The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Journal of Negro History, Volume II, 1917.

Slavery in Africa has existed from time immemorial, having arisen, not from any outside influence, but from the very nature of the local conditions. The three circumstances necessary to develop slavery are:

First, a country favored by the bounty of nature. Unless nature yields generously it is impossible for a subject class to produce surplus enough to maintain their masters. Where nature is niggardly, as in many hunting districts, the labor of all the population is required to meet the demands of subsistence.

Second, a country where the labor necessary to subsistence is, in some way, very disagreeable. In such cases every man and woman will seek to impose the task of production upon another. Among most primitive agricultural peoples, the labor necessary to maintenance is very monotonous and uninteresting, and no freeman will voluntarily perform it. On the contrary, among hunting and fishing peoples, the labor of maintenance is decidedly interesting. It partakes of the nature of sport.

Third, a country where there is an abundance of free land. In such a country it is impossible for one man to secure another to work for him except by coercion; for when[Pg 2] a man has a chance to use free land and its products he will work only for himself, and take all the product for himself rather than work for another and accept a bare subsistence for himself. On the contrary, where all the land is appropriated a man who does not own land has no chance to live except at the mercy of the landlord. He is obliged to offer himself as a wage-earner or a tenant. The landlord can obtain, therefore, all the help he may need without coercion. Free labor is then economically advantageous to both the landlord and the wage-earner, since the freedom of the latter inspires greatly increased production. From these facts and considerations, verified by history, it may be laid down as a sociological law that where land is monopolized slavery necessarily yields to a regime of freedom.[1]

In applying these principles to Africa it is necessary to take account of the natural division of the continent into distinct economic zones. Immediately under the equator is a wide area of heavy rainfall and dense forest. The rapidity and rankness of vegetable growth renders the region unsuited to agriculture. But the plentiful streams abound in fish and the forests in animals and fruits. The banana and plantain grow there in superabundance, and form the chief diet of the inhabitants. This may be called, for convenience, the banana zone. To the north and south of this zone are broad areas of less rainfall and forest, with a dry season suitable to agriculture. These may be called the agriculture zones. Still further to the north and south are areas of very slight rainfall and almost no forests, suitable for pasturage. Here cattle flourish in great numbers. These may be called the pastoral zones. These zones stretch horizontally across the continent except in case of the cattle zones, which, on account of the mountainous character of East Africa, include the plateau extending from Abyssinia to the Zambesi river. Each of these zones gives rise to different types of men, and different characteristics of economic organization, of family life, government, religion, and art.[Pg 3]

In the banana zone nature is extremely bountiful. The people subsist mostly upon the spontaneous products. A small expenditure of effort will support a vast population. Agriculture is very little practiced. Here the effort to live would seem to be easier and more agreeable than in any other part of the world, so that man would not be under pressure to enslave his kind. But alas, the work of gathering and transporting the fruits, of the preparation and cooking them, as well as the bringing home and cooking of the game, the building of houses, etc., is not altogether pleasant. It is uninteresting, and the heat and the humidity of the climate render it almost insupportable in certain seasons and hours of the day. The repugnance to labor of tropical people, whether natives or white immigrants, is proverbial. Every one in the banana zone, therefore, seeks to shift his burden upon another. As a first resort, he unloads it upon his wife, and she, finding it grievous, cries out, and he then relieves her by procuring additional wives. This kind of wife-slavery suffices for the support of the population in this zone, but in the case of families of rank, who have been accustomed to some degree of luxury, other helpers are needed, and these form a class of domestic slaves. Now, in this zone, the climatic conditions not only render labor disagreeable but tend to curb aspiration, so that people do not acquire a taste or demand for products which minister to the higher nature. Lassitude keeps the standard of living down to a low level. Hence, in this zone the labor of women suffices, for the most part, for the maintenance of the population. Since land is free and no one will voluntarily work for another, such additional workers as are needed must be obtained and bound to the master by coercion.

In this zone two very remarkable consequences follow from the fact that very few slaves are needed for workers. The first is the practice of cannibalism, once universal in this zone, and still in vogue throughout vast regions. The bountiful food supply attracts immigrants from all sides, and the result is a condition of chronic warfare. When one tribe defeats another the question arises, What is to be[Pg 4] done with the prisoners? As they cannot be profitably employed as industrial workers, they are used to supplement a too exclusive vegetable diet. Wars come to be waged expressly for the sake of obtaining human flesh for food. The Monbuttu eat a part of their captives fallen in battle, and butcher and carry home the rest for future consumption. They bring home prisoners not to reduce to slavery but as butcher-meat to garnish future festivals.

A second consequence of the limited demand for slaves is that war captives are sold to foreigners. Adjacent to the banana zone are zones of agriculture, where slaves are in great request, and, during the European connection with the slave trade, the normal demand for slaves in this zone was greatly heightened. Among the Niam Niam all prisoners belong to the monarch. He sells the women and keeps the children for slaves. Hence, the banana zone has been the great reservoir for supplying slaves to other parts of the world. Hundreds of thousands of slaves came from this zone to the West Indies, and to the slave states of North and South America. In Dahomey and Ashanti war captives used to be sold "en bloc" to white traders at so much per capita.

In the agricultural zones to the north and south nature is more niggardly, though she yields enough, when coaxed by the hoe, to permit of a large class of parasites. The labor of maintenance is more onerous than in the banana zone. While the heat and humidity are not so great the work is more grievous because of its greater quantity and monotony. The motive to shift the work is, therefore, very strong and the demand for slaves is very great. In fact, the ratio of slaves to freemen is about three or four to one. As land is free and the resources open, the only means of obtaining workers is by coercion. The supply of slaves is kept up by kidnapping, by warfare upon weak tribes, by the purchase of children from improvident parents, and by forfeiture of freedom through crime.

In the cattle zones farther to the north and south, nature is still less bountiful. The labor of maintenance requires[Pg 5] a combination of the pastoral art, agriculture and trade. A slave class could not maintain itself and at the same time support a large master class. The labor of a large proportion of the population is, in one way or another, necessary to existence. The nature of the work, so far as it is pastoral or trading, is not especially irksome, but rather fascinating. Tending cattle is full of excitement, and is a kind of substitute for hunting; while trading is an occupation which appeals with wonderful force to all the races of Africa. The impulse to shift labor in the cattle zones is, therefore, very slight, except in the case of a few populations subsisting largely upon agriculture. The ruling classes, therefore, instead of owning many personal slaves, make a practice of subjugating the agricultural groups in such a way as to constitute a kind of feudalism. As land is free the enslaved groups can be made to serve the free class only by coercion.

Similar conditions among the natural races all over the world give rise in the same way to the institution of slavery. Ellis thinks that slavery probably originated under the regime of exogamy where the sons born of captured women formed the slave class because they were considered inferior to the sons born of the women of the group.[2] But it is quite evident that slavery originated primarily from economic conditions. For further sociological explanations of slavery in the several zones the reader is referred to the author's first and second volumes on the Negro races.

II. The Slave Trade of West Africa and the Desert of Sahara

The African slave trade goes back as far as our knowledge of the Negro race. The first Negroes of which we have any record were probably slaves brought in caravans to Egypt. They were in demand as slaves in all the oases of the deserts, and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. "Among the ruling nations on the north coast," says Heeren, "the Egyptians, Cyrenians and Carthaginians, slavery was[Pg 6] not only established but they imported whole armies of slaves, partly for home use, and partly, at least by the latter, to be shipped off to foreign markets. These wretched beings were chiefly drawn from the interior, where kidnapping was just as much carried on then as it is at present. Black male and female slaves were even an article of luxury, not only among the above mentioned nations, but even in Greece and Italy; and as the allurement to this traffic was on this account so great, the unfortunate Negro race had, even thus early, the wretched fate to be dragged into distant lands under the galling yoke of bondage."[3] Since the introduction of Mohammedanism, slaves have been carried eastward into all of the Moslem States as far as Asia Minor and Turkey, where they are still much valued as domestic servants or as eunuchs to guard the seraglios of Mohammedan princes. In the middle ages many African slaves were carried into Spain through the instrumentality of the Saracens, and from there the first slaves were imported into America. The supply of slaves for the Northern and Eastern States was obtained chiefly from the region of the Sudan. At an early period many caravan routes led northward from this region.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the slaves were obtained by a variety of methods, of which the most common was that of raiding the agricultural Nigritians who lived in towns and cities scattered and unorganized in the agricultural zone, and who were easy victims of the mounted bands of desert Berbers, Tuaregs and Arabs who descended into the region in quest of booty and captives. Robert Adams, an American sailor who was wrecked on the West Coast of Africa in 1810, said of the raiding parties sent out from Timbuktu, "These armed parties were all on foot except the officers. They were usually absent from one week to a month, and at times brought in considerable numbers," mostly from the Bambaras. "The slaves thus brought in were chiefly women and children, who, after[Pg 7] being detained a day or two at the king's house, were sent away to other parts for sale."[4]

The Fellatahs, who, since the beginning of the nineteenth century, have been the dominators of the Nigritians in West Africa, used to carry on a merciless campaign against their subjects, destroying their homes and fields, and seizing women and children by the thousands to barter away to the West, or to send across the desert. Describing the effects of a Fellatah raid, Barth says: "The whole village, which only a few moments before had been the abode of comfort and happiness, was destroyed by fire and made desolate. Slaughtered men, with their limbs severed from their bodies, were lying about in all directions and made passers-by shudder with horror."[5]

The slave traffic in the Sudan gave rise at a very early date to regular slave markets. The city of Jenné on the Niger was, in the middle ages, the greatest emporium in West Africa, far outshining Timbuktu. From the fifteenth century to the present time, the most celebrated slave markets have been Kuka, on Lake Chad, Timbuktu, capital of the Songhay empire, Kano, capital of the Haussa empire, and Katsena, capital of a district of the same name. Rohlfs found at the Kuka slave market, white haired old men and women, children suckling strange breasts, young girls and strong boys who had come from Bornu, Baghirmi, Haussa, Logun, Musgu, Waday and from lands still more distant.[6]

The slaves were carried across the desert by two kinds of caravans. First, those composed of nomad tribes, which migrated periodically from north to south. During the winter the tribes would pasture their camels along the edges of the desert, but in the spring they would visit the cities in the oases to gather up a supply of dates and other desert products to sell in the north. They would then in the same season proceed north to the cultivated regions of the Atlas mountains and arrive there in the midst of the harvest, exchanging their southern commodities for grain, raw-wool,[Pg 8] and a variety of European goods. At the end of the summer they would return to the south, arriving at the oases just as the dates were ripening. Here the grain, wool and other stuffs from the north would be exchanged for dates and manufactured articles of the desert. The same tribes which advanced from the oases of the desert to the north also descended towards the south, thus establishing intercourse between the Barbary States and Timbuktu. Many slaves picked up by these immigrating tribes were carried from one oasis to another until they were finally sold into the states bordering the Mediterranean.

The second kind of caravans were those conducted by merchants, traveling with hired camels, and making rapid and direct journeys across the desert to and from the chief slave markets. These caravans would come into the Sudan composed of men mounted upon camels, asses and mules, bringing salt, hides, cloth, and sundry articles from civilized North Africa, and return with slaves through Tibbu to Fezzan, and there fatten them for the Tripoli slave markets. Those that came to Timbuktu returned to any of the Barbary States, and there transferred their slaves to other traders who carried them as far as Turkey in Asia. Those that came to Kano usually passed out by way of Kuka or Katsena and proceeded thence by several routes to markets in North Africa.

The journey across the desert was exceedingly fatal to the blacks, since they were not accustomed to the northern climate. They suffered from hunger, thirst and cold, and a large per cent. of them perished along the way. Damberger, who traveled through the interior of Africa between 1781 and 1797, relates, as follows, his experience as a slave-captive in crossing the desert. Passing through the Sudan he fell in with some Moors, journeying to Tegorarin, where he was sold to a slave dealer, who resold him to a Mussulman en route to Mezzabath, a town on the river Oniwoh. Here again he was sold to a merchant who carried him to Marocco. He narrates that "On the 6th of September, my new master and I departed with the caravan. It consisted[Pg 9] of merchants from various nations, of persons of distinction, who had been performing a pilgrimage to Mecca, and of slaves. We proceeded slowly on our journey, as the roads were bad and our beasts were very heavily laden. Every day some of our company left the caravan, as we approached or passed the respective destinations. We traveled over mountains where the path was sometimes so narrow as only to permit the passage of one person at a time. We were constantly on the watch in these parts to prevent being surprised by the Arabs, as our caravan conveyed many valuable articles, which would have afforded rich plunder to those robbers. That which we apprehended actually happened on the seventh day after our departure, namely, on the 13th of Sept. A number of armed Arabs attacked us between the Cozul mountains and the river Tegtat; killed four of our slaves and three camels; and, though they lost several men in the attack, obstinately continued the combat. We defended ourselves to the utmost of our power, and at length had the good fortune to repel the whole troop. The victory, however, was not obtained till two of our merchants and five slaves were wounded, besides the four that were killed. We preserved all our property and the burthens of the slain camels were distributed among those that remained."[7]

An account of the caravan traffic from Timbuktu is given by Jackson, who says that Timbuktu "has from time immemorial carried on a very extensive and lucrative trade with the various maritime states of North Africa, viz., Marocco, Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, Egypt, etc., by means of accumulated caravans, which cross the great desert of Sahara, generally between the months of September and April inclusive; these caravans consist of several hundred loaded camels, accompanied by the Arabs who let them to the merchants for the transportation of their merchandise to Fez, Marocco, etc., and at a very low rate. During their routes they were often exposed to the attacks of the roving Arabs of Sahara who generally commit their depredations as they[Pg 10] approach the confines of the desert."[8] The wind sometimes rolls up the sand like great billows of the ocean, and caravans are often buried under the pile, and then the wind, shifting, scatters in the air those newly constructed mounds, and forms, amidst the chaos, dreadful gulfs and yawning abysses: the traveler, continually deceived by the aspect of the place, can discover his situation only by the position of the stars.

When the caravans reach Akka, on the northern border of the desert, the camels and the guides are discharged, and others hired to proceed to Fez, Marocco, etc. The trip across the desert is made in about 130 days, including the necessary stops. Caravans go at the rate of three and one half miles an hour, and travel seven hours a day. The convoys of the caravan usually consist of two or more Arabs belonging to the tribe through whose territory the caravan passes. When the convoys reach the limit of their country, they transfer the caravan to other guides, and so on till the desert is crossed. The individuals who compose the caravans are accustomed to few comforts. "Their food, dress and accommodation are simple and natural: proscribed from the use of wine and intoxicating liquors by their religion, and exhorted by its principles to temperance, they were commonly satisfied with a few nourishing dates and a draft of water; and they will travel for weeks successively without any other food."[9]

The caravans from Timbuktu were wont to export to the Barbary States gold dust and gold rings, ivory, spices, and a great number of slaves. "A young girl of Haussa, of exquisite beauty," remarks Jackson, "was once sold at Marocco, whilst I was there, for four hundred ducats, whilst the average price of slaves is about one hundred."[10] As to the cost of transporting the slaves, Jackson states that "Ten dollars expended in rice in Wangara is sufficient for a year's consumption for one person; the wearing apparel[Pg 11] is alike economical; a pair of drawers, and sometimes a vest, forming all the clothing necessary in traversing the desert."[11]

Gen. Daumas describes a journey he made from Katsena in the Sudan across the desert about the middle of the nineteenth century. Arriving at Katsena, he says that his caravan was met by a great and mixed crowd of Negroes, who crowded around the camels, speaking in the most animated manner their unknown language. He and his companions were assigned to a special quarter of the city, and provided with lodgings. The camels were put in charge of some poor men of the caravan who led them away every day to the pasture, brought them back at four or five o'clock in the evening, and placed them in the enclosure in the city. The caravan leaders paid their respects to the chief of the city who bade them welcome and promised them protection. The business proceeded leisurely, as it was customary for the caravans to remain there two months.

The chief, not having a sufficient supply of slaves on hand to trade, caused his big drums to be beaten, and organized two bands of troops to execute a raid among the heathen tribes to the east and southwest. The raiding bands attacked only tribes with whom they were at war, or who refused to adopt the Mohammedan religion. While the troops were on the warpath, the caravan leaders visited the city slave market and made, from day to day, a few purchases. The price paid for an old Negro was 10,000 to 15,000 cowries, an adult Negro 30,000, a young Negro woman 50,000 to 60,000, a Negro boy or girl 35,000 to 45,000. The seller agreed to take back, within three days of the date of the purchase, any slaves that proved to have objectionable qualities, such as a disease, bad eyes or teeth, or a habit of snoring in sleep. As a rule slaves that come below Nupé were not salable for the reason that, being unaccustomed to eat salt, it was difficult for them to withstand the regime of the desert. Also, slaves from certain countries south of Kano were not salable because they were cannibals.[Pg 12] The slaves from this region were recognized by their teeth which were sharpened to a point, resembling those of a dog. Negroes from other tribes were not purchased because they were believed to have the power of causing a man to die of consumption by merely looking at him. The purchase of Fellatahs, or pregnant Negro women, or Jews was strictly forbidden by the Sultan. The Fellatahs were not bought because they boasted of being white people. The Negro women could not be bought because the child to be born would be the property of the Sultan if its mother were a heathen, and it would be free if the mother were a Mohammedan. The Jew Negroes could not be bought because they were jewelers, tailors, artisans and indispensable negotiators.

The raiding troops, after having been on the campaign for nearly a month, returned with 2,000 captives, who marched in front of the column, the men, women, old and young, almost all nude, or half clad in ragged blue cloth, and the children piled upon the camels. The women were groaning, and the children crying, while the men, though seemingly more resigned, bore bloody marks upon their backs made by the whips. The convoy was marched to the palace, where its arrival was announced to the Sultan by a band of musicians. The Sultan complimented the chief, examined the slaves and ordered them to the slave market; and the next morning the caravan leaders were invited to come and make their purchases.

After the slave-trading was over, it was necessary to purchase supplies of corn, millet, dried meat, butter and flour for three months, also to purchase camels and hide-tents. Daumas's caravan, which set out from Metlily with only 64 camels and sixteen men, had now increased to 400 slaves and nearly 600 camels.

A caravan from Tuat, which had joined that of Daumas, had augmented in the same proportions. It had bought 1,500 slaves and its camels had increased to 2,000. These two caravans waited two days to be joined by three others which had penetrated farther to the south. It was desirable[Pg 13] that all of the caravans recross the desert together in order better to resist attacks from the Tuaregs, Tibbus, and other highwaymen of that region.

The slaves had to be watched very closely, since believing that they were to be eaten by the white men, they were ready to take any chance of escaping. The women were tied in twos by the feet, and the men tied eight or ten together, each with his neck in an iron collar, to which was attached a short chain which held the hand of each slave at the height of his chest. At night Daumas fastened to his wrist the chains which bound all of his slaves together so that the least movement would wake him.

In a short time the three expected caravans arrived. One had originally come from Ghedames, one from Ghat and one from Fezzan. The first had gone as far as Nupé. It brought back 3,000 slaves and 3,500 camels. The second had gone to Kano and returned with 400 or 500 slaves and 700 or 800 camels. The third returned from Sokoto, and had about the same number of slaves and camels as the second.

After the proper ceremonies of farewell at the palace of the Sultan, the camels were loaded, and the children placed upon the baggage. The Negro men, chained together, were placed in the middle of each caravan, and the women were grouped eight or ten together, and guarded by a man with a whip. The signal was given, and the great combined caravans, consisting in all of about 6,000 slaves and 7,500 camels, started on their homeward march.

But suddenly there was a mighty noise of crying and groaning, of calling at each other and bidding farewell to friends. Some were so overcome at the fear of being eaten that they rolled upon the ground and absolutely refused to walk. Nothing could persuade them to get up until a guard came along with his great whip which brought blood at each lash. As the great army passed through the gate of the city, an officer of the Sultan examined every slave to be sure none was a Fellatah, Mohammedan, or Jew. The Ghat caravan happened to have among its slaves a[Pg 14] Fellatah, who was at once discovered and set free. At the first camp, says Daumas, "Each caravan established its bivouac separately, and as soon as the camels were crouched, and after having chained our Negro women by the feet and in groups of eight or ten, we forced our Negro men to aid us, with the left hand which we had left free, to unload our baggage, to arrange it in a circle and to stretch in the center the tents which we had brought from Katsena. Two or three of the oldest women that we had not put in chains, but who had always had their two feet fettered, were directed to prepare our supper. We ate in groups of four. This sad supper over, we placed the guards around our camp, and made the slave women and men sleep as before said."[12]

The next day the caravans were obliged to stop in consequence of a Negro woman who gave birth to a child. This stop, however, was not very lengthy. In a few hours she and her infant were placed upon a camel and the caravan went forward. When the camp was pitched for the next night, the leader, in making his rounds, ordered that the young Negro mother be left unshackled, and that she be given some meat for supper and allowed to sleep warmly upon a mat. But during the night, when everything was quiet, the mother put her infant in a basket filled with ostrich feathers, placed it upon her head, and made her escape.

Next morning, upon discovering her flight, several bands of men were sent out in different directions to find her. One of these, after a few hours of search, found her in a thicket nursing her child. She was led back to the camp, and two gun-shots recalled the other bands, and the caravans then resumed their march. The caravans stopped at Aghezeur to replenish their provisions and make repairs; and up to that time none of the people had died, and only one camel was lost.

After a month's traveling they reached "Ogla d'Assaoua," which was a rendezvous for all the marauding[Pg 15] bands that returned from the Sudan. It was particularly dangerous for the reason that it was the point at which groups of caravans divided and proceeded in different directions across the desert, and some of the independent caravans had to pass near the Tuareg nomads.

"None of our slaves," says Daumas, "I am sure, will ever forget this stop, for it was there that they were for the first time given their liberty after being in irons a month. The men and women danced all day after the fashion of their own country, until they fell prostrated with heat and fatigue. Even those whose legs and necks had been made sore from the chains took an active part in this fatiguing exercise, and all came to kiss our hands and to prostrate themselves at our feet and to sprinkle them with sand. We were careful not to interrupt this feast of good augury. It was the first proof to us that they had at last accepted their lot, and we had no longer to fear they would dream of escaping as they were so far from the Sudan and in the very middle of the desert.... From that day all were sincerely attached to us, and our joy was not less than theirs, for the continued watch which had been imposed upon us had been frightfully fatiguing. They helped us to load and unload our camels, to guide them en route, to stretch our tents, and to bring wood and water, labors which we alone had performed for a month. Finally we could lie down and sleep in peace."[13] At an early hour the next morning the tents were folded and the several caravans parted company. One went eastward through Ghat to Ghedames, accompanied as far as Ghat by another whose wares were sold in Fezzan and to other caravans coming from Murzuk. Another went eastward directly to Fezzan, where its merchandise was to be distributed to points in Tunis, Tripoli and Egypt. Daumas and his companion caravan of Tuat struck out to the northwest for the oasis of Tuat.

