Antar +entered Ibla's tent just as her mother was combing her hair, and the beauty +of her form transfixed him. A thing of loveliness fairer he had never seen, +nor ringlets of darker hue grace a human head. His heart beat wildly at the +birth of a great passion and the hot blood burned his dark <a id="pg158"></a>cheeks. But +Ibla fled and Antar left with a light heart. For days he sang in measures +sweet of Ibla's beauty and his arm burned to do deeds. The weeds of the +field became the fairest of flowers; the limpid pools mirrored Ibla's face +in images beautiful and pure and the zephyrs whispered of love. But Antar +had dared love a princess and his father became wroth and came to the +fields one day with some chiefs to punish him.</p> + +<p>When they arrived they found Antar in combat with a lion. With a roar like +thunder the beast lashed its tail and advanced. But Antar knew not fear. He +stepped forward to the fray. The snarling creeping beast scratched furrows +in the ground and bided the time for the spring. Then it leaped. Like a +flash Antar hurled his lance and leaped aside. A gleam of light and iron +met flesh as the mighty body hurtled by. Quickly he seized the shaft and +held it firmly while the beast lashed furiously and growled in its death +struggles, and then it lay still. But the heart of Shedad was softened and +he invited Antar and the chieftains to sup with him. Long into the night +recounted Shedad Antar's deeds but the dark eyes of Antar saw only Ibla and +his heart yearned for the morrow and the end of the feasting.</p> + +<p>Not far from the land of King Zoheir dwelt the tribe of Temin and Zoheir +and his warriors departed to war against them. To Antar was entrusted the +care and protection of the women during Zoheir's absence. Antar swore to +protect them with his life and the women were not afraid. But the days are +long when lords are away and the women burned for entertainment. Then it +was that Semiah, the lawful wife of Shedad, called the women together and +spoke of a feast on the shores of a near by lake. When the day came Ibla +and her mother attended and as Antar saw her his heart leaped with joy. +Just then shouts were heard and from afar appeared a cloud of dust which +grew larger and filled the sky as it drew near. Out from the cloud of dust +sprang the tribesmen called Cathan and with yells they seized and carried +off the women.</p> + +<p>But Antar sped up like the wind when he heard the shrieks of his beloved +Ibla and saw her anguished face and frenzied struggles. Horse he had none +but love and despair gave him the swiftness of a steed, the courage of a +lion and the strength of the elephant. Across the plains he coursed as +swiftly as the wind but the steeds were as swift as he. Clouds of dust +choked him and hid him from view but double burdens on tired coursers could +not continue the mad pace. Antar overtook one horseman, threw him off and +slew <a id="pg159"></a>him. Then a cry arose among the tribesmen of Cathan to kill Antar, +but Antar lusted for battle and donning the armor of the slain man, he slew +warrior after warrior until the tribesmen of Cathan loosed the women and +fled. Then Antar comforted the women and drove many horses home before him, +among them a black charger.</p> + +<p>When Shedad returned with Zoheir he went to visit his flocks and saw Antar +upon a black horse guarding the herds. Shedad inquired whence came the +horse, but Antar did not wish to betray the imprudent action of his +father's wife and remained silent. Thereupon Shedad called him a robber +and struck him with such violence that the blood ran. But Semiah saw the +cruel act and her heart went out to Antar. She clasped him in her arms and +throwing herself at her lord's feet, she raised her veil and told the +story of the attack and rescue and Antar's courage. Antar's silence and +magnanimity so touched Shedad that he wept. The news of Antar's feat soon +reached the king, who gave him a robe of honor and rich presents.</p> + +<p>But jealousies among the chieftains toward Antar grew and plots were made +to kill him. Again and again he circumvented his foes and in triumphs +showed infinite pity and mercy. Deeds of darkness but increased the mutual +love between Ibla and Antar and the name of Antar was heard far into +distant lands.</p> + +<p>Now it happened that a youth of wealth and lineage sought Ibla's hand in +marriage. But pride choked him and he basked in the glory of his fathers' +deeds. When Antar heard of the boastful youth's suit he swore a great oath +to kill him and he fell upon him. But the youth escaped. Now the chieftains +saw a chance to destroy Antar's power and encompass his destruction. They +appeared before Zoheir and demanded Antar's life. Then Zoheir stripped him +of his high estate and favors and sent him back to the fields to attend the +herds and Antar bowed his great head in shame and left. But the love he +bore for Ibla was as meat to his body and refreshment to his mind and his +great spirit died not.</p> + +<p>Soon the tribe of Tex fell upon Zoheir and his warriors and sorely pressed +them. The pride of Zoheir, however, was great and Antar stayed far from the +battle, for his heart was heavy and he was again a tender of herds. Then +the day went against Zoheir and his warriors and many fell and sadness came +upon the land. And the men of Tex pressed the men of Zoheir harder and +carried off the women and with them Ibla. Still Antar tended the herds <a id="pg160"></a>and +came not. But the mighty chieftains of Zoheir came to him and begged him to +cloak his wrath and do battle with them against the men of Tex. And Antar +heard the men of Tex in silence and his heart gave a bound when they spoke +of Ibla, but still he stayed in his tent and came not. Then the chieftains +sought to move him by his great love for Ibla. Thereupon Antar's face +beamed and he spoke and laid down the condition that Ibla must be given him +as a wife. Shedad and Malek agreed and Antar girt himself and with the +remnant of Zoheir's army went against the men of Tex. Now the strength of +Antar was that of a hundred men and his courage that of a thousand and +animated by his great burning passion and with the ardor of battle in his +nostrils he fell upon the tribe of Tex. Redder sank never a sun than the +plains blushed with the blood of men after that battle. Tears filled Ibla's +eyes when she beheld Antar and in triumph he led her back to the land +of King Zoheir. But the heart of Malek was false, and bitter plots were +rife, and even Shedad viewed in despair the rise of a black slave. Malek +demanded that Antar should give his bride a present of a thousand camels of +a certain breed that could be found only in distant lands. Now Antar read +his heart and saw his wicked artifice but he set out. Far from the land +of King Zoheir wandered Antar, far from the wiles of Malek and jealous +suitors, far from the tent of his beloved Ibla. But the heart of Antar was +not cast down nor did hope die.</p> + +<p>Now it happened that Antar entered the country of Persia where he was taken +prisoner. His captors bound him upon a horse and departed for the village +of their king. Tidings came of the ravages of a fierce lion and no warriors +dared to give it battle. Fiercer had roamed no lion in the land of King +Zoheir nor in Persia. Whole villages fled before it and herds were but as +chaff. But Antar begged that he be loosed and they untied his bonds and +gave him a lance and he departed to attack the lion.</p> + +<p>Courage is half victory and the arm of Antar was skilled in the art of the +lance and his heart was stout. But the strength of the lion was of the body +whilst that of Antar was of the body and the mind. With a mighty throw +Antar hurled the lance and it found its mark, but the lion bounded forward +and Antar stood unarmed. Then with a mighty wrench he jerked a young tree +from the ground and with powerful blows beat down the attack of the lion. +He gave a mighty swing and cleft the beast's skull and it fell down and +died, and Antar departed for the tent of the king. Then the men mar<a id="pg161"></a>velled, +for none dared follow to see the terrible combat nor did people believe +until they saw the beast.</p> + +<p>Then the king loaded Antar with rich gifts and honors and gave him the +thousand camels which he sought, and Antar departed for the land of King +Zoheir. Great was the rejoicing of Ibla when messengers brought tidings +of Antar's return. Great was the surprise of Malek and the rage of the +chieftains. But Shedad's heart softened and he yearned for his son and the +fair Ibla gave him her hand and Antar and Ibla married and dwelt in the +land of King Zoheir.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To this day the fame of Antar still persists. Rimsky-Korsakoff, a modern +Russian composer, has given us in his symphony "Antar" a tone picture of +this Arabian Negro's life that opens and closes with an atmospheric eastern +pastorale of great beauty. It has been played during the past winter with +marked success in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, at the +concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, that representative body of +great musicians. The remarkable career of Antar and the perpetuation of his +memory in history, literature and music, though removed by many centuries +from the life of the American Negro of today, offers to him many thoughts +for reflection.</p> + +<p>While Arabia of the pre-Islamic days is not America of this generation nor +the Semitic people of the East like the Germanic races of the West, still +those human qualities that make for valor, for greatness of spirit, that +reflect genius devoted to literature and social service are compelling +forces in all climes and in all races. An opportunity for a free expression +of them and a recognition of their potent effect in the sum total of human +culture should be the mission of scholarship in all lands. Those elements +of character which the Arabs of Antar's day regarded as their <em>beau ideal</em> +were found not unworthy of admiration when manifested in one of Negro +blood. When his poetic fancy reflected the spirit of Arab life his works +were not rejected because his mother was an African slave but one of the +best was placed among the immortal poems of his father's country. When his +genius for warfare was shown it was given an opportunity to de<a id="pg162"></a>velop and +serve the cause of all who preferred valiant deeds to arguments of race. +When his life was spent it was not looked upon as one of an unusual Negro +rising above a sphere previously limited to his fellows of the same blood +but as an epic of success crowning human effort and worthy to be embodied +in the literature of Arabia as the exploits of a hero who exemplified the +spirit of the people, acceptable for all time as their model for valor, +poetic genius, hospitality, and magnanimity.</p> + +<p class="author">A. O. Stafford</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn2-4"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn2-4-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-1">return</a>]</span>1. Palgrave, "Essays on Eastern Questions," 37 et seq.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-2">return</a>]</span>2. Huart, "A History of Arabian Literature," 13.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-3">return</a>]</span>3. Nicholson, "Literary History of the Arabs," 114.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-4">return</a>]</span>4. Huart, "A History of Arabian Literature," 14.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-5">return</a>]</span>5. These are two selections from Antar's Mu 'Allakât:</p> +<div class="poetry"> +<h4> A Fair Lady</h4> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="line"> 'Twas then her beauties first enslaved my heart--</div> +<div class="line"> Those glittering pearls and ruby lips, whose kiss</div> +<div class="line"> Was sweeter far than honey to the taste.</div> +<div class="line"> As when the merchant opes a precious box</div> +<div class="line"> Of perfume, such an odor from her breath</div> +<div class="line"> Comes toward me, harbinger of her approach;</div> +<div class="line"> Or like an untouched meadow, where the rain</div> +<div class="line"> Hath fallen freshly on the fragrant herbs</div> +<div class="line"> That carpet all its pure untrodden soil:</div> +<div class="line"> A meadow where the fragrant rain-drops fall</div> +<div class="line"> Like coins of silver in the quiet pools,</div> +<div class="line"> And irrigate it with perpetual streams;</div> +<div class="line"> A meadow where the sportive insects hum,</div> +<div class="line"> Like listless topers singing o'er their cups,</div> +<div class="line"> And ply their forelegs like a man who tries</div> +<div class="line"> With maimed hands to use the flint and steel.</div> +</div> + +<h4> The Battle</h4> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="line"> There where the horsemen rode strongest</div> +<div class="line"> I rode out in front of them,</div> +<div class="line"> Hurled forth my battle-shout and charged them;</div> +<div class="line"> No man thought blame of me.</div> +<div class="line"> Antar! they cried; and their lances</div> +<div class="line"> Well-cords in slenderness, pressed to the breast</div> +<div class="line"> Of my war-horse still as I pressed on them.</div> +<div class="line"> Doggedly strove we and rode we.</div> +<div class="line"> Ha! the brave stallion! Now is his breast dyed</div> +<div class="line"> With blood drops, his star-front with fear of them!</div> +<div class="line"> Swerved he, as pierced by the spear points.</div> +<div class="line"> Then in his beautiful eyes stood the tears</div> +<div class="line"> Of appealing, words inarticulate.</div> +<div class="line"> If he had our man's language,</div> +<div class="line"> Then had he called to me.</div> +<div class="line"> If he had known our tongue's secret,</div> +<div class="line"> Then had he cried to me.</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="line"> Deep through the sand drifts the horsemen</div> +<div class="line"> Charged with teeth grimly set,</div> +<div class="line"> Urging their war-steeds;</div> +<div class="line"> I urged them spurred by my eagerness forward</div> +<div class="line"> To deeds of daring, deeds of audacity.</div> +</div></div> +<p id="fn2-4-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-6">return</a>]</span>6. Huart, "A History of Arabian Literature," 13.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-7">return</a>]</span>7. Holden, "Library of the World's Best Literature," 586.</p> + +<p>8. [Transcriber's note: There is no footnote 8 in the text.]</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-9">return</a>]</span>9. Edward S. Holden, "Library of the World's Best Literature," I, p. 587.</p> + +<p id="fn2-4-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-4-10">return</a>]</span>10. Richard Gottheil, "Library of the World's Best Literature," II, 674.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a2-5"> +<h2><a id="pg163"></a>Documents</h2> + + + +<h2>Eighteenth Century Slaves as Advertised by Their Masters</h2> + + +<p>In some respects the eighteenth century slave was better off than the +Negro of today. As a rule no Negro can now get his name into the leading +newspapers unless he commits a heinous crime. At that time, however, +masters in offering slaves for sale and advertising fugitives unconsciously +spoke of their virtues as well as their shortcomings, that the public +might be fully informed as to the character of the blacks. Through these +advertisements, therefore, we can get at the very life of the Negro when +slavery was still of the patriarchal sort and can thus contrast his then +favorable condition with the wretchedness of the institution after it +assumed its economic aspect in the nineteenth century. We observe that the +eighteenth century slave was rapidly taking over modern civilization in +the West Indies and in the thirteen colonies on the American continent. +The blacks were becoming useful and skilled laborers, acquiring modern +languages, learning to read and write, entering a few of the professions, +exercising the rights of citizens, and climbing the social ladder to the +extent of moving on a plane of equality with the poor whites.</p> + +<p>To emphasize various facts these advertisements have been grouped under +different headings, but each throws light on more than one phase of the +life of the eighteenth century slave. The compiler will be criticised here +for publishing in full many advertisements which contain repetitions of the +same phraseology. The plan is deemed wise in this case, however, because of +the additional value the complete document must have. The words to which +special attention is directed appear in his own capitals.</p> + + +<div class="article" id="a2-5-1"> +<h3><a id="pg164"></a>Learning a Modern Language</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from Austin Paris of Philadelphia, Founder, on the 22do this +Instant, A Negro Boy called Bedford or Ducko, aged about Sixteen or +Seventeen Years; SPEAKS VERY GOOD ENGLISH wears a dark brown colored Coat +and Jacket, a Pair of white Fustian Breeches, a grey mill'd Cap with a red +Border, a Pair of new Yarn Stockings, with a Pair of brown worsted under +them, or in his Pockets. Whoever brings him to his said Master, or informs +him of him so that he may be secured, shall be satisfied for their Pains, +by me. Austin Paris.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Weekly Mercury</em> (Philadelphia), Jan. 31, 1721.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>TO be Sold, Three Very likely Negro Girls being about 16 years of age, and +a Negro Boy about 14, SPEAKING GOOD ENGLISH, enquire of the Printer hereof.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Weekly Mercury</em> (Philadelphia), June 20, 1723.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from Joseph Coleman in the Great Valley in Chester County, a +Negro Man, named Tom, aged about 30 Years, of a middle Stature, HE SPEAKS +VERY GOOD ENGLISH, haveing on a white Shirt, Stockings and Shoes, a great +riding Coat tyed round him with blew Girdles. He was seen by several +Persons in New York, about the latter end of June last, who was well +acquainted with him and suspected his being a Run away but he told them his +former Master Capt. Palmer had sold him to a Person in the Great Valley, +who had given him his Freedom, then he pulled out a forged pass, which to +the best of his remembrance was signed by one William Hughes. Whosoever +takes up the said Negro and puts him into any Gaol, and gives notice +thereof to his said Master or to William Bradford in New York, or to +Messrs. Steel or Bethuke Merchants in Boston, shall have Three Pounds +Reward and all Reasonable Charges.</p> + +<p>Those that take him are desired to secure the pass.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Weekly Mercury</em> (Philadelphia), July 11, 1723.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><em>RAN AWAY from his Master, Capt.</em> John Steel, <em>at the North End +of</em> Boston, <em>the 17th Instant, a Young Negro Fellow, named</em> Pompey +<em>SPEAKS PRETTY GOOD ENGLISH is about 19 or 20 Years +of Age, is short in Stature and pretty long visaged, has been used +to change his name; he had on a great Ratteen Coat, Waistcoat and +Breeches, the coat pretty old, with white Metal Buttons, a Cotton +<a id="pg165"></a>and linnen Shirt, and ordinary Worsted Cap, and grey Yarn Stockings, +he took with him an old Hat, and a Leather Jockey Cap, a +pair of old black Stockings, and a new Ozenbrigs Frock: He has +made several Attempts to get off in some Vessel, therefore all Masters +of Vessels are cautioned not to entertain him.</em></p> + +<p><em>Whoever shall apprehend the said Negro and carry him to said +Master shall have</em> Five Pounds <em>old Tenor, and necessary Charges +paid by</em></p> + +<p class="author">John Steel.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Weekly News-Letter</em>, Jan. 23, 1746.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away on the 19th of this Instant <em>September</em>, from his Master <em>JOHN +JOHNSON</em>, of <em>Boston</em>, Jack-maker, a Negro Man Servant, named Joe, about 23 +Years of Age, a likely Fellow, who had on when he went away a dark colored +Fly Coat, with flat white Metal Buttons, a Swan Skin double breasted +Jacket, Leather Deer Skin Breeches, a pair of high heel'd thick soled +Shoes. He can play on the Flute, has a Scar on his upper Lip and SPEAKS +GOOD <em>ENGLISH</em>. Whoever shall take him up and deliver him to his said +Master, shall have <em>Ten Pounds</em> Reward, Old Tenor, and all reasonable +Charges paid. All Masters of Vessels and others, are hereby cautioned +against harbouring, concealing or carrying off said Negro, as they will +avoid the Penalty of the Law.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Evening Post</em>, Oct. 3, 1748.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><em>RAN-AWAY from</em> Luykas Job. Wyngaard, <em>of the City of</em> Albany, <em>Merchant, a +certain Negro Man named</em> SIMON, <em>of a middle size, a slender spry Fellow, +has a handsome smooth Face, and thick Legs; SPEAKS VERY GOOD</em> ENGLISH: <em>Had +on when he went away a blue Cloth Great Coat. Whoever takes up the said +Negro and brings him to his Master, or to Mr.</em> JOHN LIVINGSTON, <em>at</em> NEW +YORK, <em>shall receive</em> Three Pounds, New York <em>Money, Reward, and all +reasonable Cost and Charges paid by</em></p> + +<p class="author">John Livingston.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, Nov. 28, 1748.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><em>A Likely Negro Boy about 14 Years of Age, country born, CAN SPEAK</em> DUTCH +<em>OR</em> ENGLISH, <em>to be sold: Enquire of Printer hereof.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, Feb. 28, 1750.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from the Subscriber living near the Head of South River, in <em>Anne +Arundel County</em>, on the 16th of June, a Negro Man, <a id="pg166"></a>named <em>Joseph +Marriott</em>, lately convicted from London; he is a tall slim Fellow and TALKS +VERY PLAIN <em>ENGLISH</em>. Had on a black Cloth Coat, a short white Flannel +Waistcoat, a Check Shirt, a Pair of red Everlasting Breeches, a Pair of +Yarn Stockings, a Pair of Old Cannell'd Pumps, a Worsted Capt, and an old +Castor Hat; and took sundry other Cloaths with him.</p> + +<p>Whoever apprehends the said Fellow, and brings him to the Subscriber shall +have Two Pistoles Reward.</p> + +<p class="author">Benjamin Welsh.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, July 4, 1754.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from his Master, James Dalton of Boston, on the first Instant, a +Negro Man named Ulysses, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, about 5 feet 8 Inches high, +turns his Toes a little in, somewhat bow-legged.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Evening Post</em>, Oct. 10, 1757.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Cranstown, May 2, 1760.</p> + +<p><em>RAN-away from his Master Capt Edward Arnold of</em> Cranstown, <em>the 20th of +April, A Negro Man named</em> Portsmouth, <em>about 27 Years of Age, about 5 Feet +6 Inches high, strait limb'd SPEAKS PRETTY GOOD ENGLISH:</em> * * * * * * * * *</p> + +<p class="author">Edward Arnold.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Gazette and Country Journal</em>, May 19, 1760.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><em>RAN-away on the 28th Day of June 1761, from his Master, Ephraim Swift of</em> +Falmouth <em>in the County of</em> Barnstable, <em>A Negro Man Servant named</em> Peter, +<em>about 27 or 28 Years old, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH: had on when he went away a +Beaveret Hat, a green worsted Capt, a close bodied Coat coloured with a +green narrow Frieze Cape, a Great Coat, a black and white homespun Jacket, +a flannel checked Shirt, grey yarn Stockings; also a flannel Jacket, and a +Bundle of other Cloaths, and a Violin. He is very tall Fellow.</em></p> + +<p><em>Whosoever shall apprehend the said Negro Fellow and commit him to any of +his Majesty's Gaols, or secure him so as that his Master may have him +again, shall have</em> Five <em>Dollars Reward, and all necessary Charges paid.</em></p> + +<p class="author">Ephraim Swift.</p> + +<p><em>All Masters of Vessels and others are cautioned not to carry off or +conceal the said Negro, as they would avoid the Penalty of the Law.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Gazette and Country Journal</em>, July 6, 1761.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg167"></a><em>Eight Dollars Reward</em></h5> + +<p>RAN away from the Subscriber, the 17th instant, a likely Negro Fellow, +(named CATO) about five feet seven inches high, about twenty years old, had +on when he went away, a grey bear-skin double-breasted Jacket with large +white metal buttons, and striped under ditto, long striped trowsers, with +leather breeches under them, a sailor's Dutch Cap; he has pimples in his +face, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, very nice about the hair, tells a very plausible +story, upon any extraordinary occasion, and pretends to have a pass signed +by John Nelson.</p> + +<p>Whosoever may take up said servant, and return him, to his Master, shall +have Eight Dollars reward, and all necessary Charges paid by</p> + +<p class="author">George Watson.</p> +<p>Plymouth March 25, 1769.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Post Script to the Boston Weekly News-Letter</em>, Apr. 20, 1769.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>RUN away on the 14th instant, a Negro Woman named Lydia, aged about forty, +SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, is remarkably tall and stout made, has a large mark on +her right cheek where she has been burnt; she had on her a blue negro cloth +jacket and coat, a blue shalloon gown, a red and white cotton handkerchief +round her head, a blue and white ditto about her neck, and a pair of men's +shoes, and a ditto men's clowded stockings. She has belonged to Mrs. +Derise, sen. and to Mr. Dalziel Hunter. The Reward will be paid on delivery +of the said Wench, by Mr. McDowell, No 27 Broadstreet; and any person +harbouring her after this notice will be prosecuted according to law.</p> + +<p>Feb. 18th, 1783.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South-Carolina Weekly Advertiser</em>, Feb. 19, 1783.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ran Away</h5> + +<p>From the Subscribers, the 28th of June, A short old Negroe-man named Tom, +marked with the small pox, SPEAKS VERY GOOD ENGLISH, late the property of +Capt. Richard Estes; and having reason to believe that he is gone to the +former plantation, or embarked himself for Bermuda, where he has children +belonging to a Mr. Robinson; therefore all captains of vessels, or others +are forbid harbouring or carrying off said Negroe, on forfeit according <a id="pg168"></a>to +law. Whosoever will send or deliver said Negro to us or the Warden of the +Work-house, shall be generously rewarded.</p> <p>Charleston, June 29.</p> <p class="author">Roch & +Custer.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 1, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Two Guineas Reward</h5> + +<p>RAN AWAY a Negro Man named Prince about twenty-three years old, and about +five feet six inches high, small featured, of a dark complection, his +Guinea country marks on his face, SPEAKS VERY GOOD ENGLISH, has a down +look; had on when he went away a light coloured surtout coat, a pair of +yellow stocking breeches, and a round black hat; he has been seen skulking +about this city since Saturday last. Two Guineas reward will be given and +all reasonable charges paid to any one delivering the said Negro to the +Warden of the Work-house, or to the Subscriber, and the utmost rigour of +the law will be inflicted on conviction of any person harbouring the said +Negroe.</p> + +<p>Charleston, July 6, 1784.</p> <p class="author">Samuel Boas, <span class="normal">No. 5 Church Street.</span></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 6, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Brought To The Workhouse</h5> + +<p>A Negro fellow named March, of the Guinea country, five feet one inch high, +SPEAKS VERY MUCH BROKEN ENGLISH, forty or forty-five years of age, says his +master's name is Mr. Gerry, of Santee.</p> + +<p>Also a negroe fellow named Sambo, of the Guinea country, five feet four +inches high, twenty or twenty-five years of age, pitted a little with the +small pox; has on a check shirt, a white cloth sailor jacket, with black +binding, and a pair of Osnaburg trowsers.</p> + +<p>Also a negro fellow named Abraham, born on John's Island in this State, +thirty or thirty-five years of age, five feet three inches high, SPEAKS +PROPER ENGLISH, and says his masters name is Thomas Cleay, and lives at +Cullpepper, in Virginia.</p> + +<p class="author">John Gerley, Warden.</p> + +<p>July 9, 1784.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 10, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>To Be Sold<br /> +<span class="normal">On Tuesday Next,<br /> +By Messrs. Colcock & Gibbons.</span><br /> +A YOUNG NEGRO.</h5> + +<p><a id="pg169"></a>Between fourteen and fifteen years of age, who is an exceedingly good hair +dresser, and understands very well to keep horses, CAN SPEAK FRENCH AND +ENGLISH.</p> + +<p class="author">Roger Smith.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 20, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Run-away</h5> + +<h6>From the Subscriber<br /> +The following Negroes viz.</h6> + +<p>Moll, a tall black Wench, about 20 years old, is frequently seen in and +about Charleston, and Stono, she has changed her name to Judah, and says +she is free.</p> + +<p>JAMES, a short well made fellow, with a large scar on one cheek, has also a +scar on one foot, with the loss of a part of his toes, is frequently seen +in Charleston and at Mr. Manigault's plantation.</p> + +<p>JEFFERY, a middle size well made straight limb'd fellow, about 22 or 23 +years old, a little pitted with the small pox, used to the coasting +business.</p> + +<p>Also JAMIE, a short well made fellow, a little bough legged, about 20 years +old. THE ABOVE NEGROES ARE VERY ARTFUL, SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH, and most +probably have changed their names. A Reward of THREE GUINEAS will be paid +for each of the said negroes on delivery to the Warden of the Workhouse, in +Charleston, or to the subscriber in Georgetown.</p> + +<p>This is therefore to forewarn all persons from harbouring, or Masters of +vessels from carrying off said Negroes, as they may depend on conviction, +to be treated with the utmost rigour of the law, by</p> + +<p class="author">Lewis Dutarque.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, Jan. 26, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Brought To The Workhouse</h5> + +<p>A Negro Girl named Hannah, this country born, 4 feet 8 inches high, 13 +or 14 years of age, dark complexion, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, has on a blue +Negro Cloth Wrapper and petticoat, much faded, says her master's name is +Mr. Rose, and lives at Asbepoo. Taken up by James Ackett in this City, +February 2, 1786.</p> + +<p class="author">John Gerley, <span class="normal">Warden</span>.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, Feb. 20, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg170"></a>Three Guineas Reward Runaway</h5> + +<p><em>From the Subscriber's Plantation called Mrs. Wright's Place near +Dorchester</em>, A MULATTO FELLOW named JOE, about 20 years of age, five feet +five inches high, SPEAKS EXCEEDINGLY GOOD ENGLISH, had on when he went away +a brown jacket and overalls. Whoever will deliver the said fellow to the +subscriber, shall have the above reward.</p> + +<p class="author">A. Pleym.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, April 20, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Run-away</h5> + +<p><em>From the Subscriber on September last, Scipio, a likely black fellow, +about 25 years old, has a few of his country marks on each side of his +face, which can be perceived on examining closely, HE SPEAKS REMARKABLY +GOOD ENGLISH FOR A NEGRO, AND IS EXCEEDINGLY ARTFUL, he formerly belonged +to Captain Ogier, at which time was his waiting man, he is in all +probability on Santee river, or Stono, as he is well acquainted there, and +indeed everywhere else in the State, he generally keeps with a negro +fellow belonging to the Reverend Mr. Lewis, deceased, by the name of +Brutus, who is likewise runaway. Whoever will deliver said fellow or +secure him, so that the subscriber can get him, either dead or alive, +shall receive</em> Ten Pounds.</p> + +<p><em>Andrew a likely fellow, of a yellowish complexion, about 30 years old, his +particular marks are not recollected, he formerly belonged to the estate of +Thomas Sullivan, deceased, and was sold about 12 months ago to Mr. Hubert +Hodson, of the Round O, he has a wife in Charleston, who belongs to a free +negro carpenter, who lives now in King Street, named James Miles, and it is +suspected that he is harboured there. Whoever will deliver said fellow or +secure him in the Work-House of Charleston, so that the subscriber gets him +shall receive</em> Five Pounds.</p> + +<p><em>Nancy, a very likely black Guinea wench, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, very artful, +and no doubt will change her name, and master's too; she is branded on the +breast something like L blotched, about 5½ feet high, went away in 1784, +at which time she belonged to John Logan Esq, deceased, she has been in +Charleston the greatest part of her time since her absence, passes for a +free wench, and it is said washes and irons for a livelihood. Whoever will +deliver said <a id="pg171"></a>wench, or secure her, so that the subscriber gets her safe +shall receive</em> Five Pounds.</p> + +<p><em>All persons are hereby cautioned from harbouring either of these negroes, +as they may depend on being prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. A +handsome reward will be paid any person who will give information of their +being harboured by any white person, so that the evidence will admit of a +prosecution</em>.</p> + +<p class="author">Henry Bell.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Round O in St. Bartholomew's Parish, Aug. 4, 1786.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, Aug. 21, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Negro In Custody</h5> + +<p>Charles Thomas, very black, has white teeth, is about 5 feet 10 inches +high, and about 26 or 27 years of age, has had his left leg broke, which +bends in a little about the ancle, SPEAKS BOTH FRENCH AND ENGLISH, and is +a very great rogue.</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Acken, Gaoler.</p> + +<p>New Castle Delaware, Aug. 28, 1793.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Sept. 20, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>100 Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented himself on Thursday 16th instant, from the subscriber, a Mustee +Fellow named James, well known about town, being formerly the Property of +Mr. Sarazin; of a Yellow Complexion, bushy hair, pitted with small pox, a +remarkable scar over his right eye, SPEAKS VERY PROPER, AND CAN AT ANY +TIME MAKE OUT A PLAUSIBLE TALE; had on an old green plush coat, with +yellow cuffs and cape, but will no doubt change his dress, as he took a +variety with him. Any person apprehending the said fellow, and deliver him +to the Master of the Work-House, or to the Subscriber, shall be entitled +to the above reward.</p> + +<p class="author">John Geyer.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, June 22, 1797.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>20 Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away from the Subscriber, on the evening of the 5th instant, a Negro +Fellow named Lando; he is about 5 feet 7 inches high, 18 or 19 years of +age, remarkably likely Fellow, rather slim made; HE SPEAKS FRENCH TOLERABLE +WELL, and is too <a id="pg172"></a>fond of the French Negroes, it is supposed he is harboured +by some of them. He had on when he went away a pair of brown trowsers, and +a jacket of the same colour, with green cape and cuffs and white metal +buttons, but it is very probable he may have changed his dress, as he +carried other clothes with him.</p> + +<p>A reward of Fifty Dollars will be paid to any person that will give +information of his being harbored by a White and Twenty-five Dollars if by +a Black Person, on conviction of the offender.</p> + +<p class="author">David Haig.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston, S.C.), June 27, 1797.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away from his Master on the 6th ultimo, a MULATTO fellow named DICK, +about 20 years old, five feet nine or ten inches high; a stout well-built +Fellow, SPEAKS ENGLISH VERY WELL. It will be difficult to describe his +dress, as he carried a quantity of clothing with him, when he absented +himself.</p> + +<p>The above reward will be paid to whoever shall have secured him, so that he +may be returned to his Master.</p> + +<p>Masters of vessels and all other persons are cautioned against harbouring +said fellow, as they will incur the penalties of the law in that case.</p> + +<p class="author">James Morison.</p> + +<p class="cite"> <em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston, S.C.), Nov. 12, 1798.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Thirty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented themselves sometime since, the following slaves, viz.</p> + +<p>Bob, a carpenter Fellow, of a yellowish complexion, mustee, has bushy hair, +is about five feet six inches high, and 35 years of age; is well made, AND +SPEAKS RATHER MORE PROPER THAN NEGROES IN GENERAL.</p> + +<p>Dorcas, his Wife, also has a Yellowish complexion and bushy hair, is about +26 years of age, is a good cook, VERY SMART, AND SPEAKS VERY PROPERLY.</p> + +<p>They have with them their two Children; one a Girl called Willoughby, about +8 or 10 years old; and another infant only a few months old.</p> + +<p>One half the above sum will be paid for Bob, and the other half for Dorcas +and the children, on their being lodged in any gaol in the State, or being +delivered to Captain PAUL HAMILTON on <a id="pg173"></a>Salimas Island or Mr. William P. +Smith at Ponpon; and One Hundred Dollars will be paid on conviction of +their being harboured by a White person.</p> + +<p class="author">Mary Eddings.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston, S.C.), July 31, 1799.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>500 Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented themselves from the subscriber the following Negroes, viz.</p> + +<p>Tom on the 23 January ult. from the City of Charleston; he is about 42 +years of age, of a black complexion, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, a little +knock-kneed, had on when he went away an iron on one leg, and another on +his neck.</p> + +<p>Cyrus, from Chehaw, in the month of August last past. He is about five feet +six or eight inches high, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, about 38 years of age, well +made, and is remarkably bow-legged.</p> + +<p>Also Hercules from Chehaw in the month of February 1797. He is about five +feet eight or nine inches high, stout and well made, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, +is about 36 years old, has remarkable thick lips, and has a small +impediment in his speech when frightened, and of a yellowish complexion.</p> + +<p>The above Negroes are harboured on the Ashley river, where Tom and Hercules +had been for three years past, and are now between Wappoo-cut and Ashley +ferry.</p> + +<p>One Hundred dollars will be paid on conviction of a white person taking or +having taken Tom's irons off, and twenty if by a Negro. Also fifty dollars +will be paid on delivery of him to the master of the work house; fifty +dollars will also be paid on delivery of Cyrus, and one hundred for +Hercules; and a further reward of two hundred dollars will be paid on +conviction of their being harboured by a white person.</p> + +<p>February 15,</p> +<p class="author">Arthur Hughes.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, March 5, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN-away from the subscribed on the 6th of July, a Negro man named PETER, +formerly the property of Dr. Guion. He is very black and SPEAKS GOOD +ENGLISH. He is about forty-five years of age, and has a free wife in this +town, at whose house I have reason to suppose he is harboured. As he is +well known in Newbern I need not describe him more particularly.</p> + +<p><a id="pg174"></a>I will give a reward of Ten Dollars to any person who will deliver him to +Mr. Dudley, the gaoler, or to the subscriber. All person are forwarned from +harbouring or employing said fellow at their peril.</p> + +<p>August 8.</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Curtis.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Newbern Gazette</em>, Aug. 15, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Twenty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented himself from the Subscriber on Friday, his Waiting Man, named +York, well known in Charleston, as he has been accustomed to drive a +carriage and worked out the last year. He is a likely fellow, of a dark +complexion, about five feet ten inches high, of a thin visage, about +twenty-seven years of age, SPEAKS VERY PROPER, and may pass for a freeman. +He had on when he went away, oznaburg overalls and a white shirt, with a +brown negro cloth coat, and corduroy waistcoat, faced with green on the +pockets, also a blue surtoutt, lined with green boise.</p> + +<p>All masters of vessels are requested not to carry him off the State; and a +reward of Twenty Dollars will be given to any person who will deliver him +to the Master of the Work-house, or to</p> + +<p>August 3.</p> +<p class="author">Thomas Waring.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston, S.C.), Aug. 18, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Five Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented himself from the Subscriber's plantation, in St. Thomas Parish, +the 15th ult. BUTLER. He is a thin black fellow, about five feet seven +inches high, and about 26 years of age, is remarkably civil when spoken to, +AND SPEAKS VERY GOOD ENGLISH; is something of a shoemaker; he has of late +threatened to go and see his mother, who belongs to the state of gen. +Greene, and lives on one of his plantations in the State of Georgia, where +it is probable he is gone; he also has a wife in Charleston, who works at +the Distillery, (formerly Mr. Fitzsimmon's) where he may be concealed by +her. The above reward will be paid to any person who will deliver him to +the Master of the Work-House, or to the Subscriber in Boundary Street.</p> + +<p>N.B. If the above Negro Fellow is taken up in the country, Ten Dollars will +be paid, and all reasonable traveling expenses.</p> + +<p>October 1.</p> +<p class="author">Thomas Wigfall.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston, S.C.) Oct. 3, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg175"></a>Advertisement</h5> + +<p>Confined in Barnwell Gaol, on the 21st day of July 1802; two NEGRO FELLOWS, +<span class="sc">Jacob</span> and <span class='sc'>Enox</span>. <span class="sc">Jacob</span> is about five feet ten inches high and very trim +built, about twenty-one years of age, SPEAKS PLAIN ENGLISH, is a good deal +scared on the back, has some very good clothes, such as a blue coat, new +lining shirt, white ribbed stockings, several waistcoats, pair of striped +overalls, two blankets, and several other things not worth mentioning; and +upon examination says he was born in Virginia and was brought from thence +by John Fellows, and sold by John Eaves, in the State of Georgia, on the +South of Ogeehie, from whom he has absconded.</p> + +<p>Enox is spare built and low in stature, appears to be about twenty-five +years of age, SPEAKS ENGLISH, THOUGH SOMEWHAT NEGROISH had a white plain +coat and home spun jacket and overalls; and upon examination says he +belongs to James Hogg, about fourteen miles below Coosawhatchie Court +House.</p> + +<p class="author">William Goode, <span class="normal">Gaoler, +Barnwell District.</span></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, Aug. 12, 1802.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away from Sassafras River on the 9th of November, a lusty Negro Man, +named Prince, about 25 Years old, full faced and pitted with the Small Pox, +AND SPEAKS ENGLISH. He had on when he went away, a home spun Kersey Jacket +blue Waistcoat under it, Oznabrigs shirt, new shoes, and old Yarn +Stockings: He pretends to have a certificate for his Freedom, which is +supposed he had from one of the Sailors on board of the Vessel he ran from.</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up the said Negro and brings him to the Printers at Annapolis +or to the Subscriber at Sassafras, shall have four Pistoles Reward and +necessary charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Samuel Allyne.</p> + +<p>N.B. It is probable he is in Baltimore or some other part of the Western +Shore as he went away in a Canoe.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-2"> +<h3>Learning to Read and Write</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away on the 4th Inst., at Night from James Leonard in Middlesex County +East-New-Jersey, a Negro Man named Simon, aged 40 years, is a well-set +Fellow, about 5 feet 10 inches high, has large Eyes, and a Foot 12 inches +long; he was bred and born in this Country, TALKS GOOD ENGLISH, CAN READ +AND <a id="pg176"></a>WRITE, is very slow in his speech, can bleed and draw Teeth * * *</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up and secures the said Negro, so that his Master may have +him again shall have Three Pounds Reward and reasonable charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">James Loenard.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 11, 1740.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN-away from Capt. Joseph Hale of Newbury, a Negro Man, named <em>Cato</em>, the +6th Instant, about 22 Years of Age, short and small, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH +AND CAN READ AND WRITE, understands farming Work carry'd with him a striped +homespun Jacket and Breeches, and Trousers, and an outer Coat and Jacket of +home-made Cloth, two Pair of Shoes, sometimes wears a black Wigg, has a +smooth Face, a sly Look, TOOK WITH A VIOLIN, AND CAN PLAY WELL THEREON. Had +with him three Linnen Shirts, home-made pretty fine yarn Stockings. Whoever +shall bring said Negro to his Master or secure him so that he may have him +again shall have <em>five Pounds</em> Reward and all necessary Charges paid by me.</p> + +<p class="author">Joseph Hale.</p> +<p>Newbury, July 8th, 1745.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Gazette or Weekly Journal</em>, July 9, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN-away from his Master Eleazer Tyng, Esq at Dunstable, on the 26th May +past, a Negro Man Servant call'd Robbin, almost of the Complexion of an +Indian, short thick square shoulder'd Fellow, a very short Neck, and thick +Legs, about 28 Years old, TALKS GOOD ENGLISH, CAN READ AND WRITE, and plays +on the Fiddle; he was born at Dunstable *** Whoever will apprehend said +Negro and secure him, so that his Master may have him again, or bring him +to the Ware-House of Messiers Alford and Tyng in Boston, shall have a +reward of Ten Pounds, old Tenor, and all reasonable Charges.</p> + +<p>N.B. And all Masters of Vessels or others are hereby cautioned against +harbouring, concealing or carrying off said Servant, on Penalty of the law.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, July 18, 1748.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from the Subscriber, the 20th of <em>November</em> last, living on +<em>Patuxent</em> River, near Upper Marlborough, in <em>Prince George's</em> County, a +dark Mulatto Man, named <em>Sam</em>, about 5 feet<a id="pg177"></a> 9 or 10 Inches high, about 30 +Years of Age, a Carpenter by Trade, has a down Look, and low Voice. Had on +when he went away a new Cotton Jacket and Breeches, and osnabrigs Shirt; he +is supposed to have taken with him, one Cotton Coat lined with blue, one +red Waistcoat and Breeches, one blue Silk Coat, one light Cloth Coat, some +fine Shirts, and one or two good Hats. He is supposed to be lurking in +<em>Charles County</em> near <em>Bryan-Town</em>, where a Mulatto Woman lives, whom he +has for some Time called his Wife; BUT AS HE IS AN ARTFUL FELLOW, AND CAN +READ AND WRITE, it is probable he may endeavour to make his Escape out of +the Province.</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up the said Runaway, and secures him so as his Masters may +get him again, shall have, if taken out of this Province, Three Pounds; +and if within this Province, Forty Shillings, besides what the Law allows +paid by</p> + +<p class="author">William Digges, Junior.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, Feb. 27, 1755.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from Jonathan Sergeant, at Newark, in New-Jersey, A young negro +man, named Esop, of middle size, with round forehead, strait nose, and a +down guilty look; HE CAN WRITE, AND IT IS LIKELY HE MAY HAVE A COUNTERFEIT +PASS: Had with him a beaver hat, light grey linsey-wolsey jacket, two +trowsers, new pumps, and an old purple coloured waist coat. It is supposed +he went away in company with a white man, named John Smith, who is an old +lean, tall man, with a long face and nose, and strait brown hair; who had +on an old faded snuff-coloured coat. Whoever takes up and secures said man +and Negro, so that their master may have them again, shall have Forty +Shillings reward for each and all reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Jonathan Sergeant.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 28, 1755.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Forty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>And all reasonable charges shall be paid to any Person that secures and +brings to William Kelly, of the City of New York, merchant a Negro man +named Norton Minors, who ran away from his masters Messrs. Bodkin and +Ferrall of the Island of St. Croix, on the 1st day of July last; is by +trade a Caulker and ship-carpenter; has lived at Newbury, in New-England; +was the property of Mr. Mark Quane, who sold him to Mr. Craddock of Nevis, +from whom <a id="pg178"></a>the above gentlemen bought him about three years ago; is about 5 +feet 8 inches high; age about 37 years; SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH, CAN READ AND +WRITE; AND IS A VERY SENSIBLE FELLOW: And his masters suspect he came off +in the sloop Boscawen, Andrew Ford, Master, who sailed from the above +Island the very day this fellow eloped, bound for Louisbourg.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette</em>, Nov. 10, 1760.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN AWAY on the 9th Instant, October, in the Morning from the Subscriber, a +Negro Man named JACK, a well set Fellow, about 5 feet 8 Inches high, full +fac'd, much pitted with the Small-pox, snuffles when he speaks, READS +ENGLISH, PRETENDS MUCH TO UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES. Had on when he went +away a Pair of Course Trowsers, stripped Jacket, and a Frock over it. +Whoever takes up said Fellow and brings him to the subscriber shall have +<em>forty shillings</em> and all reasonable Charges paid.--All Masters of Vessels +&c. are desired not to harbour him, or carry him off, as he or they may +depend on being prosecuted as the Law directs.</p> + +<p class="author">Manuel Myers,</p> +<p>Linging in Stone Street.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette</em>, Nov. 10, 1760.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Ran away in August last from the Subscriber, living in Northampton County, +Virginia, a Molatto Man Slave, about Five Feet Nine Inches high, and hath +a large Scar on one Side of his Face. IT IS PROBABLE HE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO +PASS FOR A FREE MAN, AS HE CAN WRITE. Whoever takes up, and secures the +said slave, so that the Subscriber can have him again, shall have TWENTY +DOLLARS; and if delivered to me, at Northampton, FORTY DOLLARS Reward paid +by</p> + +<p>Michael Christian.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, Oct. 27, 1769.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>St. Mary's County, January 16, 1776. +<em>Twenty Dollars Reward</em></p> + +<p>Ran away from the subscriber near Chaptico, the 4th instant, a small Negro +Man named <em>Dickison</em>, otherwise <em>Joe</em>, he has been frequently used to both +names, he is about 5 feet 2 or 3 inches high: Had on when he went away +three country cloth jackets, the under one lappelled and checked, another +striped in length, the other <a id="pg179"></a>warped with white and filled with black, his +breeches the same, country shoes and stockings, felt hat half worn; he took +with him a mill-bag half worn: It is likely he may have changed his name +and cloths, HE IS A VERY ARTFUL FELLOW AND CAN READ, and likely may +endeavour to pass for a freeman. Any person bringing him home, or securing +him so as his master may get him again, shall receive if out of the +Province the above reward; if sixty miles from home Five Pounds, if taken +in the county or at a small distance Three Pounds and all reasonable +charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Nichols.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Dunlap's Maryland Gazette or The Baltimore General Advertiser</em>, + July 23, 1776.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Perry-Hall, Baltimore County, Sept. 13, 1785.</p> + +<p>FORTY DOLLARS REWARD, for apprehending and delivering to the suscriber, +Negro Will. He left my service the 3rd inst., is short and well made, has +remarkably small hands and feet, about 26 years of age, has a large beard +for a Negro. HE ATTEMPTS TO READ AND WRITE, BUT HE PERFORMS VERY +IMPERFECTLY. HE IS BY TRADE A BLACKSMITH; HAS DROVE A CARRIAGE, CAN SHAVE +AND DRESS HAIR, AND IS A COBBLING SHOEMAKER. He is fond of strong liquor +and when intoxicated is very quarrelsome. The above-described ungrateful +rogue I manumitted some years past, with a number of other slaves, who were +free at different periods, and I am apprehensive he has got one of their +discharges. He is not free by manumission till next Christmas, and from +that time he was to serve me 6 months, by agreement, for the expenses of a +former elopement, about two years past, which cost me upwards of Twenty +Pounds.</p> + +<p class="author">H. D. Gough.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Sept. 20, 1785.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RANAWAY on the Monday the 7th of June, a likely mulatto man named Francis, +of a middle stature; he is about 25 years old, has a small scar on one of +his cheeks, and some time ago received a fall from a horse, which has +caused the skin about one of his eyes to be somewhat darker than the rest +of his face. HE CAN WRITE A PRETTY GOOD HAND; PLAYS ON THE FIFE EXTREMELY +WELL, and is an incomparable good house servant He had when he left home, 6 +good linen shirts, a fine new brown <a id="pg180"></a>broad cloth coat, a green shaggy +jacket, breeches of several kinds, with shoe-boots and shoes. I do suppose +that he intends to ship himself for Europe or elsewhere. I therefore +forewarn all masters and captains of vessels as well as all other persons, +from having any thing to say to the servant above described, and will give +a reward of Five Guineas to any Person or Persons who will either deliver +him to me in Halifax town, North Carolina, or secure him in any jail so +that I get him again.</p> + +<p class="author">Halcot B. Pride.</p> +<p>June 24, 1790.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Norfolk and Portsmouth Chronicle</em>, July 10, 1790.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>100 Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Run away from the subscriber the 9th inst., a negro man slave named Will +about 40 years of age 5 feet 8 or 10 inches high; has two remarkable scars +on his breast and is much scarified about the neck and throat, caused by a +disorder he was cured of some years ago; CAN READ A LITTLE, and a very +dissembling fellow. He took with him sundry cloaths, among which are a blue +cotton coat, with metal buttons, a striped jacket, a pair of blue cotton, +and a pair of corduroy breeches. It is probable he will endeavor to pass +for a freeman, and try to get on board some vessel; all masters of vessels +are hereby forewarned from carrying him off. Whoever will deliver the said +slave to me in Southampton county, near South Quay, or secure him in any +gaol, so that I get him again, shall receive the above reward.</p> + +<p class="author">Samuel Browne.</p> +<p>Feb. 25, 1791.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Norfolk and Portsmouth Chronicle</em>, March 19, 1791.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>ABSCONDED from my service on Tuesday evening, the 10th instant, a black +Negro Man, named Manuel, by trade a blacksmith, about 21 Years of age, 5 +feet 7 or 8 inches high, of a strong lusty make, full faced, and somewhat +round shouldered; he is sober and intelligent and CAN BOTH READ AND WRITE. +He had on and took with him, a grey cloth coat, an old short grey napped +do., one pair nankeen breeches and vest, and one pair of corduroy breeches, +and black vest. Whoever apprehends and brings home the above described +Manuel, shall have the above reward.</p> + +<p class="author">Adam Fonerden.</p> +<p>Sept. 12, 1793.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Oct. 1, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg181"></a>Ran Away</h5> + +<p>On the 25th ultimo, from the subscriber, living near Culpepper Court-house, +<em>A Negro Man</em> named <em>JACK</em>, about 30 years old, 5 feet 10 or 11 inches +high, very muscular, full faced, wide nostrils, large eyes, a down look, +speaks slowly and wore his hair cued; had on when he eloped, a white shirt, +grey broad cloth coat, mixed cassimere waistcoat and breeches, a brown hat, +faced underneath with green, and a pair of boots. He formerly belonged to +Mr. <em>Augustin Baughan</em>, of Fredericksburg, now of Baltimore, and I am told +was seen making for Alexandria, with the intention of taking the stage +thither: HE IS ARTFUL CAN BOTH READ AND WRITE AND IS A GOOD FIDDLER; it is +therefore probable that he may attempt a forgery and pass as a free man. He +is most commonly known by the name of <em>Jack Taylor</em>, was originally from +Essex County, has a father living there, and it is said he has a wife, the +property of Mrs. Dalrymple of Dumfries. Whoever secures him in any jail so +that I get him again shall have Ten Dollars Reward, and if taken above +sixty and not more than one hundred miles distant, and brought home, shall +receive Twelve Dollars, and for any greater distance, Fifteen Dollars, with +all reasonable expenses borne. Masters of Vessels and stage drivers are +forewarned carrying him out of the State, under penalty of the law.</p> + +<p class="author">Carter Beverley.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Virginia Herald</em> (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Twenty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away from the Subscriber's plantation at Ponpon, about the beginning of +last September, a young <em>Mulatto Fellow</em> named <span class="sc">Cyrus</span>, about five feet six +or seven inches high, 25 years old, very short and strong built. The said +fellow is very well known about town, as he served four years +apprenticeship to Mr. Donaldson, house carpenter. IT IS PROBABLE THAT HE +HAS FORGED A PASS FOR HIMSELF, AS HE WRITES; he sometimes calls himself +James and says he belongs to Mr. Savage. Any person apprehending and +delivering him to the Master of the Work House, or at the Subscriber's on +South Bay, shall receive the above reward and all reasonable expenses paid</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Osborn.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em> (Charleston), March 7, 1801.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg182"></a>Eight Hundred Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Montgomery County, near Sugar Loaf<br /> +Mountain, Oct. 10, 1780.</p> + +<p>Ran away, from the Subscriber, the 23rd of September last, a Negro Man +named Frederick, about 26 years of age, about 6 feet high, and is a black +country born likely well-set fellow. Had on, when he went away, a coarse +shirt and short trousers; and carried with him, one old lightish-coloured +lagathee or duroy patched coat, with a slit on the shoulders, one pair of +black everlasting breeches, one pair of white cotton ditto, patched and +darned before, one pair of white corded linen ditto, one striped linsey +jacket, with sleeves, one linen ditto, without sleeves, one pair white yarn +stockings, one pair of shoes and buckles, AND A TESTAMENT AND HYMN BOOK. HE +CAN READ PRINT, IS VERY SENSIBLE AND ARTFUL, delights much in traffic, and +it is probable he will change his name and cloaths, and endeavour to pass +for a freeman. Whoever takes up said Negro and secures him, so that I get +him again, shall receive One Hundred and Fifty Pounds Reward; if 30 miles +from home, One hundred Twenty Five Pounds, and so on in proportion as far +as the above Reward, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">John Wilson.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Oct. 17, 1780.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Ran away from the subscribers living near the Queen Tree, St. Mary's +County, on the fifth day of the present month, being Easter Sunday, the +following three negro men, viz.</p> + +<p>George, the property of John Edeley, aged twenty-three years, of a dark +complexion, about six feet high, fleshy and well looking; had on when he +went away, a blue great coat, a good ruffled shirt, a pair of country linen +trousers, his other cloaths are uncertain.</p> + +<p>David, the property of Nathaniel Ewing, aged about twenty-one years, five +feet seven inches high, of a dark complexion, well made, has a burn on one +of his arms near the shoulder, a sharp nose; had on when he went away a +dark coloured cloth coat, whitish breeches, Irish linen shirt, old boots, +a new hat with a black ribbon around the crown, other cloaths uncertain.</p> + +<p>Charles, the property of Cornelius Wildman, aged about twenty-six years, +five feet seven inches high, dark complexion, down looking fellow, thick +lips; had on when he went away a cotton and woolen country coat, a striped +silk jacket, a pair of white breeches and stockings, a new wool hat with a +ribbon around it. IT IS <a id="pg183"></a>PROBABLE THAT THESE FELLOWS WILL ATTEMPT TO GET +TO PENNSYLVANIA, AS DAVID HAS ONCE BEEN THERE WITH HIS MASTER; IT IS ALSO +APPREHENDED THAT THEY MAY HAVE SUPPLIED THEMSELVES WITH PASSES EITHER FROM +SOME ILL-DESIGNING WHITE PERSON, OR THAT GEORGE HAS CONTRIVED TO EXECUTE +SOME KIND OF PASSES HIMSELF, AS HE CAN READ WRITING, ALSO WRITE SOME +LITTLE. We are likewise of the opinion they may endeavour to pass by the +name of BUTLER, as George had some time in his possession before he went +off a pass granted to CLEM BUTLER, who was a free negro, from which it is +likely he might take copies. Whoever takes up and secures said Negro +slaves in any gaol, so that their masters may get them again, shall +receive TWENTY FOUR DOLLARS, including what the law allows for the three +Negroes or the sum of EIGHT DOLLARS, also including what the law allows, +for either of them.</p> + +<p>April 11, 1795.</p> + +<p class="author">John Edeley<br /> +Nathaniel Ewing<br /> +Cornelius Wildman.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, May 21, 1795.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Forty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away from the subscriber living near Stafford court-house in the +commonwealth of Virginia, about the middle of May last, a Negro fellow +named JACK, about five feet eight or nine inches high, nineteen years old, +thick made and well set, stoops in the shoulders, and his complexion black, +has a remarkable scar on the top of one of his feet, but I forget whether +right or left; he carried with him the following cloaths, a greenish +coloured great coat of elastic cloth, with buff cuffs and cape, a white +casimer vest and breeches, a brown cloth vest, and a calico vest, but these +he may change for other cloaths; this negro lately belonged to the estate +of Mr. Thomas Stone, in Charles County, Maryland, and may pass himself for +one of the Thomas family of negroes belonging to the said estate, who made +pretention to their freedom, but the fallacy of the attempt may be easily +detected, as he is quite black, whereas the Thomas family are all of +mulatto colour; HE CAN ALSO READ A LITTLE. I suspect he is lurking about +Baltimore or Annapolis; his mother is in the former city, who is also a +run<a id="pg184"></a>away, and named Rachel. I will give the above reward of fifty dollars +to any person who will deliver him to me at my place of residence, or forty +dollars for securing him in any gaol so that I may get him again.</p> + +<p class="author">Travers Daniel, Jun.</p> +<p>Stafford County, Virginia, Oct. 28, 1797.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, January 4, 1798.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Eighty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>RAN AWAY from the subscriber's farm about seven miles from Annapolis, on +Wednesday the 5th instant, two slaves, Will and Tom; they are brothers. +Will, a straight tall well made fellow, upwards of six feet high, he is +generally called black, but has rather a yellowish complexion, by trade a +carpenter and cooper, and in general capable of the use of tools in almost +any work; saws well at the whip saw, about thirty years of age, when he +speaks quick he stammers a little in his speech. Tom a stout well made +fellow, a bright mulatto, twenty-four years of age, and about five feet +nine or ten inches high; he is a complete hand at plantation work, and can +handle tools pretty well. Their dress at home, upper jackets lined with +flannel, and overalls of a drab colour, but they have a variety of other +clothing, and it is supposed they will not appear abroad in what they wear +at home. WILL WRITES PRETTY WELL, AND IF HE AND HIS BROTHER ARE NOT +FURNISHED WITH PASSES FROM OTHERS, THEY WILL NOT BE AT A LOST FOR THEM, BUT +UPON PROPER EXAMINATION MAY BE DISCOVERED TO BE FORGED. These people it is +imagined, are gone for Baltimore town as Tom has a wife living there with +Mr. Thomas Edwards. For taking up and securing the two fellows in the gaol +of Baltimore town, or any other gaol, so that I get them again, shall +receive a reward of eighty dollars, and for either forty dollars.</p> + +<p>Annapolis, April 10, 1797.</p> +<p class="author">Thomas Howard.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, Feb. 1, 1798.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>200 Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Run away in the spring of the last year, from this place, a Young fellow +belonging to me, named John, sometimes called Johnson, at times calling +himself John Hill, at other times John Howe. This fellow is about 5 feet 5 +inches high, 23 years old, and is of a dull copper-colour, being the son of +a mulatto man and negro <a id="pg185"></a>woman; his features are generally ugly; his eyes +remarkably large and prominent; he is sensible and shrewd, civil in his +manners, and plausible in conversation; he served his time with a cabinet +maker, and has worked as journeyman with a Windsor Chair-maker; he is very +ingenious, and well acquainted with the use of the joiners tools. JOHN +READS AND I BELIEVE CAN WRITE A LITTLE. He probably made some one of the +Northern ports the place of his destination, or perhaps Charleston. I will +pay the above reward to any person who will deliver John to me or to the +Jailor in this place.</p> + +<p class="author">W. H. Hill.</p> +<p class="cite"><em>The Charleston Courier</em>, June 29, 1803.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="article" id="a2-5-3"> +<h3>Educated Negroes</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RAN away on Saturday Night last, from</span> Moorhall in Chester County, a Mulatto +Man Slave, aged about 22, has a likely whitish countenance, of a middle +Stature; having on a chocolate coloured Cloth coat, Linnen Waistcoat, +Leather Breeches, grey Stockings, a Pess-burnt Wig, and a good Hat; has +with him several white Shirts, and some Money: HE SPEAKS SWEDE AND ENGLISH +WELL. Whoever secures the said Slave, so that his Master may have him +again, shall be very handsomely Rewarded, and all reasonable Charges paid +by</p> + +<p class="author">William Moore.</p> +<p>Wilmington, N.C., June 10, 1803.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, July 31, 1740.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RUN away the 23rd of August, from his Master</span> Philip French of New +Brunswick, in East-New-Jersey, a Negro Man <em>Claus</em>, of middle Stature +yellowish complexion, about 44 Years of Age, SPEAKS DUTCH AND GOOD ENGLISH.</p> + +<p class="author">Philip French.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 24, 1741.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RUN away the 15th of May from</span> John Williams, of Trenton Ferry, a Negro Man, +named James Bell, about 30 Years of Age, middle stature, SPEAKS VERY GOOD +ENGLISH, AND VERY FLUENT IN HIS TALK; he formerly belonged to Slator Clay.</p> + +<p>John Williams.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, June 21, 1744.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Philadelphia May 29, 1746.</p> + +<p>RUN away the 2nd Instant, from John Pawling, at Perkiomen, a likely lusty, +Negroe Man, named Toney, 6 Foot high, about 24 Years of Age, and SPEAKS +GOOD ENGLISH AND HIGH <a id="pg186"></a>DUTCH. Had on when he went away, a striped Linsey +Woolsey Jacket, Tow Shirt and Trowsers, an old Felt Hat. Whoever takes up +and secures said Negroe, so that his Master may have him again shall have +Twenty-five Shillings Reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">John Pawling.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, June 5, 1746.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN AWAY about the Middle of July last from the subscriber, living in +King's County, Long Island, a Negro Man named Jack, he is about 35 Years of +Age, slim made, about 5 Feet 8 Inches in height, SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH AND +DUTCH, and has been used to attending a Grist-Mill.--Whoever secures him in +any gaol or brings him to me shall be rewarded, and all reasonable Charges +paid by</p> + +<p>New York, August 15, 1766.</p> +<p class="author">Abraham Schenk.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette or the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, Aug. 21, 1766.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Three Guineas Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away from the subscriber on Wednesday evening last, a Mulato Fellow +named Harry (sometimes calls himself Waters), speaks good English and +tolerable German, he is about five feet 8 inches high, well made, and about +25 years of age, has taken away with him, a blue broadcloth coat, with a +red cape, a pair of blue Negro Cloth trowsers and a short jacket, with +oznaburg jacket and trowsers, much stained with tar. AS HE IS A SMART +SENSIBLE FELLOW, HE MAY PROBABLY PASS FOR A FREEMAN. A Reward of Three +Guineas will be given to any person who will deliver the said fellow to the +Warden of the Work-house, or to the subscriber in Charleston.</p> + +<p class="author">George Dener.</p> + +<p>N.B. Captains of Vessels and others are cautioned from carrying off, or +concealing the said Mulatto, as they may depend upon being treated with the +utmost rigour of the law.--If he returns of his own accord he will be +forgiven.</p> + +<p>Feb. 11, 1786.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, Feb. 20, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>One Hundred Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away from Elk Forge Caecil County, Maryland, on the 2nd inst., Aug. +1784, Negro George about 35 or 40 years of age 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, +slender bodied, thin visage, not very black, <a id="pg187"></a>PLAUSIBLE, AND COMPLACENT; +CAN SPEAK PRETTY GOOD ENGLISH, A LITTLE FRENCH, AND A FEW WORDS OF HIGH +DUTCH, HAS BEEN IN THE WEST INDIES AND IN CANADA, AND HE WAS FORMERLY A +WAITING MAN TO A GENTLEMEN, HAS THEREBY HAD AN OPPORTUNITY OF GETTING +ACQUAINTED WITH THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF AMERICA. His chief employ, lately, +has been in the kitchen and at cooking, at which he is very complete: is +also a barber. He has a variety of cloaths with him, and probably may +procure a pass. 'Tis thought he will endeavour to get off by water; +therefore, all concerned in that way are desired to take notice. Whoever +will secure said fellow in any gaol and give notice to the subscriber, so +that he may have him again, shall receive the above reward, and reasonable +charges if brought home.</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas May.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, August 19, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Twenty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away on Saturday the 23rd March, LEWIS, well known in this city where +he has been a Hair Dresser these several years, is of a good size, a stout +well-made fellow, well-featured, and between 24 and 25 years of age, SPEAKS +BOTH FRENCH AND ENGLISH FLUENTLY, IS VERY ARTFUL, AND WILL PROBABLY ATTEMPT +TO PASS AS A FREEMAN.</p> + +<p>Whoever will apprehend him and deliver him to the Master of the Work-house, +in Charleston, or to any of the gaolers in this State, shall be entitled to +a Reward of Twenty Dollars, and all reasonable expenses.</p> + +<p>All Masters of Vessels and others are forbid employing, harbouring or +carrying him off, as on conviction they will be prosecuted to the extent of +the law.</p> + +<p>Apply to the Printers of the City Gazette. +April 1, 1799.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, April 1, 1799.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>City Sheriff's Sale</h5> + +<p>Will <em>be sold before the Store of Messrs. Aerstein & Co., on Thursday next +the 10th inst., at twelve o'clock, a valuable negro named Will about 22 +years of age; he is well adopted for a Waiting Man for a single gentleman +who travels or as a Steward of a Ship of Packet. HE <a id="pg188"></a>SPEAKS FRENCH AND +SPANISH, READS AND WRITES and never known to be guilty of any mean or bad +tricks which blacks in common are addicted to, such as pilfering or +drinking. His deportment is agreeable and polite. Seized by virtue of an +execution for Drain Assessment and Arrearages of Taxes, and to be sold as +the Property of Col.</em> Alexander Moultrie.</p> + +<p><em>Condition, cash payable in dollars, at 4s 8d, the property not to be +altered until the terms are complied with.</em><sup><a href="#fn2-5-3-1" id="fna2-5-3-1">1</a></sup></p> + +<p><em>Also Will Be Sold</em>.--</p> + +<p><em>A few articles of</em> Household Furniture as <em>the property of the estate +of</em> James Paterson, <em>deceased, for arrearages of State and City Taxes. +Condition, cash, purchasers to pay for Sheriff's bills of sale.</em></p> + +<p>City Sheriff's Office, Jan. 4. +J. H. Stevens, +City Sheriff.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette & Daily Advertiser</em>, Jan. 5, 1799.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p id="fn2-5-3-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-5-3-1">return</a>]</span>1. This advertisement appears also under another heading.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Twenty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<h6>For Jack who has again run-away.</h6> + +<p>The subscriber's servant Jack, who calls himself John Leech, again +absconded last night. He is a short well made young Mulatto, probably about +five feet five inches high, about twenty-five years of age, and plausible; +he has a thick bushy head of hair, like a negro's; thick lips, a film on +his left eye, over which he sometimes wears a peace of green silk. He +belonged when he was a child, to the late Ephraim Mitchell, esq. deceased, +and afterwards to Francis Bremar, esq. from whom the subscriber bought him.</p> + +<p>He is well acquainted all over the state, having waited upon his former +masters when traveling, and also upon the subscriber when he went on the +Circuits. HE CAN WRITE HIMSELF AND MAY FORGE A PASS OR CERTIFICATE OF +FREEDOM. He had on, when he went off, a pair of overalls, and waistcoat of +servant's cloth of a light grey mixed colour almost new, and carried +several changes with him nearly of the same colour, and several coatees +like them, with capes, cuffs and welts to the pockets of green cloth; but +he may change his clothes; he also carried away a great coat of a drab +colour spotted. He may go to Goose-creek or to the vicinity of Belville, +Statesburg or Columbia, or attempt to go to the northward, but if its most +suspected, that he will <a id="pg189"></a>endeavour to get on board of some vessel. Whoever +will deliver him to the subscriber, or to the Master of the Work-house or +lodge him in any gaol of the State, shall receive the above reward, and if +he should be harboured by any one that the reward will be doubled upon the +harbourers being prosecuted to conviction by the informer. All Masters of +Vessels and others are warned against employing him or carrying him out of +the city.</p> + +<p class="author">Lewis Trezvant.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Carolina Gazette</em>, Feb. 4, 1802.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-4"> +<h3>Slaves in Good Circumstances</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Twenty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away from Mr. Davis Stone in Loudoun County, Virginia, on Saturday the +19th ult., a Virginia-born NEGRO MAN, named WILL between 5½ and six feet +high, stout made twenty seven years old, of a black, complexion, round +shouldered and down look, when spoken to is apt to grin, is an artful +sensible fellow, much accustomed to driving a wagon, is good at any kind of +plantation business, tolerably ingenious, and I am informed, has a pass; +had on, and took with him one white hat, one white cassimere coat, a little +worn, one blue broadcloth ditto, almost new, a drab coloured coat and +breeches, quite new, one red waistcoat, one cassimere ditto, one striped +ditto, one pair cassimere breeches, a pair of fustian ditto, several +shirts, both coarse and fine, one pair of mixed yarn stockings, blue and +white, shoes with buckles, and the soles are nailed; it is probable that he +may change his clothes, AS HE HAS PLENTY OF MONEY. Whoever takes up the +said fellow and secures him in any gaol, so that I may get him again or +deliver him to me near the Falls Church shall receive the above Reward and +all reasonable charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">John Dulin.</p> + +<p>N.B. He crossed the ferry at Elk Ridge-Landing on his way to Baltimore, on +Sunday the third instant.</p> + +<p>☞ All masters of vessels and others are forewarned +from harbouring him, at their peril.</p> + +<p>Nov. 5, 1793.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Nov. 5, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Sixteen Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away, from the subscriber, on Monday evening last, a NEGRO LAD, named +TOWER, about 18 or 19 years of age, 5 feet <a id="pg190"></a>3 or 4 inches high, rather +square or heavy in his built, somewhat bow legged, and walks with a +considerable swing, has a full round face and thick lips, talks slow and +not very plain. Had on and took with him, a green broadcloth coat, almost +new, a new striped jacket, with sleeves in the fashion of a sailor's, a +striped crossbarred printed-cotton vest of an olive colour, buckskin +breeches, and striped silk and cotton hose; BUT AS HE IS KNOWN TO HAVE +TAKEN A CONSIDERABLE SUM OF MONEY WITH HIM, it is probable that he may +change his clothes. Whoever brings home said negro, or secures him in gaol, +shall receive the above Reward and all reasonable charges.</p> + +<p>It is supposed that he will try to go to Philadelphia; and as he speaks a +little French and is known to have put a striped ribbon round his hat, it +is probable that he will attempt to pass as one who lately came in the +street from Cape François.</p> + +<p>N.B. All Masters of vessels and others, are cautioned against taking him at +their peril.</p> + +<p>Baltimore, Sept. 19, 1793.</p> +<p class="author">David Harris.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and the Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Sept. 20, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Fifteen Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away on the 20th instant, from the subscriber, living in Patapsco Neck, +a NEGRO MAN named SALISBURY, but may assume some other name; he is about 21 +years of age; 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, stout and well made, has a smiling +countenance and very thick lips; he has lately been under the doctor's +hands for a sore on his right arm, which he generally carries in his bosom: +Had on and took with him a blue broadcloth coat with yellow buttons, a +fustian jacket, a red and white striped do., a coarse and white country +cloth upper-jacket, and breeches, a pair of nankeen do., a white shirt and +an oznaburg do., with a pair of good shoes. AS I EXPECT HE HAS A SUM OF +MONEY WITH HIM, PROBABLY HE MAY GET SOME ONE TO FORGE A PASS FOR HIM, AND +PASS AS A FREE MAN. Whoever takes up said NEGRO and secures him in any +Gaol, so that I may get him again, shall have the above reward, and +reasonable charges, if brought home, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Robuck Lynch.</p> + +<p>N.B. All masters of vessels, and others, are forewarned at their peril not +to harbour or conceal said Negro.</p> + +<p>Baltimore County, May 25, 1793.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, June 11, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg191"></a>Ran away from the subscriber living in Annapolis, on the 24th of May, a +Negro man named Willis Bowzer, about thirty-four years of age, a full +faced well looking fellow, who had the small pox in March last, and is +much marked with it, he is very remarkable about the ancles and feet, his +ancles look as they had been hurt, they turn in looked swelled with knots +on them, his feet are flat, or rather round instead of hollow; he is about +five feet ten or eleven inches high, has a flat nose, and is a smooth +spoken fellow; he appears to be religious and I suppose will endeavour to +pass for a free man. As he has money and a variety of cloaths. Whoever +takes up and secures the said fellow, so that I get him again, shall +receive a Reward of Forty Dollars.</p> + +<p class="author">John Stuart.</p> + +<p>N.B. All masters of vessels and others, are forbid carrying, or in any +anywise harbouring, entertaining or employing the said negro at their +peril.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, June 11, 1795.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-5"> +<h3>Negroes Brought from the West Indies</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Philadelphia, June 17, 1745.</p> + +<p>RUN away from the Sloop Sparrow, lately arrived from Barbadoes, Joseph +Perry Commander, a Negro Man named John; he WAS BORN IN DOMINICA AND SPEAKS +FRENCH, BUT VERY LITTLE ENGLISH, he is a very ill-featured Fellow, and has +been much cut in his Back by often Whipping; his Clothing was only a Frock +and Trowsers. Whoever brings him to John Yeats, Merchants in Philadelphia, +shall have Twenty Shillings Reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">John Yeats.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, July 4, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away, the 24th of last Month from Bennet Bard, of Burlington, a Mulatto +Spanish Slave, named George, aged about 24 years, about 5 feet 10 Inches +high, smooth faced, well-set, and has his Hair lately cutt off, speaks +tolerable good English, BORN AT HAVANNA, SAYS HE WAS SEVERAL YEARS WITH DON +BLASS, and is a good Shoemaker. Had on when he went away a corded Dimity +Waistcoat, Ozenbrigs shirt and Trowsers, no Stockings, old Shoes, and a new +Hat. Whoever takes up and secures said Fellow so that his Master may have +him again, shall have Forty Shillings Reward and reasonable Charges paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Bennet Bard.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 1, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg192"></a>RAN away on the Ninth of this instant September, from the subscriber, a +Negroe Man, named Frank, alias Francisco, about 5 Feet 7 or 8 Inches high, +well-set, about 25 Years of Age, walks remarkably upright, CAN TALK BUT +LITTLE ENGLISH, HAVING LIVED AMONG THE SPANIARDS, AND TALKS IN THAT DIALECT +************** It is supposed he is gone off in Company with a Negroe +Fellow that has been lurking about this city some Time (supposed to be a +Runaway) as he was seen in Company with the Negro the Night before he went +off.</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Pryor.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 20, 1764.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from the Subscriber living in New-York, the Beginning of June +Inst. a Negro Fellow named Charles, about five Feet ten Inches, very black, +Pock-pitted, and remarkable for his white Teeth; SPEAKS BOTH FRENCH AND +ENGLISH, JAMAICA BORN, marked under his left Breast P.C. Count; had on when +he went away, a brown Jacket, and a blue short Waistcoat under it; a Pair +of Trowsers, and a Sailor's round Hat.--Whoever takes up said Negro, and +secures him so that he may be had again shall have FORTY SHILLINGS Reward +and all reasonable Charges paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Andrew Myer <span class="normal">in Dock-street</span>.</p> + +<p>N.B. All Masters of Vessels and others are hereby warned not to carry off +said Servant, at their Peril, as they will answer as the law directs.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette or the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, July 31, 1766.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Ran away about a Year ago, a Negro Man, goes by the name of Antigua George, +WAS BORN IN ANTIGUA, TALKS GOOD ENGLISH, is betwixt 50 and 60 Years old, +about 5 Feet 5 Inches high, grey headed, and bends much in his legs when he +walks. Had on a Cotton Jacket and Breeches, Country made Shoes and +Stockings, and an Osnabrigs Shirt. He has since been taken up twice in +TALBOT and made his Escape; and now imagine he passes for a free Negro.</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up the said Negro, if in Talbot, shall have Twenty Shillings +Reward, if brought home; if at any farther Distance, Four Dollars Reward, +and reasonable Charges if brought home, paid by the subscriber living at +Nye River.</p> + +<p class="author">Martha Bryan.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, April 9, 1767.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg193"></a>Ran away from the Subscriber, since the 22nd July last, a Negro fellow +named Daniel. WAS BORN IN THE WEST-INDIES, SPEAKS GOOD FRENCH AND ENGLISH; +is about 5 feet high, likely face and Knock Knees. Whoever will apprehend +the said fellow and take him to the Warden of the Workhouse, or to the +subscriber, at No. 95 Broadstreet, shall receive a handsome reward. This is +to forbid all persons whatsoever from harbouring said Negro, as they may +depend upon being prosecuted by law.</p> + +<p class="author">De L Cantree & Sells.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Gazette of the State of South Carolina</em>, Aug. 16, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Two Guineas Reward</h5> + +<p>RAN away from the Subscriber a few days ago, a tall thin Negro-man of the +name of Will about 20 years of age, remarkable by a cut or scar on the left +side of his mouth; SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH. THE FELLOW WAS BORN IN THE ISLAND +OF ST. CHRISTOPHER and has served some time to cooper's trade, as well as +having gone several voyages to sea. He had on when he ran off, a speckled +waistcoat and breeches, and a snuff-colourd coat; but having took all his +Cloaths with him, it is probable he may have changed his dress.</p> + +<p>The above Reward will be paid to any person that delivers him to the +Subscriber, or the Warden of the Sugar House.--Masters of Vessels are +hereby warned at their peril not to harbour, or to take him off.</p> + +<p class="author">William Marshall,</p> +<p>No. 48 Queen Street.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 10, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Thirty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran away on Saturday last a FRENCH NEGRO WOMAN, NAMED SOBETT, about 23 +years old, marked on her breast thus Annette Chambis, about 4 feet 4 inches +high, of a yellow complexion. She is slender made, tolerable likely, +somewhat pitted with Small-pox; her hair remarkably short, and her clothing +cannot be described. The above reward will be paid to any person or persons +who will deliver said negro woman to the subscriber at the house of Mr. +Changeur.</p> + +<p class="author">D. DAMCOURT.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Baltimore Telegraph</em>, Oct. 18, 1796.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN-AWAY, a <span class="sc">mulatto girl</span> named <span class="sc">Catherine</span> about 18 years old, BY BIRTH +FRENCH, but being a number of years in this <a id="pg194"></a>country, has acquired the +English pretty fluent. She is well known about town, therefore, this is to +caution all persons from harbouring her, as they will be dealt with as the +law orders in such case.</p> + +<p class="author">Jacob De Leon.</p> + +<p>N.B. A reward of Ten Dollars will be paid on proving where she is haboured.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, March 5, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Run away from the subscriber, on the Euhaw, South Carolina, a Boy about +sixteen years of age, SUPPOSED FORMERLY FROM ST. DOMINGO. As he was +purchased from a Frenchman, HE MAY SPEAK FRENCH FOR WHAT I KNOW, BUT +SPEAKING ENGLISH, HE STUTTERS AND STAMMERS; he also beats well upon the +drum. I do forwarn all captains of vessels not to carry him off, or any +other persons not to harbour him upon their peril.</p> + +<p class="author">Elizabeth Colleton.</p> +<p>September 11.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, Sept. 18, 1800.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-6"> +<h3>Various Kinds of Servants</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>A very likely Negro Woman to be sold, aged about 28 Years, fit for Country +or City Business. SHE CAN CARD, SPIN, KNIT AND MILK; AND ANY OTHER +COUNTRY-WORK. Whoever has a mind for the said Negro, may repair to Andrew +Beadford in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>A Young Negro Woman to be sold by Samuel Kirk in the Second Street, +Philadelphia.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Weekly Mercury</em> (Philadelphia), Oct. 26, 1721.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><em>A Likely Negro Man about Twenty two Years of Age, speaks good English, has +had the Smallpox and the Measles, has been seven Years with a LIME BURNER: +To be sold, Inquire of John Langdon, Baker, next Door to John Clark's at +the North End, Boston.</em></p> + +<p><em>A Likely Negro Man about Twenty-five Years of Age, has had the Small Pox, +and speaks pretty good English, suitable for a Farmer, &C. To be sold. +Enquire of the Printers.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Weekly News-Letter</em>, March 21, 1734.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg195"></a>To Be Sold</h5> + +<p>A likely Young Negro Fellow, by TRADE A BRICKLAYER AND PLASTERER, has had +the Small Pox. Enquire of the printer hereof.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Jan. 29, 1739.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away about two months, aged 19 Negro Woman, known by the name of +Elizabeth Gregory; she was born in Long Island and has relations there and +FORMERLY SERVED IN GOVERNOR MORRIS' FAMILY AT TRENTON; she was taken out of +prison about 18 months ago by Thomas Lawrence, Esq. of whom the subscriber +purchased her time.</p> + +<p class="author">John Kearsley, Jun.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em> (No. 1090), 1749.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Pounds Reward</h5> + +<p>Fairfax County, Virginia, July 5, 1784.</p> + +<p>Ran away from the Subscriber, about six weeks ago, two slaves, viz: DICK, a +stout lusty Mulatto Fellow about twenty two years of age, has large +features and eyes, and a very roguish down look; he beats a drum pretty +well, is artful and plausible, and well acquainted in most parts of +Virginia and Maryland, HAVING FORMERLY WAITED UPON ME. CLEM, a well-set +black negro lad of about nineteen years of age, has a remarkable large scar +of a burn, which covers the whole of one of his knees. 'Tis impossible to +describe their dress, as I am told they have stolen a variety of cloaths +since their elopement. I suspect they have made towards Baltimore or +Philadelphia, or may have got on board some bay or river craft. I will give +the above reward to any person who will bring them to me in Fairfax County +or secure them in any gaol, and give me notice so that I get them again, or +Five Pounds for either of them.</p> + +<p class="author">George Mason, Jun.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, Aug. 26, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>TEN POUNDS REWARD, for apprehending and delivering in any gaol, so that the +owner gets him, a Negro Man Slave, named George, BY TRADE A BLACKSMITH. He +made his elopement last October from Port Royal Virginia. He is a black +Virginia-born, speaks plain, and is very sensible, about 6 feet high, well +made, has a brisk walk, large legs and arms, small over the belly, small +face, somewhat hollow-eyed, about 28 years of age, is fond of <a id="pg196"></a>smoking the +pipe; he was well cloathed when he went away, but his dress I can not +describe. I expect he will change his name, pass a freeman, <em>AND GET +EMPLOYMENT IN THE SMITH'S BUSINESS, AT WHICH HE IS A VERY GOOD HAND</em>. The +above reward will be given, with reasonable Charges, if delivered to the +subscriber, in Port Royal Virginia.</p> + +<p class="author">Joseph Timberlake, Jun.</p> +<p>Baltimore, Sept. 15, 1785.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Sept. 20, 1785.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Two Guineas Reward Runaway</h5> + +<p>A stout well made Negro Fellow named BOB, about 28 years of age, 5 feet +8 or 9 inches high, this country born, rather bowlegged, sensible and +artful, speaks quick, and sometimes stutters a little; HE MAY POSSIBLY +HAVE A TICKET THAT I GAVE HIM TWO DAYS BEFORE HE WENT AWAY, DATED THE +6TH OF APRIL, MENTIONING HE WAS IN QUEST OF A RUNAWAY, AS I DID NOT +MENTION WHEN HE WAS TO RETURN, HE MAY ENDEAVOUR TO PASS BY THAT; he was +seen on the road towards Goose Creek, where he has relations at Mr. John +Parkers, and at Cane Acre, at Mr. John Gough's, at either or both places +he may be harboured, or in Charleston at Mr. Benjamin Villepontour's, +where he formerly had a wife. The above reward will be given and all +reasonable charges paid on his being delivered in St. Stephens Parish to +Thomas Cooper.</p> + +<p>April 13, 1786.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The State Gazette of South Carolina</em>, May 1, 1786.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Run-away</h5> + +<h6>From the Subscriber<br /> +About ten days ago<br /> +A Negro Fellow Named<br /> +BILLY</h6> + +<p>BY TRADE A TAYLOR, of a yellowish complexion, and has a very remarkable +bushy head of hair, he is well known about Santee, where he formerly lived, +and had a wife, especially at Mr. Isaac Dubose's and also in Charleston, +where he was worked at his trade for four or five years past. The above +fellow is very artful and plausible, and may perhaps by telling a good +tale, endeavour to <a id="pg197"></a>pass for a freeman. A guinea reward will be paid to any +person who will secure him in the Work-house in Charleston, or deliver him +to the subscriber at Stono.</p> + +<p class="author">Joseph Bee.</p> +<p>March 21, 1789.</p> + +<p>N.B. All persons whatever are hereby cautioned against harbouring the +above fellow, as they shall and may expect to be prosecuted with the +utmost rigor of the law; and in case of his not returning home within a +month from this date, a reward of Five Guineas will be paid to any person, +either white or black, who will produce his head to his said master, whose +lenity and indulgence hitherto, has been the cause of his present desertion +and ingratitude.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Columbian Herald</em>, April 30, 1789.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Five Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absented himself from the subscriber about the 10th of April, a likely +young Negro Fellow, named Carolina; HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ACCUSTOMED TO WAIT +IN THE HOUSE; he was seen in the city about ten days ago, dressed in a +sailor jacket and trowsers. Carolina plays remarkably well on the violin.</p> + +<p>The above reward will be paid to any person delivering him to the Master +of the Work-House or at No 11 East Bay.</p> + +<p>All Masters of vessels and others are hereby cautioned against carrying +said Negro out of the State, as they will, on conviction, be prosecuted to +the utmost rigor of the law.</p> + +<p class="author">Robert Smith.</p> +<p>June 13.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, July 30, 1799.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Seven Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-away on Monday the 17th instant, <span class="sc">A Negro Man</span> named <span class="sc">Aberdeen</span>, is WELL +KNOWN IN TOWN AS A SAWYER, was seen on Tuesday morning about three miles +from town, had on an osnaburg coatee and trowsers, and a black hat, is +about five feet four or five inches high, smooth faced, a little wide at +the knees, is about forty years of age, speaks pretty good English, and +can speak Creole French, is of the Cromantee Country, he is very artful +and may have a forged pass to where he intends to go, or as being free.</p> + +<p>Whoever will deliver the said Negro to the Master of the Work-House in +Charleston, or to the Subscriber, shall receive the above reward and all +reasonable Charges,</p> + +<p class="author">William Reside.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, Oct. 5, 1798.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg198"></a>Ran-away about the 24th of June last, a MULATTO MAN named Will, about 5 +feet 10 inches high, speaks good English, was raised by Townsend, in +Christ Church parish and purchased lately from Mr. Hance Farley, <em>CABINET +MAKER</em>, Queen Street.</p> + +<p class="author">L. Cameron<br /> +Samuel Shaw.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, July 31, 1799.