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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77013-0.txt b/77013-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a91807 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2845 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77013 *** + + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + + Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. + + Footnotes are moved to the end of the book. + + Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. + + + + +[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. + +Abaché.] + + + + + Historic Sketches of + the South + + + By + + Emma Langdon Roche + + + _Drawings and Photographs by Author_ + + + The Knickerbocker Press + New York + 1914 + + + + + COPYRIGHT + BY + EMMA LANGDON ROCHE + 1914 + + + The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY 1 + + II. EARLY LEGISLATION AGAINST THE SLAVE TRAFFIC 19 + + III. ILLEGAL TRAFFIC IN SLAVES 49 + + IV. PREPARATIONS FOR “CLOTILDE’S” VOYAGE 65 + + V. THE CAPTURE OF THE TARKARS 74 + + VI. VOYAGE OF THE “CLOTILDE” 84 + + VII. THE RETURN 92 + + VIII. THE TARKARS AT DABNEY’S PLANTATION 98 + + IX. TARKAR LIFE IN AMERICA 103 + + X. IMPRESSIONS OF ALABAMA IN 1846[1] 129 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + ABACHÉ _Frontispiece_ + Drawn by Emma Roche. + + POLEETE 73 + Drawn by Emma Roche. + + ABACHÉ AND KAZOOLA 79 + + MAP DRAWN BY KAZOOLA 89 + (_1_) Tarkar Village. (_2_) Dahomey’s Land. (_3_) + Wavering line showing stealthy march of Dahomeyans + through forest. (_4_) Route by which captive + Tarkars were taken to the sea. (_5_), (_6_), (_7_), (_8_), + Eko, Budigree, Adaché, Whydah, towns through + which Tarkars passed. (_9_) River. (_10_) Beach + and sea. + + KAZOOLA 97 + Drawn by Emma Roche. + + WRECK OF THE “CLOTILDE.” 103 + + CHARLEE 109 + + OLOUALA 117 + Drawn by Emma Roche. + + CHARLEE, HEAD OF THE TARKARS 127 + Drawn by Emma Roche. + + KAZOOLA 131 + + ZOOMA, THE LAST TARKBAR 139 + + + + +Historic Sketches of the South + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY + + +To fully understand the opposition of thought wherein our +“irrepressible conflict” had its inception and lay so long in embryo, +to burst forth at last in the awful and bloody travail of a nation +divided and at arms, some knowledge of the history and psychology +of the peoples who settled the American colonies is necessary; for +a nation’s cataclysms are not spontaneously generated, but are the +result of forces which though for generations are silent and hidden +are gathering strength under the evils of superstition, oppression, or +fanaticism, and only need such an explosive as the tongue of a Danton, +Robespierre, Garrison, Beecher, or Stowe to hurl the people into death +and desolation. + +The early settlers who have left their impress on American life and +character were of the same country and traditions, but their manners +and ideals had been developed by the opposing forces which began to +stir England during the Renaissance--a hundred and fifty years before +the Reformation--forces of which our own Civil War seems as direct +a sequence as were the religio-political feuds of the 16th and 17th +century England. In the New World the exponents of these contrasting +forces were divided for the first century and a half by what afterwards +became known as Mason’s and Dixon’s Line and by vast areas of +uninhabited wilderness. + +Virginia was no Mecca for the religiously or politically oppressed, but +drew to her soldiers of fortune--men impelled by a spirit of adventure, +or those who for some delinquency wished to lose their identity in the +vast, unknown New World; among them were many gentlemen who more often +than not possessed the vices and follies of a corrupt age. The first +who became permanent settlers were divided on the outward voyages by +jealousies and dissensions. These differences were carried into the +colony; aggravated by the greed and selfishness of those placed in +authority, they became greater hardships than the illness, starvation, +and Indian treacheries which hampered early progress. There were “poor +gentlemen, Tradesmen, Servingmen, libertines, and such like, ten times +more fit to spoyle a Commonwealth, than either begin one, or but helpe +to maintain one. For when neither the feare of God, nor the law, nor +shame, nor displeasure of their friends could rule them here, there is +small hope ever to bring one in twenty of them ever to be good there. +Notwithstanding, I confesse divers amongst them, had better mindes and +grew much more industrious than was expected.”[2] Amid treacheries and +deceits, John Smith stands forth a hero. Through his thought and action +the colony not only survived the vicissitudes of fire, starvation, and +massacre, but was saved from itself, for the evils of its own lawless, +disturbing elements were greater dangers than those which came from +without. The hope of gold was ostensibly the colony’s _raison d’être_: +“The worst of all was our gilded refiners with their golden promises +made all men their slaves in hope of recompenses; there was no talke, +no hope, no worke, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold, +such a bruit of gold, that one mad fellow desired to be buried in the +sands least they should by their art make gold of his bones.” This +search for gold proved futile; in 1615 the land was parceled off to +each settler in fifty-acre lots, tobacco was planted, and thus began +Virginia’s prosperity. + +Tobacco was introduced into Europe by the first Columbian voyagers +and into England by Raleigh and Drake. Despite the strong social and +religious pressure--even King James instituting a propaganda which +led him to write the _Counterblast to Tobacco_--the habit spread with +alarming rapidity, and was not confined to the men alone; chewing +and smoking were indulgences common to the older women, while snuff +was the favorite with the younger ones. This new taste created a +demand which increased Virginia’s population and greatly extended her +cultivated fields. Women were scarce, and the planters growing rich had +a natural desire to return to England. This, however, was obviated by +the importation of widows and virgins who were shipped to the colony +as any other cargo. The nature of this bartering, which is unique in +American history, may best be described from a letter, dated August +21, 1621, which accompanied one of these cargoes of colonial dames: +“We send you in this ship one widow and eleven maids for wives for the +people of Virginia. There hath been especial care had in the choice of +them, for there hath not any one of them been received, but upon good +recommendations. + +“In case they can not be presently married, we desire that they be put +in several households that have wives, till they can be provided with +husbands. There are near fifty more which are shortly to come, are sent +by our most honorable lord and treasurer, the Earl of Southampton (the +patron of Shakspere), and certain worthy gentlemen, who taking into +consideration that the plantations can never flourish till families be +planted, and the respects of wives and children fix these people on +the soil, therefore have given this fair beginning for the reimbursing +those charges. It is ordered, that every man that marries them give +one hundred and twenty pounds of the best leaf tobacco for each of them. + +“Though we are desirous that the marriage be free according to the law +of nature, yet we would not have these maids deceived and married to +servants, but only to such freemen or tenants as have means to maintain +them. We pray you, therefore to be as a father to them in this business +not enforcing them to marry against their wills.” + +Labor for the ever-increasing fields was another problem confronting +the planter. King James decided that the London Company should solve +this by transporting to Virginia English convicts, who thus removed +from old environments and temptations might form a valuable industrial +asset. Only one shipload of a hundred was sent, for about the same +time a Dutch man-of-war arrived at Jamestown (August, 1619) and twenty +negro slaves were sold to the planters. Qualms about such a transaction +could scarcely be expected, for through all historic times it was only +as a slave that the negro had been associated with other races. In +ancient times he had been subservient to the Egyptians, bought for +the Carthaginian galleys; slave to Assyrian, Arabian, Indian, Greek, +Etruscan, and Roman; and in early Christian centuries sold by the +Venetians to the Moors of Spain.[3] + +When the existence of new lands became known and labor was needed +for their development, the negro’s native country became a hunting +ground where he was not only stalked by the Dutch and Portuguese, +but by the French and English who also had posts for that purpose in +Africa. In fact the English, including therein the colonists of New +England, became more extensively engaged in the traffic than all other +slave-trading European nations combined. Compunctions about slavery +as about many other things came only with the moral awakening of a +later generation. “Scarcely any one seems to have regarded the trade +as wrong. Theologians had so successfully labored to produce a sense +of the amazing, I might almost say generical, difference between those +who were Christians and those who were not, that to apply to the latter +the principles that were applied to the former, would have been deemed +a glaring paradox. If the condition of the negroes in this world was +altered for the worse, it was felt that their prospects in the next +were greatly improved. Besides, it was remembered that, shortly after +the deluge Ham had behaved disrespectfully to his drunken father, and +it was believed that the Almighty had, in consequence, ordained negro +slavery.”[4] The utility of the negro being at once proven, African +slavery had become something of an institution in Virginia, before the +_Mayflower_ with its handful of men, women, and children landed on +Plymouth Rock. + +The stern, uncompromising attitude of these people in whom there was +no quibbling with right or wrong as they perceived it, which gave them +the physical courage to endure persecution, mutilation, and even death, +was the result of the religious agitations which began in England with +Wycliffe and were directed against the oppressions and corruptions +which flourished within the Church’s powerful organization. Though +suppressed, the leaven had sifted down to the people who, stultified by +centuries of grossest superstition, had silently and patiently borne +the yoke. In the stirrings of this religious Renaissance the book that +reached them was Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible; this gave to them +the Semitic conception of God--the one God--which the voices of those +“primitive Puritans the Prophets” had saved from the obliterating +dangers of idolatry and superstition. The stolid somberness of the +Northern races responded to the majestic swing of this wonderful +collection of Hebrew documents which traced a people’s struggles and +thought development. Some of its characters as Huxley says of “Jepthah, +Gideon, and Sampson are men of the old heroic stamp, who would look +as much in place in a Norse Saga as where they are.” Stray chapters +sometimes came into the possession of some yeoman who was fortunate +enough to read; in silence and secrecy, when the day’s work was done, +there would gather round him eager listeners. To know what this book’s +message meant to them, one needs but read their subsequent history. +To hear it, possess it, and believe it, they suffered the diabolical +tortures and fiendish perpetrations which at once made martyrs and +tyrants of men, and which laid in England the foundation of what Ranke +calls the “heroic age of Protestantism in Western Europe.” Of this +breed were the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock. Their inherent independence +had been fostered by a long exile in Leyden; there the old Teutonic +spirit of freedom had survived, and had given her men that sublime +courage and determination, when besieged by the Duke of Alva and +starving, “that rather than yield they would devour their left arms +to enable them to continue the defense with their right.”[5] Leyden +afterwards became a haven for those of other countries who, breaking +from prescribed thought, dared to act accordingly. It was also a +university center; political and religious tenets were subjects of +common debate. Robinson who became one of the Pilgrim fathers took an +active part in these discussions. + +To these exiles the New World became a hope. Though homeless, they were +loyal to James. While petitioning the London Company for lands, they +begged of him the freedom to there worship God according to their own +consciences. Though this was not actually granted it was permitted. +An unkindly fate seemed to preside over their voyage--buffeting +storms drove them farther north than their proposed destination; some +historians state they were purposely steered out of their course by +their Dutch pilot, and were forced to land on Plymouth Rock. + +By a solemn covenant entered into aboard ship, they agreed that while +they would be faithful to the English Crown, the polity they would +establish among themselves would be an ideal state--a community of +interests--fascinating as expounded by Plato, More, and Rousseau, but +unfeasible for human nature as yet evolved since complete barbarism. +United by a common faith--gloomy, austere--putting aside as mortal +sin all the joys of life--forced to endure together in a wild, bleak, +strange land, starvation, disease, frightful cold, and the terror of +hostile Indians, by whom they would have probably been exterminated +had not a deadly pestilence broken out among these savages--possibly +no better opportunity for such an experiment has ever been offered +civilized man. But among them too was the natural inequality of +individuals which will probably always render futile and unenduring +similar sociological experiments. + +The Puritan settlements were gradually augmented by the persecuted from +their native land, and it would seem that they could at last possess +the religious security and contentment for which they had so long +clamored, but dissent had become second nature; combativeness seemed +essential to zeal, and as there was no Established or Roman Church +at which to hurl themselves, their own tenets became mooted points; +bitter differences arose. They showed themselves as intolerant in the +New World as they had been intolerable in the Old, and those without +the might to prove their right were driven forth. In this manner +Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were settled. Much of +their later history has to do with religious bickerings, mutilations, +and witch-burnings. It was an outgrowth of this same spirit which +confronted the South for thirty years before the final rupture which +resulted in the War of Secession. + +Thus from the beginning the North and the South were necessarily +distinctive; settled under different circumstances, the one drew +from England the stern, severe, and rigorously religious, while the +other became the habitat for the Puritan’s opposite--the impecunious +gentleman, the roistering cavalier, the insolvent debtor, and the +Catholic nobleman--a class in which there had been a very general +“reversion from virtuous and noble manhood to the lewdness of the +ape and the cunning ferocity of the tiger.”[6] In the New World all +alike were brought face to face with a great, overshadowing nature +which presented the diversified physical conditions along which each +section’s economic development would tend. Agriculture in austere New +England would have been a too uneven wrestling with nature; existence +wrought from the soil meant unending toil and often heart-breaking +disappointment, so the New Englander’s pursuits became mercantile and +seafaring--occupations in which the negro could be of little value, but +following England’s initiative he found the slave-trade profitable, and +the Southern planter a ready buyer. To repress Nature’s exuberance, +the fields of tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, and cane required man’s +watchful care, and the negro, inured through all previous generations +to the sun and rain, the jungle and the swamp, properly directed, +became, and still is, the ideal laborer for work of the soil. + +Since then our “mental endyses” have been many; we have associations +for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and sympathetic and indignant +thrills pass through us at sight of ill-treatment to one of these, so +we cannot bring our attitude of to-day or of the last hundred years +to judge the beginnings of American slavery. To 16th and 17th century +Europeans it was palpable that the difference between the negro and +the man-like apes was no greater than that existing between the negro +and themselves, and it was debatable “with that brutishness which +commonly appeareth in all their actions whether the people generally +may be thought to be men in the skins of beasts; or beasts created in +the likenesse and shape of man.”[7] The sentimentality which obtained +some years ago and which led to such bitter hatred and seems almost +maudlin when that phase of the question in which the indescribable +wretchedness of the negro in his native land is considered--his gross +and pitiable superstitions, his indifference to death and his regard +for cruelty as a virtue; what slavery did for him seems analogous to +what we suppose primitive man accomplished with the wolf--adopted it +from the wild and made of it a faithful, domestic animal. True, the +motives were utility and gain, but who can deny the mighty uplift in +value and sagacity, both for the dog and the negro? Among the African +tribes described in Pigafetta’s account of Lopez’s _African Travels_ +(1598), and spoken of by Heylyn in his _Cosmographie_ (1657), are the +Anziques, “the cruellest Cannibals in the world; for they do not onely +eat their Enemies, but their friends and Kinsfolk. And that they may be +sure not to want these Dainties, they have shambles of man’s flesh, as +in other parts of Beef and Mutton. So covetous withall, that if their +Slaves will yield but a penny more when sold joynt by joynt than if +sold alive, they will cut them out, and sell them upon the shambles. +Yet with these barbarous qualities they have many good ... of so great +fidelity to their masters and to those which trust them, that they +will rather choose to be killed than either abuse the trust, or betray +their Masters. For that cause more esteemed by the Portugals than +other Slaves.” So even the most bloodthirsty possessed potentially the +quality of faithfulness, which when he was removed from his natural +environment--where for thousands of years he had not progressed--made +all his later development possible, and which aside from the cases +where there has been an infusion of white or Indian blood, is largely +responsible for what the best type of American negro is to-day. It was +this quality, fostered by care and kindness, that has filled Southern +tradition with touching and oftentimes heroic incidents of the slave’s +devotion. When the old differences of Puritan and Cavalier, under other +guises, called men to arms, it was to the fidelity of these blacks that +the Southerner trusted wife, children, and home. That this trust was +seldom violated is sufficient encomium for master and slave. Under the +régime established in many places, after emancipation had converted the +“slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperized man” (Huxley), when he +was incited to open rebellion and nameless atrocities, to what sorrows +would the desolated South have been subjected, had the old status +of master and slave been different? Had the South been guilty of the +charges laid to her door, despite Klu-Klux Klans and other precautions, +the negro’s temper would have been much the same as that of the French +canaille, who during the Commune “drank blood to vomit crime.” They had +shown, in the San Domingo insurrections, that revenge lay within their +nature. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY LEGISLATION AGAINST SLAVERY + + +The Cavalier and adventurer in working out their destiny in the New +World became purged of the foibles that continued to debauch their +compeers in England; among their descendants of a few generations were +those men of unimpeachable honor and integrity of purpose who will be +held forever as the highest types of American chivalry and manhood. +Those of Virginia, with whom colonial slavery was most ancient, were +the first to be aroused to the full ethical significance of the +evil--to the grave injustice to the unfortunate lower race, and to +the detriment to the moral nature of the higher. They were the first +to attempt to legislate against the evil. In 1770, Virginia protested +against the importation of slaves, but to no avail as royalty itself +was financially interested in the traffic. At the meeting of the +delegates from each county of Virginia held at Williamsburg in August, +1774, to consider British oppression and indignities, the second +article of the protest resolved and agreed upon bore upon the slave +traffic: “We will neither ourselves import nor purchase any slave, or +slaves, imported by any person, after the first day of November next, +either from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place.” This meeting +was a full one, and among the one hundred and eight signers--all +prominent in Virginia life and annals--are Peyton Randolph, Richard +Henry Lee, George Washington, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, Thomas +Jefferson, Thomas Marshall, Thomas Randolph, and Francis Lightfoot +Lee. The instructions of Thomas Jefferson, with whom the abolition +of slavery was always a great aim, to the Virginia delegates to the +first Congress (August, 1774), voiced the sentiments of Virginia’s +most thoughtful men: “For the most trifling reason, and sometimes for +no reason at all, His Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary +tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of +desire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily introduced in their +infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we +have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. +Yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions, and by +imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition have been hitherto +defeated by His Majesty’s negative; thus preferring the immediate +advantage of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the +American States, and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by +this inhuman practise.” + +Not only was every effort of the Southern colonists opposed by +England’s monarch, but with the breaking out of open hostilities his +agents were commissioned to arm and instigate the slaves against their +masters.[8] Many lured by the promise of land and freedom flocked to +the British standard; they were sent into Nova Scotia. Suffering from +cold and becoming discontented by the non-fulfillment of the promises +of aggrandizement, they were finally sent to Sierra Leone, which in +the following seventy-five years received the thousands taken by the +British from the slavers. + +During this fearful crisis, Virginia’s spirit towards these misguided +people was one of mercy and humanitarianism. At the next convention +it was resolved: “Whereas Lord Dunmore, by his proclamation, dated on +board the ship _William_ off Norfolk, the 7th day of November, 1775, +hath offered freedom to such able-bodied slaves as are willing to +join him, and take up arms against the good people of this colony, +giving encouragement to a general insurrection, which may induce a +necessity of inflicting the severest punishments upon these unhappy +people already deluded by his base and insiduous arts, and whereas, +by an act of the general assembly now in force in this colony, it +is enacted, that all negro, or other slaves, conspiring to rebel or +make insurrection, shall suffer death, and be excluded all benefit of +clergy--we think it proper to declare, that all slaves who have been, +or shall be seduced by his lordship’s proclamation, or others to desert +their masters’ service and take up arms against the inhabitants of +this colony, shall be liable to such punishment as shall hereafter be +directed by the convention. And to the end that all such, who have +taken this unlawful and wicked step, may return in safety, to their +duty, and escape the punishment due their crimes, we hereby promise +pardon to them, surrendering themselves to Colonel William Woodford or +any other commander of our troops, and not appearing in arms after the +publication hereof. And we do further earnestly recommend it to all +humane and benevolent persons in the colony, to explain and make known +this offer of mercy to those unfortunate people.” + +About this time, some feeling against American slavery, but more +against the “aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the Southern +colonists,” stirred England, and a general enfranchisement of the +slaves was proposed. Edmund Burke, in his famous speech of March 22, +1775, on the “Conciliation with America,” touches on the incongruity +of such a proposition of freedom coming from England: “Slaves as these +unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, +must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very +nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their +refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom +from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African +vessel, which is refused entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, +with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to +see the Guinea captain attempt at the same instant to publish his +proclamation of liberty and to advertise the sale of slaves.” + +After throwing off the British yoke, the abolition of the slave traffic +and of slavery was still a paramount issue with these men of Virginia, +and in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had drafted a +clause relative to the moral obliquity; this clause, “reprobating the +enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to +South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the +importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue +it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under +these censures; for though their people had few slaves themselves, yet +they had been very considerable carriers of them to others.”[9] + +The disposition to emancipate was strongest in Virginia. In 1778, when +Jefferson introduced a bill into the Assembly to stop the further +importation of slaves either by land or sea--a fine of one thousand +pounds to be imposed upon any transgressor--it was passed without +opposition and temporarily decreased the evil, but the time was not +ripe for so philanthropic an innovation, and the bill was repealed +by a later Assembly. Many of the younger men, however, were imbued +with a realization of the evil, especially those who at William and +Mary’s College, had come under the influence of George Wythe, and it +was to these that many looked for the ultimate righting of the wrong. +Adumbrations of a future catastrophe broke upon Jefferson, but in +that period of patriotism, his almost prophetic vision saw not the +dim, distant conflict as one arising out of the inherent differences +of North and South, though this came to sadden his declining years, +but rather as one of race against race: “Indeed I tremble for my +country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep +forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a +revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among +possible events.” The hope of eradicating negro slavery before it took +a too vital hold upon the needs and institutions of his land stirred +his patriotic and spiritual zeal; throughout a long life he took a +vigorous stand against its growth. In 1784, when Virginia gave to the +United States her portion of the Northwest Territory, it was Jefferson, +assisted by Chase and Howell, who drafted and ardently advocated the +ordinance that “after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery +nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in +punishment of crime.” This was defeated, but led to the Ordinance of +1787 which forever excluded slavery from the territory northwest of the +Ohio River. + +At the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia in 1787, +Jefferson urged as a step towards the ultimate ending of slavery, +the immediate abolition of the importation, but Pinckney of South +Carolina moved that the traffic be extended until 1808, and he was +seconded by Gorman of Massachusetts. The motion carried in all the New +England States, in South Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland; Virginia, +Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware were against it. This exigency +of extending it for twenty years was a subject of grave apprehension +to many thoughtful and patriotic men who were slave owners, among them +Jefferson, Washington, and Madison; though the attitude of the last +was frequently ambiguous about many questions, he commits himself very +fully on this clause of the Constitution in _The Federalist_: “It were +doubtless to be wished that the power of prohibiting the importation +of slaves had not been postponed until 1808, or, rather, that it had +been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult +to account either for the restriction on the general government or +for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be +considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period +of twenty years may terminate forever within these States, a traffic +which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern +polity.” + +It may be assumed that the majority of those engaged in framing the +Constitution regarded slavery as a domestic problem nearing its +end, and it was a policy which at that time received more vehement +denunciation from men of the South than those of the North, probably +because a part of the North was actively engaged in the traffic and +that the humanitarians of the South, born in the midst of slavery, +were not only awake to the ethical significance of the evil, but were +averse to raising within their midst thousands of an alien race. That +the disposition to discontinue all avenues which led to a continuation +of slavery was not more general was incomprehensible to Jefferson, and +absolutely out of harmony with the spirit of freedom which permeated +American life: “What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine +is man! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death +itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf +to all those motives whose power supported him through trial, and +inflict on his fellow-men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with +more misery, than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. +But we must await, with patience, the workings of an over-ruling +Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of those, +our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, +when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, +doubtless, a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by +diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length, +by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to the things +of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind +fatality.”[10] + +This constitutional postponement did not even settle the question +temporarily. The Quakers presented a memorial for the abolition of the +slave trade to the very first Congress (1790). This was reported by a +committee to the whole House; and after various amendments was returned +with the following: + +“1st, That migration or importation of such persons, as any of the +States now existing shall think proper to admit, can not be prohibited +by Congress prior to the year 1808. + +“2d, That Congress have no authority to interfere in emancipation +of slaves or in the treatment of them within any of the States; it +remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations +therein, which humanity and true polity may require.” + +This was a perilous and critical time--a time of trial for the new +Constitution--when the States, watchful and alert, were jealous +of their rights, and the Quakers’ action was regarded by many as +a flagrant violation of those rights. Washington considered their +petition inopportune, especially as the question had been recently +disposed of and was contained in an article of the Constitution, and +so expressed himself in a letter: “The memorial of the Quakers [and +a very malapropos one it was] has at length been put to sleep, and +will scarcely awake before the year 1808.” However, the Quakers’ +attitude was not equivocal, as was that of the Puritan New Englander. +Their petition grew from earnest convictions--convictions which were +deep-rooted before they came to America, for they had expressed their +repugnance to the English slave trade in 1671, and after coming to +America had discouraged participation in slavery as early as 1696; in +1776 they placed their ultimatum upon it by excluding from membership +any Quaker slaveholder. + +This constitutional extension of the slave traffic closed +all possibility of the question ever being settled amicably. +Short-sightedness can scarcely be charged to those responsible, for at +that time there was no thought of an acquisition of territory on the +south and southwest, and the cultivation of cotton was still in its +infancy. Before another decade Eli Whitney had invented the cotton-gin; +this gave an impetus to the growing of cotton; agriculture in the +South was revolutionized. To make way for the industry Georgia ceded +her western territory to the United States and a tide of Southern +immigration from the older centers of Virginia and the Carolinas +rapidly flowed into Alabama and Mississippi. The wanderlust of a +hardy, pioneer ancestry was in these men’s veins. Accompanied often +by gentle families, their household goods, and their negroes they +started overland. By long and tedious journeyings, across mountain, +stream, and swamp--through seemingly boundless stretches of majestic +pines--sometimes encountering hostile Indians and again exchanging +friendly courtesies with the friendly Choctaws and Chickasaws, they +reached the new frontier, and established themselves along the river +courses. Others came by sailing vessels, and passing through the French +and Spanish cities of Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans, followed +the river courses into the interior. The log cabins which sprang up +in the wilderness, were soon supplanted by comfortable, substantial +homes frequently built of brick made upon the plantations or of +hand-hewn lumber; each became a nucleus of activities around which all +things necessary for the maintenance of life were produced. On the +well-ordered plantations the African was not only field laborer and +faithful domestic, but became cobbler, mason, carpenter, and a spinner +and weaver of cotton and wool. In this virgin region, far removed +from the life and influences of the older States, there grew up a +vital and mutual dependence between master and slave; as such, each +was necessary to the other; but it was not a combination out of which +sentiments for the ultimate freedom of the negro were apt to grow; and +it was these who were farthest removed from the later machinations +of the Abolitionists, who were most bitter and strenuous in their +opposition. In this close relation which in all but rare exceptions was +a kindly one, the Southerner came to know the negro as the negro then +could not know himself, realized his limitations, directed him along +useful lines, and knew how rapidly he would revert were the civilizing +and humanizing influence of slavery as it existed in the South removed. +In later years when Southerners stood before a questioning world, there +was no sophistry in the protests of those who declared that slavery was +beneficial, and it was an argument resting upon truth that the Southern +negro’s condition was happier than that of the laboring classes in +other parts of the world. + +European events also conspired towards an extension of slavery. After +the French troops, already depleted by yellow fever, were defeated by +the negro insurgents at San Domingo, Napoleon realized the uncertainty +of France retaining the great Louisiana Territory which had been +but recently repossessed from Spain. To circumvent the English, who +had long coveted this domain, Napoleon, in 1803, offered it to the +United States for fifteen million dollars. American settlers along +the Mississippi had already experienced difficulties with the Spanish +who claimed complete control of the Mississippi River south of the +Yazoo, and though Congress had been given no constitutional prerogative +for acquiring new territory, Jefferson, who was then President, saw +the varied importance of this acquisition, and successfully and with +very little criticism directed the negotiations. This brought into +the United States, not only a vast terra incognita, but an extensive +Franco-Spanish civilization stretching along the Gulf of Mexico, with +French outposts scattered along the great river systems and reaching +into the very heart of America. + +The divergence of this civilization from that of English colonization +was not only racial, but its tone had been qualified by the spirit in +which the settlements had been made and the polity adopted by each. It +possessed nothing of New England’s austerity, or of Virginia’s somewhat +stolid stateliness, but was characterized by a graceful picturesqueness +and a delightful bonhomie. The black-robed priest if not the pathfinder +who blazed the way for French settlements was usually the comrade and +companion of those who did. Religion and settlement went hand in hand. +None of the torturing and enslaving methods used by the Puritans to +force upon the natives a cold, stern religion, unattractive even to +other Christian sects, or by the Spanish in Mexico and Florida, were +resorted to by the French. Wherever there was a priest, Mass began the +day. The mystic ceremony, performed in the dewy freshness of early +morning within the forest’s depths, or on a strip of sandy beach beside +the mighty waters; the solemn gestures of the celebrant and the adoring +attitude of the worshippers appealed to the Indian imagination, and the +French were soon importuned to invoke their Great Spirit to aid the red +man, to bring rain or to heal the sick or wounded. + +From Mobile, the oldest and for many years the chief French +settlement, the genius of Iberville and Bienville Lemoyne, aided by +ardent and indefatigable missioners, reached out to remote Indian +tribes, conciliating and binding them as allies. They dealt fairly +with the Indian, but in cases of treachery used the Indian’s own +method of punishment. From the Indians they also adopted the custom of +making slaves of hostile captives. Negro slavery also existed in these +settlements from very early years, for in the quaint baptismal register +of 1704-1778, forming a part of the archives of the Catholic Cathedral +of Mobile, is recorded the baptism of two negro children belonging to +Bienville in 1707, and in the same year a negro woman belonging to him +bore the first negro child born on the Gulf coast.[11] + +Gold was not found, nor did the French settlements on the Gulf lay in +the wake of the treasure-ladened Spanish galleons, but the climate was +benign, the lands rich, and the forests afforded an abundance of food, +and in times of scarcity Bienville sometimes quartered his soldiers +among the friendly natives. There was leisure for the amenities, +and the priest and nun who had given up life and ambition in the Old +World were not only the spiritual advisers and educators of the young +of New France, but as missioners guided and instructed the Indian and +the slave. Their institutions became asylums for the sick and desolate +of any race, and to their influence may be traced the easy, happy +condition of the negro slave among the French of Louisiana. There was +that in the temperament of these French which while appropriating the +Indian’s and negro’s usefulness at the same time beguiled and won them. +An incident of a slave’s heroic loyalty to the French is related by +Gayarré in his _Louisiana_. After the French settlements passed under +Spanish control, New Orleans revolted, and the leaders were sentenced +to be shot; Jeannot the negro hangman cut off his right arm rather than +raise it against a Frenchman. + +In March, 1724, Bienville issued a code, one clause of which forbade +marriages between whites and blacks. Such marriages had taken place, +and had given rise to what afterwards became an extensive Afro-Latin +population. In many places along the Gulf coast it is among these +so-called Creoles who have clung to their original habitations along +the river banks, the creeks, and bays, that the old French names are +found and a patois spoken. The result of this amalgamation did not seem +mongrel, but distinctive, and in their local history, covering two +hundred years, during which time they have lived under five different +flags, there has been a pride of race which has kept the original +strain pure. Deeply religious, they have been characterized by honesty, +frugality, and industry. They were never slaves, but were in many +instances slave owners. + +A Société des Amis des Noirs had been formed in Paris, in 1788. Its +object was to end the slave trade and slavery, especially in San +Domingo from which came many reports of cruelty and oppression. A +little later, France in establishing the rights and equality of man +passed through her awful revolution. Though Louisiana was in constant +touch and sympathy with France, among her peaceful, pleasure-loving +people no sentiment about negro freedom or equality seems to have been +evolved. When this great territory passed into the United States, it +carried with it its institution of slavery, which, established as it +was in the habits and thoughts of these people, strengthened slavery’s +hold upon the South, pushed further away, and complicated with added +difficulties the fulfillment of the hope of those great Southerners who +had looked for its gradual and peaceful termination. In the government +of this new territory we again meet with the large vision of Jefferson +and his desire to curtail slavery. Outside importations were forbidden, +and only slaves who had been brought to this country before 1798 +could be carried by their masters for the purpose of settlement into +Louisiana. All others carried in would be freed and the penalty for +each offense would be three hundred dollars. + +To prepare the seafaring interests for the statute of 1808, and to lead +American sentiment to its acceptance, Congress in the early part of +the same year (1803) prohibited after April 1, 1803, the importation +of any persons of color, or the entry of any vessels containing such +persons into those States whose laws already debarred such importation. +Indians were not included in this prohibition. The penalty for the +first violation was a fine of one thousand dollars for every such +person, one half to be appropriated to the United States and the other +to be given to the informer. For the latter offense, the vessel and +all appurtenances were to be confiscated by the United States, one +half the net proceeds to be given to such “person or persons on whose +information the seizure of such forfeiture shall be made.”[12] + +When New Jersey abolished slavery in 1804, this statute obtained in +all the Northern States. In their economy slavery was an incubus. This +statute imposed no financial sacrifice on individuals, for in most +cases the relatively few slaves had been transferred and sold in the +South. Though there were threatening party differences, as yet there +seems no general feeling against slavery in those States to which +it was peculiar, and such sentiments as were entertained were more +abstract than those common in the South itself.