Two thirds of the camels bought by Daumas in the Sudan died before he reached "Isalab" (Ain Salah?), as they could not stand the hardship of the journey, especially the[Pg 16] chilly and damp nights of the desert. Arriving at Metlily the Arab merchants repaired to a mosque and thanked God for His protection.

III. Region of Northwest Africa and the Desert of Sahara. Hardship of the Desert Route

In 1850 Barth estimated the number of slaves carried across the desert from Kuka at 5,000 per annum, and in 1865 Rohlfs estimated the number at 10,000. A British Blue Book of 1873 estimated that the Mohammedan States of North Africa absorbed annually one million slaves.

The mortality in crossing the desert was frightful. Denham saw near a well in the Tibbu country 100 skeletons of Negroes who had perished from hunger and thirst. In his travels he saw a skeleton every few miles, and for several days he passed from sixty to ninety skeletons per day. Sometimes a whole caravan perished, consisting of as many as 2,000 persons and 1,800 camels. The Negroes composing the caravans often had to walk and carry heavy loads. Rohlfs says that if one did not know the route of their pilgrimage he could find the way by the bones that lie to the right and left of the path. When he was passing through Murzuk in 1865, he gave medical aid to a slave dealer who was very ill, and, in compensation, received a boy about seven or eight years old. The boy had traveled four months across the desert from Lake Chad. He knew nothing of his home country, had even forgotten his mother tongue, and could jabber only some fragments of speech picked up from the other slaves of the caravan. As a result of the long journey he was emaciated to a skeleton and so enfeebled that he could scarcely stand up. He crawled on all fours and kissed the hand of his new master, and the first words he uttered were "I am hungry." The boy prospered and followed Rohlfs to Berlin. Thomson, in his travels, mentions having met a caravan of forty slave-girls crossing the Atlas Mountains on its way to Marocco. "A few were on camel-back, but most of them trudged on foot, their appearance[Pg 17] telling of the frightful hardships of the desert route. Hardly a rag covered their swarthy forms." Marocco used to be the destination of most of the slaves transported across the desert. About twenty-five years ago the center of the traffic in that state was Sidi Hamed ibu Musa, seven days journey south of Mogador where a great yearly festival was held. The slaves were forwarded thence in gangs to different towns, especially to Marocco City, and Mequinez. Writing in 1897, Vincent says the slave trade is as active as ever at Mequinez and Marocco City. The slaves were sold on Fridays in the public markets of the interior, but never publicly at any of the seaports, owing to the adverse European influence. There is a large traffic at Fez, but Marocco City is the great mart for them, where one may see frequently men, women and children sold at one time. Marakesh was once a chief market in Marocco. In 1892 a caravan from Timbuktu reached that city with no less than 4,000 slaves, chiefly boys and girls whose price ranged from ten to fourteen pounds per head. As many as 800 were sold there within ten days to buyers from Riff, Tafilett and other remote parts of the empire. A writer in the Anti-slavery Reporter, December, 1895, said: "Few people know the true state of affairs in Marocco; only those who live in daily touch with the common life of the people really get to understand the pernicious and soul-destroying system of human flesh-traffic as carried on in the public markets of the interior. Having resided and traveled extensively in Marocco for some seven years, I feel constrained to bear witness against the whole gang of Arab slave-raiders and buyers of poor little innocent boys and girls.

"When I first settled in Marocco I met those who denied the existence of slave-markets but since that time I have seen children, some of whom were of tender years, as well as very pretty young women, openly sold in the city of Marocco, and in the towns along the Atlantic seaboard. It is also of very frequent occurrence to see slaves sold in Fez, the capital of Northern Marocco.

"The first slave-girls that I actually saw being sold were[Pg 18] of various ages. They had just arrived from the Soudan, a distance by camel, perhaps, of forty days' journey. Two swarthy-looking men were in charge of them. The timid little creatures, mute as touching Arabic, for they had not yet learned to speak in that tongue, were pushed out by their captors from a horribly dark and noisome dungeon into which they had been thrust the night before. Then, separately, or two by two, they were paraded up and down before the public gaze, being stopped now and again by some of the spectators and examined exactly as a horse dealer would examine the points of a horse before buying the animal at any of the public horse-marts in England. The sight was sickening. Some of the girls were terrified, others were silent and sad. Every movement was watched by the captives, anxious to know their present fate. My own face blushed with anger as I stood helpless by and saw those sweet, dark-skinned, wooly-headed Soudanese sold into slavery.

"Our hearts have ached as we have heard from time to time from the lips of slaves of the indescribable horrors of the journeys across desert plains, cramped in pain, parched with thirst, and suffocated in panniers, their food a handful of maize. Again, we have sickened at the sight of murdered corpses, left by the wayside to the vulture and the burning rays of the African sun, and we have prayed, perhaps as never before, to the God of justice to stop these cruel practices."

Tunis and Algiers have also been great receptacles for the slaves of the Sudan. Describing the slave market at Tunis, Vincent says that it is a courtyard surrounded by arcades, the pillars of which are all of the old Roman fabrication. Around the court are little chambers or cells in which the slaves are kept, the men below, the women in the story above.

According to the statement of Barard, in 1906, Negro slavery is still prevalent throughout Marocco, and Negro women still populate the harems. "In the towns and plains, the present generations are pretty strongly colored by their[Pg 19] infusion of black blood. But the mountainous tribes who represent three fourths of a Maroccan population have kept themselves almost free from mixture; white or blond, they always resemble, by the color of their skin or texture of hair, the Europeans of Germany or France rather than the Mediterraneans of Spain and Italy." In Tunis the open sale of slaves is pretty well suppressed, but in a modified form the trade continues. Vivian says: "By resorting to fictitious marriages, and other subterfuges, the owner of a harem may procure as many slaves as he pleases, and, once he has got them into his house, no one can possibly interfere to release them. Slaves can, of course, escape and claim protection from the Consulates, but, as a matter of fact, they are generally quite contented with their position and know that such action would only involve them in ruin." In all of the Barbary States the slave trade is at the present time under prohibition, although it has not been effectively suppressed in any of them. According to a recent statement in the Anti-slavery Reporter, "a sale of slaves among which some white women and children were included, took place in a Fondak (an enclosure for accommodation of travelers and animals) in Tangier in April last (1906) and the sale was reported in a local newspaper, Al Moghreb Al Aksa." In July of the same year it was reported that a young black girl had been brought to the city and sold as a slave. The sultan had issued orders to the customs officers and at the various ports to prevent the transport of slaves by sea, and in event of any person discovered to be bringing slaves by sea, to punish him and free the slaves in his possession.

In July, 1906, the Anti-slavery Society of Italy published the particulars of a Turkish ship which left the port of Bengazi (Tripoli) for Constantinople with six slaves on board. Through the activity of the Society's agent the vessel was boarded and the slaves liberated.

Within the last decade the traffic in slaves across the desert has been limited to routes between the Niger and Marocco, and between Kuka and Tripoli. At the present[Pg 20] time there are probably no regular slave routes across the desert. Owing to the activity of European consuls in Northwest Africa caravans have a precarious existence and no safe markets.

"Only a few years ago," says the Anti-slavery Reporter, "Timbuctu, the famous trade metropolis of Central Africa, was also the most active center of the slave trade. French occupation (1894) has put an end to that traffic, and it is extending the pax Gallica throughout the vast and fertile territory of the Niger where formerly anarchy and brutality reigned."[14]

Footnotes:

[1] Nieboer, "Slavery as an Industrial System," 257-348.

[2] "The Ewé Speaking Peoples," 222.

[3] "Historical Researches," 181.

[4] "Narrative of an American Sailor," 55.

[5] "Travels in North and Central Africa," II, 379.

[6] "Reise von Mittelmeer nach dem Tshad-See," I, 344.

[7] "Travels Through the Interior of Africa," 490.

[8] "An Account of the Empire of Morocco," 282.

[9] Ibid., 288.

[10] "Account of the Empire of Morocco," 292.

[11] Ibid., 295.

[12] "Le Grand Desert," 228.

[13] Ibid., 251.

[14] "Tunesia and the Modern Barbary Pirates," 65.

The Negro in the Field of Invention

There is no branch of technical and scientific industry in our country that is at all comparable in scope and results with the business of perfecting inventions. These constitute the basis on which nearly all our great manufacturing enterprises are conducted, both as to the machinery employed and the articles produced. So vast is the field covered by inventors, and so industriously do they apply their talent to it that patents for new and useful inventions are now being granted them by our government at the rate of more than one hundred a day for every day that the office is open for business. And when one considers the enormous part played by American inventors in the economic, industrial and financial development of our country, it becomes a matter of importance to ascertain what share in this great work is done by the American Negro.

The average American seems not to know that the Negro has contributed very materially to this result. Not knowing it, he does not believe it, and not believing it he easily advances to the mental attitude of being ready to assert that the Negro has done absolutely nothing worth while in the field of invention. This conclusion necessarily grows out of the traditional attitude of the average American on the question of the capacity of the Negro for high scientific and technical achievement. This state of mind on the part of the general public is not perceptibly changed by the well-authenticated reports now and then of meritorious inventions in many lines of experiment made by Negroes in various parts of the country, notwithstanding the fact that these reports are frequently made through channels that would seem to leave nothing to doubt.

It has always been and presumably always will be difficult for truth to outrun a falsehood. One instance of the way in which such false and erroneous impressions of the[Pg 22] Negro's capacity and achievement gain currency and fix themselves in the public mind is shown sometimes in the campaign methods of some politicians. One of these, a Marylander, addressing a political gathering in his native State in behalf of his own candidacy for Congress, a few years ago declared that the Negro was not entitled to vote because he had never evinced sufficient capacity to justify such a privilege, and that not one of the race had ever yet reached the dignity of an inventor. It is not easy to understand how a gentleman of the requisite qualifications to represent an intelligent constituency acceptably in the Congress of the United States could so palpably pervert the truth in a matter on which he could so easily have rightly informed himself. At the time when this statement was made, 1903, in Talbot County, Maryland, there was on the shelves of the Library of Congress a book [15] containing a chapter on "The Negro as an Inventor," and citing several hundred patents granted by our government for inventions by Negroes. And still another instance is that of a leading newspaper of Richmond, which some time ago published the bold statement that of the many thousands of patents granted to the inventors in this country annually not a single patent had ever been granted to a colored man. These and similar general statements which make no mention of exceptions admit of but one interpretation. The wish may be father to the thought, but the truth is not father to their words.

In the cause of truth it is very gratifying to the writer to be able to show that notwithstanding the frequency and the persistency of these misrepresentations, the facts are gradually coming to the front to prove that the Negro not only now but in the remote past exhibited considerable of the inventive genius which has been so instrumental in the development of our country. In the ordinary course of investigation along this particular line the official records of the U. S. Patent Office must necessarily be referred to in[Pg 23] order to ascertain the number of patents granted either for a given class of inventors, or to a certain geographical group of citizens, as by State or nationality, or for a given period of time. But, voluminous as are these records, and various as are the items they cover, they make almost no disclosure of the fact that any of the multitude of patents that are granted daily are for inventions by Negroes. The solitary exception to this statement is the case of Henry Blair, of Maryland, to whom were granted two patents on corn harvesters, one in 1834, the other in 1836. In both cases he is designated in the official records as a "colored man." To the uninformed this very exception might appear conclusive, but it is not. It has long been the fixed policy of the Patent Office to make no distinction as to race in the records of patents granted to American citizens. All American inventors stand on a level before the Patent Office. It may perhaps be an open question whether, in the enforcement of such a policy, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages as it regards colored inventors.

In the period preceding the Civil War mechanical inventions of merit by colored persons were not numerous, so far as the investigation has shown, but this was also true of all classes of inventors of that time. With the great majority of slaves the question uppermost among them was how to effect their freedom, and those who were fortunately gifted with an active intelligence and some vision were, for the most part, using their mental faculties to devise some plan to interest others in their efforts for emancipation. This situation would obviously lend itself more readily to developing literary talent and oratorical ability than to producing machinists, engineers or inventors. Hence the preachers and teachers and orators of the colored race that here and there rose above the masses greatly outnumbered the inventors. But it should be remembered also in this connection that in the period just mentioned the mechanical industries of the South were carried on mostly by slaves, and that bits of history gathered here and there show that many of the simple mechanical contrivances of the day[Pg 24] were devised by the Negro in his effort to minimize the exactions of his daily toil. None of these inventions were patented by the United States as being the inventions of slaves; and it is quite conceivable that some inventions of value perfected by this class will be forever lost sight of through the attitude at that time of the Federal Government on that subject. In 1858 Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney-General of the United States, confirmed a decision of the Secretary of the Interior, on appeal from the Commissioner of Patents, refusing to grant a patent on an invention by a slave, either to the slave as the inventor, or to the master of the latter, on the ground that, not being a citizen, the slave could neither contract with the government nor assign his invention to his master.[16]

Another instance of this sort was an invention on the plantation owned by Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President of the late Confederate States. The Montgomerys, father and sons, were attached to this family, and some of them made mechanical appliances which were adopted for use on the estate. One of them in particular, Benjamin T. Montgomery, father of Isaiah T. Montgomery, founder of the prosperous Negro Colony of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, invented a boat propeller. It attracted the favorable attention of Jefferson Davis himself, who unsuccessfully tried to have it patented. The writer is informed by a recent letter from Isaiah T. Montgomery that it was Jefferson Davis's failure in this matter that led him to recommend to the Confederate Congress the law passed by that body favorable to the grant of patents for the inventions of slaves. The law was:

The national ban on patents for the inventions of slaves did not, of course, attach itself to the inventions made by "free persons of color" residing in this country. So that when James Forten, of Philadelphia, who lived from 1766 to 1842, perfected a new device for handling sails, he had no difficulty in obtaining a patent for his invention, nor in deriving from it comfortable financial support for himself and family during the remainder of his life.

This was also true in the case of Norbert Rillieux, a colored Creole of Louisiana. In 1846 he invented and patented a vacuum pan which in its day revolutionized to a large extent the then known method of refining sugar. This invention with others which he also patented are known to have aided very materially in developing the sugar industry of Louisiana. Rillieux was a machinist and an engineer of fine reputation in his native State, and displayed remarkable talent for scientific work on a large scale. Among his other known achievements was the development of a practicable scheme for a system of sewerage for the city of New Orleans, but he here met his handicap of color through the refusal of the authorities to accord to him such an honor as would be evidenced by the acceptance and adoption of his plan.[18] Who knows but that the city of New Orleans might have been able to write a different chapter in the history of its health statistics on the Yellow Fever peril if its prejudices had not been allowed to dominate its prophecy?

Let us turn now to a consideration of those inventions made by colored inventors since the war period, and at a time when no obstacles stood in the way. With the broadening of their industrial opportunities, and the incentive of a freer market for the products of their talent, it was thought that the Negroes would correspondingly exhibit inventive genius, and the records abundantly prove this to have been true. But how have these records been made available? It has already been shown that no distinction as to race appears in the public records of the Patent Office,[Pg 27] and for this reason the Patent Office has been repeatedly importuned to set in motion some scheme of inquiry that would disclose, as far as is possible, how many patents have been granted by the government for the inventions of Negroes. This has been done by the Patent Office on two different occasions. The first official inquiry was made by the Office at the request of the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, and the second at the request of the Pennsylvania Commission conducting the Emancipation Exposition at Philadelphia in 1913. In both instances the Patent Office sent out several thousand circular letters directed to prominent patent lawyers, large manufacturing firms, and to newspapers of wide circulation, asking them to inform the Commissioner of Patents of any authentic instances known by them to be such, in which the patents granted by the Office had been for inventions by Negroes.

The replies were numerous, interesting and informing. Every one of the several thousand that came to the Patent Office was turned over to the writer who, in his capacity as an employee of that department, very willingly assumed the additional task of assorting and recording them, verifying when possible the information presented, and extending the correspondence personally when this proved to be necessary either to trace a clew or clinch a fact. The information obtained in this way showed, first, that a very large number of colored inventors had consulted patent lawyers on the subject of getting patents on their inventions, but were obliged finally to abandon the project for lack of funds; secondly, that many colored inventors had actually obtained patents for meritorious inventions, but the attorneys were unable to give sufficient data to identify the cases specifically, inasmuch as they had kept no identifying record of the same; thirdly, that many patents had been taken out by the attorneys for colored clients who preferred not to have their racial identity disclosed because of the probably injurious effect this might have upon the commercial value of their patents; and lastly, that more than a thousand[Pg 28] authentic cases were fully identified by name of inventor, date and number of patent and title of invention, as being the patents granted for inventions of Negroes. These patents represent inventions in nearly every branch of the industrial arts—in domestic devices, in mechanical appliances, in electricity through all its wide range of uses, in engineering skill and in chemical compounds. The fact is made quite clear that the names obtained were necessarily only a fractional part of the number granted patents.

It developed through these inquiries that some very important industries now in operation on a large scale in our country are based on the inventions of Negroes. Foremost among these is the gigantic enterprise known as The United Shoe Machinery Company of Boston. In a biographical sketch of its president, Mr. Sidney W. Winslow, a multimillionaire,[19] it is related that he claims to have laid the foundation of his immense fortune in the purchase of a patent for an invention by a Dutch Guiana Negro named Jan E. Matzeliger. This inventor was born in Dutch Guiana, September, 1852. His parents were a native Negro woman and her husband, a Dutch engineer, who had been sent there from Holland to direct the government construction works at that place. As a very young man Matzeliger came to this country and served an apprenticeship as a cobbler, first in Philadelphia and later in Lynn, Massachusetts. The hardships which he suffered gradually undermined his health and before being able to realize the full value of his invention, he passed away in 1889 in the thirty-seventh year of his age.

He invented a machine for lasting shoes. This was the first appliance of its kind capable of performing all the steps required to hold a shoe on its last, grip and pull the leather down around the heel, guide and drive the nails into place and then discharge the completed shoe from the machine. This patent when bought by Mr. Winslow was made to form the nucleus of the great United Shoe Machinery Company, which now operates on a capital stock of[Pg 29] more than twenty million dollars, gives regular employment to over 5,000 operatives, occupies with its factories more than 20 acres of ground, and represents the consolidation of over 40 subsidiary companies. The establishment and maintenance of this gigantic business enterprise forms one of the biggest items in the history of our country's industrial development.

Within the first twenty years following the formation of The United Shoe Machinery Company, in 1890, the product of American shoe manufacturers increased from $220,000,000 to $442,631,000, and during the same period the export of American shoes increased from $1,000,000 to $11,000,000, the increase being traceable solely to the superiority of the shoes produced by the new American machines, founded on the Matzeliger type. The cost of shoes was reduced more than 50 per cent. by these machines and the quality improved correspondingly. The wages of workers greatly increased, the hours of labor diminished, and the factory conditions surrounding the laborers immensely improved. The improvement thus brought about in the quality and price of American shoes has made the Americans the best shod people in the world.[20]

That invention will serve as Matzeliger's towering monument far beyond our vision of years. Throughout all shoe-making districts of New England and elsewhere the Matzeliger type of machine is well known, and to this day it is frequently referred to in trade circles as the "Nigger machine," the relic, perhaps, of a possible contemptuous reference to his racial identity; and yet there were some newspaper accounts of his life in which it was denied that he had Negro blood in him. A certified copy of the death certificate of Matzeliger, which was furnished the writer by William J. Connery, Mayor of Lynn, on Oct. 23, 1912, states that Matzeliger was a mulatto.[Pg 30]

Another prosperous business growing out of the inventions of a colored man is The Ripley Foundry and Machine Company, of Ripley, Ohio, established by John P. Parker. He obtained several patents on his inventions, one being a "screw for Tobacco Presses," patented in September, 1884, and another for a similar device patented in May, 1885. Mr. Parker set up a shop in Ripley for the manufacture of his presses, and the business proved successful from the first. The small shop grew into a large foundry where upwards of 25 men were constantly employed. It was owned and managed by Mr. Parker till his death. The factory is still being operated, and on the business lines originated by the founder, but the ownership has passed from the Parker family.

Another business, the development of which is due in large measure to the inventions of a colored man, Elijah McCoy, is that of making automatic lubricators for machinery. Mr. McCoy is regarded as a pioneer inventor in that line. He completed and patented his first lubricating cup in 1872. Since then he has patented both in this country and abroad nearly fifty different inventions relating principally to the art of automatic lubrication machinery, but including also a considerable variety of other devices. His lubricating cup was at one time in quite general use on the locomotives of the leading railways of the Northwest, on the steamers of the Great Lakes, and in up-to-date factories throughout the country. He is still living in Detroit, Michigan, and still adding new inventions to his already lengthy list.

In completing and patenting upwards of 50 different inventions Granville T. Woods, late of New York, appears to have surpassed every other colored inventor in the number and variety of his inventions. His inventive record began in 1884 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he then resided, and continued without interruption for over a quarter of a century. He passed away January 30, 1910, in the city of New York, where he had carried on his business for several years immediately preceding. While his inventions relate principally to electricity, the list also includes such as a steam boiler furnace, the subject of his first patent, obtained in[Pg 32] June, 1884; an amusement apparatus, December, 1899; an incubator, August, 1900; and automatic airbrakes, in 1902, 1903, and 1905. His inventions in telegraphy include several patents for transmitting messages between moving trains, also a number of other transmitters. He patented fifteen inventions for electric railways, and as many more various devices for electrical control and distribution.

In the earlier stages of his career as a successful inventor he organized the Woods Electric Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. This company took over by assignment many of his earlier patents; but as his reputation in the scientific world grew apace, and his inventions began to multiply in number and value, he seems to have found a ready market for them with some of the largest and most prosperous technical and scientific corporations in the United States. The official records of the United States Patent Office show that many of his patents were assigned to such companies as the General Electric Company, of New York, some to the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, of Pennsylvania, others to the American Bell Telephone Company, of Boston, and still others to the American Engineering Company, of New York. So far as the writer is aware there is no inventor of the colored race whose creative genius has covered quite so wide a field as that of Granville T. Woods, nor one whose achievements have attracted more universal attention and favorable comment from technical and scientific journals both in this country and abroad.

Granville Woods' brother, Lyates Woods, is credited with uniting with Granville in the joint invention of several machines. Most of these consisted of electrical apparatuses, but two of them seem to have been of sufficient importance to attract the attention of such corporations as the Westinghouse Electric Company, of Pennsylvania. Patents No. 775,825, of March 29, 1904, and No. 795,243, of July 18, 1905, both for railway brakes, were assigned by the Woods brothers to this company. The record shows that the American Bell Telephone Company purchased Woods' patent No. 315,386, granted April 7, 1885, for the latter's[Pg 33] invention of an apparatus for transmitting messages by electricity. The same inventor sold to the General Electric Company, of New York, his patent No. 667,110, of January 29, 1901, on his invention for electric railways.

We should mention here also two other inventors of importance in the line of appliances for musical instruments, Mr. J. H. Dickinson and his son S. L. Dickinson, both of New Jersey. They have been granted more than a dozen patents for their appliances, mostly in the line of devices connected with the player piano machinery. They are still engaged in the business of inventing, and both are holding responsible and lucrative positions with first-class music corporations.