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-7"> +<h3>Negro Privateers and Soldiers Prior to the American Revolution</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Whereas Negro Jo (who formerly lived with Samuel Ogle, Esq; then Governor +of Maryland, as his cook) about 13 Months ago run away from the +Subscriber, who was then at Annapolis, AND HAS SINCE BEEN OUT A VOYAGE IN +ONE OF THE PRIVATEERS BELONGING TO PHILADELPHIA, and is returned there: +These are to desire any Person to apprehend the said Negro, so that he may +be had again, for which on their acquainting me therewith, they shall be +rewarded with the Sum of Five Pounds, current Money: Or if the said Negro +will return to me, at my House in St. Mary's County, he shall be kindly +received, and escape all Punishment for his Offence.</p> + +<p class="author">Philip Key.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Nov. 7, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Philadelphia, July 3, 1746.</p> + +<p>Run away from Samuel M'Call, jun. a Negro Man, named Tom, a very likely +Fellow, about 22 or 23 Years of Age, about 5 Foot 10 Inches high, speaks +good English, HAS BEEN A PRIVATEERING; has several good Cloaths on, with +Check Shirts, some new; formerly belonged to Dr. Shaw of Burlington. +Whoever secures the said Negro in any County Gaol so that his Master may +have him again, shall have a Pistole Reward and reasonable Charges paid by</p> +<p class="author">Samuel M'Call.</p> + +<p>N.B. He is a sensible, active Fellow, and runs well.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, July 3, 1746.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Philadelphia, June 23, 1748.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">RUN away from John Potts</span> of Colebrookdale, Philadelphia county, Esq., about +the 10th inst., a Spanish Negro Fellow, named John, of middle stature, +about 30 years of age: Had on when he went away, only a shirt and trowsers, +a cotton cap, a pair of old shoes; he is a cunning fellow and subject to +make game at the cere<a id="pg199"></a>monial part of all religious worship except that of +the papists; he is proud, and dislikes to be called a negroe, HAS FORMERLY +BEEN A PRIVATEERING, and talks much (with a seeming pleasure) of the +cruelties he then committed. Whoever takes up said Negroe, and takes him to +his Master at Colebrookdale aforesaid, or secures him in any gaol shall +have <em>Thirty Shilling</em> reward, and reasonable charges, paid by said John +Potts or Thomas York.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, June 23, 1748.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from his Master <em>Eleazer Tyng, Esq. at</em> Dunstable, <em>on the 26th +May past, a Negro Man Servant Call'd</em> Robbin, <em>almost of the complexion of +an Indian, short thick square shouldered Fellow, a very short neck, and +thick legs, about 28 Years old, talks good English, can read and write, and +plays on the Fiddle; he was born at</em> Dunstable <em>and IT IS THOUGHT HE HAS +BEEN ENTIC'D TO ENLIST INTO THE SERVICE, or to go to</em> Philadelphia: <em>Had +on when he went away, a strip'd cotton and Linnen blue and white Jacket, +red Breeches with Brass Buttons, blue Yarn Stockings, a fine Shirt, and +took another of a meaner Sort, a red Cap, a Beaver Hat with a mourning Weed +in it, and sometimes wears a Wig. Whoever will apprehend said Negro and +secure him, so that his Master may have him again, or bring him to the +Ware-House of Messiers</em> Alford <em>and</em> Tyng, <em>in</em> Boston, <em>shall have a +reward of</em> Ten Pounds, <em>old Tenor, and all reasonable Charges.</em></p> + +<p><em>N. B. And all Masters of Vessels or others are hereby cautioned against +harbouring, concealing or carrying off said Servant, on Penalty of the +Law.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy</em>, July 18, 1748.</p> + +<p>N.B.N.B. This Fellow was advertised in the New York papers the 5th of +June and in New Haven the 11th of June, 1759, was afterward taken up in +Waterbury, and was put into Litchfield Gaol, from thence he was brought to +Belford, and there made his Escape from his master again. Those who +apprehend him are desired to secure him in Irons. He was taken up by Moses +Foot of North Waterbury in New England. It is likely that he will change +his cloaths as he did before. The Mole above mentioned is something long.</p> + +<p>N.B. By information he was in Morris County in the Jerseys all winter AND +SAID HE WOULD ENLIST IN THE PROVINCIAL SERVICE.<sup><a href="#fn2-5-7-1" id="fna2-5-7-1">1</a></sup></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette</em> August 11, 1760.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p id="fn2-5-7-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-5-7-1">return</a>]</span>1. This advertisement appears in full on pages 213-214.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg200"></a>Ran-away from his Master Mr. James Richardson of Stonington, in the County +of New London, a Molatto or Mustee Servant, of about 24 Years of Age, much +Pox-broken, about 6 Feet high, brought up in North Kingston in Rhode Island +Government; AND WAS A SOLDIER LAST SUMMER: He had on when he went away, a +Leather Jockey Cap, a good Pair of Leather Breeches, a new large Duffil +Coat, of a blue Colour, a strait-bodiced ditto, a white Broad Cloth Coat +and Jacket. Whoever will take up said Fellow and secure him in any of his +Majesty's Gaols in <em>North America</em>, or return him to his Master, shall have +Twelve Dollars Reward and all necessary Charges paid by me, </p><p class="author">JAMES +RICHARDSON.</p> + +<p>All Masters of Vessels are hereby cautioned not to carry off said Fellow +upon the Peril of the Law.</p> + +<p>May 7, 1763.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Supplement to the Boston Evening Post</em>, May 23, 1763.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-8"> +<h3>Relations Between the Slaves and the British During the Revolutionary War</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>A Negro Man, by name of JEMMY now in my possession, ONE WHO FOLLOWED THE +BRITISH TROOPS, and has a wife at my house; he is about 5 feet 8 or 9 +inches high, speaks well and sensible, says his master's name is Captain +Kealing, from Yorktown, in Virginia. Any person claiming said Negro may +have him, by applying on James Island, to</p> + +<p class="author">James Witter.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Weekly Advertiser</em>, April 2, 1783.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><span class="normal"><em>Brought to the Work House</em></span></h5> + +<p>A Negro Wench named Sarah, of the Popah country 5 feet 1 inch high, speaks +broken English, she has three of her country marks on her cheeks, 30 or 35 +years of age, and says her master's is Timothy Ford, and lives near +George-town; the said Wench SAID SHE WAS CARRIED OFF BY THE BRITISH TO +CHARLESTON.</p> + +<p class="author">John Gerley Warden.</p> +<p>June 21, 1784.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 27, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><span class="normal"><em>Brought to the Work House</em></span></h5> + +<p>A Negro Fellow named Dick of the Eoboe country, five feet five inches high, +35 years of age, speaks good English, says his master's name is <em>John +Hill</em>, and lives near New Charleston in Boston; THE <a id="pg201"></a>SAID NEGRO FELLOW WAS +CARRIED OFF BY A BRITISH MAN OF WAR, TO SAVANNAH IN GEORGIA; he says his +master is dead, but that his old mistress is living:</p> + +<p class="author">John Gerley Warden.</p> +<p>June 21, 1784.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser</em>, July 24, 1784.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>"The following is a List of Two Hundred and Forty-one Negroes that were +taken off AT THE EVACUATION OF CHARLESTON, in one transportship the +Scimtar. <em>They were put on board by Colonel Muncreef and carried to</em> <span class="sc">St. +Lucia</span>. Their families were also carried off at the same time in different +vessels."<sup><a href="#fn2-5-8-1" id="fna2-5-8-1">1</a></sup></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Gazette of the State of South Carolina</em>, + November 22 and December 6, 1784.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p id="fn2-5-8-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-5-8-1">return</a>]</span>1. The list is not given here for the reason that the names are not +written in full. They are such as: "Cato," "Pompey," "Cicero," "Sam," etc.</p></div> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-9"> +<h3>Relations Between the Slaves and the French During the Colonial Wars</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Run-away the 2nd of July from Richard Colegate, of Kent County on Delaware, +a Molatto Man, named James Wenyam, of Middle Stature, about 37 Years of +Age, has a red Beard a Scar on one Knee: Had on when he went away, a Kersey +Jacket, a Pair of Plain Breeches, a Tow Shirt, and a Felt Hat. He swore +when he went away to a Negro Man, whom he wanted to go with him, that he +had often been in the back Woods with his Master, AND THAT HE WOULD GO TO +THE FRENCH AND INDIANS AND FIGHT FOR THEM. Whoever secures the said Molatto +Man, and gives Notice thereof to his Master, or to Abraham Gooding, Esq.; +or to the High Sheriff of New Castle County, so that his Master may have +him again, shall have Three Pounds Reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Richard Colegate.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, July 31, 1746.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Pistoles Reward</h5> +<p>Kent County Maryland, March 19, 1755.</p> + +<p>Whereas there were several Advertisements, (some of which were printed, and +others of the same Signification written), dispersed through this Province, +describing and offering a Reward of Two <a id="pg202"></a>Pistoles, &c. for taking up a +Servant Man, named James Francis, and a Mulatto Man Slave call'd Tobby, +both belonging to the subscriber; and ran away on the 11th Instant:********</p> + +<p>That this Slave shou'd run away and attempt getting his liberty, is very +alarming, as he has always been too kindly used, if any Thing, by his +Master, and one in whom his Master has put great Confidence, and depended +on him to overlook the rest of the Slaves, and he had no Kind of +Provocation to go off. IT SEEMS TO BE THE INTEREST AT LEAST OF EVERY +GENTLEMAN THAT HAS SLAVES, TO BE ACTIVE IN THE BEGINNING OF THESE ATEMPTS, +FOR WHILST WE HAVE THE FRENCH SUCH NEAR NEIGHBORS, WE SHALL NOT HAVE THE +LEAST SECURITY IN THAT KIND OF PROPERTY. I shall be greatly obliged to any +Gentlemen that shall hear of these Fellows, to endeavour to get certain +Intelligence which Way they have taken, and to inform me of it by Express, +and also to employ some active Person or Persons immediately, to take their +Track and pursue them and secure them, and I will thankfully acknowledge +the Favour and immediately answer the Expence attending it.</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Ringgold.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, March 20, 1755.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-10"> +<h3>Colored Methodist Preachers Among the Slaves</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Forty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>A Young negro man slave, the property of the subscriber, named Sam, left +the service of Charles Gosnell near Soldiers Delight, in Baltimore County, +on Sunday last, to whom he was hired; he was seen the same day traveling +towards Baltimore, where he has several relations (manumitted blacks) who +will conceal and assist him to make his escape: HE WAS RAISED IN A FAMILY +OF RELI<a id="pg203"></a>GIOUS PERSONS, COMMONLY CALLED METHODISTS, AND HAS LIVED WITH SOME +OF THEM FOR YEARS PAST, ON TERMS OF PERFECT EQUALITY; the refusal to +continue him on these terms, the subscriber is instructed, has given him +offence, and is the sole cause of his absconding. Sam is about twenty-three +years old, 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, pretty square made, has a down look, +very talkative among persons whom he can make free with, but slow of +speech; HE HAS BEEN IN THE USE OF INSTRUCTING AND EXHORTING HIS FELLOW +CREATURES OF ALL COLORS IN MATTERS OF RELIGIOUS DUTY: Had on and took with +him when he went off, the following clothes, a country-made cloth jacket, +with sleeves, a red under jacket, an old striped vest, and striped Holland +trousers, two pair of coarse linen trousers, one two-linen, and one other +coarse linen shirt, a pair of new shoes, and an old hat; but it is supposed +he will change his clothes with his relations. Whoever will take the said +slave and deliver him to the subscriber, or secure him in Baltimore County +Gaol, shall receive TEN DOLLARS, if taken within ten miles, or any shorter +distance from home; FIFTEEN DOLLARS, if above fifteen miles; TWENTY +DOLLARS, if 30 miles; THIRTY DOLLARS, if above 40 miles; and in the State; +and if out of the State, the above Reward from THOMAS JONES.</p> + +<p>N.B. It is not improbable but that he will endeavor to get over to Dorset +County, on the Eastern Shore. All skippers of Vessels and others are forbid +to hire or assist him in any manner. Baltimore, June 6, 1793.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, June 14, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Went away on the 9th inst. from the subscriber living in the city of +Annapolis, a negro man named Jem, a lively, brisk, active fellow when he +pleases, 28 years of age, about 5 feet 8 inches high, slender made, +rather thin face, has a great hesitation in his speech, and when he +laughs shows his gums very much, takes snuff, one of his legs is sore; he +is very artful and can turn his hand to any thing; he has been used to +waiting, to taking care of horses and driving a carriage, is something of +a gardener, carpenter and bricklayer; IS OR PRETENDS TO BE OF THE SOCIETY +OF METHODISTS, HE CONSTANTLY ATTENDED THE MEETINGS, AND AT TIMES EXHORTED +HIMSELF; he took with him a watch of his own, a fine hat, a new drab +coloured surtout coat, lined about the body with green, light cloth +waistcoat, buckskin breeches; a black coat lapelled is missing from the +house; it is probable he may change his dress; he had some time in the +summer from me a pass for a limited time (three or four days) to go to +Baltimore, it is not improbable but he may get the date altered and +make use of it. Whoever takes him up and delivers him to me, or secures +him in any gaol so that I get him again, shall receive TWENTY DOLLARS. +December 16, 1797.</p> + +<p class="author">James Brice.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, January 4, 1798.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg204"></a>Ran-away from the subscriber on the 19th of October last, Negro Jacob, 35 +years of age, about 6 feet high, smooth face, high forehead, his wool +growing in a peak leaves his temples bare, speaks low and rather hoarse, +had on and took with him when he went away, a brownish cotton coat, a blue +coarse short coat with metal buttons, old breeches, osnabrig shirt, and a +match coat blanket; his Sunday apparel, a purple cloth coat with rimmed +buttons, nankeen breeches, mixed worsted stockings, and half boots; HE +PROFESSES TO BE A METHODIST, AND HAS BEEN IN THE PRACTICE OF PREACHING OF +NIGHTS; it is expected he is harbouring about the city of Annapolis, West +river, South river, South river Neck, or Queen Anne, as he has a wife at +Miss Murdoch's. Whoever takes up and secures said fellow in any gaol so +that I get him again, shall receive the above reward paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Gibbs, <span class="normal">living near +Queene Anne</span>.</p> + +<p>N.B. All masters of vessels and others are forewarned harbouring employing +or carrying off said fellow at their peril.</p> + +<p>March 7, 1800.</p> <p class="author">T. G.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, September 4, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Ran away from the subscriber, living in Anne Arundel county, on the 21st +of February, a negro man named Dick, about forty years of age, five feet +six inches high, round full face, large eyes, very bow legged, slow of +speech, and fond of smoking a pipe, HE IS A METHODIST PREACHER, took along +with him a country cloth coat, and one gray coloured, and breeches, two +osnabrig shirts, short kersey coat and trousers, shoes nailed. Whoever +takes up the said negro, and secures him in any gaol shall receive the +above reward, and if brought home all reasonable charges paid by me.</p> + +<p>Feb. 24, 1800. </p> + +<p class="author">Hugh Drummond.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, Sept. 4, 1800.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Philadelphia, Sept. 4, 1746.</p> + +<p>Run away on the 16th of July from Thomas Rutter, of this city, a Negro Man, +named Dick, commonly CALLED PREACHING DICK,<sup><a href="#fn2-5-10-1" id="fna2-5-10-1">1</a></sup> aged about 27 Years. * * *</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Rutter.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 4, 1746.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p id="fn2-5-10-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-5-10-1">return</a>]</span>1. It is not known whether Dick was a Methodist or Baptist Preacher.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg205"></a>Forty Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Ran-Away from the subscriber on the 8th of November last, a negro fellow +named Simbo. He was formerly the property of Francis Burns dec. of Onslow +County, HE IS A METHODIST PREACHER, AND CAN READ AND WRITE.--He is about 6 +feet high, very black and smooth skin, and speaks very distinct.</p> + +<p>He is supposed to be lurking some times down Neuse river, and at others up +the same, and so he ranges through Craven, Jones, and Onslow Counties.</p> + +<p>Any person apprehending the said negro, and delivering him to the +subscriber, within five miles of Swansborough, shall be entitled to the +above reward.--Or any person who will so secure him that I get him again, +shall receive Twenty Dollars.</p> + +<p>The most probable method to catch him, will be at Methodist meetings.--All +masters of vessels and others are forewarned from harbouring employing or +carrying him away, at their peril.</p> + +<p>June 27.</p> +<p class="author">Henry Lockey.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Newbern Gazette</em>, August 15, 1800.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-11"> +<h3>Slaves in Other Professions</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RUN away on the 4th inst., at night from</span> <em>James Leonard</em> in Middlesex +County, <em>East-New-Jersey</em>, a Negro Man named <em>Simon</em>, aged 40 Years, is +well-set Fellow, about 5 feet 10 Inches high, has large Eyes, and a Foot +12 inches long; he was bred and born in this Country, talks good English +can read and write, is very slow in his speech, CAN BLEED AND DRAW TEETH +PRETENDING TO BE A GREAT DOCTOR AND VERY RELIGIOUS, AND SAYS HE IS A +CHURCHMAN. Had on a dark grey Broadcloth Coat, with other good Apparel, +and peeked toe'd Shoes. He took with him a black Horse, about 13 Hands and +a Half high, a Star in his Forehead, branded with 2 on the near Thigh or +Shoulder, and trots; also a black hunting Saddle about half worn.</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up and secures the said Negro, so that his Master may have +him again shall have <em>Three Pounds Reward</em> and reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">James Leonard.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 11, 1740.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Whereas Cambridge, <em>a Negro Man belonging to</em> James Oliver <em>of</em> Boston +<em>doth absent himself sometimes from his Master: SAID NEGRO PLAYS WELL UPON +A FLUTE, AND NOT SO <a id="pg206"></a>WELL ON A VIOLIN. This is to desire all Masters and +Heads of Families not to suffer said Negro to come into their Houses to +teach their Prentices or Servants to play, nor on any other Accounts. All +Masters of Vessels are also forbid to have anything to do with him on any +Account, as they may answer it in the Law.</em></p> + +<p><em>N.B. Said Negro is to be sold: Enquire of said</em> Oliver.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Evening Post</em>, Oct. 24, 1743.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Six Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>Absconded on or about the 1st instant, a Negro Fellow, named Pero. He is +remarkably tall being nearly 6½ feet in height, his hands have been +frost bitten, in consequence of which he has lost several of his finger +nails. He speaks the French and English languages; PASSES FOR A DOCTOR +AMONG PEOPLE OF HIS COLOR, AND IT IS SUPPOSED PRACTICES IN THAT CAPACITY +ABOUT TOWN. The above reward will be paid on his delivery at the +Work-House, or the Subscriber</p> + +<p class="author">James George.</p> + +<p>N.B. All masters of vessels are forewarned from carrying him off the State +as they will be prosecuted to the utmost rigor of the law.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser</em>, June 22, 1797.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="article" id="a2-5-12"> +<h3>Close Relations of the Slaves and Indentured Servants</h3> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Run away in April last from Richard Tilghman of Queen Anne County in +Maryland a Mulatto slave, Named <span class="sc">Richard Molson</span>, of Middle stature, about +forty years old, and has had the Small Pox, HE IS IN COMPANY WITH A WHITE +WOMAN NAMED MARY, WHO IS SUPPOSED NOW GOES FOR HIS WIFE; AND A WHITE MAN +NAMED <em>GARRETT CHOISE</em>, AND <em>JANE</em> HIS WIFE, which said White People are +servants to some Neighbors of the said <span class="sc">Richard Tilghman</span>. The said fugatives +are Supposed to be gone to <span class="sc">Carolinas</span> or some other of his Majesty's +Plantations in <span class="sc">America</span>. Whoever shall apprehend the said Fugatives and +cause them to be committed into safe custody, and give Notice thereof to +their Owners shall be well rewarded. The White man has one of his fore +fingers disabled.</p> + +<p>Whoever shall carry them to the Sheriff of <span class="sc">Philadelphia</span> shall have Twenty +Pounds current money paid him or them or shall convey the Molatta to the +said sheriff shall have Ten Pounds, or <a id="pg207"></a>whoever shall convey the Molatta to +the said <span class="sc">Richard Tilghman</span> shall have Fifteen Pounds reward.--</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Weekly Mercury</em> (Philadelphia), Aug. 11, Aug. 25 and + Sept. 1, 1720.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RAN away from the Subscribers</span> in <em>Baltimore County</em> in <em>Maryland</em>, a Negro +Man named Charles, of middle stature, aged about 28 or 30 Years, talks +tolerable English: Had on when he went away, an Ozenbrigs Frock with brass +Buttons on it, dark colour'd Kersey Jacket, a Cotton Jacket, old Leather +Breeches, Ozenbrig Trowsers, Felt Hat, and old Shoes. HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE +IN COMPANY WITH TWO SERVANT MEN belonging to <em>John Fuller</em>, sen., the one +of them is a Scotch Man, named <em>James M'Cornet</em>, of middle stature, age +about 26 Years, long black Hair if not cut off, and a black Beard; has with +him a dark Kersey Jacket and a Cotton Jacket, old Leather Breeches, a pair +of Ozenbrigs Trowsers and a pair of Crocus Trowsers, Ozenbrigs Shirt and a +Dowlass Shirt, Country made Shoes and Stockings and an old Felt Hat bound +round with the same. The other named <em>Charles King</em> of middle Stature, aged +about 23 Years; has with him a Drugget Coat much worn, of a Cinnamon +Colour, Cotton Jacket, Leather Breeches with Pewter Buttons on one Knee +covered with Leather and none on the other, two ozenbrigs Shirts, a pair of +Trowsers, Country made Shoes and Stockings of a bluish grey Colour, topt +with black and white Yarn.</p> + +<p>NOTE James M'Connet speaks broad Scotch very thick, and snuffles a little.</p> + +<p>Whoever takes up the said Negro together with his Companions, shall have +Twenty Shillings Reward for each besides what the Law directs paid by us</p> + +<p class="author">Darby Hernly<br /> +John Fuller.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Philadelphia Gazette</em>, June 26, 1740.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>Run away 21st of August, from the Subscribers, of Kingsess, Philadelphia +County, A WHITE MAN AND A NEGRO, IT IS SUPPOSED THEY ARE GONE TOGETHER, the +White Man's Name is Abraham Josep, a Yorkshire Man, a Shoemaker by Trade +aged about 24 Years***</p> + +<p>The Negroe's Name is Tom, of a yellowish colour, pretty much pitted with +Small Pox, thick set***</p> + +<p>Two nights before there were several things stolen, and it is supposed they +have them</p> + +<p class="author">James Hunt<br /> +Peter Elliot.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 10, 1741.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg208"></a><span class="sc">RUN away from Talbot County</span> School, Maryland, on Monday, the 5th of this +instant August, George Ewings, MASTER OF SAID SCHOOL, WHO TOOK WITH HIM A +NEGROE MAN, named Nero and two Geldings, the one of a grey, the other of a +black Colour, the Property of the Visitors of said School. The said Ewings +is an Irishman, of a middling Stature, and thin Visage, is pitted with +Small-pox, and has the Brogue upon his Tongue, and had on when he went away +a light blue new coat.</p> + +<p>Whoever apprehends and secures said Ewings, Negro and Geldings, so that +they may be had again, shall receive a Reward of Five Pounds, Maryland +Currency, paid by the Visitors of said School</p> + +<p>Signed by order,</p> +<p class="author">William Goldsborough, <span class="normal">Register of Said School.</span></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 15, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away on Saturday the 26th of October, from Cadwalder, +of Trenton, a Negro Man, named Sam, a likely Fellow, about 26 +Years of Age, speaks very good English: Had on when he went +away, a good Duroy Coat, a fine Hat, almost new, a Pair of good +Leather Breeches with Trowsers over them; but as he has other +Clothes with him, he may have changed them since. HE WAS +ENTICED AWAY BY ONE ISAAC RANDALL, AN APPRENTICE +OF THOMAS MERRIOT, jun. They took with them a +likely bay Gelding, six Years old, thirteen Hands and a Half high, +paces well, and is shod before: And they are supposed to have gone +with a Design to enter on board a Privateer, either at New York or +Philadelphia. Whoever takes them up, and secures the Negro and +Gelding shall be rewarded, by</p> + +<p class="author">Thomas Cadwalder.</p> +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Oct. 31, 1745.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away, the 2nd of last month from the subscriber, living at the old town +Potomack, Frederick county, Maryland, a mulattoe servant man named Isaac +Cromwell, about 40 years of age, a tall slim fellow, very smooth tongued, +by which some people may perhaps be imposed upon: Had on when he went away, +a blanket coat, leather breeches, worsted Stockings, new shoes, with brass +buckles on them.</p> + +<p>RUN AWAY AT THE SAME TIME, AN ENGLISH SERVANT WOMAN, named Anne Greene, +about 45 years of age, short and well set, one of her legs much shorter +than the other, much <a id="pg209"></a>pock-marked: Had on when she went away, a white +jacket, striped linsey coat. They took with them the following goods, viz. +blankets, a striped cotton gown, and petticoat, several shirts and skirts, +with other clothing, too tedious here to mention, also a small bay horse +not branded, a large bay pacing horse, his hind feet both white, about 7 +years old, branded on the near buttock with a heart and a T through it; and +a small old black horse, his brand not known, with some white spots on his +back. Whoever takes up the said servants, and secures them, so that their +master may have them again, shall have Five Pounds, if taken in Maryland, +and if in Pennsylvania, or the Jerseys, Seven Pounds and reasonable +Charges, paid by Thomas Cresap or James Whitehead, Work-house-keeper in +Philadelphia.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, June 1, 1749.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><span class="sc">RUN away from Francis Mines, Appoquinimy</span>, New Castle county, a servant +woman, named Ann Wainrite: She is short, well-set, fresh coloured, of a +brown complexion, round visage, was brought up in Virginia, speaks good +English and bold. Had on when she went away, a blue linsey-wolsey gown, a +dark brown petticoat, and a Bath bonnet. She hath taken with her a striped +cotton shirt, and some white ones, a drab coloured great coat, a silver +hilted sword, with a broad belt, and a cane; with a considerable parcel of +other goods: Also a large bay pacing horse, roughly trimmed, shod before, +and branded on the near buttock S.R. THERE WENT AWAY WITH HER, A NEGRO +WOMAN belonging to Jannet Balvaird, named Beck; she is lusty strong and +pretty much pock-broken; had on when she went away, a brown linnen gown, a +striped red and white linsey-wolsey petticoat, the red very dull, a coarse +two petticoat, and calico one, with a great piece tore at the bottom, and +stole a black crape gown: Also a bay horse with three white feet, a blaze +down his face, and a new russet hunting saddle. Whoever takes up the above +mentioned women and horses, and secures them, so as they may be had again, +shall have Four Pounds reward and reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Francis Mines<br /> +Jannet Balvaird.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Oct. 8, 1747.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN AWAY from the subscriber, on Elkridge, in Anne Arundel county, +Maryland, TWO WHITE SERVANTS, AND A NEGRO;<a id="pg210"></a> one of the servants named John +Wright, a shoemaker by trade, has a red nose, and a crooked finger; Had on, +an ozenbrigs shirt, and breeches of the same, and a dark colour'd coat, +with a large cape. The other a Yorkshire-man, named William Cherryhome, a +stout fellow, with yellowish hair: Had on ozenbrigs shirts and trowsers, a +white fustian coat: they both have hats and shirts. The Negro named Sam, is +a lusty young fellow, with large scars on his breast and back. Whoever +takes up and secures the said servants and Negro, so that they may be had +again, shall have NINE POUNDS, besides what the law allows, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">JOHN HAMMOND.</p> + +<p>N.B. They were seen coming from Lancaster to Philadelphia.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 2, 1750.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away from James West, the first of April last a servant man, named +Willis M'Coy, a small short fellow, his right eye looks red; he had on when +he went away, a blue jacket and a striped flannel jacket under it, a pair +of trowsers, and under them a pair of cloth breeches, too long for him, and +were ripped at the knee; he had two shirts on, one ozenbrigs, the other +check linnen, he is supposed to have run away with a Negro man, named Toby, +WHO LEFT HIS MASTER THE SAME DAY THE OTHER DID; the Negro has a dark +coloured duffil great coat much torn, he is a lusty well-set fellow, +betwixt 40 and 50 years old, has sundry jackets, and coarse and fine +shirts; they have no doubt changed their apparel; the Negro speaks good +English, born in Philadelphia. Whoever takes up the white servant, shall +have Three Pounds reward, and reasonable charges, paid by James West; and +whoever takes up the Negroe above, shall have Forty Shillings paid by James +Mockey, and Charges.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 2, 1750.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RUN away from the Subscriber, living at <em>Cambridge</em> in Dorchester County, +on the 15th of this Instant July, a dark Mulatto Man Slave, named Prince: +HE WENT OFF IN COMPANY WITH A WHITE SERVANT MAN whose name is John, but his +surname forgot, belonging to Mr. William Horner, Merchant of the same Town. +The said slave is of middle Stature, well made, well featured, and is a +pert lively Fellow and plays well on the Banjer. He had on a country Linnen +Shirt, short Linnen Breeches, and an old Felt Hat.</p> + +<p><a id="pg211"></a>Whoever takes up the said slave and brings him to the Subscriber, shall +have Four Pounds Reward, besides what the Law allows paid by</p> + +<p class="author">John Woollford.</p> + +<p>If the White Man is secured, so that he may be had again, I doubt not but +they who secure him will have a handsome Reward paid by <em>William Homer</em>.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, July 25, 1754.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>RAN away from Jonathan Sergeant, at Newark, in New-Jersey, A young Negro +man, named Esop, of middle size, with round forehead, strait nose, and a +down guilty look; he can write, and it is likely he may have a counterfeit +pass: Had with him a beaver hat, light grey linsey-wolsey jacket, tow +trowsers, new pumps, and an old purple colour'd waistcoat. IT IS SUPPOSED +HE WENT AWAY IN COMPANY WITH A WHITE MAN, named John Smith, who is an old +lean, tall man, with a long face and nose, and strait brown hair; who had +on an old faded snuff-coloured coat. Whoever takes up and secures said man +and Negro, so that their master may have them again, shall have Forty +Shillings reward for each and all reasonable Charges, paid by</p> + +<p class="author"> Jonathan Sergeant.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Aug. 28, 1755.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Forty Shillings Reward</h5> + +<p>Run away from the manor of Eaton in Suffolk County on the 18th of November, +a negro named Caesar, about 40 Years of age, near 5 feet 8 inches high; has +thick lips, bandy legs, walks lame, and speaks very bad English; had on +when he went away, a blue jacket, check flannel shirt, tow Cloth trowsers, +black and white yarn stockings, half worn shoes, and an old felt hat; has +formerly lived in some part of West Jersey, where 'tis suspected he is +gone; HE WENT OFF IN COMPANY WITH ONE THOMAS CORNWELL, WHO CALLS HIMSELF A +BRISTOL MAN, and who 'tis feared has forged a pass for the Negro. Whoever +secures the Negro so that the subscriber may have him again, shall have the +above reward and all reasonable Charges, paid by</p> <p class="author">John Sloss Hobart.</p> + +<p>All masters of vessels, and others are forbid to conceal or transport said +Negro at their peril.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy</em>, Dec. 5, 1765.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg212"></a>RAN away on the 25th of April last, from a Mine Bank, belonging to +<em>Alexander Lawson</em> and Company, in <em>Anne Arundel</em> County, near <em>Elk Ridge</em>, +Landing, a Convict Servant Fellow, who came in the County last Year in +Captain <em>James Dobbins:</em> He is an Englishman about 6 Feet high, and of a +black complexion. Had on two Cotton Jackets, the under one without Sleeves, +a Pair of Cotton Breeches, an Osnabrigs Shirt, a Felt Hat, a white Linnen +Cap, a Silk Handkerchief, white Yarn Stockings, and Country made Shoes.</p> + +<p>A NEGRO FELLOW BELONGING TO THE SAID COMPANY WENT AWAY WITH HIM, who is +acquainted with the back Roads, and is supposed to be conducting him that +Way. He is about 5 Feet 6 Inches high, pretty aged, and speaks good +English. Had on a Cotton Jacket and Breeches, and Osnabrigs Shirt, an old +Felt Hat, a white Linnen Cap, white Yarn Stockings, and Country made Shoes. +They took with them a Drugget Coat of a light Colour, lined with Shalloon, +and trimmed with Metal Buttons.</p> + +<p>Whoever apprehends the said two Fellows, and secures them in any Gaol, so +that the Subscriber may have them again, shall have, if taken within the +Province, Four Pistoles Reward, for each, and reasonable Charges, if +brought to <em>Alexander Lawson.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, May 9, 1754.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Fifty Pistoles Reward</h5> + +<p>Annapolis, in Maryland, March 25, 1754.</p> + +<p>RAN away on the 18th Instant with the Sloop Hopewell, belonging to the +Subscriber, William Curtis, Master, the TWO FOLLOWING CONVICT SERVANTS, AND +NEGRO MAN, viz:</p> + +<p>John Wright, a White Man, of a swarthy Complexion, very lusty, talks +hoarse, and is much pitted with the Small Pox.</p> + +<p>John Smith, also a lusty White Man, with short black Hair.</p> + +<p>Toney, a yellowish Negro, and not quite so lusty, pretends to be a +Portugese, speaks good English and pertly, is a good Hand by Water, also +can do Cooper's Work, Butchering, &c. Had on or with him, a Dove colour'd +Surtoot Coat.</p> + +<p>They may have sundry Cloaths, Wigs, Linnen, Cash &c. belonging to the +Captain, as it is believed they have murdered him; and the above Wright was +seen with the Captain's Cloaths on, which were red; though he had Cloaths +of sundry Colours with him: He also had a neat Silver hilted Sword, and +Pistols mounted with Silver.</p> + +<p>The Captain had the Register of the Sloop with him, but he was <a id="pg213"></a>not +endorsed thereon, as he was to return here to make up his Load, and clear +at the proper Office.</p> + +<p>They were seen off Patuxent on the 22nd Instant, at which time the said +Wright assumed Master, and took two Men with them, belonging to Schooner of +Mr. James Dick's and Company one a White Man belonging to Capt. William +Strachan, of London Town, who went on board with some Bread for them, at +which Time they hoisted Sail, and cut their Boat adrift, and carried them +off.</p> + +<p>They had some Lumber on board, such as Staves, Heading, and Plank; also +Rum, Molasses, Sugar, Linnen &C. &C.</p> + +<p>The Sloop is about 45 Tons, Square sterned, with a Round House, with a +Partition under dividing the Cabin and Steerage, the Waste black, yellow +Gunwales and Drift Rails, and the Drift and Stern blue.</p> + +<p>Whoever secures the said sloop and Goods so that the Owner may have her +again, and the three White Servants and two Slaves, so that they may be +brought to Justice, shall have FIFTY PISTOLES Reward, paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Patrick Creagh.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>Maryland Gazette</em>, April 11, 1754.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p>New-York, July 10, 1760.</p> + +<p>RUN away from Dennis Hicks, of Philipsburgh in Westchester County, and +Province of New York, a mulatto man Slave named Bill, aged about 20 Years +has a long sharp Nose, with a black Mole on the Right side of his Face, +near his Nose, has very large Ears, speaks good English, and pretends to be +free, and can read and write well: SAYS HE HAS A WHITE MOTHER AND WAS Born +in NEW-ENGLAND. He is of a middle size, and has a thin Visage, with his +Hair cut off. All person are forbid to harbour him, and all Masters of +Vessels are forbid to carry him off, as they will answer it at their Peril. +TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS Reward for securing him in any Gaol, or bringing him to +me so that I may have him again, and reasonable Charges paid by</p> + +<p class="author">Dennis Hicks.</p> + +<p>N.B. This Fellow was advertised in the New York Papers the 5th of June and +in Newhaven the 11th of June 1759, was afterward taken up in Waterbury, and +was put into Litchfield Gaol, from thence he was brought to Belford, and +there made his escape from his master again. Those who apprehend him are +desired to <a id="pg214"></a>secure him in Irons. He was taken up by Moses Fort, of North +Waterbury in New England. It is likely he will change his Cloaths as he did +before. The Mole above mentioned is something long.</p> + +<p>N.B. By information he was in Morris County in the Jerseys all the Winter; +and said he would enlist in the provincial service.<sup><a href="#fn2-5-12-1" id="fna2-5-12-1">1</a></sup>]</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Gazette</em>, Aug. 11, 1760.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p id="fn2-5-12-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna2-5-12-1">return</a>]</span>1. This advertisement appears under another heading on page 199.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Ten Pistoles Reward</h5> + +<p>Kent County Maryland, March 19, 1755.</p> + +<p>WHEREAS THERE WERE SEVERAL Advertisements, (some of which were printed, and +others of the same Signification written), dispersed through this Province, +describing and offering a Reward of Two Pistoles, &c. for taking up a +SERVANT MAN, NAMED JAMES FRANCIS, AND A MULATTO MAN SLAVE call'd Toby, both +belonging to the subscriber, and ran away on the 11th Instant: And whereas +it has been discovered since the Publishing of the said Advertisements, +that they carried with them many more Things than is therein described, I +do hereby again and farther give Notice that the White Man James Francis, +is aged about 21 years, his Stature near five Feet and and half, slender +bodied, with a smooth Face, almost beardless, born in England and bred a +Farmer. The Mulatto is a lusty, well-set Country born Slave with a great +Nose, wide Nostrils, full mouth'd, many Pimples in his Face; very slow in +Speech, he is a tolerable Cooper and House Carpeter, and no doubt will +endeavour to pass for a Free-Man; Each hath a Felt Hat, Country Cloth Vest +and Breeches, and Yarn Stockings: one of them has a light coloured loose +Coat of Whitney or Duffel: The White Man a dark close bodied Coat, a +striped short Vest of Everlasting, another of blue Fearnothing, with other +Cloaths. The Slave has also many other valuable Garments; they took with +them likewise a Gun, Powder and Shot, and are supposed either to cross, or +go down Bay in a Pettiauger.</p> + +<p>Whoever brings the said Servant and Slave to the Subscriber on the Mouth of +Chester River or to Thomas Ringgold at Chester-Town, shall have for a +Reward Ten Pistoles and all reasonable Charges in taking and securing the +said Servant and Slave, paid by<sup><a href="#fn2-5-12-2" id="fna2-5-12-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p class="author">James Ringgold.<br /> +Thomas Ringgold.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Gazette</em>, March 20, 1755.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><p id="fn2-5-12-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fn2-5-12-2">return</a>]</span>2. This advertisement occurs also under the heading of "The Relations of +the French and Negroes."</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5><a id="pg215"></a>One Hundred Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>RAN away from Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland in September last, a +Negro wench named PEGGY, but sometimes calls herself NANCY, about 26 years +of age, talks on the Welsh accent, her complexion of a yellowish cast, the +wool on her head is longer than negroes commonly have: Had on a blue +petticoat of Duffil cloth, old shoes and stockings, her other clothes +uncertain. IT IS SUPPOSED SHE WENT OFF WITH A PORTUGESE FELLOW WHO SERVED +HIS TIME WITH MR. JACOB FUNK: they probably may be in the neighborhood of +Georgetown or Alexandria or gone towards camp, and that she will attempt to +pass for a free woman, and wife to the Portugese fellow. Whoever takes her +up and secures her in any gaol, so that the subscriber get her again, or +delivers her to Daniel Hughes, Esq., in Hagerstown, shall have the above +reward, and reasonable charges,</p> + +<p class="author">John Swan.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, Oct. 19, 1779.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<h5>Six Dollars Reward</h5> + +<p>On Monday night, the 18th instant, ran away, from the subscriber, living +in Montgomery County, near Georgetown, a likely, bright MULATTO MAN named +GEORGE PINTER, about 21 years of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, spare +made, with long bushy hair; he is remarkably talkative, and generally +smiles when spoken to; he had on, and took with him, a drab-coloured +country-cloth surtout, one white broad-cloth coat with plated buttons, one +striped nankeen ditto, two striped silk and cotton waistcoats with gilt +buttons, one pair of blue yarn stockings, all of them about half worn, and +a pretty good felt hat, with a very wide but shallow crown; his other +clothes unknown. It is highly probable he is furnished with a pass and +will assume the character of a free man; he went off, IT IS SUSPECTED IN +COMPANY WITH A COUPLE OF IRISH SERVANTS WHO LEFT THE LITTLE FALLS ON THE +SAME DAY, where they had been at work together for some time past. Whoever +apprehends and secures the said Runaway, in any gaol, so that his master +may get him again, shall receive the above reward, with reasonable +charges, if brought home.</p> + +<p>March 25, 1793.</p> +<p class="author">William Wallace.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser</em>, March 29, 1793.</p> +</div> + +<div class="ad"> +<p><a id="pg216"></a>Westmoreland County, Virginia, Aug. 17, 1749.</p> + +<p>RUN away from subscriber on Monday last, a Convict Servant named Thomas +Winey; he professes farming, was imported lately from Maidstone gaol in +the County of Kent, Great Britain--***</p> + +<p>THE ABOVE MENTIONED SERVANT TOOK WITH HIM A MOLATTOE SLAVE named James, a +well set fellow, 23 years old ************ I have been informed by their +confederates since they went off, that they intend to go to Pennsylvania +and from thence to New England, unless they can on their way get passage +in some vessel to Great Britain where the Molattoe slave pretends to have +an UNCLE WHO ESCAPED FROM HIS MASTER IN THIS COLONY NEAR 23 YEARS AGO, AND +IS SAID TO KEEP A COFFEE HOUSE IN LONDON.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Pennsylvania Gazette</em>, Sept. 14, 1749.</p> +</div></div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a2-6"> +<h2><a id="pg217"></a>Reviews of Books</h2> + +<div class="article" id="a2-6-1"> +<p><em>The Negro.</em> By <span class="sc">W. E. B. DuBois</span>. New York: Henry Holt and Co. 1915. Pp. +254. 50 cents.</p> + +<p>In this small volume Dr. DuBois presents facts to show that, contrary to +general belief, the Negro has developed and contributed to civilization the +same as all other groups of the human race. The usual arguments that the +backward state of Negro culture is due to the biological inferiority of the +race he shows to be without foundation, since these arguments have been +largely abandoned by creditable scholars. Much of the material in the book +has been known for several years to readers of works of scholars on race +questions. As is commonly the case, truths which tend to destroy +deep-rooted prejudices reach general readers with considerable slowness. +While it is not possible to treat but briefly a large subject in such small +compass, the facts set forth by the author will put many persons on their +guard against individuals who continue to spread misinformation about the +Negro race.</p> + +<p>The book is divided into twelve chapters, contains a helpful index, has a +topically arranged list of books suggested for further reading, and an +index. All of the chapters make interesting reading; but those treating of +the achievements in state building and general culture of the ancient +African Negro are especially stimulating. The author points out that in +Egypt, both as mixed Semitic-Negroids and pure blacks from Ethiopia, Negro +blood shared in producing the civilization of Egypt. Another center of +Negro civilization was the Soudan. There strong Negro empires like Songhay +and Melle developed under Mohammedan influence and existed for many +centuries. In West Africa there was a flourishing group of Negro city +states, the most famous of these being the Yoruban group. Recent +discoveries of Frobenius in these parts of the continent show that the +people reached a high stage of development in the terra cotta, bronze, +glass, weaving, and iron industry. In the regions about the Great Lakes, +inhabited largely by the Bantu, are found many worked over gold and silver +mines, old irrigation systems, remains of hundreds of groups of stone +buildings and fortifications. The author explains that the decline of this +ancient culture was due to internal wars, Mohammedan <a id="pg218"></a>conquest, and +especially the ravages of the slave trade. The fact of the existence of +such culture in the past stands as evidence of the capacity of the race to +achieve.</p> + +<p>It is worth noting what the author thinks about "the future relation of the +Negro race to the rest of the world." He states that the "clear modern +philosophy ... assigns to the white race alone the hegemony of the world +and assumes that other races, and particularly the Negro race, will either +be content to serve the interests of the whites or die out before their +all-conquering march." Of the several plans of solutions of the Negro +problems since the emancipation from chattel slavery he tells us that +practically all have been directed by the motive of economic exploitation +for the benefit of white Europe. Because all dark races, and the white +workmen too, are included in this capitalistic program of economic +exploitation, he believes there is coming "a unity of the working classes +everywhere," which will apparently know no race line. But the colored +peoples are more largely the victims of this economic exploitation. In +answer to it the author concludes: "There is slowly arising not only a +strong brotherhood of Negro blood throughout the world, but the common +cause of the darker races against the intolerable assumptions and insults +of Europeans has already found expression." He expresses the hope that +"this colored world may come into its heritage, ... the earth," may not +"again be drenched in the blood of fighting, snarling human beasts," but +that "Reason and Good will prevail."</p> + +<p class="author">J. A. Bigham.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a2-6-2"> +<p><em>The American Civilization and the Negro.</em> By <span class="sc">C. V. Roman, A.M.</span>, M.D. F. A. +Davis Company, Philadelphia, 1916. 434 pages.</p> + +<p>This volume is a controversial treatise supported here and there by facts +of Negro life and history. The purpose of the work is to increase racial +self respect and to diminish racial antagonism. The author has endeavored +to combine argument and evidence to refute the assertions of such writers +as Schufeldt and agitators like Tillman and Vardaman. But although on the +controversial order the author has tried to write "without bitterness and +bias." The effort here is directed toward showing that humanity is one in +vices and virtues as well as in blood; that the laws of evolution and +progress apply equally to all; that there are no diseases peculiar to the +American Negro nor any debasing vices peculiar to the <a id="pg219"></a>African; that there +are no cardinal virtues peculiar to the European; and that all races having +numerous failings, one should not give snap judgment of the other, +especially when that judgment involves the welfare of a people.</p> + +<p>The work contains an extensive zoological examination of man as an +inhabitant of the world, the differences in the separate individuals +composing races, the forces with which they must contend, the morals of +mankind, and the general principles of human development. The question of +Negro slavery in America is discussed as a preliminary in coming to the +crucial point of the study, the presence of the colored man in the South. +The author frankly states what the colored man is struggling for. Making a +review of the history of the Negroes of the United States, he justifies +their claim to political rights on the ground that they are reacting +successfully to their environment.</p> + +<p>The book abounds with illustrations of prominent colored Americans, +successful Negroes, individual types, typical family groups, arts and +crafts among the Africans, public schools and colleges.</p> + +<p class="author">J. O. Burke.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a2-6-3"> +<p><em>The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina.</em> By <span class="sc">H. M. Henry, M.A.</span>, +Professor of History and Economics, Emory and Henry College, Emory, +Virginia, 1914. 216 pages.</p> + +<p>This work is a doctoral dissertation of Vanderbilt University. The author +entered upon this study to show to what extent the southern people "sought +to perpetuate, not slavery, but the same method of controlling the +emancipated Negro which was in force under the slavery regime, the +difficulties which were met with from without and the measure of success +attained." He was not long in discovering that the laws on the statute +books did not adequately answer the question. It was necessary, therefore, +to determine to what extent these laws were in force and what extra-legal +method may have been resorted to in a system so flexible as slavery.</p> + +<p>One of the first influences discovered was the Barbadian slave code and +then the evolution of slave control from that of the white indentured +servant. Soon then the status of the slave as interpreted by the court was +that of no legal standing in these tribunals. The overseer is then +presented as a Negro driver, referred to in contemporary sources. The +author devotes much space to the patrol system, the various kinds of +punishment, the court for the <a id="pg220"></a>trial of slaves, the relations between the +Negroes and the whites, the question of trading with slaves, slaves hiring +their time, the slave trade, the stealing, harboring and kidnapping of free +Negroes, the runaway slaves, the Seamen Acts, the gatherings of Negroes, +slave insurrections, the abolition of incendiary literature, the +prohibition of the education of the blacks, manumission, and the legal +status of the free Negro.</p> + +<p>The author shows by his researches that although amended somewhat, the +slave code agreed upon in 1740 continued as a part of the organic law. At +times some effort was made to ameliorate the condition of the blacks. The +kidnapping of free Negroes, at first permitted, was later declared a crime, +the murder of a Negro by a white man, which until 1821 was punishable only +by a fine, was then made a capital offence, the court for the trial of +Negroes became more inclined to be just, the privileges of trading and +hiring their time, although prohibited by law, became common, and some +efforts were made to give the blacks religious instruction. At the same +time the Negro suffered from reactionary measures restricting their +emancipation, prohibiting free Negroes from entering the State, and +proscribing their education. The author can see why the rich planters for +financial reasons supported this system, but wonders why non-slaveholders +who formed the majority of the white population, "should have assisted in +upholding and maintaining the slavery status of the Negro with its +attendant inconveniences, such a patrol service, when they must have been +aware in some measure, at least, that as an economic regime it was a +hindrance to their progress."</p> + +<p>In this study the author found nothing "to indicate that there was any +movement or any serious discussion of the advisability of abolishing +slavery or devising any plan that would eventually lead to it." In that +State there never were many anti-slavery inhabitants. The Quakers who came +into the State soon left and the Germans, who at first abstained from +slavery, finally yielded. There probably was an academic deprecation of the +evils of the institution but hardly any tendency toward agitation; and if +there had been such, the promoters would not have secured support among the +leading people. A few men like Judge O'Neall favored the emancipation of +worthy slaves, but the agitation from without gave this sentiment no chance +to grow. Yet the author is anxious not to leave the impression that, had it +not been for outside interference, slavery in South Carolina would have +been modified. This would <a id="pg221"></a>not have happened, he contended, because unlike +the States of North Carolina and Virginia, South Carolina did not find +slaves less valuable. The condition of the slave in the upper country was +better than that in the low lands, but no section of the State showed signs +of abolition.</p> + +<p>This work is a well-documented dissertation. It has an appendix containing +valuable documents, and a critical bibliography of the works consulted. It +could have been improved by digesting documents which appear almost in full +throughout the work. Another defect is that it has no index.</p> + +<p class="author">C. B. Walter.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a2-6-4"> +<p><em>Gouldtown</em>. By <span class="sc">William Steward, A.M.</span>, and <span class="sc">Rev. Theophilus G. Steward, D.D.</span> +J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1913. 237 pages. $2.50.</p> + +<p>There are hundreds of thousands of mulattoes in the United States. Anyone +interested in this group of the American people will find many illuminating +and suggestive facts in Gouldtown. It is the history of the descendants of +Lord Fenwick, who was a major in Oliver Cromwell's army, and of Gould a +Negro man. Fenwick's will of 1683 contains the following: "I do except +against Elizabeth Adams of having any ye leaste part of my estate, unless +the Lord open her eyes to see her abdominable transgression against him, me +and her good father, by giving her true repentance, and forsaking yt +<em>Black</em> yt hath been ye ruin of her, and becoming penitent for her sins; +upon yt condition only I do will and require my executors to settle five +hundred acres of land upon her." Elizabeth did not forsake this Negro by +the name of Gould and the remarkable mulatto group of Gouldtown is the +result of this marriage. Gouldtown is a small settlement in southwest New +Jersey.</p> + +<p>In 1910 there were 225 living descendants from this union scattered +throughout the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific; many in +Canada, others in London, Liverpool, Paris, Berlin and Antwerp. For over +200 years these descendants have married and inter-married with Indian, +Negro and White with no serious detriment except the introduction of +tuberculosis into one branch of the family by an infusion of white blood. +It is interesting to note that crime, drunkenness, pauperism or sterility +has not resulted from these two hundred years of miscegenation. Thrift and +intelligence, longevity and fertility have been evident. In every <a id="pg222"></a>war +except the Mexican, the community has been represented; one member of the +group became a bishop in the A.M.E. Church; one, chaplain in the United +States army, and many, now white, are prominent in other walks of life. +Several golden weddings have been celebrated. Several have reached the age +of a hundred years while many seem not to have begun to grow old until +three score years have been reached.</p> + +<p>If one enters into the spirit of Gouldtown, and reads hastily the dry, +Isaac-begat-Jacob passages, the study moves like the story of a river that +loses itself in the sands. "Samuel 3rd. when a young man went to Pittsburgh +then counted to be in the far west and all trace of him was lost." "Daniel +Gould ... in early manhood went to Massachusetts, losing his identity as +colored." Such expressions are typical of the whole study. A constant +fading away, a losing identity occurs. The book is clearly the story of the +mulatto in the United States.</p> + +<p>Aside from an occasional lapse in diction, it is a careful study with 35 +illustrations and many documents such as copies of deeds, wills, +family-bible and death records.</p> + +<p class="author">Walter Dyson.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a2-7"> +<h2><a id="pg223"></a>Notes</h2> + + +<p>"<em>The Creed of the Old South</em>," by Basil Gildersleeve, has come from the +Johns Hopkins Press. This is a presentation of the Lost Cause to enlarge +the general appreciation of southern ideals.</p> + +<p>From the same press comes also "<em>The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice +Harlan</em>," by Floyd B. Clark. The author gives an interesting survey of the +decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, tracing the +constitutional doctrine of the distinguished jurist.</p> + +<p>The Neale Publishing Company has brought out "<em>The Aftermath of the Civil +War in Arkansas</em>," by Powell Clayton. The author was governor of the State +from 1868 to 1871. Not desiring to take radical ground, he endeavors to be +moderate in sketching the work of different factions.</p> + +<p>From the press of Funk Wagnalls we have "<em>Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; +Musician, His Life and Letters</em>," by W. C. Berwick Sayres.</p> + +<p>Dean B. G. Brawley, of Morehouse College, contributed to the January number +of "<em>The South Atlantic Quarterly</em>" an article entitled "<em>Pre-Raphaelitism +and Its Literary Relations</em>."</p> + +<p>C. F. Heartman, New York, has published the poems of Jupiter Hammon, a +slave born in Long Island, New York, about 1720. Nothing is known of +Hammon's early life. It is probable that he was a preacher. His first poem +was published December 25, 1760. They do not show any striking literary +merit but give evidence of the mental development of the slave of the +eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>Dr. B. F. Riley, the noted Birmingham preacher and social worker, is +planning to bring out a biography of Booker T. Washington. Dr. Riley is a +white man and is the author of "<em>The White Man's Burden</em>," an historical +and sociological work written in behalf of the rights of all humanity +irrespective of class or condition.</p> + +<p>Dr. C. G. Woodson has been asked to write for the revised edition of the +"<em>Encyclopaedia Americana</em>" the article on "<em>Negro Education</em>."</p> + +<p><a id="pg224"></a>The Cambridge University Press has published "<em>The Northern Bantu</em>," by J. +Roscoe. This is a short history of some central African tribes of the +Uganda Protectorate.</p> + +<p>J. A. Winter contributed to the July number of "<em>The South African Journal +of Science</em>" a paper entitled "<em>The Mental and Moral Capabilities of the +Natives, Especially of Sekukuniland</em>."</p> + +<p>In "<em>Folk Lore</em>," September 30, 1915, appeared "<em>Some Algerian +Superstitions noted among the Shawai Berbers of the Aurès Mountains and +their Nomad Neighbors</em>."</p> + +<p>Murray has published in London "<em>A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti</em>" +in two volumes, by W. W. Claridge. The introduction is written by the +Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Hugh Clifford. It covers the period from +the earliest times to the commencement of the present century. The volume +commences with an account of the Akan tribes and their existence in two +main branches--Fanti and Ashanti. Beginning with the early voyages, the +author gives an extensive sketch of European discovery and settlement.</p> + +<p>"<em>A History of South Africa from the Earliest Days to the Union</em>," by W. C. +Scully, has appeared under the imprint of Longmans, Green and Company.</p> + +<p>Fisher Unwin has published "<em>South West Africa</em>," by W. Eveleigh. The +volume gives a brief account of the history, resources and possibilities +of that country.</p> +</div> +<hr /> + +<div class="article" id="a2-8"> +<h2><a id="pg225"></a>How the Public Received The Journal of Negro History</h2> + + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I thank you cordially for sending me a copy of the first issue of <span class="sc">The +Journal of Negro History</span>. It is a real pleasure to see a journal of this +kind, dignified in form and content, and conforming in every way to the +highest standards of modern historical research. You and your colleagues +are to be congratulated on beginning your enterprise with such promise, and +you certainly have my very best wishes for the future success of an +undertaking so significant for the history of Negro culture in America and +the world.</p> + +<p>I feel it a duty to assist concretely in work of this kind, and accordingly +I enclose my check for sixteen dollars, of which fifteen dollars are in +payment of a life membership fee in the Association for the Study of Negro +Life and History, and one dollar for a year's subscription to the <span class="sc">Journal</span>.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very sincerely yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">J. E. Spingarn</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>Thank you for sending me the first number of your QUARTERLY JOURNAL. Mr. +Bowen had already loaned me his copy and I had been meaning to write to +you, stating how much I liked the looks of the magazine, the page, the +print, and how good the matter of this first number seemed to me to be. I +am going to ask the library here to subscribe to it and I shall look over +each number as it comes out. Enclosed is my cheque for five dollars which +you can add to your research fund.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very truly yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Edward Channing,</span><br /> +<em>Mclean Professor of Ancient<br /> +and Modern History,<br /> +Harvard University</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>No words of mine can express the delight with which I am reading the first +copy of your <span class="sc">Journal</span>, nor the supreme satisfaction I feel that such an +organization as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is +in actual and active existence. </p> + +<p><a id="pg226"></a>Inclosed find check for sixteen dollars +for one year's subscription to the JOURNAL and a life membership in the +Association.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very truly yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Leila Amos Pendleton</span><br /> +<em>Washington, D.C.</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>I have read with considerable interest Number 1 of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>. The enterprise seems to me to be an excellent one and deserving of +enthusiastic support.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours sincerely,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">A. A. Goldenweiser,</span><br /> +<em>Department of Anthropology,<br /> +Columbia University</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>Last week I chanced to see a copy of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>, January +number, and while I didn't have opportunity to read it fully, I was very +favorably impressed with it; so much so that I am sending my check for one +year's subscription, including the January number. Allow me to hope much +success may attend this undertaking and that subsequent numbers be as +elegant and attractive as this one.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours very truly,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">T. Spotuas Burwell</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>I want to congratulate you on the appearance and contents of this first +number. It has received most favorable comment from every one to whom I +have shown it. I certainly wish it every success.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours truly,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Caroline B. Chapin</span><br /> +<em>Englewood, N.J.</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Mr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I have examined with more than usual interest the copy of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> which has just reached me through your courtesy. It certainly +looks hopeful and I trust that the venture may prove its usefulness very +quickly. I am sending you my check for a subscription as I shall be glad to +receive subsequent issues.</p> + +<p>Wishing you great success in your editorial position and hoping that the +idea of the organization may be attained, I remain,</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours very truly,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">F. W. Shepardson,</span><br /> +<em>Professor of American History,<br /> +The University of Chicago</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><a id="pg227"></a><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I looked over the first number of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> with much +interest. It bears every evidence of a scientific disposition on the part +of the editor and his board.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours sincerely,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Ferdinand Schevill,</span><br /> +<em>Professor of European History,<br /> +The University of Chicago</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>Your magazine is excellent. I am noting it in the current <em>Crisis</em>.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very sincerely Yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">W. E. B. DuBois,</span><br /> +<em>Editor of the Crisis</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>Enclosed find my check for $1 for one year's subscription to <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>. I am enjoying the reading of the first issue and shall look +forward with interest to the coming of each successive one.</p> + +<div class="closing">With best wishes for the work, I am,</div> + +<div class="closing">Very truly yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">T. C. Williams,</span><br /> +<em>Manassas, Va.</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I have read <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> with pleasure, interest, profit +and withal, amazement. The typographical appearance, the size and the +strong scholastic historical articles reveal research capacity of the +writers, breadth of learning and fine literary taste. Having been the +editor of the <em>Voice of the Negro</em> and knowing somewhat of the literary +capacity of the best writers of the race, I cannot but express satisfaction +and amazement with this new venture under your leadership. I sincerely hope +and even devoutly pray that this latest born from the brain of the Negro +race may grow in influence and power, as it deserves, to vindicate for the +thinkers of the race their claim to citizenship in the republic of thought +and letters. Count upon me as a fellow worker.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours sincerely,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">J. W. E. Bowen</span><br /> +<em>Vice-President of Gammon Theological Seminary</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My Dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I have examined with interest the first number of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro +History</span>, which you so kindly sent me. It is a credit to <a id="pg228"></a>its editors and +contributors and I hope it may continue to preserve high standards and to +prosper.</p> + +<div class="closing">Sincerely yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Frederick J. Turner,</span><br /> +<em>Professor of American History in Harvard University</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I am obliged to you for your copy of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> and am +interested in knowing that you have undertaken this interesting work. I +shall endeavor to see that it is ordered for our library. I should suppose +that if you could manage to float it and keep it going for a few years, at +least, that it would have considerable historical value.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very sincerely yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">A. C. Mclaughlin,</span><br /> +<em>Head of the Department of American History,<br /> +The University of Chicago</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>Thank you for sending me the <span class="sc">Journal of Negro History</span>, which I have +examined with interest and which I am calling to the attention of the +Harvard Library. You have struck a good field of work, and I am sure you +can achieve genuine results in it.</p> + +<div class="closing">Sincerely yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Charles H. Haskins,</span><br /> +<em>Dean of the Harvard Graduate School</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>Please accept my thanks for an initial copy of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> +which you were kind enough to send me. I am delighted with it. Its +mechanical makeup leaves nothing to be desired and its contents possess a +permanent value. It should challenge the support of all forward-looking men +of the race and command the respect of the thinking men of the entire +country regardless of creed or color. I wish you the fullest measure of +success in this unique undertaking.</p> + +<div class="closing">Your friend,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">J. W. Scott,</span><br /> +<em>Principal of the Douglass High School,<br /> +Huntington, W. Va.</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><a id="pg229"></a><em>My dear Mr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I wish to acknowledge the receipt of the first number of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>. I have read it with much interest and congratulate you, as +the editor, upon your achievement. The more I think of the matter, the more +do I believe there is a place for such a publication. The history of the +Negro in Africa, in the West Indies, in Spanish America, and in the United +States offers a large field in which little appears to have been done.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very truly yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">A. H. Buffinton,</span><br /> +<em>Instructor in History, Williams College</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>My dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>A copy of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span> was received yesterday and I wish to +thank you and the gentlemen associated with you for this magnificent +effort. There is "class" to this magazine, more "class" than I have seen in +any of our race journals. May I say, notwithstanding the fact that I edited +a race magazine once myself, the whole magazine is clean and high and +deserves a place in our homes and college libraries alongside with the +great periodicals of the land.</p> + +<div class="closing">Yours very truly,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">J. Max Barber</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Sirs:</em></p> + +<p>Please find enclosed my subscription of one dollar in cash to <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>, and permit me to congratulate you on your first +publication.</p> + +<div class="closing">Very truly yours,</div> +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">Oswald Garrison Villard</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>The first number of your magazine reached me a few days ago. It is a fine +publication, doing credit to its editor and to the association. I think it +has a fine field.</p> + +<div class="closing">Sincerely yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">T. G. Steward,</span><br /> +<em>Captain, U. S. Army, Retired</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><em>Dear Dr. Woodson:</em></p> + +<p>I have the first number of <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>. Permit me to +congratulate you and to earnestly hope that it may live long and prosper. +It is excellent in purpose, matter and method. If the present high standard +is maintained, you and your friends will not only make a most valuable +contribution to a dire <a id="pg230"></a>need of the Negro, but you will add in a +substantial measure to current historical data.</p> + +<div class="closing">Truly yours,</div> + +<div class="sig"><span class="sc">D. S. S. Goodloe,</span><br /> +<em>Principal, Maryland Normal and Industrial School</em></div> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>"Why then, should the new year be signalized by the appearance of a +magazine bearing the title <span class="sc">The Journal of Negro History</span>? How can there be +such a thing as history for a race which is just beginning to live? For the +JOURNAL does not juggle with words; by 'history' it means history and not +current events. The answer is to be found within its pages...."</p> + +<p>"But the outstanding feature of the new magazine is just the fact of its +appearance. Launched at Chicago by a new organization, the Association for +the Study of Negro Life and History, it does not intend 'to drift into the +discussion of the Negro Problem,' but rather to 'popularize the movement of +unearthing the Negro and his contributions to civilization ... believing +that facts properly set forth will speak for themselves.'"</p> + +<p>"This is a new and stirring note in the advance of the black man. +Comparatively few of any race have a broad or accurate knowledge of its +part. It would be absurd to expect that the Negro will carry about in his +head many details of a history from which he is separated by a tremendous +break. It is not absurd to expect that he will gradually learn that he, +too, has a heritage of something beside shame and wrong. By that knowledge +he may be uplifted as he goes about his task of building from the bottom."</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The New York Evening Post.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>When men of any race begin to show pride in their own antecedents we have +one of the surest signs of prosperity and rising civilization. That is one +reason why the new <span class="sc">Journal of Negro History</span> ought to attract more than +passing attention. Hitherto the history of the Negro race has been written +chiefly by white men; now the educated Negroes of this country have decided +to search out and tell the historic achievements of their race in their own +way and from their own point of view. And, judging from the first issue of +their new publication, they are going to do it in a way that will measure +up to the standards set by the best historical publications of the day.</p> + +<p>The opinions which the American Negro has hitherto held concerning his own +race have been largely moulded for him by others. Himself he has given us +little inkling of what his race has felt, and <a id="pg231"></a>thought and done. Any such +situation, if long enough continued, would make him a negligible factor in +the intellectual life of mankind. But the educated leaders of the race, of +whom our colleges and universities have been turning out hundreds in recent +years, do not propose that this shall come to pass. They are going to show +the Negro that his race is more ancient than the Golden Fleece or Roman +Eagle; that Ethiopia had a history quite as illustrious as that of Nineveh +or Tyre, and that the Negro may well take pride in the rock from which he +was hewn. The few decades of slavery form but a small dark spot in the +annals of long and great achievements. That embodies a fine attitude and +one which should be thoroughly encouraged. It aims to teach the Negro that +he can do his own race the best service by cultivating those hereditary +racial traits which are worth preserving, and not by a fatuous imitation of +his white neighbors.</p> + +<p>At any rate, here is a historical journal of excellent scientific quality, +planned and managed by Negro scholars for readers of their own race, and +preaching the doctrine of racial self-consciousness. That in itself is a +significant step forward.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Boston Herald.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>A new periodical, to be published quarterly, is the journal of "The +Association for the Study of Negro Life and History," a society organized +in Chicago in September, 1915. The commendable aim of the Association is to +collect and publish historical and sociological material bearing on the +Negro race. Its purpose, it is claimed, is not to drift into discussion of +the Negro problem, but to publish facts which will show to posterity what +the Negro has so far thought, felt, and done.</p> + +<p>The president of the association, George C. Hall, of Chicago; its +secretary-treasurer, Jesse E. Moorland, of Washington, D.C.; the editor of +the <span class="sc">Journal</span>, Carter G. Woodson, also of Washington; and the other names +associated with them on the executive council and on the board of associate +editors, guarantee an earnestness of purpose and a literary ability which +will doubtless be able to maintain the high standard set in the first issue +of the <span class="sc">Journal</span>. The table of contents of the January number includes +several historical articles of value, some sociological studies, and other +contributions, all presented in dignified style and in a setting of +excellent paper and type. The general style of the <span class="sc">Journal</span> is the same as +that of the <em>American Historical Review.</em></p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The Southern Workman.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class="letter"> +<p><a id="pg232"></a>An undertaking which deserves a cordial welcome began in the publication, +in January, of the first number of the <em>Journal of Negro History</em>, edited +by Mr. Carter G. Woodson, and published at 2223 Twelfth Street, N.W., +Washington, by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, +formed at Chicago in September, 1915. The price is but $1 per annum. The +objects of the Association and of the journal are admirable--not the +discussion of the "negro problem," which is sure, through other means, of +discussion ample in quantity at least, but to exhibit the facts of negro +history, to save and publish the records of the black race, to make known +by competent articles and by documents what the negro has thought and felt +and done. The first number makes an excellent beginning, with an article by +the editor on the Negroes of Cincinnati prior to the Civil War; one by W. B. +Hartgrove on the career of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards, +mother and daughter, pioneers in negro education in Virginia and Detroit; +one by Monroe N. Work, on ancient African civilization; and one by A. O. +Stafford, on negro proverbs. The reprinting of a group of articles on +slavery in the <em>American Museum</em> of 1788 by "Othello," a negro, and of +selections from the <em>Baptist Annual Register,</em> 1790-1802, respecting negro +Baptist churches, gives useful aid toward better knowledge of the American +negro at the end of the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p class="cite"><em>The American Historical Review.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<div id="issue3" class="issue"> +<div id="tp3" class="tp"> +<h1 class="title"><a id="pg233"></a>The Journal <br />of<br /> Negro History</h1> + +<p class="byline">Edited By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Carter G. Woodson</h2> + +<hr /> + + +<h3 class="vol"><span class="left">VOL. I., No. 3</span> <span class="right">June, 1916</span></h3> + +<h3>PUBLISHED QUARTERLY</h3> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="toc" id="toc3"> +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<ul> +<li><span class="sc">John H. Russell, Ph.D.</span>: <em><a href="#a3-1">Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">John H. Paynter, A.M.</span>: <em><a href="#a3-2">The Fugitives of the Pearl</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Benjamin Brawley</span>: <em><a href="#a3-3">Lorenzo Dow</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Louis R. Mehlinger</span>: <em><a href="#a3-4">The Attitude Of The Free Negro Toward African + Colonization</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Documents</span>:<ul> + <li><span class="sc"><em><a href="#a3-5">Transplanting Free Negroes to Ohio From 1815 to 1858</a></em></span>:<ul> + <li><a href="#a3-5-1">Blacks and Mulattoes</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-5-2">New Style Colonization</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-5-3">Freedom in a Free State</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-5-4">The Randolph Slaves</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-5-5">The Republic of Liberia</a>.</li></ul> + </li> + <li><span class="sc"><em><a href="#a3-6">A Typical Colonization Convention</a></em></span>:<ul> + <li><a href="#a3-6-1">Convention of Free Colored People</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-6-2">Emigration of the Colored Race</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-6-3">Circular, Address to the Free Colored People of the State of Maryland</a>,</li> + <li><a href="#a3-6-4">Proceedings of the Convention of Free Colored People of the State of Maryland</a></li></ul> + </li></ul> +</li> + +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a3-7">Reviews of Books</a></span>:<ul> + <li><span class="sc">Abel's</span> <em><a href="#a3-7-1">The Slaveholding Indians. Volume I: As Slaveholder and Secessionist</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">George's</span> <em><a href="#a3-7-2">The Political History of Slavery in the United States</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Clark's</span> <em><a href="#a3-7-3">The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Thompson's</span> <em><a href="#a3-7-4">Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political, 1865--1872</a></em></li></ul> +</li> +<li><p class="sc"><a href="#a3-8">Notes</a></p></li></ul> +</div> + + +<h3>THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE<br /> AND HISTORY, INCORPORATED</h3> + +<p>41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, PA.<br /> +2223 Twelfth Street, Washington, D.C.</p> + +<p><span class="left">25 Cents A Copy</span> <span class="right">$1.00 A Year</span></p> + +<p>Copyright, 1916</p> +</div> + + +<div class="article" id="a3-1"> +<h2>Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia<sup><a href="#fn3-1-1" id="fna3-1-1">1</a></sup></h2> + + + +<p>Among the quaint old seventeenth century statutes of Virginia may be found +the following significant enactment:</p> + +<p>No negro or Indian though baptized and enjoyned their own freedome shall be +capable of any purchase of Christians <em>but yet not debarred from buying any +of their owne nation</em>.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-2" id="fna3-1-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>"Christians" in this act means persons of the white race. Indented +servitude was the condition and status of no small part of the white +population of Virginia when this law was enacted. While it is not a part of +our purpose in this article to show that white servants were ever bound in +servitude to colored masters, the inference from this prohibition upon the +property rights of the free Negroes is that colored freemen had at least +attempted to acquire white or "Christian" servants. In a revision of the +law seventy-eight years later it was deemed necessary to retain the +prohibition and to annex the provision that if any free Negro or mulatto +"shall nevertheless presume to purchase a Christian white servant, such +servant shall immediately become free."<sup><a href="#fn3-1-3" id="fna3-1-3">3</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg234"></a>If we see in these laws nothing more than precautionary measures against a +possible reversal of the usual order of white master and black servant to +that of black master and white servant, they are nevertheless significant +as commentaries on the extent of the remaining unimpaired property rights +of black freemen. Only in the light of these prohibitions do we see the +full significance of the last clause of the act which reads: "but yet not +debarred from buying any of their owne nation."</p> + +<p>With no evidence beyond this explicit admission in the written law of the +right of free Negroes to own servants and slaves of their own race it could +scarcely be doubted that there were in the colony colored men known to the +framers of this law who held to service persons of their own race and +color. But when the court records are opened and the strange story of the +free Negro Anthony Johnson and his slave John Casor is read and understood +we are forced to a realization of the impartial attitude of the law toward +black masters not only in its outward expression but also in its actual +application. The story of the relation of these two black settlers in the +young colony is worth relating in the quaint language of the times word for +word as it appears in the manuscript records.</p> +<blockquote> +<p> The deposition of Capt. Samll. Goldsmyth taken in open court 8th of + March [16]54 sayeth that being att ye house of Anth. Johnson Negro + about ye beginning of November last to receive a Hogsd of tobac, a + negro called Jno. Casor came to this depo[nen]t & told him yt hee came + into Virginia for seaven or eight years of Indenture; yt hee had + demanded his freedome of Antho. Johnson his mayster & further sd yt + hee had kept him his serv[ant] seaven years longer than hee should or + ought; and desired that this Depont would see yt hee might have noe + wronge; whereupon your depont demanded of Anth. Johnson his Indenture. + the sd Johnson answered hee never saw any. The negro Jno. Casor + replyed when hee came in he had an Indenture. Anth. Johnson sd hee had + ye Negro for his life, but Mr. Robert & George Parker sd they knewe + that ye sd Negro had an Indenture in one Mr. S[andys?] hand on ye + other side of ye Baye. Further sd Mr. Robert Parker & his <a id="pg235"></a>Brother + George sd (if the sd. Anth. Johnson did not let ye negro go free) the + said negro Jno Casor would recover most of his Cows from him ye sd + Johnson. Then Anth. Johnson (as this dep't. did suppose) was in a + great feare.... Anth. Johnsons sonne in Law, his wife & his own two + sonnes persuaded the old negro Anth. Johnson to sett the sd. Jno. + Casor free ... more sth not.</p> + +<p> Samll Goldsmyth.</p> + +<p> Eight March Anno 1654.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-4" id="fna3-1-4">4</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>John Casor was not, however, permitted to enjoy long his freedom. Johnson +decided to petition the county court to determine whether John Casor was a +slave for life or a servant "for seven years of indenture." The court +record of the suit is as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> Whereas complaint was this daye made to ye court by ye humble peticion + of Anth. Johnson Negro ag[ains]t Mr. Robert Parker that hee detayneth + one John Casor a Negro the plaintiffs Serv[an]t under pretense yt + the sd Jno. Casor is a freeman the court seriously considering & + maturely weighing ye premises doe fynd that ye sd Mr. Robert Parker + most unrightly keepeth ye sd Negro John Casor from his r[igh]t + mayster Anth. Johnson as it appeareth by ye Deposition of Capt. Samll + Gold smith & many probable circumstances. be it therefore ye + Judgement of ye court & ordered that ye sd Jno. Casor negro, shall + forthwith bee turned into ye service of his sd master Anthony Johnson + and that the sd Mr. Robert Parker make payment of all charges in the + suite and execution.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-5" id="fna3-1-5">5</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>In thus sustaining the claim of Anth. Johnson to the perpetual service of +John Casor the court gave judicial sanction to the right of Negroes to own +slaves of their own race. Indeed no earlier record, to our knowledge, has +been found of judicial support given to slavery in Virginia except as a +punishment for crime. Additional gleanings from the records show that this +black slavemaster was a respected citizen of wealth and one of the very +earliest Negro arrivals upon this continent, if, indeed, he was not one of +the first <a id="pg236"></a>twenty brought in on the Dutch man-of-war in 1619. Every doubt +of the correctness of this assertion should be banished by a perusal of the +somewhat detailed evidence upon which the conclusion is based.</p> + +<p>The discovery of the fact that Anthony Johnson was a slaveowner led to a +further examination of court records and land patents for additional +information concerning him. In the court records of Northampton County in +1653 it was found recorded that "Anth. Johnson negro hath this daye made +his compl[ain]t to ye court that John Johnson, Senr. most unrightly +detayneth a pattent of his for 450 acres of land (which pattent sd. Jno. +Johnson negro claymeth & boldly affirmeth to bee his land."<sup><a href="#fn3-1-6" id="fna3-1-6">6</a></sup></p> + +<p>A search in the early land patents of the State revealed a grant by the +authorities of the State of two hundred and fifty acres of land in +Northampton County to Anthony Johnson a Negro. The grant was made as "head +rights" upon the importation by the Negro of five persons into the +colony.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-7" id="fna3-1-7">7</a></sup> Still pursuing the record of this black freeman, who was able to +maintain a slave, the following was discovered in the records of the county +court of Northampton:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> Upon ye humble pet[ition] of Anth. Johnson negro & Mary his wife & + their Information to ye Court that they have been Inhabitants in + Virginia above thirty years, consideration being taken of their hard + labor and honored service performed by the petitioners in this + Country for ye obtayneing of their Livelyhood and ye great Llosse + they have sustained by an unfortunate fire with their present charge + to provide for. Be it therefore fitt and ordered that from the day of + the debate hearof during their natural lives the sd Mary Johnson & + two daughters of Anthony Johnson Negro be disingaged and freed from + payment of Taxes and leavyes in Northampton County for public use.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-8" id="fna3-1-8">8</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Subtracting thirty years from 1652, the date of this order of the court, it +appeared that this Negro and his wife were in Virginia in 1622. Examination +of a census taken in Vir<a id="pg237"></a>ginia after the Indian massacre of 1622 and called +"The Lists of Living and Dead in Virginia" revealed the fact that there +were only four Negroes in the colony beside the surviving nineteen out of +the twenty that came in in 1619. The name of one of these four was Mary and +the name of one of the first twenty was Anthony.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-9" id="fna3-1-9">9</a></sup> It may with good reason +be surmised, if it cannot be proved, that Mary became the wife of Anthony +and that in the course of the next thirty years they acquired the surname +Johnson as well as a large tract of land and a slave by the name of John +Casor.</p> + + + +<h3>The Existence of Black Masters after Colonial Times</h3> + + +<p>Some readers may be inclined to regard the case of the slave John Casor as +altogether exceptional and peculiar to an early period in the growth of +slavery before custom had fully crystallized into law. It is true that +similar examples are hard to find in the seventeenth century when the free +Negroes were few in number. But if from the paucity of examples it is +argued that such a case was a freak of the seventeenth century and that +nothing similar could have occurred after slavery became a settled and much +regulated institution, the answer is that slave-owning by free Negroes was +so common in the period of the Commonwealth as to pass unnoticed and +without criticism by those who consciously recorded events of the times. +For abundant proof of the relation of black master and black slave we must +refer again to court records and legislative petitions from which events +and incidents were not omitted because of their common occurrence. Deeds of +sale and transfer of slaves to free Negroes, wills of free Negroes +providing for a future disposition of slaves, and records of suits for +freedom against free Negroes, all relate too well the story of how black +masters owned slaves of their own race, to require additional proof.</p> + +<p>The following record of the court of Henrico County under date of 1795 is +an example of what is to be found in the records of any of the older +counties of Virginia:</p> +<blockquote> +<p><a id="pg238"></a> Know all men by these presents that I, James Radford of the County + of Henrico for and in consideration of the sum of thirty-three pounds + current money of Virginia to me in hand paid by George Radford a + black freeman of the city of Richmond hath bargained and sold unto + George Radford one negro woman aggy, to have and to hold the said + negro slave aggy unto the said George Radford his heirs and assigns + forever.</p> + +<p> James Radford (seal)<sup><a href="#fn3-1-10" id="fna3-1-10">10</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Judith Angus, a well-to-do free woman of color of Petersburg, was the owner +of two household slaves. Before her death in 1832 she made a will which +provided that the two slave girls should continue in the service of the +family until they earned money enough to enable them to leave the State and +thus secure their freedom according to law.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-11" id="fna3-1-11">11</a></sup></p> + +<p>From the records of the Hustings Court of Richmond may be gotten the +account of a suit for freedom begun by Sarah, a slave, against Mary +Quickly, a free black woman of the city. It is worthy of note that no claim +was made by the plaintiff that Mary Quickly, being a black woman, had no +right to own a slave. The grounds for the suit had no relation whatever to +the race or color of the defendant, Mary Quickly.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-12" id="fna3-1-12">12</a></sup></p> + +<p>The only evidence at hand of the kind of relations that existed between +black masters and their chattel slaves is supplied by the word of old men +who remember events of the last two decades before the war. All that have +been heard to speak of the matter are unanimously of the opinion that black +masters had difficulty in subordinating and controlling their slaves. +William Mundin, a mulatto barber of Richmond, seventy-five years of age, +when interviewed, but still of trustworthy memory and character, is +authority for the statement that Reuben West, a comparatively wealthy free +colored barber of Richmond, went into the slave market and purchased a +slave cook, but because of the spirit of insub<a id="pg239"></a>ordination manifested by +the slave woman toward him and his family he disposed of her by sale. James +H. Hill, another free colored man to whose statements a good degree of +credence is due, corroborates in many points this story about Reuben West +as a slaveowner. His statement is that Reuben West was a free colored +barber of some wealth and the owner at one time of two slaves, one of whom +was a barber working in his master's shop on Main Street. So much of these +statements has been confirmed by reference to tax books and court records +that the entire story may be accepted as true.</p> + + + +<h3>A Truly Benevolent Slavery</h3> + + +<p>The type of black master represented by Reuben West or Anthony Johnson must +be distinguished from the colored slaveowner who kept his slaves in +bondage, not for their service, but wholly in consideration of the slaves. +A very considerable majority of black masters, unlike the examples above +cited, were easily the most benevolent known to history. It was owing to a +drastic state policy toward freedmen that this unusually benevolent type of +slavery arose.