[13] Many Northern +fortunes had been built upon the slave trade; though prohibiting the +importation into their own States, numbers were still actively engaged +in the traffic--and the Southern States were the only ports legally +open to them, for an act forbidding the direct or indirect importation +of slaves into foreign countries had become a United States statute +in 1794. The South itself seldom engaged in this traffic--it was a +degradation to which her aristocratic tendencies could not stoop; a +“nigger-trade” was taboo; and though slave vessels plied to and from +her ports, they were usually a part of Yankee enterprise. + +Jefferson, to whom the question had so long been a momentous one, +welcomed the time when the traffic would end, and in his sixth annual +message to Congress, December 2, 1806, rejoiced “on the approach of +the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, +to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further +participation in those violations of human rights which have so long +continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the +morality, the reputation, and the best interests of the country have +long been eager to proscribe.” With the first of January, 1808, it +became unlawful for any person of color to be imported into the United +States or her territory; any person aiding or abetting such traffic to +be fined five thousand dollars; also “any citizen of the United States, +building, fitting out, equipping, loading or otherwise preparing +or sending away any ship or vessel, knowing that the same shall be +employed in such trade or business” shall pay twenty thousand dollars, +a part to go to the United States and another to any person or persons +who shall prosecute the offender. Every vessel found engaged in the +traffic was to be “seized, prosecuted, and condemned in any of the +circuit courts or district courts where the said ship or vessel may +be found or seized.” The President was authorized to use the naval +and revenue forces to enforce the statute. They were to cruise on the +coast of the United States and her territories; to seize and bring to +port vessels contravening the provisions of the act, the captain or +commander to be prosecuted before any court of the United States having +jurisdiction thereof; and if convicted to be fined not more than ten +thousand dollars, and to be subject to imprisonment to not more than +four years.[14] + +These and further enactments of a like nature ended constitutionally +the slave traffic in the United States. Many New Englanders had nothing +further to gain; there was no legitimate financial emolument now +standing between them and a realization of the ethical side of the +slave question. Instead of lending a conservative help to those of the +South who hoped by gradual and conciliatory methods to loose slavery’s +growing hold upon their institutions, through a curious psychological +metamorphosis they began to look askance upon the South and its +institution of slavery, and to affiliate in thought with the abolition +movement which under Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others was stirring +England; forgetting in their zeal that the wrongs which Clarkson and +Wilberforce were championing were the wrongs of which England and +New England as slave traders had been the chief perpetrators. This +growing sentiment was seized upon by politicians and played upon for +party purposes. It was with increased apprehension that they saw the +extension of the slave interests which the purchase of Louisiana had +necessitated, and the further representation these interests would +be given as new States were formed from the slave territory. For a +decade this jealousy was kept within safe bounds by any preponderance +of representation being checkmated and balanced by the formation of a +Free State. Yet this feeling was becoming rapidly contagious, spreading +to many who had not previously thought of slavery, or who regarded it +as a domestic policy to be settled by the Slave States individually +and exclusively. With the development of the Missouri controversy, +the temperamental divergence born of several centuries of turmoil and +turbulence in England, and too deep-rooted to be really dead, roused +from the anesthesia of united effort against a common enemy and a +subsequent enthusiasm for Union, and stood forth definitely defined +as North and South. Forgetful of the give and take necessary for +the harmonious existence of polities as of individuals, the country +was still not large enough or the political interests sufficiently +varied, for such differences to be conducive to well-being. In his +Presidential farewell Washington warned his countrymen against a +geographical division of interests: “In contemplating the causes which +may disturb our Union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern, that +any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by +_geographical discrimination_, ... northern and southern ... Atlantic +and western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that +there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the +expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is +to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot +shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings +which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien +to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal +affection.” To Jefferson, aged and waiting, this Missouri controversy +and its adjustment, was the alarum in which he heard the death-knell +of the Union, and in a letter to John Holmes, dated Monticello, April +22, 1820, he so expresses himself: “I thank you, dear sir, for the copy +you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents +on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had +for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to +public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a +passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not far distant. But +this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and +filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the death-knell of +the Union. It is hushed indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve +only, not the final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a +marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to +the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new +irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious +truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than +I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practical +way. The cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) is +a bagatelle, which would not cost me a second thought, if in that +way a general emancipation and _expatriation_ could be effected; and +gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But, as it is, +we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely +let him go. Justice is in one scale and self-preservation in the other. +Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one Free +State to another would not make a slave of a single human being who +would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface +would make them individually happier, and proportionately facilitate +the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on +a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act +of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of +Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of +men comprising a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every +State, which nothing in the Constitution has taken from them, and +given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say that +the non-freemen of Connecticut could be freemen, or that they shall not +emigrate to another State? + +“I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice +of themselves of the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and +happiness to their country, is to be thrown away, by the unwise and +unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be +that I shall not live to weep over it. If they would dispassionately +weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle, +more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause +before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of +treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful +advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and +respect.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ILLEGAL TRAFFIC IN SLAVES + + +Legislation against habits which by an evolution of sentiment have +become moral issues is always followed by flagrant violations, for +men are usually loth to acquiesce in things which they consider a +curtailment of their livelihood. For a century and a half, the slave +traffic had been an immense source of revenue for a large class of +citizens. Despite the constitutional prohibition, the imposition of +heavy fines and the offer of large rewards, the traffic in negroes +continued to flourish--nor was it carried on with any great degree of +surreptitiousness. Vessels intended for this purpose were built with a +reference to speed and were probably the fleetest craft afloat. + +In the early years of the Union the revenue and naval forces were +necessarily small and the coast a vast and sparsely inhabited one. +Algerian pirates called for a part of their strength, and their +energies were again directed against the British in 1812; pirates +harassed commerce off the South Atlantic States and in the Gulf of +Mexico--Lafitte establishing a kingdom at Barataria, an island in the +lower Mississippi, from which sailed many piratical expeditions, and +where a brisk trade in slaves was carried on. Though our naval force +seemed inadequate it had been singularly successful against these +outside adversaries. These preoccupations seem scarcely sufficient +excuse for the flourishing condition of the illegal traffic in slaves. +Money, politics, and indifference appear to have been a trinity that +glossed over rottenness then as now. Obscure harbors and lonely shores +were not always the destination of these hell-craft, but they sailed +to and from the principal seaport towns. With scarcely an exception +they were fitted up by New Englanders and New Yorkers and manned by +down-east seamen; Rhode Island led with Connecticut, Massachusetts +and New York as close seconds. The West Indies and Brazil offered a +market, and some found their way into Southern ports, where, through +the co-operation of an equally criminal class of Southerners, the +unfortunate, contraband humans were sold. + +While the middle passage before 1808 was a veritable inferno, it was +afterwards characterized by a barbarity which should have sickened +the soul of all humanity, yet the voice and sentiment of humane, +law-abiding Americans were not strong enough to make this traffic +impossible. Cyrus King in a speech on the Missouri Question, in 1819, +described the shameless situation: “It well might be supposed that the +slave trade would in practice be extinguished; that virtuous men would +by their abhorrence stay its polluted march and the wicked would be +overawed by its potent punishment, but unfortunately the case is far +otherwise. We have but melancholy proofs from unquestionable sources +that it is still carried on with all the implacable ferocity--and +insatiable rapacity--of former times. Avarice has grown more subtile +in its evasions; and watches and seizes its prey with an appetite +quickened rather than suppressed by its guilty vigils. American +citizens are steeped up to their very mouths (I scarcely use too bold a +figure) in this stream of iniquity? They throng the coasts of Africa +under the stained flags of Spain and Portugal, sometimes selling abroad +their ‘cargoes of despair,’ and sometimes bringing them into some of +our Southern ports, and there, under the forms of law, defeating the +purpose of the law itself, and legalizing their inhuman but profitable +adventures.” + +Those so unfortunate as to have been brought into any of the Southern +States were by the Constitution “subject to any regulations, not +contravening the provisions of the act, which the legislatures of the +several states or territories at any time hereafter may make, for +disposing of any such negro, mulatto, or person of color.” As some +extenuation for those Southern States, let it be asked, What was to +be done with these unfortunate Africans? Barbarians all--often of the +lowest type--and sometimes cannibals--could they be given freedom? The +attention of thinking men was early directed to the status of the free +black; how to place him to his own best advantage that his position +as a citizen would not be equivocal; and to avoid arousing by his +idle example or designing machinations, discord, dissatisfaction, +and even mutiny among the slaves. In 1803, a colonization plan was +discussed in the Virginia Assembly; this led to a correspondence on +the subject between Madison, who was then Governor, and President +Jefferson. Out of this was born in 1816, what soon became a very active +organization, the American Colonization Society. After negotiations, +lands were secured on the west coast of Africa at Cape Mesurada. There +the society established a colony to which such free blacks as desired +might be conveyed, and which was also to receive the Africans taken +from slavers, or those found to have been smuggled into the country +by traders. During all the years of the society’s activities the +unfortunates reached by their clemency were small in proportion to +those surreptitiously sold into bondage; this was due to the powerful +abettors--often legalized ones--of the traffic. A lack of intelligent +forethought was responsible for disheartening results in their early +efforts at colonization. But the society’s efforts at home were +more successful by fostering a spirit against the trade, and it was +instrumental in regulating the laws in some of the Southern States +which were so ambiguous as to aid rather than crush the trade.[15] In +1819, Congress stipulated that contraband Africans were to be taken +from State jurisdiction to become wards of the Government, and the +President was authorized to make “such regulations and arrangements +as he may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and removal +beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, +or persons of color, as may be so delivered and brought within their +jurisdiction. And to appoint a proper person or persons, residing upon +the coast of Africa, as agent or agents for receiving negroes, etc., +delivered from on board vessels, seized in the prosecution of trade +by commanders of the United States armed vessels.” In 1819, Congress +acting upon a memorial presented by the Colonization Society, declared +the slave traffic to be piracy punishable with death. In this same +year the statute of 1809 was enlarged and made more stringent and the +President was empowered to send armed vessels along the African coast. +One hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for this purpose. + +Rigid legislation only multiplied the horrors, without curtailing the +evil. With death as the penalty, when there was danger of apprehension, +it was not uncommon for the whole cargo to be thrown into the sea. +This, compared with the tortures of frequent passages, was almost +humane. To escape the terrors, numbers would embrace death if given the +opportunity. Yet the trade was highly profitable even if three out of +four cargoes were lost. + +By the Treaty of Ghent (1815), the United States and Great Britain +agreed separately and individually to use their influence to suppress +the trade. Yet later the United States threw sheltering arms around +those of her citizens whom Britain had reason to suspect--maritime +rights, the statement that Southern slave owners might make voyages +accompanied by their slaves, or the plea of slave hands on merchant +ships--often protected malefactors. After Parliament abolished slavery +from the British colonies, the American brig _Comet_ was stranded off +the Bahamas (1830), as was the _Encomium_ in 1834 and the _Enterprise_ +in 1835; slaves were found aboard in each case and liberated by the +English. Americans raised a loud cry. After a correspondence covering +nearly ten years Great Britain agreed to pay for the Africans, and +admonished her colonies on the southern borders of the United States to +“maintain good neighborhood.” As the years went by and all so-called +efforts proved ineffectual, England, with a sincere desire to end the +traffic, developed an assumption that it was her especial privilege, +and inaugurated a right of search, or visit, against the very nature +of which it was imperative that the United States should protest. In +many cases this necessity became unavoidably another protection for +malefactors. As the flags of various countries were constantly used +to cover the traffic, England in 1803 united with Russia, France, +Austria, and Prussia for the suppression, and acquired supervision +along the African coast, maintaining a right of search. America was +not approached on this subject, though Lord Palmerston boldly declared +to the world England’s right to “visit” American merchantmen (Aug. +13, 1841). This was later sustained by Lord Aberdeen (Oct. 13, 1841). +America’s attitude toward the situation was awaited with great interest +by European Powers. Such an assumption could not be tolerated--America +had already suffered too much from British assumption--and President +Tyler in his message to Congress protested that “however desirous the +United States may be for the suppression of the slave trade, they +cannot consent to any interpolations of the maritime code at the mere +will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the right of any such +interpolation to any one, or all the nations of earth without our +consent.... American citizens prosecuting a lawful commerce on the +African seas, under the flag of their country, are not responsible +for the abuse or unlawful use of that flag by others; nor can they +rightfully, on account of any such alleged abuses, be interrupted, +molested, or detained while in the ocean; and if thus molested and +detained while pursuing honest voyages in the usual way and violating +no laws themselves, they are unquestionably entitled to indemnity.”[16] + + +Lord Aberdeen in his correspondence with Mr. Stephenson (Oct. 13, +1841) had admitted that it would be an infringement of public law, +to visit and search American vessels during times of peace, if that +right were not granted by treaty. “But no such right is asserted. We +sincerely desire to respect the vessels of the United States, but we +may reasonably expect to know what it is we respect. Doubtless the flag +is prima facie evidence of nationality of the vessel; and, if this +evidence were in its nature conclusive and irrefragible, it ought to +preclude all further inquiry. But it is sufficiently notorious that +the flags of all nations are liable to be assumed by those who have no +right or title to bear them. Mr. Stephenson himself fully admits the +extent to which the American flag has been employed for the purpose +of covering this infamous traffic. The undersigned joins with Mr. +Stephenson in deeply lamenting the evil; and he agrees with him in +thinking the United States ought not to be considered responsible for +the abuse of their flag. But if all inquiry be resisted, even when +carried no further than to ascertain the nationality of the vessel, and +impunity be claimed for the most lawless and desperate of mankind, +in the commission of the fraud the undersigned greatly fears that it +may be regarded as something like an assumption of that responsibility +which has been deprecated by Mr. Stephenson.... + +“The undersigned, although with pain, must add, that if such visit lead +to the proof of the American origin of the vessel, and that she was +avowedly engaged in the trade, exhibiting manacles, fetters, and other +usual implements of torture, or had even a number of those unfortunates +on board, no British officer could interfere further. He might give +information to the cruisers of the United States, but it could not be +in his power to arrest or impede the prosecution of the voyage and the +success of the undertaking.” + +The question called for a diplomatic correspondence. In 1842, Lord +Ashburton was sent as special minister to the United States, empowered +to settle the Northwest Boundary, and other questions of controversy. +The result of his conference with Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, +was a treaty between Great Britain and the United States known as the +Ashburton Treaty and as the Treaty of Washington. By the eighth article +each stipulated to “maintain on the African coast an adequate squadron, +to carry in all not less than eighty guns, to enforce separately and +respectively the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for +the suppression of the slave trade.” + +There was also the realization that as long as certain countries +offered open markets for slaves, the temptation to malefactors would +be so great that their efforts would be more or less ineffectual; by +the ninth article both countries agreed to “unite in all becoming +representations and remonstrances with any and all powers within whose +dominions such markets are allowed to exist,” and that “they will urge +upon all such powers the propriety and duty of closing such markets +effectually, at once and forever.” + +Americans, among others, continued to brazenly carry on the trade; as +the gap between the North and the South widened, it was carried on with +renewed vigor. The Abolitionists’ thoughts were focused on conditions +in the South, and failed to note the flourishing trade carried on +under their very eyes from the ports of New England and New York. +Inhabitants of these places were constantly being found implicated, +but by lack of proof, or through some technicality, they were seldom +convicted. Officials, who were either conniving or indifferent, aided +them in their lucrative trade. As late as 1858, a brisk trade was +carried on; statistics show that in that year eighty-five slavers were +fitted out and sailed from New York alone, and these successfully +captured and sold into slavery fifteen thousand Africans. Sometimes +they were sent into the South. The schooner _Wanderer_ in the fall +of 1858 surreptitiously landed three hundred at Brunswick, Georgia; +they were taken up the Savannah River and sold. In October, of the +same year, an alleged slave bark, _Isle de Cuba_, was taken in custody +at Boston, and her crew held as witnesses under a thousand-dollar +bond; later they and Captain Dobson were discharged. In November, +the schooner _Madison_ was taken by the United States marshal at New +York. She was intended for the slave trade, was sold at auction, and +bought in for Eddy & Gardener of Salem, Mass., for sixteen hundred +dollars. Evidence pointed that she was bound for Salem to be fitted +out as a slaver when captured. In September the _Echo_ was captured +by a revenue cutter and taken to Charleston as the nearest port; +Charleston was very active in her efforts to restrain the trade. The +_Echo_ was commanded by Captain Townsend of Rhode Island--the queen of +the slave-trading States. The Africans were cared for at Charleston +until the Colonization Society could take charge of them. They were +the wildest barbarians--men and women were alike nude, though this was +no evidence that they had been accustomed to going so in their native +land, as their clothes were usually taken from them by their captors. +Some of the charitable ladies provided clothing for them. Among all +these unfortunates there was but one article of clothing--a glove--and +this was worn with great pride and distinction by a tall, handsome +negress. Hoop-skirts were then in vogue, and this woman was dressed by +the ladies in full regalia. Entranced, she danced and shrieked with +delight, pushing the hoop-skirt on one side to see it stick out on the +other. + +Many violations might be cited. Sometimes ships reported deserted +vessels on the high seas--vessels whose manacles and wooden spoons +told a gruesome tragedy. An article in the New York _World_, in 1859, +described some of the methods by which the slavers escaped punishment: +“The slave trader takes care to cross the ocean without a national +flag or purpose of any kind. The reason for this is that if captured, +no court can condemn them for piracy. The vessels may be condemned and +the negroes liberated by the captor, but the crew can be punished only +by the nation under whose flag the offense was committed. No flag, the +crew escapes.” Slavers no longer left America with manacles, gewgaws, +and fire-water, but carried money. Once on the African coast they +could buy from English or other vessels the articles needed for trade. +The bargain struck, the crew that made the outward voyage was usually +discharged, and a new one of adventurous spirit procured on the African +coast. + +Thirteen years after the ratification of the Ashburton Treaty, when +England made reclamations on the Brazilian Government for innumerable +violations of her treaties, the reply of the Emperor was “if Great +Britain would find the real culprits, she must go to the ports of +Boston and New York to find them.”[17] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PREPARATIONS FOR CLOTILDE’S VOYAGE + + +In 1858, Mobile had been for almost a century and a half one of the +important Gulf coast ports. Picturesquely situated at the head of +a lagoon-like bay, the craft of many nations dropped anchor in her +waters. Somewhat past the heyday of youth, her buildings mellowed by +time and her streets shaded by trees, she wore an air that was calm +and comfortable, and her homes and public buildings bespoke a settled +prosperity. Survivors of primitive and pioneer life might be seen +about the streets; some Indians lingered on and with baskets strapped +across their shoulders sold _filé_ and sassafras about the streets, +while white-covered “Chickasaha” wagons, drawn by from six to twenty +oxen, came slowly and laboriously down Spring Hill and St. Stephen’s +roads, bringing staples from the interior to the Mobile markets. The +district near the river and towards the northern part of the town was +given over to commerce and occupied by cotton warehouses--low-lying, +monotonous structures of brick. The river boats carried on a brisk +trade and Mobile’s export to foreign countries was large. Life about +the wharves which was usually busy--and often gay--became very +stirring during the latter part of 1858 and 1859. It drew upon itself +the attention of the United States Government, elicited a special +proclamation from the President, and a vigilant watch by United States +officials. + +In the early fifties, during one of Nicaragua’s chronic revolutions, +General Walker had been invited by the democrats of Leon to unite +with them against the aristocrats of Granada. Many Alabamians joined +him in this expedition and shed their blood for the cause. Walker +gained supreme power, but his glory was short-lived. The opposing +forces united and compelled him to leave. In 1857, President Buchanan +recognized him as President of Nicaragua, and addressed him as such. +His adventurous exploit met with general acclamation. But when Walker +announced that Nicaragua would be open to Southern colonization, +admitting slaves, it was like flaunting a red rag before a maddened +populace; the abolitionism of the North, already unrestrained in its +fanaticism and jealous hatred, backed by Northern commercialism caused +a rapid reversion of feeling. Walker, the erstwhile hero, was denounced +as a filibuster, and Southerners were accused of attempting to +establish a Southern Republic along the Gulf of Mexico that they might +spread slavery and reopen the slave traffic. + +In 1858, Walker prepared to make good his previous claims. The +collectors of the ports of New Orleans and Mobile were ordered not to +clear vessels for Nicaraguan ports, before first communicating with the +Government of Washington. Vessels carrying passengers and receiving +every protection of the Government still sailed from Eastern ports to +San Juan del Norte. Mobile and New Orleans felt the trade of the South +to be seriously crippled by this discrimination. In a special message, +the President denounced the “leaders of former illegal expeditions who +had expressed their intention of open hostilities against Nicaragua,” +and particularly against one “who is now at Mobile, which has been +designated as the rendezvous and place of departure for San Juan del +Norte.” He enjoined all the Government officers, “civil and military, +to be active, vigilant, and faithful in suppressing these illegal +enterprises.” This message was received with indignation throughout +the whole of the lower South. Mobilians gathered in groups about the +streets and on the new post-office steps, and excitedly discussed +the President’s proclamation. They were in sympathy with Walker and +many were contributing funds towards the expedition. Espousal of his +cause became an issue in the mayoral election. Further excitement +was generated by the attitude of Judge Campbell, his charge to the +grand jury, and his emphasis of the President’s order for officials +to be “vigilant, active, and faithful.” Citizens regarded this as +espionage and as a personal affront to their fellow townsman, Robert H. +Smith, collector of the port. The discovery of a Government spy--one +General Wilson from Ohio--and a minion of Judge Campbell--who was +seen “sneaking about the wharves and warehouses of the city, to find +something contraband of Abolition interest and Abolition policy,” +provoked the citizens to further anger. “As a next step we shall +have our servants paid to report the words which drop from us at the +table.”[18] + +Rebellion was already rampant in the South. The temperament of Southern +men was unfailingly daring--adventure appealed to their imaginations +and risk was a game to be played. In the midst of this excitement, +an expedition was preparing, money was being contributed, and the +schooner _Susan_ fitted out. Harry Maury, socially and financially +prominent, was in command. When ready to sail she was refused clearing +papers, but Maury weighed anchor and sailed down the bay, preparatory +to joining the fleet. The revenue cutter _McClelland_ pursued, brought +her to, and boarded her and demanded her papers. Maury said he did not +expect to receive them until he reached the fleet. The captain of the +_McClelland_ then claimed the _Susan_ as a prize for the Government; +Maury refused to consider her as such. Lieutenant White was placed +aboard with orders to take her to Dog River Bar and to hold her there +as prize. Maury nonchalantly replied that he did not object to White +remaining aboard as his guest. The next day both vessels sailed about +the bay, but the captain, under orders from the custom-house at Mobile, +warned Maury that if he attempted to sail away the _Susan_ would be +sunk. At dark the captain ordered both boats to drop anchor for the +night. About eleven o’clock, a heavy mist arose, the _Susan_ weighed +anchor and slipped noiselessly away, carrying aboard Lieutenant +White. The _Mobile Register_, voicing the sentiments of the citizens, +wished for the voyage “that the breezes be prosperous and the fates +propitious.” When two hundred miles out in the Gulf, Lieutenant White +was transferred to the bark _Oregon_ and sent back to New Orleans, +where he stated that he had received every courtesy while aboard the +_Susan_. He reported that she carried besides her crew, two hundred and +forty men, Minie balls, and Mississippi rifles. The _Susan_ was wrecked +on a coral reef off Honduras. The subsequent adventures of her men is a +thrilling narrative. They were received by the governor of Bay Island, +who upon hearing of their predicament sent them back to Mobile in Her +Majesty’s steam-sloop _Basilisk_. + +With the birth and fruition of such adventures, Mobile’s river-front +naturally became an exciting place. About this time a group of men were +one day standing on the wharf discussing the efforts the Government +was finally making to suppress the slave trade, the vigilance which +was being exerted, and the impossibility for a vessel equipped for +such a purpose to evade officials. There was some betting--a favorite +pastime of the day--and Captain Tim Meaher, a steamboat builder and +river-man, who was standing near, wagered that he could send a slaver +to the coast of Africa and bring through the port of Mobile a cargo of +slaves. The wager was taken up and the stakes were large. This is the +tradition which is given in connection with the _Clotilde’s_ voyage. +It may have been true or it may have been invented to give color and +palliation to what proved to be the last cargo of slaves brought into +the United States, but it is certain that this was only one of the +voyages made under the auspices of the Meahers and Captain Foster. Of +these there are still rumors among the older people, and the widow of +Captain Foster, innocent and trustful, hoped until her recent death to +get from the United States about thirty thousand dollars which would +have been Foster’s share in the _Gipsy_--a slaver which with her cargo +was captured by Government officials and which was valued by those +interested in her at four hundred thousand dollars. + +There were three of the Meaher brothers--Tim, Jim, and Burns. They +were natives of Maine, and possessed the New England love of the +water and taste for the slave trade. Captain Foster was born in Nova +Scotia of English parentage. His people were all seafaring--sailors, +captains, and builders of boats--and possibly his proclivities were +also inherited. These men were interested in a mill and a ship-yard at +the mouth of Chickasabogue, three miles above Mobile. The _Clotilde_, +the _Susan_, the _Gipsy_, and other boats which were engaged in the +river trade, in filibustering expeditions, the slave trade, and as +blockade-runners during the Civil War were built there. The _Clotilde_, +because of her fleetness, was selected to make the voyage to the slave +coast. She was the personal property of Foster and had been designed +and built by him. + +[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. + +Poleete.] + +Once arriving on the African coast there was little trouble in +procuring a cargo of slaves, for it had long been a part of the +traders’ policy to instigate the tribes against each other and in this +manner keep the markets stocked. News of the trade was often published +in the papers. The Meahers and Foster could have sought nothing more +enlightening or to their purpose than an item published in the _Mobile +Register_, November 9, 1858: “From the west coast of Africa we have +advice dated September 21st. The quarreling of the tribes on Sierra +Leone River rendered the aspect of things very unsatisfactory. The King +of Dahomey was driving a brisk trade in slaves at from fifty to sixty +dollars apiece at Whydah. Immense numbers of negroes were collected +along the coast for export.” Foster, with a crew of northern men, +sailed directly for Whydah. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CAPTURE OF THE TARKARS + + +The slaves who constituted the _Clotilde’s_ cargo and who have become +historic by being the last brought into the United States were captured +by Dahomey’s warriors and Amazons on one of their cruel excursions. For +many years the tribe of Dahomey had been a scourge to the weaker and +more peaceable tribes whose domains lay near the Gold Coast or in the +interior away from the coast of Guinea. Cruel, stealthy war was their +occupation--a war of surprise which aroused sleeping villages to the +horrors of fire, plunder, and capture. The older victims were usually +killed. Sometimes they were permitted to live and to see their young +and strong overpowered, bound, and led into captivity--a captivity +from which there could be no hope of return, for the prisoners were +conveyed to the coast, sold to the slavers, and carried across the +sea to strange, alien lands. The King of Dahomey’s house was built +of skulls and his drinking cups were the skulls of fallen chiefs. In +the early part of the nineteenth century one of the Dahomey kings +organized a battalion of women warriors--a race rare in history but not +especially unique in African annals. Early cosmographies record of the +King of Inhamban: “It is affirmed that he hath a strong battalion of +Amazons, a warlike race of women who inhabit about the Lake of Zambre, +and the outskirts of Zanzibar; compared by some for their fidelity and +prowess to the Turkish Janizaries.”[19] Like the Greek Amazons those +of Inhamban and Dahomey were recruited by incursions upon neighboring +tribes. + +The Tarkar village was situated many miles inland. Poleete, one of +the old survivors, says it was “many days from the water,” meaning +thereby the sea. They were a peace-loving, agricultural people, +raising hogs, sheep, and cows, and planting corn, beans, and yams. +Their chief industry was the production of palm oil. Nature had been +lavish--the lands were wonderfully fertile, requiring little work and +no fertilizer; the fragrance of ripening fruits filled the forests. +The Tarkar dwellings were of superior quality and had the advantage of +withstanding fire. They were built of mud; the process of construction +has been described by two of the survivors--Poleete and Kazoola. First +a circular trench was dug and a wall of mud four feet high and a foot +and a half thick laid; this was left until thoroughly dry. Another four +feet was laid upon this, which was also left to dry. Then a third layer +of four feet was laid making their dwellings about twelve feet high. +When thoroughly dry, branches were cut, the roof thatched and covered +with mud. + +The Tarkars were not without laws, and had a sort of court of justice +over which the King presided. Each of the old survivors lays especial +stress upon honesty as a tribal characteristic. Stealing was almost +unknown; all worked and had what was needed; houses were never locked +and possessions seldom disturbed. All an individual’s wealth “might be +hung upon a tree or accidentally left--others of the tribe knew they +had not put it there--that it was not theirs--so disturbed it not.” +“Suppose I had left my purse in town in the public square. To-day I +have not the time to go for it--nor to-morrow--am I worried? No, for +I know when I go I will find it where I left it. Could you do that in +America?” (Kazoola). As there was no reason or excuse for stealing, +when one among them committed a theft, it was more through a spirit of +braggadocio. The culprit would be taken before the King who would say, +“You are strong--you have two arms to work--you suffer for nothing--why +have you stolen?” The defendant would be imprisoned, and the Tarkars +say that if he lived to get out he would steal no more. + +Death was always meted to the murderer--rank having no weight with +justice. Poleete explained that if the King’s son committed murder, +death would fall to him as to the commoner. “Money don’t plea you +there” (Poleete). The manner of execution was decapitation--the +implement a sword. To illustrate the inexorable nature of their laws, +the following was narrated by Kazoola: “The Law in Tarkar. If it would +be my son. He kills a man. I have money--I want to buy my son. I go +before the King, and say ‘Oh, King, my son has killed, but I have +money.’ The King would reply, ‘Here is the Law, read.’ I read and say, +‘Yes, King, the Law says Death.’ And the King would answer, ‘That is +the Law, and I am the King. Shut your eyes, give up your son--money +cannot buy.’” + +The Tarkars were polygamists, sometimes having as many as three wives, +but never any more. The conditions of life were so easy they could +afford the luxury. There was no need to support the wives, for the +women had the same amount of property as the men and did the same +work. Jealousy among the wives was unknown; the first wife selected +the second and the second the third, etc. This custom has been lucidly +explained by Kazoola and Olouala. “Kazoola has been married about +three years. His wife says, ‘Kazoola, I am growing old--I am tired--I +will bring you another wife.’ Before speaking thus, she has already +one in mind--some maid who attracts her and who Kazoola has possibly +never seen. The wife goes out and finds the maid--possibly in the +marketplace--and asks, ‘You know Kazoola?’ The maid answers, ‘I have +heard of him.’ The wife then says, ‘Kazoola is good--he is kind--I +would like you to be his wife.’ The maid answers, ‘Come with me to +my parents.’ They go together; questions are exchanged and if these are +satisfactory, the parents say, ‘We give our girl into your keeping--she +is ours no more--be good to her.’” The wife and the maid return +together to Kazoola’s house. The wife introduces the maid to Kazoola, +shows her how to look after things as she has done, then sits down to +take her days of rest and works no more. The relation of the husband +to the wives was that of protector. Once married, a man dared not look +upon women other than his wives, for the punishment was very great. To +justify their native custom of polygamy, the Christianized Tarkars now +cite the example of David and Solomon. + +[Illustration: Abaché and Kazoola.] + +They believed in the spirits of departed relatives; to these the +“day was as night and the night as the day.” To these spirits their +actions were known. The Tarkars also possessed dualistic ideas of a +future life. There was a Spirit of Good--Ahla-ahra, to whom by doing +right their actual, daily life would be something of a consecration; +and there was a Spirit of Evil--Ahla-bady-oleelay. “Do right and you +will go to Ahla-ahra; do wrong, you go to Ahla-bady-oleelay.” While +not exactly Nature-worshipers, they were Nature-fearers; they did not +propitiate by prayer or any kind of ceremonial these Spirits of Good +and Evil, but believed their powers were manifested in the wind, the +cloud that covered the sun, and in the thunder and the lightning. +Before these last the Tarkars trembled, and were filled with fear; they +would cross their arms over their breasts and cowering, cry out, “We +will be good!” + +“In Africa different places, like Mobile, Montgomery, New Orleans--each +have a different tribe speaking a different language. Suppose the tribe +at New Orleans comes to the one at Mobile and says, ‘You have fruit +and corn and cattle--you must give me half.’ You at Mobile say, ‘No, +go back and raise your own cattle and corn.’ And they say, ‘If you do +not give us cattle and corn, we will make war on you.’ They go back to +their own country and talk among themselves. ‘You know that tribe at +Mobile. We demanded half their crops and cattle--they refused; we will +make war upon them. But they have strong soldiers. We will go through +the country, surround the village at the break of day.’”