The inventions of W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, in machinery for making paper bags are reported to be responsible for much of the great improvement made in that art; and his patents, more than a dozen in number on that subject alone, are said to have brought him good financial returns. Many of them are recorded as having been sold to the Union Paper Bag Company, of New York.

Another instance is that of an invention capable of playing an important part in the cotton raising industry. This was a cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert, a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy of accomplishment in that class of machinery. Special significance is attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting through his application for a patent. He was obliged to appeal from the adverse decision of the principal examiner to the Board of Examiners-In-Chief, a body of highly trained legal and technical experts appointed to pass upon the legal and mechanical merits of an invention turned down by the primary examiners. Albert appeared before this Board in his own defense with a brief prepared entirely by himself, and won his case through his thorough painstaking presentation of all the legal and technical points involved. Mr. Albert is a graduate of the Law Department of Howard University in Washington, and is connected with[Pg 34] the United States Civil Service as an examiner in the Pension Office.

Other colored men in the Departmental Civil Service at Washington have obtained patents for valuable inventions. W. A. Lavalette patented two printing presses, Shelby J. Davidson a mechanical tabulator and adding machine, Robert A. Pelham a pasting machine, Andrew F. Hilyer two hot air register attachments; and Andrew D. Washington a shoe horn. Nearly a dozen patents have been granted Benjamin F. Jackson, of Massachusetts, on his inventions. These consisted of a heating apparatus, a matrix drying apparatus, a gas burner, an electrotyper's furnace, a steam boiler, a trolley wheel controller, a tank signal, and a hydrocarbon burner system.

It is not generally known that Frederick J. Loudin, who brought fame and fortune to one of the leading Negro universities in the South by carrying the Fisk Jubilee Troupe of Singers on several successful concert tours around the world, is also entitled to a place on the list of Negro inventors. He obtained two patents for his inventions, one for a fastener for the meeting rails of sashes, December, 1893, and the other a key fastener in January, 1894. Several colored inventors have also applied their inventive skill to solving the problem of aerial navigation, with the result that some of them have been granted patents for their inventions in airships. Among these are J. F. Pickering, of Haiti, February 20, 1900; James Smith, California, October, 1912; W. G. Madison, Iowa, December, 1912; and J. E. Whooter, Missouri, 2 patents, October 30 and November 3, 1914. It has been reported that the invention in automatic car coupling covered by the patent to Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, dated November 23, 1897, was sold by the patentee to a New York car company, for more than fifty thousand dollars. This same patentee has obtained patents on more than a half dozen other inventions, mostly in the same line.

Willie H. Johnson, of Texas, obtained several patents on his inventions, two of them being for an appliance for overcoming "dead center" in motion; one for a compound engine,[Pg 35] and another for a water boiler. Joseph Lee, a colored hotel keeper, of Boston, completed and patented three inventions in dough-kneading machines, and is reported as having succeeded in creating a considerable market for them in the bread-making industry in New England. Brinay Smartt, of Tennessee, made inventions in reversing valve gears, and received several patents on them in 1905, 1906, 1909, 1911 and 1913.

The path of the inventor is not always an easy one. The experiences of many of them often lie along paths that seem like the proverbial "way of the transgressor." This was fitly exemplified in the case of Henry A. Bowman, a colored inventor in Worcester, Massachusetts, who devised and patented a new method of making flags. After he had established a paying business on his invention, the information came to him that a New York rival was using the same invention and "cutting" his business. Bowman brought suit for infringement, but, as he informed the writer, the suit went against him on a legal technicality, and being unable to carry the case through the appellate tribunals, the destruction of his business followed.

One inventor, J. W. Benton, of Kentucky, completed an invention of a derrick for hoisting, and being without sufficient means to travel to Washington to look after the patent, he packed the model in a grip, and walked from Kentucky to Washington in order to save carfare. He obtained his patent, October 2, 1900.

One other instance in which the inventor regards his experience as one of special hardship is the case of E. A. Robinson of Chicago. He obtained several patents for his inventions, among which are an electric railway trolley, September 19, 1893; casting composite and other car wheels, November 23, 1897; a trolley wheel, March 22, 1898; a railway switch, September 17, 1907; and a rail, May 5, 1908. He regards the second patent as covering his most valuable invention. He says that this was infringed on by two large corporations, the American Car and Foundry Company, and the Chicago City Railway Company. He endeavored to stop[Pg 36] them by litigation, but the court proceedings in the case [21] appear to reveal some rather discouraging aspects of a fight waged between a powerless inventor on the one side and two powerful corporations on the other. So far as is known, the case is still pending.

These instances of hardships, however, in the lot of inventors are in no sense peculiar to colored inventors. They merely form a part of the hard struggle always present in our American life—the struggle for the mighty dollar; and in the field of invention as elsewhere the race is not always to the swift. A man may be the first to conceive a new idea, the first to translate that idea into tangible, practical form and reduce it to a patent, but often that "slip betwixt the cup and the lip" leaves him the last to get any reward for his inventive genius.

Because of the very many interesting instances at hand the temptation is very great to extend this enumeration beyond the intended limits of this article by specific references to the large number of colored men and women who in many lands and other days have given unmistakable evidence of really superior scientific and technical ability. But this temptation the writer must resist. Let it suffice to say that the citations already given show conclusively that the color of a man's skin has not yet entirely succeeded in barring his admission to the domain of science, nor in placing upon his brow the stamp of intellectual inferiority.

Footnotes:

[15] "Twentieth Century Negro Literature," by W. W. Culp, page 399. Published by J. L. Nichols Co., Atlanta, Ga.

[16] Opinions of Attorney General of the U. S., Vol. 9, page 171.

[17] An act to establish a Patent Office, and to provide for granting patents for new and useful discoveries, inventions, improvements and designs. Statutes at large of the Confederate States of America, 1861-64, page 148.

[18] Desdunes, Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, 101.

[19] Munsey's Magazine, August, 1912, p. 723.

[20] "Short History of American Shoemaking," by Frederick A. Gannon, Salem, Mass., 1912.

[21] A copy of this was shown the writer September, 1915.

Anthony Benezet

During the eighteenth century the Quakers gradually changed from the introspective state of seeking their own welfare into the altruistic mood of helping those who shared with them the heritage of being despised and rejected of men. After securing toleration for their sect in the inhospitable New World they began to think seriously of others whose lot was unfortunate. The Negroes, therefore, could not escape their attention. Almost every Quaker center declared its attitude toward the bondmen, varying it according to time and place. From the first decade of the eighteenth century to the close of the American Revolution the Quakers passed through three stages in the development of their policy concerning the enslavement of the blacks. At first they directed their attention to preventing their own adherents from participating in it, then sought to abolish the slave trade and finally endeavored to improve the condition of all slaves as a preparation for emancipation.

Among those who largely determined the policy of the Quakers during that century were William Burling [22] of Long Island, Ralph Sandiford of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Lay of Abington, John Woolman of New Jersey and Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia. Early conceiving an abhorrence to slavery, Burling denounced it by writing anti-slavery tracts and portraying its unlawfulness at the yearly meetings of the Quakers. Ralph Sandiford followed the same[Pg 38] methods and in his "Mystery of Iniquity" published in 1729, forcefully exposed the iniquitous practice in a stirring appeal in behalf of the Africans.[23] Benjamin Lay, not contented with the mere writing of tracts, availed himself of the opportunity afforded by frequent contact with those in power to interview administrative officials of the slave colonies, undauntedly demanding that they bestir themselves to abolish the evil system.[24] Struck by the wickedness of the institution while traveling through the South prior to[Pg 39] the Revolution, John Woolman spent his remaining years as an itinerant preacher, urging the members of his society everywhere to eradicate the evil.[25] Anthony Benezet, going a step further, rendered greater service than any of these as an anti-slavery publicist and at the same time persistently toiled as a worker among the Negroes.

Benezet was born in St. Quentin in Picardy in France in 1713. He was a descendant of a family of Huguenots who after all but establishing their faith in France saw themselves denounced and persecuted as heretics and finally driven from the country by the edict of Nantes. One of the reformer's family, François Benezet, perished on the scaffold at Montpelier in 1755, fearlessly proclaiming to the multitude of spectators the doctrines for which he had been condemned to die.[26] Unwilling to withstand the imminent[Pg 40] persecution, however, John Stephen Benezet, Anthony's father, fled from France to Holland but after a brief stay in that country moved to London in 1715.

After being liberally educated by his father, Benezet served an apprenticeship in one of the leading establishments of London to prepare himself for a career in the commercial world. He had some difficulty, however, in coming to the conclusion that he would be very useful in this field. He, therefore, soon abandoned this idea and followed mechanical pursuits until he moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1731. There his brothers easily established themselves in a successful business and endeavored to induce Anthony to join them, but the youth was still of the impression that this was not his calling. His life's work was finally determined by his early connection with the Quakers, to the religious views and testimonies of whom he rigidly adhered. He continued his mechanical pursuit and later undertook manufacturing at Washington, Delaware, but feeling that neither of these satisfied his desire to be thoroughly useful he decided to return to Philadelphia to devote his life to religion and humanity.[27]

Benezet finally became a teacher. In this field he, for more than forty years, served in a disinterested and Christian spirit all who diligently sought enlightenment. He aimed to train up the youth in knowledge and virtue, manifesting in this position such "a rightness of conduct, such a courtesy of manners, such a purity of intention, and such a spirit of benevolence" that he attracted attention and ingratiated himself into the favor of all of those who knew him. He first served in this capacity in Germantown, working a part of his time as a proof reader. In 1742 he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the English department of the public school founded by charter from William Penn. After serving there satisfactorily twelve years he founded a female seminary of his own, instructing the daughters of the most aristocratic families of Philadelphia.[Pg 41][28]

Benezet was a really modern teacher, far in advance of his contemporaries. Much better educated than most teachers of his time, he could write his own textbooks. He had an affectionate and fatherly manner and always showed a conscientious interest in the welfare of his pupils. "He carefully studied their dispositions," says his biographer, "and sought to develop by gentle assiduity the peculiar talents of each individual pupil. With some persuasion was his only incitement, others he stimulated to a laudable emulation; and even with the most obdurate he seldom, if ever, appealed to any other corrective than that of the sense of shame and the fear of public disgrace." In his teaching, too, he endeavored to make "a worldly concern subservient to the noblest duties and the most intensive goodness."[29] In serious discussions like that of slavery he undertook to instill into the minds of his students firm convictions of the right, believing that in so doing he would greatly influence public sentiment when these properly directed youths should take their places in life.

This whole-souled energetic man, however, could not confine himself altogether to teaching. While following this profession he devoted so much of his time to philanthropic enterprises and reforms that he was mainly famous for his achievements in these fields. "He considered the whole world his country," says one, "and all mankind his brethren."[30] Benezet was for several reasons interested in the man far down. In the first place, being a Huguenot, he himself knew what it is to be persecuted. He was, moreover, during these years a faithful coworker of the Friends who were then fearlessly advocating the cause of the downtrodden. He deeply sympathized, therefore, with the Indians. His work, too, was not limited merely to that of relieving individual cases of suffering but comprised also the task of promoting the agitation for respecting the rights of that people. Unlike most Americans, he had faith in the Indians, believing that if treated justly they would give the[Pg 42] whites no cause to fear them. When in 1763 General Amherst was at New York preparing to attack the Indians, Benezet addressed him an earnest appeal in these words: "And further may I entreat the general, for our blessed Redeemer's sake, from the nobility and humanity of his heart, that he would condescend to use all moderate measures if possible to prevent that prodigious and cruel effusion of blood, that deep anxiety of distress, that must fill the breast of so many helpless people should an Indian war be once entered upon?"[31] Not long before his death Benezet expressed himself further on this wise in a work entitled "Some Observations on the Situation, Disposition, and Character of the Indian Natives of the Continent."

Further evidence of Benezet's philanthropy was exhibited in his attitude toward certain Acadians who for political reasons were driven from their homes to Philadelphia in 1755. Devoid of the comforts of life in a foreign community, they were in a situation miserable to be told. Being of the same stock and speaking their language, Benezet took upon himself the task of serving as mediator between this deported group and the community. A man of high character and much influence, he easily obtained a relief fund with which he provided asylum for the decrepit, sustenance for the needy, and employment for those able to labor. He attended the sick, comforted the dying, and delivered over their remains the last tribute due the dead.[32]

His sympathetic nature too impelled him to speak in behalf of the suffering soldiers of the American Revolution. Adhering to the faith of the Quakers, he could not but shudder at the horrors of that war. He was interested not only in the soldiers but also in the unfortunate Americans on whom they were imposed. He saw in the whole course of war nothing but bold iniquity and crass inconsistency of nations which professed to be Christian. To set forth the distress which such a state of the country caused him Benezet[Pg 43] wrote a dissertation entitled "Thoughts on the Nature of War," and distributed it among persons of distinction in America and Europe. In 1778 when the struggle for independence had reached a crisis he issued in the interest of peace with the enemy a work entitled "Serious Reflections on the Times addressed to the Well-disposed of every Religious Denomination."[33]

Moved by every variety of suffering whenever and wherever found, Benezet's attention had during these years been attracted to a class of men much farther down than the lowliest of the lowly of other races. He had not been in this country long before he was moved to put forth some effort to alleviate the sufferings of those bondmen whose faces were black. In the year 1750, when the Quakers, although denouncing the evil of slavery here and there, were not presenting a solid front to the enemy, Anthony Benezet boldly attacked the slave trade, attracting so much attention that he soon solidified the anti-slavery sentiment of the Quakers against the institution.[34] For more than thirty years thereafter he was a tireless worker in this cause, availing himself of every opportunity to impress men with the thought as to the wickedness of the traffic. In his class room he held up to his pupils the horrors of the system, always mentioned it in his public utterances, and seldom failed to speak of it when conversing with friends or strangers. Benezet set forth in the almanacs of the time accounts of the atrocities of those engaged in slavery and the slave trade and published and circulated numerous pamphlets ingeniously exposing their iniquities.[35]

Devoted as Benezet was to the cause of the blacks, he was not an ardent abolitionist like Garrison, who fifty years later fearlessly advocated the immediate destruction of the system. Benezet was primarily interested in the suppression of the slave trade. He hoped also to see the slaves[Pg 44] gradually emancipated after having had adequate preparation to live as freedmen. Writing to Fothergill, Benezet expressed his concurrence with the former's opinion that it would be decidedly dangerous both to the Negroes and the masters themselves in the southern colonies, should the slaves be suddenly manumitted. Except in particular cases, therefore, even in the northern colonies the liberation of slaves in large numbers was not at first Benezet's concern. He believed that "the best endeavors in our power to draw the notice of the governments, upon the grievous iniquity and great danger attendant on a further prosecution of the slave trade, is what every truly sympathizing mind cannot but earnestly desire, and under divine direction promote to the utmost of their power." If this could be obtained, he believed the sufferings of "those already amongst us, by the interposition of the government, and even from selfish ends in their masters, would be mitigated, and in time Providence would gradually work for the release of those, whose age and situation would fit them for freedom." Benezet thought that this second problem could be solved by colonizing the Negroes on the western lands. "The settlements now in prospect to be made in that large extent of country," said he, "from the west side of the Allegany mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred miles, would afford a suitable and beneficial means of settlement for many of them among the white people, which would in all probability be as profitable to the negroes as to the new settlers." But he did not desire to take up time especially with matters of so remote a nature, it being indeed with reluctance that he took up at all a question which he would have avoided, "if there had been any person to whom he could have addressed himself with the same expectation, that what he had in view would have thereby been answered."[36]

Taking a more advanced position with this propaganda Benezet published in 1762 a work entitled "A Short Account of that Part of Africa inhabited by Negroes, with general Observations on the Slave Trade and Slavery." "The end proposed[Pg 45] by this essay," says the author, "is to lay before the candid reader the depth of evil attending this iniquitous practice, in the prosecution of which our duty to God, the common Father of the family of the whole earth, and our duty of love to our fellow creatures, is totally disregarded; all social connection and tenderness of nature being broken, desolation and bloodshed continually fomented in those unhappy people's country." It was also intended, said he, "to invalidate the false arguments which are frequently advanced for the palliation of this trade, in hopes it may be some inducement to those who are not yet defiled therewith to keep themselves clear; and to lay before such as have unwarily engaged in it, their danger of totally losing that tender sensibility to the sufferings of their fellow creatures, the want whereof set men beneath the brute creation."[37]

In the year 1769 appeared his "Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies on the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions." Referring to this work, he says: "The intent of publishing the following sheets, is more fully to make known the aggravated iniquity attending the practice of the Slave Trade; whereby many thousands of our fellow creatures, as free as ourselves by nature and equally with us the subjects of Christ's redeeming Grace, are yearly brought into inextricable and barbarous bondage; and many; very many, to miserable and untimely ends." Fearlessly directing this as an attack on public functionaries he remarks: "How an evil of so deep a dye, hath so long, not only passed uninterrupted by those in power, but hath even had their countenance, is indeed surprising; and charity would suppose, must in a great measure have arisen from this, that many persons in government both of the Laity and Clergy, in whose power it hath been to put a stop to the Trade, have been unacquainted with the corrupt motives which gives life to it, and with the groans, the dying groans, which daily ascend to God, the common Father of mankind, from the broken[Pg 46] hearts of those his deeply oppressed creatures." Coming directly to the purpose in mind, however, the author declares: "I shall only endeavor to show from the nature of the Trade, the plenty which Guinea affords to its inhabitants, the barbarous treatment of the Negroes and the observations made thereon by authors of note, that it is inconsistent with the plainest precepts of the Gospel, the dictates of reason, and every common sentiment of humanity."[38]

This work turned out to be the first really effective one of Benezet's writings, creating not a little sensation both on this continent and Europe. It was especially rousing to the Quakers here and abroad. The Yearly Meeting of London recommended in 1785 that all the quarterly meetings give this book the widest circulation possible. The Quakers in various parts accordingly approached numerous classes of persons, all sects and denominations, and especially public officials. Desiring also to reach the youth the agents for distribution visited the schools of Westminster, the Carter-House, St. Paul's, Merchant Tailors', Eton, Winchester, and Harrow. From among the youths thus informed came some of those reformers who finally abolished the slave trade in the English dominions.

The most effective of Benezet's works, however, was his "An Historical Account of Guinea, its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of its Inhabitants, with an Enquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, its Nature and Calamitous Effect." This volume approached more nearly than his other writings what students of to-day would call a scientific treatise. The author devoted much time to the collection of facts and substantiated his assertions by quotations from the standard authorities in that field. While it added nothing really new to the argument already advanced, the usual theories were more systematically arranged and more forcefully set forth.[39] "This book," says a writer, "became instrumental beyond any other work[Pg 47] ever before published in disseminating a proper knowledge and detestation of this Trade."[40]

The most important single effect the book had, was to convert Thomas Clarkson, who thereafter devoted his life to the cause of abolishing the slave trade. While a Senior Bachelor of Arts at the University of Cambridge, Clarkson had in 1784 distinguished himself by winning a prize for the best Latin dissertation. The following year a prize was offered for the best essay on the subject "anne Liceat invitos in servitutem dare," is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will? Knowing that he was then unprepared to compete, he hesitated to enter the contest, not wishing to lose the reputation he had so recently won. Yet owing to the fact that it was expected of him, he entered his name, actuated by no other motive than to distinguish himself as a scholar. As there was then a paucity of literature on slavery in England, his first researches in this field were not productive of gratifying results. "I was in this difficulty," says Clarkson, "when going by accident into a friend's house, I took up a newspaper there lying on the table. One of the first articles which attracted my notice was an advertisement of Anthony Benezet's 'Historical Account of Guinea.' I soon left my friend and his paper, and, to lose no time, hastened to London to buy it. In this precious book I found almost all I wanted." Clarkson easily won the first prize. Although Benezet himself did not live to see it, this volume converted to the cause of the oppressed race a man who as an author and reformer became one of the greatest champions it ever had.[41]

Benezet continued to write on the slave trade, collecting all accessible data from year to year and publishing it whenever he could. He obtained many of his facts about the sufferings of slaves from the Negroes themselves, moving among them in their homes, at the places where they worked, or on the wharves where they stopped when traveling.[Pg 48] To diffuse this knowledge where it would be most productive of the desired results, he talked with tourists and corresponded with every influential person whom he could reach. Travelers who came into contact with him were given thoughts to reflect on, messages to convey or tracts to distribute among others who might further the cause. Hearing that Granville Sharp had in 1772 obtained the significant verdict in the famous Somerset case, Benezet wrote him, that this champion of freedom abroad might be enabled to cooperate more successfully with those commonly concerned on this side of the Atlantic.[42] With the same end in view he corresponded with George Whitefield and John Wesley.[43]

His connection with the work of George Whitefield was further extended by correspondence with the Countess of Huntingdon who had at the importunity of Whitefield established at Savannah a college known as the Orphan House, to promote the enlightenment of the poor and to prepare some of them for the clerical profession. Unlike Whitefield, the founder, who thought that the Negroes also might derive some benefit from this institution, the successors of the good man endeavored to maintain the institution by the labor of slaves purchased to cultivate the plantations owned by the institution. Benezet, therefore, wrote the Countess a brilliant letter pathetically depicting the misery she was unconsciously causing by thus encouraging slavery and the slave trade. He was gratified to learn from the distinguished lady that in founding the institution she had no such purpose in mind and that she would prohibit the wicked crime.[44]

Learning that Abbé Raynal had exhibited in his celebrated work a feeling of sympathy for the African, Benezet sought in the same way to attach him more closely to the cause of prohibiting the slave trade. Observing that the slave trade which had because of the American Revolution[Pg 49] declined only to rise again after that struggle had ceased, Benezet addressed a stirring letter to the Queen of England, who on hearing from Benjamin West of the high character of the writer, received it with marks of peculiar condescension.

Let no casual reader of this story conclude that Benezet was a mere theorist or pamphleteer. He ever translated into action what he professed to believe. Knowing that the enlightenment of the blacks would not only benefit them directly but would also disprove the mad theories as to the impossibility of their mental improvement, Benezet became one of the most aggressive and successful workers who ever toiled among these unfortunates. As early as 1750 he established for the Negroes in Philadelphia an evening school in which they were offered instruction gratuitously. His noble example appealing to the Society of Friends, he encouraged them to raise a fund adequate to establishing a larger and well-organized school.[46] This additional effort, to be sure, required much of his time. When he discovered, however, that he could not direct the colored school and at the same time continue his female academy which he had conducted for three generations, he abandoned his own interests and devoted himself exclusively to the uplift of the colored people. In this establishment he received all the rewards he anticipated. It was sufficient for him finally to be able to say: "I can with truth and sincerity declare that I have found amongst the Negroes as great variety of talents, as among a like number of whites, and I am bold to assert, that the notion entertained by some, that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, is a vulgar prejudice, founded on the pride or ignorance of their lordly masters, who have kept their slaves at such a distance as to be unable to form a right judgment of them."[47]

His devotion to this work was further demonstrated by another noble deed. His will provided that after the payment of certain legacies and smaller obligations his estate should at the death of his widow be turned over to the trustees[Pg 50] of the public school "to hire and employ a religious-minded person or persons to teach a number of negroe, mulatto, or Indian children, to read, write, arithmetic, plain accounts, needle work." "And," continued he, "it is my particular desire, founded on the experience I have had in that service, that in the choice of such tutor, special care may be had to prefer an industrious, careful person, of true piety, who may be or become suitably qualified, who would undertake the service from a principle of charity, to one more highly learned not equally disposed."[48]

But this philanthropist's work was almost done. He was then seventy years of age and having been an earnest worker throughout his life he had begun to decline. One spring morning in the year 1784 it was spread abroad in Philadelphia that Anthony Benezet was seriously ill and that persons realizing his condition were apprehensive of his recovery. So disturbed were his friends by this sad news that they for several days besieged the house to seek, so to speak, the dying benediction of a venerable father. The same in death as he had been in life, he received their attentions with due appreciation of what he had been to them but exhibited at the same time in the presence of his Maker the deepest self-humiliation. "I am dying," said he, "and feel ashamed to meet the face of my Maker, I have done so little in his cause." Anthony Benezet was no more.