</p> + +<p>During the last quarter of the eighteenth century slaveowners in Virginia +possessed unrestricted powers to bestow freedom upon their slaves. Under +such circumstances free blacks became instrumental in procuring freedom for +many of their less fortunate kinsmen. They frequently advanced for a slave +friend the price at which his white master held him for sale and, having +liberated him, trusted him to refund the price of his freedom. A free +member of a colored family would purchase whenever able his slave +relatives. The following deed of sale is a striking example of such a +purchase:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> Know all men of these presents that I David A. Jones of Amelia County + of the one part have for and in consideration of the sum of five + hundred dollars granted unto Frank Gromes a black man of the other + part a negro woman named Patience and two children by name Phil and + Betsy to have and to hold the above named negroes <a id="pg240"></a>to the only proper + use, behalf and benefit of him and his heirs forever.</p> + +<p> David Jones (seal)<sup><a href="#fn3-1-13" id="fna3-1-13">13</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Phil Cooper, of Gloucester County, in 1828 was the chattel slave of his +free wife. Janette Wood of Richmond was manumitted in 1795 by her mother, +"natural love" being the only consideration named in the legal instrument. +John Sabb, of Richmond, purchased in 1801 his aged father-in-law Julius and +for the nominal consideration of five shillings executed a deed of +manumission.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-14" id="fna3-1-14">14</a></sup></p> + +<p>Purchases of this kind before 1806 were usually followed immediately by +manumission of the slave. Scattered through the deeds and wills of Virginia +County records in the quarter century ending with 1806 are to be found +numerous documents of which the following is an example:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> To all whom these presents may come know ye, that I Peter Hawkins a + free black man of the city of Richmond having purchased my wife Rose, + a slave about twenty-two years of age and by her have had a child + called Mary now about 18 mo. old, for the love I bear toward my wife + and child have thought proper to emancipate them and for the further + consideration of five shillings to me in hand paid ... I emancipate + and set free the said Rose and Mary and relinquish all my right ... + as slaves to the said Rose and Mary.</p> + +<p> Peter Hawkins (seal)<sup><a href="#fn3-1-15" id="fna3-1-15">15</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Indeed the kindness of free Negroes toward their friends and relatives +seeking freedom afforded such an accessible avenue to liberty that those +vigilant white citizens who desired to preserve the institution of slavery +deemed it necessary to put obstructions in the way. A law which required +any slave manumitted after May 1, 1806 to leave the State within the space +of twelve months was passed in 1806 and remained in force until the war +rendered it obsolete. Forfeiture of freedom was the penalty for refusal to +accept <a id="pg241"></a>banishment. From this act dates the beginning of this benevolent +type of slavery. Free Negroes continued to purchase their relatives but +held them as slaves, refusing to decree their banishment by executing a +deed or will of manumission.</p> + +<p>A pathetic example of this kind was the case of Negro Daniel Webster of +Prince William County. At the age of sixty when an illness forced him to +the conclusion that life was short, he sent a petition to the legislature +saying that he had thus far avoided the evil consequences of the law of +1806 by retaining his family in nominal slavery but that then he faced the +alternative of manumitting his family to see it disrupted and banished or +of holding his slave family together till his death, when its members like +other property belonging to his estate would be sold as slaves to masters +of a different type. He begged that exception be made to the law of 1806 in +the case of his wife and children so that he might feel at liberty to +manumit them.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-16" id="fna3-1-16">16</a></sup></p> + +<p>A similar petition to the Legislature in 1839 by Ermana, a slave woman, +stated that her husband and owner had been a free man of color, that he had +died intestate and that she, her children and her property had escheated to +the literary fund. Scores of similar petitions to the Legislature for +special acts of relief tell the story of how black men and women who owned +members of their families neglected too long to remove from them the status +of property.</p> + +<p>A case more amusing than pathetic was that of Betsy Fuller, a free Negro +huckstress of Norfolk, and her slave husband. The colored man's legal +status was that of property belonging to his wife. Upon the approach of the +Civil War he was blatant in his advocacy of Southern views, thus evincing +his indifference to emancipation.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-17" id="fna3-1-17">17</a></sup></p> + +<p>Feeble efforts were made by the legislature for a score of years before the +war to limit the power of free Negroes to acquire slaves for profit. By an +act of 1832 free Negroes <a id="pg242"></a>were declared incapable of purchasing or +otherwise acquiring permanent ownership, except by descent, of any slaves +other than husband, wife, and children. Contracts for the sale of a slave +to a black man were to be regarded as void.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-18" id="fna3-1-18">18</a></sup> But even this attempt at +limitation was passed by a bare majority of one.<sup><a href="#fn3-1-19" id="fna3-1-19">19</a></sup> Within three years of +the beginning of the War the law was revised to read: "No free negro shall +be capable of acquiring, except by descent, any slave." <sup><a href="#fn3-1-20" id="fna3-1-20">20</a></sup> In the opinion +of a judge who passed upon this law, its object was "to keep slaves as far +as possible under the control of white men only, and to prevent free +negroes from holding persons of their own race in personal subjection to +themselves. Perhaps also it is intended to evince the distinctive +superiority of the white race." <sup><a href="#fn3-1-21" id="fna3-1-21">21</a></sup></p> + +<p>Whatever may have been their object these acts are of more significance +because of the story they tell than they ever were in accomplishing the +emancipation of slaves from masters of the black race. The period of the +existence of the black master was conterminous with the period of the +existence of slavery. By the same immortal proclamation which broke the +shackles of slaves serving white masters were rent asunder, also, the bonds +which held slaves to masters of their own race and color.</p> + +<p class="author">John H. Russell, Ph.D.,<br /> +<span class="normal">(<em>Professor of Political Science, Whitman College, Walla Walla, +Washington.</em>)</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + +<p id="fn3-1-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-1">return</a>]</span>1. Acknowledgments are due to the Johns Hopkins Press for permitting the +use in this article of data included in the author's monograph entitled +"The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865."</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-2">return</a>]</span>2. Hening's Statutes at Large of Virginia, Vol. II, p. 280 (1670). Italics +my own.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-3">return</a>]</span>3. Hening, Vol. V, p. 550.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-4">return</a>]</span>4. Original MS. Records of the County Court of Northampton. Orders, Deeds +and Wills, 1651-1654, p. 20.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-5">return</a>]</span>5. Original MS. Records of the County Court of Northampton. Orders, Deeds +and Wills, 1651-1654, p. 10.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-6">return</a>]</span>6. Original MS. Records of Northampton Co., 1651-1654, p. 200.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-7">return</a>]</span>7. MS. Land Patents of Virginia, 1643-1651, 326.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-8">return</a>]</span>8. MS. Court Records of Northampton Co., 1651-1654, p. 161.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-9">return</a>]</span>9. J. C. Hotten, "Lists of Emigrants to America," pp. 218-258.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-10">return</a>]</span>10. MS. Deeds of Henrico County, No. 5, p. 585.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-11">return</a>]</span>11. MS Legislative Petitions, Dinwiddie County, 1833, A 5123, Virginia +State Library.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-12">return</a>]</span>12. Orders of the Hustings Court of Richmond, Vol. 5, p. 41.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-13">return</a>]</span>13. MS. Deeds of Henrico County, No. 4, p. 692.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-14">return</a>]</span>14. MS. Deeds of Henrico County, No. 6, p. 274.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-15">return</a>]</span>15. MS. Deeds of Henrico County, No. 6, p. 78.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-16">return</a>]</span>16. MS. Legislative Petitions, Prince William Co., 1812, Virginia State +Library.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-17">return</a>]</span>17. <em>Lower Norfolk County Antiquary</em>, Vol. IV, p. 177.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-18">return</a>]</span>18. Acts of Assembly, 1831-1832, p. 20.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-19">return</a>]</span>19. Senate Journal, 1832, p. 176.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-20">return</a>]</span>20. Acts of Assembly, 1857-1858.</p> + +<p id="fn3-1-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-1-21">return</a>]</span>21. Grattan's Reports, Vol. 14, p. 260.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-2"> +<h2><a id="pg243"></a>The Fugitives of the Pearl</h2> + + + +<p>The traditional history of the Negro in America, during nearly three +hundred years, is one in which the elements of pathos, humor and tragedy +are thoroughly mixed and in which the experiences encountered are of a kind +to grip the hearts and consciences of men of every race and every creed. +Just as colonial Americans resented their enforced enlistment for maritime +service under the flag of King George, so it may be assumed that with equal +vigor did the little band of Africans object to a forced expatriation from +their native wilds, even though, as it happened, they were destined to be, +in part, the builders of a great and prosperous nation and the progenitors +of a strong and forward-looking race.</p> + +<p>There are few incidents that distinguish the bondage of the descendants of +that first boat load of involuntary African explorers, that evince, in so +large a degree, the elements alluded to, as do those which cluster about +the story of the "Edmondson Children." There were altogether fourteen sons +and daughters of Paul and Amelia who passed as devoutly pious and +respectable old folks. Paul was a freeman who hired his time in the city. +Amelia was a slave. Their little cabin, a few miles out of the city of +Washington proper, was so neat and orderly that it was regarded as a model +for masters and slaves alike for many miles around. They were thus +permitted to live together by the owners of Amelia, who realized how much +more valuable the children would be as a marketable group after some years +of such care and attention as the mother would be sure to bestow. Milly, as +she was familiarly called, reared the children, tilled the garden, and, +being especially handy with the needle, turned off many a job of sewing for +the family of her mistress. She was entirely ignorant so far as books go, +but Paul read the Bible to her when visiting his loved ones <a id="pg244"></a>on Sunday and +what he explained she remembered and treasured up for comfort in her +moments of despair.</p> + +<p>The older boys and girls were hired out in prominent families in the city +and by their intelligence, orderly conduct and other evidences of good +breeding came to be known far and wide as "The Edmondson Children," the +phrase being taken as descriptive of all that was excellent and desirable +in a slave. The one incurable grief of these humble parents was that in +bringing children into the world they were helping to perpetuate the +institution of slavery. The fear that any day might bring to them the cruel +pangs of separation and the terrible knowledge that their loved ones had +been condemned to the horrors of the auction block was with them always a +constant shadow, darkening each waking moment. More and ever more, they +were torn with anxiety for the future of the children and so they threw +themselves with increasing faith and dependence upon the Master of all, and +no visit of the children was so hurried or full of other matters but that a +few moments were reserved for prayer. At their departure, one after another +was clasped to the mother's breast and always this earnest admonition +followed them, "Be good children and the blessed Lord will take care of +you." Louisa and Joseph, the two youngest, were still at home when there +occurred events in which several of their older brothers and sisters took +so prominent a part and which are here to be related.</p> + +<p>The incidents of this narrative which are reflected in its title are +contemporary with and in a measure resultant from the revolution out of +which came the establishment of the first French Republic and the expulsion +of Louis-Philippe in 1848. The citizens of the United States were +felicitating their brothers across the water upon the achievement of so +desirable a result. In Washington especially, the event was joyously +acclaimed. Public meetings were held at which representatives of the people +in both houses of Congress spoke encouragingly of the recent advance toward +universal liberty. The city was regally adorned with flags and bunting and +illumination and music everywhere. The <a id="pg245"></a>White House was elaborately +decorated in honor of the event and its general observance, scheduled for +April 13. A procession of national dignitaries, local organizations and the +civic authorities, accompanied by several bands of music and throngs of +citizens, made its way to the open square (now Lafayette Park) opposite the +White House. Speeches were in order. Among the addresses which aroused the +large crowd to enthusiasm were those of Senator Patterson of Tennessee and +Senator Foote of Mississippi.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-1" id="fna3-2-1">1</a></sup> The former likened the Tree of Liberty to +the great cotton-wood tree of his section, whose seed is blown far and +wide, while the latter spoke eloquently of the universal emancipation of +man and the approaching recognition in all countries of the great +principles of equality and brotherhood.</p> + +<p>Here and there huddled unobtrusively in groups on the fringe of the crowd +were numbers of slaves. The enthusiasm of the throng, frequently manifested +in shouts of approval, was discreetly reflected in the suppressed +excitement of the slaves, who whispered among themselves concerning the +curious and incredible expressions they had heard. Could it possibly be +that these splendid truths, this forecast of universal liberty, might +include them too? A few of the more intelligent, among whom was Samuel +Edmondson, drew together to discuss the event and were not long concluding +that the authority they had listened to could not be questioned and that +they should at once contribute their share towards so desirable a +consummation.</p> + +<p>Coincident with this celebration there had arrived at Washington the +schooner <em>Pearl</em> with Daniel Drayton<sup><a href="#fn3-2-2" id="fna3-2-2">2</a></sup> as <a id="pg246"></a>super-cargo, Captain Sayres, +owner, and a young man, Chester English, as sailor and cook. Drayton +witnessed the great demonstration near the White House and, as might have +been expected, the sentiment that seemed to have won all Washington found a +natural and active response, for when the news of the purpose of his visit +was communicated by the woman for whose deliverance he had agreed to make +the trip, he was appealed to on behalf of others and consented to take all +who should be aboard by ten o'clock that night.</p> + +<p>The Edmondson boys actively promoted the scheme and, rightly in so just a +cause, abused the privileges which their integrity and unusual intelligence +had won for them. The news was passed to an aggregate of 77 persons, all of +whom faithfully appeared and were safely stowed away between decks before +midnight. Samuel sought his sisters Emily and Mary at their places of +employment and acquainted them with his purpose. They at first hesitated on +account of the necessity of leaving without seeing their mother, but were +soon persuaded that it was an opportunity they should not be willing to +neglect.</p> + +<p>The <em>Pearl</em> cast free from her moorings shortly after midnight Saturday and +silently, with no sign of life aboard, save running lights fore and aft, +crept out to mid-stream and made a course towards the lower Potomac. The +condition that obtained on Sunday morning after the discovery of the +absence of so many slaves from their usual duties may be accurately +described as approaching a panic. Had the evidences of a dreadful plague +become as suddenly manifest, the community could not have experienced a +greater sense of horror or for the moment been more thoroughly paralyzed. A +hundred or more families were affected <a id="pg247"></a>through the action of these seventy +and seven slaves and the stern proofs of their flight were many times +multiplied.</p> + +<p>The action of the masters in this emergency is eloquent testimony that the +fine orations of two days before concerning the spread of liberty and +universal brotherhood had been nothing more than so many meaningless +conversations. When confronted on Sunday morning with the fact that theirs +and their neighbors' slaves, in so great numbers, had disappeared during +the night, the realization of the difference between popular enthusiasm for +a sentiment and a real sacrifice for a principle was borne in upon them and +they found that while they enjoyed the former they were not at all ready to +espouse the latter.</p> + +<p>As a result the day was but little advanced when an excited cavalcade of +the masters, after scouring every portion of the city, broke for the open +country to the North, designing to cover each of the roads leading from the +city. They had not reached the District limits, however, when they whirled +about and galloped furiously in the opposite direction and never checked +rein, until panting and foaming, their horses were brought up at the +wharves. A vessel was chartered and steamed away almost immediately on its +mission to capture the party of runaway slaves.</p> + +<p>Fate, which occasionally plays such strange and cruel tricks in the lives +of men, presented in this instance a Machiavellian combination of opposing +forces, that was disastrous to the enterprise of the fugitives. Judson +Diggs,<sup><a href="#fn3-2-3" id="fna3-2-3">3</a></sup> one of their own people, a man who in all reason might have been +expected to sympathize with their effort, took upon himself the role of +Judas. Judson was a drayman and had hauled <a id="pg248"></a>some packages to the wharf for +one of the slaves, who was without funds to pay the charge, and although he +was solemnly promised that the money should be sent him, he proceeded at +once to wreak vengeance through a betrayal of the entire party.</p> + +<p>Even so, it would seem they might have had an excellent chance to escape, +but for the adverse winds and tides which set against them towards the +close of Sunday. They were approaching the open waters of the Bay and the +little vessel was already pitching and tossing as from the lashing of a +gale. The captain decided that it was the part of prudence to remain within +the more quiet waters of the Potomac for the night and make the open sea by +light of day. Under these circumstances they put into Cornfield Harbor and +here in the quiet hours before midnight the pursuing masters found them.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to realize the consternation felt by the fugitives when the +noise of tramping feet and the voices of angry men broke upon their ears. +They seemed to realize at once that they were lost and many gave themselves +up to shrieks and tears until wise counsel prevailed. Captain Drayton and +his mate were immediately the storm center of the infuriated masters, many +of whom were loud in the demand that summary vengeance be wreaked upon them +and that these two at least should be hung from the yard arm. It was easily +possible that this demand might have been acceded to, had not a diversion +been caused by some of the others who were anxious to locate the slaves.</p> + +<p>To satisfy themselves as to their safety they proceeded to break open the +hatchways when, so suddenly as to create something of a panic, Richard +Edmondson bounded on deck and in a voice of suppressed excitement +exclaimed, "Do yourselves no harm, gentlemen, for we are all here!" Richard +was young, muscular and of splendid proportions and seeing him thus by the +poor light of smoky lanterns, with flashing eyes and swinging arms, leaping +into their midst with an unknown number of others following, some of the +masters experienced a feeling of terror, and dropping their guns,<a id="pg249"></a> scurried +away to safety among the dark shadows of the vessel.</p> + +<p>By the time the others reached the deck, the shock of Richard's strange +appearance had somewhat died away and when Samuel, who was one of the last, +appeared, a sharp blow which, but for a sudden lurch of the vessel, would +have laid him low fell on one side of his head. Drayton and Sayres,<sup><a href="#fn3-2-4" id="fna3-2-4">4</a></sup> who +were witnesses of this incident, were horrified to think that, having not +so much as a penknife with which to defend themselves, these poor creatures +might be brutally murdered, and, notwithstanding the serious aspect of +their own fortunes,<sup><a href="#fn3-2-5" id="fna3-2-5">5</a></sup> protested vigorously against such violence. But for +this timely interference, there is but little doubt that some of these poor +people would have been cruelly if not fatally injured.</p> + +<p>The true condition of affairs, however, was speedily recognized and seeing +there was nothing to fear in the way of resistance, order was soon evolved +out of the general chaos and then came the decision to make an early start +on the return trip. Among the slaves, the reaction from a feeling of hope +and joyous anticipation of the delights of freedom was terrible indeed. The +bitter gall and wormwood of failure was the sad and gloomy portion of these +seventy and seven souls. Among them then there were but few who were not +completely crushed, their minds a seething torrent, in which regret, misery +and despair made battle for the mastery. Children weeping and wailing clung +to the skirts of their elders. The women with shrieks, groans and tearful +lamen<a id="pg250"></a>tations deplored their sad fate, while the men, securely chained +wrist and wrist together, stood with heads dropped forward, too dazed and +wretched for aught but to turn their stony gaze within upon the wild +anguish of their aching hearts.</p> + +<p>Their arrival at Washington was signalized by a demonstration vastly +different but little short of that which had taken place a few days before. +The wharves were alive with an eager and excited throng all intent upon a +view of the miserable folks who had been guilty of so ungrateful an effort. +So disorderly was the mob that the debarkation was for some time delayed. +This was finally accomplished through the strenuous efforts of the entire +constabulary of the city.</p> + +<p>The utmost watchfulness and care was, however, unavailing to prevent +assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish +ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people +as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his +ear.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-6" id="fna3-2-6">6</a></sup> For a few moments all the horrors incident to riot and bloodshed +were in evidence. The air was filled with the screams of terrorized women +and children and the curses and threats of vengeful men. The whole was a +struggling, swaying mass, which for a season had been swept beyond itself +by brutish passion.</p> + +<p>Numerous arrests were made and in due course the march to the jail was +begun with the accompanying crowd hurling taunts and jeers at every step. +While they were proceeding thus, an onlooker said to Emily, "Aren't you +ashamed to run away and make all this trouble for everybody?" To this she +replied, "No sir, we are not and if we had to go through it again, we'd do +the same thing."</p> + +<p>The controversy that was precipitated through the attempted escape, between +the advance guard of abolition and the defenders of slavery, was most +bitter and violent. The storm broke furiously about the offices of <em>The +National Era</em>. In Congress, Mr. Giddings of Ohio moved an "inquiry into +<a id="pg251"></a>the cause of the detention at the District jail of persons merely for +attempting to vindicate their inalienable rights." Senator Hale of New +Hampshire moved a resolution of "inquiry into the necessity for additional +laws for the protection of property in the District."<sup><a href="#fn3-2-7" id="fna3-2-7">7</a></sup> A committee +consisting of such notable characters as the Channings, Samuel May, Samuel +Howe, Richard Hildreth, Samuel Sewell and Robert Morris, Jr., was formed at +Boston to furnish aid and defense for Drayton. These men were empowered to +employ counsel and collect money. Horace Mann, William H. Seward, Salmon P. +Chase and Fessenden of Maine volunteered to serve gratuitously.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-8" id="fna3-2-8">8</a></sup></p> + +<p>Other philanthropists directed their attention to the liberation of these +slaves. The Edmondsons were owned by an estate. The administrator, who was +approached by John Brent,<sup><a href="#fn3-2-9" id="fna3-2-9">9</a></sup> the husband of the oldest sister of the +children, agreed to give their friends an opportunity to effect their +purchase, as he was unwilling to run any further risk by keeping them. He +failed to keep this promise and when Mr. Brent went to see them the next +day he was informed that they had been sold to Bruin and Hill, the +slave-dealers of Alexandria and Baltimore, and had been sent to the former +city. A cash sum of $4,500 had been accepted for the six children and when +taxed with the failure to keep his promise, he simply said he was unwilling +to take any further risk with them. Bruin also refused to listen to any +proposals, saying he had long had his eyes on the family and could get +twice what he paid for them in the New Orleans market.</p> + +<p><a id="pg252"></a>They were first taken to the slave pens at Alexandria, where they remained +nearly a month. Here the girls were required to do the washing for a dozen +or more men with the assistance of their brothers and were at length put +aboard a steamboat and taken to Baltimore where they remained three weeks. +Through the exertions of friends at Washington, $900 was given towards +their freedom by a grandson of John Jacob Astor, and this was appropriated +towards the ransom of Richard, as his wife and children were said to be ill +and suffering at Washington. The money arrived on the morning they were to +sail for New Orleans but they had all been put aboard the brig <em>Union</em>, +which was ready to sail, and the trader refused to allow Richard to be +taken off. The voyage to New Orleans covered a period of seven days, during +which much discomfort and suffering were experienced. There were eleven +women in the party, all of whom were forced to live in one small apartment, +and the men numbering thirty-five or forty, in another not much larger. +Most of them being unaccustomed to travel by water were afflicted with all +the horrors of sea-sickness. Emily's suffering from this cause was most +pitiable and so serious was her condition at one time that the boys feared +she would die. The brothers, however, as in all circumstances, were very +kind and would tenderly carry her out on deck whenever the heat in their +close quarters became too oppressive and would buy little comforts that +were in their reach and minister in all possible ways to her relief.</p> + +<p>In due course they arrived at New Orleans and were immediately initiated +into the horrors of a Georgia pen. The girls were required to spend much +time in the show room, where purchasers came to examine them carefully with +a view to buying them. On one occasion a youthful dandy had applied for a +young person whom he wished to install as housekeeper and the trader +decided that Emily would just about meet the requirements, but when he +called her she was found to be indulging in a fit of weeping. The youth, +therefore, refused to consider her, saying that he had no room for the +snuffles in his house. The loss of this <a id="pg253"></a>transaction so incensed the +trader, who said he had been offered $1,500 for the proper person, that he +slapped Emily's face and threatened to send her to the calaboose, if he +found her crying again.</p> + +<p>Here also the boys had their hair closely cropped and their clothes, which +were of good material, exchanged for suits of blue-jeans. Appearing thus, +they were daily exhibited on the porch for sale. Richard, who was in +reality free, as his purchase money was on deposit in Baltimore, was +allowed to come and go at will and early bent his energies toward the +discovery of their elder brother Hamilton,<sup><a href="#fn3-2-10" id="fna3-2-10">10</a></sup> who was living somewhere in +the city. His quest was soon rewarded with success and one day to the +delight of his sisters and brothers he brought him to see them. Hamilton +had never seen Emily, as he had been sold away from his parents before her +birth, but his joy, though mingled with sorrow, could not be suppressed. He +was soon busy with plans for the increase of their meager comforts. Finding +upon inquiry that Hamilton was thoroughly responsible, the trader consented +to the girls' spending their nights at their brother's home. He was also at +pains to secure good homes for the unfortunate group and was successful in +inducing a wealthy Englishman to purchase his brother Samuel.</p> + +<p>In consequence of an epidemic of yellow fever, which increased in virulence +from day to day, the traders decided to bring the slaves North without +further delay and so a few days later they were reembarked on the brig +<em>Union</em> with Baltimore as their destination. Samuel was the only one of the +brothers and sisters left behind. As he was pleasently situated with humane +and kindly owners, the parting from him was not so sad as otherwise it +might have been. Sixteen days were required for the trip and upon their +arrival they were again placed in the same old prison. Richard was almost +immediately freed and, in company with a Mr. <a id="pg254"></a>Bigelow, of Washington, was +enabled to rejoin his wife and children.</p> + +<p>Paul Edmondson visited his children at the Baltimore jail in company with +their sister.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-11" id="fna3-2-11">11</a></sup> He had been encouraged to hope that in some way a fund +might be raised for their ransom, but it was not until some weeks later, +after they had been returned through Washington and again placed in their +old slave quarters at Alexandria, that an understanding as to terms could +be had with Bruin and Hill. They finally agreed to accept $2,250 if the +amount was raised within a certain time and gave Paul a signed statement of +the terms, which might be used as his credentials in the matter of +soliciting assistance. Armed with this document, he arrived at New York and +found his way to the Anti-Slavery office, where the price demanded was +considered so exorbitant that but little encouragement was given him. From +here he went to the home of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, where he arrived +foot-sore and weary. After ringing the bell, he sat upon the doorstep +weeping. Here Mr. Beecher found him and, taking him into his library, +inquired his story.</p> + +<p>As a result there followed a public meeting in Mr. Beecher's Brooklyn +church, at which he pleaded passionately as if for his own children, while +other clergymen spoke with equal interest and feeling. The money was +raised, an agent appointed to consummate the ransom of the children, and +Paul, with a sense of happiness and relief to which he had long been a +stranger, started with the good news on his way homeward.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the girls were torn with doubt and anxiety as to the success of +their father's mission. Several weeks had elapsed and the traders were +again getting together a coffle of slaves for shipment to the slave market, +this time to <a id="pg255"></a>that in South Carolina. The girls, too, had been ordered to +be in readiness and the evening before had broken down in tears when +Bruin's young daughter, who was a favorite with the girls, sought them out +and pleaded with them not to go. Emily told her to persuade her father not +to send them and so she did, while clinging around his neck until he had +not the heart to refuse.</p> + +<p>A day or two later, while looking from their window, they caught sight of +their father and ran into his arms shouting and crying. So great was their +joy that they did not notice their father's companion, a Mr. Chaplin, the +agent appointed at the New York meeting to take charge of the details of +their ransom. These were soon completed, their free papers signed and the +money paid over. Bruin, too, it is said, was pleased with the joy and +happiness in evidence on every hand and upon bidding the girls good-bye +gave each a five dollar gold piece.</p> + +<p>Upon their arrival at Washington they were taken in a carriage to their +sister's home, whence the news of their deliverance seemed to have +penetrated to every corner of the neighborhood with the result that it was +far into the night before the last greetings and congratulations had been +received and they were permitted, in the seclusion of the family circle, to +kneel with their parents in prayer and thanksgiving.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-12" id="fna3-2-12">12</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg256"></a>In the meantime what had become of Samuel? When Hamilton Edmondson was +seeking to locate his sisters and brothers in desirable homes in New +Orleans, he first saw Mr. Horace Cammack, a prosperous cotton merchant, +whose friendship and respect he had long since won and who, upon the +further representation of Samuel's proficiency as a butler, agreed to +purchase him. In this wise, it came to pass that Samuel was duly installed +as upper houseman in the Cammack home. Although situated more happily than +most slaves he was fully determined, as ever, that the world should one day +know and respect him as a free man, and patiently waited and watched for +the opportunity to accomplish his purpose.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile another element had thrust itself into the equation and must be +reckoned with in the solution of the problem of his after life. It happened +that Mrs. Cammack, a lady of much beauty and refinement of manner, had in +her employ as maid, a young girl of not more than eighteen years named +Delia Taylor. She was tall, graceful and winsome, of the clear mulatto +type, and through long service in close contact with her mistress, had +acquired that refinement and culture, which elicit the admiration and +delight of those in like station and inspire a feeling much akin to +reverence in those more lowly placed. With some difficulty Samuel +approached her with a proposal and, although at first refused, finally won +her as his bride.</p> + +<p>Matters now moved along on pleasant lines for Samuel<a id="pg257"></a> and Delia during +several months, but with the advent of Master Tom, Cammack's son who had +been away to college, there was encountered an element of discord, which +was for a while to destroy their happiness. This young gentleman took a +violent dislike to Samuel from the very first meal the latter served him. +They finally clashed and Samuel had to run away. His master, however, sent +his would-be-oppressor with the rest of the family to the country and +ordered Samuel to return home. This he did and immediately entered upon his +duties.</p> + +<p>The year following, Mr. Cammack went to Europe on cotton business and not +long after his arrival was killed in a violent storm while yachting with +friends off the coast of Norway. After this event, affairs in the life of +Samuel gradually approached a crisis, while in the meantime an additional +responsibility had been added to himself and Delia in the person of a +little boy, whom they named David.</p> + +<p>Master Tom, being now the head of the house, left little room for doubt as +to the authority he had inherited and proceeded to evince the same in no +uncertain way, especially towards those against whom he held a grievance. +To get rid of Samuel was first in order. This was the easiest possible +matter, for there was not a wealthy family on the visiting list of the +Cammacks who would not, even at some sacrifice, make a place for him in +their service. Through the close intimacy of Mrs. Cammack and Mrs. Slidell, +the latter was given the refusal and Samuel told to go around and see his +future Mistress. To her he expressed a desire to serve in her employ but he +was now determined more than ever that his next master should be himself. +Accordingly he proceeded directly to a friend from whom he purchased a set +of free-papers, which had been made out and sold him by a white man. These +required that he should start immediately up the river but upon a full +consideration of the matter he decided that the risks were too great in +that direction. The problem was a serious one. An error of judgment, a step +in the wrong direction, would not only be <a id="pg258"></a>a serious, if not fatal blow to +his hopes, but might lead to untold hardships to others most dear to him.</p> + +<p>Somewhat irresolutely he turned his steps towards the river front, gazing +with longing eyes at the stretch of water, the many ships in harbor, some +entering, others steaming away or being towed out to open water. The +thought that in this direction, beyond the wide seas, lay his refuge and +ultimate hope came to him with so much force as to cause him to reel like +one on whom a severe blow had been dealt. He stood for some time, seemingly +bewildered, in the din and noise of the wharf, noting abstractedly the many +bales of cotton, as truck after truck-load was rushed aboard an outward +bound steamer. The bales seemed to fascinate him completely. A stevedore +yelled at him to move out of the way and aroused him into action, but in +that interval an idea which seemed to offer a possible means of escape had +been evolved. He would impersonate a merchant from the West Indies in +search of a missing bale of goods and endeavor to get passage to the +Islands, where he well knew the flag of free England was abundant guarantee +for his protection. The main thought seemed a happy one, for he soon found +a merchantman that was to clear that night for Jamaica. It was not a +passenger vessel, but the captain, a good-natured Briton, said that he had +an extra bunk in the cabin and if the gentleman did not mind roughing it, +he would be glad to have his company. The first step towards his freedom +was successfully taken, the money paid down for the passage and with the +injunction from the captain to be aboard by nine o'clock he returned +ashore.</p> + +<p>Only a few hours now remained to him, before a long, perhaps a lasting +separation from his dear wife and baby, and thinking to pass these with +them he hurried thence by the most unfrequented route, but had hardly +crossed the threshold when Delia, weeping bitterly, implored him to make +good his escape, as Master Tom had already sent the officers to look for +him. With a last, fond embrace and a tear, which, falling upon that cradled +babe, meant present sorrow, but no less future hope, the husband and father +<a id="pg259"></a>made his way under the friendly shadows of the night, back to the waiting +ship.</p> + +<p>When the officer from the custom house came aboard to inspect the ship's +papers Samuel was resting, apparently without concern, in the upper bunk of +the little cabin.</p> + +<p>The captain seated himself at the center table, opposite the officer, and +spread the papers before him. "Heigho, I see you have a passenger this +trip," and then read from the sheet: "Samuel Edmondson, Jamaica, W.I., +thirty years old. General Merchant."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the captain as he concluded. "Mr. Edmondson asked for passage +at the last moment and as he was alone and we had a bunk not in service, I +thought I'd take him along. He has a valuable bale of goods astray, +probably at Jamaica, and is anxious to return and look it up."</p> + +<p>"Well I hope he may find it. Where is he? let's have a look at him."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Edmondson, will you come this way a moment?" called the captain.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined the subject of this conversation had been listening +intently and now when it was demanded that he present himself, he murmured +a fervent "God help me" and jumped nimbly to the deck.</p> + +<p>"This is my passenger," said the Captain, and to Samuel he said: "The +customs officer simply wished to see you, Mr. Edmondson."</p> + +<p>Samuel bowed and stood at ease, resting one hand upon the table and in this +attitude without the quiver of an eyelash or the flinching of a muscle, +bore the searching look of the officer, which rested first upon his face +and then upon his hand. The flush of excitement still mounting his cheek +and brow, gave a bronzed swarthiness and decidedly un-American cast to his +rich brown color, while his features, clean-cut and but slightly of the +Negro type, with hands well shaped and nails quite clean, were a +combination of conditions rarely met in the average slave. The first glance +of suspicion was almost immediately lost to view in the smile <a id="pg260"></a>of friendly +greeting with which the officer's hand was extended. "I hope you may +recover your goods," were the words he said and, rising, added: "I must be +off." The captain had meanwhile placed his liquor chest on the table and, +in a glass of good old Jamaica rum, a hearty "<em>Bon voyage</em>" and responsive +"<em>Good wishes</em>" were exchanged.</p> + +<p>The subsequent story of Samuel, interesting and adventurous as it is, +scarcely comes within the scope of the purpose of this article. After a +brief stay at Jamaica, Samuel sailed before the mast on an English schooner +carrying a cargo of dye-wood to Liverpool. Two years were passed here in +the service of a wealthy merchant, whom he had served while a guest of his +former master in New Orleans. During the third year he was joined by his +wife and boy who had been liberated by their mistress. Subsequently the +family took passage for Australia under the protection of a relative of his +Liverpool employer, who was returning to extensive mining and sheep-raising +interests near the rapidly growing city of Melbourne.<sup><a href="#fn3-2-13" id="fna3-2-13">13</a></sup></p> + +<p class="author">John H. Paynter, A.M.</p> + + +<h3><a id="pg261"></a>The Edmonsons</h3> +<table summary="Descendents of Paul and Amelia Edmondson" border="1"> +<caption>Descendants of Paul and Amelia Edmondson</caption> +<tr> + <th>Children</th> + <th>Grandchildren</th> + <th>G. Grandchildren</th> + <th>G.G. Grandchildren </th> + <th>G.G.G. Grandchildren</th> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>1. Hamilton Edmonson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>2. Elizabeth Edmonson m. John Brent</td> + <td>1. Catharine Brent m. James H. Paynter '60 d.64</td> + <td>1. John H. Paynter m. Minnie H. Pillow</td> + <td>1. Verden T. Paynter</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Brent Paynter</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Cary Paynter</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Minerva Paynter</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Martha Brent m. Wm. H. Bell</td> + <td>1. Claude DeWitt Bell</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Adelbert Bell m. 1. ---- 2. ----</td> + <td>1. Marie ----</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Albertine Bell</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Amelia Brent m. Garrett Smith Wormley</td> + <td>1. James Wormley m. 1. Lena Champ, 2. Emma Davis</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Garrett Wormley m. 1. Rebeecca Webster, 2. Cora Nickens, 3. Emily ----</td> + <td>1. Amelia Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Julian Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. C. Sumner Wormley</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>4. Edith Wormley m. Harry S. Minton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>5. Smith Wormley m. ---- Cheatham</td> + <td>1. Lowell Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Edith Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>6. Clem Wormley m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. Swan Leon Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Clementine Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>7. Roscoe Wormley m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. Sumner Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Roscoe Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>8. Leon Wormley m. ---- Anderson</td> + <td>1. Elizabeth Wormley</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>4. Emily Brent m. Wm. L. Freeman</td> + <td>1. Corinne Freeman</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Olive Freeman</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Fred Dent Freeman m. Lucy Standard</td> + <td>1. Reginald Freeman m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. ---- Freeman</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a id="pg262"></a></td> + <td>5. John S. Brent m. 1. Margaret, 2. Rebecca</td> + <td>1. Ellsworth Brent m. Jennie Howard</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Marion</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Julia</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>4. Edna</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>6. Rebecca Brent m. John Wright</td> + <td>1. Ella Wright m. James H. Payne</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Ira Wright m. Ruth Taylor</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Marie Wright m. Robt. E. Syphax</td> + <td>1. Francis Ennis Syphax</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Robt. E. Syphax</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>7. Calvin Brent m. 1. Albertine Jones, 2. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. Marguerite Brent</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Ethel Brent</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Ralph Brent</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>4. Alfred Brent m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. Janice Brent</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>5. Clarence Brent m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>6. Ernistine Brent</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>7. John Brent m. ---- Cook</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>8. Wm. Brent</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>3. Ephraim Edmondson</td> + <td>1. Narcissa Edmondson m. George Tossett, 2. ---- Massey</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Oliver Edmondson m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. ---- Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>4. Richard Edmondson</td> + <td>1. Sopheonia Edmondson m. ---- Fairfax</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Sallie Edmondson m. Benj. Freeman</td> + <td>1. Wm. Freeman m. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. George Freeman</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a id="pg263"></a>5. Martha Edmondson m. 1. Edward Young, 2. Levi Pennington</td> + <td>1. Edward Young m. Josephine Johnson</td> + <td>1. Walter Young m. Belle Steves</td> + <td>1. Dorothy Maxwell Young</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Alex. Helene Young</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Elizabeth Martha Young</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>4. Edward Owen Young</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>5. Isabel Young</td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Mollie Young m. ---- Thomas</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>6. Eveline Edmondson m. Wm. B. Ingram</td> + <td>1. Julia Ingram m. Joseph Becket</td> + <td>1. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>Martha Ingram m. Mason Coxton</td> + <td>1. William Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Fred Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Mason Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>4. Joseph Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>5. Mary Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>6. Julia Coxton</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>7. Eva Coxton m. Carl Seward</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>3. Eveline Ingram m. Wm. Johnson</td> + <td>1. Marie Johnson m. ---- Mosely</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>4. William Ingram m. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>5. Joseph Ingram</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>7. Saml. Edmondson</td> + <td>1. David Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Amelia Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>3. Robt. Wellington Edmondson m. Evie Bastien</td> + <td>1. Albion Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Delia Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Hugh Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a id="pg264"></a>8. Emily Edmondson m. Larkin Johnson</td> + <td>1. Ida Johnson m. Jas. Berry</td> + <td>Irene Berry</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Annita Berry</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>3. Wallace Berry</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Fannie Johnson m. Rezin H. Shipley</td> + <td>1. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. ---- ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>3. Emma Johnson m. Wallace Chapman</td> + <td>1. Bernard Chapman</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. Garrett Chapman</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>4. Robt. Johnson m. ---- ----</td> + <td>1. ---- Johnson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td>2. ---- Johnson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>9. Henrietta Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>10. John Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>11. Eliza Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>12. Mary Edmondson</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>13. Joseph Edmondson m. Alice ----</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>14. Louisa Rebecca Edmondson m. Gilbert L. Joy</td> + <td>1. Annita L. Joy m. Wm. A. Clark</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>2. Lula Joy m. Arthur Brooks</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td>3. Gilbert L. Joy, Jr. m. Margaret Jones</td> + <td>1. Corelli Dancy Joy</td> + <td></td> + <td></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + +<p id="fn3-2-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-1">return</a>]</span>1. <em>The Washington Union</em>, April 14, 1848.</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-2">return</a>]</span>2. Daniel Drayton was a native of New Jersey who had spent several years + following the water. He had risen from cook to captain in the + wood-carrying business from the Maurice River to Philadelphia. + Eventually he engaged in coast traffic from Philadelphia southward. + He seemed to have drifted quite naturally from strong humane + impulses, intensified by an old-time spiritual conversion, into a + settled conviction that the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of + man was a reality and that it was his duty to do what he could to + assist those in bondage.</p> + +<p> Latterly his voyages had carried him into the Chesapeake Bay and + thence up the Potomac. His first successful effort to assist the + slaves was made on an earlier trip when he agreed to take away a + woman and five children. The husband was already a free man. The + woman had under an agreement with her master more than paid for her + liberty, but when she had asked for a settlement, he had only + answered by threatening to sell her. The mother and five children + were taken aboard at night and after ten days were safely delivered + at Frenchtown, where the husband was in waiting for them. Memoir of + Daniel Drayton, Congressional Library.</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-3">return</a>]</span>3. The only punishment meted out to Judson Diggs for his act of betrayal, + so far as is known, was that by a party of young men who, shortly + after the occurrence, took him from his cart and after considerable + rough handling, threw him into the little stream that in those days + and indeed for many years thereafter, took its way along the north + side of the old John Wesley Church, then located at a spot directly + opposite the north corner of the Convent of the Sacred Heart on + Connecticut Avenue, between L and M Streets.</p> + +<p> A number of old citizens now living distinctly remember Judson Diggs, + who lived, despised and avoided, until late in the sixties. One of + these is Mr. Jerome A. Johnson of the Treasury Department.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-4">return</a>]</span>4. Memoir of Daniel Drayton, Congressional Library.</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-5">return</a>]</span>5. The case against Drayton and Sayres was prosecuted by Philip Barton + Key, the District Attorney, before Judge Crawford, and on appeal the + prisoners were sentenced to pay a fine of $10,000 and to remain in + jail until the same should be paid.</p> + +<p> English was absolved from all criminal responsibility and given his + liberty.</p> + +<p> After an imprisonment of more than four years they were pardoned by + President Fillmore, to whom such application had been presented by + Charles Sumner.--Memoir of Daniel Drayton.</p> + +<p> The fare at the jail was insufficient and of poor quality and a more + wholesome and generous diet was frequently surreptitiously furnished + by Susannah Ford, a colored woman, who sold lunches in the lobby of + the Court House.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-6">return</a>]</span>6. Stowe, "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-7">return</a>]</span>7. <em>The National Era</em>, April 16, 1848.</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-8">return</a>]</span>8. Memoir of Daniel Drayton.</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-9">return</a>]</span>9. John Brent, the husband of Elizabeth, the oldest of the Edmondson +girls, had first bought himself, earning the money chiefly by sawing wood; +had then bought the freedom of his father, Elton Brent, for whom he paid +$800, and finally bought Elizabeth's freedom, after which they were +married. He purchased the ground at the southwest corner of 18th and L +streets, now owned by his heirs, and erected a small frame dwelling. This +was later enlarged and there the John Wesley A. M. E. Zion Church was +established. He was a laborer in the War Department during forty years and +died in 1885.--From interviews with Mr. Brent and other members of the +family.</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-10">return</a>]</span>10. Hamilton Edmondson was sold in the New Orleans slave market about the +year 1840 and took the name of his purchaser and was thereafter known as +Hamilton Taylor. He learned the trade of cooper and was allowed a +percentage of his earnings, but was unfortunate in having his first savings +stolen. He eventually acquired his freedom through the payment of $1,000.</p> + +<p id="fn3-2-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-11">return</a>]</span>11. He continued in the cooperage business, was highly respected and +became comparatively wealthy, having a place of business on Girard near +Camp street. John S. Brent, who is his nephew and the son of the John Brent +heretofore mentioned in this narrative, spent a week with his uncle, +Hamilton Taylor, in 1865, on his return from Texas, when, as a member of +the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, he was mustered out of the +service.--Interview with John S. Brent.</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-12">return</a>]</span>12. The fame of the Edmondson children through the incident of the <em>Pearl</em> + was now wide indeed, and after the Brooklyn meeting there had been + made many suggestions looking to their education and further benefit. + The movement for the education of Emily and Mary was crystallized + into a definite proposition and they were both placed in a private + school a short distance out of New York. Miss Myrtilla Miner had + already established her school for girls at Washington and had moved + to a new location at about what is now the square bounded by 19th, + 20th, N and O streets. Here, after returning from New York, Emily + assisted Miss Miner in the school and it was in one of the little + cabins on this place that the Edmondson family established their home + after moving in from the country. Miss Miner, speaking of the + establishment of her school at its new location, says: "Emily and I + lived here alone, unprotected except by God, the rowdies occasionally + stoning the house at evening and we nightly retired in the + expectation that the house would be fired before morning. Emily and I + have been seen practicing shooting with a pistol."--Myrtilla Miner, + "A Memoir," Congressional Library; "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p> + +<p> The parents of the children, however, were not yet entirely relieved + of the fears that had so long haunted them, for there were still the + two youngest children, Louisa and Joseph, whom the good mother + frequently alluded to as "the last two drops of blood in her heart," + and although she had scarcely ever seen a railroad train, she + determined to go to New York herself to see what could be done and to + thank the good people who had already brought so much of happiness to + herself and family. While the mother was in that city the girls were + brought to see her and in later years she often delighted to tell of + their happy meeting and of the good white folks who were brought + together to hear her story. She returned to Washington at the end of + a week, carrying the assurance that the money would be provided for + the redemption of the last two of her children.</p> + +<p> Mrs. Louisa Joy, the last of the "Edmondson Children," died only a + short while ago.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-2-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-2-13">return</a>]</span>13. <em>Note</em>.--This personal narrative of Samuel Edmondson was related by +himself at his home in Anacostia where he died several years ago.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-3"> +<h2><a id="pg265"></a>Lorenzo Dow<sup><a href="#fn3-3-1" id="fna3-3-1">1</a></sup></h2> + + + +<p>This is the record of a remarkable and eccentric white man who devoted +himself to a life of singular labor and self-denial. In any consideration +of the South one could not avoid giving at least passing notice to Lorenzo +Dow as the foremost itinerant preacher of his time, as the first Protestant +who expounded the gospel in Alabama and Mississippi, and as a reformer who, +at the very moment when cotton was beginning to be supreme, presumed to +tell the South that slavery was wrong.</p> + +<p>He arrests attention--this gaunt, restless preacher. With his long hair, +his flowing beard, his harsh voice, and his wild gesticulation, he was so +rude and unkempt as to startle all conservative hearers. Said one of his +opponents: "His manners (are) clownish in the extreme; his habit and +appearance more filthy than a savage Indian, his public discourses a mere +rhapsody, the substance often an insult upon the gospel." Said another as +to his preaching in Richmond: "Mr. Dow's clownish manners, his heterodox +and schismatic proceedings, and his reflections against the Methodist +Episcopal Church, in a late production of his on church government, are +impositions on common sense, and furnish the principal reasons why he will +be discountenanced by the Methodists."</p> + +<p>But he was made in the mould of heroes. In his lifetime <a id="pg266"></a>he traveled not +less than two hundred thousand miles, preaching to more people than any +other man of his time. He went from New England to the extremities of the +Union in the West again and again. Several times he went to Canada, once to +the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawing great +crowds about him. Friend of the oppressed, he knew no path but that of +duty. Evangel to the pioneer, he again and again left the haunts of men to +seek the western wilderness. Conversant with the Scriptures, intolerant of +wrong, witty and brilliant, he assembled his hearers by the thousands. What +can account for so unusual a character? What were the motives that prompted +this man to so extraordinary and laborious a life?</p> + +<p>Lorenzo Dow was born October 16, 1777, in Coventry, Tolland County, +Connecticut. When not yet four years old, he tells us, one day while at +play he "suddenly fell into a muse about God and those places called heaven +and hell." Once he killed a bird and was horrified for days at the act. +Later he won a lottery prize of nine shillings and experienced untold +remorse. An illness at the age of twelve gave him the shortness of breath +from which he suffered more and more throughout his life. About this time +he dreamed that the Prophet Nathan came to him and told him that he would +live only until he was two-and-twenty. When thirteen he had another dream, +this time of an old man, John Wesley, who showed to him the beauties of +heaven and held out the promise that he would win if he was faithful to the +end. A few years afterwards came to the town Hope Hull, preaching "This is +a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came +into the world to save sinners"; and Lorenzo said: "I thought he told me +all that ever I did." The next day the future evangelist was converted.</p> + +<p>But he was to be no ordinary Christian, this Lorenzo. Not satisfied with +his early baptism, he had the ceremony repeated, and with twelve others +formed a society for mutual watch and helpfulness. At the age of eighteen +he had still another dream, this time seeing a brittle thread in the air +suspended by a voice saying, "Woe unto you if you <a id="pg267"></a>preach not the gospel." +Then Wesley himself appeared again to him in a dream and warned him to set +out at once upon his mission.</p> + +<p>The young candidate applied to the Connecticut Conference of the Methodist +Church. He met with a reception that would have daunted any man less +courageous. He best tells the story himself: "My brethren sent me home. +Warren and Greenwich circuits, in Rhode Island, were the first of my +career. I obeyed, but with a sorrowful heart. Went out a second time to New +Hampshire, but sent home again; I obeyed. Afterwards went to Conference by +direction--who rejected me, and sent me home again; and again I obeyed. Was +taken out by P.W. on to Orange circuit, but in 1797 was sent home again: so +in obedience to man I went home a fourth time."</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact there was much in the argument of the church against +Lorenzo Dow at this time. The young preacher was not only ungraceful and +ungracious in manner, but he had severe limitations in education and +frequently assumed toward his elders an air needlessly arrogant and +contemptuous. On the other hand he must reasonably have been offended by +the advice so frequently given him in gratuitous and patronizing fashion. +Soon after the last rebuff just recorded, however, he says, on going out on +the Granville circuit, "The Lord gave me souls for my hire." Again making +application to the Conference, he was admitted on trial for the first time +in 1798 and sent to Canada to break fresh ground. He was not satisfied with +the unpromising field and wrote, "My mind was drawn to the water, and +Ireland was on my mind." His great desire was to preach the gospel to the +Roman Catholics beyond the sea. Accordingly, on his twenty-second birthday, +acting solely on his own resources, the venturesome evangelist embarked at +Montreal for Dublin. Here he had printed three thousand handbills to warn +the people of the wrath to come. He attracted some attention, but soon +caught the smallpox and was forced to return home. Back in America, he +communicated to the Conference his desire to "travel <a id="pg268"></a>the country at +large." The church, not at all impressed in his favor by his going to +Ireland on his own accord, would do nothing more than admit him to his old +status of being on trial, with appointment to the Dutchess, Columbia, and +Litchfield circuits. Depressed, Dow gave up the work, and, desiring a +warmer climate, he turned his face toward the South. From this time forth, +while he constantly exhibited a willingness to meet the church half way, he +consistently acted with all possible independence, and the church as +resolutely set its face against him.</p> + +<p>Dow landed in Savannah in January, 1802. This was his first visit to the +region that was to mean so much to him and in whose history he himself was +to play so interesting a rôle. He walked on foot for hundreds of miles in +Georgia and South Carolina, everywhere preaching the gospel to all classes +alike. Returning to the North, he found that once more he could not come to +terms with his conference. He went back to the South, going now by land for +the first time. He went as far as Mississippi, then the wild southwestern +frontier, and penetrated far into the country of Indians and wolves. +Returning in 1804, he became one of the first evangelists to cultivate the +camp-meeting as an institution in central Virginia. Then he threw down the +gauntlet to established Methodism, daring to speak in Baltimore while the +General Conference of the church was in session there. The church replied +at once, the New York Conference passing a law definitely commanding its +churches to shut their doors against him.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this opposition Dow continued to work with his usual zeal. +About 1804 he was very busy, speaking at from five hundred to eight hundred +meetings a year. In the year 1805, in spite of the inconveniences of those +days, he traveled ten thousand miles. Then he made ready to go again to +Europe. Everything possible was done by the regular church to embarrass him +on this second visit, and when he arrived in England he found the air far +from cordial. He did succeed in introducing his camp-meetings into the +country, however; and although the <a id="pg269"></a>Methodist Conference registered the +opinion that such meetings were "highly improper in England," Dow prolonged +his stay and planted seed which, as we shall see, was later to bear +abundant fruit. Returning to America, the evangelist set out upon one of +the most memorable periods of his life, journeying from New England to +Florida in 1807, from Mississippi to New England and through the West in +1808, through Louisiana in 1809, through Georgia and North Carolina and +back to New England in 1810, spending 1811 for the most part in New +England, working southward to Virginia in 1812, and spending 1813 and 1814 +in the Middle and Northern states, where the public mind was "darkened more +and more against him." More than once he was forced to engage in +controversy. Typical was the judgment of the Baltimore Conference in 1809, +when, in a matter of difference between Dow and one Mr. S., without Dow's +having been seen, opinion was given to the effect that Mr. S. "had given +satisfaction" to the conference. Some remarks of Dow's on "Church +Government" were seized upon as the excuse for the treatment generally +accorded him by the church. In spite of much hostile opinion, however, Dow +seems always to have found firm friends in the State of North Carolina. In +1818 a paper in Raleigh spoke of him as follows: "However his independent +way of thinking, and his unsparing candor of language may have offended +others, he has always been treated here with the respect due to his +disinterested exertions, and the strong powers of mind which his sermons +constantly exhibit."<sup><a href="#fn3-3-2" id="fna3-3-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>His hold upon the masses was remarkable. No preacher so well as he +understood the heart of the pioneer. In a day when the "jerks," and falling +and rolling on the ground, and dancing still accompanied religious emotion, +he still knew how to give to his hearers, whether bond or free, the +wholesome bread of life. Frequently he inspired an awe that was almost +superstitious and made numerous converts. Sometimes he would make +appointments a year beforehand and suddenly appear before a waiting +congregation like an <a id="pg270"></a>apparition. At Montville, Connecticut, a thief had +stolen an axe. In the course of a sermon Dow said that the guilty man was +in the congregation and had a feather on his nose. At once the right man +was detected by his trying to brush away the feather. On another occasion +Dow denounced a rich man who had recently died. He was tried for slander +and imprisoned in the county jail. As soon as he was released he announced +that he would preach about "another rich man." Going into the pulpit at the +appointed time, he began to read: "And there was another rich man who died +and--." Here he stopped and after a breathless pause he said, "Brethren, I +shall not mention the place this rich man went to, for fear he has some +relatives in this congregation who will sue me." The effect was +irresistible; but Dow heightened it by taking another text, preaching a +most dignified sermon, and not again referring to the text on which he had +started.</p> + +<p>Dow went again to England in 1818. He was not well received by the +Calvinists or the Methodists, and, of course, not by the Episcopalians; but +he found that his campmeeting idea had begun twelve years before a new +religious sect, that of the Primitive Methodists, commonly known as +"ranters." The society in 1818 was several thousand strong, and Dow visited +between thirty and forty of its chapels. Returning home, he resumed his +itineraries, going in 1827 as far west as Missouri. In thinking of this +man's work in the West we must keep constantly in mind, of course, the +great difference made by a hundred years. In Charleston in 1821 he was +arrested for "an alleged libel against the peace and dignity of the State +of South Carolina." His wife went north, as it was not known but that he +might be detained a long time; but he was released on payment of a fine of +one dollar. In Troy also he was once arrested on a false pretense. At +length, however, he rejoiced to see his enemies defeated. In 1827 he wrote: +"Those who instigated the trouble for me at Charleston, South Carolina, or +contributed thereto, were all cut off within the space of three years, +except Robert Y. Hayne, <a id="pg271"></a>who was then the Attorney-General for the state, +and is now the Governor for the <em>nullifiers</em>."<sup><a href="#fn3-3-3" id="fna3-3-3">3</a></sup></p> + +<p>The year 1833 Dow spent in visiting many places in New York, and in this +year he made the following entry in his Journal: "I am now in my +fifty-sixth year in the journey of life; and enjoy better health than when +but 30 or 35 years old, with the exception of the callous in my breast, +which at times gives me great pain.... The dealings of God to me-ward, have +been good. I have seen his delivering hand, and felt the inward support of +his grace, by faith and hope, which kept my head from sinking when the +billows of affliction seemed to encompass me around.... And should those +hints exemplified in the experience of Cosmopolite be beneficial to any +one, give God the glory. Amen and Amen! Farewell!" He died the following +year in Georgetown, District of Columbia, and rests under a simple slab in +Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington.</p> + +<p>There is only one word to describe the writings of Lorenzo +Dow--Miscellanies. Anything whatsoever that came to the evangelist's mind +was set down, not always with good form, though frequently with witty and +forceful expression. Here are "Hints to the Public, or Thoughts on the +Fulfilment of Prophecy in 1811"; "A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem," +with a good deal of sophomoric discussion of natural and moral philosophy; +"A Dialogue between the Curious and the Singular," with some discussion of +religious societies and theological principles; "The Chain of Lorenzo," an +argument on the eternal sonship of Christ; "Omnifarious Law Exemplified: +How to Curse and Swear, Lie, Cheat and Kill according to Law," "Reflections +on the Important Subject of Matrimony," and much more of the same sort. +"Strictures on Church Government" has already been referred to as bringing +upon Dow the wrath of the Methodist Church. The general thesis of this +publication, regarded at the time as so sensational, is that the Methodist +mode of church government is the most arbitrary <a id="pg272"></a>and despotic of any in +America, with the possible exception of that of the Shakers.</p> + +<p>"A Cry from the Wilderness--intended as a Timely and Solemn Warning to the +People of the United States" is in every way one of Dow's most +characteristic works. At this distance, when slavery and the Civil War are +viewed in the perspective, the mystic words of the oracle impress us as +almost uncanny: "In the rest of the southern states, the influence of these +Foreigners will be known and felt in its time, and the seeds from the HORY +ALLIANCE and the DECAPIGANDI, who have a hand in those grades of GENERALS, +from the INQUISITOR to the Vicar General and down.... </p> + +<p>☞ The STRUGGLE will be DREADFUL! the CUP will be +BITTER! and when the agony is over, those who survive may see better +days! FAREWELL!"<sup><a href="#fn3-3-4" id="fna3-3-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>A radical preacher of the Gospel, he could not but be moved with compassion +on observing the condition of the Negroes in the South during these years. +When denied admission to white churches because of his apparent fanaticism +he often found it pleasant to move among the blacks. Arriving in Savannah, +one day, he was accosted by a Negro, who, seeing that he had no place to +stop, inquired as to whether he would accept the hospitality of a black +home. He embraced this opportunity and found the people by whom he was +entertained "as decent as two thirds of the citizens of Savannah."<sup><a href="#fn3-3-5" id="fna3-3-5">5</a></sup> When +on another occasion in Savannah he learned that Andrew Bryan, the Negro +minister of the city, had, because of his preaching, been whipped +unmercifully and imprisoned, Dow preached to the congregation himself.<sup><a href="#fn3-3-6" id="fna3-3-6">6</a></sup> +He moved among Negroes, lived with them socially, distributed tracts among +them, preached to them the Word, counted them with pride among his converts +and treasured in his memory his experiences among them.<sup><a href="#fn3-3-7" id="fna3-3-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg273"></a>As a result this liberal-minded man was naturally opposed to slavery. He +was as outspoken a champion of freedom as lived in America in his day. +"Slavery in the South," said he, "is an evil that calls for national reform +and repentance." He thought that this "national scourge in this world" +might "be antidoted before the storm" gathered and burst.<sup><a href="#fn3-3-8" id="fna3-3-8">8</a></sup> "As all men +are created equal and independent by God of Nature," contended he, "Slavery +must have Moral Evil for its foundation, seeing it violates the Law of +Nature, as established by its author." "Ambition and avarice on the one +hand," thought he, "and social dependence upon the other, affords the +former an opportunity of being served at the expense of the latter and this +unnatural state of things hath been exemplified in all countries, and all +ages of the world from time immemorial." He further said, "Pride and vain +glory on the one side, and degradation and oppression on the other creates +on the one hand a spirit of contempt, and on the other a spirit of hatred +and revenge, preparing them to be dissolute: and qualifying them for every +base and malicious work!" He believed that "the mind of man is ever +aspiring for a more exalted station; the consequence is the better slaves +used the more saucy and impertinent they become: of course the practice +must be wholly abolished or the slaves must be governed with absolute +sway." He had discovered that "the exercise of an absolute sway over others +begets an unnatural hardness which as it becomes imperious contaminates the +mind of the governor; while the governed becomes factious and stupefied +like brute beasts, which are kept under by a continual dread and hence +whenever the subject is investigated, the evils of despotism presents to +view in all their odious forms." <sup><a href="#fn3-3-9" id="fna3-3-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>His attack on slavery, however, was neither so general nor universal as +would be expected of such a radical. He saw that "there is a distinction +admissible in some cases, be<a id="pg274"></a>tween Slavery itself and the spirit of +slavery." "A man may possess slaves by inheritance or some other way; and +may not have it in his power either to liberate them or to make better +their circumstances, being trammelled by the Laws and circumstances of the +country,--yet whilst he feels a sincere wish to do them all the justice he +can." He remarked too that "we have no account of Jesus Christ saying one +word about emancipation. Onesimus ran away from Philemon to Rome; whence +finding Paul, whom he had seen at his master's, he experienced religion, +and was sent back by the apostle with a letter--but not a word about +setting him free."<sup><a href="#fn3-3-10" id="fna3-3-10">10</a></sup></p> + +<p>Contrasting then the unhappy state with that of the past, he said, "The +first and primitive Christians had all things common, not from commandment +but from spirit by which they were influenced day by day; so when the time +of restitution takes place, which will be long before the consummation of +all things, then the Law of Nature, from Moral principles will be practiced +and the world will be as one concentrated Family." "The openings to +Providence preparatory to that day should be attended to, from principles +of duty--lest judgments should perform what offered mercy if not rejected +may be ready to accomplish. To feed and clothe another is both the interest +and duty of all Masters--and the sixth chapter of Ephesians is an excellent +tract on the subject to all who wish for advice, both as masters and +servants."<sup><a href="#fn3-3-11" id="fna3-3-11">11</a></sup></p> + +<p>It was likewise in keeping with Dow's fearlessness to denounce the efforts +to discriminate against Negroes in the early Churches. He questioned the +far-reaching authority of Bishop Coke, Asbury, and McKendree, and accused +Asbury of being jealous of the rising power of Richard Allen, founder of +the African Methodist Church.<sup><a href="#fn3-3-12" id="fna3-3-12">12</a></sup> He refers at considerable length to the +incident in a Philadelphia church which ultimately made Absalom Jones a +rector and Richard <a id="pg275"></a>Allen a bishop: "The colored people were considered by +some persons as being in the way. They were resolved to have them removed, +and placed around the walls, corners, etc.; which to execute, the above +expelled and restored man, at prayer time, did attempt to pull Absolom +Jones from his knees, which procedure, with its concomitants, gave rise to +the building of an African meeting house, the first ever built in these +middle or northern states."</p> + +<p>Here at least was a man with a mission--that mission to carry the gospel of +Christ to the uttermost parts of the earth. He knew no standard but that of +duty; he heeded no command but that of his own soul. Rude, and sharp of +speech he was, and only half-educated; but he was made of the stuff of +heroes; and neither hunger, nor cold, nor powers, nor principalities, nor +things present, nor things to come, could daunt him in his task. After the +lapse of a hundred years he looms larger, not smaller, in the history of +our Southland; and as of old we seem to hear again "the voice of one crying +in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord."</p> + +<p class="author">Benjamin Brawley</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn3-3-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-1">return</a>]</span>1. Very little has been written about Lorenzo Dow. There is an article by +Emily S. Gilman in the <em>New England Magazine</em>, Vol. 20, p. 411 (June, +1899), and also one by J. H. Kennedy in the <em>Magazine of Western History</em>, +Vol. 7, p. 162. The present paper is based mainly upon the following works: +(1) "Biography and Miscellany," published by Lorenzo Dow, Norwich, Conn., +1834; (2) "History of Cosmopolite;" or "The Four Volumes of Lorenzo Dow's +Journal concentrated in one, containing his Experience and Travels," +Wheeling, 1848; (3) "The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil; as +exemplified in the Life, Experience, and Travels of Lorenzo Dow," 2 vols. +in one. With an Introductory Essay by the Rev. John Dowling, D.D., of New +York. Cincinnati, 1858.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-2">return</a>]</span>2. "Dealings," II, 169.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-3">return</a>]</span>3. "Dealings," I, 178.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-4">return</a>]</span>4. "Dealings," II, 148.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-5">return</a>]</span>5. "Perambulations of Cosmopolite, or Travels and Labors in Europe and +America," 95.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-6">return</a>]</span>6. <em>Ibid.</em>, 93.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-7">return</a>]</span>7. <em>Ibid.</em>, <em>passim.</em></p> + +<p id="fn3-3-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-8">return</a>]</span>8. Biography and Miscellany, 30.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-9">return</a>]</span>9. "A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem or the Road to Peace and True +Happiness," 71.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-10">return</a>]</span>10. "A Journey from Babylon and Jerusalem," 71.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-11">return</a>]</span>11. <em>Ibid.</em>, 72.</p> + +<p id="fn3-3-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-3-12">return</a>]</span>12. "History of Cosmopolite," 544-546.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-4"> +<h2><a id="pg276"></a>The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African Colonization</h2> + + + +<p>In the midst of the perplexities arising from various plans for the +solution of the race problem one hundred years ago, the colonization +movement became all things to all men. Some contended that it was a +philanthropic enterprise; others considered it a scheme for getting rid of +the free people of color because of the seeming menace they were to +slavery. It was doubtless a combination of several ideas.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-1" id="fna3-4-1">1</a></sup> Furthermore, +the meaning of colonization varied on the one hand according to the use the +slave-holding class hoped to make of it, and on the other hand according to +the intensity of the attacks directed against it by the Abolitionists and +the free colored people because of the acquiescent attitude of +colonizationists toward the persecution of the free blacks both in the +North and South.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-2" id="fna3-4-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>Almost as soon as the Negroes had a chance to express themselves they +offered urgent protest against the policy of removing them to a foreign +land. Before the American Colonization Society had scarcely organized, the +free people of Richmond, Virginia, thought it advisable to assemble under +the sanction of authority in 1817, to make public expression of their +sentiments respecting this movement. William Bowler and Lenty Craw were the +leading spirits of the meeting. They agreed with the Society that it was +not only proper, but would ultimately tend to benefit and aid a great +portion of their suffering fellow creatures to be colonized; but they +preferred being settled "in the remotest corner of the land of their +nativity." As the presi<a id="pg277"></a>dent and board of managers of the Society had been +pleased to leave it to the entire discretion of Congress to provide a +suitable place for carrying out this plan, they passed a resolution to +submit to the wisdom of that body whether it would not be an act of charity +to grant them a small portion of their territory, either on the Missouri +River or any place that might seem to them most conducive to the public +good and their future welfare, subject, however, to such rules and +regulations as the government of the United States might think proper.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-3" id="fna3-4-3">3</a></sup> +Many Negroes, however, emigrated from this State during later years. +Subsequent accounts indicate, too, that this increasing interest in +colonization among the colored people of that Commonwealth extended even +into North Carolina.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-4" id="fna3-4-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>Farther north we observe more frequent and frank expressions of the +attitude of the colored people toward this enterprise. When the people of +Richmond, Virginia, registered their mild protest against it, about 3,000 +free blacks of Philadelphia took higher ground.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-5" id="fna3-4-5">5</a></sup> Because their ancestors +not of their own accord were the first successful cultivators of the wilds +of America, they felt themselves entitled to participate in the blessings +of its "luxuriant soil," which their blood and sweat had moistened. They +viewed with deep abhorrence the unmerited stigma attempted to be cast upon +the reputation of the free people of color, "that they are a dangerous and +useless part of the community," when in the state of disfranchisement in +which they lived, in the hour of danger, they "ceased to remember their +wrongs and rallied around the standard of their country." They were +determined never to separate themselves from the slave population of this +country as they were brethren <a id="pg278"></a>by the "ties of consanguinity, of suffering, +and of wrong."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-6" id="fna3-4-6">6</a></sup> They, therefore, appointed a committee of eleven persons +to open correspondence with Joseph Hopkinson, member of Congress from that +city, to inform him of the sentiments of the meeting, and issued an address +to the "Humane and Benevolent Inhabitants of Philadelphia,"<sup><a href="#fn3-4-7" id="fna3-4-7">7</a></sup> dis<a id="pg279"></a>claiming +all connection with the society, questioning the professed philanthropy of +its promoters, and pointing out how disastrous it would be to the free +colored people, should it be carried out.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-8" id="fna3-4-8">8</a></sup></p> + +<p>Although a few persecuted Negroes of Maryland from the very beginning +believed it advisable to emigrate, the first action of importance observed +among the colored people of Baltimore, favoring colonization in Africa, was +that of a series of meetings held there in 1826. The sentiment of these +delegates as expressed by their resolutions was that the time had come for +the colored people to express their interest in the efforts which the wise +and philanthropic were making in their behalf. Differing from the people of +Richmond they felt that, although residing in this country, they were +strangers, not citizens, and that because of the difference of color and +servitude of most of their race, they could not hope to enjoy the +immunities of freemen. Believing that there would be left a channel through +which might pass such as thereafter received their freedom, they urged +emigration to Africa as the scheme which they believed would offer the +quickest and best relief.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-9" id="fna3-4-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>We have not been able to find many records which give proof that in the +States far South there was much opposition of the Negroes to the plan of +removing the free <a id="pg280"></a>people of color from the United States. We must not +conclude, however, that this absence of protest from the free colored +people in that section of the country was due to the fact that they almost +unanimously approved the plan of African Colonization.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-10" id="fna3-4-10">10</a></sup> Consideration +must be given to the fact that the free colored people in the Southern +States did not exercise the privilege of free speech. Consequently, if +there were even a large minority who opposed the plan, they were afraid to +make their views known, especially when this movement was being promoted by +some of the leading white people of that section.</p> + +<p>Occasionally there arose among the colored people of the South advocates of +colonization, setting forth the advantages of emigration in all but +convincing style.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-11" id="fna3-4-11">11</a></sup> Such was a free man of color of Savannah in the year +1832. He had always viewed the principles on which the American +Colonization Society was grounded as one of large policy, though he saw it +was "aided by a great deal of benevolence." And when viewing his situation +with those of his colored brethren of the United States he had often +wondered what prevented them from rising with one accord to accept the +offer made them, although they might sacrifice the comforts of their +present situation. He had often almost come to the conclusion that he would +make the sacrifice, and had only been prevented by unfavorable accounts of +the climate. Hearing that Liberia needed help, he desired to go. He and the +Negroes for whom he spoke seemed to be of an enterprising kind. He +understood the branches of "wheel-wright, blacksmith, and carpentry," and +had made some progress in machinery. He did not expect to go at the expense +of the Society and therefore hoped to take with him something more than +those who had emigrated on those terms.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-12" id="fna3-4-12">12</a></sup></p> + +<p>Another such freeman spoke from Charleston the same year. He had observed +with much regret that Northern <a id="pg281"></a>States were passing laws to get rid of the +free people of color driven from the South on account of hostile +legislation.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-13" id="fna3-4-13">13</a></sup> He was also fearful as to the prospects of the free blacks +even in favorable Southern cities like Charleston, where they were given a +decided preference in most of the higher pursuits of labor. He believed, +therefore, that emigration to Africa was the solution of their problem. He +urged this for the reason that the country offered them and their posterity +forever protection in life, liberty, "and property by honor of office with +the gift of the people, privileges of sharing in the government, and +finally the opportunity to become a perfectly free and independent people, +and a distinguished nation."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-14" id="fna3-4-14">14</a></sup> The letters of Thomas S. Grimké written to +the Colonization Society during these years show that other freedmen of +Charleston driven to the same conclusions were planning to emigrate.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-15" id="fna3-4-15">15</a></sup></p> + +<p>Conditions in that State, however, forced some free Negroes to emigrate to +foreign soil. A number of free colored people left Charleston, and settled +in certain free States. After residing two or three years in the North they +found out that their condition instead of improving had grown worse, as +they were more despised, crowded out of every respectable employment, and +even very much less respected. They, therefore, returned to their former +home. On reaching Charleston, however, they were still dissatisfied with +their condition. Changes, which had taken place during their absence from +the State, made it evident that in this country they could never possess +those rights and privileges which all men desire. Some of them resolved, +therefore, to try their fortunes in Liberia.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-16" id="fna3-4-16">16</a></sup></p> + +<p>The Negroes in Alabama had also become interested in the movement during +these years.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-17" id="fna3-4-17">17</a></sup> In writing to Mr. McLain, of Washington, S. Wesley Jones, +a colored man of <a id="pg282"></a>Tuscaloosa, said that save the Christian religion there +was no subject of so much importance and that lay so near his heart as that +of African Colonization. All that was necessary to change the attitude on +the part of the colored people was a "move by some one in whom the people +have confidence to put the whole column in motion," and just "when there is +a start made in Alabama the whole body of the free people of color will +join in a solid phalanx." As for himself he had fully made up his mind to +go to Liberia, but could not leave the United States until he had closed up +a ten years' business, and if successful in collecting "tolerably well" +what was due him he would be able to go without expense to the Society.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-18" id="fna3-4-18">18</a></sup></p> + +<p>In July, 1848, this same writer addressed to Mr. McLain another letter in +which he gave details of a trip he had made in an adjoining county in the +interest of emigration to Liberia. During this trip he said he had found a +few free colored people who, after he had talked with them on the subject, +were of one accord that the best thing they could do for themselves was to +emigrate to Liberia.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-19" id="fna3-4-19">19</a></sup> In another letter addressed to McLain by the same +writer December 29, 1851, it was stated that the colonization movement was +still growing in the State. He also said that "those of us who want to go +to Liberia are men who have been striving to do something" for themselves +and consequently have "more or less business to close up." Mention was also +made of the fact that there were at Huntsville, in the northern part of the +State, several who had in part "made up their minds to go and only wanted a +little encouragement to set them fully in favor of Liberia."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-20" id="fna3-4-20">20</a></sup></p> + +<p>Although thus favorably received in the South, however, the Colonization +Society met opposition in other parts. The spreading of the immediate +abolition doctrine by men like Garrison and Jay had a direct bearing on the +enterprise. The two movements became militantly arrayed against each <a id="pg283"></a>other +and tended to inflame the minds of the colored people throughout the +country. The consensus of opinion among them was that the Colonization +Society was their worst enemy and its efforts would tend only to +exterminate the free people of color and perpetuate the institution of +slavery.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-21" id="fna3-4-21">21</a></sup> So general was this feeling that T. H. Gallaudet, a promoter of +the colonization movement, writing to one of its officers in 1831, said +that something must be done to calm the feelings of the colored people in +the large cities of the North.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-22" id="fna3-4-22">22</a></sup> Their resentment seemed to be due not so +much to the fact that they were urged to emigrate, but that a large number +of the promoters of the enterprise seemed to feel that the free Negroes +should be forced to leave.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-23" id="fna3-4-23">23</a></sup> Considering themselves as much entitled to +the protection of the laws of this country as any other element of its +population, they took the position that any free man of color who would +accept the offers of the colonization movement should be branded as an +enemy of his race. They not only demonstrated their unalterable opposition +but expressed a firm resolve to resist the colonizationists even down to +death.</p> + +<p>The proceedings of these meetings will throw much light on the excitement +then prevailing among the free people of color in the border and Northern +States. In 1831 a Baltimore meeting, led by William Douglass and William +Watkins, expressed the belief that the American Colonization Society was +founded "more upon selfish policy than in the true principles of +benevolence; and, therefore, as far as it regards the life-giving spring of +its operations," that it was not entitled to their confidence, and should +be viewed by them with that caution and distrust which their happiness +demanded. They considered the land in which they had been born and bred +their only "true and appropriate home," and declared that when they desired +to remove they would apprise the public of the same, in due season.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-24" id="fna3-4-24">24</a></sup> +That same <a id="pg284"></a>year a large meeting of colored people of Washington, in the +District of Columbia, convened for the purpose of expressing their opinion +on this important question. Although they knew that among the advocates of +the colonizing system, they had many true and sincere friends, they +declared that the efforts of these philanthropists, though prompted no +doubt by the purest motives, should be viewed with distress. They further +asserted that, as the soil which gave them birth was their only true and +veritable home, it would be impolitic, if they should leave their home +without the benefit of education.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-25" id="fna3-4-25">25</a></sup> A meeting of the very same order of +the free people of color of Wilmington, Delaware, that year, led by Peter +Spencer and Thomas Dorsey, took the position that the colonization movement +was inimical to the best interests of the colored people, and at variance +with the principles of civil and religious liberty, and wholly incompatible +with the spirit of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence of +the United States.