[20] Thus did +the Dahomeyans plan their attack upon the Tarkars. One morning just +at the break of day, the fiends of Dahomey--and the female warriors +were the most cruel--broke upon the unsuspecting Tarkars. Some of the +men were already astir and had gone into the fields to work while the +day was yet cool. These were all killed; had one escaped he would +have aroused the sleeping village, and the women and small children +might have made their escape. They were aroused from slumber and in a +few minutes death or captivity was upon them; even the infants were +torn from their mothers’ breasts and carried away. Those who were +not killed were overpowered. Dahomey’s Amazons vanquished the most +stalwart men and bound them as captives. The Tarkars relate that in +their paint and war clothes Dahomey’s women soldiers could not be +distinguished from the men. The Dahomeyans cut off the heads of their +dead victims, leaving the bodies where they had fallen. The heads +were to be taken home as evidence of individual valor and as trophies +to be hung on the Dahomey huts. Human faces could express no more +anguish than those of the old Tarkars when they speak of this awful +experience. One of the trials and tragedies of their march to the coast +was the dangling heads of their relatives and friends. When these grew +offensive the Dahomeyans stopped the march that they might smoke the +heads. As they passed near one of Dahomey’s villages, at a curve in +the big road, they caught sight of fresh heads raised on poles above +the huts and of skulls, grinning white. With the captives there were +some people of other tribes--friends who had been visiting in the +Tarkar village--Tarkbar, Goombardi, Filanee, and Ejasha. (These tribal +names are spelled as pronounced by the surviving Tarkars.) Kazoola +has drawn a map of the route taken by Dahomey and of the march to the +sea, which he claims any of his tribe would recognize. The towns they +passed through on their march to the sea were Eko, Budigree (Badragy?), +Adaché, and Whydah. This last the Tarkars sometimes call Gréfé. There +they remember a white house on the river-bank; behind this was a +stockade wherein they were held prisoners about three weeks, at the end +of which time Captain Foster came. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE VOYAGE + + +Captain Foster boarded at the Vanderslice home (afterwards marrying +one of the daughters) in the Meaher settlement. This was about three +miles from Mobile and a mile from the ship-yard at the mouth of +Chickasabogue. When starting for Africa, he left home by night, slung +his bag of gold across his shoulder, and went alone through the woods +to the river where the _Clotilde_ lay. He pulled out a part of the +cabin bulk-head and concealed his gold behind it. He then picked up +his crew, got under way, and passed out of the Gulf of Mexico without +incident or mishap. When on the Atlantic he was alarmed to find by +the stars that the _Clotilde_ was drifting out of her course. He knew +no cause, and she continued to drift. One night he lay on his bunk, +sleepless and wondering. Like an inspiration the thought came that +the hidden gold was too near the compass. He arose, moved the gold, +and the needle swung into position. A terrific hurricane blew him to +the Cape Verde Islands, where he had to stop for repairs. The crew +mutinied. They threatened that if he did not promise more pay, they +would inform the officials of the purpose of his voyage. Foster did +not hesitate to comply, for promises cost nothing and he sometimes +found it unnecessary to keep them. His wife in relating this incident +remarked that the captain had always said that “promises were like +pie-crust--made to be broken.” He made friends with the Portuguese +officials and the United States Consul, and as a part of his policy +presented handsome shawls and ornaments to their wives. These had been +bought in Mobile and stowed away to be used in such emergencies. No +questions were asked Foster. The repairs finished, he sailed away. He +arrived safely in the Gulf of Guinea and had to anchor more than a mile +out and be taken ashore in a small boat which was built to cut through +the surf. When about to pass through a breaker, a warning would be +given to Foster to hold his nose. On reaching shore he was placed in +a hammock and conveyed by six stalwart blacks to the presence of a +prince of Dahomey--a great, stout black, weighing over three hundred +pounds. This prince was hospitable in his attentions and entertained +Foster with the sights of Whydah. One which he did not relish was a +large square enclosure in which were thousands of snakes. Walking among +these creatures was both trying and disgusting. They were kept for +religious ceremonials. + +This prince wished to make a present to Foster, so asked him to select +for himself a native--one that the “superior wisdom and exalted taste” +of Foster designated the finest specimen. Gumpa was his choice, Foster +making this selection with the intention of flattering the prince to +whom Gumpa was nearly related. This accounts for the presence of one +of Dahomey’s tribe in the African settlement near Mobile. He became +known as African Peter and was a conspicuous figure in the life of the +settlement. He used to tell his story in the simple phrase, “My people +sold me and your people bought me.” + +After many hospitalities, Foster was taken to the stockade where the +Tarkars were imprisoned. They were placed in circles composed of ten +men or ten women, Foster standing in the middle. This was another trial +for the unfortunates, and Kazoola says, in language which any one could +understand, “He looka, an’ looka, an’ looka. Then he point to one.” The +one indicated would be taken out of the circle and placed to one side; +then Foster would point to another, who would be placed with the one +already selected. Foster picked out one hundred and thirty, after which +he got into the hammock and was conveyed across the river to the beach. +Behind him marched the Tarkars, chained one behind the other. They had +to wade, the water coming up to their necks. On the beach they had +their first view of the sea, and the realization that they had to go +out into it was another horror. They wore clothes made of cotton--the +same they had worn when captured--but as they stepped into the small +boats which were to take them to the _Clotilde_, the Dahomeyans, always +vicious and avaricious, tore their garments from them, saying “You go +where you can get plenty of clothes.” Men and women alike were left +entirely nude, and this fact is still a humiliation to the Tarkars. +They regard the accusations of some American negroes that they were a +naked people as a great indignity. + +As the Tarkars were taken aboard the _Clotilde_, they were put into +the hole. In this respect the _Clotilde_ was better equipped than most +slavers; the usual space in which the “middle passage” was made was +from two and a half to three feet in height, and the miserable captives +were stowed away much as sardines are packed in cans, without even room +to sit up. The hole of the _Clotilde_ was deep enough to permit of the +men of lesser stature to stand erect. The top of the hole was shut down +and the Tarkars were left in darkness to grieve and wonder. + +When a hundred and sixteen had been brought aboard, Foster went up into +the rigging with his glasses to look about the harbor. He saw that all +of Dahomey’s vessels were flying black flags. He hurried down and gave +orders to leave all slaves who were not yet aboard; to weigh anchor and +to get immediately under way. The treacherous Dahomeyans dealt also +in piracy, and were making ready to bear down upon the _Clotilde_, +recapture the slaves, and take Foster and the crew prisoners. The +_Clotilde_ made her escape. When out some miles, the _Clotilde_ was +sighted by an English cruiser. The slaver was a small craft, and Foster +by using a favorite tactic--an elusive tacking--evaded the English. +Once in the wake of the trade-winds the _Clotilde_ sailed towards her +destination at a lively speed. + +[Illustration: =Map Drawn by Kazoola.= + +(_1_) Tarkar Village. (_2_) Dahomey’s Land. (_3_) Wavering line showing +stealthy march of Dahomeyans through forest. (_4_) Route by which +captive Tarkars were taken to the sea. (_5_), (_6_), (_7_), (_8_), Eko, +Budigree, Adaché, Whydah, towns through which Tarkars passed. (_9_) +River. (_10_) Beach and sea.] + +At the end of the thirteenth day the Africans were removed from their +close, dark quarters. Their limbs were so cramped and numbed they +refused to obey their wills, so they were supported by some of the +crew and walked around the deck until the use of their limbs returned. +Tottering on deck, to their astonished, terror-stricken eyes the sea +stretched all around them: “We looka, an’ looka, an’ looka--nothin’ but +sky and water. Whar we com’ from, we do not know--whar we go, we do not +know” (Kazoola). One day they saw islands. The Tarkars say that on the +twentieth day, Foster seemed uneasy; that he always had his glasses to +his eyes; that he climbed the mast, and looked for a long time; then he +came hurriedly down, ordered the sails down, threw out the anchors, +and ordered the Tarkars back into the hole. Thus the _Clotilde_ lay +until night. + +The Tarkars were naturally close observers; during the voyage they seem +to have been particularly alert. They noted the varying colors of the +sea--how at first it was blue, then green and how they passed through +water that seemed blood-red. Foster was kind to them. They could eat +the food--hunger makes anything palatable. Though their mental anguish +was great, they suffered physically only for water. About a gill was +given them at morning and at evening, and this tasted of vinegar. +During such voyages, it was necessary that the water be conserved. +Their only relief came when they caught rain in their parched hands and +mouths. + +When the _Clotilde_ sailed into American waters, the Africans were +put into the hole--there to remain until relief came in capture or a +successful landing. Three days before they landed, when the _Clotilde_ +lay waiting behind the islands in Mississippi Sound and near the lower +end of Mobile Bay, a bunch of green boughs was brought to them to show +that the voyage was almost at an end. + +To make the hiding more secure, the _Clotilde_ was dismasted. Then +Foster got into a small boat, rowed by four sailors to go to the +western shore of Mobile Bay, intending to send word to Meaher that the +_Clotilde_ had arrived. His approach was regarded with suspicion by +some men ashore, and he was fired upon. Waving a white handkerchief +their doubts were allayed and he offered fifty dollars for a conveyance +which would take him to Mobile. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE RETURN + + +The time of waiting had been an anxious one. The Meahers realized +the risk. There had always been some, but during the absence of the +_Clotilde_ great agitation had become rife throughout the country, +and one of the things the Government had at last undertaken to do was +to wipe out at once and forever the illegal traffic in slaves. The +destination and purpose of the _Clotilde_ had been noised about, and +Meaher realized that officials were watching his movements. Aside from +the _Clotilde’s_ capture, he had little to fear, for every vestige of +the conservatism which had so long held in restraint the abolitionism +of the North and the temper of the South had disappeared; the two +sections had drifted so far apart as to be virtually two countries; +war clouds were looming large upon the horizon and differences had +gone so far there could be no reconciliation. Garrison’s voice was +ringing through the North characterizing Southerners as “thieves and +robbers, men-stealers, and women-whippers” and calling loudly, “how +can two walk together, except they agree? The slaveholder with his +hands dripping in blood--will I make a compact with him? The man who +plunders cradles--will I say to him ‘Brother, let us walk together in +unity?’ The man who to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges women +with the lash till the soil is red with blood--will I say to him, ‘Give +me your hand; let us form a glorious union?’” Charges which were as +a scourge to Southerners; goaded and angered, many began to talk of +reopening the slave traffic. The question was agitated in Congress--a +number of papers advocating it, not all of which were of the South. +The New York _Day Book_, May 17, 1859, came out strongly for it. “Of +course no one can suppose we doubt the right of bringing negroes from +Africa if they are needed. It is simply a question of expediency, and +there can be no doubt our laws making it piracy must be blotted out +of the Statute Books. They are not only ridiculous, but utterly and +wholly contemptible,” etc. From the point of view of a large class +of Southerners these arguments were not fallacious. Yet they were +retrogressive and their revival put the South out of harmony with +ethical and intellectual progress, and defeated the hopes of those of +larger vision. Early in 1859 the Mobile papers lent their support to +the question. Mobilians, like all of the South, were tried to their +utmost, and Meaher knew if all due secrecy was observed, he had little +to fear from them. + +Captain Foster reached Mobile on a Sunday morning in August (1859) +with the secret that the _Clotilde_ lay behind the islands in +Mississippi Sound. Arrangements had long been made that a tug should +lie in readiness to go at a moment’s notice down Mobile Bay to tow +the _Clotilde_ and her cargo to safety. When the news came, the tug’s +pilot was attending service at St. John’s Church. Captain Jim Meaher +and James Dennison--a negro slave--hurried to the church. Dennison +remained outside while Meaher went in to call the pilot. The three +hastened down to the wharf, and were soon aboard the tug _Billy Jones_, +steaming rapidly down the bay. Late afternoon found them nearing +the _Clotilde_, but they waited for the darkness. The most dangerous +part of the adventure was still ahead--the trip up Mobile Bay. At +the mouth the marshes and islands offered protection; if they could +once reach the delta of the Mobile River, with its desolate stretches +of marsh, its deep rivers and intricate bayous, safety was almost +assured. But the bay lay smilingly open between two long arms of land. +Her wonderful beauty under the gorgeous August sunset was lost upon +the watchers; they prayed for the light to fade and for mysterious +night with its enshrouding darkness. At last as if loath to die, the +color was gone; sea and sky melted together into almost impenetrable +grayness. They ceased their vigils and fell to a quick activity; lines +were thrown, the _Clotilde_ made fast, and the trip up the bay was +begun. Her wooded shores had echoed the voices of many peoples and the +sounds from many craft, but never any more epoch-making--those from +the last slave ship--the voyage nearing its finish which ended forever +among Anglo-Saxon people the darkest blot upon their civilization. +The chugging sound of the tug’s machinery filled the Tarkars with +terrified wonder; at last they concluded that it was the swarming of +bees. + +Time was precious and the darkness doubly so; much was still to be done +before day with its light should come. These hours might mean life or +death. The trip up the bay was safely made. The tug avoided the Mobile +River channel, slipped behind the light-house on Battery Gladden, +into Spanish River. This lay in the midst of the marsh and with its +circuitous windings was not more than ten miles long. As the _Clotilde_ +passed opposite Mobile the clock in the old Spanish tower struck +eleven, and the watchman’s voice floated over the city and across the +marshes, “Eleven o’clock and all’s well.” + +The _Clotilde_ was taken directly to Twelve-Mile Island--a lonely, +weird place by night. There the _R. B. Tainey_[21] waited; lights were +smothered, and in the darkness quickly and quietly the _Clotilde’s_ +cargo of one hundred and sixteen negroes was transferred to the +steamboat, taken up the Alabama River to John Dabney’s plantation below +Mount Vernon and not far from the shadow of the fort, where they were +landed before noon of the next day. + +[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. + +Kazoola.] + +At Twelve-Mile Island the crew of Northern sailors again mutinied. +Captain Foster, with a six shooter in each hand, went among them, +discharged them, and ordered them to “hit the grit and never be seen in +Southern waters again.” They were placed aboard the tug. Meaher bought +tickets and saw that they boarded a train for the North. The _Clotilde_ +was scuttled and fired, Captain Foster himself placed seven cords of +light wood upon her. Her hull still lies in the marsh at the mouth of +Bayou Corne and may be seen at low tide. Foster afterwards regretted +her destruction as she was worth more than the ten Africans given him +by the Meahers as his booty. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TARKARS AT DABNEY’S PLANTATION + + +Dabney’s plantation lay in the cane brake country--a part of the river +region, so-called from the miles of towering cane. It was a wilderness, +every part strangely alike, in which even those most familiar with +it could be easily lost. Here, according to the narrative of James +Dennison, the slave who was left in charge and who afterwards married +Kanko--one of their number--and of the surviving Tarkars, they were +kept for eleven days, but in a state of constant change, being +transferred each day from one part of the swamp to another. They were +allowed to speak only in whispers, for there was a chance that some +one passing on the river might hear strange voices. At the end of the +eleventh day clothes were brought to them and they were put aboard the +steamer _Commodore_ and carried to The Bend in Clark County, where +the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers meet and where Burns Meaher had a +plantation. + +There they were lodged each night under a wagon shed, and driven each +morning before daybreak back into the swamp, where they remained until +dark. Understanding no word and knowing not what was expected of them, +they were made to know the driver’s wishes by a shooing sound--such +as would drive chickens or geese. In this strange land, among strange +faces and an unknown tongue, the Tarkars say that at first they almost +grieved themselves to death. + +Meaher sent word secretly to those disposed to buy. They were piloted +to the place of concealment by Jim Dennison. The Africans were placed +in two long rows, the women on one side and the men on the other--the +buyers standing between, and carefully examining them--even looking +at their teeth. Those selected would be put to one side, and when the +purchaser was ready to depart, he would make his ownership known to +them by waving his hand around the group selected, then bringing it to +his breast. The Tarkars could not understand these transactions--they +only knew their numbers were gradually growing less. Day after day they +saw some of their kinsmen or comrades led away--to what fate they knew +not. Some were sold and taken to Selma. Of their march through the +woods one pathetic and picturesque incident has come to me. As they +marched through the strange land--tired, dejected, friendless--knowing +not where they were going or what would be their destiny--a circus, +moving from place to place, chanced to pass along the country road. +To avoid danger or suspicion, the Africans were concealed behind the +bushes with their backs to the passing show. As it passed, one of the +elephants trumpeted; joy transformed the Tarkars, spread over their +features, and ran through their limbs. To them the sound was as a cry +from home, and as with one voice, gesticulating, tears streaming from +their eyes, they shouted: “Elé, Elé! Argenacou, Argenacou!” (“Home, +Home! Elephant, Elephant!”) Of this small band--two still live--a man +and wife--and those of the tribe near Mobile still receive news of them +now and then. + +As time passed and the Tarkars continued inconsolable, Captain Tim +Meaher recommended that they be put to some kind of work. They look +back upon this as the first happy episode of their life in the new +land. When they were taken into the fields for the first time, their +astonishment was very great when they saw civilization’s agricultural +methods. “We astonish to see the mule behind the plow to pull” +(Kazoola). The contrast in fertility made them feel that the American +soil was accursed and their own blessed. There they had but to scratch +the top soil and whatever they planted grew; but in America there +was nothing but “work, work, work.” The Tarkar would stand for no +mistreatment. Once an overseer attempted something which the women +considered as such and he was overpowered by them and given a sound +thrashing. Naturally of agricultural and industrious habits they soon +came to understand Southern crops and were very successful in raising +corn, cotton, beans, peas, cane, pumpkins, etc. This experience was of +great advantage to them when they were afterwards thrown upon their own +resources. Their homes to-day are characterized by excellent gardens +and many varieties of fruit trees. + +After war was declared there was little danger of exposure, and the +Africans belonging to Foster, to Jim and Tim Meaher were taken to the +Meaher settlement, at what is known to-day as Magazine Point, where +they were kindly treated by their respective owners. Those left at +Burns Meaher’s plantation tell of great hardship. When they first +arrived they were given one pair of shoes and never any more. Before +daybreak they were sent to the fields to work and kept hard at it until +night, when they returned home by torchlight. After the surrender, +these joined the others of their tribe at Magazine Point. + +[Illustration: Wreck of the “Clotilde.”] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TARKAR LIFE IN AMERICA + + +Magazine Point--the site of Meaher’s mill and ship-yard--though but +three miles from Mobile, was inaccessible, except by water or a +circuitous route of some miles by land. Between the two places lay an +impenetrable swamp and forest. Red clay hills rolled away from the +northern border of this jungle, diversifying the strip of country +between Three Mile Creek and Chickasabogue. This extensive area was +known as Meaher’s hummock and was thickly wooded by a suburb forest +of native trees--pine, cypress, bays, magnolias, beech, junipers, +gums, and oaks. These had sheltered the goings and comings of many +peoples. This place had been beloved by the Indians; some still +lingered on among what the Tarkars called the “high trees,” living +in their pine-bark tepees. During the Spanish régime it had been +included in the grant of land known as the St. Louis tract, and Dr. +Charles Mohr points out in his _Plant Life in Alabama_ that it must +have been a feeding place for migratory birds, for tropical plants are +found there which are not known to other parts of the coast. Near the +mouth of Chickasabogue, overlooking the river, there is a prehistoric +shell-mound, overgrown by patriarchal live-oaks, hundreds of years old, +and on this the Tarkars had their first dwellings. Much has been told +and written by casual visitors of the queer rites and superstitions of +“Africa-Town”--the little cluster of huts which have long since been +abandoned--none of which is substantiated by fact or by the actual +knowledge of those who have known and appreciated the Tarkars. But +nothing has been told of the other superstitions with which this region +fairly reeks. + +Until the saw-mills became so active there were old beeches near +Chickasabogue and Hog Bayou, bearing seventeenth, eighteenth, and +early nineteenth century dates and curious signs which substantiated +the belief of the credulous and imaginative that through this district +there was much hidden treasure--treasure buried by early adventurers, +by the pirates, and in later times by members of the Copeland gang--and +safely guarded by the spirits of those who had concealed it. Though +this tract is now largely cleared and settled, these traditions and +ghost stories are still told and believed by the negroes, creoles, and +ignorant whites. Poinquinette, an old creole fisherman and a repository +of interesting lore, has related some of his personal encounters with +the Magazine Point ghosts, and so real are they to him, and so vivid +his narrative, that his listeners are thrilled with a sort of belief. +By a dream it was once made known to him and several companions +(Nelson, Sales, Moody, Ebernezar Fisher, and a man named Robinson) +that there was a treasure buried just below Turner & Oats’s mill. The +spot was thickly wooded--high trees and low shrubs--yet not so dense +that they could not see about them--even a bird was visible as it flew +through the brush. They went early one Friday morning and began digging +at seven o’clock. Almost as soon as their spades touched the earth, the +woods began to resound with voices--child voices--and they wondered +where children’s voices could come from, but went on with their +digging. As the excavation progressed, the sounds came nearer--there +were calling and crying and hissing--until finally the voices were +right at them and surrounding them. They could hear the voices but +could see nothing. Then the voices passed by them with a whirr and back +again into the bushes where they were still heard. By this time the +hole was some ten feet deep. Nelson Sales, who had had more experience +with spirits than the others, offered to go back into the woods and +talk to the voices. He was confronted by a fearful apparition--a great +blue bull with eyes of fire and a tail as large as a hogshead. It +dashed passed him, charged across the hole, and as it went over threw +all the earth back, completely filling the excavation. They were all +thoroughly frightened and would not go back until they could get the +negress Clara Randall, from Charleston. Poinquinette was loud in his +praises of this woman, who could see and talk to spirits and was not +afraid of them. + +She built a tent and camped alone for three days and nights at the +scene of their labor. She set a table, provided with milk from a white +cow, wine, and honey--inveigling the invisible ones and tempting them +by food to give up the secret of the buried treasure. At the end of +the third day her persuasions prevailed, and the spirits reluctantly +made known the place. Next morning she walked to the spot and placed +her foot where the men should dig. They fell to work and had not dug +more than twenty minutes, before the top of the treasure-box was +uncovered. They rapidly cleared the earth from around it and there lay +before their eager wondering eyes a cedar chest which measured five +feet in length, two and a half feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. +It contained three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold, and +Ebernezar Fisher, over-zealous and over-anxious, bored two holes in it +with an auger. While he was boring the second, the woman warned him to +stop--that the spirits were regretting their revelation--but Ebernezar, +who was of stubborn temperament, bored on unheedful of her warning. It +was a bright day--not a cloud in the sky--the sunlight filtered through +the trees and fell in strong beams upon the auger. The other men, +standing to one side, watched it glinting on the steel. Again the woman +warned Fisher, and as she spoke his arm was wrenched from the auger. +Almost at the same instant a black cloud swept across the sky, an awful +gust of wind bent the great trees until they looked as if they would +break, a crash of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning and the +box disappeared! Then all was clear and bright again. It was a spirit +storm--purely local, and seen only by the searchers after treasure. +“Then all of us had to come away like sick cats and with aching hearts, +because we hated to see a treasure like that disappear. It’s there +somewhere to-day--and wherever it is, Ebernezar Fisher’s auger is still +sticking in it.” + +Another time they received intimation that they should go to Meaher’s +hummock and hunt a mound and some trees bearing marks like an inverted +E; then walk so many feet in a certain direction and dig. On this +occasion they took old Adam Boone, a negro who was supposed to have +found many hidden treasures. They found the marked trees and the mound, +which was six or seven feet high and looked as if it had been built +by man. They had just arrived, identified the spot, and were grouped +around it talking. Ebernezar Fisher, who was tall, stood with the butt +of his gun resting on the ground, and held it with one hand near the +end of the barrel. Both hammers were down. Old Adam Smith was saying, +“I’ve been hearin’ of this place a long time. They say several men were +killed and buried here.” As the last words were uttered, one barrel of +Fisher’s gun went off, and he was so startled that he threw it from +him; Charlie Tell who was sitting on the ground near him caught it +and as he did so the other barrel went off. Needless to add that the +seekers for gold left the spot as quickly as they could and have never +gone back again. + +[Illustration: Charlee.] + +There are places in the woods and among the hills where no one can +go--unless very brave and then not to stay long--for there are sounds +as of the march of soldiers, the clank of their swords, and the orders +of the captains. Whoever goes to these places will have to fight the +spirits and there is no hope of overpowering them, for they change +their forms into those of many “varmints” and especially do they affect +the ones that the intruder most fears. + +Some of these superstitions were repeated to the Tarkars with the +hope of drawing them out and learning just what they believed. They +accepted them and Olouala offered the solution of the spirits’ faithful +guardianship as it had been explained to him by American negroes. To +make this guardianship effective the promise must be obtained during +the life of the body. “Suppose some one has a treasure he wishes to +conceal--perhaps to bury. He may pick out you who he has never seen +before. Perhaps he asks, ‘Do you want to earn ten dollars?’ Of course +you do, so you go with him. After he gets to the place where he wishes +to bury the gold, he says, ‘I have a treasure here which I wish to +bury. But I have to go away--will you promise to watch it until I come +back?’ You unsuspectingly promise and as you do so you are killed +and your body buried with the treasure that your spirit may guard +it forever.” Instead of a person a faithful and intelligent dog or +horse may be sacrificed. This, however, is not a Tarkar superstition, +but is common to our negro and creole population. The Tarkars during +their long residence have explored every foot of this region in their +searches for game, berries, fruits, and herbs and they have never +had any encounters with the Magazine Point ghosts or any intimation +of their presence. Kazoola, however, naïvely intimated that he would +prefer not to know where they were located, as he might have occasion +to go to these places, and if he did not know where these ghosts were +supposed to be, he would not be annoyed or frightened by seeing them. + +The life of the Tarkars in America has not been characterized by the +superstitions ascribed to them; instead their history has been one of +hard work, coöperation, self-sacrifice, and a deep longing for home. +Their progress has been deeply interesting. Almost entirely cut off +from white influence--and that with which they came in contact during +their early years in this country could scarcely inspire them with +confidence, for they are keenly watchful and observed the advantage +which one white took over another--yet protected by our laws, they have +worked out their destiny with much more success and honor to themselves +than the generality of American-born negroes or of the free blacks who +were carried by the American Colonization Society back to Africa, and +whose interests have been guarded and furthered by philanthropists. + +When the Tarkars first came to Magazine Point all days were alike to +them; they went about doing on Sundays as on other days. Some American +negroes who had become interested in them and who were really their +friends requested them not to work on Sundays but to gather all their +women and children and go with them. They were thus introduced to a +church. There they were told that the God who lived in the sky had +sent a book to the people of the earth, telling them how they must +live. Simple and believing, they readily accepted what was told. The +Old Testament and the dualistic dogma of a God and a Devil made the +same appeal to them that it had to the American negro--there was the +ready response of the primitive imagination to a primitive story. In +them they found an amplification of the gropings of their own minds +into the spiritual. It soothed their sorrows and gave them hope. +Their faith became a simple one, and that of the few old survivors +is one of resignation, hope, and a perfect trust. Poleete has said: +“We know not why these troubles came upon us, but we are all God’s +children--we not always see the way, but his hands guide us and +shape our ends.” Kazoola, in speaking of the death of his wife and +of all his children, likened God to the doctor who “gives us bad +medicine--it’s hard to swallow, but the doctor gives it to us to do us +good. We don’t understand why.” Though Kazoola has an intense longing +for home, he regards his advent to America as a part of the goodness +of God and enjoys telling how after Foster had bought him at Whydah, +he was stolen by one of Dahomey’s men and hidden under the white +house. While concealed, he heard the surf upon the beach. Urged by +an innate curiosity about the mechanism of things, he stole from his +hiding-place and climbed upon the stockade fence; “I hear the noise +of the sea on shore, an’ I wanta see what maka dat noise, an’ how dat +water worka--how it fell on shore an’ went back again. I saw some of +my people in a little boat and I holler to them. Then Captain Foster +spied me, an’ he say, ‘Oh hee! Oh hee!’ an’ pulla me down. An’ I was +the last to go. Supposy I been lef’ behind--what become of Kazoola? Or +supposy de ship turna over, an’ de sharks eat us. Oh Lor’! God is good!” + +Mrs. Foster, who always lived near the Tarkars, said they have always +been gentle, amiable, and honest and much better than the average +American negro; that it was their perseverance and religious zeal which +built the several churches which are now at Magazine Point. There +was only one among them who proved unregenerate--old Zooma who still +lives--but she belonged to another tribe, the Tarkbar, and presents +totally different characteristics; also different color, physical +development, and tribal marks. She has been seen to make a cross and +spit in the middle of it. The others do not seem to understand her +motive. + +After the surrender the Tarkars wished to go back to their own country +but had no money. They concluded to save. They worked in the mills for +a dollar a day, but could not save without help, so they said to their +wives, “Now we want to go home and it takes a lot of money. You must +help us save. You see fine clothes--you must not crave them.” The +wives promised and replied: “_You_ see fine clothes and new hats--now +don’t you crave them either. We will work together.” They made six +dollars a week. Of this they could save two dollars, sometimes three, +but they had rent to pay and found they could not get ahead that way, +for it would take a lot of money to get home. Among themselves they +talked over the injustice of their position--how Meaher had brought +them from their native land and how they now had neither home nor +country. Kazoola, who seems to have always been a spokesman, concluded +he would present their case to Meaher. Soon after he was cutting timber +(just back of where the schoolhouse now stands), Captain Tim Meaher +came along and sat upon a felled tree. Kazoola recognized this to be +his opportunity, stopped work, and stood looking at Meaher, all his +emotion speaking through his expressive face. The captain looked up +from the stick he was whittling and struck by the sorrow in the man’s +face asked: + +“Kazoola, what makes you so sad?” + +“I grieve for my home.” + +“But you’ve got a good home.” + +“Captain Tim, how big is Mobile?” + +“I don’t know, I’ve never been to the four corners.” + +“If you give Kazoola all Mobile, that railroad, and the banks of Mobile +Kazoola does not want them for this is not home.” + +When the old man tells this his face reflects overwhelming grief--in +his eyes there is the far-away vision of home, and in a low voice he +moans, “Oh Lor’! Oh Lor’!” Then he regains himself and goes on with his +narrative. + +“Captain Tim, you brought us from our country where we had land and +home. You made us slaves. Now we are free, without country, land, or +home. Why don’t you give us a piece of this land and let us build for +ourselves an African Town?” + +Kazoola relates Meaher’s reply very dramatically. + +“Thou fool! Thinkest thou I will give you property upon property? You +do not belong to me now!” + +The Tarkars concluded to buy. When one reached this conclusion, the +others said: “If you are going to buy, we will too.” They bought +property from Meaher, who made them no concessions. They worked and +saved, going half clad and living upon half rations. Though accustomed +in their own country to Nature’s luxuries, they now lived on molasses +and corn-bread or mush (boiled corn-meal). The men worked in the mills +and their wives helped by planting gardens and fruit trees and becoming +venders of fruit and vegetables. Their Tarkar home began to be a +chimera; day after day new ties pushed it farther away. + +[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. + +Olouala.] + +Having no head of the tribe, and understanding that in a country of +different institutions a king would be incongruous, they selected +Charlee (Orsey, in Tarkar), Gumpa (African Peter), and Jaybee as judges +to preside over the colony, to arbitrate their differences, and direct +their lives. When disagreements came up, word would be sent each member +that there would be a meeting at a certain place after dark--their only +leisure time--possibly at the home of one of the judges.[22] + +The offenders would be given a hearing before the whole colony--each +side would be weighed and each reprimanded with a warning to “go +and keep the peace.” If they again broke it, or renewed their +disagreements, they were punished--Jaybee, Gumpa, or Charlee +administering a whipping to the culprits. Of these judges, there +lives to-day only Charlee, who has passed the century mark and is[23] +tottering on the brink of the grave. Yet the nine surviving Tarkars, +and each of these has seen his three-score years and ten, look upon +him as the head, observe his admonitions, and never disobey him. His +face is one of the most kindly and he is known among his people as +never having disputed or disagreed with any one. As old as they are, if +Charlee told them they could not do a thing, no matter how strong the +desire, they would not disobey. The judges were not considered above +reproach. If any of the colony saw one of them doing that which was +wrong, he would be rebuked: “We saw you do this thing. It is not right. +How do you expect us to do right if you do not show us the way?” + +About ten years after the close of the Civil War, when the South was +still largely under carpetbag régime, interest in elections was intense +and the outcome of vital importance to the community. Opposing parties +used almost any means at their command to obtain votes. Meaher went +among the Tarkars, explaining the methods and significance of voting +and urging them to vote the Democratic ticket. He was followed by some +Republicans who promised them great rewards. They talked this new thing +over among themselves and concluded that by voting the Republican +ticket they would gain much good. On election day, Olouala, Poleete, +and Kazoola walked, one behind the other (a Tarkar custom), to the +polls at Whistler. Meaher was there; he pointed them out, “See those +Africans? Don’t let them vote--they are not of this country.” They +were refused so walked to McGuire’s, but Meaher who had been watching +them and knew their persistency, had ridden ahead and forestalled +them; they were again refused. This only whetted their desire and +their determination, and they walked on down St. Stephen’s Road to the +next voting place. Arriving there, Meaher was just getting off his +horse. “Don’t let those Africans vote--they have no right--they are +not of this country.” Defeated again, the three now wanted to vote so +badly, that they put their hands together, raised them to the sky, +and prayed God that He would permit them to vote. Strengthened, they +walked on to Mobile and at the polls on St. Francis Street told their +experience. They were informed that by paying one dollar they could +vote. This they did and received a paper which they still treasure. It +was their one experience in politics, and it was satisfying for they +accomplished what they had set out to do, though the great promises +never materialized. + +Of the one hundred and sixteen Africans who were brought to this +country in the _Clotilde_, there are only eight living: five women, +Abaché (Clara Turner), Monabee (Kitty Cooper), Shamber, Kanko (who +married Jim Dennison), and Zooma; and three men, Poleete, Kazoola +(Cudjoe Lewis), and Olouala (Orsey Kan). Their Tarkar names have been +used in this narrative at their request. They love them and with some +pathos asked that they be used, because in some way these names might +drift back to their native home, where some might remember them. +This small fragment gathers on Sundays after church at the home of +Poleete, Kazoola, or Abaché and discuss among themselves the things +pertaining to their welfare, and they never part without speaking of +their African home and telling some incident of that beloved place. +Kazoola says he often thinks that if he had wings he would fly back; +then he remembers that all he has lies in American soil--the wife who +came from his native land, who was his helpmate and companion through +the many years, and all his children. It was at some of these Sunday +afternoon gatherings that he made the parables about his wife, Albiné +(Celie), which are a solace to him in his sorrow and loneliness. The +Sunday after her death, the Tarkars were sitting with Kazoola in his +home. He sat with head bowed down, grief-stricken, and speaking no +word. They said, “Lift up your head, Kazoola, and speak with us.” +Kazoola lifted his head; “I will make a parable. Kazoola and Albiné +have gone to Mobile together. They get on the train to go home and sit +side by side. The conductor comes along and says to Kazoola, ‘Where +are you going to get off?’ and Kazoola replies, ‘Mount Vernon.’ The +conductor then asks Albiné, ‘Where are you going to get off?’ and she +replies ‘Plateau.’[24] Kazoola surprised, turns to Albiné and asks, +‘Why, Albiné! How is this? Why do you say you are going to get off at +Plateau?’ She answers, ‘I must get off.’ The train stops and Albiné +gets off. Kazoola stays on--he is alone. But old Kazoola has not +reached Mount Vernon yet--he is still journeying on.” + +On the next Sunday they were again gathered at Kazoola’s house; again +he sat with bowed head, and again they asked him to lift up his head +and make another parable. + +“Suppose Charlee comes to my house and wants to go on to Poleete’s. He +has an umbrella which he leaves in my care. When he comes back he asks +for his umbrella--must I give it to him or must I keep it?” + +The listening Tarkars cried out, “No, Kazoola! You cannot keep it--it +is not yours!” + +And Kazoola answered, “Neither could I keep Albiné; she was just left +in my care.”