A SOCIAL HISTORYOF THEAmerican Negro BEINGA HISTORY OF THE NEGRO PROBLEMIN THE UNITED STATES INCLUDINGA HISTORY AND STUDY OF THEREPUBLIC OF LIBERIA by BENJAMIN BRAWLEY1921 TO THE MEMORY OFNORWOOD PENROSE HALLOWELL PATRIOT1839-1914 * * * * * _These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off_. Norwood Penrose Hallowell was born in Philadelphia April 13, 1839. Heinherited the tradition of the Quakers and grew to manhood in astrong anti-slavery atmosphere. The home of his father, Morris L. Hallowell--the "House called Beautiful, " in the phrase of Oliver WendellHolmes--was a haven of rest and refreshment for wounded soldiers of theUnion Army, and hither also, after the assault upon him in the Senate, Charles Sumner had come for succor and peace. Three brothers in oneway or another served the cause of the Union, one of them, EdwardN. Hallowell, succeeding Robert Gould Shaw in the Command of theFifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. Norwood PenroseHallowell himself, a natural leader of men, was Harvard class orator in1861; twenty-five years later he was the marshal of his class; and in1896 he delivered the Memorial Day address in Sanders Theater. Enteringthe Union Army with promptness in April, 1861, he served first inthe New England Guards, then as First Lieutenant in the TwentiethMassachusetts, won a Captain's commission in November, and within thenext year took part in numerous engagements, being wounded at Glendaleand even more severely at Antietam. On April 17, 1863, he becameLieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, and on May 30Colonel of the newly organized Fifty-Fifth. Serving in the investmentof Fort Wagner, he was one of the first to enter the fort after itsevacuation. His wounds ultimately forced him to resign his commission, and in November, 1863, he retired from the service. He engaged inbusiness in New York, but after a few years removed to Boston, where hebecame eminent for his public spirit. He was one of God's noblemen, andto the last he preserved his faith in the Negro whom he had been amongthe first to lead toward the full heritage of American citizenship. Hedied April 11, 1914. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE COMING OF NEGROES TO AMERICA1. African Origins2. The Negro in Spanish Exploration3. Development of the Slave-Trade4. Planting of Slavery in the Colonies5. The Wake of the Slave-Ship CHAPTER II THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES1. Servitude and Slavery2. The Indian, the Mulatto, and the Free Negro3. First Effort toward Social Betterment4. Early Insurrections CHAPTER III THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA1. Sentiment in England and America2. The Negro in the War3. The Northwest Territory and the Constitution4. Early Steps toward Abolition5. Beginning of Racial Consciousness CHAPTER IV THE NEW WEST, THE SOUTH, AND THE WEST INDIES1. The Cotton-Gin, the New Southwest, and the First Fugitive Slave Law2. Toussaint L'Ouverture, Louisiana, and the Formal Closing of the Slave-Trade3. Gabriel's Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem CHAPTER V INDIAN AND NEGRO1. Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 18122. First Seminole War and the Treaties of Indian Spring and Fort Moultrie3. From the Treaty of Fort Moultrie to the Treaty of Payne's Landing4. Osceola and the Second Seminole War CHAPTER VI EARLY APPROACH TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM1. The Ultimate Problem and the Missouri Compromise2. Colonization3. Slavery CHAPTER VII THE NEGRO REPLY--I: REVOLT1. Denmark Vesey's Insurrection2. Nat Turner's Insurrection3. The _Amistad_ and _Creole_ Cases CHAPTER VIII THE NEGRO REPLY--II: ORGANIZATION AND AGITATION1. Walker's "Appeal"2. The Convention Movement3. Sojourner Truth and Woman Suffrage CHAPTER IX LIBERIA1. The Place and the People2. History (a) Colonization and Settlement (b) The Commonwealth of Liberia (c) The Republic of Liberia3. International Relations4. Economic and Social Conditions CHAPTER X THE NEGRO A NATIONAL ISSUE1. Current Tendencies2. The Challenge of the Abolitionists3. The Contest CHAPTER XI SOCIAL PROGRESS, 1820-1860 CHAPTER XII THE CIVIL WAR AND EMANCIPATION CHAPTER XIII THE ERA OF ENFRANCHISEMENT1. The Problem2. Meeting the Problem3. Reaction: The Ku-Klux Klan4. Counter-Reaction: The Negro Exodus5. A Postscript on the War and Reconstruction CHAPTER XIV THE NEGRO IN THE NEW SOUTH1. Political Life: Disfranchisement2. Economic Life: Peonage3. Social Life: Proscription, Lynching CHAPTER XV "THE VALE OF TEARS, " 1890-19101. Current Opinion and Tendencies2. Industrial Education: Booker T. Washington3. Individual Achievement: The Spanish-American War4. Mob Violence; Election Troubles; The Atlanta Massacre5. The Question of Labor6. Defamation; Brownsville7. The Dawn of a To-morrow CHAPTER XVI THE NEGRO IN THE NEW AGE1. Character of the Period2. Migration; East St. Louis3. The Great War4. High Tension: Washington, Chicago, Elaine5. The Widening Problem CHAPTER XVII THE NEGRO PROBLEM1. World Aspect2. The Negro in American Life3. Face to Face PREFACE In the following pages an effort is made to give fresh treatment to thehistory of the Negro people in the United States, and to present thisfrom a distinct point of view, the social. It is now forty years sinceGeorge W. Williams completed his _History of the Negro Race in America_, and while there have been many brilliant studies of periods or episodessince that important work appeared, no one book has again attempted totreat the subject comprehensively, and meanwhile the race has passedthrough some of its most critical years in America. The more outstandingpolitical phases of the subject, especially in the period before theCivil War, have been frequently considered; and in any account ofthe Negro people themselves the emphasis has almost always been uponpolitical and military features. Williams emphasizes this point of view, and his study of legal aspects is not likely soon to be superseded. Anoteworthy point about the history of the Negro, however, is that lawson the statute-books have not necessarily been regarded, public opinionand sentiment almost always insisting on being considered. It isnecessary accordingly to study the actual life of the Negro people initself and in connection with that of the nation, and something likethis the present work endeavors to do. It thus becomes not only a SocialHistory of the race, but also the first formal effort toward a Historyof the Negro Problem in America. With this aim in mind, in view of the enormous amount of material, we have found it necessary to confine ourselves within very definitelimits. A thorough study of all the questions relating to the Negro inthe United States would fill volumes, for sooner or later it would touchupon all the great problems of American life. No attempt is made toperform such a task; rather is it intended to fix attention upon therace itself as definitely as possible. Even with this limitation thereare some topics that might be treated at length, but that have alreadybeen studied so thoroughly that no very great modification is now likelyto be made of the results obtained. Such are many of the questionsrevolving around the general subject of slavery. Wars are studied not somuch to take note of the achievement of Negro soldiers, vital as thatis, as to record the effect of these events on the life of the greatbody of people. Both wars and slavery thus become not more thanincidents in the history of the ultimate problem. In view of what has been said, it is natural that the method oftreatment should vary with the different chapters. Sometimes it isgeneral, as when we touch upon the highways of American history. Sometimes it is intensive, as in the consideration of insurrections andearly effort for social progress; and Liberia, as a distinct and muchcriticized experiment in government by American Negroes, receives veryspecial attention. For the first time also an effort is now made totreat consecutively the life of the Negro people in America for the lastfifty years. This work is the result of studies on which I have been engaged fora number of years and which have already seen some light in _A ShortHistory of the American Negro_ and _The Negro in Literature and Art_;and acquaintance with the elementary facts contained in such books asthese is in the present work very largely taken for granted. I feelunder a special debt of gratitude to the New York State ColonizationSociety, which, coöperating with the American Colonization Society andthe Board of Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia, in 1920gave me opportunity for some study at first hand of educational andsocial conditions on the West Coast of Africa; and most of all do Iremember the courtesy and helpfulness of Dr. E. C. Sage and Dr. J. H. Dillard in this connection. In general I have worked independentlyof Williams, but any student of the subject must be grateful to thatpioneer, as well as to Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, who has made contributions inso many ways. My obligations to such scholarly dissertations as thoseby Turner and Russell are manifest, while to Mary Stoughton Locke's_Anti-Slavery in America_--a model monograph--I feel indebted more thanto any other thesis. Within the last few years, of course, the _Crisis_, the _Journal of Negro History_, and the _Negro Year-Book_ have in theirspecial fields become indispensable, and to Dr. Carter G. Woodson andProfessor M. N. Work much credit is due for the faith which has promptedtheir respective ventures. I take this occasion also to thank ProfessorW. E. Dodd, of the University of Chicago, who from the time of myentrance upon this field has generously placed at my disposal hisunrivaled knowledge of the history of the South; and as always I mustbe grateful to my father, Rev. E. M. Brawley, for that stimulation andcriticism which all my life have been most valuable to me. Finally, thework has been dedicated to the memory of a distinguished soldier, who, in his youth, in the nation's darkest hour, helped to lead a strugglingpeople to freedom and his country to victory. It is now submitted to theconsideration of all who are interested in the nation's problems, andindeed in any effort that tries to keep in mind the highest welfare ofthe country itself. BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. Cambridge, January 1, 1921. SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO CHAPTER I THE COMING OF NEGROES TO AMERICA 1. _African Origins_ An outstanding characteristic of recent years has been an increasingrecognition of the cultural importance of Africa to the world. From allthat has been written three facts are prominent: (1) That at some timeearly in the Middle Ages, perhaps about the seventh century, there wasa considerable infiltration of Arabian culture into the tribes livingbelow the Sahara, something of which may to-day most easily be seenamong such people as the Haussas in the Soudan and the Mandingoes alongthe West Coast; (2) That, whatever influences came in from the outside, there developed in Africa an independent culture which must not beunderestimated; and (3) That, perhaps vastly more than has beensupposed, this African culture had to do with early exploration andcolonization in America. The first of these three facts is veryimportant, but is now generally accepted and need not here detain us. For the present purpose the second and third demand more attention. The development of native African art is a theme of never-endingfascination for the ethnologist. Especially have striking resemblancesbetween Negro and Oceanian culture been pointed out. In politicalorganization as well as certain forms of artistic endeavor the Negropeople have achieved creditable results, and especially have they beenhonored as the originators of the iron technique. [1] It has further beenshown that fetichism, which is especially well developed along theWest Coast and its hinterland, is at heart not very different from themanitou beliefs of the American Indians; and it is this connection thatfurnishes the key to some of the most striking results of the researchesof the latest and most profound student of this and related problems. [2] [Footnote 1: Note article "Africa" in _New International Encyclopedia_, referring especially to the studies of Von Luschan. ] [Footnote 2: Leo Wiener: _Africa and the Discovery of America_, Vol. I, Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, 1920. ] From the Soudan radiated a culture that was destined to affect Europeand in course of time to extend its influence even beyond the AtlanticOcean. It is important to remember that throughout the early history ofEurope and up to the close of the fifteenth century the approach to thehome of the Negro was by land. The Soudan was thought to be the edge ofthe then known world; Homer speaks of the Ethiopians as "the farthestremoved of men, and separated into two divisions. " Later Greek writerscarry the description still further and speak of the two divisions asEastern and Western--the Eastern occupying the countries eastward of theNile, and the Western stretching from the western shores of that riverto the Atlantic Coast. "One of these divisions, " says Lady Lugard, "wehave to acknowledge, was perhaps itself the original source of thecivilization which has through Egypt permeated the Western world.... When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may befound that the kingdoms lying toward the eastern end of the Soudan werethe home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, thetraditions of civilization associated for us with the name of ancientEgypt. "[1] [Footnote 1: _A Tropical Dependency_, James Nisbet & Co. , Ltd. , London, 1906, p. 17. ] If now we come to America, we find the Negro influence upon the Indianto be so strong as to call in question all current conceptions ofAmerican archæology and so early as to suggest the coming of men fromthe Guinea Coast perhaps even before the coming of Columbus. [1] Thefirst natives of Africa to come were Mandingoes; many of the wordsused by the Indians in their daily life appear to be not more thancorruptions or adaptations of words used by the tribes of Africa; andthe more we study the remains of those who lived in America before 1492, and the far-reaching influence of African products and habits, the moremust we acknowledge the strength of the position of the latest thesis. This whole subject will doubtless receive much more attention fromscholars, but in any case it is evident that the demands of Negroculture can no longer be lightly regarded or brushed aside, and that asa scholarly contribution to the subject Wiener's work is of the veryhighest importance. [Footnote 1: See Wiener, I, 178. ] 2. _The Negro in Spanish Exploration_ When we come to Columbus himself, the accuracy of whose accounts has sorecently been questioned, we find a Negro, Pedro Alonso Niño, as thepilot of one of the famous three vessels. In 1496 Niño sailed to SantoDomingo and he was also with Columbus on his third voyage. With two men, Cristóbal de la Guerra, who served as pilot, and Luís de la Guerra, a Spanish merchant, in 1499 he planned what proved to be the firstsuccessful commercial voyage to the New World. The revival of slavery at the close of the Middle Ages and the beginningof the system of Negro slavery were due to the commercial expansion ofPortugal in the fifteenth century. The very word _Negro_ is the modernSpanish and Portuguese form of the Latin _niger_. In 1441 Prince Henrysent out one Gonzales, who captured three Moors on the African coast. These men offered as ransom ten Negroes whom they had taken. The Negroeswere taken to Lisbon in 1442, and in 1444 Prince Henry regularly beganthe European trade from the Guinea Coast. For fifty years his countryenjoyed a monopoly of the traffic. By 1474 Negroes were numerous inSpain, and special interest attaches to Juan de Valladolid, probably thefirst of many Negroes who in time came to have influence and power overtheir people under the authority of a greater state. He was addressed as"judge of all the Negroes and mulattoes, free or slaves, which are inthe very loyal and noble city of Seville, and throughout the wholearchbishopric thereof. " After 1500 there are frequent references toNegroes, especially in the Spanish West Indies. Instructions to Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, in 1501, prohibited the passage to the Indies ofJews, Moors, or recent converts, but authorized him to take over Negroslaves who had been born in the power of Christians. These orders wereactually put in force the next year. Even the restricted importationOvando found inadvisable, and he very soon requested that Negroes be notsent, as they ran away to the Indians, with whom they soon made friends. Isabella accordingly withdrew her permission, but after her deathFerdinand reverted to the old plan and in 1505 sent to Ovando seventeenNegro slaves for work in the copper-mines, where the severity of thelabor was rapidly destroying the Indians. In 1510 Ferdinand directedthat fifty Negroes be sent immediately, and that more be sent later; andin April of this year over a hundred were bought in the Lisbon market. This, says Bourne, [1] was the real beginning of the African slave-tradeto America. Already, however, as early as 1504, a considerable numberof Negroes had been introduced from Guinea because, as we are informed, "the work of one Negro was worth more than that of four Indians. " In1513 thirty Negroes assisted Balboa in building the first ships made onthe Pacific Coast of America. In 1517 Spain formally entered upon thetraffic, Charles V on his accession to the throne granting "licensefor the introduction of Negroes to the number of four hundred, " andthereafter importation to the West Indies became a thriving industry. Those who came in these early years were sometimes men of considerableintelligence, having been trained as Mohammedans or Catholics. By 1518Negroes were at work in the sugar-mills in Hispaniola, where they seemto have suffered from indulgence in drinks made from sugarcane. In 1521it was ordered that Negro slaves should not be employed on errands asin general these tended to cultivate too close acquaintance with theIndians. In 1522 there was a rebellion on the sugar plantations inHispaniola, primarily because the services of certain Indians werediscontinued. Twenty Negroes from the Admiral's mill, uniting withtwenty others who spoke the same language, killed a number ofChristians. They fled and nine leagues away they killed another Spaniardand sacked a house. One Negro, assisted by twelve Indian slaves, alsokilled nine other Christians. After much trouble the Negroes wereapprehended and several of them hanged. It was about 1526 that Negroeswere first introduced within the present limits of the United States, being brought to a colony near what later became Jamestown, Va. Here theNegroes were harshly treated and in course of time they rose againsttheir oppressors and fired their houses. The settlement was broken up, and the Negroes and their Spanish companions returned to Hispaniola, whence they had come. In 1540, in Quivira, in Mexico, there was aNegro who had taken holy orders; and in 1542 there were established atGuamanga three brotherhoods of the True Cross of Spaniards, one beingfor Indians and one for Negroes. [Footnote 1: _Spain in America_, Vol. 3 in American Nation Series, p. 270. ] The outstanding instance of a Negro's heading in exploration is that ofEstévanico (or Estévanillo, or Estévan, that is, Stephen), one of thefour survivors of the ill-fated expedition of De Narvaez, who sailedfrom Spain, June 17, 1527. Having returned to Spain after many years ofservice in the New World, Pamfilo de Narvaez petitioned for a grant, andaccordingly the right to conquer and colonize the country between theRio de las Palmas, in eastern Mexico, and Florida was accorded him. [1]His force originally consisted of six hundred soldiers andcolonists. The whole conduct of the expedition--incompetent in theextreme--furnished one of the most appalling tragedies of earlyexploration in America. The original number of men was reduced by halfby storms and hurricanes and desertions in Santo Domingo and Cuba, andthose who were left landed in April, 1528, near the entrance to TampaBay, on the west coast of Florida. One disaster followed another in thevicinity of Pensacola Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi until atlength only four men survived. These were Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca;Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a captain of infantry; Alonzo del CastilloMaldonado; and Estévanico, who had originally come from the westcoast of Morocco and who was a slave of Dorantes. These men had mostremarkable adventures in the years between 1528 and 1536, and as anarrative of suffering and privation Cabeza de Vaca's _Journal_ hashardly an equal in the annals of the continent. Both Dorantes andEstévanico were captured, and indeed for a season or two all four menwere forced to sojourn among the Indians. They treated the sick, andwith such success did they work that their fame spread far and wideamong the tribes. Crowds followed them from place to place, showeringpresents upon them. With Alonzo de Castillo, Estévanico sojourned fora while with the Yguazes, a very savage tribe that killed its own malechildren and bought those of strangers. He at length escaped from thesepeople and spent several months with the Avavares. He afterwards wentwith De Vaca to the Maliacones, only a short distance from the Avavares, and still later he accompanied Alonzo de Castillo in exploring thecountry toward the Rio Grande. He was unexcelled as a guide who couldmake his way through new territory. In 1539 he went with Fray Marcos ofNice, the Father Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, as aguide to the Seven Cities of Cibola, the villages of the ancestors ofthe present Zuñi Indians in western New Mexico. Preceding Fray Marcosby a few days and accompanied by natives who joined him on the way, hereached Háwikuh, the southern-most of the seven towns. Here he and allbut three of his Indian followers were killed. [Footnote 1: Frederick W. Hodge, 3, in _Spanish Explorers in theSouthern United States_, 1528-1543, in "Original Narratives of EarlyAmerican History, " Scribner's, New York, 1907. Both the Narrative ofAlvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Narrative of the Expedition ofCoronado, by Pedro de Casteñada, are edited by Hodge, with illuminatingintroductions. ] 3. _Development of the Slave-Trade_ Portugal and Spain having demonstrated that the slave-trade wasprofitable, England also determined to engage in the traffic; and asearly as 1530 William Hawkins, a merchant of Plymouth, visited theGuinea Coast and took away a few slaves. England really entered thefield, however, with the voyage in 1562 of Captain John Hawkins, son ofWilliam, who in October of this year also went to the coast of Guinea. He had a fleet of three ships and one hundred men, and partly by thesword and partly by other means he took three hundred or more Negroes, whom he took to Santo Domingo and sold profitably. [1] He was richlyladen going homeward and some of his stores were seized by Spanishvessels. Hawkins made two other voyages, one in 1564, and another, with Drake, in 1567. On his second voyage he had four armed ships, thelargest being the _Jesus_, a vessel of seven hundred tons, and a forceof one hundred and seventy men. December and January (1564-5) he spentin picking up freight, and by sickness and fights with the Negroes helost many of his men. Then at the end of January he set out for theWest Indies. He was becalmed for twenty-one days, but he arrived at theIsland of Dominica March 9. He traded along the Spanish coasts and onhis return to England he touched at various points in the West Indiesand sailed along the coast of Florida. On his third voyage he had fiveships. He himself was again in command of the _Jesus_, while Drakewas in charge of the _Judith_, a little vessel of fifty tons. He gottogether between four and five hundred Negroes and again went toDominica. He had various adventures and at last was thrown by a storm onthe coast of Mexico. Here after three days he was attacked by a Spanishfleet of twelve vessels, and all of his ships were destroyed except the_Judith_ and another small vessel, the _Minion_, which was so crowdedthat one hundred men risked the dangers on land rather than go tosea with her. On this last voyage Hawkins and Drake had among theircompanions the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, who were then, likeother young Elizabethans, seeking fame and fortune. It is noteworthythat in all that he did Hawkins seems to have had no sense of cruelty orwrong. He held religious services morning and evening, and in the spiritof the later Cromwell he enjoined upon his men to "serve God daily, loveone another, preserve their victuals, beware of fire, and keep goodcompany. " Queen Elizabeth evidently regarded the opening of theslave-trade as a worthy achievement, for after his second voyage shemade Hawkins a knight, giving him for a crest the device of a Negro'shead and bust with the arms securely bound. [Footnote 1: Edward E. Hale in Justin Winsor's _Narrative and CriticalHistory of America_, III, 60. ] France joined in the traffic in 1624, and then Holland and Denmark, andthe rivalry soon became intense. England, with her usual aggressiveness, assumed a commanding position, and, much more than has commonly beensupposed, the Navigation Ordinance of 1651 and the two wars with theDutch in the seventeenth century had as their basis the struggle forsupremacy in the slave-trade. The English trade proper began with thegranting of rights to special companies, to one in 1618, to another in1631, and in 1662 to the "Company of Royal Adventurers, " recharteredin 1672 as the "Royal African Company, " to which in 1687 was given theexclusive right to trade between the Gold Coast and the British coloniesin America. James, Duke of York, was interested in this last company, and it agreed to supply the West Indies with three thousand slavesannually. In 1698, on account of the incessant clamor of Englishmerchants, the trade was opened generally, and any vessel carrying theBritish flag was by act of Parliament permitted to engage in it onpayment of a duty of 10 per cent on English goods exported to Africa. New England immediately engaged in the traffic, and vessels from Bostonand Newport went forth to the Gold Coast laden with hogsheads of rum. Incourse of time there developed a three-cornered trade by which molasseswas brought from the West Indies to New England, made into rum to betaken to Africa and exchanged for slaves, the slaves in turn beingbrought to the West Indies or the Southern colonies. [1] A slavepurchased for one hundred gallons of rum worth £10 brought from £20 to£50 when offered for sale in America. [2] Newport soon had twenty-twostill houses, and even these could not satisfy the demand. Englandregarded the slave-trade as of such importance that when in 1713 sheaccepted the Peace of Utrecht she insisted on having awarded to her forthirty years the exclusive right to transport slaves to the Spanishcolonies in America. When in the course of the eighteenth century thetrade became fully developed, scores of vessels went forth each yearto engage in it; but just how many slaves were brought to the presentUnited States and how many were taken to the West Indies or SouthAmerica, it is impossible to say. In 1726 the three cities of London, Bristol, and Liverpool alone had 171 ships engaged in the traffic, andthe profits were said to warrant a thousand more, though such a numberwas probably never reached so far as England alone was concerned. [3] [Footnote 1: Bogart: _Economic History_, 72. ] [Footnote 2: Coman: _Industrial History_, 78. ] [Footnote 3: Ballagh: _Slavery in Virginia, 12_. ] 4. _Planting of Slavery in the Colonies_ It is only for Virginia that we can state with definiteness the yearin which Negro slaves were first brought to an English colony on themainland. When legislation on the subject of slavery first appearselsewhere, slaves are already present. "About the last of August(1619), " says John Rolfe in John Smith's _Generall Historie_, "came in aDutch man of warre, that sold us twenty Negars. " These Negroes weresold into servitude, and Virginia did not give statutory recognition toslavery as a system until 1661, the importations being too small to makethe matter one of importance. In this year, however, an act of assemblystated that Negroes were "incapable of making satisfaction for the timelost in running away by addition of time"; [1] and thus slavery gained afirm place in the oldest of the colonies. [Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, II, _26_. ] Negroes were first imported into Massachusetts from Barbadoes a year ortwo before 1638, but in John Winthrop's _Journal_, under date February26 of this year, we have positive evidence on the subject as follows:"Mr. Pierce in the Salem ship, the _Desire_, returned from the WestIndies after seven months. He had been at Providence, and brought somecotton, and tobacco, and Negroes, etc. , from thence, and salt fromTertugos. Dry fish and strong liquors are the only commodities for thoseparts. He met there two men-of-war, sent forth by the lords, etc. , ofProvidence with letters of mart, who had taken divers prizes from theSpaniard and many Negroes. " It was in 1641 that there was passed inMassachusetts the first act on the subject of slavery, and this was thefirst positive statement in any of the colonies with reference tothe matter. Said this act: "There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives, takenin just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or aresold to us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usageswhich the law of God established in Israel requires. " This articleclearly sanctioned slavery. Of the three classes of persons referred to, the first was made up of Indians, the second of white people under thesystem of indenture, and the third of Negroes. In this whole matter, asin many others, Massachusetts moved in advance of the other colonies. The first definitely to legalize slavery, in course of time she becamealso the foremost representative of sentiment against the system. In1646 one John Smith brought home two Negroes from the Guinea Coast, where we are told he "had been the means of killing near a hundredmore. " The General Court, "conceiving themselves bound by the firstopportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin ofman-stealing, " ordered that the Negroes be sent at public expense totheir native country. [1] In later cases, however, Massachusetts did notfind herself able to follow this precedent. In general in these earlyyears New England was more concerned about Indians than about Negroes, as the presence of the former in large numbers was a constant menace, while Negro slavery had not yet assumed its most serious aspects. [Footnote 1: Coffin: _Slave Insurrections_, 8. ] In New York slavery began under the Dutch rule and continued under theEnglish. Before or about 1650 the Dutch West India Company brought someNegroes to New Netherland. Most of these continued to belong to thecompany, though after a period of labor (under the common system ofindenture) some of the more trusty were permitted to have small farms, from the produce of which they made return to the company. Theirchildren, however, continued to be slaves. In 1664 New Netherland becameNew York. The next year, in the code of English laws that was drawnup, it was enacted that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity, except who shall be judged thereunto byauthority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves. " Asat first there was some hesitancy about making Negroes Christians, thisact, like the one in Massachusetts, by implication permitted slavery. It was in 1632 that the grant including what is now the states ofMaryland and Delaware was made to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. Though slaves are mentioned earlier, it was in 1663-4 that the MarylandLegislature passed its first enactment on the subject of slavery. It wasdeclared that "all Negroes and other slaves within this province, andall Negroes and other slaves to be hereinafter imported into thisprovince, shall serve during life; and all children born of any Negroor other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were, for the term oftheir lives. " In Delaware and New Jersey the real beginnings of slavery are unusuallyhazy. The Dutch introduced the system in both of these colonies. In thelaws of New Jersey the word _slaves_ occurs as early as 1664, and actsfor the regulation of the conduct of those in bondage began with thepractical union of the colony with New York in 1702. The lot of theslave was somewhat better here than in most of the colonies. Althoughthe system was in existence in Delaware almost from the beginning of thecolony, it did not receive legal recognition until 1721, when there waspassed an act providing for the trial of slaves in a special court withtwo justices and six freeholders. As early as 1639 there are incidental reference to Negroes inPennsylvania, and there are frequent references after this date. [1] Inthis colony there were strong objections to the importing of Negroes inspite of the demand for them. Penn in his charter to the Free Society ofTraders in 1682 enjoined upon the members of this company that if theyheld black slaves these should be free at the end of fourteen years, the Negroes then to become the company's tenants. [2] In 1688 thereoriginated in Germantown a protest against Negro slavery that was "thefirst formal action ever taken against the barter in human flesh withinthe boundaries of the United States. " [3] Here a small company ofGermans was assembled April 18, 1688, and there was drawn up a documentsigned by Garret Hendericks, Franz Daniel Pastorius, Dirck Op denGraeff, and Abraham Op den Graeff. The protest was addressed to themonthly meeting of the Quakers about to take place in Lower Dublin. The monthly meeting on April 30 felt that it could not pretend to takeaction on such an important matter and referred it to the quarterlymeeting in June. This in turn passed it on to the yearly meeting, thehighest tribunal of the Quakers. Here it was laid on the table, andfor the next few years nothing resulted from it. About 1696, however, opposition to slavery on the part of the Quakers began to be active. Inthe colony at large before 1700 the lot of the Negro was regularlyone of servitude. Laws were made for servants, white or black, andregulations and restrictions were largely identical. In 1700, however, legislation began more definitely to fix the status of the slave. Inthis year an act of the legislature forbade the selling of Negroes outof the province without their consent, but in other ways it denied thepersonality of the slave. This act met further formal approval in 1705, when special courts were ordained for the trial and punishment ofslaves, and when importation from Carolina was forbidden on the groundthat it made trouble with the Indians nearer home. In 1700 a maximumduty of 20s. Was placed on each Negro imported, and in 1705 this wasdoubled, there being already some competition with white labor. In 1712the Assembly sought to prevent importation altogether by a duty of £20a head. This act was repealed in England, and a duty of £5 in 1715 wasalso repealed. In 1729, however, the duty was fixed at £2, at whichfigure it remained for a generation. [Footnote 1: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 1. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , 21. ] [Footnote 3: Faust: _The German Element in the United States_, Boston, 1909, I, 45. ] It was almost by accident that slavery was officially recognized inConnecticut in 1650. The code of laws compiled for the colony in thisyear was especially harsh on the Indians. It was enacted that certain ofthem who incurred the displeasure of the colony might be made to servethe person injured or "be shipped out and exchanged for Negroes. " In1680 the governor of the colony informed the Board of Trade that "as forblacks there came sometimes three or four in a year from Barbadoes, andthey are usually sold at the rate of £22 apiece. " These people wereregarded rather as servants than as slaves, and early legislation wasmainly in the line of police regulations designed to prevent theirrunning away. In 1652 it was enacted in Rhode Island that all slaves brought into thecolony should be set free after ten years of service. This law was notdesigned, as might be supposed, to restrict slavery. It was really astep in the evolution of the system, and the limit of ten years was byno means observed. "The only legal recognition of the law was in theseries of acts beginning January 4, 1703, to control the wandering ofAfrican slaves and servants, and another beginning in April, 1708, inwhich the slave-trade was indirectly legalized by being taxed. "[1] "Incourse of time Rhode Island became the greatest slave-trader in thecountry, becoming a sort of clearing-house for the other colonies. "[2] [Footnote 1: William T. Alexander: History of the Colored Race inAmerica, New Orleans, 1887, p. 136. ] [Footnote 2: DuBois: Suppression of the Slave-Trade, 34. ] New Hampshire, profiting by the experience of the neighboring colony ofMassachusetts, deemed it best from the beginning to discourageslavery. There were so few Negroes in the colony as to form a quantitypractically negligible. The system was recognized, however, an act beingpassed in 1714 to regulate the conduct of slaves, and another four yearslater to regulate that of masters. In North Carolina, even more than in most of the colonies, the systemof Negro slavery was long controlled by custom rather than by legalenactment. It was recognized by law in 1715, however, and policeregulations to govern the slaves were enacted. In South Carolina thehistory of slavery is particularly noteworthy. The natural resourcesof this colony offered a ready home for the system, and the laws hereformulated were as explicit as any ever enacted. Slaves were firstimported from Barbadoes, and their status received official confirmationin 1682. By 1720 the number had increased to 12, 000, the white peoplenumbering only 9, 000. By 1698 such was the fear from the preponderanceof the Negro population that a special act was passed to encourage whiteimmigration. Legislation "for the better ordering of slaves" was passedin 1690, and in 1712 the first regular slave law was enacted. Oncebefore 1713, the year of the Assiento Contract of the Peace of Utrecht, and several times after this date, prohibitive duties were placed onNegroes to guard against their too rapid increase. By 1734, however, importation had again reached large proportions; and in 1740, inconsequence of recent insurrectionary efforts, a prohibitive dutyseveral times larger than the previous one was placed upon Negroesbrought into the province. The colony of Georgia was chartered in 1732 and actually founded thenext year. Oglethorpe's idea was that the colony should be a refuge forpersecuted Christians and the debtor classes of England. Slavery wasforbidden on the ground that Georgia was to defend the other Englishcolonies from the Spaniards on the South, and that it would not be ableto do this if like South Carolina it dissipated its energies in guardingNegro slaves. For years the development of Georgia was slow, and theprosperous condition of South Carolina constantly suggested to theplanters that "the one thing needful" for their highest welfare wasslavery. Again and again were petitions addressed to the trustees, George Whitefield being among those who most urgently advocated theinnovation. Moreover, Negroes from South Carolina were sometimes hiredfor life, and purchases were openly made in Savannah. It was not until1749, however, that the trustees yielded to the request. In 1755 thelegislature passed an act that regulated the conduct of the slaves, andin 1765 a more regular code was adopted. Thus did slavery finally gain afoothold in what was destined to become one of the most important of theSouthern states. For the first fifty or sixty years of the life of the colonies theintroduction of Negroes was slow; the system of white servitudefurnished most of the labor needed, and England had not yet wonsupremacy in the slave-trade. It was in the last quarter of theseventeenth century that importations began to be large, and in thecourse of the eighteenth century the numbers grew by leaps and bounds. In 1625, six years after the first Negroes were brought to the colony, there were in Virginia only 23 Negroes, 12 male, 11 female. [1] In 1659there were 300; but in 1683 there were 3, 000 and in 1708, 12, 000. In1680 Governor Simon Bradstreet reported to England with reference toMassachusetts that "no company of blacks or slaves" had been broughtinto the province since its beginning, for the space of fifty years, with the exception of a small vessel that two years previously, after atwenty months' voyage to Madagascar, had brought hither between fortyand fifty Negroes, mainly women and children, who were sold for £10, £15, and £20 apiece; occasionally two or three Negroes were brought fromBarbadoes or other islands, and altogether there were in Massachusettsat the time not more than 100 or 120. [Footnote 1: _Virginia Magazine of History_, VII, 364. ] The colonists were at first largely opposed to the introduction ofslavery, and numerous acts were passed prohibiting it in Virginia, Massachusetts, and elsewhere; and in Georgia, as we have seen, it had atfirst been expressly forbidden. English business men, however, had noscruples about the matter. About 1663 a British Committee onForeign Plantations declared that "black slaves are the most usefulappurtenances of a plantation, " [1] and twenty years later the LordsCommissioners of Trade stated that "the colonists could not possiblysubsist" without an adequate supply of slaves. Laws passed in thecolonies were regularly disallowed by the crown, and royal governorswere warned that the colonists would not be permitted to "discourage atraffic so beneficial to the nation. " Before 1772 Virginia passed notless than thirty-three acts looking toward the prohibition of theimportation of slaves, but in every instance the act was annulled byEngland. In the far South, especially in South Carolina, we have seenthat there were increasingly heavy duties. In spite of all such effortsfor restriction, however, the system of Negro slavery, once wellstarted, developed apace. [Footnote 1: Bogart: _Economic History_, 73. ] In two colonies not among the original thirteen but important in thelater history of the United States, Negroes were present at a very earlydate, in the Spanish colony of Florida from the very first, and in theFrench colony of Louisiana as soon as New Orleans really began to grow. Negroes accompanied the Spaniards in their voyages along the SouthAtlantic coast early in the sixteenth century, and specially trainedSpanish slaves assisted in the founding of St. Augustine in 1565. Theambitious schemes in France of the great adventurer, John Law, andespecially the design of the Mississippi Company (chartered 1717)included an agreement for the importation into Louisiana of six thousandwhite persons and three thousand Negroes, the Company having securedamong other privileges the exclusive right to trade with the colony fortwenty-five years and the absolute ownership of all mines in it. Thesufferings of some of the white emigrants from France--the kidnapping, the revenge, and the chicanery that played so large a part--all makea story complete in itself. As for the Negroes, it was definitelystipulated that these should not come from another French colony withoutthe consent of the governor of that colony. The contract had only begunto be carried out when Law's bubble burst. However, in June, 1721, therewere 600 Negroes in Louisiana; in 1745 the number had increased to2020. The stories connected with these people are as tragic and wildlyromantic as are most of the stories in the history of Louisiana. Infact, this colony from the very first owed not a little of its abandonand its fascination to the mysticism that the Negroes themselves broughtfrom Africa. In the midst of much that is apocryphal one or two eventsor episodes stand out with distinctness. In 1729, Perier, governor atthe time, testified with reference to a small company of Negroes whohad been sent against the Indians as follows: "Fifteen Negroes in whosehands we had put weapons, performed prodigies of valor. If the blacksdid not cost so much, and if their labors were not so necessary to thecolony, it would be better to turn them into soldiers, and to dismissthose we have, who are so bad and so cowardly that they seem to havebeen manufactured purposely for this colony[1]. " Not always, however, did the Negroes fight against the Indians. In 1730 some representativesof the powerful Banbaras had an understanding with the Chickasaws bywhich the latter were to help them in exterminating all the white peopleand in setting up an independent republic[2]. They were led by a strongand desperate Negro named Samba. As a result of this effort for freedomSamba and seven of his companions were broken on the wheel and a womanwas hanged. Already, however, there had been given the suggestion of thepossible alliance in the future of the Indian and the Negro. From thevery first also, because of the freedom from restraint of all theelements of population that entered into the life of the colony, therewas the beginning of that mixture of the races which was later to tellso vitally on the social life of Louisiana and whose effects are soreadily apparent even to-day. [Footnote 1: Gayarré: _History of Louisiana_, I, 435. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , I, 440. ] 5. The Wake of the Slave-Ship Thus it was that Negroes came to America. Thus it was also, we mightsay, that the Negro Problem came, though it was not for decades, notuntil the budding years of American nationality, that the ultimatereaches of the problem were realized. Those who came were by no meansall of exactly the same race stock and language. Plantations frequentlyexhibited a variety of customs, and sometimes traditional enemies becamebrothers in servitude. The center of the colonial slave-trade was theAfrican coast for about two hundred miles east of the great Niger River. From this comparatively small region came as many slaves as from all therest of Africa together. A number of those who came were of entirelydifferent race stock from the Negroes; some were Moors, and a very fewwere Malays from Madagascar. The actual procuring of the slaves was by no means as easy a process asis sometimes supposed. In general the slave mart brought out the mostvicious passions of all who were in any way connected with the traffic. The captain of a vessel had to resort to various expedients to get hiscargo. His commonest method was to bring with him a variety of gaycloth, cheap ornaments, and whiskey, which he would give in exchange forslaves brought to him. His task was most simple when a chieftain ofone tribe brought to him several hundred prisoners of war. Ordinarily, however, the work was more toilsome, and kidnapping a favorite method, though individuals were sometimes enticed on vessels. The work wasalways dangerous, for the natives along the slave-coast soon becamesuspicious. After they had seen some of their tribesmen taken away, theylearned not to go unarmed while a slave-vessel was on the coast, andvery often there were hand-to-hand encounters. It was not long before itbegan to be impressed upon those interested in the trade that it was notgood business to place upon the captain of a vessel the responsibilityof getting together three or four hundred slaves, and that it would bebetter if he could find his cargo waiting for him when he came. Thusarose the so-called factories, which were nothing more than warehouses. Along the coast were placed small settlements of Europeans, whosebusiness it was to stimulate slave-hunting expeditions, negotiate forslaves brought in, and see that they were kept until the arrival of theships. Practically every nation engaged in the traffic planted factoriesof this kind along the West Coast from Cape Verde to the equator; andthus it was that this part of Africa began to be the most flagrantlyexploited region in the world; thus whiskey and all the other vices ofcivilization began to come to a simple and home-loving people. Once on board the slaves were put in chains two by two. When the shipwas ready to start, the hold of the vessel was crowded with moody andunhappy wretches who most often were made to crouch so that their kneestouched their chins, but who also were frequently made to lie on theirsides "spoon-fashion. " Sometimes the space between floor and ceilingwas still further diminished by the water-barrels; on the top of thesebarrels boards were placed, on the boards the slaves had to lie, andin the little space that remained they had to subsist as well as theycould. There was generally only one entrance to the hold, and provisionfor only the smallest amount of air through the gratings on the sides. The clothing of a captive, if there was any at all, consisted of onlya rag about the loins. The food was half-rotten rice, yams, beans, orsoup, and sometimes bread and meat; the cooking was not good, nor wasany care taken to see that all were fed. Water was always limited, apint a day being a generous allowance; frequently no more than a gillcould be had. The rule was to bring the slaves from the hold twice aday for an airing, about eight o'clock in the morning and four in theafternoon; but this plan was not always followed. On deck they were madeto dance by the lash, and they were also forced to sing. Thus were bornthe sorrow-songs, the last cry of those who saw their homeland vanishbehind them--forever. Sometimes there were stern fights on board. Sometimes food was refusedin order that death might be hastened. When opportunity served, someleaped overboard in the hope of being taken back to Africa. Throughoutthe night the hold resounded with the moans of those who awoke fromdreams of home to find themselves in bonds. Women became hysterical, andboth men and women became insane. Fearful and contagious diseases brokeout. Smallpox was one of these. More common was ophthalmia, a frightfulinflammation of the eyes. A blind, and hence a worthless, slave wasthrown to the sharks. The putrid atmosphere, the melancholy, and thesudden transition from heat to cold greatly increased the mortality, and frequently when morning came a dead and a living slave were foundshackled together. A captain always counted on losing one-fourth of hiscargo. Sometimes he lost a great deal more. Back on the shore a gray figure with strained gaze watched the ship fadeaway--an old woman sadly typical of the great African mother. With hervision she better than any one else perceived the meaning of it all. Themen with hard faces who came to buy and sell might deceive others, butnot her. In a great vague way she felt that something wrong had attackedthe very heart of her people. She saw men wild with the whiskey of theChristian nations commit crimes undreamed of before. She did not likethe coast towns; the girl who went thither came not home again, and ayoung man was lost to all that Africa held dear. In course of time shesaw every native craft despised, and instead of the fabric that her ownfingers wove her children yearned for the tinsel and the gewgaws of thetrader. She cursed this man, and she called upon all her spiritsto banish the evil. But when at last all was of no avail--when thestrongest youth or the dearest maiden had gone--she went back to her hutand ate her heart out in the darkness. She wept for her children andwould not be comforted because they were not. Then slowly to theuntutored mind somehow came the promise: "These are they which came outof great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white inthe blood of the Lamb.... They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lambwhich is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead themunto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears fromtheir eyes. " CHAPTER II THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES The Negroes who were brought from Africa to America were brought hitherto work, and to work under compulsion; hence any study of their sociallife in the colonial era must be primarily a study of their life underthe system of slavery, and of the efforts of individuals to break awayfrom the same. 1. _Servitude and Slavery_ For the antecedents of Negro slavery in America one must go back to thesystem of indentured labor known as servitude. This has been definedas "a legalized status of Indian, white, and Negro servants precedingslavery in most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies. "[1] Astudy of servitude will explain many of the acts with reference toNegroes, especially those about intermarriage with white people. For theorigins of the system one must go back to social conditions in Englandin the seventeenth century. While villeinage had been formally abolishedin England at the middle of the fourteenth century, it still lingered inremote places, and even if men were not technically villeins they mightbe subjected to long periods of service. By the middle of the fifteenthcentury the demand for wool had led to the enclosure of many farmsfor sheep-raising, and accordingly to distress on the part of manyagricultural laborers. Conditions were not improved early in thesixteenth century, and they were in fact made more acute, the abolitionof the monasteries doing away with many of the sources of relief. Menout of work were thrown upon the highways and thus became a menace tosociety. In 1564 the price of wheat was 19s. A quarter and wages were7d. A day. The situation steadily grew worse, and in 1610, while wageswere still the same, wheat was 35s. A quarter. Rents were constantlyrising, moreover, and many persons died from starvation. In the courseof the seventeenth century paupers and dissolute persons more and morefilled the jails and workhouses. [Footnote 1: _New International Encyclopædia_, Article "Slavery. "] Meanwhile in the young colonies across the sea labor was scarce, and itseemed to many an act of benevolence to bring from England persons whocould not possibly make a living at home and give them some chance inthe New World. From the very first, children, and especially youngpeople between the ages of twelve and twenty, were the most desired. TheLondon Company undertook to meet half of the cost of the transportationand maintenance of children sent out by parish authorities, theunderstanding being that it would have the service of the same untilthey were of age. [1] The Company was to teach each boy a trade and whenhis freedom year arrived was to give to each one fifty acres, a cow, some seed corn, tools, and firearms. He then became the Company'stenant, for seven years more giving to it one-half of his produce, atthe end of which time he came into full possession of twenty-five acres. After the Company collapsed individuals took up the idea. Children undertwelve years of age might be bound for seven years, and persons overtwenty-one for no more than four; but the common term was five years. [Footnote 1: Coman: _Industrial History_, 42. ] Under this system fell servants voluntary and involuntary. Hundreds ofpeople, too poor to pay for their transportation, sold themselves fora number of years to pay for the transfer. Some who were known as"freewillers" had some days in which to dispose of themselves to thebest advantage in America; if they could not make satisfactory terms, they too were sold to pay for the passage. More important from thestandpoint of the system itself, however, was the number of involuntaryservants brought hither. Political offenders, vagrants, and othercriminals were thus sent to the colonies, and many persons, especiallyboys and girls, were kidnapped in the streets of London and "spirited"away. Thus came Irishmen or Scotchmen who had incurred the ire of thecrown, Cavaliers or Roundheads according as one party or the other wasout of power, and farmers who had engaged in Monmouth's rebellion; andin the year 1680 alone it was estimated that not less than ten thousandpersons were "spirited" away from England. It is easy to see how sucha system became a highly profitable one for shipmasters and those inconnivance with them. Virginia objected to the criminals, and in 1671the House of Burgesses passed a law against the importing of suchpersons, and the same was approved by the governor. Seven years later, however, it was set aside for the transportation of political offenders. As having the status of an apprentice the servant could sue in court andhe was regularly allowed "freedom dues" at the expiration of his term. He could not vote, however, could not bear weapons, and of coursecould not hold office. In some cases, especially where the system wasvoluntary, servants sustained kindly relations with their masters, a feweven becoming secretaries or tutors. More commonly, however, the lot ofthe indentured laborer was a hard one, his food often being only coarseIndian meal, and water mixed with molasses. The moral effect of thesystem was bad in the fate to which it subjected woman and in theevils resulting from the sale of the labor of children. In this wholeconnection, however, it is to be remembered that the standards of theday were very different from those of our own. The modern humanitarianimpulse had not yet moved the heart of England, and flogging was stillcommon for soldiers and sailors, criminals and children alike. The first Negroes brought to the colonies were technically servants, andgenerally as Negro slavery advanced white servitude declined. James II, in fact, did whatever he could to hasten the end of servitude in orderthat slavery might become more profitable. Economic forces were withhim, for while a slave varied in price from £10 to £50, the mere costof transporting a servant was from £6 to £10. "Servitude became slaverywhen to such incidents as alienation, disfranchisement, whipping, andlimited marriage were added those of perpetual service and a denial ofcivil, juridical, marital and property rights as well as the denial ofthe possession of children. "[1] Even after slavery was well established, however, white men and women were frequently retained as domesticservants, and the system of servitude did not finally pass in all of itsphases before the beginning of the Revolutionary War. [Footnote 1: _New International Encyclopædia_, Article "Slavery. "] Negro slavery was thus distinctively an evolution. As the first Negroeswere taken by pirates, the rights of ownership could not legally begiven to those who purchased them; hence slavery by custom precededslavery by statute. Little by little the colonies drifted into thesterner system. The transition was marked by such an act as that inRhode Island, which in 1652 permitted a Negro to be bound for ten years. We have already referred to the Act of Assembly in Virginia in 1661 tothe effect that Negroes were incapable of making satisfaction for timelost in running away by addition of time. Even before it had becomegenerally enacted or understood in the colonies, however, that a childborn of slave parents should serve for life, a new question had arisen, that of the issue of a free person and a slave. This led Virginia in1662 to lead the way with an act declaring that the status of a childshould be determined by that of the mother, [1] which act both gave toslavery the sanction of law and made it hereditary. From this timeforth Virginia took a commanding lead in legislation; and it is to beremembered that when we refer to this province we by no means havereference to the comparatively small state of to-day, but to the richestand most populous of the colonies. This position Virginia maintaineduntil after the Revolutionary War, and not only the present WestVirginia but the great Northwest Territory were included in her domain. [Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, II, 170. ] The slave had none of the ordinary rights of citizenship; in a criminalcase he could be arrested, tried, and condemned with but one witnessagainst him, and he could be sentenced without a jury. In Virginiain 1630 one Hugh Davis was ordered to be "soundly whipped before anassembly of Negroes and others, for abusing himself to the dishonor ofGod and the shame of Christians, by defiling his body in lying with aNegro. "[1] Just ten years afterwards, in 1640, one Robert Sweet wasordered "to do penance in church, according to the laws of England, forgetting a Negro woman with child, and the woman to be whipped. "[2] Thusfrom the very beginning the intermixture of the races was frowned uponand went on all the same. By the time, moreover, that the important actsof 1661 and 1662 had formally sanctioned slavery, doubt had arisenin the minds of some Virginians as to whether one Christian couldlegitimately hold another in bondage; and in 1667 it was definitelystated that the conferring of baptism did not alter the condition of aperson as to his bondage or freedom, so that masters, freed fromthis doubt, could now "more carefully endeavor the propagation ofChristianity. " In 1669 an "act about the casual killing of slaves"provided that if any slave resisted his master and under the extremityof punishment chanced to die, his death was not to be considered afelony and the master was to be acquitted. In 1670 it was made clearthat none but freeholders and housekeepers should vote in the electionof burgesses, and in the same year provision was taken against thepossible ownership of a white servant by a free Negro, who nevertheless"was not debarred from buying any of his own nation. " In 1692 therewas legislation "for the more speedy prosecution of slaves committingcapital crimes"; and this was reënacted in 1705, when some provision wasmade for the compensation of owners and when it was further declaredthat Negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves within the dominion were "realestate" and "incapable in law to be witnesses in any cases whatsoever";and in 1723 there was an elaborate and detailed act "directing thetrial of slaves committing capital crimes, and for the more effectualpunishing conspiracies and insurrections of them, and for the bettergovernment of Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, bond or free. " Thislast act specifically stated that no slave should be set free uponany pretense whatsoever "except for some meritorious services, to beadjudged and allowed by the governor and council. " All this legislationwas soon found to be too drastic and too difficult to enforce, andmodification was inevitable. This came in 1732, when it was madepossible for a slave to be a witness when another slave was on trialfor a capital offense, and in 1744 this provision was extended to civilcases as well. In 1748 there was a general revision of all existinglegislation, with special provision against attempted insurrections. [Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, I, 146. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , I, 552. ] Thus did Virginia pave the way, and more and more slave codes took onsome degree of definiteness and uniformity. Very important was theact of 1705, which provided that a slave might be inventoried as realestate. As property henceforth there was nothing to prevent his beingseparated from his family. Before the law he was no longer a person buta thing. 2. 737 _The Indian, the Mulatto, and the Free Negro_ All along, it is to be observed, the problem of the Negro wascomplicated by that of the Indian. At first there was a feeling thatIndians were to be treated not as Negroes but as on the same basis asEnglishmen. An act in Virginia of 1661-2 summed up this feeling in theprovision that they were not to be sold as servants for any longer timethan English people of the same age, and injuries done to them were tobe duly remedied by the laws of England. About the same time a PowhatanIndian sold for life was ordered to be set free. An interestingenactment of 1670 attempted to give the Indian an intermediate statusbetween that of the Englishman and the Negro slave, as "servants notbeing Christians, imported into the colony by shipping" (i. E. , Negroes)were to be slaves for their lives, but those that came by land were toserve "if boys or girls until thirty years of age; if men or women, twelve years and no longer. " All such legislation, however, wasradically changed as a result of Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion of 1676, inwhich the aid of the natives was invoked against the English governor. Henceforth Indians taken in war became the slaves for life of theircaptors. An elaborate act of 1682 summed up the new status, and Indianssold by other Indians were to be "adjudged, deemed, and taken to beslaves, to all intents and purposes, any law, usage, or custom to thecontrary notwithstanding. " Indian women were to be "tithables, "[1] andthey were required to pay levies just as Negro women. From this timeforth enactments generally included Indians along with Negroes, but ofcourse the laws placed on the statute books did not always bear closerelation to what was actually enforced, and in general the Indian wasdestined to be a vanishing rather than a growing problem. Very early inthe eighteenth century, in connection with the wars between the Englishand the Spanish in Florida, hundreds of Indians were shipped to the WestIndies and some to New England. Massachusetts in 1712 prohibitedsuch importation, as the Indians were "malicious, surly, and veryungovernable, " and she was followed to similar effect by Pennsylvania in1712, by New Hampshire in 1714, and by Connecticut and Rhode Island in1715. [Footnote 1: Hurd, commenting on an act of 1649 declaring all importedmale servants to be tithables, speaks as follows (230): "_Tithables_were persons assessed for a poll-tax, otherwise called the 'countylevies. ' At first, only free white persons were tithable. The law of1645 provided for a tax on property and tithable persons. By 1648property was released and taxes levied only on the tithables, ata specified poll-tax. Therefore by classing servants or slaves astithables, the law attributes to them legal personality, or a membershipin the social state inconsistent with the condition of a chattel orproperty. "] If the Indian was destined to be a vanishing factor, the mulatto and thefree Negro most certainly were not. In spite of all the laws to preventit, the intermixture of the races increased, and manumission somehowalso increased. Sometimes a master in his will provided that several ofhis slaves should be given their freedom. Occasionally a slave becamefree by reason of what was regarded as an act of service to thecommonwealth, as in the case of one Will, slave belonging to RobertRuffin, of the county of Surry in Virginia, who in 1710 divulged aconspiracy. [1] There is, moreover, on record a case of an indenturedNegro servant, John Geaween, who by his unusual thrift in the matter ofsome hogs which he raised on the share system with his master, was ableas early as 1641 to purchase his own son from another master, to theperfect satisfaction of all concerned. [2] Of special importance forsome years were those persons who were descendants of Negro fathers andindentured white mothers, and who at first were of course legally free. By 1691 the problem had become acute in Virginia. In this year "forprevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue, whichhereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by Negroes, mulattoesand Indians intermarrying with English or other white women, as by theirunlawful accompanying with one another, " it was enacted that "for thetime to come whatsoever English or other white man or woman being freeshall intermarry with a Negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman, bondor free, shall within three months after such marriage be banishedand removed from this dominion forever, and that the justices of eachrespective county within this dominion make it their particular carethat this act be put in effectual execution. "[3] A white woman whobecame the mother of a child by a Negro or mulatto was to be fined £15sterling, in default of payment was to be sold for five years, while thechild was to be bound in servitude to the church wardens until thirtyyears of age. It was further provided that if any Negro or mulatto wasset free, he was to be transported from the country within six monthsof his manumission (which enactment is typical of those that it wasdifficult to enforce and that after a while were only irregularlyobserved). In 1705 it was enacted that no "Negro, mulatto, or Indianshall from and after the publication of this act bear any officeecclesiastical, civil or military, or be in any place of public trust orpower, within this her majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia"; andto clear any doubt that might arise as to who should be accounted amulatto, it was provided that "the child of an Indian, and the child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of a Negro shall be deemed, accounted, held, and taken to be a mulatto. " It will be observed that while the actof 1670 said that "none but freeholders and housekeepers" could vote, this act of 1705 did not specifically legislate against voting by amulatto or a free Negro, and that some such privilege was exercised fora while appears from the definite provision in 1723 that "no free Negro, mulatto, or Indian, whatsoever, shall hereafter have any vote at theelection of burgesses, or any other election whatsoever. " In the sameyear it was provided that free Negroes and mulattoes might be employedas drummers or trumpeters in servile labor, but that they were not tobear arms; and all free Negroes above sixteen years of age were declaredtithable. In 1769, however, all free Negro and mulatto women wereexempted from levies as tithables, such levies having proved to beburdensome and "derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects. " [Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, III, 537. ] [Footnote 2: _Virginia Magazine of History_, X, 281. ] [Footnote 3: The penalty was so ineffective that in 1705 it was changedsimply to imprisonment for six months "without bail or mainprise. "] More than other colonies Maryland seems to have been troubled about theintermixture of the races; certainly no other phase of slavery herereceived so much attention. This was due to the unusual emphasis onwhite servitude in the colony. In 1663 it was enacted that any freebornwoman intermarrying with a slave should serve the master of the slaveduring the life of her husband and that any children resulting fromthe union were also to be slaves. This act was evidently intended tofrighten the indentured woman from such a marriage. It had a verydifferent effect. Many masters, in order to prolong the indenture oftheir white female servants, encouraged them to marry Negro slaves. Accordingly a new law in 1681 threw the responsibility not on theindentured woman but on the master or mistress; in case a marriage tookplace between a white woman-servant and a slave, the woman was to befree at once, any possible issue was to be free, and the ministerperforming the ceremony and the master or mistress were to be fined tenthousand pounds of tobacco. This did not finally dispose of the problem, however, and in 1715, in response to a slightly different situation, itwas enacted that a white woman who became the mother of a child by afree Negro father should become a servant for seven years, the fatheralso a servant for seven years, and the child a servant until thirty-oneyears of age. Any white man who begot a Negro woman with child, whethera free woman or a slave, was to undergo the same penalty as a whitewoman--a provision that in course of time was notoriously disregarded. In 1717 the problem was still unsettled, and in this year it was enactedthat Negroes or mulattoes of either sex intermarrying with white peoplewere to be slaves for life, except mulattoes born of white women, whowere to serve for seven years, and the white person so intermarryingalso for seven years. It is needless to say that with all these changingand contradictory provisions many servants and Negroes did not evenknow what the law was. In 1728, however, free mulatto women havingillegitimate children by Negroes and other slaves, and free Negrowomen having illegitimate children by white men, and their issue, weresubjected to the same penalties as in the former act were providedagainst white women. Thus vainly did the colony of Maryland strugglewith the problem of race intermixture. Generally throughout the Souththe rule in the matter of the child of the Negro father and theindentured white mother was that the child should be bound in servitudefor thirty or thirty-one years. In the North as well as in the South the intermingling of the blood ofthe races was discountenanced. In Pennsylvania as early as 1677 a whiteservant was indicted for cohabiting with a Negro. In 1698 the ChesterCounty court laid it down as a principle that the mingling of the raceswas not to be allowed. In 1722 a woman was punished for promoting asecret marriage between a white woman and a Negro; a little later theAssembly received from the inhabitants of the province a petitioninveighing against cohabiting; and in 1725-6 a law was passed positivelyforbidding the mixture of the races. [1] In Massachusetts as early as1705 and 1708 restraining acts to prevent a "spurious and mixt issue"ordered the sale of offending Negroes and mulattoes out of the colony'sjurisdiction, and punished Christians who intermarried with them by afine of £50. After the Revolutionary War such marriages were declaredvoid and the penalty of £50 was still exacted, and not until 1843 wasthis act repealed. Thus was the color-line, with its social and legaldistinctions, extended beyond the conditions of servitude and slavery, and thus early was an important phase of the ultimate Negro Problemforeshadowed. [Footnote 1: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 29-30. ] Generally then, in the South, in the colonial period, the free Negrocould not vote, could not hold civil office, could not give testimony incases involving white men, and could be employed only for fatigueduty in the militia. He could not purchase white servants, could notintermarry with white people, and had to be very circumspect in hisrelations with slaves. No deprivation of privilege, however, relievedhim of the obligation to pay taxes. Such advantages as he possessed weremainly economic. The money gained from his labor was his own; he mightbecome skilled at a trade; he might buy land; he might buy slaves;[1] hemight even buy his wife and child if, as most frequently happened, they were slaves; and he might have one gun with which to protect hishome. [2] Once in a long while he might even find some opportunityfor education, as when the church became the legal warden of Negroapprentices. Frequently he found a place in such a trade as that ofthe barber or in other personal service, and such work accounted verylargely for the fact that he was generally permitted to remain incommunities where technically he had no right to be. In the North hissituation was little better than in the South, and along economic lineseven harder. Everywhere his position was a difficult one. He was mostfrequently regarded as idle and shiftless, and as a breeder of mischief;but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave hishome and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the freeNegro did not possess. For all the finer things of life--the things thatmake life worth living--the lot that was his was only less hard thanthat of the slave. [Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 32-33, cites fromthe court records of Northampton County, 1651-1654 and 1655-1658, thenoteworthy case of a free negro, Anthony Johnson, who had come toVirginia not later than 1622 and who by 1650 owned a large tract of landon the Eastern Shore. To him belonged a Negro, John Casor. After severalyears of labor Casor demanded his freedom on the ground that from thefirst he had been an indentured servant and not a slave. When the casecame up in court, however, not only did Johnson win the verdict thatCasor was his slave, but he also won his suit against Robert Parker, awhite man, who he asserted had illegally detained Casor. ] [Footnote 2: Hening: _Statutes_, IV, 131. ] 3. _First Effort for Social Betterment_ If now we turn aside from laws and statutes and consider the ordinarylife and social intercourse of the Negro, we shall find more than onecontradiction, for in the colonial era codes affecting slaves and freeNegroes had to grope their way to uniformity. Especially is it necessaryto distinguish between the earlier and the later years of the period, for as early as 1760 the liberalism of the Revolutionary era began to befelt. If we consider what was strictly the colonial epoch, we may findit necessary to make a division about the year 1705. Before this datethe status of the Negro was complicated by the incidents of the systemof servitude; after it, however, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, andMassachusetts alike, special discrimination against him on account ofrace was given formal recognition. By 1715 there were in Virginia 23, 000 Negroes, and in all the colonies58, 850, or 14 per cent of the total population. [1] By 1756, however, the Negroes in Virginia numbered 120, 156 and the white people but173, 316. [2] Thirty-eight of the forty-nine counties had more Negro thanwhite tithables, and eleven of the counties had a Negro populationvarying from one-fourth to one-half more than the white. A great many ofthe Negroes had only recently been imported from Africa, and they wereespecially baffling to their masters of course when they conversed intheir native tongues. At first only men were brought, but soon womencame also, and the treatment accorded these people varied all the wayfrom occasional indulgence to the utmost cruelty. The hours of workregularly extended from sunrise to sunset, though corn-husking andrice-beating were sometimes continued after dark, and overseers werealmost invariably ruthless, often having a share in the crops. Those whowere house-servants would go about only partially clad, and the slavemight be marked or branded like one of the lower animals; he was notthought to have a soul, and the law sought to deprive him of all humanattributes. Holiday amusement consisted largely of the dances that theNegroes had brought with them, these being accompanied by the beating ofdrums and the blowing of horns; and funeral ceremonies featured Africanmummeries. For those who were criminal offenders simple execution wasnot always considered severe enough; the right hand might first beamputated, the criminal then hanged and his head cut off, and his bodyquartered and the parts suspended in public places. Sometimes thehanging was in chains, and several instances of burning are on record. A master was regularly reimbursed by the government for a slave legallyexecuted, and in 1714 there was a complaint in South Carolina thatthe treasury had become almost exhausted by such reimbursements. InMassachusetts hanging was the worst legal penalty, but the obsoletecommon-law punishment was revived in 1755 to burn alive a slave-womanwho had killed her master in Cambridge. [3] [Footnote 1: Blake: _History of Slavery and the Slave-Trade_, 378. ] [Footnote 2: Ballagh: _Slavery in Virginia_, 12. ] [Footnote 3: Edward Eggleston: "Social Conditions in the Colonies, " in_Century Magazine_, October, 1884, p. 863. ] The relations between the free Negro and the slave might well have givencause for concern. Above what was after all only an artificial barrierspoke the call of race and frequently of kindred. Sometimes at a laterdate jealousy arose when a master employed a free Negro to work withhis slaves, the one receiving pay and the others laboring withoutcompensation. In general, however, the two groups worked like brothers, each giving the other the benefit of any temporary advantage that itpossessed. Sometimes the free Negro could serve by reason of the greaterfreedom of movement that he had, and if no one would employ him, or if, as frequently happened, he was browbeaten and cheated out of the rewardof his labor, the slave might somehow see that he got something to eat. In a state of society in which the relation of master and slave was therule, there was of course little place for either the free Negro or thepoor white man. When the pressure became too great the white man movedaway; the Negro, finding himself everywhere buffeted, in the colonialera at least had little choice but to work out his salvation at home aswell as he could. More and more character told, and if a man had madehimself known for his industry and usefulness, a legislative act mighteven be passed permitting him to remain in the face of a hostile law. Even before 1700 there were in Virginia families in which both parentswere free colored persons and in which every effort was made to bring upthe children in honesty and morality. When some prosperous Negroes foundthemselves able to do so, they occasionally purchased Negroes, who mightbe their own children or brothers, in order to give them that protectionwithout which on account of recent manumission they might be required toleave the colony in which they were born. Thus, whatever the motive, thetie that bound the free Negro and the slave was a strong one; and inspite of the fact that Negroes who owned slaves were generally knownas hard masters, as soon as any men of the race began to be reallyprominent their best endeavor was devoted to the advancement of theirpeople. It was not until immediately after the Revolutionary War, however, that leaders of vision and statesmanship began to be developed. It was only the materialism of the eighteenth century that accounted forthe amazing development of the system of Negro slavery, and only thisthat defeated the benevolence of Oglethorpe's scheme for the foundingof Georgia. As yet there was no united protest--no general movement forfreedom; and as Von Holst said long afterwards, "If the agitation hadbeen wholly left to the churches, it would have been long before mencould have rightly spoken of 'a slavery question. '" The Puritans, however, were not wholly unmindful of the evil, and the Quakers wereuntiring in their opposition, though it was Roger Williams who in 1637made the first protest that appears in the colonies. [1] Both John Eliotand Cotton Mather were somewhat generally concerned about the harshtreatment of the Negro and the neglect of his spiritual welfare. Somewhat more to the point was Richard Baxter, the eminent Englishnonconformist, who was a contemporary of both of these men. "Remember, "said he, in speaking of Negroes and other slaves, "that they are of asgood a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as well asyou, and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslavedthem to you, yet Nature made them your equals. " On the subject ofman-stealing he is even stronger: "To go as pirates and catch up poorNegroes or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds ofthievery in the world. " Such statements, however, were not more than thevoice of individual opinion. The principles of the Quakers carried themfar beyond the Puritans, and their history shows what might have beenaccomplished if other denominations had been as sincere and as unselfishas the Society of Friends. The Germantown protest of 1688 has alreadybeen remarked. In 1693 George Keith, in speaking of fugitives, quotedwith telling effect the text, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his masterthe servant which is escaped from his master unto thee" (Deut. 23. 15). In 1696 the Yearly Meeting in Pennsylvania first took definite actionin giving as its advice "that Friends be careful not to encourage thebringing in of any more Negroes; and that such that have Negroes, becareful of them, bring them to meetings, have meetings with them intheir families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living as much asin them lies, and from rambling abroad on First-days or other times. "[2]As early as 1713 the Quakers had in mind a scheme for freeing theNegroes and returning them to Africa, and by 1715 their effortsagainst importation had seriously impaired the market for slavesin Philadelphia. Within a century after the Germantown protest theabolition of slavery among the Quakers was practically accomplished. [Footnote 1: For this and the references immediately following noteLocke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 11-45. ] [Footnote 2: _Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of theTestimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and theSlave-Trade_, 8. ] In the very early period there seems to have been little objection togiving a free Negro not only religious but also secular instruction;indeed he might be entitled to this, as in Virginia, where in 1691 thechurch became the agency through which the laws of Negro apprenticeshipwere carried out; thus in 1727 it was ordered that David James, a freeNegro boy, be bound to Mr. James Isdel, who was to "teach him to readthe Bible distinctly, also the trade of a gunsmith" and "carry him tothe clerk's office and take indenture to that purpose. "[1] In generalthe English church did a good deal to provide for the religiousinstruction of the free Negro; "the reports made in 1724 to the Englishbishop by the Virginia parish ministers are evidence that the few freeNegroes in the parishes were permitted to be baptized, and were receivedinto the church when they had been taught the catechism. "[2] AmongNegroes, moreover, as well as others in the colonies the Society for thePropagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was active. As early as 1705, in Goose Creek Parish in South Carolina, among a population largelyrecently imported from Africa, a missionary had among his communicantstwenty blacks who well understood the English tongue. [3] The mosteffective work of the Society, however, was in New York, where as earlyas 1704 a school was opened by Elias Neau, a Frenchman who after severalyears of imprisonment because of his Protestant faith had come to NewYork to try his fortune as a trader. In 1703 he had called the attentionof the Society to the Negroes who were "without God in the world, and ofwhose souls there was no manner of care taken, " and had suggested theappointment of a catechist. He himself was prevailed upon to take up thework and he accordingly resigned his position as an elder in the Frenchchurch and conformed to the Church of England. He worked with successfor a number of years, but in 1712 was embarrassed by the charge thathis school fomented the insurrection that was planned in that year. Hefinally showed, however, that only one of his students was in any wayconnected with the uprising. [Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 138-9. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , 138. ] [Footnote 3: C. E. Pierre, in _Journal of Negro History_, October, 1916, p. 350. ] From slave advertisements of the eighteenth century[1] we may gain manysidelights not only on the education of Negroes in the colonial era, but on their environment and suffering as well. One slave "can write apretty good hand; plays on the fife extremely well. " Another "can bothread and write and is a good fiddler. " Still others speak "Dutch andgood English, " "good English and High Dutch, " or "Swede and Englishwell. " Charles Thomas of Delaware bore the following remarkablecharacterization: "Very black, has white teeth ... Has had his left legbroke ... Speaks both French and English, and is a very great rogue. "One man who came from the West Indies "was born in Dominica and speaksFrench, but very little English; he is a very ill-natured fellow and hasbeen much cut in his back by often whipping. " A Negro named Simon who in1740 ran away in Pennsylvania "could bleed and draw teeth pretending tobe a great doctor. " Worst of all the incidents of slavery, however, wasthe lack of regard for home ties, and this situation of course obtainedin the North as well as the South. In the early part of the eighteenthcentury marriages in New York were by mutual consent only, without theblessing of the church, and burial was in a common field without anyChristian office. In Massachusetts in 1710 Rev. Samuel Phillips drew upa marriage formulary especially designed for slaves and concluding asfollows: "For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still, as really and truly as ever, your master's property, and thereforeit will be justly expected, both by God and man, that you behaveand conduct yourselves as obedient and faithful servants. "[2] InMassachusetts, however, as in New York, marriage was most often bycommon consent simply, without the office of ministers. [Footnote 1: See documents, "Eighteenth Century Slave Advertisements, "_Journal of Negro History_, April, 1916, 163-216. ] [Footnote 2: Quoted from Williams: Centennial Oration, "The AmericanNegro from 1776 to 1876, " 10. ] As yet there was no racial consciousness, no church, no businessorganization, and the chief coöperative effort was in insurrection. Until the great chain of slavery was thrown off, little independenteffort could be put forth. Even in the state of servitude or slavery, however, the social spirit of the race yearned to assert itself, andsuch an event as a funeral was attractive primarily because of thesocial features that it developed. As early as 1693 there is record ofthe formation of a distinct society by Negroes. In one of his manuscriptdiaries, preserved in the library of the Massachusetts HistoricalSociety, [1] Cotton Mather in October of this year wrote as follows:"Besides the other praying and pious meetings which I have beencontinually serving in our neighborhood, a little after this perioda company of poor Negroes, of their own accord, addressed me, for mycountenance to a design which they had, of erecting such a meeting forthe welfare of their miserable nation, that were servants among us. Iallowed their design and went one evening and prayed and preached (onPs. 68. 31) with them; and gave them the following orders, which I insertduly for the curiosity of the occasion. " The Rules to which Mather hererefers are noteworthy as containing not one suggestion of anti-slaverysentiment, and as portraying the altogether abject situation of theNegro at the time he wrote; nevertheless the text used was an inspiringone, and in any case the document must have historical importance asthe earliest thing that has come down to us in the nature of theconstitution or by-laws for a distinctively Negro organization. It isherewith given entire: Rules for the Society of Negroes. 1693. We the Miserable Children of Adam, and of Noah, thankfully Admiring and Accepting the Free-Grace of GOD, that Offers to Save us from our Miseries, by the Lord Jesus Christ, freely Resolve, with His Help, to become the Servants of that Glorious LORD. And that we may be Assisted in the Service of our Heavenly Master, we now join together in a SOCIETY, wherein the following RULES are to be observed. I. It shall be our Endeavor, to Meet in the _Evening_ after the _Sabbath_; and Pray together by Turns, one to Begin, and another to Conclude the Meeting; And between the two _Prayers_, a _Psalm_ shall be sung, and a _Sermon_ Repeated. II. Our coming to the Meeting, shall never be without the _Leave_ of such as have Power over us: And we will be Careful, that our Meeting may Begin and Conclude between the Hours of _Seven_ and _Nine_; and that we may not be _unseasonably Absent_ from the Families whereto we pertain. III. As we will, with the help of God, at all Times avoid all _Wicked Company_, so we will Receive none into our Meeting, but such as have sensibly _Reformed_ their lives from all manner of Wickedness. And, therefore, None shall be Admitted, without the Knowledge and Consent of the _Minister_ of God in this place; unto whom we will also carry every Person, that seeks for _Admission_ among us; to be by Him Examined, Instructed and Exhorted. IV. We will, as often as may be, Obtain some Wise and Good Man, of the English in the Neighborhood, and especially the Officers of the Church, to look in upon us, and by their Presence and Counsel, do what they think fitting for us. V. If any of our Number fall into the Sin of _Drunkenness_, or _Swearing_, or _Cursing_, or _Lying_, or _Stealing_, or notorious _Disobedience_ or _Unfaithfulness_ unto their Masters, we will Admonish him of his Miscarriage, and Forbid his coming to the Meeting, for at least _one Fortnight_; And except he then come with great Signs and Hopes of his _Repentance_, we will utterly Exclude him, with Blotting his _Name_ out of our list. VI. If any of our Society Defile himself with _Fornication_, we will give him our _Admonition_; and so, debar him from the Meeting, at least half a Year: Nor shall he Return to it, ever any more, without Exemplary Testimonies of his becoming a _New Creature_. VII. We will, as we have Opportunity, set ourselves to do all the Good we can, to the other _Negro-Servants_ in the Town; And if any of them should, at unfit Hours, be _Abroad_, much more, if any of them should _Run away_ from their Masters, we will afford them _no Shelter_: But we will do what in us lies, that they may be discovered, and punished. And if any of _us_ are found Faulty in this matter, they shall be no longer of _us_. VIII. None of our Society shall be _Absent_ from our Meeting, without giving a Reason of the Absence; and if it be found, that any have pretended unto their _Owners_, that they came unto the Meeting, when they were otherwise and elsewhere Employed, we will faithfully _Inform_ their Owners, and also do what we can to Reclaim such Person from all such Evil Courses for the Future: IX. It shall be expected from every one in the Society, that he learn the Catechism; And therefore, it shall be one of our usual Exercises, for one of us, to ask the _Questions_, and for all the rest in their Order, to say the _Answers_ in the Catechism; Either, The _New English_ Catechism, or the _Assemblies_ Catechism, or the Catechism in the _Negro Christianised_. [Footnote 1: See _Rules for the Society of Negroes_, 1693, by CottonMather, reprinted, New York, 1888, by George H. Moore. ] 4. Early Insurrections The Negroes who came to America directly from Africa in the eighteenthcentury were strikingly different from those whom generations ofservitude later made comparatively docile. They were wild and turbulentin disposition and were likely at any moment to take revenge for thegreat wrong that had been inflicted upon them. The planters in the Southknew this and lived in constant fear of uprisings. When the situationbecame too threatening, they placed prohibitive duties on importations, and they also sought to keep their slaves in subjection by barbarous andcruel modes of punishment, both crucifixion and burning being legalizedin some early codes. On sea as well as on land Negroes frequently roseupon those who held them in bondage, and sometimes they actuallywon their freedom. More and more, however, in any study of Negroinsurrections it becomes difficult to distinguish between a clearlyorganized revolt and what might be regarded as simply a personal crime, so that those uprisings considered in the following discussion can onlybe construed as the more representative of the many attempts for freedommade by Negro slaves in the colonial era. In 1687 there was in Virginia a conspiracy among the Negroes in theNorthern Neck that was detected just in time to prevent slaughter, andin Surry County in 1710 there was a similar plot, betrayed by one of theconspirators. In 1711, in South Carolina, several Negroes ran away fromtheir masters and "kept out, armed, robbing and plundering houses andplantations, and putting the inhabitants of the province in greatfear and terror";[1] and Governor Gibbes more than once wrote to thelegislature about amending the Negro Act, as the one already inforce did "not reach up to some of the crimes" that were daily beingcommitted. For one Sebastian, "a Spanish Negro, " alive or dead, a rewardof £50 was offered, and he was at length brought in by the Indians andtaken in triumph to Charleston. In 1712 in New York occurred an outbreakthat occasioned greater excitement than any uprising that had precededit in the colonies. Early in the morning of April 7 some slaves of theCarmantee and Pappa tribes who had suffered ill-usage, set on fire thehouse of Peter van Tilburgh, and, armed with guns and knives, killed andwounded several persons who came to extinguish the flames. They fled, however, when the Governor ordered the cannon to be fired to alarm thetown, and they got away to the woods as well as they could, butnot before they had killed several more of the citizens. Some shotthemselves in the woods and others were captured. Altogether eight orten white persons were killed, and, aside from those Negroes who hadcommitted suicide, eighteen or more were executed, several others beingtransported. Of those executed one was hanged alive in chains, some wereburned at the stake, and one was left to die a lingering death beforethe gaze of the town. [Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 63. ] In May, 1720, some Negroes in South Carolina were fairly well organizedand killed a man named Benjamin Cattle, one white woman, and a littleNegro boy. They were pursued and twenty-three taken and six convicted. Three of the latter were executed, the other three escaping. In October, 1722, the Negroes near the mouth of the Rappahannock in Virginiaundertook to kill the white people while the latter were assembled inchurch, but were discovered and put to flight. On this occasion, as onmost others, Sunday was the day chosen for the outbreak, the Negroesthen being best able to get together. In April, 1723, it was thoughtthat some fires in Boston had been started by Negroes, and the selectmenrecommended that if more than two Negroes were found "lurking together"on the streets they should be put in the house of correction. In 1728there was a well organized attempt in Savannah, then a place of threethousand white people and two thousand seven hundred Negroes. The planto kill all the white people failed because of disagreement as to theexact method; but the body of Negroes had to be, fired on more thanonce before it dispersed. In 1730 there was in Williamsburg, Va. , aninsurrection that grew out of a report that Colonel Spotswood had ordersfrom the king to free all baptized persons on his arrival; men from allthe surrounding counties had to be called in before it could be putdown. The first open rebellion in South Carolina in which Negroes were"actually armed and embodied"[1] took place in 1730. The plan was foreach Negro to kill his master in the dead of night, then for all toassemble supposedly for a dancing-bout, rush upon the heart of the city, take possession of the arms, and kill any white man they saw. The plotwas discovered and the leaders executed. In this same colony threeformidable insurrections broke out within the one year 1739--one in St. Paul's Parish, one in St. John's, and one in Charleston. To some extentthese seem to have been fomented by the Spaniards in the South, and inone of them six houses were burned and as many as twenty-five whitepeople killed. The Negroes were pursued and fourteen killed. Within twodays "twenty more were killed, and forty were taken, some of whomwere shot, some hanged, and some gibbeted alive. "[2] This "examplarypunishment, " as Governor Gibbes called it, was by no means effective, for in the very next year, 1740, there broke out what might beconsidered the most formidable insurrection in the South in the wholecolonial period. A number of Negroes, having assembled at Stono, firstsurprised, and killed two young men in a warehouse, from which they thentook guns and ammunition. [3] They then elected as captain one of theirown number named Cato, whom they agreed to follow, and they marchedtowards the southwest, with drums beating and colors flying, like adisciplined company. They entered the home of a man named Godfrey, andhaving murdered him and his wife and children, they took all the arms hehad, set fire to the house, and proceeded towards Jonesboro. On theirway they plundered and burned every house to which they came, killingevery white person they found and compelling the Negroes to join them. Governor Bull, who happened to be returning to Charleston from thesouthward, met them, and observing them armed, spread the alarm, whichsoon reached the Presbyterian Church at Wilton, where a number ofplanters was assembled. The women were left in the church trembling withfear, while the militia formed and marched in quest of the Negroes, whoby this time had become formidable from the number that had joined them. They had marched twelve miles and spread desolation through all theplantations on their way. They had then halted in an open field and toosoon had begun to sing and drink and dance by way of triumph. Duringthese rejoicings the militia discovered them and stationed themselvesin different places around them to prevent their escape. One party thenadvanced into the open field and attacked the Negroes. Some werekilled and the others were forced to the woods. Many ran back to theplantations, hoping thus to avoid suspicion, but most of them were takenand tried. Such as had been forced to join the uprising against theirwill were pardoned, but all of the chosen leaders and the firstinsurgents were put to death. All Carolina, we are told, was struck withterror and consternation by this insurrection, in which more than twentywhite persons were killed. It was followed immediately by the famous andsevere Negro Act of 1740, which among other provisions imposed a duty of£100 on Africans and £150 on colonial Negroes. This remained technicallyin force until 1822, and yet as soon as security and confidence wererestored, there was a relaxation in the execution of the provisionsof the act and the Negroes little by little regained confidence inthemselves and again began to plan and act in concert. [Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 68. ] [Footnote 2: Coffin. ] [Footnote 3: The following account follows mainly Holland, quotingHewitt. ] About the time of Cato's insurrection there were also several uprisingsat sea. In 1731, on a ship returning to Rhode Island from Guinea with acargo of slaves, the Negroes rose and killed three of the crew, all themembers of which died soon afterwards with the exception of the captainand his boy. The next year Captain John Major of Portsmouth, N. H. , wasmurdered with all his crew, his schooner and cargo being seized by theslaves. In 1735 the captives on the _Dolphin_ of London, while still onthe coast of Africa, overpowered the crew, broke into the powder room, and finally in the course of their effort for freedom blew up boththemselves and the crew. A most remarkable design--as an insurrection perhaps not as formidableas that of Cato, but in some ways the most important single event in thehistory of the Negro in the colonial period--was the plot in the cityof New York in 1741. New York was at the time a thriving town oftwelve thousand inhabitants, and the calamity that now befell it wasunfortunate in every way. It was not only a Negro insurrection, thoughthe Negro finally suffered most bitterly. It was also a strange compoundof the effects of whiskey and gambling, of the designs of abandonedwhite people, and of prejudice against the Catholics. Prominent in the remarkable drama were John Hughson, a shoemaker andalehouse keeper; Sarah Hughson, his wife; John Romme, also a shoemakerand alehouse keeper; Margaret Kerry, alias Salinburgh, commonly knownas Peggy; John Ury, a priest; and a number of Negroes, chief among whomwere Cæsar, Prince, Cuffee, and Quack. [1] Prominent among those whohelped to work out the plot were Mary Burton, a white servant ofHughson's, sixteen years of age; Arthur Price, a young white man whoat the time of the proceedings happened to be in prison on a charge ofstealing; a young seaman named Wilson; and two white women, Mrs. Earleand Mrs. Hogg, the latter of whom assisted in the store kept by herhusband, Robert Hogg. Hughson's house on the outskirts of the town was aresort for Negroes, and Hughson himself aided and abetted the Negro menin any crime that they might commit. Romme was of similar quality. Peggywas a prostitute, and it was Cæsar who paid for her board with theHughsons. In the previous summer she had found lodging with thesepeople, a little later she had removed to Romme's, and just beforeChristmas she had come back to Hughson's, and a few weeks thereafter shebecame a mother. At both the public houses the Negroes would engage indrinking and gambling; and importance also attaches to an organizationof theirs known as the Geneva Society, which had angered some of thewhite citizens by its imitation of the rites and forms of freemasonry. [Footnote 1: The sole authority on the plot is "A Journal of theProceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy formed by Some WhitePeople, in Conjunction with Negro and other Slaves, for Burning the Cityof New York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants (by Judge DanielHorsemanden). New York, 1744. "] Events really began on the night of Saturday, February 28, 1741, witha robbery in the house of Hogg, the merchant, from which were takenvarious pieces of linen and other goods, several silver coins, chieflySpanish, and medals, to the value of about £60. On the day before, inthe course of a simple purchase by Wilson, Mrs. Hogg had revealed to theyoung seaman her treasure. He soon spoke of the same to Cæsar, Prince, and Cuffee, with whom he was acquainted; he gave them the plan of thehouse, and they in turn spoke of the matter to Hughson. Wilson, however, when later told of the robbery by Mrs. Hogg, at once turned suspicionupon the Negroes, especially Cæsar; and Mary Burton testified that shesaw some of the speckled linen in question in Peggy's room after Cæsarhad gone thither. On Wednesday, March 18, a fire broke out on the roof of His Majesty'sHouse at Fort George. One week later, on March 25, there was a fire atthe home of Captain Warren in the southwest end of the city, and thecircumstances pointed to incendiary origin. One week later, on April1, there was a fire in the storehouse of a man named Van Zant; on thefollowing Saturday evening there was another fire, and while the peoplewere returning from this there was still another; and on the next day, Sunday, there was another alarm, and by this time the whole town hadbeen worked up to the highest pitch of excitement. As yet there wasnothing to point to any connection between the stealing and the fires. On the day of the last one, however, Mrs. Earle happened to overhearremarks by three Negroes that caused suspicion to light upon them; MaryBurton was insisting that stolen goods had been brought by Prince andCæsar to the house of her master; and although a search of the home ofHughson failed to produce a great deal, arrests were made right andleft. The case was finally taken to the Supreme Court, and because ofthe white persons implicated, the summary methods ordinarily used indealing with Negroes were waived for the time being. Peggy at first withstood all questioning, denying any knowledge of theevents that had taken place. One day in prison, however, she remarkedto Arthur Price that she was afraid the Negroes would tell but that shewould not forswear herself unless they brought her into the matter. "Howforswear?" asked Price. "There are fourteen sworn, " she said. "What, is it about Mr. Hogg's goods?" he asked. "No, " she replied, "about thefire. " "What, Peggy, " asked Price, "were you going to set the town onfire?" "No, " she replied, "but since I knew of it they made me swear. "She also remarked that she had faith in Prince, Cuff, and Cæsar. Allthe while she used the vilest possible language, and at last, thinkingsuddenly that she had revealed too much, she turned upon Price and withan oath warned him that he had better keep his counsel. That afternoonshe said further to him that she could not eat because Mary had broughther into the case. A little later Peggy, much afraid, voluntarily confessed that early inMay she was at the home of John Romme, where in the course of Decemberthe Negroes had had several meetings; among other things they hadconspired to burn the fort first of all, then the city, then to get allthe goods they could and kill anybody who had money. One evening justabout Christmas, she said, Romme and his wife and ten or eleven Negroeshad been together in a room. Romme had talked about how rich some peoplewere, gradually working on the feelings of the Negroes and promisingthem that if they did not succeed in their designs he would take themto a strange country and set them free, meanwhile giving them theimpression that he bore a charmed life. A little later, it appeared, Cæsar gave to Hughson £12; Hughson was then absent for three days, and when he came again he brought with him seven or eight guns, somepistols, and some swords. As a result of these and other disclosures it was seen that not onlyHughson and Romme but also Ury, who was not so much a priest as anadventurer, had instigated the plots of the Negroes; and Quack testifiedthat Hughson was the first contriver of the plot to burn the houses ofthe town and kill the people, though he himself, he confessed, did firethe fort with a lighted stick. The punishment was terrible. Quack andCuffee, the first to be executed, were burned at the stake on May30. All through the summer the trials and the executions continued, harassing New York and indeed the whole country. Altogether twenty whitepersons were arrested; four--Hughson, his wife, Peggy, and Ury--wereexecuted, and some of their acquaintances were forced to leave theprovince. One hundred and fifty-four Negroes were arrested. Thirteenwere burned, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported. * * * * * It is evident from these events and from the legislation of the erathat, except for the earnest work of such a sect as the Quakers, therewas little genuine effort for the improvement of the social conditionof the Negro people in the colonies. They were not even regarded aspotential citizens, and both in and out of the system of slavery weresubjected to the harshest regulations. Towards amicable relations withthe other racial elements that were coming to build up a new countryonly the slightest measure of progress was made. Instead, insurrectionafter insurrection revealed the sharpest antagonism, and any outbreakpromptly called forth the severest and frequently the most cruelpunishment. CHAPTER III THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA 1. _Sentiment in England and America_ The materialism of the eighteenth century, with all of its evils, atlength produced a liberalism of thought that was to shake to their veryfoundations old systems of life in both Europe and America. The progressof the cause of the Negro in this period is to be explained by thegeneral diffusion of ideas that made for the rights of man everywhere. Cowper wrote his humanitarian poems; in close association with theromanticism of the day the missionary movement in religion began togather force; and the same impulse which in England began the agitationfor a free press and for parliamentary reform, and which in Franceaccounted for the French Revolution, in America led to the revolt fromGreat Britain. No patriot could come under the influence of any oneof these movements without having his heart and his sense of justicestirred to some degree in behalf of the slave. At the same time it mustbe remembered that the contest of the Americans was primarily for thedefinite legal rights of Englishmen rather than for the more abstractrights of mankind which formed the platform of the French Revolution;hence arose the great inconsistency in the position of men who wereengaged in a stern struggle for liberty at the same time that theythemselves were holding human beings in bondage. In England the new era was formally signalized by an epoch-makingdecision. In November, 1769, Charles Stewart, once a merchant in Norfolkand later receiver general of the customs of North America, took toEngland his Negro slave, James Somerset, who, being sick, was turnedadrift by his master. Later Somerset recovered and Stewart seized him, intending to have him borne out of the country and sold in Jamaica. Somerset objected to this and in so doing raised the important legalquestion, Did a slave by being brought to England become free? The casereceived an extraordinary amount of attention, for everybody realizedthat the decision would be far-reaching in its consequences. After itwas argued at three different sittings, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice ofEngland, in 1772 handed down from the Court of King's Bench the judgmentthat as soon as ever any slave set his foot upon the soil of England hebecame free. This decision may be taken as fairly representative of the generaladvance that the cause of the Negro was making in England at the time. Early in the century sentiment against the slave-trade had begun todevelop, many pamphlets on the evils of slavery were circulated, and asearly as 1776 a motion for the abolition of the trade was made in theHouse of Commons. John Wesley preached against the system, Adam Smithshowed its ultimate expensiveness, and Burke declared that the slaveryendured by the Negroes in the English settlements was worse than thatever suffered by any other people. Foremost in the work of protest wereThomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, the one being the leader ininvestigation and in the organization of the movement against slaverywhile the other was the parliamentary champion of the cause. Foryears, assisted by such debaters as Burke, Fox, and the younger Pitt, Wilberforce worked until on March 25, 1807, the bill for the abolitionof the slave-trade received the royal assent, and still later untilslavery itself was abolished in the English dominions (1833). This high thought in England necessarily found some reflection inAmerica, where the logic of the position of the patriots frequentlyforced them to take up the cause of the slave. As early as 1751 BenjaminFranklin, in his _Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind_, pointed out the evil effects of slavery upon population and theproduction of wealth; and in 1761 James Otis, in his argument againstthe Writs of Assistance, spoke so vigorously of the rights of black menas to leave no doubt as to his own position. To Patrick Henry slaverywas a practice "totally repugnant to the first impressions of right andwrong, " and in 1777 he was interested in a plan for gradual emancipationreceived from his friend, Robert Pleasants. Washington desired nothingmore than "to see some plan adopted by which slavery might be abolishedby law"; while Joel Barlow in his _Columbiad_ gave significant warningto Columbia of the ills that she was heaping up for herself. Two of the expressions of sentiment of the day, by reason of their deepyearning and philosophic calm, somehow stand apart from others. ThomasJefferson in his _Notes on Virginia_ wrote: "The whole commerce betweenmaster and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterouspassions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degradingsubmission on the other.... The man must be a prodigy who can retain hismanners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.... I tremble for mycountry when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleepforever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, arevolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, isamong possible events; that it may become probable by supernaturalinterference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with usin such a contest. "[1] Henry Laurens, that fine patriot whose businesssense was excelled only by his idealism, was harassed by the problem andwrote to his son, Colonel John Laurens, as follows: "You know, my dearson, I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had beenestablished by British kings and parliaments, as well as by the laws ofthat country ages before my existence. I found the Christian religionand slavery growing under the same authority and cultivation. Inevertheless disliked it. In former days there was no combating theprejudices of men supported by interest; the day I hope is approachingwhen, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man willstrive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the goldenrule. Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my Negroesproduce if sold at public auction to-morrow. I am not the man whoenslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor;nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and forcutting off the entail of slavery. Great powers oppose me--the laws andcustoms of my country, my own and the avarice of my countrymen. Whatwill my children say if I deprive them of so much estate? These aredifficulties, but not insuperable. I will do as much as I can in mytime, and leave the rest to a better hand. "[2] Stronger than all else, however, were the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence: "Wehold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal;that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Within the years to come these words were to be denied and assailed asperhaps no others in the language; but in spite of all they were tostand firm and justify the faith of 1776 before Jefferson himself andothers had become submerged in a gilded opportunism. [Footnote 1: "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, issued under theauspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, " 20 vols. , Washington, 1903, II, 226-227. ] [Footnote 2: "A South Carolina Protest against Slavery (being a letterwritten from Henry Laurens, second president of the ContinentalCongress, to his son, Colonel John Laurens; dated Charleston, S. C. , August 14th, 1776). " Reprinted by G. P. Putnam, New York, 1861. ] It is not to be supposed that such sentiments were by any means general;nevertheless these instances alone show that some men at least inthe colonies were willing to carry their principles to their logicalconclusion. Naturally opinion crystallized in formal resolutions orenactments. Unfortunately most of these were in one way or anotherrendered ineffectual after the war; nevertheless the main impulse thatthey represented continued to live. In 1769 Virginia declared that thediscriminatory tax levied on free Negroes and mulattoes since 1668 was"derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects" and accordingly shouldbe repealed. In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress declaredin its Articles of Association that the united colonies would "neitherimport nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of Decembernext" and that they would "wholly discontinue the trade. " On April 16, 1776, the Congress further resolved that "no slaves be imported into anyof the thirteen colonies"; and the first draft of the Declaration ofIndependence contained a strong passage censuring the King of Englandfor bringing slaves into the country and then inciting them to riseagainst their masters. On April 14, 1775, the first abolition society inthe country was organized in Pennsylvania; in 1778 Virginia once morepassed an act prohibiting the slave-trade; and the Methodist Conferencein Baltimore in 1780 strongly expressed its disapproval of slavery. 2. _The Negro in the War_ As in all the greater wars in which the country has engaged, theposition of the Negro was generally improved by the American Revolution. It was not by reason of any definite plan that this was so, for ingeneral the disposition of the government was to keep him out of theconflict. Nevertheless between the hesitating policy of America and theovertures of England the Negro made considerable advance. The American cause in truth presented a strange and embarrassingdilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began thestern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the riftwas not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in the Souththe combination of Tory sentiment and the aristocratic social systemmade enlistment especially difficult. In this latter section, moreover, there was always the lurking fear of an uprising of the slaves, andbefore the end of the war came South Carolina and Georgia were verynearly demoralized. In the course of the conflict South Carolina lostnot less than 25, 000 slaves, [1] about one-fifth of all she had. Georgiadid not lose so many, but proportionally suffered even more. Some of theNegroes went into the British army, some went away with the loyalists, and some took advantage of the confusion and escaped to the Indians. In Virginia, until they were stopped at least, some slaves entered theContinental Army as free Negroes. [Footnote 1: Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in theAmerican Army of the Revolution, by G. H. Moore, New York, 1862, p. 15. ] Three or four facts are outstanding. The formal policy of Congress andof Washington and his officers was against the enlistment of Negroes andespecially of slaves; nevertheless, while things were still uncertain, some Negroes entered the regular units. The inducements offered by theEnglish, moreover, forced a modification of the American policy inactual operation; and before the war was over the colonists were so hardpressed that in more ways than one they were willing to receive theassistance of Negroes. Throughout the North Negroes served in theregular units; but while in the South especially there was much thoughtgiven to the training of slaves, in only one of all the colonies wasthere a distinctively Negro military organization, and that one wasRhode Island. In general it was understood that if a slave served in thewar he was to be given his freedom, and it is worthy of note that manyslaves served in the field instead of their masters. In Massachusetts on May 29, 1775, the Committee of Safety passed an actagainst the enlistment of slaves as "inconsistent with the principlesthat are to be supported. " Another resolution of June 6 dealing with thesame matter was laid on the table. Washington took command of the forcesin and about Boston July 3, 1775, and on July 10 issued instructionsto the recruiting officers in Massachusetts against the enlisting ofNegroes. Toward the end of September there was a spirited debate inCongress over a letter to go to Washington, the Southern delegates, ledby Rutledge of South Carolina, endeavoring to force instructions to thecommander-in-chief to discharge all slaves and free Negroes in thearmy. A motion to this effect failed to win a majority; nevertheless, acouncil of Washington and his generals on October 8 "agreed unanimouslyto reject all slaves, and, by a great majority, to reject Negroesaltogether, " and in his general orders of November 12 Washington actedon this understanding. Meanwhile, however, Lord Dunmore issued hisproclamation declaring free those indentured servants and Negroes whowould join the English army, and in great numbers the slaves in Virginiaflocked to the British standard. Then on December 14--somewhat to theamusement of both the Negroes and the English--the Virginia Conventionissued a proclamation offering pardon to those slaves who returned totheir duty within ten days. On December 30 Washington gave instructionsfor the enlistment of free Negroes, promising later to lay the matterbefore Congress; and a congressional committee on January 16, 1776, reported that those free Negroes who had already served faithfully inthe army at Cambridge might reënlist but no others, the debate in thisconnection having drawn very sharply the line between the North and theSouth. Henceforth for all practical purposes the matter was left in thehands of the individual colonies. Massachusetts on January 6, 1777, passed a resolution drafting every seventh man to complete her quota"without any exception, save the people called Quakers, " and this was asnear as she came at any time in the war to the formal recognition of theNegro. The Rhode Island Assembly in 1778 resolved to raise a regimentof slaves, who were to be freed at enlistment, their owners in no casebeing paid more than £120. In the Battle of Rhode Island August 29, 1778, the Negro regiment under Colonel Greene distinguished itself bydeeds of desperate valor, repelling three times the assaults of anoverwhelming force of Hessian troops. A little later, when Greene wasabout to be murdered, some of these same soldiers had to be cut topieces before he could be secured. Maryland employed Negroes as soldiersand sent them into regiments along with white men, and it is to beremembered that at the time the Negro population of Maryland wasexceeded only by that of Virginia and South Carolina. For the far Souththere was the famous Laurens plan for the raising of Negro regiments. In a letter to Washington of March 16, 1779, Henry Laurens suggestedthe raising and training of three thousand Negroes in South Carolina. Washington was rather conservative about the plan, having in mind theever-present fear of the arming of Negroes and wondering about theeffect on those slaves who were not given a chance for freedom. On June30, 1779, however, Sir Henry Clinton issued a proclamation only lessfar-reaching than Dunmore's, threatening Negroes if they joined the"rebel" army and offering them security if they came within the Britishlines. This was effective; assistance of any kind that the ContinentalArmy could now get was acceptable; and the plan for the raising ofseveral battalions of Negroes in the South was entrusted to Colonel JohnLaurens, a member of Washington's staff. In his own way Colonel Laurenswas a man of parts quite as well as his father; he was thoroughlydevoted to the American cause and Washington said of him that his onlyfault was a courage that bordered on rashness. He eagerly pursued hisfavorite project; able-bodied slaves were to be paid for by Congress atthe rate of $1, 000 each, and one who served to the end of the war wasto receive his freedom and $50 in addition. In South Carolina, however, Laurens received little encouragement, and in 1780 he was called uponto go to France on a patriotic mission. He had not forgotten the matterwhen he returned in 1782; but by that time Cornwallis had surrenderedand the country had entered upon the critical period of adjustment tothe new conditions. Washington now wrote to Laurens: "I must confessthat I am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. That spiritof freedom which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladlysacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long sincesubsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. It is not thepublic but private interest which influences the generality of mankind;nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under thesecircumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you hadsucceeded; nor will you, I fear, have better success in Georgia. "[1] [Footnote 1: Sparks's _Washington_, VIII, 322-323. ] From this brief survey we may at least see something of the anomalousposition occupied by the Negro in the American Revolution. Altogethernot less than three thousand, and probably more, members of the raceserved in the Continental army. At the close of the conflict New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia freed their slave soldiers. In general, however, the system of slavery was not affected, and the English werebound by the treaty of peace not to carry away any Negroes. As late as1786, it is nevertheless interesting to note, a band of Negroes callingthemselves "The King of England's soldiers" harassed and alarmed thepeople on both sides of the Savannah River. Slavery remained; but people could not forget the valor of the Negroregiment in Rhode Island, or the courage of individual soldiers. Theycould not forget that it was a Negro, Crispus Attucks, who had been thepatriot leader in the Boston Massacre, or the scene when he and one ofhis companions, Jonas Caldwell, lay in Faneuil Hall. Those who were atBunker Hill could not fail to remember Peter Salem, who, when MajorPitcairn of the British army was exulting in his expected triumph, rushed forward, shot him in the breast, and killed him; or Samuel Poor, whose officers testified that he performed so many brave deeds that "toset forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious. " These and manymore, some with very humble names, in a dark day worked for a bettercountry. They died in faith, not having received the promises, buthaving seen them afar off. 3. _The Northwest Territory and the Constitution_ The materialism and selfishness which rose in the course of the war tooppose the liberal tendencies of the period, and which Washington feltdid so much to embarrass the government, became pronounced in thedebates on the Northwest Territory and the Constitution. At the outbreakof the Revolutionary War the region west of Pennsylvania, east of theMississippi River, north of the Ohio River, and south of Canada, wasclaimed by Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Thisterritory afforded to these states a source of revenue not possessed bythe others for the payment of debts incurred in the war, and Marylandand other seaboard states insisted that in order to equalize mattersthese claimants should cede their rights to the general government. Theformal cessions were made and accepted in the years 1782-6. In April, 1784, after Virginia had made her cession, the most important, Congressadopted a temporary form of government drawn up by Thomas Jefferson forthe territory south as well as north of the Ohio River. Jefferson's mostsignificant provision, however, was rejected. This declared that "afterthe year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitudein any of the said states other than in the punishment of crimes whereofthe party shall have been duly convicted to have been personallyguilty. " This early ordinance, although it did not go into effect, isinteresting as an attempt to exclude slavery from the great West thatwas beginning to be opened up. On March 3, 1786, moreover, the OhioCompany was formed in Boston by a group of New England business men forthe purpose of purchasing land in the West and promoting settlement; andearly in June, 1787, Dr. Manasseh Cutler, one of the chief promoters ofthe company, appeared in New York, where the last Continental Congresswas sitting, for the concrete purpose of buying land. He doubtlessdid much to hasten action by Congress, and on July 13 was passed "AnOrdinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the Ohio, " the Southern states not having ceded the areasouth of the river. It was declared that "There shall be neither slaverynor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than inpunishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted. " Tothis was added the stipulation (soon afterwards embodied in the FederalConstitution) for the return of any person escaping into the territoryfrom whom labor or service was "lawfully claimed in any one of theoriginal states. " In this shape the ordinance was adopted, even SouthCarolina and Georgia concurring; and thus was paved the way for thefirst fugitive slave law. Slavery, already looming up as a dominating issue, was the cause oftwo of the three great compromises that entered into the making of theConstitution of the United States (the third, which was the first made, being the concession to the smaller states of equal representation inthe Senate). These were the first but not the last of the compromisesthat were to mark the history of the subject; and, as some clear-headedmen of the time perceived, it would have been better and cheaper tosettle the question at once on the high plane of right rather than toleave it indefinitely to the future. South Carolina, however, with ablerepresentation, largely controlled the thought of the convention, andshe and Georgia made the most extreme demands, threatening not to acceptthe Constitution if there was not compliance with them. An importantquestion was that of representation, the Southern states advocatingrepresentation according to numbers, slave and free, while the Northernstates were in favor of the representation of free persons only. Williamson of North Carolina advocated the counting of three-fifths ofthe slaves, but this motion was at first defeated, and there was littlereal progress until Gouverneur Morris suggested that representation beaccording to the principle of wealth. Mason of Virginia pointed outpractical difficulties which caused the resolution to be made to applyto direct taxation only, and in this form it began to be generallyacceptable. By this time, however, the deeper feelings of the delegateson the subject of slavery had been stirred, and they began to speakplainly. Davie of North Carolina declared that his state would neverenter the Union on any terms that did not provide for counting at leastthree-fifths of the slaves and that "if the Eastern states meant toexclude them altogether the business was at an end. " It was finallyagreed to reckon three-fifths of the slaves in estimating taxes and tomake taxation the basis of representation. The whole discussion wasrenewed, however, in connection with the question of importation. Therewere more threats from the far South, and some of the men from NewEngland, prompted by commercial interest, even if they did not favorthe sentiments expressed, were at least disposed to give them passiveacquiescence. From Maryland and Virginia, however, came earnest protest. Luther Martin declared unqualifiedly that to have a clause in theConstitution permitting the importation of slaves was inconsistentwith the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the Americancharacter, and George Mason could foresee only a future in which a justProvidence would punish such a national sin as slavery by nationalcalamities. Such utterances were not to dominate the convention, however; it was a day of expediency, not of morality. A bargain was madebetween the commercial interests of the North and the slave-holdinginterests of the South, the granting to Congress of unrestricted powerto enact navigation laws being conceded in exchange for twenty years'continuance of the slave-trade. The main agreements on the subjectof slavery were thus finally expressed in the Constitution:"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the severalstates which may be included within this Union, according to theirrespective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the wholenumber of free persons, including those bound to servitude for a termof years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all otherpersons" (Art. I, Sec. 2); "The migration or importation of such personsas any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall notbe prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808; but a tax or dutymay be imposed, not exceeding ten dollars on each person" (Art. I, Sec. 9); "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the lawsthereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law orregulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shallbe delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor maybe due" (Art. IV, Sec. 2). With such provisions, though without the useof the question-begging word _slaves_, the institution of human bondagereceived formal recognition in the organic law of the new republic ofthe United States. "Just what is the light in which we are to regard the slaves?" wonderedJames Wilson in the course of the debate. "Are they admitted ascitizens?" he asked; "then why are they not admitted on an equality withwhite citizens? Are they admitted as property? then why is not otherproperty admitted into the computation?" Such questions and others towhich they gave rise were to trouble more heads than his in the courseof the coming years, and all because a great nation did not have thecourage to do the right thing at the right time. 4. Early Steps toward Abolition In spite, however, of the power crystallized in the Constitution, themoral movement that had set in against slavery still held its ground, and it was destined never wholly to languish until slavery ceasedaltogether to exist in the United States. Throughout the century theQuakers continued their good work; in the generation before the war JohnWoolman of New Jersey traveled in the Southern colonies preaching that"the practice of continuing slavery is not right"; and Anthony Benezetopened in Philadelphia a school for Negroes which he himself taughtwithout remuneration, and otherwise influenced Pennsylvania to begin thework of emancipation. In general the Quakers conducted their campaignalong the lines on which they were most likely to succeed, attackingthe slave-trade first of all but more and more making an appeal tothe central government; and the first Abolition Society, organized inPennsylvania in 1775 and consisting mainly of Quakers, had for itsoriginal object merely the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held inbondage. [1] The organization was forced to suspend its work in thecourse of the war, but in 1784 it renewed its meetings, and men of otherdenominations than the Quakers now joined in greater numbers. In 1787the society was formally reorganized as "The Pennsylvania Societyfor Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroesunlawfully held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of theAfrican Race. " Benjamin Franklin was elected president and there wasadopted a constitution which was more and more to serve as a model forsimilar societies in the neighboring states. [Footnote 1: Locke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 97. ] Four years later, by 1791, there were in the country as many astwelve abolition societies, and these represented all the states fromMassachusetts to Virginia, with the exception of New Jersey, where asociety was formed the following year. That of New York, formed in 1785with John Jay as president, took the name of the Manumission Society, limiting its aims at first to promoting manumission and protecting thoseNegroes who had already been set free. All of the societies had veryclear ideas as to their mission. The prevalence of kidnaping made thememphasize "the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage, "and in general each one in addition to its executive committee hadcommittees for inspection, advice, and protection; for the guardianshipof children; for the superintending of education, and for employment. While the societies were originally formed to attend to local matters, their efforts naturally extended in course of time to national affairs, and on December 8, 1791, nine of them prepared petitions to Congress forthe limitation of the slave-trade. These petitions were referred to aspecial committee and nothing more was heard of them at the time. Aftertwo years accordingly the organizations decided that a more vigorousplan of action was necessary, and on January 1, 1794, delegates fromnine societies organized in Philadelphia the American Convention ofAbolition Societies. The object of the Convention was twofold, "toincrease the zeal and efficiency of the individual societies byits advice and encouragement ... And to take upon itself the chiefresponsibility in regard to national affairs. " It prepared an address tothe country and presented to Congress a memorial against the fitting outof vessels in the United States to engage in the slave-trade, and it hadthe satisfaction of seeing Congress in the same year pass a bill to thiseffect. Some of the organizations were very active and one as far South as thatin Maryland was at first very powerful. Always were they interestedin suits in courts of law. In 1797 the New York Society reported 90complaints, 36 persons freed, 21 cases still in suit, and 19 underconsideration. The Pennsylvania Society reported simply that it hadbeen instrumental in the liberation of "many hundreds" of persons. Thedifferent branches, however, did not rest with mere liberation; theyendeavored generally to improve the condition of the Negroes in theirrespective communities, each one being expected to report to theConvention on the number of freedmen in its state and on their property, employment, and conduct. From time to time also the Convention preparedaddresses to these people, and something of the spirit of its work andalso of the social condition of the Negro at the time may be seen fromthe following address of 1796: To the Free Africans and Other Free People of Color in the United States. The Convention of Deputies from the Abolition Societies in the United States, assembled at Philadelphia, have undertaken to address you upon subjects highly interesting to your prosperity. They wish to see you act worthily of the rank you have acquired as freemen, and thereby to do credit to yourselves, and to justify the friends and advocates of your color in the eyes of the world. As the result of our united reflections, we have concluded to call your attention to the following articles of advice. We trust they are dictated by the purest regard for your welfare, for we view you as Friends and Brethren. _In the first place_, We earnestly recommend to you, a regular attention to the important duty of public worship; by which means you will evince gratitude to your Creator, and, at the same time, promote knowledge, union, friendship, and proper conduct among yourselves. _Secondly_, We advise such of you, as have not been taught reading, writing, and the first principles of arithmetic, to acquire them as early as possible. Carefully attend to the instruction of your children in the same simple and useful branches of education. Cause them, likewise, early and frequently to read the holy Scriptures; these contain, amongst other great discoveries, the precious record of the original equality of mankind, and of the obligations of universal justice and benevolence, which are derived from the relation of the human race to each other in a common Father. _Thirdly_, Teach your children useful trades, or to labor with their hands in cultivating the earth. These employments are favorable to health and virtue. In the choice of masters, who are to instruct them in the above branches of business, prefer those who will work with them; by this means they will acquire habits of industry, and be better preserved from vice than if they worked alone, or under the eye of persons less interested in their welfare. In forming contracts, for yourselves or children, with masters, it may be useful to consult such persons as are capable of giving you the best advice, and who are known to be your friends, in order to prevent advantages being taken of your ignorance of the laws and customs of our country. _Fourthly_, Be diligent in your respective callings, and faithful in all the relations you bear in society, whether as husbands, wives, fathers, children or hired servants. Be just in all your dealings. Be simple in your dress and furniture, and frugal in your family expenses. Thus you will act like Christians as well as freemen, and, by these means, you will provide for the distresses and wants of sickness and old age. _Fifthly_, Refrain from the use of spirituous liquors; the experience of many thousands of the citizens of the United States has proved that these liquors are not necessary to lessen the fatigue of labor, nor to obviate the effects of heat or cold; nor can they, in any degree, add to the innocent pleasures of society. _Sixthly_, Avoid frolicking, and amusements which lead to expense and idleness; they beget habits of dissipation and vice, and thus expose you to deserved reproach amongst your white neighbors. _Seventhly_, We wish to impress upon your minds the moral and religious necessity of having your marriages legally performed; also to have exact registers preserved of all the births and deaths which occur in your respective families. _Eighthly_, Endeavor to lay up as much as possible of your earnings for the benefit of your children, in case you should die before they are able to maintain themselves--your money will be safest and most beneficial when laid out in lots, houses, or small farms. _Ninthly_, We recommend to you, at all times and upon all occasions, to behave yourselves to all persons in a civil and respectful manner, by which you may prevent contention and remove every just occasion of complaint. We beseech you to reflect, that it is by your good conduct alone that you can refute the objections which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures, and remove many of the difficulties which have occurred in the general emancipation of such of your brethren as are yet in bondage. With hearts anxious for your welfare, we commend you to the guidance and protection of that _Being_ who is able to keep you from all evil, and who is the common Father and Friend of the whole family of mankind. Theodore Foster, President. Philadelphia, January 6th, 1796. Thomas P. Cope, Secretary. The general impulse for liberty which prompted the Revolution and theearly Abolition societies naturally found some reflection in formallegislation. The declarations of the central government under theConfederation were not very effective, and for more definite enactmentswe have to turn to the individual states. The honor of being the firstactually to prohibit and abolish slavery really belongs to Vermont, whose constitution, adopted in 1777, even before she had come into theUnion, declared very positively against the system. In 1782 the oldVirginia statute forbidding emancipation except for meritorious serviceswas repealed. The repeal was in force ten years, and in this timemanumissions were numerous. Maryland soon afterwards passed acts similarto those in Virginia prohibiting the further introduction of slaves andremoving restraints on emancipation, and New York and New Jersey alsoprohibited the further introduction of slaves from Africa or from otherstates. In 1780, in spite of considerable opposition because of thecourse of the war, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act forbiddingthe further introduction of slaves and giving freedom to all personsthereafter born in the state. Similar provisions were enacted inConnecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. Meanwhile Massachusetts was muchagitated, and beginning in 1766 there were before the courts severalcases in which Negroes sued for their freedom. [1] Their general argumentwas that the royal charter declared that all persons residing in theprovince were to be as free as the king's subjects in Great Britain, that by Magna Carta no subject could be deprived of liberty except bythe judgment of his peers, and that any laws that may have been passedin the province to mitigate or regulate the evil of slavery did notauthorize it. Sometimes the decisions were favorable, but at thebeginning of the Revolution Massachusetts still recognized the systemby the decision that no slave could be enlisted in the army. In 1777, however, some slaves brought from Jamaica were ordered to be set atliberty, and it was finally decided in 1783 that the declaration in theMassachusetts Bill of Rights to the effect that "all men are bornfree and equal" prohibited slavery. In this same year New Hampshireincorporated in her constitution a prohibitive article. By the time theconvention for the framing of the Constitution of the United Statesmet in Philadelphia in 1787, two of the original thirteen states(Massachusetts and New Hampshire) had positively prohibited slavery, andin three others (Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) gradualabolition was in progress. [Footnote 1: See Williams: _History of the Negro Race in America_, I, 228-236. ] The next decade was largely one of the settlement of new territory, andby its close the pendulum seemed to have swung decidedly backward. In1799, however, after much effort and debating, New York at last declaredfor gradual abolition, and New Jersey did likewise in 1804. In general, gradual emancipation was the result of the work of people who werehumane but also conservative and who questioned the wisdom of thrustingupon the social organism a large number of Negroes suddenly emancipated. Sometimes, however, a gradual emancipation act was later followed by onefor immediate manumission, as in New York in 1817. At first those whofavored gradual emancipation were numerous in the South as well as inthe North, but in general after Gabriel's insurrection in 1800, thoughsome individuals were still outstanding, the South was quiescent. Thecharacter of the acts that were really put in force can hardly be betterstated than has already been done by the specialist in the subject. [1]We read: [Footnote 1: Locke, 124-126. ] Gradual emancipation is defined as the extinction of slavery by depriving it of its hereditary quality. In distinction from the clauses in the constitutions of Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, which directly or indirectly affected the condition of slavery as already existing, the gradual emancipation acts left this condition unchanged and affected only the children born after the passage of the act or after a fixed date. Most of these acts followed that of Pennsylvania in providing that the children of a slave mother should remain with her owner as servants until they reached a certain age, of from twenty-one to twenty-eight years, as stated in the various enactments. In Pennsylvania, however, they were to be regarded as free. In Connecticut, on the other hand, they were to be "held in servitude" until twenty-five years of age and after that to be free. The most liberal policy was that of Rhode Island, where the children were pronounced free but were to be supported by the town and educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic, morality and religion. The latter clauses, however, were repealed the following year, leaving the children to be supported by the owner of the mother until twenty-one years of age, and only if he abandoned his claims to the mother to become a charge to the town. In New York and New Jersey they were to remain as servants until a certain age, but were regarded as free, and liberal opportunities were given the master for the abandonment of his claims, the children in such cases to be supported at the common charge.... The manumission and emancipation acts were naturally followed, as in the case of the constitutional provision in Vermont, by the attempts of some of the slave-owners to dispose of their property outside the State. Amendments to the laws were found necessary, and the Abolition Societies found plenty of occasion for their exertions in protecting free blacks from seizure and illegal sale and in looking after the execution and amendment of the laws. The process of gradual emancipation was also unsatisfactory on account of the length of time it would require, and in Pennsylvania and Connecticut attempts were made to obtain acts for immediate emancipation. 5. _Beginning of Racial Consciousness_ Of supreme importance in this momentous period, more important perhapsin its ultimate effect than even the work of the Abolition Societies, was what the Negro was doing for himself. In the era of the Revolutionbegan that racial consciousness on which almost all later effort forsocial betterment has been based. By 1700 the only coöperative effort on the part of the Negro was such asthat in the isolated society to which Cotton Mather gave rules, or in aspasmodic insurrection, or a rather crude development of native Africanworship. As yet there was no genuine basis of racial self-respect. Inone way or another, however, in the eighteenth century the idea ofassociation developed, and especially in Boston about the time of theRevolution Negroes began definitely to work together; thus they assistedindividuals in test cases in the courts, and when James Swan in his_Dissuasion from the Slave Trade_ made such a statement as that "nocountry can be called free where there is one slave, " it was "at theearnest desire of the Negroes in Boston" that the revised edition of thepamphlet was published. From the very beginning the Christian Church was the race's foremostform of social organization. It was but natural that the firstdistinctively Negro churches should belong to the democratic Baptistdenomination. There has been much discussion as to which was the veryfirst Negro Baptist church, and good claims have been put forth by theHarrison Street Baptist Church of Petersburg, Va. , and for a churchin Williamsburg, Va. , organization in each case going back to 1776. A student of the subject, however, has shown that there was a NegroBaptist church at Silver Bluff, "on the South Carolina side of theSavannah River, in Aiken County, just twelve miles from Augusta, Ga. , "founded not earlier than 1773, not later than 1775. [1] In any casespecial interest attaches to the First Bryan Baptist Church, ofSavannah, founded in January, 1788. The origin of this body goes back toGeorge Liele, a Negro born in Virginia, who might justly lay claim tobeing America's first foreign missionary. Converted by a Georgia Baptistminister, he was licensed as a probationer and was known to preach soonafterwards at a white quarterly meeting. [2] In 1783 he preached in thevicinity of Savannah, and one of those who came to hear him was AndrewBryan, a slave of Jonathan Bryan. Liele then went to Jamaica and in 1784began to preach in Kingston, where with four brethren from America heformed a church. At first he was subjected to persecution; neverthelessby 1791 he had baptized over four hundred persons. Eight or nine monthsafter he left for Jamaica, Andrew Bryan began to preach, and at first hewas permitted to use a building at Yamacraw, in the suburbs of Savannah. Of this, however, he was in course of time dispossessed, the place beinga rendezvous for those Negroes who had been taken away from their homesby the British. Many of these men were taken before the magistratesfrom time to time, and some were whipped and others imprisoned. Bryan himself, having incurred the ire of the authorities, was twiceimprisoned and once publicly whipped, being so cut that he "bledabundantly"; but he told his persecutors that he "would freely sufferdeath for the cause of Jesus Christ, " and after a while he was permittedto go on with his work. For some time he used a barn, being assistedby his brother Sampson; then for £50 he purchased his freedom, andafterwards he began to use for worship a house that Sampson had beenpermitted to erect. By 1791 his church had two hundred members, but overa hundred more had been received as converted members though theyhad not won their masters' permission to be baptized. An interestingsidelight on these people is furnished by the statement that probablyfifty of them could read though only three could write. Yearsafterwards, in 1832, when the church had grown to great numbers, a largepart of the congregation left the Bryan Church and formed what is nowthe First African Baptist Church of Savannah. Both congregations, however, remembered their early leader as one "clear in the granddoctrines of the Gospel, truly pious, and the instrument of doing moregood among the poor slaves than all the learned doctors in America. " [Footnote 1: Walter H. Brooks: _The Silver Bluff Church_. ] [Footnote 2: See letters in Journal of Negro History, January, 1916, 69-97. ] While Bryan was working in Savannah, in Richmond, Va. , rose Lott Cary, aman of massive and erect frame and of great personality. Born a slave in1780, Cary worked for a number of years in a tobacco factory, leading awicked life. Converted in 1807, he made rapid advance in education andhe was licensed as a Baptist preacher. He purchased his own freedomand that of his children (his first wife having died), organized amissionary society, and then in 1821 himself went as a missionary to thenew colony of Liberia, in whose interest he worked heroically until hisdeath in 1828. More clearly defined than the origin of Negro Baptist churches arethe beginnings of African Methodism. Almost from the time of itsintroduction in the country Methodism made converts among the Negroesand in 1786 there were nearly two thousand Negroes in the regularchurches of the denomination, which, like the Baptist denomination, itmust be remembered, was before the Revolution largely overshadowedin official circles by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The generalembarrassment of the Episcopal Church in America in connection with thewar, and the departure of many loyalist ministers, gave opportunity toother denominations as well as to certain bodies of Negroes. The whitemembers of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, however, determined to set apart its Negro membership and to segregateit in the gallery. Then in 1787 came a day when the Negroes, choosingnot to be insulted, and led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, left theedifice, and with these two men as overseers on April 17 organizedthe Free African Society. This was intended to be "without regard toreligious tenets, " the members being banded together "to support oneanother in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherlesschildren. " The society was in the strictest sense fraternal, there beingonly eight charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Cæsar Cranchell, James Potter, and WilliamWhite. By 1790 the society had on deposit in the Bank of North America£42 9s. Id. , and that it generally stood for racial enterprise may beseen from the fact that in 1788 an organization in Newport known asthe Negro Union, in which Paul Cuffe was prominent, wrote proposing ageneral exodus of the Negroes to Africa. Nothing came of the suggestionat the time, but at least it shows that representative Negroes of theday were beginning to think together about matters of general policy. In course of time the Free African Society of Philadelphia resolved intoan "African Church, " and this became affiliated with the ProtestantEpiscopal Church, whose bishop had exercised an interest in it. Out ofthis organization developed St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, organized in1791 and formally opened for service July 17, 1794. Allen was at firstselected for ordination, but he decided to remain a Methodist and Joneswas chosen in his stead and thus became the first Negro rector in theUnited States. Meanwhile, however, in 1791, Allen himself had purchaseda lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets; he at once set aboutarranging for the building that became Bethel Church; and in 1794 heformally sold the lot to the church and the new house of worship wasdedicated by Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Withthis general body Allen and his people for a number of years remainedaffiliated, but difficulties arose and separate churches having comeinto being in other places, a convention of Negro Methodists was atlength called to meet in Philadelphia April 9, 1816. To this camesixteen delegates--Richard Allen, Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, JamesChampion, Thomas Webster, of Philadelphia; Daniel Coker, RichardWilliams, Henry Harden, Stephen Hill, Edward Williamson, NicholasGailliard, of Baltimore: Jacob Marsh, Edward Jackson, William Andrew, of Attleborough, Penn. ; Peter Spencer, of Wilmington, Del. , and PeterCuffe, of Salem, N. J. --and these were the men who founded the AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church. Coker, of whom we shall hear more inconnection with Liberia, was elected bishop, but resigned in favor ofAllen, who served until his death in 1831. In 1796 a congregation in New York consisting of James Varick and othersalso withdrew from the main body of the Methodist Episcopal Church, andin 1800 dedicated a house of worship. For a number of years it had theoversight of the older organization, but after preliminary steps in1820, on June 21, 1821, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churchwas formally organized. To the first conference came 19 preachersrepresenting 6 churches and 1, 426 members. Varick was elected districtchairman, but soon afterwards was made bishop. The polity of this churchfrom the first differed somewhat from that of the A. M. E. Denomination inthat representation of the laity was a prominent feature and there wasno bar to the ordination of women. Of denominations other than the Baptist and the Methodist, the mostprominent in the earlier years was the Presbyterian, whose first Negroministers were John Gloucester and John Chavis. Gloucester owed histraining to the liberal tendencies that about 1800 were still strong ineastern Tennessee and Kentucky, and in 1810 took charge of the AfricanPresbyterian Church which in 1807 had been established in Philadelphia. He was distinguished by a rich musical voice and the general dignityof his life, and he himself became the father of four Presbyterianministers. Chavis had a very unusual career. After passing "througha regular course of academic studies" at Washington Academy, nowWashington and Lee University, in 1801 he was commissioned by theGeneral Assembly of the Presbyterians as a missionary to the Negroes. Heworked with increasing reputation until Nat Turner's insurrection causedthe North Carolina legislature in 1832 to pass an act silencing allNegro preachers. Then in Wake County and elsewhere he conducted schoolsfor white boys until his death in 1838. In these early years distinctionalso attaches to Lemuel Haynes, a Revolutionary patriot and the firstNegro preacher of the Congregational denomination. In 1785 he became thepastor of a white congregation in Torrington, Conn. , and in 1818 beganto serve another in Manchester, N. H. After the church the strongest organization among Negroes hasundoubtedly been that of secret societies commonly known as "lodges. "The benefit societies were not necessarily secret and call for separateconsideration. On March 6, 1775, an army lodge attached to one of theregiments stationed under General Gage in or near Boston initiatedPrince Hall and fourteen other colored men into the mysteries ofFreemasonry. [1] These fifteen men on March 2, 1784, applied to the GrandLodge of England for a warrant. This was issued to "African Lodge, No. 459, " with Prince Hall as master, September 29, 1784. Various delays andmisadventures befell the warrant, however, so that it was not actuallyreceived before April 29, 1787. The lodge was then duly organized May 6. From this beginning developed the idea of Masonry among the Negroes ofAmerica. As early as 1792 Hall was formally styled Grand Master, and in1797 he issued a license to thirteen Negroes to "assemble and work" asa lodge in Philadelphia; and there was also at this time a lodge inProvidence. Thus developed in 1808 the "African Grand Lodge" of Boston, afterwards known as "Prince Hall Lodge of Massachusetts"; the secondGrand Lodge, called the "First Independent African Grand Lodge of NorthAmerica in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, " organized in 1815;and the "Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. " [Footnote 1: William H. Upton: Negro Masonry, Cambridge, 1899, 10. ] Something of the interest of the Masons in their people, and the calmjudgment that characterized their procedure, may be seen from the wordsof their leader, Prince Hall. [1] Speaking in 1797, and having in mindthe revolution in Hayti and recent indignities inflicted upon the racein Boston, he said: [Footnote 1: "A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, atMenotomy. By the Right Worshipful Prince Hall. " (Boston?) 1797. ] When we hear of the bloody wars which are now in the world, and thousands of our fellowmen slain; fathers and mothers bewailing the loss of their sons; wives for the loss of their husbands; towns and cities burnt and destroyed; what must be the heartfelt sorrow and distress of these poor and unhappy people! Though we can not help them, the distance being so great, yet we may sympathize with them in their troubles, and mingle a tear of sorrow with them, and do as we are exhorted to--weep with those that weep.... Now, my brethren, as we see and experience that all things here are frail and changeable and nothing here to be depended upon: Let us seek those things which are above, which are sure and steadfast, and unchangeable, and at the same time let us pray to Almighty God, while we remain in the tabernacle, that he would give us the grace and patience and strength to bear up under all our troubles, which at this day God knows we have our share. Patience I say, for were we not possessed of a great measure of it you could not bear up under the daily insults you meet with in the streets of Boston; much more on public days of recreation, how are you shamefully abused, and that at such a degree, that you may truly be said to carry your lives in your hands; and the arrows of death are flying about your heads; helpless old women have their clothes torn off their backs, even to the exposing of their nakedness; and by whom are these disgraceful and abusive actions committed? Not by the men born and bred in Boston, for they are better bred; but by a mob or horde of shameless, low-lived, envious, spiteful persons, some of them not long since, servants in gentlemen's kitchens, scouring knives, tending horses, and driving chaise. 'Twas said by a gentleman who saw that filthy behavior in the Common, that in all the places he had been in he never saw so cruel behavior in all his life, and that a slave in the West Indies, on Sundays or holidays, enjoys himself and friends without molestation. Not only this man, but many in town who have seen their behavior to you, and that without any provocations twenty or thirty cowards fall upon one man, have wondered at the patience of the blacks; 'tis not for want of courage in you, for they know that they dare not face you man for man, but in a mob, which we despise, and had rather suffer wrong than do wrong, to the disturbance of the community and the disgrace of our reputation; for every good citizen does honor to the laws of the State where he resides.... My brethren, let us not be cast down under these and many other abuses we at present labor under: for the darkest is before the break of day. My brethren, let us remember what a dark day it was with our African brethren six years ago, in the French West Indies. Nothing but the snap of the whip was heard from morning to evening; hanging, breaking on the wheel, burning, and all manner of tortures inflicted on those unhappy people, for nothing else but to gratify their masters' pride, wantonness, and cruelty: but blessed be God, the scene is changed; they now confess that God hath no respect of persons, and therefore receive them as their friends, and treat them as brothers. Thus doth Ethiopia begin to stretch forth her hand, from a sink of slavery to freedom and equality. An African Society was organized in New York in 1808 and charteredin 1810, and out of it grew in course of time three or four otherorganizations. Generally close to the social aim of the church andsometimes directly fathered by the secret societies were the benefitorganizations, which even in the days of slavery existed for aid insickness or at death; in fact, it was the hopelessness of the generalsituation coupled with the yearning for care when helpless that largelycalled these societies into being. Their origin has been explainedsomewhat as follows: Although it was unlawful for Negroes to assemble without the presenceof a white man, and so unlawful to allow a congregation of slaves ona plantation without the consent of the master, these organizationsexisted and held these meetings on the "lots" of some of the law-makersthemselves. The general plan seems to have been to select some one whocould read and write and make him the secretary. The meeting-placehaving been selected, the members would come by ones and twos, maketheir payments to the secretary, and quietly withdraw. The book of thesecretary was often kept covered up on the bed. In many of the societieseach member was known by number and in paying simply announced hisnumber. The president of such a society was usually a privileged slavewho had the confidence of his or her master and could go and come atwill. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member, provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend thefuneral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought intoplay. In Richmond they would go to the church by ones and twos and theresit as near together as convenient. At the close of the service a lineof march would be formed when sufficiently far from the church to makeit safe to do so. It is reported that the members were faithful to eachother and that every obligation was faithfully carried out. This wasthe first form of insurance known to the Negro from which his familyreceived a benefit. [1] [Footnote 1: Hampton Conference Report, No. 8] All along of course a determining factor in the Negro's social progresswas the service that he was able to render to any community in which hefound himself as well as to his own people. Sometimes he was called uponto do very hard work, sometimes very unpleasant or dangerous work;but if he answered the call of duty and met an actual human need, hisservice had to receive recognition. An example of such work was found inhis conduct in the course of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphiain 1793. Knowing that fever in general was not quite as severe inits ravages upon Negroes as upon white people, the daily papers ofPhiladelphia called upon the colored people in the town to come forwardand assist with the sick. The Negroes consented, and Absalom Jones andWilliam Gray were appointed to superintend the operations, though asusual it was upon Richard Allen that much of the real responsibilityfell. In September the fever increased and upon the Negroes devolvedalso the duty of removing corpses. In the course of their work theyencountered much opposition; thus Jones said that a white man threatenedto shoot him if he passed his house with a corpse. This man himself theNegroes had to bury three days afterwards. When the epidemic was over, under date January 23, 1794, Matthew Clarkson, the mayor, wrote thefollowing testimonial: "Having, during the prevalence of the latemalignant disorder, had almost daily opportunities of seeing the conductof Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and the people employed by them tobury the dead, I with cheerfulness give this testimony of my approbationof their proceedings, as far as the same came under my notice. Theirdiligence, attention, and decency of deportment, afforded me, at thetime, much satisfaction. " After the lapse of years it is with somethingof the pathos of martyrdom that we are impressed by the service ofthese struggling people, who by their self-abnegation and patriotismendeavored to win and deserve the privileges of American citizenship. All the while, in one way or another, the Negro was making advance ineducation. As early as 1704 we have seen that Neau opened a schoolin New York; there was Benezet's school in Philadelphia before theRevolutionary War, and in 1798 one for Negroes was established inBoston. In the first part of the century, we remember also, some Negroeswere apprenticed in Virginia under the oversight of the church. In 1764the editor of a paper in Williamsburg, Va. , established a school forNegroes, and we have seen that as many as one-sixth of the members ofAndrew Bryan's congregation in the far Southern city of Savannah couldread by 1790. Exceptional men, like Gloucester and Chavis, of courseavailed themselves of such opportunities as came their way. All told, by 1800 the Negro had received much more education than is commonlysupposed. Two persons--one in science and one in literature--because of theirunusual attainments attracted much attention. The first was BenjaminBanneker of Maryland, and the second Phillis Wheatley of Boston. Banneker in 1770 constructed the first clock striking the hours that wasmade in America, and from 1792 to 1806 published an almanac adapted toMaryland and the neighboring states. He was thoroughly scholarly inmathematics and astronomy, and by his achievements won a reputationfor himself in Europe as well as in America. Phillis Wheatley, after aromantic girlhood of transition from Africa to a favorable environmentin Boston, in 1773 published her _Poems on Various Subjects_, whichvolume she followed with several interesting occasional poems. [1] Forthe summer of this year she was the guest in England of the Countess ofHuntingdon, whose patronage she had won by an elegiac poem on GeorgeWhitefield; in conversation even more than in verse-making she exhibitedher refined taste and accomplishment, and presents were showered uponher, one of them being a copy of the magnificent 1770 Glasgow folioedition of _Paradise Lost_, which was given by Brook Watson, LordMayor of London, and which is now preserved in the library of HarvardUniversity. In the earlier years of the next century her poemsfound their way into the common school readers. One of those in herrepresentative volume was addressed to Scipio Moorhead, a young Negro ofBoston who had shown some talent for painting. Thus even in a dark daythere were those who were trying to struggle upward to the light. [Footnote 1: For a full study see Chapter II of _The Negro in Literatureand Art_. ] CHAPTER IV THE NEW WEST, THE SOUTH, AND THE WEST INDIES The twenty years of the administrations of the first three presidents ofthe United States--or, we might say, the three decades between 1790and 1820--constitute what might be considered the "Dark Ages" of Negrohistory; and yet, as with most "Dark Ages, " at even a glance below thesurface these years will be found to be throbbing with life, and we havealready seen that in them the Negro was doing what he could on his ownaccount to move forward. After the high moral stand of the Revolution, however, the period seems quiescent, and it was indeed a time ofdefinite reaction. This was attributable to three great events: theopening of the Southwest with the consequent demand for slaves, theHaytian revolution beginning in 1791, and Gabriel's insurrection in1800. In no way was the reaction to be seen more clearly than in the declineof the work of the American Convention of Delegates from the AbolitionSocieties. After 1798 neither Connecticut nor Rhode Island sentdelegates; the Southern states all fell away by 1803; and while from NewEngland came the excuse that local conditions hardly made aggressiveeffort any longer necessary, the lack of zeal in this section was alsodue to some extent to a growing question as to the wisdom of interferingwith slavery in the South. In Virginia, that just a few years beforehad been so active, a statute was now passed imposing a penalty of onehundred dollars on any person who assisted a slave in asserting hisfreedom, provided he failed to establish the claim; and anotherprovision enjoined that no member of an abolition society should serveas a juror in a freedom suit. Even the Pennsylvania society showed signsof faintheartedness, and in 1806 the Convention decided upon triennialrather than annual meetings. It did not again become really vigorousuntil after the War of 1812. 1. _The Cotton-Gin, the New Southwest, and the First Fugitive Slave Law_ Of incalculable significance in the history of the Negro in Americawas the series of inventions in England by Arkwright, Hargreaves, andCrompton in the years 1768-79. In the same period came the discoveryof the power of steam by James Watt of Glasgow and its application tocotton manufacture, and improvements followed quickly in printing andbleaching. There yet remained one final invention of importance for thecultivation of cotton on a large scale. Eli Whitney, a graduate of Yale, went to Georgia and was employed as a teacher by the widow of GeneralGreene on her plantation. Seeing the need of some machine for the morerapid separating of cotton-seed from the fiber, he labored until in 1793he succeeded in making his cotton-gin of practical value. The traditionis persistent, however, that the real credit of the invention belongsto a Negro on the plantation. The cotton-gin created great excitementthroughout the South and began to be utilized everywhere. Thecultivation and exporting of the staple grew by leaps and bounds. In1791 only thirty-eight bales of standard size were exported from theUnited States; in 1816, however, the cotton sent out of the country wasworth $24, 106, 000 and was by far the most valuable article of export. The current price was 28 cents a pound. Thus at the very time that theNorthern states were abolishing slavery, an industry that had slumberedbecame supreme, and the fate of hundreds of thousands of Negroes wassealed. Meanwhile the opening of the West went forward, and from Maine andMassachusetts, Carolina and Georgia journeyed the pioneers to lay thefoundations of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and Alabama and Mississippi. It was an eager, restless caravan that moved, and sometimes more than ahundred persons in a score of wagons were to be seen going from a singletown in the East--"Baptists and Methodists and Democrats. " The careersof Boone and Sevier and those who went with them, and the story of theirfights with the Indians, are now a part of the romance of Americanhistory. In 1790 a cluster of log huts on the Ohio River was named inhonor of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1792 Kentucky was admitted tothe Union, the article on slavery in her constitution encouraging thesystem and discouraging emancipation, and Tennessee also entered as aslave state in 1796. Of tremendous import to the Negro were the questions relating to theMississippi Territory. After the Revolution Georgia laid claim to greattracts of land now comprising the states of Alabama and Mississippi, with the exception of the strip along the coast claimed by Spainin connection with Florida. This territory became a rich field forspeculation, and its history in its entirety makes a complicated story. A series of sales to what were known as the Yazoo Companies, especiallyin that part of the present states whose northern boundary would be aline drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee, resulted inconflicting claims, the last grant sale being made in 1795 by a corruptlegislature at the price of a cent and a half an acre. James Jacksonnow raised the cry of bribery and corruption, resigned from the UnitedStates Senate, secured a seat in the state legislature, and on February13, 1796, carried through a bill rescinding the action of the previousyear, [1] and the legislature burned the documents concerned with theYazoo sale in token of its complete repudiation of them. The purchasersto whom the companies had sold lands now began to bombard Congress withpetitions and President Adams helped to arrive at a settlement by whichGeorgia transferred the lands in question to the Federal Government, which undertook to form of them the Mississippi Territory and to payany damages involved. In 1802 Georgia threw the whole burden upon thecentral government by transferring to it _all_ of her land beyond herpresent boundaries, though for this she exacted an article favorableto slavery. All was now made into the Mississippi Territory, to whichCongress held out the promise that it would be admitted as a state assoon as its population numbered 60, 000; but Alabama was separated fromMississippi in 1816. The old matter of claims was not finally disposedof until an act of 1814 appropriated $5, 000, 000 for the purpose. Inthe same year Andrew Jackson's decisive victories over the Creeks atTalladega and Horseshoe Bend--of which more must be said--resulted inthe cession of a vast tract of the land of that unhappy nation and thusfinally opened for settlement three-fourths of the present state ofAlabama. [Footnote 1: Phillips in _The South in the Building of the Nation_, II, 154. ] It was in line with the advance that slavery was making in new territorythat there was passed the first Fugitive Slave Act (1793). This grew outof the discussion incident to the seizure in 1791 at Washington, Penn. , of a Negro named John, who was taken to Virginia, and the correspondencebetween the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Governor of Virginia withreference to the case. The important third section of the act read asfollows: _And be it also enacted_, That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the territories on the northwest or south of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said states or territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the state, or before any magistrate of a county, city or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such state or territory, that the person so seized or arrested, doth, under the laws of the state or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor, to the state or territory from which he or she fled. It will be observed that by the terms of this enactment a master hadthe right to recover a fugitive slave by proving his ownership before amagistrate without a jury or any other of the ordinary forms of law. Ahuman being was thus placed at the disposal of the lowest of courts andsubjected to such procedure as was not allowed even in petty propertysuits. A great field for the bribery of magistrates was opened up, andopportunity was given for committing to slavery Negro men about whosefreedom there should have been no question. By the close of the decade 1790-1800 the fear occasioned by the Haytianrevolution had led to a general movement against the importation ofNegroes, especially of those from the West Indies. Even Georgia in 1798prohibited the importation of all slaves, and this provision, althoughvery loosely enforced, was never repealed. In South Carolina, however, to the utter chagrin and dismay of the other states, importation, prohibited in 1787, was again legalized in 1803; and in the four yearsimmediately following 39, 075 Negroes were brought to Charleston, most ofthese going to the territories. [1] When in 1803 Ohio was carved out ofthe Northwest Territory as a free state, an attempt was made toclaim the rest of the territory for slavery, but this failed. In thecongressional session of 1804-5 the matter of slavery in the newlyacquired territory of Louisiana was brought up, and slaves were allowedto be imported if they had come to the United States before 1798, thepurpose of this provision being to guard against the consequences ofSouth Carolina's recent act, although such a clause never received rigidenforcement. The mention of Louisiana, however, brings us concretely toToussaint L'Ouverture, the greatest Negro in the New World in the periodand one of the greatest of all time. [Footnote 1: DuBois: _Suppression of the Slave-Trade_, 90. ] _2. Toussaint L'Ouverture, Louisiana, and the Formal Closing of theSlave-Trade_ When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, it was not long before itsgeneral effects were felt in the West Indies. Of special importance wasSanto Domingo because of the commercial interests centered there. Theeastern end of the island was Spanish, but the western portion wasFrench, and in this latter part was a population of 600, 000, of whichnumber 50, 000 were French Creoles, 50, 000 mulattoes, and 500, 000 pureNegroes. All political and social privileges were monopolized by theCreoles, while the Negroes were agricultural laborers and slaves; andbetween the two groups floated the restless element of the free peopleof color. When the General Assembly in France decreed equality of rights toall citizens, the mulattoes of Santo Domingo made a petition for theenjoyment of the same political privileges as the white people--to theunbounded consternation of the latter. They were rewarded with adecree which was so ambiguously worded that it was open to differentinterpretations and which simply heightened the animosity that for yearshad been smoldering. A new petition to the Assembly in 1791 primarilyfor an interpretation brought forth on May 15 the explicit decree thatthe people of color were to have all the rights and privileges ofcitizens, provided they had been born of free parents on both sides. Thewhite people were enraged by the decision, turned royalist, and trampledthe national cockade underfoot; and throughout the summer armed strifeand conflagration were the rule. To add to the confusion the blackslaves struck for freedom and on the night of August 23, 1791, drenchedthe island in blood. In the face of these events the ConventionalAssembly rescinded its order, then announced that the original decreemust be obeyed, and it sent three commissioners with troops to SantoDomingo, real authority being invested in Santhonax and Polverel. On June 20, 1793, at Cape François trouble was renewed by a quarrelbetween a mulatto and a white officer in the marines. The seamen cameashore and loaned their assistance to the white people, and the Negroesnow joined forces with the mulattoes. In the battle of two days thatfollowed the arsenal was taken and plundered, thousands were killedin the streets, and more than half of the town was burned. The Frenchcommissioners were the unhappy witnesses of the scene, but they werepractically helpless, having only about a thousand troops. Santhonax, however, issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who werewilling to range themselves under the banner of the Republic. This wasthe first proclamation for the freeing of slaves in Santo Domingo, andas a result of it many of the Negroes came in and were enfranchised. Soon after this proclamation Polverel left his colleague at the Cape andwent to Port au Prince, the capital of the West. Here things were quietand the cultivation of the crops was going forward as usual. The slaveswere soon unsettled, however, by the news of what was being doneelsewhere, and Polverel was convinced that emancipation could not bedelayed and that for the safety of the planters themselves it wasnecessary to extend it to the whole island. In September (1793) he setin circulation from Aux Cayes a proclamation to this effect, and at thesame time he exhorted all the planters in the vicinity who concurred inhis work to register their names. This almost all of them did, as theywere convinced of the need of measures for their personal safety; and onFebruary 4, 1794, the Conventional Assembly in Paris formally approvedall that had been done by decreeing the abolition of slavery in all thecolonies of France. All the while the Spanish and the English had been looking on withinterest and had even come to the French part of the island as if to aidin the restoration of order. Among the former, at first in charge ofa little royalist band, was the Negro, Toussaint, later calledL'Ouverture. He was then a man in the prime of life, forty-eight yearsold, and already his experience had given him the wisdom that was neededto bring peace in Santo Domingo. In April, 1794, impressed by the decreeof the Assembly, he returned to the jurisdiction of France and tookservice under the Republic. In 1796 he became a general of brigade; in1797 general-in-chief, with the military command of the whole colony. He at once compelled the surrender of the English who had invaded hiscountry. With the aid of a commercial agreement with the United States, he next starved out the garrison of his rival, the mulatto Rigaud, whomhe forced to consent to leave the country. He then imprisoned Roume, theagent of the Directory, and assumed civil as well as military authority. He also seized the Spanish part of the island, which had been ceded toFrance some years before but had not been actually surrendered. He then, in May, 1801, gave to Santo Domingo a constitution by which he not onlyassumed power for life but gave to himself the right of naming hissuccessor; and all the while he was awakening the admiration of theworld by his bravery, his moderation, and his genuine instinct forgovernment. Across the ocean, however, a jealous man was watching with interest thecareer of the "gilded African. " None knew better than Napoleon thatit was because he did not trust France that Toussaint had sought thefriendship of the United States, and none read better than he the logicof events. As Adams says, "Bonaparte's acts as well as his professionsshowed that he was bent on crushing democratic ideas, and that heregarded St. Domingo as an outpost of American republicanism, althoughToussaint had made a rule as arbitrary as that of Bonaparte himself.... By a strange confusion of events, Toussaint L'Ouverture, because he wasa Negro, became the champion of republican principles, with which hehad nothing but the instinct of personal freedom in common. Toussaint'sgovernment was less republican than that of Bonaparte; he was doingby necessity in St. Domingo what Bonaparte was doing by choice inFrance. "[1] [Footnote 1: _History of the United States_, I, 391-392. ] This was the man to whom the United States ultimately owes the purchaseof Louisiana. On October 1, 1801, Bonaparte gave orders to General LeClerc for a great expedition against Santo Domingo. In January, 1802, LeClerc appeared and war followed. In the course of this, Toussaint--whowas ordinarily so wise and who certainly knew that from Napoleon he hadmost to fear--made the great mistake of his life and permitted himselfto be led into a conference on a French vessel. He was betrayed andtaken to France, where within the year he died of pneumonia in thedungeon of Joux. Immediately there was a proclamation annulling thedecree of 1794 giving freedom to the slaves. Bonaparte, however, had notestimated the force of Toussaint's work, and to assist the Negroes intheir struggle now came a stalwart ally, yellow fever. By the end of thesummer only one-seventh of Le Clerc's army remained, and he himself diedin November. At once Bonaparte planned a new expedition. While he wasarranging for the leadership of this, however, the European war brokeout again. Meanwhile the treaty for the retrocession of the territoryof Louisiana had not yet received the signature of the Spanish king, because Godoy, the Spanish representative, would not permit thesignature to be affixed until all the conditions were fulfilled; andtoward the end of 1802 the civil officer at New Orleans closed theMississippi to the United States. Jefferson, at length moved by the pleaof the South, sent a special envoy, no less a man than James Monroe, toFrance to negotiate the purchase; Bonaparte, disgusted by the failureof his Egyptian expedition and his project for reaching India, andespecially by his failure in Santo Domingo, in need also of ready money, listened to the offer; and the people of the United States--who withinthe last few years have witnessed the spoliation of Hayti--have not yetrealized how much they owe to the courage of 500, 000 Haytian Negroes whorefused to be slaves. The slavery question in the new territory was a critical one. It wason account of it that the Federalists had opposed the acquisition; theAmerican Convention endeavored to secure a provision like that of theNorthwest Ordinance; and the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends inPhiladelphia in 1805 prayed "that effectual measures may be adoptedby Congress to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of theterritories of the United States. " Nevertheless the whole territorywithout regard to latitude was thrown open to the system March 2, 1805. In spite of this victory for slavery, however, the general force of theevents in Hayti was such as to make more certain the formal closingof the slave-trade at the end of the twenty-year period for which theConstitution had permitted it to run. The conscience of the North hadbeen profoundly stirred, and in the far South was the ever-present fearof a reproduction of the events in Hayti. The agitation in Englandmoreover was at last about to bear fruit in the act of 1807 forbiddingthe slave-trade. In America it seems from the first to have been anunderstood thing, especially by the Southern representatives, that evenif such an act passed it would be only irregularly enforced, and thedebates were concerned rather with the disposal of illegally importedAfricans and with the punishment of those concerned in the importationthan with the proper limitation of the traffic by water. [1] On March 2, 1807, the act was passed forbidding the slave-trade after the close ofthe year. In course of time it came very near to being a dead letter, as may be seen from presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reportsof committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statementson the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and thecomplaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. Fernandina andGalveston were only two of the most notorious ports for smuggling. Aregular chain of posts was established from the head of St. Mary's Riverto the upper country, and through the Indian nation, by means of whichthe Negroes were transferred to every part of the country. [2] If dealerswished to form a caravan they would give an Indian alarm, so that thewoods might be less frequented, and if pursued in Georgia they wouldescape into Florida. One small schooner contained one hundred and thirtysouls. "They were almost packed into a small space, between a floor laidover the water-casks and the deck--not near three feet--insufficient forthem to sit upright--and so close that chafing against each other theirbones pierced the skin and became galled and ulcerated by the motionof the vessel. " Many American vessels were engaged in the trade underSpanish colors, and the traffic to Africa was pursued with uncommonvigor at Havana, the crews of vessels being made up of men of allnations, who were tempted by the high wages to be earned. Evidentlyofficials were negligent in the discharge of their duty, but even ifoffenders were apprehended it did not necessarily follow that theywould receive effective punishment. President Madison in his messageof December 5, 1810, said, "It appears that American citizens areinstrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally inviolation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their owncountry"; and on January 7, 1819, the Register of the Treasury madeto the House the amazing report that "it doth not appear, from anexamination of the records of this office, and particularly of theaccounts (to the date of their last settlement) of the collectors ofthe customs, and of the several marshals of the United States, that anyforfeitures had been incurred under the said act. " A supplementary andcompromising and ineffective act of 1818 sought to concentrate effortsagainst smuggling by encouraging informers; and one of the followingyear that authorized the President to "make such regulations andarrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, andremoval beyond the limits of the United States" of recaptured Africans, and that bore somewhat more fruit, was in large measure due to thecolonization movement and of importance in connection with the foundingof Liberia. [Footnote 1: See DuBois, 95, ff. ] [Footnote 2: Niles's _Register_, XIV, 176 (May 2, 1818). ] Thus, while the formal closing of the slave-trade might seem to be agreat step forward, the laxness with which the decree was enforcedplaces it definitely in the period of reaction. 3. _Gabriel's Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem_ Gabriel's insurrection of 1800 was by no means the most formidablerevolt that the Southern states witnessed. In design it certainly didnot surpass the scope of the plot of Denmark Vesey twenty-two yearslater, and in actual achievement it was insignificant when compared notonly with Nat Turner's insurrection but even with the uprisings sixtyyears before. At the last moment in fact a great storm that came up madethe attempt to execute the plan a miserable failure. Nevertheless comingas it did so soon after the revolution in Hayti, and giving evidenceof young and unselfish leadership, the plot was regarded as ofextraordinary significance. Gabriel himself[1] was an intelligent slave only twenty-four years old, and his chief assistant was Jack Bowler, aged twenty-eight. Throughoutthe summer of 1800 he matured his plan, holding meetings at which abrother named Martin interpreted various texts from Scripture as bearingon the situation of the Negroes. His insurrection was finally set forthe first day of September. It was well planned. The rendezvous was tobe a brook six miles from Richmond. Under cover of night the force of1, 100 was to march in three columns on the city, then a town of 8, 000inhabitants, the right wing to seize the penitentiary building which hadjust been converted into an arsenal, while the left took possession ofthe powder-house. These two columns were to be armed with clubs, andwhile they were doing their work the central force, armed with muskets, knives, and pikes, was to begin the carnage, none being spared exceptthe French, whom it is significant that the Negroes favored. In Richmondat the time there were not more than four or five hundred men with aboutthirty muskets; but in the arsenal were several thousand guns, and thepowder-house was well stocked. Seizure of the mills was to guarantee theinsurrectionists a food supply; and meanwhile in the country districtswere the new harvests of corn, and flocks and herds were fat in thefields. [Footnote 1: His full name was Gabriel Prosser. ] On the day appointed for the uprising Virginia witnessed such a stormas she had not seen in years. Bridges were carried away, and roads andplantations completely submerged. Brook Swamp, the strategic point forthe Negroes, was inundated; and the country Negroes could not getinto the city, nor could those in the city get out to the place ofrendezvous. The force of more than a thousand dwindled to three hundred, and these, almost paralyzed by fear and superstition, were dismissed. Meanwhile a slave who did not wish to see his master killed divulged theplot, and all Richmond was soon in arms. A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to the city and arrestsfollowed quickly. Three hundred dollars was offered by Governor Monroefor the arrest of Gabriel, and as much more for Jack Bowler. Bowlersurrendered, but it took weeks to find Gabriel. Six men were convictedand condemned to be executed on September 12, and five more on September18. Gabriel was finally captured on September 24 at Norfolk on a vesselthat had come from Richmond; he was convicted on October 3 and executedon October 7. He showed no disposition to dissemble as to his own plan;at the same time he said not one word that incriminated anybody else. After him twenty-four more men were executed; then it began to appearthat some "mistakes" had been made and the killing ceased. About thetime of this uprising some Negroes were also assembled for an outbreakin Suffolk County; there were alarms in Petersburg and in the countrynear Edenton, N. C. ; and as far away as Charleston the excitement wasintense. There were at least three other Negro insurrections of importance in theperiod 1790-1820. When news came of the uprising of the slaves in SantoDomingo in 1791, the Negroes in Louisiana planned a similar effort. [1]They might have succeeded better if they had not disagreed as to thehour of the outbreak, when one of them informed the commandant. As apunishment twenty-three of the slaves were hanged along the banks of theriver and their corpses left dangling for days; but three white men whoassisted them and who were really the most guilty of all, were simplysent out of the colony. In Camden, S. C, on July 4, 1816, some otherNegroes risked all for independence. [2] On various pretexts men from thecountry districts were invited to the town on the appointed night, anddifferent commands were assigned, all except that of commander-in-chief, which position was to be given to him who first forced the gates of thearsenal. Again the plot was divulged by "a favorite and confidentialslave, " of whom we are told that the state legislature purchased thefreedom, settling upon him a pension for life. About six of the leaderswere executed. On or about May 1, 1819, there was a plot to destroy thecity of Augusta, Ga. [3] The insurrectionists were to assemble at BeachIsland, proceed to Augusta, set fire to the place, and then destroy theinhabitants. Guards were posted, and a white man who did not answer whenhailed was shot and fatally wounded. A Negro named Coot was tried asbeing at the head of the conspiracy and sentenced to be executed a fewdays later. Other trials followed his. Not a muscle moved when theverdict was pronounced upon him. [Footnote 1: Gayarré: _History of Louisiana_, III, 355. ] [Footnote 2: Holland: _Refutation of Calumnies_. ] [Footnote 3: Niles's _Register_, XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819). ] The deeper meaning of such events as these could not escape thediscerning. More than one patriot had to wonder just whither thecountry was drifting. Already it was evident that the ultimate problemtranscended the mere question of slavery, and many knew that humanbeings could not always be confined to an artificial status. Throughoutthe period the slave-trade seemed to flourish without any real check, and it was even accentuated by the return to power of the old royalisthouses of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. Meanwhile it was observedthat slave labor was driving out of the South the white man of smallmeans, and antagonism between the men of the "up-country" and theseaboard capitalists was brewing. The ordinary social life of the Negroin the South left much to be desired, and conditions were not improvedby the rapid increase. As for slavery itself, no one could tell when orwhere or how the system would end; all only knew that it was developingapace: and meanwhile there was the sinister possibility of the allianceof the Negro and the Indian. Sincere plans of gradual abolition wereadvanced in the South as well as the North, but in the lower sectionthey seldom got more than a respectful hearing. In his "Dissertation onSlavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State ofVirginia, " St. George Tucker, a professor of law in the Universityof William and Mary, and one of the judges of the General Court ofVirginia, in 1796 advanced a plan by which he figured that after sixtyyears there would be only one-third as many slaves as at first. Atthis distance his proposal seems extremely conservative; at the time, however, it was laid on the table by the Virginia House of Delegates, and from the Senate the author received merely "a civil acknowledgment. " Two men of the period--widely different in temper and tone, butboth earnest seekers after truth--looked forward to the future withforeboding, one with the eye of the scientist, the other with the visionof the seer. Hezekiah Niles had full sympathy with the groping andstriving of the South; but he insisted that slavery must ultimately beabolished throughout the country, that the minds of the slaves shouldbe exalted, and that reasonable encouragement should be given freeNegroes. [1] Said he: "_We are ashamed of the thing we practice_;... There is no attribute of heaven that takes part with us, and _we knowit_. And in the contest that must come and _will come_, there will be aheap of sorrows such as the world has rarely seen. "[2] [Footnote 1: _Register_, XVI, 177 (May 8, 1819). ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819). ] On the other hand rose Lorenzo Dow, the foremost itinerant preacher ofthe time, the first Protestant who expounded the gospel in Alabama andMississippi, and a reformer who at the very moment that cotton wasbeginning to be supreme, presumed to tell the South that slavery waswrong. [1] Everywhere he arrested attention--with his long hair, hisharsh voice, and his wild gesticulation startling all conservativehearers. But he was made in the mold of heroes. In his lifetime hetraveled not less than two hundred thousand miles, preaching to morepeople than any other man of his time. Several times he went to Canada, once to the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawinggreat crowds about him. In _A Cry from the Wilderness_ he more thanonce clothed his thought in enigmatic garb, but the meaning was alwaysultimately clear. At this distance, when slavery and the Civil War arealike viewed in the perspective, the words of the oracle are almostuncanny: "In the rest of the Southern states the influence of theseForeigners will be known and felt in its time, and the seeds from theHORY ALLIANCE and the DECAPIGANDI, who have a hand in those grades ofGenerals, from the Inquisitor to the Vicar General and down... !!! TheSTRUGGLE will be DREADFUL! the CUP will be BITTER! and when the agony isover, those who survive may see better days! FAREWELL!" [Footnote 1: For full study see article "Lorenzo Dow, " in _MethodistReview_ and _Journal of Negro History_, July, 1916, the same beingincluded in _Africa and the War_, New York, 1918. ] CHAPTER V INDIAN AND NEGRO It is not the purpose of the present chapter to give a history of theSeminole Wars, or even to trace fully the connection of the Negro withthese contests. We do hope to show at least, however, that the Negro wasmore important than anything else as an immediate cause of controversy, though the general pressure of the white man upon the Indian wouldin time of course have made trouble in any case. Strange parallelsconstantly present themselves, and incidentally it may be seen that thepolicy of the Government in force in other and even later years withreference to the Negro was at this time also very largely applied in thecase of the Indian. 1. _Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 1812_ On August 7, 1786, the Continental Congress by a definite andfar-reaching ordinance sought to regulate for the future the wholeconduct of Indian affairs. Two great districts were formed, oneincluding the territory north of the Ohio and west of the Hudson, andthe other including that south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi;and for anything pertaining to the Indian in each of these two greattracts a superintendent was appointed. As affecting the Negro thesouthern district was naturally of vastly more importance than thenorthern. In the eastern portion of this, mainly in what are nowGeorgia, eastern Tennessee, and eastern Alabama, were the Cherokeesand the great confederacy of the Creeks, while toward the west, in thepresent Mississippi and western Alabama, were the Chickasaws and theChoctaws. Of Muskhogean stock, and originally a part of the Creeks, werethe Seminoles ("runaways"), who about 1750, under the leadership of agreat chieftain, Secoffee, separated from the main confederacy, whichhad its center in southwest Georgia just a little south of Columbus, andoverran the peninsula of Florida. In 1808 came another band under MiccoHadjo to the present site of Tallahassee. The Mickasukie tribe wasalready on the ground in the vicinity of this town, and at first itsmembers objected to the newcomers, who threatened to take their landsfrom them; but at length all abode peaceably together under the generalname of Seminoles. About 1810 these people had twenty towns, the chiefones being Mikasuki and Tallahassee. From the very first they hadreceived occasional additions from the Yemassee, who had been driven outof South Carolina, and of fugitive Negroes. By the close of the eighteenth century all along the frontier the Indianhad begun to feel keenly the pressure of the white man, and in hisstruggle with the invader he recognized in the oppressed Negro a naturalally. Those Negroes who by any chance became free were welcomed by theIndians, fugitives from bondage found refuge with them, and whileIndian chiefs commonly owned slaves, the variety of servitude was verydifferent from that under the white man. The Negroes were comparativelyfree, and intermarriage was frequent; thus a mulatto woman who fledfrom bondage married a chief and became the mother of a daughter who incourse of time became the wife of the famous Osceola. This very closeconnection of the Negro with the family life of the Indian was thedetermining factor in the resistance of the Seminoles to the demands ofthe agents of the United States, and a reason, stronger even than hislove for his old hunting-ground, for his objection to removal to newlands beyond the Mississippi. Very frequently the Indian could not giveup his Negroes without seeing his own wife and children led away intobondage; and thus to native courage and pride was added the instinct ofa father for the preservation of his own. In the two wars between the Americans and the English it was but naturalthat the Indian should side with the English, and it was in some measurebut a part of the game that he should receive little consideration atthe hands of the victor. In the politics played by the English and theFrench, the English and the Spaniards, and finally between the Americansand all Europeans, the Indian was ever the loser. In the very earlyyears of the Carolina colonies, some effort was made to enslave theIndians; but such servants soon made their way to the Indian country, and it was not long before they taught the Negroes to do likewise. Thisconstant escape of slaves, with its attendant difficulties, largelyaccounted for the establishing of the free colony of Georgia betweenSouth Carolina and the Spanish possession, Florida. It was soon evident, however, that the problem had been aggravated rather than settled. WhenCongress met in 1776 it received from Georgia a communication settingforth the need of "preventing slaves from deserting their masters"; andas soon as the Federal Government was organized in 1789 it received alsofrom Georgia an urgent request for protection from the Creeks, who werecharged with various ravages, and among other documents presented wasa list of one hundred and ten Negroes who were said to have left theirmasters during the Revolution and to have found refuge among the Creeks. Meanwhile by various treaties, written and unwritten, the Creeks werebeing forced toward the western line of the state, and in any agreementthe outstanding stipulation was always for the return of fugitiveslaves. For a number of years the Creeks retreated without definitelyorganized resistance. In the course of the War of 1812, however, movedby the English and by a visit from Tecumseh, they suddenly rose, and onAugust 30, 1813, under the leadership of Weathersford, they attackedFort Mims, a stockade thirty-five miles north of Mobile. The fivehundred and fifty-three men, women, and children in this place werealmost completely massacred. Only fifteen white persons escaped byhiding in the woods, a number of Negroes being taken prisoner. Thisoccurrence spurred the whole Southwest to action. Volunteers were calledfor, and the Tennessee legislature resolved to exterminate the wholetribe. Andrew Jackson with Colonel Coffee administered decisive defeatsat Talladega and Tohopeka or Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River, andthe Creeks were forced to sue for peace. By the treaty of Fort Jackson(August 9, 1814) the future president, now a major general in theregular army and in command at Mobile, demanded that the unhappy nationgive up more than half of its land as indemnity for the cost of the war, that it hold no communication with a Spanish garrison or town, that itpermit the necessary roads to be made or forts to be built in any partof the territory, and that it surrender the prophets who had instigatedthe war. This last demand was ridiculous, or only for moral effect, for the so-called prophets had already been left dead on the field ofbattle. The Creeks were quite broken, however, and Jackson passed on tofame and destiny at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. In Aprilof this year he was made commander-in-chief of the Southern Division. [1]It soon developed that his chief task in this capacity was to reckonwith the Seminoles. [Footnote 1: In his official capacity Jackson issued two addresses whichhave an important place in the history of the Negro soldier. From hisheadquarters at Mobile, September 21, 1814, he issued an appeal "To theFree Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana, " offering them an honorable partin the war, and this was later followed by a "Proclamation to theFree People of Color" congratulating them on their achievement. Bothaddresses are accessible in many books. ] On the Appalachicola River the British had rebuilt an old fort, callingit the British Post on the Appalachicola. Early in the summer of 1815the commander, Nicholls, had occasion to go to London, and he took withhim his troops, the chief Francis, and several Creeks, leaving in thefort seven hundred and sixty-three barrels of cannon powder, twenty-fivehundred muskets, and numerous pistols and other weapons of war. TheNegroes from Georgia who had come to the vicinity, who numbered not lessthan a thousand, and who had some well kept farms up and down thebanks of the river, now took charge of the fort and made it theirheadquarters. They were joined by some Creeks, and the so-called NegroFort soon caused itself to be greatly feared by any white peoplewho happened to live near. Demands on the Spanish governor for itssuppression were followed by threats of the use of the soldiery of theUnited States; and General Gaines, under orders in the section, wrote toJackson asking authority to build near the boundary another post thatmight be used as the base for any movement that had as its aim tooverawe the Negroes. Jackson readily complied with the request, saying, "I have no doubt that this fort has been established by some villainsfor the purpose of murder, rapine, and plunder, and that it ought to beblown up regardless of the ground it stands on. If you have come to thesame conclusion, destroy it, and restore the stolen Negroes and propertyto their rightful owners. " Gaines accordingly built Fort Scott notfar from where the Flint and the Chattahoochee join to form theAppalachicola. It was necessary for Gaines to pass the Negro Fort inbringing supplies to his own men; and on July 17, 1816, the boats of theAmericans were within range of the fort and opened fire. There was somepreliminary shooting, and then, since the walls were too stubborn to bebattered down by a light fire, "a ball made red-hot in the cook'sgalley was put in the gun and sent screaming over the wall and into themagazine. The roar, the shock, the scene that followed, may be imagined, but not described. Seven hundred barrels of gunpowder tore the earth, the fort, and all the wretched creatures in it to fragments. Two hundredand seventy men, women, and children died on the spot. Of sixty-fourtaken out alive, the greater number died soon after. "[1] [Footnote 1: McMaster, IV, 431. ] The Seminoles--in the West more and more identified with theCreeks--were angered by their failure to recover the lands lost by thetreaty of Fort Jackson and also by the building of Fort Scott. Onesettlement, Fowltown, fifteen miles east of Fort Scott, was especiallyexcited and in the fall of 1817 sent a warning to the Americans "notto cross or cut a stick of timber on the east side of the Flint. " Thewarning was regarded as a challenge; Fowltown was taken on a morning inNovember, and the Seminole Wars had begun. 2. _First Seminole War and the Treaties of Indian Spring and FortMoultrie_ In the course of the First Seminole War (1817-18) Jackson ruthlesslylaid waste the towns of the Indians; he also took Pensacola, and heawakened international difficulties by his rather summary execution oftwo British subjects, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were traders to theIndians and sustained generally pleasant relations with them. For hisconduct, especially in this last instance, he was severely criticized inCongress, but it is significant of his rising popularity that no formalvote of censure could pass against him. On the cession of Florida to theUnited States he was appointed territorial governor; but he served for abrief term only. As early as 1822 he was nominated for the presidencyby the legislature of Tennessee, and in 1823 he was sent to the UnitedStates Senate. Of special importance in the history of the Creeks about this time wasthe treaty of Indian Spring, of January 8, 1821, an iniquitous agreementin the signing of which bribery and firewater were more than usuallypresent. By this the Creeks ceded to the United States, for the benefitof Georgia, five million acres of their most valuable land. In cash theywere to receive $200, 000, in payments extending over fourteen years. TheUnited States Government moreover was to hold $250, 000 as a fund fromwhich the citizens of Georgia were to be reimbursed for any "claims"(for runaway slaves of course) that the citizens of the state hadagainst the Creeks prior to the year 1802. [1] In the actual execution ofthis agreement a slave was frequently estimated at two or three timeshis real value, and the Creeks were expected to pay whether the fugitivewas with them or not. All possible claims, however, amounted to$101, 000. This left $149, 000 of the money in the hands of theGovernment. This sum was not turned over to the Indians, as one mighthave expected, but retained until 1834, when the Georgia citizensinterested petitioned for a division. The request was referred to theCommission on Indian Affairs, and the chairman, Gilmer of Georgia, wasin favor of dividing the money among the petitioners as compensation for"the offspring which the slaves would have borne had they remained inbondage. " This suggestion was rejected at the time, but afterwards thedivision was made nevertheless; and history records few more flagrantviolations of all principles of honor and justice. [Footnote 1: See J. R. Giddings: _The Exiles of Florida_, 63-66; alsospeech in House of Representatives February 9, 1841. ] The First Seminole War, while in some ways disastrous to the Indians, was in fact not much more than the preliminary skirmish of a conflictthat was not to cease until 1842. In general the Indians, mindful of theravages of the War of 1812, did not fully commit themselves and bidedtheir time. They were in fact so much under cover that they led theAmericans to underestimate their real numbers. When the cession ofFlorida was formally completed, however (July 17, 1821), they were foundto be on the very best spots of land in the territory. On May 20, 1822, Colonel Gad Humphreys was appointed agent to them, William P. Duval asgovernor of the territory being ex-officio superintendent of Indianaffairs. Altogether the Indians at this time, according to the officialcount, numbered 1, 594 men, 1, 357 women, and 993 children, a total of3, 944, with 150 Negro men and 650 Negro women and children. [1] In theinterest of these people Humphreys labored faithfully for eight years, and not a little of the comparative quiet in his period of service is tobe credited to his own sympathy, good sense, and patience. [Footnote 1: Sprague, 19. ] In the spring of 1823 the Indians were surprised by the suggestion of atreaty that would definitely limit their boundaries and outline theirfuture relations with the white man. The representative chiefs hadno desire for a conference, were exceedingly reluctant to meet thecommissioners, and finally came to the meeting prompted only by the hopethat such terms might be arrived at as would permanently guarantee themin the peaceable possession of their homes. Over the very strong protestof some of them a treaty was signed at Fort Moultrie, on the coast fivemiles below St. Augustine, September 18, 1823, William P. Duval, JamesGadsden, and Bernard Segui being the representatives of the UnitedStates. By this treaty we learn that the Indians, in view of the factthat they have "thrown themselves on, and have promised to continueunder, the protection of the United States, and of no other nation, power, or sovereignty; and in consideration of the promises andstipulations hereinafter made, do cede and relinquish all claim or titlewhich they have to the whole territory of Florida, with the exception ofsuch district of country as shall herein be allotted to them. " They areto have restricted boundaries, the extreme point of which is nowhere tobe nearer than fifteen miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The United Statespromises to distribute, as soon as the Indians are settled on their newland, under the direction of their agent, "implements of husbandry, andstock of cattle and hogs to the amount of six thousand dollars, and anannual sum of five thousand dollars a year for twenty successive years";and "to restrain and prevent all white persons from hunting, settling, or otherwise intruding" upon the land set apart for the Indians, thoughany American citizen, lawfully authorized, is to pass and repasswithin the said district and navigate the waters thereof "without anyhindrance, toll or exactions from said tribes. " For facilitating removaland as compensation for any losses or inconvenience sustained, theUnited States is to furnish rations of corn, meat, and salt for twelvemonths, with a special appropriation of $4, 500 for those who have madeimprovements, and $2, 000 more for the facilitating of transportation. The agent, sub-agent, and interpreter are to reside within the Indianboundary "to watch over the interests of said tribes"; and the UnitedStates further undertake "as an evidence of their humane policytowards said tribes" to allow $1, 000 a year for twenty years for theestablishment of a school and $1, 000 a year for the same period for thesupport of a gun- and blacksmith. Of supreme importance is Article 7:"The chiefs and warriors aforesaid, for themselves and tribes, stipulateto be active and vigilant in the preventing the retreating to, orpassing through, the district of country assigned them, of anyabsconding slaves, or fugitives from justice; and further agree to useall necessary exertions to apprehend and deliver the same to the agent, who shall receive orders to compensate them agreeably to the trouble andexpense incurred. " We have dwelt at length upon the provisions of thistreaty because it contained all the seeds of future trouble between thewhite man and the Indian. Six prominent chiefs--Nea Mathla, John Blunt, Tuski Hajo, Mulatto King, Emathlochee, and Econchattimico--refusedabsolutely to sign, and their marks were not won until each was givena special reservation of from two to four square miles outside theSeminole boundaries. Old Nea Mathla in fact never did accept the treatyin good faith, and when the time came for the execution of the agreementhe summoned his warriors to resistance. Governor Duval broke in upon hiswar council, deposed the war leaders, and elevated those who favoredpeaceful removal. The Seminoles now retired to their new lands, but NeaMathla was driven into practical exile. He retired to the Creeks, bywhom he was raised to the dignity of a chief. It was soon realized bythe Seminoles that they had been restricted to some pine woods by nomeans as fertile as their old lands, nor were matters made better by oneor two seasons of drought. To allay their discontent twenty square milesmore, to the north, was given them, but to offset this new cession theirrations were immediately reduced. 