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-26" id="fna3-4-26">26</a></sup></p> + +<p>A meeting of free colored people held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1831, +was of the opinion that none should leave the United States, but if there +were or should be any expatriated in consequence of abuses from their white +countrymen, it was advisable to recommend them to Haiti or Upper Canada +where they would find equal laws. In regard to their being sent to Africa, +because they were natives of that land, they asked: "How can a man be born +in two countries at the same time?" In refutation of the argument made by +the Colonization Society, that the establishment of the colony in Liberia +would prevent the further operation of the slave trade, they said: "We +might as well argue that a watchman in the city of Boston would prevent +thievery in New York; or that the custom house officers there would prevent +goods being smuggled into any other port of the United States."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-27" id="fna3-4-27">27</a></sup> Because +there were in the United States much better lands on which a colony might +be established, <a id="pg285"></a>and at a much cheaper expense to those who promoted it, +than could possibly be had by sending them into "a howling wilderness +across the seas," they questioned the philanthropy of the promoters of +African colonization and adopted resolutions in opposition to the +movement.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-28" id="fna3-4-28">28</a></sup></p> + +<p>A public meeting of colored citizens of New York, with Samuel Ennals and +Philip Bell as promoters, referred to the Colonizationists as men of +"mistaken views" with respect to the welfare and wishes of the colored +people. The meeting solemnly protested against the bold effort to colonize +the oppressed free people of color on the ground that it was "unjust, +illiberal and unfounded; tending to excite prejudice of the community."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-29" id="fna3-4-29">29</a></sup> +At a meeting of the free colored people of Brooklyn, promoted by Henry C. +Thompson and George Hogarth, it was resolved that they knew of no other +country in which they could justly claim or demand their rights as +citizens, whether civil or political, but in the United States <a id="pg286"></a>of America, +their native soil; and that they would be active in their endeavors to +convince the members of the Colonization Society, and the public generally, +that being men, brethren, and fellow citizens, they were like other +citizens entitled to an equal share of protection from the Federal +Government.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-30" id="fna3-4-30">30</a></sup></p> + +<p>The sentiment of a meeting at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1831, was that the +American Colonization Society was actuated by the same motives which +influenced the mind of Pharaoh, when he ordered the male children of the +Israelites to be destroyed. They believed that the Society was the greatest +of all foes to the free colored people and slave population; and that the +man of color who would emigrate to Liberia was an enemy to the cause and a +traitor to his brethren. As they had committed no crime worthy of +banishment, they would resist all attempts of the Colonization Society to +banish them from their native land.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-31" id="fna3-4-31">31</a></sup> A New Haven meeting of the Peace +and Benevolent Society of Afric-Americans, led by Henry Berrian and Henry +N. Merriman, expressed interest in seeing Africa become civilized and +religiously instructed, but not by the absurd and invidious plan of the +colonization society to send a "nation of ignorant men to teach a nation of +ignorant men." They would, therefore, resist all attempts for their removal +to the torrid shores of Africa, and would sooner suffer every drop of their +blood to be taken from their veins than submit to such unrighteous +treatment. From the colored people of Lyme, Connecticut, came the sincere +opinion that the Colonization Society was one of the wildest projects ever +patronized by enlightened men. The colored citizens of Middletown, chief +among whom were Joseph Gilbert and Amos G. Beman, inquired "Why should we +leave this land, so dearly bought by the blood, groans and tears of our +fathers? Truly this is our home," said they, "here let us live and here let +us die."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-32" id="fna3-4-32">32</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg287"></a>The meeting in Columbia, Pennsylvania, the leaders of which were Stephen +Smith and James Richard, expressed the opinion that African colonization +was a scheme of the Southern planters and wicked device of slaveholders who +were desirous of riveting more firmly, and perpetuating more certainly, the +fetters of slavery by ridding themselves of a population whose presence, +influence and example had a tendency (as they supposed) to produce +discontent among the slaves, and to furnish them with inducements to +rebellion.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-33" id="fna3-4-33">33</a></sup> A few weeks later a meeting was held at Pittsburgh under the +leadership of J. B. Vashon and R. Bryan. The colored people of this city +styled themselves as brethren and countrymen as much entitled to the free +exercise of the elective franchise as any other inhabitants and demanded an +equal share of protection from the Federal Government. They informed the +Colonization Society that should their reason forsake them, then might they +desire to remove. They would apprise them of that change in due season. As +citizens of the United States, they mutually pledged to each other their +lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, not to support a colony in +Africa nor Upper Canada, nor yet emigrate to Haiti. Here they were +born--here they would live by the help of the Almighty God--and here they +would die.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-34" id="fna3-4-34">34</a></sup> Early in 1832, the colored people of Lewiston, Pennsylvania, +in a meeting called by Samuel and Martin Johnston, expressed practically +the same sentiments.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-35" id="fna3-4-35">35</a></sup> Through <a id="pg288"></a>the influence of Jacob D. Richardson and +Jacob G. Williams, an indignation meeting of the same kind was held at +Harrisburg.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-36" id="fna3-4-36">36</a></sup></p> + +<p>The free people of color, assembled at Nantucket, Rhode Island, in 1831, +under the leadership of Arthur Cooper and Edward J. Pompey, saw no +philanthropy in the colonization movement, but discovered in it a scheme +gotten up to delude them from their native land into a country of sickness +and death.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-37" id="fna3-4-37">37</a></sup> A Trenton meeting promoted by Lewis Cork and Abner H. +Francis viewed the American Colonization Society as the most inveterate foe +both to the free and slave man of color. These memorialists disclaimed all +union with the Society and, once for all, declared that they would never +remove under its patronage either to Africa or elsewhere.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-38" id="fna3-4-38">38</a></sup></p> + +<p>In New York there had been various expressions pro and con as to emigration +to Liberia, but it does not seem that a large number of colored people of +that city ever favored it. They believed rather in emigration to Canada. +The attitude of the people of that State was shown in 1834 by the troubles +of Reverend Peter Williams, Rector of St. Phillip's Church in the city of +New York. Working through the Phoenix Society and the Anti-Slavery Society +he had endeavored to convince the free colored people that the idea held +out to men of color that no matter how they might strive to become +intelligent, virtuous and useful, they could never enjoy the privilege of +citizens in the United States, was erroneous. On the contrary, he believed +that the Declaration of Independence, which his father had helped to +maintain, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ had sufficient power to raise the +people of color at some time to the rank of citizenship. Although his +opposition never extended further than the expression of his views, there +arose so much antagonism to him that he was asked by his bishop to resign +from the Anti-Slavery Society, because of a disturbance in <a id="pg289"></a>his church.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-39" id="fna3-4-39">39</a></sup> +There remained others, however, to continue the attack. At a meeting in +1839 the free people of color of New York entered a unanimous protest +against the efforts of this body, reiterating the sentiment that the +American Colonization Society was the source from which came the various +proscriptions and oppressions under which they groaned.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-40" id="fna3-4-40">40</a></sup></p> + +<p>The attitude of the free blacks of New York was probably better +demonstrated on the occasion of the appearance of W. S. Ball, who had been +sent to Liberia by the free colored people of Illinois to secure definite +information concerning the advisability of emigrating to Africa. On his +return to New York, he made a speech to a large assembly of colored people, +some of whom desiring to see Liberia for themselves, had made preparations +for a company to sail September, 1848. Ball expressed himself as well +pleased with the country and after interesting the colored people of +Illinois<sup><a href="#fn3-4-40a" id="fna3-4-40a">40a</a></sup> he hoped to return to Liberia with a large emigration. The +colored people of New York received him in good faith. While the Liberian +Commissioners were in session, President Roberts and his comrades were +invited to come to the Anthony Street Church to inform them of the country. +After several speeches had been made, opportunity was given to the colored +people to ask questions that had not been touched upon. This continued for +some time and seemed to elicit information highly favorable to the cause, +until a Mr. Morrill made his way up the aisle toward the platform. After +having gained the attention of the audience with an air of superiority +which showed he was accustomed to control audiences of colored people, he +said that he had just come into town and was surprised to find his <a id="pg290"></a>friends +engaged in holding a colonization meeting. "That question," said he, "has +been settled long ago! and the Liberia humbug--" At this point the hisses +were so loud he could not be heard. Finally after much yelling and shouting +of "hear him," the meeting became a bedlam and the presiding officer +attempted to leave the chair. Finding order impossible the meeting was +adjourned in an uproar. Amid cries of "a fight, a fight," women leaped over +the pews and made their way to the doors. After some time had elapsed order +was restored by clearing the house, but Morrill, who seemingly had come +with the expressed purpose of breaking up the meeting, was not found in the +chaos that ensued.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-41" id="fna3-4-41">41</a></sup></p> + +<p>Doubtless the best expression of antagonism to the American Colonization +Society came from the Annual Convention of the Free Colored People held +first in 1830 and almost annually thereafter in Philadelphia and other +Northern cities almost until the Civil War. The Second Annual Convention +showed an attitude of militant opposition by emphatically protesting +against any appropriation by Congress in behalf of the movement. The Third +Annual Convention, which met in Philadelphia in 1833, probably represented +the high water mark of their antagonism to this enterprise. There were 59 +representatives of the free people of color from eight different States, +namely, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, New +York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The leaders of the movement were +James Forten, Robert Douglas, Joseph Cassey, Robert Purvis, and James +McCrummell. At an early stage in the proceedings of this Convention there +prevailed a motion that "a committee consisting of one delegate from each +of the States represented in the Convention, be appointed to draft +resolutions expressive of the sentiments of the people of color in regard +to the subject of colonization." Although these men were opposed to +emigration to Africa, they favored a sort of colonization in some part of +America, for the relief of such persons as might leave the United <a id="pg291"></a>States +on account of oppressive laws like those of Ohio.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-42" id="fna3-4-42">42</a></sup> The colored people +would in this case give such refugees all aid in their power.</p> + +<p>After having divested themselves of "all unreasonable prejudice," and +reviewed the whole ground of their opposition to the American Colonization +Society, with all the candor of which they were capable, they still +declared to the world that they were unable to arrive at any other +conclusion than that the life-giving principles of the Society were totally +repugnant to the spirit of true benevolence; that the doctrines which the +Society inculcated were hostile to those of their holy religion and in +direct violation of the golden rule, and that "the inevitable tendency of +this doctrine was to strengthen the cruel prejudice of their opponents, to +still the heart of sympathy to the appeals of suffering Negroes, and retard +their advancement in morals, literature and science, in short, to +extinguish the last glimmer of hope, and throw an impenetrable gloom over +their fears and most reasonable prospects." All plans for actual +colonization, therefore, were rejected.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-43" id="fna3-4-43">43</a></sup></p> + +<p>The movement thereafter continued to receive the attention of the people in +the various parts of the country, being generally denounced. The Negroes of +Ohio were prominent among those who opposed it.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-44" id="fna3-4-44">44</a></sup> Invited to hear a +lecture by Mr. Pinney, a former governor of Liberia, then on a tour in the +United States raising funds to purchase land there, the free blacks of +Cincinnati held a meeting to protest. Arrogating to themselves the +privilege of expressing the opinion of all the colored people of the United +States, they respectfully declined the invitation for the reasons that the +scheme was iniquitous in that it implied the assumption of the inequality +of the free people of color.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-45" id="fna3-4-45">45</a></sup> They ac<a id="pg292"></a>cordingly urged that such sums as +their so-called friends might give for the purchase of land in Africa might +be used for establishing schools and asylums for colored children in this +country.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-46" id="fna3-4-46">46</a></sup> At a series of meetings of free colored people, held in the +city of Cleveland, Ohio, during the winter of 1845-46, the Colonization +Society was denounced as an organization whose proceedings tended to +aggravate the injustice with which the free colored people were treated in +this country. It was called the greatest antagonist which colored people +had to meet and put down, before they could "stand erect in this country." +During the meeting a very bitter spirit was shown toward the white race. +They passed resolutions declaring that the colored people were entitled to +all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the whites and pledged +themselves never to rest until they had redressed their wrongs and gained +their rights.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-47" id="fna3-4-47">47</a></sup></p> + +<p>Another important instance of the opposition of the colored people of the +North and West may be observed in the proceedings of a meeting held in +Cincinnati. Mr. Vashon, a free man of color of Pittsburgh, had a motion +passed in one of their anti-slavery meetings in that city, "declaring the +Colonization Society inimical to the best interests of the free colored +population of the country, and unworthy of the support of the churches." +After speeches had been made by Vashon and Henry Gloster, a free man of +color from Michigan, the original motion was passed with but one or two +dissenting voices in spite of the efforts to amend it. It is probable that +the amendments proposed were to soften the tone of the original motion, but +no mention was made of them other than to state that they were offered by +the opposition.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-48" id="fna3-4-48">48</a></sup></p> + +<p>Numerous other meetings were held to continue the expression of the same +sentiments. At a meeting in Boston in 1847 the Colonization Society was +referred to as the expa<a id="pg293"></a>triating institution which would never be able to +expel "Americans by birth" pledged never to leave their native land.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-49" id="fna3-4-49">49</a></sup> A +State convention of colored people of New York held during three days in +the capital at Albany, 1851, unanimously expressed their pleasure at the +failure of the Colonization Society of that State to obtain an +appropriation from the Legislature.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-50" id="fna3-4-50">50</a></sup> At another meeting at Albany in +1852, Reverend J. W. C. Pennington and Dr. J. McCune Smith were instrumental +in inducing the meeting to adopt an able refutation of Governor Hunt's +views in favor of a similar appropriation.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-51" id="fna3-4-51">51</a></sup> Another State Convention of +Colored People of Ohio convened in Cincinnati, unconditionally condemned +the Society because its policy of expatriating the free colored people was +merely to render slave property more secure and valuable.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-52" id="fna3-4-52">52</a></sup> John M. +Langston was the chairman of this meeting. Other such meetings held in +Rochester, New York, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, about the same time, +expressed similar sentiments.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-53" id="fna3-4-53">53</a></sup> On the occasion of the formation of a +County Colonization Society as a result of a visit of J. B. Pinney to +Syracuse, resolutions expressing deep regret that the influence of the +Society had extended to that section<sup><a href="#fn3-4-54" id="fna3-4-54">54</a></sup> were unanimously passed. At +another meeting at Providence, the same year, the Colonization Society was +denounced because of the plea that its motive in promoting emigration to +Africa was to Christianize the heathen.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-55" id="fna3-4-55">55</a></sup></p> + +<p>A series of meetings were held in Ohio to oppose the efforts of +colonization agents.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-56" id="fna3-4-56">56</a></sup> A Columbus meeting of 1849 considered such +workers inveterate enemies. Another meeting in the same place in 1851 +referred to one of their <a id="pg294"></a>memorials as containing the false statement that +the colored people of Ohio were prepared to go to Liberia. They considered +N. L. Rice and David Christy, promoters of the colonization scheme in that +State, avowed friends of slavery and slaveholders.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-57" id="fna3-4-57">57</a></sup> In a subsequent +State Convention in 1853, they urged every free black to use his influence +against any bill offered in any State, or national legislature to +appropriate money for this enterprise.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-58" id="fna3-4-58">58</a></sup> When "Cushing's Bill" to +facilitate colonization was offered, the free people of Cincinnati, Ohio, +held an indignation meeting in 1853 to organize their friends to prevent +its passage.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-59" id="fna3-4-59">59</a></sup></p> + +<p>The most distinguished Negroes of the country, too, were using the rostrum +and the press to impede the progress of the American Colonization Society. +Prominent among these protagonists were Samuel E. Cornish, and Theodore S. +Wright, who without doubt voiced the sentiments of the majority of the free +colored people in the North. These leaders took occasion in 1840 to attack +Theodore Frelinghuysen and Benjamin Butler who had been reported as saying +that the colonization project had been received with delight by the colored +people.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-60" id="fna3-4-60">60</a></sup> Answering this assertion, they maintained that "if it was said +of Southern slaves--if it had been asserted that they yearned for Africa +or indeed, any part of the world, even more unhospitable and unhappy, where +they might be free from their masters, there probably would have been no +one to dissent from that opinion." But to prove that this was not the +situation among the free people of color these spokesmen related numerous +facts, showing that in various conventions from year to year the free +blacks had protested against emigration to Africa.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-61" id="fna3-4-61">61</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg295"></a>The greatest enemy of the Colonization Society among the freedmen, +however, was yet to appear. This was Frederick Douglass. At the National +Convention of Free People of Color, held at Rochester, New York, in 1853, +he was called upon to write the address to the colored people of the United +States. A significant expression in this address was: "We ask that no +appropriation whatever, State or national, be granted to the colonization +scheme. We would have our right to leave or remain in the United States +placed above legislative interference."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-62" id="fna3-4-62">62</a></sup> He had already gone on record +in writing to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe in reply to her inquiry as to the +best thing to be done for the elevation of the colored people. "Evidently +the Society," said he, "looks upon our extremity as their opportunity and +whenever the elements are started against us they are stimulated to +immeasurable activity. They do not deplore our misfortunes but rather +rejoice in them."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-63" id="fna3-4-63">63</a></sup> He referred to the Society as the twin sister of +slavery, still at her post fostering prejudice against the colored man and +scattering abroad her hateful unphilosophical dogmas as to the inferiority +of the Negro and the necessity of his expatriation for his elevation and +that of his white country men. "The truth is," said he, "we are here and +here we are likely to remain. Individuals emigrate, nations never. We have +grown up with this republic and I see nothing in her character or find in +the character of the American people as yet, which compels the belief that +we must leave the United States."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-64" id="fna3-4-64">64</a></sup></p> + +<p>All the free persons of color, however, did not continue to think on this +wise. After the ebullitions of sentiment <a id="pg296"></a>had ceased, a few Negroes began +to think that emigration was not an unmixed evil. They were driven to this +position in various ways. Some desired to flee from increasing persecution +then afflicting free Negroes both in the North and in the South; others +were won over by such inducements for commercial advancement as a +pacification of Yoruba seemed to offer in opening up the Soudan; and not a +few like Alexander Crummell<sup><a href="#fn3-4-65" id="fna3-4-65">65</a></sup> and Daniel A. Payne, who, although opposed +to the expatriation of their race, favored colonization so far as it would +redeem Africa. Even Frederick Douglass, in answering the charge that the +free people of color had been prejudiced against efforts to redeem Africa, +stated that they were very much in favor of such a work, but objected to +the efforts of the Colonization Society because of its "defect of good +motives,"<sup><a href="#fn3-4-66" id="fna3-4-66">66</a></sup> A number of Negroes yielded also to the logic of the +Colonizationists, who in trying to disabuse their minds of the thought that +it would be a disgrace to leave this country as exiles, held up to them the +example of the Pilgrim Fathers who left their native land to obtain +political and religious liberty. Furthermore, some Negroes like Martin R. +Delaney, who had at first fearlessly opposed the colonization of the blacks +in Africa, began during the fifties to promote the emigration of the free +people of color to other parts. Many of this persuasion went to Canada West +and some few to Trinidad.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-67" id="fna3-4-67">67</a></sup></p> + +<p>Although antagonism to African Colonization was pronounced in the Northern +free States, there were several intelligent colored men who were strongly +in favor of it. It was said, however, that such Negroes had usually been +educated or aided in some way by the American Colonization Society. One of +this class of spokesmen was George Baltimore, of Whitehall. In reading in +the <em>National Watchman</em> a notice for a call for a national convention of +colored people to be held in Troy, in 1847, he availed himself of the +<a id="pg297"></a>opportunity to speak for the Colonization Society. Referring to the +suggestions set forth in the call, the writer said that he could adopt all +of them excepting the one to recommend emigration and colonization not of +Africa, Asia, or Europe. He considered this a fling at the American +Colonization Society, and those people of color who were desirous of going +to their fatherland.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-68" id="fna3-4-68">68</a></sup> Another spokesman of this order was Alphonso M. +Sumner, of Philadelphia. Personally he was in favor of emigrating from the +United States and was of the opinion that, at that time at least, +colonization in Liberia offered the only tangible means of attaining their +wishes. He believed that the abolition of the slave trade could be attained +in no other way, but like most colored men in the free States, favoring +colonization, he was desirous of knowing something about the land before +emigrating thereto.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-69" id="fna3-4-69">69</a></sup></p> + +<p>Writing from Hartford in 1851, Augustus Washington stated that he was well +aware that there could be nothing more startling than that a Northern +colored man, considered intelligent and sound in faith, should declare his +opinion and use his influence in favor of African colonization. He +maintained, however, that the novelty of the thing did not prove it false +any more than it would be to say that because one breaks away from a +long-established custom he may not have the least reason for doing so. He +urged the free colored people to emigrate from the crowded cities to less +populous parts of the United States, to the Great West or to Africa, or to +any place where they might secure an equality of rights and liberties with +a mind unfettered and space in which to rise. Moreover, from the time he +was a lad of fifteen years of age, and especially since the Mexican War, he +had advocated the plan of a separate State for the colored people.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-70" id="fna3-4-70">70</a></sup> In a +letter addressed to the editor of the <em>African <a id="pg298"></a>Repository</em>, in 1853, +Nathaniel Bowen undertook to express similar views. Although they possessed +only partial freedom in this country, the free colored people of his city, +Rome, New York, were generally against colonization. Moreover, he found +many colored people who talked of and favored going to Canada, but he +believed if those persons would take their interests into consideration, +they would not hesitate to go to Africa.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-71" id="fna3-4-71">71</a></sup></p> + +<p>The efforts toward emigration too took organized form during the forties +and fifties. In 1848 the free colored people of Dayton, Ohio, held a +meeting to express their sentiments in favor of emigration to Africa, and +to ask the white citizens to aid them in going there.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-72" id="fna3-4-72">72</a></sup> The movement also +reached the colored people of Cincinnati, Ohio.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-73" id="fna3-4-73">73</a></sup> At a meeting held in +that city on the 14th of July, 1850, they adopted a preamble and +resolutions expressing similar sentiments. Going a step further, in 1850 a +number of free Negroes of New York formed an organization called the New +York and Liberian Agricultural and Emigration Society to coöperate with the +Colonization Society. Considerable money was collected by the organization +to aid emigrants whom they sent to Liberia.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-74" id="fna3-4-74">74</a></sup></p> + +<p>In July, 1852, there was held in Baltimore, a meeting of delegates from +the city and different sections of the State of Maryland. After heated +discussion and much excitement they passed resolutions to examine the +different foreign localities for emigration, giving preference to Liberia. +It seemed that although a majority of the delegates present <a id="pg299"></a>desired to +coöperate with the American Colonization Society, they were afraid to do +so because of the opposition of the Baltimore people, who in a state of +excitement almost developed into a mob intent upon breaking up the +meeting.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-75" id="fna3-4-75">75</a></sup> As this meeting of delegates from the whole State seemed to +be favorable to the colonization enterprise, the people of Baltimore felt +it incumbent upon them to hold another meeting a few days thereafter, +maintaining that they did not know that a previous meeting was called for +the consideration of the questions brought before it, and denounced it as +being unrepresentative. They said that they were not opposed to voluntary +emigration but did not at any time elect delegates to the so-called Colored +Colonization Convention.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-76" id="fna3-4-76">76</a></sup></p> + +<p>To carry out more effectively the work of ameliorating the condition of +the colored people, a National Council composed of two members chosen by +election at a poll in each State, was organized in 1853. As many as twenty +State conventions were to be represented. Before these plans could be well +matured, however, those who believed that emigration was the only solution +of the race problem called another convention to consider merely that +question. Only those who would not introduce the question of African +emigration but favored colonization in some other parts were invited. +Among the persons thus interested were Reverend William Webb and Martin R. +Delaney of Pittsburgh, Doctor J. Gould Bias and Franklin Turner of +Philadelphia, Reverend Augustus R. Greene of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, +James M. Whitfield of New York, William Lambert of Michigan, Henry Bibb, +James Theodore Holly of Canada, and Henry M. Collins of California.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-77" id="fna3-4-77">77</a></sup> +Frederick Douglass criticised this step as uncalled for, unwise, +unfortunate, and premature. "A convention to consider the subject of +emigration," said he, "when every delegate must declare himself in favor +of it before hand, as a condition of taking <a id="pg300"></a>his seat, is like the handle +of the jug, all on one side."<sup><a href="#fn3-4-78" id="fna3-4-78">78</a></sup> James M. Whitfield, the Negro poet of +America, came to the defense of his co-workers, he and Douglass continuing +the literary duel for a number of weeks. The convention was accordingly +held. In it there appeared three parties, one led by Doctor Delaney who +desired to go to the Niger Valley in Africa, another by Whitfield, whose +interests seemed to be in Central America, and a third by Holly who showed +a preference for Haiti. The leaders of these respective parties were +commissioned to go to these various countries to do what they could in +carrying out their schemes.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-79" id="fna3-4-79">79</a></sup> Holly went to Haiti and took up with the +Minister of the Interior the question of admitting Negro emigrants from +the United States.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-80" id="fna3-4-80">80</a></sup></p> + +<p>Among the colored people of the Northwest there appeared evidence of +considerable interest in emigration. This was especially true of Illinois +and Indiana, from which commissioners had been sent out to spy the +land.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-81" id="fna3-4-81">81</a></sup> This is evidenced too by the sentiment expressed by delegates +attending the Cleveland Convention in 1854. The next emigration convention +was held at Chatham, Canada West, in 1856. One of the important features of +this meeting was the hearing the report of Holly who went to Haiti the +previous year. From this same meeting Martin R. Delaney proceeded on his +mission to the Niger Valley in Africa. There he concluded a treaty with +eight African kings, offering inducements to Negroes to emigrate. In the +meantime James Redpath had gone to Haiti and accomplished some things that +Holly failed to achieve. He was appointed Haitian Commissioner of +Emigration in the United States, with Holly as his co-worker. They +succeeded in sending to Haiti as many as two thousand emigrants, the first +sailing <a id="pg301"></a>in 1861. Owing to their unpreparedness and the unfavorable +climate, not more than one third of them remained.<sup><a href="#fn3-4-82" id="fna3-4-82">82</a></sup></p> + +<p>Considering the facts herein set forth we are compelled to say that the +colonization movement was a failure. Although it did finally interest a +number of free Negroes their concern in it did not materialize on account +of the outbreak of the Civil War occurring soon thereafter. On the whole, +the movement never appealed to a large number of intelligent free people of +color. With the exception of those who hoped to be especially benefited +thereby, few leading Negroes dared to support the enterprise. The most +weighty evidence we can offer is statistics themselves. The report of the +Colonization Society shows that from 1820 to 1833 <sup><a href="#fn3-4-83" id="fna3-4-83">83</a></sup> only 2,885 colored +persons had been sent out by the Society. More than 2,700 of this number +were taken from the slave States, and about two thirds of these were slaves +manumitted on the condition of their emigrating. Of the 7,836<sup><a href="#fn3-4-84" id="fna3-4-84">84</a></sup> sent out +of the United States up to 1852, 2,720 were born free, 204 purchased their +freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of removing them to Liberia, and +1,044 were liberated Africans sent out by the United States Government. +When we consider the fact that there were 434,495<sup><a href="#fn3-4-85" id="fna3-4-85">85</a></sup> free persons of color +in the United States in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860, this element of the +population had not been materially decreased by the efforts of the American +Colonization Society.</p> + +<p class="author">Louis R. Mehlinger</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn3-4"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn3-4-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-1">return</a>]</span>1. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXVI, 246, and XXIX, 14.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-2">return</a>]</span>2. Jay, "An Inquiry into the Character and Tendencies of the American +Colonization and American Anti-Slavery Societies," p. 26 <em>et passim</em>; +Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions Touching the Real Origin, Character, and +Influence of the American Colonization Society," p. 63 <em>et seq.</em>; <em>The +African Repository</em>, and Colonization Society Letters in the Library of +Congress.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-3">return</a>]</span>3. Garrison, "Thoughts on Colonization," 8.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-4">return</a>]</span>4. Colonization Society Letters, 1826, Letter of J. Gales, of Raleigh, +North Carolina. Niles Register, XXXV, 386; XLI, 103.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-5">return</a>]</span>5. The leaders of this meeting were: James Forten, chairman, Russell +Parrott, secretary, Rev. Absalom Jones, Rev. Richard Allen, Robert +Douglass, Francis Perkins, Rev. John Gloucester, Robert Gordon, James +Johnson, Quamony Clarkson, John Sommerset, and Randall Shepherd. See +Garrison's "Thoughts on African Colonization." Niles Register, XVII, 30.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-6">return</a>]</span>6. Stebbins, "Origin, Character and Influence of the American Colonization +Society," 194.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-7">return</a>]</span>7. The address was as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "Relieved from the miseries of slavery, many of us by your aid, + possessing benefits which industry and integrity in this prosperous + country assures to all its inhabitants, enjoying the rich blessings + of religion, by opportunities of worshipping the only true God, under + the light of Christianity, each of us according to his understanding; + and having afforded us and our children the means of education and + improvement; we have no wish to separate from our present homes, for + any purpose whatever. Contented with our present situation and + condition, we are desirous of increasing the prosperity, by honest + efforts, and by the use of the opportunities, for their improvement, + which the constitution and laws allow.</p> + +<p> "We, therefore, a portion of those who are the objects of this plan, + and among those whose benefits, with them of others of color, it is + intended to promote; with humble and grateful acknowledgments to + those who have devised it, renounce and disclaim every connection + with it; and respectfully and firmly declare our determination not to + participate in any part of it.</p> + +<p> "Nor do we view the colonization of those who may become emancipated + by its operation among our southern brethren, as capable to produce + their happiness. Unprepared by education and a knowledge of the + principles of our blessed religion, for their new situation, those + who will thus become colonized will thus be surrounded by every + suffering which can affect the members of the human family.</p> + +<p> "Without arts, without habits of industry, and unaccustomed to + provide by their own exertions and foresight for their wants, the + colony will soon become the abode of every vice, and the home of + every misery. Soon will the light of Christianity, which now dawns + among that portion of our species, be cut out by the clouds of + ignorance, and their day of life be closed, without the illumination + of the gospel.</p> + +<p> "To those of our brethren who shall be left behind, there will be + assured perpetual slavery and augmented sufferings. Diminished in + numbers, the slave population of the southern states, which by their + magnitude alarms its proprietors, will be easily secured. Those who + among their bondsmen, who feel that they should be free, by right + which all mankind have from God and from nature, will be sent to the + colony; and the timid and submissive will be retained, and subjected + to increasing rigor. Year after year will witness those means to + assure safety and submission among their slaves, and the southern + masters will colonize only those who it may be dangerous to keep + among them. The bondage of a large portion of our members will thus + be rendered perpetual.</p> + +<p> "Disclaiming, as we emphatically do, a wish or desire to interpose + our opinions and feelings between the plan of colonization and the + judgment of those whose wisdom as far as exceeds ours as their + situations are exalted above ours, we humbly, respectfully, and + fervently intreat and beseech your disapprobation of the plan of + colonization now offered by the American Society for colonizing the + free people of color of the United States. Here in the city of + Philadelphia, where the voice of the suffering sons of Africa was + first heard; where was first commenced the work of abolition, on + which heaven has smiled, for it could have had success only from the + Great Maker; will not a purpose be assisted which will state the + cause of the entire abolition of slavery in the United States, and + which may defeat it altogether; which proffers to those who do not + ask for them what it calls benefits, but which they consider + injurious and which must insure to the multitudes whose prayers can + only reach you through us, misery, sufferings, and perpetual slavery.</p> + +<p> "James Forten, <em>Chairman</em>,</p> + +<p> "Russell Parrott, <em>Secretary</em>."</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-4-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-8">return</a>]</span>8. Garrison, "Thoughts on Colonization," p. 10.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-9">return</a>]</span>9. <em>The African Repository</em>, II, 295 <em>et seq.</em></p> + +<p id="fn3-4-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-10">return</a>]</span>10. It must be borne in mind, too, that <em>The African Repository</em>, in which +appeared most of the letters of Negroes favoring emigration to Africa, was +the organ of the American Colonization Society.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-11">return</a>]</span>11. <em>The African Repository</em>, VII, 216.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-12">return</a>]</span>12. <em>Ibid.</em>, XII, 149-150.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-13">return</a>]</span>13. During these years conditions were becoming intolerable for the free +blacks in the South.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-14">return</a>]</span>14. <em>The African Repository</em>, VII, 230.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-15">return</a>]</span>15. Colonization Society Letters, 1832.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-16">return</a>]</span>16. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXIII, 190.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-17">return</a>]</span>17. Colonization Society Letters, 1848-1851.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-18">return</a>]</span>18. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXVI, 276.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-19">return</a>]</span>19. <em>Ibid.</em>, XXVI, 194.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-20">return</a>]</span>20. <em>Ibid.</em>, XXVIII, (July 12, 1848).</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-21">return</a>]</span>21. Colonization Society Letters, 1831, <em>passim.</em></p> + +<p id="fn3-4-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-22">return</a>]</span>22. Letter of T. H. Gallaudet in the Colonization Society Letters, 1831.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-23">return</a>]</span>23. Jay, "An Inquiry into the Character and Tendencies of the American +Colonization Society," 28 <em>et passim.</em></p> + +<p id="fn3-4-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-24">return</a>]</span>24. Garrison, "Thoughts on African Colonization," 22.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-25">return</a>]</span>25. Garrison, "Thoughts on Colonization," 22.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-26">return</a>]</span>26. <em>Ibid.</em>, 23.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-27">return</a>]</span>27. <em>Ibid.</em>, 11.</p> + + +<p id="fn3-4-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-28">return</a>]</span>28. The resolutions were as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That this meeting contemplate, with lively interest, the + reported progress of the sentiments of liberty among our degraded + brethren, and that we legally oppose every operation that may have a + tendency to perpetuate our present political condition.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That this meeting look upon the American Colonization + Society as a clamorous, abusive and peace-disturbing combination.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That this meeting look upon those clergymen, who have + filled the ears of their respective congregations with the absurd + idea of the necessity of removing the free colored people from the + United States, as highly deserving the just reprehension directed to + the false prophets and priests, by Jeremiah, the true prophet, as + recorded in the twenty-third chapter of his prophesy.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That this meeting appeal to the generous and enlightened + public for an impartial hearing relative to the subject of our + present political condition.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That the gratitude of this meeting, which is so sensibly + felt, be fully expressed to those whose independence of mind and + correct views of the rights of man have led them so fearlessly to + speak in favor of our cause; that we rejoice to behold in them such a + strong desire to extend towards us the inestimable blessings in the + gift of a wise Providence which is deemed by all nature, and for + which their valiant fathers struggled in the Revolution.</p> + +<p> "<span class="sc">Robert Roberts</span>, <em>Chairman</em>,</p> + +<p> "<span class="sc">James G. Barbardoes</span>, <em>Secretary</em>"</p> + +<p class="cite"> --Garrison, "Thoughts on African Colonization," 20.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-4-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-29">return</a>]</span>29. <em>Ibid.</em>, 13.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-30">return</a>]</span>30. Garrison, "Thoughts on Colonization," 23-24.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-31">return</a>]</span>31. <em>Ibid.</em>, 28-29.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-32">return</a>]</span>32. <em>Ibid.</em>, 30-31.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-33">return</a>]</span>33. Garrison, "Thoughts on African Colonization," 31-32.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-34">return</a>]</span>34. <em>Ibid.</em>, 34-35.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-35">return</a>]</span>35. <em>Ibid.</em>, 49. Among the resolutions passed were:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That we hold these truths to be self-evident (and it is + the boasted declaration of our independence), that all men (black and + white, poor and rich) are born free and equal; that they are endowed + by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these + are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That we feel it to be our duty to be true to the + constitution of our country, and are satisfied with the form of + government under which we now live; and, moreover, that we are bound + in duty and reason to protect it against foreign invasion; that we + always have done so and will do so still.</p> + +<p> "<em>Resolved</em>, That we view the efforts of the Colonization Society as + officious and uncalled for. We have never done anything worthy of + banishment from our friends and home."--Garrison, "Thoughts on + African Colonization," 41.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn3-4-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-36">return</a>]</span>36. Garrison, "Thoughts on African Colonization," 40-41.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-37">return</a>]</span>37. <em>Ibid.</em>, 33-34.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-38">return</a>]</span>38. <em>Ibid.</em>, 45-47.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-39">return</a>]</span>39. Believing it his duty to aid any free person or persons of color who +thought it best and wished to emigrate, instead of opposing them he had +given his personal support in their efforts to leave the country. Records +would show that he had helped the most prominent men of the Colony to get +there, among them being John B. Russwurm and James M. Thompson, two +excellent men and good scholars.--<em>African Repository</em>, X, 187.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-40">return</a>]</span>40. Cornish and Wright, "The Colonization Scheme Considered," 7.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-40a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-40a">return</a>]</span>40a. <em>African Repository</em>, XXIV, 158.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-41">return</a>]</span>41. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXIV, 261.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-42">return</a>]</span>42. Reference is here made to the "Black Laws" of Ohio, passed to prevent +the immigration of persecuted blacks from the South into that commonwealth.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-43">return</a>]</span>43. Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Free People of +Color.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-44">return</a>]</span>44. At this time the free blacks throughout the country were being urged +by Abolitionists to redouble their attacks on the American Colonization +Society. The Negroes merely needed to follow their lead.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-46">return</a>]</span>46. Having the idea that the colonization scheme meant the expatriation of +the free Negroes, several of their eminent leaders and anti-slavery friends +advocated the colonization of the colored people on the western public +lands.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-45">return</a>]</span>45. <em>The African Repository</em>, XX, 316, 317.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-47">return</a>]</span>47. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXII, 265.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-48"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-48">return</a>]</span>48. <em>Ibid.</em>, XXVI, 221.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-49"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-49">return</a>]</span>49. Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions Touching the Real Origin and Influence +of the American Colonization Society," 196.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-50"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-50">return</a>]</span>50. <em>Ibid.</em>, 197.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-51"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-51">return</a>]</span>51. <em>Ibid.</em>, 202.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-52"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-52">return</a>]</span>52. <em>Ibid.</em>, 199.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-53"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-53">return</a>]</span>53. <em>Ibid.</em>, 200.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-54"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-54">return</a>]</span>54. <em>Ibid.</em>, 201.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-55"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-55">return</a>]</span>55. <em>Ibid.</em>, 206.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-56"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-56">return</a>]</span>56. <em>Ibid.</em>, 206.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-57"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-57">return</a>]</span>57. Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions Touching the Real Origin, Character and +Influence of the American Colonization Society," 207.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-58"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-58">return</a>]</span>58. <em>Ibid.</em>, 208.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-59"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-59">return</a>]</span>59. <em>Ibid.</em>, 208.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-60"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-60">return</a>]</span>60. Cornish and Wright, "The Colonization Scheme Considered," 7.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-61"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-61">return</a>]</span>61. "Having now done what we could," said they, "we ask you in view of the +whole case whether you ought longer to take advantage of our weakness and +press on us an enterprise that we have rejected from the first? Whether you +ought to persist in a scheme which nourishes an unreasonable and +un-Christian prejudice--which persuades legislatures to continue their +unjust enactments against us in all their rigor--which exposes us to the +persecution of the proud and profligate--which cuts us off from employment, +and straitens our means of subsistence--which afflicts us with the feeling +that our condition is unstable--and prevents us from making efforts for our +improvement, or for the advancement of our own usefullness and benefits and +with our families."--Cornish and Wright, "The Colonization Scheme +Considered," 8.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-62"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-62">return</a>]</span>62. Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions Touching the Real Origin, Character and +Influence of the American Colonization Society," 208.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-63"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-63">return</a>]</span>63. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXVI, 294.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-64"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-64">return</a>]</span>64. Douglass, "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," 260.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-65"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-65">return</a>]</span>65. Crummell thought so well of it that he went to Africa for this +purpose. See <em>The African Repository</em>, XXX, 125.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-66"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-66">return</a>]</span>66. <em>Ibid.</em>, LXIII, 273.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-67"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-67">return</a>]</span>67. Niles' Register, LVI, 165 and 180.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-68"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-68">return</a>]</span>68. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXIII, 374.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-69"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-69">return</a>]</span>69. <em>Ibid.</em>, XXIV, 243.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-70"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-70">return</a>]</span>70. Mr. Washington had been active in securing the assistance of a few men +of superior ability and high ideals and finally entered into negotiations +with the authorities for a tract of land in Mexico on which he proposed to +colonize the free Negroes of the United States, but the war in that country +prevented the execution of the plan. He was compelled finally to abandon +the plan of a separate state in America, but gave all his time, voice and +pen and means to the cause of emigration to Liberia. See <em>New York +Tribune</em>, -----, and <em>The African Repository</em>, XXVII, 259.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-71"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-71">return</a>]</span>71. Anthony Bowen, who was at that time a messenger in the Patent Office +at Washington, D.C., was the uncle of Nathaniel Bowen. See <em>The African +Repository</em>, XXVIII, 164.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-72"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-72">return</a>]</span>72. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXI, 285.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-73"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-73">return</a>]</span>73. <em>The Cincinnati Gazette</em>, July 14, 1841.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-74"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-74">return</a>]</span>74. Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions Touching the Real Origin, Character and +Influence of the American Colonization Society," 200-201.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-75"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-75">return</a>]</span>75. <em>The Baltimore Sun</em>, July 27, 28 and 29, 1852.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-76"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-76">return</a>]</span>76. Stebbins, "Facts and Opinions, etc.," 200-201.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-77"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-77">return</a>]</span>77. Cromwell, "The Negro in American History," 42.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-78"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-78">return</a>]</span>78. <em>The North Star</em>, 1853.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-79"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-79">return</a>]</span>79. Letter of Bishop Holly in Cromwell's "Negro in American History," +43-44.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-80"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-80">return</a>]</span>80. <em>Ibid.</em>, 44.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-81"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-81">return</a>]</span>81. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXIV, 261.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-82"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-82">return</a>]</span>82. Letter of Bishop Holly in Cromwell's "The Negro in American History," +44.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-83"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-83">return</a>]</span>83. <em>The Liberator</em>, 1833.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-84"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-84">return</a>]</span>84. <em>The African Repository</em>, XXIII, 117.</p> + +<p id="fn3-4-85"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-4-85">return</a>]</span>85. United States Census, 1850 and 1860.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="doc3"> +<h2><a id="pg302"></a>Documents</h2> + + +<div class='article' id="a3-5"> +<h3>Transplanting Free Negroes To Ohio From 1815 To 1858<sup><a href="#fn3-5-1" id="fna3-5-1">1</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>Brown county was one of the first parts of Ohio to be invaded by free +Negroes. In the "Historical Collections of Ohio" Howe says:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "In the county (Brown) there are two large settlements of colored + persons, numbering about 500 each. One of these is 3 miles north of + Georgetown; the other is in the NE. part of the county, about 16 + miles distant. They emigrated from Virginia, in the year 1818, and + were originally the slaves of Samuel Gist, who manumitted and settled + them here, upon two large surveys of land. Their situation, + unfortunately, is not prosperous."--Howe, Historical Collections of + Ohio, 71.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Referring to these settlements some years later another historian said:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "The colored settlement in Eagle Township was made in 1818, by a + number of the former slaves of Samuel Gist, a wealthy banker, + resident of London, England, and an extensive land-owner and + slaveholder in the United States.</p> + +<p> "It is not known that Gist ever visited his plantation here, or that + he ever saw a single slave that cultivated his lands, but all was + left to the management of resident agents appointed by him. These + lands lay in the counties of Hanover, Amherst, Goslin (Goochland), + and Henrico, Va., and included some of the first plantations in the + 'Old Dominion.'</p> + +<p> "In 1808 desiring to make ample provision for the future of those who + had so abundantly filled his coffers by their servitude, Gist made a + will, the intent of which was certainly benevolent, but which has been + most wretchedly executed. This document of fifty-eight closely written + pages is a study within itself. It begins thus: <a id="pg303"></a>This is the last will + and testament of me Samuel Gist, of Gower street, in the Parish of St. + Giles, in the city of London, of the county of Middlesex, England.</p> + +<p> "After bequeathing various valuable estates, large sums of money to + his only daughter, he designated what property and sums of money + shall fall to the numerous persons who have been in his employ, and + most explicitly does he provide for his slaves in Virginia, who + numbered nearly one thousand souls!</p> + +<p> "Relative to them the will provides that at his death his 'slaves in + Virginia shall be free.' That his lands shall be sold and comfortable + homes in a free State be purchased for them with the proceeds. That + the revenue from his plantations the last year of his life be applied + in building school houses and churches for their accommodation. That + all money coming to him in Virginia be set aside for the employment + of ministers and teachers to instruct them. That 'care be taken to + make them as comfortable and happy as possible.'</p> + +<p> "In 1815 Samuel Gist died, and Wickham of Richmond, Va. (in + conjunction with his father-in-law, Page), who had been appointed + Gist's agent, proceeded to execute his will. Accordingly through + parties in Hillsboro, Ohio, 1,112 acres of land near Georgetown, and + 1,200 acres west of Fincastle, in Eagle Township, were purchased for + homes for these slaves. These lands were covered with thickets of + undergrowth and sloughs of stagnant water and were almost valueless + at that time for any purpose other than pasturage. Here in June, + 1818, came nearly 900 persons, a part of whom located on the + Georgetown lands, the remainder on the Fincastle purchase. Their + 'comfortable homes' lay in the wild region about them; the education + they received was in the stern school of adversity. As a matter of + course, they did not prosper. Some who were able returned to + Virginia. Others built rude huts and began clearing away the forest. + What little money they had was soon spent. Scheming white men planned + to get their personal property. They became involved in numerous law + suits among themselves, and so from various causes they were reduced + almost to pauperism. In later years their lands have been sold, so + that at present but few families remain as relics of this once large + settlement. Among the first families that settled in this township + were the following, most of whom had families:</p> + +<p> "Jacob Cumberland, George Cumberland, Samuel Hudson, Gabriel York, + James Gist, Gabriel Johnson, Joseph Locust, James <a id="pg304"></a>Cluff, ---- Davis, + Sol Garrison, ---- Pearsons, ---- Williams, Glascow Ellis, and Tom + Fox. 'Old Sam Hudson,' as he was familiarly known, was an odd + character, and many anecdotes are yet related of him. At one time he + was sent to the State Prison at Columbus for making unlawful use of + another man's horse, and so it happened that a white man named Demitt + accompanied him for a like offense. Upon being interrogated as to his + occupation, Sam answered, 'Preacher ob de Gospel!' Turning to Demitt, + the officer asked, 'What's your occupation?' 'I clerk for Sam,' was + the shrewd reply.</p> + +<p> "Richmond Cumberland ('Blind Dick'), Meredith Cumberland, Taylor + Davis, Moses Cumberland, Ephraim Johnson, and Winston Cumberland were + also born in Virginia."--History of Brown County, Ohio (edition + 1883), p. 592.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>During these years according to the letter below another group of Negroes +found their way into Jefferson County, Ohio.</p> +<blockquote class="letter"> +<p> <em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p> Every body with whom I have talked about this colony of Negroes, + referred me to Judge Mansfield as one knowing more about it than + anybody else. He, therefore, is my chief informer. In 1825 a colony + of slaves was sent up from Charles City County, Virginia, to + Smithfield, in Jefferson County, Ohio, about twenty miles southwest + of Steubenville. They were the slaves of Thomas Beaufort of the + Virginia County above named. So far as I could learn not all of + Beaufort's slaves were sent to Smithfield. Another colony I was told + was located at Stillwater in Harrison County, Ohio, but I have not + yet been in that community. How the slaves traveled from Virginia to + Smithfield could not be told. The number sent up is not known--about + thirty or forty families, they said. They were a tribe, as it were, + Nattie Beaufort being the patriarch. They were sent in charge of a + man named McIntyre, an overseer, who supposedly had been sent to see + to the locating of the slaves on a tract of land which the master had + bought for them through Benjamin Ladd, a Quaker of the Smithfield + community. McIntyre returned to Virginia after a few days stay. He + was never in the community again, nor was any other representative of + the Beaufort's so far as anybody knows. The land was bought in Wayne + Township--about 200 acres, about five miles out from Smithfield. It + is quite rolling, of stiff clay character. There are <a id="pg305"></a>fine farms all + about it and coal fields not far away. It was bought of Thomas + Mansfield whose son, a prominent lawyer in Steubenville, still owns + land contiguous to the Beaufort tract, and owns now a part of what + his father sold the slaves.</p> + +<p> According to Judge Mansfield the tract of land was laid out in + five-acre plots. A cabin was built on each and a family placed in + each cabin. The families were the married sons and daughters of + Nathaniel Beaufort who had been his master's "nigger driver," was the + way one of his granddaughters put it. The whole colony was under + Nathaniel Beaufort's control as long as he lived, during which time + it prospered. Two of the original colony, both women, are still + living and own their little tracts, one residing on her property and + the other in the infirmary. The descendants of the first settlers + owned most of the land but some of it has been lost. Whether they had + any teams and money to start with it is not known to Judge Mansfield, + but he thought that they did not. Both men and women had to "work + out" much of the time for means to go upon, the girls toiling as + servants in the community for twenty-five to fifty cents per week and + their keep, the men receiving forty to fifty cents per day often paid + in such provisions as meal and meat.</p> + +<p> Judged by the management of their own plots they are not a success as + farmers, most of their soil being now practically worthless. "The + land which was bought for the slaves was never recorded in their + names," says Judge Mansfield. It was deeded to Benjamin Ladd as + trustee and so stands in the record now. Judge Mansfield's last words + were: "There has been no clash over that land because of its run down + condition, but if coal or oil should be found about there, I cannot + tell what will happen." The financial condition of the colony is no + better than it was seventy-five years ago, the physical condition is + far from being as good. Two or three of these Negroes, however, + showing evidence of thrift are very good farmers. They have increased + their holdings and built new cabins, although most of the old + dwellings are still there and are occupied by the descendants of the + original settlers. They have rapidly increased in numbers and have + extensively intermarried. From the first the people were religious, + regular church goers. They have two churches among them, one + Methodist and the other Baptist. Their morals have been good, having + seldom committed crime. Officers of the law have found very little to + do in this community. During the life of the colony there have been + <a id="pg306"></a>only two arrests for serious crimes, one of which was for stealing a + horse and the other for stealing wool. Both of the accused were sent + to the penitentiary. No other serious charge has ever been brought + against any member of the community so far as Judge Mansfield knew. + The original set were fine physical specimens, "as fine," says Judge + Mansfield, "as the community ever saw."</p> + +<p> Separate schools for white and blacks have been maintained from the + start. Nearly all the teachers have been white. The preachers have + been members of the colony. None of them, however, have gained any + particular prominence in any line. Not even any of the children, so + far as could be learned, had ever been sent off to school. The best + known of them now are two brothers, William and Wilson Toney, both + preachers. Just what acreage they now own I could not learn. How much + is owned by the best of them also could not be determined.</p> + +<p> The community is called by some "McIntyre" after the man who carried + the slaves up into Ohio, and by others it is called "Haiti." The + latter term is almost wholly used by white people throughout the + county and has always been offensive to the Negroes. Although I went + to "Haiti" and talked with one of the men, Judge Mansfield gave me + practically all the information. I will send you more in a few days + gathered at other points. I have tried to cover your questions and to + include other vital ones. Please call my attention to anything that I + might mention to add to the interest or thoroughness of the story. I + have reported here almost word for word as the facts were given me by + the Judge and hope the story will have some interest for you. I + expect to find out a great deal more about that community.<sup><a href="#fn3-5-2" id="fna3-5-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p class="closing"> Very truly yours,</p> + +<p class="sig"><span class="sc"> C. A. Powell.</span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>Under a protest from afar a goodly number of slaves were settled in +Lawrence county in 1827.</p> + + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-5-1"> +<h4>COMMUNICATED</h4> + + +<h5> "BLACKS AND MULATTOES</h5> + +<p> "On the 14th April, seventy of this description of persons, in one + company emigrated into and settled within Lawrence county. They were a + part of a stock of slaves emancipated by the last will <a id="pg307"></a>of a Mr. Ward, + late of Pittsylvania county, Virginia, deceased. Those unfortunate + creatures have little or no property of value--many of them ragged and + dirty. It was expected that such a number together, in such condition + would hardly, in Ohio, find a place where to lay their heads; yet so far + from meeting with obstacles, facilities to settlement were extended to + them. All of them have found places, and many of them have already + obtained security as the law requires; and probably the balance will + within twenty days. The writer of this note would censure none for acts + of kindness to this unfortunate class of persons--yet as he regards the + moral character and welfare of society, he cannot view these rapid + accessions without some degree of alarm."--<em>The Ohio State Journal and + Columbus Gazette</em>, May 3, 1827.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Some years later there was established in Mercer county another colony, +which because of its connection with friends in Cincinnati, then promoting +the settlement of Negroes on public land, became the most promising of +the colored communities in Ohio. Sketching the history of that county, +Howe says:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "In the southern part of this county is a colony of colored people, + amounting to several hundred persons. They live principally by + agriculture, and own extensive tracts of land in the townships of + Granville, Franklin, and Mercer. They bear a good reputation for + morality, and manifest a laudable desire for mental improvement. This + settlement was founded by the exertions of Mr. Augustus Wattles, a + native of Connecticut, who, instead of merely theorizing upon the evils + which prevent the moral and mental advancement of the colored race, has + acted in their behalf with a philanthropic, Christian-like zeal, that + evinces he has their real good at heart. The history of this settlement + is given in the annexed extract of a letter from him.</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "'My early education, as you well know, would naturally lead me to + look upon learning and good morals as of infinite importance in a + land of liberty. In the winter of 1833-4, I providentially became + acquainted with the colored population of Cincinnati, and found about + 4,000 totally ignorant of every thing calculated to make good + citizens. Most of them had been slaves, shut out from every avenue of + moral and mental improvement. I started a school for them, and kept + it up with 200 pupils for two years. I then proposed to the colored + people to move into the country and purchase land, and remove from + those contaminating influences which had so long crushed them in our + cities and vil<a id="pg308"></a>lages. They promised to do so, provided I would + accompany them and teach school. I travelled through Canada, Michigan + and Indiana, looking for a suitable location, and finally settled + here, thinking this place contained more natural advantages than any + other unoccupied country within my knowledge. In 1835, I made the + first purchase for colored people in this county. In about three + years, they owned not far from 30,000 acres. I had travelled into + almost every neighborhood of colored people in the State, and laid + before them the benefits of a permanent home for themselves and of + education for their children. In my first journey through the state, + I established, by the assistance and cooperation of abolitionists, 25 + schools for colored children. I collected of the colored people such + money as they had to spare, and entered land for them. Many, who had + no money, afterwards succeeded in raising some, and brought it to me. + With this I bought land for them.</p> + +<p> "'I purchased for myself 190 acres of land, to establish a manual + labor school for colored boys. I had sustained a school on it, at my + own expense, till the 11th of November, 1842. Being in Philadelphia + the winter before, I became acquainted with the trustees of the late + Samuel Emlen, of New Jersey, a Friend. He left by his will $20,000, + for the "support and education in school learning and the mechanics + arts and agriculture, such colored boys, of African and Indian + descent, whose parents would give them up to the institute." We + united our means and they purchased my farm, and appointed me the + superintendent of the establishment, which they call the Emlen + Institute.'</p> +</blockquote> +<p> "In 1846, Judge Leigh, of Virginia, purchased 3,200 acres of land in + this settlement, for the freed slaves of John Randolph, of Roanoke. + These arrived in the summer of 1846, to the number of about 400, but + were forcibly prevented from making a settlement by a portion of the + inhabitants of the county. Since then, acts of hostility have been + commenced against the people of this settlement, and threats of greater + held out, if they do not abandon their lands and homes."--Howe's + "Historical Collections of Ohio," pp. 355-356.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Coming to Shelby county the same historian did not fail to mention a +settlement of prosperous Negroes who were keeping pace with their white +neighbors.</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "In Van Buren township is a settlement of COLORED people, numbering + about 400. They constitute half the population of the township, and are + as prosperous as their white neighbors. Neither are they behind them in + religion, morals and intelligence, having churches and schools of their + own. Their location, however, is not a good one, the land being too flat + and wet. An attempt was made in July, 1846, to colonize with them 385 of + the emancipated slaves of the celebrated John Randolph, of Va., after + they were driven from<a id="pg309"></a> Mercer county; but a considerable party of whites + would not willingly permit it, and they were scattered by families among + the people of Shelby and Miami who were willing to take them."--Howe's + "Historical Collections of Ohio," pp. 465-466.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This effort at colonizing so many Negroes in the State of Ohio led to much +discussion. There arose an anti-free Negro party which sounded the alarm +against such philanthropy and undertook to frighten all blacks away. The +sentiment of such alarmists may be obtained from the following:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> "By the following letter from a gentleman on a tour through Virginia to + the editor, it will appear that we are to have a colony of free negroes + (no less than five hundred) planted in our adjoining county. Much as we + commiserate the situation of those who, when emancipated, are obliged to + leave their country or again be enslaved, we trust our constitution and + laws are not so defective as to suffer us to be overrun by such a + wretched population:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "'Richmond, Va., May 10, 1819.</p> + +<p> "'<em>Dear Sir</em>:--Since my arrival in this county I have understood that + a large family of negroes, consisting of about five hundred, have + lately been liberated and are to be marched to Ohio, and there + settled on land provided for them agreeably to the will of a Mr. + Gess, who formerly owned them. There are persons now engaged in + collecting the poor miserable beings from different quarters and + driving them like cattle to Goochland county, from whence they will + take up their line of march to Ohio. I am told that they are perhaps + as depraved and ignorant a set of people as any of their kind and + that their departure is hailed with joy by all those who have lived + in their neighborhood. Ohio will suffer seriously from the iniquitous + policy pursued by the States of Virginia and Kent. in driving all + their free negroes upon us. The people of Ohio are bound in justice + to themselves to adopt some counteracting measure. Many people here + are of the opinion that we may be compelled to introduce slavery in + Ohio in self-defense, and they appear to be gratified that we are + suffering many of the evils attending it, without (as they call it) + any of the benefits. I have been gratified to tell them what I + believe to be true--that nineteen twentieths of the people of Ohio + are so opposed to slavery that they would not consent to its + introduction under any circumstances; and, although they commiserate + the situation of those who have been liberated and compelled to + abandon their country or again be made slaves, yet in justice to + themselves and their posterity they will refuse admittance to such a + population.</p> + +<p> "'Your most ob't., "'A.T.'</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a id="pg310"></a> "(Editor) We understand from a respectable authority that 270 of said + negroes have landed at Ripley and are to settle near the center of Brown + county on White Oak, the residue of 500 to follow soon + after."--Quillin's "The Color Line in Ohio," pp. 28-29 and <em>The + Supporter, Chillicothe</em>, June 16, 1819.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In view of this alarm aroused by the so-called Negro invasion the Ohio +colonizationists availed themselves of the opportunity to set forth their +plan as the only solution of the problem. The following articles are +interesting.</p> + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-5-2"> +<h4> "NEW STYLE COLONIZATION</h4> + +<p> "It seems that our old friend Gerrit Smith is anxious to form a colony + of colored people in the State of New York. It is not known that he pays + the expenses of any to get to that happy spot, but he certainly offers + them a share in the property of earth, when they arrive. Some have + thought his effort in this respect, another proof of his great + liberality. Perhaps it is--but of the character of those lands we know + nothing. The <em>Journal of Commerce</em> seems to understand the subject from + the following, which we cut from a late number:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "'<em>Bounty of Gerrit Smith</em>.--Some of the newspapers are eulogizing + this once sensible man, because he is giving away deeds in any number + to colored men, of forty acre lots of his vast tract in Hamilton + county. The considerations in the deeds are as follows:</p> + +<p> "'"For and in consideration of the sum of one dollar to me, in hand + paid, and being desirious to have all share in the subsistence and + happiness, which a bountiful God has provided for all, has granted, + sold, etc."</p> + +<p> "'If the negroes do not run away from the bears and wolves and + climate and sterility of Hamilton county, with more anxiety than they + ever did from Southern slavery, then we do not understand their + character. We do not blame the negroes for getting their liberty if + they can, but to make them take farms in Hamilton county, is too bad. + The wild beasts up there will rejoice in a negro settlement among + them, especially at the beginning of winter.'</p> +</blockquote> +<p> "Had Judge Leigh taken the Randolph negroes there, they might have fared + as well as they have done in Ohio, and certainly he could have gotten + the land much cheaper!</p> + +<p> "After all, 'there is no place like home!' And there is no 'home, sweet + home,' for the colored man, but in Liberia!"</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The African Repository</em>, XXII, 320-321.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-5-3"> +<h4><a id="pg311"></a> "FREEDOM IN A FREE STATE</h4> + +<p> "Facts are almost daily transpiring which show the immense importance of + colonization. Among them, none are more conspicuous than those which + come to us from the free States. If the colored people cannot enjoy + freedom in a free State, what can they do? Where shall they go? Here is + a fact:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "<em>Randolph's 'John'</em>.--We are told by the <em>Lynchburg Virginian</em>, that + John, the well-known and faithful servant of the late John Randolph, + who, with the emancipated slaves of his master, went to Ohio, and + were there treated by the citizens in a manner of which our readers + have been apprized, has returned to Charlotte with the intention of + petitioning the legislature to allow him to remain in the + commonwealth. He says, they have no feeling for colored people in + Ohio, and, if the legislature refuse to grant his petition, he will + submit to the penalty of remaining and be sold as a slave--preferring + this to enjoying freedom in a free state.</p> +</blockquote> +<p> "We have been repeatedly asked, why do you not send those slaves to + Liberia? To this question we reply, we have had nothing to do with them, + and have reason to believe that they have been prejudiced against going + to Liberia. And in addition to this, it is now very doubtful whether + they have money enough left to take them to Liberia; and it would be + impossible for us, in the present state of our finance, to give them a + free passage and support them six months after their arrival.</p> + +<p> "We have been informed that many of the rest of them would come back to + Virginia, and be slaves, rather than remain in Ohio, <em>if they could get + back</em>. And yet they are now free and in a free state! But what does it + all amount to?</p> + +<p> "Suppose western Virginia and northern Kentucky, were tomorrow to + emancipate their slaves, what would become of them? They could not + remain in those states. They must remove. Where shall they go? To Ohio, + most easily, and as there are more Abolitionists in that state than any + other, more hopefully! But would they be admitted there? Where then + shall they go? Let those who can, answer these questions. In view of + them, and such like, the scheme of colonization rises in magnificence + and grandeur beyond conception.</p> + +<p> "This then is the time to aid this scheme, that when these thickening + events shall turn the tide into Liberia, there may be strength and + intelligence enough there to receive it!"</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The African Repository</em>, XXII, 321-322.</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-5-4"> +<h4><a id="pg312"></a> (From the Colonizationist)</h4> +<h5> THE RANDOLPH SLAVES</h5> + +<p> "Plattsville, Wis.,</p> + +<p> "August 22, 1846.</p> + +<p> "<em>Bro. Gurley:</em>--I have observed from time to time, with the deepest + interest, the course pursued by the citizens of Ohio toward the + emancipated slaves of the late John Randolph of Virginia.</p> + +<p> "I had repeatedly remarked in my lectures, as stated in the 'Eleventh + Annual Report of the Indiana Colonization Society,' that when slaves + were emancipated in the south, and by the laws of those States (as is + the case with most of them), they are forced to leave and not permitted + to remain in any State south, to go into the north; those northern + States would reject them, and leave the slave the alternative, to choose + between returning into bondage or emigrating to Liberia. In other words, + Liberia offers the only retreat for the slave from bondage, where he is + required to leave the south. The free States, may, for a short time, + tolerate the migration of a few colored people among them from the + south. Especially among the Abolitionists, where they are allowed to + have the satisfaction of abducting them from their masters. But if the + master comes and offers them, and especially in large numbers, they will + be refused.</p> + +<p> "On my way to this place, I met with a citizen of Indiana, formerly of + Virginia, who gave me some singular facts on this subject. There is + living in Ohio, said he, a worthy citizen, a Mr. G., a native of + Virginia, who, after a residence there of some eight or ten years, + returned to Virginia, on a visit to see a brother who still remained in + the 'Old Dominion.' Mr. G. gave his brother an interesting account of + the prospects and policy of Ohio, with which he was much pleased. The + Virginia brother remarked to Mr. G. that he found his slaves a great + burden to him and requested him to take them all to Ohio and set them + free! 'I cannot do it,' said Mr. G. 'Why?' asked his brother. 'The + citizens of Ohio will not allow me to bring 100 negroes among them to + settle,' said Mr. G. 'But,' said he, 'I can put you upon a plan by which + you can get rid of them and get them into Ohio very easy. Do you take + them to Wheeling and there place them on a steamboat for Cincinnati, and + speak of taking them to New Orleans; and while you are looking out for + another boat, give the chance, and the Abolitionists will steal the + whole of them and run them off, and then <a id="pg313"></a>celebrate a perfect triumph + over them. But if you take them to the same men and ask them to receive + and take care of them, they will tell you to take care of them + yourself.'</p> + +<p> "The case of the Randolph slaves proves that Mr. G. was right, and that + the view presented in our annual report is a just one. Mr. Randolph + emancipated his slaves, and as they could not remain in Virginia, they + were to be sent to Ohio--there they are not allowed to settle, and must + now return to bondage, or go to Liberia.</p> + +<p> "As yet the burden of embarrassment of a mixed population of blacks is + scarcely felt in the north, as it must be soon; for just as emancipation + goes on in the south, they must increase in the north, unless our plan + and policy prevails. I cannot say that I regret to see a test of these + practical truths. For facts speak out loudly to prove the correctness of + the best system of policy on these subjects. Had Mr. Randolph's slaves + been allowed to remain in Ohio, they would have been a downtrodden and + oppressed people for all time to come. If they go to Liberia they will + be FREE in every sense of the term.</p> + +<p class="author"> "B. T. Kavanaugh." </p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The African Repository</em>, XXII, 322-323.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-5-5"> +<h4> "THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA</h4> + +<p> "The undersigned, having been appointed agent of the American + Colonization Society, for the State of Ohio, to solicit funds to aid its + operations, begs leave to call attention to the statistical facts, in + reference to the position which this State occupies, in relation to the + free colored population of the United States, and the interest which she + has in sustaining the Republic of Liberia.</p> + +<p> "From 1790 to 1810, the increase of the free colored population of the + United States, was at the average rate of near 6 per cent. per annum. + The average increase of the slaves has been a little over 2½ per + cent. per annum, or exactly two and sixty-hundredths. The census tables + for the whole period up to 1840, indicates that the natural increase of + the free colored population is somewhat less than that of the slave. I + shall suppose it to be 2½ per cent. per annum. The excess of increase + over 2½ will, therefore, represent the emancipations. In applying + this rule, it appears that the work of emancipation must have been + actively prosecuted from 1790 to 1810.</p> + +<p> "From 1810 to 1820 the rate of increase was <em>reduced</em> to a <a id="pg314"></a>little less + than 2½, or exactly two and forty-seven hundredths per cent. per + annum. This indicates that emancipation had ceased to swell, in any + appreciable degree, the number of free colored persons, unless we are + forced to admit that there is <em>greater mortality amongst freedmen than + slaves</em>. This cessation of emancipation was <em>before the organization of + the Colonization Society</em>. It is supposed to have been caused by the + conviction that emancipation upon the soil had wrought but little change + in the colored man's condition. The sympathies of good men were + therefore awakened in behalf of the colored man, and colonization + proposed and adopted, as the best means of securing to him the social + and political privileges of which he was deprived. The establishment of + an independent republic, including a population of 80,000 souls, with + foreign exports to the value of $100,000 a year, and the introduction of + civilization and Christianity in Africa, with all their attendant + blessings, furnishes an answer to the question of the success of the + scheme.</p> + +<p> "The period of the greatest popularity of the Colonization Society, was + from 1820 to 1830. During this time, the increase of the free colored + population reached to nearly 3 per cent. or a half per cent. per annum + over the natural increase. But from 1830 to 1840, the period when the + Society had the least popularity, the increase was but a very small + fraction over <em>two</em> per cent. per annum, being two and eight hundredths, + indicating that fewer bondmen had been liberated than during any other + period. Indeed, the <em>decrease</em> was so great as to reduce the rate of + increase <em>more than a half per cent. per annum below the natural + increase of the slaves</em>, and furnished an argument in favor of the idea, + that freedom in this country is unfavorable to the longevity of the + colored man. From all these facts, we may infer that colonization, while + its object has been to benefit the free colored man, has not been + unfavorable to emancipation.</p> + +<p> "But colonization has not removed the 450,000 free persons of color from + our country. They remain as <em>a floating body</em> in our midst, drifting, as + the census tables show, hither and thither, as the effects of <em>climate</em> + at the north, or <em>foreign emigration</em> at the east, or <em>prejudice</em> at the + south, repel it from those points. It is an interesting subject of + investigation to watch the movements of the colored population, and + ascertain where they are tending and whither they will find a resting + place.</p> + +<p> "In 1810, in the eastern States, they commenced a movement <a id="pg315"></a>from north + towards the south; and in 1820, began to diverge westward, through the + most southern of the free States, and penetrated into Ohio, Indiana, and + Illinois. From 1830 to 1840, Pennsylvania alone retained her natural + increase, while the other eastern and northeastern free States, and also + the eastern and southeastern slave States, all lost, or repelled, the + greater part of their natural increase, and some of them a considerable + portion, besides, of the original stock. But where have these people + gone? That is the question which deeply interests Ohio. The census + tables furnish the solution.</p> + +<p> "From 1810 to 1840, the colored population of Ohio has been increasing + at the average rate of 20 per cent. per annum. The increase for the ten + years from 1830 to 1840, was 91¼ per cent. Supposing the emigration + into Ohio since 1840 to have been no greater than before that period, + her present colored population will be 30,000. If to this we add that of + Indiana and Illinois, allowing their increase to have been at the same + rate, these three States will have a population of near 50,000 colored + persons, or <em>one ninth of the present free colored population of the + United States</em>.</p> + +<p> "Ohio, therefore, cannot remain inactive. <em>She must do something.</em> These + men should have all the stimulants to mental and moral action which we + ourselves possess. But I shall leave to wiser men than myself the task + of devising <em>new</em> means to secure this object, while I go forward in my + labors for the <em>only one</em> which has yet been successful in securing to + any portion of the colored people their just rights.</p> + +<p> "The Colonization Society has in its offer, generally, more <em>slaves</em> + than its means will enable it to send to Liberia. Without a large + increase of means, therefore, the Society cannot send out many <em>free + persons of color</em>. Three fourths of the emigrants heretofore have been + liberated by their masters, with a view of being sent to Liberia.</p> + +<p> "Perhaps it is well that events should have been thus ordered. If + slaves, when emancipated and instructed, and made to taste of the sweets + of liberty, and to feel the responsibilities of nationality, can + establish a prosperous and happy republic, and exert such an extended + moral influence as to accomplish infinitely more in removing the + greatest curse of Africa, the slave-trade, from a large extent of her + coast, than has been done at an expense of more than a hundred millions + of dollars, by the fleets of England and France, <a id="pg316"></a><em>it reflects the + greater honor upon the African race</em>, and may serve to stimulate the + free people of color of this country, to make the effort to join their + brethren in a land of freedom.</p> + +<p> "In addition to sending emigrants to Liberia, it is of the utmost + importance that the Society <em>should purchase the greatest possible + amount of territory, at the present moment</em>, and thus enlarge the sphere + of influence which the republic exerts over the natives, and put it + beyond the power of the nations, adverse to her interests, to + circumscribe her in the noble efforts she is making for the redemption + of Africa.</p> + +<p> "In this connection, it may be proper to say, that the gift of <em>one + dime</em> from each one of the 100,000 inhabitants of Cincinnati, or $10,000 + would probably purchase <em>fifty-six miles square of territory</em> or more + than <em>two millions of acres of land as good as that of Ohio</em>. Now, + suppose a gift of such value were offered to the colored people of the + city, or of the State, on condition that they would take possession of + it and organize <em>a State Government for themselves</em>, and be admitted as + one of the members of the new republic, who will say that they should or + would reject the offer? Who will say that it would not be more safe and + wise to emigrate to Africa than to Canada, Oregon, California or Mexico? + But the decision of this question of right belongs to the colored people + themselves. If the <em>foreign emigration</em> continues to roll in upon us, + the subordinate stations in society, in the west also, as is the case + already in the east, will ere long be chiefly occupied by foreigners, + and the colored man left, it is to be feared, without profitable + employment. Dear as is the land of one's birth, if men's interests can + be better promoted by a removal, the ties of country and kindred are + bonds easily broken. The spirit of enterprise which characterizes the + present age, if we do our duty, will in due time animate the intelligent + colored man, as it is now stimulating the white race, and if he cannot + secure equality of condition here, will prompt him to go where he can + obtain it.</p> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> "Total number of emigrants up to January, 1848</td><td>5,961</td></tr> +<tr><td> Number of communicants in churches in 1843, + were, of +<table> +<tr><td> Americans</td><td> 1,015</td></tr> +<tr><td> Captured Africans</td><td>116</td></tr> +<tr><td> Converted heathen</td><td> 353 </td><td>in all</td></tr> +</table> +</td><td> 1,484</td></tr> + +<tr><td> Present population estimated by President Roberts </td><td>80,000</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a id="pg317"></a> Of these, are emigrants, captured Africans, etc., + about</td><td>5,000</td></tr> +</table> +<p> "The slave trade is suppressed on 400 miles of coast, excepting at + one point.</p> + +<p> "Shipping owned in the colony, 14 vessels, of from 20 to 80 tons.</p> + +<p> "The exports annually, from the colony, are about $100,000.</p> +<p class="author"> "David Christy, <span class="normal">"<em>Agent Am. Col. Society</em>"</span></p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>The African Repository</em>, XXIV, 179-180.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="author">Oxford, O., <span class="normal">April, 1848.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + +<p id="fn3-5-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-5-1">return</a>]</span>1. For a more detailed account of these settlements see Woodson's "The +Education of the Negro, Prior to 1861," 243-244; and Hickok, "The Negro in +Ohio," 85-88.</p> + +<p id="fn3-5-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna3-5-2">return</a>]</span>2. Mr. Powell, a teacher of Tuskegee, wrote this letter a few years ago +while making a study of the Negroes in Ohio.</p> +</div> +</div><hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-6"> +<h3><a id="pg318"></a>A Typical Colonization Convention</h3> + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-6-1"> +<h4> Convention of Free Colored People</h4> + +<p> In another column we present a Circular Address to the free colored + people of Maryland, calling a Convention to assemble in Baltimore the + 25th of July, to take into consideration their present condition and + future prosperity, and compare them with the inducements held out to + them to emigrate to Liberia. This movement may be considered indicative + of the change that is going on in the minds of the colored people + respecting emigration. It is well known that heretofore they have been + almost entirely insensible to the advantages which they must necessarily + enjoy in a land peculiarly their own. They have not been entirely free + from the control of bad counsellors.