[25] + +Kazoola never married again; he sees Albiné everywhere about the +house. Everything reminds him of her. One day he was working in his +corn-patch, weeding out superfluous stalks. He came to two growing +together--the root of one intertwined with the other. He started to +pull one out, but something within told him to stop, that thus had he +and Albiné grown together and one stalk could not be pulled up without +hurting the other. So he saved the two, giving them especial care, and +he was rewarded by each bearing four ears of corn. These he was going +to save for seed and grieves that a cow should have gotten in and +destroyed them. The old man is cheerful--even merry--possessing a keen +sense of humor and a lively imagination. To appreciate him fully he +must be surprised at his home. There he will be found probably working +in his garden barefooted, trousers rolled up above his knees; his +costume clean but a marvelous piece of patchwork, even the old derby +upon his head a much mended one. His patches need elicit no sympathy, +for patching is an accomplishment in which he takes keen delight; even +in the old days when his Albiné was alive, she would wash his clothes +and lay them aside for him to patch during the evenings when the day’s +work was done. + +The Tarkars range in color from light to a very dark brown. All bear +upon their faces the Tarkar tribal marks--two lines between the eyes +and three on the cheek. While quite distinct, these marks are not +disfiguring. Their teeth bear the marks of family and of kinship and +vary in each. The process of marking the teeth was by pecking with a +stone implement. The lower corners of Poleete’s two front teeth where +they meet are pecked off, forming a wedge-shaped opening like an +inverted V. When Kazoola’s teeth are closed, on one side there is a +circular opening which was formed by cutting off parts of a half-dozen +teeth. Six of Abaché’s upper front teeth are trimmed to make a convex +opening. The Tarkars differ in feature from the American negro; it +is a subtle difference but runs through the whole face. Their heads +differ structurally--the line from the forehead to the chin is nearer +straight. They have more top head and there is a fullness indicating +plenty of intelligence--a possession they have exhibited in their neat +homes and thrifty lives. Some of them have even learned to read; this +was taught them by their children who have profited by the public +schools. Poleete’s constant companion is a small, much worn New +Testament. Their countenances naturally vary with their temperaments. +Abaché’s and Kazoola’s are as open as a book--intensely emotional and +capable of expressing very deep feeling. None have gotten over the +shock of their early experience. When these are referred to there +comes into Kazoola’s and Abaché’s faces unspeakable and indescribable +anguish. Poleete’s is like a mask, unchanging, unscrutable, except for +the eyes, and these--small, deep-set, watchful--are almost uncanny. + +Among themselves they speak the Tarkar language. Their English is very +broken and is not always intelligible even to those who have lived +among them for many years. It has more the sound of the dialect spoken +by Italians than that spoken by the negroes. They make almost constant +use of the “a” sound as a terminal--looka, pulla, worka, etc. Their +sentences are short and vivid. The few words of old Gumpa, “My people +sold me and your people bought me,” accompanied by his expression, told +his whole history. + +They are extremely clean both about their persons and their homes, +and one of their strongest objections to the average American negro +is uncleanliness. Abaché parts her hair in the middle and combs it +neatly back. She uses face powder, because it is refreshing and leaves +a cleanly feeling. The other women are very old and feeble, except +Kanko who, though old, works as a man. Her especial occupation is the +breeding and raising of a fine strain of hogs. The Tarkars are very +considerate of each other, and their intercourse is marked by kindness, +charity, and harmony. + +[Illustration: Drawn by Emma Roche. + +Charlee, Head of the Tarkars.] + +In strong contrast to the Tarkars is old Zooma, who is possibly the +last Tarkbar. Rendered almost helpless by a century and more of +years and many pounds of superfluous flesh, she sits for the most part +silent and brooding in her squalid hut. If near the door or window +there are no softening shadows, and the light reveals all her fat, +brutal old ugliness--an ugliness, accentuated by disfiguring tribal +marks--three deep gashes meeting at the bridge of the nose, and running +diagonally across each cheek. Her underlip hangs away as if it had +been subjected in her native land to some kind of African beautifying +process. Her hair is white and the skin of her hands and feet wrinkled, +resembling in texture that of an elephant, and bearing the curious +gray color seen in the complexions of very old negroes. It is almost +impossible to understand her broken phrases, but a daughter acts as +interpreter. Brooding, she is pathetic; aroused and speaking of home +she is tragic. She has in common with the Tarkars the same pitiful +history and the same despair, without their resignation. For each and +all, Heaven could hold no promise so rapturous as just one last vision +of home. Such a vision that comes as they sit together, which bows +their old heads, lays silent fingers upon their lips, and speaks to +their aching hearts of perpetual summer, fertile lands, abundance of +fruit--of youth, plenty, and peace--their Land of Long Ago. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +IMPRESSIONS OF ALABAMA IN 1846[26] + + +The trip of Lafayette through this country in the twenties was more or +less spectacular, and the places he visited are to-day pointed out as +historic, yet only twenty years later Lyell, whose name will go down +the ages linked with Goethe, Lamarck, and Darwin, covered much the +same ground, and it is only in scientific works that one is reminded +of the fact. In recent reading, after meeting with several references +to his stay in Alabama, I became interested, and it was with intense +delight that I was carried back and saw our own section through the +eyes of that wonderful observer and thinker. All awe of Charles Lyell, +scientist and arch-destroyer of the anthropocentric idea which for so +many centuries fettered the world of thought, was at once dispelled, +for there was that in his charming geniality that makes the “whole +world kin”--even a Charles Lyell and the pine-woods squatter, whose +hospitality he often accepted when on geologic excursions. + +Lyell made two trips to the United States--the first in 1841-42, which +furnished material for his _Travels in North America_. He came as far +south as Savannah. His _Travels in the United States_ is the record of +his second visit, when Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana +formed a part of his itinerary. Aside from the geologic importance of +these two works, there could scarcely be a more faithful portrayal +of American manners, customs, and peculiarities. They were largely +instrumental in ameliorating British animosity by giving the English a +better and kindlier understanding of Americans. At the time of their +publication, they naturally found in this country a circulation only +among the few, and are now rare books. His observations on the social +conditions that made the South unique and that have been obliterated +during the lapse of a half century are deeply interesting to the +student of to-day. + +[Illustration: Kazoola.] + +On January 15, 1846, we find Lyell and his wife entering Macon, +Georgia, by train. His eye was immediately attracted by “a wooden +edifice of very peculiar structure and picturesque form, crowning one +of the hills.” Learning that it was a blockhouse that had been in real +service as a fort against Indians only twenty-five years before, when +this frontier knew not the white man’s habitat, it was with a mixed +feeling of amusement and incongruity that he received the information +that a conspicuous building nearby was a “female seminary, lately +established by the Methodists, where all young ladies take degrees.” + +From Macon to Columbus, Georgia, he had his first experience in a +Southern stage-coach which, while novel, must have proved far from +comfortable, for he did not forget to record the jolts caused by +miserable roads and reckless driving. Leaving Columbus he was soon +in the undulating pine-lands of Alabama, the monotony of which was +frequently broken by swamps of palmetto and magnolia. The spirit of +the pines must have sung to him, too, for the “sound of the wind in +the boughs of the long-leaved pine” always reminded him of the “waves +breaking on a distant shore, and it was agreeable to hear it swelling +gradually, then dying away as the breeze rose and fell.” Near Chehaw, +the stage stopped at a log cabin in the woods for the passengers to +dine. It did not look promising, and Lyell was ready to “put up with +bad fare,” but on entering found on the table “a wild turkey roasted, +venison steaks, and a partridge-pie, all the product of the neighboring +forest.” Noticing the stumps of many pines, he counted the rings of +annual growth to ascertain how long it would take to replace such a +forest. The oldest tree that he examined measured four feet in diameter +at three feet above the base, and showed three hundred and twenty +rings. He also found the ravines that are common throughout Southern +Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to be of recent formation and caused +by deforestation, showing the tertiary regions and also part of the +cretaceous strata which have “always been as destructible as now” to +have been from the beginning covered with dense forests. Where the +trees have been cut, the sun’s heat on the clay often causes cracks, +and when the rains come in semi-tropical torrents these deepen until +such ravines as are familiar to Mobilians about Spring Hill are the +result--only they are of more rapid growth. + +At Chehaw they took train for Montgomery. Even at that early time, +and in a region “where the schoolmaster has not been much abroad,” we +meet the prototype of the newsboy of to-day; Lyell’s picture of him +unconcernedly jumping on and off moving trains is the “butcher-boy” we +all know. One boy was calling out in the midst of a pine-barren, “a +novel by Paul de Kock--the Bulwer of France--all the go!--more popular +than the Wandering Jew.” Lyell, having bought newspapers promiscuously +throughout the many States he visited, found our press to be in every +way on an equal with that of Great Britain. A large portion of the +papers was “devoted to literary extracts, to novels, travels, tales, +and often more serious subjects.” + +Reaching Montgomery, he remained there a few days examining the +geologic formations and remains of that region. It was his intention +to go directly to Tuscaloosa, only one hundred miles distant by land, +but every one advised him that he would at that season save both time +and money by taking an eight hundred mile trip down the Alabama River +by boat to Mobile, and up again on the Tombigbee. The _Amaranth_ was +scheduled to leave at ten o’clock, January 28, 1846. Accustomed to +Northern punctuality, they went down on time, and learned with some +annoyance that she might not sail until the next day. It was his first +sight of our “magnificent Southern river boats.” He and Mrs. Lyell made +up their minds to look on it as “their inn and read and write there” +and were soon enjoying “its luxuries which Southern manners and a hot +climate require.” He describes very fully the peculiar construction +which adapts the boats to rivers which rise and fall rapidly. When +recording that some of them could float in two feet of water, he adds, +“but they cannot quite realize the boast of a western captain, that he +could sail wherever it was damp.” + +It would be too much to write in detail of all the things which +interested Lyell, for nothing seems to have escaped him. At each +landing, however, he collected many cretaceous fossils, so concluded +to stop a few days at Claiborne, whose bluff had long been known to +geologists as “classic ground,” having already yielded four hundred +species of tertiary shells, belonging to the Eocene formation. He +notes, too, the finding of a fossil zeuglodon in the same cliff by +Mr. Hale of Mobile. “The morning after our arrival, January 29th, the +thermometer stood at eighty degrees F. in the shade, and the air was +as balmy as an English summer day. Before the house stood a row of +Pride-of-India trees ladened with bunches of yellow berries. I had +often been told by the negroes that the American robin ‘got drunk’ on +this fruit, and we now had an opportunity of witnessing its narcotic +properties; for we saw some children playing with one of these birds +before the house, having caught it after it had eaten freely of these +berries. My wife, seeing that the robin was in no small danger of +perishing, bought it of the children for some sugar-plums, and it +soon revived in our room, and flew out of the window. In the evening +we enjoyed a sight of one of those glorious sunsets, the beauty of +which in these latitudes is so striking, when the clouds and sky are +lighted up with streaks of brilliant yellow, red, and green, which, if +a painter should represent faithfully, might seem as exaggerated and +gaudy as the colors of an American forest in autumn when compared with +European woods.” + +He crossed the river to visit the Blounts at Woodlawn. Leaving his wife +with Mrs. Blount, he went with Mr. Blount by carriage to Clarksville, +where the enormous fossil zeuglodons had been found. “The district we +passed through was situated in the fork of the Alabama and Tombeckbee +rivers, where the aboriginal forest was only broken here and there by a +few clearings. At Macon my attention was forcibly called to the newness +of things by my friend’s pointing out to me the ground where there had +been a bloody fight with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and how the clerk +of the Circuit Court was the last survivor of those who had won the +battle.” The Indian paths, still tractable through the forests near +Tuscaloosa, awakened the same feeling. On his return he and his wife +crossed to Claiborne to await the Mobile steamer, and he expresses his +pleasure at finding it, the _Amaranth_, commanded by his “old friend +Captain Bragdon.” + +Reaching Mobile, the Tuscaloosa steamer was ready to start, so they +were soon northward bound on the Tombeckbee, then so high “that the +trees of both banks seemed to be growing in a lake.” Arriving at +Tuscaloosa where there was a “flourishing college” he was met by Mr. +Brumley, the professor of chemistry who at once conducted him to the +outlying coal-fields. He found the coal, even of the strata exposed to +the surface to be “excellent quality and highly bituminous.” Here there +is a bit of justification in Huxley’s criticism of Lyell’s aversion +“to look beyond the veil of stratified rocks,” for while he notes +with seeming satisfaction the imprints of the fossil plants in the +black shale to be exactly the same as those existing in the “ancient +coal-measures of Europe and America,” there is no foreshadowing of +the explanation given by recent geology and astronomy, that even as +late as the early carboniferous era, there were no seasons, the earth +being wrapped in a uniform, vaporous warmth greater than the heat now +existing in the tropics; a heat which came not from the sun, but the +earth itself. One proof lies in the fact that irrespective of latitude, +the same organic remains are found--their nearest of kin of to-day +living only in the tropics; also that there are no rings of annual +growth in carboniferous tree-life. + +Lyell and Professor Brumley extending their wanderings, “entered about +thirty-three miles northeast of Tuscaloosa a region called Rooke’s +Valley, where rich beds of iron-stone and lime-stone bid fair, by +their proximity to the coal, to become one day a source of great +mineral wealth.” He was not only indebted to Professor Brumley for +much scientific information, but also to Mr. Bernard, the teacher of +astronomy, who showed him some “double stars and constellations not +visible in England,”--the telescope a recent acquisition from London. +Mrs. Lyell also made many friends in Tuscaloosa, among them two ladies +who were reading as a “pastime Goethe and Schiller in the original.” + +From Tuscaloosa to Mobile Lyell had splendid chances of studying the +geological character of the country, and he frequently expresses +appreciation of the courtesy and assistance always given him throughout +Alabama, contrasting it with the “ignorant wonder” the fossil hunter +inspires in unfrequented districts of England, France, and Italy. +He was anxious to examine the calcareous bluff at St. Stephen’s. Night +fell before they reached it, but Captain Lavargy stopped, said he could +take on wood, gave him a boat and two negroes bearing pine torches, +thus making it possible for him to thoroughly explore the whole cliff +and find many fossils. + +[Illustration: Zooma, the Last Tarkbar.] + +Mobile again claims him on February 21, 1846, and flaunts her spring +forwardness by touches of green on the cypress and cotton trees, and +scarlet seed-vessels on the rubra. “In the gardens there were jonquils +and snow-drops in flower, and for the first time, we saw that beautiful +evergreen, the yellow-jessamine, in full bloom, trailed along the wall +of Dr. Hamilton’s house.” Anxious for his first sight of the Gulf of +Mexico, he drove with Dr. Hamilton, the Presbyterian minister, to the +light-house (situated on Choctaw Point and washed away by the storm +of 1852), and, from the tower had a “splendid view of the city to +the North, and to the South the noble bay of Mobile, fourteen miles +across.” He then went to the bay which lay “smooth and unruffled, +the woods coming down everywhere to its edge.” He noted the immense +amount of driftwood, dug up bivalve-shelled gnathodons that live in our +mud-banks, and that will in future ages indicate the position of our +rivers. He found Mobile to be built upon a deposit of these shells, +the stratification of which proved that it had been thrown up by the +waves. Our delta, in the soft mud of which cattle are frequently mired +and which receives carcasses washed down by the rivers and thrown up +by the sea, exemplifies the formation of such regions as the Fayûm of +Egypt--the elephant’s ancestral home--now covered by desert sands, but +which is each day yielding priceless treasure to the paleontologist. + +On February 23d, the _James L. Day_, bound for New Orleans, “sailed out +of the beautiful bay of Mobile in the evening,” carrying aboard Charles +Lyell and his wife. + +At the time of Lyell’s visit, Alabama lay struggling in the grasp of +that spirit of unrest which from the most remote antiquity as often +obsessed people of the Aryan race, calling them ever westwards towards +the setting sun. Everywhere he met “movers”--Texas masking as the +Promised Land, beckoning to the cultured as to the ignorant. Adventure +prompted many, others knew not why they were going, some were “eaten +out by their negroes,” and one informant said: “If we remain here, we +are reduced to the alternative of high taxes to pay the interest of +money so improvidently borrowed from England, or to suffer the disgrace +of repudiation, which would be doubly shameful, because the money was +received in hard cash, and lent out, often rashly by the State to +farmers for agricultural improvements. Besides, all the expenses of the +Government were in reality defrayed during several years by borrowed +money and the burthen of the debt thrown on posterity. The facility +with which your English capitalists, in 1821, lent their cash to a +State from which the Indians were not yet expelled without reflecting +on the migratory nature of the white population is astonishing. The +planters, who got the grants of your money and spent it, have nearly +all of them moved off and settled beyond the Mississippi.” But Lyell +had faith in Alabama’s natural resources, which he felt were so great +that only a moderate amount of economy would be necessary to surmount +all embarrassments. + +Texas and the probability of war with England over the Oregon Question +were topics discussed on every hand. Lyell would hear the English +adversely criticized and such boasts as “we have whipped them twice, +and should whip them a third time,” but where his nationality was +known, he says, “never once were any speeches, uncourteous in their +tone towards my country, uttered in my hearing.” + +On his geologizing trips, which would have oftentimes been hard on +any one not riding his own hobby, he was forced to stop where night +overtook him, so that even the habits of the “crackers” became familiar +to him. “In many houses I hesitated to ask for water or towels, for +fear of giving offense ... nor could I venture to ask any one to rub a +thick coat of mud off my trousers, lest I should be thought to reflect +on members of the family, who had no idea of indulging in such luxuries +themselves. I felt the want of a private bed-room, but very soon came +to regard it as a privilege to be allowed even a bed to myself.” +In his wanderings, he also met “clay-eaters”[27]--a people curious +in their cravings for certain kinds of clay. Their peculiar green +complexion indicating anemia, which usually terminates in dropsy, was +formerly considered a sequence to the gratification of this abnormal +appetite, but is now supposed to be a result of a pathogenic parasite +found in the small intestine.[28] The type is still a most familiar one +in the hill-country just west of Mobile. + +When dubious about safety from highwaymen, Lyell was assured that in +the South this class was unknown; the working class being the slave +class there was no poor made desperate by want. And that the Texas wars +had relieved the different communities of their dare-devil spirits. + +Lyell was often amused and astonished at the Southerner’s loyal support +of an ultra-Democratic notion of white equality, which in practice must +have been thoroughly uncongenial to all classes concerned. He visited +a lawyer at his country home--the family a cultivated one, used to the +best society of a large city--but the host regarded it as an obligation +to invite Lyell’s driver, who was half Indian, to sit down to the table +with them. Perhaps a consciousness that this boasted equality was +more or less fictitious may have been responsible for the vindictive +envy which flourished in the midst of this “aristocratic democracy.” +A jealousy so intense that a gentleman growing rich and settling in +a quiet part of the country was apt to have his fences pulled down, +cattle turned out to roam, and other indignities perpetrated. Many +anecdotes of the genuineness and prevalence of this feeling were told +to Lyell. The daughter of a member of the Legislature visited Mobile, +had a dress made with flounces according to the latest fashion, and +on her return home wore it to a ball. At the next election her father +was defeated, and on asking a former supporter the cause received the +reply, “Do you think they would vote for you, after your daughter came +to the ball in them fixings?” + +Lyell found drunkenness very common, yet heard many speak of the great +temperance reform, it being no longer considered an insult to refuse +to drink with one’s host. While he saw no cruelty to slaves, he felt +that when drunkenness was so general among the owners their power might +often be an abusive one. He states that it was not the object of his +visit to study slavery, but his interesting observations would fill a +chapter and are characterized by a keenness and fairness which make +them very valuable. The stories told him by disgruntled and misinformed +Northerners had prepared him for blood-curdling atrocities, but +throughout Alabama he saw the negro in many phases: in his churches, +about his pleasures, and at his occupations that ranged from farmhand +to mechanic; in the slave-market, as the indulged domestic, and as +the faithful and cheerful follower of his master into new and unknown +regions; and on no occasion had he reason to suspect maltreatment. +When speaking to a Northern man of his favorable impressions, he was +told that “great pains had been taken by the planters to conceal the +true state of things”--that he had been “propitiated by hospitable +attentions.” Lyell found his own experience corroborated in a +_Tradesman’s Journal_, written by William Thompson, a Scotch weaver, +who supported himself by his trade as he journeyed through the South. + +After seeing what contact with the whites had done for the negro, Lyell +entertained very sanguine hopes of the race’s intellectual and moral +possibilities, and was impatient of what seemed to him unjust laws +which restricted the black educationally and politically. His two-sided +attitude is a bit disarming, but is explained by himself. “We are often +thrown into opposite states of mind and feeling, according as the +interest of the white or negro happens, for the moment, to claim our +sympathy.” But the following words embody an unbiased and a beautiful +tribute to the influence of the Southerners: “In spite of prejudice +and fear, and in defiance of stringent laws enacted against education, +three million of a more enlightened and progressive race are brought +into contact with an equal number of laborers lately in a savage state, +and taken from a continent where the natives have proved themselves, +for many thousand years, to be singularly unprogressive. Already their +taskmasters have taught them to speak, with more or less accuracy, +one of the noblest of languages, to shake off many old superstitions, +to acquire higher ideals of morality, and habits of neatness and +cleanliness, and have converted thousands of them to Christianity. Many +they have emancipated, and the rest are gradually approaching to the +condition of the ancient serfs of Europe half a century or more before +their bondage died out. + +“All this has been done at an enormous sacrifice of time and money; +an expense, indeed, which all the Governments of Europe and all the +Christian missionaries, whether Romanist or Protestant, could never +have effected in five centuries. Even in the few States which I have +already visited since I crossed the Potomac, several hundred thousand +whites of all ages, among whom the children are playing by no means +the least effective part, are devoting themselves with greater or less +activity to these involuntary educational exertions.” + + +THE END + + + + +[1] _Reprinted from “South Atlantic Quarterly,” July, 1908._ + +[2] Smith’s _Historie of Virginia_. + +[3] “Their features are recorded by their ancient enemies, never by +themselves, Egyptian kings, who from earliest times of antiquity, +came often into collision with the blacks, and had them figured as +defeated enemies, as prisoners of war, and as subject nations bringing +tribute. Their grotesque features, so much differing from the Egyptian +type, made them a favorite subject for sculptural supports of thrones, +chairs, vases, etc.; or painted under the soles of sandals, of which +instances abound in museums as well as in the larger works on Egypt.... +The other artistical nations of antiquity knew little of the negro +race. They did not come before Solomon’s epoch into immediate and +constant contact with it. We see soon after, however, a negro in an +Assyrian battle scene of the time of Sargon, at Korsabad. He might +have been exported from Memphis by Phœnician slave-dealers to Asia, +where he fell fighting for his master against the Assyrians.... On the +remarkable relief of the tomb of Darius Hystaspes, at Persepolis, we +have the negro as a representative of Africa. The Greeks seldom drew +the blacks; still, on beautiful vases of the British Museum, we meet +with the well known negro features in a battle scene. Another such vase +with the representation of Hercules slaying negroes has been published +by Mecali. Etruscan potters, who liked to draw Oriental types, molded +vases in the shape of a negro head and coupled it sometimes with the +head of white males or females. The British Museum contains several of +these very characteristic utensils.... We possess effigies of negroes +drawn by six different nations of antiquity: Egyptians, Assyrians, +Persians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, from about the eighteenth +century B.C. to the first centuries of our era, which all speak for the +unalterable constancy of the negro type such as in our day.”--Nott and +Gliddon’s _Indigenous Races of the Earth_. + +[4] Lecky, _Rationalism in Europe_. + +[5] Ranke, _History of the Popes_. + +[6] Dean Farrar. + +[7] Heylyn’s _Cosmographie_, 1657. + +[8] “You may observe, by my proclamation, that I offer freedom to +the blacks of all rebels that join me, in consequence of which there +are between two and three hundred already come in, and those I form +into corps as fast as they come in, giving them white officers and +non-commissions in proportion.”--Letter from Lord Dunmore to General +Howe, dated Williamsburg, Va., Nov. 30, 1775. + +[9] _Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson._ + +[10] Jefferson’s observations to Meunier. + +[11] Hamilton’s _Colonial Mobile_. + +[12] United States Statutes at Large. + +[13] “The Reverend Mr. Coffin of New England who is now here soliciting +donations for a college in Green County, in Tennessee, tells me that +when he first determined to engage in this enterprise, he wrote a +paper recommendatory of the enterprise, which he meant to get signed +by clergymen, and a similar one for persons in a civil character, +at the head of which he wished Mr. Adams to put his name, he being +then President, and the application going only for his name and not a +donation. Mr. Adams, after reading the paper and considering, said, +He saw no possibility of continuing the union of the States; that +their dissolution must necessarily take place; that he therefore saw +no propriety in recommending to New England men to promote a literary +institution in the South; that it was in fact giving strength to those +who were to be their enemies; and therefore he would have nothing to do +with it.”--Thomas Jefferson, _The Anas_, Dec. 13, 1803. + +[14] United States Statutes at Large. + +[15] _North American Review_, February, 1824. + +[16] Right of Search, Daniel Webster. + +[17] _Journal de Commercio_, Rio, May 26, 1856. + +[18] _Mobile Register_, December, 1858. + +[19] Heylyn’s _Cosmographie_, 1657. + +[20] _Narrative of Kazoola._ + +[21] The _R. B. Tainey_ was owned by the Meahers, and is described in +advertisements of that time as a “new, elegant, and light-weight summer +packet; Captain Jim Meaher. Side-wheeler, drawing eight inches of water +with elegant and spacious staterooms and large well-ventilated cabins, +carrying one hundred and fifty passengers.” She had been named for +Chief Justice Tainey who had handed down the famous Dred Scott decision. + +[22] These meetings probably account for the reports which have been +recurrent that the Tarkars met secretly and practiced barbaric rites. + +[23] Charlee too has recently passed away, 1914. + +[24] Mount Vernon is some miles beyond Plateau. + +[25] When Albiné first came to America she was very fat and refused +to eat except just enough to keep her alive. When she grew to have +confidence in the whites, she confided to Mrs. Foster, “Albiné not eat +when she first come to America, because Albiné know she fat an’ did not +want white people to eat her.” + +[26] Reprinted from _South Atlantic Quarterly_, July, 1908. + +[27] There is very little literature about this class which is found in +many parts of the world, and even that consists mostly of references to +them by travelers and ethnologists. The fullest account with which I +am familiar is an article by my uncle, the late Frank L. James, Ph.D., +M.D., “The Geophagi, or Dirt Eaters,” which appeared in the _National +Druggist_, of March, 1900. Microscopic examinations made by him of the +“dirt” used by our Alabama, Georgia, and Carolina geophagians showed +it to be a ferruginous argilla about ten per cent. diatomaceous. The +“dirt eaters” of the various countries do not eat any kind of clay, but +uniformly affect an argillaceous substance, containing more or less +infusorial matter. + +[28] Since the first publication of this article, hookworm +investigations and treatment have become common in all infected +districts of the South. + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + Illustrations Index: “Eko, Budigree, Abaché, Whydah” + changed to “Eko, Budigree, Adaché, Whydah” + Illustrations Index: Description of “Zooma, The Last Tarkbar” + moved to “Map Drawn by Kazoola” + Page 16: “with that bruitishness which” changed to + “with that brutishness which” + Page 35: “Whereever there was a priest” changed to + “Wherever there was a priest” + Page 69: “drop from us at the table” changed to + “drop from us at the table.” + Page 75: “prowess to the Turkish Janizaries” changed to + “prowess to the Turkish Janizaries.” + Page 123: “root of one interwined with” changed to + “root of one intertwined with” + Page 124: “Six of Abache’s upper front” changed to + “Six of Abaché’s upper front” + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77013 *** diff --git a/77013-h/77013-h.htm b/77013-h/77013-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e010d07 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/77013-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4157 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Historic sketches of the south | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + font-weight: normal; +} + +h2 {font-size: 100%;} + +.fs200 {font-size: 200%;} +.fs130 {font-size: 130%;} +.fs110 {font-size: 110%;} +.fs90 {font-size: 90%;} +.fs80 {font-size: 80%;} +.fs60 {font-size: 60%;} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.indent {text-indent: 1em;} + +.noindent {text-indent: 0em;} + +.marginleft1 {margin-left: 1em; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} +.p8 {margin-top: 8em;} +.p12 {margin-top: 12em;} + +.corr { + text-decoration: none; + border-bottom: thin dashed blue; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +td {padding: 0.25em;} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.caption p {font-weight: normal;} + +.caption p.right {text-align: right; + font-size: 60%; +} + +.caption p.center {text-align: center; + font-size: 80%; +} + +.captionpcenternormal {text-align: center; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: normal; +} + + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.customcover {visibility: hidden; display: none;} +.x-ebookmaker .customcover {visibility: visible; display: block;} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77013 ***</div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p> + +<p>Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. +</p> + +<p>Footnotes have been moved to the end of the book. +</p> + +<p class="customcover">New original cover art included with this eBook is +granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_001" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_001.jpg" alt="Hand-drawn portrait of Abaché"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="right">Drawn by Emma Roche.</p> + <p class="center">Abaché.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center fs200">Historic Sketches of<br> +the South</p> + +<p class="center fs130 p4">By</p> +<p class="center fs130">Emma Langdon Roche</p> + +<p class="center fs90 p8"><i>Drawings and Photographs by Author</i></p> + + +<p class="center fs110 p8">The Knickerbocker Press<br> +New York<br> +1914</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<p class="center p12"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span></p> +<p class="center">BY</p> +<p class="center">EMMA LANGDON ROCHE</p> +<p class="center">1914</p> + +<p class="center p12">The Knickerbocker Press, New York</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</span></p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> + <td class="tdr fs60">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr fs60">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Beginnings of American Slavery</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Early Legislation against the Slave Traffic</a></td> + <td class="tdr">19</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Illegal Traffic in Slaves</a></td> + <td class="tdr">49</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Preparations for “Clotilde’s” Voyage</a></td> + <td class="tdr">65</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">V.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Capture of the Tarkars</a></td> + <td class="tdr">74</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Voyage of the “Clotilde”</a></td> + <td class="tdr">84</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">The Return</a></td> + <td class="tdr">92</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Tarkars at Dabney’s Plantation</a></td> + <td class="tdr">98</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Tarkar Life in America</a></td> + <td class="tdr">103</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdr">X.</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Impressions of Alabama in 1846</a>[<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a>]</td> + <td class="tdr">129</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + + +<table class="autotable"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr fs60">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_001">Abaché</a></td> + <td class="tdr"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl indent">Drawn by Emma Roche.</td> + <td class="tdl"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_083">Poleete</a></td> + <td class="tdr">73</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl indent">Drawn by Emma Roche.</td> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_091">Abaché and Kazoola</a></td> + <td class="tdr">79</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_103">Map Drawn by Kazoola</a></td> + <td class="tdr">89</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="marginleft1">(<i>1</i>) Tarkar Village. (<i>2</i>) Dahomey’s Land. (<i>3</i>)<br> + Wavering line showing stealthy march of Dahomeyans<br> + through forest. (<i>4</i>) Route by which captive<br> + Tarkars were taken to the sea. (<i>5</i>), (<i>6</i>), (<i>7</i>), (<i>8</i>),<br> + Eko, Budigree, <ins class="corr" id="tn-01" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Abaché">Adaché</ins>, Whydah, towns through<br> + which Tarkars passed. (<i>9</i>) River. (<i>10</i>) Beach<br> + and sea.</p> + </td> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_113">Kazoola</a></td> + <td class="tdr">97</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl indent">Drawn by Emma Roche.</td> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_121">Wreck of the “Clotilde.”</a></td> + <td class="tdr">103</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_129">Charlee</a></td> + <td class="tdr">109</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_139">Olouala</a></td> + <td class="tdr">117</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl indent">Drawn by Emma Roche.</td> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_151">Charlee, Head of the Tarkars</a></td> + <td class="tdr">127</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl indent">Drawn by Emma Roche.</td> + <td></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_157">Kazoola</a></td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#i_167"><ins class="corr" id="tn-02" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Description moved to Map Drawn by Kazoola">Zooma, the Last Tarkbar</ins></a></td> + <td class="tdr">139</td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1 class="nobreak" id="Historic_Sketches_of_the">Historic Sketches of the + South</h1> +</div> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY</span></h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<p>To fully understand the opposition of thought +wherein our “irrepressible conflict” had its inception +and lay so long in embryo, to burst forth at +last in the awful and bloody travail of a nation +divided and at arms, some knowledge of the history +and psychology of the peoples who settled +the American colonies is necessary; for a nation’s +cataclysms are not spontaneously generated, but +are the result of forces which though for generations +are silent and hidden are gathering strength +under the evils of superstition, oppression, or +fanaticism, and only need such an explosive as +the tongue of a Danton, Robespierre, Garrison, +Beecher, or Stowe to hurl the people into death +and desolation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> + +<p>The early settlers who have left their impress on +American life and character were of the same +country and traditions, but their manners and +ideals had been developed by the opposing forces +which began to stir England during the Renaissance—a hundred +and fifty years before the Reformation—forces +of which our own Civil War seems +as direct a sequence as were the religio-political +feuds of the 16th and 17th century England. In +the New World the exponents of these contrasting +forces were divided for the first century and a half +by what afterwards became known as Mason’s +and Dixon’s Line and by vast areas of uninhabited +wilderness.</p> + +<p>Virginia was no Mecca for the religiously or +politically oppressed, but drew to her soldiers of +fortune—men impelled by a spirit of adventure, +or those who for some delinquency wished to lose +their identity in the vast, unknown New World; +among them were many gentlemen who more often +than not possessed the vices and follies of a corrupt +age. The first who became permanent settlers +were divided on the outward voyages by jealousies +and dissensions. These differences were carried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +into the colony; aggravated by the greed and selfishness +of those placed in authority, they became +greater hardships than the illness, starvation, and +Indian treacheries which hampered early progress. +There were “poor gentlemen, Tradesmen, Servingmen, +libertines, and such like, ten times more fit +to spoyle a Commonwealth, than either begin one, +or but helpe to maintain one. For when neither +the feare of God, nor the law, nor shame, nor displeasure +of their friends could rule them here, +there is small hope ever to bring one in twenty of +them ever to be good there. Notwithstanding, +I confesse divers amongst them, had better mindes +and grew much more industrious than was expected.”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +Amid treacheries and deceits, John +Smith stands forth a hero. Through his thought +and action the colony not only survived the vicissitudes +of fire, starvation, and massacre, but +was saved from itself, for the evils of its own +lawless, disturbing elements were greater dangers +than those which came from without. The hope +of gold was ostensibly the colony’s <i lang="fr">raison d’être</i>: +“The worst of all was our gilded refiners with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +their golden promises made all men their slaves +in hope of recompenses; there was no talke, no +hope, no worke, but dig gold, wash gold, refine +gold, loade gold, such a bruit of gold, that one +mad fellow desired to be buried in the sands least +they should by their art make gold of his bones.” +This search for gold proved futile; in 1615 the land +was parceled off to each settler in fifty-acre lots, +tobacco was planted, and thus began Virginia’s +prosperity.</p> + +<p>Tobacco was introduced into Europe by the +first Columbian voyagers and into England by +Raleigh and Drake. Despite the strong social and +religious pressure—even King James instituting a +propaganda which led him to write the <cite>Counterblast +to Tobacco</cite>—the habit spread with alarming +rapidity, and was not confined to the men +alone; chewing and smoking were indulgences +common to the older women, while snuff was the +favorite with the younger ones. This new taste +created a demand which increased Virginia’s population +and greatly extended her cultivated fields. +Women were scarce, and the planters growing +rich had a natural desire to return to England.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +This, however, was obviated by the importation +of widows and virgins who were shipped to the +colony as any other cargo. The nature of this +bartering, which is unique in American history, +may best be described from a letter, dated August +21, 1621, which accompanied one of these cargoes +of colonial dames: “We send you in this ship +one widow and eleven maids for wives for the +people of Virginia. There hath been especial +care had in the choice of them, for there hath not +any one of them been received, but upon good +recommendations.