3. _From the Treaty of Fort Moultrie to the Treaty of Payne's Landing_ Now succeeded ten years of trespassing, of insult, and of increasingenmity. Kidnapers constantly lurked near the Indian possessions, andinstances of injury unredressed increased the bitterness and rancor. Under date May 20, 1825, Humphreys[1] wrote to the Indian Bureau thatthe white settlers were already thronging to the vicinity of the Indianreservation and were likely to become troublesome. As to some recentdisturbances, writing from St. Augustine February 9, 1825, he said:"From all I can learn here there is little doubt that the disturbancesnear Tallahassee, which have of late occasioned so much clamor, werebrought about by a course of unjustifiable conduct on the part ofthe whites, similar to that which it appears to be the object of theterritorial legislature to legalize. In fact, it is stated that oneIndian had been so severely whipped by the head of the family which wasdestroyed in these disturbances, as to cause his death; if such be thefact, the subsequent act of the Indians, however lamentable, must beconsidered as one of retaliation, and I can not but think it is tobe deplored that they were afterwards 'hunted' with so unrelenting arevenge. " The word _hunted_ was used advisedly by Humphreys, for, aswe shall see later, when war was renewed one of the common means offighting employed by the American officers was the use of bloodhounds. Sometimes guns were taken from the Indians so that they had nothing withwhich to pursue the chase. On one occasion, when some Indians were beingmarched to headquarters, a woman far advanced in pregnancy was forcedonward with such precipitancy as to produce a premature delivery, whichalmost terminated her life. More far-reaching than anything else, however, was the constant denial of the rights of the Indian in courtin cases involving white men. As Humphreys said, the great disadvantageunder which the Seminoles labored as witnesses "destroyed everythinglike equality of rights. " Some of the Negroes that they had, had beenborn among them, and some others had been purchased from white menand duly paid for. No receipts were given, however, and efforts werefrequently made to recapture the Negroes by force. The Indian, consciousof his rights, protested earnestly against such attempts and naturallydetermined to resist all efforts to wrest from him his rightfullyacquired property. [Footnote 1: The correspondence is readily accessible in Sprague, 30-37. ] By 1827, however, the territorial legislature had begun to memorializeCongress and to ask for the complete removal of the Indians. Meanwhilethe Negro question was becoming more prominent, and orders from theDepartment of War, increasingly peremptory, were made on Humphreys forthe return of definite Negroes. For Duval and Humphreys, however, whohad actually to execute the commissions, the task was not always soeasy. Under date March 20, 1827, the former wrote to the latter: "Manyof the slaves belonging to the whites are now in the possession of thewhite people; these slaves can not be obtained for their Indian ownerswithout a lawsuit, and I see no reason why the Indians shall becompelled to surrender all slaves claimed by our citizens when thissurrender is not mutual. " Meanwhile the annuity began to be withheldfrom the Indians in order to force them to return Negroes, and afriendly chief, Hicks, constantly waited upon Humphreys only to find theagent little more powerful than himself. Thus matters continued through1829 and 1830. In violation of all legal procedure, the Indians wereconstantly _required to relinquish beforehand property in theirpossession to settle a question of claim_. On March 21, 1830, Humphreyswas informed that he was no longer agent for the Indians. He had beenhonestly devoted to the interest of these people, but his efforts werenot in harmony with the policy of the new administration. Just what that policy was may be seen from Jackson's special messageon Indian affairs of February 22, 1831. The Senate had asked forinformation as to the conduct of the Government in connection with theact of March 30, 1802, "to regulate trade and intercourse with theIndian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontiers. " The Nullificationcontroversy was in everybody's mind, and already friction had arisenbetween the new President and the abolitionists. In spite of Jackson'sattitude toward South Carolina, his message in the present instance wasa careful defense of the whole theory of state rights. Nothing in theconduct of the Federal Government toward the Indian tribes, he insisted, had ever been intended to attack or even to call in question the rightsof a sovereign state. In one way the Southern states had seemed to be anexception. "As early as 1784 the settlements within the limits of NorthCarolina were advanced farther to the west than the authority of thestate to enforce an obedience of its laws. " After the Revolution thetribes desolated the frontiers. "Under these circumstances the firsttreaties, in 1785 and 1790, with the Cherokees, were concluded by theGovernment of the United States. " Nothing of all this, said Jackson, hadin any way affected the relation of any Indians to the state in whichthey happened to reside, and he concluded as follows: "Toward this raceof people I entertain the kindest feelings, and am not sensible that theviews which I have taken of their true interests are less favorable tothem than those which oppose their emigration to the West. Years since Istated to them my belief that if the States chose to extend their lawsover them it would not be in the power of the Federal Government toprevent it. My opinion remains the same, and I can see no alternativefor them but that of their removal to the West or a quiet submission tothe state laws. If they prefer to remove, the United States agree todefray their expenses, to supply them the means of transportation and ayear's support after they reach their new homes--a provision too liberaland kind to bear the stamp of injustice. Either course promises thempeace and happiness, whilst an obstinate perseverance in the effort tomaintain their possessions independent of the state authority can notfail to render their condition still more helpless and miserable. Suchan effort ought, therefore, to be discountenanced by all who sincerelysympathize in the fortunes of this peculiar people, and especially bythe political bodies of the Union, as calculated to disturb the harmonyof the two Governments and to endanger the safety of the many blessingswhich they enable us to enjoy. " The policy thus formally enunciated was already in practical operation. In the closing days of the administration of John Quincy Adams adelegation came to Washington to present to the administration thegrievances of the Cherokee nation. The formal reception of thedelegation fell to the lot of Eaton, the new Secretary of War. TheCherokees asserted that not only did they have no rights in the Georgiacourts in cases involving white men, but that they had been notified byGeorgia that all laws, usages, and agreements in force in the Indiancountry would be null and void after June 1, 1830; and naturally theywanted the interposition of the Federal Government. Eaton replied atgreat length, reminding the Cherokees that they had taken sides withEngland in the War of 1812, that they were now on American soil only bysufferance, and that the central government could not violate the rightsof the state of Georgia; and he strongly advised immediate removal tothe West. The Cherokees, quite broken, acted in accord with this advice;and so in 1832 did the Creeks, to whom Jackson had sent a special talkurging removal as the only basis of Federal protection. To the Seminoles as early as 1827 overtures for removal had been made;but before the treaty of Fort Moultrie had really become effective theyhad been intruded upon and they in turn had become more slow aboutreturning runaway slaves. From some of the clauses in the treaty ofFort Moultrie, as some of the chiefs were quick to point out, theunderstanding was that the same was to be in force for twenty years; andthey felt that any slowness on their part about the return of Negroeswas fully nullified by the efforts of the professional Negro stealerswith whom they had to deal. Early in 1832, however, Colonel James Gadsden of Florida was directedby Lewis Cass, the Secretary of War, to enter into negotiation for theremoval of the Indians of Florida. There was great opposition to aconference, but the Indians were finally brought together at Payne'sLanding on the Ocklawaha River just seventeen miles from Fort King. Here on May 9, 1832, was wrested from them a treaty which is of supremeimportance in the history of the Seminoles. The full text was asfollows: TREATY OF PAYNE'S LANDING, MAY 9, 1832 Whereas, a treaty between the United States and the Seminole nation of Indians was made and concluded at Payne's Landing, on the Ocklawaha River, on the 9th of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, by James Gadsden, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of said Seminole nation of Indians, on the part of said nation; which treaty is in the words following, to wit: The Seminole Indians, regarding with just respect the solicitude manifested by the President of the United States for the improvement of their condition, by recommending a removal to the country more suitable to their habits and wants than the one they at present occupy in the territory of Florida, are willing that their confidential chiefs, Jumper, Fuch-a-lus-to-had-jo, Charley Emathla, Coi-had-jo, Holati-Emathla, Ya-ha-had-jo, Sam Jones, accompanied by their agent, Major John Phagan, and their faithful interpreter, Abraham, should be sent, at the expense of the United States, as early as convenient, to examine the country assigned to the Creeks, west of the Mississippi River, and should they be satisfied with the character of the country, and of the favorable disposition of the Creeks to re-unite with the Seminoles as one people; the articles of the compact and agreement herein stipulated, at Payne's Landing, on the Ocklawaha River, this ninth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, between James Gadsden, for and in behalf of the government of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs and headmen, for and in behalf of the Seminole Indians, shall be binding on the respective parties. Article I. The Seminole Indians relinquish to the United States all claim to the land they at present occupy in the territory of Florida, and agree to emigrate to the country assigned to the Creeks, west of the Mississippi River, it being understood that an additional extent of country, proportioned to their numbers, will be added to the Creek territory, and that the Seminoles will be received as a constituent part of the Creek nation, and be re-admitted to all the privileges as a member of the same. Article II. For and in consideration of the relinquishment of claim in the first article of this agreement, and in full compensation for all the improvements which may have been made on the lands thereby ceded, the United States stipulate to pay to the Seminole Indians fifteen thousand four hundred ($15, 400) dollars, to be divided among the chiefs and warriors of the several towns, in a ratio proportioned to their population, the respective proportions of each to be paid on their arrival in the country they consent to remove to; it being understood that their faithful interpreters, Abraham and Cudjo, shall receive two hundred dollars each, of the above sum, in full remuneration of the improvements to be abandoned on the lands now cultivated by them. Article III. The United States agree to distribute, as they arrive at their new homes in the Creek territory, west of the Mississippi River, a blanket and a homespun frock to each of the warriors, women and children, of the Seminole tribe of Indians. Article IV. The United States agree to extend the annuity for the support of a blacksmith, provided for in the sixth article of the treaty at Camp Moultrie, for ten (10) years beyond the period therein stipulated, and in addition to the other annuities secured under that treaty, the United States agree to pay the sum of three thousand ($3, 000) dollars a year for fifteen (15) years, commencing after the removal of the whole tribe; these sums to be added to the Creek annuities, and the whole amount to be so divided that the chiefs and warriors of the Seminole Indians may receive their equitable proportion of the same, as members of the Creek confederation. Article V. The United States will take the cattle belonging to the Seminoles, at the valuation of some discreet person, to be appointed by the President, and the same shall be paid for in money to the respective owners, after their arrival at their new homes; or other cattle, such as may be desired, will be furnished them; notice being given through their agent, of their wishes upon this subject, before their removal, that time may be afforded to supply the demand. Article VI. The Seminoles being anxious to be relieved from the repeated vexatious demands for slaves, and other property, alleged to have been stolen and destroyed by them, so that they may remove unembarrassed to their new homes, the United States stipulate to have the same property (properly) investigated, and to liquidate such as may be satisfactorily established, provided the amount does not exceed seven thousand ($7, 000) dollars. Article VII. The Seminole Indians will remove within three (3) years after the ratification of this agreement, and the expenses of their removal shall be defrayed by the United States, and such subsistence shall also be furnished them, for a term not exceeding twelve (12) months after their arrival at their new residence, as in the opinion of the President their numbers and circumstances may require; the emigration to commence as early as practicable in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-three (1833), and with those Indians at present occupying the Big Swamp, and other parts of the country beyond the limits, as defined in the second article of the treaty concluded at Camp Moultrie Creek, so that the whole of that proportion of the Seminoles may be removed within the year aforesaid, and the remainder of the tribe, in about equal proportions, during the subsequent years of eighteen hundred and thirty-four and five (1834 and 1835). In testimony whereof, the commissioner, James Gadsden, and the undersigned chiefs and head-men of the Seminole Indians, have hereunto subscribed their names and affixed their seals. Done at camp, at Payne's Landing, on the Ocklawaha River, in the territory of Florida, on this ninth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and of the independence of the United States of America, the fifty-sixth. (Signed) James Gadsden. L. S. Holati Emathlar, his X mark. Jumper, his X mark. Cudjo, Interpreter, his X mark. Erastus Rodgers. B. Joscan. Holati Emathlar, his X mark. Jumper, his X mark. Fuch-ta-lus-ta-Hadjo, his X mark. Charley Emathla, his X mark. Coi Hadjo, his X mark. Ar-pi-uck-i, or Sam Jones, his X mark. Ya-ha-Hadjo, his X mark. Mico-Noha, his X mark. Tokose Emathla, or John Hicks, his X mark. Cat-sha-Tustenuggee, his X mark. Holat-a-Micco, his X mark. Hitch-it-i-Micco, his X mark. E-na-hah, his X mark. Ya-ha-Emathla-Chopco, his X mark. Moki-his-she-lar-ni, his X mark. Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered said treaty, do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as expressed by their resolution of the eighth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. In witness whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Washington, this twelfth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, and of the independence of the United States of America, the fifty-eighth. (Signed) ANDREW JACKSON. By the President, LOUIS MCLANE, Secretary of State. It will be seen that by the terms of this document seven chiefs were togo and examine the country assigned to the Creeks, and that they were tobe accompanied by Major John Phagan, the successor of Humphreys, and theNegro interpreter Abraham. The character of Phagan may be seen from thefacts that he was soon in debt to different ones of the Indians and toAbraham, and that he was found to be short in his accounts. While theIndian chiefs were in the West, three United States commissionersconferred with them as to the suitability of the country for a futurehome, and at Fort Gibson, Arkansas, March 28, 1833, they were beguiledinto signing an additional treaty in which occurred the followingsentence: "And the undersigned Seminole chiefs, delegated as aforesaid, on behalf of their nation, hereby declare themselves well satisfied withthe location provided for them by the commissioners, and agree thattheir nation shall commence the removal to their new home as soon as thegovernment will make arrangements for their emigration, satisfactory tothe Seminole nation. " They of course had no authority to act on theirown initiative, and when all returned in April, 1833, and Phaganexplained what had happened, the Seminoles expressed themselves in nouncertain terms. The chiefs who had gone West denied strenuously thatthey had signed away any rights to land, but they were neverthelessupbraided as the agents of deception. Some of the old chiefs, of whomMicanopy was the highest authority, resolved to resist the efforts todispossess them; and John Hicks, who seems to have been substituted forSam Jones on the commission, was killed because he argued too stronglyfor migration. Meanwhile the treaty of Payne's Landing was ratified bythe Senate of the United States and proclaimed as in force by PresidentJackson April 12, 1834, and in connection with it the supplementarytreaty of Fort Gibson was also ratified. The Seminoles, however, werenot showing any haste about removing, and ninety of the white citizensof Alachua County sent a protest to the President alleging that theIndians were not returning their fugitive slaves. Jackson was madeangry, and without even waiting for the formal ratification of thetreaties, he sent the document to the Secretary of War, with anendorsement on the back directing him "to inquire into the allegedfacts, and if found to be true, to direct the Seminoles to prepare toremove West and join the Creeks. " General Wiley Thompson was appointedto succeed Phagan as agent, and General Duncan L. Clinch was placed incommand of the troops whose services it was thought might be needed. Itwas at this juncture that Osceola stepped forward as the leading spiritof his people. 4. _Osceola and the Second Seminole War_ Osceola (Asseola, or As-se-he-ho-lar, sometimes called Powell becauseafter his father's death his mother married a white man of that name[1])was not more than thirty years of age. He was slender, of onlyaverage height, and slightly round-shouldered; but he was also wellproportioned, muscular, and capable of enduring great fatigue. He hadlight, deep, restless eyes, and a shrill voice, and he was a greatadmirer of order and technique. He excelled in athletic contests and inhis earlier years had taken delight in engaging in military practicewith the white men. As he was neither by descent nor formal election achief, he was not expected to have a voice in important deliberations;but he was a natural leader and he did more than any other man toorganize the Seminoles to resistance. It is hardly too much to saythat to his single influence was due a contest that ultimately cost$10, 000, 000 and the loss of thousands of lives. Never did a patriotfight more valiantly for his own, and it stands to the eternal disgraceof the American arms that he was captured under a flag of truce. [Footnote 1: Hodge's _Handbook of American Indians_, II, 159. ] It is well to pause for a moment and reflect upon some of the deepermotives that entered into the impending contest. A distinguishedcongressman, [1] speaking in the House of Representatives a few yearslater, touched eloquently upon some of the events of these troublousyears. Let us remember that this was the time of the formation ofanti-slavery societies, of pronounced activity on the part of theabolitionists, and recall also that Nat Turner's insurrection was stillfresh in the public mind. Giddings stated clearly the issue as itappeared to the people of the North when he said, "I hold that if theslaves of Georgia or any other state leave their masters, the FederalGovernment has no constitutional authority to employ our army or navyfor their recapture, or to apply the national treasure to repurchasethem. " There could be no question of the fact that the war was verylargely one over fugitive slaves. Under date October 28, 1834, GeneralThompson wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs: "There are manyvery likely Negroes in this nation [the Seminole]. Some of the whites inthe adjacent settlements manifest a restless desire to obtain them, andI have no doubt that Indian raised Negroes are now in the possessionof the whites. " In a letter dated January 20, 1834, Governor Duval hadalready said to the same official: "The slaves belonging to the Indianshave a controlling influence over the minds of their masters, and areentirely opposed to any change of residence. " Six days later he wrote:"The slaves belonging to the Indians must be made to fear for themselvesbefore they will cease to influence the minds of their masters.... Thefirst step towards the emigration of these Indians must be the breakingup of the runaway slaves and the outlaw Indians. " And the New Orleans_Courier_ of July 27, 1839, revealed all the fears of the period when itsaid, "Every day's delay in subduing the Seminoles increases the dangerof a rising among the serviles. " [Footnote 1: Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio. His exhaustive speech on theFlorida War was made February 9, 1841. ] All the while injustice and injury to the Indians continued. Econchattimico, well known as one of those chiefs to whom specialreservations had been given by the treaty of Fort Moultrie, was theowner of twenty slaves valued at $15, 000. Observing Negro stealershovering around his estate, he armed himself and his men. The kidnapersthen furthered their designs by circulating the report that the Indianswere arming themselves for union with the main body of Seminoles for thegeneral purpose of massacring the white people. Face to face withthis charge Econchattimico gave up his arms and threw himself on theprotection of the government; and his Negroes were at once taken andsold into bondage. A similar case was that of John Walker, an Appalachicola chief, whowrote to Thompson under date July 28, 1835: "I am induced to write youin consequence of the depredations making and attempted to be made uponmy property, by a company of Negro stealers, some of whom are fromColumbus, Ga. , and have connected themselves with Brown and Douglass.... I should like your advice how I am to act. I dislike to make or to haveany difficulty with the white people. But if they trespass upon mypremises and my rights, I must defend myself the best way I can. If theydo make this attempt, and I have no doubt they will, they must bear theconsequences. _But is there no civil law to protect me_? Are the freeNegroes and the Negroes belonging to this town to be stolen awaypublicly, and in the face of law and justice, carried off and sold tofill the pockets of these worse than land pirates? Douglass and hiscompany hired a man who has two large trained dogs for the purpose tocome down and take Billy. He is from Mobile and follows for a livelihoodcatching runaway Negroes. " Such were the motives, fears and incidents in the years immediatelyafter the treaty of Payne's Landing. Beginning at the close of 1834 andcontinuing through April, 1835, Thompson had a series of conferenceswith the Seminole chiefs. At these meetings Micanopy, influenced byOsceola and other young Seminoles, took a more definite stand than hemight otherwise have assumed. Especially did he insist with referenceto the treaty that he understood that the chiefs who went West were to_examine_ the country, and for his part he knew that when they returnedthey would report unfavorably. Thompson then, becoming angry, deliveredan ultimatum to the effect that if the treaty was not observed theannuity from the great father in Washington would cease. To this, Osceola, stepping forward, replied that he and his warriors did not careif they never received another dollar from the great father, and drawinghis knife, he plunged it in the table and said, "The only treaty I willexecute is with this. " Henceforward there was deadly enmity between theyoung Seminole and Thompson. More and more Osceola made his personalityfelt, constantly asserting to the men of his nation that whoeverrecommended emigration was an enemy of the Seminoles, and he finallyarrived at an understanding with many of them that the treaty would beresisted with their very lives. Thompson, however, on April 23, 1835, had a sort of secret conference with sixteen of the chiefs who seemedfavorably disposed toward migration, and he persuaded them to sign adocument "freely and fully" assenting to the treaties of Payne's Landingand Fort Gibson. The next day there was a formal meeting at which theagent, backed up by Clinch and his soldiers, upbraided the Indians in avery harsh manner. His words were met by groans, angry gesticulations, and only half-muffled imprecations. Clinch endeavored to appeal to theIndians and to advise them that resistance was both unwise and useless. Thompson, however, with his usual lack of tact, rushed onward in hiscourse, and learning that five chiefs were unalterably opposed to thetreaty, he arbitrarily struck their names off the roll of chiefs, anaction the highhandedness of which was not lost on the Seminoles. Immediately after the conference moreover he forbade the sale ofany more arms and powder to the Indians. To the friendly chiefs theunderstanding had been given that the nation might have until January1, 1836, to make preparation for removal, by which time all were toassemble at Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, for emigration. About the first of June Osceola was one day on a quiet errand of tradingat Fort King. With him was his wife, the daughter of a mulatto slavewoman who had run away years before and married an Indian chief. BySouthern law this woman followed the condition of her mother, andwhen the mother's former owner appeared on the scene and claimed thedaughter, Thompson, who desired to teach Occeola a lesson, readilyagreed that she should be remanded into captivity. [1] Osceola was highlyenraged, and this time it was his turn to upbraid the agent. Thompsonnow had him overpowered and put in irons, in which situation he remainedfor the better part of two days. In this period of captivity his soulplotted revenge and at length he too planned a "_ruse de guerre_. "Feigning assent to the treaty he told Thompson that if he was releasednot only would he sign himself but he would also bring his people tosign. The agent was completely deceived by Osceola's tactics. "True tohis professions, " wrote Thompson on June 3, "he this day appeared withseventy-nine of his people, men, women, and children, including some whohad joined him since his conversion, and redeemed his promise. He toldme many of his friends were out hunting, whom he could and would bringover on their return. I have now no doubt of his sincerity, and aslittle, that the greatest difficulty is surmounted. " [Footnote 1: This highly important incident, which was really the sparkthat started the war, is absolutely ignored even by such well informedwriters as Drake and Sprague. Drake simply gives the impression thatthe quarrel between Osceola and Thompson was over the old matter ofemigration, saying (413), "Remonstrance soon grew into altercation, which ended in a _ruse de guerre_, by which Osceola was made prisoner bythe agent, and put in irons, in which situation he was kept one nightand part of two days. " The story is told by McMaster, however. Also noteM. M. Cohen as quoted in _Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine_, Vol. II, p. 419 (July, 1837). ] Osceola now rapidly urged forward preparations for war, which, however, he did not wish actually started until after the crops were gathered. By the fall he was ready, and one day in October when he and some otherwarriors met Charley Emathla, who had upon him the gold and silver thathe had received from the sale of his cattle preparatory to migration, they killed this chief, and Osceola threw the money in every direction, saying that no one was to touch it, as it was the price of the red man'sblood. The true drift of events became even more apparent to Thompsonand Clinch in November, when five chiefs friendly to migration with fivehundred of their people suddenly appeared at Fort Brooke to ask forprotection. When in December Thompson sent final word to the Seminolesthat they must bring in their horses and cattle, the Indians did notcome on the appointed day; on the contrary they sent their women andchildren to the interior and girded themselves for battle. To Osceolalate in the month a runner brought word that some troops under thecommand of Major Dade were to leave Fort Brooke on the 25th and on thenight of the 27th were to be attacked by some Seminoles in the WahooSwamp. Osceola himself, with some of his men, was meanwhile lying in thewoods near Fort King, waiting for an opportunity to kill Thompson. Onthe afternoon of the 28th the agent dined not far from the fort at thehome of the sutler, a man named Rogers, and after dinner he walkedwith Lieutenant Smith to the crest of a neighboring hill. Here he wassurprised by the Indians, and both he and Smith fell pierced by numerousbullets. The Indians then pressed on to the home of the sutler andkilled Rogers, his two clerks, and a little boy. On the same day thecommand of Major Dade, including seven officers and one hundred and tenmen, was almost completely annihilated, only three men escaping. Dadeand his horse were killed at the first onset. These two attacks beganthe actual fighting of the Second Seminole War. That the Negroes wereworking shoulder to shoulder with the Indians in these encounters maybe seen from the report of Captain Belton, [1] who said, "Lieut. Keays, third artillery, had both arms broken from the first shot; was unableto act, and was tomahawked the latter part of the second attack, by aNegro"; and further: "A Negro named Harry controls the Pea Band of abouta hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of us, who have done mostof the mischief, and keep this post constantly observed. " Osceola nowjoined forces with those Indians who had attacked Dade, and in theearly morning of the last day of the year occurred the Battle ofOuithlecoochee, a desperate encounter in which both Osceola and Clinchgave good accounts of themselves. Clinch had two hundred regulars andfive or six hundred volunteers. The latter fled early in the contest andlooked on from a distance; and Clinch had to work desperately to keepfrom duplicating the experience of Dade. Osceola himself was conspicuousin a red belt and three long feathers, but although twice wounded heseemed to bear a charmed life. He posted himself behind a tree, fromwhich station he constantly sallied forth to kill or wound an enemy withalmost infallible aim. [Footnote 1: Accessible in Drake, 416-418. ] After these early encounters the fighting became more and more bitterand the contest more prolonged. Early in the war the disbursing agentreported that there were only three thousand Indians, including Negroes, to be considered; but this was clearly an understatement. Within thenext year and a half the Indians were hard pressed, and before the endof this period the notorious Thomas S. Jessup had appeared on the sceneas commanding major general. This man seems to have determined never touse honorable means of warfare if some ignoble instrument could servehis purpose. In a letter sent to Colonel Harvey from Tampa Bay underdate May 25, 1837, he said: "If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him Ishall send out and take all the Negroes who belong to the white people. And he must not allow the Indian Negroes to mix with them. Tell him Iam sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them; and I intend to hangevery one of them who does not come in. " And it might be remarked thatfor his bloodhounds Jessup spent--or said he spent--as much as $5, 000, afact which thoroughly aroused Giddings and other persons from the North, who by no means cared to see such an investment of public funds. Byorder No. 160, dated August 3, 1837, Jessup invited his soldiers toplunder and rapine, saying, "All Indian property captured from this datewill belong to the corps or detachment making it. " From St. Augustine, under date October 20, 1837, in a "confidential" communication he saidto one of his lieutenants: "Should Powell and his warriors come withinthe fort, seize him and the whole party. It is important that he, WildCat, John Cowagee, and Tustenuggee, be secured. Hold them until you havemy orders in relation to them. "[1] Two days later he was able to writeto the Secretary of War that Osceola was actually taken. Said he: "Thatchief came into the vicinity of Fort Peyton on the 20th, and sent amessenger to General Hernandez, desiring to see and converse with him. The sickly season being over, and there being no further necessity totemporize, I sent a party of mounted men, and seized the entire body, and now have them securely lodged in the fort. " Osceola, Wild Cat, and others thus captured were marched to St. Augustine; but Wild Catescaped. Osceola was ultimately taken to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor ofCharleston, where in January (1838) he died. [Footnote 1: This correspondence, and much more bearing on the point, may be found in House Document 327 of the Second Session of theTwenty-fifth Congress. ] Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation thatthe influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded tosend from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably ofmigration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriorsaccompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the UnitedStates Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. Thesewarriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of Wara dignified but bitter letter protesting against this "unprecedentedviolation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by everynation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respectthose who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before theenemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare. " He hadindeed been most basely used as the agent of deception. This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of thepoints at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these conteststhe rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. Therewas redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealingwith them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. Itis interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples whoin the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult tocapture--Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, andAguinaldo, the Filipino--were all taken through treachery; and on two ofthe three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officersof the United States Army. CHAPTER VI EARLY APPROACH TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM 1. The Ultimate Problem and the Missouri Compromise In a previous chapter[1] we have already indicated the rise of the NegroProblem in the last decade of the eighteenth and the first two decadesof the nineteenth century. And what was the Negro Problem? It wascertainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last analysis thisinstitution was hardly more than an incident. Slavery has ceased toexist, but even to-day the Problem is with us. The question was ratherwhat was to be the final place in the American body politic of theNegro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country. In theanswering of this question supreme importance attached to the Negrohimself; but the problem soon transcended the race. Ultimately it wasthe destiny of the United States rather than of the Negro that was to beconsidered, and all the ideals on which the country was based came tothe testing. If one studied those ideals he soon realized that they werebased on Teutonic or at least English foundations. By 1820, however, theyoung American republic was already beginning to be the hope of allof the oppressed people of Europe, and Greeks and Italians as well asGermans and Swedes were turning their faces toward the Promised Land. The whole background of Latin culture was different from the Teutonic, and yet the people of Southern as well as of Northern Europe somehowbecame a part of the life of the United States. In this life was it alsopossible for the children of Africa to have a permanent and an honorableplace? With their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings, above all with their distinctive color, could they, too, become genuineAmerican citizens? Some said No, but in taking this position they deniednot only the ideals on which the country was founded but also thepossibilities of human nature itself. In any case the answer to thefirst question at once suggested another, What shall we do with theNegro? About this there was very great difference of opinion, it notalways being supposed that the Negro himself had anything whatever tosay about the matter. Some said send the Negro away, get rid of him byany means whatsoever; others said if he must stay, keep him in slavery;still others said not to keep him permanently in slavery, but emancipatehim only gradually; and already there were beginning to be persons whofelt that the Negro should be emancipated everywhere immediately, andthat after this great event had taken place he and the nation togethershould work out his salvation on the broadest possible plane. [Footnote 1: IV, Section 3. ] Into the agitation was suddenly thrust the application of Missouri forentrance into the Union as a slave state. The struggle that followedfor two years was primarily a political one, but in the course of thediscussion the evils of slavery were fully considered. Meanwhile, in1819, Alabama and Maine also applied for admission. Alabama was allowedto enter without much discussion, as she made equal the number of slaveand free states. Maine, however, brought forth more talk. The Southerncongressmen would have been perfectly willing to admit this as a freestate if Missouri had been admitted as a slave state; but the North feltthat this would have been to concede altogether too much, as Missourifrom the first gave promise of being unusually important. At length, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, there was adopted acompromise whose main provisions were (1) that Maine was to be admittedas a free state; (2) that in Missouri there was to be no prohibition ofslavery; but (3) that slavery was to be prohibited in any other statesthat might be formed out of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of36° 30'. By this agreement the strife was allayed for some years; but it is nowevident that the Missouri Compromise was only a postponement of theultimate contest and that the social questions involved were hardlytouched. Certainly the significance of the first clear drawing of theline between the sections was not lost upon thoughtful men. Jeffersonwrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like afire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I consideredit at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for themoment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I cansay, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who wouldsacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, inany _practicable_ way. The cession of that kind of property, for so itis misnamed, is a bagatelle that would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and _expatriation_ could beeffected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it mightbe. "[1] For the time being, however, the South was concerned mainlyabout immediate dangers; nor was this section placed more at ease byDenmark Vesey's attempted insurrection in 1822. [2] A representativeSouth Carolinian, [3] writing after this event, said, "We regard ourNegroes as the _Jacobins_ of the country, against whom we should alwaysbe upon our guard, and who, although we fear no permanent effects fromany insurrectionary movements on their part, should be watched with aneye of steady and unremitted observation. " Meanwhile from a ratio of43. 72 to 56. 28 in 1790 the total Negro population in South Carolina hadby 1820 come to outnumber the white 52. 77 to 47. 23, and the tendencywas increasingly in favor of the Negro. The South, the whole country infact, was more and more being forced to consider not only slavery butthe ultimate reaches of the problem. [Footnote 1: _Writings_, XV, 249. ] [Footnote 2: See Chapter VII, Section 1. ] [Footnote 3: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 61. ] Whatever one might think of the conclusion--and in this case the speakerwas pleading for colonization--no statement of the problem as itimpressed men about 1820 or 1830 was clearer than that of Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, at Albany in 1829. [1] The question, said he, was by no means local. Slavery was once legalized in New England; andNew England built slave-ships and manned these with New England seamen. In 1820 the slave population in the country amounted to 1, 500, 000. Thenumber doubled every twenty years, and it was easy to see how it wouldprogress from 1, 500, 000 to 3, 000, 000; to 6, 000, 000; to 12, 000, 000; to24, 000, 000. "Twenty-four millions of slaves! What a drawback from ourstrength; what a tax on our resources; what a hindrance to our growth;what a stain on our character; and what an impediment to the fulfillmentof our destiny! Could our worst enemies or the worst enemies ofrepublics, wish us a severer judgment?" How could one know that wakefuland sagacious enemies without would not discover the vulnerable pointand use it for the country's overthrow? Or was there not danger thatamong a people goaded from age to age there might at length arise somesecond Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, reckless of consequences, would arraya force and cause a movement throughout the zone of bondage, leavingbehind him plantations waste and mansions desolate? Who could believethat such a tremendous physical force would remain forever spell-boundand quiescent? After all, however, slavery was doomed; public opinionhad already pronounced upon it, and the moral energy of the nation wouldsooner or later effect its overthrow. "But, " continued Nott, "the solemnquestion here arises--in what condition will this momentous change placeus? The freed men of other countries have long since disappeared, havingbeen amalgamated in the general mass. Here there can be no amalgamation. Our manumitted bondmen have remained already to the third and fourth, asthey will to the thousandth generation--a distinct, a degraded, and awretched race. " After this sweeping statement, which has certainly notbeen justified by time, Nott proceeded to argue the expediency of hisorganization. Gerrit Smith, who later drifted away from colonization, said frankly on the same occasion that the ultimate solution was eitheramalgamation or colonization, and that of the two courses he preferredto choose the latter. Others felt as he did. We shall now accordinglyproceed to consider at somewhat greater length the two solutions thatabout 1820 had the clearest advocates--Colonization and Slavery. [Footnote 1: See "African Colonization. Proceedings of the Formation ofthe New York State Colonization Society. " Albany, 1829. ] 2. _Colonization_ Early in 1773, Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, called on his friend, Rev. Ezra Stiles, afterwards President of Yale College, and suggestedthe possibility of educating Negro students, perhaps two at first, whowould later go as missionaries to Africa. Stiles thought that for theplan to be worth while there should be a colony on the coast of Africa, that at least thirty or forty persons should go, and that the enterpriseshould not be private but should have the formal backing of a societyorganized for the purpose. In harmony with the original plan two youngNegro men sailed from New York for Africa, November 12, 1774; but theRevolutionary War followed and nothing more was done at the time. In1784, however, and again in 1787, Hopkins tried to induce differentmerchants to fit out a vessel to convey a few emigrants, and in thelatter year he talked with a young man from the West Indies, Dr. WilliamThornton, who expressed a willingness to take charge of the company. The enterprise failed for lack of funds, though Thornton kept up hisinterest and afterwards became a member of the first Board of Managersof the American Colonization Society. Hopkins in 1791 spoke before theConnecticut Emancipation Society, which he wished to see incorporated asa colonization society, and in a sermon before the Providence society in1793 he reverted to his favorite theme. Meanwhile, as a result of theefforts of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Granville Sharp in England, inMay, 1787, some four hundred Negroes and sixty white persons were landedat Sierra Leone. Some of the Negroes in England had gained their freedomin consequence of Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, others had beendischarged from the British Army after the American Revolution, and allwere leading in England a more or less precarious existence. The sixtywhite persons sent along were abandoned women, and why Sierra Leoneshould have had this weight placed upon it at the start history has notyet told. It is not surprising to learn that "disease and disorder wererife, and by 1791 a mere handful survived. "[1] As early as in his _Noteson Virginia_, privately printed in 1781, Thomas Jefferson had suggesteda colony for Negroes, perhaps in the new territory of Ohio. Thesuggestion was not acted upon, but it is evident that by 1800 severalpersons had thought of the possibility of removing the Negroes in theSouth to some other place either within or without the country. [Footnote 1: McPherson, 15. (See bibliography on Liberia. )] Gabriel's insurrection in 1800 again forced the idea concretely forward. Virginia was visibly disturbed by this outbreak, and _in secretsession_, on December 21, the House of Delegates passed the followingresolution: "That the Governor[1] be requested to correspond with thePresident of the United States, [2] on the subject of purchasing landwithout the limits of this state, whither persons obnoxious to the laws, or dangerous to the peace of society may be removed. " The real purposeof this resolution was to get rid of those Negroes who had had some partin the insurrection and had not been executed; but not in 1800, or in1802 or 1804, was the General Assembly thus able to banish those whomit was afraid to hang. Monroe, however, acted in accordance with hisinstructions, and Jefferson replied to him under date November 24, 1801. He was not now favorable to deportation to some place within the UnitedStates, and thought that the West Indies, probably Santo Domingo, mightbe better. There was little real danger that the exiles would stimulatevindictive or predatory descents on the American coasts, and in any casesuch a possibility was "overweighed by the humanity of the measuresproposed. " "Africa would offer a last and undoubted resort, " thoughtJefferson, "if all others more desirable should fail. "[3] Six monthslater, on July 13, 1802, the President wrote about the matter to RufusKing, then minister in London. The course of events in the West Indies, he said, had given an impulse to the minds of Negroes in the UnitedStates; there was a disposition to insurgency, and it now seemed that ifthere was to be colonization, Africa was by all means the best place. AnAfrican company might also engage in commercial operations, and if therewas coöperation with Sierra Leone, there was the possibility of "onestrong, rather than two weak colonies. " Would King accordingly enterinto conference with the English officials with reference to disposingof any Negroes who might be sent? "It is material to observe, " remarkedJefferson, "that they are not felons, or common malefactors, but personsguilty of what the safety of society, under actual circumstances, obliges us to treat as a crime, but which their feelings may representin a far different shape. They are such as will be a valuableacquisition to the settlement already existing there, and wellcalculated to coöperate in the plan of civilization. "[4] Kingaccordingly opened correspondence with Thornton and Wedderbourne, thesecretaries of the company having charge of Sierra Leone, but wasinformed that the colony was in a languishing condition and that fundswere likely to fail, and that in no event would they be willing toreceive more people from the United States, as these were the very oneswho had already made most trouble in the settlement. [5] On January 22, 1805, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a resolution that embodieda request to the United States Government to set aside a portion ofterritory in the new Louisiana Purchase "to be appropriated tothe residence of such people of color as have been, or shall be, emancipated, or may hereafter become dangerous to the public safety. "Nothing came of this. By the close then of Jefferson's secondadministration the Northwest, the Southwest, the West Indies, and SierraLeone had all been thought of as possible fields for colonization, butfrom the consideration nothing visible had resulted. [Footnote 1: Monroe. ] [Footnote 2: Jefferson. ] [Footnote 3: _Writings_, X, 297. ] [Footnote 4: _Writings_, X, 327-328. ] [Footnote 5: _Ibid_. , XIII, 11. ] Now followed the period of Southern expansion and of increasingmaterialism, and before long came the War of 1812. By 1811 a note ofdoubt had crept into Jefferson's dealing with the subject. Said he:"Nothing is more to be wished than that the United States wouldthemselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast ofAfrica ... But for this the national mind is not yet prepared. It mayperhaps be doubted whether many of these people would voluntarilyconsent to such an exchange of situation, and very certain that few ofthose advanced to a certain age in habits of slavery, would be capableof self-government. This should not, however, discourage the experiment, nor the early trial of it; and the proposition should be made with allthe prudent cautions and attentions requisite to reconcile it to theinterests, the safety, and the prejudices of all parties. "[1] [Footnote 1: _Writings_, XIII, 11. ] From an entirely different source, however, and prompted not byexpediency but the purest altruism, came an impulse that finally told inthe founding of Liberia. The heart of a young man reached out acrossthe sea. Samuel J. Mills, an undergraduate of Williams College, in 1808formed among his fellow-students a missionary society whose work latertold in the formation of the American Bible Society and the Board ofForeign Missions. Mills continued his theological studies at Andover andthen at Princeton; and while at the latter place he established a schoolfor Negroes at Parsippany, thirty miles away. He also interested inhis work and hopes Rev. Robert Finley, of Basking Ridge, N. J. , who"succeeded in assembling at Princeton the first meeting ever called toconsider the project of sending Negro colonists to Africa, "[1] and whoin a letter to John P. Mumford, of New York, under date February 14, 1815, expressed his interest by saying, "We should send to Africa apopulation partly civilized and christianized for its benefit; and ourblacks themselves would be put in a better condition. " [Footnote 1: McPherson, 18. ] In this same year, 1815, the country was startled by the unselfishenterprise of a Negro who had long thought of the unfortunate situationof his people in America and who himself shouldered the obligation todo something definite in their behalf. Paul Cuffe had been born in May, 1759, on one of the Elizabeth Islands near New Bedford, Mass. , the sonof a father who was once a slave from Africa and of an Indian mother. [1]Interested in navigation, he made voyages to Russia, England, Africa, the West Indies, and the South; and in time he commanded his own vessel, became generally respected, and by his wisdom rose to a fair degree ofopulence. For twenty years he had thought especially about Africa, and in 1815 he took to Sierra Leone a total of nine families andthirty-eight persons at an expense to himself of nearly $4000. Thepeople that he brought were well received at Sierra Leone, and Cuffehimself had greater and more far-reaching plans when he died September7, 1817. He left an estate valued at $20, 000. [Footnote 1: First Annual Report of American Colonization Society. ] Dr. Finley's meeting at Princeton was not very well attended and hencenot a great success. Nevertheless he felt sufficiently encouraged to goto Washington in December, 1816, to use his effort for the formation ofa national colonization society. It happened that in February of thissame year, 1816, General Charles Fenton Mercer, member of the House ofDelegates, came upon the secret journals of the legislature for theperiod 1801-5 and saw the correspondence between Monroe and Jefferson. Interested in the colonization project, on December 14 (Monroethen being President-elect) he presented in the House of Delegatesresolutions embodying the previous enactments; and these passed 132 to14. Finley was generally helped by the effort of Mercer, and on December21, 1816, there was held in Washington a meeting of public menand interested citizens, Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House ofRepresentatives, presiding. A constitution was adopted at an adjournedmeeting on December 28; and on January 1, 1817, were formally chosenthe officers of "The American Society for Colonizing the Free Peopleof Color of the United States. " At this last meeting Henry Clay, againpresiding, spoke in glowing terms of the possibilities of the movement;Elias B. Caldwell, a brother-in-law of Finley, made the leadingargument; and John Randolph, of Roanoke, Va. , and Robert Wright, ofMaryland, spoke of the advantages to accrue from the removal of the freeNegroes from the country (which remarks were very soon to awakenmuch discussion and criticism, especially on the part of the Negroesthemselves). It is interesting to note that Mercer had no part at all inthe meeting of January 1, not even being present; he did not feel thatany but Southern men should be enrolled in the organization. However, Bushrod Washington, the president, was a Southern man; twelve of theseventeen vice-presidents were Southern men, among them being AndrewJackson and William Crawford; and all of the twelve managers wereslaveholders. Membership in the American Colonization Society originally consisted, first, of such as sincerely desired to afford the free Negroes an asylumfrom oppression and who hoped through them to extend to Africa theblessings of civilization and Christianity; second, of such as sought toenhance the value of their own slaves by removing the free Negroes; andthird, of such as desired to be relieved of any responsibility whateverfor free Negroes. The movement was widely advertised as "an effortfor the benefit of the blacks in which all parts of the country couldunite, " it being understood that it was "not to have the abolition ofslavery for its immediate object, " nor was it to "aim directly at theinstruction of the great body of the blacks. " Such points as the lastwere to prove in course of time hardly less than a direct challenge tothe different abolitionist organizations in the North, and more and morethe Society was denounced as a movement on the part of slaveholders forperpetuating their institutions by doing away with the free people ofcolor. It is not to be supposed, however, that the South, with its usualreligious fervor, did not put much genuine feeling into the colonizationscheme. One man in Georgia named Tubman freed his slaves, thirty in all, and placed them in charge of the Society with a gift of $10, 000; ThomasHunt, a young Virginian, afterwards a chaplain in the Union Army, sentto Liberia the slaves he had inherited, paying the entire cost of thejourney; and others acted in a similar spirit of benevolence. It wasbut natural, however, for the public to be somewhat uncertain as to thetendencies of the organization when the utterances of representativemen were sometimes directly contradictory. On January 20, 1827, forinstance, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, speaking in the hall ofthe House of Representatives at the annual meeting of the Society, said:"Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the freecolored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, andcivil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices toall around them, to the slaves and to the whites. " Just a moment laterhe said: "Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with himcredentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and freeinstitutions. " How persons contaminated and vicious could bemissionaries of civilization and religion was something possible only inthe logic of Henry Clay. In the course of the next month Robert Y. Haynegave a Southern criticism in two addresses on a memorial presented inthe United States Senate by the Colonization Society. [1] The firstof these speeches was a clever one characterized by much wit andgood-humored raillery; the second was a sober arraignment. Hayneemphasized the tremendous cost involved and the physical impossibilityof the whole undertaking, estimating that at least sixty thousandpersons a year would have to be transported to accomplish anything likethe desired result. At the close of his brilliant attack, still makinga veiled plea for the continuance of slavery, he nevertheless rose togenuine statesmanship in dealing with the problem of the Negro, saying, "While this process is going on the colored classes are graduallydiffusing themselves throughout the country and are making steadyadvances in intelligence and refinement, and if half the zeal weredisplayed in bettering their condition that is now wasted in the vainand fruitless effort of sending them abroad, their intellectual andmoral improvement would be steady and rapid. " William Lloyd Garrison wasuntiring and merciless in flaying the inconsistencies and selfishness ofthe colonization organization. In an editorial in the _Liberator_, July9, 1831, he charged the Society, first, with persecution in compellingfree people to emigrate against their will and in discouraging theireducation at home; second, with falsehood in saying that the Negroeswere natives of Africa when they were no more so than white Americanswere natives of Great Britain; third, with cowardice in asserting thatthe continuance of the Negro population in the country involved dangers;and finally, with infidelity in denying that the Gospel has full powerto reach the hatred in the hearts of men. In _Thoughts on AfricanColonisation_ (1832) he developed exhaustively ten points as follows:That the American Colonization Society was pledged not to oppose thesystem of slavery, that it apologized for slavery and slaveholders, thatit recognized slaves as property, that by deporting Negroes it increasedthe value of slaves, that it was the enemy of immediate abolition, thatit was nourished by fear and selfishness, that it aimed at the utterexpulsion of the blacks, that it was the disparager of free Negroes, that it denied the possibility of elevating the black people of thecountry, and that it deceived and misled the nation. Other criticismswere numerous. A broadside, "The Shields of American Slavery" ("Broadenough to hide the wrongs of two millions of stolen men") placed side byside conflicting utterances of members of the Society; and in August, 1830, Kendall, fourth auditor, in his report to the Secretary of theNavy, wondered why the resources of the government should be used "tocolonize recaptured Africans, to build homes for them, to furnish themwith farming utensils, to pay instructors to teach them, to purchaseships for their convenience, to build forts for their protection, tosupply them with arms and munitions of war, to enlist troops to guardthem, and to employ the army and navy in their defense. "[2] Criticism ofthe American Colonization Society was prompted by a variety of motives;but the organization made itself vulnerable at many points. The movementattracted extraordinary attention, but has had practically no effectwhatever on the position of the Negro in the United States. Its workin connection with the founding of Liberia, however, is of the highestimportance, and must later receive detailed attention. [Footnote 1: See Jervey: _Robert Y. Hayne and His Times_, 207-8. ] [Footnote 2: Cited by McPherson, 22. ] 3. _Slavery_ We have seen that from the beginning there were liberal-minded men inthe South who opposed the system of slavery, and if we actually takenote of all the utterances of different men and of the proposals fordoing away with the system, we shall find that about the turn of thecentury there was in this section considerable anti-slavery sentiment. Between 1800 and 1820, however, the opening of new lands in theSouthwest, the increasing emphasis on cotton, and the rapidly growingNegro population, gave force to the argument of expediency; and theMissouri Compromise drew sharply the lines of the contest. The South nowcame to regard slavery as its peculiar heritage; public men were forcedto defend the institution; and in general the best thought of thesection began to be obsessed and dominated by the Negro, just as it isto-day in large measure. In taking this position the South deliberatelycommitted intellectual suicide. In such matters as freedom of speech andliterary achievement, and in genuine statesmanship if not for the timebeing in political influence, this part of the country declined, andbefore long the difference between it and New England was appalling. Calhoun and Hayne were strong; but between 1820 and 1860 the South hadno names to compare with Longfellow and Emerson in literature, or withMorse and Hoe in invention. The foremost college professor, Dew, ofWilliam and Mary, and even the outstanding divines, Furman, the Baptist, of South Carolina, in the twenties, and Palmer, the Presbyterian of NewOrleans, in the fifties, are all now remembered mainly because theydefended their section in keeping the Negro in bonds. William and MaryCollege, and even the University of Virginia, as compared with Harvardand Yale, became provincial institutions; and instead of the Washingtonor Jefferson of an earlier day now began to be nourished such a leaderas "Bob" Toombs, who for all of his fire and eloquence was a demagogue. In making its choice the South could not and did not blame the Negroper se, for it was freely recognized that upon slave labor rested sucheconomic stability as the section possessed. The tragedy was simply thatthousands of intelligent Americans deliberately turned their faces tothe past, and preferred to read the novels of Walter Scott and live inthe Middle Ages rather than study the French Revolution and live in thenineteenth century. One hundred years after we find that the chains arestill forged, that thought is not yet free. Thus the Negro Problem beganto be, and still is, very largely the problem of the white man of theSouth. The era of capitalism had not yet dawned, and still far in thefuture was the day when the poor white man and the Negro were slowly torealize that their interests were largely identical. The argument with which the South came to support its position and todefend slavery need not here detain us at length. It was formally statedby Dew and others[1] and it was to be heard on every hand. One couldhardly go to church, to say nothing of going to a public meeting, without hearing echoes of it. In general it was maintained that slaveryhad made for the civilization of the world in that it had mitigatedthe evils of war, had made labor profitable, had changed the nature ofsavages, and elevated woman. The slave-trade was of course horrible andunjust, but the great advantages of the system more than outweighed afew attendant evils. Emancipation and deportation were alike impossible. Even if practicable, they would not be expedient measures, for theymeant the loss to Virginia of one-third of her property. As formorality, it was not to be expected that the Negro should have thesensibilities of the white man. Moreover the system had the advantage ofcultivating a republican spirit among the white people. In short, saidDew, the slaves, in both the economic and the moral point of view, were"entirely unfit for a state of freedom among the whites. " Holland, already cited, in 1822 maintained five points, as follows: 1. That theUnited States are one for national purposes, but separate for theirinternal regulation and government; 2. That the people of the North andEast "always exhibited an unfriendly feeling on subjects affecting theinterests of the South and West"; 3. That the institution of slaverywas not an institution of the South's voluntary choosing; 4. That theSouthern sections of the Union, both before and after the Declarationof Independence, "had uniformly exhibited a disposition to restrictthe extension of the evil--and had always manifested as cordial adisposition to ameliorate it as those of the North and East"; and 5. That the actual state and condition of the slave population "reflectedno disgrace whatever on the character of the country--as the slaves wereinfinitely better provided for than the laboring poor of other countriesof the world, and were generally happier than millions of white peoplein the world. " Such arguments the clergy supported and endeavored toreconcile with Christian precept. Rev. Dr. Richard Furman, presidentof the Baptist Convention of South Carolina, [2] after much inquiry andreasoning, arrived at the conclusion that "the holding of slaves isjustifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy Writ; and is, therefore, consistent with Christian uprightness both in sentiment andconduct. " Said he further: "The Christian golden rule, of doingto others as we would they should do to us, has been urged as anunanswerable argument against holding slaves. But surely this ruleis never to be urged against that order of things which the Divinegovernment has established; nor do our desires become a standard to us, under this rule, unless they have a due regard to justice, propriety, and the general good.... A father may very naturally desire that his sonshould be obedient to his orders: Is he therefore to obey the orders ofhis son? A man might be pleased to be exonerated from his debts by thegenerosity of his creditors; or that his rich neighbor should equallydivide his property with him; and in certain circumstances might desirethese to be done: Would the mere existence of this desire oblige himto exonerate his debtors, and to make such division of his property?"Calhoun in 1837 formally accepted slavery, saying that the South shouldno longer apologize for it; and the whole argument from the standpointof expediency received eloquent expression in the Senate of the UnitedStates from no less a man than Henry Clay, who more and more appears inthe perspective as a pro-Southern advocate. Said he: "I am no friend ofslavery. But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any otherpeople; and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States isincompatible with the safety and liberty of the European descendants. Their slavery forms an exception--an exception resulting from astern and inexorable necessity--to the general liberty in the UnitedStates. "[3] After the lapse of years the pro-slavery argument is pitifulin its numerous fallacies. It was in line with much of the discussion ofthe day that questioned whether the Negro was actually a human being, and but serves to show to what extremes economic interest will sometimesdrive men otherwise of high intelligence and honor. [Footnote 1: _The Pro-Slavery Argument_ (as maintained by the mostdistinguished writers of the Southern states). Charleston, 1852. ] [Footnote 2: "Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the Views of theBaptists relative to the Coloured Population in the United States, ina Communication to the Governor of South Carolina. " Second edition, Charleston, 1833 (letter bears original date, December 24, 1822). ] [Footnote 3: Address "On Abolition, " February 7, 1839. ] CHAPTER VII THE NEGRO REPLY, I: REVOLT We have already seen that on several occasions in colonial times theNegroes in bondage made a bid for freedom, many men risking their alland losing their lives in consequence. In general these early attemptsfailed completely to realize their aim, organization being feeble andthe leadership untrained and exerting only an emotional hold overadherents. In Charleston, S. C. , in 1822, however, there was planned aninsurrection about whose scope there could be no question. The leader, Denmark Vesey, is interesting as an intellectual insurrectionist just asthe more famous Nat Turner is typical of the more fervent sort. It isthe purpose of the present chapter to study the attempts for freedommade by these two men, and also those of two daring groups of captiveswho revolted at sea. 1. _Denmark Vesey's Insurrection_ Denmark Vesey is first seen as one of the three hundred and ninetyslaves on the ship of Captain Vesey, who commanded a vessel tradingbetween St. Thomas and Cape François (Santo Domingo), and who wasengaged in supplying the French of the latter place with slaves. At thetime, the boy was fourteen years old, and of unusual personal beauty, alertness, and magnetism. He was shown considerable favoritism, andwas called Télémaque (afterwards corrupted to _Telmak_, and then to_Denmark_). On his arrival at Cape François, Denmark was sold withothers of the slaves to a planter who owned a considerable estate. Onhis next trip, however, Captain Vesey learned that the boy was to bereturned to him as unsound and subject to epileptic fits. The laws ofthe place permitted the return of a slave in such a case, and while ithas been thought that Denmark's fits may have been feigned in order thathe might have some change of estate, there was quite enough proof in thematter to impress the king's physician. Captain Vesey never had reasonto regret having to take the boy back. They made several voyagestogether, and Denmark served until 1800 as his faithful personalattendant. In this year the young man, now thirty-three years of age andliving in Charleston, won $1, 500 in an East Bay Street lottery, $600 ofwhich he devoted immediately to the purchase of his freedom. The sum wasmuch less than he was really worth, but Captain Vesey liked him and hadno reason to drive a hard bargain with him. In the early years of his full manhood accordingly Denmark Vesey foundhimself a free man in his own right and possessed of the means for alittle real start in life. He improved his time and proceeded to wingreater standing and recognition by regular and industrious work at histrade, that of a carpenter. Over the slaves he came to have unboundedinfluence. Among them, in accordance with the standards of the day, hehad several wives and children (none of whom could he call his own), andhe understood perfectly the fervor and faith and superstition of theNegroes with whom he had to deal. To his remarkable personal magnetismmoreover he added just the strong passion and the domineering temperthat were needed to make his conquest complete. Thus for twenty years he worked on. He already knew French as wellas English, but he now studied and reflected upon as wide a range ofsubjects as possible. It was not expected at the time that there wouldbe religious classes or congregations of Negroes apart from the whitepeople; but the law was not strictly observed, and for a number ofyears a Negro congregation had a church in Hampstead in the suburbsof Charleston. At the meetings here and elsewhere Vesey found hisopportunity, and he drew interesting parallels between the experiencesof the Jews and the Negroes. He would rebuke a companion on the streetfor bowing to a white person; and if such a man replied, "We areslaves, " he would say, "You deserve to be. " If the man then askedwhat he could do to better his condition, he would say, "Go and buy aspelling-book and read the fable of Hercules and the wagoner. "[1] At thesame time if he happened to engage in conversation with white people inthe presence of Negroes, he would often take occasion to introduce somestriking remark on slavery. He regularly held up to emulation the workof the Negroes of Santo Domingo; and either he or one of his chieflieutenants clandestinely sent a letter to the President of SantoDomingo to ask if the people there would help the Negroes of Charlestonif the latter made an effort to free themselves. [2] About 1820 moreover, when he heard of the African Colonization scheme and the opportunitycame to him to go, he put this by, waiting for something better. Thiswas the period of the Missouri Compromise. Reports of the agitation andof the debates in Congress were eagerly scanned by those Negroes inCharleston who could read; rumor exaggerated them; and some of the morecredulous of the slaves came to believe that the efforts of Northernfriends had actually emancipated them and that they were being illegallyheld in bondage. Nor was the situation improved when the city marshal, John J. Lafar, on January 15, 1821, reminded those ministers or otherpersons who kept night and Sunday schools for Negroes that the lawforbade the education of such persons and would have to be enforced. Meanwhile Vesey was very patient. After a few months, however, he ceasedto work at his trade in order that all the more he might devotehimself to the mission of his life. This was, as he conceived it, aninsurrection that would do nothing less than totally annihilate thewhite population of Charleston. [Footnote 1: Official Report, 19. ] [Footnote 2: Official Report, 96-97, and Higginson, 232-3. ] In the prosecution of such a plan the greatest secrecy and faithfulnesswere of course necessary, and Vesey waited until about Christmas, 1821, to begin active recruiting. He first sounded Ned and Rolla Bennett, slaves of Governor Thomas Bennett, and then Peter Poyas and JackPurcell. After Christmas he spoke to Gullah Jack and Monday Gell;and Lot Forrester and Frank Ferguson became his chief agents for theplantations outside of Charleston. [1] In the whole matter of the choiceof his chief assistants he showed remarkable judgment of character. Hispenetration was almost uncanny. "Rolla was plausible, and possesseduncommon self-possession; bold and ardent, he was not to be deterredfrom his purpose by danger. Ned's appearance indicated that he was a manof firm nerves and desperate courage. Peter was intrepid and resolute, true to his engagements, and cautious in observing secrecy when it wasnecessary; he was not to be daunted or impeded by difficulties, andthough confident of success, was careful in providing against anyobstacles or casualties which might arise, and intent upon discoveringevery means which might be in their power if thought of beforehand. Gullah Jack was regarded as a sorcerer, and as such feared by thenatives of Africa, who believe in witchcraft. He was not only consideredinvulnerable, but that he could make others so by his charms; and thathe could and certainly would provide all his followers with arms.... His influence amongst the Africans was inconceivable. Monday was firm, resolute, discreet, and intelligent. "[2] He was also daring and active, a harness-maker in the prime of life, and he could read and write withfacility; but he was also the only man of prominence in the conspiracywhose courage failed him in court and who turned traitor. To these namesmust be added that of Batteau Bennett, who was only eighteen years oldand who brought to the plan all the ardor and devotion of youth. Ingeneral Vesey sought to bring into the plan those Negroes, such asstevedores and mechanics, who worked away from home and who had somefree time. He would not use men who were known to become intoxicated, and one talkative man named George he excluded from his meetings. Nordid he use women, not because he did not trust them, but because in caseof mishap he wanted the children to be properly cared for. "Take care, "said Peter Poyas, in speaking about the plan to one of the recruits, "and don't mention it to those waiting men who receive presents of oldcoats, etc. , from their masters, or they'll betray us; I will speak tothem. " [Footnote 1: Official Report, 20. Note that Higginson, who was sountiring in his research, strangely confuses Jack Purcell and GullahJack (p. 230). The men were quite distinct, as appears throughout thereport and from the list of those executed. The name of Gullah Jack'sowner was Pritchard. ] [Footnote 2: Official Report, 24. Note that this remarkablecharacterization was given by the judges, Kennedy and Parker, whoafterwards condemned the men to death. ] With his lieutenants Vesey finally brought into the plan the Negroes forseventy or eighty miles around Charleston. The second Monday in July, 1822, or Sunday, July 14, was the time originally set for the attack. July was chosen because in midsummer many of the white people wereaway at different resorts; and Sunday received favorable considerationbecause on that day the slaves from the outlying plantations werefrequently permitted to come to the city. Lists of the recruits werekept. Peter Poyas is said to have gathered as many as six hundred names, chiefly from that part of Charleston known as South Bay in which helived; and it is a mark of his care and discretion that of all of thoseafterwards arrested and tried, not one belonged to his company. MondayGell, who joined late and was very prudent, had forty-two names. Allsuch lists, however, were in course of time destroyed. "During theperiod that these enlistments were carrying on, Vesey held frequentmeetings of the conspirators at his house; and as arms were necessary totheir success, each night a hat was handed round, and collections made, for the purpose of purchasing them, and also to defray other necessaryexpenses. A Negro who was a blacksmith and had been accustomed to makeedged tools, was employed to make pike-heads and bayonets with sockets, to be fixed at the ends of long poles and used as pikes. Of thesepike-heads and bayonets, one hundred were said to have been made at anearly day, and by the 16th June as many as two or three hundred, andbetween three and four hundred daggers. "[1] A bundle containing some ofthe poles, neatly trimmed and smoothed off, and nine or ten feet long, was afterwards found concealed on a farm on Charleston Neck, whereseveral of the meetings were held, having been carried there to have thepike-heads and bayonets fixed in place. Governor Bennett stated that thenumber of poles thus found was thirteen, but so wary were the Negroesthat he and other prominent men underestimated the means of attack. Itwas thought that the Negroes in Charleston might use their masters'arms, while those from the country were to bring hoes, hatchets, andaxes. For their main supply of arms, however, Vesey and Peter Poyasdepended upon the magazines and storehouses in the city. They planned toseize the Arsenal in Meeting Street opposite St. Michael's Church; itwas the key to the city, held the arms of the state, and had for sometime been neglected. Poyas at a given signal at midnight was to moveupon this point, killing the sentinel. Two large gun and powder storeswere by arrangement to be at the disposal of the insurrectionists; andother leaders, coming from six different directions, were to seizestrategic points and thus aid the central work of Poyas. Meanwhile abody of horse was to keep the streets clear. "Eat only dry food, " saidGullah Jack as the day approached, "parched corn and ground nuts, andwhen you join us as we pass put this crab claw in your mouth and youcan't be wounded. " [Footnote 1: Official Report, 31-32. ] On May 25[1] a slave of Colonel Prioleau, while on an errand at thewharf, was accosted by another slave, William Paul, who remarked: "Ihave often seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number96 upon it before. " As this man showed no knowledge of what was goingon, Paul spoke to him further and quite frankly about the plot. Theslave afterwards spoke to a free man about what he had heard; this manadvised him to tell his master about it; and so he did on Prioleau'sreturn on May 30. Prioleau immediately informed the Intendant, or Mayor, and by five o'clock in the afternoon both the slave and Paul were beingexamined. Paul was placed in confinement, but not before his testimonyhad implicated Peter Poyas and Mingo Harth, a man who had been appointedto lead one of the companies of horse. Harth and Poyas were cool andcollected, however, they ridiculed the whole idea, and the wardens, completely deceived, discharged them. In general at this time theauthorities were careful and endeavored not to act hastily. About June8, however, Paul, greatly excited and fearing execution, confessed thatthe plan was very extensive and said that it was led by an individualwho bore a charmed life. Ned Bennett, hearing that his name had beenmentioned, voluntarily went before the Intendant and asked to beexamined, thus again completely baffling the officials. All the while, in the face of the greatest danger, Vesey continued to hold hismeetings. By Friday, June 14, however, another informant had spokento his master, and all too fully were Peter Poyas's fears about"waiting-men" justified. This man said that the original plan had beenchanged, for the night of Sunday, June 16, was now the time set forthe insurrection, and otherwise he was able to give all essentialinformation. [2] On Saturday night, June 15, Jesse Blackwood, an aid sentinto the country to prepare the slaves to enter the following day, whilehe penetrated two lines of guards, was at the third line halted and sentback into the city. Vesey now realized in a moment that all his planswere disclosed, and immediately he destroyed any papers that might proveto be incriminating. "On Sunday, June 16, at ten o'clock at night, Captain Cattle's Corps of Hussars, Captain Miller's Light Infantry, Captain Martindale's Neck Rangers, the Charleston Riflemen and the CityGuard were ordered to rendezvous for guard, the whole organized as adetachment under command of Colonel R. Y. Hayne. "[3] It was his work onthis occasion that gave Hayne that appeal to the public which was laterto help him to pass on to the governorship and then to the United StatesSenate. On the fateful night twenty or thirty men from the outlyingdistricts who had not been able to get word of the progress of events, came to the city in a small boat, but Vesey sent word to them to go backas quickly as possible. [Footnote 1: Higginson, 215. ] [Footnote 2: For reasons of policy the names of these informers werewithheld from publication, but they were well known, of course, tothe Negroes of Charleston. The published documents said of the chiefinformer, "It would be a libel on the liberality and gratitude of thiscommunity to suppose that this man can be overlooked among those who areto be rewarded for their fidelity and principle. " The author has beeninformed that his reward for betraying his people was to be officiallyand legally declared "a white man. "] [Footnote 3: Jervey: _Robert Y. Hayne and His Times_, 131-2. ] Two courts were formed for the trial of the conspirators. The first, after a long session of five weeks, was dissolved July 20; a second wasconvened, but after three days closed its investigation and adjournedAugust 8. [1] All the while the public mind was greatly excited. Thefirst court, which speedily condemned thirty-four men to death, wasseverely criticized. The New York _Daily Advertiser_ termed theexecution "a bloody sacrifice"; but Charleston replied with the reminderof the Negroes who had been burned in New York in 1741. [2] Some of theNegroes blamed the leaders for the trouble into which they had beenbrought, but Vesey himself made no confession. He was by no means alone. "Do not open your lips, " said Poyas; "die silent as you shall see medo. " Something of the solicitude of owners for their slaves may beseen from the request of Governor Bennett himself in behalf of BatteauBennett. He asked for a special review of the case of this young man, who was among those condemned to death, "with a view to the mitigationof his punishment. " The court did review the case, but it did not changeits sentence. Throughout the proceedings the white people of Charlestonwere impressed by the character of those who had taken part in theinsurrection; "many of them possessed the highest confidence of theirowners, and not one was of bad character. "[3] [Footnote 1: Bennett letter. ] [Footnote 2: See _City Gazette_, August 14, 1822, cited by Jervey. ] [Footnote 3: Official Report, 44. ] As a result of this effort for freedom one hundred and thirty-oneNegroes were arrested; thirty-five were executed and forty-threebanished. [1] Of those executed, Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Ned Bennett, Rolla Bennett, Batteau Bennett, and Jesse Blackwood were hanged July 2;Gullah Jack and one more on July 12; twenty-two were hanged on a hugegallows Friday, July 26; four more were hanged July 30, and one onAugust 9. Of those banished, twelve had been sentenced for execution, but were afterwards given banishment instead; twenty-one were to betransported by their masters beyond the limits of the United States;one, a free man, required to leave the state, satisfied the court byoffering to leave the United States, while nine others who were notdefinitely sentenced were strongly recommended to their owners forbanishment. The others of the one hundred and thirty-one were acquitted. The authorities at length felt that they had executed enough to teachthe Negroes a lesson, and the hanging ceased; but within the nextyear or two Governor Bennett and others gave to the world most gloomyreflections upon the whole proceeding and upon the grave problem attheir door. Thus closed the insurrection that for the ambitiousness ofits plan, the care with which it was matured, and the faithfulness ofthe leaders to one another, was never equalled by a similar attempt forfreedom in the United States. [Footnote 1: The figure is sometimes given as 37, but the lists total43. ] _2. Nat Turner's Insurrection_ About noon on Sunday, August 21, 1831, on the plantation of JosephTravis at Cross Keys, in Southampton County, in Southeastern Virginia, were gathered four Negroes, Henry Porter, Hark Travis, Nelson Williams, and Sam Francis, evidently preparing for a barbecue. They were soonjoined by a gigantic and athletic Negro named Will Francis, and byanother named Jack Reese. Two hours later came a short, strong-lookingman who had a face of great resolution and at whom one would nothave needed to glance a second time to know that he was to be themaster-spirit of the company. Seeing Will and his companion he raised aquestion as to their being present, to which Will replied that life wasworth no more to him than the others and that liberty was as dear tohim. This answer satisfied the latest comer, and Nat Turner now wentinto conference with his most trusted friends. One can only imagine thepurpose, the eagerness, and the firmness on those dark faces throughoutthat long summer afternoon and evening. When at last in the night thelow whispering ceased, the doom of nearly three-score white persons--andit might be added, of twice as many Negroes--was sealed. Cross Keys was seventy miles from Norfolk, just about as far fromRichmond, twenty-five miles from the Dismal Swamp, fifteen miles fromMurfreesboro in North Carolina, and also fifteen miles from Jerusalem, the county seat of Southampton County. The community was settledprimarily by white people of modest means. Joseph Travis, the owner ofNat Turner, had recently married the widow of one Putnam Moore. Nat Turner, who originally belonged to one Benjamin Turner, was bornOctober 2, 1800. He was mentally precocious and had marks on his headand breast which were interpreted by the Negroes who knew him as markinghim for some high calling. In his mature years he also had on his rightarm a knot which was the result of a blow which he had received. Heexperimented in paper, gunpowder, and pottery, and it is recorded of himthat he was never known to swear an oath, to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. Instead he cultivated fasting and prayer and thereading of the Bible. More and more Nat gave himself up to a life of the spirit and tocommunion with the voices that he said he heard. He once ran away fora month, but felt commanded by the spirit to return. About 1825 aconsciousness of his great mission came to him, and daily he laboredto make himself more worthy. As he worked in the field he saw dropsof blood on the corn, and he also saw white spirits and black spiritscontending in the skies. While he thus so largely lived in a religiousor mystical world and was immersed, he was not a professional Baptistpreacher. On May 12, 1828, he was left no longer in doubt. A great voicesaid unto him that the Serpent was loosed, that Christ had laid down theyoke, that he, Nat, was to take it up again, and that the time was fastapproaching when the first should be last and the last should be first. An eclipse of the sun in February, 1831, was interpreted as the sign forhim to go forward. Yet he waited a little longer, until he had made sureof his most important associates. It is worthy of note that when hebegan his work, while he wanted the killing to be as effective andwidespread as possible, he commanded that no outrage be committed, andhe was obeyed. When on the Sunday in August Nat and his companions finished theirconference, they went to find Austin, a brother-spirit; and then allwent to the cider-press and drank except Nat. It was understood that heas the leader was to spill the first blood, and that he was to beginwith his own master, Joseph Travis. Going to the house, Hark placeda ladder against the chimney. On this Nat ascended; then he wentdownstairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns from their places. He and Will together entered Travis's chamber, and the first blow wasgiven to the master of the house. The hatchet glanced off and Traviscalled to his wife; but this was with his last breath, for Will at oncedespatched him with his ax. The wife and the three children of the housewere also killed immediately. Then followed a drill of the company, after which all went to the home of Salathiel Francis six hundred yardsaway. Sam and Will knocked, and Francis asked who was there. Sam repliedthat he had a letter, for him. The man came to the door, where he wasseized and killed by repeated blows over the head. He was the only whiteperson in the house. In silence all passed on to the home of Mrs. Reese, who was killed while asleep in bed. Her son awoke, but was alsoimmediately killed. A mile away the insurrectionists came to the home ofMrs. Turner, which they reached about sunrise on Monday morning. Henry, Austin, and Sam went to the still, where they found and killed theoverseer, Peebles, Austin shooting him. Then all went to the house. Thefamily saw them coming and shut the door--to no avail, however, as Willwith one stroke of his ax opened it and entered to find Mrs. Turner andMrs. Newsome in the middle of the room almost frightened to death. Willkilled Mrs. Turner with one blow of his ax, and after Nat had struckMrs. Newsome over the head with his sword, Will turned and killed heralso. By this time the company amounted to fifteen. Nine went mounted tothe home of Mrs. Whitehead and six others went along a byway to the homeof Henry Bryant. As they neared the first house Richard Whitehead, theson of the family, was standing in the cotton-patch near the fence. Will killed him with his ax immediately. In the house he killed Mrs. Whitehead, almost severing her head from her body with one blow. Margaret, a daughter, tried to conceal herself and ran, but was killedby Turner with a fence-rail. The men in this first company were nowjoined by those in the second, the six who had gone to the Bryant home, who informed them that they had done the work assigned, which was tokill Henry Bryant himself, his wife and child, and his wife's mother. Bythis time the killing had become fast and furious. The company dividedagain; some would go ahead, and Nat would come up to find work alreadyaccomplished. Generally fifteen or twenty of the best mounted were putin front to strike terror and prevent escape, and Nat himself frequentlydid not get to the houses where killing was done. More and more theNegroes, now about forty in number, were getting drunken and noisy. The alarm was given, and by nine or ten o'clock on Monday morning oneCaptain Harris and his family had escaped. Prominent among the events ofthe morning, however, was the killing at the home of Mrs. Waller of tenchildren who were gathering for school. [1] [Footnote 1: In "Horrid Massacre, " or, to use the more formal title, "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which wasWitnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of AugustLast, " the list below of the victims of Nat Turner's insurrectionis given. It must be said about this work, however, that it is notaltogether impeccable; it seems to have been prepared very hastily afterthe event, its spelling of names is often arbitrary, and instead of thefifty-five victims noted it appears that at least fifty-seven whitepersons were killed: Joseph Travis, wife and three children 5 Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, Hartwell Peebles, and Sarah Newsum 3 Mrs. Piety Reese and son, William 2 Trajan Doyal 1 Henry Briant, wife and child, and wife's mother 4 Mrs. Catherine Whitehead, her son Richard, four daughters and a grandchild 7 Salathael Francis 1 Nathaniel Francis's overseer and two children 3 John T. Barrow and George Vaughan 2 Mrs. Levi Waller and ten children 11 Mr. William Williams, wife and two boys 4 Mrs. Caswell Worrell and child 2 Mrs. Rebacca Vaughan, Ann Eliza Vaughan, and son Arthur 3 Mrs. Jacob Williams and three children and Edwin Drewry 5 __ 55 ] As the men neared the home of James Parker, it was suggested thatthey call there; but Turner objected, as this man had already gone toJerusalem and he himself wished to reach the county seat as soon aspossible. However, he and some of the men remained at the gate whileothers went to the house half a mile away. This exploit proved to be theturning-point of the events of the day. Uneasy at the delay of those whowent to the house, Turner went thither also. On his return he was met bya company of white men who had fired on those Negroes left at the gateand dispersed them. On discovering these men, Turner ordered his own mento halt and form, as now they were beginning to be alarmed. The whitemen, eighteen in number, approached and fired, but were forced toretreat. Reënforcements for them from Jerusalem were already at hand, however, and now the great pursuit of the Negro insurrectionists began. Hark's horse was shot under him and five or six of the men were wounded. Turner's force was largely dispersed, but on Monday night he stopped atthe home of Major Ridley, and his company again increased to forty. Hetried to sleep a little, but a sentinel gave the alarm; all were soon upand the number was again reduced to twenty. Final resistance was offeredat the home of Dr. Blunt, but here still more of the men were put toflight and were never again seen by Turner. A little later, however, the leader found two of his men named Jacob andNat. These he sent with word to Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam to meet himat the place where on Sunday they had taken dinner together. With whatthoughts Nat Turner returned alone to this place on Tuesday evening canonly be imagined. Throughout the night he remained, but no one joinedhim and he presumed that his followers had all either been taken or haddeserted him. Nor did any one come on Wednesday, or on Thursday. OnThursday night, having supplied himself with provisions from the Travishome, he scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails, and here heremained for six weeks, leaving only at night to get water. Allthe while of course he had no means of learning of the fate of hiscompanions or of anything else. Meanwhile not only the vicinity butthe whole South was being wrought up to an hysterical state of mind. Areward of $500 for the capture of the man was offered by the Governor, and other rewards were also offered. On September 30 a false account ofhis capture appeared in the newspapers; on October 7 another; on October8 still another. By this time Turner had begun to move about a little atnight, not speaking to any human being and returning always to his holebefore daybreak. Early on October 15 a dog smelt his provisions and ledthither two Negroes. Nat appealed to these men for protection, but theyat once began to run and excitedly spread the news. Turner fled inanother direction and for ten days more hid among the wheat-stacks onthe Francis plantation. All the while not less than five hundred menwere on the watch for him, and they found the stick that he had notchedfrom day to day. Once he thought of surrendering, and walked within twomiles of Jerusalem. Three times he tried to get away, and failed. OnOctober 25 he was discovered by Francis, who discharged at him a load ofbuckshot, twelve of which passed through his hat, and he was at largefor five days more. On October 30 Benjamin Phipps, a member of thepatrol, passing a clearing in the woods noticed a motion among theboughs. He paused, and gradually he saw Nat's head emerging from a holebeneath. The fugitive now gave up as he knew that the woods were full ofmen. He was taken to the nearest house, and the crowd was so great andthe excitement so intense that it was with difficulty that he was takento Jerusalem. For more than two months, from August 25 to October 30, hehad eluded his pursuers, remaining all the while in the vicinity of hisinsurrection. While Nat Turner was in prison, Thomas C. Gray, his counsel, receivedfrom him what are known as his "Confessions. " This pamphlet is nowalmost inaccessible, [1] but it was in great demand at the time itwas printed and it is now the chief source for information about theprogress of the insurrection. Turner was tried November 5 and sentencedto be hanged six days later. Asked in court by Gray if he still believedin the providential nature of his mission, he asked, "Was not Christcrucified?" Of his execution itself we read: "Nat Turner was executedaccording to sentence, on Friday, the 11th of November, 1831, atJerusalem, between the hours of 10 A. M. And 2 P. M. He exhibited theutmost composure throughout the whole ceremony; and, although assuredthat he might, if he thought proper, address the immense crowd assembledon the occasion, declined availing himself of the privilege; and, beingasked if he had any further confessions to make, replied that he hadnothing more than he had communicated; and told the sheriff in a firmvoice that he was ready. Not a limb or muscle was observed to move. Hisbody, after death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection. " [Footnote 1: The only copy that the author has seen is that in thelibrary of Harvard University. ] Of fifty-three Negroes arraigned in connection with the insurrection"seventeen were executed and twelve transported. The rest weredischarged, except ... Four free Negroes sent on to the Superior Court. Three of the four were executed. " [1] Such figures as these, however, give no conception of the number of those who lost their lives inconnection with the insurrection. In general, if slaves were convictedby legal process and executed or transported, or if they escaped beforetrial, they were paid for by the commonwealth; if killed, they were notpaid for, and a man like Phipps might naturally desire to protect hisprisoner in order to get his reward. In spite of this, the Negroes wereslaughtered without trial and sometimes under circumstances of thegreatest barbarity. One man proudly boasted that he had killed betweenten and fifteen. A party went from Richmond with the intention ofkilling every Negro in Southampton County. Approaching the cabin of afree Negro they asked, "Is this Southampton County?" "Yes, sir, " camethe reply, "you have just crossed the line by yonder tree. " They shothim dead and rode on. In general the period was one of terror, withvoluntary patrols, frequently drunk, going in all directions. These mentortured, burned, or maimed the Negroes practically at will. Said oneold woman [2] of them: "The patrols were low drunken whites, and inNat's time, if they heard any of the colored folks prayin' or singin' ahymn, they would fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em.... The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time. The whites alwayssuspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place called Duplon. They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot; thenthey pointed their guns at him and told him to confess aboutthe insurrection. He told 'em he didn't know anything about anyinsurrection. They shot several balls through him, quartered him, andput his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court.... It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat'stime, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, andtry to make 'em lie against one another, and often killed them beforeanybody could interfere. Mr. James Cole, High Sheriff, said if any ofthe patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defense ofhis people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many Negroeshe had killed. Mr. Cole said, 'If you don't pack up, as quick as GodAlmighty will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen init again, I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you. ' He went off, andwasn't seen in them parts again. " [Footnote 1: Drewry, 101. ] [Footnote 2: Charity Bowery, who gave testimony to L. M. Child, quoted byHigginson. ] The immediate panic created by the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginiaand the other states of the South it would be impossible to exaggerate. When the news of what was happening at Cross Keys spread, two companies, on horse and foot, came from Murfreesboro as quickly as possible. Onthe Wednesday after the memorable Sunday night there came from FortressMonroe three companies and a piece of artillery. These commands werereënforced from various sources until not less than eight hundred menwere in arms. Many of the Negroes fled to the Dismal Swamp, and thewildest rumors were afloat. One was that Wilmington had been burned, andin Raleigh and Fayetteville the wildest excitement prevailed. In thelatter place scores of white women and children fled to the swamps, coming out two days afterwards muddy, chilled, and half-starved. Slaveswere imprisoned wholesale. In Wilmington four men were shot withouttrial and their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. In Macon, Ga. , a report was circulated that an armed band of Negroes wasonly five miles away, and within an hour the women and children wereassembled in the largest building in the town, with a military force infront for protection. The effects on legislation were immediate. Throughout the South theslave codes became more harsh; and while it was clear that the uprisinghad been one of slaves rather than of free Negroes, as usual specialdisabilities fell upon the free people of color. Delaware, that onlyrecently had limited the franchise to white men, now forbade the use offirearms by free Negroes and would not suffer any more to come withinthe state. Tennessee also forbade such immigration, while Marylandpassed a law to the effect that all free Negroes must leave the stateand be colonized in Africa--a monstrous piece of legislation that it wasimpossible to put into effect and that showed once for all the futilityof attempts at forcible emigration as a solution of the problem. Ingeneral, however, the insurrection assisted the colonization scheme andalso made more certain the carrying out of the policy of the Jacksonadministration to remove the Indians of the South to the West. It alsofocussed the attention of the nation upon the status of the Negro, crystallized opinion in the North, and thus helped with the formation ofanti-slavery organizations. By it for the time being the Negro lost; inthe long run he gained. 3. _The "Amistad" and "Creole" Cases_ On June 28, 1839, a schooner, the _Amistad_, sailed from Havana boundfor Guanaja in the vicinity of Puerto Principe. She was under thecommand of her owner, Don Ramon Ferrer, was laden with merchandise, andhad on board fifty-three Negroes, forty-nine of whom supposedly belongedto a Spaniard, Don Jose Ruiz, the other four belonging to Don PedroMontes. During the night of June 30 the slaves, under the lead of oneof their number named Cinque, rose upon the crew, killed the captain, aslave of his, and two sailors, and while they permitted most of the crewto escape, they took into close custody the two owners, Ruiz and Montes. Montes, who had some knowledge of nautical affairs, was ordered to steerthe vessel back to Africa. So he did by day, when the Negroes wouldwatch him, but at night he tried to make his way to some land nearer athand. Other vessels passed from time to time, and from these the Negroesbought provisions, but Montes and Ruiz were so closely watched that theycould not make known their plight. At length, on August 26, the schoonerreached Long Island Sound, where it was detained by the Americanbrig-of-war _Washington_, in command of Captain Gedney, who secured theNegroes and took them to New London, Conn. It took a year and a half todispose of the issue thus raised. The case attracted the greatest amountof attention, led to international complications, and was not reallydisposed of until a former President had exhaustively argued the casefor the Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States. In a letter of September 6, 1839, to John Forsyth, the AmericanSecretary of State, Calderon, the Spanish minister, formally made fourdemands: 1. That the _Amistad_ be immediately delivered up to her owner, together with every article on board at the time of her capture; 2. Thatit be declared that no tribunal in the United States had the right toinstitute proceedings against, or to impose penalties upon, the subjectsof Spain, for crimes committed on board a Spanish vessel, and in thewaters of Spanish territory; 3. That the Negroes be conveyed to Havanaor otherwise placed at the disposal of the representatives of Spain; and4. That if, in consequence of the intervention of the authorities inConnecticut, there should be any delay in the desired delivery of thevessel and the slaves, the owners both of the latter and of the formerbe indemnified for the injury that might accrue to them. In support ofhis demands Calderon invoked "the law of nations, the stipulationsof existing treaties, and those good feelings so necessary in themaintenance of the friendly relations that subsist between the twocountries, and are so interesting to both. " Forsyth asked for any papersbearing on the question, and Calderon replied that he had none except"the declaration on oath of Montes and Ruiz. " Meanwhile the abolitionists were insisting that protection had _not_been afforded the African strangers cast on American soil and that inno case did the executive arm of the Government have any authority tointerfere with the regular administration of justice. "These Africans, "it was said, "are detained in jail, under process of the United Statescourts, in a free state, after it has been decided by the DistrictJudge, on sufficient proof, that they are recently from Africa, werenever the lawful slaves of Ruiz and Montes, " and "when it is clear asnoonday that there is no law or treaty stipulation that requires thefurther detention of these Africans or their delivery to Spain or itssubjects. " Writing on October 24 to the Spanish representative with reference tothe arrest of Ruiz and Montes, Forsyth informed him that the two Spanishsubjects had been arrested on process issuing from the superior court ofthe city of New York upon affidavits of certain men, natives of Africa, "for the purpose of securing their appearance before the propertribunal, to answer for wrongs alleged to have been inflicted by themupon the persons of said Africans, " that, consequently, the occurrenceconstituted simply a "case of resort by individuals against othersto the judicial courts of the country, which are equally open to allwithout distinction, " and that the agency of the Government to obtainthe release of Messrs. Ruiz and Montes could not be afforded in themanner requested. Further pressure was brought to bear by the Spanishrepresentative, however, and there was cited the case of AbrahamWendell, captain of the brig _Franklin_, who was prosecuted at first bySpanish officials for maltreatment of his mate, but with reference towhom documents were afterwards sent from Havana to America. Much morecorrespondence followed, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, AttorneyGeneral of the United States, at length muddled everything by thefollowing opinion: "These Negroes deny that they are slaves; if theyshould be delivered to the claimants, no opportunity may be afforded forthe assertion of their right to freedom. For these reasons, it seems tome that a delivery to the Spanish minister is the only safe course forthis Government to pursue. " The fallacy of all this was shown in aletter dated November 18, 1839, from B. F. Butler, United States DistrictAttorney in New York, to Aaron Vail, acting Secretary of State. SaidButler: "It does not appear to me that any question has yet arisen underthe treaty with Spain; because, although it is an admitted principle, that neither the courts of this state, nor those of the United States, can take jurisdiction of criminal offenses committed by foreignerswithin the territory of a foreign state, yet it is equally settled inthis country, that our courts will take cognizance of _civil_ actionsbetween foreigners transiently within our jurisdiction, founded uponcontracts or other transactions made or had in a foreign state. "Southern influence was strong, however, and a few weeks afterwards anorder was given from the Department of State to have a vessel anchoroff New Haven, Conn. , January 10, 1840, to receive the Negroes fromthe United States marshal and take them to Cuba; and on January 7 thePresident, Van Buren, issued the necessary warrant. The rights of humanity, however, were not to be handled in this summaryfashion. The executive order was stayed, and the case went furtheron its progress to the highest tribunal in the land. Meanwhile theanti-slavery people were teaching the Africans the rudiments of Englishin order that they might be better able to tell their own story. Fromthe first a committee had been appointed to look out for their interestsand while they were awaiting the final decision in their case theycultivated a garden of fifteen acres. The appearance of John Quincy Adams in behalf of these Negroes beforethe Supreme Court of the United States February 24 and March 1, 1841, isin every way one of the most beautiful acts in American history. In thefullness of years, with his own administration as President twelve yearsbehind him, the "Old Man Eloquent" came once more to the tribunal thathe knew so well to make a last plea for the needy and oppressed. To thetask he brought all his talents--his profound knowledge of law, hisunrivaled experience, and his impressive personality; and his argumentcovers 135 octavo pages. He gave an extended analysis of the demand ofthe Spanish minister, who asked the President to do what he simply hadno constitutional right to do. "The President, " said Adams, "has nopower to arrest either citizens or foreigners. But even that power isalmost insignificant compared with that of sending men beyond seas todeliver them up to a foreign government. " The Secretary of State had"degraded the country, in the face of the whole civilized world, notonly by allowing these demands to remain unanswered, but by proceeding, throughout the whole transaction, as if the Executive were earnestlydesirous to comply with every one of the demands. " The Spanish ministerhad naturally insisted in his demands because he had not been properlymet at first. The slave-trade was illegal by international agreement, and the only thing to do under the circumstances was to release theNegroes. Adams closed his plea with a magnificent review of his careerand of the labors of the distinguished jurists he had known in the courtfor nearly forty years, and be it recorded wherever the name of Justiceis spoken, he won his case. Lewis Tappan now accompanied the Africans on a tour through the statesto raise money for their passage home. The first meeting was in Boston. Several members of the company interested the audience by their readingsfrom the New Testament or by their descriptions of their own countryand of the horrors of the voyage. Cinque gave the impression of greatdignity and of extraordinary ability; and Kali, a boy only eleven yearsof age, also attracted unusual attention. Near the close of 1841, accompanied by five missionaries and teachers, the Africans set sailfrom New York, to make their way first to Sierra Leone and then to theirown homes as well as they could. While this whole incident of the _Amistad_ was still engaging theinterest of the public, there occurred another that also occasionedinternational friction and even more prolonged debate between theslavery and anti-slavery forces. On October 25, 1841, the brig _Creole_, Captain Ensor, of Richmond, Va. , sailed from Richmond and on October 27from Hampton Roads, with a cargo of tobacco and one hundred and thirtyslaves bound for New Orleans. On the vessel also, aside from the crew, were the captain's wife and child, and three or four passengers, whowere chiefly in charge of the slaves, one man, John R. Hewell, beingdirectly in charge of those belonging to an owner named McCargo. About9. 