--Now they seem resolved to take the + matter into their own hands, and to look at their present condition and + future prospects in this country as a matter in which they are + personally interested. When they do this in earnest, the result can be + easily foreseen. They will desire to escape from their present anomalous + condition, will yearn to be free and disenthralled, to have a land of + their own, to have rights unquestioned by any superiors, where + character, enterprise, education, and all that is lovely and noble in + life shall combine to elevate and improve them and their children after + them to the latest generation.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>African Repository</em>, XXVIII, 195-196.</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-6-2"> +<h4> Emigration of the Colored Race</h4> + +<p> In presenting the circular, which will be found in another column, of + which a committee of colored persons have undertaken the distribution, + (and which was written by one of themselves,) it gives us pleasure to + commend it as the evidence of a new and generally unexpected change of + sentiment on the part of the colored population, or, at least, some + portion of it. It is well known that for twenty-five years the + Colonization Societies in this country have labored to present before + that portion of our population, the advantages which must accrue to + them, from emigration to a land where they might enjoy, undisturbed, + those social and material <a id="pg319"></a>privileges which it was impossible ever to + expect they could obtain by a residence of centuries in this country, + and that these appeals have met with comparatively little attention, + and, in deed have been received with very bad grace by the great mass of + those whom it was intended to benefit. The cause of this opposition was + to be found in the steady and violent animosity of those white fanatics, + who, setting themselves up as the peculiar friends of the blacks, + represented that the prejudice against their color was merely an + arbitrary sentiment, which time would weaken or entirely dissipate; and + that they might still look forward to enjoying, in this country, an + equality in social and political rights with the whites.</p> + +<p> This assumption of peculiar friendliness on the part of the + Abolitionists, and the plausible reasonings with which they approached + their "colored friends," have acquired the confidence of the latter, who + are now, however, beginning to awake to a just idea of their condition + and future prospects in this country. They have discovered that the + loud-mouthed protestations of the Abolitionists, are the mere + effervescence of an intermeddling and dangerous faction, against whose + principles the whole Union--whose destruction they have meditated--has + pronounced in tones of thunder; a faction whose baleful alliance is + shunned most religiously, by both of the great parties of the country. + They have discovered that underground railroads are a device to inveigle + the slaves from a condition of comparative comfort, into the <em>freedom of + starvation</em>, with a poor display of political privileges, which are + mockery in view of their exercise by an ignorant and despised minority; + that the expectations fostered in behalf of the free blacks are proved + to be entirely futile by the continued attitude of opposition held + towards them, when there is a question of lessening the social and + political gulf which divides the races. They discover that the rapid + immigration of whites from every quarter, is encroaching upon their + employments, and lessening their chance of gaining a thrifty livelihood, + even in those menial pursuits to which they are chiefly limited.</p> + +<p> With the spread of education, and the expansion of republican ideas, + they become more sensible of their own anomalous and degraded condition, + and the result is a yearning to be free like those around them, to have + a land all their own, to have rights unquestioned by any superior color, + to go wherever such privileges may be obtained. They see in the growing + republics on the West coast of Africa, a living refutation of the + calumnies of the Abolitionists <a id="pg320"></a>against the colonizationists, a land + where, from simple citizenship up to the highest post in the government, + all is free and open to them, and where character, enterprise, education + and honorable ambition, have all their appropriate rewards in the order + of the State. What is better, no white man can hope to cast his lot + there with the prospect of permanent settlement, or transmitting a + healthy posterity. They see there such men as the late Gov. Russwurm or + the present Gov. Roberts, sustaining their rule surrounded by their own + race, with a distinction and dignity which would do honor to any white + man. They see there pioneers of their own color, who in the arts of + peace or of war, are striking examples of what the emancipation of the + MIND can effect.</p> + +<p> This is a crisis full of important results to the race in this country, + and it behooves them now to cast aside all false issues, to take into + serious consideration (in the words of the circular) their present + condition and future prospects in this country, and contrast them with + the inducements and prospects opened to them in Liberia, or any other + country.</p> + +<p> We have little doubt as to the quarter to which their preferences will + be given, although that is as yet left an open question. Trinidad is a + failure, Jamaica is a half-ruined British dependency, and in both the + white man the sole source of authority. Liberia excepted, Haiti is the + only point left, and here reigns a perpetual jealousy between the black + and mulatto. Moreover, the imperial rule set up there is repugnant to + their feelings and inclinations, for strange to say, in the midst of + depression, this race in America has become imbued with a sentiment of + republicanism and a love for its system, which will make them in Africa + the sedulous imitators of ourselves, in all but in the misfortune of + introducing another race to be perpetually subservient to themselves. In + this career we are happy to believe they will run rejoicing, long after + the privations of their forefathers in this country shall have been + forgotten.</p> + +<p class="cite">--<em>African Repository</em>, XXVIII, 196-197.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-6-3"> +<h4> Circular</h4> + +<p> Pursuant to an invitation given through the columns of the Baltimore + daily papers to the Free Colored Population of Baltimore, friendly to + calling a State Convention, to be held in this city some time during the + ensuing summer to take into consideration their present position and + future prospects in this country, and to <a id="pg321"></a>compare the same with the + inducements and prospects held out to them to emigrate to Liberia or + elsewhere; a respectable number assembled in the school room of St. + James (colored) Church, corner of Saratoga and North streets.</p> + +<p> The meeting being duly organized, it was resolved that a Convention of + Delegates of the Free Colored Population from each county of the State + of Maryland and of the City of Baltimore, be held in this city on the + 25th of July next, for the purpose above stated.</p> + +<p> Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to issue a circular + addressed to the Free Colored People of the State, setting forth the + object of the Convention, the time of its commencement and the + conditions upon which Delegates will be entitled to a seat in the same.</p> + +<p> At an adjourned meeting of persons friendly to the call of the said + Convention, held on the 4th of June 1852, in the room before referred + to, the Committee on the Circular Address, made the following report, + which was unanimously approved and adopted:</p> + +<blockquote> +<h5> Address to the Free Colored People of the State Of Maryland</h5> + +<p> Brethren:--Whereas the present age is one distinguished for inquiry, + investigation and enterprise, in physical, moral and political + sciences above all past ages of the world, one in which the nations + of the earth seem to have arisen from the slumber of ages, and are + putting forth their utmost energies to obtain all those blessings, + which nature and nature's God seem to have intended that man should + enjoy, and the principles set forth by the American Sages, in the + Declaration of Independence of these United States, "that all men are + created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain + inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of + happiness," with each revolving year have extended wider and wider + throughout the habitable globe, and sunk deeper and deeper into the + hearts of millions of men, and as we humbly hope, are destined to + revolutionize the civil and political conditions of all the nations + of the earth, it would indeed be passing strange if the Free Colored + man in this country, which gave birth to those elevated and sublime + sentiments, should feel nothing of the force of their mighty import, + and with anxious eye and panting heart, endeavor in this, or some + other country, to <a id="pg322"></a>realize the blessings so freely enjoyed by the + white citizens of this land. Actuated by these feelings we have + presumed to address our brethren of our native State, and we do + hereby respectfully solicit them to assemble with us in this city, on + the 25th of next month (July), to take into serious consideration our + present condition and future prospects in this country, and contrast + them with the inducements and prospects opened to us in Liberia, or + any other country. In conformity with a resolution passed at the + meeting held on the 24th ultimo, the Committee do hereby respectfully + propose, that each county in the State shall have the privilege of + sending any number of Delegates not exceeding six, as they may deem + proper, and our brethren throughout the State are requested to hold + meetings (by legal permission) in their several counties, for the + purpose of selecting their Delegates, and to collect money to defray + the expenses they may incur by attending the said Convention.</p> + +<p> As the object for which this Convention is called, is one of vital + importance to the Free Colored People of Maryland, it is greatly to + be desired, and confidently expected that a full attendance of + Delegates will be present on the occasion, who will calmly, + deliberately and intelligently consider the object for which they + have been called together, and that each Delegate will come prepared + to contribute his portion of information, and fully and freely to + express his views on the great subject of our future destiny.</p> + +<p> Delegates are requested to bring credentials of their appointment + from the chairman and secretary of the meeting at which they were + appointed, but in counties where no formal meeting is held, Delegates + are requested to procure a certificate from some respectable person, + either white or colored, a well known resident of the county from + whence he or they may come. All Delegates complying with the above + requisitions, shall be duly admitted to the Convention.</p> + +<p> All communications in relation to the Convention must be directed to + the care of H. H. Webb, St. James' School Room, corner of Saratoga + and North streets.</p> + +<p> James A. Handy, <em>Chairman</em>. John H. Walker, <em>Secretary</em>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="cite">--<em>The African Repository</em>, XXXIII, pp. 197-199.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Baltimore</span>, June 4, 1852.</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="article" id="a3-6-4"> +<h4><a id="pg323"></a>Proceedings of the Convention of Free Colored People of +the State of Maryland</h4> + + +<p> Held in Baltimore, July 26, 27, and 28, 1852</p> + +<p> In pursuance of public notice, a meeting of delegates to the Convention + of Free Colored People of the State was held in the lower room of + Washington Hall. The Convention was temporarily organized at 3 o'clock, + by calling James A. Handy, of Fell's Point, to the chair, John H. Walker + being appointed secretary. Mr. Handy returned his thanks for the honor + conferred upon him.</p> + +<p> On motion of Charles O. Fisher, of Fell's Point, a committee of one from + each delegation present was appointed to nominate permanent officers of + the Convention.</p> + +<p> On motion of James F. Jackson, the credentials of the delegates were + handed in, and the following sections of the State were found to be + represented:</p> + +<p> East Baltimore--James A. Handy, James T. Jackson, Chas. O. Fisher, + Stephen W. Hill, Daniel Koburn, David G. Bailey.</p> + +<p> Kent county--Jas. A. Jones, Isaac Anderson, Levi Rogers, William Perkins</p> + +<p> Dorchester county--B. Jenifer, C. Sinclair, S. Green, Thomas Fuller, S. + Camper, J. Hughes.</p> + +<p> Caroline County--Jacob Lewis, Philip Canada, John Webb.</p> + +<p> Northwest Baltimore--Samuel B. Hutchings, David P. Jones, William White, + Francis Johns, John H. Walker, Cornelius Thompson.</p> + +<p> Frederick County--Rev. William Tasker, Perry E. Walker, Joseph Lisles, + Robert Troby, Ephraim Lawson, Nicholas Penn.</p> + +<p> Northeast Baltimore--Chas. Williamson, Rev. Darius Stokes, H. H. Webb, J. + Forty, C. Perry, Fred. Harris.</p> + +<p> Hartford County--Daniel Ross, Henry Hopkins.</p> + +<p> Talbot County--Garrison Gibson, Charles Dobson, Joseph Bantem.</p> + +<p> There was considerable excitement among a number of 'outsiders,' opposed + to the meeting and its objects, who frequently assailed the delegates + coming to the Convention and a large number of whom, having come into + the room, were ripe for any further opposition they could exhibit.</p> + +<p> The Dorchester county delegation having seen this state of things, + several of them arose and remarked that they did not think that their + presence here could be of any benefit, and they there <a id="pg324"></a>proposed to + withdraw and go home. This announcement was received with applause, and + cries of "good" from the opponents of colonization.</p> + +<p> A member from Kent county begged the delegates to stand firm in their + position, and the result of their labors would be of much benefit. + [Applause and hisses.]</p> + +<p> John H. Walker of Baltimore, arose and read the circular calling the + Convention, which was to take into consideration the present condition + and future prospects of the colored race. He said they lived in the same + State that their fathers had lived in, but not under the same + Constitution--the new instrument not recognizing the colored people at + all. They were men, but not recognized as men. He alluded to the + legislation of the members of the Assembly, all of which resulted in + oppression to the colored race, each consecutive session. He desired + that the condition of the colored people should be considered by this + convention; that they should decide on what course to take. The circular + alluded to emigration to Liberia, or elsewhere, which he explained to + mean that they should examine all the places and see if emigration would + be beneficial. It was necessary for them to know the geographical + position and resources of the different countries--of their rivers, + mountains, harbors, climate, &c; and if the convention should determine + on any particular place for emigration, it was necessary to ascertain + all that would be wanted in such country. For one he intended now to + remain where he was, but if a better place could be found why he was + gone for it. The speaker was opposed at first, but finally gained the + attention of the audience, and was frequently applauded.</p> + +<p> William Perkins, of Kent county, said he believed that much of the + opposition and excitement which had sprung up about this convention + within a few days, was caused by a report, falsely circulated, that the + Colonization Society had given $700 for carrying out certain objects + through its medium. He hoped that after the explanation that had been + given, the Dorchester county delegation would consent to remain.</p> + +<p> A member from Dorchester county said that if they were assured that the + colored people of Baltimore desired them to remain, they would do so. + Their object was to consult for the good of the colored race.</p> + +<p> Perry E. Walker, of Frederick, said, they had come here sup<a id="pg325"></a>posing that + the majority of the colored people of Baltimore were in favor of the + call of the convention. (Cries of "no, they are not.") He and his + associates had come to consider into the condition of their race--had no + other object in view.</p> + +<p> Rev. Darius Stokes addressed the convention, the object of which, he + said, was to consult only in reference to the condition of the colored + people. They had been told for thirty years past of countries which were + better for them, but they had only to depend upon the representation of + others as to the truths of these statements. They were a people--the + colored people of the State of Maryland--who should consult about their + present condition and future prospects. He said their white friends were + getting tired of helping them, because they did not seem disposed, it + was alleged, to help themselves. He asked where were their schools, + orphan asylums? &c. As to going to Africa he was in favor of any man + going where he thought he could do better. (Cries of "good," "right," + "that's it.")</p> + +<p> P. Oilman (not a delegate), asked to be heard, and after a great deal of + confusion, got the attention of the audience, and spoke in opposition to + what Mr. Stokes had said. He remarked that he could not talk as well as + Stokes, but he could think as well, (laughter.) As for him, he came here + to put down and oppose this convention. [Cries of "good," and cheers + from the audience.]</p> + +<p> Henry Zeddicks, of Frederick, said that they were here from pure + motives, to consult for their good, and was received with much favor by + the whole assemblage.</p> + +<p> James A. Jones, of Kent, said he was decidedly in favor of + emigration--and emigration to Africa. They expected to be honored in + coming into the presence of Baltimore friends, but in this, the largest + city of the State, they found a great amount of confusion. In his + opinion, he believed that the colored man could never rise to eminence + except in Africa--in the land of their forefathers. [A voice--"Show it + in Africa."] He pointed to Liberia. He believed that Africa was the only + place where the colored man could expect to be a freeman. On taking his + seat he was hissed by the opponents of emigration.</p> + +<p> The committee on nominating permanent officers, recommended the + following, who were accepted:</p> + +<p> <em>President</em>--Rev. William Tasker, of Frederick; <em>Vice Presidents</em>--C. + Sinclair of Dorchester, Levi Rogers of Kent, E. Lawson of Frederick, S. + W. Hill of East Baltimore, Charles Dobson of Talbot, <a id="pg326"></a>Francis Johns of + West Baltimore, and John Webb of Caroline; <em>Secretaries</em>, John H. Walker + of Baltimore, and Josiah Hughes of Dorchester.</p> + +<p> Rev. Darius Stokes addressed the convention in an eloquent and fervent + style in reference to its objects.</p> + +<p> James A. Jones, of Kent, said that since he had addressed the + convention, he had been informed that his head, if not his life, was in + danger if he left the room. He would therefore leave under the + protection of the police, and send in the morning his resignation.</p> + +<p> Rev. Darius Stokes begged Mr. Jones to remain--that the young colored + gentlemen of Baltimore were not disposed to harm him. People had said + that they had met here to sell their rights and liberties, but they + would show them to-morrow that they only looked to their welfare and + interests. This was the first time a colored convention of the whole + State had ever assembled in the State--a remarkable era in their + history.</p> + +<p> On motion of Mr. Stokes a committee of ten-were appointed to prepare a + "platform" for the convention. The following was the Committee:--H. H. + Webb, of Baltimore; James A. Jones, of Kent; Charles O. Fisher, of + Baltimore; B. Jenifer and Thomas Fuller, of Dorchester; Jacob Lewis, of + Caroline; Joseph Bantem of Talbot; Perry E. Walker, of Frederick; + William Williams, of Baltimore; and Henry Hopkins, of Harford.</p> + +<p> The convention then adjourned till Tuesday morning.</p> + + +<h5> Second Day's Proceedings</h5> + +<p> The Convention re-assembled at 10 o'clock on Tuesday the 27th, at + Washington Hall, the Rev. William Tasker of Frederick, President, in the + chair. The convention was opened with prayer by the president.</p> + +<p> A note was received from H. H. Webb, of Baltimore, declining to serve as + a delegate to the convention, stating that he was not able to attend, + and did not approve of the manner in which he was elected.</p> + +<p> In the absence of Josiah Hughes, of Dorchester, one of the Secretaries, + Cornelius Campbell, was appointed to fill the vacancy.</p> + +<p> The proceedings of Monday not being ready, on motion, the report in the + "<em>Sun</em>" was read in lieu thereof.</p> + +<p> William Williams, of Baltimore, arose and stated that his name <a id="pg327"></a>appeared + in the committee on the platform through a mistake--he was not a + delegate to the convention.</p> + +<p> On motion, James A. Handy, of Baltimore, and William Perkins, of Kent, + were appointed on the platform committee, to fill the vacancies + occasioned by the withdrawal of Webb and Williams.</p> + +<p> Charles Wyman and Allen Lockerman, delegates from Caroline Co., appeared + and took their seats.</p> + +<p> Several of the delegates from Dorchester county and other places were + not present, having gone home in consequence of the disturbances on + Monday afternoon.</p> + +<p> B. Jenifer, chairman of the committee on the platform, made the + following report, which was read by Charles O. Fisher:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> <span class="sc">Whereas</span>, The present age is one distinguished for enquiry, + investigation, enterprise and improvement in physical, political, + intellectual and moral sciences, we hold the truths to be + self-evident that we are, as well as all mankind, created equal, and + are endowed by our Creator with the right to enquire into our present + condition and future prospects; and as a crisis has arisen in our + history presenting a bright and glorious future, may we not hope that + ere long the energies of our people may be aroused from their + lethargy, and seek to obtain for themselves and posterity the rights + and privileges of freemen--therefore,</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That while we appreciate and acknowledge the sincerity of + the motives and the activity of the zeal of those who, during an + agitation of twenty years have honestly struggled to place us on a + footing of social and political equality with the white population of + this country, yet we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that no + advance has been made towards a result to us so desirable; but that + on the contrary, our condition as a class is less desirable than it + was twenty years ago.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in the face of an emigration from Europe, which is + greater each year than it was the year before, and during the + prevalence of a feeling in regard to us, which the very agitation + intended for good, has only served apparently to embitter we cannot + promise ourselves that the future will do that which the past has + failed to accomplish.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That recognising in ourselves the capacity to conduct + honorably, and creditably, in public affairs; to acquire knowledge, + and to enjoy the refinements of social intercourse; and having a + praiseworthy ambition that this capacity should be developed to its + full extent, we are naturally led to enquire where this can best be + <a id="pg328"></a>done, satisfied as we are that in this country, at all events from + present appearances, it is out of the question.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in comparing the relative advantages of Canada, the + West Indies and Liberia--these being the places beyond the limits of + the United States to which circumstances have directed our + attention--we are led to examine the claims of Liberia particularly, + where alone, we have been told that we can exercise all the functions + of a free republican government, and hold an honorable position among + the nations of the earth.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in thus expressing our opinions it is not our + purpose to counsel emigration as either necessary or proper in every + case. The transfer of an entire people from one country to another, + must necessarily be the work of generations--each individual now and + hereafter must be governed by the circumstances of his own condition, + of which he alone can be the judge, as well in regard to the time of + removal, as to the place to which he shall remove; but deeply + impressed ourselves with the conviction that sooner or later removal + must take place, we would counsel our people to accustom themselves + to the idea of it, and in suggesting Liberia to them, we do so in the + belief that it is there alone they can reasonably anticipate an + independent national existence.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That as this subject is one of greatest importance to us, + and the consideration of which, whatever may be the result, can not + be put aside, we recommend to our people in this State to establish + and maintain an organization in regard to it, the great object of + which shall be enquiry and discussion, which, without committing any + one, shall lead to accurate information, and that a convention like + the present, composed of delegates from the counties and Baltimore + city, be annually held at such time and place as said convention, in + their judgment, may designate.</p> +</blockquote> +<p> A motion was made to accept the report, which led to debate, John H. + Walker speaking at length in opposition to the resolutions, and hoped + that they would be referred back to the committee, contending that there + should have been a recommendation to raise a fund to fee a lawyer, or + some influential citizen of this State, to go to Annapolis next winter + to endeavor to obtain a change of legislation in reference to the + colored race.</p> + +<p> B. Jenifer, of Dorchester, replied to Walker, urging that his views were + in opposition to the spirit of the circular which called them together, + and a majority of the delegates present.</p> + +<p> At one o'clock the convention took a recess.</p> + +<p><a id="pg329"></a> <em>Afternoon Session.</em>--The convention re-assembled at 4 o'clock, the + resolutions being again debated by various delegates--John H. Walker, B. + Jenifer, C. Perry, and others.</p> + +<p> Rev. Darius Stokes moved to lay the motion to adopt the platform on the + table, which was determined in the affirmative.</p> + +<p> On motion of Mr. Stokes the convention went into the committee of the + whole, Charles Williamson in the chair, and took up the report of the + committee in sections.</p> + +<p> The two first resolutions were adopted, the third referred back to the + committee, and pending the further action on the remainder of the + resolutions, the convention adjourned till Wednesday morning.</p> + + +<h5> Third Day's Proceedings</h5> + +<p> The convention re-assembled at 10 o'clock on Wednesday the 28th at + Plowman street Hall, Ephraim Lawson, Vice President, in the chair, who + opened the proceedings with Prayer.</p> + +<p> A note was received from the President, Rev. William Tasker, stating + that indisposition would prevent him from presiding over the + deliberations of the body the remainder of its sessions.</p> + +<p> The attendance of the delegates was small in the morning, and very few + lookers on were present.</p> + +<p> The platform being again taken up, F. Harris, of Baltimore, presented a + protest against the adoption of the fourth resolution, which pointed out + Liberia as the place of emigration for the colored people, because it + recommends emigration to that place contrary to the wishes of his + constituents, and a majority of the free colored people of the city and + State. He contended that if they were for Liberia, they should say so at + once, and tell the mob out doors that they were endeavoring to send them + all there--not say one thing in the convention and another outside.</p> + +<p> James A. Jones, of Kent, said that Harris was endeavoring to shape his + course the way the wind blowed. For himself, he hoped the entire + platform would be adopted, and without further debate he moved that the + fourth resolution be passed.</p> + +<p> Stephen W. Hill, of Baltimore, contended that the resolutions did not + look to an immediate emigration to Africa--that they only recommended + Liberia as a place where they could enjoy the blessings of liberty, and + as the most suitable country for the colored man whenever they should be + disposed to seek another home.</p> + +<p> William Perkins, of Kent, in answer to the protest of Harris,<a id="pg330"></a> said the + only platform they recommended for adoption, left it to every man to go + where he pleased, or to remain here if it suited him better. Let Mr. + Harris go to his constituents and tell them that the convention only + recommended what it thought best; its action was binding on no man.</p> + +<p> F. Harris, in reply, asked if the convention had examined Liberia. They + recommended that place for them to emigrate to, and yet they had not + made any examination of Liberia to know whether it would suit. Did they + know anything of the climate or agriculture of Liberia to lay before the + people. Let them examine Canada, Jamaica, and other places, and then if + they found Liberia the best place, why say so to the people.</p> + +<p> Chas. Williamson said he had had it in his power to examine most + countries. He had been in Canada twice; in the West Indies three times, + and, under the British government in Trinidad five years. During that + time he had examined the countries with a view to see which was the best + for the colored people. He was sixty-seven years of age and could expect + little for himself. In the West Indies capital ruled the people--the + government recognized you, but the planters, who had been accustomed to + drive on slaves, knew you not. If they went to Canada they would not + better their condition--he had lived there seventeen months at one time. + It would cost money to get to Canada--money to get to the West Indies. + The Canadas are peopled with many persons from this country. The leading + men were principally Yankees. In the West Indies he had to take his hat + around to get the dead out of the way of the turkey-buzzards--that + showed their sympathy. In Canada you cannot be recognized in office--in + the West Indies it is better, and some colored persons get into office. + In the Canadas he never heard of but one colored man being in office. + The Canadas are a fine country, but he asserted here that he felt there + could be no permanent home for them except in Africa, where their + children could enjoy all the blessings of liberty. That was the best + country for them. In the United States they did not want the colored + people any more, they had got the use of them, and now in this State the + new constitution did not recognize them at all. (A voice--"Yes, as + chattels.") The minister of Hayti to this country was not recognized by + the President, and had to go home again. Liberia, on the west coast of + Africa, had as fine, or better, climate, as regards atmosphere, than the + West Indies. He wished to go where they <a id="pg331"></a>would be free, for their moral + culture here he considered out of the question.</p> + +<p> James A. Handy, of Baltimore, remarked that they lived in an interesting + age of the world--that it was the glory of our day that assistance is + offered to the immortal principles of man, and it struggles to free + itself from the trammels and superstitions of the past, and of the + oppressions and burthens of the present. We live in an age of physical, + moral and intellectual wonders; and that man is truly fortunate who + lives at the present, and has the privilege of aiding in carrying + forward the great enterprise of redeeming, disenthralling and restoring + back in all their primitive glory three millions of down trodden people + to the land of their forefathers. On the western shore of Africa there + was the infant republic of Liberia attracting the attention of all the + enlightened nations of the earth. For four years she had maintained her + position as an independent State, and today she was prosperous, happy + and free, acknowledged by England, France, Russia and Prussia--four of + the greatest powers of the earth; and before this year is out the United + States will be willing, ready and anxious to cultivate friendly + relations with that garden spot--that heritage which a kind and + overruling Providence has prepared for us, and not only for us, but for + all the sable sons and daughters of Ham.</p> + +<p> One word in relation to the inducements held out by Liberia--Asia could + not exceed the variety of the productions of Africa--Europe with her + numerous manufactories and internal resources, could not cope with her + in physical greatness--America with her noble institutions, elements of + power, facilities of improvement, promises of greatness and high hopes + of immortality, was this day far, very far behind her in natural + resources. Nothing can excel the value of her productions--sugar-cane + grows rapidly, cotton is a native plant, corn and hemp flourish in great + perfection; oranges, coffee, wild honey, lemons, limes, mahogany, + cam-wood, satin-wood, rose-wood, &c., abound there; mules, oxen, horses, + sheep, hogs, fowls of all kinds, are in the greatest abundance. She + holds out a rich temptation to commerce and a strong inducement to + emigration. To the latter the United States owed what she was, making + her one of the most effective nations of the world. For years the + glorious galaxy of stars which arose in the western hemisphere have been + casting their generous, grateful light over the social, moral and + political darkness of the East, but to-day the commanding tide of + commerce is changing. From the Pacific shores the genius of <a id="pg332"></a>American + enterprise and industry has opened a nearer highway to the Celestial + Empire, and is now, by a closer interchange of fraternal relations, + unbolting the massive doors, and securing the commerce of China and + Japan.</p> + +<p> On the lap of American civilization, and around the altars of this + Christian land, have been born the moral elements of civil and Christian + power, ordained by heaven for the redemption of Africa. For the last + 2,000 years, that wretched land of mystery and crime has been abandoned + to the cupidity of most cruel barbarism, surpassing in degradation, + guilt and woe, all other nations of the earth. Pre-eminently high on the + page of prophetic scripture is chronicled in most unequivocal language + the name and future redemption of Africa. For twelve centuries the + problem "how shall Africa be redeemed?" has been unsolved, although + earnestly sought for by the civil and religious powers of Europe; but in + every instance it has been in vain, and the cloud of her wretchedness + blackened on each failure. Mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of + Providence to accomplish her restoration, lift her from the jaws of + death, bind her as a jewel to the throne of righteousness, and give her + a place among the civilized nations of mankind. God in his pity, wisdom + and goodness, has opened the way for a part of her crushed children, + predoomed by bloody superstitions to altars of death, to be delivered + from immolation and find an asylum under a form of ameliorated service + in the bosom of this country; and here their children have been born, + elevated and blessed under redeeming auspices. In the lapse of time, by + the same benevolent providence, many of this people have become free, + and to such the voice of heaven emphatically speaks, thundering forth in + invigorating terms, "Arise and depart for this is not your rest."</p> + +<p> This makes us bold in saying that emigration is the only medium by which + the long closed doors of that continent are to be opened; by her own + children's returning, bearing social and moral elements of civil and + religious power, by which that continent is to be resuscitated, + renovated and redeemed.</p> + +<p> Thirty-one years ago the first emigrant ship that ever sailed eastward + from these shores to Africa, conveying to that dark land a missionary + family of some two hundred souls--her own returning children, enriched + with the more enduring treasures of the western world; there by them on + the borders of that continent, overshadowed with the deepest gloom, were + raised the first rude temples of civilization--the first <a id="pg333"></a>halls of + enlightened legislation--the first Christian altars to the worship of + Almighty God that have ever proved successful, or of any permanent, + practical utility. Then and there arose the long promised light, the + star of hope to the benighted millions of Africa. Since that day the + star has risen higher and higher, the light extended along the coast and + reaching far back towards the mountains of the Moon, radiating, + elevating and purifying; and to-day we behold a nation born on the + western coast of Africa, respected, prosperous and happy. Here then is + practically and beautifully solved, on the true utilitarian principles + of this wonder-working age, the mysterious problem: By whom is Africa to + be redeemed? The answer comes rumbling back to us, over the towering + billows of the Atlantic, from the Republic of Liberia, with a voice that + starts our inmost souls, falling with ponderous weight upon the ears of + the free colored people of this Union--"thou art the man, thou art the + woman."</p> + +<p> James A. Jackson, of Baltimore, eulogized Hayti as standing as high + above the other West India islands as the United States does above the + republic of Mexico, in the point of commercial importance. This island + had tried the experiment of republicanism and had changed it. It was now + a question with the colored people, in their present condition, whether + they were more suited to a republican than monarchical government. The + productions of the soil of Hayti and of her forests were referred to, + and the fact alleged that she would produce more than all the other West + India islands put together. The exports and imports of the United States + to and from the island were cited as an illustration of her prosperity. + A comparison was made of the commerce of Liberia and that of Hayti, the + latter country being held up in a very favorable light.</p> + +<p> Nicholas Penn, of Frederick, spoke in favor of emigration to Liberia. + They did not want an island. The colored population increased so fast + that they needed no island but a continent for them. His constituents + wished him to examine Africa, and he hoped it would be done. Liberia was + the only place for them. The white man fought for and claimed this + country, and he was now going to give it up to them. In the language of + Patrick Henry, will we be ready tomorrow or next day to act more than + now? No! Now was the time; and he hoped this enterprise would spread far + and wide until the whole people should understand it and all unite in + the glorious movement. Let us appoint men to go and examine Liberia, and + report to us just what it is. We want a home, and we <a id="pg334"></a>were sent here to + examine and determine on what would be best to recommend.</p> + +<p> B. Jenifer, of Dorchester, said, all these statements about Africa were + theoretical--gained through geography, and went on to state that he had + spent nearly eleven months in Africa, had traveled it over and examined + its productions and resources. He had been sent for that purpose by a + colored colonization society of his county; but did not wish to discuss + Liberia at this time. Mr. Handy had so ably discussed the subject, and + in all of which he fully coincided with him. The true question for this + convention to decide was whether they should remain, here, or to seek a + home in Liberia or elsewhere.</p> + +<p> John H. Walker, after some difficulty, got the floor and offered a + substitute for the report of the committee on the platform, which was + unanimously adopted. The following is the substitute:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> <span class="sc">Whereas</span>, The present age is one eminently distinguished for inquiry, + investigation, enterprise and improvement in physical, political, + intellectual and moral sciences; and, whereas, among our white + neighbors every exertion is continually being made to improve their + social and moral condition, and develop their intellectual faculties; + and, whereas, it is a duty which mankind, (colored as well as white,) + owe to themselves and their Creator to embrace every opportunity for + the accomplishment of this mental culture and intellectual + development, and general social improvement; and, whereas, we, the + free colored people of the State of Maryland, are conscious that we + have made little or no progress in improvement during the past twenty + years, but are now sunken into a condition of social degradation + which is truly deplorable, and the continuing to live in which we + cannot but view as a crime and transgression against our God, + ourselves and our posterity; and, whereas, we believe that a crisis + in our history has arrived when we may choose for ourselves + degradation, misery and wretchedness, on the one hand, or happiness, + honor and enlightenment, on the other, by pursuing one of two paths + which are now laid before us for our consideration and choice; may we + not, therefore, hope that our people will awaken from their lethargic + slumbers, and seek for themselves that future course of conduct which + will elevate them from their present position and place them on an + equality with the other more advanced races of mankind--may we not + hope that they will consider seriously the self-evident proposition + that all men are created equal, and endowed by the Creator with the + same privileges of ex<a id="pg335"></a>erting themselves for their own and each + other's benefit; and, whereas, in view of these considerations, and + in order to commence the great and glorious work of our moral + elevation, and our social and intellectual improvement, we are of the + opinion that an organization of the friends of this just and holy + cause is absolutely necessary for effecting the object so much to be + desired, and we are therefore--</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That we will each and every one, here pledge ourselves to + each other and to our God, to use on every and all occasions, our + utmost efforts to accomplish the objects set forth in the foregoing + preamble; and that we will, now, and forever hereafter, engraft this + truth in our prayers, our hopes, our instructions to our brethren and + our children--namely, that degradation is a sin and a source of + misery, and it is a high, and honorable and a blessed privilege we + enjoy, the right to improve ourselves and transmit to posterity + happiness instead of our misery--knowledge instead of our ignorance.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That while we appreciate and acknowledge the sincerity of + the motives and the activity of the zeal of those who, during an + agitation of twenty years, have honestly struggled to place us on a + footing of social and political equality with the white population of + the country, yet we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that no + advancement has been made towards a result to us so desirable; but + that on the contrary, our condition as a class is less desirable now + than it was twenty years ago.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in the face of an emigration from Europe, which is + greater each year than it was the year preceding, and during the + prevalence of a feeling in regard to us, which the very agitation + intended for good has only served apparently to embitter, we cannot + promise ourselves that the future will do that which the past has + failed to accomplish.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That we recognize in ourselves the capacity of conducting + our own public affairs in a manner at once creditable and well + calculated to further among us the cause of religion, virtue, + morality, truth and enlightenment--and to acquire for ourselves the + possession and enjoyment of that elevated refinement which so much + adorns and beautifies social intercourse among mankind, and leads + them to a proper appreciation of the relations existing between man + and Deity--man and his fellow men, and man and that companion whom + God has bestowed upon him, to console him in the hours of trouble and + darkness, or enjoy with him the blessings that <a id="pg336"></a>heaven vouchsafed + occasionally to shower upon our pathway through life.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in a retrospective survey of the past, we see + between the white and colored races a disparity of thought, feeling + and intellectual advancement, which convinces us that it cannot be + that the two races will ever overcome their natural prejudices + towards each other sufficiently to dwell together in harmony and in + the enjoyment of like social and political privileges, and we + therefore hold that a separation of ourselves from our white + neighbors, many of whom we cannot but love and admire for the + generosity they have displayed towards us from time to time, is an + object devoutly to be desired and the consummation of which would + tend to the natural advantage of both races.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That comparing the relative advantages afforded us in + Canada, the West Indies and Liberia--these being the places beyond + the limits of the United States which circumstances have directed our + attention--we are led to examine the claims of Liberia particularly, + for there alone, we have been told, that we can exercise all the + functions of a free republican government, and hold an honorable + position among the nations of the earth.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That this Convention recommend to the colored people of + Maryland, the formation of societies in the counties of the State and + the city of Baltimore, who shall meet monthly, for the purpose of + raising means to establish and support free schools for the education + of our poor and destitute children, and for the appointment each + month of a person whose duty it shall be to collect such information + in relation to the condition of the colored emigrants in Canada, West + Indies, Guiana and Liberia, as can be obtained by him from all + available sources, which information shall be brought to these + monthly meetings above alluded to, and read before them for the + instruction of all, in order that when they are resolved, if they + should so resolve, to remove from this country to any other, they may + know what will be their wants, opportunities, prospects, &c., in + order to provide beforehand for any emergencies that may meet them on + their arrival in their new homes.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That as this subject is one of the greatest importance to + us, and the consideration of which whatever may be the result, cannot + be put aside, we recommend to our people in this State to establish + and maintain an organization in regard to it, the great object of + which shall be enquiry and discussion, which, without committing any, + may lead to accurate information; and that a con<a id="pg337"></a>vention like the + present, composed of delegates from the respective counties of the + State and from Baltimore city, be held annually at such times and + places as may be hereafter designated.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That in thus expressing our opinions, it is not our + purpose to counsel emigration as either necessary or proper in every + case. The transfer of an entire people from one country to another, + must necessarily be the work of generations. Each individual now and + hereafter must be governed by the circumstances of his own condition, + of which he alone can be the judge, as well in regard to the time of + removal as to the place to which he shall remove; but deeply + impressed ourselves with the conviction that sooner or later removal + must take place, we would counsel our people to accustom themselves + to that idea.</p> + +<p> <em>Resolved</em>, That this Convention recommend to the ministers of the + gospel among the free colored population of Maryland to endeavor, by + contributions from their congregations and by other means, to raise + funds for the purpose of forwarding the benevolent object of + educating the children of the destitute colored persons in this + State; and that they also impress upon the minds of their hearers the + benefits which would necessarily result from development of their + intellects, and the bringing into fullest use those mental powers and + reasoning faculties which distinguish mankind from the brute + creation; and that this be requested of them as a part of their duty + as ministers of the religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.</p> +</blockquote> +<p> E. Harris entered his protest against the adoption of the fourth + resolution.</p> + +<p> A motion made to adjourn sine die at 2 o'clock P.M., was lost; and a + resolution restricting each speaker to five minute speeches was adopted.</p> + +<p> William Perkins spoke of the law enforced in Kent, by which the children + of free colored persons, whom the officers decided the parents were + unable to support, were bound out; and also of the law which prohibited + a colored person returning to the State if he should happen to leave it. + They were oppressed and borne down.</p> + +<p> James A. Jones, of Kent, thought his native county equal to any other in + the State, and that colored persons were not more oppressed there than + elsewhere in the State.</p> + +<p> Charles O. Fisher moved that a committee of five be appointed to draw up + a memorial to the Legislature of Maryland, praying more indulgence to + the colored people of the State, in order that <a id="pg338"></a>they may have time to + prepare themselves for a change in their condition, and for removal to + some other land.</p> + +<p> Daniel Koburn, of Baltimore, in referring to the oppressive laws of the + State, said the hog law of Baltimore was better moderated than that in + reference to the colored people. The hog law said at certain seasons + they should run about and at certain seasons be taken up; but the law + referring to colored people allowed them to be taken up at any time.</p> + +<p> Chas. Dobson, of Talbot, said that the time had come when free colored + men in this country had been taken up and sold for one year, and when + that year was out, taken up and sold for another year. Who knew what the + next Legislature would do; and if any arrangements could be made to + better their condition, he was in favor of them. He was for the + appointing the committee on the memorial.</p> + +<p> B. Jenifer, of Dorchester, opposed the resolution; he was not in favor + of memorializing the Legislature--it had determined to carry out certain + things, and it was a progressive work.</p> + +<p> Chas. Wyman, of Caroline; Jos. Bantem, of Talbot; John H. Walker, Chas. + O. Fisher and others discussed the resolution which was finally adopted.</p> + +<p> The following is the committee appointed: Jno. H. Walker and Jas. A. + Handy, of Baltimore; William Perkins, of Kent; Thomas Fuller, of + Dorchester; and Daniel J. Ross, of Hartford county.</p> + +<p> A resolution of thanks to the officers of the Convention, the reporters + of the morning papers, and authorities for their protection, was + adopted. The proceedings were also ordered to be printed in pamphlet + form.</p> + +<p> The Convention, at 3 o'clock adjourned to meet on the second Monday in + November, 1853, at Frederick, Md.</p> + +<p>--From the <em>Baltimore Sun</em>, July 27, 28, and 29, 1852.</p> +</blockquote> +</div> +</div><hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-7"> +<h2><a id="pg339"></a>Reviews of Books</h2> + + +<div class="article" id="a3-7-1"> +<p><em>The Slaveholding Indians. Volume I: As Slaveholder and Secessionist.</em> +By Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, 1915. +Pp. 394.</p> + +<p>This is the first of three volumes on the slaveholding Indians planned by +the author. Volume II is to treat of the Indians as participants in the +Civil War and Volume III on the Indian under Reconstruction.</p> + +<p>The present volume deals with a phase, as the author says, "of American +Civil War history, which has heretofore been almost neglected, or where +dealt with, either misunderstood or misinterpreted." It comes as a surprise +to most of us that the Indian played a part of sufficient importance within +the Union to have the right to have something to say about secession. Yet +inconsistently enough he was considered so much a foreigner that both the +South and the North, particularly the former, found it expedient to employ +diplomacy in approaching him.</p> + +<p>The South, we are assured, found the attitude of the Indians toward +secession of the greatest importance. Yet it was not the Indian owner so +much as the Indian country that the Confederacy wanted to be sure of +possessing, for Indian Territory occupied a position of strategic +importance from both the economic and the military point of view. "The +possession of it was absolutely necessary for the political and +institutional consolidation of the South. Texas might well think of going +her own way and of forming an independent republic once again, when between +her and Arkansas lay the immense reservations of the great tribes. They +were slave-holding tribes, too; yet were supposed by the United States +government to have no interest whatsoever in a sectional conflict that +involved the very existence of the 'peculiar institution,'"</p> + +<p>The above quotation is practically the intent of the book and the author +has succeeded in carrying this out in four divisions entitled: I, "The +General Situation in the Indian Country, 1830-1860." II, "Indian Territory +in Its Relations with Texas and Arkansas." III, "The Confederacy in +Negotiation with the In<a id="pg340"></a>dian Tribes." IV, "The Indian Nations in Alliance +with the Confederacy."</p> + +<p>The book is essentially a work by a scholar for scholars. It is certainly +not for the laity. The facts are striking but well substantiated. There can +be no doubt but that much time has been spent in its compilation. The +style, however, is unusually dry. It has appendices, an invaluable +bibliography, a carefully tabulated index, four maps, and three portraits +of Indian leaders.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note that the author is of British birth and ancestry +and so presumably is free from sectional prejudice. Her book marks a +distinct step forward, for those who are interested in Indian affairs.</p> + +<p class="author">Jessie Fauset.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a3-7-2"> +<p><em>The Political History of Slavery in the United States.</em> By James Z. +George, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi and +later United States Senator from that State. The Neale Publishing Company, +New York, 1915. Pp. xix, 342. </p> + +<p>This is a discussion as well as the history of slavery and Reconstruction +from the time of the introduction of the slaves in 1619 to the break-up of +the carpet-bagger governments. "Considering the jealousies and even +animosities that are becoming more and more intensified between the North +and South, as well as the disposition that is ever increasing in the +stronger section to dominate the weaker," the author believes that "it is +becoming necessary to think over calmly and seriously the causes that have +produced these evils, and to ascertain, if we can, the remedy, if remedy +there be."</p> + +<p>The work begins with a sketch of ancient slavery, showing that the +introduction of the institution into the Southern States was not +exceptional. He then gives an account of slavery in the colonies, and the +efforts to suppress the slave trade. The connection of slavery with the War +of 1812 and with the Hartford Convention is noted. He then takes up the +Missouri Compromise with some detail, giving almost verbatim the +proceedings of Congress relative thereto. In the same way he treats the +"Repudiation of the Missouri Compromise," the Annexation of Texas, the +Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas--Nebraska Affair, the Lincoln and Douglas +Debates, John Brown's Invasion, Secession, the Civil War, and +Reconstruction.</p> + +<p>Throughout this treatise, he carefully notes the "jealousy of sectional +interest and power and the determination to maintain <a id="pg341"></a>this power even at a +cost of a dissolution of the Union," In other words, the whole sectional +struggle grew out of what he calls the effort to maintain the balance of +power between two sections of the Union, with the slavery question +contributing thereto. Facts set forth bring out very clearly that the South +is not to be censured as being especially hostile to the Negro when on the +statute books of the North there are found numerous laws to show that +persons of color were not considered desirables in those States.</p> + +<p>He raises the question as to whether the South violated the Missouri +Compromise and considers it a revolution that public functionaries +disregarded the rights of the owners of slave property when the highest +tribunal, the Supreme Court, had sanctioned these rights. The act of +secession is palliated too on the ground that the South had developed under +the influence of that peculiar political philosophy which produced there a +race that could never sanction passive obedience. In seceding the South was +not attempting to overturn the government of the United States. It was not +contemplated to interfere with the States adhering to the Union. They +sought merely to "withdraw themselves from subjection to a government which +they were convinced intended to overthrow their institutions."</p> + +<p>The Civil War came in spite of the fact that the Convention that framed the +Constitution negatived the proposition to confer on the Federal Government +the authority to exert the force of the Union against a delinquent State. +It was, therefore, a mere act of coercing a section preparing for +self-defense. Reconstruction is treated very much in the same way. The laws +under which it was effected were unjust, the men who executed them were +harsh, and the weaker section had to pay the price.</p> + +<p>The book cannot be classed as scientific work. The topics discussed are not +proportionately treated, the style is rendered dull by the incorporation of +undigested material, and the emphasis is placed on the political and legal +phases of history at the expense of the social and economic. In it we find +very little that is new. It merely presents the well-known political theory +of the Old South. The chief value of the work consists in its being an +expression of the opinion of a distinguished man who participated in many +of the events narrated.</p> + +<p class="author">J. O. BURKE.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a3-7-3"> +<p><a id="pg342"></a><em>The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan.</em> By Floyd Barzilia Clark, +Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science in Pennsylvania State +College. Series XXXIII, No. 4, Johns Hopkins University Studies in +Historical and Political Science under the direction of the Department of +History, Political Economy, and Political Science. The Johns Hopkins Press, +Baltimore, 1915.</p> + +<p>This work is a legal treatise consisting of a scholarly discussion of the +doctrines advanced by Justice Harlan during his service as a member of the +Supreme Court of the United States. The book opens with a brief biography +of the jurist, emphasizing the important events of his career to furnish a +basis for the study of his theories. The author then takes up such topics +as the "Suability of States," the "Impairment of the Obligation Contracts," +"Due Process of Law," "Interstate and Foreign Commerce," "Equal Protection +of the Laws," the "Jurisdiction of Courts," "Miscellaneous Topics," and +"Judicial Legislation."</p> + +<p>The author finds that in the treatment of these important legal questions +Harlan measures up to the standard of an able jurist. Replying to those who +have charged him with emphasizing too greatly the letter of the law, the +writer says that such a contention is based on ignorance or prejudice. "No +one who so interpreted the Eleventh Amendment," says the author, "as to +maintain that a suit against the officer of a State in his official +capacity was not a suit against a State could have held to the strict +letter of the law." The author further contends that this criticism of the +jurist arises from the fact that he did not believe in equivocation.</p> + +<p>The interpretation of the laws relating to the Negro, the point on which he +dissented from the majority of the members of the court, should have been +given more prominence in this discussion. The discriminations against the +Negroes are treated in connection with the chapters on "Interstate and +Foreign Commerce" and "Equal Protection of the Laws." The Fourteenth +Amendment is treated along with such miscellaneous topics as "Direct +Taxation," "Copyrights," "Insular Cases," "Interstate Comity," and "Labor +Legislation." Stating Justice Harlan's theory as to the position the Negro +should occupy in this country, however, the author writes very frankly. +Harlan, he thought, believed that they should occupy the position that +historically they were intended to occupy by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth +Amendments. He believed that the law should be interpreted as it was meant +and not as the court <a id="pg343"></a>thought expedient and wise. "Though it may be true +that his relation to the negro in political matters may have made him more +violent in his dissents, any one who will look fairly at the question must +conclude that his doctrine was legally correct. And as time passes, and as +both classes become better educated and broader in their views, it may be +said that the tendency of the court is likely to be to interpret the laws +largely as he thought they should have been interpreted, that is, as +historically they were meant."</p> + +<p class="author">C. B. WALTER.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a3-7-4"> +<p><em>Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political, 1865--1872.</em> By +C. Mildred Thompson, Ph.D. Longmans, Green, and Company, New York, 1915. +Pp. 418.</p> + +<p>The appearance of C. M. Thompson's Reconstruction in Georgia arouses further +interest in the study of that period which has been attracting the +attention of various investigators in the leading universities of the +United States. These writers fall into different groups. Coming to the +defense of a section shamed with crime, some have endeavored to justify the +deeds of those who resorted to all sorts of schemes to rid the country of +the "extravagant and corrupt Reconstruction governments." Lately, however, +the tendency has been to get away from this position. Yet among these +writers we still find varying types, many of whom have for several reasons +failed to write real history. Some have not forsaken the controversial +group, not a few have tried to explain away the truth, and others going to +the past with their minds preoccupied have selected only those facts which +support their contentions.</p> + +<p>What has this author in question done? In this readable and interesting +work the writer has shown considerable improvement upon historical writing +in this field. She has endeavored to deal not only with the political but +also with the economic and social phases of the history of this period. One +gets a glance at the State before the war, the transition from slavery to +freedom, the problems of labor and tenancy, the commercial revival, the +social readjustment, political reorganization, military rule, State +economy, reorganized Reconstruction, agriculture, education, the +administration of justice, the Ku Klux disorder, and the restoration of +home rule.</p> + +<p>This research leads the author to conclude that the seven years of the +history of the State from 1865 to 1872 marked only the beginning of the +social and economic transformation that has taken place since the war. This +upheaval broke up the large plantation <a id="pg344"></a>system, removed from power the +"slave oligarchy," and exalted the yeomanry of moderate means, the +uplanders now in control in the South. When the Democratic rule replaced +Republicanism "one set of abnormal influences were put at rest," economic +and social problems becoming the all-engrossing topics, and politics a +diversion rather than a matter of self-preservation. The race problem then +aroused began in another age, and not being settled, has been bequeathed to +a later generation. Emancipation itself would have aroused racial +antagonism but Republican Reconstruction increased it a hundred fold. This +was the most enduring contribution of Congressional interference.</p> + +<p>Politically Reconstruction in Georgia was a failure. The greatest political +achievement of the period was the enfranchisement of the Negro, but this +was soon undone, the Southern white man having no freedom of choice--"he +had to be a democrat, whether or no." Although establishing the Negro in +freedom the government failed to establish him in political and social +equality with the whites. "But still," says the author, "the race problem +and the cry of Negro! Negro! the slogan of political demagogues who magnify +and distort a very real difficulty in playing upon the passions of the less +educated whites--rise to curtail freedom of thought and act."</p> + +<p>Out of this mass of material examined one would expect a more unbiased +treatment. The work suffers from some of the defects of most Reconstruction +writers, although the author has endeavored to write with restraint and +care. One man is made almost a hero while another is found wanting. The +white Southerner could not but be a Democrat but no excuse is made for the +Negro who had no alternative but to ally himself with those who claimed to +represent his emancipator. The State was at one time bordering on economic +ruin because the Negroes became migratory and would not comply with their +labor contracts. Little is said, however, about the evils arising from the +attitude of Southern white men who have never liked to work and that of +those who during this period, according to the author, formed roving bands +for plundering and stealing. But we are too close to the history of +Reconstruction to expect better treatment. We are just now reaching the +period when we can tell the truth about the American Revolution. We must +yet wait a century before we shall find ourselves far enough removed from +the misfortunes and crimes of Reconstruction to set forth in an unbiased +way the actual deeds of those who figured conspicuously in that awful +drama.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a3-8"> +<h2><a id="pg345"></a>Notes</h2> + +<p>"That the idea of a 'Secretary of Peace' for the United States is no new +thing was brought out in the course of a paper by P. Lee Phillips, read by +President Allen C. Clark before the Columbia Historical Society, which met +at the Shoreham Hotel last night.</p> + +<p>"In the course of the paper, entitled 'The Negro, Benjamin Banneker, +Astronomer and Mathematician,' it was brought out that Banneker, who was a +free Negro, friend of Washington and Jefferson, published a series of +almanacs, unique in that they were his own work throughout. In the almanac +for 1793 one of the articles from Banneker's pen was 'A Plan of Peace +Office for the United States,' for promoting and preserving perpetual +peace. This article was concise and well written, and contains most of the +ideas set forth today by advocates of peace. Banneker took a 'crack' at +European military ideas, and advocated the abolishment in the United States +of military dress and titles and all militia laws. He laid down laws for +the construction of a great temple of peace in which hymns were to be sung +each day.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Phillips's paper brought out that Banneker helped in one of the early +surveys of the District of Columbia."--<em>Washington Star.</em></p> + +<p>This dissertation will be brought out in the Annual Publication of the +Columbia Historical Society.</p> + + +<p>Professor Alain Leroy Locke, of Howard University, has published an +interesting prospectus of his lectures on the race problem.</p> + + +<p>Professor A. E. Jenks, of the University of Minnesota, has contributed to +the <em>American Journal of Sociology</em> an elaborate paper on the legal status +of the miscegenation of the white and black races in the various +commonwealths.</p> + + +<p>Miss L. E. Wilkes, of the Washington Public Schools, has been lecturing on +"<em>Missing Pages of American History."</em> This is a summary of her work +treating the Negro soldier from the Colonial Period through the War of +1812. The treatise will be published in the near future.</p> + + +<p><a id="pg346"></a>In the Church Missionary Review has appeared "<em>A Survey of Islam in +Africa</em>," by G. T. Manley.</p> + + +<p>An article entitled "<em>The Bantu Coast Tribes of East Africa Protectorate,"</em> +by A. Werner, has been published in the <em>Journal</em> of the Royal +Anthropological Institute. In the same <em>Journal</em> has appeared also "<em>The +Organization and Laws of Some Bantu Tribes in East Africa."</em></p> + + +<p><em>Ashanti Proverbs</em>, translated by R. Sutherland Rattray, with a preface by +Sir Hugh Clifford, has been published by Milford in London.</p> + + +<p>A. Werner has published in London "<em>The Language Families of Africa,"</em> a +concise and valuable textbook of the classification, philology, and grammar +of the languages.</p> + + +<p><em>The German African Empire</em>, by A. F. Calvert, has appeared over the imprint +of Werner Laurie.</p> + + +<p><em>The History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872</em>, by G. McCall Theal, has +been published in London by Allen and Unwin. This is a fourth and revised +edition of a work to be completed in five volumes.</p> + + +<p><em>"The Tropics,"</em> by C. R. Enock, has been brought out by Grant Richards. +This is a description of all tropical countries. It contains some valuable +information but is chiefly concerned with advancing the theory that it is +essential to study the capabilities of a country so as to develop all of +its industries. The contention of the author is that the economic +independence of each country is its safeguard from war and that +commercialism is ruin.</p> + + +<p>The Methodist Book Concern has announced <em>"Pioneering on the Congo,"</em> by +John Springer.</p> + + +<p>Hodder and Stoughton have published "<em>Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer +Missionary</em>." This is an account of a factory girl who distinguished +herself as a missionary and was later appointed head of a native court.</p> + + +<p><em>French Memories of Eighteenth Century America</em>, by Charles H. Sherrill, +has been published by Scribners. He failed to take into account the many +references of French travelers to the Negroes and slavery.</p> + + +<p><a id="pg347"></a>In the second number of <em>Smith College Studies in History</em> appears Laura +J. Webster's <em>Operations of the Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina.</em></p> + + +<p>About the middle of July the Neale Publishing Company will bring out <em>The +New Negro, His Political, Civil and Mental Status</em>, by Dean William +Pickens, of Morgan College.</p> + + +<p>Professor Sherwood, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, has for some time been making +researches into <em>Paul Cuffee.</em></p> + +<blockquote> +<h4>AN INTERESTING COMMENT</h4> + +<p><em>Dear Sir:</em></p> + +<p>It was very good of you to mail me a copy of the Journal of Negro History. +I had seen a copy of this publication, I believe, at the library of the +Institute of Jamaica. The second number is certainly an impressive issue +indicative of the changed point of view. The so-called literature on +slavery and the negro is, in the main, rather a hindrance than a help. The +expression of mere personal opinion is of exceedingly slight value in the +furtherance of any good cause. What the world needs is not mere knowledge +but a better understanding of the facts and experience already available. +When a race has reached a point where it realizes its own place in history, +and the value of a critical analysis of its historical experience, a +measurable advance has been made towards the attainment of a genuine +progress. All values are relative. True history concerns itself with any +and all achievements and not merely with political changes or military +events. Most of the so-called historical disquisitions delivered annually +before the American Historical Association fall seriously short in this +respect. Ever since Green wrote his first real history of the English +people the old-time historian has lost caste among men who are seriously +concerned with the urgent solution of present-day problems. Unquestionably, +a true political history is of real value, but the social history of +mankind is infinitely more important.</p> + +<p>The Journal of Negro History seems to meet the foregoing requirements for a +social history of the negro race rather than a mere increase in the already +voluminous so-called history of the political aspects of slavery +reconstruction or reorganization during recent times. The article on the +negro soldier in the American revolution is excellent. The prerequisite for +a genuine race prog<a id="pg348"></a>ress is race pride. For this reason the past +achievements of the negro in this or any other country, individually or +collectively, are of the utmost teaching value. It is a far cry, +apparently, from the very recent high and well deserved promotion of a +negro to a commanding position in the army, back to the days of the service +rendered by negro soldiers in the Revolution, but in its final analysis it +is all a chain of connected events. Where so much has been done and is +being achieved the outlook for the future must needs be encouraging. +Progress is only made by struggling, and the best results are those +achieved against apparently insuperable difficulties. Race progress and +race pride are practically equivalent terms. Individuals and races fail in +proportion as they permit discouraging circumstances or conditions to +control their destinies. A true philosophy of history never fails to bring +home the conviction that lasting success is attained only through the ages +by persistent effort in the right direction. The negro race has reason to +be proud of its achievements, but I am sure that the future progress will +rest largely upon a better understanding of the negro's place in history. +Just as in the case of individuals, so in the case of races, it is, first +and last, a question of finding our place in the world. Variation in type +is absolutely essential to the highest development of the human species. It +is not, therefore, the duty of any one race to follow blindly in the +footsteps of another. It is for each race to seek for the best traits +peculiarly its own, and to leave absolutely nothing undone, in season and +out, to develop those particular traits to the highest possible degree. In +other words, it is not for the negro to try to be as near as he can to a +white man, even in his innermost thoughts and aspirations, but to interpret +the lessons of his own life through the philosophy of negro history and to +be true to the moral and spiritual ideals of his race and his ancestors, be +they what they may.</p> + +<p class="closing">Very truly yours,</p> + +<p class="author">F. L. Hoffman,<br /> +<span class="normal"><em>Statistician</em>.</span></p> +</blockquote> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<div id="issue4" class="issue"> +<div id="tp4" class="tp"> +<h1 class="title"><a id="pg349"></a>The Journal <br />of<br /> Negro History</h1> + +<p class="byline">Edited By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Carter G. Woodson</h2> + +<hr /> + + +<h3 class="vol"><span class="left">VOL. I., No. 4</span> <span class="right">October, 1916</span></h3> + +<h3>PUBLISHED QUARTERLY</h3> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="toc" id="toc4"> +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<ul> +<li><span class="sc">C. E. Pierre</span>: <em><a href="#a4-1">The Work of The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in + Foreign Parts among the Negroes in the Colonies</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Alice Dunbar-Nelson</span>: <em><a href="#a4-2">People of Color in Louisiana, Part I</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">William T. McKinney</span>: <em><a href="#a4-3">The Defeat of the Secessionists in Kentucky in 1861</a></em></li> + +<li><span class="sc">J. Kunst</span>:<ul> + <li><em><a href="#a4-4">Notes on Negroes in Guatemala During the Seventeenth Century</a></em>;</li> + <li><em><a href="#a4-5">A Mulatto Corsair of the Sixteenth Century</a></em></li></ul></li> + +<li><span class="sc">Documents:</span> + <ul> + <li><span class="sc"><a href="#a4-6">Travelers' Impressions of Slavery in America from 1750 to 1800</a></span>: + <ul> + <li><a href="#a4-6-1">Burnaby's View of the Situation in Virginia;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-2">General Treatment of Slaves Among the Albanians--Consequent Attachment of Domestics.--Reflections on Servitude by an American Lady; </a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-3">Impressions of an English Traveler; </a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-4">Abbé Robin on Conditions in Virginia; </a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-5">Observations of St. John De Crèvecoeur;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-6">Impressions of Johann D. Schoepf;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-7">Extracts from Anburey's Travels Through North America;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-8">Vindication of The Negroes: A Controversy;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-9">Sur L'état Général, Le Genre D'industrie, Les Moeurs, Le Caractère, Etc. Des Noirs, Dans Les États-unis;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-10">Slavery as Seen by Henry Wansey;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-11">Esclavage Par La Rochefoucauld-liancourt;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-12">Observations Sur L'esclavage Par La Rochefoucauld-liancourt;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-13">What Isaac Weld Observed in Slave States;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-14">John Davis's Thoughts on Slavery;</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-6-15">Observations of Robert Sutcliff;</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><span class="sc"><a href="#a4-7">Some Letters of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones to Dorothy Ripley;</a></span> + <ul> + <li><a href="#a4-7-1">Letter from an African Minister, Resident in Philadelphia Addressed to Dorothy Ripley.</a></li> + <li><a href="#a4-7-2">Letter from an African, resident in Philadelphia, to Dorothy Ripley</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> +</li> +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a4-8">Reviews of Books</a></span>:<ul> + <li><span class="sc">Clayton's</span> <em><a href="#a4-8-1">The Aftermath of the Civil War, in Arkansas</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Evans's</span> <em><a href="#a4-8-2">Black and White in the Southern States</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Sayers's</span> <em><a href="#a4-8-3">Samuel Coleridge-Taylor--Musician. His Life and Letters</a></em>;</li> + <li><span class="sc">Bailey's</span> <em><a href="#a4-8-4">Race Orthodoxy in the South and Other Aspects of the Negro Problem</a></em>;</li> +</ul></li> +<li><span class="sc"><a href="#a4-9">Notes</a></span></li> +</ul> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-1"> +<h2>The Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts +Among the Negroes in the Colonies</h2> + + + +<p>The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was +organized in London in the year 1701. During the eighteenth century the +British Colonies of the New World constituted the principal field of +missionary endeavor for this organization. There were then in North America +250,000 settlers, whole colonies of whom were living in heathenism while +others were adhering to almost every variety of strange faiths. The work of +proselyting these people was too important to be intrusted to individual +enterprise and too extensive to be successfully prosecuted by the heads of +the Church only. The ministrations of the Established Church were then +limited to a few places in Virginia, New York, Maryland and the cities of +Boston and Philadelphia. To supply this deficiency the Society endeavored +to use missionaries as a direct means to convert the heathen of all races, +whether Europeans, Indians or Negroes. There were cruel masters who +objected to the conversion of their slaves,<sup><a href="#fn4-1-1" id="fna4-1-1">1</a></sup> but that any race should be +denied the message of salvation because of its color was ever repudiated by +the Society. From the very beginning of this work the conversion of the +Negroes was as important to the <a id="pg350"></a>Society as that of bringing the whites or +the Indians into the church. Such dignitaries of the church, as Rev. Thomas +Bacon and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, Sanderson and Wilson, ever urged this +duty upon their brethren at home and abroad.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-2" id="fna4-1-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>The first really effective work of the Society was done in South Carolina. +Reverend Mr. Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in that State early instructed +the Indian and Negro slaves of his vicinity. He directed his attention to +the Negroes in 1695 and ten years later counted among his communicants +twenty blacks, who with several others "well understanding the English +tongue," could read and write. He further said, in 1705: "I have here +presumed to give an account of one thousand slaves so far as they know of +it and are desirous of Christian knowledge and seem willing to prepare +themselves for it, in learning to read, for which they redeem the time +from their labor. Many of them can read the Bible distinctly and great +numbers of them were learning when I left the province."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-3" id="fna4-1-3">3</a></sup></p> + +<p>This work, however, had not proceeded without much opposition. The +sentiment as to the enlightenment of the blacks was largely that of the +youth who resolved never to go to the holy table while slaves were +received there. Others felt like the lady who inquired: "Is it possible +that any of my slaves should go to heaven, and must I see them there?"<sup><a href="#fn4-1-4" id="fna4-1-4">4</a></sup> +The earnest workers sent out by the Society, however, did not cease to +labor in behalf of the Negroes and the number of masters willing to have +their slaves instructed gradually increased. Among these liberal owners +were John Morris, of St. Bartholomew's, Lady Moore, Captain David Davis, +Mrs. Sarah Baker at Goose Creek, Landgrave Joseph Morton and his wife of +St. Paul's, the Governor and a member of the Assembly, Mr. and Mrs. +Skeen,<sup><a href="#fn4-1-5" id="fna4-1-5">5</a></sup> Mrs. Haigue and Mrs.<a id="pg351"></a> Edwards. So successful were the efforts of +Mrs. Haigue and Mrs. Edwards that they were formally thanked by the +Society for their care and good example in instructing the Negroes of whom +no less than twenty-seven prepared by them, including those of another +planter, were baptized by the Reverend E. Taylor of St. Andrew's within +two years.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-6" id="fna4-1-6">6</a></sup></p> + +<p>Other less liberal masters refused to allow their slaves to attend Mr. +Taylor for instruction, but some of them were induced to teach the blacks +the Lord's Prayer. The result even from this was so successful that there +came to the church more Negroes than could be accommodated. So great was +their desire for instruction that had it not been for the opposition of +their owners, almost all of them would<a id="pg352"></a> have been converted. "So far as +the missionaries were permitted," says one, "they did all that was +possible for their evangelization, and while so many professed Christians +among the planters were lukewarm, it pleased God to raise to himself +devout servants among the heathen, whose faithfulness was commended by the +masters themselves. In some of the congregations the Negroes or blacks +constituted one half of the communicants."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-7" id="fna4-1-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>This interest of the clergy in the Negroes of South Carolina continued in +spite of opposition. Rev. Mr. Guy, of St. Andrew's Parish, said that he +baptized "a Negro man and a Negro woman" in 1723, and Rev. Mr. Hunt, +minister of St. John's Parish, reported in that same year that "a slave, a +sensible Negro, who can read and write and comes to church, is a Catechumen +under probation for Baptism which he desires."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-8" id="fna4-1-8">8</a></sup> A new impetus too was +given the movement about 1740. Influenced by such urgent addresses as those +of Dr. Brearcroft, and Bishops Gibson, Wilson and Seeker, the workers of +the Society were aroused to proselyting more extensively among the Negroes. +In 1741 the Bishop of Canterbury expressed his gratification at the large +number of Negroes who were then being brought into the church.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-9" id="fna4-1-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>A decided step forward was noted in 1743. That year a school for Negroes +was opened by Commissary Garden and placed in charge of Harry and Andrew, +two colored youths, who had been trained as teachers at the cost of the +Society. This establishment was a sort of training school for bright young +blacks who felt called to instruct their fellow countrymen. For adults who +labored during the day it was an evening school. It was successfully +conducted for more than twenty years. In 1763 the institution was for some +unknown reason closed after being conducted in the face of many +difficulties and obstructions, although this was the only educational +institution in that colony for its 50,000 blacks.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-10" id="fna4-1-10">10</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg353"></a>Some good results were obtained by the missionaries of the Society of +North Carolina, but difficulties were also encountered there. The chief +trouble seems to have been that missionaries of that colony were +"frustrated by the slave owners who would by no means permit" their Negroes +to be baptized, "having a false notion that a christened slave is by law +free."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-11" id="fna4-1-11">11</a></sup> "By much importunity," says an investigator, Mr. Ransford of +Chowan (in 1712) prevailed on Mr. Martin to let him baptize three of his +Negroes, two women and a boy. "All the arguments I could make use of," +said he, "would scarce effect it till Bishop Fleetwood's sermon (in 1711) +... turned ye scale."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-12" id="fna4-1-12">12</a></sup> Mr. Rumford succeeded, however, in baptizing +upwards of forty Negroes in one year. In the course of time, when the +workers overcame the prejudice of the masters, a missionary would sometimes +baptize fifteen to twenty-four in a month, forty to fifty in six months, +and sixty to seventy in a year.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-13" id="fna4-1-13">13</a></sup> Reverend Mr. Newman, a minister in +North Carolina, reported in 1723 that he had baptized two Negroes who could +say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and gave good +sureties for their further information.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-14" id="fna4-1-14">14</a></sup> According to the report of Rev. +C. Hall, the number of conversions there among Negroes for eight years was +355, including 112 adults, and "at Edenton the blacks generally were +induced to attend service at all these stations, where they behaved with +great decorum."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-15" id="fna4-1-15">15</a></sup></p> + +<p>In the Middle and Southern Colonies these missionaries had the cooperation +of Dr. Thomas Bray. In 1696 he was sent to Maryland by the Bishop of +London to do what he could toward the conversion of adult Negroes and the +education of their children.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-16" id="fna4-1-16">16</a></sup> Bray's most influential supporter was M. +D'Alone, the private secretary of King William. D'Alone gave for the +maintenance of the cause a fund, the<a id="pg354"></a> proceeds of which were first used to +employ catechists, and later to support the Thomas Bray Mission after the +catechists had failed to give satisfaction. At the death of this +missionary the task was taken up by certain of his followers known as the +"Associates of Dr. Bray."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-17" id="fna4-1-17">17</a></sup> They extended their work beyond the bounds +of Maryland. These benefactors maintained two schools for the benefit of +Negroes in Philadelphia. About the close of the French and Indian War, +Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary in North Carolina, found there a school for +the education of Indians and Negroes conducted by "Dr. Bray's +Associates."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-18" id="fna4-1-18">18</a></sup></p> + +<p>Georgia too was not neglected. The extension of the work of Dr. Bray's +associates into the colony made an opening there for taking up the +instruction of Negroes. The Society joined with these workers for +supporting a schoolmaster for Negroes in 1751 and an improvement in the +slaves was soon admitted by their owners.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-19" id="fna4-1-19">19</a></sup> In 1766 Rev. S. Frink, a +missionary toiling in Augusta, found that he could neither convert the +Indians nor the whites, who seemed to be as destitute of religion as the +former, but succeeded in converting some Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-20" id="fna4-1-20">20</a></sup></p> + +<p>In Pennsylvania the missionary movement found less obstacles to the +conversion of Negroes than to that of the Indians. In fact, the +proselyting of Negroes in the colony was less difficult than in some other +parts of America. The reports of the missionaries show that slaves were +being baptized there as early as 1712.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-21" id="fna4-1-21">21</a></sup> About this time a Mr. Yeates, +of Chester, was commended by the Rev. G. Ross "for his endeavors to train +up the Negroes in the knowledge of religion."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-22" id="fna4-1-22">22</a></sup> Moved by the appeal of +the Bishop of London, other masters permitted the indoctrination of their +slaves in the principles of Christianity. At Philadelphia the Rev. G. Ross +baptized on one occasion 12 adult Negroes, "who <a id="pg355"></a>were examined before the +congregation and answered to the admiration of all who heard them.... The +like sight had never been seen before in that church."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-23" id="fna4-1-23">23</a></sup> Rev. Mr. +Beckett, minister in Sussex County, Pennsylvania, said in 1723 that he had +admitted two Negro slaves and that many Negroes constantly attended his +services.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-24" id="fna4-1-24">24</a></sup> The same year Rev. Mr. Bartow baptized a Negro at West +Chester.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-25" id="fna4-1-25">25</a></sup> Rev. Mr. Pugh, a missionary at Appoquinimmick, Pennsylvania, +said, in a letter written to the Society in 1737, that he had received a +few blacks and that the masters of the Negroes were prejudiced against +their being Christians.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-26" id="fna4-1-26">26</a></sup> Rev. Richard Locke christened eight Negroes in +one family at Lancaster in 1747 and another Negro there the following +year.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-26a" id="fna4-1-26a">26a</a></sup> In 1774 the Rev. Mr. Jenney reported that there was "a great +and daily increase of Negroes in this city who would with joy attend upon +a catechist for instruction"; that he had baptized several, but was unable +to add to his other duties; and the Society, ever ready to lend a helping +hand to such pious undertakings, appointed the Rev. W. Sturgeon as +catechist for the Negroes at Philadelphia.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-27" id="fna4-1-27">27</a></sup> The next to show diligence +in the branch of the work of the Society was Mr. Neill of Dover. He +baptized as many as 162 within 18 months.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-28" id="fna4-1-28">28</a></sup></p> + +<p>The operations of the Society did not seem to cover a large part of New +Jersey. The Rev. Mr. Lindsay wrote of the baptizing of a Negro at Allerton +in 1736.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-29" id="fna4-1-29">29</a></sup> The reports from the missions of New Brunswick show that a +large number of Negroes had attached themselves to the church. This +condition, however, did not obtain in all parts of that colony. Yet +subsequent reports show that the missionary spirit was not wanting in that +section. The baptism of black<a id="pg356"></a> children and the accession of Negro adults +to the church were from time to time reported from that field.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-30" id="fna4-1-30">30</a></sup></p> + +<p>The most effective work of the Society among Negroes of the Northern +colonies was accomplished in New York. In that colony, the instruction of +the Negro and Indian slaves to prepare them for conversion, baptism, and +communion was a primary charge oft repeated to every missionary and +schoolmaster of the Society. In addition to the general efforts put forth +in the colonies, there was in New York a special provision for the +employment of sixteen clergymen and thirteen lay teachers mainly for the +evangelization of the slaves and the free Indians. For the Negro slaves a +catechizing school was opened in New York City in 1704 under the charge of +Elias Neau. This benevolent man, after several years' imprisonment because +of his Protestant faith, had come to New York to try his fortunes as a +trader. As early as 1703 he called the attention of the Society to the +great number of slaves in New York "who were without God in the world, and +of whose souls there was no manner of care taken"<sup><a href="#fn4-1-31" id="fna4-1-31">31</a></sup> and proposed the +appointment of a catechist to undertake their instruction. He himself +finally being prevailed upon to accept this position, obtained a license +from the Governor, resigned his position as elder in the French church and +conformed to the Established Church of England, "not upon any worldly +account but through a principle of conscience and hearty approbation of +the English liturgy."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-32" id="fna4-1-32">32</a></sup> He was later licensed by the Bishop of London.</p> + +<p>Neau's task was not an easy one. At first he went from house to house, but +afterwards arranged for some of the slaves to attend him. He succeeded, +however, in obtaining gratifying results. He was commended to the Society +by Rev. Mr. Vesey in 1706 as a "constant communicant of our church, and a +most zealous and prudent servant of Christ, in <a id="pg357"></a>proselyting the miserable +Negroes and Indians among them to the Christian Religion, whereby he does +great service to God and his church."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-33" id="fna4-1-33">33</a></sup> Further confidence in him was +attested by an act of the Society in preparing at his request "a Bill to +be offered to Parliament for the more effectual Conversion of the Negro +and other Servants in the Plantations, to compell Owners of Slaves to +cause children to be baptized within 3 months after their birth and to +permit them when come to years of discretion to be instructed in the +Christian Religion on our Lord's day by the Missionaries under whose +ministry they live."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-34" id="fna4-1-34">34</a></sup></p> + +<p>Neau's school suffered greatly in 1712 because of the prejudice engendered +by the declaration that instruction was the main cause of the Negro riot +in that city. For some days Neau dared not show himself, so bitter was the +feeling of the masters. Upon being assured, however, that only one Negro +connected with the school had participated in the affair and that the most +criminal belonged to the masters who were openly opposed to educating +them, the institution was permitted to continue its endeavors, and the +Governor extended to it his protection and recommended that masters have +their slaves instructed.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-35" id="fna4-1-35">35</a></sup> Yet Neau had still to complain thereafter of +the struggle and opposition of the generality of the inhabitants, who were +strongly prejudiced with a horrid motive thinking that Christian knowledge +"would be a means to make the slave more cunning and apter to +wickedness."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-36" id="fna4-1-36">36</a></sup> Not so long thereafter, however, the support of the best +people and officials of the community made his task easier. Neau could say +in 1714 that "if the slaves and domestics in New York were not instructed +it was not his fault."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-37" id="fna4-1-37">37</a></sup> The Governor, the Council, Mayor, the Recorder +and the Chief Justice informed the Society that Neau had performed his +work "to the great advancement of religion in general and the particular +bene<a id="pg358"></a>fit of the free Indians, Negro slaves, and other Heathens in those +parts, with indefatigable zeal and application."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-38" id="fna4-1-38">38</a></sup></p> + +<p>Neau died in 1722. His work was carried on by Mr. Huddlestone, Rev. Mr. +Whitmore, Rev. Mr. Colgan, Rev. R. Charlton, and Rev. S. Auchmutty. From +1732 to 1740 Mr. Charlton baptized 219 slaves and frequently thereafter +the number admitted yearly was from 40 to 60.