The honors which his admirers paid him were indicative of the high esteem in which they held the distinguished dead. Thousands of the people of Philadelphia followed his remains to witness the interment of all that was mortal of Anthony Benezet. Never had that city on such an occasion seen a demonstration in which so many persons of all classes participated. There were the officials of the city, men of all trades and professions, various sects and denominations, and hundreds of Negroes, "testifying by their attendance, and by their tears, the grateful sense they entertained of his pious efforts in their behalf."[49]

Footnotes:

[22] William Burling of Long Island was the first to conceive an abhorrence of slavery. Early in his career he began to speak of the wickedness of the institution at the yearly meetings of the Quakers. He wrote several tracts to publish to the world his views on this great question. His first tract appeared in 1718. It was addressed to the elders of the Friends to direct their attention to "the inconsistency of compelling people and their posterity to serve them continually and arbitrarily, and without any proper recompense for their services." See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade," Volume I, pp. 146-147.

[23] After Burling came Ralph Sandiford, a merchant engaged in business in Philadelphia. This man attracted the attention of his friends because he declined the assistance offered him by persons sufficiently wealthy to establish him in life, merely because they had acquired their wealth by enslaving Negroes. He not only labored among his own people for the liberation of the slaves, but boldly appealed to others. He finally expressed his sentiments in a publication called the "Mystery of Inquiry," a brief treatise on the evil of the institution of slavery. The importance attached to this work is that Sandiford published it and circulated it at his own expense despite the fact that he had been threatened with prosecution by the judge. This pamphlet was written in correct and energetic style, abounding with facts, sentiments and quotations, which showed the virtue and talents of the author and made a forceful appeal in behalf of the blacks. See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade," Volume I, pp. 147-148.

[24] Benjamin Lay, the next worker in this cause, lived at Abington, not far from Philadelphia. He was a man of desirable class and had access to the homes of some of the best people even when in England. He was not long in this country before he championed the cause of the slave. In 1737 he published his first treatise on slavery, distributing it far and wide, especially among the members of the rising generation. He traveled extensively through this country and the West Indies and personally took up the question of abolition with the governors of the slave colonies. It is doubtful, according to Clarkson, that he rendered the cause great service by this mission. This writer says that "in bearing what he believed to be his testimony against this system of oppression, he adopted sometimes a singularity of manner, by which, as conveying demonstration of a certain eccentricity of character, he diminished in some degree his usefulness to the cause which he had undertaken; as far indeed as this eccentricity might have the effect of preventing others from joining him in his pursuit, lest they should be thought singular also, so far it must be allowed that he ceased to become beneficial. But there can be no question, on the other hand, that his warm and enthusiastic manners awakened the attention of many to the cause, and gave them first impressions concerning it, which they never forgot, and which rendered them useful to it in the subsequent part of their lives." See Clarkson's "History of Abolition of the African Slave Trade," Vol. I, pp. 148-150.

[25] John Woolman shared with Anthony Benezet the honor of being one of the two foremost workers in behalf of the oppressed race. He was born in Burlington County in New Jersey in 1720. When quite a youth he was deeply impressed with religion and resolved to live a righteous life. He was therefore in his twenty-second year made a minister of the gospel among the Quakers. Just prior to his entering upon the ministry there happened an incident which set him against slavery. Being a poor man he was working for wages as a bookkeeper in a store. "My employer," said he, "having a Negro woman sold her, and desired me to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting, who bought her. The thing was sudden, and though the thought of writing an instrument of slavery for one of my fellow-creatures made me feel uneasy, yet I remembered I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who bought her. So through weakness I gave way and wrote, but, at executing it, I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said before my master and the friend, that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion. This in some degree abated my uneasiness; yet, as often as I reflected seriously upon it, I thought I should have been clearer, if I had desired to have been excused from it, as a thing against my conscience; for such it was. And some time after this, a young man of our Society spoke to me to write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having lately taken a Negro into his house. I told him I was not easy to write it; for though many of our meeting, and in other places kept slaves, I still believed the practice was not right, and desired to be excused from the writing. I spoke to him in good will; and he told me that keeping slaves was not altogether agreeable to his mind, but that the slave being a gift to his wife he had accepted her." Moved thus so early in his life he developed into an ardent friend of the Negro and ever labored thereafter to elevate and emancipate them. See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade."

[26] Felice's "History of French Protestants."

[27] Vaux, "Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet," 64.

[28] Special Report of the U. S. Com. of Education on the Schools of the District of Columbia, 1871, p. 362.

[29] "Slavery a Century ago," p. 16.

[30] Vaux, "Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet," 12.

[31] Ibid., 76.

[32] Clarkson, "History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade," 166; "Slavery a Century ago," 19-20.

[33] Vaux, Memoirs, etc., 77.

[34] "Slavery a Century ago," 23-24.

[35] Some of these accounts appeared in the almanacs of Benjamin Franklin, who had made these publications famous.

[36] Vaux, Memoirs, etc., 29 et seq.

[37] See Benezet's "Short Account, etc.," p. 2.

[38] See Benezet's "Caution, etc.," p. 3.

[39] See Benezet's "An Historical Account, etc."

[40] See Benezet's "An Historical Account of Guinea." Clarkson, "The History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade," I, 169.

[41] "Slavery a Century ago," p. 4.

[42] Vaux, "Memoirs of Anthony Benezet," 32.

[43] Ibid., 44.

[44] Vaux, "Memoirs, etc.," 42.

[45]Ibid., 38.

[46] "The African Repository," IV, 61.

[47] "Slavery a Century ago," 25.

[48] Vaux, "Memoirs, etc." 135.

[49] Ibid., 134.

People of Color in Louisiana

Part II

Louisiana was transferred to Spain but was not long to be secure in the possession of that country. France again claimed her in 1800, and Napoleon, busy with his English war and realizing the dangers of a province so open to British attack as was this bounded by the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, readily listened to the proposition of the United States. Twenty days after the French tri-color waved in place of the Spanish flag in the old Place d'Armes, the American stars and stripes proclaimed the land American territory. The Creoles, French though they were in spirit, in partisanship, in sympathy, could not but breathe a sigh of relief, for Napoleon had dangerous ideas concerning the freedom of slaves, and already had spoken sharply about the people of color in the province.[50] Were the terrors of San Domingo to be reenacted on the banks of Mississippi? The United States answered with a decided negative.

Men of color, however, were to be important factors in the maintenance of order in the province.[51] Laussat, the Colonial Prefect of France, placed in charge of Louisiana in 1803, tells how the old Spanish Governor Salcedo, in his[Pg 52] anxiety to keep the province loyal to Spain, had summoned all the military officers of the militia to come to his lodgings and declare whether they intended to remain in the service of the king of Spain. "The Marquis," writes Laussat to his friend Decrès, "went so far as to exact a declaration in the affirmative from two companies of men of color in New Orleans, which were composed of all the mechanics whom that city possessed. Two of these mulattoes complained to me of having been detained twenty-four hours in prison to force them to utter the fatal yea which was desired of them."[52]

Within the next six years New Orleans doubled in population and that population was far from white. Those refugees from San Domingo who had escaped to Cuba were now forced by the hostilities between France and Spain again to become exiles. Within sixty days between May and July in one year alone, 1809, thirty-four vessels from Cuba set ashore in the streets of New Orleans nearly 5,800 persons, 4,000 of these being free colored and blacks.[53] Later others came from Cuba, Guadaloupe and neighboring islands until they amounted to 10,000. The first American governor of Louisiana certainly had no easy task before him. Into the disorganized and undisciplined city, enervated by frequent changes and corruption of government, torn by dissensions, uncertain whether its allegiance was to Spain or to France, reflecting the spirit of upheaval and uncertainty which made Europe one huge brawl—into this cosmopolitan city swarmed ten thousand white, yellow and black West Indian islanders, some with means, most of them destitute, all of them desperate. Americans, English, Spanish, French—all cried aloud. Claiborne begged the consuls of Havana and Santiago de Cuba to stop the movement; the laws forbidding the importation of slaves were more rigidly enforced; and free people of color were ordered point blank to leave the city.[54] Where they were to go, however,[Pg 53] no one seemed to care, and as the free people of color had no intention of going, the question was not discussed. For some reason the enforcement of the law was not insisted upon. When a meagre attempt was made, it proved unsuccessful, and the complexion of Louisiana was definitely settled for many years to come.[55]

The administration of Governor Claiborne from 1803 to 1816 was one long wrestle, not only with the almost superhuman task of adjusting a practically foreign country to American ideals of government but of wrestling with the color problem. Slowly and insidiously it had come to dominate every other problem. The people of color had helped to settle the territory, had helped to make it commercially important, had helped to save it from the Indians and from the English, and they seemed likely to become the most important factors in its history.

The Louisianians were greatly mortified at the enforcement by Claiborne of the law against the importation of slaves. They were undecided whether to blame Claiborne for enforcing the law or to blame Philadelphia for harboring the first Abolition Society which met in 1804 and promulgated doctrines as dangerous as those of Napoleon regarding human slavery. Slaves were daily smuggled into the territory by way of Barataria Bay, the lakes, and all the innumerable outlets to Spanish possessions.[56] Claiborne was alternately accused of conniving at this smuggling and abused for trying to suppress it. Jean and Pierre Lafitte, infamous in history for their feats of smuggling and piracy, made capital of the slave trade, and but for their stalwart Africans would have been captured and hung long before Louisiana had suffered from their depredations and the bad reputation which they gave her. The Lafittes appealed to the romantic temperament of the French, and the fact that the American governor, Claiborne, had set a price upon[Pg 54] their heads was almost sufficient in itself to secure them immunity from the Creoles.[57]

"Americans," says Grace King, "were despised and ridiculed." Men, women and children of color, free and slave, united to insult the American Negro or—"Mericain Coquin," as they called him. The French and the Spaniards, moreover, united in using the people of color to further their own interests, or to annoy the new American government while the intrigues of Spain and France weakened the feeble territory. It was difficult to know how to treat this almost alien people. Governor Claiborne found the militia in the territory entirely inadequate for the purposes of protection, should Spain make an attempt to wrest the land back from the United States. In one of his anxious despatches to headquarters he says plaintively: "With respect to the Mulatto Corps in this city, I am indeed at a loss to know what policy is best to pursue."[58] The corps, old and honorable, as it was, had been ignored by the previous Legislative Council, and was now disaffected. The neglect had "soured them considerably with the American government."[59]

Claiborne, however, determined to procure a census of free people of color in the city. He estimated that there were five hundred capable of bearing arms, and added that he would do all in his power to conciliate them, and secure a return of their allegiance to the American government.[Pg 55] One Stephen, a free black man, had appeared before Claiborne and declared on oath that the people of color were being tampered with by the Spanish government.[60] This caused the governor to redouble his energies toward conciliating the doubtful militia. Louisiana bordered on the Spanish territory, Texas, and a constant desertion of people of color to this foreign land continued, Spain doing all in her power to make the flight of these free men and slaves interesting. Colored men were furnished the Spanish cockades, and dances were given in their honor when they escaped over the border. The disaffected adherents of Aaron Burr on the border-land of Texas kept up the underhand warfare against the government, through these people of color. Perhaps it was as a means of protection that Louisiana and a much restricted Louisiana was admitted as a State in 1812.

Writers describing the New Orleans of this period agree in presenting a picture of a continental city, most picturesque, most un-American, and as varied in color as a street of Cairo. There they saw French, Spaniards, English, Bohemians, Negroes, mulattoes; varied clothes, picturesque white dresses of the fairer women, brilliant cottons of the darker ones. The streets, banquettes, we should say, were bright with color, the nights filled with song and laughter. Through the scene, the people of color add the spice of color; in the life, they add the zest of romance.[61]

Such was the situation in the city of New Orleans. The condition of the free people of color in Louisiana as a whole, however, and the form of slavery which existed in that state are somewhat difficult to determine because of the conflicting statements of observers who did not distinguish between the conditions obtaining in the metropolis and those obtaining in the parishes. All seem to agree, however, that on account of the extensive miscegenation so common in the French colonies there had been produced in that state various classes of mixed breeds enjoying degrees of freedom in conformity with their proximity or separation from the[Pg 56] white race. Paul Alliot said in his reflection on Louisiana in 1803: "The population of that city counting the people of all colors is only twelve thousand souls. Mulattoes and Negroes are openly protected by the Government. He who was to strike one of those persons, even though he had run away from him, would be severely punished. Also twenty whites could be counted in the prisons of New Orleans against one man of color. The wives and daughters of the latter are much sought after by the white men, and white women at times esteem well-built men of color."[62] Elsewhere the same writer, in speaking of the white men, said that few among them married, choosing rather to live with their slaves or with women of color.[63]

A generation later the situation was apparently the same despite the reactionary forces which seemed likely to change the social order. While on a tour through this country in 1818 Evans saw much in New Orleans to interest him. "Here," said he, "may be seen in the same crowds, Quadroons, mulattoes, Samboes, Mustizos, Indians, and Negroes; and there are other commixtures which are not yet classified. As to the Negroes, I may add that whilst in this place I saw one who was perfectly white. This peculiarity, however, is rarely witnessed in this country."[64] Thereafter the tendency seemed to be not to check promiscuous miscegenation but to debase the offspring resulting therefrom.[Pg 57][65]

In the midst of this confusing commixture of population and unstable society of mixed breeds of three nations the second war between England and the United States came like a thunderbolt to upset the already seething administration of Claiborne. As of old, Louisiana was the strategical point upon which both powers had their eyes. It was the intention of England to weaken the United States by capturing Louisiana and handing it over in its entirety to the Spanish government waiting greedily over the border of Texas. On the same day that Gov. Claiborne sent the communication to the Secretary of War containing this astounding piece of information which he had obtained from authentic sources, he wrote to General Jackson, the despised "red Indian" of the aristocratic Louisianians. He had reason, he said in this letter, to doubt the loyalty of many men in the state, because of their known adherence to foreign nations, but he hopefully adds, "Among the militia of New Orleans there is a battalion of chosen men of color, organized under a special act of Legislature, of which I inclose a copy for your perusal."

Under the Spanish Government the men of color of New Orleans were always relied upon in time of difficulties, and on several occasions evinced in the field the greatest firmness and courage.[66] "With these gentlemen, Colonel Fortier and Major Lacoste, and the officers attached to companies," Claiborne continued, "I had an interview on yesterday, and assured them that, in the hour of peril, I should rely on their valor and fidelity to the United States. In return,[Pg 58] they expressed their devotion to the country and their readiness to serve it."[67] Claiborne then ordered the taking of a census of the men of color in the city capable of bearing arms, and found that they numbered nearly eight hundred. In his appeal to General Jackson, Claiborne said, "These men, Sir, for the most part, sustain good characters. Many of them have extensive connections and much property to defend, and all seem attached to arms. The mode of acting toward them at the present crisis, is an inquiry of importance. If we give them not our confidence, the enemy will be encouraged to intrigue and corrupt them."[68] General Jackson took the cue from Governor Claiborne and enlisted the services of the battalion of men of color, addressing them in stirring and thrilling words. There were not wanting objections to this address. Its publication was delayed a few days to give him time to reconsider the matter, since advisers of Gov. Claiborne thought it a little too free with its suggestions of perfect equality between the companies. But the well-known temper of General Jackson precluded the possibility of any retraction, and the address came down in history as he originally drafted it.[Pg 59][69]

The American soldiers on the field aggregated 3,600, among whom were 430 colored. The first battalion of men of color was commanded by Major Lacoste, a wealthy white planter. In reviewing the troops, Gen. Jackson was so well pleased with Major Lacoste's battalion, that he deemed it prudent to levy a new battalion of the same description. Jean Baptiste Savary, a colored man who had fled from Santo Domingo during the struggle there, undertook, therefore, to form a battalion of his countrymen. Savary obtained the rank of captain, and was remarkably successful.[70] The new battalion was put under the command of Major Jean Daquin, also a native of Santo Domingo. Whether or not Major Daquin was a white man as Gayarré tells us, or a quadroon as other writers assert, is a disputed question.[71]

But not only was this regiment of free men of color to have all the honor of the struggle. The colored men were enlisted in more ways than one. Slaves were used in throwing up the famous entrenchments. The idea of a fortification of cotton bales, which we are told practically saved the city, was that of a colored man, a slave from Africa, who had seen the same thing done in his native country. It was the cotton breastworks that nonplussed the British. Colored men, free and slave, were used to reconnoitre, and the pirate Lafitte, true to his word, to come to the aid of Louisiana[Pg 60] should she ever need assistance, brought in with his Baratarians a mixed horde of desperate fighters, white and black.

On the British side was a company composed of colored men, and historians like to tell of their cowardice compared with the colored men of the American side.[72] Evidently a scarlet coat does not well fit a colored skin. To the eternal credit of the State troops composed of the men of color, not one act of desertion or cowardice is recorded against them. There was a most lamentable exhibition of panic on the right bank of the river by the American troops, but the battalion of the men of color was not there. They were always in the front of the attack.[73]

In the celebration of the victory which followed in the great public square, the Place d'Armes, now Jackson Square, where a statue of the commander rears itself in the center, the colored troops came in for their share of glory.[74] The train which brought in the four hundred wounded prisoners was met by the colored women, the famous nurses of New Orleans, who have in every war from the Revolutionary until the Spanish-American held the reputation of being some of the best nurses in the world.

The men of color were apparently not content with winning the victory; they must furnish material for dissension for many days afterwards. When the British army withdrew from Louisiana on January 27, 1815, they carried[Pg 61] away with them 199 slaves, whom they had acquired by the very easy method of taking them willy-nilly. The matter of having these bondmen restored to their original owners, of convincing the British that the Americans did not see the joke of the abduction caused one of the most acrimonious discussions in the history of the State. The treaty between the two countries, England and America, was distorted by both sides to read anything they wished. The English took a high stand of altruism, of a desire to free the oppressed; the Louisianians took as high a stand of wishing to grow old with their own slaves. It was an amusing incident which the slaves watched with interest. In the end the colored men were restored, and the interpretation of the treaty ceased.[75]

Following the War of 1812 the free people of color occupied a peculiar position in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans. There were distinct grades of society. The caste system was almost as strong as that of India. Free people of color from other states poured into Louisiana in a steady stream. It was a haven of refuge. Those were indeed halcyon times both for the Creole and the American, who found in the rapidly growing city a commercial El Dorado. For the people of color it was indeed a time of growth and acquisition of wealth. Three famous streets in New Orleans bear testimony to the importance of the colored people in the life of the city. Congo Square, one of the great open squares in the old Creole quarter, was named for the slaves who used to congregate in its limits and dance the weird dances to the tunes of blood-stirring minor strains. Those who know the weird liet-motif of Coleridge-Taylor's Bamboula dance have heard the tune of the Congo dance, which every child in New Orleans could sing. Gottschalk's Danse des Nègres is almost forgotten by this generation but in it he recorded the music of the West Indians. Camp Street, to-day one of the principal business streets in the city, was so called because it ran back of the old Campo de Negros.[76] Julia[Pg 62] Street, which runs along the front of the so-called New Basin, a canal of great commercial importance, connecting, as it does, the city with Lake Pontchartrain, and consequently, the greater gulf trade, was named for one Julia, a free woman of color, who owned land along the banks.[77] What Julia's cognomen was, where she came from, and whence she obtained the valuable property are hidden in the silent grave in which time encloses mere mortals. Somewhere in the records of the city it is recorded that one Julia, a F. W. C. (free woman of color), owned this land.

The minor distinctions of complexion and race so fiercely adhered to by the Creoles of the old regime were at their height at this time. The glory and shame of the city were her quadroons and octoroons, apparently constituting two aristocratic circles of society,[78] the one as elegant as the other, the complexions the same, the men the same, the women different in race, but not in color, nor in dress, nor in jewels. Writers on fire with the romance of this continental city love to speak of the splendors of the French Opera House, the first place in the country where grand opera was heard, and tell of the tiers of beautiful women with their jewels and airs and graces. Above the orchestra circle were four tiers, the first filled with the beautiful dames of the city; the second filled with a second array of beautiful women, attired like those of the first, with no apparent difference; yet these were the octoroons and quadroons, whose beauty and wealth were all the passports needed. The third was for the hoi polloi of the white race, and the fourth for the people of color whose color was more evident. It was a veritable sandwich of races.

With the slaves, especially those outside of New Orleans, the situation was different. The cruelty of the slave owners in the State was proverbial. To be "sent down the Mississippi" became a by-word of horror, a bogie with which slave-holders all over the South threatened their incorrigible slaves. The slave markets, the tortures of the old plantations,[Pg 63] even those in the city, which Cable has immortalized, help to fill the pages of romance, which must be cruel as well as beautiful.