</p> + +<p>“In case they can not be presently married, we +desire that they be put in several households that +have wives, till they can be provided with husbands. +There are near fifty more which are +shortly to come, are sent by our most honorable +lord and treasurer, the Earl of Southampton (the +patron of Shakspere), and certain worthy gentlemen, +who taking into consideration that the plantations +can never flourish till families be planted, +and the respects of wives and children fix these +people on the soil, therefore have given this fair +beginning for the reimbursing those charges. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +is ordered, that every man that marries them give +one hundred and twenty pounds of the best leaf +tobacco for each of them.</p> + +<p>“Though we are desirous that the marriage be +free according to the law of nature, yet we would +not have these maids deceived and married to +servants, but only to such freemen or tenants as +have means to maintain them. We pray you, +therefore to be as a father to them in this business +not enforcing them to marry against their wills.”</p> + +<p>Labor for the ever-increasing fields was another +problem confronting the planter. King James +decided that the London Company should solve +this by transporting to Virginia English convicts, +who thus removed from old environments and +temptations might form a valuable industrial +asset. Only one shipload of a hundred was sent, +for about the same time a Dutch man-of-war +arrived at Jamestown (August, 1619) and twenty +negro slaves were sold to the planters. Qualms +about such a transaction could scarcely be expected, +for through all historic times it was only +as a slave that the negro had been associated with +other races. In ancient times he had been subservient<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +to the Egyptians, bought for the Carthaginian +galleys; slave to Assyrian, Arabian, Indian, +Greek, Etruscan, and Roman; and in early Christian +centuries sold by the Venetians to the Moors +of Spain.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +<p>When the existence of new lands became known +and labor was needed for their development, the +negro’s native country became a hunting ground +where he was not only stalked by the Dutch and +Portuguese, but by the French and English who +also had posts for that purpose in Africa. In fact +the English, including therein the colonists of New +England, became more extensively engaged in +the traffic than all other slave-trading European +nations combined. Compunctions about slavery +as about many other things came only with the +moral awakening of a later generation. “Scarcely +any one seems to have regarded the trade as wrong. +Theologians had so successfully labored to produce +a sense of the amazing, I might almost say generical, +difference between those who were Christians +and those who were not, that to apply to the latter +the principles that were applied to the former, +would have been deemed a glaring paradox. If +the condition of the negroes in this world was +altered for the worse, it was felt that their prospects +in the next were greatly improved. Besides, +it was remembered that, shortly after the deluge +Ham had behaved disrespectfully to his drunken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +father, and it was believed that the Almighty had, +in consequence, ordained negro slavery.”<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The +utility of the negro being at once proven, African +slavery had become something of an institution in +Virginia, before the <i>Mayflower</i> with its handful of +men, women, and children landed on Plymouth +Rock.</p> + +<p>The stern, uncompromising attitude of these +people in whom there was no quibbling with right +or wrong as they perceived it, which gave them +the physical courage to endure persecution, mutilation, +and even death, was the result of the religious +agitations which began in England with Wycliffe +and were directed against the oppressions and +corruptions which flourished within the Church’s +powerful organization. Though suppressed, the +leaven had sifted down to the people who, stultified +by centuries of grossest superstition, had +silently and patiently borne the yoke. In the stirrings +of this religious Renaissance the book that +reached them was Wycliffe’s translation of the +Bible; this gave to them the Semitic conception +of God—the one God—which the voices of those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +“primitive Puritans the Prophets” had saved from +the obliterating dangers of idolatry and superstition. +The stolid somberness of the Northern races +responded to the majestic swing of this wonderful +collection of Hebrew documents which traced a +people’s struggles and thought development. Some +of its characters as Huxley says of “Jepthah, Gideon, +and Sampson are men of the old heroic stamp, +who would look as much in place in a Norse Saga +as where they are.” Stray chapters sometimes +came into the possession of some yeoman who +was fortunate enough to read; in silence and secrecy, +when the day’s work was done, there would +gather round him eager listeners. To know what +this book’s message meant to them, one needs +but read their subsequent history. To hear it, +possess it, and believe it, they suffered the diabolical +tortures and fiendish perpetrations which at +once made martyrs and tyrants of men, and which +laid in England the foundation of what Ranke +calls the “heroic age of Protestantism in Western +Europe.” Of this breed were the Pilgrims of +Plymouth Rock. Their inherent independence +had been fostered by a long exile in Leyden; there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +the old Teutonic spirit of freedom had survived, +and had given her men that sublime courage and +determination, when besieged by the Duke of +Alva and starving, “that rather than yield they +would devour their left arms to enable them to +continue the defense with their right.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Leyden +afterwards became a haven for those of other countries +who, breaking from prescribed thought, dared +to act accordingly. It was also a university center; +political and religious tenets were subjects of common +debate. Robinson who became one of the +Pilgrim fathers took an active part in these +discussions.</p> + +<p>To these exiles the New World became a hope. +Though homeless, they were loyal to James. +While petitioning the London Company for +lands, they begged of him the freedom to there +worship God according to their own consciences. +Though this was not actually granted it was permitted. +An unkindly fate seemed to preside over +their voyage—buffeting storms drove them farther +north than their proposed destination; some historians +state they were purposely steered out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +their course by their Dutch pilot, and were forced +to land on Plymouth Rock.</p> + +<p>By a solemn covenant entered into aboard ship, +they agreed that while they would be faithful to +the English Crown, the polity they would establish +among themselves would be an ideal state—a +community of interests—fascinating as expounded +by Plato, More, and Rousseau, but unfeasible for +human nature as yet evolved since complete +barbarism. United by a common faith—gloomy, +austere—putting aside as mortal sin all the joys +of life—forced to endure together in a wild, bleak, +strange land, starvation, disease, frightful cold, +and the terror of hostile Indians, by whom they +would have probably been exterminated had not +a deadly pestilence broken out among these +savages—possibly no better opportunity for +such an experiment has ever been offered civilized +man. But among them too was the natural inequality +of individuals which will probably always +render futile and unenduring similar sociological +experiments.</p> + +<p>The Puritan settlements were gradually augmented +by the persecuted from their native land,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +and it would seem that they could at last possess +the religious security and contentment for which +they had so long clamored, but dissent had become +second nature; combativeness seemed essential +to zeal, and as there was no Established or +Roman Church at which to hurl themselves, their +own tenets became mooted points; bitter differences +arose. They showed themselves as intolerant +in the New World as they had been intolerable +in the Old, and those without the might to +prove their right were driven forth. In this +manner Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New +Hampshire were settled. Much of their later +history has to do with religious bickerings, mutilations, +and witch-burnings. It was an outgrowth +of this same spirit which confronted the South +for thirty years before the final rupture which +resulted in the War of Secession.</p> + +<p>Thus from the beginning the North and the South +were necessarily distinctive; settled under different +circumstances, the one drew from England the +stern, severe, and rigorously religious, while the +other became the habitat for the Puritan’s opposite—the +impecunious gentleman, the roistering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +cavalier, the insolvent debtor, and the Catholic +nobleman—a class in which there had been a very +general “reversion from virtuous and noble manhood +to the lewdness of the ape and the cunning +ferocity of the tiger.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> In the New World +all alike were brought face to face with a great, +overshadowing nature which presented the +diversified physical conditions along which each +section’s economic development would tend. Agriculture +in austere New England would have been +a too uneven wrestling with nature; existence +wrought from the soil meant unending toil and +often heart-breaking disappointment, so the New +Englander’s pursuits became mercantile and seafaring—occupations +in which the negro could +be of little value, but following England’s initiative +he found the slave-trade profitable, +and the Southern planter a ready buyer. To +repress Nature’s exuberance, the fields of tobacco, +cotton, rice, indigo, and cane required +man’s watchful care, and the negro, inured +through all previous generations to the sun and +rain, the jungle and the swamp, properly directed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +became, and still is, the ideal laborer for work +of the soil.</p> + +<p>Since then our “mental endyses” have been +many; we have associations for the prevention of +cruelty to animals, and sympathetic and indignant +thrills pass through us at sight of ill-treatment to +one of these, so we cannot bring our attitude of +to-day or of the last hundred years to judge the +beginnings of American slavery. To 16th and +17th century Europeans it was palpable that +the difference between the negro and the man-like +apes was no greater than that existing +between the negro and themselves, and it was +debatable “with that <ins class="corr" id="tn-03" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: bruitishness">brutishness</ins> which commonly +appeareth in all their actions whether the +people generally may be thought to be men in the +skins of beasts; or beasts created in the likenesse +and shape of man.”<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The sentimentality which +obtained some years ago and which led to such +bitter hatred and seems almost +maudlin when that phase of the question in which +the indescribable wretchedness of the negro in his +native land is considered—his gross and pitiable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +superstitions, his indifference to death and his regard +for cruelty as a virtue; what slavery did for him +seems analogous to what we suppose primitive man +accomplished with the wolf—adopted it from the +wild and made of it a faithful, domestic animal. +True, the motives were utility and gain, but who +can deny the mighty uplift in value and sagacity, +both for the dog and the negro? Among the +African tribes described in Pigafetta’s account of +Lopez’s <cite>African Travels</cite> (1598), and spoken of by +Heylyn in his <cite>Cosmographie</cite> (1657), are the Anziques, +“the cruellest Cannibals in the world; for they do +not onely eat their Enemies, but their friends and +Kinsfolk. And that they may be sure not to want +these Dainties, they have shambles of man’s +flesh, as in other parts of Beef and Mutton. So +covetous withall, that if their Slaves will yield but a +penny more when sold joynt by joynt than if sold +alive, they will cut them out, and sell them upon +the shambles. Yet with these barbarous qualities +they have many good ... of so great fidelity +to their masters and to those which trust them, +that they will rather choose to be killed than either +abuse the trust, or betray their Masters. For<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +that cause more esteemed by the Portugals than +other Slaves.” So even the most bloodthirsty +possessed potentially the quality of faithfulness, +which when he was removed from his natural +environment—where for thousands of years he had +not progressed—made all his later development +possible, and which aside from the cases where +there has been an infusion of white or Indian +blood, is largely responsible for what the best type +of American negro is to-day. It was this quality, +fostered by care and kindness, that has filled +Southern tradition with touching and oftentimes +heroic incidents of the slave’s devotion. When +the old differences of Puritan and Cavalier, under +other guises, called men to arms, it was to the +fidelity of these blacks that the Southerner trusted +wife, children, and home. That this trust was seldom +violated is sufficient encomium for master and +slave. Under the régime established in many +places, after emancipation had converted the +“slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperized +man” (Huxley), when he was incited to open rebellion +and nameless atrocities, to what sorrows would +the desolated South have been subjected, had the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +old status of master and slave been different? +Had the South been guilty of the charges laid to +her door, despite Klu-Klux Klans and other precautions, +the negro’s temper would have been +much the same as that of the French canaille, who +during the Commune “drank blood to vomit +crime.” They had shown, in the San Domingo insurrections, +that revenge lay within their nature.</p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">EARLY LEGISLATION AGAINST SLAVERY</span></h2> +</div> + +<p>The Cavalier and adventurer in working out +their destiny in the New World became purged of +the foibles that continued to debauch their compeers +in England; among their descendants of a +few generations were those men of unimpeachable +honor and integrity of purpose who will be held +forever as the highest types of American chivalry +and manhood. Those of Virginia, with whom +colonial slavery was most ancient, were the first +to be aroused to the full ethical significance of the +evil—to the grave injustice to the unfortunate +lower race, and to the detriment to the moral +nature of the higher. They were the first to attempt +to legislate against the evil. In 1770, +Virginia protested against the importation of +slaves, but to no avail as royalty itself was financially +interested in the traffic. At the meeting +of the delegates from each county of Virginia held<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +at Williamsburg in August, 1774, to consider +British oppression and indignities, the second +article of the protest resolved and agreed upon +bore upon the slave traffic: “We will neither ourselves +import nor purchase any slave, or slaves, +imported by any person, after the first day of +November next, either from Africa, the West +Indies, or any other place.” This meeting was a +full one, and among the one hundred and eight +signers—all prominent in Virginia life and annals—are +Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George +Washington, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, +Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Marshall, Thomas +Randolph, and Francis Lightfoot Lee. The instructions +of Thomas Jefferson, with whom the +abolition of slavery was always a great aim, to the +Virginia delegates to the first Congress (August, +1774), voiced the sentiments of Virginia’s most +thoughtful men: “For the most trifling reason, +and sometimes for no reason at all, His Majesty +has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. +The abolition of domestic slavery is the great +object of desire in those colonies, where it was, +unhappily introduced in their infant state. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we +have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations +from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts +to effect this, by prohibitions, and by imposing +duties which might amount to a prohibition have +been hitherto defeated by His Majesty’s negative; +thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few +British corsairs to the lasting interests of the +American States, and to the rights of human nature +deeply wounded by this inhuman practise.”</p> + +<p>Not only was every effort of the Southern colonists +opposed by England’s monarch, but with the +breaking out of open hostilities his agents were +commissioned to arm and instigate the slaves +against their masters.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Many lured by the promise +of land and freedom flocked to the British +standard; they were sent into Nova Scotia. +Suffering from cold and becoming discontented +by the non-fulfillment of the promises of aggrandizement,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +they were finally sent to Sierra Leone, +which in the following seventy-five years received +the thousands taken by the British from the +slavers.</p> + +<p>During this fearful crisis, Virginia’s spirit towards +these misguided people was one of mercy +and humanitarianism. At the next convention it +was resolved: “Whereas Lord Dunmore, by his +proclamation, dated on board the ship <i>William</i> +off Norfolk, the 7th day of November, 1775, hath +offered freedom to such able-bodied slaves as are +willing to join him, and take up arms against the +good people of this colony, giving encouragement +to a general insurrection, which may induce a +necessity of inflicting the severest punishments +upon these unhappy people already deluded by +his base and insiduous arts, and whereas, by an +act of the general assembly now in force in this +colony, it is enacted, that all negro, or other slaves, +conspiring to rebel or make insurrection, shall suffer +death, and be excluded all benefit of clergy—we +think it proper to declare, that all slaves who +have been, or shall be seduced by his lordship’s +proclamation, or others to desert their masters’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +service and take up arms against the inhabitants +of this colony, shall be liable to such punishment +as shall hereafter be directed by the convention. +And to the end that all such, who have taken this +unlawful and wicked step, may return in safety, +to their duty, and escape the punishment due their +crimes, we hereby promise pardon to them, surrendering +themselves to Colonel William Woodford +or any other commander of our troops, and not +appearing in arms after the publication hereof. +And we do further earnestly recommend it to all +humane and benevolent persons in the colony, +to explain and make known this offer of mercy +to those unfortunate people.”</p> + +<p>About this time, some feeling against American +slavery, but more against the “aristocratic spirit +of Virginia and the Southern colonists,” stirred +England, and a general enfranchisement of the +slaves was proposed. Edmund Burke, in his +famous speech of March 22, 1775, on the “Conciliation +with America,” touches on the incongruity +of such a proposition of freedom coming from +England: “Slaves as these unfortunate black people +are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that +very nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with +those masters is their refusal to deal any more in +that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from +England would come rather oddly, shipped to +them in an African vessel, which is refused entry +into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo +of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be +curious to see the Guinea captain attempt at the +same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty +and to advertise the sale of slaves.”</p> + +<p>After throwing off the British yoke, the abolition +of the slave traffic and of slavery was still a +paramount issue with these men of Virginia, and +in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had +drafted a clause relative to the moral obliquity; +this clause, “reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants +of Africa, was struck out in complaisance +to South Carolina and Georgia, who had +never attempted to restrain the importation of +slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to +continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, +felt a little tender under these censures; for +though their people had few slaves themselves,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +yet they had been very considerable carriers +of them to others.”<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>The disposition to emancipate was strongest in +Virginia. In 1778, when Jefferson introduced a +bill into the Assembly to stop the further importation +of slaves either by land or sea—a fine of one +thousand pounds to be imposed upon any transgressor—it +was passed without opposition and +temporarily decreased the evil, but the time was +not ripe for so philanthropic an innovation, and +the bill was repealed by a later Assembly. Many +of the younger men, however, were imbued with a +realization of the evil, especially those who at +William and Mary’s College, had come under the +influence of George Wythe, and it was to these +that many looked for the ultimate righting of the +wrong. Adumbrations of a future catastrophe +broke upon Jefferson, but in that period of patriotism, +his almost prophetic vision saw not the dim, +distant conflict as one arising out of the inherent +differences of North and South, though this came +to sadden his declining years, but rather as one of +race against race: “Indeed I tremble for my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +country when I reflect that God is just; that His +justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, +nature, and natural means only, a revolution +of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of +situation is among possible events.” The hope +of eradicating negro slavery before it took a too +vital hold upon the needs and institutions of his +land stirred his patriotic and spiritual zeal; +throughout a long life he took a vigorous stand +against its growth. In 1784, when Virginia gave +to the United States her portion of the Northwest +Territory, it was Jefferson, assisted by Chase and +Howell, who drafted and ardently advocated the +ordinance that “after the year 1800 there should +be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in +any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment +of crime.” This was defeated, but led to +the Ordinance of 1787 which forever excluded +slavery from the territory northwest of the Ohio +River.</p> + +<p>At the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia +in 1787, Jefferson urged as a step towards +the ultimate ending of slavery, the immediate +abolition of the importation, but Pinckney of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +South Carolina moved that the traffic be extended +until 1808, and he was seconded by Gorman of +Massachusetts. The motion carried in all the +New England States, in South Carolina, Georgia, +and Maryland; Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, +and Delaware were against it. This exigency +of extending it for twenty years was a subject of +grave apprehension to many thoughtful and patriotic +men who were slave owners, among them +Jefferson, Washington, and Madison; though the +attitude of the last was frequently ambiguous +about many questions, he commits himself very +fully on this clause of the Constitution in <cite>The +Federalist</cite>: “It were doubtless to be wished that +the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves +had not been postponed until 1808, or, rather, +that it had been suffered to have immediate +operation. But it is not difficult to account either +for the restriction on the general government or +for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. +It ought to be considered as a great +point gained in favor of humanity, that a period +of twenty years may terminate forever within +these States, a traffic which has so long and so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern +polity.”</p> + +<p>It may be assumed that the majority of those +engaged in framing the Constitution regarded +slavery as a domestic problem nearing its end, +and it was a policy which at that time received +more vehement denunciation from men of the +South than those of the North, probably because +a part of the North was actively engaged in the +traffic and that the humanitarians of the South, +born in the midst of slavery, were not only awake +to the ethical significance of the evil, but were +averse to raising within their midst thousands +of an alien race. That the disposition to discontinue +all avenues which led to a continuation of +slavery was not more general was incomprehensible +to Jefferson, and absolutely out of harmony with +the spirit of freedom which permeated American +life: “What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible +machine is man! who can endure toil, famine, +stripes, imprisonment, and death itself in vindication +of his own liberty, and the next moment be +deaf to all those motives whose power supported +him through trial, and inflict on his fellow-men a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more +misery, than ages of that which he rose in rebellion +to oppose. But we must await, with patience, +the workings of an over-ruling Providence, and +hope that that is preparing the deliverance of +those, our suffering brethren. When the measure +of their tears shall be full, when their groans shall +have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless, +a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and +by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, +or at length, by his exterminating thunder, +manifest his attention to the things of this +world, and that they are not left to the guidance +of a blind fatality.”<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>This constitutional postponement did not +even settle the question temporarily. The Quakers +presented a memorial for the abolition of the +slave trade to the very first Congress (1790). +This was reported by a committee to the whole +House; and after various amendments was returned +with the following:</p> + +<p>“1st, That migration or importation of such +persons, as any of the States now existing shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +think proper to admit, can not be prohibited by +Congress prior to the year 1808.</p> + +<p>“2d, That Congress have no authority to interfere +in emancipation of slaves or in the treatment +of them within any of the States; it remaining +with the several States alone to provide any regulations +therein, which humanity and true polity +may require.”</p> + +<p>This was a perilous and critical time—a time of +trial for the new Constitution—when the States, +watchful and alert, were jealous of their rights, +and the Quakers’ action was regarded by many as +a flagrant violation of those rights. Washington +considered their petition inopportune, especially +as the question had been recently disposed of and +was contained in an article of the Constitution, +and so expressed himself in a letter: “The memorial +of the Quakers [and a very malapropos one it was] +has at length been put to sleep, and will scarcely +awake before the year 1808.” However, the +Quakers’ attitude was not equivocal, as was that +of the Puritan New Englander. Their petition +grew from earnest convictions—convictions which +were deep-rooted before they came to America,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +for they had expressed their repugnance to the +English slave trade in 1671, and after coming to +America had discouraged participation in slavery +as early as 1696; in 1776 they placed their ultimatum +upon it by excluding from membership +any Quaker slaveholder.</p> + +<p>This constitutional extension of the slave +traffic closed all possibility of the question ever +being settled amicably. Short-sightedness can +scarcely be charged to those responsible, for at +that time there was no thought of an acquisition +of territory on the south and southwest, and the +cultivation of cotton was still in its infancy. Before +another decade Eli Whitney had invented +the cotton-gin; this gave an impetus to the growing +of cotton; agriculture in the South was revolutionized. +To make way for the industry Georgia +ceded her western territory to the United States +and a tide of Southern immigration from the older +centers of Virginia and the Carolinas rapidly +flowed into Alabama and Mississippi. The wanderlust +of a hardy, pioneer ancestry was in these +men’s veins. Accompanied often by gentle families, +their household goods, and their negroes they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +started overland. By long and tedious journeyings, +across mountain, stream, and swamp—through +seemingly boundless stretches of majestic +pines—sometimes encountering hostile Indians +and again exchanging friendly courtesies with the +friendly Choctaws and Chickasaws, they reached +the new frontier, and established themselves along +the river courses. Others came by sailing vessels, +and passing through the French and Spanish +cities of Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans, +followed the river courses into the interior. The +log cabins which sprang up in the wilderness, +were soon supplanted by comfortable, substantial +homes frequently built of brick made upon the +plantations or of hand-hewn lumber; each became +a nucleus of activities around which all things necessary +for the maintenance of life were produced. +On the well-ordered plantations the African was +not only field laborer and faithful domestic, +but became cobbler, mason, carpenter, and a +spinner and weaver of cotton and wool. In this +virgin region, far removed from the life and influences +of the older States, there grew up a vital and +mutual dependence between master and slave;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +as such, each was necessary to the other; but it +was not a combination out of which sentiments for +the ultimate freedom of the negro were apt to +grow; and it was these who were farthest removed +from the later machinations of the Abolitionists, +who were most bitter and strenuous in their opposition. +In this close relation which in all but rare +exceptions was a kindly one, the Southerner came +to know the negro as the negro then could not +know himself, realized his limitations, directed +him along useful lines, and knew how rapidly he +would revert were the civilizing and humanizing +influence of slavery as it existed in the South +removed. In later years when Southerners stood +before a questioning world, there was no sophistry +in the protests of those who declared that slavery +was beneficial, and it was an argument resting +upon truth that the Southern negro’s condition +was happier than that of the laboring classes in +other parts of the world.</p> + +<p>European events also conspired towards an +extension of slavery. After the French troops, +already depleted by yellow fever, were defeated +by the negro insurgents at San Domingo, Napoleon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +realized the uncertainty of France retaining +the great Louisiana Territory which had been +but recently repossessed from Spain. To circumvent +the English, who had long coveted this +domain, Napoleon, in 1803, offered it to the United +States for fifteen million dollars. American settlers +along the Mississippi had already experienced difficulties +with the Spanish who claimed complete +control of the Mississippi River south of the Yazoo, +and though Congress had been given no constitutional +prerogative for acquiring new territory, +Jefferson, who was then President, saw the varied +importance of this acquisition, and successfully +and with very little criticism directed the negotiations. +This brought into the United States, +not only a vast terra incognita, but an extensive +Franco-Spanish civilization stretching along the +Gulf of Mexico, with French outposts scattered +along the great river systems and reaching into +the very heart of America.</p> + +<p>The divergence of this civilization from that of +English colonization was not only racial, but its +tone had been qualified by the spirit in which the +settlements had been made and the polity adopted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +by each. It possessed nothing of New England’s +austerity, or of Virginia’s somewhat stolid stateliness, +but was characterized by a graceful picturesqueness +and a delightful bonhomie. The +black-robed priest if not the pathfinder who +blazed the way for French settlements was usually +the comrade and companion of those who did. +Religion and settlement went hand in hand. +None of the torturing and enslaving methods +used by the Puritans to force upon the natives a +cold, stern religion, unattractive even to other +Christian sects, or by the Spanish in Mexico and +Florida, were resorted to by the French. <ins class="corr" id="tn-04" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Whereever">Wherever</ins> +there was a priest, Mass began the day. The +mystic ceremony, performed in the dewy freshness +of early morning within the forest’s depths, +or on a strip of sandy beach beside the mighty +waters; the solemn gestures of the celebrant and +the adoring attitude of the worshippers appealed +to the Indian imagination, and the French were +soon importuned to invoke their Great Spirit to +aid the red man, to bring rain or to heal the sick +or wounded.</p> + +<p>From Mobile, the oldest and for many years the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +chief French settlement, the genius of Iberville +and Bienville Lemoyne, aided by ardent and indefatigable +missioners, reached out to remote Indian +tribes, conciliating and binding them as allies. +They dealt fairly with the Indian, but in cases of +treachery used the Indian’s own method of punishment. +From the Indians they also adopted the +custom of making slaves of hostile captives. +Negro slavery also existed in these settlements +from very early years, for in the quaint baptismal +register of 1704-1778, forming a part of the +archives of the Catholic Cathedral of Mobile, is +recorded the baptism of two negro children belonging +to Bienville in 1707, and in the same year +a negro woman belonging to him bore the first +negro child born on the Gulf coast.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Gold was not found, nor did the French settlements +on the Gulf lay in the wake of the treasure-ladened +Spanish galleons, but the climate was +benign, the lands rich, and the forests afforded an +abundance of food, and in times of scarcity Bienville +sometimes quartered his soldiers among the +friendly natives. There was leisure for the amenities,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +and the priest and nun who had given up life +and ambition in the Old World were not only the +spiritual advisers and educators of the young of +New France, but as missioners guided and instructed +the Indian and the slave. Their institutions +became asylums for the sick and desolate +of any race, and to their influence may be traced +the easy, happy condition of the negro slave +among the French of Louisiana. There was that +in the temperament of these French which while +appropriating the Indian’s and negro’s usefulness +at the same time beguiled and won them. An +incident of a slave’s heroic loyalty to the French +is related by Gayarré in his <cite>Louisiana</cite>. After the +French settlements passed under Spanish control, +New Orleans revolted, and the leaders were sentenced +to be shot; Jeannot the negro hangman +cut off his right arm rather than raise it against a +Frenchman.</p> + +<p>In March, 1724, Bienville issued a code, one +clause of which forbade marriages between whites +and blacks. Such marriages had taken place, +and had given rise to what afterwards became an +extensive Afro-Latin population. In many places<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +along the Gulf coast it is among these so-called +Creoles who have clung to their original habitations +along the river banks, the creeks, and bays, +that the old French names are found and a patois +spoken. The result of this amalgamation did not +seem mongrel, but distinctive, and in their local +history, covering two hundred years, during +which time they have lived under five different +flags, there has been a pride of race which has kept +the original strain pure. Deeply religious, they +have been characterized by honesty, frugality, +and industry. They were never slaves, but were +in many instances slave owners.</p> + +<p>A Société des Amis des Noirs had been formed +in Paris, in 1788. Its object was to end the slave +trade and slavery, especially in San Domingo +from which came many reports of cruelty and +oppression. A little later, France in establishing +the rights and equality of man passed through +her awful revolution. Though Louisiana was in +constant touch and sympathy with France, among +her peaceful, pleasure-loving people no sentiment +about negro freedom or equality seems to have +been evolved. When this great territory passed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +into the United States, it carried with it its institution +of slavery, which, established as it was in +the habits and thoughts of these people, strengthened +slavery’s hold upon the South, pushed further +away, and complicated with added difficulties +the fulfillment of the hope of those great Southerners +who had looked for its gradual and peaceful termination. +In the government of this new territory +we again meet with the large vision of Jefferson +and his desire to curtail slavery. Outside importations +were forbidden, and only slaves who had +been brought to this country before 1798 could be +carried by their masters for the purpose of settlement +into Louisiana. All others carried in would +be freed and the penalty for each offense would +be three hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>To prepare the seafaring interests for the +statute of 1808, and to lead American sentiment +to its acceptance, Congress in the early part of +the same year (1803) prohibited after April 1, +1803, the importation of any persons of color, or +the entry of any vessels containing such persons +into those States whose laws already debarred +such importation. Indians were not included in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +this prohibition. The penalty for the first violation +was a fine of one thousand dollars for every +such person, one half to be appropriated to the +United States and the other to be given to the +informer. For the latter offense, the vessel and +all appurtenances were to be confiscated by the +United States, one half the net proceeds to be +given to such “person or persons on whose +information the seizure of such forfeiture shall +be made.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>When New Jersey abolished slavery in 1804, +this statute obtained in all the Northern States. +In their economy slavery was an incubus. This +statute imposed no financial sacrifice on individuals, +for in most cases the relatively few slaves had +been transferred and sold in the South. Though +there were threatening party differences, as yet +there seems no general feeling against slavery in +those States to which it was peculiar, and such +sentiments as were entertained were more abstract +than those common in the South itself.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +Northern fortunes had been built upon the slave +trade; though prohibiting the importation into +their own States, numbers were still actively engaged +in the traffic—and the Southern States +were the only ports legally open to them, for an +act forbidding the direct or indirect importation +of slaves into foreign countries had become a +United States statute in 1794. The South itself +seldom engaged in this traffic—it was a degradation +to which her aristocratic tendencies could not +stoop; a “nigger-trade” was taboo; and though +slave vessels plied to and from her ports, they were +usually a part of Yankee enterprise.</p> + +<p>Jefferson, to whom the question had so long +been a momentous one, welcomed the time when +the traffic would end, and in his sixth annual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +message to Congress, December 2, 1806, rejoiced +“on the approach of the period at which you may +interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw +the citizens of the United States from all +further participation in those violations of human +rights which have so long continued on the unoffending +inhabitants of Africa, and which the +morality, the reputation, and the best interests of +the country have long been eager to proscribe.” +With the first of January, 1808, it became unlawful +for any person of color to be imported into +the United States or her territory; any person +aiding or abetting such traffic to be fined five +thousand dollars; also “any citizen of the United +States, building, fitting out, equipping, loading +or otherwise preparing or sending away any ship +or vessel, knowing that the same shall be employed +in such trade or business” shall pay twenty thousand +dollars, a part to go to the United States and +another to any person or persons who shall prosecute +the offender. Every vessel found engaged +in the traffic was to be “seized, prosecuted, and +condemned in any of the circuit courts or district +courts where the said ship or vessel may be found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> +or seized.” The President was authorized to use +the naval and revenue forces to enforce the statute. +They were to cruise on the coast of the United +States and her territories; to seize and bring to +port vessels contravening the provisions of the +act, the captain or commander to be prosecuted +before any court of the United States having jurisdiction +thereof; and if convicted to be fined not +more than ten thousand dollars, and to be subject +to imprisonment to not more than four years.