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-39" id="fna4-1-39">39</a></sup> The great care exercised +in preparing slaves for the church was rewarded by the spiritual knowledge +which in some cases was such as might have put to shame many persons who +had had greater advantages. Rev. Mr. Auchmutty, who served from 1747 to +1764, reported that there was among the Negroes an ever-increasing desire +for instruction and "not one single Black" that had been "admitted by him +to the Holy Communion" had "turned out bad or been in any shape a disgrace +to our holy Profession."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-40" id="fna4-1-40">40</a></sup></p> + +<p>The interest in the enlightenment of Negroes too extended also to other +parts of the colony. In 1737 Rev. Mr. Stoupe wrote of baptizing four black +children at New Rochelle.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-41" id="fna4-1-41">41</a></sup> Mr. Charlton had taken upon himself at New +Windsor the task of instructing these unfortunates before he entered upon +the work in New York City. At Staten Island too he found it both practical +and convenient "to throw into one the classes of his white and black +catechumens."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-42" id="fna4-1-42">42</a></sup> Rev. Charles Taylor, a schoolmaster at that place, kept +a night school "for the instruction of Negroes, and of such as" could not +"be spared from their work in the day time."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-43" id="fna4-1-43">43</a></sup> Rev. J. Sayre, of +Newburgh, followed the same plan of coeducation of the races in each of +the four churches under his charge.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-44" id="fna4-1-44">44</a></sup> Rev. T. Barclay, an earnest worker +among the slaves in Albany, reported in 1714 "a great forwardness" among +them to embrace Christianity <a id="pg359"></a>"and a readiness to receive +instruction."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-45" id="fna4-1-45">45</a></sup> He found much opposition among certain masters, chief +among whom were Major M. Schuyler and his brother-in-law Petrus +Vandroffen. Sixty years later came the report from Schenectady that there +were still to be found several Negro slaves of whom 11 were sober, serious +communicants.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-46" id="fna4-1-46">46</a></sup></p> + +<p>These missionaries met with more opposition than encouragement in New +England. The Puritan had no serious objection to seeing the Negroes saved, +but when the conversion meant the incorporation of the undesirable class +into the state, then so closely connected with the church, many New +Englanders became silent. This opposition, however, was not effective +everywhere. From Bristol, Rev. J. Usher wrote in 1730 that several Negroes +desired baptism and were able "to render a very good account of the hope +that was in them," but he was forbidden by their masters to comply with +the request. Yet he reported the same year that among others he had in his +congregation "about 30 Negroes and Indians," most of whom joined "in the +public service very decently."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-47" id="fna4-1-47">47</a></sup> At Newtown, where greater opposition +was encountered, Rev. J. Beach seemed to have baptized by 1733 many +Indians and a few Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-48" id="fna4-1-48">48</a></sup> The Rev. Dr. Cutler, a missionary at +Boston, wrote to the Society in 1737 that among those he had admitted to +his church were four Negro slaves.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-49" id="fna4-1-49">49</a></sup> Endeavoring to do more than to +effect nominal conversions, Doctor Johnson, while at Stratford, had +catechetical lectures during the summer months of 1751, attended by many +Negroes and some Indians, as well as whites, "about 70 or 80 in all." And +said he: "As far as I can find, where the Dissenters have baptized 2, if +not 3 or 4 Negroes or Indians, I have four or five communicants."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-50" id="fna4-1-50">50</a></sup> Dr. +Macsparran conducted at Narragansett a class of 70 Indians and Negroes +whom he frequently catechized and <a id="pg360"></a>instructed before the regular +service.<sup><a href="#fn4-1-51" id="fna4-1-51">51</a></sup> Rev. J. Honyman, of Newport, had in his congregation more +than 100 Negroes who "constantly attended the Publick Worship."<sup><a href="#fn4-1-52" id="fna4-1-52">52</a></sup></p> + +<p>It appears then that the Negroes were instructed by the missionaries in +all of the colonies except some remote parts of New England, Virginia and +Maryland. The Established Church had workers among the white persons in +those colonies but they did not always direct their attention to the +slaves. This does not mean, however, that the slaves in those parts were +entirely neglected. There were at work other agencies to bring them to +the light. And so on it continued until the outbreak of the Revolution, +when the work of these missionaries was impeded and in most cases brought +to a close.</p> + +<p class="author">C. E. Pierre</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-1"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn4-1-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-1">return</a>]</span>1. "An Account of the Endeavor Used by the S.P.G.," pp. 6-12; Meade, +"Sermons of Rev. Thomas Bacon," pp. 31 <em>et seq.</em></p> + +<p id="fn4-1-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-2">return</a>]</span>2. Special Report of U. S. Commission of Ed., 1871, pp. 300 <em>et seq.</em></p> + +<p id="fn4-1-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-3">return</a>]</span>3. <em>Journal</em>, Vol. I, May 30, July 18, and Aug. 15, 1707; Special Report +of the U. S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 363.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-4">return</a>]</span>4. Pascoe, "Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the +Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," p. 15.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-5">return</a>]</span>5. <em>Ibid.</em>, 15.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-6">return</a>]</span>6. In 1713 this churchman wrote his supporters:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "As I am a minister of Christ and of the Church of England, and a + Missionary of the most Christian Society in the whole world, I think + it my indispensable and special duty to do all that in me lies to + promote the conversion and salvation of the poor heathens here, and + more especially of the Negro and Indian slaves in my own parish, + which I hope I can truly say I have been sincerely and earnestly + endeavoring ever since I was a minister here where there are many + Negro and Indian slaves in a most pitifull deplorable and perishing + condition tho' little pitied by many of their masters and their + conversion and salvation little desired and endeavored by them. If + the masters were but good Christians themselves and would but + concurre with the ministers, we should then have good hopes of the + conversion and salvation at least of some of their Negro and Indian + slaves. But too many of them rather oppose than concurr with us and + are angry with us, I am sure I may say with me for endeavouring as + much as I doe the conversion of their slaves.... I cannot but honour + Madame Haigue.... In my parish a very considerable number of Negroes + ... were very loose and wicked and little inclined to Christianity + before her coming among them I can't but honor her so much ... as to + acquaint the Society with the extraordinary pains this gentle woman + and one Madm. Edwards, that came with her, have taken to instruct + those negroes in the principles of the Christian Religion and to + instruct and reform them; And the wonderful successe they have met + with, in about a half a year's time in this great and good work. Upon + these gentle women's desiring me to come and examine these negroes + ... I went and among other things I asked them, Who Christ was. They + readily answered. He is the Son of God and Saviour of the world and + told me that they embraced Him with all their hearts as such, and I + desired them to rehearse the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten + Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, which they did very distinctly + and perfectly. 14 of them gave me so great satisfaction, and were so + very desirous to be baptized, that I thought it my duty to baptize + them and therefore I baptized these 14 last Lord's Day. And I doubt + not but these gentlewomen will prepare the rest of them for Baptism + in a short Time." <em>Journal</em>, Vol. II, Oct. 6, 1713; A. Mss., Vol. + VIII, pp. 356-7; Pascoe, "Digest of Records of S.P.G.," p. 15.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn4-1-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-7">return</a>]</span>7. <em>Journal</em>, II, 328; XIV, 48; XX, 132-133; XVI, 165-166.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-8">return</a>]</span>8. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1723, p. 46.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-9">return</a>]</span>9. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," 16.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-10">return</a>]</span>10. Meriwether, "Education in South Carolina," p. 123; McCrady, "South +Carolina," etc., p. 246; Dalcho, "An Historical Account of the Protestant +Episcopal Church in South Carolina," pp. 156, 157, 164.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-11">return</a>]</span>11. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 22.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-12">return</a>]</span>12. <em>Ibid.</em>, 22.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-13">return</a>]</span>13. <em>Ibid.</em>, 23.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-14">return</a>]</span>14. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1723, p. 47.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-15">return</a>]</span>15. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 22.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-16">return</a>]</span>16. Smyth, "Works of Franklin," V, 431.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-17">return</a>]</span>17. Wickersham, "History of Education in Pennsylvania," p. 249.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-18">return</a>]</span>18. Bassett, "Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina," p. 226.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-19">return</a>]</span>19. <em>Journal</em>, Vol. XI, pp. 305 and 311.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-20">return</a>]</span>20. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 28.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-21">return</a>]</span>21. <em>Journal</em>, Vol. XVII, p. 97.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-22">return</a>]</span>22. <em>Ibid.</em>, II, 251.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-23">return</a>]</span>23. <em>Journal</em>, IX, 87.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-24">return</a>]</span>24. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1723, p. 47.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-25">return</a>]</span>25. <em>Ibid.</em>, 1737, 50.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-26">return</a>]</span>26. <em>Ibid.</em>, 1737, p. 41.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-26a"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-26a">return</a>]</span>26a. Pennsylvania Magazine of History, XXIV, 467, 469.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-27">return</a>]</span>27. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 38.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-28">return</a>]</span>28. <em>Ibid.</em>, 39.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-29">return</a>]</span>29. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1736.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-30">return</a>]</span>30. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," 55.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-31">return</a>]</span>31. <em>Ibid.</em>, 56.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-32">return</a>]</span>32. <em>Ibid.</em>, 57, and "Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed.," 1871, 362; +and "An Account of the Endeavors Used by the S.P.G.," pp. 6-12.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-33">return</a>]</span>33. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 58.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-34">return</a>]</span>34. <em>Ibid.</em>, <em>Journal</em>, I, Oct. 20, 1710.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-35">return</a>]</span>35. "Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed.," 1871, p. 362.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-36">return</a>]</span>36. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 59.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-37">return</a>]</span>37. <em>Journal</em>, III, Oct. 15, 1714.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-38">return</a>]</span>38. Humphreys, "Historical Account of the S.P.G.," 243.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-39">return</a>]</span>39. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 65.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-40">return</a>]</span>40. <em>Ibid.</em>, 66.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-41">return</a>]</span>41. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1737.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-42">return</a>]</span>42. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 68.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-43">return</a>]</span>43. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1723, p. 50.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-44">return</a>]</span>44. <em>Journal</em>, XIX, 452-453.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-45">return</a>]</span>45. <em>Ibid.</em>, January 21, 1715.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-46">return</a>]</span>46. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 67.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-47">return</a>]</span>47. <em>Ibid.</em>, 46.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-48"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-48">return</a>]</span>48. <em>Ibid.</em>, 47.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-49"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-49">return</a>]</span>49. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1737 and 1738, p. 39.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-50"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-50">return</a>]</span>50. <em>Ibid.</em>, p. 40.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-51"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-51">return</a>]</span>51. <em>Proceedings of the S.P.G.</em>, 1723, 51.</p> + +<p id="fn4-1-52"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-1-52">return</a>]</span>52. <em>Ibid.</em>, 1723, p. 52.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a4-2"> +<h2><a id="pg361"></a>People of Color in Louisiana</h2> + + + +<h3>Part I</h3> + + +<p>The title of a possible discussion of the Negro in Louisiana presents +difficulties, for there is no such word as Negro permissible in speaking of +this State. The history of the State is filled with attempts to define, +sometimes at the point of the sword, oftenest in civil or criminal courts, +the meaning of the word Negro. By common consent, it came to mean in +Louisiana, prior to 1865, slave, and after the war, those whose complexions +were noticeably dark. As Grace King so delightfully puts it, "The +pure-blooded African was never called colored, but always Negro." The <em>gens +de couleur</em>, colored people, were always a class apart, separated from and +superior to the Negroes, ennobled were it only by one drop of white blood +in their veins. The caste seems to have existed from the first introduction +of slaves. To the whites, all Africans who were not of pure blood were +<em>gens de couleur</em>. Among themselves, however, there were jealous and +fiercely-guarded distinctions: "griffes, briqués, mulattoes, quadroons, +octoroons, each term meaning one degree's further transfiguration toward +the Caucasian standard of physical perfection."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-1" id="fna4-2-1">1</a></sup></p> + +<p>Negro slavery in Louisiana seems to have been early influenced by the +policy of the Spanish colonies. De las Casas, an apostle to the Indians, +exclaimed against the slavery of the Indians and finding his efforts of no +avail proposed to Charles V in 1517 the slavery of the Africans as a +substitute.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-2" id="fna4-2-2">2</a></sup> The Spaniards refused at first to import slaves from Africa, +but later agreed to the proposition and employed other nations to traffic +in them.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-3" id="fna4-2-3">3</a></sup> Louisiana learned <a id="pg362"></a>from the Spanish colonies her lessons of +this traffic, took over certain parts of the slave regulations and imported +bondmen from the Spanish West Indies. Others brought thither were Congo, +Banbara, Yaloff, and Mandingo slaves.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-4" id="fna4-2-4">4</a></sup></p> + +<p>People of color were introduced into Louisiana early in the eighteenth +century. In 1708, according to the historian, Gayarré, the little colony of +Louisiana, at the point on the Gulf of Mexico now known as Biloxi, in the +present State of Mississippi, had been in existence nine years. In 1708, +the population of the colony did not exceed 279 persons. The land about +this region is particularly sterile, and the colonists were little disposed +to undertake the laborious task of tilling the soil. Indian slavery was +attempted but found unprofitable and exceedingly precarious. So Bienville, +lacking the sympathy of De las Casas for the Indians, wrote his government +to obtain the authorization of exchanging Negroes for Indians with the +French West Indian islands. "We shall give," he said, "three Indians for +two Negroes. The Indians, when in the islands, will not be able to run +away, the country being unknown to them, and the Negroes will not dare to +become fugitives in Louisiana, because the Indians would kill them."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-5" id="fna4-2-5">5</a></sup></p> + +<p>Bienville's suggestion seems not to have met with a very favorable +reception. Yet, in 1712, the King of France granted to Anthony Crozat the +exclusive privilege for fifteen years of trading in all that immense +territory which, with its undefined limits, France claimed as Louisiana. +Among other privileges granted Crozat were those of sending, once a year, a +ship to Africa for Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-6" id="fna4-2-6">6</a></sup> When the first came, is not known, but in +1713 twenty of these Negro slaves from Africa are recorded in the census of +the little colony on the Mississippi.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-7" id="fna4-2-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>In 1717 John Law flashed meteor-wise across the world with his huge scheme +to finance France out of difficulty with <a id="pg363"></a>his Mississippi Bubble. Among +other considerations mentioned in the charter for twenty-five years, which +he obtained from the gullible French government, was the stipulation that +before the expiration of the charter, he must transport to Louisiana six +thousand white persons, and three thousand Negroes, not to be brought from +another French colony. These slaves, so said the charter, were to be sold +to those inhabitants who had been two years in the colony for one half cash +and the balance on one year's credit. The new inhabitants had one or two +years' credit granted them.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-8" id="fna4-2-8">8</a></sup> In the first year, the Law Company +transported from Africa one thousand slaves, in 1720 five hundred, the same +number the next March, and by 1721 the pages of legal enactments in the +West Indies were being ransacked for precedents in dealing with this +strange population. But of all these slaves who came to the colony by June, +1721, but six hundred remained. Many had died, some had been exported. In +1722, therefore, the Mississippi Company was under constraint to pass an +edict prohibiting the inhabitants of Louisiana from selling their slaves +for transportation out of the colony, to the Spaniards, or to any other +foreign nation under the penalty of the fine of a thousand livres and the +confiscation of the Negroes.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-9" id="fna4-2-9">9</a></sup></p> + +<p>But already the curse of slavery had begun to show its effects. The new +colony was not immoral; it may best be described as unmoral. Indolence on +the part of the masters was physical, mental and moral. The slave +population began to lighten in color, and increase out of all proportion to +the importation and natural breeding among themselves. La Harpe comments in +1724 upon the astonishing diminution of the white population and the +astounding increase of the colored population.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-10" id="fna4-2-10">10</a></sup> Something was +undoubtedly wrong, according to the Caucasian standard, and it has remained +wrong to our own day.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-11" id="fna4-2-11">11</a></sup> The person of color was now, in <a id="pg364"></a>Louisiana, a +part of its social system, a creature to be legislated for and against, a +person lending his dark shade to temper the inartistic complexion of his +white master. Now he began to make history, and just as the trail of his +color persisted in the complexion of Louisiana, so the trail of his +personal influence continued in the history of the colony, the territory +and the State.</p> + +<p>Bienville, the man of far-reaching vision, saw the danger menacing the +colony, and before his recall and disgrace before the French court, he +published, in 1724, the famous Black Code.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-12" id="fna4-2-12">12</a></sup> This code followed the +order of that of the West Indies but contains some provisions to meet +local needs. The legal status of the slave was that of movable property of +his master. Children born of Negro parents followed the condition of their +mother. Slaves were forbidden to carry weapons. Slaves of different +masters could not assemble in crowds by day or night. They were not +permitted to sell "commodities, provisions, or produce" without permission +from their masters, and had no property which did not belong to their +masters. Neither free-born blacks nor slaves were allowed to receive gifts +from whites. They could not exercise such public functions as arbitrator +or expert, could not be partners to civil or criminal suits, could not +give testimony except in default of white people, and could never testify +against their masters. If a slave struck his master or one of the family +so as to produce a bruise or shedding blood in the face, he had to be put +to death. Any runaway slave who continued to be so from the day his master +"denounced" him suffered the penalty of having his ears cut off and being +branded on his shoulder with a fleur-de-lis. For a second offence the +penalty was to hamstring the fugitive and brand him on the other shoulder. +For the third such offence he suffered death. Freed or free-born Negroes +who gave refuge to fugitive slaves had to pay 30 livres for each day of +retention and other free persons 10 livres a day. If the freed or +free-born Negroes were not able to pay the fine, they could be reduced to +the condition of slaves and sold as such.</p> + +<p><a id="pg365"></a>The slaves were socially ostracized. Marriage of whites with slaves was +forbidden, as was also the concubinage of whites and manumitted or +free-born blacks with slaves. The consent of the parents of a slave to his +marriage was not required. That of the master was sufficient, but a slave +could not be forced to marry against his will.</p> + +<p>There were, however, somewhat favorable provisions which made this code +seem a little less rigorous. The slaves had to be well fed and the masters +could not force them to provide for themselves by working for their own +account certain days of the week and slaves could give information against +their owners, if not properly fed or clothed. Disabled slaves had to be +sent to the hospital. Husbands, wives, and their children under the age of +puberty could not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same +master. The code forbade the application of the rack to slaves, under any +pretext, on private authority, or mutilation of a limb, under penalty of +confiscation of the slave and criminal prosecution of the master. The +master was allowed, however, to have his slave put in irons and whipped +with rods or ropes. The code commanded officers or justices to prosecute +masters and overseers who should kill or mutilate slaves, and to punish the +murder according to the atrocity of the circumstance.</p> + +<p>Other provisions were still more favorable. The slaves had to be instructed +in the Catholic religion. Slaves appointed by their masters as tutors to +their children were held set free. Moreover, manumitted slaves enjoyed the +same rights, privileges and immunities that were enjoyed by those born +free. "It is our pleasure," reads the document, "that their merit in having +acquired their freedom shall produce in their favor, not only with regard +to their persons, but also to their property, the same effects that our +other subjects derive from the happy circumstance of their having been born +free."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-13" id="fna4-2-13">13</a></sup></p> + +<p>From the first appearance of the <em>gens de couleur</em> in the colony of +Louisiana dates the class, the <em>gens de couleur <a id="pg366"></a>libres</em>. The record of +the legal tangles which resulted from the attempts to define this race in +Louisiana is most interesting. Up to 1671, all Creoles, Mulattoes, free +Negroes, etc., paid a capitation tax. In February 12 of that year, M. de +Baas, Governor-General of Martinique, issued an order exempting the +Creoles. Those Mulattoes who were also designated as Creoles claimed the +same exemption and resisted paying the tax. M. Patoulet, Intendent, +rendered a decision in 1683 and said: "The Mulattoes and free Negroes +claimed to be exempt from the capitation tax: I have made them pay without +difficulty. I decide that those Mulattoes born in vice should not receive +the exemption, and that for the free Negro, the master could give him +freedom but could not give him the exemption that attaches to the whites +originally from France."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-14" id="fna4-2-14">14</a></sup> The next year, the Mulattoes refused to pay, +and the successor of Minister Patoulet, M. Michel Begou, asked for a law to +compel them.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-15" id="fna4-2-15">15</a></sup> In 1696, an agreement was reached exempting the Mulattoes +and Creoles, leaving only the free black subject to the tax.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-16" id="fna4-2-16">16</a></sup> But in +1712, a M. Robert, in a decision on a subject, again included the +Mulattoes, without, however, mentioning the Creoles, so that only the free +Negroes and Mulattoes paid.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-17" id="fna4-2-17">17</a></sup> Thus they were held as a class apart. A +free Negro woman, Magdelaine Debern, further contested the matter, and in +1724, in the colony of Louisiana, won a decision exempting free Negroes and +Mulattoes, and again placing them on the same footing with the Creole. The +Creoles had a decided advantage, however, because through the favor of +those in authority, there was always a disposition to exalt them.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-18" id="fna4-2-18">18</a></sup></p> + +<p>It is in the definition of the word Creole that another <a id="pg367"></a>great difficulty +arises. The native white Louisianian will tell you that a Creole is a white +man, whose ancestors contain some French or Spanish blood in their veins. +But he will be disputed by others, who will gravely tell you that Creoles +are to be found only in the lower Delta lands of the state, that there are +no Creoles north of New Orleans; and will raise their hands in horror at +the idea of being confused with the "Cajans," the descendants of those Nova +Scotians whom Longfellow immortalized in Evangeline. Sifting down the mass +of conflicting definitions, it appears that to a Caucasian, a Creole is a +native of the lower parishes of Louisiana, in whose veins some traces of +Spanish, West Indian or French blood runs.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-19" id="fna4-2-19">19</a></sup> The Caucasian will shudder +with horror at the idea of including a person of color in the definition, +and the person of color will retort with his definition that a Creole is a +native of Louisiana, in whose blood runs mixed strains of everything +un-American, with the African strain slightly apparent. The true Creole is +like the famous gumbo of the state, a little bit of everything, making a +whole, delightfully flavored, quite distinctive, and wholly unique.</p> + +<p>From 1724 to the present time, frequent discussions as to the proper name +by which to designate this very important portion of the population of +Louisiana waged more or less acrimoniously.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-20" id="fna4-2-20">20</a></sup> It was this Creole element +who in 1763 obtained a decision from Louis XV that all mixed bloods who +could claim descent from an Indian ancestor in addition to a white +outranked those mixed bloods who had only white and African ancestors.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-21" id="fna4-2-21">21</a></sup> +In Jamaica, in 1733, there was passed a law that every person who could +show that he was three degrees removed from a Negro ancestor should be +regarded as belonging to the white race, and could sit as a member of the +Jamaica Assembly.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-22" id="fna4-2-22">22</a></sup> In <a id="pg368"></a>Barbadoes, any person who had a white ancestor +could vote. These laws were quoted in Louisiana and influenced legislation +there.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-23" id="fna4-2-23">23</a></sup></p> + +<p>Gov. Perier succeeded Bienville as Governor of Louisiana. His task was not +a light one; the colony staggered under "terror of attack from the Indians, +sudden alarms, false hopes, anxious suspense, militia levies, colonial +paper, instead of good money, industrial stagnation, the care of homeless +refugees, and worst of all, the restiveness of the slaves. The bad effects +of slave-holding began to show themselves." Many of the slaves had been +taken in war, and were fierce and implacable. Some were of that fiercest of +African tribes, the Banbaras. A friendliness, born of common hatred and +despair, began to show itself between the colored people and the fierce +Choctaw Indians surrounding the colony, when Gov. Perier planned a +master-stroke of diplomacy. Just above New Orleans lived a small tribe of +Indians, the Chouchas, who, not particularly harmful in themselves, had +succeeded in inspiring the nervous inhabitants of the city with abject +fear. Perier armed a band of slaves in 1729 and sent them to the Chouchas +with in<a id="pg369"></a>structions to exterminate the tribe. They did their work with an +ease and dispatch that should have been a warning to their white masters. +In reporting the success of his plan Perier said: "The Negroes executed +their mission with as much promptitude as secrecy. This lesson taught them +by our Negroes, kept in check all the nations higher up the river."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-24" id="fna4-2-24">24</a></sup> +Thus, by one stroke the wily Governor had intimidated the tribes of +Indians, allayed the nervous fears of New Orleans, and effected a state of +hostility between the Indians and the Africans, who were beginning to be +entirely too friendly with each other. Then Perier used the slaves to make +the entrenchments about the city. Thus we have the first instance of the +arming of the Negro in Louisiana for the defense of the colony. On the 15th +of January, 1730, Gov. Perier sent a boat containing twenty white men and +six Africans to carry ammunition to the Illinois settlement up the +Mississippi river whence tales of massacre and cruelty by the Indians +filtered down.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-25" id="fna4-2-25">25</a></sup></p> + +<p>The arming of the slaves in defense of the whites gave impetus to the +struggle for their own freedom. In the massacre of the French by the +Natchez, at the village of that name, over three hundred women and slaves +were kept as prisoners, and in January of the same year which witnessed the +massacre of the Chouchas, the French surprised the Natchez Indians with the +intention of recovering their women and slaves, and avenging the death of +their comrades. Some of the Africans who had been promised their freedom if +they allied themselves with the Natchez Indians, fought against their +erstwhile masters, others were loyal, and helped the French. The battle +became an issue, as it were, between the slaves. Over one hundred of them +were recovered from the Indians.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-26" id="fna4-2-26">26</a></sup></p> + +<p>The first tribute we have paid to the black man as a soldier in Louisiana +was paid by Gov. Perier in this war in his dispatch to the French +government. "Fifteen negroes,"<a id="pg370"></a> he wrote, "in whose hands we had put +weapons, performed prodigies of valor. If the blacks did not cost so much, +and if their labors were not so necessary to the colony, it would be better +to turn them into soldiers, and to dismiss those we have, who are so bad +and so cowardly that they seem to have been manufactured purposely for this +colony."<sup><a href="#fn4-2-27" id="fna4-2-27">27</a></sup></p> + +<p>But the tiger had tasted blood. Perier's cruel logic was reactionary. Since +he had used blacks to murder Indians in order to make bad blood between the +races, the Indians retaliated by using blacks to murder white men. In +August of that same fateful year, the Chickasaws, who had given asylum to +the despoiled Natchez in order to curb the encroachments of the white men, +stirred the black slaves to revolt. We have noted before the prevalence of +the Banbara Negroes in the colony. It was they who planned the rebellion. +Their plan was, after having butchered the whites, to establish a Banbara +colony, keeping as slaves for themselves all blacks not of their nation. +The conspiracy was discovered by the hints of a woman in the revolt before +it had time to ripen, and the head of the revolt, a powerful black named +Samba with eight of his confederates was broken on the wheel, and the woman +hanged.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-28" id="fna4-2-28">28</a></sup></p> + +<p>Gov. Perier's administration did not lack interest. The next year, in 1731, +we find him still struggling with his old enemies, the Natchez. His +dispatches mention that a crew under one De Coulanges, with Indians and +free blacks had been massacred by the Indians. One dispatch has the +greatest interest for us, because of the expression "free blacks"<sup><a href="#fn4-2-29" id="fna4-2-29">29</a></sup> used. +Here is one of the great mysteries of the person of color in Louisiana. +Whence the free black? We are told explicitly that up to this time all +Negroes imported into Louisiana were slaves from Africa, for the West +Indian migration did not occur until a half century later. This dispatch +from Gov. Perier recalls articles in the Black Code of 1724, where explicit +directions are given for the disposition of the <a id="pg371"></a>children of free blacks. +In the regulations of police under the governorship of the Marquis of +Vandreuil, 1750, there is an article regulating the attitude of free +Negroes and Negresses toward slaves. Here is the very beginning of that +aristocracy of freedom so fiercely and jealously guarded until this day, a +free person of color being set as far above his slave fellows as the white +man sets himself above the person of color. Three explanations for this +aristocracy seem highly probable: Some slaves might have been freed by +their masters because of valor on the battlefield, others by buying their +freedom in terms of money, and not a few slave women by their owners +because of their personal attractions. It makes little difference in this +story which of the three or whether all of the three were contributors to +the rise of this new class. It existed as early as 1724, twelve years after +the first recorded slave importation. It was in 1766 that some Acadians, +complaining of their treatment to the Governor Ulloa, represented that +Negroes were freemen while they were slaves.</p> + +<p>Bienville returned to the colony as its governor in 1733, after an absence +of eight years, and it is recorded that in 1735, when he reviewed his +troops near Mobile while making preparations for an Indian war, he found +that his army from New Orleans consisted of five hundred and forty-four +white men, excluding the officers, and forty-five Negroes commanded by free +blacks.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-30" id="fna4-2-30">30</a></sup> Here we note free black officers of Negro troops in 1735. If +not actually the first regular Negro troops to appear in what is now the +United States, they were certainly the first to be commanded by Negro +officers.</p> + +<p>The engagement with the Choctaw Indians was not altogether successful for +the French. Disaster succeeded disaster, and the day closed with the French +army deeply humiliated, and making a retreat as dignified as possible under +the circumstances. A number of the French officers, as Gayarré tells us, +stood under the shade of a gigantic oak discussing the defeat, and with +them Simon, a free black, the <a id="pg372"></a>commander of the troop of Negroes. He was +deeply vexed because his troops had not stood fire, and expressed himself +with so much freedom and disgust, that the French officers kept bantering +him without mercy at the timidity of his soldiers, soothing their own +wounded pride by laughing at his mortification. Stung to the heart, Simon +finally exclaimed wrathfully, "A Negro is as brave as anybody and I will +show it to you." Seizing a rope which was dangling from one of the tents, +he rushed headlong toward one of the horses which were quietly slaking +their thirst under the protection of the Indian muskets. To reach a white +mare, to jump on her back with the agility of a tiger, and to twist around +her head and mouth the rope with which to control her, was the affair of an +instant. But that instant was enough for the apparently sleeping Indian +village to show itself awake, and to flash forth into a hail of bullets. +Away dashed Simon toward the Indian village, and back to the French camp +where he arrived safe amid the cheering acclamations of the troops, and +without having received a wound from the shots of the enemy.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-31" id="fna4-2-31">31</a></sup> This feat +silenced at <a id="pg373"></a>once the jests of the French officers, of which Simon thought +himself the victim.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-32" id="fna4-2-32">32</a></sup></p> + +<p>The beginning of the Revolutionary war in 1776 found Louisiana a Spanish +province and the natives of the colony beginning to tolerate and even to +like their erstwhile hated Spanish masters. Don Bernardo de Galvez was +governor of the colony. His administration has a peculiar interest to us, +because it was during his rule that the Court of Madrid, fully alive to the +policy of extending the agriculture of Louisiana, issued a decree +permitting the introduction of Negroes into Louisiana by French vessels, +from whatever ports they might come.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-33" id="fna4-2-33">33</a></sup> This was the beginning of the +rapid migration from the West Indian islands.</p> + +<p>While Andrew Jackson was still a child, Louisiana had a deliverer from the +British in the person of this brave Gov. Galvez. The strategical importance +of the Mississippi River and of New Orleans was at once apparent to the +British commanders, and Louisiana, being neutral territory, offered a most +fascinating field of operation. Galvez, in July, 1777, had secured +declaration of neutrality from the 25,000 or more Creeks, Choctaws and +Chickasaws, but even this did not seem to satisfy the combatants. New +Orleans was at the mercy of first the American troops and then the British. +The mediation of Spain between France and England having been rejected in +the courts of Europe, Spain decided to join France in the struggle against +Great Britain. So on May 8, 1779, Spain formally declared war against Great +Britain, and on July 8 authorized all Spanish subjects in America to take +their share in the hostilities against the English. No news could be more +welcome to the dashing young Galvez, to whom a policy of neutrality was +decidedly distasteful. He decided to forestall the attack on New <a id="pg374"></a>Orleans, +which he had learned was to be made by the British, by attacking first, and +on August 26 gathered his little army together. From New Orleans, as +Gayarré tells, were 170 veteran soldiers, 330 recruits, 20 carabiniers, 60 +militiamen, and 80 free blacks and mulattoes. On the way up the river, they +were reinforced by 600 men from the coast of "every condition and color," +besides 160 Indians.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-34" id="fna4-2-34">34</a></sup></p> + +<p>On the march, the colored men and Indians were ordered to keep ahead of the +main body of troops, at a distance of about three quarters of a mile, and +closely to reconnoitre the woods. In capturing the two forts of Baton Rouge +and Natchez, which were held by the British, Galvez found a considerable +number of Negro slaves who had been armed by the British. Many of these +he set free. In his dispatch to his government at Madrid, Galvez reports +that the companies of free blacks and mulattoes, who had been employed in +all the false attacks, and who, as scouts and skirmishers, had proved +exceedingly useful, behaved on all occasions with as much valor and +generosity as the white soldiers.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-35" id="fna4-2-35">35</a></sup> But not alone were the exploits of +Galvez's little army celebrated in history. Poetry added her laurel +wreath to its crown. Julien Poydras de Lalande, known to all Louisianians +as Poydras, celebrated the victory in a poem, "The God of the Mississippi," +wherein the brave deeds of the army, white and colored, are hailed in +French verse, lame and halting, it may be in places, but impartial in +its tribute.</p> + +<p>The close of the Revolutionary war found the colony partially paralyzed as +to industry. During the Spanish domination the indigo industry declined, +tobacco was difficult to raise, and the production of cotton was not then +profitable. Sugar raising was the only other industry to which they could +turn. In 1751 the Jesuit fathers had received their first seed, or rather +layers, from Santo Domingo and from that time sugar-cane had been grown +with more or less success. But it was a strictly local industry. The +Louisianians were poor sugar-makers. The stuff was badly <a id="pg375"></a>granulated and +very moist, and when in 1765 an effort was made to export some of the sugar +to France, it was so wet that half of the cargo leaked out of the ship +before it could make port. It was just at this psychological moment, in +1791 to 1794, when the planters of the lower Delta saw ruin staring them in +the face, that there came to the rescue of the colony a man of color, one +of the refugees from Santo Domingo, where the blacks had risen in 1791. +From the failure of this abortive attempt to emulate the spirit of the +white man, refugees flew in every direction, and Louisiana welcomed them, +if not exactly with open arms, at least with more indifference than other +colonies. And these black refugees were her saviors. For they had been +prosperous sugar-makers, and the efforts to make marketable sugar in +Louisiana, which had ceased for nearly twenty-five years, were revived. Two +Spaniards, Mendez and Solis, erected on the outskirts of New Orleans, the +one a distillery, the other a battery of sugar-kettles, and manufactured +rum and syrup. Still, the efforts were not entirely successful, until +Etienne de Boré appeared. Face to face with ruin because of the failure of +the indigo crop, he staked his all on the granulation of sugar. He enlisted +the services of these successful Santo Dominicans, and went to work. In all +American history there can be fewer scenes more dramatic than the one +described by careful historians of Louisiana, the day when the final test +was made and there was passed around the electrical word, "It +granulates!"<sup><a href="#fn4-2-36" id="fna4-2-36">36</a></sup></p> + +<p>That year de Boré marketed $12,000 worth of super or sugar. The agriculture +of the Delta was revolutionized; seven years afterwards New Orleans +marketed 2,000,000 gallons of rum, 250,000 gallons of molasses, and +5,000,000 pounds of sugar. It was the beginning of the commercial +importance of one of the most progressive cities in the country. +Imagination refuses to picture what would have been the case but for the +refugees from San Domingo.</p> + +<p>But the same revolution which gave to Louisiana its prestige to the +commercial world, almost starved the prov<a id="pg376"></a>ince to death. In the year 1791, +the trade, which had flourished briskly between Santo Domingo and New +Orleans, was closed because of the uprising, and but for Philadelphia, +famine would have decimated the city. 1,000 barrels of flour were sent in +haste to the starving city by the good Quakers of Philadelphia. The members +of the Cabildo, the local council, prohibited the introduction of people of +color from Santo Domingo, fearing the dangerous ideas of the brotherhood of +man. But it was too late. The news of the success of the slaves in Santo +Domingo, and the success of the French Revolution, says Gayarré, had +penetrated into the most remote cabins of Louisiana, and in April, 1795, on +the plantation of the same Poydras who had sung the glory of the army of +Galvez, a conspiracy was formed for a general uprising of the slaves +throughout the parish of Pointe Coupée. The leaders were three white men. +The conspiracy failed because one of the leaders was incensed at his advice +not being heeded and through his wife the authorities were notified. A +struggle ensued, and the conspiracy was strangled in its infancy by the +trial and execution of the slaves most concerned in the insurrection. The +three white men were exiled from the colony.<sup><a href="#fn4-2-37" id="fna4-2-37">37</a></sup> This finally ended the +importation of slaves from the West Indies.</p> + +<p class="author">Alice Dunbar-Nelson</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn4-2-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-1">return</a>]</span>1. King, "New Orleans, the Place and the People during the Ancien Regime," +333.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-2">return</a>]</span>2. De las Casas, "Historia, General," IV, 380.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-3">return</a>]</span>3. Herrera, "Historia General," dec. IV, libro II; dec. V, libro II; dec. +VII, libro IV.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-4">return</a>]</span>4. French, "Historical Collections of Louisiana," Part V, 119 et seq.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-5">return</a>]</span>5. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," 4th Edition, I, 242, 254.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-6">return</a>]</span>6. French, "Historical Collections of Louisiana," Part III, p. 42.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-7">return</a>]</span>7. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 102.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-8">return</a>]</span>8. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 242, 454.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-9">return</a>]</span>9. <em>Ibid.</em>, I, 366.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-10">return</a>]</span>10. <em>Ibid.</em>, I, 365-366.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-11">return</a>]</span>11. In 1900 a writer in Pearson's Magazine in discussing race mixture in +early Louisiana made some startling statements as to the results of the +miscegenation of these stocks during the colonial period.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-12">return</a>]</span>12. Code Noir, 1724.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-13">return</a>]</span>13. Code Noir.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-14">return</a>]</span>14. Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien +régime, p. 49.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-15">return</a>]</span>15. <em>Ibid.</em>, 49.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-16">return</a>]</span>16. <em>Ibid.</em>, 50.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-17">return</a>]</span>17. <em>Ibid.</em>, 51.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-18">return</a>]</span>18. In the treaty of 1803 between the newly acquired territory of +Louisiana and the government of the United States, they and all mixed +bloods were granted full citizenship.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-19">return</a>]</span>19. Most writers of our day adhere to this definition. See Grace King, +"New Orleans, etc.," and Gayarré, "History of Louisiana."</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-20">return</a>]</span>20. Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien +régime, passim.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-21">return</a>]</span>21. <em>Ibid.</em>, 60.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-22">return</a>]</span>22. Laws of Jamaica.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-23">return</a>]</span>23. Litigation on the subject of the definition of the free person of +color reached its climax in the year of our Lord, 1909, when Judge Frank D. +Chretien defined the word Negro as differentiated from person of color as +used in Louisiana. The case, as it was argued in court, was briefly this. +It was charged that one Treadway, a white man, was living in illegal +relations with an octoroon, Josephine Lightell. The District Attorney +claimed that any one having a trace of African blood in his veins, however +slight, should be classed as a Negro. Counsel for the defence had taken the +position that Josephine Lightell had so little Negro blood in her veins +that she could not be classed as one. Judge Chretien held in his ruling +that local opinion, custom and sentiment had previously agreed in holding +that the black, and not the white blood settled the ethnological status of +each person and that an octoroon, no less than a quadroon and a mulatto, +had been considered a Negro. But he held that if the Caucasian wished to be +considered the superior race, and that if his blood be considered the +superior element in the infusion, then the Caucasian and not the Negro +blood must determine the status of a person. The case went to the Supreme +Court of Louisiana on an appeal from the decision of Judge Chretien who +held that a mulatto is not a Negro in legal parlance. The Supreme Court in +a decision handed down April 25, 1910, sustained the view of Judge +Chretien. This decision was an interpretation of an act of 1908 which set +forth a definition of the word Negro.--See State vs. Treadway, 126 +Louisiana, 300.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-24">return</a>]</span>24. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 444, 448.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-25">return</a>]</span>25. <em>Ibid.</em>, I, 365, 442, 454.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-26">return</a>]</span>26. <em>Ibid.</em>, I, 448.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-27">return</a>]</span>27. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 435.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-28">return</a>]</span>28. <em>Ibid.</em>, 440.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-29">return</a>]</span>29. <em>Ibid.</em>, I, 444.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-30">return</a>]</span>30. Dumont, "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 225, 226.</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="fn4-2-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-31">return</a>]</span>31. Another interesting story is related by Dumont, a historian of + Louisiana, who published a work in 1753. The colony was then under + the administration of Gov. Kerlerec, whose opinion of colonial + courage was not very high. The colony was without an executioner, and + no white man could be found who would be willing to accept the + office. It was decided finally by the council to force it upon a + Negro blacksmith belonging to the Company of the Indies, named + Jeannot, renowned for his nerve and strength. He was summoned and + told that he was to be appointed executioner and made a free man at + the same time. The stalwart fellow started back in anguish and + horror, "What! cut off the heads of people who have never done me any + harm?" He prayed, he wept, but saw at last that there was no escape + from the inflexible will of his masters. "Very well," he said, rising + from his knees, "wait a moment." He ran to his cabin, seized a + hatchet with his left hand, laid his right hand on a block of wood + and cut it off. Returning, without a word he exhibited the bloody + stump to the gentlemen of the council. With one cry, it is said, they + sprang to his relief, and his freedom was given him.--Dumont, + "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 244, 246.</p> + +<p> The story is also told by Grace King of one slave, an excellent cook, + who had once served a French governor. When, in one of her periodic + transitions from one government to another, Louisiana became the + property of Spain, the "Cruel" O'Reilly was made governor of the + colony. He was execrated as were all things sent by Spain or + pertaining to Spanish rule. However, having heard of the fame of the + Negro cook, he sent for him. "You belong now," said he, "to the king + of Spain, and until you are sold, I shall take you into my service." + "Do not dare it;" answered the slave, "you killed my master, and I + would poison you." O'Reilly dismissed him unpunished.--Gayarré, + "History of Louisiana," II, 344.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="fn4-2-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-32">return</a>]</span>32. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 480.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-33">return</a>]</span>33. <em>Ibid.</em>, III, 108.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-34">return</a>]</span>34. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 108.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-35">return</a>]</span>35. <em>Ibid.</em>, III, 126-132.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-36">return</a>]</span>36. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 348.</p> + +<p id="fn4-2-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-2-37">return</a>]</span>37. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 354.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a4-3"> +<h2><a id="pg377"></a>The Defeat of the Secessionists in Kentucky in 1861</h2> + + + +<p>The treatment of the Border States in the crisis of 1861 has received from +historians the same attention as Saxony, the objective point between +Prussia and Austria in the Seven Years' War. Directing special attention +to Kentucky requires some explanation. The possession of this commonwealth +was for several reasons more important than that of some other border +States. The transportation facilities afforded by the Cumberland and +Tennessee rivers furnished the key to carrying out the plan to divide the +South. The possession of the State by the Confederates was of strategic +importance for the invasion of the North too for the reason that the +Ordinance of 1787 had been so interpreted as to fix the boundary of +Kentucky on the north side of the Ohio River. It was, moreover, the native +State of Abraham Lincoln and it was important to have that commonwealth +support this untrained backwoodsman whom most statesmen considered +incapable of administering the affairs of the nation.</p> + +<p>In the beginning, the situation was not the least encouraging to the +Unionists. The Breckenridge Democrats had carried the State in 1859 on a +platform favoring Southern rights. Their chief spokesman had become such a +defender of their faith that in 1860 he was chosen to lead the radically +proslavery party which had come to the point of so doubting the orthodoxy +of their Northern adherents as to deem it advisable to separate from +them. Unalterably in favor of the rights of the slave States, the leaders +of this persuasion had expressed themselves in terms that could not be +misunderstood.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-1" id="fna4-3-1">1</a></sup> One of their spokesmen Humphrey Marshall contended +that slavery is not a creature of municipal law. He believed that the +institution followed the flag. <a id="pg378"></a>He wanted Union but only with that +equality which involved the recognition of the right of property in slaves +everywhere.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-2" id="fna4-3-2">2</a></sup> Speaking in the House of Representatives on January 30, +1861, John W. Stephenson, another of this faction, said on the same topic: +"Equality underlaid the whole Federal structure, and protection to persons +and property within the Federal jurisdiction, was the price of allegiance +of the States to such General Government, as delegated and prescribed in +the constitution. Wherever the American banner floated upon the seas or +land, all beneath it was entitled to the protection of the flag."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-3" id="fna4-3-3">3</a></sup></p> + +<p>On this question, their leader John C. Breckenridge, "a believer in the old +Democratic creed and a supporter of the South and her institutions,"<sup><a href="#fn4-3-4" id="fna4-3-4">4</a></sup> +took the same, if not higher ground. Referring to the Dred Scott decision +in a speech delivered in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1859, Breckenridge said: +"After this decision we had arrived at a point where we might reasonably +expect tranquillity and peace. The equality of rights and property of all +the states in the common Territory, having been stamped by the seal of +judicial authority, all good citizens might well acquiesce."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-5" id="fna4-3-5">5</a></sup> When the +Southern States seceded because of the threatened infringement of these +rights, the President of the United States, according to Breckenridge, had +no right to enlist men and no right to blockade the Southern ports, in +short, no right to wage war on these commonwealths. Lincoln had thus +overthrown constitutional government. If he was trying to preserve the +Union, he must do it in a constitutional way. Breckenridge wanted the Union +but contended that it would be no good without the Constitution.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-6" id="fna4-3-6">6</a></sup> To sum +up, as Southern Democrats they had helped to disrupt the Charleston +Convention, and developing into a strict Southern rights <a id="pg379"></a>party, they had +through bolting made possible the election of Abraham Lincoln. They then +finally joined the States' rights party, which, boldly declaring the +election of Lincoln a just cause for the dissolution of the Union, +undertook to secede.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-7" id="fna4-3-7">7</a></sup></p> + +<p>With such radical leaders in control it might seem strange that, in a +State formed from an aristocratic commonwealth like Virginia and extending +into the fertile region of the Mississippi, these protagonists of States' +rights did not turn Kentucky over to the Confederacy. Exactly what part +did the rich slaveholders play during this crisis when the State was +called upon to decide the question between the North and South? What was +the position of such influential men as James B. Clay, George B. Hodge, +Cerro Gordo Williams, T. P. Porter, Roger W. Hansom, and S. B. Buckner?<sup><a href="#fn4-3-8" id="fna4-3-8">8</a></sup></p> + +<p>Other representative citizens, however, had been equally outspoken in +favor of the Union. Voicing the sentiment of the Union party, which on the +eighth of January met in Louisville to take steps to support the Federal +Government, Bell said: "Let us offer everything we can to avert the +torrent of evil, but let us always stand ready to support our rights in +the Union: the State is deeply and devotedly attached to the Union."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-9" id="fna4-3-9">9</a></sup> +Garrett Davis inquired: "Will you preserve the Union or rush into the +vortex of revolution under the name of secession?"<sup><a href="#fn4-3-10" id="fna4-3-10">10</a></sup> J. T. Boyle said in +the same convention that there could be no benefit or advantage, no civil +or political rights, no interest of any kind whatever, secured by +government in the Southern Confederacy which the people did not then enjoy +in the "blessed Union formed by our fathers." In his opinion, it was the +duty of Kentuckians "to stand by the Star Spangled Banner and cling to the +Union."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-11" id="fna4-3-11">11</a></sup> Some of the most influential <a id="pg380"></a>newspapers were fearlessly +advocating the Union cause. Among others were the Frankfort <em>Daily +Commonwealth</em>, the Louisville <em>Courier</em> and the <em>Democrat</em>.</p> + +<p>Exactly what support these leaders of the differing factions would obtain +was determined by forces for centuries at work in that State. Southerners +who thought that, because Kentucky was a slave State it should go with the +South, had failed to take these causes into consideration. In the first +place, not every slaveholder was an ardent proslavery agitator. There were +masters who like Henry Clay considered slavery an evil and hoped to see it +abolished, but while the majority of their fellow countrymen held on to it +they did so too. Many Kentuckians, moreover, were like that restless class +of Westerners who, dissatisfied with the society based on slavery, had +taken up land beyond the mountains, where the poor man could toil up from +poverty.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-12" id="fna4-3-12">12</a></sup> Kentucky was the first section west of the Allegheny mountains +settled by these daring adventurers because they were there cut off from +the North by the French and from the South by the Spanish, and in Kentucky, +a section hemmed in by these foreign possessions, the settlers were less +liable to be disturbed. And even when the barrier of foreign claims had +been removed, the movement of population from the East to the West took +place along lines leading to the States later organized in the West rather +than into Kentucky. The people of Kentucky, therefore, were not radically +changed in a day by the influx of population. On the contrary, many of +them, especially the mountaineers, have not changed since the days of Boone +and Henderson. Some of them having left the uplands of the colonies because +they were handicapped by slavery, were naturally opposed to the bold claims +of that institution in 1861. They, like the Westerners, learned to look to +the General Government for the establishment of commonwealths, the building +of forts, and the maintenance of troops,<sup><a href="#fn4-3-13" id="fna4-3-13">13</a></sup> and, therefore, adhered to it +when it was threatened with destruction.</p> + +<p><a id="pg381"></a>Another cause, moreover, was equally as potential. In Kentucky as in some +other Southern States, there had grown up a considerable number of +prosperous country towns, where resided lawyers, merchants, bankers, +teachers, and mechanics, who had little property interest in slavery, who +felt their own "intellectual superiority to the country squires and their +fox-hunting, horse-racing, quarrelsome sons, and who consequently asserted +social independence of them and social equality with them."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-14" id="fna4-3-14">14</a></sup> They were +hostile to the aristocratic masters, whom they generally denounced as +"oligarchs," "slavocrats," "Lords of the Lash," and "Terror Engenders."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-15" id="fna4-3-15">15</a></sup> +This mercantile and professional class, inspired by such men as Hinton +Rowan Helper, contemplated the removal of the Negroes and the bringing of +white laborers into the South.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-16" id="fna4-3-16">16</a></sup></p> + +<p>In view of this cleavage, it was difficult in the beginning of the struggle +to characterize the situation. There were unconditional Secessionists and +unconditional Union men. Judging from the condition then obtaining, no one +could tell exactly which way the State would go. "Sympathy, blood, and the +community of social feeling growing out of slavery," says one, "inclined +her to the South; her political faith which Clay more than any other man +had inspired her with and which Crittenden now loyally represented held her +fast to the Union."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-17" id="fna4-3-17">17</a></sup> Many of the people, though believing in States' +rights, did not think that the grievances of the South were such as to +justify secession. At the same time they opposed "coercion," and since a +reconstructed Union was impossible they would have solved the difficulty by +peaceful separation. Writing to Gen. McClellan June 8, 1861, Garrett Davis +said: "The sympathy for the South and the inclination to secession among +our people is much stronger in the southwestern corner of the state than +it is in any other part, and as you proceed toward the upper<a id="pg382"></a> section of +the Ohio and our Virginia line, it gradually becomes weaker until it is +almost wholly lost.... I doubt not that two thirds of our people are +unconditionally for the Union. The timid are for it and they shrink from +convulsion and civil war, while all the bold, the reckless, and the +bankrupt are for secession."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-18" id="fna4-3-18">18</a></sup> This categorical distinction, however, is +hardly right. There were Kentuckians of representative families on both +sides in all parts of the State except in the extreme West.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-19" id="fna4-3-19">19</a></sup> A careful +study of the facts, however, leads one to the conclusion that even in the +beginning there were more Unionists than Secessionists. The Unionists, +unhappily, were not organized while the Secessionists were led by the State +officials, chief among whom was Governor Magoffin.</p> + +<p>When the Southern States began to secede Governor Magoffin called a +special session of the State legislature, thinking that he could have a +secession convention called. He said in part: "I therefore submit to your +consideration the propriety of providing for the election of delegates to +a convention to be assembled at an early day to which shall be referred +for full and final determination the future of the Federal and interstate +relations of Kentucky." He further said: "Kentucky will not be an +indifferent observer of the force policy. The seceding States have not in +their haste and inconsiderate action our approval, but their cause is our +right and they have our sympathies. The people of Kentucky will never +stand by with folded arms while those States are struggling for their +constitutional rights and resisting oppression and being subjugated to an +anti-slavery government."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-20" id="fna4-3-20">20</a></sup> He believed that the idea of coercion, when +applied to great political communities, is revolting to a free people, +contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and if successful would +endanger the liberties of the people.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-21" id="fna4-3-21">21</a></sup> But the legislature did not +provide for such a convention. <a id="pg383"></a>On the eleventh of February this body +adjourned. It reassembled on the twentieth of March and remained in +session until the fourth of April, but still these important matters were +not decided. Pursuant to another call of the Governor, it reassembled on +the 6th of May and sat until the twenty-fourth of May when it adjourned. +On the second of September the legislature elected in August came in, but +still the important question as to what should be done hung in the +balance. At first there came up the resolutions introduced by George W. +Ewing on the twenty-first of January, expressing regret that certain +States had furnished men and money for the coercion of the seceded +States, and requesting the Governor of Kentucky to notify such States +that should attempts be made to coerce these commonwealths, Kentucky +would join the South.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-22" id="fna4-3-22">22</a></sup> This resolution passed the House but did not +pass the whole legislature as so many have said. A resolution for calling +a convention to amend the Constitution of the United States was +passed.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-23" id="fna4-3-23">23</a></sup> Several distinguished men of Kentucky sat in this convention +which was in session from the fourth to the twenty-second of February +without accomplishing anything.</p> + +<p>The majority of Kentuckians were then neutral. There were two classes of +neutrals, however. This was easily possible since neutrality meant one +thing to one man and a different thing to another. Each faction looked +forward to the adoption of this policy as a victory over the other. The +Unionists accepted it as the best policy, not knowing that, taking such a +position, they would aid the Confederacy. Even John J. Crittenden had +this idea. He said: "If Kentucky and the other border States should +assume this attitude, war between the two sections of the country would +be averted and the Confederate states after a few years' trial of their +experiment would return voluntarily to the Union." <sup><a href="#fn4-3-24" id="fna4-3-24">24</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg384"></a>Neutrality was considered a necessity for another reason; namely, the +expected short duration of the war. No one believed at first that the war +would last long. Even Lincoln thought that it would be over in ninety +days. Some, therefore, felt that Kentucky would be foolish to cause blood +to be shed on her soil when the war could easily be kept out of the State +three months. This sentiment, however, must not be misunderstood as +evincing a lack of interest in the Union, for in the address declaring for +neutrality these same leaders said that the dismemberment of the Union was +no remedy for existing evils but an aggravation of them all.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-25" id="fna4-3-25">25</a></sup> To many +Unionists neutrality meant going slowly in the right direction. It was in +keeping with Lincoln's plan not to go so rapidly toward "coercion" in +Kentucky as he had in the other border States.</p> + +<p>How then did the neutrality policy work out? On the twenty-ninth of +January R. T. Jacob introduced in the lower house of the legislature a +resolution declaring that the proper position of Kentucky was that of a +mediator between the sections, and that as an umpire she would remain firm +and impartial in that day of trial to their "beloved country that by +counsel and mediation she might aid in restoring peace and harmony and +brotherly love." Giving the reasons for adopting such a policy Jacob said:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>"This leading sentiment of mediation was indorsed by the Union men of both +Houses of the Legislature.... Some may say, why did not the Kentucky +Legislature go for coercion? For two reasons: First, some States, it is +true had seceded from the Union, but war had not actually commenced: +second, the men at that time who would have undertaken to force coercion +upon the Legislature would have been in the hopeless minority and would +have immediately given a majority to the secessionists. It would have +ended in total destruction to the cause of the Union in the State. Those +resolutions were for two purposes. In good faith they were intended to +compromise all difference between the States, and if possible to restore +peace between sections. If that failed, they were intended to hold, if +possible, our meagre majority until the people could act and we had no +doubt that when they did speak it would be in unmistakable tones for the +preservation of the Union."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-26" id="fna4-3-26">26</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>No action was taken on these resolutions, but on the eleventh of February +there was passed a joint measure, <a id="pg385"></a>entitled "Resolutions Declaring action +by the Legislature on political affairs unnecessary and inexpedient at +this time,"<sup><a href="#fn4-3-27" id="fna4-3-27">27</a></sup> These resolutions mentioned the great danger which +environed the Union, asked the Confederates to stay the work of secession +and protested against coercion. The last resolution favored the calling of +a convention to amend the Constitution of the United States. Significant +too for the Unionists were the last words: "It is unnecessary and +inexpedient for the Legislature to take any further action on the subject +at the present time, and as an evidence of the sincerity and good faith of +our propositions for an adjustment and our expression of devotion to the +Union and the desire for its preservation Kentucky awaits with great +solicitude the responses from her sister States."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-28" id="fna4-3-28">28</a></sup></p> + +<p>Neutrality, however, became the accepted policy of so many that it proved +to be dangerous. The Union State Committee, in drawing up on the +eighteenth of April a resolution to please all, seemingly pledged the +State to join the South. These resolutions were severely criticised by the +Unionists, especially that part which says: "What the future destiny of +Kentucky may be we cannot with certainty foresee. But if the enterprise +announced in the proclamation of the President should at any time +hereafter assume the aspect of a war for overrunning and subjugation of +the seceding States, then Kentucky ought to take her stand for the South." +<sup><a href="#fn4-3-29" id="fna4-3-29">29</a></sup> Many thought that this obligated Kentucky to go with the South. +Unionists of other States considered it a victory for the Confederacy. +This committee, however, stipulated this proposition to satisfy those +sympathizers with the South, who believed all the bad reports concerning +the functionaries of the Federal Government, circulated by the leaders of +the Confederacy. Hence, they said in this proposition not that Kentucky +would go with the South, but if at any time thereafter the President's +proclamation should assume the aspect of war, it would do so. <a id="pg386"></a>They +evidently did not believe that it had or would assume such an aspect. They +were also trying to pacify those who misunderstood the issues of +"subjugation" and "coercion."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-30" id="fna4-3-30">30</a></sup> The relation of the States to the Union +was yet a problem to many a statesman. Many thought that the colonists +when in a state of nature came together and agreed to a compact, giving up +some of their sovereignty and retaining the other, and, therefore, had the +right to withdraw at pleasure, carrying a part of the national property +with them. Such thinkers contended too that the Union had no right to +"coerce" a seceded State. Calhoun had said that because the Union was a +compact it could be broken; on the other hand, Jackson had said that +because it was a compact it could not be broken. Now it was difficult for +Kentuckians to decide who was right. That the committee had no intention +of going with the Confederacy may be seen from the following declaration: +"Seditious leaders in the midst of us now appeal to her (Kentucky) to +furnish troops to uphold those combinations against the government of the +Union. Will she comply with this appeal? Ought she to comply with it? We +answer, no."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-31" id="fna4-3-31">31</a></sup></p> + +<p>While these things were going on, the great question of Fort Sumter was +before the people. When the fort was finally bombarded and Lincoln called +for seventy-five thousand troops Gov. Magoffin politely refused to comply. +His reply was: "I say emphatically Kentucky will furnish no troops for the +wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-32" id="fna4-3-32">32</a></sup> He had already +been much moved by the large vote given the delegates to the Border States +Convention, indicating such a growth of Union sentiment that he called the +legislature together, hoping to win the day for secession by changing the +policy of the State from mediatorial to armed neutrality, resisting all +forces, whether Confederate or Federal, which might bring war into the +State. The body met on the sixteenth of May, passed a resolution of +<a id="pg387"></a>mediatorial neutrality and approved the Governor's refusal to furnish +troops under the existing circumstances.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-33" id="fna4-3-33">33</a></sup> This, however, did not mean +that the legislature was in sympathy with the efforts of the Governor to +support the Southern cause. Writing to Gen. Scott, John J. Crittenden +explained it thus:</p> +<blockquote> +<p> "The position of Kentucky and the relation she occupies toward the + government of the Union is not, I fear, understood at Washington. It + ought to be well understood. Very important consequences may depend + upon it and upon her proper treatment. Unfortunately for us our + Governor does not sympathize with Kentucky in respect to secession. + His opinions and feelings incline him strongly to the side of the + South. His answer to the requisition for troops was in terms hasty + and unbecoming and does not correspond with the usual and gentlemanly + courtesy. But while she regretted the language of his answer, + Kentucky acquiesced in his declining to furnish the troops called + for, and she did so not because she loved the Union less but she + feared that if she had parted with those troops and sent them to + serve in your ranks, she would have been overwhelmed by secessionists + at home, and severed from the Union. And it was to preserve + substantially and ultimately our connection with the Union that + induced us to acquiesce in the partial infraction of it by our + Governor's refusal of the troops required. This was the most + prevailing and general motive. To this may be added the strong + indisposition of our people to a civil war with the South, and the + apprehended consequences of a civil war within our state and among + our people.... I think Kentucky's excuse a good one and that under + all the circumstances of a complicated case she is rendering better + service in her present position than she could by becoming an active + party in the contest."<sup><a href="#fn4-3-34" id="fna4-3-34">34</a></sup></p> +</blockquote> +<p>The fact is that secession had little chance in Kentucky after public +opinion found expression. Neutrality early became the order of the day. +The elections of 1861 were significant in that they gave the people a +chance to express their will. It should be borne in mind that the +legislature of 1859 was elected when the question of union or disunion was +not before the people. Now in 1861 they had to elect members to the Border +State Convention, a new legislature, and congressmen to represent Kentucky +at the special session called by President Lincoln. In all these +elections, Unionists won. Some historians like Smith and Shaler<sup><a href="#fn4-3-35" id="fna4-3-35">35</a></sup> <a id="pg388"></a>seem +to think that the State had pledged itself to remain unconditionally +neutral, that these elections had no particular bearing on the situation +and that if a "sovereignty convention" had been called, secession would +have won. These writers do not seem to see that the people of Kentucky, +although nominally neutral, desired to remain with the Union. Doubtless a +better statement is that, although the election of 1861 showed that a +large majority of the people were in favor of the Union, the Union leaders +did not show so in the early part of the year and neutrality was adopted +not as an end but as a means that triumph over the enemies of the Union +might finally be assured.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-36" id="fna4-3-36">36</a></sup> We easily see now that there was not much +danger of secession, but the Unionists could not see it so well at that +time. Smith and Shaler doubtless exaggerate the situation, for what danger +of secession could there have been when the people had elected the Union +candidates for the Border State Convention to be convened at Frankfort on +May 27, when they sent nine Unionists out of the ten congressmen to +represent them in the special session of Congress, and when on the 5th of +the following August, after the battle of Bull Run, they elected to the +State Legislature 103 Unionists out of 141 members.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-37" id="fna4-3-37">37</a></sup> The calling of a +convention then would have made little difference, if the people had +chosen a majority of Unionists to represent <a id="pg389"></a>them in other bodies. How can +one conclude then that they would have elected seceders to represent them +in a "sovereignty convention"? Hodge states that the sympathizers with the +Confederacy did not contest to any considerable extent the elections of +August, 1861, and consequently the supporters of the Federal Government +were in the ascendency in the next legislature. He seems to indicate that +the Unionists used fraud, but the records show that the Secessionists, +regarding it as a lost cause, in many cases withdrew their candidates. +Evidently these elections showed not only that secession was impossible +but that neutrality could not last.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-38" id="fna4-3-38">38</a></sup></p> + +<p>After this sentiment began to change. Men boldly took decisive positions. +The unwieldy neutrality party then divided into three parts: those who +went to the Confederate lines to aid the Southern cause; those who openly +declared themselves in favor of the Union; and those sympathizers with the +South, who although in favor of the seceding States, seeing that their +cause was hopeless, advocated peaceful separation and finally, when that +failed, a compromise peace between the two sections.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-39" id="fna4-3-39">39</a></sup> The Union party, +though unalterably opposed to the abolitionists and not primarily attached +to the Union because of antagonism to slavery, gradually acquiesced in the +policy of the Federal Government with respect to that institution. This +party first reached the position that Negroes taken from the Confederates +could with propriety be disposed of as contraband of war and many of its +adherents grew more favorable to the policy of general emancipation.</p> + +<p>It was soon evident that war could not long be kept out of the State. As +early as April, 1861, troops for service in the Confederacy were organized +in Kentucky. This movement was somewhat accelerated by an act of the +legislature providing that the arms supplied to the troops should not +be used against either section and that the State companies as<a id="pg390"></a> well as +the Home Guards should take the same oath as the officers requiring +fidelity to the Constitution.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-40" id="fna4-3-40">40</a></sup> At this point many Kentuckians of +proslavery tendencies were forced out of their natural position and +driven into the Confederate ranks. Among these was S. B. Buckner, who +went South to command about ten thousand secessionists, recruited under +the leadership of Colonels Roger W. Hanson, Lloyd Tilghman, and W. D. +Lannon at Camp Boone.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-41" id="fna4-3-41">41</a></sup></p> + +<p>The Governor refused to furnish Lincoln troops but he was in touch with +the Confederacy, doing all he could to equip soldiers for its service,<sup><a href="#fn4-3-42" id="fna4-3-42">42</a></sup> +though not exactly openly, as that would have been sufficient excuse for +the Unionists who desired to help the Union. The Unionists who saw all of +this going on desired to arm and organize their forces but they were +handicapped in that the commander of the State guard was a Secessionist +and care had been taken to hold the military forces for the South. In +consequence of this difficulty Lincoln was secretly appealed to for arms, +which were shipped to cities on the Ohio River for secret distribution +among the Unionists of Kentucky as the opportunity would permit.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-43" id="fna4-3-43">43</a></sup> The +Secessionists had referred to these guns as the first so-called violation +of neutrality. The Unionists defended themselves on the ground that since +the Governor and his whole machine were about in the ranks of the +Confederates they were justified in doing almost anything to defend the +State. Shaler says that the action on both sides was almost simultaneous +and that the actual infringement of the neutrality proclamation issued by +the Governor was due to the action of Polk and Zollicoffer and the +simultaneous invasion of the State some hundreds of miles apart shows that +the rupture of the neutrality of Kentucky was deliberately planned by the +Confederate authorities.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-44" id="fna4-3-44">44</a></sup></p> + +<p><a id="pg391"></a>The invasion by Polk in September produced great excitement. The +legislature was then in session and passed a resolution that the invaders +be expelled, and that the Governor call out the military force of the +State and place the same under the command of Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden. +The resolutions were vetoed by the Governor but passed by a vote of two +thirds.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-45" id="fna4-3-45">45</a></sup> The desired proclamation was issued and soon sufficient men to +form forty regiments answered the call.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-46" id="fna4-3-46">46</a></sup> Making further response to the +invasion of the State by the Confederates, the legislature ordered that +the United States flag be raised over the capitol at Frankfort, and by a +resolution which "affirmed" distinctly, though not directly, the doctrine +of States' rights placed Kentucky in political and military association +with the North.<sup><a href="#fn4-3-47" id="fna4-3-47">47</a></sup></p> + +<p class="author">William T. McKinney</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-3"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn4-3-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-1">return</a>]</span>1. See Debates in Congress.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-2">return</a>]</span>2. Marshall, Speech in Washington on the Nomination of Breckenridge and +Lane, p. 3.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-3">return</a>]</span>3. Speech of John Stephenson on the state of the Union in the House of +Representatives, January 30, 1861.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-4">return</a>]</span>4. Bartlett, "Presidential Candidates in 1860," pp. 344-345.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-5">return</a>]</span>5. Speech of Hon. J. C. Breckenridge delivered at Ashland, Kentucky, p. 9.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-6">return</a>]</span>6. Speech of J. C. Breckenridge on Executive Usurpation, July 16, 1861.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-7">return</a>]</span>7. "The Frankfort Commonwealth," August 21, 1861.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-8"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-8">return</a>]</span>8. These were some of the most intellectual and aristocratic men of the +State. Collins exaggerates, however, when he says that few leading men +opposed secession. See Collins, "History of Kentucky," I, 82.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-9"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-9">return</a>]</span>9. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 36.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-10"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-10">return</a>]</span>10. <em>Ibid.</em>, 36.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-11"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-11">return</a>]</span>11. <em>Ibid.</em>, 37.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-12"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-12">return</a>]</span>12. Hart, "Slavery and Abolition," 65, 178, 234; Turner, "Rise of the New +West," 77.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-13"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-13">return</a>]</span>13. Report of the American Historical Association, 1893, pp. 219-221.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-14"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-14">return</a>]</span>14. Burgess, "Civil War and the Constitution," I, 30.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-15"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-15">return</a>]</span>15. <em>Ibid.</em></p> + +<p id="fn4-3-16"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-16">return</a>]</span>16. McMaster, "History of the United States," VIII, 426-427.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-17"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-17">return</a>]</span>17. Rhodes, "History of the United States," III, 391.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-18"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-18">return</a>]</span>18. Rhodes, "History of the United States," VII, 392.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-19"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-19">return</a>]</span>19. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 158-179.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-20"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-20">return</a>]</span>20. <em>House Journal</em>, 1861, Governor's Message, p. 10.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-21"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-21">return</a>]</span>21. <em>Ibid.</em>, 11.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-22"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-22">return</a>]</span>22. <em>House Journal</em>, 1861, Governor's Message, p. 12.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-23"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-23">return</a>]</span>23. <em>Ibid.</em>, 14.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-24"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-24">return</a>]</span>24. Letter of John J. Crittenden to Gen. McClellan.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-25"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-25">return</a>]</span>25. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 42.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-26"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-26">return</a>]</span>26. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 45.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-27"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-27">return</a>]</span>27. <em>House Journal</em>. 1861, p. 33.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-28"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-28">return</a>]</span>28. <em>Ibid.</em>, 34.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-29"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-29">return</a>]</span>29. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 57.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-30"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-30">return</a>]</span>30. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 58-62.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-31"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-31">return</a>]</span>31. <em>Ibid.</em>, 58.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-32"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-32">return</a>]</span>32. <em>House Journal</em>, 1861, p. 6.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-33"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-33">return</a>]</span>33. <em>Ibid.</em>, 94.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-34"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-34">return</a>]</span>34. Nicolay and Hay, "Life of Lincoln," IV, 233.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-35"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-35">return</a>]</span>35. Smith, "History of Kentucky," 610; Shaler, "History of Kentucky," 243.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-36"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-36">return</a>]</span>36. Smith says in describing the period of 1861: "It were well nigh +certain that if a sovereignty convention could have been called at any time +before the formation of the Union sentiment and policy into action and +life, the state would have been carried off into the act of secession as +Virginia and Tennessee were by the sense of sympathy and kinship toward the +South." Shaler thinks the same. He says: "There is reason to believe that +this course (neutrality) was the only one that could have kept Kentucky +from secession. If what had been unhappily named a Sovereignty Convention +had been called in 1861; if the state had been compelled by the decision of +a body of men who were acting under the control of no constitutional +enunciation, the sense of sympathy and kinship with the Southern states, +such as would easily grow up under popular oratory in a mob, would probably +have precipitated action." Speed, however, is doubtless right in saying all +this is mere assertion and that there was no danger of secession after the +people had a chance to transfer their will to the government. Shaler, +"Kentucky," p. 240; Smith, "History of Kentucky," p. 610.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-37"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-37">return</a>]</span>37. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 93-98.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-38"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-38">return</a>]</span>38. Collins, "History of Kentucky," I, 243.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-39"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-39">return</a>]</span>39. <em>The Frankfort Commonwealth</em>, July 19; Aug. 19, 21, 23; Nov. 10, 20, +23; and Dec. 11, 1861; <em>The Yeoman Weekly</em>, May 10; June 21, 22; July 8, +1861; <em>Daily Louisville Democrat</em>, Sept. 7 and Oct. 8, 1861.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-40"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-40">return</a>]</span>40. <em>House Journal</em>, 1861, 240.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-41"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-41">return</a>]</span>41. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 192.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-42"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-42">return</a>]</span>42. War Records, Serial 108, p. 37; Serial 127, p. 234; Serial 110, pp. +44-64, and Serial 110, p. 71.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-43"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-43">return</a>]</span>43. Nicolay and Hay, "Life of Lincoln," IV, 237.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-44"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-44">return</a>]</span>44. Shaler, "History of Kentucky," 261.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-45"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-45">return</a>]</span>45. <em>House Journal</em>, 1861, p. 122.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-46"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-46">return</a>]</span>46. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 300 <em>et seq</em>. See despatches +and letters given in same.</p> + +<p id="fn4-3-47"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-3-47">return</a>]</span>47. Rhodes, "History of the United States," III, 392.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a4-4"> +<h2><a id="pg392"></a>Notes on Negroes in Guatemala During the Seventeenth Century</h2> + + + +<p>The introduction of Negroes into Guatemala commenced with the year of the +conquest of that country by the Spaniards in 1524, when there came several +Negro slaves with the <em>conquistadores</em> from Mexico. It seems that they soon +increased in numbers, for among the decrees of the <em>conquistador</em>, Pedro de +Alvarado, there is one which prohibits the selling of gunpowder to Indians +and Negroes. The number of African slaves brought to Guatemala had, +however, always remained relatively a very limited one, for as the +Spaniards had plenty of cheap hands by means of a system of indentured +labor forced upon the numerous Indian population, the importation of slaves +evidently did not pay them well. It seems safe to say, that their total +number never amounted to ten thousand.</p> + +<p>The most copious, though still very sparse notices of them I have run +across, are those given by Thomas Gage, an English Catholic educated in +Spain, who, in the twenties and thirties of the seventeenth century, lived +as a priest in the then city of Guatemala, nowadays called Antigua, and in +some Indian villages not far from there.<sup><a href="#fn4-4-1" id="fna4-4-1">1</a></sup> One of the places where Thomas +Gage observed a somewhat considerable population of Negroes was the +so-called Costa del Sur, or Southern Coast, the hot land between the Andes +and the Pacific, to the south of the capital. They were worked there on the +indigo plantations and large cattle <em>haciendas</em>. The Negroes impressed +Thomas Gage as the only courageous people in Guatemala while the Spanish +Mestizos and Indians seemed to him to be very cowardly.