The reaction against the Negro was then well on its way in Louisiana and evidences of it soon appeared in New Orleans where their condition for some time yet differed much from that of the blacks in the parishes. Moved by the fear of a rising class of mixed breeds resulting from miscegenation, the whites endeavored to diminish their power by restraining the free people of color from exercising influence over the slaves, who were becoming insurrectionary as in the case of those of the parish of St. John the Baptist in 1811. The State had in 1807 and 1808 made additional provisions for the regulation of the coming of free Negroes into Louisiana, but when there came reports of the risings of the blacks in various places in the Seaboard States, and of David Walker's appeal to Negroes to take up arms against their masters, it was deemed wise to prohibit the immigration of free persons into that Commonwealth. In 1830 it was provided that whoever should write, print, publish or distribute anything having the tendency to produce discontent among the slaves, should on conviction thereof be imprisoned at hard labor for life or suffer death at the discretion of the court. It was further provided that whoever used any language or became instrumental in bringing into the State any paper, book or pamphlet inducing discontent should suffer practically the same penalty. Any person who should teach or permit or cause to be taught, any slave to read or write should be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than twelve.[80]

Under the revised Black Code of Louisiana special care was taken to prevent free Negroes from coming in contact with bondmen. Free persons of color were restricted from obtaining licenses to sell spirituous liquors, because of the fear that intoxicants distributed by this class might excite[Pg 64] the Negroes to revolt. The law providing that there should be at least one white person to every thirty slaves on a plantation was re-enacted so as to strengthen the measure, the police system for the control of Negroes was reorganized to make it more effective, and slaves although unable to own property were further restricted in buying and selling. Those taken by masters beyond the limits of the State were on their return to be treated as free Negroes. But it was later provided on the occasion of the institution of proceedings for freedom by a slave who had been carried to the Northwest Territory [81] that "no slave shall be entitled to his or her freedom under the pretense that he or she has been, with or without the consent of his or her owner, in a country where slavery does not exist or in any of the States where slavery is prohibited."[82]

After that the condition of the Negroes in Louisiana was decidedly pitiable, although in certain parts of the State, as observed by Bishop Polk,[83] Timothy Flint,[84] and Frederic Law Olmsted [85] at various times, there were some striking exceptions to this rule. About this time Captain Marryat made some interesting remarks concerning this situation. "In the Western States," said he, "comprehending Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, the Negroes are, with the exception, perhaps, of the latter States, in a worst condition than they were in the West India Islands. This may be easily imagined," continued he, "when the character of the white people who inhabit the larger portion of these States is considered—a class of people, the majority of whom are without feelings of honor, reckless in their habits, intemperate, unprincipled, and lawless, many of them having fled from the Eastern States, as fraudulent bankrupts, swindlers or committers of other crimes, which have subjected them to the penitentiaries, miscreants, defying the climate, so that they can[Pg 65] defy the laws. Still this representation of the character of the people, inhabiting these States, must from the chaotic state of society in America be received with many exceptions. In the city of New Orleans, for instance, and in Natchez and its vicinity, and also among the planters, there are many honorable exceptions. I have said the majority: for we must look to the mass—the exceptions do prove the rule. It is evident that slaves under such masters can have but little chance of good treatment, and stories are told of them at which humanity shudders."[86]

The free people of color, however, kept on amassing wealth and educating their children as ever in spite of opposition, for it is difficult to enforce laws against a race when you cannot find that race. Being well-to-do they could maintain their own institutions of learning, and had access to parochial schools. Some of them like their white neighbors, sent their sons to France and their daughters to the convents to continue their education beyond the first communion. The first free school ever opened for colored children in the United States was the "Ecole Des Orphelins Indigents," a School for Indigent Orphans opened in 1840. Mme. Couvent, a free woman of color, died, leaving a fund in trust for the establishment and maintenance of this institution. It has been in continuous operation ever since. Later, it was aided by Aristide Mary, a well-to-do Creole of color, who left $5,000 for its support, and by Thomy Lafon, also a colored Creole, one of the noted benefactors of the city. Until now, the instruction is in both English and French, and many children, not orphans, are willing to pay a fee to obtain there the thorough education obtainable.[87]

In 1859 John F. Cook, afterwards of Washington, D. C., went to New Orleans from St. Louis, Missouri, and organized a school for free children of color. This was just at the time when discontent among Southern States was rife, when there was much war-talk, and secession was imminent. Mr. Cook had violated two laws, he was an immigrant, and he[Pg 66] opened a school for children of persons of color. He continued as a successful instructor for one year, at the expiration of which he was forced to leave, being warned by one John Parsons, a barber, who had been told by his white friends that Mr. Cook was to be arrested and detained.[88]

Mr. Trotter, in his "Music and Some Musical People," gives unwittingly a picture of the free people of color of this epoch in fortune and education. He quotes the New Orleans Picayune in its testimony to their superior taste for and appreciation of the drama, particularly Shakespeare, and their sympathetic recognition of the excellence of classical music. Grace King aptly says "even the old slaves, the most enthusiastic of theatre-goers, felt themselves authorized to laugh any modern theatrical pretension to scorn."[89] Trotter records a number of families whose musical talent has become world-wide. The Lambert family, one of whom was decorated by the King of Portugal, became a professor in Paris, and composer of the famous Si J'Etais Roi, L'Africaine, and La Somnambula.[90] In this same field Basile Barrès also achieved unusual fame.

Natives of New Orleans remember now how some years ago Edmond Dédé came from Paris, whence he had been sent in 1857 by an appreciative townspeople to complete his musical education. He became director of the orchestra of L'Alcazar in Bordeaux, and a great friend of Gounod. When he returned to New Orleans after an absence of forty-six years to play for his native city once more, he was old, but not worn, nor bent, the fire of youth still flashed in his eye, and leaped along the bow of his violin.[91] One may mention a long list of famous musicians of color of the State, but our picture must be filled in rather with the broad sweep of the mass, not of the individual.

Across the cloudless sky of this era of unexampled commercial,[Pg 67] artistic and social sphere [92] the war cloud crept with ominous grimness. It burst and drenched the State with blood. Louisiana made ready to stand with the South. On the 23d of November, 1861, there had been a grand review of the Confederate troops stationed in New Orleans. An associated press despatch announced that the line was seven miles long. The feature of the review, however, was one regiment composed of fourteen hundred free colored men. The state militia was reorganized entirely for whites but Governor Moore ordered the men of color into the army. Another grand review followed the next spring. The New Orleans Picayune made the following comment. "We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably uniformed. Most of these companies, quite unaided by the administration, have supplied themselves with arms without regard to cost or trouble."[93] On the same day, one of these colored companies was presented with a flag, and every evidence of public approbation was manifested.

These men of color in New Orleans were the only organized body of Negro soldiery on the Confederate side during the Civil War. They were accepted as part of the State militia forming three regiments and two batteries of artillery. In the report of the Select Commission on the New Orleans Riots, Charles W. Gibbons testified that when the war broke out, the Confederacy called on all free people to[Pg 68] do something for the seceding States, and if they did not a committee was appointed to look after them, to rob, kill, and despoil their property. Gibbons himself was advised by a policeman to enlist on the Confederate side or be lynched. This accounts for the seeming disloyalty of these free men of color.[94] The first victories of the South made their leaders overconfident thereafter and the colored troops were dismissed.

When Unionists finally got control of New Orleans they found it a city of problems. Wherever there was a Union fort, slaves, the famous "contrabands of war," made their appearance, and in a few months General Butler, then in command, found himself face to face with one of the most serious situations ever known in the history of a State. Obviously, the only thing to do was to free all of the slaves, but with Gen. Hunter's experience in South Carolina to warn him, and with Lincoln's caution, Butler was forced to fight the problem alone. He did the best he could under the circumstances with this mass of black and helpless humanity. The whipping posts were abolished; the star cars—early Jim Crow street cars—were done away with. Those slaves who had been treated with extreme cruelty by their masters were emancipated, and by enforcing the laws of England and France, which provided that no citizen of either country should own slaves, many more were freed. But the problem increased, the camps filled with runaway slaves, the feeling grew more intense, and the situation more desperate every day. Gen. Butler asked repeatedly for aid and reenforcement from the North. Vicksburg was growing stronger, Port Hudson above the city became a menace with its increasing Confederate batteries, and Mobile and a dozen camps near the city made the condition alarming. No help coming from the North, General Butler turned to the free men of color in the city for aid, and as usual, they responded gallantly to his appeal.

The free people of color in Louisiana then furnished the first colored contingent of the Federal Army, just as they[Pg 69] had furnished the first colored contingent of the Confederate Army.[95] The army records likewise show that Louisiana furnished more colored troops for the war than any other State. By the 27th of September, 1862, a full regiment of free men of color entered the service of the government, many of them being taken over from the State militia. It was in the beginning called the First Regiment of the Louisiana Native Guards. In June, 1863, its designation was changed to the First Regiment Corps D'Afrique, and later to the 73d Regiment U. S. C. Infantry. In October, 1862, another regiment was formed and the following month a regiment of heavy artillery was organized. About the same time a fourth regiment of men of color answered the call. Gen. Butler was succeeded in Louisiana by General Banks, who was so pleased with the appearance and drill of the colored regiments, that he issued an order for the organization of more in 1863, contemplating 18 regiments, comprising infantry, artillery, and cavalry. These were entirely officered by colored men, at first, but, as Col. Lewis tersely puts it, after the battle of Port Hudson,[97] a "steeple-chase was made[Pg 70] by the white men to take our places."[98] These troops thereafter acquitted themselves with great honor in this battle and also at that of Milliken's Bend.

The Emancipation Proclamation of January, 1863, was a most complicated matter in Louisiana, for the reason that out of the forty-eight parishes in the State, thirteen were under federal control, and consequently the slaves there were left in their original state. Many of the masters even in those parishes where the slaves were declared emancipated sent their most valuable slaves to Alabama and Texas, some[Pg 71] of them themselves fleeing with them. In parishes far removed from Union headquarters, news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not reach the slaves until long after it had been issued. Even then, in many cases, the proclamation had to be read at the point of the sword, federal soldiers compelling the slave owners to tell their chattels the news.[99]

From the time of the accession of General Banks to 1876, the history of Louisiana becomes a turmoil of struggle, centering around the brother in black.[100] It is no longer romance; it is grim war, and the colored man is the struggle, not the cause of it. Political parties in 1862 were many and various. The Free State party was in favor of abolishing slavery, but wanted representation based altogether on the white population. This was opposed by the Union Democrat party, which repudiated secession, but wished slavery continued or rather revived, believing that emancipation was only a war measure, and that after cessation of hostilities, slavery could be reestablished. But the plans of both parties fell to the ground.[101] The colored man became more and more of a political factor from day to day.

Cognomens here too proved to be another difficulty. Louisiana had two classes of colored men, freedmen and free men, a delicate, but carefully guarded distinction, the latter distinctly aristocratic. In 1863, the free men of color held a meeting and appealed to Governor Shepley for permission to register and vote. In the address to him, they reviewed their services to the United States from the time of General Jackson through the Civil War, and stated that they were then paying taxes on over $9,000,000. Several petitions of this sort failed to move General Banks,[102] for he thought it unfeasible to draw the line between free men of color and the recently emancipated Negroes.

The war of Reconstruction in Louisiana was fairly well launched in the Constitutional Convention of 1864. The[Pg 72] issue on which this body divided was what treatment should be accorded the freedmen. The two parties had much difficulty in reaching an agreement.[103] P. M. Tourne was sent to Washington to see President Lincoln. He had already suggested the ratification of the Emancipation Proclamation and the education of the colored youth.[104] In a letter congratulating the recently elected Governor Hahn on his election as the "first free-state governor of Louisiana" in 1864, Lincoln suggested suffrage for the more intelligent Negroes, and those who had served the country in the capacity of soldiers. This letter of Lincoln's, says Blaine, was the first proposition from any authentic source to endow the Negro with the right of suffrage.[105] In his last public utterance on April 11, 1865, Lincoln again touched the subject of suffrage in Louisiana, repeating that he held it better to extend to the more intelligent colored men the elective franchise, giving the recently emancipated a prize to work for in obtaining property and education.[106] The Convention tried in vain to declare what constituted a Negro, giving it up in disgust. It did abolish slavery in general; granted suffrage to those whites who were loyal to the government; and to colored men according to educational and property qualifications. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and the body adjourned.

The culmination of the fight between the Democrat and the Radical was in the struggle over the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in July, 1866. An attempt was made to re-open the Constitutional Convention of 1864.[107] The delegates, who favored the reopening of the convention, formed in the streets of New Orleans, and proceeded to march to the famous Mechanics Hall, the scene of almost every political[Pg 73] riot in the history of the city. The paraders became involved in a brawl with the white spectators; the police were called in; and the colored members of the convention and their white sympathizers fled to the hall where they attempted to barricade themselves. A general fight ensued, and over two hundred were killed.[108] The effect of this riot was electrical, not only in Louisiana but in the North, where it was construed as a deliberate massacre, and an uprising against the United States Government by the unreconstructed Louisianians.[109]

Efforts were made to bring about changes satisfactory to all. In 1867, Sheridan, in charge of the department of Louisiana, dismissed the board of aldermen of New Orleans, on the ground that they impeded the work of reconstruction and kept the government of the city in a disorganized condition. He appointed a new board of aldermen, some of whom were men of color, and in the next month this council appointed four assistant recorders, three of whom were colored, and two colored city physicians. In this month, September, 1867, the first legal voting of the colored man under the United States Government was recorded, that being their voting for delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868.[Pg 74][110]

This body proved to be an assemblage of ardent fighters for the rights of the factions they represented. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback proposed the adoption of the Civil Rights Bill, and the abolition of separate schools. In the convention were proposed the most stringent of all suffrage laws which would practically disfranchise many whites. Mr. Pinchback voted against this. He saved the day for the Republican party by opposing Wickliffe and other demagogues who wished to use the vote of the colored man by promising a majority of the offices to Negroes. Pinchback maintained that offices should be awarded with reference not to race, but to education and general ability.[111] In this he was fiercely opposed by many who were anxious for office, but not for the good of the State.[112]

Louisiana did not long delay in returning to the Union. On the same day on which she voted for the constitution which restored her to the Union, H. C. Warmoth was elected governor, and Oscar J. Dunn, a colored man, Lieutenant-Governor. Pinchback was then a State senator.[113] When the State legislature met in New Orleans in 1868, more than half of the members were colored men. Dunn was President of the Senate, and the temporary chairman of the lower house was R. H. Isabelle, a colored man. The first act of the new legislature was to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.[114]

And then ensued another halcyon period for the colored man in Louisiana, a period about which the average historian has little but sneers. Government in Louisiana by the colored man was different from that in other Southern States. There the average man who was interested in politics had wealth and generations of education and culture back of him. He was actuated by sincerest patriotism, and[Pg 75] while the more ignorant of the recently emancipated were too evidently under the control of the unscrupulous carpetbagger, there were not wanting more conservative men to restrain them.

The period following the meeting of the State legislature in 1868 was a stirring one. The Louisiana free people of color had a larger share in their government than that class had in any other Southern State. Among their representatives were Lieut.-Governor Oscar J. Dunn, State Treasurer Antoine Dubuclet, State Superintendent of Education Wm. G. Brown, Division Superintendent of Education Gen. T. Morris Chester, a Pennsylvanian by birth, congressmen, William Nash, and J. Willis Menard, the first colored representative elected, although he was not seated. Col. Lewis became Sergeant of the Metropolitan Police, following his service as Collector of the Port. Upon the death of Dunn, C. C. Antoine, who had served his country as a captain in the famous Seventh Louisiana, and then in the State Senate, succeeded him. Antoine was Lieutenant-Governor for eight years, first under Governor Kellogg, and then re-elected to serve under Governor Packard.

But the most thrilling part of the whole period centers about the person of that redoubtable fighter, Pinchback. He was nominated for Governor, and to save his party accepted a compromise on the Kellogg ticket. In 1872 he ran the great railroad race with Governor Warmoth, being Lieutenant-Governor and Acting Governor in the absence of the Governor from the State. His object was to reach the capital and sign two acts of the legislature, which involved the control of the State and possibly the national government.[115] It was a desperate undertaking, and the story of the race, as told by Governor Pinchback himself, reads like a romance. By a clever trick and the courage to stay up and fight in the senate all night, he saved the senate to the Republicans and perpetuated their rule four years longer in Louisiana than it would have continued.[Pg 76][116]

By the impeachment of Governor Warmoth in December, 1872, he became Acting Governor of the State until Jan., 1873, when the term expired and the Kellogg government was inaugurated, with C. C. Antoine, Lieutenant-Governor. That period when Pinchback was Governor of Louisiana was the stormiest ever witnessed in any state in the Union; but he was equal to the emergency. Then followed his long three years' fight for the seat in the United States Senate, with the defeat after the hard struggle.

The campaign of 1874 was inaugurated. The White Camelias, a league formed of Southern white men, determined to end the existing government, stood armed and ready. The Governor was garrisoned at the Custom-house, a huge citadel, and the fight was on between the White League and the Metropolitan Police. It was characteristic of this community that the fight should take place on Sunday. The struggle lasted all day, September 14, 1874, and by evening the citizens were in command of the situation. President Grant ordered troops to the place; the insurgents were ordered to disperse in five days, and the Governor resumed his office. But it was the end of the government by the men of color and their allies in the State. President Hayes, in order to conciliate his constituents in the South, withdrew federal support, and the downfall was complete.[117]

The history of the Reconstruction and the merits and demerits of the men who figured in that awful drama belong to the present generation. The unstable Reconstruction regime was overthrown in 1874 and the whites, eliminating the freedmen and free people of color from the government, established what they are pleased to call "home rule." The Negroes, who had served the State, however, deserved well of their constituents. It should be said to the credit of these black men that upon an investigation of the Treasurer's office which had for years been held by Antoine Dubuclet, a man of color, the committee of which Chief Justice Edward D. White of the United States Supreme[Pg 77] Court was then chairman, made a report practically exonerating him. Although making some criticisms as to irregularities and minor illegalities, the committee had to report that "the Treasurer certainly by a comparison deserves commendation for having accounted for all moneys coming into his hands, being in this particular a remarkable exception." A minority report signed by C. W. Keeting and T. T. Allain [118] thoroughly exonerated him. The expected impeachment proceedings which were to follow this investigation did not materialize.[Pg 78][119]

More about the people of color in Louisiana might be written. It is a theme too large to be treated save by a master hand. It is interwoven with the poetry, the romance, the glamour, the commercial prosperity, the financial ruin, the rise and fall of the State. It is hung about with garlands, like the garlands of the cemeteries on All Saints Day; it may be celebrated in song, or jeered at in charivaris. Some day, the proper historian will tell the story. There is no State in the Union, hardly any spot of like size on the globe, where the man of color has lived so intensely, made so much progress, been of such historical importance and yet about whom so comparatively little is known. His history is like the Mardi Gras of the city of New Orleans, beautiful and mysterious and wonderful, but with a serious thought underlying it all. May it be better known to the world some day.

Footnotes:

[50] Rose, "Life of Napoleon I," 333-336.

[51] As to the ability of a man of color to rise in this territory, the life of one man, recorded by the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, will furnish a good example. James Derham was originally a slave in Philadelphia, sold by his master to a physician, who employed him in the shop as an assistant in the preparation of drugs. During the war between England and America, he was sold by this physician to a surgeon, and by that surgeon to Dr. Robert Dove of New Orleans. Here he learned French and Spanish so as to speak both with ease. In 1788, he was received into the English church, when he was twenty-one and became, says the report, "one of the most distinguished physicians in New Orleans." "I conversed with him on medicine," says Dr. Rush, "and found him very learned. I thought I could give him information on the treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him that he could expect from me." The Columbian Gazette, II, 742-743.

[52] Gayarré, III, p. 595.

[53] Ibid., IV, p. 218.

[54] Ibid., p. 219.

[55] Gayarré, IV, p. 219.

[56] Ibid., p. 229.

[57] Grace King tells a pretty story of the saving of Jean Lafitte's life. On the very day that a price was set upon his head by Gov. Claiborne he was invited to be the guest at a plantation, and almost at the same instant there arrived unexpectedly Mrs. Claiborne, the wife of the governor. The hostess, with quick presence of mind, introduced the gentleman to the wife of the governor as Monsieur Clement, and then hurriedly went out of the room, leaving her guests together. She called Henriette, her confidential servant, and looking her straight in the eyes, said: "Henriette, Gov. Claiborne has set a price upon Monsieur Lafitte's head. Anyone who takes him a prisoner and carries him to the governor will receive five hundred dollars reward, and M. Laffitte's head will be cut off. Send all the other servants away; set the table yourself, and wait on us yourself. Remember to call M. Lafitte, M. Clement—and be careful before Mme. Claiborne." The colored woman responded with perfect tact and discretion. See Grace King, "New Orleans, the Place and the People," 204.

[58] Gayarré, IV, p. 127.

[59] Ibid., p. 127.

[60] Gayarré, IV, p. 131.

[61] King, "New Orleans: The Place and Its People."

[62] Paul Alliot's Reflections in Robertson's "Louisiana under the Rule of Spain," I, p. 67.

[63] Ibid., 103, 111.

[64] Evans, "A Pedestrian's Tour, etc." Thwaites, "Early Western Travels," VIII, 336.

[65] Harriet Martineau painted in 1837 a picture of this society, showing how the depravity of the settlers had worked out. "The Quadroon girls of New Orleans," said she, "are brought up by their mothers to be what they have been, the mistresses of white gentlemen. The boys are some of them sent to France; some placed on land in the back of the State; and some are sold in the slave market. They marry women of a somewhat darker color than their own; the women of their own color objecting to them, 'ils sont si degoutants!' The girls are highly educated, externally, and are, probably, as beautiful and accomplished a set of women as can be found. Every young man early selects one and establishes her in one of those pretty and peculiar houses, whole rows of which may be seen in the Remparts. The connexion now and then lasts for life; usually for several years. In the latter case, when the time comes for the gentleman to take a wife, the dreadful news reaches his Quadroon partner, either by letter entitling her to call the house and furniture her own, or by the newspaper which announces his marriage. The Quadroon ladies are rarely or never known to form a second connexion. Many commit suicide, more die heartbroken. Some men continue the connexion after marriage. Every Quadroon woman believes that her partner will prove an exception to the rule of desertion. Every white lady believes that her husband has been an exception to the rule of seduction." See Harriet Martineau, "Society in America," II, 326-327; see also Nuttall's Journal in Thwaites, "Early Western Travels," XIII, 309-310.

[66] Gayerré, IV, p. 335.

[67] Gayerré, IV, p. 336.

[68] Ibid., p. 336.

[69] He said: "Through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer exists.

As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous support as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government. As fathers, husbands and brothers, you are summoned to rally round the standard of the eagle to defend all which is dear in existence.

Your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services rendered. Your intelligent minds are not to be led away by false representations. Your love of honor would cause you to despise the man who would attempt to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier and the language of truth I address you.

To every noble-hearted, generous freeman—men of color, volunteering to serve during the present contest with Great Britain and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty in money and lands now received by the white soldiers of the United States, viz.: $124 in money and 160 acres of land. The non-commissioned officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay and daily rations and clothes, furnished to any American soldier. On enrolling yourselves in companies, the Major-General commanding will select officers from your government from your white citizens. Your non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves.

Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and soldiers. You will not, by being associated with white men in the same corps, be exposed to improper comparisons, or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct, independent battalion or regiment, pursuing the path of glory, you will undivided, receive the applause and gratitude of your country men.

To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions and my anxiety to engage your invaluable services to our country, I have communicated my wishes to the Governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed as to the manner of enrollment, and will give you every necessary information on the subject of this address." See Williams, "History of the Negro Race," II, 25 and 26.

[70] Gayarré, IV, p. 406.

[71] He was probably regarded as a quadroon who had been accepted by the white race. See Gayarré, IV, 406.

[72] Gayarré, IV, p. 451.

[73] Ibid., p. 427 et passim.