30 on the night of Sunday, November 7, while out at sea, nineteen ofthe slaves rose, cowed the others, wounded the captain, and generallytook command of the vessel. Madison Washington began the uprising by anattack on Gifford, the first mate, and Ben Blacksmith, one of the mostaggressive of his assistants, killed Hewell. The insurgents seized thearms of the vessel, permitted no conversation between members of thecrew except in their hearing, demanded and obtained the manifests ofslaves, and threatened that if they were not taken to Abaco or someother British port they would throw the officers and crew overboard. The_Creole_ reached Nassau, New Providence, on Tuesday, November 9, and thearrival of the vessel at once occasioned intense excitement. Giffordwent ashore and reported the matter, and the American consul, John F. Bacon, contended to the English authorities that the slaves on board thebrig were as much a part of the cargo as the tobacco and entitled tothe same protection from loss to the owners. The governor, Sir FrancisCockburn, however, was uncertain whether to interfere in the business atall. He liberated those slaves who were not concerned in the uprising, spoke of all of the slaves as "passengers, " and guaranteed to thenineteen who were shown by an investigation to have been connected withthe uprising all the rights of prisoners called before an English court. He told them further that the British Government would be communicatedwith before their case was finally passed upon, that if they wishedcopies of the informations these would be furnished them, and that theywere privileged to have witnesses examined in refutation of the chargesagainst them. From time to time Negroes who were natives of the islandcrowded about the brig in small boats and intimidated the American crew, but when on the morning of November 12 the Attorney General questionedthem as to their intentions they replied with transparent good humorthat they intended no violence and had assembled only for the purposeof conveying to shore such of the persons on the _Creole_ as might bepermitted to leave and might need their assistance. The Attorney Generalrequired, however, that they throw overboard a dozen stout cudgels thatthey had. Here the whole case really rested. Daniel Webster as Secretaryof State aroused the anti-slavery element by making a strong demandfor the return of the slaves, basing his argument on the sacredness ofvessels flying the American flag; but the English authorities at Nassaunever returned any of them. On March 21, 1842, Joshua R. Giddings, untiring defender of the rights of the Negro, offered in the House ofRepresentatives resolutions to the effect that slavery could exist onlyby positive law of the different states; that the states had delegatedno control over slavery to the Federal Government, which alone hadjurisdiction on the high seas, and that, therefore, slaves on the highseas became free and the coastwise trade was unconstitutional. TheHouse, strongly pro-Southern, replied with a vote of censure andGiddings resigned, but he was immediately reëlected by his Ohioconstituency. CHAPTER VIII THE NEGRO REPLY, II: ORGANIZATION AND AGITATION It is not the purpose of the present chapter primarily to considersocial progress on the part of the Negro. A little later we shallendeavor to treat this interesting subject for the period between theMissouri Compromise and the Civil War. Just now we are concerned withthe attitude of the Negro himself toward the problem that seemed topresent itself to America and for which such different solutions wereproposed. So far as slavery was concerned, we have seen that the remedysuggested by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner was insurrection. It is onlyto state an historical fact, however, to say that the great heart of theNegro people in the South did not believe in violence, but rather hopedand prayed for a better day to come by some other means. But what wasthe attitude of those people, progressive citizens and thinking leaders, who were not satisfied with the condition of the race and who had totake a stand on the issues that confronted them? If we study the matterfrom this point of view, we shall find an amount of ferment and unrestand honest difference of opinion that is sometimes overlooked orcompletely forgotten in the questions of a later day. 1. _Walker's "Appeal_" The most widely discussed book written by a Negro in the period was onethat appeared in Boston in 1829. David Walker, the author, had been bornin North Carolina in 1785, of a free mother and a slave father, and hewas therefore free. [1] He received a fair education, traveled widelyover the United States, and by 1827 was living in Boston as theproprietor of a second-hand clothing store on Brattle Street. He feltvery strongly on the subject of slavery and actually seems to havecontemplated leading an insurrection. In 1828 he addressed variousaudiences of Negroes in Boston and elsewhere, and in 1829 he publishedhis _Appeal, in four articles; together with a Preamble to the ColouredCitizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to thoseof the United States of America_. The book was remarkably successful. Appearing in September, by March of the following year it had reachedits third edition; and in each successive edition the language was morebold and vigorous. Walker's projected insurrection did not take place, and he himself died in 1830. While there was no real proof of the fact, among the Negro people there was a strong belief that he met with foulplay. [Footnote 1: Adams: _Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery_, 93. ] Article I Walker headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery. " Atrip over the United States had convinced him that the Negroes of thecountry were "the most degraded, wretched and abject set of beings thatever lived since the world began. " He quoted a South Carolina paper assaying, "The Turks are the most barbarous people in the world--theytreat the Greeks more like brutes than human beings"; and then from thesame paper cited an advertisement of the sale of eight Negro men andfour women. "Are we men?" he exclaimed. "I ask you, O! my brothers, arewe men?... Have we any other master but Jesus Christ alone? Is He nottheir master as well as ours? What right, then, have we to obey and callany man master but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang ofmen, whom we can not tell whether they are as good as ourselves, or not, I never could conceive. " "The whites, " he asserted, "have always been anunjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and bloodthirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority. " As heathen the white peoplehad been cruel enough, but as Christians they were ten times more so. Asheathen "they were not quite so audacious as to go and take vessel loadsof men, women and children, and in cold blood, through devilishness, throw them into the sea, and murder them in all kind of ways. But beingChristians, enlightened and sensible, they are completely preparedfor such hellish cruelties. " Next was considered "Our Wretchedness inConsequence of Ignorance. " In general the writer maintained that hispeople as a whole did not have intelligence enough to realize their owndegradation; even if boys studied books they did not master their texts, nor did their information go sufficiently far to enable them actually tomeet the problems of life. If one would but go to the South or West, he would see there a son take his mother, who bore almost the pains ofdeath to give him birth, and by the command of a tyrant, strip her asnaked as she came into the world and apply the cowhide to her until shefell a victim to death in the road. He would see a husband take his dearwife, not unfrequently in a pregnant state and perhaps far advanced, andbeat her for an unmerciful wretch, until her infant fell a lifeless lumpat her feet. Moreover, "there have been, and are this day, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, colored men who are in leaguewith tyrants and who receive a great portion of their daily bread ofthe moneys which they acquire from the blood and tears of their moremiserable brethren, whom they scandalously deliver into the hands of ournatural enemies. " In Article III Walker considered "Our Wretchedness inConsequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ. " Here wasa fertile field, which was only partially developed. Walker evidentlydid not have at hand the utterances of Furman and others to serve as adefinite point of attack. He did point out, however, the general failureof Christian ministers to live up to the teachings of Christ. "Even herein Boston, " we are informed, "pride and prejudice have got to such apitch, that in the very houses erected to the Lord they have builtlittle places for the reception of colored people, where they must sitduring meeting, or keep away from the house of God. " Hypocrisy couldhardly go further than that of preachers who could not see the evilsat their door but could "send out missionaries to convert the heathen, notwithstanding. " Article IV was headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequenceof the Colonizing Plan. " This was a bitter arraignment, especiallydirected against Henry Clay. "I appeal and ask every citizen of theseUnited States, " said Walker, "and of the world, both white and black, who has any knowledge of Mr. Clay's public labors for these states--Iwant you candidly to answer the Lord, who sees the secrets of yourhearts, Do you believe that Mr. Henry Clay, late Secretary of State, andnow in Kentucky, is a friend to the blacks further than his personalinterest extends?... Does he care a pinch of snuff about Africa--whetherit remains a land of pagans and of blood, or of Christians, so long ashe gets enough of her sons and daughters to dig up gold and silver forhim?... Was he not made by the Creator to sit in the shade, and make theblacks work without remuneration for their services, to support himand his family? I have been for some time taking notice of this man'sspeeches and public writings, but never to my knowledge have I seenanything in his writings which insisted on the emancipation of slavery, which has almost ruined his country. " Walker then paid his complimentsto Elias B. Caldwell and John Randolph, the former of whom had said, "The more you improve the condition of these people, the more youcultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them in their presentstate. " "Here, " the work continues, "is a demonstrative proof of a plangot up, by a gang of slaveholders, to select the free people of colorfrom among the slaves, that our more miserable brethren may be thebetter secured in ignorance and wretchedness, to work their farms anddig their mines, and thus go on enriching the Christians with theirblood and groans. What our brethren could have been thinking about, whohave left their native land and gone away to Africa, I am unable tosay.... The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have toraise us from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and tomake a national acknowledgment to us for the wrongs they have inflictedon us.... You may doubt it, if you please. I know that thousands willdoubt--they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to themand their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur. Sodid the antediluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood cameand swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got outof the city, and God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven uponthem and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the veryexistence of God, saying, 'Who is the Lord, that I should let Israelgo?' ... So did the Romans doubt.... But they got dreadfully deceived. " This document created the greatest consternation in the South. The Mayorof Savannah wrote to Mayor Otis of Boston, demanding that Walker bepunished. Otis, in a widely published letter, replied expressing hisdisapproval of the pamphlet, but saying that the author had done nothingthat made him "amenable" to the laws. In Virginia the legislatureconsidered passing an "extraordinary bill, " not only forbidding thecirculation of such seditious publications but forbidding the educationof free Negroes. The bill passed the House of Delegates, but failed inthe Senate. The _Appeal_ even found its way to Louisiana, where therewere already rumors of an insurrection, and immediately a law was passedexpelling all free Negroes who had come to the state since 1825. _2. The Convention Movement_ As may be inferred from Walker's attitude, the representative men of therace were almost a unit in their opposition to colonization. They werenot always opposed to colonization itself, for some looked favorablyupon settlement in Canada, and a few hundred made their way to the WestIndies. They did object, however, to the plan offered by the AmericanColonization Society, which more and more impressed them as a device onthe part of slaveholders to get free Negroes out of the country in orderthat slave labor might be more valuable. Richard Allen, bishop of theAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church, and the foremost Negro of theperiod, said: "We were stolen from our mother country and brought here. We have tilled the ground and made fortunes for thousands, and stillthey are not weary of our services. _But they who stay to till theground must be slaves_. Is there not land enough in America, or 'cornenough in Egypt'? Why should they send us into a far country to die? Seethe thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year: and ifthere be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them toeat, why would they wish to send the _first tillers_ of the land away?Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling topart with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those whoremain must be slaves. I have no doubt that there are many good men whodo not see as I do, and who are sending us to Liberia; but they have notduly considered the subject--they are not men of color. This landwhich we have watered with our tears and our blood is now our _mothercountry_, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and thegospel is free. "[1] This point of view received popular expression ina song which bore the cumbersome title, "The Colored Man's Opinion ofColonization, " and which was sung to the tune of "Home, Sweet Home. " Thefirst stanza was as follows: [Footnote 1: _Freedom's Journal_, November 2, 1827, quoted by Walker. ] Great God, if the humble and weak are as dear To thy love as the proud, to thy children give ear! Our brethren would drive us in deserts to roam; Forgive them, O Father, and keep us at home. Home, sweet home! We have no other; this, this is our home. [1] [Footnote 1: _Anti-Slavery Picknick_, 105-107. ] To this sentiment formal expression was given in the measures adopted atvarious Negro meetings in the North. In 1817 the greatest excitementwas occasioned by a report that through the efforts of the newly-formedColonization Society all free Negroes were forcibly to be deported fromthe country. Resolutions of protest were adopted, and these were widelycirculated. [1] Of special importance was the meeting in Philadelphia inJanuary, presided over by James Forten. Of this the full report is asfollows: [Footnote 1: They are fully recorded in _Garrison's Thoughts on AfricanColonization_. ] At a numerous meeting of the people of color, convened at Bethel Church, to take into consideration the propriety of remonstrating against thecontemplated measure that is to exile us from the land of our nativity, James Forten was called to the chair, and Russell Parrott appointedsecretary. The intent of the meeting having been stated by the chairman, the following resolutions were adopted without one dissenting voice: WHEREAS, Our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil, which their blood and sweat manured; and that any measure or system of measures, having a tendency to banish us from her bosom, would not only be cruel, but in direct violation of those principles which have been the boast of this republic, _Resolved_, That we view with deep abhorrence the unmerited stigma attempted to be cast upon the reputation of the free people of color, by the promoters of this measure, "that they are a dangerous and useless part of the community, " when in the state of disfranchisement in which they live, in the hour of danger they ceased to remember their wrongs, and rallied around the standard of their country. _Resolved_, That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population of this country; they are our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them, than fancied advantages for a season. _Resolved_, That without arts, without science, without a proper knowledge of government to cast upon the savage wilds of Africa the free people of color, seems to us the circuitous route through which they must return to perpetual bondage. _Resolved_, That having the strongest confidence in the justice of God, and philanthropy of the free states, we cheerfully submit our destinies to the guidance of Him who suffers not a sparrow to fall without his special providence. _Resolved_, That a committee of eleven persons be appointed to open a correspondence with the honorable Joseph Hopkinson, member of Congress from this city, and likewise to inform him of the sentiments of this meeting, and that the following named persons constitute the committee, and that they have power to call a general meeting, when they, in their judgment, may deem it proper: Rev. Absalom Jones, Rev. Richard Allen, James Forten, Robert Douglass, Francis Perkins, Rev. John Gloucester, Robert Gorden, James Johnson, Quamoney Clarkson, John Summersett, Randall Shepherd. JAMES FORTEN, Chairman. RUSSELL PARROTT, Secretary. In 1827, in New York, was begun the publication of _Freedom's Journal_, the first Negro newspaper in the United States. The editors were JohnB. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish. Russwurm was a recent graduate ofBowdoin College and was later to become better known as the governor ofMaryland in Africa. By 1830 feeling was acute throughout the country, especially in Ohio and Kentucky, and on the part of Negro menhad developed the conviction that the time had come for nationalorganization and protest. In the spring of 1830 Hezekiah Grice of Baltimore, who had becomepersonally acquainted with the work of Lundy and Garrison, sent a letterto prominent Negroes in the free states bringing in question the generalpolicy of emigration. [1] received no immediate response, but in Augusthe received from Richard Allen an urgent request to come at once toPhiladelphia. Arriving there he found in session a meeting discussingthe wisdom of emigration to Canada, and Allen "showed him a printedcircular signed by Peter Williams, rector of St. Philip's Church, New York, Peter Vogelsang and Thomas L. Jennings of the same place, approving the plan of convention. "[2] The Philadelphians now issued acall for a convention of the Negroes of the United States to be held intheir city September 15, 1830. [Footnote 1: John W. Cromwell: _The Early Negro Convention Movement_. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , 5. ] This September meeting was held in Bethel A. M. E. Church. Bishop RichardAllen was chosen president, Dr. Belfast Burton of Philadelphia andAustin Steward of Rochester vice-presidents, Junius C. Morell ofPennsylvania secretary, and Robert Cowley of Maryland assistantsecretary. There were accredited delegates from seven states. While thismeeting might really be considered the first national convention ofNegroes in the United States (aside of course from the gathering ofdenominational bodies), it seems to have been regarded merely aspreliminary to a still more formal assembling, for the minutes of thenext year were printed as the "Minutes and Proceedings of the FirstAnnual Convention of the People of Color, held by adjournments in thecity of Philadelphia, from the sixth to the eleventh of June, inclusive, 1831. Philadelphia, 1831. " The meetings of this convention were held inthe Wesleyan Church on Lombard Street. Richard Allen had died earlier inthe year and Grice was not present; not long afterwards he emigratedto Hayti, where he became prominent as a contractor. Rev. James W. C. Pennington of New York, however, now for the first time appeared on thelarger horizon of race affairs; and John Bowers of Philadelphia servedas president, Abraham D. Shadd of Delaware and William Duncan ofVirginia as vice-presidents, William Whipper of Philadelphia assecretary, and Thomas L. Jennings of New York as assistant secretary. Delegates from five states were present. The gathering was not large, but it brought together some able men; moreover, the meeting had somedistinguished visitors, among them Benjamin Lundy, William LloydGarrison, Rev. S. S. Jocelyn of New Haven, and Arthur Tappan of New York. The very first motion of the convention resolved "That a committee beappointed to institute an inquiry into the condition of the free peopleof color throughout the United States, and report their views upon thesubject at a subsequent meeting. " As a result of its work this committeerecommended that the work of organizations interested in settlement inCanada be continued; that the free people of color be annually called toassemble by delegation; and it submitted "the necessity of deliberatereflection on the dissolute, intemperate, and ignorant condition of alarge portion of the colored population of the United States. " "And, lastly, your Committee view with unfeigned regret, and respectfullysubmit to the wisdom of this Convention, the operations andmisrepresentations of the American Colonization Society in these UnitedStates.... We feel sorrowful to see such an immense and wanton wasteof lives and property, not doubting the benevolent feelings of someindividuals engaged in that cause. But we can not for a moment doubtbut that the cause of many of our unconstitutional, unchristian, andunheard-of sufferings emanate from that unhallowed source; and we wouldcall on Christians of every denomination firmly to resist it. " Thereport was unanimously received and adopted. Jocelyn, Tappan, and Garrison addressed the convention with reference toa proposed industrial college in New Haven, toward the $20, 000 expenseof which one individual (Tappan himself) had subscribed $1000 with theunderstanding that the remaining $19, 000 be raised within a year; andthe convention approved the project, _provided_ the Negroes had amajority of at least one on the board of trustees. An illuminatingaddress to the public called attention to the progress of emancipationabroad, to the fact that it was American persecution that led to thecalling of the convention, and that it was this also that first inducedsome members of the race to seek an asylum in Canada, where alreadythere were two hundred log houses, and five hundred acres undercultivation. In 1832 eight states were represented by a total of thirty delegates. Bythis time we learn that a total of eight hundred acres had been securedin Canada, that two thousand Negroes had gone thither, but thatconsiderable hostility had been manifested on the part of the Canadians. Hesitant, the convention appointed an agent to investigate thesituation. It expressed itself as strongly opposed to any national aidto the American Colonization Society and urged the abolition of slaveryin the District of Columbia--all of which activity, it is well toremember, was a year before the American Anti-Slavery Society wasorganized. In 1833 there were fifty-eight delegates, and Abraham Shadd, now ofWashington, was chosen president. The convention again gave prominenceto the questions of Canada and colonization, and expressed itself withreference to the new law in Connecticut prohibiting Negroes from otherstates from attending schools within the state. The 1834 meeting washeld in New York. Prudence Crandall[1] was commended for her stand inbehalf of the race, and July 4 was set apart as a day for prayer andaddresses on the condition of the Negro throughout the country. Bythis time we hear much of societies for temperance and moral reform, especially of the so-called Phoenix Societies "for improvement ingeneral culture--literature, mechanic arts, and morals. " Of theseorganizations Rev. Christopher Rush, of the A. M. E. Zion Church, wasgeneral president, and among the directors were Rev. Peter Williams, Boston Crummell, the father of Alexander Crummell, and Rev. William PaulQuinn, afterwards a well-known bishop of the A. M. E. Church. The 1835and 1836 meetings were held in Philadelphia, and especially were thestudents of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati commended for their zeal inthe cause of abolition. A committee was appointed to look into thedissatisfaction of some emigrants to Liberia and generally to review thework of the Colonization Society. [Footnote 1: See Chapter X, Section 3. ] In the decade 1837-1847 Frederick Douglass was outstanding as a leader, and other men who were now prominent were Dr. James McCune Smith, Rev. James W. C. Pennington, Alexander Crummell, William C. Nell, and MartinR. Delany. These are important names in the history of the period. Thesewere the men who bore the brunt of the contest in the furious days ofTexas annexation and the Compromise of 1850. About 1853 and 1854 therewas renewed interest in the idea of an industrial college; steps weretaken for the registry of Negro mechanics and artisans who were insearch of employment, and of the names of persons who were willing togive them work; and there was also a committee on historical records andstatistics that was not only to compile studies in Negro biography butalso to reply to any assaults of note. [1] [Footnote 1: We can not too much emphasize the fact that the leadersof this period were by no means impractical theorists but men who werescientifically approaching the social problem of their people. They notonly anticipated such ideas as those of industrial education and of theNational Urban League of the present day, but they also endeavored tolay firmly the foundations of racial self-respect. ] Immediately after the last of the conventions just mentioned, those whowere interested in emigration and had not been able to get a hearingin the regular convention issued a call for a National EmigrationConvention of Colored Men to take place in Cleveland, Ohio, August24-26, 1854. The preliminary announcement said: "No person will beadmitted to a seat in the Convention who would introduce the subjectof emigration to the Eastern Hemisphere--either to Asia, Africa, orEurope--as our object and determination are to consider our claimsto the West Indies, Central and South America, and the Canadas. Thisrestriction has no reference to personal preference, or individualenterprise, but to the great question of national claims to come beforethe Convention. "[1] Douglass pronounced the call "uncalled for, unwise, unfortunate and premature, " and his position led him into a wordydiscussion in the press with James M. Whitfield, of Buffalo, prominentat the time as a writer. Delany explained the call as follows: "It wasa mere policy on the part of the authors of these documents, to confinetheir scheme to America (including the West Indies), whilst theywere the leading advocates of the regeneration of Africa, lest theycompromised themselves and their people to the avowed enemies of theirrace. "[2] At the secret sessions, he informs us, Africa was the topic ofgreatest interest. In order to account for this position it is importantto take note of the changes that had taken place between 1817 and 1854. When James Forten and others in Philadelphia in 1817 protestedagainst the American Colonization Society as the plan of a "gang ofslaveholders" to drive free people from their homes, they had abundantground for the feeling. By 1839, however, not only had the personnelof the organization changed, but, largely through the influence ofGarrison, the purpose and aim had also changed, and not Virginia andMaryland, but New York and Pennsylvania were now dominant in influence. Colonization had at first been regarded as a possible solution of therace problem; money was now given, however, "rather as an aid to theestablishment of a model Negro republic in Africa, whose effort wouldbe to discourage the slave-trade, and encourage energy and thrift amongthose free Negroes from the United States who chose to emigrate, andto give native Africans a demonstration of the advantages ofcivilization. "[3] In view of the changed conditions, Delany and otherswho disagreed with Douglass felt that for the good of the race in theUnited States the whole matter of emigration might receive furtherconsideration; at the same time, remembering old discussions, theydid not wish to be put in the light of betrayers of their people. ThePittsburgh _Daily Morning Post_ of October 18, 1854, sneered at the newplan as follows: "If Dr. Delany drafted this report it certainly doeshim much credit for learning and ability; and can not fail to establishfor him a reputation for vigor and brilliancy of imagination never yetsurpassed. It is a vast conception of impossible birth. The Committeeseem to have entirely overlooked the strength of the 'powers on earth'that would oppose the Africanization of more than half the WesternHemisphere. We have no motive in noticing this gorgeous dream of 'theCommittee' except to show its fallacy--its impracticability, in fact, its absurdity. No sensible man, whatever his color, should be for amoment deceived by such impracticable theories. " However, in spite ofall opposition, the Emigration Convention met. Upon Delany fell the realbrunt of the work of the organization. In 1855 Bishop James TheodoreHolly was commissioned to Faustin Soulouque, Emperor of Hayti; and hereceived in his visit of a month much official attention with someinducement to emigrate. Delany himself planned to go to Africa as thehead of a "Niger Valley Exploring Party. " Of the misrepresentation anddifficulties that he encountered he himself has best told. He did get toAfrica, however, and he had some interesting and satisfactory interviewswith representative chiefs. The Civil War put an end to his project, hehimself accepting a major's commission from President Lincoln. Throughthe influence of Holly about two thousand persons went to Hayti, but notmore than a third of these remained. A plan fostered by Whitfield for acolony in Central America came to naught when this leading spirit diedin San Francisco on his way thither. [4] [Footnote 1: Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party, byM. R. Delany, Chief Commissioner to Africa, New York, 1861. ] [Footnote 2: Delany, 8. ] [Footnote 3: Fox: _The American Colonisation Society_, 177; also notepp. 12, 120-2. ] [Footnote 4: For the progress of all the plans offered to the conventionnote important letter written by Holly and given by Cromwell, 20-21. ] 3. _Sojourner Truth and Woman Suffrage_ With its challenge to the moral consciousness it was but natural thatanti-slavery should soon become allied with temperance, woman suffrage, and other reform movements that were beginning to appeal to the heartof America. Especially were representative women quick to see that thearguments used for their cause were very largely identical with thoseused for the Negro. When the woman suffrage movement was launched atSeneca Falls, N. Y. , in 1848, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, andtheir co-workers issued a Declaration of Sentiments which likemany similar documents copied the phrasing of the Declaration ofIndependence. This said in part: "The history of mankind is a historyof repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man towards woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny overher.... He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right tothe elective franchise.... He has made her, if married, in the eye ofthe law civilly dead.... He has denied her the facilities for obtaininga thorough education, all colleges being closed to her. " It matterednot at the time that male suffrage was by no means universal, or thatamelioration of the condition of woman had already begun; the movementstated its case clearly and strongly in order that it might fully bebrought to the attention of the American people. In 1850 the firstformal National Woman's Rights Convention assembled in Worcester, Mass. To this meeting came a young Quaker woman who was already listed in thecause of temperance. In fact, wherever she went Susan B. Anthony enteredinto "causes. " She possessed great virtues and abilities, and at thesame time was capable of very great devotion. "She not only sympathizedwith the Negro; when an opportunity offered she drank tea with him, toher own 'unspeakable satisfaction. '"[1] Lucy Stone, an Oberlin graduate, was representative of those who came into the agitation by theanti-slavery path. Beginning in 1848 to speak as an agent of theAnti-Slavery Society, almost from the first she began to introduce thematter of woman's rights in her speeches. [Footnote 1: Ida M. Tarbell: "The American Woman: Her First Declarationof Independence, " _American Magazine_, February, 1910. ] To the second National Woman's Suffrage Convention, held in Akron, Ohio, in 1852, and presided over by Mrs. Frances D. Gage, came SojournerTruth. The "Libyan Sibyl" was then in the fullness of her powers. She had beenborn of slave parents about 1798 in Ulster County, New York. In herlater years she remembered vividly the cold, damp cellar-room in whichslept the slaves of the family to which she belonged, and where she wastaught by her mother to repeat the Lord's Prayer and to trust in God. When in the course of gradual emancipation she became legally free in1827, her master refused to comply with the law and kept her in bondage. She left, but was pursued and found. Rather than have her go back, afriend paid for her services for the rest of the year. Then came anevening when, searching for one of her children who had been stolen andsold, she found herself a homeless wanderer. A Quaker family gave herlodging for the night. Subsequently she went to New York City, joineda Methodist church, and worked hard to improve her condition. Later, having decided to leave New York for a lecture tour through the East, she made a small bundle of her belongings and informed a friend thather name was no longer _Isabella_ but _Sojourner_. She went on herway, speaking to people wherever she found them assembled and beingentertained in many aristocratic homes. She was entirely untaught in theschools, but was witty, original, and always suggestive. By her tact andher gift of song she kept down ridicule, and by her fervor and faith shewon many friends for the anti-slavery cause. As to her name she said:"And the Lord gave me _Sojourner_ because I was to travel up an' downthe land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody elsehad two names, an' the Lord gave me _Truth_, because I was to declarethe truth to the people. " On the second day of the convention in Akron, in a corner, crouchedagainst the wall, sat this woman of care, her elbows resting on herknees, and her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms. [1] In theintermission she was employed in selling "The Life of Sojourner Truth. "From time to time came to the presiding officer the request, "Don't lether speak; it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will haveour cause mixed with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterlydenounced. " Gradually, however, the meeting waxed warm. Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Universalist preachers hadcome to hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One argued thesuperiority of the male intellect, another the sin of Eve, and thewomen, most of whom did not "speak in meeting, " were becoming filledwith dismay. Then slowly from her seat in the corner rose SojournerTruth, who till now had scarcely lifted her head. Slowly and solemnlyto the front she moved, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turnedher great, speaking eyes upon the chair. Mrs. Gage, quite equal to theoccasion, stepped forward and announced "Sojourner Truth, " and beggedthe audience to be silent a few minutes. "The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearlysix feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper air, like one in adream. " At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deeptones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and eventhe throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed thegeneral helplessness of woman, her needing to be assisted into carriagesand to be given the best place everywhere, she said, "Nobody eber helpedme into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best place"; andraising herself to her full height, with a voice pitched like rollingthunder, she asked, "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm. "And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendousmuscular power. "I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me--and a'n't I a woman? I could work as much andeat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear de lash as well--anda'n't I a woman? I have borne five chilern and seen 'em mos' all soldoff into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none butJesus heard--and a'n't I a woman?... Dey talks 'bout dis ting in dehead--what dis dey call it?" "Intellect, " said some one near. "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do with women's rights or niggers' rights? Ifmy cup won't hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye bemean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she pointedher significant finger and sent a keen glance at the minister who hadmade the argument. The cheering was long and loud. "Den dat little manin black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as man, 'causeChrist wa'n't a woman. But whar did Christ come from?" Rolling thundercould not have stilled that crowd as did those deep, wonderful tones asthe woman stood there with her outstretched arms and her eyes of fire. Raising her voice she repeated, "Whar did Christ come from? From God anda woman. Man had nothing to do with Him. " Turning to another objector, she took up the defense of Eve. She was pointed and witty, solemn andserious at will, and at almost every sentence awoke deafening applause;and she ended by asserting, "If de fust woman God made was strong enoughto turn the world upside down, all alone, dese togedder, "--and sheglanced over the audience--"ought to be able to turn it back and get itright side up again, and now dey is askin' to do it, de men better let'em. " [Footnote 1: Reminiscences of the president, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, citedby Tarbell. ] "Amid roars of applause, " wrote Mrs. Gage, "she returned to her corner, leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes and hearts beating withgratitude. " Thus, as so frequently happened, Sojourner Truth turned adifficult situation into splendid victory. She not only made an eloquentplea for the slave, but placing herself upon the broadest principles ofhumanity, she saved the day for woman suffrage as well. CHAPTER IX LIBERIA In a former chapter we have traced the early development of the AmericanColonization Society, whose efforts culminated in the founding of thecolony of Liberia. The recent world war, with Africa as its prize, fixedattention anew upon the little republic. This comparatively small tractof land, just slightly more than one-three hundredth part of the surfaceof Africa, is now of interest and strategic importance not only because(if we except Abyssinia, which claims slightly different race origin, and Hayti, which is now really under the government of the UnitedStates) it represents the one distinctively Negro government in theworld, but also because it is the only tract of land on the great WestCoast of the continent that has survived, even through the war, theaggression of great European powers. It is just at the bend of theshoulder of Africa, and its history is as romantic as its situation isunique. Liberia has frequently been referred to as an outstanding example ofthe incapacity of the Negro for self-government. Such a judgment is notnecessarily correct. It is indeed an open question if, in view of thenature of its beginning, the history of the country proves anything oneway or the other with reference to the capacity of the race. The earlysettlers were frequently only recently out of bondage, but upon themwere thrust all the problems of maintenance and government, and theybrought with them, moreover, the false ideas of life and work thatobtained in the Old South. Sometimes they suffered from neglect, sometimes from excessive solicitude; never were they really left alone. In spite of all, however, more than a score of native tribes have beensubdued by only a few thousand civilized men, the republic has preservedits integrity, and there has been handed down through the years atradition of constitutional government. 1. _The Place and the People_ The resources of Liberia are as yet imperfectly known. There is noquestion, however, about the fertility of the interior, or of itscapacity when properly developed. There are no rivers of the first rank, but the longest streams are about three hundred miles in length, and atconvenient distances apart flow down to a coastline somewhat more thanthree hundred miles long. Here in a tract of land only slightly largerthan our own state of Ohio are a civilized population between 30, 000 and100, 000 in number, and a native population estimated at 2, 000, 000. Ofthe civilized population the smaller figure, 30, 000, is the more nearlycorrect if we consider only those persons who are fully civilized, andthis number would be about evenly divided between Americo-Liberians andnatives. Especially in the towns along the coast, however, there aremany people who have received only some degree of civilization, andmost of the households in the larger towns have several native childrenliving in them. If all such elements are considered, the total mightapproach 100, 000. The natives in their different tribes fall into threeor four large divisions. In general they follow their native customs, and the foremost tribes exhibit remarkable intelligence and skill inindustry. Outstanding are the dignified Mandingo, with a Mohammedantradition, and the Vai, distinguished for skill in the arts and with aculture similar to that of the Mandingo. Also easily recognized arethe Kpwessi, skillful in weaving and ironwork; the Kru, intelligent, sea-faring, and eager for learning; the Grebo, ambitious and aggressive, and in language connection close to the Kru; the Bassa, withcharacteristics somewhat similar to those of the Kru, but in generalnot quite so ambitious; the Buzi, wild and highly tattooed; and thecannibalistic Mano. By reason of numbers if nothing else, Liberia'schief asset for the future consists in her native population. 2. _History_ (a) _Colonization and Settlement_ In pursuance of its plans for the founding of a permanent colony on thecoast of Africa, the American Colonization Society in November, 1817, sent out two men, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, who wereauthorized to find a suitable place for a settlement. Going by wayof England, these men were cordially received by the officers of theAfrican Institution and given letters to responsible persons in SierraLeone. Arriving at the latter place in March, 1818, they met JohnKizell, a native and a man of influence, who had received some trainingin America and had returned to his people, built a house of worship, andbecome a preacher. Kizell undertook to accompany them on their journeydown the coast and led the way to Sherbro Island, a place long indisputed territory but since included within the limits of Sierra Leone. Here the agents were hospitably received; they fixed upon the island asa permanent site, and in May turned their faces homeward. Mills died onthe voyage in June and was buried at sea; but Burgess made a favorablereport, though the island was afterwards to prove by no means healthy. The Society was impressed, but efforts might have languished at thisimportant stage if Monroe, now President, had not found it possible tobring the resources of the United States Government to assist inthe project. Smuggling, with the accompanying evil of the sale of"recaptured Africans, " had by 1818 become a national disgrace, and onMarch 3, 1819, a bill designed to do away with the practice became alaw. This said in part: "The President of the United States is herebyauthorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deemexpedient for the safe-keeping, support, and removal beyond the limitsof the United States, of all such Negroes, mulattoes, or persons ofcolor as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction; andto appoint a proper person or persons residing upon the coast of Africaas agent or agents for receiving the Negroes, mulattoes, or persons ofcolor, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of theslave-trade by commanders of the United States armed vessels. " For thecarrying out of the purpose of this act $100, 000 was appropriated, andMonroe was disposed to construe as broadly as necessary the powers givenhim under it. In his message of December 20, he informed Congressthat he had appointed Rev. Samuel Bacon, of the American ColonizationSociety, with John Bankson as assistant, to charter a vessel and takethe first group of emigrants to Africa, the understanding being thathe was to go to the place fixed upon by Mills and Burgess. Thus theNational Government and the Colonization Society, while technicallyseparate, began to work in practical coöperation. The ship _Elizabeth_was made ready for the voyage; the Government informed the Society thatit would "receive on board such free blacks recommended by the Societyas might be required for the purpose of the agency"; $33, 000 was placedin the hands of Mr. Bacon; Rev. Samuel A. Crozer was appointed as theSociety's official representative; 88 emigrants were brought together(33 men and 18 women, the rest being children); and on February 5, 1820, convoyed by the war-sloop _Cyane_, the expedition set forth. An interesting record of the voyage--important for the sidelights itgives--was left by Daniel Coker, the respected minister of a largeMethodist congregation in Baltimore who was persuaded to accompany theexpedition for the sake of the moral influence that he might be able toexert. [1] There was much bad weather at the start, and it was the icysea that on February 4 made it impossible to get under way until thenext day. On board, moreover, there was much distrust of the agents incharge, with much questioning of their motives; nor were matters madebetter by a fight between one of the emigrants and the captain of thevessel. It was a restless company, uncertain as to the future, anddissatisfied and peevish from day to day. Kizell afterwards remarkedthat "some would not be governed by white men, and some would not begoverned by black men, and some would not be governed by mulattoes; butthe truth was they did not want to be governed by anybody. " On March 3, however, the ship sighted the Cape Verde Islands and six days afterwardswas anchored at Sierra Leone; and Coker rejoiced that at last he hadseen Africa. Kizell, however, whom the agents had counted on seeing, was found to be away at Sherbro; accordingly, six days after theirarrival[2] they too were making efforts to go on to Sherbro, for theywere allowed at anchor only fifteen days and time was passing rapidly. Meanwhile Bankson went to find Kizell. Captain Sebor was at firstdecidedly unwilling to go further; but his reluctance was at lengthovercome; Bacon purchased for $3, 000 a British schooner that hadformerly been engaged in the slave-trade; and on March 17 both ship andschooner got under way for Sherbro. The next day they met Bankson, whoinformed them that he had seen Kizell. This man, although he had notheard from America since the departure of Mills and Burgess, had alreadyerected some temporary houses against the rainy season. He permitted thenewcomers to stay in his little town until land could be obtained; sentthem twelve fowls and a bushel of rice; but he also, with both dignityand pathos, warned Bankson that if he and his companions came withChrist in their hearts, it was well that they had come; if not, it wouldhave been better if they had stayed in America. [Footnote 1: "Journal of Daniel Coker, a descendant of Africa, from thetime of leaving New York, in the ship _Elizabeth_, Capt. Sebor, on avoyage for Sherbro, in Africa. Baltimore, 1820. "] [Footnote 2: March 15. The narrative, page 26, says February 15, butthis is obviously a typographical error. ] Now followed much fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all ofwhich Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the peoplethat it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" withoutthe offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through thecountry that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of hisown town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disasterfollowed disaster. The marsh, the bad water, and the malaria playedhavoc with the colonists, and all three of the responsible agents died. The few persons who remained alive made their way back to Sierra Leone. Thus the first expedition failed. One year later, in March, 1821, a newcompany of twenty-one emigrants, in charge of J. B. Winn and EphraimBacon, arrived at Freetown in the brig _Nautilus_. It had been theunderstanding that in return for their passage the members of the firstexpedition would clear the way for others; but when the agents of thenew company saw the plight of those who remained alive, they brought allof the colonists together at Fourah Bay, and Bacon went farther down thecoast to seek a more favorable site. A few persons who did not wish togo to Fourah Bay remained in Sierra Leone and became British subjects. Bacon found a promising tract about two hundred and fifty miles down thecoast at Cape Montserado; but the natives were not especially eager tosell, as they did not wish to break up the slave traffic. Meanwhile Winnand several more of the colonists died; and Bacon now returned to theUnited States. The second expedition had thus proved to be little moresuccessful than the first; but the future site of Monrovia had at leastbeen suggested. In November came Dr. Eli Ayres as agent of the Society, and in DecemberCaptain Robert F. Stockton of the _Alligator_ with instructions tocoöperate. These two men explored the coast and on December 11 arrivedat Mesurado Bay. Through the jungle they made their way to a village andengaged in a palaver with King Peter and five of his associates. Thenegotiations were conducted in the presence of an excited crowd and withimminent danger; but Stockton had great tact and at length, for theequivalent of $300, he and Ayres purchased the mouth of the MesuradoRiver, Cape Montserado, and the land for some distance in the interior. There was also an understanding (for half a dozen gallons of rum andsome trade-cloth and tobacco) with King George, who "resided on the Capeand claimed a sort of jurisdiction over the northern district of thepeninsula of Montserado, by virtue of which the settlers were permittedto pass across the river and commence the laborious task of clearingaway the heavy forest which covered the site of their intended town. "[1]Then the agent returned to effect the removal of the colonists fromFourah Bay, leaving a very small company as a sort of guard onPerseverance (or Providence) Island at the mouth of the river. Someof the colonists refused to leave, remained, and thus became Britishsubjects. For those who had remained on the island there was trouble atonce. A small vessel, the prize of an English cruiser, bound to SierraLeone with thirty liberated Africans, put into the roads for water, andhad the misfortune to part her cable and come ashore. "The natives claimto a prescriptive right, which interest never fails to enforce to itsfullest extent, to seize and appropriate the wrecks and cargoes ofvessels stranded, under whatever circumstances, on their coast. "[2] Thevessel in question drifted to the mainland one mile from the cape, asmall distance below George's town, and the natives proceeded to act inaccordance with tradition. They were fired on by the prize master andforced to desist, and the captain appealed to the few colonists on theisland for assistance. They brought into play a brass field piece, andtwo of the natives were killed and several more wounded. The Englishofficer, his crew, and the captured Africans escaped, though the smallvessel was lost; but the next day the Deys (the natives), feelingoutraged, made another attack, in the course of which some of themand one of the colonists were killed. In the course of the operationsmoreover, through the carelessness of some of the settlers themselves, fire was communicated to the storehouse and $3000 worth of propertydestroyed, though the powder and some of the provisions were saved. Thusat the very beginning, by accident though it happened, the shadow ofEngland fell across the young colony, involving it in difficulties withthe natives. When then Ayres returned with the main crowd of settlers onJanuary 7, 1822--which arrival was the first real landing of settlers onwhat is now Liberian soil--he found that the Deys wished to annul theagreement previously made and to give back the articles paid. He himselfwas seized in the course of a palaver, and he was able to arrive at nobetter understanding than that the colonists might remain only untilthey could make a new purchase elsewhere. Now appeared on the sceneBoatswain, a prominent chief from the interior who sometimes exercisedjurisdiction over the coast tribes and who, hearing that there wastrouble in the bay, had come hither, bringing with him a sufficientfollowing to enforce his decrees. Through this man shone something ofthe high moral principle so often to be observed in responsible Africanchiefs, and to him Ayres appealed. Hearing the story he decided infavor of the colonists, saying to Peter, "Having sold your country andaccepted payment, you must take the consequences. Let the Americanshave their land immediately. " To the agent he said, "I promise youprotection. If these people give you further disturbance, send for me;and I swear, if they oblige me to come again to quiet them, I will doit to purpose, by taking their heads from their shoulders, as I did oldking George's on my last visit to the coast to settle disputes. " Thus onthe word of a native chief was the foundation of Liberia assured. [Footnote 1: Ashmun: _History of the American Colony in Liberia, from1821 to 1823_, 8. ] [Footnote 2: Ashmun, 9. ] By the end of April all of the colonists who were willing to move hadbeen brought from Sierra Leone to their new home. It was now decidedto remove from the low and unhealthy island to the higher land ofCape Montserado only a few hundred feet away; on April 28 there was aceremony of possession and the American flag was raised. The advantagesof the new position were obvious, to the natives as well as thecolonists, and the removal was attended with great excitement. By Julythe island was completely abandoned. Meanwhile, however, things had notbeen going well. The Deys had been rendered very hostile, and from themthere was constant danger of attack. The rainy season moreover had setin, shelter was inadequate, supplies were low, and the fever continuallyclaimed its victims. Ayres at length became discouraged. He proposedthat the enterprise be abandoned and that the settlers return to SierraLeone, and on June 4 he did actually leave with a few of them. It wasat this juncture that Elijah Johnson, one of the most heroic of thecolonists, stepped forth to fame. The early life of the man is a blank. In 1789 he was taken to NewJersey. He received some instruction and studied for the Methodistministry, took part in the War of 1812, and eagerly embraced theopportunity to be among the first to come to the new colony. To thesuggestion that the enterprise be abandoned he replied, "Two years longhave I sought a home; here I have found it; here I remain. " To him thegreat heart of the colonists responded. Among the natives he was knownand respected as a valiant fighter. He lived until March 23, 1849. Closely associated with Johnson, his colleague in many an effort andthe pioneer in mission work, was the Baptist minister, Lott Cary, from Richmond, Va. , who also had become one of the first permanentsettlers. [1] He was a man of most unusual versatility and force ofcharacter. He died November 8, 1828, as the result of a powder explosionthat occurred while he was acting in defense of the colony against theDeys. [Footnote 1: See Chapter III, Section 5. ] July (1822) was a hard month for the settlers. Not only were theirsupplies almost exhausted, but they were on a rocky cape and the nativeswould not permit any food to be brought to them. On August 8, however, arrived Jehudi Ashmun, a young man from Vermont who had worked as ateacher and as the editor of a religious publication for some yearsbefore coming on this mission. He brought with him a company ofliberated Africans and emigrants to the number of fifty-five, and as hedid not intend to remain permanently he had yielded to the entreaty ofhis wife and permitted her to accompany him on the voyage. He held noformal commission from the American Colonization Society, but seeing thesituation he felt that it was his duty to do what he could to relievethe distress; and he faced difficulties from the very first. On the dayafter his arrival his own brig, the _Strong_, was in danger of beinglost; the vessel parted its cable, and on the following morning broke itagain and drifted until it was landlocked between Cape Montserado andCape Mount. A small anchor was found, however, and the brig was againmoored, but five miles from the settlement. The rainy season was now onin full force; there was no proper place for the storing of provisions;and even with the newcomers it soon developed that there were in thecolony only thirty-five men capable of bearing arms, so great had beenthe number of deaths from the fever. Sometimes almost all of thesewere sick; on September 10 only two were in condition for any kind ofservice. Ashmun tried to make terms with the native chiefs, but theirmalignity was only partially concealed. His wife languished beforehis eyes and died September 15, just five weeks after her arrival. Hehimself was incapacitated for several months, nor at the height of hisillness was he made better by the ministrations of a French charlatan. He never really recovered from the great inroads made upon his strengthat this time. As a protection from sudden attack a clearing around the settlement wasmade. Defenses had to be erected without tools, and so great was theanxiety that throughout the months of September and October a nightlywatch of twenty men was kept. On Sunday, November 10, the report wascirculated that the Deys were crossing the Mesurado River, and at nightit became known that seven or eight hundred were on the peninsula onlyhalf a mile to the west. The attack came at early dawn on the 11th andthe colonists might have been annihilated if they had not broughta field-piece into play. When this was turned against the nativesadvancing in compact array, it literally tore through masses of livingflesh until scores of men were killed. Even so the Deys might have wonthe engagement if they had not stopped too soon to gather plunder. Asit was, they were forced to retreat. Of the settlers three men and onewoman were killed, two men and two women injured, and several childrentaken captive, though these were afterwards returned. At this timethe colonists suffered greatly from the lack of any supplies for thetreatment of wounds. Only medicines for the fever were on hand, and inthe hot climate those whose flesh had been torn by bullets sufferedterribly. In this first encounter, as often in these early years, thereal burden of conflict fell upon Cary and Johnson. After the battlethese men found that they had on hand ammunition sufficient for only onehour's defense. All were placed on a special allowance of provisions andNovember 23 was observed as a day of prayer. A passing vessel furnishedadditional supplies and happily delayed for some days the inevitableattack. This came from two sides very early in the morning of December2. There was a desperate battle. Three bullets passed through Ashmun'sclothes, one of the gunners was killed, and repeated attacks wereresisted only with the most dogged determination. An accident, or, asthe colonists regarded it, a miracle, saved them from destruction. Aguard, hearing a noise, discharged a large gun and several muskets. The schooner _Prince Regent_ was passing, with Major Laing, MidshipmanGordon, and eleven specially trained men on board. The officers, hearingthe sound of guns, came ashore to see what was the trouble. Major Laingoffered assistance if ground was given for the erection of a Britishflag, and generally attempted to bring about an adjustment ofdifficulties on the basis of submitting these to the governor of SierraLeone. To these propositions Elijah Johnson replied, "We want noflagstaff put up here that it will cost more to get down than it willto whip the natives. " However, Gordon and the men under him were leftbehind for the protection of the colony until further help could arrive. Within one month he and seven of the eleven were dead. He himself hadfound a ready place in the hearts of the settlers, and to him and hismen Liberia owes much. They came in a needy hour and gave their livesfor the cause of freedom. An American steamer passing in December, 1822, gave some temporaryrelief. On March 31, 1823, the _Cyane_, with Capt. R. T. Spence incharge, arrived from America with supplies. As many members of his crewbecame ill after only a few days, Spence soon deemed it advisable toleave. His chief clerk, however, Richard Seaton, heroically volunteeredto help with the work, remained behind, and died after only threemonths. On May 24 came the _Oswego_ with sixty-one new colonists andDr. Ayres, who, already the Society's agent, now returned with theadditional authority of Government agent and surgeon. He made a surveyand attempted a new allotment of land, only to find that the colony wassoon in ferment, because some of those who possessed the best holdingsor who had already made the beginnings of homes, were now required togive these up. There was so much rebellion that in December Ayresagain deemed it advisable to leave. The year 1823 was in fact chieflynoteworthy for the misunderstandings that arose between the colonistsand Ashmun. This man had been placed in a most embarrassing situation bythe arrival of Dr. Ayres. [1] He not only found himself superseded in thegovernment, but had the additional misfortune to learn that his draftshad been dishonored and that no provision had been made to remuneratehim for his past services or provide for his present needs. Finding hisservices undervalued, and even the confidence of the Society withheld, he was naturally indignant, though his attachment to the cause remainedsteadfast. Seeing the authorized agent leaving the colony, and thesettlers themselves in a state of insubordination, with no formalauthority behind him he yet resolved to forget his own wrongs and to dowhat he could to save from destruction that for which he had alreadysuffered so much. He was young and perhaps not always as tactful as hemight have been. On the other hand, the colonists had not yet learnedfully to appreciate the real greatness of the man with whom they weredealing. As for the Society at home, not even so much can be said. Thereal reason for the withholding of confidence from Ashmun was that manyof the members objected to his persistent attacks on the slave-trade. [Footnote 1: Stockwell, 73. ] By the regulations that governed the colony at the time, each man whoreceived rations was required to contribute to the general welfaretwo days of labor a week. Early in December twelve men cast off allrestraint, and on the 13th Ashmun published a notice in which he said:"There are in the colony more than a dozen healthy persons who willreceive no more provisions out of the public store until they earnthem. " On the 19th, in accordance with this notice, the provisions ofthe recalcitrants were stopped. The next morning, however, the men wentto the storehouse, and while provisions were being issued, each seizeda portion and went to his home. Ashmun now issued a circular, remindingthe colonists of all of their struggles together and generally pointingout to them how such a breach of discipline struck at the very heart ofthe settlement. The colonists rallied to his support and the twelve menreturned to duty. The trouble, however, was not yet over. On March 19, 1824, Ashmun found it necessary to order a cut in provisions. He hadpreviously declared to the Board that in his opinion the evil was"incurable by any of the remedies which fall within the existingprovisions"; and counter remonstrances had been sent by the colonists, who charged him with oppression, neglect of duty, and the seizure ofpublic property. He now, seeing that his latest order was especiallyunpopular, prepared new despatches, on March 22 reviewed the wholecourse of his conduct in a strong and lengthy address, and by the lastof the month had left the colony. Meanwhile the Society, having learned that things were not going wellwith the colony, had appointed its secretary, Rev. R. R. Gurley, toinvestigate conditions. Gurley met Ashmun at the Cape Verde Islands andurgently requested that he return to Monrovia. [1] This Ashmun was notunwilling to do, as he desired the fullest possible investigation intohis conduct. Gurley was in Liberia from August 13 to August 22, 1824, only; but from the time of his visit conditions improved. Ashmun wasfully vindicated and remained for four years more until his strengthwas all but spent. There was adopted what was known as the GurleyConstitution. According to this the agent in charge was to have supremecharge and preside at all public meetings. He was to be assisted, however, by eleven officers annually chosen, the most important of whomhe was to appoint on nomination by the colonists. Among these werea vice-agent, two councilors, two justices of the peace, and twoconstables. There was to be a guard of twelve privates, two corporals, and one sergeant. [Footnote 1: This name, in honor of President Monroe, had recently beenadopted by the Society at the suggestion of Robert Goodloe Harper, ofMaryland, who also suggested the name _Liberia_ for the country. Harperhimself was afterwards honored by having the chief town in Maryland inAfrica named after him. ] For a long time it was the custom of the American Colonization Societyto send out two main shipments of settlers a year, one in the springand one in the fall. On February 13, 1824, arrived a little more thana hundred emigrants, mainly from Petersburg, Va. These people wereunusually intelligent and industrious and received a hearty welcome. Within a month practically all of them were sick with the fever. Onthis occasion, as on many others, Lott Cary served as physician, and sosuccessful was he that only three of the sufferers died. Another companyof unusual interest was that which arrived early in 1826. It broughtalong a printer, a press with the necessary supplies, and books sent byfriends in Boston. Unfortunately the printer was soon disabled by thefever. Sickness, however, and wars with the natives were not the only handicapsthat engaged the attention of the colony in these years. "At this periodthe slave-trade was carried on extensively within sight of Monrovia. Fifteen vessels were engaged in it at the same time, almost under theguns of the settlement; and in July of this year a contract was existingfor eight hundred slaves to be furnished, in the short space of fourmonths, within eight miles of the cape. Four hundred of these were to bepurchased for two American traders. "[1] Ashmun attacked the Spaniardsengaged in the traffic, and labored generally to break up slavefactories. On one occasion he received as many as one hundred andsixteen slaves into the colony as freemen. He also adopted an attitudeof justice toward the native Krus. Of special importance was the attackon Trade Town, a stronghold of French and Spanish traders about onehundred miles below Monrovia. Here there were not less than three largefactories. On the day of the battle, April 10, there were three hundredand fifty natives on shore under the direction of the traders, but thecolonists had the assistance of some American vessels, and a Liberianofficer, Captain Barbour, was of outstanding courage and ability. Thetown was fired after eighty slaves had been surrendered. The flamesreached the ammunition of the enemy and over two hundred and fifty casksof gunpowder exploded. By July, however, the traders had built a batteryat Trade Town and were prepared to give more trouble. All the same asevere blow had been dealt to their work. [Footnote 1: Stockwell, 79. ] In his report rendered at the close of 1825 Ashmun showed that thesettlers were living in neatness and comfort; two chapels had beenbuilt, and the militia was well organized, equipped, and disciplined. The need of some place for the temporary housing of immigrants havingmore and more impressed itself upon the colony, before the end of 1826a "receptacle" capable of holding one hundred and fifty persons waserected. Ashmun himself served on until 1828, by which time his strengthwas completely spent. He sailed for America early in the summer andsucceeded in reaching New Haven, only to die after a few weeks. No manhad given more for the founding of Liberia. The principal street inMonrovia is named after him. Aside from wars with the natives, the most noteworthy being the Dey-Golawar of 1832, the most important feature of Liberian history inthe decade 1828-1838 was the development along the coast of othersettlements than Monrovia. These were largely the outgrowth of theactivity of local branch organizations of the American ColonizationSociety, and they were originally supposed to have the oversight of thecentral organization and of the colony of Monrovia. The circumstancesunder which they were founded, however, gave them something of a feelingof independence which did much to influence their history. Thus arose, about seventy-five miles farther down the coast, under the auspicesespecially of the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Grand Bassasettlements at the mouth of the St. John's River, the town Edina beingoutstanding. Nearly a hundred miles farther south, at the mouth ofthe Sino River, another colony developed as its most important townGreenville; and as most of the settlers in this vicinity came fromMississippi, their province became known as Mississippi in Africa. Ahundred miles farther, on Cape Palmas, just about twenty miles from theCavalla River marking the boundary of the French possessions, developedthe town of Harper in what became known as Maryland in Africa. Thiscolony was even more aloof than others from the parent settlement ofthe American Colonization Society. When the first colonists arrived atMonrovia in 1831, they were not very cordially received, there beingtrouble about the allotment of land. They waited for some months forreënforcements and then sailed down the coast to the vicinity of theCavalla River, where they secured land for their future home and wheretheir distance from the other colonists from America made it all themore easy for them to cultivate their tradition of independence. [1]These four ports are now popularly known as Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Sino, and Cape Palmas; and to them for general prominence might now be addedCape Mount, about fifty miles from Monrovia higher up the coast and justa few miles from the Mano River, which now marks the boundary betweenSierra Leone and Liberia. In 1838, on a constitution drawn up byProfessor Greenleaf, of Harvard College, was organized the "Commonwealthof Liberia, " the government of which was vested in a Board of Directorscomposed of delegates from the state societies, and which included allthe settlements except Maryland. This remote colony, whose seaport isCape Palmas, did not join with the others until 1857, ten years afterLiberia had become an independent republic. When a special companyof settlers arrived from Baltimore and formally occupied Cape Palmas(1834), Dr. James Hall was governor and he served in this capacityuntil 1836, when failing health forced him to return to America. He wassucceeded by John B. Russwurm, a young Negro who had come to Liberiain 1829 for the purpose of superintending the system of education. Thecountry, however, was not yet ready for the kind of work he wantedto do, and in course of time he went into politics. He served veryefficiently as Governor of Maryland from 1836 to 1851, especiallyexerting himself to standardize the currency and to stabilize therevenues. Five years after his death Maryland suffered greatly from anattack by the Greboes, twenty-six colonists being killed. An appeal toMonrovia for help led to the sending of a company of men and later tothe incorporation of the colony in the Republic. [Footnote 1: McPherson is especially valuable for his study of theMaryland colony. ] Of the events of the period special interest attaches to the murder ofI. F. C. Finley, Governor of Mississippi in Africa, to whose father, Rev. Robert Finley, the organization of the American Colonization Societyhad been very largely due. In September, 1838, Governor Finley left hiscolony to go to Monrovia on business, and making a landing at BassaCove, he was robbed and killed by the Krus. This unfortunate murderled to a bitter conflict between the settlers in the vicinity and thenatives. This is sometimes known as the Fish War (from being wagedaround Fishpoint) and did not really cease for a year. (b) The Commonwealth of Liberia The first governor of the newly formed Commonwealth was Thomas H. Buchanan, a man of singular energy who represented the New York andPennsylvania societies and who had come in 1836 especially to takecharge of the Grand Bassa settlements. Becoming governor in 1838, hefound it necessary to proceed vigorously against the slave dealers atTrade Town. He was also victorious in 1840 in a contest with the Golatribe led by Chief Gatumba. The Golas had defeated the Dey tribe soseverely that a mere remnant of the latter had taken refuge with thecolonists at Millsburg, a station a few miles up the St. Paul's River. Thus, as happened more than once, a tribal war in time involved the veryexistence of the new American colonies. Governor Buchanan's victorygreatly increased his prestige and made it possible for him to negotiatemore and more favorable treaties with the natives. A contest ofdifferent sort was that with a Methodist missionary, John Seyes, whoheld that all goods used by missionaries, including those sold to thenatives, should be admitted free of duty. The governor contended thatsuch privilege should be extended only to goods intended for thepersonal use of missionaries; and the Colonization Society stood behindhim in this opinion. As early as 1840 moreover some shadow of futureevents was cast by trouble made by English traders on the Mano River, the Sierra Leone boundary. Buchanan sent an agent to England torepresent him in an inquiry into the matter; but in the midst of hisvigorous work he died in 1841. He was the last white man formally underany auspices at the head of Liberian affairs. Happily his period ofservice had given opportunity and training to an efficient helper, uponwhom now the burden fell and of whom it is hardly too much to say thathe is the foremost figure in Liberian history. Joseph Jenkin Roberts was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1809. At theage of twenty, with his widowed mother and younger brothers, he went toLiberia and engaged in trade. In course of time he proved to be a man ofunusual tact and graciousness of manner, moving with ease among peopleof widely different rank. His abilities soon demanded recognition, andhe was at the head of the force that defeated Gatumba. As governor herealized the need of cultivating more far-reaching diplomacy than theCommonwealth had yet known. He had the coöperation of the Marylandgovernor, Russwurm, in such a matter as that of uniform customs duties;and he visited the United States, where he made a very good impression. He soon understood that he had to reckon primarily with the English andthe French. England had indeed assumed an attitude of opposition tothe slave-trade; but her traders did not scruple to sell rum to slavedealers, and especially were they interested in the palm oil of Liberia. When the Commonwealth sought to impose customs duties, England took theposition that as Liberia was not an independent government, she had noright to do so; and the English attitude had some show of strengthfrom the fact that the American Colonization Society, an outsideorganization, had a veto power over whatever Liberia might do. When in1845 the Liberian Government seized the _Little Ben_, an English tradingvessel whose captain acted in defiance of the revenue laws, the Britishin turn seized the _John Seyes_, belonging to a Liberian named Benson, and sold the vessel for £8000. Liberia appealed to the United States;but the Oregon boundary question as well as slavery had given theAmerican Government problems enough at home; and the Secretary of State, Edward Everett, finally replied to Lord Aberdeen (1845) that Americawas not "presuming to settle differences arising between Liberian andBritish subjects, the Liberians being responsible for their own acts. "The Colonization Society, powerless to act except through its owngovernment, in January, 1846, resolved that "the time had arrived whenit was expedient for the people of the Commonwealth of Liberia to takeinto their own hands the whole work of self-government including themanagement of all their foreign relations. " Forced to act for herselfLiberia called a constitutional convention and on July 26, 1847, issueda Declaration of Independence and adopted the Constitution of theLiberian Republic. In October, Joseph Jenkin Roberts, Governor of theCommonwealth, was elected the first President of the Republic. It may well be questioned if by 1847 Liberia had developed sufficientlyinternally to be able to assume the duties and responsibilities of anindependent power. There were at the time not more than 4, 500 civilizedpeople of American origin in the country; these were largely illiterateand scattered along a coastline more than three hundred miles in length. It is not to be supposed, however, that this consummation had beenattained without much yearning and heart-beat and high spiritual fervor. There was something pathetic in the effort of this small company, mostof whose members had never seen Africa but for the sake of their racehad made their way back to the fatherland. The new seal of the Republicbore the motto: THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE. The flag, modeledon that of the United States, had six red and five white stripes forthe eleven signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in the uppercorner next to the staff a lone white star in a field of blue. TheDeclaration itself said in part: We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were originally inhabitants of the United States of North America. In some parts of that country we were debarred by law from all the rights and privileges of men; in other parts public sentiment, more powerful than law, frowned us down. We were everywhere shut out from all civil office. We were excluded from all participation in the government. We were taxed without our consent. We were compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gave us no protection. We were made a separate and distinct class, and against us every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers from all lands of a color different from ours were preferred before us. We uttered our complaints, but they were unattended to, or met only by alleging the peculiar institution of the country. All hope of a favorable change in our country was thus wholly extinguished in our bosom, and we looked with anxiety abroad for some asylum from the deep degradation. The Western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties, which the God of nature had given us in common with the rest of mankind. (c) _The Republic of Liberia_ With the adoption of its constitution the Republic of Liberia formallyasked to be considered in the family of nations; and since 1847the history of the country has naturally been very largely that ofinternational relations. In fact, preoccupation with the questionsraised by powerful neighbors has been at least one strong reason for thecomparatively slow internal development of the country. The Republicwas officially recognized by England in 1848, by France in 1852, but onaccount of slavery not by the United States until 1862. Continuouslythere has been an observance of the forms of order, and only onepresident has been deposed. For a long time the presidential term wastwo years in length; but by an act of 1907 it was lengthened to fouryears. From time to time there have been two political parties, but notalways has such a division been emphasized. It is well to pause and note exactly what was the task set before thelittle country. A company of American Negroes suddenly found themselvesplaced on an unhealthy and uncultivated coast which was thenceforth tobe their home. If we compare them with the Pilgrim Fathers, we find thatas the Pilgrims had to subdue the Indians, so they had to hold their ownagainst a score of aggressive tribes. The Pilgrims had the advantage ofa thousand years of culture and experience in government; the Negroes, only recently out of bondage, had been deprived of any opportunity forimprovement whatsoever. Not only, however, did they have to contendagainst native tribes and labor to improve their own shortcomings; onevery hand they had to meet the designs of nations supposedly moreenlightened and Christian. On the coast Spanish traders defiedinternational law; on one side the English, and on the other the French, from the beginning showed a tendency toward arrogance and encroachment. To crown the difficulty, the American Government, under whose auspicesthe colony had largely been founded, became more and more halfheartedin its efforts for protection and at length abandoned the enterprisealtogether. It did not cease, however, to regard the colony as thedumping-ground of its own troubles, and whenever a vessel with slavesfrom the Congo was captured on the high seas, it did not hesitate totake these people to the Liberian coast and leave them there, nearlydead though they might be from exposure or cramping. It is well forone to remember such facts as these before he is quick to belittle orcriticize. To the credit of the "Congo men" be it said that from thefirst they labored to make themselves a quiet and industrious element inthe body politic. The early administrations of President Roberts (four terms, 1848-1855)were mainly devoted to the quelling of the native tribes that continuedto give trouble and to the cultivating of friendly relations withforeign powers. Soon after his inauguration Roberts made a visit toEngland, the power from which there was most to fear; and on thisoccasion as on several others England varied her arrogance with a ratherexcessive friendliness toward the little republic. She presented toRoberts the _Lark_, a ship with four guns, and sent the President homeon a war-vessel. Some years afteryards, when the _Lark_ was out ofrepair, England sent instead a schooner, the _Quail_. Roberts made asecond visit to England in 1852 to adjust disputes with traders on thewestern boundary. He also visited France, and Louis Napoleon, not to beoutdone by England, presented to him a vessel, the _Hirondelle_, andalso guns and uniforms for his soldiers. In general the administrationsof Roberts (we might better say his first series of administrations, forhe was later to be called again to office) made a period of constructivestatesmanship and solid development, and not a little of the respectthat the young republic won was due to the personal influence of itsfirst president. Roberts, however, happened to be very fair, andgenerally successful though his administrations were, the desire on thepart of the people that the highest office in the country be held by ablack man seems to have been a determining factor in the choice of hissuccessor. There was an interesting campaign toward the close of hislast term. "There were about this time two political parties in thecountry--the old Republicans and the 'True Liberians, ' a party which hadbeen formed in opposition to Roberts's foreign policies. But during thecanvass the platform of this new party lost ground; the result was infavor of the Republican candidate. "[1] [Footnote 1: Karnga, 28. ] Stephen Allen Benson (four terms, 1856-1863) was forced to meet in oneway or another almost all of the difficulties that have since played apart in the life of the Liberian people. He had come to the country in1822 at the age of six and had developed into a practical and efficientmerchant. To his high office he brought the same principles of sobrietyand good sense that had characterized him in business. On February 28, 1857, the independent colony of Maryland formally became a part of therepublic. This action followed immediately upon the struggle with theGreboes in the vicinity of Cape Palmas in which assistance was renderedby the Liberians under Ex-President Roberts. In 1858 an incident thatthreatened complications with France but that was soon happily closedarose from the fact that a French vessel which sought to carry away someKru laborers to the West Indies was attacked by these men when they hadreason to fear that they might be sold into slavery and not have to worksimply along the coast, as they at first supposed. The ship was seizedand all but one of the crew, the physician, were killed. Troublemeanwhile continued with British smugglers in the West, and to thiswhole matter we shall have to give further and special attention. In1858 and a year or two thereafter the numerous arrivals from America, especially of Congo men captured on the high seas, were such as topresent a serious social problem. Flagrant violation by the South of thelaws against the slave-trade led to the seizure by the United StatesGovernment of many Africans. Hundreds of these people were detained at atime at such a port as Key West. The Government then adopted the policyof ordering commanders who seized slave-ships at sea to land theAfricans directly upon the coast of Liberia without first bringing themto America, and appropriated $250, 000 for the removal and care of thoseat Key West. The suffering of many of these people is one of the mosttragic stories in the history of slavery. To Liberia came at one time619, at another 867, and within two months as many as 4000. There wasvery naturally consternation on the part of the people at this suddenimmigration, especially as many of the Africans arrived cramped orparalyzed or otherwise ill from the conditions under which they had beenforced to travel. President Benson stated the problem to the AmericanGovernment; the United States sent some money to Liberia, the people ofthe Republic helped in every way they could, and the whole situation wasfinally adjusted without any permanently bad effects, though it is wellfor students to remember just what Liberia had to face at this time. Important toward the close of Benson's terms was the completion of thebuilding of the Liberia College, of which Joseph Jenkin Roberts becamethe first president. The administrations of Daniel Bashiel Warner (two terms, 1864-1867) andthe earlier one of James Spriggs Payne (1868-1869) were comparativelyuneventful. Both of these men were Republicans, but Warner representedsomething of the shifting of political parties at the time. At firsta Republican, he went over to the Whig party devoted to the policy ofpreserving Liberia from white invasion. Moved to distrust of Englishmerchants, who delighted in defrauding the little republic, heestablished an important Ports-of-Entry Law in 1865, which it is hardlynecessary to say was very unpopular with the foreigners. Commerce wasrestricted to six ports and a circle six miles in diameter around eachport. On account of the Civil War and the hopes that emancipation heldout to the Negroes in the United States, immigration from America ceasedrapidly; but a company of 346 came from Barbadoes at this time. TheLiberian Government assisted these people with $4000, set apart for eachman an allotment of twenty-five rather than the customary ten acres; theColonization Society appropriated $10, 000, and after a pleasant voyageof thirty-three days they arrived without the loss of a single life. Inthe company was a little boy, Arthur Barclay, who was later to be knownas the President of the Republic. At the semi-centennial of the AmericanColonization Society held in Washington in January, 1867, it was shownthat the Society and its auxiliaries had been directly responsible forthe sending of more than 12, 000 persons to Africa. Of these 4541had been born free, 344 had purchased their freedom, 5957 had beenemancipated to go to Africa, and 1227 had been settled by the MarylandSociety. In addition, 5722 captured Africans had been sent to Liberia. The need of adequate study of the interior having more and moreimpressed itself, Benjamin Anderson, an adventurous explorer, assistedwith funds by a citizen of New York, in 1869 studied the country for twohundred miles from the coast. He found the land constantly rising, andmade his way to Musardu, the chief city of the western Mandingoes. Hesummed up his work in his _Narrative of a Journey to Musardo_ and madeanother journey of exploration in 1874. Edward James Roye (1870-October 26, 1871), a Whig whose party was formedout of the elements of the old True Liberian party, attracts attentionby reason of a notorious British loan to which further reference mustbe made. Of the whole amount of £100, 000 sums were wasted ormisappropriated until it has been estimated that the country reallyreaped the benefit of little more than a quarter of the whole amount. President Roye added to other difficulties by his seizure of a bankbuilding belonging to an Industrial Society of the St. Paul's Riversettlements, and by attempting by proclamation to lengthen his termof office. Twice a constitutional amendment for lengthening thepresidential term from two years to four had been considered and voteddown. Roye contested the last vote, insisted that his term ran toJanuary, 1874, and issued a proclamation forbidding the coming biennialelection. He was deposed, his house sacked, some of his cabinet officerstried before a court of impeachment, [1] and he himself was drowned as hewas pursued while attempting to escape to a British ship in the harbor. A committee of three was appointed to govern the country until a newelection could be held; and in this hour of storm and stress the peopleturned once more to the guidance of their old leader, Joseph J. Roberts(two terms, 1872-1875). His efforts were mainly devoted to restoringorder and confidence, though there was a new war with the Greboes to bewaged. [2] He was succeeded by another trusted leader, James S. Payne(1876-1877), whose second administration was as devoid as the first ofstriking incident. In fact, the whole generation succeeding the loanof 1871 was a period of depression. The country not only sufferedfinancially, but faith in it was shaken both at home and abroad. Coffeegrown in Liberia fell as that produced at Brazil grew in favor, thefarmer witnessing a drop in value from 24 to 4 cents a pound. Farms wereabandoned, immigration from the United States ceased, and the countryentered upon a period of stagnation from which it has not yet fullyrecovered. [Footnote 1: But not Hilary R. W. Johnson, the efficient Secretary ofState, later President. ] [Footnote 2: President Roberts died February 21, 1876, barely two monthsafter giving up office. He was caught in the rain while attending afuneral, took a severe chill, and was not able to recover. ] Within just a few years after 1871, however, conditions in the UnitedStates led to an interesting revival of the whole idea of colonization, and to noteworthy effort on the part of the Negroes themselves to bettertheir condition. The withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, and all the evils of the aftermath of reconstruction, led to such aterrorizing of the Negroes and such a denial of civil rights that thereset in the movement that culminated in the great exodus from the Southin 1879. The movement extended all the way from North Carolina toLouisiana and Arkansas. Insofar as it led to migration to Kansas andother states in the West, it belongs to American history. However, therewas also interest in going to Africa. Applications by the thousandspoured in upon the American Colonization Society, and one organizationin Arkansas sent hundreds of its members to seek the help of the NewYork State Colonization Society. In all such endeavor Negro Baptistsand Methodists joined hands, and especially prominent was Bishop H. M. Turner, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1877 there wasorganized in South Carolina the Liberian Exodus and Joint Stock Company;in North Carolina there was the Freedmen's Emigration Aid Society; andthere were similar organizations in other states. The South Carolinaorganization had the threefold purpose of emigration, missionaryactivity, and commercial enterprise, and to these ends it purchased avessel, the _Azor_, at a cost of $7000. The white people of Charlestonunfortunately embarrassed the enterprise in every possible way, amongother things insisting when the _Azor_ was ready to sail that it was notseaworthy and needed a new copper bottom (to cost $2000). The vessel atlength made one or two trips, however, on one voyage carrying as many as274 emigrants. It was then stolen and sold in Liverpool, and one gets aninteresting sidelight on Southern conditions in the period when he knowsthat even the United States Circuit Court in South Carolina refused toentertain the suit brought by the Negroes. In the administration of Anthony W. Gardiner (three terms, 1878-1883)difficulties with England and Germany reached a crisis. Territory inthe northwest was seized; the British made a formal show of force atMonrovia; and the looting of a German vessel along the Kru Coast andpersonal indignities inflicted by the natives upon the shipwreckedGermans, led to the bombardment of Nana Kru by a German warship and thepresentation at Monrovia of a claim for damages, payment of which wasforced by the threat of the bombardment of the capital. To the Liberianpeople the outlook was seldom darker than in this period of calamities. President Gardiner, very ill, resigned office in January of his lastyear of service, being succeeded by the vice-president, Alfred F. Russell. More and more was pressure brought to bear upon Liberianofficials for the granting of monopolies and concessions, especially toEnglishmen; and in his message of 1883 President Russell said, "Recentevents admonish us as to the serious responsibility of claims heldagainst us by foreigners, and we cannot tell what complications mayarise. " In the midst of all this, however, Russell did not forget thenatives and the need of guarding them against liquor and exploitation. Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (four terms, 1884-1891), the nextpresident, was a son of the distinguished Elijah Johnson and the firstman born in Liberia who had risen to the highest place in the republic. Whigs and Republicans united in his election. Much of his time hadnecessarily to be given to complications arising from the loan of 1871;but the western boundary was adjusted (with great loss) with GreatBritain at the Mano River, though new difficulties arose with theFrench, who were pressing their claim to territory as far as the CavallaRiver. In the course of the last term of President Johnson there was aninteresting grant (by act approved January 21, 1890) to F. F. Whittekin, of Pennsylvania, of the right to "construct, maintain, and operate asystem of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines. " Whittekin bought upin England stock to the value of half a million dollars, but died on theway to Liberia to fulfil his contract. His nephew, F. F. Whittekin, askedfor an extension of time, which was granted, but after a while the wholeproject languished. [1] [Footnote 1: See _Liberia_, Bulletin No. 5, November, 1894. ] Joseph James Cheeseman (1892-November 15, 1896) was a Whig. He conductedwhat was known as the third Grebo War and labored especially for a soundcurrency. He was a man of unusual ability and his devotion to his taskundoubtedly contributed toward his death in office near the middleof his third term. As up to this time there had been no internalimprovement and little agricultural or industrial development in thecountry, O. F. Cook, the agent of the New York State ColonizationSociety, in 1894 signified to the legislature a desire to establisha station where experiments could be made as to the best means ofintroducing, receiving, and propagating beasts of burden, commercialplants, etc. His request was approved and one thousand acres of landgranted for the purpose by act of January 20, 1894. Results, however, were neither permanent nor far-reaching. In fact, by the close of thecentury immigration had practically ceased and the activities of theAmerican Colonization Society had also ceased, many of the stateorganizations having gone out of existence. In 1893 Julius C. Stevens, of Goldsboro, N. C. , went to Liberia and served for a nominal salary asagent of the American Colonization Society, becoming also a teacher inthe Liberia College and in time Commissioner of Education, in connectionwith which post he edited his _Liberian School Reader_; but he died in1903. [1] [Footnote 1: Interest in Liberia by no means completely died. Contributions for education were sometimes made by the representativeorganizations, and individual students came to America from timeto time. When, however, the important commission representing theGovernment came to America in 1908, the public was slightly startled ashaving heard from something half-forgotten. ] William D. Coleman as vice-president finished the incomplete term ofPresident Cheeseman (to the end of 1897) and later was elected fortwo terms in his own right. In the course of his last administration, however, his interior policy became very unpopular, as he was thought tobe harsh in his dealing with the natives, and he resigned in December, 1900. As there was at the time no vice-president, he was succeededby the Secretary of State, Garretson W. Gibson, a man of scholarlyattainments, who was afterwards elected for a whole term (1902-1903). The feature of this term was the discussion that arose over the proposalto grant a concession to an English concern known as the West AfricanGold Concessions, Ltd. This offered to the legislators a bonus of £1500, and for this bribe it asked for the sole right to prospect for andobtain gold, precious stones, and all other minerals over more than halfof Liberia. Specifically it asked for the right to acquire freeholdland and to take up leases for eighty years, in blocks of from ten toa thousand acres; to import all mining machinery and all other thingsnecessary free of duty; to establish banks in connection with the miningenterprises, these to have the power to issue notes; to constructtelegraphs and telephones; to organize auxiliary syndicates; and toestablish its own police. It would seem that English impudence couldhardly go further, though time was to prove that there were still otherthings to be borne. The proposal was indignantly rejected. Arthur Barclay (1904-1911) had already served in three cabinet positionsbefore coming to the presidency; he had also been a professor in theLiberia College and for some years had been known as the leader of thebar in Monrovia. It was near the close of his second term that thepresident's term of office was lengthened from two to four years, andhe was the first incumbent to serve for the longer period. In his firstinaugural address President Barclay emphasized the need of developingthe resources of the hinterland and of attaching the native tribes tothe interests of the state. In his foreign policy he was generallyenlightened and broad-minded, but he had to deal with the arrogance ofEngland. In 1906 a new British loan was negotiated. This also was for£100, 000, more than two-thirds of which amount was to be turned over tothe Liberian Development Company, an English scheme for the developmentof the interior. The Company was to work in coöperation with theLiberian Government, and as security for the loan British officials wereto have charge of the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting asfinancial adviser to the Republic. It afterwards developed that theCompany never had any resources except those it had raised on the creditof the Republic, and the country was forced to realize that it had beencheated a second time. Meanwhile the English officials who, on variouspretexts of reform, had taken charge of the barracks and the customsin Monrovia, were carrying things with a high hand. The Liberian forceappeared with English insignia on the uniforms, and in various otherways the commander sought to overawe the populace. At the climax of thedifficulties, on February 13, 1909, a British warship _happened_ toappear in the waters of Monrovia, and a calamity was averted only by theskillful diplomacy of the Liberians. Already, however, in 1908, Liberiahad sent a special commission to ask the aid of the United States. This consisted of Garretson W. Gibson, former president; J. J. Dossen, vice-president at the time, and Charles B. Dunbar. The commission wasreceived by President Roosevelt and by Secretary Taft just before thelatter was nominated for the presidency. On May 8, 1909, a returncommission consisting of Roland P. Falkner, George Sale, and Emmett J. Scott, arrived in Monrovia. The work of this commission must receivefurther and special attention. President Barclay was succeeded by Daniel Edward Howard (two longterms, 1912-1919), who at his inauguration began the policy of givingprominence to the native chiefs. The feature of President Howard'sadministrations was of course Liberia's connection with the Great Warin Europe. War against Germany having been declared, on the morningof April 10, 1918, a submarine came to Monrovia and demanded that theFrench wireless station be torn down. The request being refused, thetown was bombarded. The excitement of the day was such as has never beenduplicated in the history of Liberia. In one house two young girls wereinstantly killed and an elderly woman and a little boy fatally wounded;but except in this one home the actual damage was comparatively slight, though there might have been more if a passing British steamer had notput the submarine to flight. Suffering of another and more far-reachingsort was that due to the economic situation. The comparative scarcity offood in the world and the profiteering of foreign merchants in Liberiaby the summer of 1919 brought about a condition that threatenedstarvation; nor was the situation better early in 1920, when butterretailed at $1. 25 a pound, sugar at 72 cents a pound, and oil at $1. 00 agallon. President Howard was succeeded by Charles Dunbar Burgess King, who aspresident-elect had visited Europe and America, and who was inauguratedJanuary 5, 1920. His address on this occasion was a comprehensivepresentation of the needs of Liberia, especially along the lines ofagriculture and education. He made a plea also for an enlightened nativepolicy. Said he: "We cannot afford to destroy the native institutions ofthe country. Our true mission lies not in the building here in Africaof a Negro state based solely on Western ideas, but rather a Negronationality indigenous to the soil, having its foundation rooted in theinstitutions of Africa and purified by Western thought and development. " 3. _International Relations_ Our study of the history of Liberia has suggested two or three mattersthat call for special attention. Of prime importance is the country'sconnection with world politics. Any consideration of Liberia'sinternational relations falls into three divisions: first, that oftitles to land; second, that of foreign loans; and third, that ofso-called internal reform. In the very early years of the colony the raids of slave-traders gavesome excuse for the first aggression on the part of a European power. "Driven from the Pongo Regions northwest of Sierra Leone, Pedro Blancosettled in the Gallinhas territory northwest of the Liberian frontier, and established elaborate headquarters for his mammoth slave-tradingoperations in West Africa, with slave-trading sub-stations at CapeMount, St. Paul River, Bassa, and at other points of the Liberian coast, employing numerous police, watchers, spies, and servants. To obtainjurisdiction the colony of Liberia began to purchase from the lords ofthe soil as early as 1824 the lands of the St. Paul Basin and the GrainCoast from the Mafa River on the west to the Grand Sesters River on theeast; so that by 1845, twenty-four years after the establishment of thecolony, Liberia with the aid of Great Britain had destroyed throughoutthese regions the baneful traffic in slaves and the slave barracoons, and had driven the slave-trading leaders from the Liberian coast. "[1]The trade continued to flourish, however, in the Gallinhas territory, and in course of time, as we have seen, the colony had also to reckonwith British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independencein 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberianrevenue-laws by Englishmen. While President Roberts was in Englandnot long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives ofphilanthropy, undertook to raise £2000 with which he (Roberts) mightpurchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured thetitle and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to SherbroIsland. The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informedEngland of his acquisition, and his right to the territory was not thencalled in question. Trouble, however, developed out of the attitude ofJohn M. Harris, a British merchant, and in 1862, while President Bensonwas in England, he was officially informed that the right of Liberia wasrecognized _only_ to the land "east of Turner's Peninsula to the RiverSan Pedro. " Harris now worked up a native war against the Vais; theLiberians defended themselves; and in the end the British Governmentdemanded £8878. 9. 3 as damages for losses sustained by Harris, andarbitrarily extended its territory from Sherbro Island to Cape Mount. Inthe course of the discussion claims mounted up to £18, 000. Great Britainpromised to submit this boundary question to the arbitration of theUnited States, but when the time arrived at the meeting of one of thecommissions in Sierra Leone she firmly declined to do so. After this, whenever she was ready to take more land she made a plausible pretextand was ready to back up her demands with force. On March 20, 1882, fourBritish men-of-war came to Monrovia and Sir A. E. Havelock, Governor ofSierra Leone, came ashore; and President Gardiner was forced to submitto an agreement by which, in exchange for £4750 and the abandonment ofall further claims, the Liberian Government gave up all right tothe Gallinhas territory from Sherbro Island to the Mafa River. Thisagreement was repudiated by the Liberian Senate, but when Havelock wasso informed he replied, "Her Majesty's Government can not in any caserecognize any rights on the part of Liberia to any portions of theterritories in dispute. " Liberia now issued a protest to other greatpowers; but this was without avail, even the United States counselingacquiescence, though through the offices of America the agreement wasslightly modified and the boundary fixed at the Mano River. Trouble nextarose on the east. In 1846 the Maryland Colonization Society purchasedthe lands of the Ivory Coast east of Cape Palmas as far as the San PedroRiver. These lands were formally transferred to Liberia in 1857, andremained in the undisputed possession of the Republic for forty years. France now, not to be outdone by England, on the pretext of title deedsobtained by French naval commanders who visited the coast in 1890, in1891 put forth a claim not only to the Ivory Coast, but to land as faraway as Grand Bassa and Cape Mount. The next year, under threat offorce, she compelled Liberia to accept a treaty which, for 25, 000 francsand the relinquishment of all other claims, permitted her to take allthe territory east of the Cavalla River. In 1904 Great Britain askedpermission to advance her troops into Liberian territory to suppress anative war threatening her interests. She occupied at this time whatis known as the Kaure-Lahun section, which is very fertile and of easyaccess to the Sierra Leone railway. This land she never gave up; insteadshe offered Liberia £6000 or some poorer land for it. France after 1892made no endeavor to delimit her boundary, and, roused by the actionof Great Britain, she made great advances in the hinterland, claimingtracts of Maryland and Sino; and now France and England each threatenedto take more land if the other was not stopped. President Barclayvisited both countries; but by a treaty of 1907 his commission wasforced to permit France to occupy all the territory seized by force; andas soon as this agreement was reached France began to move on to otherland in the basin of the St. Paul's and St. John's rivers. This is allthen simply one more story of the oppression of the weak by the strong. For eighty years England has not ceased to intermeddle in Liberianaffairs, cajoling or browbeating as at the moment seemed advisable; andFrance has been only less bad. Certainly no country on earth now hasbetter reason than Liberia to know that "they should get who have thepower, and they should keep who can. " [Footnote 1: Ellis in _Journal of Race Development_, January, 1911. ] The international loans and the attempts at reform must be consideredtogether. In 1871, at the rate of 7 per cent, there was authorized aBritish loan of £100, 000. _For their services_ the British negotiatorsretained £30, 000, and £20, 000 more was deducted as the interest forthree years. President Roye ordered Mr. Chinery, a British subject andthe Liberian consul general in London, to supply the Liberian Secretaryof Treasury with goods and merchandise to the value of £10, 000; andother sums were misappropriated until the country itself actuallyreceived the benefit of not more than £27, 000, if so much. This wholeunfortunate matter was an embarrassment to Liberia for years; but in1899 the Republic assumed responsibility for £80, 000, the interest beingmade a first charge on the customs revenue. In 1906, not yet havinglearned the lesson of "Cavete Graecos dona ferentes, " and moved by therepresentations of Sir Harry H. Johnston, the country negotiated anew loan of £100, 000. £30, 000 of this amount was to satisfy pressingobligations; but the greater portion was to be turned over to theLiberian Development Company, a great scheme by which the Governmentand the company were to work hand in hand for the development of thecountry. As security for the loan, British officials were to have chargeof the customs revenue, the chief inspector acting as financial adviserto the Republic. When the Company had made a road of fifteen milesin one district and made one or two other slight improvements, itrepresented to the Liberian Government that its funds were exhausted. When President Barclay asked for an accounting the managing directorexpressed surprise that such a demand should be made upon him. TheLiberian people were chagrined, and at length they realized that theyhad been cheated a second time, with all the bitter experiences of thepast to guide them. Meanwhile the English representatives in the countrywere demanding that the judiciary be reformed, that the frontier forcebe under British officers, and that Inspector Lamont as financialadviser have a seat in the Liberian cabinet and a veto power over allexpenditures; and the independence of the country was threatened ifthese demands were not complied with. Meanwhile also the constructionof barracks went forward under Major Cadell, a British officer, and theorganization of the frontier force was begun. Not less than a third ofthis force was brought from Sierra Leone, and the whole Cadell fittedout with suits and caps stamped with the emblems of His BritannicMajesty's service. He also persuaded the Monrovia city government to lethim act without compensation as chief of police, and he likewise becamestreet commissioner, tax collector, and city treasurer. The Liberianpeople naturally objected to the usurping of all these prerogatives, butCadell refused to resign and presented a large bill for his services. Healso threatened violence to the President if his demands were not metwithin twenty-four hours. Then it was that the British warship, the_Mutiny_, suddenly appeared at Monrovia (February 12, 1909). Happilythe Liberians rose to the emergency. They requested that any Britishsoldiers at the barracks be withdrawn in order that they might be freeto deal with the insurrectionary movement said to be there on thepart of Liberian soldiers; and thus tactfully they brought about thewithdrawal of Major Cadell. By this time, however, the Liberian commission to the United Stateshad done its work, and just three months after Cadell's retirement thereturn American commission came. After studying the situation it madethe following recommendations: That the United States extend its aid toLiberia in the prompt settlement of pending boundary disputes; thatthe United States enable Liberia to refund its debt by assuming as aguarantee for the payment of obligations under such arrangement thecontrol and collection of the Liberian customs; that the United Stateslend its assistance to the Liberian Government in the reform of itsinternal finances; that the United States lend its aid to Liberia inorganizing and drilling an adequate constabulary or frontier policeforce; that the United States establish and maintain a researchstation at Liberia; and that the United States reopen the question ofestablishing a coaling-station in Liberia. Under the fourth of theserecommendations Major (now Colonel) Charles Young went to Liberia, where from time to time since he has rendered most efficient service. Arrangements were also made for a new loan, one of $1, 700, 000, which wasto be floated by banking institutions in the United States, Germany, France, and England; and in 1912 an American General Receiver of Customsand Financial Adviser to the Republic of Liberia (with an assistantfrom each of the other three countries mentioned) opened his officein Monrovia. It will be observed that a complicated and expensivereceivership was imposed on the Liberian people when an arrangementmuch more simple would have served. The loan of $1, 700, 000 soon provinginadequate for any large development of the country, negotiations werebegun in 1918 for a new loan, one of $5, 000, 000. Among the thingsproposed were improvements on the harbor of Monrovia, some good roadsthrough the country, a hospital, and the broadening of the work ofeducation. About the loan two facts were outstanding: first, any moneyto be spent would be spent wholly under American and not under Liberianauspices; and, second, to the Liberians acceptance of the termssuggested meant practically a surrender of their sovereignty, asAmerican appointees were to be in most of the important positions in thecountry, at the same time that upon themselves would fall the ultimateburden of the interest of the loan. By the spring of 1920 (in Liberia, the commencement of the rainy season) it was interesting to note thatalthough the necessary measures of approval had not yet been passed bythe Liberian Congress, perhaps as many as fifteen American officials hadcome out to the country to begin work in education, engineering, andsanitation. Just a little later in the year President King called anextra session of the legislature to consider amendments. While it was insession a cablegram from the United States was received saying that noamendments to the plan would be accepted and that it must be accepted assubmitted, "or the friendly interest which has heretofore existed wouldbecome lessened. " The Liberians were not frightened, however, and stoodfirm. Meanwhile a new presidential election took place in the UnitedStates; there was to be a radical change in the government; and theLiberians were disposed to try further to see if some changes could notbe made in the proposed arrangements. Most watchfully from month tomonth, let it be remembered, England and France were waiting; and inany case it could easily be seen that as the Republic approached itscentennial it was face to face with political problems of the very firstmagnitude. [1] [Footnote 1: Early in 1921 President King headed a new commission to theUnited States to take up the whole matter of Liberia with the incomingRepublican administration. ] 4. _Economic and Social Conditions_ From what has been said, it is evident that there is still much to bedone in Liberia along economic lines. There has been some beginningin coöperative effort; thus the Bassa Trading Association is anorganization for mutual betterment of perhaps as many as fiftyresponsible merchants and farmers. The country has as yet (1921), however, no railroads, no street cars, no public schools, and no genuinenewspapers; nor are there any manufacturing or other enterprises forthe employment of young men on a large scale. The most promising youthaccordingly look too largely to an outlet in politics; some come toAmerica to be educated and not always do they return. A few becomeclerks in the stores, and a very few assistants in the customs offices. There is some excellent agriculture in the interior, but as yet no meansof getting produce to market on a large scale. In 1919 the total customsrevenue at Monrovia, the largest port, amounted to $196, 913. 