</p> + +<p>This writer said that if Guatemala was powerful with <a id="pg393"></a>respect to its +people, for she was not in arms nor resources, then she was so merely by +virtue of a class of desperate Negroes, who were slaves living on the +indigo plantations. Though they had no arms but a machete, which was their +small lance used for chasing the wild cattle (nowadays, that name is given +to a long and broad, sword-like knife), they were so desperate that they +often caused fear to the very city of Guatemala and had made their masters +tremble. "There are among them," said he, "those who have no fear to brave +a wild bull, furious though he be, and to attach themselves to the +crocodiles in the rivers, until they have killed them and brought them to +the bank."<sup><a href="#fn4-4-2" id="fna4-4-2">2</a></sup></p> + +<p>In reading these lines, one cannot help from remembering the classical +description Alexander Von Humboldt gives of the Negro boatmen of the river +Dagua, in the actual republic of Colombia. The inimitable skill and +unsurpassable bravery Humboldt saw them display in the midst of the +ferocious currents and loud-pouring rapids of that river caused him to +exclaim: "Every movement of the paddle is a wonder, and every Negro a god!" +A nice monument to the fame of indomitable bravery the Negroes manifested +in past times in Guatemala exists still in a saying often heard by +travelers: "<em>Esos son negros</em>!" or "Those are Negroes," an exclamation +which means: "Those are desperate men, who do not care for anything." One +could also hear the saying: "<em>Esto es obra de negros</em>," or "that is a work +of Negroes," the meaning being that it was work for bold men with iron +nerves.</p> + +<p>Another expression brings out the fact that the Negroes were considered, or +forced to be, very hard workers. "<em>Trabaja como un negro</em>" or "he works +like a Negro," signified doing "the most arduous labor." That the lot of +the slaves was often a bitter one, though, because of the less greedy +Spanish character, without doubt generally a less hard one than in North +America, is shown by the fact that Guatemala had her "<em>Cimarrones</em>" just as +Jamaica, and Guiana, had their Maroons.</p> + +<p><a id="pg394"></a>The Spanish word "<em>cimarron</em>" signifies indiscriminately a runaway head of +cattle or horses, that had become wild, or a runaway slave. The fugitive +Negroes of Guatemala had their chief stronghold in the inaccessible +mountain woods of the Sierra de las Minas, which lies near the Atlantic +coast between the Golfo Dulce and the valley of the river Motagua. The +Golfo Dulce, which is now abandoned because of lack of sufficient depth for +the big vessels of to-day, was at that time the port of entry for the whole +of Guatemala. From it a bridle-path ran over the Sierra de las Minas to the +valley of the Motagua and further on to the capital. In speaking of this +path over the mountain, Gage remarks: "What the Spaniards fear most until +they get out of these mountains, are two or three hundred Negroes, +Cimarrones, who for the bad treatment they received have fled from +Guatemala and from other places, running away from their masters in order +to resort to these woods; there they live with their wives and children and +increase in numbers every year, so that the entire force of Guatemala City +and its environments is not capable to subdue them."</p> + +<p>They very often came out of the woods to attack those who drove teams of +mules, and took from them wine, salt, clothes and arms to the quantity they +needed. They never did any harm to the mule drivers nor to their slaves. On +the contrary, the slaves amused themselves with the Cimarrones, because +they were of the same color and in the same condition of servitude, and not +seldom availed themselves of the opportunity to follow their example, and +united with them to obtain liberty, though obliged to live in the woods and +mountains.</p> + +<p>Their arms were arrows and bows, which they carried only for the purpose of +defending themselves against attacks of the Spaniards; for they did not +harm those who passed by peacefully and who let them have a part of the +provisions they carried. They often declared that their principal reason +for resorting to these mountains was to be ready to join the English or +Dutch, if these some day appeared in the Gulf, for they well knew that +these, unlike the Spaniards, would let them live in peace.</p> + +<p><a id="pg395"></a>Among the most remarkable facts learned by Thomas Gage in Guatemala is the +story of a Negro freedman who had accumulated great wealth. This Negro +lived in Agua Caliente, an Indian village, on the road to Guatemala City, +or Antigua, where the natives had obtained considerable quantities of gold +from some spot in the mountains only known to them. The Spaniards, not +content with an annual tribute paid them by the Indians, endeavored in vain +to force the natives to show them the mine, and because they refused killed +them, thus gaining no knowledge of the mine for which they were still +searching in vain in the times of Thomas Gage. "In that place of Agua +Caliente," continues Gage, "there is a Negro who lives and receives very +well the travelers who call upon him. His wealth consists in cattle, sheep, +and goats, and he furnishes the city of Guatemala and the environments with +the best cheese to be found in the country. But it is believed that his +wealth does not come so much from the produce of his farm and his cattle +and cheese, but from that hidden treasure which is believed known to him. +He, therefore, has been summoned to the Royal Audience in Guatemala, but he +has always denied to have any knowledge of it."</p> + +<p>He had been suspected because he had formerly been a slave and had secured +his liberty by means of a considerable sum. After that, he had bought his +farm and much of the surrounding land and had considerably increased his +original holdings. To his inquisitors he replied that, "when young and +still a slave he had a kind master who suffered him to do what he pleased, +and that by economy he had accumulated where-with to buy his liberty and +afterwards a little house to live in; and God had given His blessing to +that and let him have the means for increasing his funds."</p> + +<p>Another one of Gage's accounts discloses the abuses common among the +slave-holders under Spanish rule, and the silliness of the belief that the +masters for their own benefit would treat their human property well. This +account refers to one Juan Palomeque, a rich landowner and promoter of +mule-transports, who lived in Gage's par<a id="pg396"></a>ish of Mexico, near the actual +capital of Guatemala. He was believed to be worth six hundred thousand +ducats, about 1,400,000 dollars. He owned about a hundred Negroes, men, +women, and children, but was so stingy that, to avoid the expense of decent +house-keeping, he never lived in the city, though he had several houses +there. Instead, he lived in a straw-hut and feasted on hard, black bread +and on <em>tasajo</em>, or thin strips of salt beef dried in the sun.</p> + +<p>He was so cruel to his Negroes, that, when one of them behaved badly, he +would whip him almost to death. He had among others a slave named Macaco, +"on behalf of whom," said Gage, "I often pleaded, but in vain. At times he +hung him by the hands and beat him until he had his back entirely covered +with blood, and in that state, the skin being entirely torn to pieces, in +order to heal up the slave's sores the master poured hot fat over them. +Moreover, he had marked him with a hot iron face, hands, arms, back, belly, +and legs, so that this poor slave got tired to live and intended several +times to suicide himself; but I prevented him from doing so every time by +remonstrances I made him."</p> + +<p>Juan Palomeque was so sensual and voluptuous that he constantly abused the +wives of his slaves as he liked, and even when he saw in the city some girl +or woman of that class whom he wanted, and she was not attracted to him, he +would call upon her master or mistress and buy her, "giving much more than +she had cost; afterwards he boasted that he would break down her pride in +one year of slavery." "In my times," said Gage, "he killed two Indians on +the road to the Gulf, but by means of his money he got so easily out of +that affair as if he had killed but a dog." As Gage does not tell anything +of a prosecution for the crimes against the Negro, no actual law seems to +have been violated.<sup><a href="#fn4-4-3" id="fna4-4-3">3</a></sup></p> + +<p>The descendants of the ancient slaves have so completely <a id="pg397"></a>become mixed up +with Spanish-Indian blood that, making exception of the valley of the +Motagua River, they have practically disappeared as a race. In 1796, their +number was considerably increased by the so-called Caribs, whom the English +deported from the Island of St. Vincent and set ashore in Guatemala. They +live now on the Atlantic coast, also on that of Honduras and Nicaragua, and +are estimated to total about 20,000. They are Zambos, but the African blood +seems to prevail.<sup><a href="#fn4-4-4" id="fna4-4-4">4</a></sup></p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-4"> +<h3>Footnotes</h3> + + +<p id="fn4-4-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-4-1">return</a>]</span>1. Gage published in 1648 in London an account of his residence and +voyages; I have only a French version of his work at hand, printed in +Amsterdam, in 1721. The passages cited are re-translated from that language +and, therefore, will not agree word for word with the original text.</p> + +<p id="fn4-4-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-4-2">return</a>]</span>2. Gage's "Voyages," Part 3, Chapter II.</p> + +<p id="fn4-4-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-4-3">return</a>]</span>3. It seems proper to add here, that three years after Guatemala had +declared her independence of Spain, she abrogated slavery by decree of +April 17, 1824. Thereby she got, by the way, into difficulties with Great +Britain, which as late as in 1840 demanded the extradition of slaves run +away from the adjacent British territory of Balize. Guatemala was by +men-of-war sent to her coast forced to do so, though that was contrary to +her constitution.</p> + +<p id="fn4-4-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-4-4">return</a>]</span>4. Within the last decades, some Negroes have been brought over, from the +United States, to the banana plantations of United Fruit Co., near the +Atlantic coast, and occasionally, though very seldom, one meets with a +black newcomer from Jamaica, Barbadoes, or other West Indian islands.</p> +</div></div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a4-5"> +<h2>A Mulatto Corsair of the Sixteenth Century</h2> + + +<p>When on his return voyage to England, sailing down the Atlantic coast of +Costa Rica, Thomas Gage's ship was intercepted by two corsairs under the +Dutch flag, one of them being a man-of-war. The struggle of the Netherlands +for freedom against Spain had not then come to a close. The Dutch commander +was a character, of whose strange experiences Gage gives an interesting +account. Much to the surprise of the traveler the captain who had caught +them was a mulatto named Diaguillo, who was born and brought up at Habana +(Cuba), where his mother was still living. Having been maltreated by the +Governor of Campeche in whose service he had been, this mulatto in a fit of +utter desperation threw himself into a boat and ventured into the sea, +where he met with some Dutch ships on watch for a prize. He swam to and +went aboard one of these vessels, hoping to find better treatment than +among his country-men. He offered himself to the Dutch and promised to +serve them loyally against those of his nation who had maltreated him. +Afterwards he proved himself so loyal and reliable to the Dutch, that he +won much fame among them. He was married to a girl of their nation and +later made captain of a vessel under that brave and noble Dutchman, whom +the Spaniards dreaded much and whom they named Pie de Palo, or Wooden-leg.</p> + +<p><a id="pg398"></a>"That famous mulatto," said Gage, "was he who boarded our frigate with his +soldiers. I lost four thousand pesos wealth in pearls and jewelry and about +three thousand in ready money. I had still other things with me, viz., a +bed, some books, pictures painted on copper, and clothes, and I asked that +Mulatto captain to let me keep them. He donated me them liberally, out of +consideration for my vocation, and said I must take patience, for he was +not allowed to dispose in other way of my pearls and my money; moreover, he +used the proverb: If fortune to-day is on my side, to-morrow it will be on +yours, and what I have won to-day, that I may lose to-morrow.... He also +ordered to give me back some single and double pistoles, out of generosity +and respect to my garb...."</p> + +<p>"After having searched their prize," continued the traveler, "Captain and +soldiers thought of refreshing themselves on the provisions we had on +board; the generous captain had a luxurious dinner and invited me to be his +guest, and knowing that I was going to Habana, he drank the health of his +mother and asked me to go to see her and give her his kindest regards, +saying that for her sake he had treated me as kindly as was in his power. +He told us, moreover, when still at table, that for my sake he would give +us back our ship, so that we could get back to land, and that I might find +some other and safer way to continue my voyage to Spain.... Everything +taken away from the ship save my belongings, which captain Diaguillo +ordered to let me out of a generosity not often to be found with a corsair, +he bade us fare-well thanking us for the good luck we had procured him."</p> + +<p>Thomas Gage reached Habana in safety and called upon the mother of the +Corsair, but does not say how he found her.</p> + +<p class="author">J. Kunst</p> +</div> + + +<div class="article" id="a4-6"> +<h2><a id="pg399"></a>Documents</h2> + + + +<h2>Travelers' Impressions of Slavery in America from 1750 to 1800</h2> + + +<p>From these writers, almost all of whom were foreigners, one would naturally +expect such a portraiture of slavery as persons unaccustomed to the +institution would give. Most Americans, of course, considered the +institution as belonging to the natural order of things and, therefore, +hardly ever referred to it except when they mentioned it unconsciously. +Foreigners, however, as soon as they came into this new world began to +compare the slaves with the lowest order of society in Europe. Finding the +lot of the bondmen so much inferior to that of those of low estate in +European countries, these travelers frequently made some interesting +comparisons. We are indebted to them for valuable information which we can +never hope to obtain from the literature of an essentially slaveholding +people. Here we see how the American Revolution caused a change for the +better in the condition of the Negroes in certain States, and how the +rigorousness of slavery continued in the others. We learn too what +enlightened Negroes thought about their state and what the white man +believed should be done to prevent their reaching the point of +self-assertion. That a large number of anti-slavery Americans were +advocating and effecting the emancipation of slaves appears throughout +these documents.</p> + + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-1"> +<h3>Burnaby's View of the Situation in Virginia</h3> + + +<p>Speaking of Virginia, he said: "Their authority over their slaves renders +them vain and imperious, and entire strangers to that elegance of +sentiment, which is so peculiarly characteristic of refined and polished +nations. Their ignorance of mankind and of learning, exposes them to many +errors and prejudices, especially in regard to Indians and Negroes, whom +they scarcely consider as of<a id="pg400"></a> human species; so that it is almost +impossible in cases of violence, or even murder, committed upon those +unhappy people by any of the planters, to have delinquents brought to +justice: for either the grand jury refuse to find the bill, or the petit +jury bring in the verdict of not guilty."--<em>Andrew Burnaby, "Travels</em>," +1759, p. 54.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-2"> +<p>General Treatment of Slaves Among the Albanians--Consequent Attachment of +Domestics.--Reflections on Servitude by an American Lady</p> + + +<p>In the society I am describing, even the dark aspect of slavery was +softened into a smile. And I must, in justice to the best possible masters, +say, that a great deal of that tranquility and comfort, to call it by no +higher name, which distinguished this society from all others, was owing to +the relation between master and servant being better understood here than +in any other place. Let me not be detested as an advocate for slavery when +I say that I think I have never seen people so happy in servitude as the +domestics of the Albanians. One reason was, (for I do not now speak of the +virtues of their masters,) that each family had a few of them, and that +there were no field negroes. They would remind one of Abraham's servants, +who were all born in the house, which was exactly their case. They were +baptized too, and shared the same religious instruction with the children +of the family; and, for the first years, there was little or no difference +with regard to food or clothing between their children and those of their +masters.</p> + +<p>When a negro-woman's child attained the age of three years, the first New +Year's Day after, it was solemnly presented to a son or daughter, or other +young relative of the family, who was of the same sex with the child so +presented. The child to whom the young negro was given immediately +presented it with some piece of money and a pair of shoes; and from that +day the strongest attachment subsisted between the domestic and the +destined owner. I have no where met with instances of friendship more +tender and generous than that which here subsisted between the slaves and +their masters and mistresses. Extraordinary proofs of them have been often +given in the course of hunting or Indian trading, when a young man and his +slave have gone to the trackless woods, together, in the case of fits of +the ague, loss of a canoe, and other casualties happening near hostile +Indians. The slave has been known, at the imminent risque of his life, to +carry his disabled master through trackless <a id="pg401"></a>woods with labour and fidelity +scarce credible; and the master has been equally tender on similar +occasions of the humble friend who stuck closer than a brother; who was +baptized with the same baptism, nurtured under the same roof, and often +rocked in the same cradle with himself. These gifts of domestics to the +younger members of the family, were not irrevokable: yet they were very +rarely withdrawn. If the kitchen family did not increase in proportion to +that of the master, young children were purchased from some family where +they abounded, to furnish those attached servants to the rising progeny. +They were never sold without consulting their mothers, who if expert and +sagacious, had a great deal to say in the family, and would not allow her +child to go into any family with whose domestics she was not acquainted. +These negro-women piqued themselves on teaching their children to be +excellent servants, well knowing servitude to be their lot or life, and +that it could only be sweetened by making themselves particularly useful, +and excellent in their departments. If they did their work well, it is +astonishing, when I recollect it, what liberty of speech was allowed to +those active and prudent mothers. They would chide, reprove, and +expostulate in a manner that we would not endure from our hired servants; +and sometimes exert fully as much authority over the children of the family +as the parents, conscious that they were entirely in their power. They did +not crush freedom of speech and opinion in those by whom they knew they +were beloved, and who watched with incessant care over their interest and +comfort. Affectionate and faithful as these home-bred servants were in +general, there were some instances (but very few) of those who, through +levity of mind, or a love of liquor or finery, betrayed their trust, or +habitually neglected their duty. In these cases, after every means had been +used to reform them, no severe punishments were inflicted at home. But the +terrible sentence, which they dreaded worse than death, was past--they were +sold to Jamaica. The necessity of doing this was bewailed by the whole +family as a most dreadful calamity, and the culprit was carefully watched +on his way to New-York, lest he should evade the sentence by +self-destruction.</p> + +<p>One must have lived among those placid and humane people to be sensible +that servitude, hopeless, endless servitude, could exist with so little +servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even +sternness of authority on the other. In Europe, the footing on which +service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the +heart, destroys confidence, and embitters <a id="pg402"></a>life. The deceit and venality of +servants not absolutely dishonest, puts it out of one's power to love or +trust them. And if, in hopes of having people attached to us, who will +neither betray our confidence, nor corrupt our children, we are at pains to +rear them from childhood, and give them a religious and moral education; +after all our labour, others of their own class seduce them away to those +who can afford to pay higher for their services. This is not the case in a +few remote districts. Where surrounding mountains seem to exclude the +contagion of the world, some traces of fidelity and affection among +domestics still remain. But it must be remarked, that, in those very +districts, it is usual to treat inferiors with courtesy and kindness, and +to consider those domestics who marry out of the family as holding a kind +of relation to it, and still claiming protection. In short, the corruption +of that class of people is, doubtless, to be attributed to the example of +their superiors. But how severely are those superiors punished? Why this +general indifference about home; why are the household gods, why is the +sacred hearth so wantonly abandoned? Alas! the charm of home is destroyed, +since our children, educated in distant seminaries, are strangers in the +paternal mansion; and our servants, like mere machines, move on their +mercenary track without feeling or exciting one kind or generous sentiment. +Home, thus despoiled of all its charms, is no longer the scene of any +enjoyments but such as wealth can purchase. At the same time we feel there +a nameless cold privation, and conscious that money can coin the same +enjoyments with more variety elsewhere, we substitute these futile and +evanescent pleasures for that perennial spring of calm satisfaction, +"without o'erflowing full," which is fed by the exercise of the kindly +affections, and soon indeed must those stagnate where there are not proper +objects to excite them. I have been forced into this painful digression by +unavoidable comparisons. To return:--</p> + +<p>Amidst all this mild and really tender indulgence to their negroes, these +colonists had not the smallest scruple of conscience with regard to the +right by which they held them in subjection. Had that been the case, their +singular humanity would have been incompatible with continued injustice. +But the truth is, that of law the generality of those people knew little; +and of philosophy, nothing at all. They sought their code of morality in +the Bible, and there imagined they found this hapless race condemned to +perpetual slavery; and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten the +chains of their fellow Christians, after having made <a id="pg403"></a>them such. This I +neither "extenuate" nor "set down in malice," but merely record the fact. +At the same time it is but justice to record also a singular instance of +moral delicacy distinguishing this settlement from every other in the like +circumstances: though, from their simple and kindly modes of life, they +were from infancy in habits of familiarity with these humble friends, yet +being early taught that nature had placed between them a barrier, which it +was in a high degree criminal and disgraceful to pass, they considered a +mixture of such distinct races with abhorrence, as a violation of her laws. +This greatly conduced to the preservation of family happiness and concord. +An ambiguous race, which the law does not acknowledge; and who (if they +have any moral sense, must be as much ashamed of their parents as these +last are of them) are certainly a dangerous, because degraded part of the +community. How much more so must be those unfortunate beings who stand in +the predicament of the bat in the fable, whom both birds and beasts +disowned? I am sorry to say that the progress of the British army, when it +arrived, might be traced by a spurious and ambiguous race of this kind. But +of a mulatto born before their arrival I only remember a single instance; +and from the regret and wonder it occasioned, considered it as singular. +Colonel Schuyler, of whom I am to speak, had a relation so weak and +defective in capacity, that he never was intrusted with any thing of his +own, and lived an idle bachelor about the family. In process of time a +favourite negro-woman, to the great offense and scandal of the family, bore +a child to him, whose colour gave testimony to the relation. The boy was +carefully educated; and when he grew up, a farm was allotted to him well +stocked and fertile, but "in depth of woods embraced," about two miles back +from the family seat. A destitute white woman, who had somehow wandered +from the older colonies, was induced to marry him; and all the branches of +the family thought it incumbent on them now and then to pay a quiet visit +to Chalk (for so, for some unknown reason, they always called him). I have +been in Chalk's house myself, and a most comfortable abode it was; but +considered him as a mysterious and anomalous being.</p> + +<p>I have dwelt the longer on this singular instance of slavery, existing +devoid of its attendant horrors, because the fidelity and affection +resulting from a bond of union so early formed between master and servant, +contributed so very much to the safety of individuals, as well as the +general comfort of society, as will hereafter <a id="pg404"></a>appear.--"<em>Memoirs of An +American Lady with Sketches of Manners and Customs In America as they +existed previous to the Revolution</em>," Chapter VII, pp. 26-32, by Mrs. Anne +Grant.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-3"> +<h3>Impressions of an English Traveler</h3> + + +<p>"As I observed before, at least two thirds of the inhabitants are +negroes....</p> + +<p>"It is fortunate for humanity that these poor creatures possess such a fund +of contentment and resignation in their minds; for they indeed seem to be +the happiest inhabitants in America, notwithstanding the hardness of their +fare, the severity of their labour, and the unkindness, ignominy, and often +barbarity of their treatment."--J.F.D., "<em>A Tour in the United States of +America, containing an account of the present situation of that country</em>"; +London, 1784, p. 39.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-4"> +<h3>Abbé Robin on Conditions in Virginia</h3> + + +<p>"The population of Virginia is computed at one hundred fifty thousand +whites and five hundred thousand negroes. There is a still greater +disproportion between the whites and blacks in Maryland, where there are +not more than twenty thousand whites and at least two hundred thousand +negroes. The English imported into these two provinces between seven and +eight thousand yearly. Perhaps the lot of these slaves is not quite so hard +as that of the negroes in the islands; their liberty, it is true, is +irreparably lost in both places, but here they are treated with more +mildness, and are supported upon the same kind of food with their masters; +and if the earth which they cultivate, is moistened with their sweat, it +has never been known to blush with their blood. The American, not at all +industrious by nature, is considerate enough not to expect too much from +his slave, who in such circumstances, has fewer motives to be laborious for +himself."--Abbé Robin, "<em>New Travels through North America in a series of +letters</em>," Boston, 1784, p. 48.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-5"> +<h3>Observations of St. John de Crèvecoeur</h3> + + +<p>"There, arranged like horses at a fair, they are branded like cattle, and +then driven to toil, to starve and to languish for a few years on the +different plantations of those citizens.</p> + +<p>"If negroes are permitted to become fathers, this fatal indulgence only +tends to increase their misery.... How many have <a id="pg405"></a>I seen cursing the +irresistible propensity, and regretting that by having tasted of those +joys, they had become the authors of double misery to their wives.... Their +paternal fondness is embittered by considering that if their children live, +they must live to be slaves like themselves: no time is allowed them to +exercise their pious offices, the mothers must fasten them on their backs, +and, with the double load follow their husbands in the fields, where they +too often hear no other sound than that of the voice or whip of the +taskmaster, and the cries of their infants, broiling in the sun.... It is +said, I know, that they are much happier here than in the West Indies; +because land being cheaper upon this continent than in those Islands, the +field allowed them to raise their subsistence from, are in general more +extensive.</p> + +<p>"... We have slaves likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time +draws near when they will be all emancipated; but how different their lot, +how different their situation, in every possible respect! They enjoy as +much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad, and as well fed; in +health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the +same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our families. Many of them +are taught to read and write, and are well instructed in the principles of +religion; they are the companions of our labours, and treated as such; they +enjoy many perquisites, many established holidays, and are not obliged to +work more than white people. They marry when their inclination leads them; +visit their wives every week; are as decently clad as the common people; +they are indulged in education, cherishing and chastising their children, +who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents; in short, +they participate in many of the benefits of our society without being +obliged to bear any of its burdens. They are fat, healthy, and hearty, and +far from repining at their fate; they think themselves happier than many of +the lower class whites: they share with their master the wheat and meat +provision, they help to raise; many of those whom the good Quakers have +emancipated, have received that great benefit with tears of regret, and +have never quitted, though free, their former masters and +benefactors."--St. John de Crèvecoeur, "<em>Letters from an American Farmer, +1782</em>," pp. 226 et seq.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-6"> +<h3>Impressions of Johann D. Schoepf</h3> + + +<p>"The condition of the Carolina negro slaves is in general harder and more +troublous than that of their northern brethren. On the <a id="pg406"></a>rice plantations, +with wretched food, they are allotted more work and more tedious work; and +the treatment which they experience at the hands of the overseers and +owners is capricious and often tyrannical. In Carolina (and in no other of +the North American states) their severe handling has already caused several +uprisings among them. There is less concern here as to their moral +betterment, education, and instruction, and South Carolina appears little +inclined to initiate the praiseworthy and benevolent ordinances of its +sister states in regard to the negro. It is sufficient proof of the bad +situation in which these creatures find themselves here that they do not +multiply in the same proportions as the white inhabitants, although the +climate is more natural to them and agrees with them better. Their numbers +must be continually kept up by fresh importations; to be sure, the constant +taking up of new land requires more and more working hands, and the +pretended necessity of bringing in additional slaves is thus warranted in +part; but close investigation makes it certain that the increase of the +blacks in the northern states, where they are handled more gently, is +vastly more considerable. The gentlemen in the country have among their +negroes as the Russian nobility among the serfs, the most necessary +handicrafts-men, cobblers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, and the like, whose +work they command at the smallest possible price or for nothing almost. +There is hardly any trade or craft which has not been learned and is not +carried on by negroes, partly free, partly slave; the latter are hired out +by their owners for day's wages. Charleston swarms with blacks, mulattoes +and mestizos; their number greatly exceeds that of the whites, but they are +kept under strict order and discipline, and the police has a watchful eye +upon them. These may nowhere assemble more than 7 male negro slaves; their +dances and other assemblies must stop at 10 o'clock in the evening; without +permission of their owners none of them may sell beer or wine or brandy. +There are here many free negroes and mulattoes. They get their freedom if +by their own industry they earn enough to buy themselves off, or their +freedom is given them at the death of their masters or in other ways. Not +all of them know how to use their freedom to their own advantage; many give +themselves up to idleness and dissipation which bring them finally to +crafty deceptions and thievery. They are besides extraordinarily given to +vanity, and love to adorn themselves as much as they can and to conduct +themselves importantly." </p> + +<p>--Johann D. Schoepf, "<em>Travels in the Confederation</em>," 1784, p. 220.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-7"> +<h3><a id="pg407"></a>Extracts from Anburey's Travels through North America</h3> + + +<p>"Thus the whole management of the plantation is left to the overseer, who +as an encouragement to make the most of the crops, has a certain portion as +his wages, but not having any interest in the negroes, any further than +their labour, he drives and whips them about, and works them beyond their +strength, and sometimes till they expire; he feels no loss in their death, +he knows the plantation must be supplied, and his humanity is estimated by +his interest, which rises always above freezing point.</p> + +<p>"It is the poor negroes who alone work hard, and I am sorry to say, fare +hard. Incredible is the fatigue which the poor wretches undergo, and that +nature should be able to support it; there certainly must be something in +their constitutions, as well as their color, different from us, that +enables them to endure it.</p> + +<p>"They are called up at day break, and seldom allowed to swallow a mouthful +of homminy, or hoe cake, but are drawn out into the field immediately, +where they continue at hard labour, without intermission, till noon, when +they go to their dinners, and are seldom allowed an hour for that purpose; +their meals consist of hominy and salt, and if their master is a man of +humanity, touched by the finer feelings of love and sensibility, he allows +them twice a week a little skimmed milk, fat rusty bacon, or salt herring, +to relish this miserable and scanty fare. The man at this plantation, in +lieu of these, grants his negroes an acre of ground, and all Saturday +afternoon to raise grain and poultry for themselves. After they have dined, +they return to labor in the field, until dusk in the evening; here one +naturally imagines the daily labor of these poor creatures was over, not +so, they repair to the tobacco houses, where each has a task of stripping +allotted which takes them up some hours, or else they have such a quantity +of Indian corn to husk, and if they neglect it, are tied up in the morning, +and receive a number of lashes from those unfeeling monsters, the +overseers, whose masters suffer them to exercise their brutal authority +without constraint. Thus by their night task, it is late in the evening +before these poor creatures return to their second scanty meal, and the +time taken up at it encroaches upon their hours of sleep, which for +refreshment of food and sleep together can never be reckoned to exceed +eight.</p> + +<p>"When they lay themselves down to rest, their comforts are equally +miserable and limited, for they sleep on a bench, or on the <a id="pg408"></a>ground, with +an old scanty blanket, which serves them at once for bed and covering, +their cloathing is not less wretched, consisting of a shirt and trowsers of +coarse, thin, hard, hempen stuff, in the Summer, with an addition of a very +coarse woolen jacket, breeches and shoes in Winter. But since the war, +their masters, for they cannot get the cloathing as usual, suffer them to +go in rags, and many in a state of nudity.</p> + +<p>"The female slaves share labor and repose just in the same manner, except a +few who are term'd house negroes, and are employed in household drugery.</p> + +<p>"These poor creatures are all submission to injuries and insults, and are +obliged to be passive, nor dare they resist or defend themselves if +attacked, without the smallest provocation, by a white person, as the law +directs the negroe's arm to be cut off who raises it against a white +person, should it be only in defence against wanton barbarity and outrage.</p> + +<p>"Notwithstanding this humiliating state and rigid treatment to which this +wretched race are subject, they are devoid of care, and appear jovial, +contented and happy. It is a fortunate circumstance that they possess, and +are blessed with such an easy satisfied disposition, otherwise they must +inevitably sink under such a complication of misery and wretchedness; what +is singularly remarkable, they always carry out a piece of fire, and kindle +one near their work, let the weather be so hot and sultry.</p> + +<p>"As I have several times mentioned homminy and hoe-cake, it may not be +amiss to explain them: the former is made of Indian corn, which is coarsely +broke, and boiled with a few French beans, till it is almost a pulp. +Hoe-cake is Indian corn ground into meal, kneaded into a dough, and baked +before a fire, but as the negroes bake theirs on the hoes that they work +with, they have the appellation of hoe-cakes. These are in common use among +the inhabitants, I cannot say they are palateable, for as to flavor, one +made of sawdust would be equally good, and not unlike it in appearance, but +they are certainly a very strong and hearty food."</p> + +<p> --Anburey, <em>"Travels through America during the War</em>," Vol. 2, pp. 330-5.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-8"> +<h3>Vindication of the Negroes: A Controversy</h3> + + +<p>First let me repeat your longest section relative to that people.</p> + +<p>'Below this class of inhabitants, (the whites of no property, in Virginia,) +we must rank the Negroes, who would be still more to be <a id="pg409"></a>pitied, if their +<em>natural insensibility did not in some measure alleviate the wretchedness +inseparable from slavery</em>. Seeing them ill lodged, ill clothed, and often +overcome with labour, I concluded that their treatment had been as rigorous +as it is elsewhere. Notwithstanding I have been assured that it is very +mild, compared to what they suffer in the Sugar Colonies. And indeed one +does not hear habitually, as at Jamaica and St. Domingo, the sound of +whips, and the outcries of the wretched beings, whose bodies are torn piece +meal by their strokes. It is because the people of Virginia are commonly +milder than those of the Sugar Colonies, which consist chiefly of rapacious +men, eager to amass fortunes, as soon as possible, and return to Europe. +The produce of their labours being also less valuable, their tasks are not +so rigorously exacted, and in justice to both, it must be allowed that the +Negroes themselves are less treacherous and thievish, than they are in the +Islands: for the propagation of the black species being very considerable +here, most of them are born in the country, and it is remarked that these +are in general less depraved than those imported from Africa. Besides, we +must do the Virginians the justice to remark, that many of them treat their +Negroes with a great deal of humanity, and what is still more to their +honor, they appear sorry there are any among them, and are forever talking +of abolishing slavery, and falling upon some other mode of improving their +land, &c.</p> + +<p>'However this may be, it is fortunate that different motives concur to +deter mankind from exercising such tyranny, at least upon their own +species, if we cannot say, strictly speaking, <em>their equals</em>; for the more +we observe the Negroes, the more we are convinced that the +difference between us <em>does not lie in the colour alone, &c.</em></p> + +<p>'Enough upon this subject, which has not escaped the attention of the +politicians and philosophers of the present age: I have only to apologize +for treating it without declamation; but I have always thought, that +eloquence can only influence the resolutions of the moment, and that every +thing which requires time, must be the work of reason. And besides, it will +be an easy matter to add ten or twelve pages to these few reflections, +which may be considered as a concert composed only of principal parts, <em>con +corni ad libertum</em>.'</p> + +<p>Upon reading this passage attentively, I was surprised to find it contain a +singular mixture of contradictory principles, and in the same breath, the +sentiments of a philosopher and of a colonist; of an advocate for the +Negroes, and of their enemy.</p> + +<p><a id="pg410"></a>It is evident that as a philosopher, and a friend to humanity, you are +inclined to alleviate the lot of the Negroes, and commend those who do so, +but this tenderness itself conceals a subtile venom that ought to be +exposed. For you only bestow your pity upon the Negroes, while you owe +them, if you are a philosopher, vindication and defense; you wish their +masters to be humane; they ought to be just. Instead of praising such +humanity, you ought to have blamed them for stopping there, in short, such +a contempt for the Negroes pervades this whole article, as will necessarily +encourage their tormentors to rivet their chains. Is not this contempt +observable, for instance in the very first period?</p> + +<p>"Below this class of inhabitants (the meanest whites of Virginia) we must +rank the Negroes, who would be still more to be pitied, if their natural +insensibility did not in some measure alleviate the wretchedness +inseparable from slavery."</p> + +<p>And who told you, Sir, that nature had created the Negroes with less +feeling than other men? do you judge so because they have vegetated for +three centuries in European fetters, and at this day have not altogether +shaken off the horrid yoke? But do not their frequent risings, and the +cruelties they from time to time retaliate upon their masters, give the lie +to this natural insensibility? for an insensible being has no resentment. +If he does not feel, how should he remember? Do you think the wretched +Indians, who, since the discovery of the New world, are burried in the +mines of Peru, are also naturally insensible, because they suffer +patiently?</p> + +<p>You calumniate nature in making her grant favours to particulars; in giving +her a system of inequality among her offspring. All men are cast in the +same mould.--The varieties which distinguish individuals, are the sports of +chance, or the result of different circumstances; but the black comes into +the world with as much sensibility as the white, the Peruvian, as the +European.</p> + +<p>What then degrades this natural and moral sensibility? The greater or less +privation of liberty; in proportion as man loses it, he loses the powers of +sensation; he loses the man; he sickens or becomes a brute. It is slavery +alone which can reduce a man to a level with the brute creation, and +sometimes deprives him of all sensibility; but you blame nature, that kind +parent, who would have us all equal, free and happy, for the crime of +social barbarity, and you pass by this crime, to extenuate another, to +extenuate the horrid torments of slavery! Not satisfied with violating +nature, by<a id="pg411"></a> abusing her offspring, even in her name, you encourage +slaveholders to torment them.</p> + +<p>Do you not arm their tyrants, when you tell them, the insensibility of the +Negroes alleviates their torments?</p> + +<p>What! because greatness of soul raised Sidney above the terrors of death, +the infernal Jefferies<sup><a href="#fn4-6-8-1" id="fna4-6-8-1">1</a></sup> who caused his execution, was less guilty! +because the Quakers appeared insensible to insults, blows, or punishments, +they are less to be pitied, and it was right to martyr them! A dangerous +notion, whose consequences I am sure you would disapprove. If this +insensibility with which you reproach the Negroes mitigated the cruelty of +their masters, it were well: but their tormentors do not wish them not to +feel; they would have them all feeling, for the pleasure of torturing them; +and their punishments are increased in proportion to their insensibility.</p> + +<p>Seeing the Negroes, say you, "Ill lodged, ill cloathed, and often overcome +with labour, I concluded that their treatment had been as rigorous as it is +elsewhere. Notwithstanding I have been assured that it is very mild, +compared to what they suffer in the Sugar Colonies."</p> + +<p>Why this comparison, which seems to insinuate a justification of the +Virginians? does a misfortune cease to be such, because there is a greater +elsewhere? Was Cartouche less detestable because Brinvilliers had existed +before him? Let us not weaken by comparisons the idea of criminality, nor +lessen the attention due to the miserable, this were to countenance the +crime. The Negroes are ill lodged, ill cloathed, oppressed with labour in +Virginia: this is the fact, this is the offence. It matters not whether +they are worse treated elsewhere; in whatever degree they are so in +Virginia, it is still outrage and injustice.</p> + +<p>And again, why are the Negroes of Virginia less cruelly treated? Humanity +is not the motive, it is because covetousness cannot obtain so much from +their labours, as in the Sugar Islands. Was it otherwise, they would be +sacrificed to it here, as well as there; how can we praise such forced +humanity? how, on the contrary, not give vent to all the indignation, which +must naturally arise in every feeling mind?</p> + +<p><a id="pg412"></a>"And to do justice to both, you add, if the Virginians are not so severe, +it is because the Negroes themselves are less treacherous and thievish than +in the islands, because the propagation of the black species being very +considerable here, most of the Negroes are born in the country, and it is +remarked, that these are in general less depraved than those imported from +Africa."</p> + +<p>Here is a strange confusion of causes and effects, and a strange abuse of +words. First let us clear up the facts. Here are some valuable ones for the +cause of the Negroes.</p> + +<p>You say they are not so thievish in Virginia, propagate faster, and are +less depraved: Why? Because they are less cruelly treated.--Here is the +cause and the effect, you have mistaken one for the other.</p> + +<p>We must conclude from this fact, that if the Virginians were no longer +severe, and should treat the blacks like fellow-creatures, they would not +be more vicious than their white servants.</p> + +<p>The degree of oppression is the measure of what is improperly called the +viciousness of the slaves.--The more cruel their tyrants, the more +treacherous, villainous and cruel are the slaves in return--Can we wonder +that Macronius should assassinate his master Tiberius? This viciousness is +a punishment that heaven inflicts upon tyranny.</p> + +<p>Can the efforts of a slave for the recovery of his liberty, be denominated +vicious or criminal? From the moment you violate the laws of nature, in +regard to them, why should not they shake them off in their relative duties +to you? You rob them of liberty, and you would not have them steal your +gold! You whip and cruelly torment them, and expect them not to struggle +for deliverance! You assassinate them every day, and expect them not to +assassinate you once! You call your outrages, rights, and the courage which +repulses them, a crime! What a confusion of ideas! what horrid logic!</p> + +<p>And you, sir, a humane philosopher! are accessory to this injustice, by +describing the blacks in the style of a dealer in human flesh! You call +what are no more than natural consequences of the compression of the spring +of liberty--treachery, theft and depravation.<sup><a href="#fn4-6-8-2" id="fna4-6-8-2">2</a></sup> But can a natural +consequence be criminal? Remove the cause or is it not the only crime?</p> + +<p><a id="pg413"></a>For my part, sir, I firmly believe, that the barbarities committed by the +Negroes, not merely against their masters, but even against others, will be +attributed at the bar of eternal justice, to the slaveholders, and those +infamous persons employed in the Guinea trade. I firmly believe, that no +human justice has the right of putting a Negro slave to death for any crime +whatever, because not being free, he is not sui juris, and should be +regarded as a child or an idiot, being almost always under the lash. I +believe that the real criminal, the cause of the crime, is the man who +first seized him, sold him, or enslaved him.--And if ever I should fall +under the knife of an unhappy runaway, I would not resent it upon him but +upon those white men who keep blacks in slavery. I would tell them, your +cruelty towards your Negroes, has endangered my life--they execrate you, +they take me for a tyrant because I am white like you, and the vengeance +due to your crimes has fallen upon me.</p> + +<p>God forbid, however, that I should undertake to encourage the blacks to +take up arms against their masters! God forbid, however, that I should +undertake to justify the excesses to which their resentments have sometimes +hurried them, and which have often fallen on persons who were not accessary +to their wretchedness! The slavery under which they groan, must be +abolished by peaceable means; and thanks to the active spirit of +benevolence which animates the Quakers, the pious undertaking is already +begun. In most of the United States of America, the yoke has been taken +from their necks; in others the Guinea-trade has been prohibited. Societies +have been formed both at Paris and London, to collect and circulate +information upon this interesting subject, to induce the European +governments to put a stop to the Negro trade, and provide for their gradual +emancipation in the West-India islands: No doubt success will crown their +views, and the friends of liberty will enjoy the satisfaction of +communicating its blessings to the blacks.</p> + +<p>But the blacks must wait for the happy moment that shall restore them to +civil life, in silence and in peace; they must rely upon the unwearied +diligence and zeal of the numerous writers who advocate their cause, and +the efforts of the humane to second their endeavors; they must strive to +justify and support the arguments <a id="pg414"></a>that are adduced in their favour, by +displaying virtue in the very bosom of slavery; they must endeavour, in a +word, to render themselves worthy of liberty, that they may know how to use +it when it shall be restored to them; for liberty itself is sometimes a +burden, when slavery has stupefied the soul.</p> + +<p>Such blacks, therefore, as are so inconsiderate as to be concerned in +insurrections, are guilty of retarding the execution of the general plan +for their emancipation; for the question is not, at the present day, +whether a million of slaves ought to be set at liberty, but whether they +can when free, be put into a capacity of providing for the subsistence of +themselves and their families. Insurrections, far from effecting this +purpose, would destroy the means. Regard, therefore, to their own +interests, if there were no other motive, should therefore engage the +blacks to patient submission, and no doubt but they will yield it, if their +masters and the ministers of the gospel in particular, to whom the task of +comforting and instructing them, is committed, endeavour to prepare them +for approaching freedom.</p> + +<p>You sir, have adopted the vulgar notion, that the Negroes born in Virginia, +are less depraved than those imported from Africa. You call the firmness +which is common in the early stages of their slavery <em>greater degeneracy;</em> +they are depraved, that is, in your language--they are wicked and +treacherous to those who have purchased them, or brought them from their +own country.--But in my mind, they are not depraved, because the acts of +violence their genius inspires them to revenge themselves upon their +tyrants, are justified by the rights of nature.</p> + +<p>And why are those imported, more wicked in your opinion? In mine, more +quick, more ardent in their resentments? because, not having forgotten +their former situation, they feel their loss the more sensibly; and having +strong ideas, their resolutions are more firm and their actions more +violent, they not having yet contracted the habits of slavery.</p> + +<p>They soon fall into that degree of apathy and insensibility, which you +unjustly believe to be natural to them; that is, in your language, they +become less depraved; but I would say that their depravity begins with this +apathy and weakness.--For depravity is the loss of nature, and the want of +those virtues inherent in man, courage and the love of liberty. Our readers +may judge from this article, how strangely writers have wrested words to +condemn these unhappy Negroes, and the unfortunate in general.</p> + +<p><a id="pg415"></a>I do not, however, pretend to say, that the Negroes of Africa are all +good, or even that many of them are not depraved. But is this fact to be +imputed to them as a personal crime? Ought you not rather to have ascribed +it to the foreign source by which they are corrupted. Alike in them and in +the whites, the depravity of man is a consequence of his wretchedness, and +the usurpation of his rights. Wherever he is free and at ease, he is good; +wherever the contrary, he is wicked. Neither his nature nor the climate +corrupt him, but the government of his country. Now that of the Negroes is +almost universally despotic, such as must necessarily debase and corrupt +the Negro.</p> + +<p>How much is the depravity, occasioned by the government of his country, +increased by his second slavery, far worse than the first--for he is no +longer among friends in his native land--surrounded by the pleasing scenes +of his childhood, he is among monsters who are going to live by, and trade +in his blood, and has nothing before his eyes but death, or oppression +equivalent to an endless punishment.</p> + +<p>How is it possible such horrid prospects should not fire his soul? How, if +chance should present him with arms and liberty, should he resist using +them, to put an end to his own existence, or that of his tormentors? What +white man would be less cruel in his situation? Truly I think myself of a +humane disposition, that I love my fellow-creatures and detest the effusion +of blood, but if ever a villain, white or black, should snatch me from my +freedom, my family, and my friends, should overwhelm me with outrages and +blows, to gratify his caprice, should extend his barbarities to my wife and +children--my blood boils at the thought--perhaps in a transport of +revenge.... If such vengeance would be lawful in me, what makes the Negro +more guilty? Why should that be called wickedness and depravity in him, +which would be stiled virtue in me, in you, in every white man? Are not my +rights the same as his? Is not nature our common parent? God his father as +well as mine? His conscience an infallible guide as well as mine? Let us +then no longer make other laws for the blacks than those we are bound by +ourselves, since Heaven has placed them on a level with us, has made them +like us, since they are our brethren and our fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p>Here you stop me, you say that <em>the Negro is not our fellow-creature, that +he is below the white</em>.</p> + +<p>How could so shocking an opinion escape the pen of a member<a id="pg416"></a> of the Royal +Academy, a writer who would be thought a friend of mankind!</p> + +<p>Do not you see the tormentors of St. Domingo, avail themselves of it +already, redoubling their strokes, and regarding their slaves as mere +machines, like the Cartesians do the brutes? They are not our +fellow-creatures will they say: a philosopher of Paris has proved it?</p> + +<p>What! the blacks our equals! Have not they eyes, ears, a shape, and organs +like ours? Does nature follow another order, other laws for them?--Have not +they speech, that peculiar characteristic of humanity? But then the colour! +What of that? Are the pale white Albinos, the olive or copper coloured +Indians also of different species! Who does not know that colour is +accidental. They are not our equals! Have not they the same +faculties--reason, memory, imagination? Yes, you reply, but they have +written no books. Who told you so? Who told you there were no learned +blacks? And supposing it were so, if none but authors are men, the whole +human race is different from us.</p> + +<p>Shall I tell you why there are no authors or men of learning among the +Negroes? What has made you what you are? Education and circumstances!--Now +where are the Negroes favoured by either? Consider them wherever they are +to be found.--In Africa, wretchedly enslaved by domestic tyrants; in our +islands perpetual martyrs; in the southern United States, the meanest of +slaves; in the northern, domestics; in Europe, universally contemned, every +where proscribed, like the Jews; in a word, every where in a state of +debasement.</p> + +<p>I have been told that there are blacks of property in the northern parts of +America; but these, like the other settlers, are no more than sensible +farmers or traders.--There are no authors<sup><a href="#fn4-6-8-3" id="fna4-6-8-3">3</a></sup> among them, because there are +few rich and idle people in America.</p> + +<p>What spring of action could raise a Negro from his debased condition? the +road to glory and honor is impassible to him: What then should he write +for? Besides, the blacks have reason to detest the sciences, for their +oppressors cultivate them but they do not make them better.</p> + +<p>Shall we say that the Indians or Arabs are not our equals, because they +despise both our arts and our sciences? or the Quakers, because they +neither respect academies nor wits?</p> + +<p><a id="pg417"></a>In short, if you will deny the Negroes souls, energy, sensibility, +gratitude or beneficence, I oppose you to yourself, I might quote your own +anecdote of Mr. Langdon's Negro, and abundance of other well known facts in +favour of the blacks. You may find some striking ones in the Abbé Raynals' +philosophical history. One of them would have been sufficient. The Negro +who killed himself when his master who had injured him was in his power, +was superior to Epictetus, and the existence of a single Negro of so +sublime a character, ennobles all his kind.</p> + +<p>But how could you judge whether the blacks were different from the whites, +who saw them only in a state of slavery and wretchedness? Do we estimate +beauty by the figure of a Laplander? magnanimity by the soul of a courtier? +or intelligence by the stupidity of an Esquimaux?</p> + +<p>If the traces of humanity were so much weakened and effaced in the Negroes, +that you did not recognize them, I conclude not that they do not belong to +our species, but that they must have been cruelly tormented to reduce them +to this state of degeneracy. I do not conclude that they are not men, but +that the Europeans who kidnap the blacks, are not worthy of the name.</p> + +<p>You consider what precautions it may be necessary to take to avoid the +danger which might attend a general emancipation of the Negroes.</p> + +<p>I shall not now enter into a discussion of this nice question, but reserve +it for another work: yet I must say in a word, that the Negroes will never +be our friends, will never be men, until they are possessed of all our +rights, until we are upon an equality. Civil liberty is the boundary +between good and evil, order and disorder, happiness and misery, ignorance +and knowledge. If we would make the Negroes worthy of us, we must raise +them to our level by giving them this liberty.</p> + +<p>Thus, the chief inconvenience you expect will follow the emancipation of +the Negroes, may be avoided; that although free, they will remain a +distinct species, a distinct and dangerous body.</p> + +<p>This objection will vanish when we intermix with them, and boldly efface +every distinction. Unless this is the case, I foresee torrents of blood +spilt and the earth disputed between the whites and blacks, as America was +between the Europeans and Savages.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, and it is no extravagant idea--perhaps it might be more prudent, +more humane, to send the blacks back again to their native country, settle +them there, encourage their industry, and <a id="pg418"></a>assist them to form connections +with Europe and America. The celebrated doctor Fothergill conceived this +plan, and the society for the abolition of slavery, at London, have carried +it into execution at Sierra Leone. Time and perseverance, will discover the +policy and utility of this settlement. If it should succeed, the blacks +will quit America insensibly, and Sierra Leone become the centre from +whence general civilization will spread over all Africa.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, sir, you will place these thoughts upon the Negroes with those +declamations you are pleased to ridicule: But what is the epithet of +declaimer to me, if I am right, if I make an impression upon my readers, if +I cause remorse into the breast of a single slave-holder; in a word, if I +contribute to accelerate the general impulse toward liberty.</p> + +<p>You disapprove the application of eloquence to this subject; you think +nothing can affect it but exertions of cool reason. What is eloquence but +the language of reason and sensibility? When man is oppressed, he +struggles, he complains, he moves our passions, and bears down all +opposition. Such eloquence can perform wonders, and should be employed by +those who undertake to plead the cause of the unfortunate who spend their +days in continual agony, or he will make no impression.--I do not conceive +how any man can display wit instead of feeling, upon this distracting +subject, amuse with an antithesis, instead of forcible reasoning, and only +dazzle where he ought to warm. I have no conception how a sensible and +thinking being, can see a fellow-creature tortured and torn to pieces, +perhaps his poor wife bathed in tears, with a wretched infant sucking her +shriveled breast at his side; I say I have no conception how he can behold +such a sight, with indifference; how, unagonized and convulsed with rage +and indignation, he can have the barbarity to descend to jesting! +Notwithstanding, your observations upon the Negroes, conclude with a jest.</p> + +<p>It will be an easy matter, say you, to add ten or twelve pages to these few +reflections, which may be considered as a concert, composed only of +principal parts, "con corni ad Libertum."</p> + +<p>I hope there is nothing cruel, because there is nothing studied in this +connection, this inconsiderate manner: but how could such a comparison come +into the head of a man of feeling? It is the sad effect of wit, as I said +before; it contracts the soul. Ever glancing over agreeable objects, it is +unfeeling when intruded upon by wretchedness--uneasy to obliterate the +shocking idea, and elude the groans of nature, it rids itself of both by a +jest. The humane <a id="pg419"></a>Benezet would never have connected this idea of harmony +with the sound of a Negro driver's whip.</p> + +<p>Having proved that you have wronged the Quakers and the Negroes, I shall +proceed to shew that you have equally injured mankind and the +people.--<em>Critical Examination of the Marquis de Chastellux's Travels in +North-America, 1782. Translated from the French of Jean P. Verre Brissot de +Warville, 1788</em>, pp. 51-63.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-6-8"> +<h4>Footnotes</h4> + + +<p id="fn4-6-8-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-8-1">return</a>]</span>1. This Jefferies was the most infamous Chief Justice that ever existed in +England. Charles II. and James II. well acquainted with his talents for +chicane, his debauchery and blood-thirstiness, his baseness and his crimes, +made use of him to exterminate, with the sword of law, all those worthy men +who defended the constitution from their tyranny.</p> + +<p>I often quote the History of England; unhappily for us it is too little +known in France.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-8-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-8-2">return</a>]</span>2. Most authors who have not studied the rights of men, fall into this +error. I have remarked elsewhere (Vol. II of the <em>Journ. du Licee</em>, No. 4, +page 222) that a writer, who, notwithstanding, deserves our esteem, for +having written against the despotism of the Turkish government, has +suffered himself to be drawn into it. M. le Baron de Tott says that the +Moldavians are thievish, mean and faithless. To translate these words into +the language of truth, we must say, the Turks, the masters of the +Moldavians, are unjust, robbers, villains, and tyrants; and that the +Moldavians revenge themselves by opposing deceit to oppression, etc. Thus, +the people are almost everywhere wrongfully accused.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-8-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-8-3">return</a>]</span>3. There was, however, a Negro author at London, whose productions are not +without merit, and were lately published in two volumes. His name was +Ignatius Sancho. He wrote in the manner of Sterne.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-9"> +<h3>Sur L'état Général, Le Genre D'industrie, Les Moeurs, Le Caractère, Etc. +Des Noirs, Dans Les États-unis</h3> + + +<p>"Dans les quatre états du nord et dans ceux du midi, les noirs libres sont, +ou domestiques, ou tiennent de petites boutiques, ou cultivent la terre. +Vous en voyez quelques-unes sur les bâtimens destinés au cabotage. Peu +osent se hasarder sur les vaisseau employés aux voyages de long cours, +parce qu'ils craignent d'être transportés et vendus dans les iles.--Au +physique, tous ces noirs sont généralement vigoureux,<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-1" id="fna4-6-9-1">1</a></sup> d'une forte +constitution, capables des travaux les plus pénibles; ils sont généralement +actifs.--Domestiques, ils sont sobres et fidèles.--Ce portrait s'applique +aux femmes de cette couleur.--Je n'ai vu faire aucune distinction entr'eux +à cet égard et les domestiques blancs, quoique ces derniers les traitent +toujours avec mépris, comme étant d'une espèce inférieure.--Ceux qui +tiennent des boutiques, vivent médiocrement, n'augmentent jamais leurs +affaires au-dela d'un certain point. La raison en est simple: quoique +partout on traite les noirs avec humanité, les blancs qui ont l'argent, ne +sont pas disposés à faire aux noirs des avances, telles qu'elles les +missent en état d'entreprendre le commerce en grand; d'ailleurs, il faut +pour ce commerce quelques connoissances préliminaires, il faut faire un +noviciat dans un comptoir, et la raison n'a pas encore ouvert aux noirs la +porte du comptoir. On ne leur permet pas de s'y asseoir à côté des +blancs.--Si donc les noirs sont bornés ici à un petit commerce de détail, +n'en accusons pas leur impuissance, mais le préjugé des blancs, qui leur +donnent des entraves. Les mémes causes empéchent les moirs qui vivent à la +compagne d'avoir des plantations étendues; celles qu'ils cultivent sont +bornées, mais généralement assez bien cultivées: de bons habits, <em>une log +house</em>, ou maison de bois en bon état, des enfans plus <a id="pg420"></a>nombreux les font +remarquer des Européens voyageurs, et l'oeil du philosophe se plaît à +considérer ces habitations, où la tyrannie ne fait point verser de pleurs. +Dans cette partie de l'Amerique, les noirs sont certainement heureux; mais +ayons le courage de l'avouer, leur bonheur et leurs talens ne sont pas +encore au degré où ils pourroient atteindre.--Il existe encoure un trop +grand intervalle entre eux et les blancs, sur-tout dans l'opinion publique, +et cette difference humiliante arrête tous les efforts qu'ils feroient pour +s'élever. Cette difference se montre par-tout. Par exemple, on admet les +noirs aux écoles publiques; mais ils ne peuvent franchir le seuil d'un +collège. Quoique libres, quoique indépendans, ils sont toujours eux-mêmes +accoutumés à se regarder comme au-dessous du blanc; il y a des droits +qu'ils n'out pas.<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-2" id="fna4-6-9-2">2</a></sup> Concluons de là qu'on jugeroit mal de l'étendue, de la +capacité des noirs, en prenant pour base celle des noirs libres dans les +états du nord.</p> + +<p>Mais quand on les compare aux noirs, esclaves des états du midi, quelle +prodigieuse différence les sépare! Dans le midi, les noirs sont dans un +état d'abjection et d'abrutissement difficile à peindre. Beaucoup sont +nuds, mal nourris, logés dans de miserables huttes, couchés sur la +paille.<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-3" id="fna4-6-9-3">3</a></sup> On ne leur donne aucune éducation; on ne <a id="pg421"></a>les instruit dans +aucune religion; on ne les marie pas, on les accouple; aussi sont ils +avilis, paresseux, sans idées, sans énergie.--Ills ne se donneroient +aucune peine pour avoir des habits, ou de meilleures provisions; +ils aiment mieux porter des haillons que de les raccommoder. Ills +passent le dimanche, qui est le jour du repos, entièrement dans +l'inaction.--L'inaction est leur souverain bonheur; aussi travaillent-ils +pen et nonchalamment.</p> + +<p>Il faut rendre justice à la vérité; les Américains du midi traitent +doucement les esclaves, et c'est un des effets produits par l'extension +générale des idées sur la liberté; l'esclave travaille moins par-tout; mais +on s'est borné là. Il n'en est pas mieux, ni pour la mourriture, ni pour +son habillement, ni pour ses moeurs, ni pour ses idées; ainsi le maître +perd, sans que l'esclaves acquière; et s'il suivoit l'exemple des +Americains du nord, tous deux gagneroient au changement.</p> + +<p>On a cru généralment jusqu'à ces derniers temps, que les nègres avoient +moins de capacité morale que les blancs; des auteurs même estimables l'ont +imprimé.<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-4" id="fna4-6-9-4">4</a></sup> Ce préjugé commence à disparoitre; les états du nord pourroient +fournir des exemples du contraire. Je n'en citerai que deux frappans; le +premier, prouvera, qu'avec l'instruction, on peut rendre les noirs propres +à toutes les professions; le second, que la tête d'un nègre est organsée +pour les calculs les plus étonans, et par conséquent pour toutes les +sciences.</p> + +<p>J'ai vu, dans mon séjour à Philadelphie, un noir, appelé Jacques Derham, +médecin, qui exerce dans la Nouvelle-Orleans, sur le Mississippi; et voici +son histoire, telle qu'elle m'a été attestée par plusieurs médecins.--Ce +noir a été élevé dans une famille de Philadelphie, où il a appris à lire, à +écrire, et où on l'a instruit dans les principes du christianisme. Dans sa +jeunesse, il fut vendu au feu docteur Jean Kearsley le jeune, de cette +ville, qui l'employoit pour composer des médecines, et les administrer á +ses malades.</p> + +<p>A la mort du docteur Kearsley, il passa dans différentes mains, et il +devint enfin l'esclave du docteur George West, chirurgien du seizième +regiment d'Angleterre, sous lequel, pendant la dernière guerre en Amérique, +il remplit les fonctions les moins importantes de la médecine.</p> + +<p>A la fin de la guerre, le docteur West le vendit au Docteur Robert Dove, de +la Nouvelle-Orleans, qui l'employa comme son <a id="pg422"></a>second. Dans cette condition, +il gagna si bien la confiance et l'amité de son maître, que celui-ci +consentit à l'affranchir deux ou trois ans après, et à des conditions +modérées.--Derham s'étoit tellement perfectionné dans la medecine, qu'à +l'époque de sa liberté, il fut en état de la pratiquer avec succès à la +Nouvelle-Orleans.--Il a environ 26 ans; il est marié, mais il n'a point +d'enfans; la medecine lui rapporte 3000 dollars, ou 16000 l. environ par +an.</p> + +<p>J'ai causé, m'a dit le docteur Wistar, avec lui sur les maladies aiguës et +épidémiques du pays où il vit, et je l'ai trouve bien versé dans la méthode +simple, usitée par les modernes pour le traitement de ces maladies.--Je +croyois pouvoir lui indiquer de nouveaux remèdes; mais ce fut lui qui me +les indiqua.--Il est modeste, et a des manières très-engageantes; il parle +francois avec facilité et a quelques connoisances de l'espagnol. -- Qoique +né dans une famille religieuse, on avoit, par accident, oublié de le faire +baptiser. En conséquence, il s'est adressé au docteur Withe pour recevoir +le baptême; il le lui a conféré, apres l'en avoir jugé digne, non-seulement +par ses connoisances, mais par son excellente conduite.</p> + +<p>Voice l'autre fait, tel qu'il m'a été attesté, et imprimé par le docteur +Rush,<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-5" id="fna4-6-9-5">5</a></sup> célèbre médecin et auteur, établi à Philadelphie et plusieurs +détails m'en ont été confirmés par l'épouse de l'immortel Washington, dans +le voisinage duquel ce nègre est depuis longtemps.</p> + +<p>Son nom est Thomas Fuller; il est né en Afrique, et ne sait ni lire ni +écrire; il a maintenant soixante-dix ans, et a vécu toute sa vie sur la +plantation de M<sup>me</sup> Cox, a quatre milles d'Alexandrie. Deux habitans +respectables de Pensylvanie, MM. Hartshom et Samuel Coates, qui +voyageoient en Virginie, ayant appris la facilité singuliere que ce noir +avoit pour les calculus les plus compliques, l'envoyèrent chercher, et lui +firent differentes questions.</p> + +<p>Première. Etant interrogé, combien de secondes il y avoit dans une année et +demie, il repondit en deux minutes, 47,304,000, en comptant 365 jours dans +l'année.</p> + +<p>Deuxième. Combien de secondes auroit vécu un homme âgé de soix-ante-dix ans +dix-sept jours et douze heures? Il répondit dans une minute et demie, +2,210,500,800.</p> + +<p>Un des Americains qui l'interrogeoit et qui vérifioit ses calculs avec la +plume, lui dit qu'il se trompoit, que la somme n'étoit pas si considerable; +et cela étoit vrai: c'est qu'il n'avoit pas fait attention aux années +bissextiles; il corrigea le calcul avec la plus grande célérité.</p> + +<p><a id="pg423"></a>Autre question. Supposez un laboureur qui a six truies, et que chaque +truie en met bas six autres la première année, et qu'elles multiplient dans +la même proportion jusqu'à, l' fin de la huitème année: combien alors de +truies aura le laboureur, s'il n'en perd aucune? Le vieillard répondit en +dix minutes, 34,588,806.</p> + +<p>La longueur du temps ne fut occasionée que parce qu'il n'avoit pas d'abord +compris la question.</p> + +<p>Après avoir satisfait à toutes les questions, il raconta l'origine et les +progrès de son talent en arithmétique.--Il compta a'abord jusqu'a 10, puis +100; et s'imaginoit alors, disoit-il, être un habile homme. Ensuite il +s'amusa à compter tous les grains d'un boisseau de ble, et successivement +il sut compter le nombre de rails ou morceaux de bois necessaires pour +enclore un champ d'une telle étendue, ou de grains nécessaires pour le +semer.--Sa maîtresse avoit tiré beaucoup d'advantages de son talen; il ne +parloit d'elle qu'avec la plus grande reconnoissance, parce qu'elle ne +l'avoit jamais voulu vendre, malgre les offres considerables qu'on lui +avoit faites pour l'acheter.--Sa tête commençoit à foiblir.--Un des +Americains lui ayant dit que c'étoit dommage qu'il n'eut pas recu de +l'éducation: Non, maître, dit-il; il vaut mieux que je n'aie rien appris, +car bien des savans ne sont que des sots.</p> + +<p>Ces exemples prouveront, sans doute, que la capacité des nègres peut +s'étendre a tout; ils n'ont besoin que d'instruction et de liberté.--La +différence qui se remarque entre ceux qui sont libres et instruits et les +autres, se montre encore dans leurs travaux.--Les terres qu'habitent et les +blancs et les noirs, soumis à ce rêgime, sont infiniment mieux cultivées, +produisent plus abondamment, offrent par-tout l'image de l'aisance et du +bonheur; et tel est, par exemple, l'aspect du Connecticut et de la +Pensylvanie.--Passez dans le Maryland ou la Virginie, encore une fois, vous +croyez être dans un autre monde. Ce ne sont plus des plaines bien +cultivées, des maisons de campagne, propres et meme élégantes, des vastes +granges bien distribuées; ce ne sont plus des troupeaux nombreux de +bestiaux gras et vigoureux: non, tout dans le Maryland et la Virginia, +porte l'empreinte de l'esclavage; sol brulé, culture mal entendue, maisons +délabrées, bestiaux petits et peu nombreux, cadavres noirs ambulans; en un +mot, vous y voyez une misère réelle a côté de l'apparence du luxe.</p> + +<p>On commence à s'appercevoir, même dans les états méridionaux, que nourrir +mal un exclave est une chétive économie, et que le fonds placé dans +l'esclavage ne rend pas son interêt. C'est peut-être plus<a id="pg424"></a> à cette +considération, plus encore à l'impossibilité pécuniaire de recruter; c'est +plus, dis-je, à ces considérations qu'à l'humanité, qu'on doit +l'introduction du travail libre dans une partie de la Virginie, dans celle +qui avoisine la belle rivière de la Shenadore. Aussi croiroit-on, en la +voyant, voir encore la Pensylvanie.</p> + +<p>Osons l'espérer, tel sera un jour le sort de la Virginie, quand elle ne +sera plus souillée par l'esclavage; et ce terme n'est peut-être pas +eloigné. Il n'y a des esclaves que parce qu'on les croit nécessaires á la +culture du tabac, et cette culture décline tous les jours et doit décliner. +Le tabac, qui se ciiltive près de l'Ohio et du Mississippi, est infiniment +plus abondant, de meilleure qualité, exige moins de travaux. Quand ce tabac +se sera ouvert le chemin de l'Europe, les Virginiens seront obligés de +cesser sa culture, et de demander à la terre du blé, des pommes de terre, +de faire des prairies et d'élever des bestiaux. Les Virginiens judicieux +prévoient cette revolution, l'anticipent, et se livrent à la culture du +blé.--A leur tête, on doit mettre cet homme étonnant, qui, général adoré, +eut le courage d'être republican sincère; qui, couvert de gloire, seul, ne +s'en souvient plus; héros dont la destinée unique sera d'avoir sauvé deux +fois sa patrie, de lui ouvrir le chemin de la prospérité, apres avoir +ouvert celui de la liberté. Maintenant <em>entièrement</em> occupé<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-6" id="fna4-6-9-6">6</a></sup> du soin +d'améliorer ses terres, d'en varier le produit, d'ouvrir des routes, des +communications, il donne à ses compatriotes un exemple utile, et qui sans +doute sera suivi. Il a cependant, dois-je, le dire? une foule nombreuse +d'esclaves noirs.--Mais ils sont traites avec la plus grande humanité. Bien +nourris, bien vêtus, n'ayant qu'un travail modéré à faire, ils bénissent +sans cesse le maître que le Ciel leur a donné.--Il est digne sans doute +d'une âme aussi élevée, aussi pure, aussi désinteressé, de commencer la +révolution en Virginie, d'y preparer l'affranchissement des nègres.--Ce +grand homme, lorsque j'eus le bonheur de l'entretenir, m'avoua qu'il +admiroit tout ce qui se faissoit dans les autres états, qu'il en desiroit +l'extension dans son propre pays; mais il ne me cacha pas que de nombreux +obstacles s'y opposoient encore, qu'il seroit dangereux de heurter de front +un préjugé qui commencoit à diminuer.--Du temps, de la patience, des +lumières, et on le convaincra, me dit-il. Presque tous les Virginiens, +ajoutoit-il, ne croyent pas que la liberté des noirs puisse sitôt devenir +générale. <a id="pg425"></a>Voilà pourquoi ils ne veulent point former de société qui puisse +donner des idées dangereuses à leurs esclaves. Un autre obstacle s'y +oppose. Les grandes propriétés éloignent les hommes, rendent difficiles les +assemblées, et vous ne trouverez ici que de grands propriétaires.</p> + +<p>Les Virginiens se trompent, lui disois-je; il est evident que tôt ou tard +les nègres obtiendront par-tout leur liberté, que cette révolution +s'étendra en Virginie. Il est done de l'intérêt de vos compatriotes de s'y +préparer, de tacher de concilier la restitution des droits des nègres avec +leur propriété. Les Moyens à prendre, pour cet effet, ne peuvent être +l'ouvrage que d'une société, et il est digne du sauveur de l'Amerique d'en +être le chef, et de rendre la liberté à 300,000 hommes malheureux dans son +pays. Ce grand homme me dit qu'il en desiroit la formation, qu'il la +seconderoit; mail il ne croyoit pas le moment favorable.--Sans doute des +vues plus élévees absorboient alors son attention et remplissoient son âme; +le destin de l'amerique étoit prêt à étre remis une seconde fois dans ses +mains.</p> + +<p>C'est un malheur, n'en doutons pas, semblable société n'existe pas dans le +Maryland et dans la Virginie; car c'est au zèle constant de celles de +Philadelphie et de New-Yorck qu'on doit tous les progrès de cette +révolution en Amerique, et la naissance de la société de Londres.</p> + +<p>Que ne puis-je ici vous peindre l'impression dont j'ai été frappé en +assistant aux séances de ces trois sociétés!--Quelle gravité dans la +contenance des membres! quelle simplicité dans leurs discours! quelle +candeur dans leurs discussions! quelle bienfaisance! quelle énergie dans +leur résolution! Chacun s'empressoit d'y prendre part, non pour briller, +mais pour être utile.--Avec quelle joie ils apprirent qu'il s'élevoit une +société semblable à la leur dans Paris, dans cette capitale immense, si +célèbre en Amerique par l'opulence, le faste, l'influence sur un vaste +royaume, et sur presque tous les états de l'Europe! Avec quel empressement +ils publièrent cette nouvelle dans toutes leurs gazettes, et répandirent +partout la traduction du premier discours lu dans cette société! Avec +quelle joie ils virent dans la liste des membres de cette société, un nom +cher à leurs coeurs, et qu'ils ne prononcent qu'aves attendrissement, et +les noms d'autres personness connues par leur énergie et leur patriotisme! +Ils ne doutoient point que si cette société s'étendoit, bravoit les +obstacles, s'unissoit avec celle de Londres, les lumières repandues par +elles sur le trafic des nègres et sur son infamie inutile, n'éclairassent +les gouvernmens, et n'en determinassent la suppression.</p> + +<p><a id="pg426"></a>Ce fut, sans doute, à cet élan de joie et d'espoir, et aux recommendations +flatteuses que j'avois emportées d'Europe, plus qu'à mes foibles travaux, +que je dus l'honneur qu'ils me firent de m'associer à leur rang.</p> + +<p>Ces sociétés ne se bornèrent pas à ces démonstrations; elles nommèrent dés +comités pour m'assister dans mes travaux; leurs archives me furent +ouvertes.</p> + +<p>Ces sociétés bienfaisantes s'occupent maintenant de nouveaux prospects pour +consommer leur oeuvre de justice et d'humanité; elles s'occupent à creer de +nouvelles sociétés dans les états qui n'en out point; c'est ainsi qu'il +vient de s'en élever une dans l'état de Delaware.--Elles forment de +nouveaux projets pour décourager l'esclavage et le commerce des +esclaves.--Cest ainsi que, pour arrêter les ventes scandaleuses qui s'en +font encore dans New Yorck,<sup><a href="#fn4-6-9-7" id="fna4-6-9-7">7</a></sup> à des enchères publiques, tous les membres +se sont engagés à ne jamais employer l'officier public, l'huissier-priseur +qui présideroit à de pareilles ventes. Mais c'est sur-tout à sauver des +mains de la cupidité des esclaves, qu'elle voudroit et ne doit pas retenir, +que la société de Philadelphie est ingénieuse.--Un esclave est-il +maltraité, il trouve dans elle une protection assurée et gratuite.--Un +autre a fini son temps, et est toujours détenu; elle reclame ses +droits.--Des étrangers amènent des noirs, et ne satisfont pas à la loi; la +société en procure le benefice à ces malheureux nègres.--Un des plus +célèbres avocats de Philadelphie, dont j'aime à vanter les talents et +l'amitié qui nous unit, M. <em>Myers Fisher</em>, lui prête son ministère, presque +toujours avec succès, et tojours avec désintéressement. Cette société s'est +apperçue que de nombreuses assemblées, n'avoient pas d'action, parce que le +mouvement se perdoit en se divisant en trop de membres; elle a créé +plusiers comités, toujours en activite; elle sollicite des créations +semblables dans tous les états; afin que par-tout les loix sur l'abolition +de la traite et sur l'affranchissement soient executées; afin que par-tout +on presente des pétitions aux legislatures, pour obtenir de nouvelles loix +pour les cas non prévus. --Enfin, c'est a cette société, sand doute, que +l'on devra un jour de semblables établissemens dans le midi. J. P. Brissot, +(Warville). --"<em>Nouveau Vouage dans les États-Unis de l'Amerique +Septentrionale, 1788</em>," Tome Second, 31-49.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-6-9"> +<h4>Footnotes</h4> + + +<p id="fn4-6-9-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-1">return</a>]</span>1. Les noirs maries font certainement autant d'enfans que les blancs; mais +on a remarqué que dans les villes, il perissoit plus d'enfans noirs. Cette +difference tient moins a leur nature qu'au défaut d'aisance et de soins, +sur-tout des médecins et des chirurgiens.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-2">return</a>]</span>2. N'y eut-il que l'aversion des blancs pour le mariage de leurs filles +avec les noirs, ce seul sentiment suffiroit pour avilir ces deniers. +Cependant il y a quelques exemples de ces mariages.</p> + +<p>Il existe a Pittsbourg sur l'Ohio une blanche d'origine françoise, menée a +Londres, et enlevée, à l'âge de douze ans, par des corsaires qui faisoient +métier d'enlever des enfans, et de les vendre en Amerique pour un temps +fixé de leur travail.--Des circonstances singulieres l'engagèrent à épouser +un nègre qui lui acheta sa liberté, et qui la tira des mains d'un blanc, +maître barbare et libi-dineux, qui avoit tout employé pour la desuire.--Une +mulâtresse, sortie de cette union, a épousé un chirurgien de Nantes, établi +à Pittsburg.--Cette famille est une des plus respectables de cette ville; +le nègre fait un très bon commerce, et la maîtresse se fait un devoir +d'accueillir et de bien traiter les étrangers, et sur tout les François que +le hasard amène de ce côté.</p> + +<p>Mais on n'a point d'idée d'une pareille union dans le nord; elle +revolteroit.--Dans les etablissemens, le long de l'Ohio il y a bien des +négresses qui vivent avec des blancs non mariés.--Cependant on m'assura que +cette union est regardée de mauvais oeil par les nègres mêmes. Si une +négresse a une-querelle avec une mulâtresse, elle lui reproche d'être d'un +sang mêlé.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-3">return</a>]</span>3. Le docteur Rush, qui a été portée de traiter ces noirs, m'a communiqué +une observation bien importante, et qui prouve combien l'énergie morale et +intellectuelle d'un individu influe sur sa santé et son état physique. Il +m'a dit qu'il étoit bien plus difficile de traiter et de guérir ces noirs +esclaves que les blancs; qu'ils résistoient bien moins aux maladies +violentes ou longues. C'est qu'ils tiennent pen par l'âme à la vie: la +vitalité ou le ressort de la vie est presque nul dans eux.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-4"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-4">return</a>]</span>4. J'ai deja plusieurs fois refuté cette opinion et sur-tout dans mon +Examen critique des voyages de M. Chatellux. Elle a d'alleurs été détruite +dans une foule d'excellens ouvrages.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-5"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-5">return</a>]</span>5. Ce médecin est aussi célèbre en Amerique, par de bons écrits +politiques. C'est un apôtre infatigable de la liberté.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-6"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-6">return</a>]</span>6. Il n'étoit pas alors président des Etats-Unis. J'anticipe ici sur +plusieurs conversations que j'ai eues avec ce grand homme, et dont je +parlerai par la suite.</p> + +<p id="fn4-6-9-7"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-6-9-7">return</a>]</span>7. A l'assemblée de la société de New-Yorck, du 9 novembre 1787, il a été arrêté qu'on +donneroit une medaille d'or pour le meilleur discours qui seroit prononcé a +l'ouverture du college de New-Yorck sur l'injustice et la cruaute de la +traite des nègres, et sur les funestes effets de l'esclavage.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-10"> +<h3><a id="pg427"></a>Slavery as Seen by Henry Wansey</h3> + + +<p>"In this state (He was then at Worcester) the Negroes are free and happy, +are electors, but not elected to offices of state; their education, +however, is the same as the whites. ... No negro child is suffered to be +endentured beyond twenty-four years of age.</p> + +<p>"We observe a school by the road-side in almost every parish, and out of it +run negro boys and girls as well as white children, without any +distinction. ... A road branched off here to our right hand, leading to +Albany about 60 miles distant. I now observe six or eight negroes working +together in a field, well dressed as other people. Notwithstanding, they +are here free, and admitted to equal privileges with the white people, yet +they love to associate with each other. It is observed that they are +naturally lazier, and will not work so hard as a white servant.--Perhaps, +the remembrance of former compulsive service, may make them place a luxury +in idleness. Nor do they yet seem to feel their importance in society; this +is a portion of inheritance reserved to the next generation of them. ... </p> +<blockquote> +<p> "Came on to Hartford.... </p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here I staid two days that I might have time to inspect the woolen +manufactory of this place, and attend the debates of the House of +Representatives of this state.... Two very interesting subjects were in +debate:--a bill brought in to repeal a law, passed in October last to +order 'That the money arising from the sale of their lands, between the +Ohio and Lake Erie, should be appropriated to increase the salaries of the +ministers of the gospel and the masters of schools;' and another bill (for +its second reading) 'To provide for those poor and sick negroes, who +having been freed from slavery might be unprovided for; and that till the +master was exculpated, by receiving a certificate from the state, that +negro was discharged in perfect health, it should be incumbent on the +master to continue to take care of him during sickness, or, at least, pay +the expenses of his cure.' I was much pleased to see a legislature extend +its humanity and care so far.</p> + +<p>After our breakfast, which was not a very good one, we set off for +Elizabeth Town, near which, on the right, is Governor Livingstone's +handsome house. This is six miles from Newark....</p> + +<p>I observed several negro houses, (low buildings of one story) detached from +the family house; for the slaves (from their pilfering disposition) are not +allowed to sleep in the same houses with their <a id="pg428"></a>masters. Slavery, although +many regulations have been made to moderate its severity, is not yet +abolished in the New Jerseys....</p> + +<p>"Most of the families of New York have black servants. I should suppose +that nearly one fifth of the inhabitants are negroes, most of whom are +free, and many in good circumstances."--Henry Wansey, F.A.S., "<em>The Journal +of an excursion to the United States of America in the summer of 1794 +(Journey from New York to Boston)</em>," pp. 53, 57, 58, 67, and 227.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-11"> +<h3>Esclavage Par La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt</h3> + + +<p>Quant à l'esclavage, l'État de New-Yorck est un de ceux où les idées m'ont +paru le moins liberales. Il est donc naturel que les loix qui dans tous les +pays suivent plus ou moins l'opinion générale, manquent aussi de libéralité +à cet égard.</p> + +<p>On peut concevoir comment dans les États du Sud le grand nombre des +esclaves rend leur émancipation difficile, et comment cette difficulté +d'émancipation donne pretexte à l'opinion de la necessité de loix +extrêmement sévères contre eux. Mais dans l'État de New-Yorck, où sur une +population de plus de quatre cent mille âmes on ne compte pas vingt mille +nègres; il est impossible de comprendre quels si grands obstacles +l'emancipation peut rencontrer, et sur quoi l'on peut fonder l'opinion +qui'il faut pour ce petit nombre de nègres des loix plus sévères que pour +les hommes d'une autre couleur.</p> + +<p>Quoiqu'il en soit, une loi qui n'est pas plus ancienne que 1788, confirme +l'état d'esclavage pour tout nègre, mulâtre our mêtif esclave à l'époque où +elle a été rendue; déclare esclave tout enfant né ou à naître d'une femme +esclave; autorise la vente des esclaves et les soumet pour les petits +crimes, à un jugement, que l'on peut appeler prévotal, des juges de paix, +qui peuvent les condamner à l'emprisonnement ou aux coups de fouet. Un +article de cette loi les assuejétit à ce genre de jugement et à cette +espèce de sentence pour avoir frappé un blanc, sans faire exception du cas +où le blanc serait l'aggresseur. La faveur du jury est cependant accordée à +l'esclave, si le crime dont il est accusé peut emporter peine de mort. Il +est aussi admis en témoignage dans les affaires criminelles où d'autres +nègres sont impliqués.</p> + +<p>La nouvelle jurisprudence criminelle, fondée sur les principes d'humanité +et de justice, ne détruit aucune des dispositions réellement injustes et +barbares, contenues dans cette loi. Cependant, les esclaves sont +généralement traités avec plus de douceur par leurs <a id="pg429"></a>maîtres dans l'État de +New Yorck, et moins surchargés de travail que dans les États du Midi. Les +moeurs prévalent à cet égard sur la rigidité des loix; mais les moeurs y +sont aussi, comme dans beaucoup d'autres États de l'Amerique, imprégnées +d'avidité et d'avarice. Cette disposition seule y empêche l'abolition de +l'esclavage. Elle est fréquemment proposée dans la législature, et +jusqu'ici tout moyen, même préparatoire, y a été rejetté. Quoique la +proportion des hommes libres aux esclaves soit telle que le plus grand +nombre des habitans de l'État de New-Yorck ne possède pas d'esclaves, le +petit nombre de ceux qui en possèdent sont les plus riches, les plus grands +propriétaires; et, dans l'État de New-Yorck comme ailleurs, ils ont la +principale influence.</p> + +<p>Le respect dû à <em>la propriété</em>, est l'arme avec laquelle on combat toute +proposition que tient à l'affranchissement. J'ai entendu un des hommes de +loi les plus éclairés, et dont à tout autre égard les opinions sont +libérales, soutenir que "ce serait attenter à <em>la propriété</em> que de +déclarer libres même les enfans à naître des femmes esclaves, parce que, +disait-il, les maîtres qui out acheté ou hérité des esclaves, les possèdent +dans la confiance que leur <em>issue</em> sera leur propriété utile et +disponible."</p> + +<p>Ainsi, quand on dit en Virginie "qu'on ne peut y changer le sort de +l'esclavage qu'en exportant a-la-fois tous les nègres de l'État"; on dit à +New-Yorck "qu'on ne peut y penser à abolir l'esclage, ni rien faire de +préparatoire à cette intention, sans payer à chaque possesseur d'esclaves +le prix actuel de la valeur de ses nègres jeunes et vieux, et le prix +estimé de leur descendance supposée." C'est sans doute opposer à +l'abolition de l'esclavage tous les obstacles imaginables, c'est se montrer +bien ennemi de cette abolition.</p> + +<p>Cependant l'obstacle présenté par les citoyens de New-Yorck, est moins +difficile à vaincre. En admenttant le principe de la nécessité d'un +dédommagement donné aux maîtres pour les nègres à affranchir, et en +évaluant chaque nègre à cent trente dollars, la somme totale ne serait que +de trois millions de dollars.</p> + +<p>Ce prix serait encore susceptible de reduction, par le puissant motif +d'intérêt et d'honneur public auquel chaque membre de la société doit faire +des sacrifices.</p> + +<p>La question de la propriété des enfans à naître ne tiendrait pas à un +quart-d'heure de discussion, si elle était agitée devant la legislature; +enfin cet affranchissement qui ne devrait être fait que par degrés, +coûterait à l'État des sacrifices moins grands encore, et <a id="pg430"></a>dont la +succession les rendrait presqu'imperceptibles aux finances de l'État, qui +ne pourraient d'ailleurs avoir un plus saint emploi.</p> + +<p>A New-Yorck comme ailleurs, l'affranchissement des nègres doit avoir pour +but le bonheur de l'État, son bon ordre, le bonheur même des nègres qu'on +veut affranchir. Un affranchissement trop prompt, trop subitement général, +manquerait ces differens buts de premiere nécessité. Je ne répéterai pas +ici ce que j'ai dit ailleurs à cet égard, et ce que tant d'autres ont dit +avant moi. La dépense pour l'État serait donc réduite à de bien petites +sommes, en les comparant avec l'utilité et le devoir de cette opération. +Mais tant que l'État de New-Yorck, entouré des exemples du Connecticut, du +Massachusetts et de Pensylvanie, ne fait rien qui conduise à cette +libération, tant qu'il semble approuver par le silence ou les refus de sa +legislature, la permanence de l'esclavage, il laisse sa constitution et ses +loix flétries d'une tâche que l'on peut, sans exageration, dire +deshonorante, puisqu'elle ne peut être excusée, ni palliée, par aucune des +circonstances où se trouve cet État.</p> + +<p>L'importation dans l'État de New-Yorck d'esclaves étrangers est prohibée +par la même loi qui confirme l'esclavage de ceux qui y existaient à +l'époque où elle a été rendue; ainsi cette disposition de la loi, et la +manière douce dont sont traités les esclaves en général, confirment dans +l'opinion que l'intérêt pécuniaire, plus qu'une véritable approbation de +l'esclavage empêche la legislature de New-Yorck, de procéder à cet égard +avec la justice et les lumières qui dirigent généralement ses +délibérations.--"<em>Voyage dans Les États-Unis D'Amerique." Fait en 1795, +1796 et 1797</em>. Par La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. Tome Septième, 114-119.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-12"> +<h3>Observations Sur l'Esclavage Par La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt</h3> + + +<p>Il est natural de supposer qu'un nègre esclave, fatigué de travail depuis +le commencement de l'année jusqu'à la fin, obligé, sous peine du fouet, +d'aller aux champs, qu'il soit où non en état de santé, ne voye dans la +liberté que la faculté de ne plus travailler. Tant qu'il était esclave, il +était plus ou moins mal nourri, mais il l'était sans aucun soin de sa part, +et sans qu'un travail plus assidu, plus actif, lui valut une meilleure +nourriture ou un meilleur nourriture ou un meilleur vêtement. Le travail +n'était donc pour lui qu'une peine, sans être jamais un moyen de bien être, +il est donc, il doit donc être paresseux et imprévoyant. Il jouit des +premiers momens de sa liberté, en ne travaillant point, car le fouet ne +claque plus à ses oreilles; les besoins se font sentir; aucune éducation ne +lui a <a id="pg431"></a>été donnée que celle de l'esclavage, qui enseigne à tromper, à +voler, comme à mentir; il cherche à satisfaire ses besoins, auxquels son +travail n'a pas pourvu, en dérobant quelques bleds, quelques provisions à +ses voisins; il devient recéleur des nègres esclaves.