[74] For years after the Civil War, one of the most picturesque figures in New Orleans was Jordan B. Noble, who at the time of the Battle of New Orleans was a slim youth. It was his tireless beating of the drum which led to battle the American forces on the nights of December 23 and January 8. He lived to be an old man, and appeared on several occasions at the St. Charles theatre, where a great audience turned out to do him honor and give an ovation when he beat the drum again as he had on those memorable nights. The Delta records a benefit given him at the theatre in 1854. In 1851 The New Orleans Picayune in commenting on the celebration of the victory of New Orleans notes the presence in the line of parade of 90 colored veterans. "And who did more than they to save the city?" it asks in the midst of a highly eulogistic review of the battle. Grace King, "New Orleans, the Place and the People," 256; and Grace King's letter to A. O. Stafford in 1904.

[75] Gayarré, IV, pp. 517-531.

[76] Fortier, "Louisiana," II, p. 231.

[77] Cable, "The Creoles," p. 211; Grace King, "New Orleans," 260.

[78] Martineau, "Society in America," p. 326 et passim.

[79]Channing, "The Jeffersonian System," 84.

[80] For a general sketch see Ballard and Curtis's "A Digest of the Statutes of the State of Louisiana," pp. 65 et seq.

[81] Dunn, "Indiana," 234; and 1 Miss. (Walker), p. 36.

[82] See "The Revised Statutes of Louisiana," 1852, pp. 524 et seq.

[83] Rhodes, "History of the United States," III, 331.

[84] Flint, "Recollections of the Last Ten Years," 345.

[85] Olmsted, "The Cotton Kingdom," II, 213.

[86] Captain Marryat, Diary in America, 67-68.

[87] Desdunes, "Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire," 32.

[88] This fact is based on the statements of the persons concerned.

[89] Grace King, "New Orleans," 272.

[90] Trotter, "Music, and Some Musical People," pp. 339-340.

[91] Ibid., pp. 340-341; Desdunes, "Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire," pp. 117-118.

[92] The most definite picture, and the best possible of the state of the persons of color in Louisiana, is to be found in Parton's "Butler in New Orleans." History will never agree about Gen. Butler. He is alternately execrated by the South, sneered at by the North, written down by his contemporary officers, and canonized by the abolitionists. If he did nothing else worthy of record, at least he gave the splendid militia composed of the free men of color a chance to prove their loyalty to the union by entering the Civil War as fighters.

We are indebted to him for the pictures he draws of the slave population of Louisiana; of the wealth and beauty of the free men and women of color. Their population was 18,647. "The best blood of the South flows in the veins of these free people of color," he writes, "and a great deal of it, for the darkest of some of them were about the complexion of Daniel Webster." Parton, "General Butler in New Orleans," p. 517.

[93] New Orleans Picayune, Feb. 9, 1862.

[94] Report of the Select Committee on the New Orleans Riots, p. 126.

[95] Ficklen, "Reconstruction in Louisiana," 121.

[96] From Ex-Lieutenant Governor Antoine we have a statement as to how the troops were organized at Baton Rouge. Of the gallant officers of this first regiment, one man lives to tell of its glories. This was Col. James Lewis, who was in command for four months at Port Hudson.

[97] The battle of Port Hudson, like the battle of New Orleans, is almost too well known to be told of. It takes its place naturally in history with desperate fights, reminding one somewhat of the battles of Balaklava. It was early in the morning of May 27, 1863, that the engagement began. The colored men in line numbered 1,080. When the order for assault was given they charged the fort, which belched forth its flame and shot and shell. The slaughter was horrible, but the line never wavered. Into the mill of death the colored troops hurled themselves. The colors were shot through and almost severed from the staff; the color-sergeant, Anselmas Planciancois, was killed, and two corporals struggled for the honor of bearing the flag from his dying hands. One of them was killed.

The bravest hero of the day was Capt. André Caillioux, whose name all Louisianians remember with a thrill of pride. He was a freeman of West Indian extraction, and fond of boasting of his blackness. With superb heroism and splendid magnetism he led his men time and again into the very "jaws of death" in the assault, and fell at the front in one last heroic effort within fifty yards of the fort.

"Still forward and charge for the guns," said Caillioux,
And his shattered sword-arm was the guidon they knew;
But a fire rakes the flanks and a fire rakes the van,
He is down with the ranks that go down as one man.

A correspondent of the New York Times gave a most glowing account of the battle. "During the time the troops rallied, they were ordered to make six distinct charges, losing 37 killed, 155 wounded, and sixteen missing.... The deeds of heroism performed by these colored men were such as the proudest white men might emulate.... I could fill your columns with startling tales of their heroism. Although repulsed in an attempt which, situated as things were, was almost impossible, these regiments, though badly cut up, are still on hand, and burning with a passion ten times hotter from their fierce baptism of blood." See Williams, "History of the Negro Race," II, 321.

The battle of Milliken's Bend will always rank as one of the hardest fought engagements in the Civil War. It was an important point on the river, because it commanded Vicksburg, and in General Grant's scheme to effect the reduction of that city, it was necessary to control this point. The engagement was on June 6, 1863, and continued from three in the morning until twelve noon. Never did men fight with greater courage against such odds at the point of the bayonet than did these colored troops. The appalling list of casualties shows how they stood the test. Of the officers in the colored forces, seven were killed, nine wounded, three missing. Of the enlisted men, 123 killed, 182 wounded, 113 missing. In commenting on this battle, Schouler, in his history of the United States, speaks of the great bravery shown by the troops, and points out there was a sudden change of opinion in the South about enlisting colored troops on the side of the Confederacy. "Many of the clear-sighted leaders of this section proposed seriously to follow the Northern President's example,—and arm Negro slaves as soldiers." He adds: "That strange conclusion, had it ever been reached, would perhaps have reunited North and South eventually in sentiment,—by demonstrating at length the whole fallacy upon which the social difference of sections had so long rested. For as a Confederate writer expressed it, 'if the Negro was fit to be a soldier, he was not fit to be a slave,'" Schouler, "History of U. S.," Vol. VI, p. 407; and Williams, "History of the Negro Race," II, 326-328.

[98] Colonel Lewis's statement.

[99] Based on the statements of slaves.

[100] Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," VII, 104 et seq.; Schouler, "History of U. S.," VI, 245 et seq.

[101] Ficklen, "Reconstruction in Louisiana," 47 et seq.

[102] Ibid., pp. 64, 65.

[103] In the meanwhile, Confederates had set up a capital at Shreveport, and their governor recommended Negro conscripts in the Confederate army. His reasoning was acute and clear: He said, "The Negro must play an important part in the war. He caused the fight, and he must have his portion of the burden to bear." See Ficklen, "Reconstruction," 63.

[104] Ficklen, "Reconstruction," 63.

[105] Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," II, 39, 40.

[106] Lincoln, Address of, April 11, 1865.

[107] 39 Cong. House of Representatives, No. 16.

[108] Ficklen, "Reconstruction in Louisiana," 146-179.

[109] Not all Southern sympathizers saw menace in granting the Negro political privileges. Seeing it inevitable, General Beauregard wrote in 1867, "If the suffrage of the Negro is properly handled and directed, we shall defeat our adversaries with their own weapons. The Negro is Southern born. With education and property qualifications, he can be made to take an interest in the affairs of the South, and in its prosperity. He will side with the whites." Letter of Gen. Beauregard.

[110] With the year 1868 one of the most picturesque and splendid figures in the history of the state springs fully into the light. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback had already made himself known by his efforts to recruit soldiers for the Louisiana Native Guards; by his stringent demands for the rights of the colored man on all occasions. He was the dashing young Lochinvar of the political struggle. He had made his first move in 1867 by organizing the Fourth Ward Republican Club, and had been appointed Inspector of Customs by Collector of Port Kellogg. In the Constitution of 1868 he took his definite rôle of a fighter to be feared, respected and followed—and for many a year afterwards, the history of Louisiana is written around his name. Simmons, "Men of Mark," 672.

[111] Accounts of this appeared in the Tribune, the best, and almost the only influential organ of the Republican party in the state, the editor of which was Dr. Roudanez, a well-to-do man of color. It was not a financial success, though a powerful factor in the political arena. Dr. Roudanez said that he spent over $35,000 on the paper in the effort to keep up an honest organ. It was suspended in April, 1868, but was revived later.

[112] Journal of the Convention, 124, 192, 205 et passim.

[113] Simmons, "Men of Mark," 678.

[114] Journal of the Senate, 1868, p. 21.

[115] Pinchback's own Statement.

[116] Based on the statements of the persons participating in these affairs.

[117] Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," VII, 287.

[118] Mr. T. T. Allain is now living in Chicago. He has much to say in praise of the efficient, honest and courageous men of color who administered the affairs of Louisiana during this period. Mr. Allain himself was a State Senator.

[119] The report consisted of answers to the following questions:

1. What was the condition of the accounts of the Treasurer connected with the verification of the entries of such accounts as well as ascertaining by such verification whether the receipts had been correctly entered and disbursed, and the cash properly and legally applied.

2. What mode of settlement had been established by the Treasurer in receiving revenue turned in by tax collectors.

3. What discrimination, if any, had been exercised in the payment of warrants.

The report in part was:

"Beyond these matters your committee find the books of the Treasurer to have been kept in an orderly manner; the disbursements have been regularly entered, and the cash presently all accounted for up to the first of January, 1877, to which period this report alone extends. These vouchers and orders are all on hand and the warrants for each payment are properly canceled....

"These figures do not of necessity import proof absolute and conclusive of any undue favoritism, although by circumstances and legitimate inference they point to that conclusion. Warrants being negotiable it has been impossible to ascertain who held those outstanding, and therefore impossible to fix a proper proportion of payment, but the fact that the multitude of payments made to the same person, while other warrant holders were forced to wait, and the intimacy existing between themselves or their employees and the Treasurer are, undeniably, circumstances which, unexplained, justify at least a suspicion that these parties have enjoyed facilities, preferences and privileges at the Treasury over the general public, to which they were not entitled.

"It is true that these figures are explained by statements that the proportion paid the respective persons mentioned were only in proportion to the amount which the warrants held by them bore to the whole amount of outstanding warrants, but this explanation in itself merits notice and explanation, because of the fact that the persons named were the holders of such a large amount of warrants imply some inducement on their part to invest in them, more especially as by avocation the majority of them were not brokers but employees in the Custom-House. Some of them have testified that all the warrants they held were paid. Another has refused to disclose for whom he collected. A third was a relative of a personal employee of the Treasurer. One has been shown to be a constant frequenter of his office, and must have been an intimate of the Treasurer's from the fact that he appears to have been the payee of a check for $75,000 illegally drawn, as mentioned before. They point, at least, to the necessity of such legislation as may be adequate to prevent even possible suspicion of favoritism in the future. Under the provisions of the acts of the General Assembly, passed at the session of 1877, the danger of favoritism has been very much safeguarded and needs supplementing in only minor particulars.

"The Treasurer certainly by comparison deserves commendation for having accounted for all moneys coming into his hands, being in this particular a remarkable exception. Edward D. White, James D. Hill, Sam H. Buck."—Report of Joint Committee to Investigate the Treasurer's Office, State of Louisiana, to the General Assembly, 1877, pp. 7-12, Majority Report.

Notes on Connecticut as a Slave State

On June 17 Mr. E. B. Bronson, the Winchester historian and president of the Winchester Historical Society, delivered before the woman's club and the students of the Gilbert School an address on "Connecticut as a Slave State." The address in part was:

Documents

LETTERS OF ANTHONY BENEZET

Benezet published his letters at his own expense and distributed them with the accompanying circular letter below.

"Copy of the substance of a letter written to several persons of note, both in Europe and America, on sending them some of the negroe pamphlets, viz. account of Africa, &c. particularly to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated about the year 1758, and since.

"With the best respects I am capable of, and from, I trust, no other motive but that of love to mankind; and from a persuasion of thy sincere desires for the suppression of evil and the promotion of that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation, I make bold affectionately to salute thee, and to request a little of thy attention to a subject which has long been a matter of deep concern to many, vast many, well disposed people of all denominations in these parts, viz. that of the negroe trade, the purchase and bringing the poor negroes from their native land, and subjecting them to a state of perpetual bondage, the most cruel and oppressive, in which the English nation is so deeply engaged, and which with additional sorrow we observe to be greatly increasing in their northern colonies, and likely still more to increase by the acquisition the English have lately made of the factories on the river Senegal. I herewith send thee some small treatises lately published here on that subject, wherein are truely set forth the great inhumanity and wickedness which this trade gives life to, whereby hundreds of thousands of our fellow creatures, equally with us the objects of Christ's redeeming grace, and as free as we are by nature, are kept under the worst oppression, and many of them yearly brought to a miserable and untimely end.

"I make bold earnestly to entreat, that thou wouldst be pleased seriously to read them, when I doubt not thou wilt perceive it to be a matter which calls for the most deep consideration of all who are concerned for the civil, as well as religious welfare of their country, and who are desirous to avert those judgments, which evils of such a dye must necessarily sooner or later bring upon every people[Pg 84] who are defiled therewith, and will, I trust, plead my excuse for the freedom I take in thus addressing myself to thee. How an evil of so deep a dye, has so long, not only passed unnoticed, but has even had the countenance of the government, and been supported by law, is surprising; it must be because many worthy men in power, both of the laity and clergy, have been unacquainted with the horrible wickedness with which the trade is carried on, the corrupt motives which give life to it, and the groans, the numberless dying groans, which daily ascend to God, the common father of mankind, from the broken hearts of those our deeply oppressed fellow creatures."[120]

"I herewith send thee a small tract (which I desire thou mayest keep) lately sent me by Granville Sharp; it is an appendix to his former treatise, and was published on account of the late negroe trial. He has wrote me a long intelligent letter, with relation to the situation of things in London on that head, which I shall be well pleased to have an opportunity to communicate to thee. It seems lord Mansfield, notwithstanding truth forced him to give such a judgment, was rather disposed to favour the cause of the master than that of the slave. He advised the master to apply to the parliament then sitting, which was done accordingly, but without success. He fears such an application will be renewed at the next session, and is preparing through his friends in parliament and the bishops, to endeavour to prevent its taking place, and calls for our help from this side the water. In this case as he desires a speedy answer, I stand in need of the advice of my friends what answer to make him. I have already let one opportunity pass; there will be soon another to Liverpool. I have also to communicate an interesting letter from Benjamin Franklin on the same subject."

"I received both thy letters, inclosing the petition, and have been concerned that I have not sooner acquainted thee with what had been resulted thereon; but the care of a large school, engagement upon engagement, I think four or five evenings last week, on[Pg 85] committees, &c., and the books which I received from England, which I intended to send thee not being all returned, occasioned the delay. The vessel from Virginia being near its departure when the petitions came to hand, had but just time to confer with James Pemberton, on the expediency of forwarding them, when we concluded best to take more time and wait for a future opportunity which he thought would offer. I herewith send thee such of the pieces relating to slavery, &c. of the negroes, which I have been able to get back; people are shamefully careless in not returning borrowed books. That wanting, wrote by a West Indian, I will send hereafter. I have received since I saw thee, a letter from the chief justice of South Carolina, which will I believe afford thee much satisfaction."

"The passage we were seeking for is Psalms 68, 31, 'Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God,' under which name all that part of Africa inhabited by negroes may be comprehended, and that these are the people here intended is clear from Jer. 13, 23, 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?'

"Since my return I have received letters from Thomas Nicholson in North Carolina, Edward Stabler in Virginia, and James Berry in Maryland, all leading members in their several yearly meetings (these I shall be glad to communicate to thee) expressive of their concern for forwarding the great and good work we are engaged in. Edward Stabler, clerk of the yearly meeting of Virginia, expresses, that though they have not yet received the encouragement they desire to their petition in England, yet it has not abated the zeal of some of their leading men against the traffic."

"Thy kind letter of the twenty-eighth of Eight Month last, I received in due time, and gratefully acknowledge thy kind sympathy therein expressed. I am likeminded with thee, with respect to the danger and difficulty which would attend a sudden manumission of those negroes now in the southern colonies, as well as to themselves, as to the whites; wherefore except in particular cases the obtaining their freedom, and indeed the freedom of many even[Pg 86] amongst us, is by no means the present object of my concern. But the best endeavors in our power to draw the notice of the governments, upon the grievous iniquity and great danger attendant on a further prosecution of the slave trade, is what every truly sympathising mind cannot but earnestly desire, and under divine direction promote to the utmost of their power. If this could be obtained, I trust the sufferings of those already amongst us, by the interposition of the government, and even from selfish ends in their masters, would be mitigated, and in time Providence would gradually work for the release of those, whose age and situation would fit them for freedom. The settlements now in prospect to be made in that large extent of country, from the west side of the Allegany mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred miles, would afford a suitable and beneficial means of settlement for many of them among the white people, which would in all probability be as profitable to the negroes as to the new settlers. But I do not desire to take up thy time especially with matters of so remote a nature, it being indeed with reluctance I take up any of it, which I would have avoided, was there any person to whom I could have addressed myself with the same expectation, that what I have in view would be thereby answered. An address has been presented to our assembly, desiring it would use its utmost endeavours with the king and parliament, that an end may be put to the slave trade, by laying a duty of twenty pounds on all slaves imported. It was thought necessary that some friends with you should be acquainted with the further steps that had been, or were likely to be taken, so as to enable you to speak in support of the law, if necessary: to which end I herewith send thee a copy of the address, also a copy of what I now write to our agent, Benjamin Franklin, on that head, in order to make him acquainted with what passes here on this momentous concern.

"I have also enclosed a number of copies of a pamphlet wrote at the time we presented the petition, in order to lay the weight of the matter briefly before the members of the assembly, and other active members of government in this and the neighbouring provinces. It was written by Benjamin Rush, a young physician of the Presbyterian communion, a person who I understand thou was acquainted with, when pursuing his studies three or four years past with you. I almost send a small collection of religious tracts, chiefly compiled for the use of inquiring people in our back countries, where such books are much wanted. I endeavoured so to collect[Pg 87] them as to be plain, instructive and edifying, without touching upon that which might be of fruitless debate.

"I wrote thee at large, by a vessel for Ireland, about six weeks past, and also three weeks ago by the packet from New York, respecting the steps taken, and likely to be pursued in the several more northern provinces, in relation to the slave trade. I am glad to understand from my friend Benjamin Franklin, that you have commenced an acquaintance, and that he expects in future, to concert with thee in the affair of slavery. I herewith send thee some pamphlets, and in a confidence of thy goodness of heart, which by looking to the intention, will construe the freedom I have taken in the best light,

"I take this opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of Anthony Benezet's book against the slave trade: I thank you for it. It is not a little surprising, that the professors of christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong. What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times, that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny, which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested. Is it not amazing, that at a time, when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty; that in such an age, and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity, as it is inconsistent with the bible, and destructive to liberty? How few in practice from conscientious motive!

"Would any one believe that I am master of slaves, of my own[Pg 88] purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However capable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue, as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.

"I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Every thing we can do, is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law, which warrants slavery.

"I know not where to stop. I could say many things on the subject; a serious view of which, gives a gloomy perspective in future times!"[121]

"I was pleased to hear from thee. I have not been unmindful of endeavoring to lay before all the delegates I have conversed with, the dreadful situation of the people in the most southern provinces, and the absolute necessity they are under of ceasing, at least from any farther import of negroes. With Patrick Henry I went further, he gave some attention when I mentioned from whence I apprehended we must look for deliverance, even from God alone, but pursuing such methods as would be most agreeable to the nature of the Beneficent Father of the family of mankind, whose love and regard to his children, even such who were influenced by wrong dispositions, remained unchangeable. That we could not conciliate the Divine regard, but by acting agreeably to the Divine attribute, which was love, and was to overcome by suffering.

"That whatever wound might be given or received, between us and the mother country, if ever that which was right prevailed, we should mourn over. That as christianity knew of no enemies, we could not expect deliverance by the violent method proposed, without departing from the true foundation. To this with seriousness he replied, that it was strange to him, to find some of the Quakers manifesting so different a disposition from that I had described.[Pg 89] I reminded him that many of them had no other claim to our principles, but as they were children or grandchildren of those who professed those principles. I suppose his remark principally arose from the violent spirit which some under our profession are apt to show, more particularly in the congress, amongst whom I understand one of the deputies from your city, and one from ours, appear as principals for promoting such measures. I feel but little apprehension at the prospect of things, which to many is so alarming. People are afraid of being disturbed in their enjoyments, in their ease, their confidence in the world, and the things of it. But I fear nothing more than giving way to a spirit whose hope and expectation is from the unchristian, yea unnatural, and cruel measures proposed by many, too many, who seemed to have worked themselves to such a pitch, that it looks as if they were athirst for blood! Its from God alone, by true faith in his promises, deliverance must arise; and if from the prevalence of other measures affliction and distress should be our lot, it will be our own fault if it does not work for our good. Oh! if a sufficient concern prevailed to experience grace to gain the victory, to know all worldly inclinations and desires to be brought under the regulation of the humbling power of the gospel, many would feel so much of self in themselves, inducing to hope and seek for comfort from the world, from our ease and plenty, which is yet as a bar to obtaining an establishment in the pure, the humble, self denying path of truth. If we properly felt our wants, the gulf between us and true peace, if the combat between nature and grace were duly maintained, the dread of outward evils would have little weight with us, however we fall by outward commotion, even if the earth should be dissolved, if in proper dispositions we cannot fall lower than in God's arms.

"P.S. I should have been glad to have seen thyself and dear companion before you left us, but make it a rule to take no exception where no slight is intended; indeed where it is, to bear it, and take the first opportunity to return kindness for the contrary, as most noble, and most conducive to peace."

"I was sorrowfully disappointed in not seeing thee in town. I had just received a long letter from Granville Sharp, which I should have been glad of an opportunity of showing thee, and[Pg 90] taking thy advice upon a suitable answer, more particularly upon a matter he appears to have much at heart, viz. our procuring as many petitions as possible from persons of some weight in the several provinces, to the same purport as ours to the assembly, immediately to the king alone. As I shall not send my letter before William Dillwyn goes, which may be some time first, perhaps I may still have an opportunity of consulting thee on this matter. Inclosed I send the copy of an argument, &c. I found in Granville Sharp's letter which strikes me boldly and deeply. I hope the idea will have a tendency to raise generous sentiments in some of thy brethren of the law, whose hearts are not yet quite scared with the love of the world, to appear in the noble cause of real liberty. I showed it to Dr. Rush, and inquiring whether we should publish it in the prints, he replied, 'they would knock us on the head if we did,' I believe it will in future be profitably made use of. Remember me affectionately to James Kinsey, I should be glad to know his sentiments on the law reasoning of the argument. What a great thing it is to stand up for liberty, true liberty, from a mind truly delivered from all selfishness, in an unfeigned love to God and mankind. O the selfishness of the human heart, how much of it is apt still to cleave to us, even when our designs are upright."

"I herewith send thee a dozen pamphlets. I shall be glad that these and more of the same may be handed to the members of your assembly, and such others in your province, with whom they may be likely to promote a representation being made to the king and parliament against the slave trade."