21. For thewhole country the figure has recently been just about half a milliondollars a year. Much of this amount goes to the maintenance of thefrontier force. Within the last few years also the annual income forthe city of Monrovia--for the payment of the mayor, the police, and allother city officers--has averaged $6000. In any consideration of social conditions the first question of all ofcourse is that of the character of the people themselves. UnfortunatelyLiberia was begun with faulty ideals of life and work. The earlysettlers, frequently only recently out of bondage, too often felt thatin a state of freedom they did not have to work, and accordingly theyimitated the habits of the old master class of the South. The realburden of life then fell upon the native. There is still considerablefeeling between the native and the Americo-Liberian; but more and morethe wisest men of the country realize that the good of one is the goodof all, and they are endeavoring to make the native chiefs work for thecommon welfare. From time to time the people of Liberia have given tovisitors an impression of arrogance, and perhaps no one thing had led tomore unfriendly criticism of this country than this. The fact is thatthe Liberians, knowing that their country has various shortcomingsaccording to Western standards, are quick to assume the defensive, andone method of protecting themselves is by erecting a barrier of dignityand reserve. One has only to go beyond this, however, to find the realheartbeat of the people. The comparative isolation of the Republicmoreover, and the general stress of living conditions have togethergiven to the everyday life an undue seriousness of tone, with a ratherexcessive emphasis on the church, on politics, and on secret societies. In such an atmosphere boys and girls too soon became mature, and forthem especially one might wish to see a little more wholesome outdooramusement. In school or college catalogues one still sees much ofjurisprudence and moral philosophy, but little of physics or biology. Interestingly enough, this whole system of education and life has notbeen without some elements of very genuine culture. Literature has beenmainly in the diction of Shakespeare and Milton; but Shakespeare andMilton, though not of the twentieth century, are still good models, and because the officials have had to compose many state documents anddeliver many formal addresses, there has been developed in the countrya tradition of good English speech. A service in any one of therepresentative churches is dignified and impressive. The churches and schools of Liberia have been most largely in the handsof the Methodists and the Episcopalians, though the Baptists, thePresbyterians, and the Lutherans are well represented. The Lutheranshave penetrated to a point in the interior beyond that attained by anyother denomination. The Episcopalians have excelled others, even theMethodists, by having more constant and efficient oversight of theirwork. The Episcopalians have in Liberia a little more than 40 schools, nearly half of these being boarding-schools, with a total attendanceof 2000. The Methodists have slightly more than 30 schools, with 2500pupils. The Lutherans in their five mission stations have 20 Americanworkers and 300 pupils. While it seems from these figures that thenumber of those reached is small in proportion to the outlay, it must beremembered that a mission school becomes a center from which influenceradiates in all directions. While the enterprise of the denominational institutions can not bedoubted, it may well be asked if, in so largely relieving the peopleof the burden of the education of their children, they are not undulycultivating a spirit of dependence rather than of self-help. Somethingof this point of view was emphasized by the Secretary of PublicInstruction, Mr. Walter F. Walker, in an address, "Liberia and HerEducational Problems, " delivered in Chicago in 1916. Said he of the dayschools maintained by the churches: "These day schools did invaluableservice in the days of the Colony and Commonwealth, and, indeed, in theearly days of the Republic; but to their continuation must undoubtedlybe ascribed the tardy recognition of the government and people of thefact that no agency for the education of the masses is as effective asthe public school.... There is not one public school building owned bythe government or by any city or township. " It might further be said that just now in Liberia there is noinstitution that is primarily doing college work. Two schools inMonrovia, however, call for special remark. The College of West Africa, formerly Monrovia Seminary, was founded by the Methodist Church in 1839. The institution does elementary and lower high school work, though someyears ago it placed a little more emphasis on college work than it hasbeen able to do within recent years. It was of this college that thelate Bishop A. P. Camphor served so ably as president for twelve years. Within recent years it has recognized the importance of industrial workand has had in all departments an average annual enrollment of 300. Notquite so prominent within the last few years, but with more traditionand theoretically at the head of the educational system of the Republicis the Liberia College. In 1848 Simon Greenleaf of Boston, received fromJohn Payne, a missionary at Cape Palmas, a request for his assistance inbuilding a theological school. Out of this suggestion grew the Boardof Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia incorporated inMassachusetts in March, 1850. The next year the Liberia legislatureincorporated the Liberia College, it being understood that theinstitution would emphasize academic as well as theological subjects. In1857 Ex-President J. J. Roberts was elected president; he superintendedthe erection of a large building; and in 1862 the college was openedfor work. Since then it has had a very uneven existence, sometimesenrolling, aside from its preparatory department, twenty or thirtycollege students, then again having no college students at all. Withinthe last few years, as the old building was completely out of repair, the school has had to seek temporary quarters. It is too vital to thecountry to be allowed to languish, however, and it is to be hoped thatit may soon be well started upon a new career of usefulness. In thecourse of its history the Liberia College has had connected with it somevery distinguished men. Famous as teacher and lecturer, and presidentfrom 1881 to 1885, was Edward Wilmot Blyden, generally regarded as theforemost scholar that Western Africa has given to the world. Closelyassociated with him in the early years, and well known in America as inAfrica, was Alexander Crummell, who brought to his teaching the richnessof English university training. A trustee for a number of years wasSamuel David Ferguson, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who servedwith great dignity and resource as missionary bishop of the countryfrom 1884 until his death in 1916. A new president of the college, Rev. Nathaniel H. B. Cassell, was elected in 1918, and it is expected thatunder his efficient direction the school will go forward to stillgreater years of service. Important in connection with the study of the social conditions inLiberia is that of health and living conditions. One who lives inAmerica and knows that Africa is a land of unbounded riches can hardlyunderstand the extent to which the West Coast has been exploited, orthe suffering that is there just now. The distress is most acute in theEnglish colonies, and as Liberia is so close to Sierra Leone and theGold Coast, much of the same situation prevails there. In Monrovia theonly bank is the branch of the Bank of British West Africa. In thebranches of this great institution all along the coast, as a result ofthe war, gold disappeared, silver became very scarce, and the commonform of currency became paper notes, issued in denominations as low asone and two shillings. These the natives have refused to accept. They goeven further: rather than bring their produce to the towns and receivepaper for it they will not come at all. In Monrovia an effort was madeto introduce the British West African paper currency, and while thisfailed, more and more the merchants insisted on being paid in silver, nor in an ordinary purchase would silver be given in change on anEnglish ten-shilling note. Prices accordingly became exorbitant;children were not properly nourished and the infant mortality grew toastonishing proportions. Nor were conditions made better by the lack ofsanitation and by the prevalence of disease. Happily relief for theseconditions--for some of them at least--seems to be in sight, and it isexpected that before very long a hospital will be erected in Monrovia. One or two reflections suggest themselves. It has been said that thecircumstances under which Liberia was founded led to a despising ofindustrial effort. The country is now quite awake, however, to theadvantages of industrial and agricultural enterprise. A matter ofsupreme importance is that of the relation of the Americo-Liberian tothe native; this will work itself out, for the native is the country'schief asset for the future. In general the Republic needs a few visibleevidences of twentieth century standards of progress; two or three highschools and hospitals built on the American plan would work wonders. Finally let it not be forgotten that upon the American Negro rests theobligation to do whatever he can to help to develop the country. If hewill but firmly clasp hands with his brother across the sea, a new daywill dawn for American Negro and Liberian alike. CHAPTER X THE NEGRO A NATIONAL ISSUE 1. _Current Tendencies_ It is evident from what has been said already that the idea of the Negrocurrent about 1830 in the United States was not very exalted. It wasseriously questioned if he was really a human being, and doctors ofdivinity learnedly expounded the "Cursed be Canaan" passage as applyingto him. A prominent physician of Mobile[1] gave it as his opinion that"the brain of the Negro, when compared with the Caucasian, is smaller bya tenth ... And the intellect is wanting in the same proportion, " andfinally asserted that Negroes could not live in the North because "acold climate so freezes their brains as to make them insane. " Aboutmulattoes, like many others, he stretched his imagination marvelously. They were incapable of undergoing fatigue; the women were very delicateand subject to all sorts of diseases, and they did not beget childrenas readily as either black women or white women. In fact, said Nott, between the ages of twenty-five and forty mulattoes died ten times asfast as either white or black people; between forty and fifty-five fiftytimes as fast, and between fifty-five and seventy one hundred times asfast. [Footnote 1: See "Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasianand Negro Races. By Josiah C. Nott, M. D. , Mobile, 1844. "] To such opinions was now added one of the greatest misfortunes that havebefallen the Negro race in its entire history in America--burlesque onthe stage. When in 1696 Thomas Southerne adapted _Oroonoko_ from thenovel of Mrs. Aphra Behn and presented in London the story of theAfrican prince who was stolen from his native Angola, no one saw anyreason why the Negro should not be a subject for serious treatment onthe stage, and the play was a great success, lasting for decades. In1768, however, was presented at Drury Lane a comic opera, _The Padlock_, and a very prominent character was Mungo, the slave of a West Indianplanter, who got drunk in the second act and was profane throughout theperformance. In the course of the evening Mungo entertained the audiencewith such lines as the following: Dear heart, what a terrible life I am led! A dog has a better, that's sheltered and fed. Night and day 'tis the same; My pain is deir game: Me wish to de Lord me was dead! Whate'er's to be done, Poor black must run. Mungo here, Mungo dere, Mungo everywhere: Above and below, Sirrah, come; sirrah, go; Do so, and do so, Oh! oh! Me wish to de Lord me was dead! The depreciation of the race that Mungo started continued, and when in1781 _Robinson Crusoe_ was given as a pantomime at Drury Lane, Fridaywas represented as a Negro. The exact origins of Negro minstrelsyare not altogether clear; there have been many claimants, and it isinteresting to note in passing that there was an "African Company"playing in New York in the early twenties, though this was probablynothing more than a small group of amateurs. Whatever may have beenthe beginning, it was Thomas D. Rice who brought the form to genuinepopularity. In Louisville in the summer of 1828, looking from one of theback windows of a theater, he was attracted by an old and decrepit slavewho did odd jobs about a livery stable. The slave's master was namedCrow and he called himself Jim Crow. His right shoulder was drawn uphigh and his left leg was stiff at the knee, but he took his deformitylightly, singing as he worked. He had one favorite tune to which hehad fitted words of his own, and at the end of each verse he made aludicrous step which in time came to be known as "rocking the heel. " Hisrefrain consisted of the words: Wheel about, turn about, Do jis so, An' ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow. Rice, who was a clever and versatile performer, caught the air, made uplike the Negro, and in the course of the next season introduced Jim Crowand his step to the stage, and so successful was he in his performancethat on his first night in the part he was encored twenty times. [1] Ricehad many imitators among the white comedians of the country, some ofwhom indeed claimed priority in opening up the new field, and along withtheir burlesque these men actually touched upon the possibilities ofplaintive Negro melodies, which they of course capitalized. In New Yorklate in 1842 four men--"Dan" Emmett, Frank Brower, "Billy" Whitlock, and"Dick" Pelham--practiced together with fiddle and banjo, "bones"and tambourine, and thus was born the first company, the "VirginiaMinstrels, " which made its formal debut in New York February 17, 1843. Its members produced in connection with their work all sorts of popularsongs, one of Emmett's being "Dixie, " which, introduced by Mrs. JohnWood in a burlesque in New Orleans at the outbreak of the Civil War, leaped into popularity and became the war-song of the Confederacy. Companies multipled apace. "Christy's Minstrels" claimed priority to thecompany already mentioned, but did not actually enter upon its New Yorkcareer until 1846. "Bryant's Minstrels" and Buckley's "New OrleansSerenaders" were only two others of the most popular aggregationsfeaturing and burlesquing the Negro. In a social history of the Negro inAmerica, however, it is important to observe in passing that already, even in burlesque, the Negro element was beginning to enthrall thepopular mind. About the same time as minstrelsy also developed the habitof belittling the race by making the name of some prominent and worthyNegro a term of contempt; thus "cuffy" (corrupted from Paul Cuffe) nowcame into widespread use. [Footnote 1: See Laurence Hutton: "The Negro on the Stage, " in _Harper'sMagazine_, 79:137 (June, 1889), referring to article by Edmon S. Connerin _New York Times_, June 5, 1881. ] This was not all. It was now that the sinister crime of lynching raisedits head in defiance of all law. At first used as a form of punishmentfor outlaws and gamblers, it soon came to be applied especially toNegroes. One was burned alive near Greenville, S. C. , in 1825; in May, 1835, two were burned near Mobile for the murder of two children; andfor the years between 1823 and 1860 not less than fifty-six cases of thelynching of Negroes have been ascertained, though no one will ever knowhow many lost their lives without leaving any record. Certainly more menwere executed illegally than legally; thus of forty-six recorded murdersby Negroes of owners or overseers between 1850 and 1860 twenty resultedin legal execution and twenty-six in lynching. Violent crimes againstwhite women were not relatively any more numerous than now; but thosethat occurred or were attempted received swift punishment; thus ofseventeen cases of rape in the ten years last mentioned Negroes werelegally executed in five and lynched in twelve. [1] [Footnote 1: See Hart: _Slavery and Abolition_, 11 and 117, citingCutler: _Lynch Law_, 98-100 and 126-128. ] Extraordinary attention was attracted by the burning in St. Louis in1835 of a man named McIntosh, who had killed an officer who was tryingto arrest him. [1] This event came in the midst of a period of greatagitation, and it was for denouncing this lynching that Elijah P. Lovejoy had his printing-office destroyed in St. Louis and was forcedto remove to Alton, Ill. , where his press was three times destroyed andwhere he finally met death at the hands of a mob while trying to protecthis property November 7, 1837. Judge Lawless defended the lynching andeven William Ellery Channing took a compromising view. Abraham Lincoln, however, then a very young man, in an address on "The Perpetuation ofOur Political Institutions" at Springfield, January 27, 1837, said:"Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the everyday news of thetimes. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana;they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former nor theburning suns of the latter; they are not the creatures of climate, neither are they confined to the slaveholding or the nonslaveholdingstates.... Turn to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A singlevictim only was sacrificed there. This story is very short, and isperhaps the most highly tragic of anything that has ever been witnessedin real life. A mulatto man by the name of McIntosh was seized in thestreet, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, andactually burned to death; and all within a single hour from the time hehad been a free man attending to his own business and at peace withthe world.... Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the scenesbecoming more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love oflaw and order, and the stories of which have even now grown too familiarto attract anything more than an idle remark. " [Footnote 1: Cutler: _Lynch Law_, 109, citing Niles's _Register_, June4, 1836. ] All the while flagrant crimes were committed against Negro women andgirls, and free men in the border states were constantly beingdragged into slavery by kidnapers. Two typical cases will serve forillustration. George Jones, a respectable man of New York, was in 1836arrested on Broadway on the pretext that he had committed assault andbattery. He refused to go with his captors, for he knew that he haddone nothing to warrant such a charge; but he finally yielded on theassurance of his employer that everything possible would be done forhim. He was placed in the Bridewell and a few minutes afterwards takenbefore a magistrate, to whose satisfaction he was proved to be a slave. Thus, in less than two hours after his arrest he was hurried away by thekidnapers, whose word had been accepted as sufficient evidence, and hehad not been permitted to secure a single friendly witness. SolomonNorthrup, who afterwards wrote an account of his experiences, was afree man who lived in Saratoga and made his living by working about thehotels, where in the evenings he often played the violin at parties. Oneday two men, supposedly managers of a traveling circus company, met himand offered him good pay if he would go with them as a violinist toWashington. He consented, and some mornings afterwards awoke to findhimself in a slave pen in the capital. How he got there was ever amystery to him, but evidently he had been drugged. He was taken Southand sold to a hard master, with whom he remained twelve years beforehe was able to effect his release. [1] In the South any free Negro whoentertained a runaway might himself become a slave; thus in SouthCarolina in 1827 a free woman with her three children suffered thispenalty because she gave succor to two homeless and fugitive childrensix and nine years old. [Footnote 1: McDougall: Fugitive Slaves, 36-37. ] Day by day, moreover, from the capital of the nation went on theinternal slave-trade. "When by one means and another a dealer hadgathered twenty or more likely young Negro men and girls, he would bringthem forth from their cells; would huddle the women and young childreninto a cart or wagon; would handcuff the men in pairs, the right hand ofone to the left hand of another; make the handcuffs fast to a long chainwhich passed between each pair of slaves, and would start his processionsouthward. "[1] It is not strange that several of the unfortunate peoplecommitted suicide. One distracted mother, about to be separated from herloved ones, dumbfounded the nation by hurling herself from the windowof a prison in the capital on the Sabbath day and dying in the streetbelow. [Footnote 1: McMaster, V, 219-220. ] Meanwhile even in the free states the disabilities of the Negrocontinued. In general he was denied the elective franchise, the right ofpetition, the right to enter public conveyances or places of amusement, and he was driven into a status of contempt by being shut out from thearmy and the militia. He had to face all sorts of impediments in gettingeducation or in pursuing honest industry; he had nothing whatever todo with the administration of justice; and generally he was subject toinsult and outrage. One might have supposed that on all this proscription and denial of theordinary rights of human beings the Christian Church would have taken apositive stand. Unfortunately, as so often happens, it was on the sideof property and vested interest rather than on that of the oppressed. Wehave already seen that Southern divines held slaves and countenancedthe system; and by 1840 James G. Birney had abundant material for hisindictment, "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery. "He showed among other things that while in 1780 the Methodist EpiscopalChurch had opposed slavery and in 1784 had given a slaveholder one monthto repent or withdraw from its conferences, by 1836 it had so driftedaway from its original position as to disclaim "any right, wish, orintention to interfere in the civil and political relation betweenmaster and slave, as it existed in the slaveholding states of theunion. " Meanwhile in the churches of the North there was the mostinsulting discrimination; in the Baptist Church in Hartford the pews forNegroes were boarded up in front, and in Stonington, Conn. , the floorwas cut out of a Negro's pew by order of the church authorities. InBoston, in a church that did not welcome and that made little provisionfor Negroes, a consecrated deacon invited into his own pew some Negropeople, whereupon he lost the right to hold a pew in his church. Hedecided that there should be some place where there might be morefreedom of thought and genuine Christianity, he brought others into theplan, and the effort that he put forth resulted in what has since becomethe Tremont Temple Baptist Church. Into all this proscription, burlesque, and crime, and denial of thefundamental principles of Christianity, suddenly came the program of theAbolitionists; and it spoke with tongues of fire, and had all the vigorand force of a crusade. 2. _The Challenge of the Abolitionists_ The great difference between the early abolition societies whichresulted in the American Convention and the later anti-slavery movementof which Garrison was the representative figure was the differencebetween a humanitarian impulse tempered by expediency and one that hadall the power of a direct challenge. Before 1831 "in the South thesocieties were more numerous, the members no less earnest, and thehatred of slavery no less bitter, ... Yet the conciliation and persuasionso noticeable in the earlier period in twenty years accomplishedpractically nothing either in legislation or in the education of publicsentiment; while gradual changes in economic conditions at the Southcaused the question to grow more difficult. "[1] Moreover, "the evidenceof open-mindedness can not stand against the many instances of absoluterefusal to permit argument against slavery. In the Colonial Congress, in the Confederation, in the Constitutional Convention, in the stateratifying conventions, in the early Congresses, there were many vehementdenunciations of anything which seemed to have an anti-slavery tendency, and wholesale suspicion of the North at all times when the subject wasopened. "[2] One can not forget the effort of James G. Birney, or thatBenjamin Lundy's work was most largely done in what we should now callthe South, or that between 1815 and 1828 at least four journals whichavowed the extinction of slavery as one, if not the chief one, oftheir objects were published in the Southern states. [3] Only gradualemancipation, however, found any real support in the South; and, ascompared with the work of Garrison, even that of Lundy appears in thedistance with something of the mildness of "sweetness and light. " Evenbefore the rise of Garrison, Robert James Turnbull of South Carolina, under the name of "Brutus, " wrote a virulent attack on anti-slavery; andRepresentative Drayton of the same state, speaking in Congress in 1828, said, "Much as we love our country, we would rather see our cities inflames, our plains drenched in blood--rather endure all the calamitiesof civil war, than parley for an instant upon the right of any power, than our own to interfere with the regulation of our slaves. "[4] Moreand more this was to be the real sentiment of the South, and in theface of this kind of eloquence and passion mere academic discussion waspowerless. [Footnote 1: Adams: _The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery, 1808-1831_, 250-251. ] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_. , 110. ] [Footnote 3: William Birney: _James G. Birney and His Times_, 85-86. ] [Footnote 4: Register of Debates, _4, 975_, cited by Adams, 112-3. ] The _Liberator_ was begun January 1, 1831. The next year Garrison wasthe leading spirit in the formation of the New England Anti-SlaverySociety; and in December, 1833, in Philadelphia, the AmericanAnti-Slavery Society was organized. In large measure these organizationswere an outgrowth of the great liberal and humanitarian spirit that by1830 had become manifest in both Europe and America. Hugo and Mazzini, Byron and Macaulay had all now appeared upon the scene, and romanticismwas regnant. James Montgomery and William Faber wrote their hymns, and Reginald Heber went as a missionary bishop to India. Forty yearsafterwards the French Revolution was bearing fruit. France herself had anew revolution in 1830, and in this same year the kingdom of Belgium wasborn. In England there was the remarkable reign of William IV, whichwithin the short space of seven years summed up in legislation reformsthat had been agitated for decades. In 1832 came the great Reform Bill, in 1833 the abolition of slavery in English dominions, and in 1834 arevision of factory legislation and the poor law. Charles Dickens andElizabeth Barrett Browning began to be heard, and in 1834 came toAmerica George Thompson, a powerful and refined speaker who had had muchto do with the English agitation against slavery. The young republicof the United States, lusty and self-confident, was seething with newthought. In New England the humanitarian movement that so largely beganwith the Unitarianism of Channing "ran through its later phase intranscendentalism, and spent its last strength in the anti-slaveryagitation and the enthusiasms of the Civil War. "[1] The movement wascontemporary with the preaching of many novel gospels in religion, insociology, in science, education, and medicine. New sects were formed, like the Universalists, the Spiritualists, the Second Adventists, the Mormons, and the Shakers, some of which believed in trances andmiracles, others in the quick coming of Christ, and still others in thereorganization of society; and the pseudo-sciences, like mesmerism andphrenology, had numerous followers. The ferment has long since subsided, and much that was then seething has since gone off in vapor; but whenall that was spurious has been rejected, we find that thegeneral impulse was but a new baptism of the old Puritan spirit. Transcendentalism appealed to the private consciousness as the solestandard of truth and right. With kindred movements it served to quickenthe ethical sense of a nation that was fast becoming materialistic andto nerve it for the conflict that sooner or later had to come. [Footnote 1: Henry A. Beers: _Initial Studies in American Letters_, 95-98 passim. ] In his salutatory editorial Garrison said with reference to hisposition: "In Park Street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, inan address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular butpernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity tomake a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardonof my God, of my country, and of my brethren, the poor slaves, forhaving uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, andabsurdity.... I am aware that many object to the severity of mylanguage; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh astruth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wishto think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whosehouse is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderatelyrescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother togradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present! I am inearnest. I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat asingle inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD. " With something of the egotismthat comes of courage in a holy cause, he said: "On this question myinfluence, humble as it is, is felt at this moment to a considerableextent, and shall be felt in coming years--not perniciously, butbeneficially--not as a curse, but as a blessing; and POSTERITY WILL BEARTESTIMONY THAT I WAS RIGHT. " All the while, in speaking to the Negro people themselves, Garrisonendeavored to beckon them to the highest possible ground of personal andracial self-respect. Especially did he advise them to seek the virtuesof education and coöperation. Said he to them:[1] "Support eachother.... When I say 'support each other, ' I mean, sell to each other, and buy of each other, in preference to the whites. This is a duty: thewhites do not trade with you; why should you give them your patronage?If one of your number opens a little shop, do not pass it by to giveyour money to a white shopkeeper. If any has a trade, employ him asoften as possible. If any is a good teacher, send your children to him, and be proud that he is one of your color.... Maintain your rights, inall cases, and at whatever expense.... Wherever you are allowed to vote, see that your names are put on the lists of voters, and go to the polls. If you are not strong enough to choose a man of your own color, giveyour votes to those who are friendly to your cause; but, if possible, elect intelligent and respectable colored men. I do not despair ofseeing the time when our State and National Assemblies will contain afair proportion of colored representatives--especially if the proposedcollege at New Haven goes into successful operation. Will you despairnow so many champions are coming to your help, and the trump of jubileeis sounding long and loud; when is heard a voice from the East, a voicefrom the West, a voice from the North, a voice from the South, crying, _Liberty and Equality now, Liberty and Equality forever_! Will youdespair, seeing Truth, and Justice, and Mercy, and God, and Christ, andthe Holy Ghost, are on your side? Oh, no--never, never despair of thecomplete attainment of your rights!" [Footnote 1: "An Address delivered before the Free People of Color inPhiladelphia, New York, and other cities, during the month of June, 1831, by Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Boston, 1831, " pp. 14-18. ] To second such sentiments rose a remarkable group of men and women, among them Elijah P. Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, JohnGreenleaf Whittier, Lydia Maria Child, Samuel J. May, William Jay, Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and JohnBrown. Phillips, the "Plumed Knight" of the cause, closed his lawoffice because he was not willing to swear that he would support theConstitution; he relinquished the franchise because he did not wish tohave any responsibility for a government that countenanced slavery; andhe lost sympathy with the Christian Church because of its compromisingattitude. Garrison himself termed the Constitution "a covenant withdeath and an agreement with hell. " Lydia Maria Child in 1833 publishedan _Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans_, and wrote or edited numerous other books for the cause, while theanti-slavery poems of Whittier are now a part of the main stream ofAmerican literature. The Abolitionists repelled many conservative men bytheir refusal to countenance any laws that recognized slavery; but theygained force when Congress denied them the right of petition and whenPresident Jackson refused them the use of the mails. There could be no question as to the directness of their attack. Theyheld up the slaveholder to scorn. They gave thousands of examples of theinhumanity of the system of slavery, publishing scores and even hundredsof tracts and pamphlets. They called the attention of America to theslave who for running away was for five days buried in the ground upto his chin with his arms tied behind him; to women who were whippedbecause they did not breed fast enough or would not yield to the lust ofplanters or overseers; to men who were tied to be whipped and then leftbleeding, or who were branded with hot irons, or forced to wear ironyokes and clogs and bells; to the Presbyterian preacher in Georgia whotortured a slave until he died; to a woman in New Jersey who was "boundto a log, and scored with a knife, in a shocking manner, across herback, and the gashes stuffed with salt, after which she was tied toa post in a cellar, where, after suffering three days, death kindlyterminated her misery"; and finally to the fact that even when slaveswere dead they were not left in peace, as the South Carolina MedicalCollege in Charleston advertised that the bodies were used fordissection. [1] In the face of such an indictment the South appeared moreinjured and innocent than ever, and said that evils had been greatlyexaggerated. Perhaps in some instances they were; but the South andeverybody also knew that no pen could nearly do justice to some of thethings that were possible under the iniquitous and abominable system ofAmerican slavery. [Footnote 1: See "American Slavery as it is: Testimony of a ThousandWitnesses. By Theodore Dwight Weld. Published by the AmericanAnti-Slavery Society, New York, 1839"; but the account of the New Jerseywoman is from "A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United States, by Jesse Torrey, Ballston Spa, Penn. , 1917, " p. 67. ] The Abolitionists, however, did not stop with a mere attack onslavery. Not satisfied with the mere enumeration of examples of Negroachievement, they made even higher claims in behalf of the people nowoppressed. Said Alexander H. Everett:[1] "We are sometimes told that allthese efforts will be unavailing--that the African is a degraded memberof the human family--that a man with a dark skin and curled hair isnecessarily, as such, incapable of improvement and civilization, andcondemned by the vice of his physical conformation to vegetate foreverin a state of hopeless barbarism. I reject with contempt and indignationthis miserable heresy. In replying to it the friends of truth andhumanity have not hitherto done justice to the argument. In order toprove that the blacks were capable of intellectual efforts, they havepainfully collected a few specimens of what some of them have done inthis way, even in the degraded condition which they occupy at presentin Christendom. This is not the way to treat the subject. Go back to anearlier period in the history of our race. See what the blacks were andwhat they did three thousand years ago, in the period of theirgreatness and glory, when they occupied the forefront in the march ofcivilization--when they constituted in fact the whole civilized world oftheir time. Trace this very civilization, of which we are so proud, toits origin, and see where you will find it. We received it from ourEuropean ancestors: they had it from the Greeks and Romans, and theJews. But, sir, where did the Greeks and the Romans and the Jews get it?They derived it from Ethiopia and Egypt--in one word, from Africa. [2]... The ruins of the Egyptian temples laugh to scorn the architecturalmonuments of any other part of the world. They will be what they arenow, the delight and admiration of travelers from all quarters, when thegrass is growing on the sites of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, the presentpride of Rome and London.... It seems, therefore, that for this verycivilization of which we are so proud, and which is the only ground ofour present claim of superiority, we are indebted to the ancestorsof these very blacks, whom we are pleased to consider as naturallyincapable of civilization. " [Footnote 1: See "The Anti-Slavery Picknick: a collection of Speeches, Poems, Dialogues, and Songs, intended for use in schools andanti-slavery meetings. By John A. Collins, Boston, 1842, " 10-12. ] [Footnote 2: It is worthy of note that this argument, which was longthought to be fallacious, is more and more coming to be substantiated bythe researches of scholars, and that not only as affecting Northernbut also Negro Africa. Note Lady Lugard (Flora L. Shaw): _A TropicalDependency_, London, 1906, pp. 16-18. ] In adherence to their convictions the Abolitionists were now to givea demonstration of faith in humanity such as has never been surpassedexcept by Jesus Christ himself. They believed in the Negro even beforethe Negro had learned to believe in himself. Acting on their doctrine ofequal rights, they traveled with their Negro friends, "sat upon the sameplatforms with them, ate with them, and one enthusiastic abolitionistwhite couple adopted a Negro child. "[1] [Footnote 1: Hart: _Slavery and Abolition_, 245-6. ] Garrison appealed to posterity. He has most certainly been justified bytime. Compared with his high stand for the right, the opportunism ofsuch a man as Clay shrivels into nothingness. Within recent years adistinguished American scholar, [1] writing of the principles for whichhe and his co-workers stood, has said: "The race question transcends anyacademic inquiry as to what ought to have been done in 1866. It affectsthe North as well as the South; it touches the daily life of all ofour citizens, individually, politically, humanly. It molds the child'sconception of democracy. It tests the faith of the adult. It is by nomeans an American problem only. What is going on in our states, Northand South, is only a local phase of a world-problem.... Now, Whittier'sopinions upon that world-problem are unmistakable. He believed, quiteliterally, that all men are brothers; that oppression of one man orone race degrades the whole human family; and that there should be thefullest equality of opportunity. That a mere difference in color shouldclose the door of civil, industrial, and political hope upon anyindividual was a hateful thing to the Quaker poet. The whole body ofhis verse is a protest against the assertion of race pride, against theemphasis upon racial differences. To Whittier there was no such thingas a 'white man's civilization. ' The only distinction was betweencivilization and barbarism. He had faith in education, in equalitybefore the law, in freedom of opportunity, and in the ultimate triumphof brotherhood. 'They are rising, -- All are rising, The black and white together. ' This faith is at once too sentimental and too dogmatic to suit thosepersons who have exalted economic efficiency into a fetish and whohave talked loudly at times--though rather less loudly since theRusso-Japanese War--about the white man's task of governing the backwardraces. _But whatever progress has been made by the American Negro sincethe Civil War, in self-respect, in moral and intellectual development, and--for that matter--in economic efficiency, has been due to fidelityto those principles which Whittier and other like-minded men and womenlong ago enunciated_. [2] The immense tasks which still remain, alike for'higher' as for 'lower' races, can be worked out by following Whittier'sprogram, if they can be worked out at all. " [Footnote 1: Bliss Perry: "Whittier for To-Day, " _Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. 100, 851-859 (December, 1907). ] [Footnote 2: The italics are our own. ] 3. The Contest Even before the Abolitionists became aggressive a test law had beenpassed, the discussion of which did much to prepare for their coming. Immediately after the Denmark Vesey insurrection the South Carolinalegislature voted that the moment that a vessel entered a port in thestate with a free Negro or person of color on board he should be seized, even if he was the cook, the steward, or a mariner, or if he was acitizen of another state or country. [1] The sheriff was to board thevessel, take the Negro to jail and detain him there until the vessel wasactually ready to leave. The master of the ship was then to pay for thedetention of the Negro and take him away, or pay a fine of $1, 000 andsee the Negro sold as a slave. Within a short time after this enactmentwas passed, as many as forty-one vessels were deprived of one or morehands, from one British trading vessel almost the entire crew beingtaken. The captains appealed to the judge of the United States DistrictCourt, who with alacrity turned the matter over to the state courts. Nowfollowed much legal proceeding, with an appeal to higher authorities, inthe course of which both Canning and Adams were forced to consider thequestion, and it was generally recognized that the act violated both thetreaty with Great Britain and the power of Congress to regulate trade. To all of this South Carolina replied that as a sovereign state she hadthe right to interdict the entry of foreigners, that in fact she hadbeen a sovereign state at the time of her entrance into the Union andthat she never had surrendered the right to exclude free Negroes. Finally she asserted that if a dissolution of the Union must be thealternative she was quite prepared to abide by the result. Unusualexcitement arose soon afterwards when four free Negroes on a Britishship were seized by the sheriff and dragged from the deck. The captainhad to go to heavy expense to have these men released, and on reachingLiverpool he appealed to the Board of Trade. The British minister nowsent a more vigorous protest, Adams referred the same to Wirt, theAttorney General, and Wirt was forced to declare South Carolina's actunconstitutional and void. His opinion with a copy of the Britishprotest Adams sent to the Governor of the state, who immediatelytransmitted the same to the legislature. Each branch of the legislaturepassed resolutions which the other would not accept, but neither votedto repeal the law. In fact, it remained technically in force until theCivil War. In 1844 Massachusetts sent Samuel Hoar as a commissioner toCharleston to make a test case of a Negro who had been deprived of hisrights. Hoar cited Article II, Section 2, of the National Constitution("The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges andimmunities of citizens in the several states"), intending ultimately tobring a case before the United States Supreme Court. When he appeared, however, the South Carolina legislature voted that "this agent comeshere not as a citizen of the United States, but as an emissary of aforeign Government hostile to our domestic institutions and with thesole purpose of subverting our internal police. " Hoar was at lengthnotified that his life was in danger and he was forced to leave thestate. Meanwhile Southern sentiment against the American ColonizationSociety had crystallized, and the excitement raised by David Walker's_Appeal_ was exceeded only by that occasioned by Nat Turner'sinsurrection. [Footnote 1: Note McMaster, V, 200-204. ] When, then, the Abolitionists began their campaign the country wasalready ripe for a struggle, and in the North as well as the South therewas plenty of sentiment unfavorable to the Negro. In July, 1831, when anattempt was made to start a manual training school for Negro youth inNew Haven, the citizens at a public meeting declared that "the foundingof colleges for educating colored people is an unwarrantable anddangerous interference with the internal concerns of other states, andought to be discouraged"; and they ultimately forced the project to beabandoned. At Canterbury in the same state Prudence Crandall, a youngQuaker woman twenty-nine years of age, was brought face to face with theproblem when she admitted a Negro girl, Sarah Harris, to her school. [1]When she was boycotted she announced that she would receive Negro girlsonly if no others would attend, and she advertised accordingly in theLiberator. She was subjected to various indignities and efforts weremade to arrest her pupils as vagrants. As she was still undaunted, heropponents, on May 24, 1833, procured a special act of the legislatureforbidding, under severe penalties, the instruction of any Negro fromoutside the state without the consent of the town authorities. Underthis act Miss Crandall was arrested and imprisoned, being confined to acell which had just been vacated by a murderer. The Abolitionists cameto her defense, but she was convicted, and though the higher courtsquashed the proceedings on technicalities, the village shopkeepersrefused to sell her food, manure was thrown into her well, her housewas pelted with rotten eggs and at last demolished, and even themeeting-house in the town was closed to her. The attempt to continue theschool was then abandoned. In 1834 an academy was built by subscriptionin Canaan, N. H. ; it was granted a charter by the legislature, and theproprietors determined to admit all applicants having "suitable moraland intellectual recommendations, without other distinctions. " Thetown-meeting "viewed with abhorrence" the attempt to establish theschool, but when it was opened twenty-eight white and fourteen Negroscholars attended. The town-meeting then ordered that the academy beforcibly removed and appointed a committee to execute the mandate. Accordingly on August 10 three hundred men with two hundred oxenassembled, took the edifice from its place, dragged it for some distanceand left it a ruin. From 1834 to 1836, in fact, throughout the country, from east to west, swept a wave of violence. Not less than twenty-fiveattempts were made to break up anti-slavery meetings. In New York inOctober, 1833, there was a riot in Clinton Hall, and from July 7 to 11of the next year a succession of riots led to the sacking of the houseof Lewis Tappan and the destruction of other houses and churches. WhenGeorge Thompson arrived from England in September, 1834, his meetingswere constantly disturbed, and Garrison himself was mobbed in Boston in1835, being dragged through the streets with a rope around his body. [Footnote 1: Note especially "Connecticut's Canterbury Tale; itsHeroine, Prudence Crandall, and its Moral for To-Day, by John C. Kimball, " Hartford (1886). ] In general the Abolitionists were charged by the South with promotingboth insurrection and the amalgamation of the races. There was no clearproof of these charges; nevertheless, May said, "If we do not emancipateour slaves by our own moral energy, they will emancipate themselves andthat by a process too horrible to contemplate";[1] and Channing said, "Allowing that amalgamation is to be anticipated, then, I maintain, wehave no right to resist it. Then it is not unnatural. "[2] While theSouth grew hysterical at the thought, it was, as Hart remarks, a fairinquiry, which the Abolitionists did not hesitate to put--Who wasresponsible for the only amalgamation that had so far taken place? Aftera few years there was a cleavage among the Abolitionists. Some of themore practical men, like Birney, Gerrit Smith, and the Tappans, whobelieved in fighting through governmental machinery, in 1838 broke awayfrom the others and prepared to take a part in Federal politics. Thiswas the beginning of the Liberty party, which nominated Birney for thepresidency in 1840 and again in 1844. In 1848 it became merged in theFree Soil party and ultimately in the Republican party. [Footnote 1: Hart, 221, citing _Liberator_, V, 59. ] [Footnote 2: Hart, 216, citing Channing, _Works_, V. 57. ] With the forties came division in the Church--a sort of prelude to thegreat events that were to thunder through the country within the nexttwo decades. Could the Church really countenance slavery? Could a bishophold a slave? These were to become burning questions. In 1844-5 theBaptists of the North and East refused to approve the sending out ofmissionaries who owned slaves, and the Southern Baptist Conventionresulted. In 1844, when James O. Andrew came into the possession ofslaves by his marriage to a widow who had these as a legacy from herformer husband, the Northern Methodists refused to grant that one oftheir bishops might hold a slave, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was formally organized in Louisville the following year. ThePresbyterians and the Episcopalians, more aristocratic in tone, did notdivide. The great events of the annexation of Texas, with the Mexican War thatresulted, the Compromise of 1850, with the Fugitive Slave Law, theKansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, and the Dred Scott decision of 1857were all regarded in the North as successive steps in the campaign ofslavery, though now in the perspective they appear as vain efforts tobeat back a resistless tide. In the Mexican War it was freely urged bythe Mexicans that, should the American line break, their host would soonfind itself among the rich cities of the South, where perhaps it couldnot only exact money, but free two million slaves as well, call to itsassistance the Indians, and even draw aid from the Abolitionists in theNorth. [1] Nothing of all this was to be. Out of the academic shadesof Harvard, however, at last came a tongue of flame. In "The PresentCrisis" James Russell Lowell produced lines whose tremendous beat waslike a stern call of the whole country to duty: [Footnote 1: Justin H. Smith: _The War with Mexico_, I, 107. ] Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. * * * * * Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. * * * * * New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our _Mayflower_, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. As "The Present Crisis" came after the Mexican War, so after the newFugitive Slave Law appeared _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ (1852). "When despairingHungarian fugitives make their way, against all the search-warrants andauthorities of their lawful governments, to America, press and politicalcabinet ring with applause and welcome. When despairing Africanfugitives do the same thing--it is--what _is_ it?" asked Harriet BeecherStowe; and in her remarkable book she proceeded to show the injustice ofthe national position. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ has frequently been termeda piece of propaganda that gave an overdrawn picture of Southernconditions. The author, however, had abundant proof for her incidents, and she was quite aware of the fact that the problem of the Negro, Northas well as South, transcended the question of slavery. Said St. Clairto Ophelia: "If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How manyfamilies of your town would take in a Negro man or woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians? How many merchantswould take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if Iwanted to teach him a trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to school, how many schools are there in the Northern states that would take themin?... We are in a bad position. We are the more _obvious_ oppressors ofthe Negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the North is an oppressoralmost equally severe. " Meanwhile the thrilling work of the Underground Railroad was answeredby a practical reopening of the slave-trade. From 1820 to 1840, as theresult of the repressive measure of 1819, the traffic had declined;between 1850 and 1860, however, it was greatly revived, and Southernconventions resolved that all laws, state or Federal, prohibiting theslave-trade, should be repealed. The traffic became more and more openand defiant until, as Stephen A. Douglas computed, as many as 15, 000slaves were brought into the country in 1859. It was not until theLincoln government in 1862 hanged the first trader who ever sufferedthe extreme penalty of the law, and made with Great Britain a treatyembodying the principle of international right of search, that thetrade was effectually checked. By the end of the war it was entirelysuppressed, though as late as 1866 a squadron of ships patrolled theslave coast. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise andproviding for "squatter sovereignty" in the territories in question, outraged the North and led immediately to the forming of the Republicanparty. It was not long before public sentiment began to make itselffelt, and the first demonstration took place in Boston. Anthony Burnswas a slave who escaped from Virginia and made his way to Boston, wherehe was at work in the winter of 1853-4. He was discovered by a UnitedStates marshal who presented a writ for his arrest just at the timeof the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in May, 1854. Public feelingbecame greatly aroused. Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker deliveredstrong addresses at a meeting in Faneuil Hall while an unsuccessfulattempt to rescue Burns from the Court House was made under theleadership of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who with others of theattacking party was wounded. It was finally decided in court that Burnsmust be returned to his master. The law was obeyed; but Boston had beenmade very angry, and generally her feeling had counted for something inthe history of the country. The people draped their houses in mourning, hissed the procession that took Burns to his ship and at the wharf ariot was averted only by a minister's call to prayer. This incident didmore to crystallize Northern sentiment against slavery than any otherexcept the exploit of John Brown, and this was the last time that afugitive slave was taken out of Boston. Burns himself was afterwardsbought by popular subscription, and ultimately became a Baptist ministerin Canada. In 1834 Dr. Emerson, an army officer stationed in Missouri, removed toIllinois, taking with him his slave, Dred Scott. Two years later, againaccompanied by Scott, he went to Minnesota. In Illinois slavery wasprohibited by state law and Minnesota was a free territory. In 1838Emerson returned with Scott to Missouri. After a while the slave raisedthe important question: Had not his residence outside of a slave statemade him a free man? Beaten by his master in 1848, with the aid ofanti-slavery lawyers Scott brought a suit against him for assault andbattery, the circuit court of St. Louis rendering a decision in hisfavor. Emerson appealed and in 1852 the Supreme Court of the statereversed the decision of the lower court. Not long after this Emersonsold Scott to a citizen of New York named Sandford. Scott now broughtsuit against Sandford, on the ground that they were citizens ofdifferent states. The case finally reached the Supreme Court of theUnited States, which in 1857 handed down the decision that Scott was nota citizen of Missouri and had no standing in the Federal courts, thata slave was only a piece of property, and that a master might take hisproperty with impunity to any place within the jurisdiction of theUnited States. The ownership of Scott and his family soon passed to aMassachusetts family by whom they were liberated; but the importantdecision that the case had called forth aroused the most intenseexcitement throughout the country, and somehow out of it all peopleremembered more than anything else the amazing declaration of ChiefJustice Taney that "the Negroes were so far inferior that they hadno rights which the white man was bound to respect. " The extra-legalcharacter and the general fallacy of his position were exposed byJustice Curtis in a masterly dissenting opinion. No one incident of the period showed more clearly the tension underwhich the country was laboring than the assault on Charles Sumner byPreston S. Brooks, a congressional representative from South Carolina. As a result of this regrettable occurrence splendid canes with suchinscriptions as "Hit him again" and "Use knock-down arguments" were sentto Brooks from different parts of the South and he was triumphantlyreëlected by his constituency, while on the other hand resolutionsdenouncing him were passed all over the North, in Canada, and even inEurope. More than ever the South was thrown on the defensive, and inimpassioned speeches Robert Toombs now glorified his state and hissection. Speaking at Emory College in 1853 he had already made anextended apology for slavery;[1] speaking in the Georgia legislature onthe eve of secession he contended that the South had been driven to bayby the Abolitionists and must now "expand or perish. " A writer in the_Southern Literary Messenger_, [2] in an article "The Black Race in NorthAmerica, " made the astonishing statement that "the slavery of the blackrace on this continent is the price America has paid for her liberty, civil and religious, and, humanly speaking, these blessings wouldhave been unattainable without their aid. " Benjamin M. Palmer, adistinguished minister of New Orleans, in a widely quoted sermon in 1860spoke of the peculiar trust that had been given to the South--to be theguardians of the slaves, the conservers of the world's industry, and thedefenders of the cause of religion. [3] "The blooms upon Southern fieldsgathered by black hands have fed the spindles and looms of Manchesterand Birmingham not less than of Lawrence and Lowell. Strike now a blowat this system of labor and the world itself totters at the stroke. Shall we permit that blow to fall? Do we not owe it to civilized man tostand in the breach and stay the uplifted arm?... This trust we willdischarge in the face of the worst possible peril. Though war be theaggregation of all evils, yet, should the madness of the hour appeal tothe arbitration of the sword, we will not shrink even from the baptismof fire.... The position of the South is at this moment sublime. Ifshe has grace given her to know her hour, she will save herself, thecountry, and the world. " [Footnote 1: See "An Oration delivered before the Few and Phi GammaSocieties of Emory College: Slavery in the United States; itsconsistency with republican institutions, and its effects upon the slaveand society. Augusta, Ga. , 1853. "] [Footnote 2: November, 1855. ] [Footnote 3: "The Rights of the South defended in the Pulpits, by B. M. Palmer, D. D. , and W. T. Leacock, D. D. , Mobile, 1860. "] All of this was very earnest and very eloquent, but also very mistaken, and the general fallacy of the South's position was shown by no less aman than he who afterwards became vice-president of the Confederacy. Speaking in the Georgia legislature in opposition to the motion forsecession, Stephens said that the South had no reason to feel aggrieved, for all along she had received more than her share of the nation'sprivileges, and had almost always won in the main that which wasdemanded. She had had sixty years of presidents to the North'stwenty-four; two-thirds of the clerkships and other appointmentsalthough the white population in the section was only one-third thatof the country; fourteen attorneys general to the North's five;and eighteen Supreme Court judges to the North's eleven, althoughfour-fifths of the business of the court originated in the free states. "This, " said Stephens in an astonishing declaration, "we have requiredso as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitutionunfavorable to us. " Still another voice from the South, in a slightly different key, attacked the tendencies in the section. _The Impending Crisis_ (1857), by Hinton Rowan Helper, of North Carolina, was surpassed in sensationalinterest by no other book of the period except _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Theauthor did not place himself upon the broadest principles of humanityand statesmanship; he had no concern for the Negro, and the greatplanters of the South were to him simply the "whelps" and "curs" ofslavery. He spoke merely as the voice of the non-slaveholding white menin the South. He set forth such unpleasant truths as that the personaland real property, including slaves, of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, taken all together, was less than the real and personal estate in the single state of NewYork; that representation in Southern legislatures was unfair; that inCongress a Southern planter was twice as powerful as a Northern man;that slavery was to blame for the migration from the South to the West;and that in short the system was in every way harmful to the man oflimited means. All of this was decidedly unpleasant to the ears of theproperty owners of the South; Helper's book was proscribed, and theauthor himself found it more advisable to live in New York than in hisnative state. _The Impending Crisis_ was eagerly read, however, and itsucceeded as a book because it attempted to attack with some degree ofhonesty a great economic problem. The time for speeches and books, however, was over, and the time foraction had come. For years the slave had chanted, "I've been listenin'all the night long"; and his prayer had reached the throne. On October16, 1859, John Brown made his raid on Harper's Ferry and took his placewith the immortals. In the long and bitter contest on American slaverythe Abolitionists had won. CHAPTER XI SOCIAL PROGRESS, 1820-1860[1] [Footnote 1: This chapter follows closely upon Chapter III, Section 5, and is largely complementary to Chapter VIII. ] So far in our study we have seen the Negro as the object of intereston the part of the American people. Some were disposed to give him ahelping hand, some to keep him in bondage, and some thought that itmight be possible to dispose of any problem by sending him out of thecountry. In all this period of agitation and ferment, aside from theefforts of friends in his behalf, just what was the Negro doing to workout his own salvation? If for the time being we can look primarily atconstructive effort rather than disabilities, just what do we find thaton his own account he was doing to rise to the full stature of manhood? Naturally in the answer to such a question we shall have to be concernedwith those people who had already attained unto nominal freedom. Weshall indeed find many examples of industrious slaves who, working inagreement with their owners, managed sometimes to purchase themselvesand even to secure ownership of their families. Such cases, whileconsiderable in the aggregate, were after all exceptional, and for theordinary slave on the plantation the outlook was hopeless enough. In 1860 the free persons formed just one-ninth of the total Negropopulation in the country, there being 487, 970 of them to 3, 953, 760slaves. It is a commonplace to remark the progress that the race hasmade since emancipation. A study of the facts, however, will show thatwith all their disadvantages less than half a million people had before1860 not only made such progress as amasses a surprising total, but thatthey had already entered every large field of endeavor in which the raceis engaged to-day. When in course of time the status of the Negro in the American bodypolitic became a live issue, the possibility and the danger of an_imperium in imperio_ were perceived; and Rev. James W. C. Pennington, undoubtedly a leader, said in his lectures in London and Glasgow: "Thecolored population of the United States have no destiny separate fromthat of the nation in which they form an integral part. Our destiny isbound up with that of America. Her ship is ours; her pilot is ours; herstorms are ours; her calms are ours. If she breaks upon any rock, webreak with her. If we, born in America, can not live upon the same soilupon terms of equality with the descendants of Scotchmen, Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Greeks, and Poles, then thefundamental theory of America fails and falls to the ground. "[1] Whileeverybody was practically agreed upon this fundamental matter of therelation of the race to the Federal Government, more and more theredeveloped two lines of thought, equally honest, as to the means by whichthe race itself was to attain unto the highest things that Americancivilization had to offer. The leader of one school of thought wasRichard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Whenthis man and his friends found that in white churches they were nottreated with courtesy, they said, We shall have our own church; we shallhave our own bishop; we shall build up our own enterprises in any linewhatsoever; and even to-day the church that Allen founded remains asthe greatest single effort of the race in organization. The foremostrepresentative of the opposing line of thought was undoubtedly FrederickDouglass, who in a speech in Rochester in 1848 said: "I am well aware ofthe anti-Christian prejudices which have excluded many colored personsfrom white churches, and the consequent necessity for erecting their ownplaces of worship. This evil I would charge upon its originators, andnot the colored people. But such a necessity does not now exist to theextent of former years. There are societies where color is not regardedas a test of membership, and such places I deem more appropriate forcolored persons than exclusive or isolated organizations. " There is muchmore difference between these two positions than can be accounted for bythe mere lapse of forty years between the height of the work of Allenand that of Douglass. Allen certainly did not sanction segregation underthe law, and no man worked harder than he to relieve his people fromproscription. Douglass moreover, who did not formally approve oforganizations that represented any such distinction as that of race, again and again presided over gatherings of Negro men. In the lastanalysis, however, it was Allen who was foremost in laying the basisof distinctively Negro enterprise, and Douglass who felt that the realsolution of any difficulty was for the race to lose itself as quickly aspossible in the general body politic. [Footnote 1: Nell: _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_, 356. ] We have seen that the Church was from the first the race's foremost formof social organization, and that sometimes in very close touch withit developed the early lodges of such a body as the Masons. By 1800emancipation was well under way; then began emigration from the Southto the central West; emigration brought into being the UndergroundRailroad; and finally all forces worked together for the development ofNegro business, the press, conventions, and other forms of activity. Itwas natural that states so close to the border as Pennsylvania and Ohioshould be important in this early development. The Church continued the growth that it had begun several decadesbefore. The A. M. E. Denomination advanced rapidly from 7 churches and 400members in 1816 to 286 churches and 73, 000 members by the close of theCivil War. Naturally such a distinctively Negro organization couldmake little progress in the South before the war, but there were smallcongregations in Charleston and New Orleans, and William Paul Quinnblazed a path in the West, going from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. In 1847 the Prince Hall Lodge of the Masons in Massachusetts, the FirstIndependent African Grand Lodge in Pennsylvania, and the Hiram GrandLodge of Pennsylvania formed a National Grand Lodge, and from one oranother of these all other Grand Lodges among Negroes have descended. In1842 the members of the Philomathean Institute of New York and of thePhiladelphia Library Company and Debating Society applied for admissionto the International Order of Odd Fellows. They were refused on accountof their race. Thereupon Peter Ogden, a Negro, who had already joinedthe Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of England, secured a charter forthe first Negro American lodge, Philomathean, No. 646, of New York, which was set up March 1, 1843. It was followed within the next twoyears by lodges in New York, Philadelphia, Albany, and Poughkeepsie. TheKnights of Pythias were not organized until 1864 in Washington; but theGrand Order of Galilean Fishermen started on its career in Baltimore in1856. The benefit societies developed apace. At first they were small andconfined to a group of persons well known to each other, thus beinggenuinely fraternal. Simple in form, they imposed an initiation fee ofhardly less than $2. 50 or more than $5. 00, a monthly fee of about 50cents, and gave sick dues ranging from $1. 50 to $5. 00 a month, withguarantee of payment of one's funeral expenses and subsequent help tothe widow. By 1838 there were in Philadelphia alone 100 such groups with7, 448 members. As bringing together spirits supposedly congenial, theseorganizations largely took the place of clubs, and the meetings wererelished accordingly. Some drifted into secret societies, and after theCivil War some that had not cultivated the idea of insurance were forcedto add this feature to their work. In the sphere of civil rights the Negroes, in spite of circumstances, were making progress, and that by their own efforts as well as thoseof their friends the Abolitionists. Their papers helped decidedly. The_Journal of Freedom_ (commonly known as _Freedom's Journal_), begunMarch 30, 1827, ran for three years. It had numerous successors, butno one of outstanding strength before the _North Star_ (later known as_Frederick Douglass' Paper_) began publication in 1847, continuinguntil the Civil War. Largely through the effort of Paul Cuffe for thefranchise, New Bedford, Mass. , was generally prominent in all that madefor racial prosperity. Here even by 1850 the Negro voters held thebalance of power and accordingly exerted a potent influence on Electionday. [1] Under date March 6, 1840, there was brought up for repeal somuch of the Massachusetts Statutes as forbade intermarriage betweenwhite persons and Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, as "contrary to theprinciples of Christianity and republicanism. " The committee said thatit did not recommend a repeal in the expectation that the number ofconnections, legal or illegal, between the races would be thereuponincreased; but its object rather was that wherever such connections werefound the usual civil liabilities and obligations should not fail toattach to the contracting parties. The enactment was repealed. In thesame state, by January, 1843, an act forbidding discriminationon railroads was passed. This grew out of separate petitions orremonstrances from Francis Jackson and Joseph Nunn, each man beingsupported by friends, and the petitioners based their request "not onthe supposition that the colored man is not as well treated as his whitefellow-citizen, but on the broad principle that the constitution allowsno distinction in public privileges among the different classes ofcitizens in this commonwealth. "[2] In New York City an interestingcase arose over the question of public conveyances. When about 1852horse-cars began to supersede omnibuses on the streets, the Negro wasexcluded from the use of them, and he continued to be excluded until1855, when a decision of Judge Rockwell gave him the right to enterthem. The decision was ignored and the Negro continued to be excluded asbefore. One Sunday in May, however, Rev. James W. C. Pennington, afterservice, reminded his hearers of Judge Rockwell's decision, urged themto stand up for their rights, and especially to inform any friends whomight visit the city during the coming anniversary week that Negroeswere no longer excluded from the street cars. He himself then boarded acar on Sixth Avenue, refused to leave when requested to do so, and wasforcibly ejected. He brought suit against the company and won his case;and thus the Negro made further advance toward full citizenship in NewYork. [3] [Footnote 1: Nell, III. ] [Footnote 2: Senate document 63 of 1842. ] [Footnote 3: McMaster, VIII, 74. ] Thus was the Negro developing in religious organization, in his benefitsocieties, and toward his rights as a citizen. When we look at theeconomic life upon which so much depended, we find that rather amazingprogress had been made. Doors were so often closed to the Negro, competing white artisans were so often openly hostile, and he himselflabored under so many disadvantages generally that it has often beenthought that his economic advance before 1860 was negligible; butnothing could be farther from the truth. It must not be forgotten thatfor decades the South had depended upon Negro men for whatever was tobe done in all ordinary trades; some brick-masons, carpenters, andshoemakers had served a long apprenticeship and were thoroughlyaccomplished; and when some of the more enterprising of these menremoved to the North or West they took their training with them. Veryfew persons became paupers. Certainly many were destitute, especiallythose who had most recently made their way from slavery; and in generalthe colored people cared for their own poor. In 1852, of 3500 Negroes inCincinnati, 200 were holders of property who paid taxes on their realestate. [1] In 1855 the Negro per capita ownership of property comparedmost favorably with that of the white people. Altogether the Negroesowned $800, 000 worth of property in the city and $5, 000, 000 worth in thestate. In the city there were among other workers three bank tellers, a landscape artist who had visited Rome to complete his education, andnine daguerreotypists, one of whom was the best in the entire West. [2]Of 1696 Negroes at work in Philadelphia in 1856, some of the moreimportant occupations numbered workers as follows: tailors, dressmakers, and shirtmakers, 615; barbers, 248; shoemakers, 66; brickmakers, 53;carpenters, 49; milliners, 45; tanners, 24; cake-bakers, pastry-cooks, or confectioners, 22; blacksmiths, 22. There were also 15 musicians ormusic-teachers, 6 physicians, and 16 school-teachers. [3] The foremostand the most wealthy man of business of the race in the country about1850 was Stephen Smith, of the firm of Smith and Whipper, of Columbia, Pa. [4] He and his partner were lumber merchants. Smith was a man of wideinterests. He invested his capital judiciously, engaging in real estateand spending much of his time in Philadelphia, where he owned more thanfifty brick houses, while Whipper, a relative, attended to the businessof the firm. Together these men gave employment to a large number ofpersons. Of similar quality was Samuel T. Wilcox, of Cincinnati, theowner of a large grocery business who also engaged in real estate. HenryBoyd, of Cincinnati, was the proprietor of a bedstead manufactory thatfilled numerous orders from the South and West and that sometimesemployed as many as twenty-five men, half of whom were white. Sometimesthrough an humble occupation a Negro rose to competence; thus one of theeighteen hucksters in Cincinnati became the owner of $20, 000 worth ofproperty. Here and there several caterers and tailors became known ashaving the best places in their line of business in their respectivetowns. John Julius, of Pittsburgh, was the proprietor of a brilliantplace known as Concert Hall. When President-elect William Henry Harrisonin 1840 visited the city it was here that his chief reception was held. Cordovell became widely known as the name of the leading tailor andoriginator of fashions in New Orleans. After several years of success inbusiness this merchant removed to France, where he enjoyed the fortunethat he had accumulated. [Footnote 1: Clarke: _Condition of the Free Colored People of the UnitedStates_. ] [Footnote 2: Nell, 285. ] [Footnote 3: Bacon: _Statistics_, 13. ] [Footnote 4: Delany. ] Cordovell was representative of the advance of the people of mixed bloodin the South. The general status of these people was better in Louisianathan anywhere else in the country, North or South; at the same timetheir situation was such as to call for special consideration. InLouisiana the "F. M. C. " (Free Man of Color) formed a distinct andanomalous class in society. [1] As a free man he had certain rights, andsometimes his property holdings were very large. [2] In fact, in NewOrleans a few years before the Civil War not less than one-fifth of thetaxable property was in the hands of free people of color. At the sametime the lot of these people was one of endless humiliation. Among someof them irregular household establishments were regularly maintained bywhite men, and there were held the "quadroon balls" which in course oftime gave the city a distinct notoriety. Above the people of this group, however, was a genuine aristocracy of free people of color who had along tradition of freedom, being descended from the early colonists, and whose family life was most exemplary. In general they lived tothemselves. In fact, it was difficult for them to do otherwise. Theywere often compelled to have papers filled out by white guardians, andthey were not allowed to be visited by slaves or to have companionshipwith them, even when attending church or walking along the roads. Sometimes free colored men owned their women and children in order thatthe latter might escape the invidious law against Negroes recentlyemancipated; or the situation was sometimes turned around, as inNorfolk, Va. , where several women owned their husbands. When the nameof a free man of color had to appear on any formal document--a deed ofconveyance, a marriage-license, a certificate of birth or death, oreven in a newspaper report--the initials F. M. C. Had to be appended. InLouisiana these people petitioned in vain for the suffrage, and at theoutbreak of the Civil War organized and splendidly equipped for theConfederacy two battalions of five hundred men. For these they chosetwo distinguished white commanders, and the governor accepted theirservices, only to have to inform them later that the Confederacyobjected to the enrolling of Negro soldiers. In Charleston thirty-sevenmen in a remarkable petition also formally offered their services to theConfederacy. [3] What most readily found illustration in New Orleans orCharleston was also true to some extent of other centers of free peopleof color such as Mobile and Baltimore. In general the F. M. C. 'swere industrious and they almost monopolized one or two avenues ofemployment; but as a group they had not yet learned to place themselvesupon the broad basis of racial aspiration. [Footnote 1: See "The F. M. C. 's of Louisiana, " by P. F. De Gournay, _Lippincott's Magazine_, April, 1894; and "Black Masters, " by CalvinDill Wilson, _North American Review_, November, 1905. ] [Footnote 2: See Stone: "The Negro in the South, " in _The South in theBuilding of the Nation_, X, 180. ] [Footnote 3: Note broadside (Charleston, 1861) accessible in SpecialLibrary of Boston Public Library as Document No. 9 in 20th Cab. 3. 7. ] Whatever may have been the situation of special groups, however, it canreadily be seen that there were at least some Negroes in the country--agood many in the aggregate--who by 1860 were maintaining a high standardin their ordinary social life. It must not be forgotten that we aredealing with a period when the general standard of American culture wasby no means what it is to-day. "Four-fifths of the people of the UnitedStates of 1860 lived in the country, and it is perhaps fair to say thathalf of these dwelt in log houses of one or two rooms. Comforts suchas most of us enjoy daily were as good as unknown.... For the workadayworld shirtsleeves, heavy brogan boots and shoes, and rough wool hatswere the rule. "[1] In Philadelphia, a fairly representative city, there were at this time a considerable number of Negroes of means orprofessional standing. These people were regularly hospitable; theyvisited frequently; and they entertained in well furnished parlors withmusic and refreshments. In a day when many of their people had notyet learned to get beyond showiness in dress, they were temperate andself-restrained, they lived within their incomes, and they retired at aseasonable hour. [2] [Footnote 1: W. E. Dodd: _Expansion and Conflict_, Volume 3 of "RiversideHistory of the United States, " Houghton Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1915, p. 208. ] [Footnote 2: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 140. ] In spite moreover of all the laws and disadvantages that they had tomeet the Negroes also made general advance in education. In the Southefforts were of course sporadic, but Negroes received some teachingthrough private or clandestine sources. [1] More than one slave learnedthe alphabet while entertaining the son of his master. In Charlestonfor a long time before the Civil War free Negroes could attend schoolsespecially designed for their benefit and kept by white people or otherNegroes. The course of study not infrequently embraced such subjects asphysiology, physics, and plane geometry. After John Brown's raid theorder went forth that no longer should any colored person teach Negroes. This resulted in a white person's being brought to sit in the classroom, though at the outbreak of the war schools were closed altogether. In theNorth, in spite of all proscription, conditions were somewhat better. Asearly as 1850 there were in the public schools in New York 3, 393 Negrochildren, these sustaining about the same proportion to the Negropopulation that white children sustained to the total white population. Two institutions for the higher education of the Negro were establishedbefore the Civil War, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1854) andWilberforce University in Ohio (1856). Oberlin moreover was founded in1833. In 1835 Professor Asa Mahan, of Lane Seminary, was offered thepresidency. As he was an Abolitionist he said that he would accept onlyif Negroes were admitted on equal terms with other students. After awarm session of the trustees the vote was in his favor. Though, beforethis, individual Negroes had found their way into Northern institutions, it was here at Oberlin that they first received a real welcome. By theoutbreak of the war nearly one-third of the students were of the Negrorace, and one of the graduates, John M. Langston, was soon to begenerally prominent in the affairs of the country. [Footnote 1: For interesting examples see C. G. Woodson: _The Educationof the Negro prior to 1861_. ] It has been maintained that in their emphasis on education and on thehighest culture possible for the Negro the Abolitionists were merevisionaries who had no practical knowledge whatever of the race's realneeds. This was neither true nor just. It was absolutely necessary firstof all to establish the Negro's right to enter any field occupied by anyother man, and time has vindicated this position. Even in 1850, however, the needs of the majority of the Negro people for advance in theireconomic life were not overlooked either by the Abolitionists or theNegroes themselves. Said Martin V. Delany: "Our elevation must be theresult of _self-efforts_, and work of our _own hands_. No other humanpower can accomplish it.... Let our young men and young women preparethemselves for usefulness and business; that the men may enter intomerchandise, trading, and other things of importance; the young womenmay become teachers of various kinds, and otherwise fill places ofusefulness. Parents must turn their attention more to the education oftheir children. We mean, to educate them for useful practical businesspurposes. Educate them for the store and counting-house--to do everydaypractical business. Consult the children's propensities, and directtheir education according to their inclinations. It may be that thereis too great a desire on the part of parents to give their children aprofessional education, before the body of the people are ready for it. A people must be a business people and have more to depend upon thanmere help in people's houses and hotels, before they are either able tosupport or capable of properly appreciating the services of professionalmen among them. This has been one of our great mistakes--we have gonein advance of ourselves. We have commenced at the superstructure of thebuilding, instead of the foundation--at the top instead of the bottom. We should first be mechanics and common tradesmen, and professions as amatter of course would grow out of the wealth made thereby. "[1] [Footnote 1: _The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny ofthe Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered_, Philadelphia, 1852, P. 45. ] In professional life the Negro had by 1860 made a noteworthy beginning. Already he had been forced to give attention to the law, though as yetlittle by way of actual practice had been done. In this field RobertMorris, Jr. , of Boston, was probably foremost. William C. Nell, ofRochester and Boston, at the time prominent in newspaper work andpolitics, is now best remembered for his study of the Negro in the earlywars of the country. About the middle of the century Samuel RinggoldWard, author of the _Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro_, and one of themost eloquent men of the time, was for several years pastor of a whiteCongregational church in Courtlandville, N. Y. ; and Henry HighlandGarnett was the pastor of a white congregation in Troy, and well knownas a public-spirited citizen as well. Upon James W. C. Pennington thedegree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by Heidelberg, and generallythis man had a reputation in England and on the continent of Europe aswell as in America. About the same time Bishops Daniel A. Payne andWilliam Paul Quinn were adding to the dignity of the African MethodistEpiscopal Church. Special interest attaches to the Negro physician. Even in colonialtimes, though there was much emphasis on the control of diseases byroots or charms, there was at least a beginning in work genuinelyscientific. As early as 1792 a Negro named Cæsar had gained suchdistinction by his knowledge of curative herbs that the Assembly ofSouth Carolina purchased his freedom and gave him an annuity. In theearlier years of the last century James Derham, of New Orleans, becamethe first regularly recognized Negro physician of whom there isa complete record. Born in Philadelphia in 1762, as a boy he wastransferred to a physician for whom he learned to perform minor duties. Afterwards he was sold to a physician in New Orleans who used him asan assistant. Two or three years later he won his freedom, he becamefamiliar with French and Spanish as well as English, and he sooncommanded general respect by his learning and skill. About the middleof the century, in New York, James McCune Smith, a graduate of theUniversity of Glasgow, was prominent. He was the author of severalscientific papers, a man of wide interests, and universally held in highesteem. "The first real impetus to bring Negroes in considerable numbersinto the professional world came from the American Colonization Society, which in the early years flourished in the South as well as the North... And undertook to prepare professional leaders of their race for theLiberian colony. 'To execute this scheme, leaders of the colonizationmovement endeavored to educate Negroes in mechanic arts, agriculture, science, and Biblical literature. Especially bright or promising youthswere to be given special training as catechists, teachers, preachers, and physicians. Not much was said about what they were doing, but nowand then appeared notices of Negroes who had been prepared privately inthe South or publicly in the North for service in Liberia. Dr. WilliamTaylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in the District of Columbia. Inthe same way John V. De Grasse, of New York, and Thomas J. White, ofBrooklyn, were allowed to complete the medical course at Bowdoinin 1849. In 1854 Dr. De Grasse was admitted as a member of theMassachusetts Medical Society. '"[1] Martin V. Delany, more than oncereferred to in these pages, after being refused admission at a number ofinstitutions, was admitted to the medical school at Harvard. He becamedistinguished for his work in a cholera epidemic in Pittsburgh in 1854. It was of course not until after the Civil War that medical departmentswere established in connection with some of the new higher institutionsof learning for Negro students. [Footnote 1: Kelly Miller: "The Background of the Negro Physician, "_Journal of Negro History_, April, 1916, quoting in part Woodson: _TheEducation of the Negro prior to 1861_. ] Before 1860 a situation that arose more than once took from Negroes thereal credit for inventions. If a slave made an invention he was notpermitted to take out a patent, for no slave could make a contract. Atthe same time the slave's master could not take out a patent for him, for the Government would not recognize the slave as having the legalright to make the assignment to his master. It is certain that Negroes, who did most of the mechanical work in the South before the Civil War, made more than one suggestion for the improvement of machinery. We havealready referred to the strong claim put forth by a member of the racefor the real credit of the cotton-gin. The honor of being the firstNegro to be granted a patent belongs to Henry Blair, of Maryland, who in1834 received official protection for a corn harvester. Throughout the century there were numerous attempts at poeticalcomposition, and several booklets were published. Perhaps the mostpromising was George Horton's _The Hope of Liberty_, which appeared in1829. Unfortunately, Horton could not get the encouragement that heneeded and in course of time settled down to the life of a janitor atthe University of North Carolina. [1] Six years before the war FrancesEllen Watkins (later Mrs. Harper) struck the popular note by readingsfrom her _Miscellaneous Poems_, which ran through several editions. About the same time William Wells Brown was prominent, though he alsoworked for several years after the war. He was a man of decided talentand had traveled considerably. He wrote several books dealing with Negrohistory and biography; and he also treated racial subjects in a novel, _Clotel_, and in a drama, _The Escape_. The latter suffers from anexcess of moralizing, but several times it flashes out with the qualityof genuine drama, especially when it deals with the jealousy of amistress for a favorite slave and the escape of the latter with herhusband. In 1841 the first Negro magazine began to appear, this beingissued by the A. M. E. Church. There were numerous autobiographies, thatof Frederick Douglass, first appearing in 1845, running through editionafter edition. On the stage there was the astonishing success of IraAldridge, a tragedian who in his earlier years went to Europe, where hehad the advantage of association with Edmund Kean. About 1857 he wascommonly regarded as one of the two or three greatest actors in theworld. He became a member of several of the continental academies ofarts and science, and received many decorations of crosses and medals, the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia being amongthose who honored him. In the great field of music there was muchexcellent work both in composition and in the performance on differentinstruments. Among the free people of color in Louisiana there wereseveral distinguished musicians, some of whom removed to Europe for thesake of greater freedom. [2] The highest individual achievement was thatof Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, of Philadelphia. This singer was of thevery first rank. Her voice was of remarkable sweetness and had a compassof twenty-seven notes. She sang before many distinguished audiences inboth Europe and America and was frequently compared with Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame. [Footnote 1: See "George Moses Horton: Slave Poet, " by Stephen B. Weeks, _Southern Workman_, October, 1914. ] [Footnote 2: See Washington: _The Story of the Negro_, II, 276-7. ] It is thus evident that honorable achievement on the part of Negroesand general advance in social welfare by no means began with theEmancipation Proclamation. In 1860 eight-ninths of the members of therace were still slaves, but in the face of every possible handicap theone-ninth that was free had entered practically every great field ofhuman endeavor. Many were respected citizens in their communities, and afew had even laid the foundations of wealth. While there was as yetno book of unquestioned genius or scholarship, there was considerableintellectual activity, and only time and a little more freedom fromeconomic pressure were needed for the production of works of the firstorder of merit. CHAPTER XII THE CIVIL WAR AND EMANCIPATION At the outbreak of the Civil War two great questions affecting the Negroovershadowed all others--his freedom and his employment as a soldier. The North as a whole had no special enthusiasm about the Negro andresponded only to Lincoln's call to the duty of saving the Union. Amongboth officers and men moreover there was great prejudice against the useof the Negro as a soldier, the feeling being that he was disqualifiedby slavery and ignorance. Privates objected to meeting black men on thesame footing as themselves and also felt that the arming of slaves tofight for their former masters would increase the bitterness of theconflict. If many men in the North felt thus, the South was furious atthe thought of the Negro as a possible opponent in arms. The human problem, however, was not long in presenting itself andforcing attention. As soon as the Northern soldiers appeared in theSouth, thousands of Negroes--men, women, and children--flocked to theircamps, feeling only that they were going to their friends. In May, 1861, while in command at Fortress Monroe, Major-General Benjamin F. Butlercame into national prominence by his policy of putting to work the menwho came within his lines and justifying their retention on the groundthat, being of service to the enemy for purposes of war, they were likeguns, powder, etc. , "contraband of war, " and could not be reclaimed. OnAugust 30th of this same year Major-General John C. Fremont, in commandin Missouri, placed the state under martial law and declared the slavesthere emancipated. The administration was embarrassed, Fremont's orderwas annulled, and he was relieved of his command. On May 9, 1862, Major-General David Hunter, in charge of the Department of the South(South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) issued his famous order freeingthe slaves in his department, and thus brought to general attention thematter of the employment of Negro soldiers in the Union armies. TheConfederate government outlawed Hunter, Lincoln annulled his order, and the grace of the nation was again saved; but in the meantime a newsituation had arisen. While Brigadier-General John W. Phelps was takingpart in the expedition against New Orleans, a large sugar-planter nearthe city, disgusted with Federal interference with affairs on hisplantation, drove all his slaves away, telling them to go to theirfriends, the Yankees. The Negroes came to Phelps in great numbers, andfor the sake of discipline he attempted to organize them into troops. Accordingly he, too, was outlawed by the Confederates, and his act wasdisavowed by the Union, that was not ready to take this step. Meanwhile President Lincoln was debating the Emancipation Proclamation. Pressure from radical anti-slavery sources was constantly being broughtto bear upon him, and Horace Greeley in his famous editorial, "ThePrayer of Twenty Millions, " was only one of those who criticized whatseemed to be his lack of strength in handling the situation. AfterMcClellan's unsuccessful campaign against Richmond, however, he feltthat the freedom of the slaves was a military and moral necessity forits effects upon both the North and the South; and Lee's defeat atAntietam, September 17, 1862, furnished the opportunity for which hehad been waiting. Accordingly on September 22nd he issued a preliminarydeclaration giving notice that on January 1, 1865, he would free allslaves in the states still in rebellion, and asserting as before thatthe object of the war was the preservation of the Union. The Proclamation as finally issued January 1st is one of the mostimportant public documents in the history of the United States, rankingonly below the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself. It full text is as follows: Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States containing among other things the following, to-wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the date first above mentioned, order and designate as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following to-wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are and henceforward shall be free, and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. It will be observed that the Proclamation was merely a war measureresting on the constitutional power of the President. Its effects on thelegal status of the slaves gave rise to much discussion; and it is tobe noted that it did not apply to what is now West Virginia, to sevencounties in Virginia, and to thirteen parishes in Louisiana, whichdistricts had already come under Federal jurisdiction. All questionsraised by the measure, however, were finally settled by the ThirteenthAmendment to the Constitution, and as a matter of fact freedom actuallyfollowed the progress of the Union arms from 1863 to 1865. Meanwhile from the very beginning of the war Negroes were used by theConfederates in making redoubts and in doing other rough work, and evenbefore the Emancipation Proclamation there were many Northern officerswho said that definite enlistment was advisable. They felt that such acourse would help to destroy slavery and that as the Negroes had so muchat stake they should have some share in the overthrow of the rebellion. They said also that the men would be proud to wear the national uniform. Individuals moreover as officers' servants saw much of fighting and wonconfidence in their ability; and as the war advanced and more and moremen were killed the conviction grew that a Negro could stop a bullet aswell as a white man and that in any case the use of Negroes for fatiguework would release numbers of other men for the actual fighting. At last--after a great many men had been killed and the EmancipationProclamation had changed the status of the Negro--enlistment was decidedon. The policy was that Negroes might be non-commissioned men whilewhite men who had seen service would be field and line officers. Ingeneral it was expected that only those who had kindly feeling towardthe Negro would be used as officers, but in the pressure of militaryroutine this distinction was not always observed. Opinion for the racegained force after the Draft Riot in New York (July, 1863), when Negroesin the city were persecuted by the opponents of conscription. Soon adistinct bureau was established in Washington for the recording ofall matters pertaining to Negro troops, a board was organized for theexamination of candidates, and recruiting stations were set up inMaryland, Missouri, and Tennessee. The Confederates were indignant atthe thought of having to meet black men on equal footing, and refusedto exchange Negro soldiers for white men. How such action was met byStanton, Secretary of War, may be seen from the fact that when helearned that three Negro prisoners had been placed in close confinement, he ordered three South Carolina men to be treated likewise, and theConfederate leaders to be informed of his policy. The economic advantage of enlistment was apparent. It gave work to187, 000 men who had been cast adrift by the war and who had found noplace of independent labor. It gave them food, clothing, wages, andprotection, but most of all the feeling of self-respect that comes fromprofitable employment. To the men themselves the year of jubilee hadcome. At one great step they had crossed the gulf that separateschattels from men and they now had a chance to vindicate their manhood. A common poster of the day represented a Negro soldier bearing theflag, the shackles of a slave being broken, a young Negro boy readinga newspaper, and several children going into a public school. Overall were the words: "All Slaves were made Freemen by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, January 1st, 1863. Come, then, able-bodied Colored Men, to the nearest United States Camp, and fightfor the Stars and Stripes. " To the credit of the men be it said that in their new position theyacted with dignity and sobriety. When they picketed lines through whichSouthern citizens passed, they acted with courtesy at the same time thatthey did their duty. They captured Southern men without insulting them, and by their own self-respect won the respect of others. Meanwhile theirbrothers in the South went about the day's work, caring for the widowand the orphan; and a nation that still lynches the Negro has toremember that in all these troublous years deeds of violence againstwhite women and girls were absolutely unknown. Throughout the country the behavior of the black men under fire waswatched with the most intense interest. More and more in the baptism ofblood they justified the faith for which their friends had fought foryears. At Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, Fort Pillow, and Petersburg theircourage was most distinguished. Said the New York _Times_ of the battleat Port Hudson (1863): "General Dwight, at least, must have had the ideanot only that they (the Negro troops) were men, but something more thanmen, from the terrific test to which he put their valor.... Their colorsare torn to pieces by shot, and literally bespattered by blood andbrains. " This was the occasion on which Color-Sergeant AnselmasPlanciancois said before a shell blew off his head, "Colonel, I willbring back these colors to you on honor, or report to God the reasonwhy. " On June 6 the Negroes again distinguished themselves andwon friends by their bravery at Milliken's Bend. The Fifty-fourthMassachusetts, commanded by Robert Gould Shaw, was conspicuous in theattempt to take Fort Wagner, on Morris Island near Charleston, July 18, 1863. The regiment had marched two days and two nights through swampsand drenching rains in order to be in time for the assault. In theengagement nearly all the officers of the regiment were killed, amongthem Colonel Shaw. The picturesque deed was that of Sergeant William H. Carney, who seized the regiment's colors from the hands of a fallingcomrade, planted the flag on the works, and said when borne bleeding andmangled from the field, "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground. "Fort Pillow, a position on the Mississippi, about fifty miles aboveMemphis, was garrisoned by 557 men, 262 of whom were Negroes, whenit was attacked April 13, 1864. The fort was finally taken by theConfederates, but the feature of the engagement was the stubbornresistance offered by the Union troops in the face of great odds. In theMississippi Valley, and in the Department of the South, the Negro hadnow done excellent work as a soldier. In the spring of 1864 he made hisappearance in the Army of the Potomac. In July there was around Richmondand Petersburg considerable skirmishing between the Federal and theConfederate forces. Burnside, commanding a corps composed partly ofNegroes, dug under a Confederate fort a trench a hundred and fifty yardslong. This was filled with explosives, and on July 30 the match wasapplied and the famous crater formed. Just before the explosion theNegroes had figured in a gallant charge on the Confederates. The planwas to follow the eruption by a still more formidable assault, in whichBurnside wanted to give his Negro troops the lead. A dispute about thisand a settlement by lot resulted in the awarding of precedence to a NewHampshire regiment. Said General Grant later of the whole unfortunateepisode: "General Burnside wanted to put his colored division in front;I believe if he had done so it would have been a success. " After the menof a Negro regiment had charged and taken a battery at Decatur, Ala. , inOctober, 1864, and shown exceptional gallantry under fire, they receivedan ovation from their white comrades "who by thousands sprang upon theparapets and cheered the regiment as it reëntered the lines. "[1] [Footnote 1: General Thomas J. Morgan: "The Negroes in the Civil War, "in the _Baptist Home Mission Monthly_, quoted in _Liberia_, Bulletin 12, February, 1898. General Morgan in October, 1863, became a major in theFourteenth United States Colored Infantry. He organized the regiment andbecame its colonel. He also organized the Forty-second and Forty-fourthregiments of colored infantry. ] When all was over there was in the North a spontaneous recognition ofthe right of such men to honorable and generous treatment at the handsof the nation, and in Congress there was the feeling that if the Southcould come back to the Union with its autonomy unimpaired, certainlythe Negro soldier should have the rights of citizenship. Before the warclosed, however, there was held in Syracuse, N. Y. , a convention of Negromen that threw interesting light on the problems and the feeling ofthe period. [1] At this gathering John Mercer Langston was temporarychairman, Frederick Douglass, president, and Henry Highland Garnett, ofWashington; James W. C. Pennington, of New York; George L. Ruffin, ofBoston, and Ebenezer D. Bassett, of Philadelphia, were among the moreprominent delegates. There was at the meeting a fear that some of thethings that seemed to have been gained by the war might not actually berealized; and as Congress had not yet altered the Constitution so as toabolish slavery, grave question was raised by a recent speech in whichno less a man than Seward, Secretary of State, had said: "When theinsurgents shall have abandoned their armies and laid down their arms, the war will instantly cease; and all the war measures then existing, including those which affect slavery, will cease also. " The conventionthanked the President and the Thirty-Seventh Congress for revoking aprohibitory law in regard to the carrying of mails by Negroes, forabolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, for recognizing Haytiand Liberia, and for the military order retaliating for the unmilitarytreatment accorded Negro soldiers by the Confederate officers; andespecially it thanked Senator Sumner "for his noble efforts to cleansethe statute-books of the nation from every stain of inequality againstcolored men, " and General Butler for the stand he had taken early in thewar. At the same time it resolved to send a petition to Congress toask that the rights of the country's Negro patriots in the field berespected, and that the Government cease to set an example to those inarms against it by making invidious distinctions, based upon color, asto pay, labor, and promotion. It begged especially to be saved fromsupposed friends: "When the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, representing theAmerican Anti-Slavery Society, denies that the society asks for theenfranchisement of colored men, and the _Liberator_ apologizes forexcluding the colored men of Louisiana from the ballot-box, they injureus more vitally than all the ribald jests of the whole pro-slaverypress. " Finally the convention insisted that any such things as theright to own real estate, to testify in courts of law, and to sue andbe sued, were mere privileges so long as general political libertywas withheld, and asked frankly not only for the formal and completeabolition of slavery in the United States, but also for the electivefranchise in all the states then in the Union and in all that might comeinto the Union thereafter. On the whole this representative gatheringshowed a very clear conception of the problems facing the Negro and thecountry in 1864. Its reference to well-known anti-slavery publicationsshows not only the increasing race consciousness that came through thisas through all other wars in which the country has engaged, but also thegreat drift toward conservatism that had taken place in the North withinthirty years. [Footnote 1: See Proceedings of the National Convention of Colored Men, held in the city of Syracuse, N. Y. , October 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1864, withthe Bill of Wrongs and Rights, and the Address to the American People. Boston, 1864. ] Whatever might be the questions of the moment, however, about thesupreme blessing of freedom there could at last be no doubt. It had beenlong delayed and had finally come merely as an incident to the war;nevertheless a whole race of people had passed from death unto life. Then, as before and since, they found a parallel for their experiencesin the story of the Jews in the Old Testament. They, too, had sojournedin Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. What they could not then see, or onlydimly realize, was that they needed faith--faith in God and faith inthemselves--for the forty years in the wilderness. They did not yetfully know that He who guided the children of Israel and drove outbefore them the Amorite and the Hittite, would bring them also to thePromised Land. * * * * * To those who led the Negro in these wonderful years--to Robert GouldShaw, the young colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, whodied leading his men at Fort Wagner; to Norwood Penrose Hallowell, lieutenant-colonel of the Fifty-Fourth and then colonel of theFifty-Fifth; to his brother, Edward N. Hallowell, who succeeded Shawwhen he fell; and to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who commanded the firstregiment of freed slaves--no ordinary eulogy can apply. Their names arewritten in letters of flame and their deeds live after them. On the ShawMonument in Boston are written these words: The White Officers Taking Life and Honor in their Hands--Cast their lot with Men of a Despised Race Unproved in War--and Risked Death as Inciters of a Servile Insurrection if Taken Prisoners, Besides Encountering all the Common Perils of Camp, March, and Battle. The Black Rank and File Volunteered when Disaster Clouded the Union Cause--Served without Pay for Eighteen Months till Given that of White Troops--Faced Threatened Enslavement if Captured--Were Brave in Action--Patient under Dangerous and Heavy Labors and Cheerful amid Hardships and Privations. Together They Gave to the Nation Undying Proof that Americans of African Descent Possess the Pride, Courage, and Devotion of the Patriot Soldier--One Hundred and Eighty Thousand Such Americans Enlisted under the Union Flag in MDCCCLXIII-MDCCCLXV. CHAPTER XIII THE ERA OF ENFRANCHISEMENT 1. _The Problem_ At the close of the Civil War the United States found itself face toface with one of the gravest social problems of modern times. More andmore it became apparent that it was not only the technical question ofthe restoration of the states to the Union that had to be considered, but the whole adjustment for the future of the lives of three and a halfmillion Negroes and five and a half million white people in the South. In its final analysis the question was one of race, and to add to thedifficulties of this problem it is to be regretted that there shouldhave been actually upon the scene politicians and speculators who soughtto capitalize for their own gain the public distress. The South was thoroughly demoralized, and the women who had borne theburden of the war at home were especially bitter. Slave property to theamount of two billions of dollars had been swept away; several of thechief cities had suffered bombardment; the railroads had largely rundown; and the confiscation of property was such as to lead to theindemnification of thousands of claimants afterwards. The Negro was notyet settled in new places of abode, and his death rate was appalling. Throughout the first winter after the war the whole South was on theverge of starvation. Here undoubtedly was a difficult situation--one calling for the highestquality of statesmanship, and of sportsmanship on the part of thevanquished. Many Negroes, freed from the tradition of two hundred andfifty years of slavery, took a holiday; some resolved not to work anymore as long as they lived, and some even appropriated to their own usethe produce of their neighbors. If they remained on the old plantations, they feared that they might still be considered slaves; on the otherhand, if they took to the high road, they might be considered vagrants. If one returned from a Federal camp to claim his wife and children, he might be driven away. "Freedom cried out, " and undoubtedly someindividuals did foolish things; but serious crime was noticeably absent. On the whole the race bore the blessing of emancipation with remarkablegood sense and temper. Returning soldiers paraded, there were somemeetings and processions, sometimes a little regalia--and even a littlenoise; then everybody went home. Unfortunately even so much the whiteSouth regarded as insolence. The example of how the South _might_ have met the situation was affordedby no less a man than Robert E. Lee, about whose unselfishness andstandard of conduct as a gentleman there could be no question. One dayin Richmond a Negro from the street, intent on asserting his rights, entered a representative church, pushed his way to the communion altarand knelt. The congregation paused, and all fully realized the factorsthat entered into the situation. Then General Lee rose and knelt besidethe Negro; the congregation did likewise, and the tension was over. Furthermore, every one went home spiritually uplifted. Could the handling of this incident have been multipled a thousandtimes--could men have realized that mere accidents are fleeting butthat principles are eternal--both races would have been spared yearsof agony, and our Southland would be a far different place to-day. TheNegro was at the heart of the problem, but to that problem the Southundoubtedly held the key. Of course the cry of "social equality" mighthave been raised; _anything_ might have been said to keep the rightthing from being done. In this instance, as in many others, the finalquestion was not what somebody else did, but how one himself could actmost nobly. Unfortunately Lee's method of approach was not to prevail. Passion andprejudice and demagoguery were to have their day, and conservative andbroadly patriotic men were to be made to follow leaders whom they couldnot possibly approve. Sixty years afterwards we still suffer from theKuKlux solution of the problem. 