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>These and further enactments of a like nature +ended constitutionally the slave traffic in the +United States. Many New Englanders had nothing +further to gain; there was no legitimate financial +emolument now standing between them and a +realization of the ethical side of the slave question. +Instead of lending a conservative help to those of +the South who hoped by gradual and conciliatory +methods to loose slavery’s growing hold upon +their institutions, through a curious psychological +metamorphosis they began to look askance upon +the South and its institution of slavery, and to +affiliate in thought with the abolition movement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +which under Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others +was stirring England; forgetting in their zeal that +the wrongs which Clarkson and Wilberforce were +championing were the wrongs of which England +and New England as slave traders had been the +chief perpetrators. This growing sentiment was +seized upon by politicians and played upon for +party purposes. It was with increased apprehension +that they saw the extension of the slave +interests which the purchase of Louisiana had +necessitated, and the further representation these +interests would be given as new States were formed +from the slave territory. For a decade this jealousy +was kept within safe bounds by any preponderance +of representation being checkmated +and balanced by the formation of a Free State. +Yet this feeling was becoming rapidly contagious, +spreading to many who had not previously thought +of slavery, or who regarded it as a domestic policy +to be settled by the Slave States individually and +exclusively. With the development of the Missouri +controversy, the temperamental divergence +born of several centuries of turmoil and turbulence +in England, and too deep-rooted to be really dead,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +roused from the anesthesia of united effort against +a common enemy and a subsequent enthusiasm +for Union, and stood forth definitely defined as +North and South. Forgetful of the give and take +necessary for the harmonious existence of polities +as of individuals, the country was still not large +enough or the political interests sufficiently varied, +for such differences to be conducive to well-being. +In his Presidential farewell Washington warned +his countrymen against a geographical division +of interests: “In contemplating the causes which +may disturb our Union, it occurs as a matter of +serious concern, that any ground should have been +furnished for characterizing parties by <em>geographical +discrimination</em>, ... northern and southern ... +Atlantic and western; whence designing men may +endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real +difference of local interests and views. One of +the expedients of party to acquire influence within +particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions +and aims of other districts. You cannot shield +yourselves too much against the jealousies and +heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; +they tend to render alien to each<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +other those who ought to be bound together by +fraternal affection.” To Jefferson, aged and waiting, +this Missouri controversy and its adjustment, +was the alarum in which he heard the death-knell +of the Union, and in a letter to John Holmes, dated +Monticello, April 22, 1820, he so expresses himself: +“I thank you, dear sir, for the copy you have +been so kind as to send me of the letter to your +constituents on the Missouri question. It is a +perfect justification to them. I had for a long +time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention +to public affairs, confident they were in good +hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark +to the shore from which I am not far distant. But +this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the +night, awakened and filled me with terror. I +considered it at once as the death-knell of the +Union. It is hushed indeed, for the moment. +But this is a reprieve only, not the final sentence. +A geographical line, coinciding with a marked +principle, moral and political, once conceived and +held up to the angry passions of men, will never +be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark +it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +truth, that there is not a man on earth who would +sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from +this heavy reproach, in any practical way. The +cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) +is a bagatelle, which would not cost me a +second thought, if in that way a general emancipation +and <em>expatriation</em> could be effected; and gradually, +and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. +But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we +can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice +is in one scale and self-preservation in the other. +Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of +slaves from one Free State to another would not +make a slave of a single human being who would not +be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater +surface would make them individually happier, +and proportionately facilitate the accomplishment +of their emancipation, by dividing the burden +on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, +too, from this act of power, would remove the +jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress +to regulate the condition of the different descriptions +of men comprising a State. This certainly +is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +in the Constitution has taken from them, and given +to the General Government. Could Congress, +for example, say that the non-freemen of Connecticut +could be freemen, or that they shall not +emigrate to another State?</p> + +<p>“I regret that I am now to die in the belief that +the useless sacrifice of themselves of the generation +of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness +to their country, is to be thrown away, by the +unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and +that my only consolation is to be that I shall not +live to weep over it. If they would dispassionately +weigh the blessings they will throw away +against an abstract principle, more likely to be +effected by union than by scission, they would +pause before they would perpetrate this act of +suicide on themselves, and of treason against the +hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful +advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my +high esteem and respect.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">ILLEGAL TRAFFIC IN SLAVES</span></h2> +</div> + +<p>Legislation against habits which by an evolution +of sentiment have become moral issues is +always followed by flagrant violations, for men are +usually loth to acquiesce in things which they +consider a curtailment of their livelihood. For a +century and a half, the slave traffic had been an +immense source of revenue for a large class of +citizens. Despite the constitutional prohibition, +the imposition of heavy fines and the offer of large +rewards, the traffic in negroes continued to flourish—nor +was it carried on with any great degree of +surreptitiousness. Vessels intended for this purpose +were built with a reference to speed and were +probably the fleetest craft afloat.</p> + +<p>In the early years of the Union the revenue and +naval forces were necessarily small and the coast +a vast and sparsely inhabited one. Algerian +pirates called for a part of their strength, and their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +energies were again directed against the British +in 1812; pirates harassed commerce off the South +Atlantic States and in the Gulf of Mexico—Lafitte +establishing a kingdom at Barataria, an island +in the lower Mississippi, from which sailed many +piratical expeditions, and where a brisk trade in +slaves was carried on. Though our naval force +seemed inadequate it had been singularly successful +against these outside adversaries. These +preoccupations seem scarcely sufficient excuse +for the flourishing condition of the illegal traffic +in slaves. Money, politics, and indifference appear +to have been a trinity that glossed over rottenness +then as now. Obscure harbors and lonely +shores were not always the destination of these +hell-craft, but they sailed to and from the principal +seaport towns. With scarcely an exception +they were fitted up by New Englanders and New +Yorkers and manned by down-east seamen; +Rhode Island led with Connecticut, Massachusetts +and New York as close seconds. The West Indies +and Brazil offered a market, and some found their +way into Southern ports, where, through the co-operation +of an equally criminal class of Southerners,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +the unfortunate, contraband humans were +sold.</p> + +<p>While the middle passage before 1808 was a +veritable inferno, it was afterwards characterized +by a barbarity which should have sickened the +soul of all humanity, yet the voice and sentiment +of humane, law-abiding Americans were not strong +enough to make this traffic impossible. Cyrus +King in a speech on the Missouri Question, in +1819, described the shameless situation: “It well +might be supposed that the slave trade would in +practice be extinguished; that virtuous men +would by their abhorrence stay its polluted march +and the wicked would be overawed by its potent +punishment, but unfortunately the case is far +otherwise. We have but melancholy proofs from +unquestionable sources that it is still carried on +with all the implacable ferocity—and insatiable +rapacity—of former times. Avarice has grown +more subtile in its evasions; and watches and +seizes its prey with an appetite quickened rather +than suppressed by its guilty vigils. American +citizens are steeped up to their very mouths (I +scarcely use too bold a figure) in this stream of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +iniquity? They throng the coasts of Africa under +the stained flags of Spain and Portugal, sometimes +selling abroad their ‘cargoes of despair,’ and +sometimes bringing them into some of our Southern +ports, and there, under the forms of law, defeating +the purpose of the law itself, and legalizing +their inhuman but profitable adventures.”</p> + +<p>Those so unfortunate as to have been brought +into any of the Southern States were by the +Constitution “subject to any regulations, not +contravening the provisions of the act, which +the legislatures of the several states or territories +at any time hereafter may make, for disposing +of any such negro, mulatto, or person +of color.” As some extenuation for those +Southern States, let it be asked, What was to +be done with these unfortunate Africans? Barbarians +all—often of the lowest type—and +sometimes cannibals—could they be given freedom? +The attention of thinking men was +early directed to the status of the free black; +how to place him to his own best advantage that +his position as a citizen would not be equivocal; +and to avoid arousing by his idle example or designing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +machinations, discord, dissatisfaction, and +even mutiny among the slaves. In 1803, a colonization +plan was discussed in the Virginia Assembly; +this led to a correspondence on the subject between +Madison, who was then Governor, and President +Jefferson. Out of this was born in 1816, what +soon became a very active organization, the +American Colonization Society. After negotiations, +lands were secured on the west coast of +Africa at Cape Mesurada. There the society +established a colony to which such free blacks as +desired might be conveyed, and which was also +to receive the Africans taken from slavers, or +those found to have been smuggled into the country +by traders. During all the years of the society’s +activities the unfortunates reached by their +clemency were small in proportion to those surreptitiously +sold into bondage; this was due to the +powerful abettors—often legalized ones—of the +traffic. A lack of intelligent forethought was +responsible for disheartening results in their early +efforts at colonization. But the society’s efforts +at home were more successful by fostering a spirit +against the trade, and it was instrumental in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +regulating the laws in some of the Southern States +which were so ambiguous as to aid rather than +crush the trade.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> In 1819, Congress stipulated +that contraband Africans were to be taken from +State jurisdiction to become wards of the Government, +and the President was authorized to make +“such regulations and arrangements as he may +deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and +removal beyond the limits of the United States, +of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, +as may be so delivered and brought within their +jurisdiction. And to appoint a proper person or +persons, residing upon the coast of Africa, as +agent or agents for receiving negroes, etc., delivered +from on board vessels, seized in the prosecution +of trade by commanders of the United States +armed vessels.” In 1819, Congress acting upon a +memorial presented by the Colonization Society, +declared the slave traffic to be piracy punishable +with death. In this same year the statute of 1809 +was enlarged and made more stringent and +the President was empowered to send armed +vessels along the African coast. One hundred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +thousand dollars was appropriated for this +purpose.</p> + +<p>Rigid legislation only multiplied the horrors, +without curtailing the evil. With death as the +penalty, when there was danger of apprehension, +it was not uncommon for the whole cargo to be +thrown into the sea. This, compared with the +tortures of frequent passages, was almost humane. +To escape the terrors, numbers would embrace +death if given the opportunity. Yet the trade +was highly profitable even if three out of four +cargoes were lost.</p> + +<p>By the Treaty of Ghent (1815), the United +States and Great Britain agreed separately and +individually to use their influence to suppress +the trade. Yet later the United States threw +sheltering arms around those of her citizens whom +Britain had reason to suspect—maritime rights, the +statement that Southern slave owners might make +voyages accompanied by their slaves, or the plea +of slave hands on merchant ships—often protected +malefactors. After Parliament abolished slavery +from the British colonies, the American brig +<i>Comet</i> was stranded off the Bahamas (1830), as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +was the <i>Encomium</i> in 1834 and the <i>Enterprise</i> in +1835; slaves were found aboard in each case and +liberated by the English. Americans raised a +loud cry. After a correspondence covering nearly +ten years Great Britain agreed to pay for the +Africans, and admonished her colonies on the +southern borders of the United States to “maintain +good neighborhood.” As the years went by +and all so-called efforts proved ineffectual, England, +with a sincere desire to end the traffic, developed +an assumption that it was her especial +privilege, and inaugurated a right of search, or +visit, against the very nature of which it was +imperative that the United States should protest. +In many cases this necessity became unavoidably +another protection for malefactors. As the flags +of various countries were constantly used to cover +the traffic, England in 1803 united with Russia, +France, Austria, and Prussia for the suppression, +and acquired supervision along the African coast, +maintaining a right of search. America was +not approached on this subject, though Lord +Palmerston boldly declared to the world England’s +right to “visit” American merchantmen (Aug. 13,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +1841). This was later sustained by Lord Aberdeen +(Oct. 13, 1841). America’s attitude toward +the situation was awaited with great interest by +European Powers. Such an assumption could +not be tolerated—America had already suffered +too much from British assumption—and President +Tyler in his message to Congress protested that +“however desirous the United States may be for +the suppression of the slave trade, they cannot +consent to any interpolations of the maritime code +at the mere will and pleasure of other governments. +We deny the right of any such interpolation to +any one, or all the nations of earth without our +consent.... American citizens prosecuting a +lawful commerce on the African seas, under the +flag of their country, are not responsible for the +abuse or unlawful use of that flag by others; nor +can they rightfully, on account of any such alleged +abuses, be interrupted, molested, or detained while +in the ocean; and if thus molested and detained +while pursuing honest voyages in the usual way +and violating no laws themselves, they are unquestionably +entitled to indemnity.”<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +<p>Lord Aberdeen in his correspondence with Mr. +Stephenson (Oct. 13, 1841) had admitted that +it would be an infringement of public law, to visit +and search American vessels during times of +peace, if that right were not granted by treaty. +“But no such right is asserted. We sincerely +desire to respect the vessels of the United States, +but we may reasonably expect to know what it is +we respect. Doubtless the flag is prima facie +evidence of nationality of the vessel; and, if this +evidence were in its nature conclusive and irrefragible, +it ought to preclude all further inquiry. +But it is sufficiently notorious that the flags of all +nations are liable to be assumed by those who have +no right or title to bear them. Mr. Stephenson +himself fully admits the extent to which the +American flag has been employed for the purpose +of covering this infamous traffic. The undersigned +joins with Mr. Stephenson in deeply lamenting +the evil; and he agrees with him in thinking the +United States ought not to be considered responsible +for the abuse of their flag. But if all inquiry +be resisted, even when carried no further than to +ascertain the nationality of the vessel, and impunity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +be claimed for the most lawless and desperate +of mankind, in the commission of the fraud the +undersigned greatly fears that it may be regarded +as something like an assumption of that responsibility +which has been deprecated by Mr. +Stephenson....</p> + +<p>“The undersigned, although with pain, must +add, that if such visit lead to the proof of the +American origin of the vessel, and that she was +avowedly engaged in the trade, exhibiting manacles, +fetters, and other usual implements of +torture, or had even a number of those unfortunates +on board, no British officer could interfere +further. He might give information to the cruisers +of the United States, but it could not be in his +power to arrest or impede the prosecution of the +voyage and the success of the undertaking.”</p> + +<p>The question called for a diplomatic correspondence. +In 1842, Lord Ashburton was sent as +special minister to the United States, empowered +to settle the Northwest Boundary, and other questions +of controversy. The result of his conference +with Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, was a +treaty between Great Britain and the United<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +States known as the Ashburton Treaty and as the +Treaty of Washington. By the eighth article +each stipulated to “maintain on the African coast +an adequate squadron, to carry in all not less than +eighty guns, to enforce separately and respectively +the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries +for the suppression of the slave trade.”</p> + +<p>There was also the realization that as long as +certain countries offered open markets for slaves, +the temptation to malefactors would be so great +that their efforts would be more or less ineffectual; +by the ninth article both countries agreed to +“unite in all becoming representations and remonstrances +with any and all powers within whose +dominions such markets are allowed to exist,” +and that “they will urge upon all such powers +the propriety and duty of closing such markets +effectually, at once and forever.”</p> + +<p>Americans, among others, continued to brazenly +carry on the trade; as the gap between the North +and the South widened, it was carried on with +renewed vigor. The Abolitionists’ thoughts were +focused on conditions in the South, and failed to +note the flourishing trade carried on under their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +very eyes from the ports of New England and +New York. Inhabitants of these places were +constantly being found implicated, but by lack of +proof, or through some technicality, they were +seldom convicted. Officials, who were either conniving +or indifferent, aided them in their lucrative +trade. As late as 1858, a brisk trade was carried +on; statistics show that in that year eighty-five +slavers were fitted out and sailed from New York +alone, and these successfully captured and sold +into slavery fifteen thousand Africans. Sometimes +they were sent into the South. The schooner +<i>Wanderer</i> in the fall of 1858 surreptitiously landed +three hundred at Brunswick, Georgia; they were +taken up the Savannah River and sold. In +October, of the same year, an alleged slave bark, +<i>Isle de Cuba</i>, was taken in custody at Boston, and +her crew held as witnesses under a thousand-dollar +bond; later they and Captain Dobson were +discharged. In November, the schooner <i>Madison</i> +was taken by the United States marshal at New +York. She was intended for the slave trade, was +sold at auction, and bought in for Eddy & Gardener +of Salem, Mass., for sixteen hundred dollars.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +Evidence pointed that she was bound for Salem +to be fitted out as a slaver when captured. In +September the <i>Echo</i> was captured by a revenue +cutter and taken to Charleston as the nearest +port; Charleston was very active in her efforts +to restrain the trade. The <i>Echo</i> was commanded +by Captain Townsend of Rhode Island—the queen +of the slave-trading States. The Africans were +cared for at Charleston until the Colonization +Society could take charge of them. They were +the wildest barbarians—men and women were +alike nude, though this was no evidence that they +had been accustomed to going so in their native +land, as their clothes were usually taken from them +by their captors. Some of the charitable ladies +provided clothing for them. Among all these +unfortunates there was but one article of clothing—a +glove—and this was worn with great pride +and distinction by a tall, handsome negress. +Hoop-skirts were then in vogue, and this woman +was dressed by the ladies in full regalia. Entranced, +she danced and shrieked with delight, +pushing the hoop-skirt on one side to see it stick +out on the other.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> + +<p>Many violations might be cited. Sometimes +ships reported deserted vessels on the high seas—vessels +whose manacles and wooden spoons told +a gruesome tragedy. An article in the New York +<cite>World</cite>, in 1859, described some of the methods by +which the slavers escaped punishment: “The slave +trader takes care to cross the ocean without a +national flag or purpose of any kind. The reason +for this is that if captured, no court can condemn +them for piracy. The vessels may be condemned +and the negroes liberated by the captor, but the +crew can be punished only by the nation under +whose flag the offense was committed. No flag, +the crew escapes.” Slavers no longer left America +with manacles, gewgaws, and fire-water, but +carried money. Once on the African coast they +could buy from English or other vessels the articles +needed for trade. The bargain struck, the crew +that made the outward voyage was usually discharged, +and a new one of adventurous spirit +procured on the African coast.</p> + +<p>Thirteen years after the ratification of the Ashburton +Treaty, when England made reclamations +on the Brazilian Government for innumerable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +violations of her treaties, the reply of the Emperor +was “if Great Britain would find the real +culprits, she must go to the ports of Boston and +New York to find them.”<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">PREPARATIONS FOR CLOTILDE’S VOYAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p>In 1858, Mobile had been for almost a century +and a half one of the important Gulf coast ports. +Picturesquely situated at the head of a lagoon-like +bay, the craft of many nations dropped anchor +in her waters. Somewhat past the heyday of +youth, her buildings mellowed by time and her +streets shaded by trees, she wore an air that was +calm and comfortable, and her homes and public +buildings bespoke a settled prosperity. Survivors +of primitive and pioneer life might be seen about +the streets; some Indians lingered on and with +baskets strapped across their shoulders sold <i lang="fr">filé</i> +and sassafras about the streets, while white-covered +“Chickasaha” wagons, drawn by from +six to twenty oxen, came slowly and laboriously +down Spring Hill and St. Stephen’s roads, bringing +staples from the interior to the Mobile markets. +The district near the river and towards the northern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +part of the town was given over to commerce and +occupied by cotton warehouses—low-lying, monotonous +structures of brick. The river boats carried +on a brisk trade and Mobile’s export to foreign +countries was large. Life about the wharves +which was usually busy—and often gay—became +very stirring during the latter part of 1858 and +1859. It drew upon itself the attention of the +United States Government, elicited a special +proclamation from the President, and a vigilant +watch by United States officials.</p> + +<p>In the early fifties, during one of Nicaragua’s +chronic revolutions, General Walker had been +invited by the democrats of Leon to unite with +them against the aristocrats of Granada. Many +Alabamians joined him in this expedition and shed +their blood for the cause. Walker gained supreme +power, but his glory was short-lived. The opposing +forces united and compelled him to leave. In +1857, President Buchanan recognized him as +President of Nicaragua, and addressed him as such. +His adventurous exploit met with general acclamation. +But when Walker announced that Nicaragua +would be open to Southern colonization,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> +admitting slaves, it was like flaunting a red rag +before a maddened populace; the abolitionism of +the North, already unrestrained in its fanaticism +and jealous hatred, backed by Northern commercialism +caused a rapid reversion of feeling. Walker, +the erstwhile hero, was denounced as a filibuster, +and Southerners were accused of attempting to +establish a Southern Republic along the Gulf of +Mexico that they might spread slavery and reopen +the slave traffic.</p> + +<p>In 1858, Walker prepared to make good his +previous claims. The collectors of the ports of +New Orleans and Mobile were ordered not to +clear vessels for Nicaraguan ports, before first +communicating with the Government of Washington. +Vessels carrying passengers and receiving +every protection of the Government still sailed +from Eastern ports to San Juan del Norte. Mobile +and New Orleans felt the trade of the South to +be seriously crippled by this discrimination. In a +special message, the President denounced the +“leaders of former illegal expeditions who had +expressed their intention of open hostilities against +Nicaragua,” and particularly against one “who is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +now at Mobile, which has been designated as the +rendezvous and place of departure for San Juan +del Norte.” He enjoined all the Government officers, +“civil and military, to be active, vigilant, and +faithful in suppressing these illegal enterprises.” +This message was received with indignation +throughout the whole of the lower South. Mobilians +gathered in groups about the streets and on +the new post-office steps, and excitedly discussed +the President’s proclamation. They were in +sympathy with Walker and many were contributing +funds towards the expedition. Espousal +of his cause became an issue in the mayoral +election. Further excitement was generated by +the attitude of Judge Campbell, his charge to the +grand jury, and his emphasis of the President’s +order for officials to be “vigilant, active, and faithful.” +Citizens regarded this as espionage and +as a personal affront to their fellow townsman, +Robert H. Smith, collector of the port. The discovery +of a Government spy—one General Wilson +from Ohio—and a minion of Judge Campbell—who +was seen “sneaking about the wharves and +warehouses of the city, to find something contraband<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +of Abolition interest and Abolition policy,” +provoked the citizens to further anger. “As a +next step we shall have our servants paid to report +the words which drop from us at the <ins class="corr" id="tn-05" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: table">table.</ins>”<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>Rebellion was already rampant in the South. +The temperament of Southern men was unfailingly +daring—adventure appealed to their imaginations +and risk was a game to be played. In the midst +of this excitement, an expedition was preparing, +money was being contributed, and the schooner +<i>Susan</i> fitted out. Harry Maury, socially and +financially prominent, was in command. When +ready to sail she was refused clearing papers, but +Maury weighed anchor and sailed down the bay, +preparatory to joining the fleet. The revenue +cutter <i>McClelland</i> pursued, brought her to, and +boarded her and demanded her papers. Maury +said he did not expect to receive them until he +reached the fleet. The captain of the <i>McClelland</i> +then claimed the <i>Susan</i> as a prize for the Government; +Maury refused to consider her as such. +Lieutenant White was placed aboard with orders +to take her to Dog River Bar and to hold her there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +as prize. Maury nonchalantly replied that he did +not object to White remaining aboard as his guest. +The next day both vessels sailed about the bay, +but the captain, under orders from the custom-house +at Mobile, warned Maury that if he attempted +to sail away the <i>Susan</i> would be sunk. +At dark the captain ordered both boats to drop +anchor for the night. About eleven o’clock, a +heavy mist arose, the <i>Susan</i> weighed anchor and +slipped noiselessly away, carrying aboard Lieutenant +White. The <cite>Mobile Register</cite>, voicing the +sentiments of the citizens, wished for the voyage +“that the breezes be prosperous and the fates +propitious.” When two hundred miles out in the +Gulf, Lieutenant White was transferred to the +bark <i>Oregon</i> and sent back to New Orleans, where +he stated that he had received every courtesy +while aboard the <i>Susan</i>. He reported that she +carried besides her crew, two hundred and forty +men, Minie balls, and Mississippi rifles. The +<i>Susan</i> was wrecked on a coral reef off Honduras. +The subsequent adventures of her men is a thrilling +narrative. They were received by the governor +of Bay Island, who upon hearing of their predicament<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +sent them back to Mobile in Her Majesty’s +steam-sloop <i>Basilisk</i>.</p> + +<p>With the birth and fruition of such adventures, +Mobile’s river-front naturally became an exciting +place. About this time a group of men were one +day standing on the wharf discussing the efforts +the Government was finally making to suppress +the slave trade, the vigilance which was being exerted, +and the impossibility for a vessel equipped +for such a purpose to evade officials. There was +some betting—a favorite pastime of the day—and +Captain Tim Meaher, a steamboat builder +and river-man, who was standing near, wagered +that he could send a slaver to the coast of Africa +and bring through the port of Mobile a cargo of +slaves. The wager was taken up and the stakes +were large. This is the tradition which is given +in connection with the <i>Clotilde’s</i> voyage. It may +have been true or it may have been invented to give +color and palliation to what proved to be the last +cargo of slaves brought into the United States, +but it is certain that this was only one of the +voyages made under the auspices of the Meahers +and Captain Foster. Of these there are still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +rumors among the older people, and the widow +of Captain Foster, innocent and trustful, hoped +until her recent death to get from the United +States about thirty thousand dollars which would +have been Foster’s share in the <i>Gipsy</i>—a slaver +which with her cargo was captured by Government +officials and which was valued by those +interested in her at four hundred thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>There were three of the Meaher brothers—Tim, +Jim, and Burns. They were natives of Maine, +and possessed the New England love of the water +and taste for the slave trade. Captain Foster +was born in Nova Scotia of English parentage. +His people were all seafaring—sailors, captains, +and builders of boats—and possibly his proclivities +were also inherited. These men were interested +in a mill and a ship-yard at the mouth of Chickasabogue, +three miles above Mobile. The <i>Clotilde</i>, +the <i>Susan</i>, the <i>Gipsy</i>, and other boats which were +engaged in the river trade, in filibustering expeditions, +the slave trade, and as blockade-runners +during the Civil War were built there. The +<i>Clotilde</i>, because of her fleetness, was selected to +make the voyage to the slave coast. She was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>the personal property of Foster and had been +designed and built by him.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_083" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_083.jpg" alt="Hand-drawn portrait of Poleete"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="right">Drawn by Emma Roche.</p> + <p class="center">Poleete.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Once arriving on the African coast there was +little trouble in procuring a cargo of slaves, for it +had long been a part of the traders’ policy to +instigate the tribes against each other and in this +manner keep the markets stocked. News of the +trade was often published in the papers. The +Meahers and Foster could have sought nothing +more enlightening or to their purpose than an +item published in the <cite>Mobile Register</cite>, November +9, 1858: “From the west coast of Africa we have +advice dated September 21st. The quarreling of +the tribes on Sierra Leone River rendered the +aspect of things very unsatisfactory. The King +of Dahomey was driving a brisk trade in slaves +at from fifty to sixty dollars apiece at Whydah. +Immense numbers of negroes were collected along +the coast for export.” Foster, with a crew of +northern men, sailed directly for Whydah.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">THE CAPTURE OF THE TARKARS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> + +<p>The slaves who constituted the <i>Clotilde’s</i> cargo +and who have become historic by being the last +brought into the United States were captured by +Dahomey’s warriors and Amazons on one of their +cruel excursions. For many years the tribe of +Dahomey had been a scourge to the weaker and +more peaceable tribes whose domains lay near the +Gold Coast or in the interior away from the coast +of Guinea. Cruel, stealthy war was their occupation—a +war of surprise which aroused sleeping +villages to the horrors of fire, plunder, and capture. +The older victims were usually killed. Sometimes +they were permitted to live and to see their young +and strong overpowered, bound, and led into +captivity—a captivity from which there could be +no hope of return, for the prisoners were conveyed +to the coast, sold to the slavers, and carried across +the sea to strange, alien lands. The King of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +Dahomey’s house was built of skulls and his +drinking cups were the skulls of fallen chiefs. In +the early part of the nineteenth century one of +the Dahomey kings organized a battalion of +women warriors—a race rare in history but not +especially unique in African annals. Early cosmographies +record of the King of Inhamban: “It is +affirmed that he hath a strong battalion of Amazons, +a warlike race of women who inhabit about +the Lake of Zambre, and the outskirts of Zanzibar; +compared by some for their fidelity and prowess to +the Turkish <ins class="corr" id="tn-06" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: Janizaries">Janizaries.</ins>”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Like the Greek Amazons +those of Inhamban and Dahomey were recruited +by incursions upon neighboring tribes.</p> + +<p>The Tarkar village was situated many miles +inland. Poleete, one of the old survivors, says it +was “many days from the water,” meaning +thereby the sea. They were a peace-loving, +agricultural people, raising hogs, sheep, and cows, +and planting corn, beans, and yams. Their chief +industry was the production of palm oil. Nature +had been lavish—the lands were wonderfully +fertile, requiring little work and no fertilizer; the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +fragrance of ripening fruits filled the forests. The +Tarkar dwellings were of superior quality and had +the advantage of withstanding fire. They were +built of mud; the process of construction has been +described by two of the survivors—Poleete and +Kazoola. First a circular trench was dug and a +wall of mud four feet high and a foot and a half +thick laid; this was left until thoroughly dry. +Another four feet was laid upon this, which was +also left to dry. Then a third layer of four feet +was laid making their dwellings about twelve feet +high. When thoroughly dry, branches were cut, +the roof thatched and covered with mud.</p> + +<p>The Tarkars were not without laws, and had a +sort of court of justice over which the King presided. +Each of the old survivors lays especial +stress upon honesty as a tribal characteristic. +Stealing was almost unknown; all worked and had +what was needed; houses were never locked and +possessions seldom disturbed. All an individual’s +wealth “might be hung upon a tree or accidentally +left—others of the tribe knew they had not put it +there—that it was not theirs—so disturbed it not.” +“Suppose I had left my purse in town in the public<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> +square. To-day I have not the time to go for it—nor +to-morrow—am I worried? No, for I know +when I go I will find it where I left it. Could you +do that in America?” (Kazoola). As there was +no reason or excuse for stealing, when one among +them committed a theft, it was more through a +spirit of braggadocio. The culprit would be +taken before the King who would say, “You are +strong—you have two arms to work—you suffer +for nothing—why have you stolen?” The defendant +would be imprisoned, and the Tarkars say +that if he lived to get out he would steal no more.</p> + +<p>Death was always meted to the murderer—rank +having no weight with justice. Poleete explained +that if the King’s son committed murder, death +would fall to him as to the commoner. “Money +don’t plea you there” (Poleete). The manner of +execution was decapitation—the implement a +sword. To illustrate the inexorable nature of +their laws, the following was narrated by Kazoola: +“The Law in Tarkar. If it would be my son. He +kills a man. I have money—I want to buy my +son. I go before the King, and say ‘Oh, King, my +son has killed, but I have money.’ The King<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +would reply, ‘Here is the Law, read.’ I read and +say, ‘Yes, King, the Law says Death.’ And the +King would answer, ‘That is the Law, and I am +the King. Shut your eyes, give up your son—money +cannot buy.’”</p> + +<p>The Tarkars were polygamists, sometimes having +as many as three wives, but never any more. +The conditions of life were so easy they could +afford the luxury. There was no need to support +the wives, for the women had the same amount of +property as the men and did the same work. +Jealousy among the wives was unknown; the first +wife selected the second and the second the third, +etc. This custom has been lucidly explained by +Kazoola and Olouala. “Kazoola has been married +about three years. His wife says, ‘Kazoola, I am +growing old—I am tired—I will bring you another +wife.’ Before speaking thus, she has already one +in mind—some maid who attracts her and who +Kazoola has possibly never seen. The wife goes +out and finds the maid—possibly in the marketplace—and +asks, ‘You know Kazoola?’ The +maid answers, ‘I have heard of him.’ The wife +then says, ‘Kazoola is good—he is kind—I would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>like you to be his wife.’ The maid answers, ‘Come +with me to my parents.’ They go together; +questions are exchanged and if these are satisfactory, +the parents say, ‘We give our girl into your +keeping—she is ours no more—be good to her.’” +The wife and the maid return together to Kazoola’s +house. The wife introduces the maid to Kazoola, +shows her how to look after things as she has done, +then sits down to take her days of rest and works +no more. The relation of the husband to the +wives was that of protector. Once married, a +man dared not look upon women other than his +wives, for the punishment was very great. To +justify their native custom of polygamy, the +Christianized Tarkars now cite the example of +David and Solomon.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_091" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_091.jpg" alt="Picture of Abaché and Kazoola"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center">Abaché and Kazoola.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>They believed in the spirits of departed relatives; +to these the “day was as night and the night as +the day.” To these spirits their actions were +known. The Tarkars also possessed dualistic +ideas of a future life. There was a Spirit of Good—Ahla-ahra, +to whom by doing right their actual, +daily life would be something of a consecration; +and there was a Spirit of Evil—Ahla-bady-oleelay.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> +“Do right and you will go to Ahla-ahra; do +wrong, you go to Ahla-bady-oleelay.” While not +exactly Nature-worshipers, they were Nature-fearers; +they did not propitiate by prayer or any +kind of ceremonial these Spirits of Good and Evil, +but believed their powers were manifested in the +wind, the cloud that covered the sun, and in the +thunder and the lightning. Before these last +the Tarkars trembled, and were filled with +fear; they would cross their arms over their +breasts and cowering, cry out, “We will be +good!”</p> + +<p>“In Africa different places, like Mobile, Montgomery, +New Orleans—each have a different tribe +speaking a different language. Suppose the tribe +at New Orleans comes to the one at Mobile and +says, ‘You have fruit and corn and cattle—you +must give me half.’ You at Mobile say, ‘No, +go back and raise your own cattle and corn.’ +And they say, ‘If you do not give us cattle and +corn, we will make war on you.’ They go back +to their own country and talk among themselves. +‘You know that tribe at Mobile. We demanded +half their crops and cattle—they refused; we will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +make war upon them. But they have strong soldiers. +We will go through the country, surround +the village at the break of day.’”<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Thus did the +Dahomeyans plan their attack upon the Tarkars. +One morning just at the break of day, the fiends of +Dahomey—and the female warriors were the most +cruel—broke upon the unsuspecting Tarkars. +Some of the men were already astir and had gone +into the fields to work while the day was yet cool. +These were all killed; had one escaped he would +have aroused the sleeping village, and the women +and small children might have made their escape. +They were aroused from slumber and in a few +minutes death or captivity was upon them; even +the infants were torn from their mothers’ breasts +and carried away. Those who were not killed +were overpowered. Dahomey’s Amazons vanquished +the most stalwart men and bound them +as captives. The Tarkars relate that in their +paint and war clothes Dahomey’s women soldiers +could not be distinguished from the men. The +Dahomeyans cut off the heads of their dead victims, +leaving the bodies where they had fallen. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +heads were to be taken home as evidence of individual +valor and as trophies to be hung on the +Dahomey huts. Human faces could express no +more anguish than those of the old Tarkars when +they speak of this awful experience. One of the +trials and tragedies of their march to the coast was +the dangling heads of their relatives and friends. +When these grew offensive the Dahomeyans +stopped the march that they might smoke the +heads. As they passed near one of Dahomey’s villages, +at a curve in the big road, they caught sight of +fresh heads raised on poles above the huts and of +skulls, grinning white. With the captives there +were some people of other tribes—friends who had +been visiting in the Tarkar village—Tarkbar, +Goombardi, Filanee, and Ejasha. (These tribal +names are spelled as pronounced by the surviving +Tarkars.) Kazoola has drawn a map of the route +taken by Dahomey and of the march to the sea, +which he claims any of his tribe would recognize. +The towns they passed through on their march +to the sea were Eko, Budigree (Badragy?), Adaché, +and Whydah. This last the Tarkars sometimes +call Gréfé. There they remember a white house<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> +on the river-bank; behind this was a stockade +wherein they were held prisoners about three +weeks, at the end of which time Captain Foster +came.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">THE VOYAGE</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p> + +<p>Captain Foster boarded at the Vanderslice +home (afterwards marrying one of the daughters) +in the Meaher settlement. This was about three +miles from Mobile and a mile from the ship-yard +at the mouth of Chickasabogue. When starting +for Africa, he left home by night, slung his bag +of gold across his shoulder, and went alone through +the woods to the river where the <i>Clotilde</i> lay. He +pulled out a part of the cabin bulk-head and concealed +his gold behind it. He then picked up his +crew, got under way, and passed out of the Gulf of +Mexico without incident or mishap. When on +the Atlantic he was alarmed to find by the stars +that the <i>Clotilde</i> was drifting out of her course. +He knew no cause, and she continued to drift. +One night he lay on his bunk, sleepless and wondering. +Like an inspiration the thought came that +the hidden gold was too near the compass. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +arose, moved the gold, and the needle swung into +position. A terrific hurricane blew him to the +Cape Verde Islands, where he had to stop for +repairs. The crew mutinied. They threatened +that if he did not promise more pay, they would +inform the officials of the purpose of his voyage. +Foster did not hesitate to comply, for promises +cost nothing and he sometimes found it unnecessary +to keep them. His wife in relating this incident +remarked that the captain had always said +that “promises were like pie-crust—made to be +broken.” He made friends with the Portuguese +officials and the United States Consul, and as a +part of his policy presented handsome shawls and +ornaments to their wives. These had been bought +in Mobile and stowed away to be used in such +emergencies. No questions were asked Foster. +The repairs finished, he sailed away. He arrived +safely in the Gulf of Guinea and had to anchor +more than a mile out and be taken ashore in a +small boat which was built to cut through the +surf. When about to pass through a breaker, a +warning would be given to Foster to hold his nose. +On reaching shore he was placed in a hammock<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +and conveyed by six stalwart blacks to the +presence of a prince of Dahomey—a great, stout +black, weighing over three hundred pounds. +This prince was hospitable in his attentions and +entertained Foster with the sights of Whydah. +One which he did not relish was a large square +enclosure in which were thousands of snakes. +Walking among these creatures was both trying +and disgusting. They were kept for religious +ceremonials.</p> + +<p>This prince wished to make a present to Foster, +so asked him to select for himself a native—one +that the “superior wisdom and exalted taste” +of Foster designated the finest specimen. Gumpa +was his choice, Foster making this selection with +the intention of flattering the prince to whom +Gumpa was nearly related. This accounts for +the presence of one of Dahomey’s tribe in the +African settlement near Mobile. He became +known as African Peter and was a conspicuous +figure in the life of the settlement. He used to +tell his story in the simple phrase, “My people +sold me and your people bought me.”</p> + +<p>After many hospitalities, Foster was taken to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> +the stockade where the Tarkars were imprisoned. +They were placed in circles composed of ten men +or ten women, Foster standing in the middle. +This was another trial for the unfortunates, and +Kazoola says, in language which any one could +understand, “He looka, an’ looka, an’ looka. Then +he point to one.” The one indicated would be +taken out of the circle and placed to one side; then +Foster would point to another, who would be +placed with the one already selected. Foster +picked out one hundred and thirty, after which +he got into the hammock and was conveyed across +the river to the beach. Behind him marched the +Tarkars, chained one behind the other. They +had to wade, the water coming up to their necks. +On the beach they had their first view of the sea, +and the realization that they had to go out into +it was another horror. They wore clothes made +of cotton—the same they had worn when captured—but +as they stepped into the small boats which +were to take them to the <i>Clotilde</i>, the Dahomeyans, +always vicious and avaricious, tore their garments +from them, saying “You go where you can get +plenty of clothes.” Men and women alike were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +left entirely nude, and this fact is still a humiliation +to the Tarkars. They regard the accusations +of some American negroes that they were a naked +people as a great indignity.</p> + +<p>As the Tarkars were taken aboard the <i>Clotilde</i>, +they were put into the hole. In this respect the +<i>Clotilde</i> was better equipped than most slavers; +the usual space in which the “middle passage” +was made was from two and a half to three feet +in height, and the miserable captives were stowed +away much as sardines are packed in cans, without +even room to sit up. The hole of the <i>Clotilde</i> was +deep enough to permit of the men of lesser stature +to stand erect. The top of the hole was shut +down and the Tarkars were left in darkness to +grieve and wonder.</p> + +<p>When a hundred and sixteen had been brought +aboard, Foster went up into the rigging with his +glasses to look about the harbor. He saw that +all of Dahomey’s vessels were flying black flags. +He hurried down and gave orders to leave all +slaves who were not yet aboard; to weigh anchor +and to get immediately under way. The treacherous +Dahomeyans dealt also in piracy, and were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>making ready to bear down upon the <i>Clotilde</i>, +recapture the slaves, and take Foster and the crew +prisoners. The <i>Clotilde</i> made her escape. When +out some miles, the <i>Clotilde</i> was sighted by an +English cruiser. The slaver was a small craft, +and Foster by using a favorite tactic—an elusive +tacking—evaded the English. Once in the wake +of the trade-winds the <i>Clotilde</i> sailed towards +her destination at a lively speed.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_103" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_103.png" alt="Hand-drawn map of travelled routes and nearby towns"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center"><b>Map Drawn by Kazoola.</b></p> + <p class="captionpcenternormal">(<i>1</i>) Tarkar Village. (<i>2</i>) Dahomey’s Land. (<i>3</i>) Wavering line<br> + showing stealthy march of Dahomeyans through forest.<br> + (<i>4</i>) Route by which captive Tarkars were taken to<br> + the sea. (<i>5</i>), (<i>6</i>), (<i>7</i>), (<i>8</i>), Eko, Budigree,<br> + Adaché, Whydah, towns through which<br> + Tarkars passed. (<i>9</i>) River. (<i>10</i>)<br> + Beach and sea.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>At the end of the thirteenth day the Africans +were removed from their close, dark quarters. +Their limbs were so cramped and numbed they +refused to obey their wills, so they were supported +by some of the crew and walked around the deck +until the use of their limbs returned. Tottering +on deck, to their astonished, terror-stricken eyes +the sea stretched all around them: “We looka, an’ +looka, an’ looka—nothin’ but sky and water. +Whar we com’ from, we do not know—whar we +go, we do not know” (Kazoola). One day they +saw islands. The Tarkars say that on the twentieth +day, Foster seemed uneasy; that he always +had his glasses to his eyes; that he climbed the +mast, and looked for a long time; then he came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +hurriedly down, ordered the sails down, threw out +the anchors, and ordered the Tarkars back into +the hole. Thus the <i>Clotilde</i> lay until night.</p> + +<p>The Tarkars were naturally close observers; +during the voyage they seem to have been particularly +alert. They noted the varying colors of +the sea—how at first it was blue, then green and +how they passed through water that seemed +blood-red. Foster was kind to them. They +could eat the food—hunger makes anything +palatable. Though their mental anguish was +great, they suffered physically only for water. +About a gill was given them at morning and at +evening, and this tasted of vinegar. During +such voyages, it was necessary that the water be +conserved. Their only relief came when they +caught rain in their parched hands and mouths.</p> + +<p>When the <i>Clotilde</i> sailed into American waters, +the Africans were put into the hole—there to +remain until relief came in capture or a successful +landing. Three days before they landed, when +the <i>Clotilde</i> lay waiting behind the islands in +Mississippi Sound and near the lower end of +Mobile Bay, a bunch of green boughs was brought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +to them to show that the voyage was almost at an +end.</p> + +<p>To make the hiding more secure, the <i>Clotilde</i> +was dismasted. Then Foster got into a small +boat, rowed by four sailors to go to the western +shore of Mobile Bay, intending to send word to +Meaher that the <i>Clotilde</i> had arrived. His approach +was regarded with suspicion by some men +ashore, and he was fired upon. Waving a white +handkerchief their doubts were allayed and he +offered fifty dollars for a conveyance which would +take him to Mobile.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">THE RETURN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> + +<p>The time of waiting had been an anxious one. +The Meahers realized the risk. There had always +been some, but during the absence of the <i>Clotilde</i> +great agitation had become rife throughout the +country, and one of the things the Government +had at last undertaken to do was to wipe out at +once and forever the illegal traffic in slaves. The +destination and purpose of the <i>Clotilde</i> had been +noised about, and Meaher realized that officials +were watching his movements. Aside from the +<i>Clotilde’s</i> capture, he had little to fear, for every +vestige of the conservatism which had so long +held in restraint the abolitionism of the North +and the temper of the South had disappeared; the +two sections had drifted so far apart as to be +virtually two countries; war clouds were looming +large upon the horizon and differences had gone so +far there could be no reconciliation. Garrison’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +voice was ringing through the North characterizing +Southerners as “thieves and robbers, men-stealers, +and women-whippers” and calling loudly, “how +can two walk together, except they agree? The +slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood—will +I make a compact with him? The man who +plunders cradles—will I say to him ‘Brother, let +us walk together in unity?’ The man who to +gratify his lust or his anger, scourges women with +the lash till the soil is red with blood—will I say +to him, ‘Give me your hand; let us form a glorious +union?’” Charges which were as a scourge to +Southerners; goaded and angered, many began to +talk of reopening the slave traffic. The question +was agitated in Congress—a number of papers +advocating it, not all of which were of the South. +The New York <cite>Day Book</cite>, May 17, 1859, came out +strongly for it. “Of course no one can suppose +we doubt the right of bringing negroes from Africa +if they are needed. It is simply a question of +expediency, and there can be no doubt our laws +making it piracy must be blotted out of the Statute +Books. They are not only ridiculous, but utterly +and wholly contemptible,” etc. From the point<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> +of view of a large class of Southerners these arguments +were not fallacious. Yet they were retrogressive +and their revival put the South out of +harmony with ethical and intellectual progress, +and defeated the hopes of those of larger vision. +Early in 1859 the Mobile papers lent their support +to the question. Mobilians, like all of the South, +were tried to their utmost, and Meaher knew if +all due secrecy was observed, he had little to fear +from them.</p> + +<p>Captain Foster reached Mobile on a Sunday +morning in August (1859) with the secret that the +<i>Clotilde</i> lay behind the islands in Mississippi Sound. +Arrangements had long been made that a tug +should lie in readiness to go at a moment’s notice +down Mobile Bay to tow the <i>Clotilde</i> and her +cargo to safety. When the news came, the tug’s +pilot was attending service at St. John’s Church. +Captain Jim Meaher and James Dennison—a +negro slave—hurried to the church. Dennison +remained outside while Meaher went in to call +the pilot. The three hastened down to the wharf, +and were soon aboard the tug <i>Billy Jones</i>, steaming +rapidly down the bay. Late afternoon found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +them nearing the <i>Clotilde</i>, but they waited for +the darkness. The most dangerous part of the +adventure was still ahead—the trip up Mobile +Bay. At the mouth the marshes and islands offered +protection; if they could once reach the delta of +the Mobile River, with its desolate stretches of +marsh, its deep rivers and intricate bayous, safety +was almost assured. But the bay lay smilingly +open between two long arms of land. Her wonderful +beauty under the gorgeous August sunset +was lost upon the watchers; they prayed for the +light to fade and for mysterious night with its +enshrouding darkness. At last as if loath to die, +the color was gone; sea and sky melted together +into almost impenetrable grayness. They ceased +their vigils and fell to a quick activity; lines were +thrown, the <i>Clotilde</i> made fast, and the trip up the +bay was begun. Her wooded shores had echoed the +voices of many peoples and the sounds from many +craft, but never any more epoch-making—those +from the last slave ship—the voyage nearing its +finish which ended forever among Anglo-Saxon +people the darkest blot upon their civilization. +The chugging sound of the tug’s machinery filled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +the Tarkars with terrified wonder; at last they +concluded that it was the swarming of bees.</p> + +<p>Time was precious and the darkness doubly +so; much was still to be done before day with its +light should come. These hours might mean life +or death. The trip up the bay was safely made. +The tug avoided the Mobile River channel, +slipped behind the light-house on Battery Gladden, +into Spanish River. This lay in the midst of the +marsh and with its circuitous windings was not +more than ten miles long. As the <i>Clotilde</i> passed +opposite Mobile the clock in the old Spanish tower +struck eleven, and the watchman’s voice floated +over the city and across the marshes, “Eleven +o’clock and all’s well.”</p> + +<p>The <i>Clotilde</i> was taken directly to Twelve-Mile +Island—a lonely, weird place by night. There +the <i>R. B. Tainey</i><a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> waited; lights were smothered, +and in the darkness quickly and quietly the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span><i>Clotilde’s</i> cargo of one hundred and sixteen negroes +was transferred to the steamboat, taken up the +Alabama River to John Dabney’s plantation +below Mount Vernon and not far from the shadow +of the fort, where they were landed before noon +of the next day.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_113" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_113.jpg" alt="Hand-drawn portrait of Kazoola"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="right">Drawn by Emma Roche.</p> + <p class="center">Kazoola.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>At Twelve-Mile Island the crew of Northern +sailors again mutinied. Captain Foster, with a +six shooter in each hand, went among them, discharged +them, and ordered them to “hit the grit +and never be seen in Southern waters again.” +They were placed aboard the tug. Meaher +bought tickets and saw that they boarded a train +for the North. The <i>Clotilde</i> was scuttled and +fired, Captain Foster himself placed seven cords +of light wood upon her. Her hull still lies in the +marsh at the mouth of Bayou Corne and may be +seen at low tide. Foster afterwards regretted her +destruction as she was worth more than the ten +Africans given him by the Meahers as his booty.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">THE TARKARS AT DABNEY’S PLANTATION</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span></p> + + +<p>Dabney’s plantation lay in the cane brake +country—a part of the river region, so-called from +the miles of towering cane. It was a wilderness, +every part strangely alike, in which even those +most familiar with it could be easily lost. Here, +according to the narrative of James Dennison, +the slave who was left in charge and who afterwards +married Kanko—one of their number—and of the +surviving Tarkars, they were kept for eleven days, +but in a state of constant change, being transferred +each day from one part of the swamp to +another. They were allowed to speak only in +whispers, for there was a chance that some one +passing on the river might hear strange voices. +At the end of the eleventh day clothes were brought +to them and they were put aboard the steamer +<i>Commodore</i> and carried to The Bend in Clark<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +County, where the Alabama and Tombigbee +rivers meet and where Burns Meaher had a plantation.</p> + +<p>There they were lodged each night under a wagon +shed, and driven each morning before daybreak +back into the swamp, where they remained until +dark. Understanding no word and knowing not +what was expected of them, they were made to +know the driver’s wishes by a shooing sound—such +as would drive chickens or geese. In +this strange land, among strange faces and an +unknown tongue, the Tarkars say that at first +they almost grieved themselves to death.</p> + +<p>Meaher sent word secretly to those disposed +to buy. They were piloted to the place of concealment +by Jim Dennison. The Africans were +placed in two long rows, the women on one side +and the men on the other—the buyers standing +between, and carefully examining them—even +looking at their teeth. Those selected would be +put to one side, and when the purchaser was ready +to depart, he would make his ownership known to +them by waving his hand around the group selected, +then bringing it to his breast. The Tarkars could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +not understand these transactions—they only knew +their numbers were gradually growing less. Day +after day they saw some of their kinsmen or +comrades led away—to what fate they knew not. +Some were sold and taken to Selma. Of their +march through the woods one pathetic and picturesque +incident has come to me. As they +marched through the strange land—tired, dejected, +friendless—knowing not where they were +going or what would be their destiny—a circus, +moving from place to place, chanced to pass along +the country road. To avoid danger or suspicion, +the Africans were concealed behind the bushes +with their backs to the passing show. As it +passed, one of the elephants trumpeted; joy +transformed the Tarkars, spread over their features, +and ran through their limbs. To them the +sound was as a cry from home, and as with one +voice, gesticulating, tears streaming from their +eyes, they shouted: “Elé, Elé! Argenacou, Argenacou!” +(“Home, Home! Elephant, Elephant!”) +Of this small band—two still live—a man and wife—and +those of the tribe near Mobile still receive +news of them now and then.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> + +<p>As time passed and the Tarkars continued +inconsolable, Captain Tim Meaher recommended +that they be put to some kind of work. They +look back upon this as the first happy episode of +their life in the new land. When they were taken +into the fields for the first time, their astonishment +was very great when they saw civilization’s agricultural +methods. “We astonish to see the mule +behind the plow to pull” (Kazoola). The contrast +in fertility made them feel that the American +soil was accursed and their own blessed. There +they had but to scratch the top soil and whatever +they planted grew; but in America there was +nothing but “work, work, work.” The Tarkar +would stand for no mistreatment. Once an overseer +attempted something which the women considered +as such and he was overpowered by them +and given a sound thrashing. Naturally of agricultural +and industrious habits they soon came +to understand Southern crops and were very +successful in raising corn, cotton, beans, peas, cane, +pumpkins, etc. This experience was of great +advantage to them when they were afterwards +thrown upon their own resources. Their homes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +to-day are characterized by excellent gardens and +many varieties of fruit trees.</p> + +<p>After war was declared there was little danger +of exposure, and the Africans belonging to Foster, +to Jim and Tim Meaher were taken to the Meaher +settlement, at what is known to-day as Magazine +Point, where they were kindly treated by their +respective owners. Those left at Burns Meaher’s +plantation tell of great hardship. When they +first arrived they were given one pair of shoes and +never any more. Before daybreak they were +sent to the fields to work and kept hard at it until +night, when they returned home by torchlight. +After the surrender, these joined the others of +their tribe at Magazine Point.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_121" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_121.jpg" alt="Picture of the wreck of the Clotilde looking out on water"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center">Wreck of the “Clotilde.”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">TARKAR LIFE IN AMERICA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span></p> + + +<p>Magazine Point—the site of Meaher’s mill +and ship-yard—though but three miles from +Mobile, was inaccessible, except by water or a +circuitous route of some miles by land. Between +the two places lay an impenetrable swamp and +forest. Red clay hills rolled away from the northern +border of this jungle, diversifying the strip of +country between Three Mile Creek and Chickasabogue. +This extensive area was known as Meaher’s +hummock and was thickly wooded by a suburb +forest of native trees—pine, cypress, bays, magnolias, +beech, junipers, gums, and oaks. These had +sheltered the goings and comings of many peoples. +This place had been beloved by the Indians; some +still lingered on among what the Tarkars called the +“high trees,” living in their pine-bark tepees. +During the Spanish régime it had been included in +the grant of land known as the St. Louis tract,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +and Dr. Charles Mohr points out in his <cite>Plant Life +in Alabama</cite> that it must have been a feeding place +for migratory birds, for tropical plants are found +there which are not known to other parts of the +coast. Near the mouth of Chickasabogue, overlooking +the river, there is a prehistoric shell-mound, +overgrown by patriarchal live-oaks, hundreds of +years old, and on this the Tarkars had their first +dwellings. Much has been told and written by +casual visitors of the queer rites and superstitions +of “Africa-Town”—the little cluster of huts +which have long since been abandoned—none of +which is substantiated by fact or by the actual +knowledge of those who have known and appreciated +the Tarkars. But nothing has been told of +the other superstitions with which this region +fairly reeks.</p> + +<p>Until the saw-mills became so active there were +old beeches near Chickasabogue and Hog Bayou, +bearing seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth +century dates and curious signs which +substantiated the belief of the credulous and imaginative +that through this district there was much +hidden treasure—treasure buried by early adventurers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +by the pirates, and in later times by members +of the Copeland gang—and safely guarded by +the spirits of those who had concealed it. Though +this tract is now largely cleared and settled, these +traditions and ghost stories are still told and +believed by the negroes, creoles, and ignorant +whites. Poinquinette, an old creole fisherman and +a repository of interesting lore, has related some +of his personal encounters with the Magazine +Point ghosts, and so real are they to him, and +so vivid his narrative, that his listeners are thrilled +with a sort of belief. By a dream it was once made +known to him and several companions (Nelson, +Sales, Moody, Ebernezar Fisher, and a man named +Robinson) that there was a treasure buried just +below Turner & Oats’s mill. The spot was +thickly wooded—high trees and low shrubs—yet +not so dense that they could not see about them—even +a bird was visible as it flew through the brush. +They went early one Friday morning and began +digging at seven o’clock. Almost as soon as their +spades touched the earth, the woods began to resound +with voices—child voices—and they wondered +where children’s voices could come from,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +but went on with their digging. As the excavation +progressed, the sounds came nearer—there were +calling and crying and hissing—until finally the +voices were right at them and surrounding them. +They could hear the voices but could see nothing. +Then the voices passed by them with a whirr +and back again into the bushes where they +were still heard. By this time the hole was +some ten feet deep. Nelson Sales, who had +had more experience with spirits than the others, +offered to go back into the woods and talk to +the voices. He was confronted by a fearful +apparition—a great blue bull with eyes of fire +and a tail as large as a hogshead. It dashed +passed him, charged across the hole, and as it +went over threw all the earth back, completely +filling the excavation. They were all thoroughly +frightened and would not go back until they could +get the negress Clara Randall, from Charleston. +Poinquinette was loud in his praises of this woman, +who could see and talk to spirits and was not afraid +of them.</p> + +<p>She built a tent and camped alone for three days +and nights at the scene of their labor. She set a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +table, provided with milk from a white cow, wine, +and honey—inveigling the invisible ones and +tempting them by food to give up the secret of the +buried treasure. At the end of the third day her +persuasions prevailed, and the spirits reluctantly +made known the place. Next morning she walked +to the spot and placed her foot where the men +should dig. They fell to work and had not dug +more than twenty minutes, before the top of +the treasure-box was uncovered. They rapidly +cleared the earth from around it and there lay +before their eager wondering eyes a cedar chest +which measured five feet in length, two and a half +feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. It contained +three hundred and fifty thousand dollars +in gold, and Ebernezar Fisher, over-zealous and +over-anxious, bored two holes in it with an auger. +While he was boring the second, the woman warned +him to stop—that the spirits were regretting their +revelation—but Ebernezar, who was of stubborn +temperament, bored on unheedful of her warning. +It was a bright day—not a cloud in the sky—the +sunlight filtered through the trees and fell in +strong beams upon the auger. The other men,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> +standing to one side, watched it glinting on the +steel. Again the woman warned Fisher, and as +she spoke his arm was wrenched from the auger. +Almost at the same instant a black cloud swept +across the sky, an awful gust of wind bent the +great trees until they looked as if they would +break, a crash of thunder and a blinding flash of +lightning and the box disappeared! Then all +was clear and bright again. It was a spirit storm—purely +local, and seen only by the searchers +after treasure. “Then all of us had to come away +like sick cats and with aching hearts, because we +hated to see a treasure like that disappear. It’s +there somewhere to-day—and wherever it is, +Ebernezar Fisher’s auger is still sticking in it.”</p> + +<p>Another time they received intimation that +they should go to Meaher’s hummock and hunt a +mound and some trees bearing marks like an +inverted E; then walk so many feet in a certain +direction and dig. On this occasion they took +old Adam Boone, a negro who was supposed to +have found many hidden treasures. They found +the marked trees and the mound, which was six +or seven feet high and looked as if it had been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>built by man. They had just arrived, identified +the spot, and were grouped around it talking. +Ebernezar Fisher, who was tall, stood with the +butt of his gun resting on the ground, and held it +with one hand near the end of the barrel. Both +hammers were down. Old Adam Smith was saying, +“I’ve been hearin’ of this place a long time. +They say several men were killed and buried here.” +As the last words were uttered, one barrel of +Fisher’s gun went off, and he was so startled that +he threw it from him; Charlie Tell who was sitting +on the ground near him caught it and as he did so +the other barrel went off. Needless to add that +the seekers for gold left the spot as quickly as they +could and have never gone back again.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_129" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_129.jpg" alt="Picture of Charlee"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center">Charlee.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>There are places in the woods and among the +hills where no one can go—unless very brave and +then not to stay long—for there are sounds as of +the march of soldiers, the clank of their swords, and +the orders of the captains. Whoever goes to these +places will have to fight the spirits and there is no +hope of overpowering them, for they change their +forms into those of many “varmints” and especially +do they affect the ones that the intruder most fears.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> + +<p>Some of these superstitions were repeated to +the Tarkars with the hope of drawing them out +and learning just what they believed. They +accepted them and Olouala offered the solution +of the spirits’ faithful guardianship as it had been +explained to him by American negroes. To make +this guardianship effective the promise must be +obtained during the life of the body. “Suppose +some one has a treasure he wishes to conceal—perhaps +to bury. He may pick out you who he +has never seen before. Perhaps he asks, ‘Do you +want to earn ten dollars?’ Of course you do, so +you go with him. After he gets to the place where +he wishes to bury the gold, he says, ‘I have a +treasure here which I wish to bury. But I have +to go away—will you promise to watch it until I +come back?’ You unsuspectingly promise and +as you do so you are killed and your body buried +with the treasure that your spirit may guard it +forever.” Instead of a person a faithful and +intelligent dog or horse may be sacrificed. This, +however, is not a Tarkar superstition, but is common +to our negro and creole population. The +Tarkars during their long residence have explored<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +every foot of this region in their searches for game, +berries, fruits, and herbs and they have never had +any encounters with the Magazine Point ghosts +or any intimation of their presence. Kazoola, +however, naïvely intimated that he would prefer +not to know where they were located, as he might +have occasion to go to these places, and if he did +not know where these ghosts were supposed to be, +he would not be annoyed or frightened by seeing +them.</p> + +<p>The life of the Tarkars in America has not been +characterized by the superstitions ascribed to +them; instead their history has been one of hard +work, coöperation, self-sacrifice, and a deep longing +for home. Their progress has been deeply +interesting. Almost entirely cut off from white +influence—and that with which they came in +contact during their early years in this country +could scarcely inspire them with confidence, for +they are keenly watchful and observed the advantage +which one white took over another—yet +protected by our laws, they have worked out their +destiny with much more success and honor to +themselves than the generality of American-born<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +negroes or of the free blacks who were carried by +the American Colonization Society back to Africa, +and whose interests have been guarded and furthered +by philanthropists.</p> + +<p>When the Tarkars first came to Magazine Point +all days were alike to them; they went about doing +on Sundays as on other days. Some American +negroes who had become interested in them and +who were really their friends requested them not +to work on Sundays but to gather all their women +and children and go with them. They were thus +introduced to a church. There they were told +that the God who lived in the sky had sent a book +to the people of the earth, telling them how they +must live. Simple and believing, they readily +accepted what was told. The Old Testament and +the dualistic dogma of a God and a Devil made the +same appeal to them that it had to the American +negro—there was the ready response of the primitive +imagination to a primitive story. In them +they found an amplification of the gropings of their +own minds into the spiritual. It soothed their +sorrows and gave them hope. Their faith became +a simple one, and that of the few old survivors is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +one of resignation, hope, and a perfect trust. Poleete +has said: “We know not why these troubles +came upon us, but we are all God’s children—we +not always see the way, but his hands guide us +and shape our ends.” Kazoola, in speaking of the +death of his wife and of all his children, likened +God to the doctor who “gives us bad medicine—it’s +hard to swallow, but the doctor gives it to us to +do us good. We don’t understand why.” Though +Kazoola has an intense longing for home, he +regards his advent to America as a part of the +goodness of God and enjoys telling how after +Foster had bought him at Whydah, he was stolen +by one of Dahomey’s men and hidden under the +white house. While concealed, he heard the surf +upon the beach. Urged by an innate curiosity +about the mechanism of things, he stole from his +hiding-place and climbed upon the stockade fence; +“I hear the noise of the sea on shore, an’ I wanta +see what maka dat noise, an’ how dat water +worka—how it fell on shore an’ went back again. +I saw some of my people in a little boat and I holler +to them. Then Captain Foster spied me, an’ he +say, ‘Oh hee! Oh hee!’ an’ pulla me down. An’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +I was the last to go. Supposy I been lef’ behind—what +become of Kazoola? Or supposy de ship +turna over, an’ de sharks eat us. Oh Lor’! God +is good!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Foster, who always lived near the Tarkars, +said they have always been gentle, amiable, and +honest and much better than the average American +negro; that it was their perseverance and religious +zeal which built the several churches which are +now at Magazine Point. There was only one +among them who proved unregenerate—old Zooma +who still lives—but she belonged to another tribe, +the Tarkbar, and presents totally different +characteristics; also different color, physical development, +and tribal marks. She has been seen +to make a cross and spit in the middle of it. The +others do not seem to understand her motive.</p> + +<p>After the surrender the Tarkars wished to go +back to their own country but had no money. +They concluded to save. They worked in the +mills for a dollar a day, but could not save without +help, so they said to their wives, “Now we want +to go home and it takes a lot of money. You +must help us save. You see fine clothes—you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> +must not crave them.” The wives promised and +replied: “<em>You</em> see fine clothes and new hats—now +don’t you crave them either. We will work together.” +They made six dollars a week. Of this +they could save two dollars, sometimes three, +but they had rent to pay and found they could +not get ahead that way, for it would take a lot of +money to get home. Among themselves they +talked over the injustice of their position—how +Meaher had brought them from their native land +and how they now had neither home nor country. +Kazoola, who seems to have always been a spokesman, +concluded he would present their case to +Meaher. Soon after he was cutting timber (just +back of where the schoolhouse now stands), +Captain Tim Meaher came along and sat upon a +felled tree. Kazoola recognized this to be his +opportunity, stopped work, and stood looking at +Meaher, all his emotion speaking through his +expressive face. The captain looked up from +the stick he was whittling and struck by the +sorrow in the man’s face asked:</p> + +<p>“Kazoola, what makes you so sad?”</p> + +<p>“I grieve for my home.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p> + +<p>“But you’ve got a good home.”</p> + +<p>“Captain Tim, how big is Mobile?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, I’ve never been to the four +corners.”</p> + +<p>“If you give Kazoola all Mobile, that railroad, +and the banks of Mobile Kazoola does not want +them for this is not home.”</p> + +<p>When the old man tells this his face reflects +overwhelming grief—in his eyes there is the far-away +vision of home, and in a low voice he moans, +“Oh Lor’! Oh Lor’!” Then he regains himself +and goes on with his narrative.</p> + +<p>“Captain Tim, you brought us from our country +where we had land and home. You made us +slaves. Now we are free, without country, land, +or home. Why don’t you give us a piece of this +land and let us build for ourselves an African +Town?”</p> + +<p>Kazoola relates Meaher’s reply very dramatically.</p> + +<p>“Thou fool! Thinkest thou I will give you +property upon property? You do not belong to +me now!”</p> + +<p>The Tarkars concluded to buy. When one +reached this conclusion, the others said: “If you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>are going to buy, we will too.” They bought +property from Meaher, who made them no concessions. +They worked and saved, going half +clad and living upon half rations. Though accustomed +in their own country to Nature’s luxuries, +they now lived on molasses and corn-bread +or mush (boiled corn-meal). The men worked in +the mills and their wives helped by planting +gardens and fruit trees and becoming venders of +fruit and vegetables. Their Tarkar home began +to be a chimera; day after day new ties pushed +it farther away.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_139" style="max-width:25em;"> + <img src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="Hand-drawn portrait of Olouala"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="right">Drawn by Emma Roche.</p> + <p class="center">Olouala.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Having no head of the tribe, and understanding +that in a country of different institutions a king +would be incongruous, they selected Charlee +(Orsey, in Tarkar), Gumpa (African Peter), and +Jaybee as judges to preside over the colony, to +arbitrate their differences, and direct their lives. +When disagreements came up, word would be +sent each member that there would be a meeting +at a certain place after dark—their only leisure +time—possibly at the home of one of the judges.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +<p>The offenders would be given a hearing before the +whole colony—each side would be weighed and +each reprimanded with a warning to “go and keep +the peace.” If they again broke it, or renewed +their disagreements, they were punished—Jaybee, +Gumpa, or Charlee administering a whipping to the +culprits. Of these judges, there lives to-day only +Charlee, who has passed the century mark and is<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +tottering on the brink of the grave. Yet the nine +surviving Tarkars, and each of these has seen his +three-score years and ten, look upon him as the +head, observe his admonitions, and never disobey +him. His face is one of the most kindly and he is +known among his people as never having disputed +or disagreed with any one. As old as they are, if +Charlee told them they could not do a thing, no +matter how strong the desire, they would not +disobey. The judges were not considered above +reproach. If any of the colony saw one of them +doing that which was wrong, he would be rebuked: +“We saw you do this thing. It is not right. How +do you expect us to do right if you do not show +us the way?”</p> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +<p>About ten years after the close of the Civil War, +when the South was still largely under carpetbag +régime, interest in elections was intense and the +outcome of vital importance to the community. +Opposing parties used almost any means at their +command to obtain votes. Meaher went among +the Tarkars, explaining the methods and significance +of voting and urging them to vote the +Democratic ticket. He was followed by some +Republicans who promised them great rewards. +They talked this new thing over among themselves +and concluded that by voting the Republican +ticket they would gain much good. On election +day, Olouala, Poleete, and Kazoola walked, one +behind the other (a Tarkar custom), to the polls +at Whistler. Meaher was there; he pointed them +out, “See those Africans? Don’t let them vote—they +are not of this country.” They were refused +so walked to McGuire’s, but Meaher who had +been watching them and knew their persistency, +had ridden ahead and forestalled them; they were +again refused. This only whetted their desire +and their determination, and they walked on down +St. Stephen’s Road to the next voting place.