</p> + +<p>Tout cela peut et doit être, mais ne doit dégouter de l'affranchissement +progressif des nègres que ceux ne veulent pas penser qu'avec des soins +préparatoires, et sur-tout des soins généreux qui auraient pour objet une +émancipation générale successive, appropriée au nombre des nègres dans le +pays, et à plusieurs autres circonstances, la plus grande quantité de ces +inconvéniens serait evitée, et le serait totalement pour la génération +future si elle ne pouvait l'être pour la présente. Mais comment espérer une +philanthropie si prévoyante de ceux qui ne voyent que leur intérêt du +moment, et qui le croyent blessé.</p> + +<p>Dans L'État de Maryland les esclaves sont jugés par les mêmes tribunaux que +les blancs, et comme eux par l'arbitrage des juris. Les punitions pour les +noirs sont plus sévères; mais les moeurs sont douces au moins dans la +partie du Maryland où je suis a présent, et elles prévalent sur la rigueur +des loix. J'ai été témoin d'un fait qui prouve que l'humanité des juges et +le désir de rendre une exacte justice les occupent pour les accusés +esclaves, comme pour les blancs. Une négresse est en prison, accusée +d'avoir voulu empoisonner sa maîtresse et d'avoir empoisonné un enfant. Sa +maîtresse est son accusatrice. C'est une femme d'une bonne reputation dans +le pays, appartenant à une famille très-etendue dans le comté, et y ayant +d'ailleurs beaucoup d'influence; les juges craignant l'effet de cette +influence sur les juris, ont profité de la faculté qu'ils out de renvoyer +le jugement à la cour générale du district qui se tient à soixante milles +de Chester, pour donner à l'accusée toute la chance possible d'un jugement +sain et impartial.</p> + +<p>Il n'y a encore aucune mesure prise en Maryland pour l'affranchissement +progressif des esclaves. Quelques hommes bien intentionnées espèrent amener +la legislature dans peu de temps à une démarche à cet égard, mais l'opinion +du pays n'y semble pas dispossée. --"<em>Voyage dans Les États-Unis +D'Amerique." Par La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. Tome Sixième, 69-71</em>.</p> + +<p>Les nègres libres se trouvent assez facilement pour le travail des champs. +Us coûtent quatre-vingt dollars par an. Les nègres esclaves se louent à +cinquante. Quelques planteurs préfèrent des ouvriers blancs et des nègres +libres aux esclaves; ils ont moins d'embarras et plus de profit. Les vaches +se vendent ici de quinze à vingt dollars, les boeufs quarante, les chevaux +pour le labour cent; ceux <a id="pg432"></a>pour la voiture coutent souvent six cents +dollars la paire. Le comté de Kent, dont Chester est le cheflieu, contient +treize mille habitans, dont cinq mille six cents sont nègres esclaves; il +fournit peu de betail aux marchés de Baltimore et de Philadelphie. Presque +tout ce qu'il produit dans ce genre est consommé dans son +enciente.--"<em>Voyage dans Les États-Unis D'Amerique</em>." Par La +Rouchefoucauld-Liancourt. Tome Sixieme, 79-80.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-13"> +<h3>What Isaac Weld Observed in Slave States</h3> + + +<p>"The principal planters in Virginia have nearly every thing they can want +on their estates. Amongst the slaves are found tailors, shoe-makers, +carpenters, smiths, turners, wheelwrights, weavers, tanners, etc. I have +seen patterns of excellent coarse woolen cloth made in the country by +slaves, and a variety of cotton manufacturers, amongst the rest good +nankeen. Cotton grows here extremely well; the plants are often killed by +frost in winter, but they always produce abundantly the first year in which +they are sown. The cotton from which nankeen is made is of a particular +kind naturally of a yellowish color.</p> + +<p>"The large estates are managed by stewards and overseers, the proprietors +just amusing themselves with seeing what is going forward. The work is done +wholly by slaves, whose numbers are in this part of the country more than +double that of white persons. The slaves on the large plantations are in +general very well provided for, and treated with mildness. During three +months nearly, that I was in Virginia, but two or three instances of ill +treatment towards them came under my observation. Their quarters, the name +whereby their habitations are called, are usually situated one or two +hundred yards from the dwelling house, which gives appearance of a village +to the residence of every plantation in Virginia; when the estate, however, +is so large as to be divided into several farms, then separate quarters are +attached to the house of the overseer on each farm. Adjoining their little +habitations, the slaves commonly have small gardens and yards of poultry, +which are all of their property; they have ample time to attend to their +own concerns, and their gardens are generally found well stocked, and their +flocks of poultry numerous. Besides the food they raise for themselves, +they are allowed liberal rations of salted pork and Indian corn. Many of +their little huts are comfortably furnished, and they are themselves, in +general, extremely well clothed. In short their condition is by no means so +wretched as might be imagined. They are forced to work certain hours in the +day; but in <a id="pg433"></a>return they are clothed, dieted, and lodged comfortably, and +saved all anxiety about provision for their offspring. Still, however, let +the condition of the slave be made ever so comfortable, as long as he is +conscious of being the property of another man, who has it in his power to +dispose of him according to the dictates of caprice; as long as he hears +people around him talking about the blessings of liberty, and considers +that he is in a state of bondage, it is not to be supposed that he can feel +equally happy with the freeman. It is immaterial under what form slavery +presents itself, whenever it appears there is ample cause for humanity to +weep at the sight, and to lament that men can be found so forgetful of +their own situations, as to live regardless of the blessings of their +fellow creatures.</p> + +<p>"With respect to the policy of holding slaves in any country, on account of +the depravity of morals which it necessarily occasions, besides the many +other evil consequences attendant upon it, so much has already been said by +others, that it is needless here to make comments on the subject.</p> + +<p>"The number of the slaves increases most rapidly, so that there is scarcely +any state but what is overstocked. This is a circumstance complained of by +every planter as the maintenance of more than are requisite for the culture +of the estate is attended with great expense. Motives ... of humanity deter +them from selling the poor creatures, or turning them adrift from the spot +where they have been born and brought up, in the midst of friends and +relations.</p> + +<p>"What I have here said, respecting the condition and treatment of slaves, +appertains, it must be remembered, to those only who are upon the larger +plantations in Virginia; the lot of such as are unfortunate enough to fall +into the hands of the lower class of white people, and of hard task-masters +in towns, is very different. In the Carolinas and Georgia again, slavery +presents itself in very different colors from what it does even in its +worst form in Virginia. I am told that it is no uncommon thing there, to +see gangs of negroes staked at a horse race, and to see these unfortunate +beings bandied about from one set of drunken gamblers to another for days +together. How much to be deprecated are the laws which suffer such abuses +to exist! Yet these are the laws enacted by the people who boast of their +love of liberty and independence, and who presume to say, that it is in the +breasts of Americans alone that the blessings of freedom are held in just +estimation."--<em>Isaac Weld, Jr., "Travels through the States of North +America and the<a id="pg434"></a> provinces of Upper and Lower Canada," 1795, 1796, and +1797.</em> (London, 1799.)</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-14"> +<h3>John Davis's Thoughts on Slavery</h3> + + +<p>"The negroes on the plantation, including house-servants and children, +amounted to a hundred; of whom the average price being respectively seventy +pounds, made them aggregately worth seven thousand to their possessor.</p> + +<p>"Two families lived in one hut, and such was their unconquerable propensity +to steal, that they pilfered from each other. I have heard masters lament +this defect in their negroes. But what else can be expected from man in so +degraded a condition, that among the ancients the same word implied both a +slave and a thief.</p> + +<p>"Since the introduction of the culture of cotton in the State of South +Carolina, the race of negroes has increased. Both men and women work in the +field, and the labour of the rice plantation formerly prevented the +pregnant negroes from bringing forth a long-lived offspring. It may be +established as a maxim that on a plantation where there are many children, +the work has been moderate. . . .</p> + +<p>"Of genius in negroes many instances may be recorded. It is true that Mr. +Jefferson has pronounced the Poems of Phillis Wheatley, below the dignity +of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ in judgment from the author +of Notes on Virginia. But her conceptions are often lofty, and her +versification often surpasses with unexpected refinement. Ladd, the +Carolina poet, in enumerating the bards of his country, dwells with +encomium on "Wheatley's polished verse"; nor is his praise undeserved, for +often it will be found to glide in the stream of melody. Her lines on +Imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imley of Kentucky, and +Steadman the Guinea Traveler; but I have ever thought her happiest +production the Goliath of Gath.</p> + +<p>"Of Ignatius Sancho, Mr. Jefferson also speaks neglectingly; and remarks, +that he substitutes sentiment for argumentation. But I know not that +argumentation is required in a familiar epistle; and Sancho, I believe, has +only published his correspondence." --John Davis, "<em>Travels of four years +and a half in the United States of America during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, +1802</em>," p. 86.</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-6-15"> +<h3>Observations of Robert Sutcliff</h3> + + +<p>"I had the curiosity to look into some of their little habitations; but all +that I examined were wretched in the extreme and far inferior to many +Indian cottages I have seen.</p> + +<p><a id="pg435"></a>"I slept at C. A.'s and this morning set out for Fredericksburg, being +accompanied by his young man, our road lying through the woods the greater +part of the way. At the place where we dined, we were waited on by two +mulatto girls, whose only clothing appeared to be loose garments of cotton +and woollen cloth, girt round the waist with a small cord. I had observed +that this was the common dress of the working female negroes in the fields; +but when engaged in business in the house it seemed hardly sufficient to +cover them. In the yard, I observed a number of slaves engaged in the +management of a still, employed in making spirits from cider. Here again I +had the curiosity to look into some of the negro huts, which like those I +had seen, presented little else but dirt and rags.</p> + +<p>"We came to Fredericksburg and lodged at Fisher's Tavern. The next morning +I was waked early by the cries of a poor negro, who was undergoing a severe +correction, previously to his going to work. On taking a walk on the banks +of the Rappahannock, the river on which the town is seated, I stepped into +one of the large tobacco warehouses which are built here, for the reception +and inspection of that plant before it is permitted to be exported. On +entering into conversation with an inspector, as he was employed in looking +over a parcel of tobacco, he lamented the licentiousness which he remarked +so generally prevailed in this town. He said that in his remembrance, the +principal part of the inhabitants were emigrants from Scotland, and that it +was considered so reproachful to the white inhabitants, if they were found +to have illicit connection with their female slaves, that their neighbors +would shun the company of such, as of persons whom it was a reproach to be +acquainted. The case was now so much altered that, he believed, there were +but few slave holders in the place who were free from guilt in this +respect: and that it was now thought but little of. Such was the brutality +and hardness of heart which this evil produced, that many amongst them paid +no more regard to selling their own children, by their females slaves, or +even their brothers and sisters, in the same line, than they would do to +the disposal of a cow or a horse, or any other property in the brute +creation. To so low a degree of degradation does the system of negro +slavery sink the white inhabitants, who are unhappily engaged in +it."--Robert Sutcliff, <em>Travels in some parts of North America in Years +1804, 1805, 1806</em>, pp. 37-52.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-7"> +<h3><a id="pg436"></a>Some Letters of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones to Dorothy Ripley</h3> + + +<p>Philadelphia, 1st, 5th month, 1803.--Naming my concern to some of my solid +friends to have a meeting with the Africans, I influenced them to send for +Absalom Jones, the Black Bishop, and Richard Allen, the Methodist Episcopal +Preacher, who also was a coloured man, and the principal person of that +congregation. A. Jones complied with my request, and appointed a meeting +for me on first day evening, which was a solid time where many were deeply +affected with the softening power of the Lord, who unloosed my tongue to +proclaim of his love and goodness to the children of men, without respect +to person or nation. There was a respectable number of coloured people, +well dressed and very orderly, who conducted themselves as if they were +desirous of knowing the mind of the Lord concerning them. The first and +greatest commandment of Jesus Christ, the Law-giver, came before me: "Thou +shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and +with all thy mind," which I endeavoured to enforce as their duty to their +Creator who alone could make them happy by his blessing through their +obedience to his lawful command. My own experience of thus loving him, I +thought would illustrate it, therefore, added it to shew the possibility of +pleasing him, and obtaining his divine favor, which was our interest and +duty, as soon as we were able to distinguish right from wrong. To see them +have this good house for worship, I told them rejoiced me much, and +encouraged such as were servants present to be faithful in their situation, +and seek the blessing of God, that at the last they might be happy in the +enjoyment of his love forever. Supplicating the Throne of mercy in their +behalf, my spirit was deeply humbled, and I felt power to plead with the +Father on the account of the Africans every where, who were captivated by +the oppressive power of men. When we had separated, my mind was much +relieved from the weight which pressed my spirit while I had contemplated +the matter, desiring to move by special direction of God.</p> + +<p>A Letter which I received from Bethel Church.</p> +<blockquote> +<p><a id="pg437"></a> "<em>Madam</em>,</p> + +<p> "I have proposed to the Board of Trustees of Bethel Church your request + respecting your speaking in our Church; they have candidly considered + the same, and after due investigation, the board unanimously concludes, + that as it is diametrically opposite to the letter and spirit of the + rules of society in particular, and the discipline in general of the + Methodist Episcopalian Church, They therefore are sorry to inform you, + that it is not in their power to comply with your request.</p> + +<p> "I am, madam,<br /> "With much respect,<br /> "Yours, &c.<br /> "<span class="sc">Richd. Allen.</span>"</p> + +<p> "May 11, 1803."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>After R. Allen had sent me this letter by way of denial, the Lord commanded +me to "Stand still for I should most assuredly have his place to testify +his goodness there." Putting the letter into my pocket, I silently waited +for the answer of promise; and while I was thus watching the fulfilment of +God's word, there came into my friend's house J. & P. P. two men who +enquired if I could not be satisfied without an appointment with R. Allen's +people, I said No: for that I believed it was required of me by God. They +enquired if I had not received a letter as a denial, which I marvelled at, +having shewn it to no person living. I answered their question by handing +the letter to them which when they had read it they returned, and signified +they would go themselves to see after an opportunity, and obtained +permission after the minister had finished his sermon, he being desired to +be concise to accomodate a stranger who was then concerned for them. I went +to the meeting, or their church, and heard a short methodist sermon, which +I thought very instructive, and added thereunto, respecting the conversion +of "A man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of +the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to +Jerusalem for to worship." This pleased them so much when it was opened, +that they were willing that I should have another meeting on the second day +evening at seven, which I attended, and was brought into great difficulty +through an intoxicated soldier pressing by the crowd which stood without. A +number of friends being there, were unsettled, fearing lest the house would +come down upon us, and for my part, I was actually <a id="pg438"></a>afraid of satan's +malice, lest we should perish in this storm which he raised in a moment. +The disquietude of the people made me tremble and shake every limb, not +knowing what course to betake myself to for the preservation of us each. I +therefore gave up speaking: but this only encouraged the accuser of the +brethren, who had come there in the hearts of many, as well as in the poor +drunkard, who was taken away and confined. Pouring out my soul to God, I +vowed to serve him yet more faithfully, if he would quell the rage of the +adversary, and cause us to depart in peace; and I was instantly directed to +prostrate myself before him, in faith believing that no harm should befall +any of us at that time, which doing commanded the care of Almighty God over +us, and the blessing of the Most High to rest upon us, continuing wrestling +for some time, knowing this was a powerful weapon against satan, for thus +interrupting us in our solemn engagement with God. When I had prayed by the +aid of his Holy Spirit, which calmed the minds of the people, I thought I +would leave the subject until I came back again,<sup><a href="#fn4-7-1" id="fna4-7-1">1</a></sup> and so come suddenly +upon the monster, if it was the will of God: but he pretended that he would +do terrible things if I came thither again, so I suppose King Apollyon and +I shall have a strong battle to combat, before I enter the house of God: +for I mean to war with him on his own ground, and gain the victory before I +enter there again. Concluding the meeting sooner than was expected, R. +Allen stopped the congregation and told them, "It was no new thing which +had happened to us then: for in the days of old, when the sons and +daughters of God met together, satan presented himself also, to interrupt +their peace." I was much pleased to hear what was advanced, as it shewed +the preacher (although a coloured man) to have a knowledge of divine +things, and able to attack the enemy of our souls in a suitable degree.</p> + +<p>Feeling desirous to follow the Shepherd of my soul, and seeing no further +work at this time for me, I leave this city in peace, requesting the Lord +to bless the seed sown in great weakness, and to water it with the +descending showers of his spiritual rain, that the glory may arise to him +alone who is worthy to be praised by every creature, but especially by a +worm whom he has preserved thus far from the destructive power of sin, and +satan. I trust the Lord will repay each here who have contributed to +comfort my soul in the day of distress and heavy travail, and I beseech him +of his<a id="pg439"></a> infinite mercy to forgive such as have blindly persecuted me, by +saying unjust things of me, which they have reported merely to gratify the +curiosity of others, without considering the waste of their precious +moments, or that they will be accountable at the last for "Every idle word" +that they may speak while on earth, if not repented of, by a gracious +visitation of God's humbling power, which they will find painful, when his +judgment, takes place in them to weigh all their words, thoughts, and +actions.--Philadelphia, 5th month, 1803.</p> + +<p>I have been five weeks and four days in New York, and the neighbouring +plains, and have met with sympathizing friends to relieve my mind when full +of anxious care concerning the vineyard of the Lord.--Several have told me +that I was one of those strangers who should feed the flock of Israel by +the appointment of God, which revives me when I consider how significant a +creature I am in my own eyes.</p> + +<p>The yearly meeting was large, and attended by some precious ministers, +whose testimonies will cause them to be written on my heart as living +epistles. How do I feel myself united with spiritual worshippers, who +desire to ascribe all glory to the Father, through the Son's reigning power +in them, by the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost which leads them +into the depth of self-abasement, and gathers all their powers to centre +them in the God of all grace and glory. I rejoice that ever I met with this +people, whom I often lament for, because so many live not in the pure +principle of Truth, which if they as a body did, the whole earth would soon +be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. O that my advantages which I have +had up and down among this people, may lead me to honor their God, whom the +pure in heart are concerned to worship continually! I have had three large +meetings with the Africans in this city, and have great reason to be +thankful that the Lord aided me with his Spirit, helping my infirmities in +the hour of necessity, when I stood in need of his assistance, standing up +to exalt the great Redeemer who died for all nations, that the Lord would +bless my little labour of love among this people whom I have secretly +mourned for!</p> + +<p>I cannot avoid commending the citizens of New York and Philadelphia, for +their help to those that have been greatly oppressed, driving slavery out +of their States, that they may have the peace of God, and his blessing upon +the heads of their children, and children's children. I trust also to see +the efforts of individuals<a id="pg440"></a> crowned with a blessing in the Southern States, +where barrenness of the land bespeaks the proverty and wretchedness of +thousands of its inhabitants who might enjoy the smile of Heaven, if they +would learn to fear God and love their neighbor.</p> + +<p>When comparing those States one with the other, what a vast difference +there is between them in the outward appearance of things: but I trust the +minds of the people to the southward, are not like the barren appearance of +many parts I have already travelled, or may yet have to do: for I perceive +the Lord intends me to return back to discharge my duty to him, and the +people up and down.</p> + +<p>I have received the following letters from Philadelphia and think them +worthy to make up a page or two in my life. Letter from Absalom Jones, +Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in Philadelphia, addressed to Dorothy +Ripley, at New York, dated Philadelphia, June 3, 1803.</p> + +<p><em>Dear Friend</em>,</p> + +<p>It is with pleasure that I now sit down to inform you, that your kind and +very affectionate letter came safe to hand; and am happy to hear that kind +Providence has conducted you so far on your journey in health of body as +well as of mind; and I trust that the Lord will continue to be your Guide, +and that your labours may prove as great a blessing to the inhabitants of +New-York, as they have been to numbers in this city.</p> + +<p>Your letter I read with care and attention, as well as many others of my +congregation, and I heartily thank you for your friendly advice and godly +admonitions; believing them to have been given in that love which purifies +the heart. I am very sensible that the charge committed to my care is very +great; and am also fully convinced of my own inability for so great an +undertaking. And I do assure you, that when I was called to the task, I +trembled at the idea, and was ready to say, "Who am I." But when I consider +that God can send by whom he will, and as you very justly have observed, he +sometimes makes use of the feeblest instruments for the promotion of Truth; +I say under these considerations, I was led to believe that the Lord would +perfect strength in my weakness; and glory be to his ever-adorable Name for +it. I have cause to believe, my labour has not been altogether in vain.</p> + +<p>You wish to know the number I consider to be under my care. Our list of +members contains about five hundred, although we have <a id="pg441"></a>a great many more +who constantly attend worship in our church, of whom I have a comfortable +hope that they will be brought unto the knowledge of the Truth.</p> + +<p>My wife joins me in love. I remain, with sentiments of high esteem and +respect,</p> + +<p>Your esteemed Friend,</p> + +<p>Absalom Jones</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-7-1"> +<h4>Letter from an African Minister, resident in Philadelphia Addressed to +Dorothy Ripley</h4> + + +<p>Philadelphia, 24th, of 6th mo. 1803.</p> + +<p><em>Friend Ripley</em>,</p> + +<p>I Received thy epistle, dated New-York, 26th of 5th month, with much joy, +thanks and satisfaction; and am thankful for thy kind spiritual advice, and +grateful for thy concern for me and my people.</p> + +<p>With the assistance of the good Spirit, I will attend to thy serious +admonitions in the Lord, and listen to the small still voice of Christ +within, as thou dost observe in thy epistle, for it is He that must enable +me to observe his holy law written on the heart by his Spirit.</p> + +<p>I wish to take thy sisterly counsel; but O! my abounding weakness. I wish +to be more sensible of it, so that I alone may feel it. I would hide it +from my friends, but they are too eagle-eyed not to discover it; yet they +have the charity to bear with me.--I often bow at the foot-stool of divine +mercy, that I may obtain strength to overcome corrupt nature.--None knows +but myself my strivings to walk in the narrow way, in which the poor worm +has no desire to rob God of his honor. I see the beauty of nakedness to be +far superior than to be clothed with rags of self-righteousness.</p> + +<p>Thou enquirest how many communicants there are in our church. The precise +number of my communicants is 457. All our members are communicants. There +is a communion of saints which exceeds all formality, and which even the +Apostles were ignorant of, when they gave an account to their Master, on +their return from their mission, and told him, "We saw men casting out +devils in thy name, and we forbade them, because they followed not us." Yet +I still continue of the same mind, that it would be best for thee to be a +member of some religious society.--The teachings of Pris<a id="pg442"></a>cilla and Aquila +have been found profitable to the eloquent and wise.</p> + +<p>The members of the African Methodist Episcopal church (called Bethel) live +in love and harmony with each other.</p> + +<p>My fellow laborer, Absalom Jones, joins me in a salutation of love to thee, +with desires for thy growth and increase in the favor of God: He says he +would have written to thee, had he known of thy continuance at New York.</p> + +<p>Praying God to bless and make thee instrumental in promoting his glory and +the good of souls, I remain, thine, &c.</p> + +<p>Richard Allen</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-7-2"> +<h4>Letter from an African, resident in Philadelphia, to Dorothy Ripley</h4> + + +<p>May 17, 1803.</p> +<p><em>Respected Friend</em>,</p> + +<p>I am perhaps presumptuous in troubling you to read this. But cannot let +slip an opportunity of addressing you with what I wish you to know even +when you have arrived at your native country, and may contemplate on a +subject which I hope will not displease you, and I will thank Heaven I have +it in my power to let one amongst the people called Quakers<sup><a href="#fn4-7-2" id="fna4-7-2">2</a></sup> see, written +by the hand of an African, the sentiments of his soul. I mean only to +trouble you with the obligations that race of people, myself amongst that +great multitude, are to you indebted; and may the unremitting pains which +have been taken not fall to the ground. We have been oppressed with cruelty +and the heavy task-masters in the West Indies and the southern States of +America for many centuries back, with not only the horrible weight of +bondage, but have been subject to heavy iron chains, too heavy to bear, had +not the Creator of all things framed our constitutions to bear them, and +all the deep cuts and lashes the inhuman-hearted drivers please to mangle +us with. Had not the all-directing hand of Providence made us come under +the notice of the Friends, who formed an abolition society for our relief, +many thousands of us would be dragging out our lives in wretchedness, like +those of our brethren who have never yet tasted the sweet cup of liberty. +Yet while the nations of Europe are contending to catch the draught, the +African is forbidden to lift up his head towards it. Every man has a right +to his liberty, and we<a id="pg443"></a> must by the ties of nature come under the title of +men: but are dragged from our native land, in our old age or in our +infancy, and sold as the brute, to the planters; the infant dragged from +its parents, and the husband from wife and children, and hurried into the +cane field, to give independence to their owners, and annex abundance to +their riches. And how is this, that God created us amongst the rest of +human beings, and yet man would level us with the brute? We were not all +born Christians, but many have become so; and I pray Heaven many thousands +of us may be received at the bar of God amongst the righteous at his right +hand, and with you glorify him in Heaven for ever. I pray that the Africans +may enjoy his holy privileges, and let their light shine before men.</p> + +<p>The cross<sup><a href="#fn4-7-3" id="fna4-7-3">3</a></sup> you met with in your sermon at Bethel African church grieved +me much, but it originated with white men. Had it been one of my +complexion, it would prey on my feelings to the very heart. But I hope you +will forget it. If I was a converted soul in the Lord, I could address you +on a more spiritual subject. But alas! I am an unfortunate being not born a +second time. Yet weak as I am, the prayers of an unconverted African shall +be offered to Heaven for your happiness on earth, and in the world to come +life everlasting. And may the vessel in which you may embark for England be +attended with a fair and pleasant passage, and land you safe on its shores. +And when you shall lay your head on a dying pillow, to leave this +troublesome world, may you be surrounded with a blessed convoy of angels to +attend you to the Throne of God.</p> + +<p>I am, Yours, +Of The African Race</p> + +<p class="cite">--"<em>The Extraordinary Conversion and Religious Experience of Dorothy Ripley +with her First Voyage in America</em>," 132-144.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="footnotes" id="fn4-7"> +<h4>Footnotes</h4> + +<p id="fn4-7-1"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-7-1">return</a>]</span>1. From England.</p> + +<p id="fn4-7-2"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-7-2">return</a>]</span>2. He expected I was a member of that society, which I never yet have +been.</p> + +<p id="fn4-7-3"><span class="fnr">[<a href="#fna4-7-3">return</a>]</span>3. The cross here mentioned has an allusion to an attempt made by an +intoxicated soldier, to disturb our peace, who caused great confusion for a +few moments; but kneeling in the midst of this tempestuous storm, God +instantly caused a calm, so that no one received harm.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr /> +<div class="article" id="a4-8"> +<h2><a id="pg444"></a>Book Reviews</h2> + + +<div class="article" id="a4-8-1"> +<p><em>The Aftermath of the Civil War, in Arkansas</em>. By Powell Clayton, Governor +of Arkansas, 1868 to 1871. Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1915. +Pp. 378.</p> + +<p>Looking at the title of this work the student of history would expect that +same scientific treatment which is observed in so many of the +Reconstruction studies. On the contrary, he finds in this a mere volume of +memoirs of a political leader completed in his eighty-second year. The work +gives an account of the author's own administration as governor of Arkansas +"also of those events that commenced before and extended into it, and those +that occurred during that period and continued beyond it."</p> + +<p>In view of the fact that he, a man of well-known partisan proclivities, may +be charged with criticising his defenceless and dead contemporaries the +author says that he endeavored to substantiate "every controvertible and +important conclusion." To do this he collected "an immense amount of +documentary evidence" from which he selected the most appropriate for that +purpose. The writer made use of certain documents in the Library of +Congress and had frequent recourse to the <em>Arkansas Gazette</em>.</p> + +<p>The book as a whole is essentially political history. It is chiefly +concerned with "the Murphy Government," the "Organization and Operations of +the Klu Klux Klan," "Martial Law," and the peculiar situation in the +counties of Crittenden and Conway. The subjects of immigration, education, +state aid to railroads, and the funding of the state debt are all mentioned +but they suffer because of the preference given to the discussion of +political questions. When one has read the book he is still uninformed as +to what was the actual working of the economic and social forces in +Arkansas during this period.</p> + +<p>This work, however, is valuable for several reasons. In the first place, +whether the reader agrees with the author or not he gathers from page to +page facts which throw light on other conditions. Moreover, consisting +mainly of a discussion of extracts from various records it is a good source +book for students who have not access to the documents the author has used. +Further it is important to get the viewpoint of the distinguished author +who lived through <a id="pg445"></a>what he writes of and is now sufficiently far removed +from the struggle to study it somewhat sympathetically. </p> + +<p class="author">C. R. Wilson</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-8-2"> +<p><em>Black and White in the Southern States</em>. By Maurice S. Evans, +C.M.G.--Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1915. Pp. 209.</p> + +<p>This book cannot be considered an historical work. Yet when the author +makes a survey of the slavery and reconstruction periods with a view to +estimating what the Negro has been, what has been done for him, and what he +himself has accomplished it claims the attention of historians. From this +historic retrospect the author approaches such questions as the Negroes' +grievances, their political rights and wrongs, blood admixture, race +hostility and grounds for hope and the like.</p> + +<p>The author has had experiences in South Africa and traveled in the United +States with a view to studying the condition of the descendants of the +African race in this country. His effort seems to be to write such a work +as some of those of Sir H. H. Johnson or W. P. Livingstone. He justifies +the writing of this work on the grounds that "the partisan spirit, partial +to one race or other, permeates most of the writings on this subject." +Feeling that the issues involved are too great, he hoped to avoid this +"that no preconceived ideas or partiality should be allowed to cloud +clarity of view, or warp the judgment."</p> + +<p>Yet although the author speaks well of his good intentions it is apparent +that he did not live up to this profession. In the first place, the work is +not scientific, facts are not "observed and noted with scrupulous care," +and conclusions are drawn without warranted data to support them. On the +whole then, one must say that this work fails to unravel some "knots in +this tangled skein of human endeavor and error." When after a survey of the +history of the Negro during the last fifty years an investigator concludes +that the Negro has shown an incapacity for commerce and finance, and that +he must not struggle to equip himself in the same way that the white man +has, one must believe that the writer has not the situation thoroughly in +hand. The great difficulty of the author seems to be that he did not remain +in the country long enough to know it, did not give sufficient time to the +study of conditions, and based his conclusions largely on information +obtained from persons who were either too prejudiced or had neither the +scientific point <a id="pg446"></a>of view nor adequate mental development to describe +social conditions.</p> + +<p>It is not surprising therefore that the author asserts that the record of +the Negro during the last fifty years shows that they are chiefly valuable +as laborers in drudgery, or weak in foresight and thrift, and unfit for +city life. Yet he believes that there is some hope for the blacks, since +they can get work and buy land and thereby become economically independent. +He calls attention to such injustices as miscegenation, lynching, +unfairness of the courts, and discrimination in traveling. </p> + +<p class="author">W. R. Ward</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-8-3"> +<p><em>Samuel Coleridge-Taylor--Musician. His Life and Letters</em>. By W. C. +Berwick Sayers. Cassell and Company, London, 1915. Pp. 328.</p> + +<p>In this work we have the first extensive account of Samuel +Coleridge-Taylor. The author of this volume has succeeded in producing a +sympathetic and interesting narrative of the life of one of the greatest +musicians of his time. Taking up his birth and childhood and then his +college days, ending in the romance which attached him to a young Croydon +girl, the author does not delay in bringing the reader to a consideration +of those fundamentals which made Samuel Coleridge-Taylor famous ...</p> + +<p>Much space is devoted to Coleridge-Taylor's achievement of success with his +"Ballade in A Minor." How Sir Edward Elgar extended the promising composer +a welcoming hand and arranged for him to write for a concert a short +orchestral piece which turned out to be the artist's first great success is +well described. The author emphasizes the barbaric strain and orchestral +coloring, the prominently marked features which made the composer great.</p> + +<p>The next task of the author is to show how the "essential beauty, naive +simplicity, unaffected expression and unforced idealism," of Longfellow's +"Hiawatha" stirred the artist and set him composing an unambitious cantata +which resulted in "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast," and the "Song of Hiawatha." +The expressions of enthusiasm and the euologies which crowned the musician +as one of the greatest artists that Great Britain has produced justly +constitute a large portion of the work.</p> + +<p>His "Visit to America" is an important chapter of the volume. The manner in +which the oppressed of his race received him in their troubled land is +treated in detail, and the names of the per<a id="pg447"></a>sons and organizations that +arose to welcome him are given honorable mention. The author brings out too +that so impressed was Coleridge-Taylor with the frank recognition of pure +music in America that he once "contemplated the desirability of emigrating +to this land."</p> + +<p>The book abounds with letters and extracts from publications, which enable +the reader to learn for himself how the artist's work was appreciated. The +volume is well illustrated. In it appear the early portraits of +Coleridge-Taylor's mother, of himself, and family, and home, and of the +Coleridge-Taylor Society in Washington, D.C. Not only persons who +appreciate music but all who have an intelligent interest in the +achievements of the Negro should read this work. </p> + +<p class="author">J. R. Davis</p> +</div> + +<div class="article" id="a4-8-4"> +<p><em>Race Orthodoxy in the South and other Aspects of the Negro Problem</em>. By +Thomas Pearce Bailey, Ph.D. The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1914.</p> + +<p>The author of this volume has a long intellectual pedigree. Pedigrees are +important in authors who write on the race problem. This is particularly +true when they attempt to tell us what the orthodox opinion of the South is +regarding the Negro. Much that passes for Southern opinion on the Negro is +too violent to be taken at its face value. Other interpretations of the +South have too frequently been the individual views of eminent men of +Southern origin who no longer hold orthodox views.</p> + +<p>The author discusses some of these interpretations and criticises them. +There are four principal types. There is the philosophical view, +represented by Edgar Gardiner Murphy's "<em>The Basis of Ascendancy</em>." Mr. +Murphy "is one of the choicest specimens of noble character that the South +has produced," but he came under Northern influences and his book +represents a struggle between Northern and Southern points of view. "The +first part of his book seems to be, in the main, pro-Southern and defensive +of the South, while the latter part becomes largely Northern and critical +of the South." He does not succeed, in the opinion of the author, in +synthesizing these two divergent views.</p> + +<p>The second type is sociological, represented by "<em>The Southerner</em>," a novel +written in the form of an autobiography or, perhaps, rather an +autobiography written in the form of a novel. The author is supposed to be +Walter Hines Page, at present American <a id="pg448"></a>ambassador to Great Britain. Of +this book Mr. Bailey says: "The author is not a Southerner of the spirit, +whatever he may be of the flesh. There is something of North Carolina and +something of Massachusetts in his attitude, but none of the all-inclusive +Americanism that alone is able to write about the South with sympathy of +the heart yet with balanced discrimination."</p> + +<p>To understand the South one must have lived in South Carolina, and +understand the "apparent violence" of Ben Tilman, or in Mississippi, the +home of Senator Vardaman. The South, the orthodox South, is today as it was +before the war, the "far South"; but the sentiments which dominate it are +not now, as in slavery days, the sentiments of the "master class" but +rather those of the "poor white man."</p> + +<p>The third type of interpretation is represented here by "Uncle Tom's +Cabin." The criticsm of this book is so subtle that it is difficult to +indicate the outlines of it in a single paragraph. The difficulty with Mrs. +Stowe's interpretation of the South and the Negro is that she, just as +certain Southern humanitarians of the present day, is inclined to treat the +Negroes as a class. She does not regard them as a race, a different breed, +whose blood is a contamination. "No one," says the writer, "has come within +shouting distance of the real Negro problem who does not appreciate this +distinction. Indeed, almost everything critical that can be alleged against +'Uncle Tom's Cabin' springs from the failure of its humanitarian author to +sympathize with race consciousness as such."</p> + +<p>Finally there is the scientific interpretation of Southern sentiment, and +the "race instinct" which is back of most Southern opinion in regard to the +Negro. This scientific interpretation is represented by Boas, "The Mind of +Primitive Man." "Ultimately," according to Professor Boas, "this phenomenon +(race instinct) is a repetition of the old instinct and fear of the +connubium of the patricians and the plebeians, of the European nobility and +the common people, or of the castes of India. The emotions and reasoning +are the same in every respect."</p> + +<p>To this scientific exposition of the Southern attitude Mr. Bailey replies: +"Even if it could be scientifically proved that an infusion of Negro blood +would help the white race, the prejudice against a really great branch of +the white race like the Jews is sufficient warning to us not to confine our +discussion of race problems to the question of equality or inequality of +physical and mental endowment."</p> + +<p>What then is race orthodoxy? Where shall we look for a true<a id="pg449"></a> statement of +the attitude of the South on the subject of the Negro since none of these +attempts at interpretation have done justice to it? The racial creed has +been expressed at different times in a number of pithy expressions current +in the Southern states. Here they are in order as the author gives them: +"Blood will tell"; The white race must dominate; The Teutonic peoples stand +for race purity. The Negro is inferior and will remain so. "This is a white +man's country." Let there be no social equality; no political equality. In +matters of civil rights and legal adjustments give the white man as opposed +to the colored man the benefit of the doubt. In educational policy let the +Negro have the crumbs that fall from the white man's table. Let there be +such industrial education of the Negro as will fit him to serve the white +man. Only Southerners understand the Negro question. Let the South settle +the Negro question. The status of peasantry is all the Negro may hope for, +if the races are to live together in peace. Let the lowest white man count +for more than the highest Negro. The above statements indicate the leadings +of Providence.</p> + +<p>This statement of the Southern creed is practically the common opinion of +the South. It is not the only opinion. It is not, perhaps, the "best" +opinion. But is it right opinion? Mr. Bailey thinks it is, in its +underlying meaning at any rate, but not in its "present shape." His book +may be said, on the whole, to be an interpretation and a justification of +this "underlying meaning."</p> + +<p>Race orthodoxy in the South is, take it all in all, the most candid +statement of the race problem; the most searching, suggestive and revealing +interpretation of the attitude of the Southern white man that has ever been +written. The book is, however, merely a statement of the problem and not a +solution. Rather it is intended, as the author suggests again and again, to +provoke and stimulate--not discussion, heaven forbid,--but inquiry, +investigation. In spite of the fact that the author professes his personal +loyalty to the dogma upon which race orthodoxy is founded, still, by +stating it in the clear and candid way in which he has, in pointing out +with unflinching directness the moral cul-de-sac into which it has forced +the Southern people, he has at once enabled and compelled them to put their +faith on rational grounds. His is the higher criticism in race creeds, and +it is hard to tell where criticism once started will lead. </p> + +<p class="author">Robert E. Park</p> +</div> +</div> +<br /> +<div class="article" id="a4-9"> +<h2><a id="pg450"></a>Notes</h2> + + +<p>Mr. Monroe N. Work has brought out the <em>Negro Year Book for 1916-1917</em>. In +keeping with the progress hitherto shown this edition surpasses that of +last year. Here one finds an unusually large collection of statistical +material as to the economic, social and religious progress of the black +race; and a brief account of what exceptional Negroes have done to +distinguish themselves in various fields. It contains also a brief history +of the Negro given in such succinct statements as will please the hurried +reader and meet the requirements of those who have not access to reference +libraries.</p> + +<p>The striking new feature of the work, however, is a brief account of what +leading thinkers and the press have said about such perplexing problems as +the "Birth of a Nation," "Miscegenation," and "Segregation." The editor has +endeavored to present in popular style a brief account of everything of +importance with which the Negro has been concerned during the year. He has +done his task well. Sold at such a reasonable price as thirty-five cents a +copy, this valuable book should find its way to the home of every one who +desires to keep himself informed on what the Negro is actually achieving.</p> + +<p>The United Brethren Publishing Co., Huntington, Ind., has published M. B. +Butler's <em>My Story of the Civil War and the Underground Railroad</em>. A native +of Vermont, where he had an opportunity to see many a fugitive on his way +to freedom, the author naturally makes his narrative interesting and +straightforward. He recounts his unusual experiences as a soldier in detail +but does not grow tiresome.</p> + +<p>In the Mississippi Valley, Historical Review, II, March, 1916, appeared +Doctor H. N. Sherwood's <em>Early Negro Deportation Projects</em>. This is a +selected part of the author's doctorate thesis. It treats of the endeavors +to ameliorate the condition of emancipated slaves and the colonization +plans which finally led to the establishment of the republic of Liberia.</p> + +<p>The <em>Tennessee Historical Magazine</em> for June contains a dissertation by Asa +Earl Martin, entitled <em>Anti-Slavery Activities of the <a id="pg451"></a>Methodist +Episcopal Church in Tennessee</em>. The article covers the period from 1784 to +the time of the great schism of 1844.</p> + +<p>Professor Tenny Frank has contributed to the July number of the <em>American +Historical Review</em> a valuable article entitled <em>Race Mixture in the Roman +Empire</em>.</p> + +<p>In the same number of this publication appear also twenty-three pages of +documents on the <em>Cane Sugar Industry</em> collected by Irene A. Wright. As the +Negroes proved to be a great factor in the development of this industry, +these documents will be helpful to those who desire to study the bearing of +the Negro on its origin and early growth.</p> + +<p>Miss Helen Nicolay has turned over to the Library of Congress some +important Lincoln Manuscripts, among which are the first and second +autograph copies of the Gettysburg Address, the autograph of the Second +Inaugural Address, and the President's memorandum of August 23, 1864, +pledging support to the next administration.</p> + +<p>In <em>The Case for the Filipino</em>, Maximo M. Kalaw gives an account of the +American occupation of the Archipelago, and in presenting his claims for +independence he puts his countrymen in the attitude of an oppressed people.</p> + +<p>Dr. C. G. Woodson delivered at the University of Chicago in July a lecture +on <em>The varying Attitude of the White Man toward the Negro in the United +States</em>.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<h3>A Happy Suggestion</h3> + + +<p><em>My dear Dr. Woodson:</em> I am in receipt of the current number of <span class="sc">The Journal +of Negro History</span> and am more and more delighted with it. I think it +furnishes the richest source for available information on the Negro that I +have yet found. The leading article in this number is inspiring as well as +illuminating and the idea has come to me that it would be an excellent +thing to have history reading circles organized in all our schools for the +purpose of systematically reading the <span class="sc">Journal</span>. A hundred or more such +organizations with the <span class="sc">Journal</span> as a text would accomplish two or three very +valuable things, viz., promote the circulation of the <span class="sc">Journal</span> and +disseminate historical knowledge of the race so necessary to give it +self-respect and pride. These historical clubs <a id="pg452"></a>might meet monthly and +include others than teachers. By all means your work should not lack for +funds for keeping it going. I hope to interest the colored High School +Alumni here at its annual meeting next week. I shall also call the +attention of my teachers here to your publication. It is great.</p> + +<p>Very truly yours,</p> + +<p><span class="sc">J. W. Scott</span>, <em>Principal, Douglass High School</em>, <em>Huntington, W. Va.</em></p> +</blockquote> +</div> +</div><hr /> +<div id="index"> +<h2><a id="pg453"></a>Index to Volume I.</h2> + + +<p>Abel, A. H. II, <em>The Slaveholding Indians</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg339">339</a><br /> +<em>African Mind, The</em>, <a href="#pg42">42</a><br /> +<em>Aftermath of the Civil War, The</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg444">444</a><br /> +Albany,<br /> + a state convention of Colored people at, <a href="#pg293">293</a>;<br /> + slavery at, <a href="#pg400">400</a><br /> +Allen, Richard, letter of, <a href="#pg436">436</a><br /> +American Colonization Society opposed by free Negroes, <a href="#pg276">276</a><br /> +American lady, an, on the treatment of slaves, <a href="#pg400">400</a><br /> +Anburey, travels through North America, quoted, <a href="#pg407">407</a><br /> +Anderson, Martha E., a teacher in Ohio, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Andrew, one of the first Negroes to teach in Charleston, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Angus, Judith, the will of, <a href="#pg238">238</a><br /> +<em>Antar, the Arabian Negro Warrior, Poet and Hero</em>, <a href="#pg151">151</a><br /> +Arming the slaves,<br /> + urged in South Carolina, <a href="#pg121">121</a>;<br /> + in Virginia, <a href="#pg119">119</a>;<br /> + in Rhode Island, <a href="#pg119">119</a>;<br /> + in Massachusetts, <a href="#pg120">120</a>;<br /> + in New York, <a href="#pg120">120</a><br /> +Astor, John Jacob, grandson of, aided slaves to purchase freedom, <a href="#pg252">252</a><br /> +<em>Attitude of the Free People of Color toward African Colonization</em>, <a href="#pg276">276</a><br /> +Auchmutty, Rev. Mr., took up the work of Elias Neau, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Augusta, Dr. A. T.,<br /> + studied medicine at Toronto, <a href="#pg105">105</a>;<br /> + surgeon in the Civil War, <a href="#pg107">107</a><br /> +Augusta, Negroes at the siege of, <a href="#pg117">117</a></p> + + +<p>Bacon, Rev. Thomas, favored the instruction of Negroes, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Ball, Thomas, a colored photographer, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Baltimore, George, on colonization, <a href="#pg297">297</a><br /> +Baltimore,<br /> + meeting to protest against African colonization, <a href="#pg279">279</a>;<br /> + another colonization meeting in 1831, <a href="#pg238">238</a>;<br /> + a divided meeting, <a href="#pg298">298</a>;<br /> + <em>A Typical Colonization Meeting</em>, <a href="#pg318">318</a><br /> +Bancroft, tribute to Negro troops, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +"Baptists, Emancipating," <a href="#pg143">143</a><br /> +Barclay, Rev. T., instructed Negroes at Albany, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Bartow, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Beckett, Rev. Mr., instructed Negroes, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Beech, Rev. J., baptized Negroes, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +Beecham, Mrs., teacher of Negroes in Fredericksburg, <a href="#pg24">24</a><br /> +Beecher, Henry Ward, aided slaves to purchase freedom, <a href="#pg254">254</a><br /> +Berea College in anti-slavery centre, <a href="#pg149">149</a><br /> +Bienville,<br /> + exchanged Indians for Negroes, <a href="#pg362">362</a>;<br /> + code of, <a href="#pg365">365</a>;<br /> + Negro troops under, <a href="#pg371">371</a><br /> +Bigham, J. A., review of Du Bois's <em>The Negro</em>, <a href="#pg217">217</a><br /> +Birney, James G., editor of <em>The Philanthropist</em> destroyed by mob, <a href="#pg8">8</a><br /> +<em>Black and White in the Southern States</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg437">437</a><br /> +Black Laws of Ohio, <a href="#pg2">2</a>, <a href="#pg3">3</a>, <a href="#pg4">4</a>;<br /> + repeal of <a href="#pg16">16</a><br /> +Black master, the existence of, <a href="#pg235">235</a>-<a href="#pg236">236</a><br /> +Blackburn, Miss Lucy, taught in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Border States, position of, in 1861, <a href="#pg371">371</a><br /> +Boré, de Etienne,<br /> + learned to granulate sugar, <a href="#pg375">375</a>;<br /> + the effects of the discovery, <a href="#pg375">375</a>-<a href="#pg376">376</a><br /> +Boston, anti-colonization meetings at, <a href="#pg284">284</a>, <a href="#pg292">292</a><br /> +Bowen, Nathaniel, on colonization, <a href="#pg298">298</a><br /> +<a id="pg454"></a>Boyd, Henry, a successful Negro business man prior to 1860, <a href="#pg21">21</a><br /> +Brawley, Benjamin, <em>Lorenzo Dow</em>, <a href="#pg265">265</a><br /> +Bray, Rev. Thomas, work of,<br /> + among Negroes, <a href="#pg353">353</a>-<a href="#pg354">354</a>;<br /> + "The Associates" of, <a href="#pg354">354</a><br /> +"Breckinridge Democrats," in control of Kentucky, <a href="#pg379">379</a><br /> +Breckinridge, John, views of, <a href="#pg377">377</a>, <a href="#pg378">378</a>, <a href="#pg379">379</a><br /> +Breacroft, Dr., appeal of, in behalf of the enlightenment of the Negroes, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Brissot de Warville, J. P., on the condition of the slaves, <a href="#pg419">419</a><br /> +Brooklyn, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg285">285</a><br /> +Brown County, Ohio, Negroes in, <a href="#pg302">302</a><br /> +Brown, William Wells, an occasional physician, <a href="#pg106">106</a><br /> +Bryan, Andrew, letters of, <a href="#pg87">87</a><br /> +Buckner, S. B., joined the Confederates, <a href="#pg390">390</a></p> + + +<p>Calhoun, John C., refuted by Dr. James McCune Smith, <a href="#pg104">104</a><br /> +Casas, De las, on slavery, <a href="#pg361">361</a>-<a href="#pg362">362</a><br /> +Casey, Wm. R., a teacher, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Casor, John, a slave, <a href="#pg234">234</a><br /> +Cesar, cure of, <a href="#pg101">101</a>-<a href="#pg102">102</a><br /> +Channing, offered to aid the defense of Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Charleston, missionary efforts at,<br /> + among Negroes, <a href="#pg350">350</a>-<a href="#pg352">352</a>;<br /> + attitude of Negroes of, toward colonization, <a href="#pg280">280</a>-<a href="#pg281">281</a><br /> +Charlton, Rev. Mr., a teacher of Negroes in New York, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Chase, Salmon P., desired to aid Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Chastellux, Marquis de,<br /> + his observations of Negro troops, <a href="#pg128">128</a><br /> + critical examination of the travels of, <a href="#pg419">419</a><br /> +Chatham, the attitude of the Negroes of, toward colonization, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Chickasaws, fought with Negroes in Louisiana, <a href="#pg370">370</a><br /> +Chouchas, fought with Negroes in Louisiana, <a href="#pg369">369</a>, <a href="#pg370">370</a><br /> +Choctaws, Negroes' troubles with, in Louisiana, <a href="#pg371">371</a><br /> +<em>Cimarrones</em>, in Guatemala, <a href="#pg393">393</a>-<a href="#pg394">394</a><br /> +Cincinnati, <br /> + <em>The Negroes of, Prior to 1861</em>, <a href="#pg1">1</a>;<br /> + Lane Seminary students opposed slavery, <a href="#pg7">7</a>-<a href="#pg8">8</a>, <a href="#pg10">10</a>-<a href="#pg11">11</a>, <a href="#pg12">12</a>;<br /> + Negro churches of, <a href="#pg11">11</a><br /> + progress of the Negroes of, <a href="#pg9">9</a>, <a href="#pg10">10</a>, <a href="#pg11">11</a>, <a href="#pg12">12</a>, <a href="#pg13">13</a>;<br /> + anti-colonization meetings of, <a href="#pg289">289</a>, <a href="#pg293">293</a>, <a href="#pg294">294</a>;<br /> + Negroes excluded from public schools of, <a href="#pg17">17</a>-<a href="#pg18">18</a><br /> +Clark, F. B., <em>The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan</em>, <a href="#pg342">342</a><br /> +Clark, Jonathan, letters of, <a href="#pg79">79</a>, <a href="#pg82">82</a><br /> +Clark, Peter H., a teacher in Ohio, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Clay, Henry, asked to head the anti-slavery societies of Kentucky, <a href="#pg144">144</a><br /> +Clayton, Powell, <em>The Aftermath of the Civil War</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg444">444</a><br /> +Cleveland, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg292">292</a><br /> +Clinton, Sir Henry,<br /> + appeal of, to Negroes, <a href="#pg116">116</a><br /> + proclamation of, <a href="#pg116">116</a><br /> +Code Noir, quoted, <a href="#pg365">365</a><br /> +Coffin, Joshua, aided fugitives to Northwest Territory, <a href="#pg146">146</a><br /> +Colgan, Rev. Mr., taught Negroes in New York, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Colonization, African,<br /> + opposed, <a href="#pg279">279</a>;<br /> + supported, <a href="#pg280">280</a>-<a href="#pg282">282</a><br /> +<em>Color, People of, in Louisiana</em>, <a href="#pg362">362</a><br /> +<em>Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia</em>, <a href="#pg233">233</a><br /> +Columbia, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg287">287</a><br /> +Columbus, Negroes of, opposed to colonization, <a href="#pg292">292</a>, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +Conrad, Rufus, a preacher in Ohio, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Cook, Rev. Joseph, letter of, <a href="#pg69">69</a><br /> +Cooke, Stephen, letter of, <a href="#pg77">77</a><br /> +Cookes, moved from Fredericksburg to Detroit, <a href="#pg26">26</a><br /> +Cooper, Phil, chattel of his free wife, <a href="#pg240">240</a><br /> +Corbic, W. J., a teacher of Ohio, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Cornish, Samuel, opposed colonization, <a href="#pg294">294</a><br /> +Cornwallis, Ft., garrisoned by Negroes, <a href="#pg117">117</a><br /> +<a id="pg455"></a>Corsair, a mulatto, <a href="#pg397">397</a><br /> +Creole, definition of, <a href="#pg366">366</a>-<a href="#pg368">368</a><br /> +Crittenden, John J.,<br /> + advocated neutrality, <a href="#pg383">383</a>;<br /> + letter of, to General Scott, <a href="#pg387">387</a><br /> +Crittenden, Thomas L., stood with the Union, <a href="#pg391">391</a><br /> +Cromwell, John W., <em>The Negro in American History</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg94">94</a><br /> +Crozat, Anthony, traffic of, in slaves, <a href="#pg362">362</a><br /> +Crummell, Alexander, on colonization, <a href="#pg296">296</a><br /> +Cutler, Rev. Dr., admitted Negroes to his congregation at Boston, <a href="#pg359">359</a></p> + + +<p>Dabney, Austin, remarkable soldier and man, <a href="#pg129">129</a>-<a href="#pg131">131</a><br /> +Dahomey, speech of the king of, <a href="#pg65">65</a><br /> +D'Alone, a supporter of Dr. Bray, <a href="#pg353">353</a><br /> +Davis, Garrett, letter of, to General MeClellan, <a href="#pg381">381</a><br /> +Davis, John, thoughts on slavery, <a href="#pg434">434</a><br /> +Dayton, meeting at, to promote colonization, <a href="#pg298">298</a><br /> +De Baptiste, Richard, <br /> + attended school at Fredericksburg, <a href="#pg22">22</a>;<br /> + moved to Detroit, <a href="#pg22">22</a>; a preacher, <a href="#pg29">29</a><br /> +Debern, Magdelaine, lawsuit of, <a href="#pg366">366</a><br /> +De Grasse, John V., student at Bowdoin, <a href="#pg105">105</a><br /> +Delany, M. R.,<br /> + studied at Harvard, <a href="#pg105">105</a>;<br /> + physician at Pittsburgh, <a href="#pg106">106</a>;<br /> + news on African colonization, <a href="#pg296">296</a>;<br /> + sent to Africa, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Depression of Louisiana, <a href="#pg375">375</a>-<a href="#pg376">376</a>.<br /> +Derham, James, a Negro physician, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +Detroit, attitude of, <br /> + toward Negroes, <a href="#pg27">27</a>;<br /> + the question of fugitives in, <a href="#pg27">27</a>;<br /> + measures unfavorable to colored people, <a href="#pg28">28</a>;<br /> + progress of the Negroes of, <a href="#pg29">29</a><br /> +Diggs, Judson, betrayed the fugitives of the <em>Pearl</em>, <a href="#pg247">247</a><br /> +Don Quixote, quoted, <a href="#pg43">43</a><br /> +Dorsey, Thomas, opposed colonization, <a href="#pg282">282</a><br /> +Dotty, Duane, Miss Fannie M. Richards's first superintendent of<br /> + schools, <a href="#pg31">31</a><br /> +Douglass, Frederick,<br /> + opposed to colonization, <a href="#pg295">295</a>;<br /> + controversy of, with the National Council, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Dove, Dr., owner of James Derham, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +Dow, Lorenzo,<br /> + journeys of, <a href="#pg266">266</a>;<br /> + writings of, discussed, <a href="#pg271">271</a>;<br /> + attitude of, toward slavery, <a href="#pg273">273</a><br /> +Drayton, Daniel, in charge of the <em>Pearl</em>, <a href="#pg245">245</a><br /> +Drummond, Henry, quoted, <a href="#pg42">42</a><br /> +Du Bois, <em>The Negro</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg217">217</a><br /> +Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, <em>People of Color in Louisiana</em> of, <a href="#pg361">361</a><br /> +Dunmore, Lord, issued proclamation of freedom to loyal Negroes, <a href="#pg115">115</a><br /> +Dyson, Walter, <br /> + review of, of Ellis's <em>Negro Culture in West Africa</em>, <a href="#pg95">95</a>;<br /> + of <em>Gouldtown</em>, <a href="#pg221">221</a></p> + + +<p>East, the attitude of, toward the West, <a href="#pg119">119</a><br /> +Edmondson children, the, <a href="#pg243">243</a>; family tree of, <a href="#pg261">261</a><br /> +Edmondson, Hamilton, sold in New Orleans, <a href="#pg253">253</a><br /> +Edmondson, Richard, heroic efforts of, <a href="#pg248">248</a><br /> +Edmondson, Samuel, married Delia Taylor, <a href="#pg256">256</a><br /> +Education of the Negroes in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg6">6</a>, <a href="#pg10">10</a><br /> +<em>Education, The, of the Negro Prior to 1861</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg96">96</a><br /> +Edwards, Mrs., taught Negroes in South Carolina, <a href="#pg350">350</a>-<a href="#pg351">351</a><br /> +Effect of slaveholding in Louisiana, <a href="#pg368">368</a><br /> +<em>Eighteenth Century Slaves as advertised by their Masters</em>, <a href="#pg163">163</a><br /> +Ellis, Geo. W., <em>Negro Culture in West Africa</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg95">95</a><br /> +Emancipating Baptists in Kentucky, <a href="#pg143">143</a><br /> +Emancipation, the, and the arming of slaves, urged, <a href="#pg119">119</a><br /> +<a id="pg456"></a>English, Chester, sailor on the <em>Pearl</em>, <a href="#pg246">246</a><br /> +Enlisting Negroes in the American Revolution, <a href="#pg112">112</a>, <a href="#pg113">113</a>, <a href="#pg114">114</a>;<br /> + considered by a council of war, <a href="#pg114">114</a>;<br /> + urged and allowed, <a href="#pg117">117</a><br /> +Ermana, a slave owned by her husband, <a href="#pg241">241</a><br /> +Erroneous opinions concerning the Negro, <a href="#pg34">34</a><br /> +Essadi Abdurrahman, a writer of the Sudan, <a href="#pg41">41</a><br /> +Essays on Negro slavery, <a href="#pg49">49</a>, <a href="#pg54">54</a><br /> +Established Church of England, the ministrations of, <a href="#pg349">349</a><br /> +Ethiopia, ruled Egypt, <a href="#pg37">37</a><br /> +Evans, M. S., <em>Black and White in Southern States</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg437">437</a></p> + + +<p>Fausett, Jessie, review of,<br /> + of T. G. Steward's <em>Haitian Revolution</em>, <a href="#pg93">93</a>;<br /> + of A. H. Abel's <em>The Slaveholding Indians</em>, <a href="#pg339">339</a><br /> +Ferguson, Joseph, a physician, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +Fleet, Dr., educated in Washington, <a href="#pg105">105</a><br /> +Fleetwood, Bishop, urged the proselyting of Negroes, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Foote, John P., his opinion of Negroes, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Foote, Senator, effect of the speech of, at the Louis-Phillipe <br /> + celebration, <a href="#pg245">245</a><br /> +Foster, James, opposed to colonization, <a href="#pg290">290</a><br /> +Free Negroes, <br /> + power of, to manumit limited, <a href="#pg241">241</a>-<a href="#pg242">242</a>;<br /> + transplanted to free soil, <a href="#pg302">302</a>;<br /> + litigation concerning, in Louisiana, <a href="#pg368">368</a>;<br /> + aristocracy of, <a href="#pg395">395</a><br /> +Free Soilers attacked "Black Laws" of Ohio, <a href="#pg16">16</a><br /> +Freedman, a rich one of Guatemala, <a href="#pg395">395</a><br /> +<em>Freedom in a Free State</em>, <a href="#pg311">311</a><br /> +"Friends of Humanity" organized in Kentucky, <a href="#pg144">144</a><br /> +Frink, Rev. Mr., toiled among Negroes of Augusta, <a href="#pg354">354</a><br /> +Fugitives,<br /> + going to the Northwest Territory, <a href="#pg1">1</a>;<br /> + from British territory to Michigan, <a href="#pg27">27</a><br /> +<em>Fugitives of the Pearl, The</em>, <a href="#pg243">243</a><br /> +Fuller, Betsey, owned her husband, <a href="#pg241">241</a></p> + + +<p>Gage, Thomas, quoted, on Negroes in Guatemala, <a href="#pg392">392</a>-<a href="#pg398">398</a><br /> +Gaines, John L., secured writ to obtain fund for colored schools, <a href="#pg17">17</a><br /> +Galvez, Governor of Louisiana, who employed Negro troops, <a href="#pg374">374</a><br /> +Garden, Commissary, opened a colored school in Charleston, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Garrison, Wm. L., effects of the radicalism of, <a href="#pg146">146</a><br /> +Gazzan, Dr. Joseph, teacher of M. R. Delany, <a href="#pg106">106</a><br /> +<em>Gens de couleur libres</em>, <a href="#pg365">365</a>-<a href="#pg366">366</a><br /> +George, James Z., <em>The. Political History of Slavery</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg340">340</a><br /> +Georgia, <br /> + rise and progress of Negro Churches, <a href="#pg69">69</a>; <br /> + Negroes with the British in, <a href="#pg116">116</a>, <a href="#pg117">117</a>;<br /> + <em>Reconstruction in Georgia</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg343">343</a>;<br /> + missionary work in, <a href="#pg354">354</a><br /> +Germans, <br /> + crowded the Negroes out in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg5">5</a>;<br /> + in Appalachian America, <a href="#pg133">133</a>-<a href="#pg134">134</a><br /> +Gibson, Bishop, address of, in behalf of Negroes, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Giddings, Joshua, motion for an inquiry into the detention of fugitives,<br /> + <a href="#pg250">250</a>-<a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Gilmore High School founded, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Goldsmith, Samuel, deposition of, <a href="#pg234">234</a><br /> +Gordon, Robert, a successful business man, <a href="#pg21">21</a>-<a href="#pg22">22</a><br /> +Gordon, Virginia Ann, daughter and heir of Robert Gordon, <a href="#pg22">22</a><br /> +Graydon, referred to Negro troops, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Greeks, acquainted with Ethiopia, <a href="#pg39">39</a><br /> +Greene, General, learned that the British would enlist Negroes, <a href="#pg115">115</a><br /> +Grimké, Thomas, letter of, referred to, <a href="#pg281">281</a><br /> +<a id="pg457"></a>Gromes, Frank, purchased his relatives, <a href="#pg239">239</a><br /> +Guy, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes in South Carolina, <a href="#pg352">352</a></p> + + +<p>Haigue, Mrs., taught Negroes in South Carolina, <a href="#pg351">351</a><br /> +<em>Haitian Revolution, The</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg93">93</a><br /> +Hale, Senator, offered resolutions concerning the fugitives of the <em>Pearl</em>,<br /> + <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Hall, Rev. C., admitted Negroes to his church in North Carolina, <a href="#pg353">353</a><br /> +Hamilton, Alexander,<br /> + urged the emancipation and arming of slaves, <a href="#pg118">118</a>;<br /> + letter of, on conditions in South Carolina, <a href="#pg121">121</a><br /> +Hancock, John, member of the committee that opposed the enlistment of <br /> + Negroes,--<br /> +Hanson, Roger W., went with the South, <a href="#pg390">390</a><br /> +Harlan, J. M., <em>Constitutional Doctrines</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg342">342</a><br /> +Harlan, Robert, once a man of considerable wealth, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Harris, Dr., opinion of, of Negro troops, <a href="#pg128">128</a><br /> +Harry, one of the first Negro teachers in America, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Hartford, anti-slavery meeting at, <a href="#pg286">286</a><br /> +Hartgrove, W. B., <em>The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution</em> of, <a href="#pg110">110</a><br /> +Hawkins, Peter, emancipated slaves, <a href="#pg240">240</a><br /> +Healing art among Negroes, <a href="#pg101">101</a>-<a href="#pg102">102</a><br /> +Henrico County, Virginia, records, <a href="#pg237">237</a><br /> +Henry, H. M., <em>Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina</em> of, reviewed,<br /> + <a href="#pg219">219</a><br /> +Henry, Patrick, influence of, in the uplands, <a href="#pg138">138</a><br /> +Hildreth, Richard, offered Daniel Drayton aid, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Hill, James H., statement of, <a href="#pg239">239</a><br /> +<em>Historic Background of the Negro Physician</em>, <a href="#pg99">99</a><br /> +Holly, James Theodore, position on African colonization, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Honyman, Rev. Mr., had Negroes in his congregation, <a href="#pg360">360</a><br /> +Hopkins, Samuel, urged the emancipation and arming of slaves, <a href="#pg118">118</a><br /> +<em>How the Public received the Journal of Negro History</em>, <a href="#pg225">225</a><br /> +Howe, Samuel, offered aid to Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Hubbard, Dr., a friend of Negro education, <a href="#pg107">107</a><br /> +Huddlestone, Rev. Mr., a successor of Neau, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Humboldt, Alex. Von, <em>Observations on Negroes</em>, <a href="#pg393">393</a><br /> +Hunt, Rev. Mr., had a Negro under probation, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Huntsville, Alabama, Negroes of, for colonization, <a href="#pg282">282</a><br /> +Husting Court of Richmond, a lawsuit in, to obtain freedom, <a href="#pg238">238</a></p> + + +<p>Iben Khaldun, a writer of Arabia, quoted, <a href="#pg39">39</a><br /> +Illinois, attitude of Negroes in, toward colonization, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Immigration of Negroes into Ohio, <a href="#pg2">2</a>, <a href="#pg4">4</a>; opposition to, aroused, <a href="#pg4">4</a><br /> +Impressions of an English traveler, <a href="#pg404">404</a><br /> +Indiana, <br /> + Negroes took up land in, <a href="#pg8">8</a>;<br /> + attitude of Negroes of, toward African colonization, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Insurrections in Louisiana, <a href="#pg370">370</a>, <a href="#pg376">376</a><br /> +Irish, <br /> + crowded out the Negroes of Cincinnati, <a href="#pg5">5</a>;<br /> + the Scotch-Irish in the West, <a href="#pg133">133</a>, <a href="#pg135">135</a><br /> +Iron first smelted by Negroes, <a href="#pg36">36</a>-<a href="#pg37">37</a></p> + + +<p>Jackson, George W., manager of Robert Gordon's estate, <a href="#pg22">22</a><br /> +Jacob, R. T., offered resolutions for mediatorial neutrality, <a href="#pg384">384</a><br /> +Jefferson County, Ohio, free Negroes of, <a href="#pg304">304</a><br /> +Jefferson, Thomas, influence of, on frontier, <a href="#pg138">138</a><br /> +Jenny, Dr., worked among Negroes, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +<a id="pg458"></a>Johnson, Anthony, a Negro owning slaves, <a href="#pg234">234</a>-<a href="#pg236">236</a><br /> +Johnson, Jerome A., remembered Judson Diggs, <a href="#pg247">247</a><br /> +Johnson, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes at Stratford, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +Jones, Absalom, <br /> + letter of, --;<br /> + mentioned by Dow, <a href="#pg274">274</a>;<br /> + opposed colonization, <a href="#pg277">277</a><br /> +Jones, David A., deposition of, <a href="#pg238">238</a>-<a href="#pg239">239</a><br /> +Jones, S. Wesley, letter of, quoted, <a href="#pg281">281</a></p> + + +<p>Kearsley, John, master of James Derham, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +Kemps Landing, Negroes in battle of, <a href="#pg115">115</a><br /> +Kench, Thomas, wanted Negroes in separate regiments, <a href="#pg120">120</a><br /> +Kentucky, <br /> + "Emancipating Baptists" of, <a href="#pg143">143</a><br /> + anti-slavery Presbyterians in, <a href="#pg143">143</a><br /> + neutrality of, <a href="#pg383">383</a><br /> + dangerous policy of, <a href="#pg385">385</a><br /> +Knight and Bell, Negro contractors in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Kunst. J., <em>Notes on the Negroes in Guatemala in the Seventeenth <br /> + Century</em>, <a href="#pg392">392</a></p> + + +<p>Lannon, W. D., joined the Confederates, <a href="#pg390">390</a><br /> +Laurens, John, urged the arming of slaves, <a href="#pg118">118</a><br /> +Law, John, schemes of, <a href="#pg362">362</a>-<a href="#pg363">363</a><br /> +Lawrence County, Ohio, Negroes in, <a href="#pg4">4</a>, <a href="#pg306">306</a><br /> +Lawrence, Samuel, Negroes under, behaved well, <a href="#pg112">112</a>, <a href="#pg113">113</a><br /> +Lecky, tribute of, to Negro troops, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Lees, migrated to Detroit, <a href="#pg24">24</a>, <a href="#pg26">26</a><br /> +Leile, George, letters of, <a href="#pg80">80</a>, <a href="#pg81">81</a>, <a href="#pg84">84</a><br /> +Lemoyne, Dr. Francis J., teacher of M. R. Delany, <a href="#pg106">106</a><br /> +Letters on slavery by a Negro, <a href="#pg60">60</a>;<br /> + letters showing the rise and progress of Negro Churches in Georgia<br /> + and the West Indies, <a href="#pg69">69</a><br /> +Lewiston, Pennsylvania, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg287">287</a><br /> +Liberia, the Republic of, discussed, <a href="#pg313">313</a><br /> +Lincoln, a desire of, for the support of Kentucky, <a href="#pg377">377</a>, <a href="#pg384">384</a><br /> +Lindsay, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes in New Jersey, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Locke, Rev. Richard, baptized Negroes in Pennsylvania, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Longworth, Nicholas, aided colored schools of Cincinnati, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Louis-Philippe, the expulsion of, celebrated in Washington, <a href="#pg244">244</a><br /> +Louisiana,<br /> + prostration of, <a href="#pg374">374</a>-<a href="#pg375">375</a>;<br /> + relieved somewhat by Negro refugees, <a href="#pg375">375</a><br /> +Lowth, Bishop, urged the conversion of Negroes, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Lundy, Benjamin, work of, in Tennessee, <a href="#pg145">145</a><br /> +Lutherans, in the West, <a href="#pg134">134</a><br /> +Lyell, Sir Charles, on the Negroes of Cincinnati, <a href="#pg18">18</a><br /> +Lyme, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg286">286</a></p> + + +<p>Madison, James, urged the emancipation and arming of slaves, <a href="#pg118">118</a><br /> +Magoffin, Governor, tried to aid the Secessionists in Kentucky, <a href="#pg382">382</a><br /> +Mann, Horace, offered to aid Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Manumission Society of Tennessee, <a href="#pg145">145</a><br /> +Marshall, Abraham, letters of, <a href="#pg77">77</a>, <a href="#pg78">78</a>, <a href="#pg85">85</a><br /> +Marshall, Humphrey, views of, <a href="#pg377">377</a>, <a href="#pg384">384</a><br /> +Maryland, the enlistment of Negroes in, <a href="#pg120">120</a><br /> +Maryville, Tennessee, favorable to Negroes, <a href="#pg147">147</a>-<a href="#pg149">149</a><br /> +Massachusetts, arming the slaves in, <a href="#pg120">120</a><br /> +May, Samuel, helped to furnish defense for Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +McSparran, conducted a class of Negroes, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +<a id="pg459"></a>Mehlinger, Louis R., <em>The Attitude of the Free Negro toward African Colonization</em> of, <a href="#pg276">276</a><br /> +Mennonites in the West, <a href="#pg134">134</a><br /> +Mercer County, Ohio, Negroes in, <a href="#pg9">9</a>, <a href="#pg306">306</a><br /> +Middletown, anti-colonization meeting at, <a href="#pg286">286</a><br /> +Migration of Negroes,<br /> + West Indian, <a href="#pg370">370</a>-<a href="#pg371">371</a>;<br /> + to the Northwest Territory, <a href="#pg1">1</a><br /> +Miller, Kelly, <em>The Historic Background of the Negro Physician</em>, <a href="#pg99">99</a><br /> +Monmouth, Negroes in the battle of, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Moore, Edwin, father of Maria Louise Moore, <a href="#pg23">23</a><br /> +Moore, Maria Louise, her struggles and triumphs, <a href="#pg23">23</a><br /> +Moral Religious Manumission Society of West Tennessee, <a href="#pg145">145</a><br /> +Moravians, in the mountains, <a href="#pg134">134</a><br /> +Morris, Robert, Jr., offered to aid Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Mountaineers,<br /> + attitude of, toward slavery, <a href="#pg147">147</a>;<br /> + their efforts to elevate the slaves, <a href="#pg148">148</a>, <a href="#pg149">149</a>, <a href="#pg150">150</a>;<br /> + supported the Union, <a href="#pg149">149</a>, <a href="#pg150">150</a>;<br /> + aided the Underground Railroad, <a href="#pg146">146</a>;<br /> + attitude of, toward the American Colonization Society, <a href="#pg146">146</a><br /> +Mulatto corsair, a, <a href="#pg397">397</a><br /> +Mundin, William, declaration of, <a href="#pg238">238</a></p> + + +<p>Nantucket, anti-colonization meeting at, <a href="#pg288">288</a><br /> +Natchez, Negroes captured by, <a href="#pg370">370</a><br /> +National Council, <a href="#pg299">299</a>-<a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Neau, Elias,<br /> + work of, <a href="#pg356">356</a>-<a href="#pg358">358</a>;<br /> + supposed connection with Negro riot, <a href="#pg357">357</a><br /> +<em>Negro, <br /> + The, in American History</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg94">94</a>;<br /> + <em>Negro Culture in West Africa</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg95">95</a>;<br /> + <em>Negro Soldiers in the American Revolution</em>, <a href="#pg110">110</a>;<br /> + <em>What the Negro was thinking in the Eighteenth Century</em>, <a href="#pg49">49</a><br /> +Negroes, <br /> + contribution of, to civilization, <a href="#pg36">36</a>;<br /> + <em>Notes on the Negroes of Guatemala in the Seventeenth Century</em>, <a href="#pg392">392</a><br /> +Neill, Rev. Mr., preached to Negroes at Dover, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Neutrality in Kentucky, <a href="#pg383">383</a>, <a href="#pg385">385</a>;<br /> + became dangerous policy, <a href="#pg385">385</a>;<br /> + abandoned, <a href="#pg389">389</a><br /> +New Bedford, anti-colonization meeting at, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +New England, work among Negroes of, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +New Hampshire, the enlistment of Negroes in, <a href="#pg120">120</a><br /> +New Jersey, teaching Negroes in, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +New York,<br /> + the enlistment of Negroes in, <a href="#pg120">120</a>;<br /> + instruction of Negroes in, <a href="#pg356">356</a>;<br /> + anti-colonization meetings of, <a href="#pg285">285</a>, <a href="#pg288">288</a>, <a href="#pg289">289</a><br /> +Newman, Rev. Mr., worked among Negroes, <a href="#pg353">353</a><br /> +North Carolina, slavery in, <a href="#pg142">142</a><br /> +Northampton County, Virginia, records of black masters, <a href="#pg237">237</a></p> + + +<p>Ohio, Negroes owned land in, <a href="#pg8">8</a>-<a href="#pg9">9</a>;<br /> + "Black Laws" of, <a href="#pg4">4</a>;<br /> + Law of 1849, <a href="#pg12">12</a>;<br /> + Negroes transplanted to, <a href="#pg302">302</a>;<br /> + protest against, <a href="#pg308">308</a>;<br /> + Negroes an issue in the Constitutional Convention of, <a href="#pg4">4</a><br /> +Ordinance of 1787, interpretation of, <a href="#pg377">377</a><br /> +"Othello," letters of, on slavery, <a href="#pg49">49</a>-<a href="#pg60">60</a><br /> +Otis, James, influence of, in the uplands, <a href="#pg138">138</a></p> + + +<p>Palomeque, a hard master, <a href="#pg396">396</a><br /> +Parham, William, a teacher of Negroes, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Park, Dr. R. E., review of <em>Race Orthodoxy</em> of, <a href="#pg439">439</a><br /> +Patoulet, M., decision of, <a href="#pg366">366</a><br /> +Patterson, Senator, speech at Louis-Philippe celebration, <a href="#pg245">245</a><br /> +Payne, Daniel A., on colonization, <a href="#pg296">296</a><br /> +<em>Pearl, The Fugitives of</em>, <a href="#pg246">246</a><br /> +Pelhams moved to Detroit, <a href="#pg26">26</a>, <a href="#pg29">29</a><br /> +<a id="pg460"></a>Pennington, J. W. C., opposed colonization, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +<em>People of Color in Louisiana</em>, <a href="#pg361">361</a><br /> +Perier, Governor,<br /> + fought Indians with Negroes <a href="#pg368">368</a>, <a href="#pg369">369</a>;<br /> + tribute to Negroes<br /> +Philadelphia,<br /> + anti-colonization meetings of, <a href="#pg277">277</a>, <a href="#pg279">279</a>;<br /> + Convention of Free People of Color at, <a href="#pg290">290</a>, <a href="#pg291">291</a><br /> +<em>Philanthropist, The</em>, office of, destroyed, <a href="#pg8">8</a><br /> +Physicians, Negro, the number of, <a href="#pg107">107</a><br /> +Piatt, James W., efforts with Cincinnati mob, <a href="#pg14">14</a><br /> +Pittsburgh, anti-colonization meetings of, <a href="#pg287">287</a>, <a href="#pg292">292</a><br /> +Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Negroes from, <a href="#pg4">4</a><br /> +Point Bridge, Negro soldiers behaved well at battle of, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +<em>Political History of Slavery, The</em>, by James Z. George, reviewed, <a href="#pg340">340</a><br /> +Political theories of Appalachian America, discussed, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Polk, invaded Kentucky, <a href="#pg390">390</a><br /> +Prejudice against the colored people in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg12">12</a>-<a href="#pg13">13</a><br /> +Presbyterians, anti-slavery, in Kentucky, <a href="#pg143">143</a><br /> +Pressly, J., a colored photographer, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Prince William County, Virginia, a Negro of, owned his family, <a href="#pg241">241</a><br /> +Professions, Negroes in, <a href="#pg99">99</a>-<a href="#pg101">101</a><br /> +Protests against African colonization, <a href="#pg277">277</a>-<a href="#pg296">296</a><br /> +Providence, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +Pugh, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes in Pennsylvania, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Puritan, attitude of, toward Negro, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +Purvis, Dr. Charles B., a Negro surgeon in the Civil War, <a href="#pg107">107</a></p> + + +<p>Quakers,<br /> + interested in colonizing Negroes in the Northwest, <a href="#pg3">3</a>;<br /> + work of, among Negroes of Appalachian America, <a href="#pg133">133</a>, <a href="#pg134">134</a><br /> +Quickly, Mary, owner of slaves, <a href="#pg238">238</a></p> + + +<p><em>Race Orthodoxy in the South</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg447">447</a><br /> +Racial characteristics on the frontier, <a href="#pg135">135</a><br /> +Racial elements in Appalachian America, <a href="#pg133">133</a><br /> +Radford, James, sold a Negro, <a href="#pg238">238</a><br /> +Radford, George, purchased a Negro woman, <a href="#pg238">238</a><br /> +Ramsey's estimate of Negroes lost to British, <a href="#pg116">116</a><br /> +Randolph, John, the slaves of, sent to Ohio, <a href="#pg308">308</a>, <a href="#pg310">310</a>, <a href="#pg311">311</a>, <a href="#pg312">312</a><br /> +Ransford, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes in North Carolina, <a href="#pg353">353</a><br /> +Redpath, James, appointed commissioner of emigration of Haiti, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Richards, Adolph,<br /> + came to Fredericksburg for his health, <a href="#pg23">23</a>;<br /> + married Maria Louise Moore, <a href="#pg23">23</a><br /> +Richards, Fannie M.,<br /> + studied in Toronto, <a href="#pg30">30</a>;<br /> + taught in Detroit, <a href="#pg31">31</a><br /> +Richmond, meeting of, to denounce the American Colonization Society, <a href="#pg277">277</a><br /> +Rider, Sidney, opinion of the services of Negro troops, <a href="#pg128">128</a><br /> +Ripley, Dorothy, letters received, <a href="#pg436">436</a><br /> +Riots,<br /> + in Cincinnati, in 1836, <a href="#pg8">8</a>;<br /> + in 1841, <a href="#pg13">13</a>-<a href="#pg16">16</a>;<br /> + in New York, <a href="#pg357">357</a><br /> +Robert, M., decision of, with reference to Negroes, <a href="#pg366">366</a><br /> +Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "l'esclavage" of, <a href="#pg430">430</a><br /> +Rochester, anti-colonization meeting of, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +Roman, C. V., <em>The American Civilization</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg218">218</a><br /> +Ross, Rev. G., commended Mr. Yeates for work among Negroes, <a href="#pg354">354</a>, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Rumford, Rev. Mr., baptized Negroes, <a href="#pg353">353</a><br /> +Rush, Benjamin, talks with James Derham, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +<a id="pg461"></a>Rutledge, Governor, freed a slave for his valor in battle, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Ryall, Anne, teacher in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg19">19</a></p> + + +<p>St. John de Crèvecoeur, observations of, <a href="#pg404">404</a><br /> +Salem, Peter, killed Major Pitcairn, <a href="#pg112">112</a><br /> +Sanderson, Bishop, urged the instruction of Negroes, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Sankore, the university of, <a href="#pg40">40</a><br /> +Savannah, a freedman of, favored colonization, <a href="#pg280">280</a><br /> +Sayers, Captain, owner of the <em>Pearl</em>, <a href="#pg246">246</a><br /> +Sayers, W. Berwick, <em>Samuel Coleridge-Taylor</em>of, reviewed, <a href="#pg438">438</a><br /> +Sayre, Rev. J., instructed Negroes, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Schoepf, Johann D., impressions of, <a href="#pg405">405</a><br /> +Schuyler, M., opposed the instruction of Negroes, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +Secession in Kentucky, <a href="#pg377">377</a>, <a href="#pg378">378</a>, <a href="#pg385">385</a>, <a href="#pg389">389</a>, <a href="#pg390">390</a><br /> +Secker, Bishop, appeal in behalf of the enlightenment of Negroes, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Seward, W. H., offered to aid in defending Daniel Drayton, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Sewell, Samuel, endeavored to aid Daniel Drayton when accused, <a href="#pg251">251</a><br /> +Shelby County, Ohio, Negroes in, <a href="#pg309">309</a><br /> +Shelton, Rev. Wallace, a preacher of Cincinnati, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Simon, a Negro officer in Louisiana, <a href="#pg391">391</a><br /> +Simon, the Negro doctor, <a href="#pg102">102</a><br /> +Simpson, Henry, a preacher in Ohio, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +<em>Slaveholding Indians, The</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg339">339</a><br /> +Slavery, <br /> + in North Carolina, <a href="#pg142">142</a>;<br /> + in Western Virginia, <a href="#pg142">142</a>;<br /> + in Tennessee, <a href="#pg143">143</a>;<br /> + in Kentucky, <a href="#pg144">144</a><br /> +Slaves of the 18th century, <br /> + learning a modern language, <a href="#pg164">164</a>;<br /> + learning to read and write, <a href="#pg175">175</a>;<br /> + educated ones, <a href="#pg185">185</a>;<br /> + in good circumstances, <a href="#pg189">189</a>;<br /> + brought from the West Indies, <a href="#pg191">191</a>;<br /> + various kinds of servants, <a href="#pg194">194</a>;<br /> + relations between the Negroes and the British during the Revolution, <a href="#pg200">200</a>;<br /> + relations between the blacks and the French, <a href="#pg201">201</a>;<br /> + colored Methodist preachers among the slaves, <a href="#pg202">202</a>;<br /> + slaves in other professions, <a href="#pg205">205</a>;<br /> + close relations of the slaves and indentured servants, <a href="#pg206">206</a><br /> +Smith, Dr. James McCune, <br /> + physician in New York, <a href="#pg104">104</a>;<br /> + opposed to colonization, <a href="#pg293">293</a><br /> +Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, <br /> + organized, <a href="#pg349">349</a><br /> + work of, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Songhay, empire of, discussed, <a href="#pg41">41</a><br /> +South Carolina, <br /> + the enlistment of Negroes in, <a href="#pg122">122</a>;<br /> + Hamilton's letter on, <a href="#pg121">121</a>-<a href="#pg122">122</a>;<br /> + resolutions of Congress concerning, <a href="#pg123">123</a>-124; <br /> + efforts to instruct Negroes of, <a href="#pg350">350</a>-<a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Spaniards, attitude of, toward slavery, <a href="#pg361">361</a><br /> +Stafford, A. O., <em>African Proverbs</em> and <em>Antar</em> of, <a href="#pg42">42</a>, <a href="#pg151">151</a><br /> +Stephenson, John W., views of, <a href="#pg378">378</a><br /> +Steward, T. G., <br /> + <em>The Haitian Revolution</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg93">93</a>;<br /> + <em>Gouldtown</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg221">221</a><br /> +Steward, Rev. Mr., found a colored school in North Carolina, <a href="#pg354">354</a><br /> +Story <br /> + of a Negro cook, <a href="#pg372">372</a><br /> + of a Negro blacksmith, <a href="#pg372">372</a><br /> +Stoupe, Rev. Mr., instructed Negroes in New Rochelle, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Stowe, H. B., inquiry of, <a href="#pg295">295</a><br /> +Sturgeon, Rev. W., taught Negroes in Philadelphia, <a href="#pg355">355</a><br /> +Sudan, the kingdoms of, <a href="#pg37">37</a><br /> +Sumner, Alphonso, on African colonization, <a href="#pg297">297</a><br /> +Sutcliff, Robert, observations of, <a href="#pg434">434</a><br /> +Swigle, Thomas Nichols, the letters of, <a href="#pg85">85</a>, <a href="#pg88">88</a></p> + + +<p>Taylor, Dr., educated in Washington, <a href="#pg105">105</a><br /> +Taylor, Mr. Charles, instructed blacks in New York, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +<a id="pg462"></a>Taylor, Rev. E.,<br /> + a missionary in South Carolina, <a href="#pg351">351</a>;<br /> + report of, <a href="#pg351">351</a></p> + +<p><em>Taylor, Samuel Coleridge-, Life of</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg446">446</a><br /> +Tennessee, Manumission Society of, <a href="#pg144">144</a>;<br /> + Moral Religious Manumission Society of West Tennessee, <a href="#pg144">144</a><br /> +Thomas, General, urged the enlistment of Negro troops, <a href="#pg117">117</a>, <a href="#pg129">129</a><br /> +Thomas, Rev. Mr., taught Negroes in South Carolina, <a href="#pg350">350</a><br /> +Thompson, C. M., <em>Reconstruction in Georgia</em> of, reviewed, <a href="#pg343">343</a><br /> +Tilley, Virginia C., a teacher, <a href="#pg19">19</a><br /> +Timbuctoo, the university of, <a href="#pg40">40</a><br /> +Trades Unions against Negroes, <a href="#pg12">12</a><br /> +<em>Traveler's Impressions of Slavery in America from 1750 to 1800</em>, <a href="#pg399">399</a><br /> +Trenton, anti-colonization meeting, <a href="#pg288">288</a><br /> +<em>Typical Colonization Convention, A</em>, <a href="#pg318">318</a></p> + + +<p>Underground Railroad, in the mountains, <a href="#pg146">146</a><br /> +Union cause in Kentucky, the, <a href="#pg380">380</a>, <a href="#pg391">391</a><br /> +Usher, Rev. J., mentioned Negroes desiring baptism, <a href="#pg359">359</a></p> + + +<p>Vandroffen, Petrus, opposed the education of Negroes, <a href="#pg359">359</a><br /> +Vesey, Rev. Mr., interested in the Negroes of New York, <a href="#pg356">356</a><br /> +Vindication of Negroes, <a href="#pg408">408</a><br /> +Virginia, laws of, to prohibit the education of Negroes, <a href="#pg119">119</a>;<br /> + slavery in the western part of, <a href="#pg142">142</a>;<br /> + colored freemen as slave owners in, <a href="#pg233">233</a></p> + + +<p>Wansey, Henry, on slavery, <a href="#pg427">427</a><br /> +Warden, D. B., observations of, <a href="#pg3">3</a><br /> +Warren, John, a preacher in Ohio, <a href="#pg8">8</a><br /> +Washington, Augustus, attitude of, toward emigration, <a href="#pg297">297</a><br /> +Washington, Booker T., note on, <a href="#pg98">98</a><br /> +Washington, George, on the enlistment of Negroes, <a href="#pg113">113</a>, <a href="#pg115">115</a>, <a href="#pg125">125</a><br /> +Wattles, Augustus, induced Negroes to go to Ohio, <a href="#pg8">8</a><br /> +Webster, Daniel, petition of, <a href="#pg241">241</a><br /> +Weld, Isaac, observations of, <a href="#pg432">432</a><br /> +West, Dr., master of James Derham, <a href="#pg103">103</a><br /> +West Indian migration, <a href="#pg370">370</a>, <a href="#pg371">371</a><br /> +West, Reuben, a black master, <a href="#pg239">239</a><br /> +Whigs attacked "Black Laws" of Ohio, <a href="#pg16">16</a><br /> +Whitbeck, teacher of a colored school in Detroit, <a href="#pg31">31</a><br /> +White, Dr. Thomas J., student at Bowdoin, <a href="#pg105">105</a><br /> +Whitfield, James, defended the National Council, <a href="#pg300">300</a><br /> +Whitmore, Rev. Mr., taught Negroes in New York, <a href="#pg358">358</a><br /> +Wilcox, Samuel T., a wealthy Negro of Cincinnati, <a href="#pg20">20</a><br /> +Wilkins, Charles T., testimonial of, <a href="#pg32">32</a><br /> +Wilkins, William D., assisted Miss Fannie M. Richards, <a href="#pg31">31</a><br /> +Williams, Rev. Peter, troubles of, in New York, <a href="#pg288">288</a><br /> +Wilmington, anti-colonization meeting at, <a href="#pg284">284</a><br /> +Wilson, Bishop, urged the instruction of Negroes, <a href="#pg352">352</a><br /> +Wing, Mr., taught Negroes in Cincinnati, <a href="#pg7">7</a><br /> +Wood, Jannette, manumitted by her mother, <a href="#pg240">240</a><br /> +Woodson, C. G., <em>The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861</em>, reviewed, <a href="#pg96">96</a>;<br /> + <em>Freedom and Slavery in Appalachian America</em>, <a href="#pg132">132</a><br /> +Wright, Theodore, antagonistic to colonization, <a href="#pg294">294</a></p> + + +<p>Yeates, Rev. Mr., endeavored to instruct Negroes, <a href="#pg354">354</a></p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. +Jan. 1916, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEGRO HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 13642-h.htm or 13642-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/6/4/13642/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Pam Mitchell, and the PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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