2. _Meeting the Problem_ The story of reconstruction has been many times told, and it is notour intention to tell that story again. We must content ourselves bytouching upon some of the salient points in the discussion. Even before the close of the war the National Government had undertakento handle officially the thousands of Negroes who had crowded to theFederal lines and not less than a million of whom were in the spring of1865 dependent upon the National Government for support. The Bureau ofRefugee Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, created in connection with theWar Department by an act of March 3, 1865, was to remain in existencethroughout the war and for one year thereafter. Its powers were enlargedJuly 16, 1866, and its chief work did not end until January 1, 1869, itseducational work continuing for a year and a half longer. The Freedmen'sBureau was to have "the supervision and management of all abandonedlands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees andfreedmen. " Of special importance was the provision in the creating actthat gave the freedmen to understand that each male refugee was to begiven forty acres with the guarantee of possession for three years. Throughout the existence of the Bureau its chief commissioner wasGeneral O. O. Howard. While the principal officers were undoubtedly menof noble purpose, many of the minor officials were just as undoubtedlycorrupt and self-seeking. In the winter of 1865-6 one-third of its aidwas given to the white people of the South. For Negro pupils the Bureauestablished altogether 4, 239 schools, and these had 9, 307 teachers and247, 333 students. Its real achievement has been thus ably summed up:"The greatest success of the Freedmen's Bureau lay in the planting ofthe free school among Negroes, and the idea of free elementary educationamong all classes in the South.... For some fifteen million dollars, beside the sum spent before 1865, and the dole of benevolent societies, this bureau set going a system of free labor, established a beginning ofpeasant proprietorship, secured the recognition of black freedmen beforecourts of law, and founded the free common school in the South. On theother hand, it failed to begin the establishment of good will betweenex-masters and freedmen, to guard its work wholly from paternalisticmethods, which discouraged self-reliance, and to carry out to anyconsiderable extent its implied promises to furnish the freedmen withland. "[1] To this tale of its shortcomings must be added also themanagement of the Freedmen's Bank, which "was morally and practicallypart of the Freedmen's Bureau, although it had no legal connection withit. " This institution made a really remarkable start in the developmentof thrift among the Negroes, and its failure, involving the loss of thefirst savings of hundreds of ex-slaves, was as disastrous in its moralas in its immediate financial consequences. [Footnote 1: DuBois: _The Souls of Black Folk_, 32-37. ] When the Freedmen's Bureau came to an end, it turned its educationalinterests and some money over to the religious and benevolent societieswhich had coöperated with it, especially to the American MissionaryAssociation. This society had been organized before the Civil War onan interdenominational and strong anti-slavery basis; but with thewithdrawal of general interest the body passed in 1881 into the hands ofthe Congregational Church. Other prominent agencies were the AmericanBaptist Home Mission Society (also the American Baptist PublicationSociety), the Freedmen's Aid Society (representing the NorthernMethodists), and the Presbyterian Board of Missions. Actual work wasbegun by the American Missionary Association. In 1861 Lewis Tappan, treasurer of the organization, wrote to General Butler to ask justwhat aid could be given. The result of the correspondence was that onSeptember 3 of this year Rev. L. C. Lockwood reached Hampton and onSeptember 17 opened the first day school among the freedmen. This schoolwas taught by Mrs. Mary S. Peake, a woman of the race who had had theadvantage of a free mother, and whose devotion to the work was such thatshe soon died. However, she had helped to lay the foundations of HamptonInstitute. Soon there was a school at Norfolk, there were two at NewportNews, and by January schools at Hilton Head and Beaufort, S. C. Then camethe Emancipation Proclamation, throwing wide open the door of the greatneed. Rev. John Eaton, army chaplain from Ohio, afterwards United StatesCommissioner of Education, was placed in charge of the instruction ofthe Negroes, and in one way or another by the close of the war probablyas many as one million in the South had learned to read and write. The83 missionaries and teachers of the Association in 1863 increased to 250in 1864. At the first day session of the school in Norfolk after theProclamation there were 350 scholars, with 300 others in the evening. On the third day there were 550 in the day school and 500 others in theevening. The school had to be divided, a part going to another church;the assistants increased in number, and soon the day attendance was1, 200. For such schools the houses on abandoned plantations were used, and even public buildings were called into commission. Afterwards arosethe higher institutions, Atlanta, Berea, Fisk, Talladega, Straight, withnumerous secondary schools. Similarly the Baptists founded the collegeswhich, with some changes of name, have become Virginia Union, Hartshorn, Shaw, Benedict, Morehouse, Spelman, Jackson, and Bishop, with numerousaffiliated institutions. The Methodists began to operate Clark (in SouthAtlanta), Claflin, Rust, Wiley, and others; and the Presbyterians, having already founded Lincoln in 1854, now founded Biddle and severalseminaries for young women; while the United Presbyterians foundedKnoxville. In course of time the distinctively Negro denominations--theA. M. E. , the A. M. E. Z. , and the C. M. E. (which last represented awithdrawal from the Southern Methodists in 1870)--also helped inthe work, and thus, in addition to Wilberforce in Ohio, arose suchinstitutions as Morris Brown University, Livingstone College, and LaneCollege. In 1867, moreover, the Federal Government crowned its work forthe education of the Negro by the establishment at Washington of HowardUniversity. As these institutions have grown they have naturally developed somedifferences or special emphasis. Hampton and Atlanta University arenow independent; and Berea has had a peculiar history, legislation inKentucky in 1903 restricting the privileges of the institution to whitestudents. Hampton, in the hands of General Armstrong, placed emphasis onthe idea of industrial and practical education which has since becomeworld-famous. In 1871 the Fisk Jubilee Singers began their memorableprogress through America and Europe, meeting at first with scorn andsneers, but before long touching the heart of the world with theirstrange music. Their later success was as remarkable as their missionwas unique. Meanwhile Spelman Seminary, in the record of her graduateswho have gone as missionaries to Africa, has also developed a glorioustradition. To those heroic men and women who represented this idea of education atits best, too much credit can not be given. Cravath at Fisk, Ware atAtlanta, Armstrong at Hampton, Graves at Morehouse, Tupper at Shaw, andPackard and Giles at Spelman, are names that should ever be recalledwith thanksgiving. These people had no enviable task. They wereostracized and persecuted, and some of their co-workers even killed. Itis true that their idea of education founded on the New England collegewas not very elastic; but their theory was that the young men and womenwhom they taught, before they were Negroes, were human beings. They hadthe key to the eternal verities, and time will more and more justifytheir position. To the Freedmen's Bureau the South objected because of the politicalactivity of some of its officials. To the schools founded by missionaryendeavor it objected primarily on the score of social equality. To boththe provisional Southern governments of 1865 replied with the so-calledBlack Codes. The theory of these remarkable ordinances--most harsh inMississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana--was that even if the Negrowas nominally free he was by no means able to take care of himself andneeded the tutelage and oversight of the white man. Hence developed whatwas to be known as a system of "apprenticeship. " South Carolina in heract of December 21, 1865, said, "A child, over the age of two years, born of a colored parent, may be bound by the father if he be living inthe district, or in case of his death or absence from the district, bythe mother, as an apprentice to any respectable white or colored personwho is competent to make a contract; a male until he shall attain theage of twenty-one years, and a female until she shall attain the age ofeighteen.... Males of the age of twelve years, and females of the ageof ten years, shall sign the indenture of apprenticeship, and be boundthereby.... The master shall receive to his own use the profits of thelabor of his apprentice. " To this Mississippi added: "If any apprenticeshall leave the employment of his or her master or mistress, said masteror mistress may pursue and recapture said apprentice, and bring him orher before any justice of peace of the county, whose duty it shall be toremand said apprentice to the service of his or her master or mistress;and in the event of a refusal on the part of said apprentice so toreturn, then said justice shall commit said apprentice to the jail ofsaid county, " etc. , etc. In general by such legislation the Negro wasgiven the right to sue and be sued, to testify in court concerningNegroes, and to have marriage and the responsibility for childrenrecognized. On the other hand, he could not serve on juries, couldnot serve in the militia, and could not vote or hold office. He wasvirtually forbidden to assemble, and his freedom of movement wasrestricted. Within recent years the Black Codes have been more than oncedefended as an honest effort to meet a difficult situation, but the oldslavery attitude peered through them and gave the impression that thosewho framed them did not yet know that the old order had passed away. Meanwhile the South was in a state of panic, and the provisionalgovernor of Mississippi asked of President Johnson permission toorganize the local militia. The request was granted and the patrolsimmediately began to show their hostility to Northern people and thefreedmen. In the spring of 1866 there was a serious race riot inMemphis. On July 30, while some Negroes were marching to a politicalconvention in New Orleans, they became engaged in brawls with thewhite spectators. Shots were exchanged; the police, assisted by thespectators, undertook to arrest the Negroes; the Negroes took refuge inthe convention hall; and their pursuers stormed the building and shotdown without mercy the Negroes and their white supporters. Altogethernot less than forty were killed and not less than one hundred wounded;but not more than a dozen men were killed on the side of the police andthe white citizens. General Sheridan, who was in command at New Orleans, characterized the affair as "an absolute massacre ... A murder whichthe mayor and police of the city perpetrated without the shadow of anecessity. " In the face of such events and tendencies, and influenced to some extentby a careful and illuminating but much criticized report of Carl Schurz, Congress, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, proceeded to passlegislation designed to protect the freedmen and to guarantee tothe country the fruits of the war. The Thirteenth Amendment to theConstitution formally abolishing slavery was passed December 18, 1865. In the following March Congress passed over the President's veto thefirst Civil Rights Bill, guaranteeing to the freedmen all the ordinaryrights of citizenship, and it was about the same time that it enlargedthe powers of the Freedmen's Bureau. The Fourteenth Amendment (July28, 1868) denied to the states the power to abridge the privileges orimmunities of citizens of the United States; and the Fifteenth Amendment(March 30, 1870) sought to protect the Negro by giving to him the rightof suffrage instead of military protection. In 1875 was passed thesecond Civil Rights act, designed to give Negroes equality of treatmentin theaters, railway cars, hotels, etc. ; but this the Supreme Courtdeclared unconstitutional in 1883. As a result of this legislation the Negro was placed in positions ofresponsibility; within the next few years the race sent two senatorsand thirteen representatives to Congress, and in some of the statelegislatures, as in South Carolina, Negroes were decidedly in themajority. The attainments of some of these men were undoubtedlyremarkable; the two United States senators, Hiram R. Revels and BlancheK. Bruce, both from Mississippi, were of unquestioned intelligence andability, and Robert B. Elliott, one of the representatives from SouthCarolina, attracted unusual attention by his speech in reply toAlexander Stephens on the constitutionality of the Civil Rights bill. Atthe same time among the Negro legislators there was also considerableignorance, and there set in an era of extravagance and corruption fromwhich the "carpet-baggers" and the "scalawags" rather than the Negroesthemselves reaped the benefit. Accordingly within recent years it hasbecome more and more the fashion to lament the ills of the period, andno representative American historian can now write of reconstructionwithout a tone of apology. A few points, however, are to be observed. In the first place the ignorance was by no means so vast as has beensupposed. Within the four years from 1861 to 1865, thanks to the armyschools and missionary agencies, not less than half a million Negroes inthe South had learned to read and write. Furthermore, the suffrage wasnot immediately given to the emancipated Negroes; this was thelast rather than the first step in reconstruction. The provisionallegislatures formed at the close of the war were composed of white menonly; but the experiment failed because of the short-sighted laws thatwere enacted. If the fruit of the Civil War was not to be lost, if allthe sacrifice was not to prove in vain, it became necessary for Congressto see that the overthrow of slavery was final and complete. By theFourteenth Amendment the Negro was invested with the ordinary rights anddignity of a citizen of the United States. He was not enfranchised, buthe could no longer be made the victim of state laws designed merely tokeep him in servile subjection. If the Southern states had acceptedthis amendment, they might undoubtedly have reëntered the Union withoutfurther conditions. They refused to do so; they refused to help theNational Government in any way whatsoever in its effort to guaranteeto the Negro the rights of manhood. Achilles sulked in his tent, andwhenever he sulks the world moves on--without him. The alternativefinally presented to Congress, if it was not to make an absolutesurrender, was either to hold the South indefinitely under militarysubjection or to place the ballot in the hands of the Negro. The formercourse was impossible; the latter was chosen, and the Union was reallyrestored--was really saved--by the force of the ballot in the hands ofblack men. It has been held that the Negro was primarily to blame for thecorruption of the day. Here again it is well to recall the tendencies ofthe period. The decade succeeding the war was throughout the countryone of unparalleled political corruption. The Tweed ring, the CréditMobilier, and the "salary grab" were only some of the more outstandingsigns of the times. In the South the Negroes were not the real leadersin corruption; they simply followed the men who they supposed were theirfriends. Surely in the face of such facts as these it is not just to fixupon a people groping to the light the peculiar odium of the corruptionthat followed in the wake of the war. And we shall have to leave it to those better informed than we to say tojust what extent city and state politics in the South have been cleanedup since the Negro ceased to be a factor. Many of the constitutionsframed by the reconstruction governments were really excellent models, and the fact that they were overthrown seems to indicate that some otherspoilsmen were abroad. Take North Carolina, for example. In this statein 1868 the reconstruction government by its new constitution introducedthe township system so favorably known in the North and West. When in1875 the South regained control, with all the corruption it found asexcellent a form of republican state government as was to be found inany state in the Union. "Every provision which any state enjoyed for theprotection of public society from its bad members and bad impulses waseither provided or easily procurable under the Constitution of thestate. "[1] Yet within a year, in order to annul the power of theiropponents in every county in the state, the new party so amendedthe Constitution as to take away from every county the power ofself-government and centralize everything in the legislature. Now wasrealized an extent of power over elections and election returns sogreat that no party could wholly clear itself of the idea of corruptintentions. [Footnote 1: George W. Cable: _The Southern Struggle for PureGovernment_: An Address. Boston, 1890, included in _The Negro Question_, New York, 1890. ] At the heart of the whole question of course was race. As a matter offact much work of genuine statesmanship was accomplished or attempted bythe reconstruction governments. For one thing the idea of common schooleducation for all people was now for the first time fully impressed uponthe South. The Charleston _News and Courier_ of July 11, 1876, formallygranted that in the administration of Governor Chamberlain of SouthCarolina the abuse of the pardoning power had been corrected; thecharacter of the officers appointed by the Executive had improved; thefloating indebtedness of the state had been provided for in such a waythat the rejection of fraudulent claims was assured and that validclaims were scaled one-half; the tax laws had been so amended as tosecure substantial equality in the assessment of property; taxes hadbeen reduced to eleven mills on the dollar; the contingent fund ofthe executive department had been reduced at a saving in two years of$101, 200; legislative expenses had also been reduced so as to savein two years $350, 000; legislative contingent expenses had also beenhandled so as to save $355, 000; and the public printing reduced from$300, 000 to $50, 000 a year. There were, undoubtedly, at first, manycorrupt officials, white and black. Before they were through, however, after only a few years of experimenting, the reconstruction governmentsbegan to show signs of being quite able to handle the situation; and itseems to have been primarily the fear on the part of the white South_that they might not fail_ that prompted the determination to regainpower at whatever cost. Just how this was done we are now to see. 3. _Reaction: The KuKlux Klan_ Even before the Civil War a secret organization, the Knights of theGolden Circle, had been formed to advance Southern interests. After thewar there were various organizations--Men of Justice, Home Guards, PaleFaces, White Brotherhood, White Boys, Council of Safety, etc. , and, withheadquarters at New Orleans, the thoroughly organized Knights of theWhite Camelia. All of these had for their general aim the restorationof power to the white men of the South, which aim they endeavored toaccomplish by regulating the conduct of the Negroes and their leadersin the Republican organization, the Union League, especially by playingupon the fears and superstitions of the Negroes. In general, especiallyin the Southeast, everything else was surpassed or superseded by theKuKlux Klan, which originated in Tennessee in the fall of 1865 as anassociation of young men for amusement, but which soon developed into aunion for the purpose of whipping, banishing, terrorizing, and murderingNegroes and Northern white men who encouraged them in the exercise oftheir political rights. No Republican, no member of the Union League, and no G. A. R. Man could become a member. The costume of the Klanwas especially designed to strike terror in the uneducated Negroes. Loose-flowing sleeves, hoods in which were apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth trimmed with red material, horns made of cotton-stuff standingout on the front and sides, high cardboard hats covered with whitecloth decorated with stars or pictures of animals, long tongues of redflannel, were all used as occasion demanded. The KuKlux Klan finallyextended over the whole South and greatly increased its operations onthe cessation of martial law in 1870. As it worked generally at night, with its members in disguise, it was difficult for a grand jury to getevidence on which to frame a bill, and almost impossible to get a jurythat would return a verdict for the state. Repeated measures againstthe order were of little effect until an act of 1870 extended thejurisdiction of the United States courts to all KuKlux cases. Even thenfor some time the organization continued active. Naturally there were serious clashes before government was restored tothe white South, especially as the KuKlux Klan grew bolder. At Colfax, Grant Parish, Louisiana, in April, 1873, there was a pitched battle inwhich several white men and more than fifty Negroes were killed; andviolence increased as the "red shirt" campaign of 1876 approached. In connection with the events of this fateful year, and with referenceto South Carolina, where the Negro seemed most solidly in power, werecall one episode, that of the Hamburg Massacre. We desire to give thisas fully as possible in all its incidents, because we know of nothingthat better illustrates the temper of the times, and because a mostimportant matter is regularly ignored or minimized by historians. [1] [Footnote 1: Fleming, in his latest and most mature account ofreconstruction, _The Sequel of Appomattox_, has not one word to sayabout the matter. Dunning, in _Reconstruction Political and Economic_(306), speaks as follows: "July 6, 1876, an armed collision betweenwhites and blacks at Hamburg, Aiken County, resulted in the usualslaughter of the blacks. Whether the original cause of the troublewas the insolence and threats of a Negro militia company, or theaggressiveness and violence of some young white men, was much discussedthroughout the state, and, indeed, the country at large. Chamberlaintook frankly and strongly the ground that the whites were at fault. "Such a statement we believe simply does not do justice to the facts. The account given herewith is based upon the report of the matter in aletter published in a Washington paper and submitted in connection withthe debate in the United States House of Representatives, July 15th and18th, 1876, on the Massacre of Six Colored Citizens at Hamburg, S. C. , July 4, 1876; and on "An Address to the People of the United States, adopted at a Conference of Colored Citizens, held at Columbia, S. C. , July 20th and 21st, 1876" (Republican Printing Co. , Columbia, S. C. , 1876). The Address, a document most important for the Negro's side ofthe story, was signed by no less than sixty representative men, amongthem R. B. Elliott, R. H. Gleaves, F. L. Cardozo, D. A. Straker, T. McC. Stewart, and H. N. Bouey. ] In South Carolina an act providing for the enrollment of the malecitizens of the state, who were by the terms of the said act madesubject to the performance of militia duty, was passed by the GeneralAssembly and approved by the Governor March 16, 1869. By virtue of thisact Negro citizens were regularly enrolled as a part of the NationalGuard of the State of South Carolina, and as the white men, with veryfew exceptions, failed or refused to become a part of the said force, the active militia was composed almost wholly of Negro men. The Countyof Edgefield, of which Hamburg was a part, was one of the militarydistricts of the state under the apportionment of the Adjutant-General, one regiment being allotted to the district. One company of thisregiment was in Hamburg. In 1876 it had recently been reorganized withDoc Adams as captain, Lewis Cartledge as first lieutenant, and A. T. Attaway as second lieutenant. The ranks were recruited to the requisitenumber of men, to whom arms and equipment were duly issued. On Tuesday, July 4, the militia company assembled for drill and whilethus engaged paraded through one of the least frequented streets of thetown. This street was unusually wide, but while marching four abreastthe men were interrupted by a horse and buggy driven _into their ranks_by Thomas Butler and Henry Getzen, white men who resided about twomiles from the town. At the time of this interference the company wasoccupying a space covering a width of not more than eight feet, so thaton either side there was abundant room for vehicles. At the interruptionCaptain Adams commanded a halt and, stepping to the head of his column, said, "Mr. Getzen, I did not think that you would treat me this way; Iwould not so act towards you. " To this Getzen replied with curses, and after a few more remarks on either side, Adams, in order to avoidfurther trouble, commanded his men to break ranks and permit the buggyto pass through. The company was then marched to the drill rooms anddismissed. On Wednesday, July 5, Robert J. Butler, father of Thomas Butler andfather-in-law of Getzen, appeared before P. R. Rivers, colored trialjustice, and made complaint that the militia company had on the previousday obstructed one of the public streets of Hamburg and prevented hisson and son-in-law from passing through. Rivers accordingly issued asummons for the officers to appear the next day, July 6. When Adams andhis two lieutenants appeared on Thursday, they found present Robert J. Butler and several other white men heavily armed with revolvers. On thecalling of the case it was announced that the defendants were presentand that Henry Sparnick, a member of the circuit bar of the county, hadbeen retained to represent them. Butler angrily protested against suchrepresentation and demanded that the hearing be postponed until hecould procure counsel from the city of Augusta; whereupon Adams and hislieutenants, after consultation with their attorney, who informed themthat there were no legal grounds on which the case could be decidedagainst them, waived their constitutional right to be represented bycounsel and consented to go to trial. On this basis the case was openedand proceeded with for some time, when on account of some disturbanceits progress was arrested, and it was adjourned for further hearing onthe following Saturday, July 8, at four o'clock in the afternoon. On Saturday, between two and three o'clock, General M. C. Butler, ofEdgefield, formerly an officer in the Confederate army, arrived inHamburg, and he was followed by mounted men in squads of ten or fifteenuntil the number was more than two hundred, the last to arrive beingColonel A. P. Butler at the head of threescore men. Immediately after hisarrival General Butler sent for Attorney Sparnick, who was charged withthe request to Rivers and the officers of the militia company to conferwith him at once. There was more passing of messengers back and forth, and it was at length deemed best for the men to confer with Butler. Tothis two of the officers objected on the ground that the whole plan wasnothing more than a plot for their assassination. They sent to ask ifGeneral Butler would meet them without the presence of his armed force. He replied Yes, but before arrangements could be made for the interviewanother messenger came to say that the hour for the trial had arrived, that General Butler was at the court, and that he requested the presenceof the trial justice, Rivers. Rivers proceeded to court alone and foundButler there waiting for him. He was about to proceed with the case whenButler asked for more time, which request was granted. He went away andnever returned to the court. Instead he went to the council chamber, being surrounded now by greater and greater numbers of armed men, and hesent a committee to the officers asking that they come to the councilchamber to see him. The men again declined for the same reason asbefore. Butler now sent an ultimatum demanding that the officersapologize for what took place on July 4 and that they surrender to himtheir arms, threatening that if the surrender was not made at once hewould take their guns and officers by force. Adams and his men now awoketo a full sense of their danger, and they asked Rivers, who was not onlytrial justice but also Major General of the division of the militia towhich they belonged, if he demanded their arms of them. Rivers repliedthat he did not. Thereupon the officers refused the request of Butler onthe ground that he had no legal right to demand their arms or to receivethem if surrendered. At this point Butler let it be known that hedemanded the surrender of the arms within half an hour and that if hedid not receive them he would "lay the d---- town in ashes. " Asked in aninterview whether, if his terms were complied with, he would guaranteeprotection to the people of the town he answered that he did not knowand that that would depend altogether upon how they behaved themselves. Butler now went with a companion to Augusta, returning in about thirtyminutes. A committee called upon him as soon as he got back. He had onlyto say that he demanded the arms immediately. Asked if he would acceptthe boxing up of the arms and the sending of them to the Governor, hesaid, "D---- the Governor. I am not here to consult him, but am here asColonel Butler, and this won't stop until after November. " Asked againif he would guarantee general protection if the arms were surrendered, he said, "I guarantee nothing. " All the while scores of mounted men were about the streets. Such membersof the militia company as were in town and their friends to the numberof thirty-eight repaired to their armory--a large brick buildingabout two hundred yards from the river--and barricaded themselves forprotection. Firing upon the armory was begun by the mounted men, andafter half an hour there were occasional shots from within. After awhile the men in the building heard an order to bring cannon fromAugusta, and they began to leave the building from the rear, concealingthemselves as well as they could in a cornfield. The cannon was broughtand discharged three or four times, those firing it not knowing that thebuilding had been evacuated. When they realized their mistake they madea general search through lots and yards for the members of the companyand finally captured twenty-seven of them, after two had been killed. The men, none of whom now had arms, were marched to a place near therailroad station, where the sergeant of the company was ordered to callthe roll. Allan T. Attaway, whose name was first, was called outand shot in cold blood. Twelve men fired upon him and he was killedinstantly. The men whose names were second, third, and fourth on thelist were called out and treated likewise. The fifth man made a dash forliberty and escaped with a slight wound in the leg. All the others werethen required to hold up their right hands and swear that they wouldnever bear arms against the white people or give in court any testimonywhatsoever regarding the occurrence. They were then marched off two bytwo and dispersed, but stray shots were fired after them as they wentaway. In another portion of the town the chief of police, James Cook, was taken from his home and brutally murdered. A marshal of the town wasshot through the body and mortally wounded. One of the men killed wasfound with his tongue cut out. The members of Butler's party finallyentered the homes of most of the prominent Negroes in the town, smashedthe furniture, tore books to pieces, and cut pictures from their frames, all amid the most heartrending distress on the part of the women andchildren. That night the town was desolate, for all who could do so fledto Aiken or Columbia. Upon all of which our only comment is that while such a process mightseem for a time to give the white man power, it makes no progresswhatever toward the ultimate solution of the problem. 4. _Counter-Reaction: The Negro Exodus_ The Negro Exodus of 1879 was partially considered in connection with ourstudy of Liberia; but a few facts are in place here. After the withdrawal of Federal troops conditions in the South werechanged so much that, especially in South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, the state of affairs was no longer tolerable. Between 1866 and 1879 more than three thousand Negroes were summarilykilled. [1] The race began to feel that a new slavery in the horribleform of peonage was approaching, and that the disposition of the men inpower was to reduce the laborer to the minimum of advantages as a freeman and to none at all as a citizen. The fear, which soon developed intoa panic, rose especially in consequence of the work of political mobsin 1874 and 1875, and it soon developed organization. About this theoutstanding fact was that the political leaders of the last few yearswere regularly distrusted and ignored, the movement being secret in itsorigin and committed either to the plantation laborers themselves ortheir direct representatives. In North Carolina circulars about Nebraskawere distributed. In Tennessee Benjamin ("Pap") Singleton began about1869 to induce Negroes to go to Kansas, and he really founded twocolonies with a total of 7432 Negroes from his state, paying of his ownmoney over $600 for circulars. In Louisiana alone 70, 000 names weretaken of those who wished to better their condition by removal; and by1878 98, 000 persons in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas wereready to go elsewhere. A convention to consider the whole matter ofmigration was held in Nashville in 1879. At this the politician managedto put in an appearance and there was much wordy discussion. At the sametime much of the difference of opinion was honest; the meeting wason the whole constructive; and it expressed itself as favorable to"reasonable migration. " Already, however, thousands of Negroes wereleaving their homes in the South and going in greatest numbers toKansas, Missouri, and Indiana. Within twenty months Kansas alonereceived in this way an addition to her population of 40, 000 persons. Many of these people arrived at their destination practically pennilessand without prospect of immediate employment; but help was afforded byrelief agencies in the North, and they themselves showed remarkablesturdiness in adapting themselves to the new conditions. [Footnote 1: Emmett J. Scott: Negro Migration during the War (inPreliminary Economic Studies of the War--Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace: Division of Economics and History). OxfordUniversity Press, American Branch, New York, 1920. ] Many of the stories that the Negroes told were pathetic. [1] Sometimesboats would not take them on, and they suffered from long exposure onthe river banks. Sometimes, while they were thus waiting, agents oftheir own people employed by the planters tried to induce them toremain. Frequently they were clubbed or whipped. Said one: "I saw nineput in one pile, that had been killed, and the colored people had tobury them; eight others were found killed in the woods.... It is donethis way: they arrest them for breach of contract and carry them tojail. Their money is taken from them by the jailer and it is notreturned when they are let go. " Said another: "If a colored man staysaway from the polls and does not vote, they spot him and make him vote. If he votes their way, they treat him no better in business. They hirethe colored people to vote, and then take their pay away. I know aman to whom they gave a cow and a calf for voting their ticket. Afterelection they came and told him that if he kept the cow he must pay forit; and they took the cow and calf away. " Another: "One man shook hisfist in my face and said, 'D---- you, sir, you are my property. ' He saidthat I owed him. He could not show it and then said, 'You sha'n't goanyhow. ' All we want is a living chance. " Another: "There is a generaltalk among the whites and colored people that Jeff Davis will run forpresident of the Southern states, and the colored people are afraid theywill be made slaves again. They are already trying to prevent them fromgoing from one plantation to another without a pass. " Another: "Thedeputy sheriff came and took away from me a pair of mules. He had aconstable and twenty-five men with guns to back him. " Another: "Lastyear, after settling with my landlord, my share was four bales ofcotton. I shipped it to Richardson and May, 38 and 40 Perdido Street, New Orleans, through W. E. Ringo & Co. , merchants, at Mound Landing, Miss. I lived four miles back of this landing. I received from Ringo aticket showing that my cotton was sold at nine and three-eighths cents, but I could never get a settlement. He kept putting me off by sayingthat the bill of lading had not come. Those bales averaged over fourhundred pounds. I did not owe him over twenty-five dollars. A man maywork there from Monday morning to Saturday night, and be as economicalas he pleases, and he will come out in debt. I am a close man, and Iwork hard. I want to be honest in getting through the world. I came awayand left a crop of corn and cotton growing up. I left it because I didnot want to work twelve months for nothing. I have been trying it forfifteen years, thinking every year that it would get better, and it getsworse. " Said still another: "I learned about Kansas from the newspapersthat I got hold of. They were Southern papers. I got a map, and foundout where Kansas was; and I got a History of the United States, and readabout it. " [Footnote 1: See _Negro Exodus_ (Report of Colonel Frank H. Fletcher). ] Query: Was it genuine statesmanship that permitted these people to feelthat they must leave the South? * * * * * 5. _A Postscript on the War and Reconstruction_ Of all of the stories of these epoch-making years we have chosen one--anidyl of a woman with an alabaster box, of one who had a clear conceptionof the human problem presented and who gave her life in the endeavor tomeet it. In the fall of 1862 a young woman who was destined to be a greatmissionary entered the Seminary at Rockford, Illinois. There was littleto distinguish her from the other students except that she was veryplainly dressed and seemed forced to spend most of her spare time atwork. Yes, there was one other difference. She was older than most ofthe girls--already thirty, and rich in experience. When not yet fifteenshe had taught a country school in Pennsylvania. At twenty she wasconsidered capable of managing an unusually turbulent crowd of boys andgirls. When she was twenty-seven her father died, leaving upon her verylargely the care of her mother. At twenty-eight she already looked backupon fourteen years as a teacher, upon some work for Christ incidentallyaccomplished, but also upon a fading youth of wasted hopes andunfulfilled desires. Then came a great decision--not the first, not the last, but one of themost important that marked her long career. Her education was by nomeans complete, and, at whatever cost, she would go to school. That shehad no money, that her clothes were shabby, that her mother needed her, made no difference; now or never she would realize her ambition. Shewould do anything, however menial, if it was honest and would give herfood while she continued her studies. For one long day she walked thestreets of Belvidere looking for a home. Could any one use a young womanwho wanted to work for her board? Always the same reply. Nightfallbrought her to a farmhouse in the suburbs of the town. She timidlyknocked on the door. "No, we do not need any one, " said the woman whogreeted her, "but wait until I see my husband. " The man of the housewas very unwilling, but decided to give shelter for the night. Thenext morning he thought differently about the matter, and a few daysafterwards the young woman entered school. The work was hard; fireshad to be made, breakfasts on cold mornings had to be prepared, andsometimes the washing was heavy. Naturally the time for lessons wasfrequently cut short or extended far into the night. But the woman ofthe house was kind, and her daughter a helpful fellow-student. The next summer came another season at school-teaching, and then theterm at Rockford. 1862! a great year that in American history, one morefamous for the defeat of the Union arms than for their success. But inSeptember came Antietam, and the heart of the North took courage. Thenwith the new year came the Emancipation Proclamation. The girls at Rockford, like the people everywhere, were interestedin the tremendous events that were shaking the nation. A new note ofseriousness crept into their work. Embroidery was laid aside; instead, socks were knit and bandages prepared. On the night of January 1 ajubilee meeting was held in the town. To Joanna P. Moore, however, the news of freedom brought a strangeundertone of sadness. She could not help thinking of the spiritual andintellectual condition of the millions now emancipated. Strange that sheshould be possessed by this problem! She had thought of work in China, or India, or even in Africa--but of this, never! In February a man who had been on Island No. 10 came to the Seminary andtold the girls of the distress of the women and children there. Cabinsand tents were everywhere. As many as three families, with eight orten children each, cooked their food in the same pot on the same fire. Sometimes the women were peevish or quarrelsome; always the childrenwere dirty. "What can a man do to help such a suffering mass ofhumanity?" asked the speaker. "Nothing. A woman is needed; nobody elsewill do. " For the student listening so intently the cheery schoolroomswith their sweet associations faded; the vision of foreign missions alsovanished; and in their stead stood only a pitiful black woman with ababy in her arms. She reached Island No. 10 in November. The outlook was dismal enough. The Sunday school at Belvidere had pledged four dollars a month towardher support, and this was all the money in sight, though the Governmentprovided transportation and soldiers' rations. That was in 1863, sixtyyears ago; but every year since then, until 1916, in summer and winter, in sunshine and rain, in the home and the church, with teaching andpraying, feeding and clothing, nursing and hoping and loving, Joanna P. Moore in one way or another ministered to the Negro people of the South. In April, 1864, her whole colony was removed to Helena, Arkansas. TheHome Farm was three miles from Helena. Here was gathered a great crowdof women and children and helpless old men, all under the guard of acompany of soldiers in a fort nearby. Thither went the missionary alone, except for her faith in God. She made an arbor with some rude seats, nailed a blackboard to a tree, divided the people into four groups, and began to teach school. In the twilight every evening a great crowdgathered around her cabin for prayers. A verse of the Bible was read andexplained, petitions were offered, one of the sorrow-songs was chanted, and then the service was over. Some Quaker workers were her friends in Helena, and in 1868 she went toLauderdale, Mississippi, to help the Friends in an orphan asylum. Sixweeks after her arrival the superintendent's daughter died, and theparents left to take their child back to their Indiana home to rest. Thelone woman was left in charge of the asylum. Cholera broke out. Elevenchildren died within one week. Still she stood by her post. Often, shesaid, those who were well and happy when they retired, ere daylight camewere in the grave, for they were buried the same hour they died. Nightafter night she prayed to God in the dark, and at length the fury of theplague was abated. From time to time the failing health of her mother called her home, andfrom 1870 to 1873 she once more taught school near Belvidere. The firstwinter the school was in the country. "You can never have a Sundayschool in the winter, " they told her. But she did; in spite of the snow, the house was crowded every Sunday, whole families coming in sleighs. Even at that the real work of the teacher was with the Negroes of theSouth. In her prayers and public addresses they were always with her, and in 1873 friends in Chicago made it possible for her to return to thework of her choice. In 1877 the Woman's Baptist Home Mission Societyhonored itself by giving to her its first commission. Nine years she spent in the vicinity of New Orleans. Near LelandUniversity she found a small, one-room house. After buying a bed, atable, two chairs, and a few cooking utensils, she began housekeeping. Often she started out at six in the morning, not to return untildark. Most frequently she read the Bible to those who could not read. Sometimes she gave cheer to mothers busy over the washtub. Sometimesshe would teach the children to read or to sew. Often she would writeletters for those who had been separated from friends or kindred in thedark days. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of such letters; and once ina while, a very long while, came a response. Most pitiful of all the objects she found in New Orleans were the oldwomen worn out with years of slavery. They were usually rag-pickers whoate at night the scraps for which they had begged during the day. Therewas in the city an Old Ladies' Home; but this was not for Negroes. A house was secured and the women taken in, Joanna Moore and herassociates moving into the second story. Sometimes, very often, therewas real need; but sometimes, too, provisions came when it was not knownwho sent them; money or boxes came from Northern friends who had neverseen the workers; and the little Negro children in the Sunday schools inthe city gave their pennies. In 1878 the laborer in the Southwest started on a journey ofexploration. In Atlanta Dr. Robert at Atlanta Baptist Seminary (nowMorehouse College) gave her cheer; so did President Ware at AtlantaUniversity. At Benedict in Columbia she saw Dr. Goodspeed, PresidentTupper at Shaw in Raleigh, and Dr. Corey in Richmond. In May sheappeared at the Baptist anniversaries, with fifteen years of missionaryachievement already behind her. But each year brought its own sorrows and disappointments. She wantedthe Society to establish a training school for women; but to thisobjection was raised. In Louisiana also it was not without danger that awhite woman attended a Negro association in 1877; and there were alwayssneers and jeers. At length, however, a training school for mothers wasopened in Baton Rouge. All went well for two years; and then a noticewith skull and crossbones was placed on the gate. The woman who hadworked through the cholera still stood firm; but the students had gone. Sick at heart and worn out with waiting, she at last left Baton Rougeand the state in which so many of her best years had been spent. "Bible Band" work was started in 1884, and _Hope_ in 1885. The littlepaper, beginning with a circulation of five hundred, has now reached amonthly issue of twenty thousand copies, and daily it brings itslesson of cheer to thousands of mothers and children in the South. Inconnection with it all has developed the Fireside School, than which fewagencies have been more potent in the salvation and uplift of the humbleNegro home. What wisdom was gathered from the passing of fourscore years! On almostevery page of her tracts, her letters, her account of her life, onefinds quotations of proverbial pith: The love of God gave me courage for myself and the rest of mankind;therefore I concluded to invest in human souls. They surely are worthmore than anything else in the world. Beloved friends, be hopeful, be courageous. God can not use discouragedpeople. The good news spread, not by telling what we were going to do but bypraising God for what had been done. So much singing in all our churches leaves too little time for the Biblelesson. Do not misunderstand me. I do love music that impresses themeaning of words. But no one climbs to heaven on musical scales. I thoroughly believe that the only way to succeed with any vocation isto make it a part of your very self and weave it into your every thoughtand prayer. You must love before you can comfort and help. There is no place too lowly or dark for our feet to enter, and no placeso high and bright but it needs the touch of the light that we carryfrom the Cross. How shall we measure such a life? Who can weigh love and hope andservice, and the joy of answered prayer? "An annual report of what?" sheonce asked the secretary of her organization. "Report of tears shed, prayers offered, smiles scattered, lessons taught, steps taken, cheeringwords, warning words--tender, patient words for the little ones, sternbut loving tones for the wayward--songs of hope and songs of sorrow, wounded hearts healed, light and love poured into dark sad homes? Oh, Miss Burdette, you might as well ask me to gather up the raindrops oflast year or the petals that fall from the flowers that bloomed. It istrue that I can send you a little stagnant water from the cistern, and afew dried flowers; but if you want to know the freshness, the sweetness, the glory, the grandeur, of our God-given work, then you must comeand keep step with us from early morn to night for three hundred andsixty-five days in the year. " Until the very last she was on the roll of the active workers of theWoman's American Baptist Home Mission Society. In the fall of 1915 shedecided that she must once more see the schools in the South that meantso much to her. In December she came again to her beloved Spelman. Whilein Atlanta she met with an accident that still further weakened her. After a few weeks, however, she went on to Jacksonville, and then toSelma. There she passed. * * * * * When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angelswith him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.... Then shallthe righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee astranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw wethee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answerand say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done itunto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me. CHAPTER XIV THE NEGRO IN THE NEW SOUTH 1. _Political Life: Disfranchisement_ By 1876 the reconstruction governments had all but passed. A few daysafter his inauguration in 1877 President Hayes sent to Louisiana acommission to investigate the claims of rival governments there. Thedecision was in favor of the Democrats. On April 9 the President orderedthe removal of Federal troops from public buildings in the South; andin Columbia, S. C. , within a few days the Democratic administration ofGovernor Wade Hampton was formally recognized. The new governments atonce set about the abrogation of the election laws that had protectedthe Negro in the exercise of suffrage, and, having by 1877 obtaineda majority in the national House of Representatives, the Democratsresorted to the practice of attaching their repeal measures toappropriation bills in the hope of compelling the President to signthem. Men who had been prominently connected with the Confederacy werebeing returned to Congress in increasing numbers, but in general theDemocrats were not able to carry their measures over the President'sveto. From the Supreme Court, however, they received practicalassistance, for while this body did not formally grant that the stateshad full powers over elections, it nevertheless nullified many of themost objectionable sections of the laws. Before the close of the decade, by intimidation, the theft, suppression or exchange of the ballot boxes, the removal of the polls to unknown places, false certifications, andillegal arrests on the day before an election, the Negro vote had beenrendered ineffectual in every state of the South. When Cleveland was elected in 1884 the Negroes of the South naturallyfelt that the darkest hour of their political fortunes had come. It had, for among many other things this election said that after twenty yearsof discussion and tumult the Negro question was to be relegated to therear, and that the country was now to give main attention to otherproblems. For the Negro the new era was signalized by one of the mosteffective speeches ever delivered in this or any other country, allthe more forceful because the orator was a man of unusual nobility ofspirit. In 1886 Henry W. Grady, of Georgia, addressed the New EnglandClub in New York on "The New South. " He spoke to practical men and heknew his ground. He asked his hearers to bring their "full faith inAmerican fairness and frankness" to judgment upon what he had to say. He pictured in brilliant language the Confederate soldier, "ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, who wended his way homeward to find hishouse in ruins and his farm devastated. " He also spoke kindly of theNegro: "Whenever he struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in openbattle, and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that theshackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong againsthis helpless charges. " But Grady also implied that the Negro hadreceived too much attention and sympathy from the North. Said he: "Toliberty and enfranchisement is as far as law can carry the Negro. The rest must be left to conscience and common sense. " Hence on thisoccasion and others he asked that the South be left alone in thehandling of her grave problem. The North, a little tired of the Negroquestion, a little uncertain also as to the wisdom of the reconstructionpolicy that it had forced on the South, and if concerned with thissection at all, interested primarily in such investments as it hadthere, assented to this request; and in general the South now felt thatit might order its political life in its own way. As yet, however, the Negro was not technically disfranchised, and at anymoment a sudden turn of events might call him into prominence. Formallegislation really followed the rise of the Populist party, whichabout 1890 in many places in the South waged an even contest with theDemocrats. It was evident that in such a struggle the Negro might stillhold the balance of power, and within the next few years a fusion of theRepublicans and the Populists in North Carolina sent a Negro, George H. White, to Congress. This event finally served only to strengthen themovement for disfranchisement which had already begun. In 1890 theconstitution of Mississippi was so amended as to exclude from thesuffrage any person who had not paid his poll-tax or who was unable toread any section of the constitution, or understand it when read tohim, or to give a reasonable interpretation of it. The effect of theadministration of this provision was that in 1890 only 8615 Negroes outof 147, 000 of voting age became registered. South Carolina amended herconstitution with similar effect in 1895. In this state the populationwas almost three-fifths Negro and two-fifths white. The franchise ofthe Negro was already in practical abeyance; but the problem now wasto devise a means for the perpetuity of a government of white men. Education was not popular as a test, for by it many white illiterateswould be disfranchised and in any case it would only postpone the raceissue. For some years the dominant party had been engaged in factionalcontroversies, with the populist wing led by Benjamin R. Tillmanprevailing over the conservatives. It was understood, however, that eachside would be given half of the membership of the convention, whichwould exclude all Negro and Republican representation, and that theconstitution would go into effect without being submitted to the people. Said the most important provision: "Any person who shall apply forregistration after January 1, 1898, if otherwise qualified, shall beregistered; provided that he can both read and write any section of thisconstitution submitted to him by the registration officer or can showthat he owns and has paid all taxes collectible during the previousyear on property in this state assessed at three hundred dollars ormore"--clauses which it is hardly necessary to say the registrarsregularly interpreted in favor of white men and against the Negro. In1898 Louisiana passed an amendment inventing the so-called "grandfatherclause. " This excused from the operation of her disfranchising act alldescendants of men who had voted before the Civil War, thus admittingto the suffrage all white men who were illiterate and without property. North Carolina in 1900, Virginia and Alabama in 1901, Georgia in 1907, and Oklahoma in 1910 in one way or another practically disfranchised theNegro, care being taken in every instance to avoid any definite clashwith the Fifteenth Amendment. In Maryland there have been severalattempts to disfranchise the Negro by constitutional amendments, one in1905, another in 1909, and still another in 1911, but all have failed. About the intention of its disfranchising legislation the South, asrepresented by more than one spokesman, was very frank. Unfortunatelythe new order called forth a group of leaders--represented by Tillmanin South Carolina, Hoke Smith in Georgia, and James K. Vardaman inMississippi--who made a direct appeal to prejudice and thus capitalizedthe racial feeling that already had been brought to too high tension. Naturally all such legislation as that suggested had ultimately to bebrought before the highest tribunal in the country. The test cameover the following section from the Oklahoma law: "No person shall beregistered as an elector of this state or be allowed to vote in anyelection herein unless he shall be able to read and write any sectionof the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma; but no person who was onJanuary 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote underany form of government, or who at any time resided in some foreignnation, and no lineal descendant of such person shall be denied theright to register and vote because of his inability to so read andwrite sections of such Constitution. " This enactment the Supreme Courtdeclared unconstitutional in 1915. The decision exerted no great andimmediate effect on political conditions in the South; nevertheless asthe official recognition by the nation of the fact that the Negrowas not accorded his full political rights, it was destined to havefar-reaching effect on the whole political fabric of the section. When the era of disfranchisement began it was in large measure expectedby the South that with the practical elimination of the Negro frompolitics this section would become wider in its outlook and divide onnational issues. Such has not proved to be the case. Except for thenoteworthy deflection of Tennessee in the presidential election of 1920, and Republican gains in some counties in other states, this sectionremains just as "solid" as it was forty years ago, largely of coursebecause the Negro, through education and the acquisition of property, isbecoming more and more a potential factor in politics. Meanwhile it isto be observed that the Negro is not wholly without a vote, even in theSouth, and sometimes his power is used with telling effect, as in thecity of Atlanta in the spring of 1919, when he decided in the negativethe question of a bond issue. In the North moreover--especially inIndiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York--hehas on more than one occasion proved the deciding factor in politicalaffairs. Even when not voting, however, he involuntarily wieldstremendous influence on the destinies of the nation, for even though menmay be disfranchised, all are nevertheless counted in the allotment ofcongressmen to Southern states. This anomalous situation means that inactual practice the vote of one white man in the South is four or sixor even eight times as strong as that of a man in the North;[1] and itdirectly accounted for the victory of President Wilson and the Democratsover the Republicans led by Charles E. Hughes in 1916. For remedyingit by the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment bills have beenfrequently presented in Congress, but on these no action has been taken. [Footnote 1: In 1914 Kansas and Mississippi each elected eight membersof the House of Representatives, but Kansas cast 483, 683 votes forher members, while Mississippi cast only 37, 185 for hers, less thanone-twelfth as many. ] 2. _Economic Life: Peonage_ Within fifteen years after the close of the war it was clear that theEmancipation Proclamation was a blessing to the poor white man of theSouth as well as to the Negro. The break-up of the great plantationsystem was ultimately to prove good for all men whose slender means hadgiven them little chance before the war. At the same time came also thedevelopment of cotton-mills throughout the South, in which as early as1880 not less than 16, 000 white people were employed. With the decay ofthe old system the average acreage of holdings in the South Atlanticstates decreased from 352. 8 in 1860 to 108. 4 in 1900. It was stillnot easy for an independent Negro to own land on his own account;nevertheless by as early a year as 1874 the Negro farmers had acquired338, 769 acres. After the war the planters first tried the wage systemfor the Negroes. This was not satisfactory--from the planter'sstandpoint because the Negro had not yet developed stability as alaborer; from the Negro's standpoint because while the planter mightadvance rations, he frequently postponed the payment of wages andsometimes did not pay at all. Then land came to be rented; butfrequently the rental was from 80 to 100 pounds of lint cotton an acrefor land that produced only 200 to 400 pounds. In course of timethe share system came to be most widely used. Under this the tenantfrequently took his whole family into the cotton-field, and when thecrop was gathered and he and the landlord rode together to the nearesttown to sell it, he received one-third, one-half, or two-thirds of themoney according as he had or had not furnished his own food, implements, and horses or mules. This system might have proved successful if he hadnot had to pay exorbitant prices for his rations. As it was, ifthe landlord did not directly furnish foodstuffs he might have anunderstanding with the keeper of the country store, who frequentlycharged for a commodity twice what it was worth in the open market. Atthe close of the summer there was regularly a huge bill waiting for theNegro at the store; this had to be disposed of first, _and he alwayscame out just a few dollars behind_. However, the landlord did not mindsuch a small matter and in the joy of the harvest might even advance afew dollars; but the understanding was always that the tenant was toremain on the land the next year. Thus were the chains of peonage forgedabout him. At the same time there developed a still more vicious system. Immediately after the war legislation enacted in the South made severeprovision with reference to vagrancy. Negroes were arrested on theslightest pretexts and their labor as that of convicts leased tolandowners or other business men. When, a few years later, Negroes, dissatisfied with the returns from their labor on the farms, began amovement to the cities, there arose a tendency to make the vagrancylegislation still more harsh, so that at last a man could not stop workwithout technically committing a crime. Thus in all its hideousnessdeveloped the convict lease system. This institution and the accompanying chain-gang were at variance withall the humanitarian impulses of the nineteenth century. Sometimesprisoners were worked in remote parts of a state altogether away fromthe oversight of responsible officials; if they stayed in a prison thedepartment for women was frequently in plain view and hearing ofthe male convicts, and the number of cubic feet in a cell was onlyone-fourth of what a scientific test would have required. Sometimesthere was no place for the dressing of the dead except in the presenceof the living. The system was worst when the lessee was given the entirecharge of the custody and discipline of the convicts, and even of theirmedical or surgical care. Of real attention there frequently was none, and reports had numerous blank spaces to indicate deaths from unknowncauses. The sturdiest man could hardly survive such conditions for morethan ten years. In Alabama in 1880 only three of the convicts had beenin confinement for eight years, and only one for nine. In Texas, from1875 to 1880, the total number of prisoners discharged was 1651, whilethe number of deaths and escapes for the same period totalled 1608. InNorth Carolina the mortality was eight times as great as in Sing Sing. At last the conscience of the nation began to be heard, and after 1883there were remedial measures. However, the care of the prisoner stillleft much to be desired; and as the Negro is greatly in the majorityamong prisoners in the South, and as he is still sometimes arrestedillegally or on flimsy pretexts, the whole matter of judicial and penalprocedure becomes one of the first points of consideration in any finalsettlement of the Negro Problem. [1] [Footnote 1: Within recent years it has been thought that the convictlease system and peonage had practically passed in the South. That thiswas by no means the case was shown by the astonishing revelations fromJasper County, Georgia, early in 1921, it being demonstrated in courtthat a white farmer, John S. Williams, who had "bought out" Negroes fromthe prisons of Atlanta and Macon, had not only held these people inpeonage, but had been directly responsible for the killing of not lessthan eleven of them. However, as the present work passes through the press, word comes of theremarkable efforts of Governor Hugh M. Dorsey for a more enlightenedpublic conscience in his state. In addition to special endeavor forjustice in the Williams case, he has issued a booklet citing with detailone hundred and thirty-five cases in which Negroes have suffered gravewrong. He divides his cases into four divisions: (1) The Negro lynched, (2) The Negro held in peonage, (3) The Negro driven out by organizedlawlessness, and (4) The Negro subject to individual acts of cruelty. "In some counties, " he says, "the Negro is being driven out as though hewere a wild beast. In others he is being held as a slave. In others noNegroes remain.... In only two of the 135 cases cited is crime againstwhite women involved. " For the more recent history of peonage see pp. 306, 329, 344, 360-363. ] 3. _Social Life: Proscription, Lynching_ Meanwhile proscription went forward. Separate and inferior travelingaccommodations, meager provision for the education of Negro children, inadequate street, lighting and water facilities in most cities andtowns, and the general lack of protection of life and property, madeliving increasingly harder for a struggling people. For the Negro ofaspiration or culture every day became a long train of indignities andinsults. On street cars he was crowded into a few seats, generally inthe rear; he entered a railway station by a side door; in a theater hemight occupy only a side, or more commonly the extreme rear, of thesecond balcony; a house of ill fame might flourish next to his ownlittle home; and from public libraries he was shut out altogether, except where a little branch was sometimes provided. Every opportunityfor such self-improvement as a city might be expected to afford him waseither denied him, or given on such terms as his self-respect forced himto refuse. Meanwhile--and worst of all--he failed to get justice in the courts. Formally called before the bar he knew beforehand that the case wasprobably already decided against him. A white boy might insult and picka quarrel with his son, but if the case reached the court room the whiteboy would be freed and the Negro boy fined $25 or sent to jail for threemonths. Some trivial incident involving no moral responsibility whateveron the Negro's part might yet cost him his life. Lynching grew apace. Generally this was said to be for the protectionof white womanhood; but statistics certainly did not give rape theprominence that it held in the popular mind. Any cause of controversy, however slight, that forced a Negro to defend himself against a whiteman might result in a lynching, and possibly in a burning. In the periodof 1871-73 the number of Negroes lynched in the South is said to havebeen not more than 11 a year. Between 1885 and 1915, however, the numberof persons lynched in the country amounted to 3500, the great majoritybeing Negroes in the South. For the year 1892 alone the figure was 235. One fact was outstanding: astonishing progress was being made by theNegro people, but in the face of increasing education and culture ontheir part, there was no diminution of race feeling. Most Southernerspreferred still to deal with a Negro of the old type rather than withone who was neatly dressed, simple and unaffected in manner, andambitious to have a good home. In any case, however, it was clear thatsince the white man held the power, upon him rested primarily theresponsibility of any adjustment. Old schemes for deportation orcolonization in a separate state having proved ineffective orchimerical, it was necessary to find a new platform on which both racescould stand. The Negro was still the outstanding factor in agricultureand industry; in large numbers he had to live, and will live, in Georgiaand South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas; and there should have beensome plane on which he could reside in the South not only serviceablybut with justice to his self-respect. The wealth of the New South, it isto be remembered, was won not only by the labor of black hands but alsothat of little white boys and girls. As laborers and citizens, real orpotential, both of these groups deserved the most earnest solicitude ofthe state, for it is not upon the riches of the few but the happiness ofthe many that a nation's greatness depends. Moreover no state can buildpermanently or surely by denying to a half or a third of those governedany voice whatever in the government. If the Negro was ignorant, he wasalso economically defenseless; and it is neither just nor wise to denyto any man, however humble, any real power for his legal protection. Ifthese principles hold--and we think they are in line with enlightenedconceptions of society--the prosperity of the New South was by no meansas genuine as it appeared to be, and the disfranchisement of the Negro, morally and politically, was nothing less than a crime. CHAPTER XV "THE VALE OF TEARS, " 1890-1910 1. _Current Opinion and Tendencies_ In the two decades that we are now to consider we find the workingout of all the large forces mentioned in our last chapter. After ageneration of striving the white South was once more thoroughly incontrol, and the new program well under way. Predictions for both abroader outlook for the section as a whole and greater care for theNegro's moral and intellectual advancement were destined not to befulfilled; and the period became one of bitter social and economicantagonism. All of this was primarily due to the one great fallacy on which theprosperity of the New South was built, and that was that the labor ofthe Negro existed only for the good of the white man. To this one sourcemay be traced most of the ills borne by both white man and Negro duringthe period. If the Negro's labor was to be exploited, it was necessarythat he be without the protection of political power and that he bedenied justice in court. If he was to be reduced to a peon, certainlysocially he must be given a peon's place. Accordingly there developedeverywhere--in schools, in places of public accommodation, in thefacilities of city life--the idea of inferior service for Negroes;and an unenlightened prison system flourished in all its hideousness. Furthermore, as a result of the vicious economic system, arose thesinister form of the Negro criminal. Here again the South begged thequestion, representative writers lamenting the passing of the dear deaddays of slavery, and pointing cynically to the effects of freedom on theNegro. They failed to remember in the case of the Negro criminal thatfrom childhood to manhood--in education, in economic chance, in legalpower--they had by their own system deprived a human being of everyprivilege that was due him, ruining him body and soul; and then theystood aghast at the thing their hands had made. More than that, theyblamed the race itself for the character that now sometimes appeared, and called upon thrifty, aspiring Negroes to find the criminal and givehim up to the law. Thrifty, aspiring Negroes wondered what was thebusiness of the police. It was this pitiful failure to get down to fundamentals thatcharacterized the period and that made life all the more hard for thoseNegroes who strove to advance. Every effort was made to brutalize a man, and then he was blamed for not being a St. Bernard. Fortunately beforethe period was over there arose not only clear-thinking men of the racebut also a few white men who realized that such a social order could notlast forever. Early in the nineties, however, the pendulum had swung fully backward, and the years from 1890 to 1895 were in some ways the darkest that therace has experienced since emancipation. When in 1892 Cleveland waselected for a second term and the Democrats were once more in power, itseemed to the Southern rural Negro that the conditions of slavery hadall but come again. More and more the South formulated its creed; itglorified the old aristocracy that had flourished and departed, anddefinitely it began to ask the North if it had not been right after all. It followed of course that if the Old South had the real key to theproblem, the proper place of the Negro was that of a slave. Within two or three years there were so many important articles on theNegro in prominent magazines and these were by such representative menthat taken together they formed a symposium. In December, 1891, JamesBryce wrote in the _North American Review_, pointing out that thesituation in the South was a standing breach of the Constitution, thatit suspended the growth of political parties and accustomed the sectionto fraudulent evasions, and he emphasized education as a possibleremedy; he had quite made up his mind that the Negro had little or noplace in politics. In January, 1892, a distinguished classical scholar, Basil L. Gildersleeve, turned aside from linguistics to write in the_Atlantic_ "The Creed of the Old South, " which article he afterwardspublished as a special brochure, saying that it had been more widelyread than anything else he had ever written. In April, Thomas NelsonPage in the _North American_ contended that in spite of the $5, 000, 000spent on the education of the Negro in Virginia between 1870 and 1890the race had retrograded or not greatly improved, and in fact that theNegro "did not possess the qualities to raise himself above slavery. "Later in the same year he published _The Old South_. In the same monthFrederick L. Hoffman, writing in the _Arena_, contended that in view ofits mortality statistics the Negro race would soon die out. [1] Also inApril, 1892, Henry Watterson wrote of the Negro in the _Chautauquan_, recalling the facts that the era of political turmoil had been succeededby one of reaction and violence, and that by one of exhaustion andpeace; but with all his insight he ventured no constructive suggestion, thinking it best for everybody "simply to be quiet for a time. " Early in1893 John C. Wycliffe, a prominent lawyer of New Orleans, writing inthe _Forum_, voiced the desires of many in asking for a repeal of theFifteenth Amendment; and in October, Bishop Atticus G. Haygood, writingin the same periodical of a recent and notorious lynching, said, "Itwas horrible to torture the guilty wretch; the burning was an act ofinsanity. But had the dismembered form of his victim been the dishonoredbody of my baby, I might also have gone into an insanity that might haveended never. " Again and again was there the lament that the Negroes offorty years after were both morally and intellectually inferior totheir antebellum ancestors; and if college professors and lawyers andministers of the Gospel wrote in this fashion one could not wonder thatthe politician made capital of choice propaganda. [Footnote 1: In 1896 this paper entered into an elaborate study, _RaceTraits and Tendencies of the American Negro_, a publication of theAmerican Economic Association. In this Hoffman contended at length thatthe race was not only not holding its own in population, but that it wasalso astonishingly criminal and was steadily losing economically. Hiswork was critically studied and its fallacies exposed in the _Nation_, April 1, 1897. ] In this chorus of dispraise truth struggled for a hearing, but then asnow traveled more slowly than error. In the _North American_ for July, 1892, Frederick Douglass wrote vigorously of "Lynch Law in the South. "In the same month George W. Cable answered affirmatively and withemphasis the question, "Does the Negro pay for his education?" He showedthat in Georgia in 1889-90 the colored schools did not really cost thewhite citizens a cent, and that in the other Southern states the Negrowas also contributing his full share to the maintenance of the schools. In June of the same year William T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, wrote in truly statesmanlike fashion in the _Atlantic_ of "The Educationof the Negro. " Said he: "With the colored people all educated in schoolsand become a reading people interested in the daily newspaper; with allforms of industrial training accessible to them, and the opportunity soimproved that every form of mechanical and manufacturing skill has itsquota of colored working men and women; with a colored ministry educatedin a Christian theology interpreted in a missionary spirit, and findingits auxiliaries in modern science and modern literature; with theseeducational essentials the Negro problem for the South will be solvedwithout recourse to violent measures of any kind, whether migration, or disfranchisement, or ostracism. " In December, 1893, Walter H. Page, writing in the _Forum_ of lynching under the title, "The Last Hold ofthe Southern Bully, " said that "the great danger is not in the firstviolation of law, nor in the crime itself, but in the danger thatSouthern public sentiment under the stress of this phase of the raceproblem will lose the true perspective of civilization"; and L. E. Bleckley, Chief Justice of Georgia, spoke in similar vein. On the whole, however, the country, while occasionally indignant at some atrocity, hadquite decided not to touch the Negro question for a while; and when inthe spring of 1892 some representative Negroes protested without availto President Harrison against the work of mobs, the _Review of Reviews_but voiced the drift of current opinion when it said: "As for thecolored men themselves, their wisest course would be to cultivate thebest possible relations with the most upright and intelligent of theirwhite neighbors, and for some time to come to forget all about politicsand to strive mightily for industrial and educational progress. "[1] [Footnote 1: June, 1892, p. 526. ] It is not strange that under the circumstances we have now to recordsuch discrimination, crime, and mob violence as can hardly be paralleledin the whole of American history. The Negro was already down; he was nowto be trampled upon. When in the spring of 1892 some members of the racein the lowlands of Mississippi lost all they had by the floods and theFederal Government was disposed to send relief, the state governmentprotested against such action on the ground that it would keep theNegroes from accepting the terms offered by the white planters. InLouisiana in 1895 a Negro presiding elder reported to the _SouthwesternChristian Advocate_ that he had lost a membership of a hundred souls, the people being compelled to leave their crops and move away within tendays. In 1891 the jail at Omaha was entered and a Negro taken out and hangedto a lamp-post. On February 27, 1892, at Jackson, La. , where there wasa pound party for the minister at the Negro Baptist church, a crowd ofwhite men gathered, shooting revolvers and halting the Negroes as theypassed. Most of the people were allowed to go on, but after a while thesport became furious and two men were fatally shot. About the same time, and in the same state, at Rayville, a Negro girl of fifteen was takenfrom a jail by a mob and hanged to a tree. In Texarkana, Ark. , a Negrowho had outraged a farmer's wife was captured and burned alive, theinjured woman herself being compelled to light the fire. Just a few dayslater, in March, a constable in Memphis in attempting to arrest a Negrowas killed. Numerous arrests followed, and at night a mob went to thejail, gained easy access, and, having seized three well-known Negroeswho were thought to have been leaders in the killing, lynched them, thewhole proceeding being such a flagrant violation of law that it has notyet been forgotten by the older Negro citizens of this important city. On February 1, 1893, at Paris, Texas, after one of the most brutalcrimes occurred one of the most horrible lynchings on record. HenrySmith, the Negro, who seems to have harbored a resentment against apoliceman of the town because of ill-treatment that he had received, seized the officer's three-year-old child, outraged her, and then toreher body to pieces. He was tortured by the child's father, her uncles, and her fifteen-year-old brother, his eyes being put out with hot ironsbefore he was burned. His stepson, who had refused to tell where hecould be found, was hanged and his body riddled with bullets. Thus thelynchings went on, the victims sometimes being guilty of the gravestcrimes, but often also perfectly innocent people. In February, 1893, theaverage was very nearly one a day. At the same time injuries inflictedon the Negro were commonly disregarded altogether. Thus at Dickson, Tenn. , a young white man lost forty dollars. A fortune-teller told himthat the money had been taken by a woman and gave a description thatseemed to fit a young colored woman who had worked in the home of arelative. Half a dozen men then went to the home of the young woman andoutraged her, her mother, and also another woman who was in the house. At the very close of 1894, in Brooks County, Ga. , after a Negro namedPike had killed a white man with whom he had a quarrel, seven Negroeswere lynched after the real murderer had escaped. Any relative or otherNegro who, questioned, refused to tell of the whereabouts of Pike, whether he knew of the same or not, was shot in his tracks, one manbeing shot before he had chance to say anything at all. Meanwhile theWhite Caps or "Regulators" took charge of the neighboring counties, terrifying the Negroes everywhere; and in the trials that resulted thestate courts broke down altogether, one judge in despair giving up theholding of court as useless. Meanwhile discrimination of all sorts went forward. On May 29, 1895, moved by the situation at the Orange Park Academy, the state of Floridaapproved "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Youth from being Taughtin the same Schools. " Said one section: "It shall be a penal offensefor any individual body of inhabitants, corporation, or association toconduct within this State any school of any grade, public, private, orparochial, wherein white persons and Negroes shall be instructed orboarded within the same building, or taught in the same class or at thesame time by the same teacher. " Religious organizations were not to beleft behind in such action; and when before the meeting of the BaptistYoung People's Union in Baltimore a letter was sent to the secretary ofthe organization and the editor of the _Baptist Union_, in behalf of theNegroes, who the year before had not been well treated at Toronto, hesent back an evasive answer, saying that the policy of his society wasto encourage local unions to affiliate with their own churches. More grave than anything else was the formal denial of the Negro'spolitical rights. As we have seen, South Carolina in 1895 followedMississippi in the disfranchising program and within the next fifteenyears most of the other Southern states did likewise. With the Negrothus deprived of any genuine political voice, all sorts of social andeconomic injustice found greater license. 2. _Industrial Education: Booker T. Washington_ Such were the tendencies of life in the South as affecting the Negrothirty years after emancipation. In September, 1895, a rising educatorof the race attracted national attention by a remarkable speech thathe made at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. Said Booker T. Washington: "To those of my race who depend on bettering their conditionin a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivatingfriendly relations with the Southern white man who is their next doorneighbor, I would say, 'Cast down your bucket where you are'--cast itdown in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races bywhom we are surrounded.... To those of the white race who look to theincoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for theprosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say tomy own race, 'Cast down your bucket where you are. ' Cast it down among8, 000, 000 Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love youhave tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin ofyour fire-sides.... In all things that are purely social we can be asseparate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential tomutual progress. " The message that Dr. Washington thus enunciated he had already given insubstance the previous spring in an address at Fisk University, and evenbefore then his work at Tuskegee Institute had attracted attention. [1]The Atlanta Exposition simply gave him the great occasion that heneeded; and he was now to proclaim the new word throughout the lengthand breadth of the land. Among the hundreds of addresses that heafterwards delivered, especially important were those at HarvardUniversity in 1896, at the Chicago Peace Jubilee in 1898, and before theNational Education Association in St. Louis in 1904. Again and again inthese speeches one comes upon such striking sentences as the following:"Freedom can never be given. It must be purchased. "[2] "The race, likethe individual, that makes itself indispensable, has solved most of itsproblems. "[3] "As a race there are two things we must learn to do--oneis to put brains into the common occupations of life, and the other isto dignify common labor. "[4] "Ignorant and inexperienced, it is notstrange that in the first years of our new life we began at thetop instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the StateLegislature was worth more than real estate or industrial skill. "[5]"The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worthinfinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an operahouse. "[6] "One of the most vital questions that touch our American lifeis how to bring the strong, wealthy, and learned into helpful contactwith the poorest, most ignorant, and humblest, and at the same timemake the one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening influence of theother. "[7] "There is no defense or security for any of us except in thehighest intelligence and development of all. "[8] [Footnote 1: See article by Albert Shaw, "Negro Progress on the TuskegeePlan, " in _Review of Reviews_, April, 1894. ] [Footnote 2, 3: Speech before N. E. A. , in St. Louis, June 30, 1904. ] [Footnote 4: Speech at Fisk University, 1805. ] [Footnote 5, 6, 8: Speech at Atlanta Exposition, September 18, 1895. ] [Footnote 7: Speech at Harvard University, June 24, 1896. ] The time was ripe for a new leader. Frederick Douglass had died inFebruary, 1895. In his later years he had more than once lost hold onthe heart of his people, as when he opposed the Negro Exodus or seemednot fully in sympathy with the religious convictions of those who lookedto him. At his passing, however, the race remembered only his earlyservice and his old magnificence, and to a striving people his deathseemed to make still darker the gathering gloom. Coming when he did, Booker T. Washington was thoroughly in line with the materialism of hisage; he answered both an economic and an educational crisis. He alsosatisfied the South of the new day by what he had to say about socialequality. The story of his work reads like a romance, and he himself has told itbetter than any one else ever can. He did not claim the credit forthe original idea of industrial education; that he gave to GeneralArmstrong, and it was at Hampton that he himself had been nurtured. Whatwas needed, however, was for some one to take the Hampton idea down tothe cotton belt, interpret the lesson for the men and women digging inthe ground, and generally to put the race in line with the country'sindustrial development. This was what Booker T. Washington undertook todo. He reached Tuskegee early in June, 1881. July 4 was the date set for theopening of the school in the little shanty and church which had beensecured for its accommodation. On the morning of this day thirtystudents reported for admission. The greater number were school-teachersand some were nearly forty years of age. Just about three monthsafter the opening of the school there was offered for sale an old andabandoned plantation a mile from Tuskegee on which the mansion had beenburned. All told the place seemed to be just the location needed tomake the work effective and permanent. The price asked was five hundreddollars, the owner requiring the immediate payment of two hundred andfifty dollars, the remaining two hundred and fifty to be paid within ayear. In his difficulty Mr. Washington wrote to General J. F. B. Marshall, treasurer of Hampton Institute, placing the matter before him and askingfor the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars. General Marshall repliedthat he had no authority to lend money belonging to Hampton Institute, but that he would gladly advance the amount needed from his personalfunds. Toward the paying of this sum the assisting teacher, Olivia A. Davidson (afterwards Mrs. Washington), helped heroically. Her firsteffort was made by holding festivals and suppers, but she also canvassedthe families in the town of Tuskegee, and the white people as well asthe Negroes helped her. "It was often pathetic, " said the principal, "tonote the gifts of the older colored people, many of whom had spent theirbest days in slavery. Sometimes they would give five cents, sometimestwenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was a quilt, or a quantityof sugarcane. I recall one old colored woman, who was about seventyyears of age, who came to see me when we were raising money to pay forthe farm. She hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane. Shewas clad in rags, but they were clean. She said, 'Mr. Washington, Godknows I spent de bes' days of my life in slavery. God knows I's ignorantan' poor; but I knows what you an' Miss Davidson is tryin' to do. Iknows you is tryin' to make better men an' better women for de coloredrace. I ain't got no money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I's been savin' up, an' I wants you to put dese six eggs into deeddication of dese boys an' gals. ' Since the work at Tuskegee started, "added the speaker, "it has been my privilege to receive many gifts forthe benefit of the institution, but never any, I think, that touched meas deeply as this one. " It was early in the history of the school that Mr. Washington conceivedthe idea of extension work. The Tuskegee Conferences began in February, 1892. To the first meeting came five hundred men, mainly farmers, andmany woman. Outstanding was the discussion of the actual terms on whichmost of the men were living from year to year. A mortgage was given onthe cotton crop before it was planted, and to the mortgage was attacheda note which waived all right to exemptions under the constitution andlaws of the state of Alabama or of any other state to which the tenantmight move. Said one: "The mortgage ties you tighter than any rope and awaive note is a consuming fire. " Said another: "The waive note is goodfor twenty years and when you sign one you must either pay out or dieout. " Another: "When you sign a waive note you just cross your handsbehind you and go to the merchant and say, 'Here, tie me and takeall I've got. '" All agreed that the people mortgaged more than wasnecessary, to buy sewing machines (which sometimes were not used), expensive clocks, great family Bibles, or other things easily dispensedwith. Said one man: "My people want all they can get on credit, notthinking of the day of settlement. We must learn to bore with a smallaugur first. The black man totes a heavy bundle, and when he puts itdown there is a plow, a hoe, and ignorance. " It was to people such as these that Booker T. Washington brought hope, and serving them he passed on to fame. Within a few years schools on theplan of Tuskegee began to spring up all over the South, at Denmark, atSnow Hill, at Utica, and elsewhere. In 1900 the National Negro BusinessLeague began its sessions, giving great impetus to the establishment ofbanks, stores, and industrial enterprises throughout the country, andespecially in the South. Much of this progress would certainly have beenrealized if the Business League had never been organized; but every onegranted that in all the development the genius of the leader atTuskegee was the chief force. About his greatness and his very definitecontribution there could be no question. 3. _Individual Achievement: The Spanish-American War_ It happened that just at the time that Booker T. Washington wasadvancing to great distinction, three or four other individuals werereflecting special credit on the race. One of these was a young scholar, W. E. Burghardt DuBois, who after a college career at Fisk continuedhis studies at Harvard and Berlin and finally took the Ph. D. Degreeat Harvard in 1895. There had been sound scholars in the race beforeDuBois, but generally these had rested on attainment in the languages ormathematics, and most frequently they had expressed themselves in ratherphilosophical disquisition. Here, however, was a thorough student ofeconomics, and one who was able to attack the problems of his people andmeet opponents on the basis of modern science. He was destined to dogreat good, and the race was proud of him. In 1896 also an authentic young poet who had wrestled with poverty anddoubt at last gained a hearing. After completing the course at a highschool in Dayton, Paul Laurence Dunbar ran an elevator for four dollarsa week, and then he peddled from door to door two little volumes ofverse that had been privately printed. William Dean Howells at lengthgave him a helping hand, and Dodd, Mead & Co. Published _Lyrics of LowlyLife_. Dunbar wrote both in classic English and in the dialect thatvoiced the humor and the pathos of the life of those for whom he spoke. What was not at the time especially observed was that in numerous poemshe suggested the discontent with the age in which he lived and thusstruck what later years were to prove an important keynote. After he hadwaited and struggled so long, his success was so great that it became avogue, and imitators sprang up everywhere. He touched the heart of hispeople and the race loved him. By 1896 also word began to come of a Negro American painter, Henry O. Tanner, who was winning laurels in Paris. At the same time a beautifulsinger, Mme. Sissieretta Jones, on the concert stage was giving newproof of the possibilities of the Negro as an artist in song. In theprevious decade Mme. Marie Selika, a cultured vocalist of the firstrank, had delighted audiences in both America and Europe, and in 1887had appeared Flora Batson, a ballad singer whose work at its best was ofthe sort that sends an audience into the wildest enthusiasm. In 1894, moreover, Harry T. Burleigh, competing against sixty candidates, becamebaritone soloist at St. Georges's Episcopal Church, New York, and just afew years later he was to be employed also at Temple Emanu-El, the FifthAvenue Jewish synagogue. From abroad also came word of a brilliantmusician, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who by his "Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast"in 1898 leaped into the rank of the foremost living English composers. On the more popular stage appeared light musical comedy, intermediatebetween the old Negro minstrelsy and a genuine Negro drama, therepresentative companies becoming within the next few years those ofCole and Johnson, and Williams and Walker. Especially outstanding in the course of the decade, however, was thework of the Negro soldier in the Spanish-American War. There were atthe time four regiments of colored regulars in the Army of the UnitedStates, the Twenty-fourth Infantry, the Twenty-fifth Infantry, theNinth Cavalry, and the Tenth Cavalry. When the war broke out PresidentMcKinley sent to Congress a message recommending the enlistment of moreregiments of Negroes. Congress failed to act; nevertheless coloredtroops enlisted in the volunteer service in Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. TheEighth Illinois was officered throughout by Negroes, J. R. Marshallcommanding; and Major Charles E. Young, a West Point graduate, was incharge of the Ohio battalion. The very first regiment ordered to thefront when the war broke out was the Twenty-fourth Infantry; and Negrotroops were conspicuous in the fighting around Santiago. They figured ina brilliant charge at Las Quasimas on June 24, and in an attack on July1 upon a garrison at El Caney (a position of importance for securingpossession of a line of hills along the San Juan River, a mile and ahalf from Santiago) the First Volunteer Cavalry (Colonel Roosevelt's"Rough Riders") was practically saved from annihilation by the gallantwork of the men of the Tenth Cavalry. Fully as patriotic, though inanother way, was a deed of the Twenty-fourth Infantry. Learning thatGeneral Miles desired a regiment for the cleaning of a yellowfever hospital and the nursing of some victims of the disease, theTwenty-fourth volunteered its services and by one day's work so clearedaway the rubbish and cleaned the camp that the number of cases wasgreatly reduced. Said the _Review of Reviews_ in editorial comment:[1]"One of the most gratifying incidents of the Spanish War has been theenthusiasm that the colored regiments of the regular army havearoused throughout the whole country. Their fighting at Santiago wasmagnificent. The Negro soldiers showed excellent discipline, the highestqualities of personal bravery, very superior physical endurance, unfailing good temper, and the most generous disposition toward allcomrades in arms, whether white or black. Roosevelt's Rough Riders havecome back singing the praises of the colored troops. There is not adissenting voice in the chorus of praise.... Men who can fight for theircountry as did these colored troops ought to have their full share ofgratitude and honor. " [Footnote 1: October, 1898, p. 387. ] 4. _Mob Violence; Election Troubles; The Atlanta Massacre_ After two or three years of comparative quiet--but only _comparative_quiet--mob violence burst forth about the turn of the century withredoubled intensity. In a large way this was simply a result of thecampaigns for disfranchisement that in some of the Southern states werejust now getting under way; but charges of assault and questions oflabor also played a part. In some places people who were innocent of anycharge whatever were attacked, and so many were killed that sometimesit seemed that the law had broken down altogether. Not the leastinteresting development of these troublous years was that in some casesas never before Negroes began to fight with their backs to the wall, andthus at the very close of the century--at the end of a bitter decade andthe beginning of one still more bitter--a new factor entered into theproblem, one that was destined more and more to demand consideration. On one Sunday toward the close of October, 1898, the country recordedtwo race wars, one lynching, two murders, one of which was expected tolead to a lynching, with a total of ten Negroes killed and four woundedand four white men killed and seven wounded. The most serious outbreakwas in the state of Mississippi, and it is worthy of note that in notone single case was there any question of rape. November was made red by election troubles in both North and SouthCarolina. In the latter state, at Phoenix, in Greenwood County, onNovember 8 and for some days thereafter, the Tolberts, a well-knownfamily of white Republicans, were attacked by mobs and barely escapedalive. R. R. Tolbert was a candidate for Congress and also chairman ofthe Republican state committee. John R. Tolbert, his father, collectorof the port of Charleston, had come home to vote and was at one of thepolling-places in the county. Thomas Tolbert at Phoenix was taking theaffidavits of the Negroes who were not permitted to vote for his brotherin order that later there might be ground on which to contest theelection. While thus engaged he was attacked by Etheridge, theDemocratic manager of another precinct. The Negroes came to Tolbert'sdefense, and in the fight that followed Etheridge was killed and Tolbertwounded. John Tolbert, coming up, was filled with buckshot, and ayounger member of the family was also hurt. The Negroes were at lengthoverpowered and the Tolberts forced to flee. All told it appears thattwo white men and about twelve Negroes lost their lives in connectionwith the trouble, six of the latter being lynched on account of thedeath of Etheridge. In North Carolina in 1894 the Republicans by combining with thePopulists had secured control of the state legislature. In 1896 theDemocrats were again outvoted, Governor Russell being elected by aplurality of 9000. A considerable number of local offices was in thehands of Negroes, who had the backing of the Governor, the legislature, and the Supreme Court as well. Before the November elections in 1898 theDemocrats in Wilmington announced their determination to prevent Negroesfrom holding office in the city. Especially had they been made angry byan editorial in a local Negro paper, the _Record_, in which, under dateAugust 18, the editor, Alex. L. Manly, starting with a reference to aspeaker from Georgia, who at the Agricultural Society meeting at Tybeehad advocated lynching as an extreme measure, said that she "lost sightof the basic principle of the religion of Christ in her plea for oneclass of people as against another, " and continued: "The papers arefilled with reports of rapes of white women, and the subsequent lynchingof the alleged rapists. The editors pour forth volleys of aspersionsagainst all Negroes because of the few who may be guilty. If the papersand speakers of the other race would condemn the commission of crimebecause it is crime and not try to make it appear that the Negroeswere the only criminals, they would find their strongest allies in theintelligent Negroes themselves, and together the whites and blacks wouldroot the evil out of both races.... Our experience among poor whitepeople in the country teaches us that the women of that race are not anymore particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored menthan are the white men with colored women. Meetings of this kind go onfor some time until the woman's infatuation or the man's boldness bringsattention to them and the man is lynched for rape. " In reply to thisthe speaker quoted in a signed statement said: "When the Negro Manlyattributed the crime of rape to intimacy between Negro men and whitewomen of the South, the slanderer should be made to fear a lyncher'srope rather than occupy a place in New York newspapers"--a method ofargument that was unfortunately all too common in the South. As electionday approached the Democrats sought generally to intimidate the Negroes, the streets and roads being patrolled by men wearing red shirts. Election day, however, passed without any disturbance; but on the nextday there was a mass meeting of white citizens, at which there wereadopted resolutions to employ white labor instead of Negro, to banishthe editor of the _Record_, and to send away from the city theprinting-press in the office of that paper; and a committee oftwenty-five was appointed to see that these resolutions were carriedinto effect within twenty-four hours. In the course of the terribleday that followed the printing office was destroyed, several whiteRepublicans were driven from the city, and nine Negroes were killed atonce, though no one could say with accuracy just how many more losttheir lives or were seriously wounded before the trouble was over. Charles W. Chesnutt, in _The Marrow of Tradition_, has given a faithfulportrayal of these disgraceful events, the Wellington of the story beingWilmington. Perhaps the best commentary on those who thus sought powerwas afforded by their apologist, a Presbyterian minister and editor, A. J. McKelway, who on this occasion and others wrote articles in the_Independent_ and the _Outlook_ justifying the proceedings. Said he: "Itis difficult to speak of the Red Shirts without a smile. They victimizedthe Negroes with a huge practical joke.... A dozen men would meet at acrossroad, on horseback, clad in red shirts or calico, flannel or silk, according to the taste of the owner and the enthusiasm of his womankind. They would gallop through the country, and the Negro would quietly makeup his mind that his interest in political affairs was not a large one, anyhow. It would be wise not to vote, and wiser not to register toprevent being dragooned into voting on election day. " It thus appearsthat the forcible seizure of the political rights of people, the killingand wounding of many, and the compelling of scores to leave their homesamount in the end to not more than a "practical joke. " One part of the new program was the most intense opposition to FederalNegro appointees anywhere in the South. On the morning of February 22, 1898, Frazer B. Baker, the colored postmaster at Lake City, S. C. , awoketo find his house in flames. Attempting to escape, he and his baby boywere shot and killed and their bodies consumed in the burning house. His wife and the other children were wounded but escaped. ThePostmaster-General was quite disposed to see that justice was done inthis case; but the men charged with the crime gave the most trivialalibis, and on Saturday, April 22, 1899, the jury in the United StatesCircuit Court at Charleston reported its failure to agree on a verdict. Three years later the whole problem was presented strongly to PresidentRoosevelt. When Mrs. Minne Cox, who was serving efficiently aspostmistress at Indianola, Miss. , was forced to resign because ofthreats, he closed the office; and when there was protest againstthe appointment of Dr. William D. Crum as collector of the port ofCharleston, he said, "I do not intend to appoint any unfit man tooffice. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to payregard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality; but Ican not consent to take the position that the door of hope--the door ofopportunity--is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purelyupon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according tomy convictions, be fundamentally wrong. " These memorable words, comingin a day of compromise and expediency in high places, greatly cheeredthe heart of the race. Just the year before, the importance of theincident of Booker T. Washington's taking lunch with President Rooseveltwas rather unnecessarily magnified by the South into all sorts ofdiscussion of social equality. On Tuesday, January 24, 1899, a fire in the center of the town ofPalmetto, Ga. , destroyed a hotel, two stores, and a storehouse, on whichproperty there was little insurance. The next Saturday there was anotherfire and this destroyed a considerable part of the town. For some weeksthere was no clue as to the origin of these fires; but about the middleof March something overheard by a white citizen led to the implicatingof nine Negroes. These men were arrested and confined for the night ofMarch 15 in a warehouse to await trial the next morning, a dummy guardof six men being placed before the door. About midnight a mob came, pushed open the door, and fired two volleys at the Negroes, killing fourimmediately and fatally wounding four more. The circumstances of thisatrocious crime oppressed the Negro people of the state as few thingshad done since the Civil War. That it did no good was evident, for inits underlying psychology it was closely associated with a double crimethat was now to be committed. In April, Sam Hose, a Negro who hadbrooded on the happenings at Palmetto, not many miles from the scenekilled a farmer, Alfred Cranford, who had been a leader of the mob, andoutraged his wife. For two weeks he was hunted like an animal, the whitepeople of the state meanwhile being almost unnerved and the Negroessickened by the pursuit. At last, however, he was found, and on Sunday, April 23, at Newnan, Ga. , he was burned, his execution being accompaniedby unspeakable mutilation; and on the same day Lige Strickland, a Negropreacher whom Hose had accused of complicity in his crime, was hangednear Palmetto. The nation stood aghast, for the recent events in Georgiahad shaken the very foundations of American civilization. Said the_Charleston News and Courier_: "The chains which bound the citizen, SamHose, to the stake at Newnan mean more for us and for his race than thechains or bonds of slavery, which they supplanted. The flames that litthe scene of his torture shed their baleful light throughout everycorner of our land, and exposed a state of things, actual and potential, among us that should rouse the dullest mind to a sharp sense of our truecondition, and of our unchanged and unchangeable relations to the wholerace whom the tortured wretch represented. " Violence breeds violence, and two or three outstanding events are yet tobe recorded. On August 23, 1899, at Darien, Ga. , hundreds of Negroes, who for days had been aroused by rumors of a threatened lynching, assembled at the ringing of the bell of a church opposite the jail andby their presence prevented the removal of a prisoner. They were latertried for insurrection and twenty-one sent to the convict farms for ayear. The general circumstances of the uprising excited great interestthroughout the country. In May, 1900, in Augusta, Ga. , an unfortunatestreet car incident resulted in the death of the aggressor, a youngwhite man named Whitney, and in the lynching of the colored man, Wilson, who killed him. In this instance the victim was tortured and mutilated, parts of his body and of the rope by which he was hanged being passedaround as souvenirs. A Negro organization at length recovered the body, and so great was the excitement at the funeral that the coffin was notallowed to be opened. Two months later, in New Orleans, there was a mostextraordinary occurrence, the same being important because the leadingfigure was very frankly regarded by the Negroes as a hero and his fightin his own defense a sign that the men of the race would not always beshot down without some effort to protect themselves. One night in July, an hour before midnight, two Negroes Robert Charlesand Leonard Pierce, who had recently come into the city from Mississippiand whose movements had interested the police, were found by threeofficers on the front steps of a house in Dryades Street. Beingquestioned they replied that they had been in the town two or three daysand had secured work. In the course of the questioning the larger ofthe Negroes, Charles, rose to his feet; he was seized by one of theofficers, Mora, who began to use his billet; and in the struggle thatresulted Charles escaped and Mora was wounded in each hand and the hip. Charles now took refuge in a small house on Fourth Street, and when hewas surrounded, with deadly aim he shot and instantly killed the firsttwo officers who appeared. [1] The other men advancing, retreated andwaited until daylight for reënforcement, and Charles himself withdrew toother quarters, and for some days his whereabouts were unknown. With thenew day, however, the city was wild with excitement and thousands of menjoined in the search, the newspapers all the while stirring the crowdto greater fury. Mobs rushed up and down the streets assaulting Negroeswherever they could be found, no effort to check them being made by thepolice. On the second night a crowd of nearly a thousand was addressedat the Lee Monument by a man from Kenner, a town a few miles above thecity. Said he: "Gentlemen, I am from Kenner, and I have come down hereto-night to assist you in teaching the blacks a lesson. I have killed aNegro before and in revenge of the wrong wrought upon you and yours I amwilling to kill again. The only way you can teach these niggers a lessonand put them in their place is to go out and lynch a few of them asan object lesson. String up a few of them. That is the only thing todo--kill them, string them up, lynch them. I will lead you. On to theparish prison and lynch Pierce. " The mob now rushed to the prison, stores and pawnshops being plundered on the way. Within the next fewhours a Negro was taken from a street car on Canal Street, killed, andhis body thrown into the gutter. An old man of seventy going to work inthe morning was fatally shot. On Rousseau Street the mob fired into alittle cabin; the inmates were asleep and an old woman was killed inbed. Another old woman who looked out from her home was beaten intoinsensibility. A man sitting at his door was shot, beaten, and left fordead. Such were the scenes that were enacted almost hourly from Mondayuntil Friday evening. One night the excellent school building given byThomy Lafon, a member of the race and a philanthropist, was burned. [Footnote 1: From this time forth the wildest rumors were afloat andthe number of men that Charles had killed was greatly exaggerated. Somereports said scores or even hundreds, and it is quite possible that anyfigures given herewith are an understatement. ] About three o'clock on Friday afternoon Charles was found to be ina two-story house at the corner of Saratoga and Clio Streets. Twoofficers, Porteus and Lally, entered a lower room. The first fell deadat the first shot, and the second was mortally wounded by the next. Athird, Bloomfield, waiting with gun in hand, was wounded at the firstshot and killed at the second. The crowd retreated, but bullets rainedupon the house, Charles all the while keeping watch in every directionfrom four different windows. Every now and then he thrust his riflethrough one of the shattered windowpanes and fired, working withincredible rapidity. He succeeded in killing two more of his assailantsand wounding two. At last he realized that the house was on fire, andknowing that the end had come he rushed forth upon his foes, fired oneshot more and fell dead. He had killed eight men and mortally woundedtwo or three more. His body was mutilated. In his room there wasafterwards found a copy of a religious publication, and it was knownthat he had resented disfranchisement in Louisiana and had distributedpamphlets to further a colonization scheme. No incriminating evidence, however, was found. In the same memorable year, 1900, on the night of Wednesday, August15, there were serious riots in the city of New York. On the precedingSunday a policeman named Thorpe in attempting to arrest a colored womanwas stabbed by a Negro, Arthur Harris, so fatally that he died onMonday. On Wednesday evening Negroes were dragged from the street carsand beaten, and by midnight there were thousands of rioters between25th and 35th Streets. On the next night the trouble was resumed. Theseevents were followed almost immediately by riots in Akron, Ohio. On thelast Sunday in October, 1901, while some Negroes were holding theirusual fall camp-meeting in a grove in Washington Parish, Louisiana, theywere attacked, and a number of people, not less than ten and perhapsseveral more, were killed; and hundreds of men, women, and children feltforced to move away from the vicinity. In the first week of March, 1904, there was in Mississippi a lynching that exceeded even others ofthe period in its horror and that became notorious for its use of acorkscrew. A white planter of Doddsville was murdered, and a Negro, Luther Holbert, was charged with the crime. Holbert fled, and hisinnocent wife went with him. Further report we read in the Democratic_Evening Post_ of Vicksburg as follows: "When the two Negroes werecaptured, they were tied to trees, and while the funeral pyres werebeing prepared they were forced to suffer the most fiendish tortures. The blacks were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at atime was chopped off. The fingers were distributed as souvenirs. Theears of the murderers were cut off. Holbert was beaten severely, hisskull was fractured, and one of his eyes, knocked out with a stick, hungby a shred from the socket.... The most excruciating form of punishmentconsisted in the use of a large corkscrew in the hands of some of themob. This instrument was bored into the flesh of the man and the woman, in the arms, legs, and body, and then pulled out, the spirals tearingout big pieces of raw, quivering flesh every time it was withdrawn. "In the summer of this same year Georgia was once more the scene of ahorrible lynching, two Negroes, Paul Reed and Will Cato--because of themurder of the Hodges family six miles from the town on July 20--beingburned at the stake at Statesville under unusually depressingcircumstances. In August, 1908, there were in Springfield, Illinois, race riots of such a serious nature that a force of six thousandsoldiers was required to quell them. These riots were significantnot only because of the attitude of Northern laborers toward Negrocompetition, but also because of the indiscriminate killing of Negroesby people in the North, this indicating a genuine nationalization of theNegro Problem. The real climax of violence within the period, however, was the Atlanta Massacre of Saturday, September 22, 1906. Throughout the summer the heated campaign of Hoke Smith forthe governorship capitalized the gathering sentiment for thedisfranchisement of the Negro in the state and at length raised the raceissue to such a high pitch that it leaped into flame. The feeling wasintensified by the report of assaults and attempted assaults by Negroes, particularly as these were detailed and magnified or even invented by anevening paper, the _Atlanta News_, against which the Fulton County GrandJury afterwards brought in an indictment as largely responsible for theriot, and which was forced to suspend publication when the business menof the city withdrew their support. Just how much foundation there wasto the rumors may be seen from the following report of the investigator:"Three, charged to white men, attracted comparatively little attentionin the newspapers, although one, the offense of a man named Turnadge, was shocking in its details. Of twelve such charges against Negroes inthe six months preceding the riot, two were cases of rape, horrible intheir details, three were aggravated attempts at rape, three may havebeen attempts, three were pure cases of fright on the part of whitewomen, and in one the white woman, first asserting that a Negro hadassaulted her, finally confessed attempted suicide. "[1] On Friday, September 21, while a Negro was on trial, the father of the girlconcerned asked the recorder for permission to deal with the Negro withhis own hand, and an outbreak was barely averted in the open court. On Saturday evening, however, some elements in the city and fromneighboring towns, heated by liquor and newspaper extras, became openlyriotous and until midnight defied all law and authority. Negroeswere assaulted wherever they appeared, for the most part being foundunsuspecting, as in the case of those who happened to be going home fromwork and were on street cars passing through the heart of the city. In one barber shop two workers were beaten to death and their bodiesmangled. A lame bootblack, innocent and industrious, was dragged fromhis work and kicked and beaten to death. Another young Negro was stabbedwith jack-knives. Altogether very nearly a score of persons lost theirlives and two or three times as many were injured. After some timeGovernor Terrell mobilized the militia, but the crowd did not take thismove seriously, and the real feeling of the Mayor, who turned on thehose of the fire department, was shown by his statement that just solong as the Negroes committed certain crimes just so long would they beunceremoniously dealt with. Sunday dawned upon a city of astounded whitepeople and outraged and sullen Negroes. Throughout Monday and Tuesdaythe tension continued, the Negroes endeavoring to defend themselves aswell as they could. On Monday night the union of some citizens withpolicemen who were advancing in a suburb in which most of the homes werethose of Negroes, resulted in the death of James Heard, an officer, andin the wounding of some of those who accompanied him. More Negroes werealso killed, and a white woman to whose front porch two men were chaseddied of fright at seeing them shot to death. It was the disposition, however, on the part of the Negroes to make armed resistance that reallyput an end to the massacre. Now followed a procedure that is bestdescribed in the words of the prominent apologist for such outbreaks. Said A. J. McKelway: "Tuesday every house in the town (i. E. , the suburbreferred to above) was entered by the soldiers, and some two hundredand fifty Negroes temporarily held, while the search was proceeding andinquiries being made. They were all disarmed, and those with concealedweapons, or under suspicion of having been in the party firing on thepolice, were sent to jail. "[2] It is thus evident that in this case, asin many others, the Negroes who had suffered most, not the white men whokilled a score of them, were disarmed, and that for the time being theirterrified women and children were left defenseless. McKelway also saysin this general connection: "Any Southern man would protect an innocentNegro who appealed to him for help, with his own life if necessary. "This sounds like chivalry, but it is really the survival of the oldslavery attitude that begs the whole question. The Negro does not feelthat he should ask any other man to protect him. He has quite made uphis mind that he will defend his own home himself. He stands as a manbefore the bar, and the one thing he wants to know is if the law and thecourts of America are able to give him justice--simple justice, nothingmore. [Footnote 1: R. S. Baker: _Following the Colour Line_, 3. ] [Footnote 2: _Outlook_, November 3, 1906, p. 561. ] 5. _The Question of Labor_ From time to time, in connection with cases of violence, we havereferred to the matter of labor. Riots such as we have described areprimarily social in character, the call of race invariably being thefinal appeal. The economic motive has accompanied this, however, andhas been found to be of increasing importance. Says DuBois: "The fatalcampaign in Georgia which culminated in the Atlanta Massacre wasan attempt, fathered by conscienceless politicians, to arouse theprejudices of the rank and file of white laborers and farmers againstthe growing competition of black men, so that black men by law could beforced back to subserviency and serfdom. "[1] The question was indeedconstantly recurrent, but even by the end of the period policies hadnot yet been definitely decided upon, and for the time being there werefrequent armed clashes between the Negro and the white laborer. Bothcapital and common sense were making it clear, however, that theNegro was undoubtedly a labor asset and would have to be given placeaccordingly. [Footnote 1: _The Negro in the South_, 115. ] In March, 1895, there were bloody riots in New Orleans, these growingout of the fact that white laborers who were beginning to be organizedobjected to the employment Of Negro workers by the shipowners for theunloading of vessels. When the trouble was at its height volley aftervolley was poured upon the Negroes, and in turn two white men werekilled and several wounded. The commercial bodies of the city met, blamed the Governor and the Mayor for the series of outbreaks, anddemanded that the outrages cease. Said they: "Forbearance has ceased tobe a virtue. We can no longer treat with men who, with arms in theirhands, are shooting down an inoffensive people because they will notthink and act with them. For these reasons we say to these people that, cost what it may, we are determined that the commerce of this city mustand shall be protected; that every man who desires to perform honestlabor must and shall be permitted to do so regardless of race, color, orprevious condition. " About August I of this same year, 1895, there weresharp conflicts between the white and the black miners at Birmingham, a number being killed on both sides before military authority couldintervene. Three years later, moreover, the invasion of the North byNegro labor had begun, and about November 17, 1898, there was serioustrouble in the mines at Pana and Virden, Illinois. In the same monththe convention of railroad brotherhoods in Norfolk expressed stronghostility to Negro labor, Grand Master Frank P. Sargent of theBrotherhood of Locomotive Firemen saying that one of the chief purposesof the meeting of the brotherhoods was "to begin a campaign in advocacyof white supremacy in the railway service. " This November, it will berecalled, was the fateful month of the election riots in North and SouthCarolina. _The People_, the Socialist-Labor publication, commenting upona Negro indignation meeting at Cooper Union and upon the problem ingeneral, said that the Negro was essentially a wage-slave, that it wasthe capitalism of the North and not humanity that in the first place haddemanded the freedom of the slave, that in the new day capital demandedthe subjugation of the working class--Negro or otherwise; and it blamedthe Negroes for not seeing the real issues at stake. It continued withemphasis: "It is not the _Negro_ that was massacred in the Carolinas;it was Carolina _workingmen_, Carolina _wage-slaves_ who happened tobe colored men. Not as Negroes must the race rise;... It is as_workingmen_, as a branch of the _working class_, that the Negro mustdenounce the Carolina felonies. Only by touching that chord can hedenounce to a purpose, because only then does he place himself upon thatelevation that will enable him to perceive the source of the specificwrong complained of now. " This point of view was destined more and moreto stimulate those interested in the problem, whether they acceptedit in its entirety or not. Another opinion, very different and alsoimportant, was that given in 1899 by the editor of _Dixie_, a magazinepublished in Atlanta and devoted to Southern industrial interests. Saidhe: "The manufacturing center of the United States will one day belocated in the South; and this will come about, strange as it may seem, for the reason that the Negro is a fixture here.... Organized labor, as it exists to-day, is a menace to industry. The Negro stands asa permanent and positive barrier against labor organization in theSouth.... So the Negro, all unwittingly, is playing an important part inthe drama of Southern industrial development. His good nature defies theSocialist. " At the time this opinion seemed plausible, and yet the verynext two decades were to raise the question if it was not founded onfallacious assumptions. The real climax of labor trouble as of mob violence within the periodcame in Georgia and in Atlanta, a city that now assumed outstandingimportance as a battleground of the problems of the New South. In April, 1909, it happened that ten white workers on the Georgia Railroad who hadbeen placed on the "extra list" were replaced by Negroes at lower wages. Against this there was violent protest all along the route. A littlemore than a month later the white Firemen's Union started a strike thatwas intended to be the beginning of an effort to drive all Negro firemenfrom Southern roads, and it was soon apparent that the real contest wasone occasioned by the progress in the South of organized labor on theone hand and the progress of the Negro in efficiency on the other. Theessential motives that entered into the struggle were in fact the sameas those that characterized the trouble in New Orleans in 1895. SaidE. A. Ball, second vice-president of the Firemen's Union, in an addressto the public: "It will be up to you to determine whether the whitefiremen now employed on the Georgia Railroad shall be accorded rightsand privileges over the Negro, or whether he shall be placed on the sameequality with the Negro. Also, it will be for you to determine whetheror not white firemen, supporting families in and around Atlanta on a payof $1. 75 a day, shall be compelled to vacate their positions in Atlantajoint terminals for Negroes, who are willing to do the same work for$1. 25. " Some papers, like the Augusta _Herald_, said that it was amistaken policy to give preference to Negroes when white men wouldultimately have to be put in charge of trains and engines; but others, like the Baltimore _News_, said, "If the Negro can be driven from oneskilled employment, he can be driven from another; but a country thattries to do it is flying in the face of every economic law, and mustfeel the evil effects of its policy if it could be carried out. " At anyrate feeling ran very high; for a whole week about June I there werevery few trains between Atlanta and Augusta, and there were some acts ofviolence; but in the face of the capital at stake and the fundamentalissues involved it was simply impossible for the railroad to give way. The matter was at length referred to a board of arbitration whichdecided that the Georgia Railroad was still to employ Negroes wheneverthey were found qualified and that they were to receive the same wagesas white workers. Some thought that this decision would ultimately tellagainst the Negro, but such was not the immediate effect at least, andto all intents and purposes the white firemen had lost in the strike. The whole matter was in fact fundamentally one of the most pathetic thatwe have had to record. Humble white workers, desirous of improving theeconomic condition of themselves and their families, instead of assuminga statesmanlike and truly patriotic attitude toward their problem, turned aside into the wilderness of racial hatred and were lost. This review naturally prompts reflection as to the whole function of theNegro laborer in the South. In the first place, what is he worth, andespecially what is he worth in honest Southern opinion? It was saidafter the Civil War that he would not work except under compulsion; justhow had he come to be regarded in the industry of the New South? In 1894a number of large employers were asked about this point. 50 per centsaid that in skilled labor they considered the Negro inferior to thewhite worker, 46 per cent said that he was fairly equal, and 4 per centsaid that, all things considered, he was superior. As to common labor 54per cent said that he was equal, 29 per cent superior, and 17 per centinferior to the white worker. At the time it appeared that wagespaid Negroes averaged 80 per cent of those paid white men. A similarinvestigation by the Chattanooga _Tradesman_ in 1902 brought forth fivehundred replies. These were summarized as follows: "We find the Negromore useful and skilled in the cotton-seed oil-mills, the lumber-mills, the foundries, brick kilns, mines, and blast-furnaces. He is superiorto white labor and possibly superior to any other labor in theseestablishments, but not in the capacity of skillful and ingeniousartisans. " In this opinion, it is to be remembered, the Negro wassubjected to a severe test in which nothing whatever was given to him, and at least it appears that in many lines of labor he is not less thanindispensable to the progress of the South. The question then arises:Just what is the relation that he is finally to sustain to otherworkingmen? It would seem that white worker and black worker would longago have realized their identity of interest and have come together. Theunions, however, have been slow to admit Negroes and give them the samefooting and backing as white men. Under the circumstances accordinglythere remained nothing else for the Negro to do except to work whereverhis services were desired and on the best terms that he was able toobtain. 6. _Defamation: Brownsville_ Crime demands justification, and it is not surprising that after suchviolence as that which we have described, and after several states hadpassed disfranchising acts, there appeared in the first years of the newcentury several publications especially defamatory of the race. Somebooks unfortunately descended to a coarseness in vilification such ashad not been reached since the Civil War. From a Bible House in St. Louis in 1902 came _The Negro a Beast, or In the Image of God_, a bookthat was destined to have an enormous circulation among the white peopleof the poorer class in the South, and that of course promoted themob spirit. [1] Contemporary and of the same general tenor were R. W. Shufeldt's _The Negro_ and W. B. Smith's _The Color Line_, while a memberof the race itself, William Hannibal Thomas, published a book, _TheAmerican Negro_, that was without either faith or ideal and as adenunciation of the Negro in America unparalleled in its vindictivenessand exaggeration. [2] [Footnote 1: Its fundamental assumptions were ably refuted by EdwardAtkinson in the _North American Review_, August, 1905. ] [Footnote 2: It was reviewed in the _Dial_, April 16, 1901, by W. E. B. DuBois, who said in part: "Mr. Thomas's book is a sinister symptom--agrowth and development under American conditions of life whichillustrates peculiarly the anomalous position of black men, and theterrific stress under which they struggle. And the struggle and thefight of human beings against hard conditions of life always tendsto develop the criminal or the hypocrite, the cynic or the radical. Wherever among a hard-pressed people these types begin to appear, itis a visible sign of a burden that is threatening to overtax theirstrength, and the foreshadowing of the age of revolt. "] In January, 1904, the new governor of Mississippi, J. K. Vardaman, in hisinaugural address went to the extreme of voicing the opinion of thosewho were now contending that the education of the Negro was onlycomplicating the problem and intensifying its dangerous features. Saidhe of the Negro people: "As a race, they are deteriorating morally everyday. Time has demonstrated that they are more criminal as freemen thanas slaves; that they are increasing in criminality with frightfulrapidity, being one-third more criminal in 1890 than in 1880. " Afew weeks later Bishop Brown of Arkansas in a widely quoted addresscontended that the Southern Negro was going backward both morally andintellectually and could never be expected to take a helpful part in theGovernment; and he also justified lynching. In the same year one of themore advanced thinkers of the South, Edgar Gardner Murphy, in _Problemsof the Present South_ was not yet quite willing to receive the Negro onthe basis of citizenship; and Thomas Nelson Page, who had belittled theNegro in such a collection of stories as _In Ole Virginia_ and in such anovel as _Red Rock_[1] formally stated his theories in _The Negro: TheSoutherner's Problem_. The worst, however--if there could be a worst insuch an array--was yet to appear. In 1905 Thomas Dixon added to a seriesof high-keyed novels _The Clansman_, a glorification of the KuKlux Klanthat gave a malignant portrayal of the Negro and that was of such aquality as to arouse the most intense prejudice and hatred. Within afew months the work was put on the stage and again and again it threwaudiences into the wildest excitement. The production was to someextent held to blame for the Atlanta Massacre. In several cities it wasproscribed. In Philadelphia on October 23, 1906, after the Negropeople had made an unavailing protest, three thousand of them made ademonstration before the Walnut Street theater where the performancewas given, while the conduct of some within the playhouse almostprecipitated a riot; and in this city the play was suppressed the nextday. Throughout the South, however, and sometimes elsewhere it continuedto do its deadly work, and it was later to furnish the basis of "TheBirth of a Nation, " an elaborate motion picture of the same generaltendency. [Footnote 1: For a general treatment of the matter of the Negro as dealtwith in American Literature, especially fiction, note "The Negro inAmerican Fiction, " in the _Dial_, May 11, 1916, a paper included in_The Negro in Literature and Art_. The thesis there is that imaginativetreatment of the Negro is still governed by outworn antebellum types, or that in the search for burlesque some types of young and unculturedNegroes of the present day are deliberately overdrawn, but that there isnot an honest or a serious facing of the characters and the situationsin the life of the Negro people in the United States to-day. Since thepaper first appeared it has received much further point; witness thestories by E. K. Means and Octavius Roy Cohen. ] Still another line of attack was now to attempt to deprive the Negro ofany credit for initiative or for any independent achievement whatsoever. In May, 1903, Alfred H. Stone contributed to the _Atlantic_ a paper, "The Mulatto in the Negro Problem, " which contended at the same timethat whatever meritorious work the race had accomplished was due to theinfusion of white blood and that it was the mulatto that was constantlypoisoning the mind of the Negro with "radical teachings and destructivedoctrines. " These points found frequent iteration throughout the period, and years afterwards, in 1917, the first found formal statement in the_American Journal of Sociology_ in an article by Edward Byron Reuter, "The Superiority of the Mulatto, " which the next year was elaboratedinto a volume, _The Mulatto in the United States_. To argue thesuperiority of the mulatto of course is simply to argue once more theinferiority of the Negro to the white man. All of this dispraise together presented a formidable case and one fromwhich the race suffered immeasurably; nor was it entirely offset in thesame years by the appearance even of DuBois's remarkable book, _TheSouls of Black Folk_, or by the several uplift publications of Booker T. Washington. In passing we wish to refer to three points: (1) The effectof education on the Negro; (2) the matter of the Negro criminal (and ofmortality), and (3) the quality and function of the mulatto. Education could certainly not be blamed for the difficulties of theproblem in the new day until it had been properly tried. In no one ofthe Southern states within the period did the Negro child receive a fairchance. He was frequently subjected to inferior teaching, dilapidatedaccommodations, and short terms. In the representative city of Atlantain 1903 the white school population numbered 14, 465 and the colored8, 118. The Negroes, however, while numbering 35 per cent of the whole, received but 12 per cent of the school funds. The average white teacherreceived $745 a year, and the Negro teacher $450. In the great reductionof the percentage of illiteracy in the race from 70 in 1880 to 30. 4in 1910 the missionary colleges--those of the American MissionaryAssociation, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and theFreedmen's Aid Society--played a much larger part than they areordinarily given credit for; and it is a very, very rare occurrence thata graduate of one of the institutions sustained by these agencies, or even one who has attended them for any length of time, has to besummoned before the courts. Their influence has most decidedly been onthe side of law and order. Undoubtedly some of those who have gone forthfrom these schools have not been very practical, and some have notgained a very firm sense of relative values in life--it would be amiracle if all had; but as a group the young people who have attendedthe colleges have most abundantly justified the expenditures made intheir behalf, expenditures for which their respective states were notresponsible but of which they reaped the benefit. From one standpoint, however, the so-called higher education did most undoubtedly complicatethe problem. Those critics of the race who felt that the only functionof Negroes in life was that of hewers of wood and drawers of water quitefully realized that Negroes who had been to college did not care to worklonger as field laborers. Some were to prove scientific students ofagriculture, but as a group they were out of the class of peons. In thisthey were just like white people and all other people. No one who hasonce seen the light chooses to live always on the plane of the "man withthe hoe. " Nor need it be thought that these students are unduly crowdinginto professional pursuits. While, for instance, the number of Negrophysicians and dentists has greatly increased within recent years, thenumber would still have to be four or five times as great to sustainto the total Negro population the same proportion as that borne bythe whole number of white physicians and dentists to the total whitepopulation. The subjects of the criminality and the mortality of the race are intheir ultimate reaches closely related, both being mainly due, as wehave suggested, to the conditions under which Negroes have been forcedto live. In the country districts, until 1900 at least, there was littleprovision for improvements in methods of cooking or in sanitation, whilein cities the effects of inferior housing, poor and unlighted streets, and of the segregation of vice in Negro neighborhoods could not beotherwise than obvious. Thus it happened in such a year as 1898 that inBaltimore the Negro death rate was somewhat more and in Nashville justa little less than twice that of the white people. Legal procedure, moreover, emphasized a vicious circle; living conditions sent theNegroes to the courts in increasing numbers, and the courts sent themstill farther down in the scale. There were undoubtedly some Negrothieves, some Negro murderers, and some Negroes who were incontinent;no race has yet appeared on the face of the earth that did not containmembers having such propensities, and all such people should be dealtwith justly by law. Our present contention is that throughout the periodof which we are now speaking the dominant social system was not onlysuch as to accentuate criminal elements but also such as even soughtto discourage aspiring men. A few illustrations, drawn from widelydifferent phases of life, must suffice. In the spring of 1903, and againin 1904, Jackson W. Giles, of Montgomery County, Alabama, contendedbefore the Supreme Court of the United States that he and other Negroesin his county were wrongfully excluded from the franchise by the newAlabama constitution. Twice was his case thrown out on technicalities, the first time it was said because he was petitioning for the right tovote under a constitution whose validity he denied, and the second timebecause the Federal right that he claimed had not been passed on in thestate court from whose decision he appealed. Thus the supreme tribunalin the United States evaded at the time any formal judgment as to thereal validity of the new suffrage provisions. In 1903, moreover, inAlabama, Negroes charged with petty offenses and sometimes with nooffense at all were still sent to convict farms or turned over tocontractors. They were sometimes compelled to work as peons for a lengthof time; and they were flogged, starved, hunted with bloodhounds, andsold from one contractor to another in direct violation of law. OneJoseph Patterson borrowed $1 on a Saturday, promising to pay theamount on the following Tuesday morning. He did not get to town at theappointed time, and he was arrested and carried before a justice of thepeace, who found him guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses. Notime whatever was given to the Negro to get witnesses or a lawyer, or toget money with which to pay his fine and the costs of court. He was soldfor $25 to a man named Hardy, who worked him for a year and then soldhim for $40 to another man named Pace. Patterson tried to escape, butwas recaptured and given a sentence of six months more. He was thenrequired to serve for an additional year to pay a doctor's bill. Whenthe case at last attracted attention, it appeared that for $1 borrowedin 1903 he was not finally to be released before 1906. Another case ofinterest and importance was set in New York. In the spring of 1909a pullman porter was arrested on the charge of stealing a card-casecontaining $20. The next day he was discharged as innocent. He thenentered against his accuser a suit for $10, 000 damages. The jury awardedhim $2, 500, which amount the court reduced to $300, Justice P. H. Dugrosaying that a Negro when falsely imprisoned did not suffer the sameamount of injury that a white man would suffer--an opinion which the NewYork _Age_ very naturally characterized as "one of the basest and mostoffensive ever handed down by a New York judge. " In the history of the question of the mulatto two facts are outstanding. One is that before the Civil War, as was very natural under thecircumstances, mulattoes became free much faster than pure Negroes;thus the census of 1850 showed that 581 of every 1000 free Negroeswere mulattoes and only 83 of every 1000 slaves. Since the Civil War, moreover, the mulatto element has rapidly increased, advancing from 11. 2per cent of the Negro population in 1850 to 20. 9 per cent in 1910, orfrom 126 to 264 per 1000. On the whole question of the function of thismixed element the elaborate study, that of Reuter, is immediately thrownout of court by its lack of accuracy. The fundamental facts on whichit rests its case are not always true, and if premises are falseconclusions are worthless. No work on the Negro that calls ToussaintL'Ouverture and Sojourner Truth mulattoes and that will not give therace credit for several well-known pure Negroes of the present day, can long command the attention of scholars. This whole argument on themulatto goes back to the fallacy of degrading human beings by slaveryfor two hundred years and then arguing that they have not the capacityor the inclination to rise. In a country predominantly white thequadroon has frequently been given some advantage that his black frienddid not have, from the time that one was a house-servant and the other afield-hand; but no scientific test has ever demonstrated that the blackboy is intellectually inferior to the fair one. In America, however, itis the fashion to place upon the Negro any blame or deficiency andto claim for the white race any merit that an individual may show. Furthermore--and this is a point not often remarked in discussions ofthe problem--the element of genius that distinguishes the Negro artistof mixed blood is most frequently one characteristically Negro ratherthan Anglo-Saxon. Much has been made of the fact that within the societyof the race itself there have been lines of cleavage, a comparativelyfew people, very fair in color, sometimes drawing off to themselves. This is a fact, and it is simply one more heritage from slavery, mosttenacious in some conservative cities along the coast. Even there, however, old lines are vanishing and the fusion of different groupswithin the race rapidly going forward. Undoubtedly there has been somesnobbery, as there always is, and a few quadroons and octoroons havecrossed the color line and been lost to the race; but these cases areafter all comparatively few in number, and the younger generation ismore and more emphasizing the ideals of racial solidarity. In the futurethere may continue to be lines of cleavage in society within the race, but the standards governing these will primarily be character and merit. On the whole, then, the mulatto has placed himself squarely on the sideof the difficulties, aspirations, and achievements of the Negro peopleand it is simply an accident and not inherent quality that accounts forthe fact that he has been so prominent in the leadership of the race. The final refutation of defamation, however, is to be found in theactual achievement of members of the race themselves. The progress inspite of handicaps continued to be amazing. Said the New York _Sun_early in 1907 (copied by the _Times_) of "Negroes Who Have Made Good":"Junius C. Groves of Kansas produces 75, 000 bushels of potatoes everyyear, the world's record. Alfred Smith received the blue ribbon at theWorld's Fair and first prize in England for his Oklahoma-raised cotton. Some of the thirty-five patented devices of Granville T. Woods, theelectrician, form part of the systems of the New York elevated railwaysand the Bell Telephone Company. W. Sidney Pittman drew the design ofthe Collis P. Huntington memorial building, the largest and finest atTuskegee. Daniel H. Williams, M. D. , of Chicago, was the first surgeon tosew up and heal a wounded human heart. Mary Church Terrell addressed inthree languages at Berlin recently the International Association for theAdvancement of Women. Edward H. Morris won his suit between Cook Countyand the city of Chicago, and has a law practice worth $20, 000 a year. " In one department of effort, that of sport, the Negro was especiallyprominent. In pugilism, a diversion that has always been noteworthy forits popular appeal, Peter Jackson was well known as a contemporary ofJohn L. Sullivan. George Dixon was, with the exception of one year, either bantamweight or featherweight champion for the whole of theperiod from 1890 to 1900; and Joe Gans was lightweight champion from1902 to 1908. Joe Walcott was welterweight champion from 1901 to 1904, and was succeeded by Dixie Kid, who held his place from 1904 to 1908. In1908, to the chagrin of thousands and with a victory that occasioneda score of racial conflicts throughout the South and West and thatresulted in several deaths, Jack Johnson became the heavyweight championof America, a position that he was destined to hold for seven years. Inprofessional baseball the Negro was proscribed, though occasionallya member of the race played on teams of the second group. Ofsemi-professional teams the American Giants and the Leland Giants ofChicago, and the Lincoln Giants of New York, were popular favorites, and frequently numbered on their rolls players of the first order ofability. In intercollegiate baseball W. C. Matthews of Harvard wasoutstanding for several years about 1904. In intercollegiate footballLewis at Harvard in the earlier nineties and Bullock at Dartmouth adecade later were unusually prominent, while Marshall of Minnesota in1905 became an All-American end. Pollard of Brown, a half-back, in 1916, and Robeson of Rutgers, an end, in 1918, also won All-American honors. About the turn of the century Major Taylor was a champion bicycle rider, and John B. Taylor of Pennsylvania was an intercollegiate champion intrack athletics. Similarly fifteen years later Binga Dismond of Howardand Chicago, Sol Butler of Dubuque, and Howard P. Drew of SouthernCalifornia were destined to win national and even international honorsin track work. Drew broke numerous records as a runner and Butler wasthe winner in the broad jump at the Inter-Allied Games in the PershingStadium in Paris. In 1920 E. Gourdin of Harvard came prominently forwardas one of the best track athletes that institution had ever had. In the face, then, of the Negro's unquestionable physical ability andprowess the supreme criticism that he was called on to face within theperiod was all the more hard to bear. In all nations and in all agescourage under fire as a soldier has been regarded as the sterling testof manhood, and by this standard we have seen that in war the Negro hadmore than vindicated himself. His very honor as a soldier was now to beattacked. In August, 1906, Companies B, C, and D of the Twenty-fifth Regiment, United States Infantry, were stationed at Fort Brown, Brownsville, Texas, where they were forced to exercise very great self-restraint inthe face of daily insults from the citizens. On the night of the 13thoccurred a riot in which one citizen of the town was killed, anotherwounded, and the chief of police injured. The people of the townaccused the soldiers of causing the riot and demanded their removal. Brigadier-General E. A. Garlington, Inspector General, was sent to findthe guilty men, and, failing in his mission, he recommended dishonorabledischarge for the regiment. On this recommendation President Roosevelton November 9 dismissed "without honor" the entire battalion, disqualifying its members for service thereafter in either the militaryor the civil employ of the United States. When Congress met in DecemberSenator J. B. Foraker of Ohio placed himself at the head of the criticsof the President's action, and in a ringing speech said of thedischarged men that "they asked no favors because they were Negroes, butonly justice because they were men. " On January 22 the Senate authorizeda general investigation of the whole matter, a special message fromthe President on the 14th having revoked the civil disability of thedischarged soldiers. The case was finally disposed of by a congressionalact approved March 3, 1909, which appointed a court of inquiry beforewhich any discharged man who wished to reënlist had the burden ofestablishing his innocence--a procedure which clearly violated thefundamental principle in law that a man is to be accounted innocentuntil he is proved guilty. In connection with the dishonored soldier of Brownsville, and indeedwith reference to the Negro throughout the period, we recall EdwinMarkham's poem, "Dreyfus, "[1] written for a far different occasion butwith fundamental principles of justice that are eternal: [Footnote 1: It is here quoted with the permission of the author andin the form in which it originally appeared in _McClure's Magazine_, September, 1899. ] I A man stood stained; France was one Alp of hate, Pressing upon him with the whole world's weight; In all the circle of the ancient sun There was no voice to speak for him--not one; In all the world of men there was no sound But of a sword flung broken to the ground. Hell laughed its little hour; and then behold How one by one the guarded gates unfold! Swiftly a sword by Unseen Forces hurled, And now a man rising against the world! II Oh, import deep as life is, deep as time! There is a Something sacred and sublime Moving behind the worlds, beyond our ken, Weighing the stars, weighing the deeds of men. Take heart, O soul of sorrow, and be strong! There is one greater than the whole world's wrong. Be hushed before the high Benignant Power That moves wool-shod through sepulcher and tower! No truth so low but He will give it crown; No wrong so high but He will hurl it down. O men that forge the fetter, it is vain; There is a Still Hand stronger than your chain. 'Tis no avail to bargain, sneer, and nod, And shrug the shoulder for reply to God. 7. The Dawn of a To-morrow The bitter period that we have been considering was not wholly withoutits bright features, and with the new century new voices began to bearticulate. In May, 1900, there was in Montgomery a conference inwhich Southern men undertook as never before to make a study of theirproblems. That some who came had yet no real conception of the task andits difficulties may be seen from the suggestion of one man that theNegroes be deported to the West or to the islands of the sea. Severalmen advocated the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. The positionoutstanding for its statesmanship was that of ex-Governor William A. McCorkle of West Virginia, who asserted that the right of franchise wasthe vital and underlying principle of the life of the people of theUnited States and must not be violated, that the remedy for presentconditions was an "honest and inflexible educational and property basis, administered fairly for black and white, " and finally that the NegroProblem was not a local problem but one to be settled by the heartycoöperation of all of the people of the United States. Meanwhile the Southern Educational Congress continued its sittings fromyear to year, and about 1901 there developed new and great interest ineducation, the Southern Education Board acting in close coöperation withthe General Education Board, the medium of the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller, and frequently also with the Peabody and Slater funds. [1]In 1907 came the announcement of the Jeanes Fund, established by Anna T. Jeanes, a Quaker of Philadelphia, for the education of the Negro in therural districts of the South; and in 1911 that of the Phelps-StokesFund, established by Caroline Phelps-Stokes with emphasis on theeducation of the Negro in Africa and America. More and more theseagencies were to work in harmony and coöperation with the officials inthe different states concerned. In 1900 J. L. M. Curry, a Southern man ofgreat breadth of culture, was still in charge of the Peabody and Slaterfunds, but he was soon to pass from the scene and in the work now tobe done were prominent Robert C. Ogden, Hollis B. Frissell, WallaceButtrick, George Foster Peabody, and James H. Dillard. [Footnote 1: In 1867 George Peabody, an American merchant and patriot, established the Peabody Educational Fund for the purpose of promoting"intellectual, moral, and industrial education in the most destituteportion of the Southern states. " The John F. Slater Fund was establishedin 1882 especially for the encouragement of the industrial education ofNegroes. ] Along with the mob violence, moreover, that disgraced the opening yearsof the century was an increasing number of officers who were disposedto do their duty even under trying circumstances. Less than twomonths after his notorious inaugural Governor Vardaman of Mississippiinterested the reading public by ordering out a company of militia whena lynching was practically announced to take place, and by boarding aspecial train to the scene to save the Negro. In this same statein 1909, when the legislature passed a law levying a tax for theestablishment of agricultural schools for white students, and leviedthis on the property of white people and Negroes alike, though only thewhite people were to have schools, a Jasper County Negro contestedthe matter before the Chancery Court, which declared the lawunconstitutional, and he was further supported by the Supreme Court ofthe state. Such a decision was inspiring, but it was not the rule, andalready the problems of another decade were being foreshadowed. Alreadyalso under the stress of conditions in the South many Negroes wereseeking a haven in the North. By 1900 there were as many Negroes inPennsylvania as in Missouri, whereas twenty years before there had beentwice as many in the latter state. There were in Massachusetts more thanin Delaware, whereas twenty years before Delaware had had 50 per centmore than Massachusetts. Within twenty years Virginia gained 312, 000white people and only 29, 000 Negroes, the latter having begun a steadymovement to New York. North Carolina gained 400, 000 white people andonly 93, 000 Negroes. South Carolina and Mississippi, however, were notyet affected in large measure by the movement. The race indeed was beginning to be possessed by a new consciousness. After 1895 Booker T. Washington was a very genuine leader. From thefirst, however, there was a distinct group of Negro men who honestlyquestioned the ultimate wisdom of the so-called Atlanta Compromise, and who felt that in seeming to be willing temporarily to acceptproscription and to waive political rights Dr. Washington had given uptoo much. Sometimes also there was something in his illustrations of theeffects of current methods of education that provoked reply. Thosewho were of the opposition, however, were not at first united andconstructive, and in their utterances they sometimes offended byharshness of tone. Dr. Washington himself said of the extremists in thisgroup that they frequently understood theories but not things; that incollege they gave little thought to preparing for any definite task inthe world, but started out with the idea of preparing themselves tosolve the race problem; and that many of them made a business of keepingthe troubles, wrongs, and hardships of the Negro race before thepublic. [1] There was ample ground for this criticism. More and more, however, the opposition gained force; the _Guardian_, a weekly paperedited in Boston by Monroe Trotter, was particularly outspoken, and inBoston the real climax came in 1903 in an endeavor to break up a meetingat which Dr. Washington was to speak. Then, beginning in January, 1904, the _Voice of the Negro_, a magazine published in Atlanta for threeyears, definitely helped toward the cultivation of racial ideals. Publication of the periodical became irregular after the AtlantaMassacre, and it finally expired in 1907. Some of the articles dealtwith older and more philosophical themes, but there were also bright andilluminating studies in education and other social topics, as well as astrong stand on political issues. The _Colored American_, published inBoston just a few years before the _Voice_ began to appear, also didinspiring work. Various local or state organizations, moreover, fromtime to time showed the virtue of coöperation; thus the Georgia EqualRights Convention, assembled in Macon in February, 1906, at the call ofWilliam J. White, the veteran editor of the _Georgia Baptist_, broughttogether representative men from all over the state and considered suchtopics as the unequal division of school taxes, the deprivation of thejury rights of Negroes, the peonage system, and the penal system. In1905 twenty-nine men of the race launched what was known as the NiagaraMovement. The aims of this organization were freedom of speech andcriticism, an unlettered and unsubsidized press, manhood suffrage, theabolition of all caste distinctions based simply on race and color, therecognition of the principle of human brotherhood as a practical presentcreed, the recognition of the highest and best training as the monopolyof no class or race, a belief in the dignity of labor, and united effortto realize these ideals under wise and courageous leadership. The timewas not yet quite propitious, and the Niagara Movement as such diedafter three or four years. Its principles lived on, however, and itgreatly helped toward the formation of a stronger and more permanentorganization. [Footnote 1: See chapter "The Intellectuals, " in _My Larger Education_. ] In 1909 a number of people who were interested in the general effectof the Negro Problem on democracy in America organized in New York theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People. [1] It wasfelt that the situation had become so bad that the time had come fora simple declaration of human rights. In 1910 Moorfield Storey, adistinguished lawyer of Boston, became national president, and W. E. Burghardt DuBois director of publicity and research, and editor of the_Crisis_, which periodical began publication in November of this year. The organization was successful from the first, and local branches wereformed all over the country, some years elapsing, however, before theSouth was penetrated. Said the Director: "Of two things we Negroes havedreamed for many years: An organization so effective and so powerfulthat when discrimination and injustice touched one Negro, it would touch12, 000, 000. We have not got this yet, but we have taken a great steptoward it. We have dreamed, too, of an organization that would workceaselessly to make Americans know that the so-called 'Negro problem' issimply one phase of the vaster problem of democracy in America, and thatthose who wish freedom and justice for their country must wish it forevery black citizen. This is the great and insistent message of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People. " [Footnote 1: For detailed statement of origin see pamphlet, "How theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began, " byMary White Ovington, published by the Association. ] This organization is outstanding as an effort in coöperation betweenthe races for the improvement of the condition of the Negro. Of specialinterest along the line of economic betterment has been the NationalLeague on Urban Conditions among Negroes, now known as the NationalUrban League, which also has numerous branches with headquarters in NewYork and through whose offices thousands of Negroes have been placedin honorable employment. The National Urban League was also formallyorganized in 1910; it represented a merging of the different agenciesworking in New York City in behalf of the social betterment of the Negropopulation, especially of the National League for the Protectionof Colored Women and of the Committee for Improving the IndustrialConditions among Negroes in New York, both of which agencies had beenorganized in 1906. As we shall see, the work of the League was to begreatly expanded within the next decade by the conditions brought aboutby the war; and under the direction of the executive secretary, EugeneKinckle Jones, with the assistance of alert and patriotic officers, itswork was to prove one of genuinely national service. Interesting also was a new concern on the part of the young Southerncollege man about the problems at his door. Within just a few yearsafter the close of the period now considered, Phelps-Stokes fellowshipsfor the study of problems relating to the Negro were founded at theUniversities of Virginia and Georgia; it was expected that similarfellowships would be founded in other institutions; and there wasinterest in the annual meetings of the Southern Sociological Congressand the University Commission on Southern Race Questions. Thus from one direction and another at length broke upon a "vale oftears" a new day of effort and of hope. For the real contest the forceswere gathering. The next decade was to be one of unending bitterness andviolence, but also one in which the Negro was to rise as never before tothe dignity of self-reliant and courageous manhood. CHAPTER XVI THE NEGRO IN THE NEW AGE 1. _Character of the Period_ The decade 1910-1920, momentous in the history of the world, in thehistory of the Negro race in America must finally be regarded as theperiod of a great spiritual uprising against the proscription, thedefamation, and the violence of the preceding twenty years. As neverbefore the Negro began to realize that the ultimate burden of hissalvation rested upon himself, and he learned to respect and to dependupon himself accordingly. The decade naturally divides into two parts, that before and that afterthe beginning of the Great War in Europe. Even in the earlier years, however, the tendencies that later were dominant were beginning to bemanifest. The greater part of the ten years was consumed by the twoadministrations of President Woodrow Wilson; and not only did theNational Government in the course of these administrations discriminateopenly against persons of Negro descent in the Federal service and failto protect those who happened to live in the capital, but its policyalso gave encouragement to outrage in places technically said to bebeyond its jurisdiction. A great war was to give new occasion andnew opportunity for discrimination, defamatory propaganda was to becirculated on a scale undreamed of before, and the close of the war wasto witness attempts for a new reign of terror in the South. Even beyondthe bounds of continental America the race was now to suffer by reasonof the national policy, and the little republic of Hayti to lift itsbleeding hands to the calm judgment of the world. Both a cause and a result of the struggle through which the race was nowto pass was its astonishing progress. The fiftieth anniversary of theEmancipation Proclamation--January 1, 1913--called to mind as didnothing else the proscription and the mistakes, but also the successesand the hopes of the Negro people in America. Throughout the Southdisfranchisement seemed almost complete; and yet, after many attempts, the movement finally failed in Maryland in 1911 and in Arkansas in 1912. In 1915, moreover, the disfranchising act of Oklahoma was declaredunconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, and henceforth theNegro could feel that the highest legal authority was no longer on theside of those who sought to deprive him of all political voice. Elevenyears before, the Court had taken refuge in technicalities. The year1911 was also marked by the appointment of the first Negro policeman inNew York, by the election of the first Negro legislator in Pennsylvania, and by the appointment of a man of the race, William H. Lewis, asAssistant Attorney General of the United States; and several civilrights suits were won in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Banks, insurance companies, and commercial and industrial enterprises wereconstantly being capitalized; churches erected more and more statelyedifices; and fraternal organizations constantly increased in membershipand wealth. By 1913 the Odd Fellows numbered very nearly half a millionmembers and owned property worth two and a half million dollars; in1920 the Dunbar Amusement Corporation of Philadelphia erected a theatercosting $400, 000; and the foremost business woman of the race in thedecade, Mme. C. J. Walker, on the simple business of toilet articles andhair preparations built up an enterprise of national scope and conductedin accordance with the principles regularly governing great Americancommercial organizations. Fifty years after emancipation, moreover, verynearly one-fourth of all the Negroes in the Southern states were livingin homes that they themselves owned; thus 430, 449 of 1, 917, 391 housesoccupied in these states were reported in 1910 as owned, and 314, 340were free of all encumbrance. The percentage of illiteracy decreasedfrom 70 in 1880 to 30. 4 in 1910, and movements were under way for thestill more rapid spread of elementary knowledge. Excellent high schools, such as those in St. Louis, Washington, Kansas City (both cities of thisname), Louisville, Baltimore, and other cities and towns in the borderstates and sometimes as far away as Texas, were setting a standard suchas was in accord with the best in the country; and in one year, 1917, 455 young people of the race received the degree of bachelor of arts, while throughout the decade different ones received honors and took thehighest graduate degrees at the foremost institutions of learning in thecountry. Early in the decade the General Education Board began activelyto assist in the work of the higher educational institutions, and anoutstanding gift was that of half a million dollars to Fisk Universityin 1920. Meanwhile, through the National Urban League and hundreds oflocal clubs and welfare organizations, social betterment went forward, much impetus being given to the work by the National Association ofColored Women's Clubs organized in 1896. Along with its progress, throughout the decade the race had to meetincreasing bitterness and opposition, and this was intensified by themotion picture, "The Birth of a Nation, " built on lines similar to thoseof _The Clansman_. Negro men standing high on civil service lists weresometimes set aside; in 1913 the white railway mail clerks of theSouth began an open campaign against Negroes in the service in directviolation of the rules; and a little later in the same year segregationin the different departments became notorious. In 1911 the American BarAssociation raised the question of the color-line; and efforts for therestriction of Negroes to certain neighborhoods in different prominentcities sometimes resulted in violence, as in the dynamiting of the homesof Negroes in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1911. When the Progressive partywas organized in 1912 the Negro was given to understand that his supportwas not sought, and in 1911 a strike of firemen on the Queen andCrescent Railroad was in its main outlines similar to the trouble onthe Georgia Railroad two years before. Meanwhile in the South the racereceived only 18 per cent of the total expenditures for education, although it constituted more than 30 per cent of the population. Worse than anything else, however, was the matter of lynching. In eachyear the total number of victims of illegal execution continued tonumber three- or fourscore; but no one could ever be sure that everyinstance had been recorded. Between the opening of the decade and thetime of the entrance of the United States into the war, five cases wereattended by such unusual circumstances that the public could not soonforget them. At Coatesville, Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia, onAugust 12, 1911, a Negro laborer, Zach Walker, while drunk, fatally shota night watchman. He was pursued and attempted suicide. Wounded, he wasbrought to town and placed in the hospital. From this place he was takenchained to his cot, dragged for some miles, and then tortured and burnedto death in the presence of a great crowd of people, including manywomen, and his bones and the links of the chain which bound himdistributed as souvenirs. At Monticello, Georgia, in January, 1915, whena Negro family resisted an officer who was making an arrest, the father, Dan Barbour, his young son, and his two daughters were all hanged to atree and their bodies riddled with bullets. Before the close of the yearthere was serious trouble in the southwestern portion of the state, andbehind this lay all the evils of the system of peonage in the blackbelt. Driven to desperation by the mistreatment accorded them in theraising of cotton, the Negroes at last killed an overseer who hadwhipped a Negro boy. A reign of terror was then instituted; churches, society halls, and homes were burnt, and several individuals shot. OnDecember 30 there was a wholesale lynching of six Negroes in EarlyCounty. Less than three weeks afterwards a sheriff who attempted toarrest some more Negroes and who was accompanied by a mob was killed. Then (January 20, 1916) five Negroes who had been taken from the jail inWorth County were rushed in automobiles into Lee County adjoining, andhanged and shot. On May 15, 1916, at Waco, Texas, Jesse Washington, asullen and overgrown boy of seventeen, who worked for a white farmernamed Fryar at the town of Robinson, six miles away, and who one weekbefore had criminally assaulted and killed Mrs. Fryar, after unspeakablemutilation was burned in the heart of the town. A part of the tortureconsisted in stabbing with knives and the cutting off of the boy'sfingers as he grabbed the chain by which he was bound. Finally, onOctober 21, 1916, Anthony Crawford, a Negro farmer of Abbeville, SouthCarolina, who owned four hundred and twenty-seven acres of the bestcotton land in his county and who was reported to be worth $20, 000, waslynched. He had come to town to the store of W. D. Barksdale to sell aload of cotton-seed, and the two men had quarreled about the price, although no blow was struck on either side. A little later, however, Crawford was arrested by a local policeman and a crowd of idlers fromthe public square rushed to give him a whipping for his "impudence. " Hepromptly knocked down the ringleader with a hammer. The mob then setupon him, nearly killed him, and at length threw him into the jail. Afew hours later, fearing that the sheriff would secretly remove theprisoner, it returned, dragged the wounded man forth, and then hangedand shot him, after which proceedings warning was sent to his family toleave the county by the middle of the next month. It will be observed that in these five noteworthy occurrences, in onlyone case was there any question of criminal assault. On the other hand, in one case two young women were included among the victims; another wasreally a series of lynchings emphasizing the lot of some Negroes undera vicious economic system; and the last simply grew out of the jealousyand hatred aroused by a Negro of independent means who knew how to standup for his rights. Such was the progress, such also the violence that the Negro witnessedduring the decade. Along with his problems at home he now began to havea new interest in those of his kin across the sea, and this feeling wasintensified by the world war. It raises questions of such far-reachingimportance, however, that it must receive separate and distincttreatment. 2. _Migration; East St. Louis_ Very soon after the beginning of the Great War in Europe there beganwhat will ultimately be known as the most remarkable migratory movementin the history of the Negro in America. Migration had indeed at no timeceased since the great movement of 1879, but for the most part it hadbeen merely personal and not in response to any great emergency. Thesudden ceasing of the stream of immigration from Europe, however, created an unprecedented demand for labor in the great industrialcenters of the North, and business men were not long in realizingthe possibilities of a source that had as yet been used in only theslightest degree. Special agents undoubtedly worked in some measure; butthe outstanding feature of the new migration was that it was primarily amass movement and not one organized or encouraged by any special groupof leaders. Labor was needed in railroad construction, in the steelmills, in the tobacco farms of Connecticut, and in the packing-houses, foundries, and automobile plants. In 1915 the New England tobaccogrowers hastily got together in New York two hundred girls; but theseproved to be unsatisfactory, and it was realized that the labor supplywould have to be more carefully supervised. In January, 1916, themanagement of the Continental Tobacco Corporation definitely decided onthe policy of importing workers from the South, and within the next yearnot less than three thousand Negroes came to Hartford, several hundredbeing students from the schools and colleges who went North to work forthe summer. In the same summer came also train-loads of Negroes fromJacksonville and other points to work for the Erie and PennsylvaniaRailroads. Those who left their homes in the South to find new ones in the Norththus worked first of all in response to a new economic demand. Prominent in their thought to urge them on, however, were the generallyunsatisfactory conditions in the South from which they had so longsuffered and from which all too often there had seemed to be no escape. As it was, they were sometimes greatly embarrassed in leaving. InJacksonville the city council passed an ordinance requiring that agentswho wished to recruit labor to be sent out of the state should pay$1, 000 for a license or suffer a fine of $600 and spend sixty days injail. Macon, Ga. , raised the license fee to $25, 000. In Savannah theexcitement was intense. When two trains did not move as it was expectedthat they would, three hundred Negroes paid their own fares and wentNorth. Later, when the leaders of the movement could not be found, thepolice arrested one hundred of the Negroes and sent them to the policebarracks, charging them with loitering. Similar scenes were enactedelsewhere, the South being then as ever unwilling to be deprived of itslabor supply. Meanwhile wages for some men in such an industrial centeras Birmingham leaped to $9 and $10 a day. All told, hardly less thanthree-fourths of a million Negroes went North within the four years1915-1918. Naturally such a great shifting of population did not take place withoutsome inconvenience and hardship. Among the thousands who changed theirplace of residence were many ignorant and improvident persons; butsometimes it was the most skilled artisans and the most substantialowners of homes in different communities who sold their propertyand moved away. In the North they at once met congestion in housingfacilities. In Philadelphia and Pittsburgh this condition became so badas to demand immediate attention. In more than one place there wereoutbreaks in which lives were lost. In East St. Louis, Ill. , all of thesocial problems raised by the movement were seen in their baldest guise. The original population of this city had come for the most part fromGeorgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It had long been animportant industrial center. It was also a very rough place, the sceneof prize-fights and cock-fights and a haven for escaped prisoners; andthere was very close connection between the saloons and politics. Foryears the managers of the industrial plants had recruited their laborsupply from Ellis Island. When this failed they turned to the Negroes ofthe South; and difficulties were aggravated by a series of strikes onthe part of the white workers. By the spring of 1917 not less than tenthousand Negroes had recently arrived in the city, and the housingsituation was so acute that these people were more and more being forcedinto the white localities. Sometimes Negroes who had recently arrivedwandered aimlessly about the streets, where they met the rougherelements of the city; there were frequent fights and also much troubleon the street cars. The Negroes interested themselves in politics andeven succeeded in placing in office several men of their choice. InFebruary, 1917, there was a strike of the white workers at the AluminumOre Works. This was adjusted at the time, but the settlement was notpermanent, and meanwhile there were almost daily arrivals from theSouth, and the East St. Louis _Journal_ was demanding: "Make East St. Louis a Lily White Town. " There were preliminary riots on May 27-30. Onthe night of July I men in automobiles rode through the Negro sectionand began firing promiscuously. The next day the massacre broke forth inall its fury, and before it was over hundreds of thousands of dollars inproperty had been destroyed, six thousand Negroes had been driven fromtheir homes, and about one hundred and fifty shot, burned, hanged, ormaimed for life. Officers of the law failed to do their duty, and thetestimony of victims as to the torture inflicted upon them was such asto send a thrill of horror through the heart of the American people. Later there was a congressional investigation, but from this nothingvery material resulted. In the last week of this same month, July, 1917, there were also serious outbreaks in both Chester and Philadelphia, Penn. , the fundamental issues being the same as in East St. Louis. Meanwhile welfare organizations earnestly labored to adjust the Negro inhis new environment. In Chicago the different state clubs helped nobly. Greater than any other one agency, however, was the National UrbanLeague, whose work now witnessed an unprecedented expansion. Representative was the work of the Detroit branch, which was not contentmerely with finding vacant positions, but approached manufacturers ofall kinds through distribution of literature and by personal visits, and within twelve months was successful in placing not less than onethousand Negroes in employment other than unskilled labor. It alsoestablished a bureau of investigation and information regarding housingconditions, and generally aimed at the proper moral and social care ofthose who needed its service. The whole problem of the Negro was of suchcommanding importance after the United States entered the war as to leadto the creation of a special Division of Negro Economics in the officeof the Secretary of Labor, to the directorship of which Dr. George E. Haynes was called. In January, 1918, a Conference of Migration was called in New York underthe auspices of the National Urban League, and this placed before theAmerican Federation of Labor resolutions asking that Negro labor beconsidered on the same basis as white. The Federation had long beendebating the whole question of the Negro, and it had not seemed to beable to arrive at a clearcut policy though its general attitude wasunfavorable. In 1919, however, it voted to take steps to recognize andadmit Negro unions. At last it seemed to realize the necessity of makingallies of Negro workers, and of course any such change of front on thepart of white workmen would menace some of the foundations of racialstrife in the South and indeed in the country at large. Just howeffective the new decision was to be in actual practice remained to beseen, especially as the whole labor movement was thrown on the defensiveby the end of 1920. However, special interest attached to the eventsin Bogalusa, La. , in November, 1919. Here were the headquarters of theGreat Southern Lumber Company, whose sawmill in the place was said to bethe largest in the world. For some time it had made use of unorganizedNegro labor as against the white labor unions. The forces of labor, however, began to organize the Negroes in the employ of the Company, which held political as well as capitalistic control in the community. The Company then began to have Negroes arrested on charges of vagrancy, taking them before the city court and having them fined and turned overto the Company to work out the fines under the guard of gunmen. In thetroubles that came to a head on November 22, three white men were shotand killed, one of them being the district president of the AmericanFederation of Labor, who was helping to give protection to a coloredorganizer. The full significance of this incident remained also to beseen; but it is quite possible that in the final history of the Negroproblem the skirmish at Bogalusa will mark the beginning of the end ofthe exploiting of Negro labor and the first recognition of the identityof interest between white and black workmen in the South. 3. _The Great War_ Just on the eve of America's entrance into the war in Europe occurredan incident that from the standpoint of the Negro at least must finallyappear simply as the prelude to the great contest to come. Once more, at an unexpected moment, ten years after Brownsville, the loyaltyand heroism of the Negro soldier impressed the American people. Theexpedition of the American forces into Mexico in 1916, with thepolitical events attending this, is a long story. The outstandingincident, however, was that in which two troops of the Tenth Cavalryengaged. About eighty men had been sent a long distance from the mainline of the American army, their errand being supposedly the pursuit ofa deserter. At or near the town of Carrizal the Americans seem to havechosen to go through the town rather than around it, and the result wasa clash in which Captain Boyd, who commanded the detachment, and sometwenty of his men were killed, twenty-two others being captured by theMexicans. Under the circumstances the whole venture was rather imprudentin the first place. As to the engagement itself, the Mexicans said thatthe American troops made the attack, while the latter said that theMexicans themselves first opened fire. However this may have been, all other phases of the Mexican problem seemed for the moment to beforgotten at Washington in the demand for the release of the twenty-twomen who had been taken. There was no reason for holding them, and theywere brought up to El Paso within a few days and sent across the line. Thus, though "some one had blundered, " these Negro soldiers did theirduty; "theirs not to make reply; theirs but to do and die. " So in theface of odds they fought like heroes and twenty died beneath the Mexicanstars. When the United States entered the war in Europe in April, 1917, thequestion of overwhelming importance to the Negro people was naturallythat of their relation to the great conflict in which their countryhad become engaged. Their response to the draft call set a noteworthyexample of loyalty to all other elements in the country. At the veryoutset the race faced a terrible dilemma: If there were to be specialtraining camps for officers, and if the National Government would makeno provision otherwise, did it wish to have a special camp for Negroes, such as would give formal approval to a policy of segregation, or did itwish to have no camp at all on such terms and thus lose the opportunityto have any men of the race specially trained as officers? The camp wassecured--Camp Dodge, near Des Moines, Iowa; and throughout the summerof 1917 the work of training went forward, the heart of a harassed andburdened people responding more and more with pride to the work of theirmen. On October 15, 625 became commissioned officers, and all told 1200received commissions. To the fighting forces of the United States therace furnished altogether very nearly 400, 000 men, of whom just a littlemore than half actually saw service in Europe. Negro men served in all branches of the military establishment and alsoas surveyors and draftsmen. For the handling of many of the questionsrelating to them Emmett J. Scott was on October 1, 1917, appointedSpecial Assistant to the Secretary of War. Mr. Scott had for a numberof years assisted Dr. Booker T. Washington as secretary at TuskegeeInstitute, and in 1909 he was one of the three members of the specialcommission appointed by President Taft for the investigation of Liberianaffairs. Negro nurses were authorized by the War Department for servicein base hospitals at six army camps, and women served also as canteenworkers in France and in charge of hostess houses in the United States. Sixty Negro men served as chaplains; 350 as Y. M. C. A. Secretaries; andothers in special capacities. Service of exceptional value was renderedby Negro women in industry, and very largely also they maintained andpromoted the food supply through agriculture at the same time that theyreleased men for service at the front. Meanwhile the race investedmillions of dollars in Liberty Bonds and War Savings stamps andcontributed generously to the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A. , and other reliefagencies. In the summer of 1918 interest naturally centered uponthe actual performance of Negro soldiers in France and upon theestablishment of units of the Students' Army Training Corps in twentyleading educational institutions. When these units were demobilized inDecember, 1918, provision was made in a number of the schools for theformation of units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The remarkable record made by the Negro in the previous wars of thecountry was fully equaled by that in the Great War. Negro soldiersfought with special distinction in the Argonne Forest, atChâteau-Thierry, in Belleau Wood, in the St. Mihiel district, in theChampagne sector, at Vosges and Metz, winning often very high praisefrom their commanders. Entire regiments of Negro troops were cited forexceptional valor and decorated with the Croix de Guerre--the 369th, the371st, and the 372nd; while groups of officers and men of the 365th, the366th, the 368th, the 370th, and the first battalion of the 367th werealso decorated. At the close of the war the highest Negro officers inthe army were Lieutenant Colonel Otis B. Duncan, commander of the thirdbattalion of the 370th, formerly the Eighth Illinois, and the highestranking Negro officer in the American Expeditionary Forces; ColonelCharles Young (retired), on special duty at Camp Grant, Ill. ; ColonelFranklin A. Dennison, of the 370th Infantry, and Lieutenant ColonelBenjamin O. Davis, of the Ninth Cavalry. The 370th was the firstAmerican regiment stationed in the St. Mihiel sector; it was one of thethree that occupied a sector at Verdun when a penetration there wouldhave been disastrous to the Allied cause; and it went direct from thetraining camp to the firing-line. Noteworthy also was the record ofthe 369th infantry, formerly the Fifteenth Regiment, New York NationalGuard. This organization was under shellfire for 191 days, and it heldone trench for 91 days without relief. It was the first unit of Alliedfighters to reach the Rhine, going down as an advance guard of theFrench army of occupation. A prominent hero in this regiment wasSergeant Henry Johnson, who returned with the Croix de Guerre with onestar and one palm. He is credited with routing a party of Germans atBois-Hanzey in the Argonne on May 5, 1918, with singularly heavy lossesto the enemy. Many other men acted with similar bravery. Hardly lessheroic was the service of the stevedore regiments, or the thousands ofmen in the army who did not go to France but who did their duty as theywere commanded at home. General Vincenden said of the men of the 370th:"Fired by a noble ardor, they go at times even beyond the objectivesgiven them by the higher command; they have always wished to be in thefront line"; and General Coybet said of the 371st and 372nd: "The mostpowerful defenses, the most strongly organized machine gun nests, theheaviest artillery barrages--nothing could stop them. These crackregiments overcame every obstacle with a most complete contempt fordanger.... They have shown us the way to victory. " In spite of his noble record--perhaps in some measure because of it--andin the face of his loyal response to the call to duty, the Negrounhappily became in the course of the war the victim of proscription andpropaganda probably without parallel in the history of the country. Noeffort seems to have been spared to discredit him both as a man and asa soldier. In both France and America the apparent object of the forcesworking against him was the intention to prevent any feeling that thewar would make any change in the condition of the race at home. In theSouth Negroes were sometimes forced into peonage and restrained in theirefforts to go North; and generally they had no representation on localboards, the draft was frequently operated so as to be unfair to them, and every man who registered found special provision for the indicationof his race in the corner of his card. Accordingly in many localitiesNegroes contributed more than their quota, this being the resultof favoritism shown to white draftees. The first report of theProvost-Marshal General showed that of every 100 Negroes called 36 werecertified for service, while of every 100 white men called only 25 werecertified. Of those summoned in Class I Negroes contributed 51. 65 percent of their registrants as against 32. 53 per cent of the white. InFrance the work of defamation was manifest and flagrant. Slanders aboutthe Negro soldiers were deliberately circulated among the French people, sometimes on very high authority, much of this propaganda growing out ofa jealous fear of any acquaintance whatsoever of the Negro men with theFrench women. Especially insolent and sometimes brutal were the menof the military police, who at times shot and killed on the slightestprovocation. Proprietors who sold to Negro soldiers were sometimesboycotted, and offenses were magnified which in the case of white mennever saw publication. Negro officers were discriminated against inhotel and traveling accommodations, while upon the ordinary men inthe service fell unduly any specially unpleasant duty such as thatof re-burying the dead. White women engaged in "Y" work, especiallySouthern women, showed a disposition not to serve Negroes, though theRed Cross and Salvation Army organizations were much better in thisrespect; and finally the Negro soldier was not given any place in thegreat victory parade in Paris. About the close of the war moreover agreat picture, or series of pictures, the "Pantheon de la Guerre, " thatwas on a mammoth scale and that attracted extraordinary attention, wasnoteworthy as giving representation to all of the forces and divisionsof the Allied armies except the Negroes in the forces from the UnitedStates. [1] Not unnaturally the Germans endeavored--though withoutsuccess--to capitalize the situation by circulating among the Negroesinsidious literature that sometimes made very strong points. All ofthese things are to be considered by those people in the United Stateswho think that the Negro suffers unduly from a grievance. [Footnote 1: On the whole subject of the actual life of the Negrosoldier unusual interest attaches to the forthcoming and authoritative"Sidelights on Negro Soldiers, " by Charles H. Williams, who as a specialand official investigator had unequaled opportunity to study the Negroin camp and on the battle-line both in the United States and in France. ] While the Negro soldier abroad was thus facing unusual pressure inaddition to the ordinary hardships of war, at home occurred an incidentthat was doubly depressing coming as it did just a few weeks afterthe massacre at East St. Louis. In August, 1917, a battalion of theTwenty-fourth Infantry, stationed at Houston, Texas, to assist in thework of concentrating soldiers for the war in Europe, encountered theill-will of the town, and between the city police and the Negro militarypolice there was constant friction. At last when one of the Negroes hadbeen beaten, word was circulated among his comrades that he had beenshot, and a number of them set out for revenge. In the riot thatfollowed (August 23) two of the Negroes and seventeen white people ofthe town were killed, the latter number including five policemen. Asa result of this encounter sixty-three members of the battalion werecourt-martialed at Fort Sam Houston. Thirteen were hanged on December11, 1917, five more were executed on September 13, 1918, fifty-one weresentenced to life imprisonment and five to briefer terms; and the Negropeople of the country felt very keenly the fact that the condemnedmen were hanged like common criminals rather than given the death ofsoldiers. Thus for one reason or another the whole matter of the war andthe incidents connected therewith simply made the Negro question morebitterly than ever the real disposition toward him of the governmentunder which he lived and which he had striven so long to serve. 4. _High Tension: Washington, Chicago, Elaine_ Such incidents abroad and such feeling at home as we have recorded notonly agitated the Negro people, but gave thousands of other citizensconcern, and when the armistice suddenly came on November 11, 1918, notonly in the South but in localities elsewhere in the country racialfeeling had been raised to the highest point. About the same time therebegan to be spread abroad sinister rumors that the old KuKlux wereriding again; and within a few months parades at night in representativecities in Alabama and Georgia left no doubt that the rumors were wellfounded. The Negro people fully realized the significance of the newmovement, and they felt full well the pressure being brought to bearupon them in view of the shortage of domestic servants in the South. Still more did they sense the situation that would face their sons andbrothers when they returned from France. But they were not afraid; andin all of the riots of the period the noteworthy fact stands out thatin some of the cities in which the situation was most tense--notablyAtlanta and Birmingham--no great race trouble was permitted to start. In general, however, the violence that had characterized the year 1917continued through 1918 and 1919. In the one state of Tennessee, withinless than a year and on separate occasions, three Negroes were burned atthe stake. On May 22, 1917, near Memphis, Ell T. Person, nearly fiftyyears of age, was burned for the alleged assault and murder of a youngwoman; and in this case the word "alleged" is used advisedly, for thewhole matter of the fixing of the blame for the crime and the fact thatthe man was denied a legal trial left grave doubt as to the extent ofhis guilt. On Sunday, December 2, 1917, at Dyersburg, immediately afterthe adjournment of services in the churches of the town, Lation Scott, guilty of criminal assault, was burned; his eyes were put out withred-hot irons, a hot poker was rammed down his throat, and he wasmutilated in unmentionable ways. Two months later, on February 12, 1918, at Estill Springs, Jim McIlheron, who had shot and killed two youngwhite men, was also burned at the stake. In Estill Springs it had forsome time been the sport of young white men in the community to throwrocks at single Negroes and make them run. Late one afternoon McIlheronwent into a store to buy some candy. As he passed out, a remark was madeby one of three young men about his eating his candy. The rest of thestory is obvious. As horrible as these burnings were, it is certain that they did notgrind the iron into the Negro's soul any more surely than the threestories that follow. Hampton Smith was known as one of the harshestemployers of Negro labor in Brooks County, Ga. As it was difficult forhim to get help otherwise, he would go into the courts and whenever aNegro was convicted and was unable to pay his fine or was sentenced toa term on the chain-gang, he would pay the fine and secure the man forwork on his plantation. He thus secured the services of Sidney Johnson, fined thirty dollars for gambling. After Johnson had more than workedout the thirty dollars he asked pay for the additional time he served. Smith refused to give this and a quarrel resulted. A few mornings later, when Johnson, sick, did not come to work, Smith found him in his cabinand beat him. A few evenings later, while Smith was sitting in his home, he was shot through a window and killed instantly, and his wife waswounded. As a result of this occurrence the Negroes of both Brooks andLowndes counties were terrorized for the week May 17-24, 1918, and notless than eleven of them lynched. Into the bodies of two men lynchedtogether not less than seven hundred bullets are said to have beenfired. Johnson himself had been shot dead when he was found; but hisbody was mutilated, dragged through the streets of Valdosta, and burned. Mary Turner, the wife of one of the victims, said that her husband hadbeen unjustly treated and that if she knew who had killed him she wouldhave warrants sworn out against them. For saying this she too waslynched, although she was in an advanced state of pregnancy. Her ankleswere tied together and she was hung to a tree, head downward. Gasolineand oil from the automobiles near were thrown on her clothing and amatch applied. While she was yet alive her abdomen was cut open with alarge knife and her unborn babe fell to the ground. It gave two feeblecries and then its head was crushed by a member of the mob with hisheel. Hundreds of bullets were then fired into the woman's body. Asa result of these events not less than five hundred Negroes left theimmediate vicinity of Valdosta immediately, and hundreds of othersprepared to leave as soon as they could dispose of their land, andthis they proceeded to do in the face of the threat that any Negro whoattempted to leave would be regarded as implicated in the murder ofSmith and dealt with accordingly. At the end of this same year--onDecember 20, 1918--four young Negroes--Major Clark, aged twenty; AndrewClark, aged fifteen; Maggie Howze, aged twenty, and Alma Howze, agedsixteen--were taken from the little jail at Shubuta, Mississippi, andlynched on a bridge near the town. They were accused of the murder ofE. L. Johnston, a white dentist, though all protested their innocence. The situation that preceded the lynching was significant. Major Clarkwas in love with Maggie Howze and planned to marry her. This thoughtenraged Johnston, who was soon to become the father of a child by theyoung woman, and who told Clark to leave her alone. As the two sisterswere about to be killed, Maggie screamed and fought, crying, "I ain'tguilty of killing the doctor and you oughtn't to kill me"; and tosilence her cries one member of the mob struck her in the mouth witha monkey wrench, knocking her teeth out. On May 24, 1919, at Milan, Telfair County, Georgia, two young white men, Jim Dowdy and Lewis Evans, went drunk late at night to the Negro section of the town and to thehome of a widow who had two daughters. They were refused admittance andthen fired into the house. The girls, frightened, ran to another home. They were pursued, and Berry Washington, a respectable Negro seventy-twoyears of age, seized a shotgun, intending to give them protection; andin the course of the shooting that followed Dowdy was killed. The nextnight, Saturday the 25th, Washington was taken to the place where Dowdywas killed and his body shot to pieces. It remained for the capital of the nation, however, largely to show thereal situation of the race in the aftermath of a great war conductedby a Democratic administration. Heretofore the Federal Government haddeclared itself powerless to act in the case of lawlessness in anindividual state; but it was now to have an opportunity to deal withviolence in Washington itself. On July 19, 1919, a series of lurid andexaggerated stories in the daily papers of attempted assaults of Negroeson white women resulted in an outbreak that was intended to terrorizethe popular Northwest section, in which lived a large proportion ofthe Negroes in the District of Columbia. For three days the violencecontinued intermittently, and as the constituted police authority didpractically nothing for the defense of the Negro citizens, the loss oflife might have been infinitely greater than it was if the colored menof the city had not assumed their own defense. As it was they saved thecapital and earned the gratitude of the race and the nation. It appearedthat Negroes--educated, law-abiding Negroes--would not now run whentheir lives and their homes were at stake, and before such determinationthe mob retreated ingloriously. Just a week afterwards--before the country had really caught its breathafter the events in Washington--there burst into flame in Chicago a racewar of the greatest bitterness and fierceness. For a number of years theWestern metropolis had been known as that city offering to the Negrothe best industrial and political opportunity in the country. When themigration caused by the war was at its height, tens of thousands ofNegroes from the South passed through the city going elsewhere, butthousands also remained to work in the stockyards or other places. Withall of the coming and going, the Negroes in the city must at any time in1918 or 1919 have numbered not less than 150, 000; and banks, coöperativesocieties, and race newspapers flourished. There were also abundantsocial problems awakened by the saloons and gambling dens, and by theseamy side of politics. Those who had been longest in the city, however, rallied to the needs of the newcomers, and in their homes, theirchurches, and their places of work endeavored to get them adjusted intheir environment. The housing situation, in spite of all such effort, became more and more acute, and when some Negroes were forced beyond thebounds of the old "black belt" there were attempts to dynamite their newresidences. Meanwhile hundreds of young men who had gone to France or tocantonments--1850 from the district of one draft board at State and 35thStreets--returned to find again a place in the life of Chicago; anddaily from Washington or from the South came the great waves of socialunrest. Said Arnold Hill, secretary of the Chicago branch of theNational Urban League: "Every time a lynching takes place in a communitydown South you can depend on it that colored people from that communitywill arrive in Chicago inside of two weeks; we have seen it happen sooften that whenever we read newspaper dispatches of a public hangingor burning in a Texas or a Mississippi town, we get ready to extendgreetings to the people from the immediate vicinity of the lynching. "Before the armistice was signed the League was each month finding workfor 1700 or 1800 men and women; in the following April the number fellto 500, but with the coming of summer it rapidly rose again. Unskilledwork was plentiful, and jobs in foundries and steel mills, in buildingand construction work, and in light factories and packing-houses kept upa steady demand for laborers. Meanwhile trouble was brewing, and on thestreets there were occasional encounters. Such was the situation when on a Sunday at the end of July a Negro boyat a bathing beach near Twenty-sixth Street swam across an imaginarysegregation line. White boys threw rocks at him, knocked him off a raft, and he was drowned. Colored people rushed to a policeman and asked himto arrest the boys who threw the stones. He refused to do so, and as thedead body of the Negro boy was being handled, more rocks were thrownon both sides. The trouble thus engendered spread through the Negrodistrict on the South Side, and for a week it was impossible ordangerous for people to go to work. Some employed at the stockyardscould not get to their work for some days further. At the end of threedays twenty Negroes were reported as dead, fourteen white men were dead, scores of people were injured, and a number of houses of Negroes burned. In the face of this disaster the great soul of Chicago rose above itsmaterialism. There were many conferences between representative people;out of all the effort grew the determination to work for a nobler city;and the sincerity was such as to give one hope not only for Chicago butalso for a new and better America. The riots in Washington and Chicago were followed within a few weeks byoutbreaks in Knoxville and Omaha. In the latter place the fundamentalcause of the trouble was social and political corruption, and because hestrongly opposed the lynching of William Brown, the Negro, the mayor ofthe city, Edward P. Smith, very nearly lost his life. As it was, thecounty court house was burned, one man more was killed, and perhapsas many as forty injured. More important even than this, however--andindeed one of the two or three most far-reaching instances of racialtrouble in the history of the Negro in America--was the reign of terrorin and near Elaine, Phillips County, Arkansas, in the first week ofOctober, 1919. The causes of this were fundamental and reached the veryheart of the race problem and of the daily life of tens of thousands ofNegroes. Many Negro tenants in eastern Arkansas, as in other states, were stillliving under a share system by which the owner furnished the landand the Negro the labor, and by which at the end of the year the twosupposedly got equal parts of the crop. Meanwhile throughout theyear the tenant would get his food, clothing, and other supplies atexorbitant prices from a "commissary" operated by the planter or hisagent; and in actual practice the landowner and the tenant did not gotogether to a city to dispose of the crop when it was gathered, as wassometimes done elsewhere, but the landowner alone sold the crop andsettled with the tenant whenever and however he pleased; nor at the timeof settlement was any itemized statement of supplies given, only thetotal amount owed being stated. Obviously the planter could regularlypad his accounts, keep the Negro in debt, and be assured of his laborsupply from year to year. In 1918 the price of cotton was constantly rising and at length reachedforty cents a pound. Even with the cheating to which the Negroes weresubjected, it became difficult to keep them in debt, and they becamemore and more insistent in their demands for itemized statements. Nevertheless some of those whose cotton was sold in October, 1918, didnot get any statement of any sort before July of the next year. Seeing no other way out of their difficulty, sixty-eight of the Negroesgot together and decided to hire a lawyer who would help them to getstatements of their accounts and settlement at the right figures. Feeling that the life of any Negro lawyer who took such a case would beendangered, they employed the firm of Bratton and Bratton, of LittleRock. They made contracts with this firm to handle the sixty-eight casesat fifty dollars each in cash and a percentage of the moneys collectedfrom the white planters. Some of the Negroes also planned to go beforethe Federal Grand Jury and charge certain planters with peonage. Theyhad secret meetings from time to time in order to collect the money tobe paid in advance and to collect the evidence which would enable themsuccessfully to prosecute their cases. Some Negro cotton-pickers aboutthe same time organized a union; and at Elaine many Negroes who workedin the sawmills and who desired to protect their wives and daughtersfrom insult, refused to allow them to pick cotton or to work for a whiteman at any price. Such was the sentiment out of which developed the Progressive Farmersand Household Union of America, which was an effort by legal means tosecure protection from unscrupulous landlords, but which did use theform of a fraternal order with passwords and grips and insignia so asthe more forcefully to appeal to some of its members. About the first ofOctober the report was spread abroad in Phillips County that the Negroeswere plotting an insurrection and that they were rapidly preparing tomassacre the white people on a great scale. When the situation hadbecome tense, one Sunday John Clem, a white man from Helena, drunk, cameto Elaine and proceeded to terrorize the Negro population by gun play. The colored people kept off the streets in order to avoid trouble andtelephoned the sheriff at Helena. This man failed to act. The next dayClem was abroad again, but the Negroes still avoided trouble, thinkingthat his acts were simply designed to start a race riot. On Tuesdayevening, October 1, however, W. D. Adkins, a special agent of theMissouri Pacific Railroad, in company with Charles Pratt, a deputysheriff, was riding past a Negro church near Hoop Spur, a smallcommunity just a few miles from Elaine. According to Pratt, persons inthe church fired without cause on the party, killing Adkins and woundinghimself. According to the Negroes, Adkins and Pratt fired into thechurch, evidently to frighten the people there assembled. At any rateword spread through the county that the massacre had started, and fordays there was murder and rioting, in the course of which not lessthan five white men and twenty-five Negroes were killed, though someestimates placed the number of fatalities a great deal higher. Negroeswere arrested and disarmed; some were shot on the highways; homes werefired into; and at one time hundreds of men and women were in a stockadeunder heavy guard and under the most unwholesome conditions, whilehundreds of white men, armed to the teeth, rushed to the vicinity fromneighboring cities and towns. Governor Charles H. Brough telegraphed toCamp Pike for Federal troops, and five hundred were mobilized at once"to repel the attack of the black army. " Worse than any other featurewas the wanton slaying of the four Johnston brothers, whose father hadbeen a prominent Presbyterian minister and whose mother was formerly aschool-teacher. Dr. D. A. E. Johnston was a successful dentist and owned athree-story building in Helena. Dr. Louis Johnston was a physician wholived in Oklahoma and who had come home on a visit. A third brother hadserved in France and been wounded and gassed at Château-Thierry. Altogether one thousand Negroes were arrested and one hundred andtwenty-two indicted. A special committee of seven gathered evidence andis charged with having used electric connections on the witness chairin order to frighten the Negroes. Twelve men were sentenced to death(though up to the end of 1920 execution had been stayed), and fifty-fourto penitentiary terms. The trials lasted from five to ten minutes each. No witnesses for the defense were called; no Negroes were on the juries;no change of venue was given. Meanwhile lawyers at Helena were preparingto reap further harvest from Negroes who would be indicted and againstwhom there was no evidence, but who had saved money and Liberty Bonds. Governor Brough in a statement to the press blamed the _Crisis_ and theChicago _Defender_ for the trouble. He had served for a number of yearsas a professor of economics before becoming governor and had evenidentified himself with the forward-looking University Commission onSouthern Race Questions; and it is true that he postponed the executionsin order to allow appeals to be filed in behalf of the condemned men. That he should thus attempt to shift the burden of blame and overlookthe facts when in a position of grave responsibility was a keendisappointment to the lovers of progress. Reference to the monthly periodical and the weekly paper just mentioned, however, brings us to still another matter--the feeling on the part ofthe Negro that, in addition to the outrages visited on the race, theGovernment was now, under the cloak of wartime legislation, formally toattempt to curtail its freedom of speech. For some days the issue ofthe _Crisis_ for May, 1919, was held up in the mail; a South Carolinarepresentative in Congress quoted by way of denunciation from theeditorial "Returning Soldiers" in the same number of the periodical;and a little later in the year the Department of Justice devotedtwenty-seven pages of the report of the investigation against "PersonsAdvising Anarchy, Sedition, and the Forcible Overthrow of theGovernment" to a report on "Radicalism and Sedition among the Negroesas Reflected in Their Publications. " Among other periodicals and papersmentioned were the _Messenger_ and the _Negro World_ of New York; and bythe _Messenger_ indeed, frankly radical in its attitude not only on therace question but also on fundamental economic principles, even the_Crisis_ was regarded as conservative in tone. There could be no doubtthat a great spiritual change had come over the Negro people of theUnited States. At the very time that their sons and brothers were makingthe supreme sacrifice in France they were witnessing such events asthose at East St. Louis or Houston, or reading of three burnings withina year in Tennessee. A new determination closely akin to consecrationpossessed them. Fully to understand the new spirit one would read notonly such publications as those that have been mentioned, but also thoseissued in the heart of the South. "Good-by, Black Mammy, " said the_Southwestern Christian Advocate_, taking as its theme the story of fourSouthern white men who acted as honorary pallbearers at an old Negrowoman's funeral, but who under no circumstances would thus have servedfor a thrifty, intelligent, well-educated man of the race. Said theHouston _Informer_, voicing the feeling of thousands, "The black manfought to make the world safe for democracy; he now demands that Americabe made and maintained safe for black Americans. " With hypocrisy inthe practice of the Christian religion there ceased to be any patiencewhatsoever, as was shown by the treatment accorded a Y. M. C. A. "Call onbehalf of the young men and boys of the two great sister Anglo-Saxonnations. " "Read! Read! Read!" said the _Challenge Magazine_, "thenwhen the mob comes, whether with torch or with gun, let us stand atArmageddon and battle for the Lord. " "Protect your home, " said thegentle _Christian Recorder_, "protect your wife and children, with yourlife if necessary. If a man crosses your threshold after you and yourfamily, the law allows you to protect your home even if you have to killthe intruder. " Perhaps nothing, however, better summed up the new spiritthan the following sonnet by Claude McKay: If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, let it not be like hogs So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead! Oh, kinsman! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack Pressed to the wall, dying, but--fighting back! 5. _The Widening Problem_ In view of the world war and the important part taken in it by Frenchcolonial troops, especially those from Senegal, it is not surprisingthat the heart of the Negro people in the United States broadened in anew sympathy with the problems of their brothers the world over. Evenearly in the decade that we are now considering, however, there was someindication of this tendency, and the First Universal Races Congress inLondon in 1911 attracted wide attention. In February, 1919, largelythrough the personal effort of Dr. DuBois, a Pan-African Congress washeld in Paris, the chief aims of which were the hearing of statementson the condition of Negroes throughout the world, the obtaining ofauthoritative statements of policy toward the Negro race from the GreatPowers, the making of strong representations to the Peace Conferencethen sitting in Paris in behalf of the Negroes throughout the world, andthe laying down of principles on which the future development of therace must take place. Meanwhile the cession of the Virgin Islands hadfixed attention upon an interesting colored population at the very doorof the United States; and the American occupation of Hayti culminatingin the killing of many of the people in the course of President Wilson'ssecond administration gave a new feeling of kinship for the land ofToussaint L'Ouverture. Among other things the evidence showed that onJune 12, 1918, under military pressure a new constitution was forced onthe Haytian people, one favoring the white man and the foreigner;that by force and brutality innocent men and women, including nativepreachers and members of their churches, had been taken, roped together, and marched as slave-gangs to prison; and that in large numbers Haytianshad been taken from their homes and farms and made to work on new roadsfor twenty cents a week, without being properly furnished with food--allof this being done under the pretense of improving the social andpolitical condition of the country. The whole world now realized thatthe Negro problem was no longer local in the United States or SouthAfrica, or the West Indies, but international in its scope andpossibilities. Very early in the course of the conflict in Europe it was pointed outthat Africa was the real prize of the war, and it is now simply acommonplace to say that the bases of the struggle were economic. Nothingdid Germany regret more than the forcible seizure of her Africanpossessions. One can not fail to observe, moreover, a tendency ofdiscussion of problems resultant from the war to shift the considerationfrom that of pure politics to that of racial relations, and early in theconflict students of society the world over realized that it was nothingless than suicide on the part of the white race. After the close of thewar many books dealing with the issues at stake were written, and in theyear 1920 alone several of these appeared in the United States. Of allof these publications, because of their different points of view, fourmight call for special consideration--_The Republic of Liberia_, byR. C. F. Maugham; _The Rising Tide of Color_, by Lothrop Stoddard;_Darkwater_, by W. E. Burghardt DuBois, and _Empire and Commerce inAfrica: A Study in Economic Imperialism_, by Leonard Woolf. The positionof each of these books is clear and all bear directly upon the centraltheme. The _Republic of Liberia_ was written by one who some years ago was theEnglish consul at Monrovia and who afterwards was appointed to Dakar. The supplementary preface also gives the information that the book wasreally written two years before it appeared, publication being delayedon account of the difficulties of printing at the time. Even up to 1918, however, the account is incomplete, and the failure to touch upon recentdevelopments becomes serious; but it is of course impossible to recordthe history of Liberia from 1847 to the present and reflect credit uponEngland. There are some pages of value in the book, especially those inwhich the author speaks of the labor situation in the little Africanrepublic; but these are obviously intended primarily for consumption bybusiness men in London. "Liberians, " we are informed, "tell you that, whatever may be said to the contrary, the republic's most uncomfortableneighbor has always been France. " This is hardly true. France hasindeed on more than one occasion tried to equal her great rival inaggrandizement, but she has never quite succeeded in so doing. As wehave already shown in connection with Liberia in the present work, fromthe very first the shadow of Great Britain fell across the country. Inmore recent years, by loans that were no more than clever plans forthievery, by the forceful occupation of large tracts of land, and byinterference in the internal affairs of the country, England has againand again proved herself the arch-enemy of the republic. The book sorecently written in the last analysis appears to be little more than thebasis of effort toward still further exploitation. The very merit of _The Rising Tide of Color_ depends on its bias, and itis significant that the book closes with a quotation from Kipling's "TheHeritage. " To Dr. Stoddard the most disquieting feature of the recentsituation was not the war but the peace. Says he, "The white world'sinability to frame a constructive settlement, the perpetuation ofintestine hatreds and the menace of fresh civil wars complicated by thespecter of social revolution, evoke the dread thought that the latewar may be merely the first stage in a cycle of ruin. " As for the waritself, "As colored men realized the significance of it all, they lookedinto each other's eyes and there saw the light of undreamed-of hopes. The white world was tearing itself to pieces. White solidarity wasriven and shattered. And--fear of white power and respect for whitecivilization together dropped away like garments outworn. Through thebazaars of Asia ran the sibilant whisper: 'The East will see the Westto bed. '" At last comes the inevitable conclusion pleading for a betterunderstanding between England and Germany and for everything else thatwould make for racial solidarity. The pitiful thing about this bookis that it is so thoroughly representative of the thing for which itpleads. It is the very essence of jingoism; civilization does not existin and of itself, it is "white"; and the conclusions are directly atvariance with the ideals that have been supposed to guide Englandand America. Incidentally the work speaks of the Negro and negroidpopulation of Africa as "estimated at about 120, 000, 000. " This lowestimate has proved a common pitfall for writers. If we remember thatAfrica is three and a half times as large as the United States, and thatwhile there are no cities as large as New York and Chicago, there aremany centers of very dense population; if we omit entirely from theconsideration the Desert of Sahara and make due allowance for someheavily wooded tracts in which live no people at all; and if we thentake some fairly well-known region like Nigeria or Sierra Leone as thebasis of estimate, we shall arrive at some such figure as 450, 000, 000. In order to satisfy any other points that might possibly be made, let usreduce this by as much as a third, and we shall still have 300, 000, 000, which figure we feel justified in advancing as the lowest possibleestimate for the population of Africa; and yet most books tell us thatthere are only 140, 000, 000 people on the whole continent. _Darkwater_ may be regarded as the reply to such a position as thattaken by Dr. Stoddard. If the white world conceives it to be its destinyto exploit the darker races of mankind, then it simply remains for thedarker races to gird their loins for the contest. "What of the darkerworld that watches? Most men belong to this world. With Negro andNegroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they form two-thirds of thepopulation of the world. A belief in humanity is a belief in coloredmen. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, then the destinies ofthis world will rest ultimately in the hands of darker nations. What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild and awfulas this shameful war was, it is nothing to compare with that fight forfreedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will make unlesstheir oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of the WhiteWorld cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present treatmentjust as long as it must and not one moment longer. " Both of these books are strong, and both are materialistic; andmaterialism, it must be granted, is a very important factor in the worldjust now. Somewhat different in outlook, however, is the book thatlabors under an economic subject, _Empire and Commerce in Africa_. Ingeneral the inquiry is concerned with the question, What do we desireto attain, particularly economically, in Africa, and how far is itattainable through policy? The discussion is mainly confined to thethree powers: England, France, and Germany; and special merit attachesto the chapter on Abyssinia, probably the best brief account of thiscountry ever written. Mr. Woolf announces such fundamental principles asthat the land in Africa should be reserved for the natives; that thereshould be systematic education of the natives with a view to trainingthem to take part in, and eventually control, the government of thecountry; that there should be a gradual expatriation of all Europeansand their capitalistic enterprises; that all revenue raised in Africashould be applied to the development of the country and the educationand health of the inhabitants; that alcohol should be absolutelyprohibited; and that Africa should be completely neutralized, that is, in no case should any military operations between European states beallowed. The difficulties of the enforcement of such a program are ofcourse apparent to the author; but with other such volumes as this toguide and mold opinion, the time may indeed come at no distant date whenAfrica will cease to exist solely for exploitation and no longer be therebuke of Christendom. These four books then express fairly well the different opinions andhopes with which Africa and the world problem that the continent raiseshave recently been regarded. It remains simply to mention a conceptionthat after the close of the war found many adherents in the UnitedStates and elsewhere, and whose operation was on a scale that forcedrecognition. This was the idea of the Provisional Republic of Africa, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African CommunitiesLeague of the World, the Black Star Line of steamships, and the NegroFactories Corporation, all of which activities were centered in NewYork, had as their organ the _Negro World_, and as their president andleading spirit Marcus Garvey, who was originally from Jamaica. Thecentral thought that appealed to great crowds of people and won theirsupport was that of freedom for the race in every sense of the word. Such freedom, it was declared, transcended the mere demand for theenforcement of certain political and social rights and could finally berealised only under a vast super-government guiding the destinies of therace in Africa, the United States, the West Indies, and everywhere elsein the world. This was to control its people "just as the Pope and theCatholic Church control its millions in every land. " The related ideasand activities were sometimes termed grandiose and they awakenedmuch opposition on the part of the old leaders, the clergy, whileconservative business stood aloof. At the same time the conception isone that deserves to be considered on its merits. It is quite possible that if promoted on a scale vast enough such aNegro super-government as that proposed could be realized. It is truethat England and France seem to-day to have a firm grip on the continentof Africa, but the experience of Germany has shown that even the mailèdfist may lose its strength overnight. With England beset with problemsin Ireland and the West Indies, in India and Egypt, it is easy for themillions in equatorial Africa to be made to know that even this greatpower is not invincible and in time might rest with Nineveh and Tyre. There are things in Africa that will forever baffle all Europeans, andno foreign governor will ever know all that is at the back of the blackman's mind. Even now, without the aid of modern science, informationtravels in a few hours throughout the length and breadth of thecontinent; and those that slept are beginning to be awake and restless. Let this restlessness increase, let intelligence also increase, let thenatives be aided by their fever, and all the armies of Europe could belost in Africa and this ancient mother still rise bloody but unbowed. The realization of the vision, however, would call for capital on ascale as vast as that of a modern war or an international industrialenterprise. At the very outset it would engage England in nothing lessthan a death-grapple, especially as regards the shipping on the WestCoast. If ships can not go from Liverpool to Seccondee and Lagos, thenEngland herself is doomed. The possible contest appalls the imagination. At the same time the exploiting that now goes on in the world can not goon forever. CHAPTER XVII THE NEGRO PROBLEM It is probably clear from our study in the preceding pages that thehistory of the Negro people in the United States falls into well definedperiods or epochs. First of all there was the colonial era, extendingfrom the time of the first coming of Negroes to the English colonies tothat of the Revolutionary War. This divides into two parts, with a linecoming at the year 1705. Before this date the exact status of the Negrowas more or less undefined; the system of servitude was only graduallypassing into the sterner one of slavery; and especially in the middlecolonies there was considerable intermixture of the races. By the year1705, however, it had become generally established that the Negro was tobe regarded not as a person but as a thing; and the next seventy yearswere a time of increasing numbers, but of no racial coherence orspiritual outlook, only a spasmodic insurrection here and thereindicating the yearning for a better day. With the Revolution there camea change, and the second period extends from this war to the Civil War. This also divides into two parts, with a line at the year 1830. In theyears immediately succeeding the Revolution there was put forththe first effective effort toward racial organization, this beingrepresented by the work of such men as Richard Allen and Prince Hall;but, in spite of a new racial consciousness, the great mass of the Negropeople remained in much the same situation as before, the increase innumbers incident to the invention of the cotton-gin only intensifyingthe ultimate problem. About the year 1830, however, the very hatred andignominy that began to be visited upon the Negro indicated that at leasthe was no longer a thing but a person. Lynching began to grow apace, burlesque on the stage tended to depreciate and humiliate the race, and the South became definitely united in its defense of the system ofslavery. On the other hand, the Abolitionists challenged the attitudethat was becoming popular; the Negroes themselves began to be prosperousand to hold conventions; and Nat Turner's insurrection thrust baldlybefore the American people the great moral and economic problem withwhich they had to deal. With such divergent opinions, in spite of feebleattempts at compromise, there could be no peace until the issue ofslavery at least was definitely settled. The third great period extendsfrom the Civil War to the opening of the Great War in Europe. Like theothers it also falls into two parts, the division coming at the year1895. The thirty years from 1865 to 1895 may be regarded as an erain which the race, now emancipated, was mainly under the guidance ofpolitical ideals. Several men went to Congress and popular educationbegan to be emphasized; but the difficulties of Reconstruction and theoutrages of the KuKlux Klan were succeeded by an enveloping system ofpeonage, and by 1890-1895 the pendulum had swung fully backward and inthe South disfranchisement had been arrived at as the concrete solutionof the political phase of the problem. The twenty years from 1895 to1915 formed a period of unrest and violence, but also of solid economicand social progress, the dominant influence being the work of Booker T. Washington. With the world war the Negro people came face to face withnew and vast problems of economic adjustment and passed into an entirelydifferent period of their racial history in America. This is not all, however. The race is not to be regarded simply asexistent unto itself. The most casual glance at any such account as wehave given emphasizes the importance of the Negro in the general historyof the United States. Other races have come, sometimes with great giftsor in great numbers, but it is upon this one that the country's historyhas turned as on a pivot. It is true that it has been despised andrejected, but more and more it seems destined to give new proof that thestone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. In the colonial era it was the economic advantage of slavery overservitude that caused it to displace this institution as a system oflabor. In the preliminary draft of the Declaration of Independence anoteworthy passage arraigned the king of England for his insistence uponthe slave-trade, but this was later suppressed for reasons of policy. The war itself revealed clearly the fallacy of the position of thepatriots, who fought for their rights as Englishmen but not for thefundamental rights of man; and their attitude received formal expressionin the compromises that entered into the Constitution. The expansion ofthe Southwest depended on the labor of the Negro, whose history becameinextricably bound up with that of the cotton-gin; and the question orthe excuse of fugitives was the real key to the Seminole Wars. The longstruggle culminating in the Civil War was simply to settle the status ofthe Negro in the Republic; and the legislation after the war determinedfor a generation the history not only of the South but very largely ofthe nation as well. The later disfranchising acts have had overwhelmingimportance, the unfair system of national representation controlling theelection of 1916 and thus the attitude of America in the world war. This is an astonishing phenomenon--this vast influence of a peopleoppressed, proscribed, and scorned. The Negro is so dominant in Americanhistory not only because he tests the real meaning of democracy, notonly because he challenges the conscience of the nation, but alsobecause he calls in question one's final attitude toward human natureitself. As we have seen, it is not necessarily the worker, not eventhe criminal, who makes the ultimate problem, but the simple Negro ofwhatever quality. If this man did not have to work at all, and if hisrace did not include a single criminal, in American opinion he wouldstill raise a question. It is accordingly from the social standpointthat we must finally consider the problem. Before we can do this we needto study the race as an actual living factor in American life; and evenbefore we do that it might be in order to observe the general importanceof the Negro to-day in any discussion of the racial problems of theworld. 1. _World Aspect_ Any consideration of the Negro Problem in its world aspect at thepresent time must necessarily be very largely concerned with Africa asthe center of the Negro population. This in turn directs attention tothe great colonizing powers of Europe, and especially to Great Britainas the chief of these; and the questions that result are of far-reachingimportance for the whole fabric of modern civilization. No one cangainsay the tremendous contribution that England has made to the world;every one must respect a nation that produced Wycliffe and Shakespeareand Darwin, and that, standing for democratic principles, has so oftenstayed the tide of absolutism and anarchy; and it is not without desertthat for three hundred years this country has held the moral leadershipof mankind. It may now not unreasonably be asked, however, if it has notlost some of its old ideals, and if further insistence upon some of itspolicies would not constitute a menace to all that the heart of humanityholds dear. As a preliminary to our discussion let us remark two men by way ofcontrast. A little more than seventy years ago a great traveler setout upon the first of three long journeys through central and southernAfrica. He was a renowned explorer, and yet to him "the end of thegeographical feat was only the beginning of the enterprise. " Said HenryDrummond of him: "Wherever David Livingstone's footsteps are crossed inAfrica the fragrance of his memory seems to remain. " On one occasiona hunter was impaled on the horn of a rhinoceros, and a messenger raneight miles for the physician. Although he himself had been wounded forlife by a lion and his friends said that he should not ride at nightthrough a wood infested with beasts, Livingstone insisted on hisChristian duty to go, only to find that the man had died and to beobliged to retrace his footsteps. Again and again his party wouldhave been destroyed if it had not been for his own unbounded tact andcourage, and after his death at Chitambo's village Susi and Chumajourneyed for nine months and over eight hundred miles to take his bodyto the coast. "We work for a glorious future, " said he, "which we arenot destined to see--the golden age which has not been, but will yet be. We are only morning-stars shining in the dark, but the glorious mornwill break, the good time coming yet. For this time we work; may Godaccept our imperfect service. " About the time that Livingstone was passing off the scene another strongman, one of England's "empire builders, " began his famous career. Goingfirst to South Africa as a young man in quest of health, Cecil Rhodessoon made a huge fortune out of Kimberley diamonds and Transvaal gold, and by 1890 had become the Prime Minister of Cape Colony. In the pursuitof his aims he was absolutely unscrupulous. He refused to recognize anyrights of the Portuguese in Matabeleland and Mashonaland; he drove hardbargains with the Germans and the French; he defied the Boers; and tohim the native Africans were simply so many tools for the heaping up ofgold. Nobody ever said of him that he left a "fragrant memory" behindhim; but thousands of bruised bodies and broken hearts bore witness tohis policy. According to the ideals of modern England, however, he wasa great man. What the Negro in the last analysis wonders is: Who wasright, Livingstone or Rhodes? And which is the world to choose, Christor Mammon? There are two fundamental assumptions upon which all so-called Westerncivilization is based--that of racial and that of religious superiority. Sight has been lost of the fact that there is really no such thing as asuperior race, that only individuals are superior one to another, and apopular English poet has sung of "the white man's burden" and of "lesserbreeds without the law. " These two assumptions have accounted for all ofthe misunderstanding that has arisen between the West and the East, forChina and Japan, India and Egypt can not see by what divine right menfrom the West suppose that they have the only correct ancestry or bywhat conceit they presume to have the only true faith. Let them but beaccepted, however, let a nation be led by them as guiding-stars, andEngland becomes justified in forcing her system upon India, she finds itnecessary to send missionaries to Japan, and the lion's paw pounces uponthe very islands of the sea. The whole world, however, is now rising as never before against anysemblance of selfishness on the part of great powers, and it is morethan ever clear that before there can be any genuine progress toward thebrotherhood of man, or toward comity among nations, one man will haveto give some consideration to the other man's point of view. One peoplewill have to respect another people's tradition. The Russo-Japanese Wargave men a new vision. The whole world gazed upon a new power in theEast--one that could be dealt with only upon equal terms. Meanwhilethere was unrest in India, and in Africa there were insurrectionsof increasing bitterness and fierceness. Africa especially had beenmisrepresented. The people were all said to be savages and cannibals, almost hopelessly degraded. The traders and the politicians knew better. They knew that there were tribes and tribes in Africa, that many of thechiefs were upright and wise and proud of their tradition, and that theland could not be seized any too quickly. Hence they made haste to getinto the game. It is increasingly evident also that the real leadership of the world isa matter not of race, not even of professed religion, but of principle. Within the last hundred years, as science has flourished andcolonization grown, we have been led astray by materialism. The worshipof the dollar has become a fetish, and the man or the nation that hadthe money felt that it was ordained of God to rule the universe. Germanywas led astray by this belief, but it is England, not Germany, that hasmost thoroughly mastered the _Art of Colonization_. Crown colonies areto be operated in the interest of the owners. Jingoism is king. Itmatters not that the people in India and Africa, in Hayti and thePhilippines, object to our benevolence; _we_ know what is good for themand therefore they should be satisfied. In Jamaica to-day the poorer people can not get employment; and yet, rather than accept the supply at hand, the powers of privilege import"coolie" labor, a still cheaper supply. In Sierra Leone, where certainlythere has been time to see the working of the principle, native youngmen crowd about the wharves and seize any chance to earn a penny, simplybecause there is no work at hand to do--nothing that would genuinelynourish independence and self-respect. It is not strange that the worship of industrialism, with its attendantcompetition, finally brought about the most disastrous war in historyand such a breakdown of all principles of morality as made the wholeworld stand aghast. Womanhood was no longer sacred; old ideas of ethicsvanished; Christ himself was crucified again--everything holy and lovelywas given to the grasping demon of Wealth. Suddenly men realized that England had lost the moral leadership of theworld. Lured by the ideals of Rhodes, the country that gave to mankind_Magna Charta_ seemed now bent only on its own aggrandizement andpreservation. Germany's colonies were seized, and anything thatthreatened the permanence of the dominant system, especially unrest onthe part of the native African, was throttled. Briton and Boer beganto feel an identity of interest, and especially was it made known thatAmerican Negroes were not wanted. Just what the situation is to-day may be illustrated by the simplematter of foreign missions, the policy of missionary organizations inboth England and America being dictated by the political policy of theempire. The appointing of Negroes by the great American denominationsfor service in Africa has practically ceased, for American Negroes arenot to be admitted to any portion of the continent except Liberia, which, after all, is a very small part of the whole. For the time beingthe little republic seems to receive countenance from the great powersas a sort of safety-valve through which the aspiration of the Negropeople might spend itself; but it is evident that the presentunderstanding is purely artificial and can not last. Even the RomanEmpire declined, and Germany lost her hold in Africa overnight. Ofcourse it may be contended that the British Empire to-day is notdecadent but stronger than ever. At the same time there can be no doubtthat Englishman and Boer alike regard these teeming millions of prolificblack people always with concern and sometimes with dismay. Natives ofthe Congo still bear the marks of mutilation, and men in South Africachafe under unjust land acts and constant indignities in their dailylife. Here rises the question for our own country. To the United States atlast has come that moral leadership--that obligation to do the rightthing--that opportunity to exhibit the highest honor in all affairsforeign or domestic--that is the ultimate test of greatness. Is Americato view this great problem in Africa sympathetically and find some placefor the groping for freedom of millions of human beings, or is she to besimply a pawn in the game of English colonization? Is she to abide bythe principles that guided her in 1776, or simply seize her share ofthe booty? The Negro either at home or abroad is only one of manymoral problems with which she has to deal. At the close of the warextravagance reigned, crime was rampant, and against any one of three orfour races there was insidious propaganda. To add to the difficulties, the government was still so dominated by politics and officialdom thatit was almost always impossible to get things done at the time theyneeded to be done. At the same time every patriot knows that America istruly the hope of the world. Into her civilization and her glory haveentered not one but many races. All go forth against a common enemy; allshould share the duties and the privileges of citizenship. In sucha country the law can know no difference of race or class or creed, provided all are devoted to the general welfare. Such is the obligationresting upon the United States--such the challenge of social, economic, and moral questions such as never before faced the children of men. Thatshe be worthy of her opportunity all would pray; to the fulfilment ofher destiny all should help. The eyes of the world are upon her; thescepter of the ages is in her hand. 2. _The Negro in American Life_ If now we come to the Negro in the United States, it is hardly anexaggeration to say that no other race in the American body politic, noteven the Anglo-Saxon, has been studied more critically than this one, and treatment has varied all the way from the celebration of virtuesto the bitterest hostility and malignity. It is clearly fundamentallynecessary to pay some attention to racial characteristics and gifts. In recent years there has been much discussion from the standpointof biology, and special emphasis has been placed on the emotionaltemperament of the race. The Negro, however, submits that in the UnitedStates he has not been chiefly responsible for such miscegenation as hastaken place; but he is not content to rest simply upon a _tu quoque_. He calls attention to the fact that whereas it has been charged thatlynchings find their excuse in rape, it has been shown again and againthat this crime is the excuse for only one-fourth or one-fifth ofthe cases of violence. If for the moment we suppose that there isno question about guilt in a fourth or a fifth of the cases, theoverwhelming fraction that remains indicates that there are otherfactors of the highest importance that have to be considered in anyultimate adjustment of the situation. In every case accordingly theNegro asks only for a fair trial in court--not too hurried; and he knowsthat in many instances a calm study of the facts will reveal nothingmore than fright or hysteria on the part of a woman or even othercircumstances not more incriminating. Unfortunately the whole question of the Negro has been beclouded bymisrepresentation as has no other social question before the Americanpeople, and the race asks simply first of all that the tissue ofdepreciation raised by prejudice be done away with in order that it maybe judged and estimated for its quality. America can make no chargesagainst any element of her population while she denies the fundamentalright of citizenships--the protection of the individual person. Toooften mistakes are made, and no man is so humble or so low that heshould be deprived of his life without due process of law. The Negroundoubtedly has faults. At the same time, in order that his gifts mayreceive just consideration, the tradition of burlesque must for the timebeing be forgotten. All stories about razors, chickens, and watermelonsmust be relegated to the rear; and even the revered and beloved "blackmammy" must receive an affectionate but a long farewell. The fact is that the Negro has such a contagious brand of humor thatmany people never realize that this plays only on the surface. The realbackground of the race is one of tragedy. It is not in current jest butin the wail of the old melodies that the soul of this people is found. There is something elemental about the heart of the race, something thatfinds its origin in the forest and in the falling of the stars. There issomething grim about it too, something that speaks of the lash, of thechild torn from its mother's bosom, of the dead body swinging at nightby the roadside. The race has suffered, and in its suffering lies itsdestiny and its contribution to America; and hereby hangs a tale. If we study the real quality of the Negro we shall find that two thingsare observable. One is that any distinction so far won by a member ofthe race in America has been almost always in some one of the arts; andthe other is that any influence so far exerted by the Negro on Americancivilization has been primarily in the field of æsthetics. The reasonis not far to seek, and is to be found in the artistic striving even ofuntutored Negroes. The instinct for beauty insists upon an outlet, andif one can find no better picture he will paste a circus poster or aflaring advertisement on the wall. Very few homes have not at least ageranium on the windowsill or a rosebush in the garden. If we look atthe matter conversely we shall find that those things which are mostpicturesque make to the Negro the readiest appeal. Red is his favoritecolor simply because it is the most pronounced of all colors. Theprinciple holds in the sphere of religion. In some of our communitiesNegroes are known to "get happy" in church. It is, however, seldom asermon on the rule of faith or the plan of salvation that awakens suchecstasy, but rather a vivid portrayal of the beauties of heaven, withthe walls of jasper, the feast of milk and honey, and the angels withpalms in their hands. The appeal is primarily sensuous, and it is hardlytoo much to say that the Negro is thrilled not so much by the moral asby the artistic and pictorial elements in religion. Every member of therace is an incipient poet, and all are enthralled by music and oratory. Illustrations are abundant. We might refer to the oratory of Douglass, to the poetry of Dunbar, to the picturesque style of DuBois, to themysticism of the paintings of Tanner, to the tragic sculpture of MetaWarrick Fuller, and to a long line of singers and musicians. EvenBooker Washington, most practical of Americans, proves the point, thedistinguishing qualities of his speeches being anecdote and vividillustration. It is best, however, to consider members of the race whowere entirely untaught in the schools. On one occasion Harriet Tubman, famous for her work in the Underground Railroad, was addressing anaudience and describing a great battle in the Civil War. "And then, "said she, "we saw the lightning, and that was the guns; and then weheard the thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rainfalling, and that was drops of blood falling; and when we came to git inthe craps, it was dead men that we reaped. " Two decades after the warJohn Jasper, of Richmond, Virginia, astonished the most intelligenthearers by the power of his imagery. He preached not only that the "sundo move, " but also of "dry bones in the valley, " the glories of the NewJerusalem, and on many similar subjects that have been used by otherpreachers, sometimes with hardly less effect, throughout the South. Inhis own way Jasper was an artist. He was eminently imaginative; and itis with this imaginative--this artistic--quality that America has yet toreckon. The importance of the influence has begun to be recognized, and on theprinciple that to him that hath shall be given, in increasing measurethe Negro is being blamed for the ills of American life, a ready excusebeing found in the perversion and debasement of Negro music. We haveseen discussions whose reasoning, condensed, was somewhat as follows:The Negro element is daily becoming more potent in American society;American society is daily becoming more immoral; therefore at the doorof the Negro may be laid the increase in divorce and all the otherevils of society. The most serious charge brought against the Negrointellectually is that he has not yet developed the great creative ororganizing mind that points the way of civilization. He most certainlyhas not, and in this he is not very unlike all the other people inAmerica. The whole country is still in only the earlier years of itsstriving. While the United States has made great advance in appliedscience, she has as yet produced no Shakespeare or Beethoven. If Americahas not yet reached her height after three hundred years of striving, she ought not to be impatient with the Negro after only sixty yearsof opportunity. But all signs go to prove the assumption of limitedintellectual ability fundamentally false. Already some of the youngermen of the race have given the highest possible promise. If all of this, however, is granted, and if the Negro's exemplificationof the principle of self-help is also recognized, the question stillremains: Just what is the race worth as a constructive factor inAmerican civilization? Is it finally to be an agency for the upbuildingof the nation, or simply one of the forces that retard? What is its realpromise in American life? In reply to this it might be worth while to consider first of allthe country's industrial life. The South, and very largely the wholecountry, depends upon Negro men and women as the stable labor supply insuch occupations as farming, saw-milling, mining, cooking, and washing. All of this is hard work, and necessary work. In 1910, of 3, 178, 554Negro men at work, 981, 922 were listed as farm laborers and 798, 509 asfarmers. That is to say, 56 per cent of the whole number were engaged inraising farm products either on their own account or by way of assistingsomebody else, and the great staples of course were the cotton and cornof the Southern states. If along with the farmers we take those engagedin the occupations employing the next greatest numbers of men--those ofthe building and hand trades, saw and planing mills, as well as thoseof railway firemen and porters, draymen, teamsters, and coal mineoperatives--we shall find a total of 71. 2 per cent engaged in such workas represents the very foundation of American industry. Of the women atwork, 1, 047, 146, or 52 per cent, were either farm laborers or farmers, and 28 per cent more were either cooks or washerwomen. In other words, atotal of exactly 80 per cent were engaged in some of the hardest and atthe same time some of the most vital labor in our home and industriallife. The new emphasis on the Negro as an industrial factor in thecourse of the recent war is well known. When immigration ceased, uponhis shoulders very largely fell the task of keeping the country and thearmy alive. Since the war closed he has been on the defensive in theNorth; but a country that wishes to consider all of the factors thatenter into its gravest social problem could never forget his valiantservice in 1918. Let any one ask, moreover, even the most prejudicedobserver, if he would like to see every Negro in the country out of it, and he will then decide whether economically the Negro is a liability oran asset. Again, consider the Negro soldier. In all our history there are no pagesmore heroic, more pathetic, than those detailing the exploits of blackmen. We remember the Negro, three thousand strong, fighting for theliberties of America when his own race was still held in bondage. Weremember the deeds at Port Hudson, Fort Pillow, and Fort Wagner. Weremember Santiago and San Juan Hill, not only how Negro men wentgallantly to the charge, but how a black regiment faced pestilence thatthe ranks of their white comrades might not be decimated. And thenCarrizal. Once more, at an unexpected moment, the heart of the nationwas thrilled by the troopers of the Tenth Cavalry. Once more, despiteBrownsville, the tradition of Fort Wagner was preserved and passed on. And then came the greatest of all wars. Again was the Negro summoned tothe colors--summoned out of all proportion to his numbers. Others mightdesert, but not he; others might be spies or strikers, but not he--nothe in the time of peril. In peace or war, in victory or danger, he hasalways been loyal to the Stars and Stripes. Not only, however, does the Negro give promise by reason of his economicworth; not only does he deserve the fullest rights of citizenship onthe basis of his work as a soldier; he brings nothing less than a greatspiritual contribution to civilization in America. His is a race ofenthusiasm, imagination, and spiritual fervor; and after all the doubtand fear through which it has passed there still rests with it anabiding faith in God. Around us everywhere are commercialism, politics, graft--sordidness, selfishness, cynicism. We need hope and love, a newbirth of idealism, a new faith in the unseen. Already the work of somemembers of the race has pointed the way to great things in the realm ofconscious art; but above even art soars the great world of the spirit. This it is that America most sadly needs; this it is that her mostfiercely persecuted children bring to her. Obviously now if the Negro, if any race, is to make to America thecontribution of which it is capable, it must be free; and this raisesthe whole question of relation to the rest of the body politic. One ofthe interesting phenomena of society in America is that the more foreignelements enter into the "melting pot" and advance in culture, the moredo they cling to their racial identity. Incorporation into Americanlife, instead of making the Greek or the Pole or the Irishman forget hisnative country, makes him all the more jealous of its traditions. Themore a center of any one of these nationalities develops, the morewealthy and cultured its members become, the more do we find them proudof the source from which they sprang. The Irishman is now so much anAmerican that he controls whole wards in our large cities, and sometimesthe cities themselves. All the same he clings more tenaciously than everto the celebration of March 17. When an isolated Greek came years ago, poor and friendless, nobody thought very much about him, and heeffaced himself as much as possible, taking advantage, however, of anyopportunity that offered for self-improvement or economic advance. Whenthousands came and the newcomers could take inspiration from those oftheir brothers who had preceded them and achieved success, nationalityasserted itself. Larger groups now talked about Venizelos and a greaterGreece; their chests expanded at the thought of Marathon and Plato; andcompanies paraded amid applause as they went to fight in the Balkans. Inevery case, with increasing intelligence and wealth, race pride asserteditself. At the same time no one would think of denying to the Greek orthe Irishman or the Italian his full rights as an American citizen. It is a paradox indeed, this thing of a race's holding its identityat the same time that it is supposed to lose this in the largercivilization. Apply the principle to the Negro. Very soon after theCivil War, when conditions were chaotic and ignorance was rampant, theideals constantly held before the race were those of white people. Someleaders indeed measured success primarily by the extent to which theybecame merged in the white man's life. At the time this was verynatural. A struggling people wished to show that it could be judged bythe standards of the highest civilization within sight, and it did so. To-day the tide has changed. The race now numbers a few millionaires. Inalmost every city there are beautiful homes owned by Negroes. Some menhave reached high attainment in scholarship, and the promise growsgreater and greater in art and science. Accordingly the Negro now loveshis own, cherishes his own, teaches his boys about black heroes, andhonors and glorifies his own black women. Schools and churches and allsorts of coöperative enterprises testify to the new racial self-respect, while a genuine Negro drama has begun to flourish. A whole people hasbeen reborn; a whole race has found its soul. 3. _Face to Face_ Even when all that has been said is granted, it is still sometimesmaintained that the Negro is the one race that can not and will notbe permitted to enter into the full promise of American life. Otherelements, it is said, even if difficult to assimilate, may gradually bebrought into the body politic, but the Negro is the one element thatmay be tolerated but not assimilated, utilized but not welcomed to thefullness of the country's glory. However, the Negro has no reason to be discouraged. If one will butremember that after all slavery was but an incident and recall thestatus of the Negro even in the free states ten years before the CivilWar, he will be able to see a steady line of progress forward. After thegreat moral and economic awakening that gave the race its freedom, thependulum swung backward, and finally it reached its farthest point ofproscription, of lawlessness, and inhumanity. No obscuring of the visionfor the time being should blind us to the reading of the great movementof history. To-day in the whole question of the Negro problem there are some mattersof pressing and general importance. One that is constantly thrustforward is that of the Negro criminal. On this the answer is clear. If aman--Negro or otherwise--is a criminal, he is an enemy of society, andsociety demands that he be placed where he will do the least harm. Ifexecution is necessary, this should take place in private; and in nocase should the criminal be so handled as to corrupt the morals orarouse the morbid sensibilities of the populace. At the same time simplepatriotism would demand that by uplifting home surroundings, goodschools, and wholesome recreation everything possible be done for Negrochildren as for other children of the Republic, so that just as few ofthem as possible may graduate into the criminal class. Another matter, closely akin to this, is that of the astonishing lustfor torture that more and more is actuating the American people. When in1835 McIntosh was burned in St. Louis for the murder of an officer, theAmerican people stood aghast, and Abraham Lincoln, just coming intolocal prominence, spoke as if the very foundations of the young republichad been shaken. After the Civil War, however, horrible lynchings becamefrequent; and within the last decade we have seen a Negro boy stabbed innumberless places while on his way to the stake, we have seen the eyesof a Negro man burned out with hot irons and pieces of his flesh cutoff, and a Negro woman--whose only offense was a word of protest againstthe lynching of her husband--while in the state of advanced pregnancyhanged head downwards, her clothing burned from her body, and herself sodisemboweled that her unborn babe fell to the ground. We submit thatany citizens who commit such deeds as these are deserving of the mostserious concern of their country; and when they bring their littlechildren to behold their acts--when baby fingers handle mutilated fleshand baby eyes behold such pictures as we have suggested--a crime hasbeen committed against the very name of childhood. Most frequently itwill be found that the men who do these things have had only the mostmeager educational advantages, and that generally--but not always--theylive in remote communities, away from centers of enlightenment, so thattheir whole course of life is such as to cultivate provincialism. Withnot the slightest touch of irony whatever we suggest that these men needa crusade of education in books and in the fundamental obligations ofcitizenship. At present their ignorance, their prejudice, and their lackof moral sense constitute a national menace. It is full time to pause. We have already gone too far. The Negroproblem is only an index to the ills of society in America. In our hasteto get rich or to meet new conditions we are in danger of losing all ofour old standards of conduct, of training, and of morality. Our courtsneed to summon a new respect for themselves. The average citizen knowsonly this about them, that he wants to keep away from them. So far wehave not been assured of justice. The poor man has not stood an equalchance with the rich, nor the black with the white. Money has beenfreely used, even for the changing of laws if need be; and thesentencing of a man of means generally means only that he will have anew trial. The murders in any American city average each year fifteen ortwenty times as many as in an English or French city of the same size. Our churches need a new baptism; they have lost the faith. The sameprinciple applies in our home-life, in education, in literature. Thefamily altar is almost extinct; learning is more easy than sound; andin literature as in other forms of art any passing fad is able to gainfollowers and pose as worthy achievement. All along the line we needmore uprightness--more strength. Even when a man has committed a crime, he must receive justice in court. Within recent years we have heard toomuch about "speedy trials, " which are often nothing more than legalizedlynchings. If it has been decreed that a man is to wait for a trial oneweek or one year, the mob has nothing to do with the matter, and, ifneed be, all the soldiery of the United States must be called forth toprevent the storming of a jail. Fortunately the last few years haveshown us several sheriffs who had this conception of their duty. In the last analysis this may mean that more responsibility and moreforce will have to be lodged in the Federal Government. Within recentyears the dignity of the United States has been seriously impaired. The time seems now to have come when the Government must make a newassertion of its integrity and its authority. No power in the countrycan be stronger than that of the United States of America. For the time being, then, this is what we need--a stern adherence tolaw. If men will not be good, they must at least be made to behave. Noone will pretend, however, that an adjustment on such a basis is finallysatisfactory. Above the law of the state--above all law of man--is thelaw of God. It was given at Sinai thousands of years ago. It receivednew meaning at Calvary. To it we must all yet come. The way may be hard, and in the strife of the present the time may seem far distant; but someday the Messiah will reign and man to man the world over shall brothersbe "for a' that. " SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Unless an adequate volume is to be devoted to the work, any bibliographyof the history of the Negro Problem in the United States must beselective. No comprehensive work is in existence. Importance attaches to_Select List of References on the Negro Question_, compiled under thedirection of A. P. C. Griffin, Library of Congress, Washington, 1903; _ASelect Bibliography of the Negro American_, edited by W. E. B. DuBois, Atlanta, 1905, and _The Negro Problem: a Bibliography_, edited by VeraSieg, Free Library Commission, Madison, Wis. , 1908; but all such listshave to be supplemented for more recent years. Compilations on theAbolition Movement, the early education of the Negro, and the literaryand artistic production of the race are to be found respectively inHart's _Slavery and Abolition_, Woodson's _The Education of the Negroprior to 1861_, and Brawley's _The Negro in Literature and Art_, and the_Journal of Negro History_ is constantly suggestive of good material. The bibliography that follows is confined to the main question. First ofall are given general references, and then follows a list of individualauthors and books. Finally, there are special lists on topics on whichthe study in the present work is most intensive. In a few instancesbooks that are superficial in method or prejudiced in tone have beenmentioned as it has seemed necessary to try to consider all shades ofopinion even if the expression was not always adequate. On the otherhand, not every source mentioned in the footnotes is included, forsometimes these references are merely incidental; and especially doesthis apply in the case of lectures or magazine articles, some of whichwere later included in books. Nor is there any reference to works offiction. These are frequently important, and books of unusual interestare sometimes considered in the body of the work; but in such a study asthe present imaginative literature can be hardly more than a secondaryand a debatable source of information. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY I. General References (Mainly in Collections, Sets, or Series) Statutes at Large, being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia fromthe first session of the Legislature, in the year 1619, by WilliamWaller Hening. Richmond, 1819-20. Laws of the State of North Carolina, compiled by Henry Potter, J. L. Taylor, and Bart. Yancey. Raleigh, 1821. The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, edited by Thomas Cooper. Columbia, 1837. The Pro-Slavery Argument (as maintained by the most distinguishedwriters of the Southern states). Charleston, 1852. Files of such publications as Niles's _Weekly Register_, the _Geniusof Universal Emancipation_, the _Liberator_, and DeBow's _CommercialReview_, in the period before the Civil War; and of the _Crisis_, the _Journal of Negro History_, the _Negro Year-Book_, the _VirginiaMagazine of History_, the _Review of Reviews_, the _Literary Digest_, the _Independent_, the _Outlook_, as well as representative newspapersNorth and South and weekly Negro newspapers in later years. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science(some numbers important for the present work noted below). Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law edited by the Faculty ofPolitical Science of Columbia University (some numbers important for thepresent work noted below). Atlanta University Studies of Negro Problems (for unusually importantnumbers note DuBois, editor, below, also Bigham). Occasional Papers of the American Negro Academy (especially noteCromwell in special list No. 1 below and Grimké in No. 3). Census Reports of the United States; also Publications of the Bureau ofEducation. Annual Reports of the General Education Board, the John F. Slater Fund, the Jeanes Fund; reports and pamphlets issued by American MissionaryAssociation, American Baptist Home Mission Society, Freedmen's AidSociety, etc. ; catalogues of representative educational institutions;and a volume "From Servitude to Service" (the Old South lectures onrepresentative educational institutions for the Negro), Boston, 1905. Pamphlets and reports of National Association for the Advancement ofColored People, the National Urban League, the Southern SociologicalCongress, the University Commission on Southern Race Questions, HamptonConference reports, 1897-1907, and Proceedings of the National NegroBusiness League, annual since 1900. The American Nation: A History from Original Sources by AssociatedScholars, edited by Albert Bushnell Hart. 27 vols. Harper & Bros. , NewYork, 1907. (Volumes important for the present work specially notedbelow. ) The Chronicles of America. A Series of Historical Narratives editedby Allen Johnson. 50 vols. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1918--. (Volumes important for the present work specially noted below. ) The South in the Building of the Nation. 12 vols. The SouthernPublication Society. Richmond, Va. , 1909. Studies in Southern History and Politics. Columbia University Press, NewYork, 1914. New International and Americana Encyclopedias (especially on such topicsas Africa, the Negro, and Negro Education). II. INDIVIDUAL WORKS (Note pamphlets at end of list; also special lists under III below. ) Adams, Alice Dana: The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery inAmerica (1808-1831), Radcliffe College Monograph No. 14. Boston, 1908 (now handled by Harvard University Press). Adams, Henry: History of the United States from 1801 to 1817. 9vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1889-90. Alexander, William T. : History of the Colored Race in America. Palmetto Publishing Co. , New Orleans, 1887. Armistead, Wilson: A Tribute for the Negro, being a Vindicationof the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the ColoredPortion of Mankind, with particular reference to the Africanrace, illustrated by numerous biographical sketches, facts, anecdotes, etc. , and many superior portraits and engravings. Manchester, 1848. Baker, Ray Stannard: Following the Color Line. Doubleday, Page& Co. , New York, 1908. Ballagh, James Curtis: A History of Slavery in Virginia. JohnsHopkins Studies, extra volume 24. Baltimore, 1902. White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. Johns Hopkins Studies, Thirteenth Series, Nos. 6 and 7. Baltimore, 1895. Bassett, John Spencer: Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina. Sixth Series, No. 6. Baltimore, 1898. Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina. Johns Hopkins Studies, Fourteenth Series, Nos. 4 and 5. Baltimore, 1896. Slavery in the State of North Carolina. Johns Hopkins Studies, XIV: 179; XVII: 323. Bigham, John Alvin (editor): Select Discussions of Race Problems, No. 20, of Atlanta University Publications. Atlanta, 1916. Birney, William: James G. Birney and His Times. D. Appleton &Co. , New York, 1890. Blake, W. O. : The History of Slavery and the Slave-Trade. Columbus, O. , 1861. Blyden, Edward W. : Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. London, 1887. Bogart, Ernest Ludlow: The Economic History of the United States. Longmans, Green & Co. , New York, 1918 edition. Bourne, Edward Gaylord: Spain in America, 1450-1580. Vol. 3 ofAmerican Nation Series. Brackett, Jeffrey Richardson: The Negro in Maryland: A Study ofthe Institution of Slavery. Johns Hopkins Studies, extra volume6. Baltimore, 1889. Bradford, Sarah H. : Harriet, the Moses of Her People. New York, 1886. Brawley, Benjamin: A Short History of the American Negro. TheMacmillan Co. , New York, 1913, revised 1919. History of Morehouse College. Atlanta, 1917. The Negro in Literature and Art. Duffield & Co. , New York, 1918. Your Negro Neighbor (in Our National Problems series). The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1918. Africa and the War. Duffield & Co. , New York, 1918. Women of Achievement (written for the Fireside Schools under the auspices of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society). Chicago and New York, 1919. Brawley, Edward M. : The Negro Baptist Pulpit. American BaptistPublication Society, Philadelphia, 1890. Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in theSeventeenth Century. 2 vols. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1896. Cable, George Washington: The Negro Question. Charles Scribner'sSons, New York, 1890. Calhoun, William Patrick: The Caucasian and the Negro in theUnited States. R. L. Bryan Co. , Columbia, S. C, 1902. Chamberlain, D. H. : Present Phases of Our So-Called Negro Problem(open letter to the Rt. Hon. James Bryce of England), reprintedfrom _News and Courier_, Charleston, of August 1, 1904. Cheyney, Edward Potts: European Background of American History. Vol. I of American Nation Series. Child, Lydia Maria: An Appeal in Favor of That Class of AmericansCalled Africans. Boston, 1833. The Oasis (edited). Boston, 1834. Clayton, V. V. : White and Black under the Old Regimé. Milwaukee, 1899. Clowes, W. Laird: Black America: A Study of the Ex-Slave andHis Late Master. Cassell & Co. , London, 1891. Coffin, Joshua: An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, and others, which have occurred, or been attempted, in theUnited States and elsewhere, during the last two centuries, with various remarks. American Anti-Slavery Society, NewYork, 1860. Collins, Winfield H. : The Domestic Slave Trade of the SouthernStates. Broadway Publishing Co. , New York, 1904. Coman, Katherine: The Industrial History of the United States. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1918 edition. The Negro as a Peasant Farmer. American Statistical Association Publications, 1904:39. Commons, John R. : Races and Immigrants in America. The MacmillanCo. , 1907. Coolidge, Archibald Cary: The United States as a World Power. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1918. Cooper, Anna Julia: A Voice from the South, by a black womanof the South. Xenia, O. , 1892. Corey, Charles H. : A History of the Richmond Theological Seminary. Richmond, 1895. Cornish, Samuel E. , and Wright, T. S. : The Colonization SchemeConsidered in Its Rejection by the Colored People. Newark, 1840. Cromwell, John W. : The Negro in American History. The AmericanNegro Academy, Washington, 1914. Culp, Daniel W. (editor): Twentieth Century Negro Literature. Nichols & Co. , Toronto, 1902. Cutler, James E. : Lynch Law, an Investigation into the History ofLynching in the United States. Longmans, Green & Co. , NewYork, 1905. Daniels, John: In Freedom's Birthplace: A Study of the BostonNegroes. Houghton Mifflin Co. , Boston and New York, 1914. Dewey, Davis Rich: National Problems, 1885-1897. Vol. 24 inAmerican Nation Series. Dill, Augustus Granville. See DuBois, editor Atlanta UniversityPublications. Dodd, William E. : The Cotton Kingdom. Vol. 27 of Chronicles ofAmerica. Expansion and Conflict. Vol. 3 of Riverside History of the United States. Houghton Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1915. Dow, Lorenzo ("Cosmopolite, a Listener"): A Cry from the Wilderness!A Voice from the East, A Reply from the West--Trouble in theNorth, Exemplifying in the South. Intended as a timely andsolemn warning to the People of the United States. Printedfor the Purchaser and the Public. United States, 1830. DuBois, W. E. Burghardt: Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. Longmans, Green & Co. , New York, 1896 (now handled by HarvardUniversity Press). DuBois, W. E. Burghardt: The Philadelphia Negro. University ofPennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1899. The Souls of Black Folk. A. C. McClurg & Co. , Chicago, 1903. The Negro in the South (Booker T. Washington, co-author). George W. Jacobs & Co. , Philadelphia, 1907. John Brown (in American Crisis Biographies). George W. Jacobs & Co. , Philadelphia, 1909. The Negro (in Home University Library Series). Henry Holt & Co. , New York, 1915. Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil. Harcourt, Brace & Co. , New York, 1920. (Editor Atlanta University Publications). The Negro Church, No. 8. The Health and Physique of the Negro American, No. II. Economic Co-operation among Negro Americans, No. 12. The Negro American Family, No. 13. Efforts for Social Betterment among Negro Americans, No. 14. The College-Bred Negro American, No. 15. (A. G. Dill, co-editor. ) The Negro American Artisan, No. 17. (A. G. Dill, co-editor. ) Morals and Manners among Negro Americans, No. 18. (A. G. Dill, co-editor. ) Dunbar, Alice Ruth Moore: Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence. TheBookery Publishing Co. , New York, 1914. Dunbar, Paul Laurence: Complete Poems. Dodd, Mead & Co. , NewYork, 1913. Dunning, William Archibald: Reconstruction, Political and Economic. Vol. 22 of American Nation Series. Earnest, Joseph B. , Jr. : The Religious Development of the Negroin Virginia (Ph. D. Thesis, Virginia). Charlottesville, 1914. Eckenrode, Hamilton James: The Political History of Virginiaduring the Reconstruction. Johns Hopkins Studies. Twenty-secondSeries, Nos. 6, 7, and 8. Baltimore, 1904. Ellis, George W. : Negro Culture in West Africa. The Neale PublishingCo. , New York, 1914. Ellwood, Charles A. : Sociology and Modern Social Problems. AmericanBook Co. , New York, 1910. Elwang, William W. : The Negroes of Columbia, Mo. (A. M. Thesis, Missouri), 1904. Epstein, Abraham: The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh (in publicationsof School of Economics of the University of Pittsburgh). 1918. Evans, Maurice S. : Black and White in the Southern States: AStudy of the Race Problem in the United States from a SouthAfrican Point of View. Longmans, Green & Co. , London, 1915. Ferris, William Henry: The African Abroad. 2 vols. New Haven, 1913. Fleming, Walter L. : Documentary History of Reconstruction. 2vols. Arthur H. Clark Co. , Cleveland, O. , 1906. The Sequel of Appomattox. Vol. 32 of Chronicles of America. Fletcher, Frank H. : Negro Exodus. Report of agent appointed bythe St. Louis Commission to visit Kansas for the purpose ofobtaining information in regard to colored emigration. Noimprint. Furman, Richard: Exposition of the Views of the Baptists Relativeto the Colored Population in the United States, in a communicationto the Governor of South Carolina. Second edition, Charleston, 1833. (Letter bears original date December 24, 1822; Furmanwas president of State Baptist Convention. ) Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Garrison, Francis Jackson: WilliamLloyd Garrison; Story of His Life Told by His Children. 4vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , 1894. Garrison, William Lloyd: Thoughts on African Colonization: orAn Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles, and Purposesof the American Colonization Society, together with theResolutions, Addresses, and Remonstrances of the Free Peopleof Color. Boston, 1832. Gayarré, Charles E. A. : History of Louisiana. 4 vols. New Orleans, 1885 edition. Grady, Henry W. : The New South and Other Addresses, withbiography, etc. , by Edna H. L. Turpin. Maynard, Merrill & Co. , New York, 1904. Graham, Stephen: The Soul of John Brown. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1920. Hallowell, Richard P. : Why the Negro was Enfranchised--NegroSuffrage Justified. Boston, 1903. (Reprint of two letters in the_Boston Herald_, March 11 and 26, 1903. ) Hammond, Lily Hardy: In Black and White: An Interpretation ofSouthern Life. Fleming H. Revell Co. , New York, 1914. Harris, Norman Dwight: Intervention and Colonization in Africa. Houghton, Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1914. Hart, Albert Bushnell: National Ideals Historically Traced. Vol. 26 in American Nation Series. Slavery and Abolition. Vol. 16 in American Nation Series. The Southern South. D. Appleton & Co. , New York, 1910. Hartshorn, W. N. , and Penniman, George W. : An Era of Progressand Promise, 1863-1910. The Priscilla Publishing Co. , Boston, 1910. Haworth, Paul Leland: America in Ferment. Bobbs-Merrill Co. , Indianapolis, 1915. Haynes, George E. : The Negro at Work in New York City Vol49, No. 3, of Columbia Studies, 1912. Helper, Hinton Rowan: The Impending Crisis of the South: Howto Meet It. New York, 1857. Hickok, Charles T. : The Negro in Ohio, 1802-1870. (WesternReserve thesis. ) Cleveland, 1896. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth: Army Life in a Black RegimentBoston, 1870. (Latest edition, Houghton, Mifflin Co. , 1900. ) Hoffman, Frederick L. : Race Traits and Tendencies of the AmericanNegro. American Economics Association Publications, XI, Nos. 1-3, 1896. Hodge, Frederick W. (editor): Spanish Explorers in the SouthernUnited States, 1528-1543 (in Original Narratives of Early AmericanHistory), esp. The Narrative of Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1907. Holland, Edwin C. : A Refutation of the Calumnies circulatedagainst the Southern and Western States, respecting the institutionand existence of slavery among them; to which is added a minuteand particular account of the actual condition and state oftheir Negro Population, together with Historical Notices ofall the Insurrections that have taken place since the settlementof the country. By a South Carolinian. Charleston, 1822. Horsemanden, Daniel (Judge): A Journal of the Proceedings inthe Detection of the Conspiracy Formed by Some White People, in conjunction with Negro and Other Slaves, for Burning theCity of New York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants. New York, 1744. Hosmer, James K. : The History of the Louisiana Purchase. D. Appleton & Co. , New York, 1902. Hurd, John C. : The Law of Freedom and Bondage. 2 vols. Boston, 1858-1862. Jay, William: Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the AmericanColonization and Anti-Slavery Societies. New York, 1835. Jefferson, Thomas: Writings, issued under the auspices of theThomas Jefferson Memorial Association. 20 vols. Washington, 1903. Jervey, Theodore D. : Robert Y. Hayne and His Times. The MacmillanCo. , New York, 1909. Johnson, Allen: Union and Democracy. Vol. 2 of Riverside Historyof the United States. Houghton, Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1915. Johnson, James W. : Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (publishedanonymously). Sherman, French & Co. , Boston, 1912. Fifty Years and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co. , Boston, 1917. Hayti. Four articles reprinted from the _Nation_, New York, 1920. Johnston, Sir Harry Hamilton: The Negro in the New World. TheMacmillan Co. , New York, 1910. Kelsey, Carl: The Negro Farmer (Ph. D. Thesis, Pennsylvania). Jennings & Pye, Chicago, 1903. Kemble, Frances A. : Journal of Residence on a Georgia Plantation, 1838-1839. Harper & Bros. , 1863. Kerlin, Robert T. (editor): The Voice of the Negro, 1919. E. P. Dutton & Co. , New York, 1920. Kimball, John C. : Connecticut's Canterbury Tale; Its Heroine PrudenceCrandall, and Its Moral for To-Day. Hartford, Conn. (1886). Krehbiel, Henry E. : Afro-American Folk-Songs. G. Schirmer, NewYork and London, 1914. Lauber, Almon Wheeler: Indian Slavery in Colonial Times withinthe Present Limits of the United States. Vol. 54, No. 3, ofColumbia University Studies, 1913. Livermore, George: An Historical Research Respecting the Opinionsof the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, asCitizens, and as Soldiers. Boston, 1863. Locke, Mary Stoughton: Anti-Slavery in America from the Introductionof African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave-Trade, 1619-1808. Radcliffe College Monograph No. 11. Boston, 1901(now handled by Harvard University Press). Lonn, Ella: Reconstruction in Louisiana. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1919. Lugard, Lady (Flora L. Shaw): A Tropical Dependency. JamesNisbet & Co. , Ltd. , London, 1906. Lynch, John R. : The Facts of Reconstruction: The Neale PublishingCo. , New York, 1913. McConnell, John Preston: Negroes and Their Treatment in Virginiafrom 1865 to 1867 (Ph. D. Thesis, Virginia, 1905). Printed byB. D. Smith & Bros. , Pulaski, Va. , 1910. MacCorkle, William A. : Some Southern Questions. G. P. Putnam'sSons, New York, 1908. McCormac, E. I. : White Servitude in Maryland. Johns HopkinsStudies, XXII, 119. McDougall, Marion Gleason: Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865. FayHouse (Radcliffe College) Monograph, No. 3. Boston, 1891(now handled by Harvard University Press). McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham: The Confederation and theConstitution, 1783-1789. Vol. 10 in American Nation Series. McMaster, John Bach: A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War. 8 vols. D. Appleton &Co. , New York, 1883-1913. Macy, Jesse: The Anti-Slavery Crusade. Vol. 28 in Chronicles ofAmerica. Marsh, J. B. T. : The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with their songs. Boston, 1880. Miller, Kelly: Race Adjustment. The Neale Publishing Co. , NewYork and Washington, 1908. Out of the House of Bondage. The Neale Publishing Co. , New York, 1914. Appeal to Conscience (in Our National Problems Series). The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1913. Moore, G. H. : Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes inthe American Army of the Revolution. New York, 1862. Morgan, Thomas J. : Reminiscences of Service with Colored Troopsin the Army of the Cumberland, 1863-65. Providence, 1885. Moton, Robert Russa: Finding a Way Out: An Autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co. , Garden City, N. Y. , 1920. Murphy, Edgar Gardner: The Basis of Ascendency. Longmans, Green & Co. , London, 1909. Murray, Freeman H. M. : Emancipation and the Freed in AmericanSculpture. Published by the author, 1733 Seventh St. , N. W. , Washington, 1916. Odum, Howard W. : Social and Mental Traits of the Negro. ColumbiaUniversity Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3. New York, 1910. Olmsted, Frederick Law: The Cotton Kingdom. 2 vols. New York, 1861. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. New York, 1856. Page, Thomas Nelson: The Old South. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1892. The Negro: the Southerner's Problem. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1904. Palmer, B. M. (with W. T. Leacock): The Rights of the SouthDefended in the Pulpits. Mobile, 1860. Penniman, George W. See Hartshorn, W. N. Phillips, Ulrich B. : American Negro Slavery. D. Appleton & Co. , New York, 1918. Plantation and Frontier. Vols. I and II of Documentary History of American Industrial Society. Arthur H. Clark Co. , Cleveland, 1910. Pike, G. D. : The Jubilee Singers and Their Campaign for $20, 000. Boston, 1873. Pike, J. S. : The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government. New York, 1874. Pipkin, James Jefferson: The Negro in Revelation, in History, andin Citizenship. N. D. Thompson Publishing Co. , St. Louis, 1902. Platt, O. H. : Negro Governors. Papers of the New Haven ColonyHistorical Society, Vol. 6. New Haven, 1900. Reese, David M. : A Brief Review of the First Annual Report ofthe American Anti-Slavery Society. New York, 1834. Rhodes, James Ford: History of the United States from the Compromiseof 1850 (1850-1877 and 1877-1896). 8 vols. The MacmillanCo. , New York, 1893-1919. Roman, Charles Victor: American Civilization and the Negro. F. A. Davis Co. , Philadelphia, 1916. Russell, John H. : The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865. JohnsHopkins Studies, Series XXXI, No. 3. Baltimore, 1913. Sandburg, Carl: The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919. Harcourt, Brace & Howe, New York, 1919. Schurz, Carl: Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers, selectedand edited by Frederic Bancroft. 6 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1913. Scott, Emmett J. : Negro Migration during the War (in PreliminaryEconomic Studies of the War--Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace: Division of Economics and History). Oxford UniversityPress, American Branch. New York, 1920. Official History of the American Negro in the World War. Washington, 1919. Seligman, Herbert J. : The Negro Faces America. Harper Bros. , New York, 1920. Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate: The Neighbor: the Natural Historyof Human Contacts. Houghton, Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1904. Siebert, Wilbur H. : The Underground Railroad from Slavery toFreedom. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1898. Sinclair, William A. : The Aftermath of Slavery. Small, Maynard& Co. , Boston, 1905. Smith, Justin H. : The War with Mexico. 2 vols. The MacmillanCo. , New York, 1919. Smith, Theodore Clarke: Parties and Slavery. Vol. 18 of AmericanNation Series. Smith, T. W. : The Slave in Canada. Vol. 10 in Collections of theNova Scotia Historical Society. Halifax, N. S. , 1889. Stephenson, Gilbert Thomas: Race Distinctions in American Law. D. Appleton & Co. , New York, 1910. Steward, T. G. : The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. , New York, 1914. Stoddard, Lothrop: The Rising Tide of Color against White World-Supremacy, with an Introduction by Madison Grant. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York, 1920. Stone, Alfred H. : Studies in the American Race Problem. Doubleday, Page & Co. , New York, 1908. Storey, Moorfield: The Negro Question. An Address deliveredbefore the Wisconsin Bar Association. Boston, 1918. Problemsof To-Day. Houghton, Mifflin Co. , Boston, 1920. Thompson, Holland: The New South. Vol. 42 in Chronicles ofAmerica. Tillinghast, Joseph Alexander: The Negro in Africa and America. Publications of American Economics Association, Series 3 Vol 3, No. 2. New York, 1902. Toombs, Robert: Speech on The Crisis, delivered before the GeorgiaLegislature, Dec. 7, 1860. Washington, 1860. Tucker, St. George: A Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal forthe Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia. Philadelphia, 1796. Turner, Frederick Jackson: The Rise of the New West. Vol. 14in American Nation Series. Turner, Edward Raymond: The Negro in Pennsylvania, 1639-1861(Justin Winsor Prize of American Historical Association, 1910). Washington, 1911. Washington, Booker T. : The Future of the American Negro. Small, Maynard & Co. , Boston, 1899. The Story of My Life and Work. Nichols & Co. , Naperville, Ill. , 1900. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Doubleday, Page & Co. , New York, 1901. Character Building. Doubleday, Page & Co. , New York, 1902. Working with the Hands. Doubleday, Page & Co. , New York, 1904. Putting the Most into Life. Crowell & Co. , New York, 1906. Frederick Douglass (in American Crisis Biographies). George W. Jacobs & Co. , Philadelphia, 1906. The Negro in the South (with W. E. B. DuBois). George W. Jacobs & Co. , Philadelphia, 1907. The Negro in Business. Hertel, Jenkins & Co. , Chicago, 1907. The Story of the Negro. 2 vols. Doubleday, Page & Co. , New York, 1909. My Larger Education. Doubleday, Page & Co. , Garden City, N. Y. , 1911. The Man Farthest Down (with Robert Emory Park). Doubleday, Page & Co. , Garden City, N. Y. , 1912. Weale, B. L. Putnam: The Conflict of Color. The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1910. Weatherford, W. D. : Present Forces in Negro Progress. AssociationPress, New York, 1912. Weld, Theodore Dwight: American Slavery as It Is: Testimonyof a Thousand Witnesses. Published by the American Anti-SlaverySociety, New York, 1839. Wiener, Leo: Africa and the Discovery of America, Vol. I. Innes& Sons, Philadelphia, 1920. Williams, George Washington: History of the Negro Race in Americafrom 1619 to 1880. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1883. Wise, John S. : The End of an Era. Houghton, Mifflin Co. , 1899. Woodson, Carter G. : The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1915. A Century of Negro Migration. Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Washington, 1918. Woolf, Leonard: Empire and Commerce in Africa: A Study inEconomic Imperialism. London, 1920. The Macmillan Co. , NewYork. Wright, Richard R. : Negro Companions of the Spanish Explorers. (Reprinted from the _American Anthropologist_, Vol. 4, April-June, 1902. ) Wright, Richard R. , Jr. : The Negro in Pennsylvania: A Study inEconomic History. (Ph. D. Thesis, Pennsylvania. ) A. M. E. BookConcern, Philadelphia. Wright, T. S. See Cornish, Samuel E. Zabriskie, Luther K. : The Virgin Islands of the United States ofAmerica. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1918. * * * * * An Address to the People of the United States, adopted at a Conferenceof Colored Citizens, held at Columbia, S. C. , July 20 and21, 1876. Republican Printing Co. , Columbia, S. C. , 1876. Paper (letter published in a Washington paper) submitted in connectionwith the Debate in the United States House of Representatives, July 15th and 18th, 1776, on the Massacre of Six Colored Citizensat Hamburg, S. C. , July 4, 1876. Proceedings of the National Conference of Colored Men of theUnited States, held in the State Capitol at Nashville, Tenn. , May6, 7, 8, and 9, 1879. Washington, D. C. , 1879. Story of the Riot. Persecution of Negroes by roughs and policemenin the City of New York, August, 1900. Statement and Proofswritten and compiled by Frank Moss and issued by the Citizens'Protective League. New York, 1900. The Voice of the Carpet Bagger. Reconstruction Review No. 1, publishedby the Anti-Lynching Bureau. Chicago, 1901. III. Special Lists 1. On Chapter II, Section 3; Chapter III, Section 5; ChapterVIII and Chapter XI, the general topic being the socialprogress of the Negro before 1860. Titles are mainly inthe order of appearance of works. Mather, Cotton: Rules for the Society of Negroes, 1693. Reprintedby George H. Moore, Lenox Library, New York, 1888. The Negro Christianized. An Essay to excite and assist that good work, the instruction of Negro-servants in Christianity. Boston, 1706. Allen, Richard. The Life, Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, written by himself. Philadelphia, 1793. Hall, Prince. A Charge delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, at Menotomy, by the Right Worshipful Prince Hall. (Boston)1797. To the Free Africans and Other Free People of Color in the UnitedStates. (Broadside) Philadelphia, 1797. Walker, David: Appeal, in four articles, together with a Preambleto the Colored Citizens of the World. Boston, 1829. Garrison, William Lloyd: An Address delivered before the FreePeople of Color in Philadelphia, New York, and other cities, during the month of June, 1831. Boston, 1831. Thoughts on African Colonization (see list above). Minutes and Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of thePeople of Color, held by adjournments in the City of Philadelphia, from the sixth to the eleventh of June, inclusive, 1831. Philadelphia, 1831. College for Colored Youth. An Account of the New Haven CityMeeting and Resolutions with Recommendations of the College, and Strictures upon the Doings of New Haven. New York, 1831. On the Condition of the Free People of Color in the United States. New York, 1839. (_The Anti-Slavery Examiner_, No. 13. ) Condition of the People of Color in the State of Ohio, with interestinganecdotes. Boston, 1839. Armistead, Wilson: Memoir of Paul Cuffe. London, 1840. Wilson, Joseph: Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Societyin Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1841. National Convention of Colored Men and Their Friends. Troy, N. Y. , 1847. Garnet, Henry Highland: The Past and Present Condition and theDestiny of the Colored Race. Troy, 1848. Delany, Martin R. : The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destinyof the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered. Philadelphia, 1852. Cincinnati Convention of Colored Freedmen of Ohio. Proceedings, Jan. 14-19, 1852. Cincinnati, 1852. Proceedings of the Colored National Convention, held in Rochester, July 6, 7, and 8, 1853. Rochester, 1853. Cleveland National Emigration Convention of Colored People. Proceedings, Aug. 22-24, 1854. Pittsburg, 1854. Nell, William C. : The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, with sketches of several Distinguished Colored Persons: to whichis added a brief survey of the Condition and Prospects of ColoredAmericans, with an Introduction by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston, 1855. Stevens, Charles E. : Anthony Burns, a History. Boston, 1856. Catto, William T. : A Semi-Centenary Discourse, delivered in theFirst African Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, with a Historyof the church from its first organization, including a brief noticeof Rev. John Gloucester, its first pastor. Philadelphia, 1857. Bacon, Benjamin C. : Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1856. Second edition, with statistics of crime, Philadelphia, 1857. Condition of the Free Colored People of the United States, by JamesFreeman Clarke, in _Christian Examiner_, March, 1859, 246-265. Reprinted as pamphlet by American Anti-Slavery Society, NewYork, 1859. Brown, William Wells: Clotel, or The President's Daughter (a narrativeof slave life in the United States). London, 1853. The Escape; or A Leap for Freedom, a Drama in five acts. Boston, 1858. The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements. New York, 1863. The Rising Son; or The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race. Boston, 1874. To Thomas J. Gantt, Esq. (Broadside), Charleston, 1861. Douglass, William: Annals of St. Thomas's First African Church. Philadelphia, 1862. Proceedings of the National Convention of Colored Men, held in the cityof Syracuse, N. Y. , October 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1864, with the Bill of Wrongsand Rights and the Address to the American People. Boston, 1864. The Budget, containing the Annual Reports of the General Officers of theAfrican M. E. Church of the United States of America, edited by BenjaminW. Arnett. Xenia, O. , 1881. Same for later years. Simms, James M. : The First Colored Baptist Church in North America. Printed by J. B. Lippincott Co. , Philadelphia, 1888. Upton, William H. : Negro Masonry, being a Critical Examination ofobjections to the legitimacy of the Masonry existing among the Negroesof America. Cambridge, 1899; second edition, 1902. Brooks, Charles H. : The Official History and Manual of the Grand UnitedOrder of Odd Fellows in America. Philadelphia, 1902. Cromwell, John W. : The Early Convention Movement. Occasional Paper No. 9of American Negro Academy, Washington, D. C. , 1904. Brooks, Walter H. : The Silver Bluff Church, Washington, 1910. Crawford, George W. : Prince Hall and His Followers. New Haven, 1915. Wright, Richard R. , Jr. (Editor-in-Chief): Centennial Encyclopædiaof the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A. M. E. Book Concern, Philadelphia, 1916. Also note narratives or autobiographies of Frederick Douglass, SojournerTruth, Samuel Ringgold Ward, Solomon Northrup, Lunsford Lane, etc. ; thepoems of Phillis Wheatley (first edition, London, 1773), and George M. Horton; Williams's History for study of some more prominent characters;Woodson's bibliography for the special subject of education; andperiodical literature, especially the articles remarked in Chapter XI inconnection with the free people of color in Louisiana. 2. On Chapter V (Indian and Negro) A standard work on the Second Seminole War is The Origin, Progress, andConclusion of the Florida War, by John T. Sprague, D. Appleton & Co. , New York, 1848; but also important as touching upon the topics of thechapter are The Exiles of Florida, by Joshua R. Giddings, Columbus, Ohio, 1858, and a speech by Giddings in the House of RepresentativesFebruary 9, 1841. Note also House Document No. 128 of the 1st sessionof the 20th Congress, and Document 327 of the 2nd session of the 25thCongress. The Aboriginal Races of North America, by Samuel G. Drake, fifteenth edition, New York, 1880, is interesting and suggestive thoughformless; and McMaster in different chapters gives careful briefaccounts of the general course of the Indian wars. 3. On Chapter VII (Insurrections) (For insurrections before that of Denmark Vesey note especially Coffin, Holland, and Horsemanden above. On Gabriel's Insurrection see article byHigginson (_Atlantic_, X. 337), afterwards included in Travellers andOutlaws. ) Denmark Vesey 1. An Official Report of the Trials of Sundry Negroes, charged with anattempt to raise an Insurrection in the State of South Carolina. ByLionel H. Kennedy and Thomas Parker (members of the Charleston Bar andthe Presiding Magistrates of the Court). Charleston, 1822. 2. An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection among a Portion of theBlack of this City. Published by the Authority of the Corporation ofCharleston. Charleston, 1822 (reprinted Boston, 1822, and again inBoston and Charleston). The above accounts, now exceedingly rare, are the real sources of alllater study of Vesey's insurrection. The two accounts are sometimesidentical; thus the list of those executed or banished is the same. Thefirst has a good introduction. The second was written by James Hamilton, Intendant of Charleston. 3. Letter of Governor William Bennett, dated August 10, 1822. (This wasevidently a circular letter to the press. References are to Lundy's_Genius of Universal Emancipation_, II, 42, Ninth month, 1822, and thereare reviews in the following issues, pages 81, 131, and 142. Higginsonnotes letter as also in _Columbian Sentinel_, August 31, 1822;_Connecticut Courant_, September 3, 1822; and _Worcester Spy_, September18, 1822. ) Three secondary accounts in later years are important: 1. Article on Denmark Vesey by Higginson (_Atlantic_, VII. 728) includedin Travellers and Outlaws: Episodes in American History. Lee andShepard, Boston, 1889. 2. Right on the Scaffold, or the Martyrs of 1822, by Archibald H. Grimké. No. 7 of the Papers of the American Negro Academy, Washington. 3. Book I, Chapter XII, "Denmark Vesey's Insurrection, " in Robert Y. Hayne and His Times, by Theodore D. Jervey, The Macmillan Co. , New York, 1909. Various pamphlets were written immediately after the insurrection not somuch to give detailed accounts as to discuss the general problem of theNegro and the reaction of the white citizens of Charleston to the event. Of these we may note the following: 1. Holland, Edwin C. : A Refutation of the Calumnies Circulated againstthe Southern and Western States. (See main list above. ) 2. Achates (General Thomas Pinckney): Reflections Occasioned by the LateDisturbances in Charleston. Charleston, 1822. 3. Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the Views of the BaptistsRelative to the Colored Population in the United States. (See main listabove. ) 4. Practical Considerations Founded on the Scriptures Relative to theSlave Population of South Carolina. By a South Carolinian. Charleston, 1823. Nat Turner 1. The Confessions of Nat Turner, Leader of the Late Insurrection inSouthampton, Va. , as fully and voluntarily made to Thos. C. Gray, in theprison where he was confined--and acknowledged by him to be such, whenread before the court at Southampton, convened at Jerusalem November 5, 1831, for his trial. (This is the main source. Thousands of copies ofthe pamphlet are said to have been circulated, but it is now exceedinglyrare. Neither the Congressional Library nor the Boston Public has acopy, and Cromwell notes that there is not even one in the State Libraryin Richmond. The copy used by the author is in the library of HarvardUniversity. ) 2. Horrid Massacre. Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the TragicalScene which was witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the22nd of August last. New York, 1831. (This gives a table of victims andhas the advantage of nearness to the event. This very nearness, however, has given credence to much hearsay and accounted for several instancesof inaccuracy. ) To the above may be added the periodicals of the day, such as theRichmond _Enquirer_ and the _Liberator_; note _Genius of UniversalEmancipation_, September, 1831. Secondary accounts or studies wouldinclude the following: 1. Nat Turner's Insurrection, exhaustive article by Higginson(_Atlantic_, VIII. 173) later included in Travellers and Outlaws. 2. Drewry, William Sidney: Slave Insurrections in Virginia (1830-1865). A Dissertation presented to the Board of University Studies of the JohnsHopkins University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The NealeCompany, Washington, 1900. (Unfortunately marred by a partisan tone. ) 3. The Aftermath of Nat Turner's Insurrection, by John W. Cromwell, in_Journal of Negro History_, April, 1920. _Amistad and Creole_ Cases 1. Argument of John Quincy Adams before the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates, in the case of the United States, Apellants, vs. Cinque, andothers, Africans, captured in the Schooner _Amistad_, by Lieut. Gedney, delivered on the 24th of February and 1st of March, 1841. New York, 1841. 2. Africans Taken in the _Amistad_. Document No. 185 of the 1st sessionof the 26th Congress, containing the correspondence in relation to thecaptured Africans. (Reprinted by Anti-Slavery Depository, New York, 1840. ) 3. Senate Document 51 of the 2nd session of the 27th Congress. 4. On Chapter IX (Liberia) Much has been written about Liberia, but the books and pamphlets havebeen very uneven in quality. Original sources include the reports ofthe American Colonization Society to 1825; _The African Repository_, a compendium issued sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly, by theAmerican Colonization Society from 1825 to 1892, and succeeded by theperiodical known as _Liberia_; the reports of the different stateorganizations; J. Ashmun's History of the American Colony in Liberiafrom December, 1821 to 1823, compiled from the authentic records of thecolony, Washington, 1826; Ralph Randolph Gurley's Life of Jehudi Ashmun, Washington, 1835, second edition, New York, 1839; Gurley's reporton Liberia (a United States state paper), Washington, 1850; and theMemorial of the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the American ColonizationSociety, celebrated at Washington, January 15, 1867, with documentsconcerning Liberia, Washington, 1867; to all of which might be addedJournal of Daniel Coker, a descendant of Africa, from the time ofleaving New York, in the ship _Elisabeth_, Capt. Sebor, on a voyage forSherbro, in Africa, Baltimore, 1820. J. H. B. Latrobe, a president of theAmerican Colonization Society, is prominent in the Memorial volume of1867, and after this date are credited to him Liberia: its Origin, Rise, Progress, and Results, an address delivered before the AmericanColonization Society, January 20, 1880, Washington, 1880, and Marylandin Liberia, Baltimore, 1885. An early and interesting compilation isG. S. Stockwell's The Republic of Liberia: Its Geography, Climate, Soil, and Productions, with a history of its early settlement, New York, 1868;a good handbook is Frederick Starr's Liberia, Chicago, 1913; mentionmight also be made of T. McCants Stewart's Liberia, New York, 1886; andGeorge W. Ellis's Negro Culture in West Africa, Neale Publishing Co. , New York, 1914, is outstanding in its special field. Two Johns Hopkinstheses have been written: John H. T. McPherson's History of Liberia(Studies, IX, No. 10), 1891, and E. L. Fox's The American ColonizationSociety 1817-1840 (Studies, XXXVII, 9-226), 1919; the first of these isbrief and clearcut and especially valuable for its study of the Marylandcolony. Magazine articles of unusual importance are George W. Ellis'sDynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation and Emmett J. Scott's IsLiberia Worth Saving? both in _Journal of Race Development_, January, 1911. Of English or continental works outstanding is the monumental butnot altogether unimpeachable Liberia, by Sir Harry H. Johnston, with anappendix on the Flora of Liberia by Dr. Otto Stapf, 2 vols. , Hutchinson& Co. , London, 1906; while with a strong English bias and incomplete andunsatisfactory as a general treatise is R. C. F. Maughan's The Republic ofLiberia, London (1920?), Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Mention mustalso be made of the following publications by residents of Liberia: TheNegro Republic on West Africa, by Abayomi Wilfrid Karnga, Monrovia, 1909; New National Fourth Reader, edited by Julius C. Stevens, Monrovia, 1903; Liberia and Her Educational Problems, by Walter F. Walker, anaddress delivered before the Chicago Historical Society, October23, 1916; and Catalogue of Liberia College for 1916, and HistoricalRegister, printed at the Riverdale Press, Brookline, Mass. , 1919; whileEdward Wilmot Blyden's Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race isrepresentative of the best of the more philosophical dissertations. Abbeville, S. C. Aberdeen, LordAbolition, AbolitionistsAbraham, Negro interpreterAbyssiniaAdams, DocAdams, HenryAdams, JohnAdams, John QuincyAfricaAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church, and schoolsAfrican Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and schools_Age, The New York_AguinaldoAkron, OhioAlabamaAldridge, IraAllen, RichardAlton, Ill. Ambrister, RobertAmendments to Constitution of United StatesAmerican Anti-Slavery SocietyAmerican Baptist Home Mission SocietyAmerican Baptist Publication SocietyAmerican Bar AssociationAmerican Colonization SocietyAmerican Convention of Abolition SocietiesAmerican Federation of LaborAmerican GiantsAmerican Missionary AssociationAmistad CaseAnderson, BenjaminAndrew, John O. Andrew, WilliamAnthony, Susan B. Anti-Slavery societies_Appeal_, David Walker'sArbuthnot, AlexanderArkansasArkwright, RichardArmstrong, Samuel C. Asbury, BishopAshley, LordAshmun, JehudiAssiento ContractAtlanta, Ga. Atlanta CompromiseAtlanta MassacreAtlanta UniversityAttaway, A. T. Attucks, CrispusAugusta, Ga. Ayres, Eli Bacon, EphraimBacon, John F. Bacon, SamuelBaker, F. B. BalboaBaltimoreBanbarasBankson, JohnBanneker, BenjaminBaptists, churches and schoolsBaptist Young People s UnionBarbadoesBarbour, Capt. Barbour, DanBarclay, ArthurBarlow, JoelBassa Trading AssociationBassa tribeBassett, EbenezerBatson, FloraBaxter, RichardBeecher, Henry WardBehn, AphraBelleau WoodBenedict CollegeBenefit societiesBenezet, AnthonyBennett, BatteauBennett, Gov. , of South CarolinaBennett, NedBennett, RollaBenson, Stephen AllenBerea CollegeBethel Church, A. M. E. , of PhiladelphiaBirmingham, Ala. Birney, James G. "Birth of a Nation"Bishop CollegeBlack CodesBlack Star LineBlacksmith, BenBlackwood, JesseBlair, HenryBlanco, PedroBleckley, L. E. Blunt, JohnBlyden, Edward WilmotBoatswain, African chiefBogalusa, La. Boston, Mass. Boston MassacreBoston, SamuelBouey, H. N. Bourne, E. G. Bowers, JohnBowler, JackBoyd, HenryBrooks, Preston S. Brooks County, Ga. Brough, Charles H. Brown, Bishop, of ArkansasBrown, JohnBrown, WilliamBrown, William WellsBrowning, Elizabeth BarrettBrownsville, TexasBruce, Blanche K. Bryan, AndrewBryce, JamesBuchanan, Thomas H. Bull, Gov. , of South CarolinaBullock, M. W. Burgess, EbenezerBurleigh, Harry T. Burning of NegroesBurns, AnthonyBurnside, Gen. Burton, BelfastBurton, MaryBusiness, NegroButler, B. F. , District Attorney in New YorkButler, B. F. , Gen. Butler, M. C. Butler, SolButtrick, WallaceBuzi tribeByron, Lord Cable, George W. Cadell, MajorCæsar, in New YorkCalderon, Spanish ministerCaldwell, Elias B. Calhoun, John C. Calvert, George, Lord BaltimoreCamp DodgeCamp GrantCamphor, A. P. Canaan, N. H. , school atCanadaCanning, GeorgeCape PalmasCardozo, F. L. Carmantee tribeCarney, William H. Carranza, Andrés Dorantes deCarrizalCartledge, LewisCary, LottCass, LewisCassell, Nathaniel H. B. CatholicsCato, insurrectionistCato, WillChain-gang_Challenge Magazine_Chamberlain, Gov. , of South CarolinaChampion, JamesChanning, William ElleryCharles VCharles, RobertCharleston, S. C. Château ThierryChavis, JohnCheeseman, Joseph JamesCherokeesChesnutt, Charles W. Chester, Penn. Chicago riotChickasawsChild, Lydia MariaChinaChoctaws, Christianity_Christian Recorder_ChumaCincinnatiCinque, JosephCivil RightsCivil WarClaflin University_Clansman, The_Clark, AndrewClark, MajorClark UniversityClarkson, MatthewClarkson, QuamoneyClarkson, ThomasClay, HenryCleveland, GroverCleveland, OhioClinch, Duncan L. Clinton, Sir HenryCoatesville, Penn. Cockburn, Sir FrancisCoker, DanielCole and Johnson CompanyCole, JamesColeman, William D. Coleridge-Taylor, SamuelCollege graduatesCollege of West AfricaColonizationColored Methodist Episcopal Church, and schoolsCompromise of 1850CongregationalistsConnecticutConstitution of the United StatesContinental CongressConventionsConvict Lease system. _See_ Peonage. Cook, JamesCook, O. F. Coot, insurrectionistCope, Thomas P. Cordovell, of New OrleansCorey, C. H. "Corkscrew" lynchingCornish, Samuel E. Cotton-ginCowagee, JohnCowley, RobertCowper, WilliamCox, MinnieCoybet, Gen. Cranchell, CæsarCrandall, PrudenceCravath, E. M. Crawford, AnthonyCrawford, WilliamCreeksCreole CaseCriminal, Negro_Crisis, The_Crompton, SamuelCross Keys, Va. Crozer, Samuel A. CrucifixionCrum, William D. Crummell, AlexanderCubaCuffe, PaulCuffe, PeterCuffee, in New YorkCurry, J. L. M. Curtis, JusticeCutler, Manasseh Dade, MajorDarien, Ga. _Darkwater_Davis, Benjamin O. Declaration of IndependenceDeclaration of Independence (Liberian)_Defender, The_De Grasse, John V. Delany, Martin R. DelawareDemocratsDenmarkDennison, Franklin A. Derham, JamesDew, T. R. Deys, in AfricaDickens, CharlesDillard, James H. DisfranchisementDismond, BingaDistrict of ColumbiaDixie KidDixon, GeorgeDixon, ThomasDorsey, Hugh M. Dossen, J. J. Douglas, Stephen A. Douglass, FrederickDouglass, RobertDow, LorenzoDowdy, JimDraft Riot in New YorkDrake, FrancisDrayton, Congressman from South CarolinaDred Scott DecisionDrew, Howard P. "Dreyfus, " poem by Edwin MarkhamDuBois, W. E. BurghardtDugro, Justice P. H. Dunbar, Charles B. Dunbar, Paul L. Dunbar Theater, in PhiladelphiaDuncan, Otis B. Duncan, WilliamDunmore, LordDunning, W. A. Durham, ClaytonDuties on importation of slavesDuval, William P. Dwight, Gen. Dyersburg, Tenn. Early County, Ga. East St. LouisEaton, John, Comm. Of EducationEaton, John H. , Secretary of WarEconchattimicoEducationEgyptElaine, Ark. El CaneyEliot, JohnElizabeth, QueenElliott, Robert B. EmancipationEmathla, CharleyEmathlocheeEmerson, Dr. _Empire and Commerce in Africa_England (or Great Britain)EpiscopaliansErie RailroadEstevanicoEstill Springs, Tenn. Etheridge, at Phoenix, S. C. EthiopiansEvans, LewisEverett, Alexander H. Everett, EdwardExodus, Negro. _See also_ Migration. Faber, F. W. Factories, slaveFalkner, Roland P. FederalistsFerguson, FrankFerguson, Samuel D. Fernandina, Fla. Finley, I. F. C. Finley, RobertFirst African Baptist Church, in SavannahFirst Bryan Baptist Church, in SavannahFish WarFisk Jubilee SingersFisk UniversityFleet, Dr. Fleming, W. L. FloridaF. M. C. 'sForaker, J. B. Forrester, LotForsyth, JohnFort BrookeFort Gibson, Ark. Fort Jackson, treaty ofFort KingFort MimsFort Moultrie (near St. Augustine), treaty ofFort Moultrie (near Charleston)Fort PillowFort Sam HoustonFort WagnerForten, JamesFortress MonroeFoster, TheodoreFowltownFranceFrancis, SamFrancis, WillFranklin, BenjaminFree African SocietyFreedmen's Aid SocietyFreedmen's BankFreedmen's Bureau_Freedom's Journal_Freeman, CatoFree NegroesFree-Soil PartyFremont, John C. Friends, Society of. _See_ Quakers. Frissell, Hollis B. Fugitive Slave LawsFuller, Meta WarrickFurman, Richard Gabriel, insurrectionistGadsden, JamesGage, Frances D. Gailliard, NicholasGaines, Gen. Galilean FishermenGalvestonGans, JoeGardiner, Anthony W. Garlington, E. A. Garnett, H. H. Garrison, William LloydGarvey, MarcusGatumba, ChiefGeaween, JohnGell, MondayGeneral Education BoardGeorgia_Georgia Baptist_Georgia Railroad labor troubleGeorgia, University ofGermans, GermanyGermantown protestGibbes, Gov. , of South CarolinaGibson, Garretson W. Giddings, Joshua R. Gildersleeve, Basil L. Giles, Harriet E. Giles, Jackson W. Gilmer, Congressman, of GeorgiaGleaves, R. H. Gloucester, JohnGola tribeGold CoastGonzalesGoodspeed, Dr. , of Benedict CollegeGorden, RobertGordon, MidshipmanGourdin, E. Gradual EmancipationGrady, Henry W. Graeff, Abraham Op denGraeff, Dirck Op denGrand Bassa"Grandfather Clause, "Grant, U. S. Graves, SamuelGray, Thomas C. Gray, WilliamGreat WarGrebo tribeGreeley, HoraceGreene, Col. Greenfield, Elizabeth TaylorGreenleaf, Prof. Greenville, in LiberiaGrice, HezekiahGroves, Junius C. Grundy, Felix_Guardian, The_Guerra, Christóbal de laGuerra, Luís de laGuinea CoastGullah JackGurley, R. R. Hadjo, MiccoHajo, TuskiHall, JamesHall, PrinceHallowell, Edward N. Hallowell, N. P. Hamburg MassacreHampton InstituteHampton, WadeHarden, HenryHargreaves, JamesHarper, in LiberiaHarper, F. E. W. Harper's FerryHarris, ArthurHarris, John M. Harris, William T. Harrison, BenjaminHarrison, William HenryHarrison St. Baptist Church, of Petersburg, Va. Harry, Negro in Seminole WarsHart, A. B. Hartford, Conn. Harth, MingoHartshorn Memorial CollegeHarvard UniversityHaussasHavanaHavelock, A. E. Hawkins, JohnHawkins, WilliamHayes, R. B. Haygood, Atticus G. Hayne, Robert Y. Haynes, George E. Haynes, LemuelHaytiHeber, ReginaldHelper, Hinton RowanHendericks, GarretHenry, Prince, of PortugalHenry, PatrickHewell, John R. Hicks, JohnHigginson, Thomas WentworthHill, ArnoldHill, StephenHoar, SamuelHodge, F. W. Hoffman, Frederick L. Hogg, Robert, and Mrs. HoggHolbert, LutherHollandHolland, Edwin C. Holly, James TheodoreHomerHopkins, SamuelHorsemanden, JudgeHorseshoe BendHorton, George M. Hose, SamHouston, TexasHoward, Daniel EdwardHoward, O. O. Howard UniversityHowells, William DeanHowze, AlmaHowze, MaggieHughes, Charles E. Hughson, JohnHughson, SarahHugo, VictorHumphreys, GadHunter, David Illinois_Impending Crisis, The_Indenture. _See_ Servitude. IndianaIndiansIndian Spring, treaty of_Informer_, The HoustonInsurrectionsIntermarriage, Racial intermixture Jackson, AndrewJackson CollegeJackson, EdwardJackson, FrancisJackson, JamesJackson, PeterJacksonville, Fla. JamaicaJames, DavidJames, Duke of YorkJamestownJapanJasper, JohnJay, JohnJay, WilliamJeanes, Anna T. Jeanes FundJefferson, ThomasJennings, Thomas L. Jessup, Thomas S. "Jim Crow, " origin ofJocelyn, S. S. John, in Fugitive Slave caseJohnson, AndrewJohnson, ElijahJohnson, HenryJohnson, H. R. W. Johnson, JackJohnson, JamesJohnson, JosephJohnston brothers, of ArkansasJohnston, E. L. Johnston, Sir Harry H. Jones, AbrahamJones, Eugene K. Jones, GeorgeJones, SamJones, SissierettaJulius, John Kali, in Amistad caseKansasKansas City, dynamiting of homes inKansas-Nebraska BillKean, EdmundKentuckyKerry, MargaretKing, C. D. B. King, MulattoKing, RufusKizell, JohnKnights of PythiasKnights of the Golden CircleKnoxville CollegeKnoxville riotKpwessi tribeKru tribeKuKlux Klan LaborLafar, John J. Laing, MajorLake City, S. C. Lane CollegeLane SeminaryLangston, John MercerLas QuasimasLaurens, HenryLaurens, JohnLaw, JohnLawless, JudgeLe Clerc, Gen. Lee, Robert E. Lee County, Ga. Leicester, Earl ofLeland GiantsLewis, William H. _Liberator, The_LiberiaLiberia CollegeLiberian Exodus and Joint Stock CompanyLiberty PartyLiele, GeorgeLincoln, AbrahamLincoln GiantsLincoln UniversityLivingstone CollegeLivingstone, DavidLockwood, L. C. London CompanyLouisianaLouis NapoleonLovejoy, Elijah P. Lowell, James R. Lugard, LadyLundy, BenjaminLutheransLynching Macaulay, T. B. Macon, Ga. MadagascarMadison, JamesMahan, AsaMaineMalaysMaldonado, Alonzo del CastilloMandingoesManly, Alex. L. Mano tribeMansfield, LordMarcos, FrayMarkham, EdwinMarriage_Marrow of Tradition, The_Marshall, J. F. B. Marshall, J. R. Marshall, of Univ. Of MinnesotaMartin, LutherMarylandMason, GeorgeMasons, NegroMassachusettsMather, CottonMatthews, W. C. May, Samuel J. Mazzini, G. McCorkle, William A. McIlheron, JimMcIntosh, burnedMcKay, ClaudeMcKelway, A. J. Medicine, Negro inMemphis, Tenn. Mercer, Charles F. _Messenger, The_Methodists, churches and schools. _See also_ African Methodist. Mexican WarMetzMicanopyMickasukie tribeMigration. _See also_ Exodus. Milan, Ga. Milliken's BendMills, Samuel J. MinstrelsyMiscegenation. _See_ Intermarriage, Racial intermixture. MississippiMississippi CompanyMissouriMissouri CompromiseMobileMohammedansMonroe, JamesMonroviaMontes, PedroMontgomery, Ala. Montgomery, JamesMonticello, Ga. Montserado, CapeMoore, Joanna P. Moorhead, ScipioMoorsMorehouse CollegeMorell, Junius C. Morgan, Thomas J. Morris Brown UniversityMorris, Edward H. Morris, GouverneurMorris, Robert, Jr. MortalityMott, LucretiaMulattoesMumford, John P. "Mungo, " in The PadlockMurphy, Edgar G. Napoleon BonaparteNarvaez, Pamfilo deNashville, Tenn. NassauNational Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleNational Urban LeagueNavigation OrdinanceNea MathlaNeau, Elias_Negro_, the wordNegro Union_Negro World, The_Nell, William C. New Bedford, Mass. New England Anti-Slavery SocietyNew HampshireNew JerseyNew OrleansNew MexicoNew York (city)New York (state)_News and Courier_, of Charleston, S. C. Niagara MovementNiles, HezekiahNiño, Pedro AlonsoNorfolk, Va. North CarolinaNorthrup, Solomon_North Star_Northwest TerritoryNott, Josiah C. Nott, Dr. , of Union CollegeNullificationNunn, Joseph Oberlin CollegeOdd FellowsOgden, PeterOgden, Robert C. Oglethorpe, JamesOhioOklahomaOmahaOrange Park AcademyOsceolaOtis, JamesOtis, Mayor, of BostonOuithlecoochee, Battle ofOvando Packard, Sophia B. Page, Thomas NelsonPage, Walter H. Palmer, B. M. Palmetto, Ga. Pan-African CongressPappa tribeParker, TheodoreParrott, RussellPastorius, Francis DanielPatterson, JosephPaul, WilliamPayne, Daniel A. Payne, James SpriggsPayne's Landing, treaty ofPeabody Educational FundPeabody, George FosterPembroke, Earl ofPennington, James W. C. PennsylvaniaPennsylvania RailroadPensacolaPeonagePerkins, FrancisPerry, BlissPerson, Ell T. Petersburg, Va. Phagan, JohnPhelps, John W. Phelps-Stokes FellowshipsPhiladelphiaPhillips, WendellPhipps, BenjaminPhoenix societiesPierce, LeonardPike, in Brooks County, Ga. Pittman, W. SydneyPittsburgh, Penn. Plançiancois, AnselmasPleasants, RobertPollard, F. Poor, SamuelPoor white man, as related to NegroPopulation, NegroPopulist PartyPort HudsonPorter, HenryPortugalPotter, JamesPowell. See Osceola. Poyas, PeterPresbyteriansPrice, ArthurPrincePrincetonProblem, Negro. See Table of Contents. Progressive PartyPunishment. See also Lynching, Burning. Purcell, JackPuritans Quack, in New YorkQuakersQueen and Crescent Railroad troubleQuinn, William Paul Randolph, JohnReconstructionReed, PaulReese, Jack_Republic of Liberia, The_Republican PartyReuter, E. B. Revels, Hiram R. _Review of Reviews_, quotedRevolutionary WarRevolution, FrenchRhode IslandRhodes, CecilRice, Thomas D. Richmond, Va. Rigaud_Rising Tide of Color, The_Rivers, P. R. Robert, Joseph T. Roberts, Joseph JenkinRobeson, P. L. Rockefeller, John D. RomanticismRomme, JohnRoosevelt, TheodoreRoss, JohnRoyal African CompanyRoye, Edward JamesRuffin, George L. Ruiz, JoséRush, ChristopherRussell, Alfred F. Russwurm, John B. Rust UniversityRutledge, John St. Augustine, Fla. St. Louis, Mo. St. MihielSt. Philip's Church, in New YorkSt. Thomas's Episcopal Church, in PhiladelphiaSale, GeorgeSalem, PeterSamba, insurrectionistSandford (in Dred Scott Case)San Juan HillSantiagoSanto DomingoSargent, Frank P. Savannah, Ga. Schurz, CarlScott, Emmett J. Scott, LationScott, WalterSeaton, RichardSebastianSebor, CaptSecoffeeSecret societiesSegui, BernardSelika, MmeSeminole WarsServitudeSeward, William H. Seyes, JohnShadd, AbrahamSharp, GranvilleShaw, Robert GouldShaw MonumentShaw UniversityShepherd, RandallSheridan, PhilipShubuta, Miss. Shufeldt, R. W. Sierra LeoneSilver Bluff ChurchSimonSingleton, BenjaminSino, in LiberiaSlater FundSlavery. _See_ Table of Contents. Slave ShipsSmith, AdamSmith, AlfredSmith, Edward P. Smith, GerritSmith, HamptonSmith, HenrySmith, HokeSmith, James McCuneSmith, StephenSmith, W. B. Social ProgressSocialismSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign PartsSoldier, NegroSomerset, JamesSoulouque, Faustin_Souls of Black Folk, The_South CarolinaSouth Carolina Medical CollegeSouthern Education BoardSouthern Educational CongressSouthern Sociological CongressSoutherne, Thomas_Southwestern Christian Advocate_SpainSpaniardsSpanish-American WarSpanish ExplorationSpelman SeminarySpence, R. T. Spencer, PeterSportSpringfield, Ill. Stanton, Elizabeth CadyStatesville, Ga. Stephens, AlexanderStevens, Julius C. Stevens, ThaddeusSteward, AustinStewart, CharlesStewart, T. McC. Stiles, EzraStoddard, LothropStone, LucyStockton, Robert F. Stone, Alfred H. Storey, MoorfieldStowe, Harriet BeecherStraight UniversityStraker, D. A. Students' Army Training CorpsSummersett, JohnSumner, CharlesSupreme CourtSusi Taft, W. H. Talladega, Ala. Talladega CollegeTallahassee, Fla. Taney, R. B. Tanner, Henry O. Tappan, ArthurTappan, LewisTapsico, JacobTaney, Chief JusticeTaylor, John B. Taylor, MajorTaylor, WilliamTecumsehTennesseeTerrell, Mary ChurchTerrell, J. M. TexasThomas, CharlesThomas, W. H. Thompson, GeorgeThompson, WileyThornton, William_Thoughts on African Colonisation_Tillman, Benjamin R. Tithables, definedTolbert, John R. Tolbert, R. R. Tolbert, ThomasToombs, RobertToussaint L'OuvertureTravis, HarkTravis, JosephTremont Temple Baptist ChurchTrotter, MonroeTruth, SojournerTubman, HarrietTucker, St. GeorgeTupper, Pres. , of Shaw UniversityTurnbull, Robert JamesTurner, H. M. Turner, MaryTurner, Nat, and his insurrectionTuskegee InstituteTustenuggee, 114 _Uncle Tom's Cabin_Underground RailroadUniversal Negro Improvement AssociationUniversal Races CongressUniversity Commission on Southern Race QuestionsUry, JohnUtrecht, Peace of Vaca, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza deVail, AaronVai tribeValdosta, Ga. Valladolid, Juan deVan Buren, MartinVardaman, James K. Varick, JamesVermontVesey, Denmark, and his insurrectionVincenden, Gen. VirginiaVirginia Union UniversityVirginia, University ofVirgin IslandsVogelsang, Peter_Voice of the Negro, The_Vosges Waco, TexasWalcott, JoeWalker, JohnWalker, Mme. C. J. Walker, DavidWalker, Walter F. Walker, ZachWar of 1812Ward, Samuel RinggoldWare, AsaWarner, Daniel BashielWashington, BerryWashington, Booker T. Washington, BushrodWashington, GeorgeWashington, JesseWashington, MadisonWashington, D. C. Watson, BrookWatt, JamesWatterson, HenryWeathersfordWebster, DanielWebster, ThomasWendell, AbrahamWesley, JohnWest VirginiaWheatley, PhillisWhipper, of PennsylvaniaWhipper, WilliamWhite, George H. White, Thomas J. White, WilliamWhite, William J. Whitfield, James M. Whittekin, F. F. Whitney, EliWhittier, John G. Wiener, LeoWilberforce UniversityWilberforce, WilliamWilcox, Samuel T. Wild CatWiley UniversityWillWilliam and Mary CollegeWilliams and Walker CompanyWilliams, Charles H. Williams, Daniel H. Williams, George W. Williams, NelsonWilliams, PeterWilliams, RichardWilliamsburg, Va. Williamson, EdwardWilmington, N. C. Wilson, JamesWilson, WoodrowWinn, J. B. Woman's American Baptist Home Mission SocietyWoman SuffrageWoods, Granville T. Woodson, Carter G. Woolf, LeonardWoolman, JohnWright, RobertWycliffe, John C. Yellow fever, in Philadelphia;in HaytiYemasseeY. M. C. A. Young, Charles E. Zuñi Indians