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +Arriving there, Meaher was just getting off his +horse. “Don’t let those Africans vote—they +have no right—they are not of this country.” +Defeated again, the three now wanted to vote so +badly, that they put their hands together, raised +them to the sky, and prayed God that He would +permit them to vote. Strengthened, they walked +on to Mobile and at the polls on St. Francis Street +told their experience. They were informed that +by paying one dollar they could vote. This they +did and received a paper which they still treasure. +It was their one experience in politics, and it was +satisfying for they accomplished what they had +set out to do, though the great promises never +materialized.</p> + +<p>Of the one hundred and sixteen Africans who +were brought to this country in the <i>Clotilde</i>, there +are only eight living: five women, Abaché (Clara +Turner), Monabee (Kitty Cooper), Shamber, +Kanko (who married Jim Dennison), and Zooma; +and three men, Poleete, Kazoola (Cudjoe +Lewis), and Olouala (Orsey Kan). Their Tarkar +names have been used in this narrative at +their request. They love them and with some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +pathos asked that they be used, because in some +way these names might drift back to their native +home, where some might remember them. This +small fragment gathers on Sundays after church +at the home of Poleete, Kazoola, or Abaché and +discuss among themselves the things pertaining +to their welfare, and they never part without +speaking of their African home and telling some +incident of that beloved place. Kazoola says he +often thinks that if he had wings he would fly +back; then he remembers that all he has lies in +American soil—the wife who came from his native +land, who was his helpmate and companion +through the many years, and all his children. It +was at some of these Sunday afternoon gatherings +that he made the parables about his wife, Albiné +(Celie), which are a solace to him in his sorrow +and loneliness. The Sunday after her death, the +Tarkars were sitting with Kazoola in his home. +He sat with head bowed down, grief-stricken, and +speaking no word. They said, “Lift up your +head, Kazoola, and speak with us.” Kazoola +lifted his head; “I will make a parable. Kazoola +and Albiné have gone to Mobile together. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +get on the train to go home and sit side by side. +The conductor comes along and says to Kazoola, +‘Where are you going to get off?’ and Kazoola +replies, ‘Mount Vernon.’ The conductor then +asks Albiné, ‘Where are you going to get off?’ +and she replies ‘Plateau.’<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Kazoola surprised, +turns to Albiné and asks, ‘Why, Albiné! How +is this? Why do you say you are going to get off +at Plateau?’ She answers, ‘I must get off.’ The +train stops and Albiné gets off. Kazoola stays on—he +is alone. But old Kazoola has not reached +Mount Vernon yet—he is still journeying on.”</p> + +<p>On the next Sunday they were again gathered +at Kazoola’s house; again he sat with bowed head, +and again they asked him to lift up his head and +make another parable.</p> + +<p>“Suppose Charlee comes to my house and wants +to go on to Poleete’s. He has an umbrella which +he leaves in my care. When he comes back he +asks for his umbrella—must I give it to him or +must I keep it?”</p> + +<p>The listening Tarkars cried out, “No, Kazoola! +You cannot keep it—it is not yours!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p> + +<p>And Kazoola answered, “Neither could I keep +Albiné; she was just left in my care.”<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>Kazoola never married again; he sees Albiné +everywhere about the house. Everything reminds +him of her. One day he was working in his +corn-patch, weeding out superfluous stalks. He +came to two growing together—the root of one +<ins class="corr" id="tn-07" title="Transcriber's Note—original text: interwined">intertwined</ins> with the other. He started to pull +one out, but something within told him to stop, +that thus had he and Albiné grown together and +one stalk could not be pulled up without hurting +the other. So he saved the two, giving them +especial care, and he was rewarded by each bearing +four ears of corn. These he was going to save +for seed and grieves that a cow should have gotten +in and destroyed them. The old man is cheerful—even +merry—possessing a keen sense of humor +and a lively imagination. To appreciate him +fully he must be surprised at his home. There +he will be found probably working in his garden<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +barefooted, trousers rolled up above his knees; +his costume clean but a marvelous piece of patchwork, +even the old derby upon his head a much +mended one. His patches need elicit no sympathy, +for patching is an accomplishment in which he +takes keen delight; even in the old days when his +Albiné was alive, she would wash his clothes and +lay them aside for him to patch during the evenings +when the day’s work was done.</p> + +<p>The Tarkars range in color from light to a very +dark brown. All bear upon their faces the Tarkar +tribal marks—two lines between the eyes and +three on the cheek. While quite distinct, these +marks are not disfiguring. Their teeth bear the +marks of family and of kinship and vary in each. +The process of marking the teeth was by pecking +with a stone implement. The lower corners of +Poleete’s two front teeth where they meet are +pecked off, forming a wedge-shaped opening like +an inverted V. When Kazoola’s teeth are closed, +on one side there is a circular opening which was +formed by cutting off parts of a half-dozen teeth. +Six of <ins class="corr" id="tn-08" title="Transcriber's Note—original text:Abache’s">Abaché’s</ins> upper front teeth are trimmed to +make a convex opening. The Tarkars differ in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +feature from the American negro; it is a subtle +difference but runs through the whole face. Their +heads differ structurally—the line from the forehead +to the chin is nearer straight. They have +more top head and there is a fullness indicating +plenty of intelligence—a possession they have +exhibited in their neat homes and thrifty lives. +Some of them have even learned to read; this was +taught them by their children who have profited +by the public schools. Poleete’s constant companion +is a small, much worn New Testament. +Their countenances naturally vary with their +temperaments. Abaché’s and Kazoola’s are as +open as a book—intensely emotional and capable +of expressing very deep feeling. None have +gotten over the shock of their early experience. +When these are referred to there comes into +Kazoola’s and Abaché’s faces unspeakable and +indescribable anguish. Poleete’s is like a mask, +unchanging, unscrutable, except for the eyes, +and these—small, deep-set, watchful—are almost +uncanny.</p> + +<p>Among themselves they speak the Tarkar language. +Their English is very broken and is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +always intelligible even to those who have lived +among them for many years. It has more the +sound of the dialect spoken by Italians than that +spoken by the negroes. They make almost constant +use of the “a” sound as a terminal—looka, +pulla, worka, etc. Their sentences are short and +vivid. The few words of old Gumpa, “My +people sold me and your people bought me,” +accompanied by his expression, told his whole +history.</p> + +<p>They are extremely clean both about their +persons and their homes, and one of their strongest +objections to the average American negro is uncleanliness. +Abaché parts her hair in the middle +and combs it neatly back. She uses face powder, +because it is refreshing and leaves a cleanly feeling. +The other women are very old and feeble, except +Kanko who, though old, works as a man. Her +especial occupation is the breeding and raising of +a fine strain of hogs. The Tarkars are very considerate +of each other, and their intercourse is +marked by kindness, charity, and harmony.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_151" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="Hand-drawn portrait of Charlee"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="right">Drawn by Emma Roche.</p> + <p class="center">Charlee, Head of the Tarkars.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In strong contrast to the Tarkars is old Zooma, +who is possibly the last Tarkbar. Rendered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>almost helpless by a century and more of years +and many pounds of superfluous flesh, she sits for +the most part silent and brooding in her squalid +hut. If near the door or window there are no +softening shadows, and the light reveals all her +fat, brutal old ugliness—an ugliness, accentuated +by disfiguring tribal marks—three deep gashes +meeting at the bridge of the nose, and running +diagonally across each cheek. Her underlip hangs +away as if it had been subjected in her native land +to some kind of African beautifying process. Her +hair is white and the skin of her hands and feet +wrinkled, resembling in texture that of an elephant, +and bearing the curious gray color seen in the +complexions of very old negroes. It is almost +impossible to understand her broken phrases, but +a daughter acts as interpreter. Brooding, she is +pathetic; aroused and speaking of home she is +tragic. She has in common with the Tarkars the +same pitiful history and the same despair, without +their resignation. For each and all, Heaven could +hold no promise so rapturous as just one last +vision of home. Such a vision that comes as they +sit together, which bows their old heads, lays<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +silent fingers upon their lips, and speaks to their +aching hearts of perpetual summer, fertile lands, +abundance of fruit—of youth, plenty, and peace—their +Land of Long Ago.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br> +<br> +<span class="fs80">IMPRESSIONS OF ALABAMA IN 1846<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<p>The trip of Lafayette through this country in +the twenties was more or less spectacular, and the +places he visited are to-day pointed out as historic, +yet only twenty years later Lyell, whose name will +go down the ages linked with Goethe, Lamarck, +and Darwin, covered much the same ground, and +it is only in scientific works that one is reminded +of the fact. In recent reading, after meeting with +several references to his stay in Alabama, I became +interested, and it was with intense delight +that I was carried back and saw our own section +through the eyes of that wonderful observer and +thinker. All awe of Charles Lyell, scientist and +arch-destroyer of the anthropocentric idea which +for so many centuries fettered the world of thought, +was at once dispelled, for there was that in his +charming geniality that makes the “whole world<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +kin”—even a Charles Lyell and the pine-woods +squatter, whose hospitality he often accepted +when on geologic excursions.</p> + +<p>Lyell made two trips to the United States—the +first in 1841-42, which furnished material for his +<cite>Travels in North America</cite>. He came as far south +as Savannah. His <cite>Travels in the United States</cite> is +the record of his second visit, when Georgia, +Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana formed a +part of his itinerary. Aside from the geologic +importance of these two works, there could scarcely +be a more faithful portrayal of American manners, +customs, and peculiarities. They were largely +instrumental in ameliorating British animosity +by giving the English a better and kindlier understanding +of Americans. At the time of their +publication, they naturally found in this country +a circulation only among the few, and are now rare +books. His observations on the social conditions +that made the South unique and that have been +obliterated during the lapse of a half century are +deeply interesting to the student of to-day.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_157" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_157.jpg" alt="Picture of Kazoola"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center">Kazoola.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>On January 15, 1846, we find Lyell and his wife +entering Macon, Georgia, by train. His eye was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>immediately attracted by “a wooden edifice of +very peculiar structure and picturesque form, +crowning one of the hills.” Learning that it was +a blockhouse that had been in real service as a +fort against Indians only twenty-five years before, +when this frontier knew not the white man’s +habitat, it was with a mixed feeling of amusement +and incongruity that he received the information +that a conspicuous building nearby was a “female +seminary, lately established by the Methodists, +where all young ladies take degrees.”</p> + +<p>From Macon to Columbus, Georgia, he had his +first experience in a Southern stage-coach which, +while novel, must have proved far from comfortable, +for he did not forget to record the jolts caused +by miserable roads and reckless driving. Leaving +Columbus he was soon in the undulating pine-lands +of Alabama, the monotony of which was +frequently broken by swamps of palmetto and +magnolia. The spirit of the pines must have sung +to him, too, for the “sound of the wind in the +boughs of the long-leaved pine” always reminded +him of the “waves breaking on a distant shore, and +it was agreeable to hear it swelling gradually, then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +dying away as the breeze rose and fell.” Near +Chehaw, the stage stopped at a log cabin in the +woods for the passengers to dine. It did not look +promising, and Lyell was ready to “put up with +bad fare,” but on entering found on the table +“a wild turkey roasted, venison steaks, and a +partridge-pie, all the product of the neighboring +forest.” Noticing the stumps of many pines, he +counted the rings of annual growth to ascertain +how long it would take to replace such a forest. +The oldest tree that he examined measured four +feet in diameter at three feet above the base, and +showed three hundred and twenty rings. He also +found the ravines that are common throughout +Southern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to +be of recent formation and caused by deforestation, +showing the tertiary regions and also part +of the cretaceous strata which have “always been +as destructible as now” to have been from the +beginning covered with dense forests. Where +the trees have been cut, the sun’s heat on the clay +often causes cracks, and when the rains come in +semi-tropical torrents these deepen until such +ravines as are familiar to Mobilians about Spring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> +Hill are the result—only they are of more rapid +growth.</p> + +<p>At Chehaw they took train for Montgomery. +Even at that early time, and in a region “where +the schoolmaster has not been much abroad,” +we meet the prototype of the newsboy of to-day; +Lyell’s picture of him unconcernedly jumping +on and off moving trains is the “butcher-boy” +we all know. One boy was calling out in the midst +of a pine-barren, “a novel by Paul de Kock—the +Bulwer of France—all the go!—more popular +than the Wandering Jew.” Lyell, having bought +newspapers promiscuously throughout the many +States he visited, found our press to be in every +way on an equal with that of Great Britain. A +large portion of the papers was “devoted to literary +extracts, to novels, travels, tales, and often more +serious subjects.”</p> + +<p>Reaching Montgomery, he remained there a +few days examining the geologic formations and +remains of that region. It was his intention to +go directly to Tuscaloosa, only one hundred miles +distant by land, but every one advised him that +he would at that season save both time and money<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +by taking an eight hundred mile trip down the +Alabama River by boat to Mobile, and up again +on the Tombigbee. The <i>Amaranth</i> was scheduled +to leave at ten o’clock, January 28, 1846. Accustomed +to Northern punctuality, they went +down on time, and learned with some annoyance +that she might not sail until the next day. It was +his first sight of our “magnificent Southern river +boats.” He and Mrs. Lyell made up their minds +to look on it as “their inn and read and write +there” and were soon enjoying “its luxuries which +Southern manners and a hot climate require.” +He describes very fully the peculiar construction +which adapts the boats to rivers which rise and +fall rapidly. When recording that some of them +could float in two feet of water, he adds, “but +they cannot quite realize the boast of a western +captain, that he could sail wherever it was damp.”</p> + +<p>It would be too much to write in detail of all +the things which interested Lyell, for nothing seems +to have escaped him. At each landing, however, +he collected many cretaceous fossils, so concluded +to stop a few days at Claiborne, whose bluff had +long been known to geologists as “classic ground,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +having already yielded four hundred species of +tertiary shells, belonging to the Eocene formation. +He notes, too, the finding of a fossil zeuglodon +in the same cliff by Mr. Hale of Mobile. +“The morning after our arrival, January 29th, the +thermometer stood at eighty degrees F. in the +shade, and the air was as balmy as an English +summer day. Before the house stood a row of +Pride-of-India trees ladened with bunches of +yellow berries. I had often been told by the +negroes that the American robin ‘got drunk’ on +this fruit, and we now had an opportunity of +witnessing its narcotic properties; for we saw some +children playing with one of these birds before the +house, having caught it after it had eaten freely +of these berries. My wife, seeing that the robin +was in no small danger of perishing, bought it of +the children for some sugar-plums, and it soon +revived in our room, and flew out of the window. +In the evening we enjoyed a sight of one of those +glorious sunsets, the beauty of which in these +latitudes is so striking, when the clouds and sky +are lighted up with streaks of brilliant yellow, red, +and green, which, if a painter should represent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +faithfully, might seem as exaggerated and gaudy +as the colors of an American forest in autumn +when compared with European woods.”</p> + +<p>He crossed the river to visit the Blounts at +Woodlawn. Leaving his wife with Mrs. Blount, +he went with Mr. Blount by carriage to Clarksville, +where the enormous fossil zeuglodons had +been found. “The district we passed through +was situated in the fork of the Alabama and Tombeckbee +rivers, where the aboriginal forest was +only broken here and there by a few clearings. +At Macon my attention was forcibly called to +the newness of things by my friend’s pointing out +to me the ground where there had been a bloody +fight with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and how +the clerk of the Circuit Court was the last survivor +of those who had won the battle.” The +Indian paths, still tractable through the forests +near Tuscaloosa, awakened the same feeling. On +his return he and his wife crossed to Claiborne +to await the Mobile steamer, and he expresses his +pleasure at finding it, the <i>Amaranth</i>, commanded +by his “old friend Captain Bragdon.”</p> + +<p>Reaching Mobile, the Tuscaloosa steamer was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> +ready to start, so they were soon northward +bound on the Tombeckbee, then so high “that the +trees of both banks seemed to be growing in a +lake.” Arriving at Tuscaloosa where there was a +“flourishing college” he was met by Mr. Brumley, +the professor of chemistry who at once conducted +him to the outlying coal-fields. He found the +coal, even of the strata exposed to the surface to +be “excellent quality and highly bituminous.” +Here there is a bit of justification in Huxley’s +criticism of Lyell’s aversion “to look beyond the +veil of stratified rocks,” for while he notes with +seeming satisfaction the imprints of the fossil +plants in the black shale to be exactly the same as +those existing in the “ancient coal-measures of +Europe and America,” there is no foreshadowing +of the explanation given by recent geology and +astronomy, that even as late as the early carboniferous +era, there were no seasons, the earth being +wrapped in a uniform, vaporous warmth greater +than the heat now existing in the tropics; a heat +which came not from the sun, but the earth itself. +One proof lies in the fact that irrespective of latitude, +the same organic remains are found—their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +nearest of kin of to-day living only in the tropics; +also that there are no rings of annual growth in +carboniferous tree-life.</p> + +<p>Lyell and Professor Brumley extending their +wanderings, “entered about thirty-three miles +northeast of Tuscaloosa a region called Rooke’s +Valley, where rich beds of iron-stone and lime-stone +bid fair, by their proximity to the coal, to +become one day a source of great mineral wealth.” +He was not only indebted to Professor Brumley +for much scientific information, but also to Mr. +Bernard, the teacher of astronomy, who showed +him some “double stars and constellations not +visible in England,”—the telescope a recent acquisition +from London. Mrs. Lyell also made many +friends in Tuscaloosa, among them two ladies +who were reading as a “pastime Goethe and +Schiller in the original.”</p> + +<p>From Tuscaloosa to Mobile Lyell had splendid +chances of studying the geological character of +the country, and he frequently expresses appreciation +of the courtesy and assistance always given +him throughout Alabama, contrasting it with the +“ignorant wonder” the fossil hunter inspires in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>unfrequented districts of England, France, and +Italy. He was anxious to examine the calcareous +bluff at St. Stephen’s. Night fell before they +reached it, but Captain Lavargy stopped, said he +could take on wood, gave him a boat and two +negroes bearing pine torches, thus making it +possible for him to thoroughly explore the whole +cliff and find many fossils.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_167" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img src="images/i_167.jpg" alt="Picture of Zooma sitting on steps with three kids"> + <figcaption class="caption"> + <p class="center">Zooma, the Last Tarkbar.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Mobile again claims him on February 21, 1846, +and flaunts her spring forwardness by touches of +green on the cypress and cotton trees, and scarlet +seed-vessels on the rubra. “In the gardens there +were jonquils and snow-drops in flower, and for +the first time, we saw that beautiful evergreen, the +yellow-jessamine, in full bloom, trailed along the +wall of Dr. Hamilton’s house.” Anxious for his +first sight of the Gulf of Mexico, he drove with +Dr. Hamilton, the Presbyterian minister, to the +light-house (situated on Choctaw Point and washed +away by the storm of 1852), and, from the tower +had a “splendid view of the city to the North, and +to the South the noble bay of Mobile, fourteen +miles across.” He then went to the bay which +lay “smooth and unruffled, the woods coming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +down everywhere to its edge.” He noted the +immense amount of driftwood, dug up bivalve-shelled +gnathodons that live in our mud-banks, +and that will in future ages indicate the position +of our rivers. He found Mobile to be built upon +a deposit of these shells, the stratification of +which proved that it had been thrown up by the +waves. Our delta, in the soft mud of which +cattle are frequently mired and which receives +carcasses washed down by the rivers and thrown +up by the sea, exemplifies the formation of such +regions as the Fayûm of Egypt—the elephant’s +ancestral home—now covered by desert sands, +but which is each day yielding priceless treasure +to the paleontologist.</p> + +<p>On February 23d, the <i>James L. Day</i>, bound for +New Orleans, “sailed out of the beautiful bay of +Mobile in the evening,” carrying aboard Charles +Lyell and his wife.</p> + +<p>At the time of Lyell’s visit, Alabama lay struggling +in the grasp of that spirit of unrest which from +the most remote antiquity as often obsessed people +of the Aryan race, calling them ever westwards +towards the setting sun. Everywhere he met<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +“movers”—Texas masking as the Promised Land, +beckoning to the cultured as to the ignorant. +Adventure prompted many, others knew not why +they were going, some were “eaten out by their +negroes,” and one informant said: “If we remain +here, we are reduced to the alternative of high +taxes to pay the interest of money so improvidently +borrowed from England, or to suffer the +disgrace of repudiation, which would be doubly +shameful, because the money was received in hard +cash, and lent out, often rashly by the State to +farmers for agricultural improvements. Besides, +all the expenses of the Government were in reality +defrayed during several years by borrowed money +and the burthen of the debt thrown on posterity. +The facility with which your English capitalists, +in 1821, lent their cash to a State from which the +Indians were not yet expelled without reflecting +on the migratory nature of the white population +is astonishing. The planters, who got the grants +of your money and spent it, have nearly all of them +moved off and settled beyond the Mississippi.” +But Lyell had faith in Alabama’s natural resources, +which he felt were so great that only a moderate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> +amount of economy would be necessary to surmount +all embarrassments.</p> + +<p>Texas and the probability of war with England +over the Oregon Question were topics discussed +on every hand. Lyell would hear the English +adversely criticized and such boasts as “we have +whipped them twice, and should whip them a +third time,” but where his nationality was known, +he says, “never once were any speeches, uncourteous +in their tone towards my country, uttered +in my hearing.”</p> + +<p>On his geologizing trips, which would have oftentimes +been hard on any one not riding his own +hobby, he was forced to stop where night overtook +him, so that even the habits of the “crackers” +became familiar to him. “In many houses I +hesitated to ask for water or towels, for fear of +giving offense ... nor could I venture to ask +any one to rub a thick coat of mud off my trousers, +lest I should be thought to reflect on members of +the family, who had no idea of indulging in such +luxuries themselves. I felt the want of a private +bed-room, but very soon came to regard it as a +privilege to be allowed even a bed to myself.” In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +his wanderings, he also met “clay-eaters”<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>—a people +curious in their cravings for certain kinds of +clay. Their peculiar green complexion indicating +anemia, which usually terminates in dropsy, was +formerly considered a sequence to the gratification +of this abnormal appetite, but is now supposed to +be a result of a pathogenic parasite found in the +small intestine.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> The type is still a most familiar +one in the hill-country just west of Mobile.</p> + +<p>When dubious about safety from highwaymen, +Lyell was assured that in the South this class +was unknown; the working class being the slave +class there was no poor made desperate by want. +And that the Texas wars had relieved the different +communities of their dare-devil spirits.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span></p> + +<p>Lyell was often amused and astonished at the +Southerner’s loyal support of an ultra-Democratic +notion of white equality, which in practice must +have been thoroughly uncongenial to all classes +concerned. He visited a lawyer at his country +home—the family a cultivated one, used to the +best society of a large city—but the host regarded +it as an obligation to invite Lyell’s driver, who +was half Indian, to sit down to the table with +them. Perhaps a consciousness that this boasted +equality was more or less fictitious may have been +responsible for the vindictive envy which flourished +in the midst of this “aristocratic democracy.” +A jealousy so intense that a gentleman growing +rich and settling in a quiet part of the country +was apt to have his fences pulled down, cattle +turned out to roam, and other indignities perpetrated. +Many anecdotes of the genuineness and +prevalence of this feeling were told to Lyell. The +daughter of a member of the Legislature visited +Mobile, had a dress made with flounces according +to the latest fashion, and on her return home wore +it to a ball. At the next election her father was +defeated, and on asking a former supporter the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +cause received the reply, “Do you think they +would vote for you, after your daughter came to +the ball in them fixings?”</p> + +<p>Lyell found drunkenness very common, yet +heard many speak of the great temperance reform, +it being no longer considered an insult to refuse +to drink with one’s host. While he saw no cruelty +to slaves, he felt that when drunkenness was so +general among the owners their power might +often be an abusive one. He states that it was +not the object of his visit to study slavery, but +his interesting observations would fill a chapter +and are characterized by a keenness and fairness +which make them very valuable. The stories told +him by disgruntled and misinformed Northerners +had prepared him for blood-curdling atrocities, +but throughout Alabama he saw the negro in +many phases: in his churches, about his pleasures, +and at his occupations that ranged from farmhand +to mechanic; in the slave-market, as the +indulged domestic, and as the faithful and cheerful +follower of his master into new and unknown +regions; and on no occasion had he reason to +suspect maltreatment. When speaking to a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +Northern man of his favorable impressions, he +was told that “great pains had been taken by the +planters to conceal the true state of things”—that +he had been “propitiated by hospitable +attentions.” Lyell found his own experience +corroborated in a <cite>Tradesman’s Journal</cite>, written +by William Thompson, a Scotch weaver, who +supported himself by his trade as he journeyed +through the South.</p> + +<p>After seeing what contact with the whites had +done for the negro, Lyell entertained very sanguine +hopes of the race’s intellectual and moral possibilities, +and was impatient of what seemed to him +unjust laws which restricted the black educationally +and politically. His two-sided attitude is a bit +disarming, but is explained by himself. “We are +often thrown into opposite states of mind and +feeling, according as the interest of the white or +negro happens, for the moment, to claim our sympathy.” +But the following words embody an +unbiased and a beautiful tribute to the influence of +the Southerners: “In spite of prejudice and fear, +and in defiance of stringent laws enacted against +education, three million of a more enlightened and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> +progressive race are brought into contact with an +equal number of laborers lately in a savage +state, and taken from a continent where the +natives have proved themselves, for many +thousand years, to be singularly unprogressive. +Already their taskmasters have taught them +to speak, with more or less accuracy, one +of the noblest of languages, to shake off +many old superstitions, to acquire higher ideals +of morality, and habits of neatness and cleanliness, +and have converted thousands of them +to Christianity. Many they have emancipated, +and the rest are gradually approaching to the +condition of the ancient serfs of Europe half +a century or more before their bondage died +out.</p> + +<p>“All this has been done at an enormous sacrifice +of time and money; an expense, indeed, which all +the Governments of Europe and all the Christian +missionaries, whether Romanist or Protestant, +could never have effected in five centuries. Even +in the few States which I have already visited +since I crossed the Potomac, several hundred +thousand whites of all ages, among whom the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +children are playing by no means the least effective +part, are devoting themselves with greater +or less activity to these involuntary educational +exertions.”</p> + + +<p class="center p6">THE END</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <cite>Reprinted from “South Atlantic Quarterly,” July, 1908.</cite></p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Smith’s <cite>Historie of Virginia</cite>.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> “Their features are recorded by their ancient enemies, never +by themselves, Egyptian kings, who from earliest times of +antiquity, came often into collision with the blacks, and had +them figured as defeated enemies, as prisoners of war, and as subject +nations bringing tribute. Their grotesque features, so much +differing from the Egyptian type, made them a favorite subject +for sculptural supports of thrones, chairs, vases, etc.; or painted +under the soles of sandals, of which instances abound in museums +as well as in the larger works on Egypt.... The other artistical +nations of antiquity knew little of the negro race. They did not +come before Solomon’s epoch into immediate and constant contact +with it. We see soon after, however, a negro in an Assyrian +battle scene of the time of Sargon, at Korsabad. He might have +been exported from Memphis by Phœnician slave-dealers to +Asia, where he fell fighting for his master against the Assyrians.... +On the remarkable relief of the tomb of Darius Hystaspes, at +Persepolis, we have the negro as a representative of Africa. +The Greeks seldom drew the blacks; still, on beautiful vases of +the British Museum, we meet with the well known negro features +in a battle scene. Another such vase with the representation of +Hercules slaying negroes has been published by Mecali. Etruscan +potters, who liked to draw Oriental types, molded vases in +the shape of a negro head and coupled it sometimes with the head +of white males or females. The British Museum contains +several of these very characteristic utensils.... We possess +effigies of negroes drawn by six different nations of antiquity: +Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, +from about the eighteenth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> to the first centuries of +our era, which all speak for the unalterable constancy of the +negro type such as in our day.”—Nott and Gliddon’s <cite>Indigenous +Races of the Earth</cite>.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Lecky, <cite>Rationalism in Europe</cite>.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Ranke, <cite>History of the Popes</cite>.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Dean Farrar.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Heylyn’s <cite>Cosmographie</cite>, 1657.</p> + + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> “You may observe, by my proclamation, that I offer freedom +to the blacks of all rebels that join me, in consequence of which +there are between two and three hundred already come in, and +those I form into corps as fast as they come in, giving them white +officers and non-commissions in proportion.”—Letter from Lord +Dunmore to General Howe, dated Williamsburg, Va., Nov. 30, +1775.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> <cite>Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.</cite></p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Jefferson’s observations to Meunier.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Hamilton’s <i>Colonial Mobile</i>.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> United States Statutes at Large.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> “The Reverend Mr. Coffin of New England who is now here +soliciting donations for a college in Green County, in Tennessee, +tells me that when he first determined to engage in this enterprise, +he wrote a paper recommendatory of the enterprise, which he +meant to get signed by clergymen, and a similar one for persons +in a civil character, at the head of which he wished Mr. Adams +to put his name, he being then President, and the application +going only for his name and not a donation. Mr. Adams, after +reading the paper and considering, said, He saw no possibility +of continuing the union of the States; that their dissolution must +necessarily take place; that he therefore saw no propriety in +recommending to New England men to promote a literary institution +in the South; that it was in fact giving strength to those +who were to be their enemies; and therefore he would have +nothing to do with it.”—Thomas Jefferson, <cite>The Anas</cite>, Dec. 13, +1803.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> United States Statutes at Large.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> <cite>North American Review</cite>, February, 1824.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> Right of Search, Daniel Webster.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> <cite>Journal de Commercio</cite>, Rio, May 26, 1856.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> <cite>Mobile Register</cite>, December, 1858.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Heylyn’s <cite>Cosmographie</cite>, 1657.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> <cite>Narrative of Kazoola.</cite></p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> The <i>R. B. Tainey</i> was owned by the Meahers, and is described +in advertisements of that time as a “new, elegant, and light-weight +summer packet; Captain Jim Meaher. Side-wheeler, drawing +eight inches of water with elegant and spacious staterooms and +large well-ventilated cabins, carrying one hundred and fifty +passengers.” She had been named for Chief Justice Tainey +who had handed down the famous Dred Scott decision.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> These meetings probably account for the reports which have +been recurrent that the Tarkars met secretly and practiced +barbaric rites.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Charlee too has recently passed away, 1914.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Mount Vernon is some miles beyond Plateau.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> When Albiné first came to America she was very fat and +refused to eat except just enough to keep her alive. When she +grew to have confidence in the whites, she confided to Mrs. +Foster, “Albiné not eat when she first come to America, because +Albiné know she fat an’ did not want white people to eat her.”</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Reprinted from <cite>South Atlantic Quarterly</cite>, July, 1908.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> There is very little literature +about this class which is found +in many parts of the world, and even that consists mostly of +references to them by travelers and ethnologists. The fullest +account with which I am familiar is an article by my uncle, the +late Frank L. James, Ph.D., M.D., “The Geophagi, or Dirt +Eaters,” which appeared in the <cite>National Druggist</cite>, of March, +1900. Microscopic examinations made by him of the “dirt” +used by our Alabama, Georgia, and Carolina geophagians showed +it to be a ferruginous argilla about ten per cent. diatomaceous. +The “dirt eaters” of the various countries do not eat any kind +of clay, but uniformly affect an argillaceous substance, containing +more or less infusorial matter.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Since the first publication of this article, +hookworm investigations and treatment have become common +in all infected districts of the South.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p><strong>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</strong></p> +<p><a href="#tn-01">Illustrations Index</a>: “Eko, Budigree, Abaché, Whydah” changed to “Eko, Budigree, Adaché, Whydah”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-02">Illustrations Index</a>: Description of “Zooma, The Last Tarkbar” moved to “Map Drawn by Kazoola”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-03">Page 16</a>: “with that bruitishness which” changed to “with that brutishness which”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-04">Page 35</a>: “Whereever there was a priest” changed to “Wherever there was a priest”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-05">Page 69</a>: “drop from us at the table” changed to “drop from us at the table.”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-06">Page 75</a>: “prowess to the Turkish Janizaries” changed to “prowess to the Turkish Janizaries.”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-07">Page 123</a>: “root of one interwined with” changed to “root of one intertwined with”</p> +<p><a href="#tn-08">Page 124</a>: “Six of Abache’s upper front” changed to “Six of Abaché’s upper front”</p> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77013 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/77013-h/images/cover.jpg b/77013-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b935afb --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_001.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..132d158 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_001.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_083.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_083.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3101763 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_083.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_091.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_091.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d795fec --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_091.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_103.png b/77013-h/images/i_103.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e3400f --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_103.png diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_113.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_113.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8acee6 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_113.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_121.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_121.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdf7dd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_121.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_129.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_129.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..831d04a --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_129.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_139.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_139.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d60193 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_139.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_151.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_151.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd09b69 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_151.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_157.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_157.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb59ae0 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_157.jpg diff --git a/77013-h/images/i_167.jpg b/77013-h/images/i_167.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..05f3185 --- /dev/null +++ b/77013-h/images/i_167.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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