"I should have been very glad to have got thee to peruse the notes (on slavery) I intend to make, as they will be large, and I wish if possible to put them into the hands of the members of every assembly on the continent, except South Carolina and Georgia, but do not desire thou shouldst be put out of the way on that occasion. I suppose it will be eight or ten, or more days before in the press. It might preserve me from inadvertently publishing something which might rather weaken the cause we have both at heart. However, in this, and all other things, I desire to stand clear in the purity of my design, and leave the event, but watch against my national activity."[Pg 91]

"The piece on slave keeping is excellent, but the arguments against the lawfulness of war, have been answered a thousand times. May the father of lights lead us into all truths, and over all the commotions of this world, to his own glory, and the introduction of that kingdom of peace and righteousness, which will endure forever. Believe me to be your sincere friend."

"I ought not to omit, my valued friend, the returning you my kindest thanks for your obliging present of books, which I shall peruse with intention, and for your sake keep them by me. It would be happy for the world at large, and for individuals, if the principles they maintain were rightly understood and cordially received; we should in that case have had no occasion to deplore the present miseries and troubles, which (as the certain effect of sin) naturally result from the ambition, dishonesty and other unmortified passions of mankind. The world on the contrary would be something like a paradise regained; and universal benevolence and philanthropy, reside as they ought in the human heart. But though from long experience we may and must despair of the general diffusion of Christian sentiments and practice, we have this comfortable trust, in our own particular persons, that we have a peace which the world can neither give nor take away; and though the kingdoms of this world tumble into confusion, and are lost in the corrupted strivings of men, we have a kingdom prepared of God, incorruptible and that cannot fade away. There, though I see your face no more upon earth, I have hope of meeting with you again; both of us divested of all that can clog or injure our spirits, and both participating that fulness of joy which flows from God's right hand for evermore. To his tender protection I commend you, and remain with sincere esteem your affectionate friend."

"Mr. Oglethorp you know went so far as to begin settling a colony without negroes, but at length the voice of those villains prevailed who sell their country and their God for gold, who laugh at human nature and compassion, and defy all religion but that of getting money. It is certainly our duty to do all in our power to[Pg 92] check this growing evil, and something may be done by spreading those tracts which place it in a true light. But I fear it will not be stopped till all the kingdoms of this earth become the kingdoms of our God."

"I desire to embrace as my brethern all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. I cannot but think that all true Christians agree in fundamentals. Your tracts concerning slavery are very just, and it is a matter I have often thought of, even before I became acquainted with the truth: your arguments are forcible against purchasing slaves, or being any way concerned in that trade."

"From the idea which I conceived of the justice, and generosity of thy sentiments, I took the liberty of writing to thee about seven or eight months past under cover of my friend Benjamin Franklin, and likewise by J—— B——, who we are afraid was lost on his passage. Having received no answer by several vessels, nor knowing whether my letters reached thee, or whether thine miscarried, and a good opportunity offering by my friend Dr. Griffitts, I now seize it to send thee two copies of a small extract of origin and principles of my brethern the Quakers, whom I observe in such of thy writings as have come to our hands, thou didst not think unworthy of thy attention. I have nothing to add to what I have already wrote thee, but I shall repeat my wish of saluting thee affectionately on the principles of reason and humanity, which constitutes that grand circle of love and charity, unconfined by our parentage or country, but which affectionately embraces the whole creation, earnestly desiring to the utmost of my abilities to promote the happiness of all men, even of my enemies themselves, could I have any. I beseech God to give thee strength that thou mayest continue to hold up to mankind, thy brethren, principles tending to replenish their hearts with goodness, friendship and charity towards each other, that thus thou mayest, to the utmost of thy power, render men reasonable, useful, and consequently happy; and more especially that thou mayest combat that false principle of honour, or rather of intolerable pride and folly, which so strongly prevails in our nation, where the most indolent, and the[Pg 93] least useful, fancy themselves, and are reputed the most noble. Let us endeavour to make them sensible that men are noble, but in exact proportion with their being rational. The happiness which is to be found in virtue alone, is sought for by men through the titles acquired by their fathers for their activity in those wars which have desolated the world, or in the wealth accumulated by their ancestors; both means generally unjust and oppressive, and consequently rather sources of shame and humiliation. For as the Chinese philosopher well observes, 'there is scarcely one rich man out of an hundred, who was not himself an oppressor, or the son of an oppressor.'

"Let us display to princes and rulers of nations, the example of Numa Pompilius, who, by a conduct opposite to that of Romulus, his predecessor, and most of his successors, rendered the Romans, during his long reign, so respectable and happy. Above all, my dear friend, let us represent to our compatriots the abominable iniquity of the Guinea trade. Let us put to the blush the pretended disciples of the benign Saviour of the World, for the encouragement given to the unhappy Africans in invading the liberty of their own brethren. Let us rise, and rise with energy against the corruption introduced into the principles and manners of the masters and owners of slaves, by a conduct so contrary to humanity, reason, and religion. Let us be still more vehement in representing its baneful influence on the principles and manners of their wretched offspring, necessarily educated in idleness, pride, and all the vices to which human nature is liable.

"How desirable is it that Lewis the Sixteenth, whose virtues, and good disposition have been so nobly praised, would set an example to the other potentates of Europe, by forbidding his subjects to be concerned in a traffic so evil in itself, and so corrupting in its consequences; and that he would also issue out ordinances in favour of the negroes, who are now slaves in his dominions. Alas! should christianity, that law of love and charity, work its proper effect on the hearts of its pretended disciples, we should see numbers of christians traverse Africa, and both the Indies, not to pollute themselves with slavery and slaughter, nor to accumulate wealth, the supreme wish of the present nominal christians, but that divine love would impel them to visit remote regions in order to make the inhabitants acquainted with the corruption of the human heart, and invite them to seek for the influence of that grace proposed by the gospel, by which they may obtain salvation. I am under the necessity[Pg 94] of concluding hastily, requesting thou wouldst excuse faults, which time does not allow me to correct, and to write to me by various opportunities, the vessels bound to those parts often missing their destination.

"All your letters have miscarried; happily I received that of the sixteenth of July, 1781, with the pamphlets filled with light and sensibility, which accompany it. Never was any present more agreeable to me. My satisfaction was equal to the respect I have always had for the society of Quakers. May it please Heaven to cause all nations to adopt their principles; men would then be happy, and the globe not stained with blood. Let us join in our supplications to the supreme Being, that he may unite us in the bonds of a tender and unalterable charity.

"Impressed with a sense of religious duty, and encouraged by the opinion generally entertained of thy benevolent disposition to succour the distressed, I take the liberty, very respectfully, to offer to thy perusal some tracts which I believe faithfully describe the suffering condition of many hundred thousands of our fellow creatures of the African race, great numbers of whom, rent from every tender connexion in life, are annually taken from their native land, to endure, in the American islands and plantations, a most rigorous and cruel slavery, whereby many, very many of them, are brought to a melancholy and untimely end. When it is considered, that the inhabitants of Britain, who are themselves so eminently blessed in the enjoyment of religious and civil liberty, have long been, and yet are, very deeply concerned in this flagrant violation of the common rights of mankind, and that even its national authority is exerted in support of the African slave trade, there is much reason to apprehend that this has been, and as long as the evil exists, will continue to be, an occasion of drawing down the Divine displeasure on the nation and its dependencies. May these considerations induce[Pg 95] thee to interpose thy kind endeavours on behalf of this greatly oppressed people, whose abject situation gives them an additional claim to the pity and assistance of the generous mind, inasmuch as they are altogether deprived of the means of soliciting effectual relief for themselves. That so thou may not only be a blessed instrument in the hand of Him 'by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice,' to avert the awful judgments by which the empire has already been so remarkably shaken, but that the blessings of thousands ready to perish may come upon thee, at a time when the superior advantages attendant on thy situation in this world, will no longer be of any avail to thy consolation and support. To the tracts on the subject to which I have thus ventured to crave thy particular attention, I have added some others, which at different times, I have believed it my duty to publish, and which I trust will afford thee some satisfaction; their design being for the furtherance of that universal peace, and good will amongst men, which the gospel was intended to introduce. I hope thou will kindly excuse the freedom used on this occasion, by an ancient man, whose mind for more than forty years past, has been much separated from the common course of the world, and long painfully exercised in the consideration of the miseries under which so large a part of mankind equally with us the objects of redeeming love, are suffering the most unjust and grievous oppression, and who sincerely desires the temporal, and eternal felicity of the queen and her royal consort.

Reviews Of Books

The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington. By B. F. Riley, D.D., LL.D. Introduction by Edgar Y. Mullins, D.D., LL.D., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 301.

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. By Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916. Pp. 331.

Since the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, the press has been loud in singing his praises and writers have hurriedly published sketches of his career. These first biographies unfortunately have been inadequate to furnish the public a proper review of the record of the distinguished man. In these two volumes before us, however, this requirement has certainly been met.

The first is a valuable work which must find its way into every up-to-date library in this country. It is an excellent estimate of the services of a distinguished Negro, written by a white man who is unselfishly laboring for the uplift of the black race. "Though of another race," says Dr. Riley, "the present biographer is not affected by the consciousness that he is writing of a Negro." Throughout this work the writer is true to this principle. He has endeavored to be absolutely frank in noting here and there the difficulties and handicaps by which white men of the South have endeavored to keep the Negro down. The aim of the author is so to direct attention to the needs of the Negro and so to show how this Negro demonstrated the capacity of the blacks that a larger number of white men may lend these struggling people a helping hand.

Primarily interested in the bearing of the educator's career on the conditions now obtaining in this country, the author has little to say about his private life, choosing rather to present him as a man of the world. Tracing his career, the author mentions his antecedent, his poverty, his training at Hampton, his first ventures and the establishment of Tuskegee. He then treats with more detail Dr. Washington's national prominence, widening influence, ability to organize, and increasing power. He carefully notes, too, the great educator's chief characteristics, his sane and balanced views, his belief in the cooperation of the two races, and his power to[Pg 97] interpret one race to the other. It is mainly this portion of the book that makes this biography a work of incalculable value in the study of the Negro during the last quarter of the century.

The other biography of Booker T. Washington is a somewhat more intensive study of his life than that of Dr. Riley. The authors are Mr. Washington's confidential associate and a trained and experienced writer, sympathetically interested in the Negro because of the career of his grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It contains a fitting foreword by Major R. R. Moton, Dr. Washington's successor, and a forceful preface by Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. The book is well written and well illustrated.

These authors were chosen by Mr. Washington himself with the hope that they would produce "a record of his struggles and achievements at once accurate and reliable." Coming from persons so closely associated with the distinguished educator, the reader naturally expects some such treatment as the "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington." A work of such scope, however, the authors themselves maintain is yet to be written. Passing over his childhood, early training and education, which they consider adequately narrated in "Up From Slavery," the authors have directed their attention toward making an estimate of the services of the educator during the last fifteen years of his life. Written with this purpose in view the work serves as a complement of Dr. Riley's book which is more concerned with the earlier period.

Each chapter is complete in itself, setting forth a distinct achievement or the manifestation of some special ability. Here we get an excellent account of the making of Tuskegee, the leadership of its founder, his attitude on the rights of the Negro, how he met race prejudice, the way in which he taught Negroes to cooperate, how he encouraged the Negro in business, what he did for the Negro farmer, his method of raising large sums of money, his skill in managing a large institution, and finally an appropriate estimate of the man.

In Spite of Handicap. An Autobiography. By James D. Corrothers. With an Introduction by Ray Stannard Baker. George H. Doran Co., New York, 1916. Pp. 238.

This book is a study of Negro race prejudice, chiefly in the North. One can not read the life of this member of the Negro race without becoming much more vividly informed of the terrible power race prejudice plays in retarding the progress of undeniably[Pg 98] capable persons when they are known to have some Negro blood. It is a sadly true picture not only of the handicaps to Mr. Corrothers, but of practically all Negroes of talent who essay to come out of the caste to which barbaric prejudice assigns his group. For this reason we could substitute for this individual as subject of this story most of his race in the North.

The student of history will be more interested in his description of his boyhood home, a Negro settlement in Cass County, Michigan. This place was first an Under-Ground Railroad Station established in 1838 by some Southern Quakers whose conscience no longer allowed them to hold their black brethren in slavery. They brought their slaves into this far Northern region and soon protected other fugitive slaves from the South. It became such a place of security for these runaway slaves that in a few years they became sufficiently numerous to constitute a large settlement. In 1847 a number of slave owners raided the place in an effort to capture some of their Negroes. They had little success, however. Manumitted slaves, free persons of color, and fugitives continued to come and at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War the community had been well established. Since the Civil War many of the descendants of these pioneers have risen in various walks of life and have left an impress on the world. The author of this volume is a representative of this class.

The writer describes how that early in his career in this Cass County atmosphere he met with the awful handicap of race prejudice which forced upon him the conviction as to the difficulty of a colored man to rise. In running from the conditions in the South his people did not find a paradise in the North. Just as the author began by fighting his way among the white boys who objected to him because of his manifestation of superior talent for one of his color so he has had to struggle throughout life. He has, however, become a writer of some note, contributing verse and stories to such leading publications as the Century Magazine, Harper's, The Dial, The Crisis, The Southern Workman, The Boston Transcript, and The Chicago Tribune.

The author makes no pretence of writing a scientific historical or sociological treatise. He relates such anecdotes of his own life as will throw light on the influence of race prejudice in impeding the progress of capable Negroes. His style is easy and clear, at times beautiful. The book is well worth the reading of any person seriously interested in our race problems.

The Administration of President Hayes. By John W. Burgess. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1916. Pp. 154.

These lectures, the author says, give in bare outline a description of the administration of President Hayes. For various reasons his administration has not received extended treatment by the students of American History. Professor Burgess seeks to show that Hayes was one of the greatest executives in the history of our nation, and that wrongfully "the manner of his election has been used to depreciate his service." He says: "As time goes on, however, and as the partisan hatreds which are clustered around the election are lost from view, his work looms larger and ever larger."

At the present time when there is such uncertainty in the election of President and reference is made to that one of 1876, many are repeating the contention that a partisan vote of the Electoral Commission unconstitutionally made Hayes President. The author very clearly points out that no president was more entitled to his office on constitutional grounds than Rutherford B. Hayes. Contrary to the assertion that eight Republican members of the Electoral Commission voted on partisan grounds, Professor Burgess says that it was they who stood squarely on the constitution and the seven Democratic members of that commission voted purely on party lines. The Democrats had neither "a leg nor a peg to stand upon in any one of the cases" of Oregon, Louisiana, Florida or South Carolina. The Electoral Commission in each case went back of the returns and accepted those certified by the officials of the State, who had been in conformity with the Constitution of the United States duly qualified to make them.

These lectures review the important problems of Hayes's administration. Among these problems growing out of the Civil War was the increasing aggression of the legislative branch of the federal government. Beginning with the Reconstruction Period the government was more and more becoming a parliamentary one. Hayes was determined to reestablish it on its constitutional foundations. When he came into power the lower house was in control of the Democrats and it was they who were determined to usurp executive power. Riders were placed on appropriation bills and efforts were made to force the President to assent to laws which would eliminate the Federal Government from all interference with the affairs of the Southern States. Notwithstanding the fact that they forced an extra session of Congress when both branches were Democratic, Hayes stood firm and in a long fight curbed the[Pg 100] aggression of the legislative branch. Among other great achievements of his administration the author points out the reform of the currency, improvements in civil service, and the adoption of a wise policy in the treatment of the Indians.

The withdrawal of the troops from the defence of the Republican governments in the South, President Hayes thought was necessary that strife might cease and that those best fitted to rule should take charge of their home affairs. The author considers this to be one of the greatest acts of statesmanship that any president ever performed. The old charge that this was a result of a deal between Southern Democrats who were peacefully to permit Hayes to become President in return for relieving them of military rule, he terms an invention of the politicians and radical friends of the Negro. He maintains that before Hayes ever became a candidate for the presidency it was well known that he held such views favorable to the South.

The reader should bear in mind here that this theory of Mr. Burgess is in keeping with his radical position that the Negro being inferior and unfit for citizenship he should have been left at the mercy of the white man who wanted to enslave him. Here as in all of Mr. Burgess's Reconstruction discussions he sees only one side of the question. The white man should be supreme and the Negro should merely have freedom of body with no guarantee that even this would not be of doubtful tenure. Reconstruction studies will always be valueless as long as they are prosecuted by men of biased minds.

American Patriots and Statesmen from Washington to Lincoln. By Albert Bushnell Hart. P. F. Collier & Son, New York, 1916. Five Volumes.

The editor deserves great credit for bringing together so much original material reflecting the thought of the men who made the nation. Every phase of American life and politics has been considered, giving both the scholar and the layman a ready reference and guide for a more intensive study of public opinion in this country than can be obtained from the ordinary treatises on history and government. The manner of selecting and arranging the materials exhibits evidence of breadth of view on the part of the compiler and places his long experience as a professor in the leading university of this country at the disposal of persons who have not labored in this field so long.[Pg 101]

Here we have the thoughts of almost every distinguished man who materially influenced the history of this country from the time of the discovery of America to the outbreak of the Civil War. The writer has drawn on the works of all classes, statesmen, sages, men of affairs, State officials, congressmen, senators, presidents, judges; ministers, doctors, lawyers, educators, novelists, essayists and travellers; poets and orators. Every section of the country, too, is represented in this collection and a few foreigners who have manifested peculiar interest in Americans have also been included. Some of these important subjects treated in these documents are such questions as "Expectations from the New World," "The First Immigrants," "Principles of Personal Liberty," "Extension of Colonial Freedom," "The American Revolution," "Independence of the United States," "Liberty in a Federal Constitution," "National Democracy," "The Frontier," "States Rights," "Slavery," "Nullification," and "The Popularization of Government." Important treatises having a special bearing on the Negro have not been omitted. Among these are Hinton Rowan Helpers' Appeal to the Non-slaveholding Whites, Benjamin Wade's Defiance of Secession, John Brown's Last Speech of a Convicted Abolitionist, William H. Seward's Irrepressible Conflict, Abraham Lincoln's A House Divided against itself cannot Stand, his Meaning of the Declaration of Independence, his Philosophy of Slavery, the Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

The collection as a whole makes a valuable reference work for the modern teacher who is trying to explain the past in terms of present achievements. These materials are so arranged as to show that what we now call new problems in American life are issues of old, that the questions now arising as to how to manage the army and navy, how to deal with our colonies, how to maintain our position as a world power, and how to promote national preparedness, have all been discussed pro and con by leading statesmen in the past. Libraries in need of source material lying in this field would make no mistake in purchasing this valuable collection.

Footnotes:

[120] All of these letters are taken from Roberts Vaux's "Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet," pp. 25-62.

[121] Written by Patrick Henry.

Notes

Harrison and Sons, London, have published an "Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone," by Northcote W. Thomas, in three parts. Part I covers the law and customs of the Tinne and other tribes. Part II consists of a "Tinne-English dictionary" and part III of a grammar and stories.

This firm has also brought out "Specimens of Languages from Sierra Leone" by the same author. This work contains tabular vocabularies with short stories and notes on Tones, illustrated with the Staff Notation.

Macmillan and Company have published the "My Yoruba Alphabet" by R. E. Bennett.

"Mâliki Law" by F. H. Buxton has appeared with the imprint of Luzac and Company. This is a summary from French Translations of the "Mukhtasar of Sîdî Khalîl" by Captain Buxton of the Political Department of Nigeria. It was published by order of Sir F. D. Sugard, Governor-General of Nigeria.

"Native Life in South Africa before and since the European War and the Boer Rebellion" by Sol. T. Plaatje has been published by P. S. King. This work is especially valuable for students of Negro History in that they may obtain from it the other side of the race problem in that country. The author is an educated native who has served the government as an interpreter, and now edits for a native syndicate Tsala ea Batho (The People's Friend). The purpose of the writer is to explain the grievances of the natives and especially that one resulting from the Land Act of 1913.

Allen and Unwin have published the third volume of "The History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872" by G. McCall Theal. The work is to be completed in five volumes.

Among Putnam's recent publications is F. W. Seward's "Reminiscences of a War Time Statesman and Diplomat," being his father William H. Seward.

The University of Chicago Press has published "Slavery in Germanic Society during the Middle Ages."[Pg 103]

C. R. Hall has published through the Princeton University Press his "Andrew Johnson: Military Governor of Tennessee."

Mr. Henry B. Rankin's "Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln" has come from the press of the Putnams. This book is interesting and valuable in that it is written by a man who studied law under Lincoln and Herndon.

The Chicago Historical Society has published a booklet entitled "The Convention that nominated Lincoln," giving its outward and local aspects.

In C. J. Heatwole's History of Education in Virginia, published by Macmillan, passing mention is given the effort to enlighten the Negroes in that State. The writer is mainly concerned with the efforts for the uplift of the Negro since emancipation. He seemed to be ignorant of the many efforts at education put forth by the Negroes with the help of their friends even before the Civil War.

E. S. Green's History of the University of South Carolina has been published by the State Publishing Company at Columbia. In treating the period during which the Negroes were in control of that institution the author is adversely critical of the freedmen in general, but mentions some colored graduates and pays a tribute to the high character of Richard Theodore Greener, who served there as instructor.

"The South To-day" by John M. Moore has been published by the Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada.

The Journal of Negro History has received a copy of Charles E. Benton's "Troutbeck: A Dutchess County Homestead," with an introduction by John Borroughs. Among the beautiful illustrations in this pamphlet is that of Webutuck River at Troutbeck during the performance of the "Hiawatha Pageant" at the fifth Amenia Field Day, August 15, 1914.

A. A. Schomburg's Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry has been published as one of a series of monographs edited by Charles F. Heartman of New York. It is a valuable work.[Pg 104]

The Argosy Company, Georgetown, British Guiana, has recently published a work entitled Black Talk. This book consists of notes on Negro dialect compiled by C. G. Cruickshank. It is an interesting and informing volume.

The Journal
of
Negro History

Vol. II—April, 1917—No. 2

I
The Evolution of the Slave Status in American Democracy

Slavery and freedom were constituent elements in American institutions from the very beginning. In the inherent antagonism of the two, DeTocqueville recognized the most serious menace to the permanence of the nation.[122] Slavery, which came in time to be known as the "peculiar institution" of the South, gradually shaped the social, moral, economic and political ideas of that section to fit its genius. The more democratic tendencies of the free industrial order of the North served by contrast to crystallize still more the group consciousness of the South. In this wise the erstwhile loyal South was slowly transformed into a section that was prepared to place local and sectional interests above national, and the result was secession. Just as it was not loyalty to inalienable human rights in the abstract that brought about the abolition of slavery in the North, but rather the gradual expansion of the idea of liberty through the free give and take of a vigorous democracy in which economic and social conditions militated against slavery, so it was not loyalty to States' rights in the abstract that brought about the Civil War but rather the alien group[Pg 106] consciousness of the slave States which was the outgrowth of totally different economic and social conditions. It is the object of this paper to trace the influence of these various factors upon the status of the slave.

Slavery of both Indians and Negroes and white servitude were well recognized forms of social status in all the colonies, and slavery was general down to the time of the American Revolution. As early as 1639 we hear of a Negro slave in Pennsylvania. In 1644 Negroes were in demand to work the lowlands of the Delaware. In 1685 William Penn directed his steward at Pennsbury to secure blacks for work "since they might be held for life," which was not true of indentured servants.[123] Negro slaves were sold in Maryland in 1642.[124] Negroes are referred to in the Connecticut records as early as 1660.[125] An "act against trading with negro slaves" was passed in Elizabeth-Town, New Jersey, in 1682.[126] An entry in Winthrop's Journal, February 26, 1638, states that a "Mr. Peirce, in the Salem ship, the Desire, returned from the West Indies after seven months. He had been to Providence, and brought some cotton, and tobacco, and Negroes, etc."[127] The twenty Negroes sold to the colonists at Jamestown, 1619, were the first landed on the soil of Virginia and possibly the first brought to the American colonies.[128]

There is evidence to show that the status of the Negro was at first very closely affiliated with that of the white servant with whom the colonists were thoroughly familiar and who stood half way between freedom and complete subjection. It is probable, therefore, that both Indian and Negro servitude preceded Indian and Negro slavery in all the colonies,[129] though the transition to slavery as the normal status of the Negro was very speedily made. The first and[Pg 107] essential feature in this transition was the lengthening of the period of servitude from a limited time to the natural life. The slave differed from the servant then not so much in the loss of liberty, civil and political, as in the perpetual nature of that loss.[130]

There were several factors operating in the case of the Negro to fix the status of the slave as his normal condition, the earliest and one of the strongest of which was economic in character. Certainly the influences which brought Negro slavery to the West-Indies and later to the British colonies to the north were primarily economic. As a result of her great commercial expansion in the first half of the fifteenth century Spain had established a thriving slave trade with the west coast of Africa. When it was discovered that the natives of the West Indies, who had been enslaved to meet the labor demands of the new world, were unable to do the work Spain began to import Negro slave labor at the suggestion of Bishop Las Casas, thus turning the stream of slave trade westward about the beginning of the sixteenth century. By way of the English island colonies, the Bermudas and Barbados, the slave trade extended northward to the American colonies, the first slaves being brought from the West Indies to Virginia in 1619, so that by the end of the seventeenth century the traffic had reached proportions that frightened the colonists into taking measures for its restriction.[131]

The fact that Negro slavery reached American soil by way of the West Indies is not without significance as throwing light upon the status of the slave especially in the southern colonies such as the Carolinas and Georgia. The first Negro slaves imported into South Carolina came from Barbados in 1671 and there is reason for thinking that the Barbadian slave code and customs were imported with the slaves, for the act passed in Barbados in 1668 declaring Negro slaves to be real estate was copied very closely in the[Pg 108] South Carolina act of 1690.[132] The stringency of the Barbadian slave code and the resulting barbarous treatment of the slaves have made the little island famous in history. "For a hundred years," says Johnston, "slaves in Barbados were mutilated, tortured, gibbeted alive and left to starve to death, burnt alive, flung into coppers of boiling sugar, whipped to death, overworked, underfed, obliged from sheer lack of any clothing to expose their nudity to the jeers of the 'poor' whites."[133] And yet the owners of these slaves were English, of the same stock under which developed the mild patriarchal type of slavery of Virginia. The difference in the status of the slave in Virginia and in the northern colonies as opposed to the colonies farther south, where in some places the Barbadian conditions were at least approximated, is to be explained in terms of the different social and economic conditions rather than the character of the slave-owners. The West Indian type of slavery was not conducive to the more intimate and sympathetic relations which arose between slave and master in the colonies to the north where a fairly complete integration of the Negro in the social consciousness of the white took place.

It is easy to distinguish factors in the economic conditions in the northern and southern colonies which brought about these differences in the status of the slave in the two sections. In the trading colonies of New England and in the farming colonies of the Middle States the occupations in which slave labor could be profitably made use of were limited in number. The climate was too cool, especially for freshly imported slaves. Slave labor was ill adapted to the kind of crops the soil demanded. The status of the slave from the very nature of the case approximated that of the servant. The slaves became for the most part servants, the time of whose service was perpetual. The slaves of Pennsylvania, for this reason, were treated much more kindly than the Negroes in the West Indies. Their lot was doubtless[Pg 109] far happier than that of the slaves in the lower South.[134]

The conditions in the planting colonies from Virginia southward were different. Here was an unlimited supply of fertile lands which lent themselves readily to the unskillful and exhausting methods of slave labor. Here too was a warm climate congenial to the Negro, though enervating and often unhealthful for the white. The staples, such as the sugar cane, rice and later the cotton plant, were such as the unscientific slave labor might easily cultivate. All the conditions of profitable slave labor were present, namely, possibilities for concentration of labor, its absolute control and direction and exploitation.

The status of the Negro in the planting colonies was the outcome of these economic conditions. He was deprived of the stimulating effect of personal intercourse with the white, enjoyed by the slave at the north. His status was fixed by a certain position in an industrial system, the tendency of which was to attach him more and more to the soil and, especially on the larger plantation, to make of him a "living tool." He became, as time went on, the economic unit. Even free labor, in so far as it survived slave labor, was forced to take its measure of values from the slave. There were of course gradations in status even among the slaves in the lower South so that the same system could include the conditions described in Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation as well as those portrayed in Smedes' Memorials of a Southern Planter. If we take the whole sweep of country from New England to the far South, the differences in the status of the slave varied still more, including the exceedingly mild form of slavery in Pennsylvania where the slave was not essentially different from the indentured servant, the patriarchal slavery of Virginia, as well as the capitalistic exploitation of slave labor in the great rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia and the cotton and cane plantations of Mississippi and Louisiana. Here, in some cases at least, the West Indian conditions were approximated. In the lower South particularly[Pg 110] were found those conditions which as we shall see later tended to fix the slave status as an integral part of southern life so that in time it came to be spoken of as the South's "peculiar institution."

Strange as it may seem, religion also played a large part in the determination of the status of the slave in early colonial days. Just as it was the zeal of the early Church which had much to do with the eradication of the slavery of antiquity, so it was also the zeal and bigotry of churchmen that had much to do with the reinstatement of slavery of a type worse in some respects than that of antiquity. Speaking of the custom of the Spaniards of enslaving the Moors that fell into their hands through conquest, Prescott says: "It was the received opinion among good Catholics of that period, that heathen and barbarous nations were placed by the circumstances of their infidelity without the pale both of spiritual and civil rights."[135] The expansion that took place as a result of the discovery of the new world brought Europeans into contact with heathen who according to the prevailing opinions were without the pale of Christianity and, therefore, possessed of no rights that Christians need observe. It is not surprising then that Columbus brought back Indian slaves with him, though Isabella ordered returned those "who had not been taken in just war."

The Puritan settlers of New England were not one whit behind the Spanish in making use of the same religious grounds for the enslaving of the Indians conquered in war. Roger Williams in a letter to John Winthrop in 1637 writes as follows of a successful expedition against the Pequots: "It having again pleased the Most High to put into our hands another miserable drove of Adam's degenerate seed, and our brethren by nature, I am bold (if I may not offend in it) to request the keeping and bringing up of one of the children." The following extract from a letter to Winthrop in 1645 is a curious mixture of religious bigotry and Yankee shrewdness: "A war with the Narragansetts is very considerable to this plantation, for I doubt whether it be not sin[Pg 111] in us, having power in our hands, to suffer them to maintain the worship of the devil, which their pow wows often do; secondly, if upon a just war the Lord should deliver them into our hands, we might easily have men, women and children enough to exchange for Moors (Negroes?) which will be more gainful pillage for us than we conceive, for I do not see how we can thrive until we get into a flock of slaves sufficient to do all our business, for our children's children will hardly see this great continent filled with people, so that our servants will still desire freedom to plant for themselves and not stay but for very great wages. And I suppose you know very well how we shall maintain twenty Moors cheaper than one English servant."[136] Few passages better illustrate how religious ideas and economic needs conspired to bring about the enslavement of both Indian and Negro at this early period.

Race also played its part in determining the slave status. There was present more or less from the very beginning of slavery in States like Virginia the tendency to limit such servitude to the Negro race. At first, when both Indian and Negro slaves were found together, there was no a priori ground for discriminating against the Negro in favor of the Indian and designating the status of the slave as the normal status of the Negro. The probable reason is that racial characteristics of the Indian made him a bad subject for slavery. The Massachusetts colonists found the Pequot Indians surly, revengeful and in the words of Cotton Mather unable to "endure the Yoke."[137] The Negro, on the contrary, proved himself much more tractable and therefore more profitable as a slave. These plastic race traits, in fact, have enabled the Negro to survive while the less adaptive Indian has disappeared. Thus the bonds of a servile status hardened from decade to decade about the Negro, being determined partly by economic needs, partly by religious prejudices and partly by the Negro's own peculiar racial traits.

Legislation, which always follows in the wake of status[Pg 112] and normally gives expression to it, corroborates what has just been stated. Virginia in the act of 1670 first fixed the legal status of the slave and so worded the act as virtually to protect the Indian from enslavement. By an act of 1705 she made Indian enslavement illegal, thus practically limiting slavery to the Negro. Hence at the time when Virginia drew up her famous Declaration of Rights, in which she affirmed the natural equality and inalienable rights of all men, the prevailing sentiment of the community undoubtedly was that the normal status of the Negro was that of the slave, which status placed him entirely without the scope of these lofty declarations. The protests of such men as George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson were contrary to the drift of the social mind.[138] The last stage in this process of determining status on the basis of race is to be found in the various slave codes that grew up in the Southern States. They were supposed to be done away with forever by the war amendments and Sumner's famous Bill of Rights but the problem is one far too subtle and intricate for regulation by statute, as the Supreme Court has discovered. Status based upon color still exists both North and South though without legal sanction.[139]

The noble conceptions of freedom and equality which were embodied in the bills of rights and the Declaration of Independence were destined in time to triumph over slavery, though not without bloodshed. It is interesting to trace their influence on the status of the slave. The doctrine of human rights found in the Declaration of Independence and in the bills of rights of the State constitutions, despite its metaphysical cast, is not derived from the political philosophy of the French; the key of the demolished Bastile sent by Lafayette to Washington by the hand of Thomas Paine symbolized rather the debt owed to America by France.[Pg 113][140] The Declaration itself perhaps shows closer affiliations with John Locke's Treatise on Civil Government, which may be taken as a statement of the principles contended for in the Puritan Revolution of 1688. But even Locke's ideas of civil and religious liberty were not original with him. They were in reality the result of applying to the sphere of politics the logical implications of doctrines preached by the Protestant reformers of a century or two earlier in their revolt against the authority of tradition. To be sure the masses of men were ignorant of the theological distinctions drawn by Luther and Knox between the democracy of sin under the first Adam and the democracy of grace under the second Adam or Christ. The levelling effect of these ideas, however, was unmistakably felt as in the doggerel of John Ball, the mad Wycliffite priest of Kent,

In the next century under the pressure of their struggle against injustice masquerading behind charters and parliaments, the Puritans under the leadership of John Locke made their appeal to natural rights just as the reformers before them had made their appeal to the higher rights and duties that hold in a spiritual kingdom of grace. The appeal, originally religious in origin, now appears stripped of its theological setting and hence with a certain "metaphysical nakedness" which only the enthusiasm and sense of need arising from the necessities of their situation prevented its champions from perceiving. Locke and Blackstone, while insisting upon the absolute and inalienable rights of the individual, never broke with the feeling for precedent inherent in the Englishman. The natural rights they preached were only conceived as having validity within the sphere of the British subject and not for humanity in general.[141]

In very much the same way the colonists, in the struggles against royal oppression, felt the need for a higher and[Pg 114] more comprehensive sanction for their conduct and following the precedent set them by the Puritans of the seventeenth century, they fell back upon the notion of inalienable rights possessed by each individual independent of society. Here, too, the inspiration and original setting of these ideas were strongly religious. Religious toleration had gained constitutional recognition in almost all the colonies so that the political movement out of which American freedom was born had the powerful support of religious sanction. To this fact must be attributed in part at least the tone of finality and absoluteness in the American declarations of rights. Out of this universal recognition of liberty of conscience arose the notion of a right of a higher sort not inherited but inherent and inalienable because rooted in man's religious nature—"a God-given franchise."

This sense of the inherent and inalienable nature of the rights of conscience was, under the stress of the immediate political exigencies of the struggle with England, very easily and naturally extended from the sphere of religion to that of civil and political rights. It provided the sanction for the break with the mother-country that was contemplated. Virginia's declaration of rights was intended to be law, for the preamble states that these rights "do pertain to them (the people of Virginia) and their posterity as the basis and foundation of government." And what are these rights? They are first of all, "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they can not by any compact deprive or divest their posterity, etc."[142] Thus, from the logic of events and not as a result of a philosophical speculation, the Revolutionary fathers were forced to take advanced ground in their definition of human rights. Leaving the fixed social order of the old country for the wilderness, where the only society was that of the savage, they naturally looked upon government as arising out of a compact behind which lay the sovereign autonomy of the individual by virtue of inalienable[Pg 115] rights given him by God. What more natural in their revolt from the old country than to make this doctrine the political and moral sanction of their course?

The rich emotional life aroused by the war for national independence as well as the struggle of over half a century later for the emancipation of the slave have given to these ideas of inalienable human rights a hold upon the conscience of the nation altogether incommensurate with their actual validity. It would be a thankless task and yet an altogether feasible one to show that the Revolutionary fathers did not break with English traditions in their declarations of rights. They simply stripped these principles of their original religious and political setting and persuaded themselves that through a fresh and rigorous restatement of them they had established their finality and originality. A stream is not changed by altering the name it bears at its fountain head. The very enthusiasm and loyalty of the men of '76 for what has been called "metaphysical jargon" leads one to suspect that the ultimate basis of these ideas lay in the social consciousness of the people. The democratic ideals they expressed in institutional forms—social, political or religious—belonged, of course, to the social heritage they brought with them from the old country. They did not, therefore, discover these "lost title deeds of the human race." It would be much nearer the truth to say they merely stated them clearly because by virtue of previous training and a new environment they had succeeded best in realizing those conditions, social and political, which alone make their clear statement possible. The measure of success and validity of any social doctrine, no matter how abstract, is to be found in its harmony with the background from which it springs and in the extent to which it actually succeeds in effecting needed social adjustments. It was perfectly natural that our forefathers should wish to proclaim as a new and unalterable truth, the everlasting possession of themselves and of all free people, what they already enjoyed. This did not alter the fact that the only guarantee for the perpetuity of these rights was the vigorous[Pg 116] democracy of which they were the expression. "The Americans," writes Jellinek, "could calmly precede their plan of government with a bill of rights, because that government and the controlling laws had already long existed."[143]

As these great notions of human rights first took hold of the Anglo Saxon through religion, so it was through religion also that the ideals of freedom and equality first affected the status of the slave. We have already seen what was the prevailing doctrine of Christendom at the time of the discovery of the new world. It was that infidels and heathen were without the Christian fold and so did not come under those sanctions of conduct that prevailed in the dealings of Christians with each other. The colonists, therefore, assumed "a right to treat the Indians on the footing of Canaanites or Amalekites" with no rights a Christian need regard.[144] The same was held true of the Negroes. In time, however, petitions began to be received from slaves desiring to be admitted to baptism and this raised the question concerning the status of the slave after conversion to Christianity.[145] The dilemma faced by the slave-owner with religious scruples was as follows: To confer baptism would be in accordance with the contention of pious churchmen that slavery was but a means to bring about the salvation of the heathen.[146] On the other hand, to admit to baptism would, according to the doctrines of the Reformation, destroy the slave status entirely. By virtue of having entered the democracy of grace represented by the Church of Christ, the distinction of bond and free disappeared. To keep out the slave would be to hamper the spread of Christianity; to admit him would be to eliminate slavery.[Pg 117]

This problem, however, seems never to have troubled the Puritan's conscience greatly.[147] From his stern, high Calvinistic point of view he was the elect of the earth, to whom the Almighty had given the heathen for an inheritance, and in this he found a satisfactory justification for his harsh and high-handed dealings with weaker races such as the Indian and the Negro. Yet the germ of freedom contained in the limited democracy of the elect of Calvinism was bound in time to break the hard theological moulds in which it was originally cast. It did this subsequently under the stress of external events in the effort to throw off the shackles of British oppression. Nowhere did the essential injustice of slavery become more evident to the minds of men than in the healthful humanizing and socializing atmosphere of the progressive industrial democracy of New England.

In the southern colonies especially, the question about the status of the converted slave threatened to interfere with the slave-traffic so that several of them passed acts to relieve the consciences of its citizens. That of Virginia in 1667 is typical. It was enacted that "Baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; in order that diverse masters freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity."[148] This act is interesting as showing the appearance even at this early period of the ethical dualism between free spiritual personality and the physical disabilities of slavery. This in time became classic with pro-slavery writers and perhaps received its strongest statement in a book that appeared even after emancipation.[149]

In the constitution of the province of Carolina, drawn up by John Locke in 1669, we have another interesting instance of the way in which the traditions of freedom associated with religion conflicted with slavery. The author of the famous Treatise on Government, which was in part the inspiration of our Declaration of Independence, did not feel that slavery was in any way incompatible[Pg 118] with the doctrine of freedom. Locke's constitution takes it for granted that slaves would form part of the population of the province, though the constitution was drawn up possibly two years before the first slave was brought to the colony.[150] Locke insists upon entire religious freedom. "No person whatsoever shall disturb, molest, or persecute another for his speculative opinions in religion or his way of worship." But he stipulates that this spiritual freedom shall in no way affect the status of the slave. "Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best and, therefore, be as fully members as any freeman. But no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before." And again, even more explicitly in section 110: "Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever." These sections were evidently intended to meet any scruples that might arise as to the effect of conversion upon the slave's status. The culmination of this discussion was an opinion of the Crown-Attorney and Solicitor-General of England, given in 1729 in response to an appeal from the colonists, to the effect that baptism in no way changed the status of the slave.[151] The trade of British merchantmen was being endangered and it was important to remove the scruples of the religious slaveholder.

In this feeling of Christian sympathy and fellowship for the slave who professed Christianity undoubtedly lay potentialities for the betterment of his conditions. Had there been favorable economic and political forces working to bring these notions of equality more and more to the consciousness[Pg 119] of men, just as the storm and stress of political struggle forced them to espouse the doctrines of inalienable human rights, doubtless freedom would have come to the slave with the growing sense of the wider implications of democracy. Certainly had there prevailed in the South economic and social forces similar to those in the North, the emancipation of the Negro would have taken place naturally and normally in both sections. That Locke and his contemporaries felt no incongruity between their ideas of liberty and the existence of slavery must be attributed to the fact that the full social implications of their doctrines had not yet been brought home to them by industrial development. They accepted the status of the slave as a matter of course in the existing agricultural order.

It is easy to see in Virginia, the chief slave-holding State of the earlier period, how economic interests in time narrowed the sphere of action and finally counteracted entirely the tendency of religion to extend to the slave the ideal of freedom. In the act of 1670, the first which dealt with slaves in Virginia, the enfranchising effect of conversion was limited to servants imported from Christian lands; thus were excluded at once the great majority of Negroes who came, of course, from Africa. The few Negroes brought in from Christian lands, such as England and the West Indies, were assigned by the act to the status of servants from which many attained freedom. It was inevitable that, in Virginia and the southern colonies especially, the religious notion that profession of Christianity made a difference in status should disappear before the more practical principle of race and color. By the time of the Revolution the matter of religion had practically disappeared as a factor in the status of the slave,[152] except in so far as it continued in the form of the vicious ethical dualism which asserted that the slave could enjoy equality and freedom in the spiritual sphere while enduring physical bondage. This provided an effective salve for many a pious slaveholder's conscience.

At the time of the American Revolution before the real[Pg 120] problem of slavery was felt, except in the minds of a few prophetic spirits such as Jefferson, we can still detect two clearly marked tendencies. At the South economic forces were combining with the social and racial conditions to fix the status of slave as the normal condition of the Negro, a most portentous fact for the future of that section. At the North economic and social conditions were pointing already towards a gradual emancipation of the slave in a democratic order that was becoming more and more conscious of the full significance of the ideas of freedom and equality.

What was the effect upon the status of the slave North and South of the struggle for independence and the adoption of a declaration to the effect that all men are free and equal and possessed of certain inalienable rights?[153] In Pennsylvania from the very beginning of the war of independence interest in the manumission of slaves increased until it finally culminated in the act of 1780, an "Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery," by adopting which Pennsylvania became the first State to pass an abolition law.[154] The preamble of this act asserts it to be the duty of Pennsylvanians to give substantial proof of their gratitude for deliverance from the oppression of Great Britain "by extending freedom to those of a different color but the work of the same Almighty hand." Previous to 1776 discussion had been going on also in Massachusetts looking to the abolition of slavery and in 1777 there was introduced an act with the preamble declaring that "the practice of holding Africans and the children born of them, or any other persons in slavery, is unjustifiable in a civil government, at a time when they are asserting their natural freedom."[155] This act never became law and it is an interesting commentary upon conditions in the North, and especially in New England, that in Massachusetts slavery was not abolished by legislation but by the slow working of public sentiment.[Pg 121] The assembly of Rhode Island, likewise, prefaced an act against the importation of slaves in 1774 by asserting that those who were struggling for the preservation of their rights and liberties, among which that of personal freedom is greatest, must be willing to extend a like liberty to others.[156] Similar agitation and legislation were going on in almost all the Northern and Middle States under the stimulus of the spirit of freedom of the time.[157]

It is easy to note a change in the mental atmosphere as we pass to the States farther south. The Assembly of Delaware tabled indefinitely a bill of 1785 for the gradual abolition of slavery, and Maryland in her declaration of rights adopted in 1776 restricted the enjoyment of certain rights to freemen only. A petition introduced in the House of Burgesses of Virginia in 1785, asking for general emancipation on the ground that slavery was contrary to the principles of religion and the ideas of freedom on which the government was founded, was read and rejected without an opposing voice; Washington remarked in a letter to Lafayette that it could hardly get a hearing.[158] In fact, there is evidence for believing that, while leading men such as Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Mason and Pinkney saw the evil of slavery and wished heartily to rid their States of it, the mass of the citizens of Maryland and Virginia did not wish to do away with the institution either because of social habits and economic interests, or because they felt unable to cope with the problem of an emancipated black population. It must be remembered that in Maryland there were three slaves to five whites, in Virginia and Georgia the numbers were about equal, in South Carolina there were two slaves to one white, while in Massachusetts there were sixty whites to one slave.[159] In the States farther south, the Carolinas and Georgia, no change or attempted change in the status of the slave seems to have occurred. The force[Pg 122] of social and economic habits was already too strong for the movings of the spirit of freedom to affect the status of the slave.

The leaders of the time realized this only too well. Patrick Henry, writing to a Quaker in 1773, said that slavery was "as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of liberty. Every thinking honest man rejects it as speculation, but how few in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them."[160] Jefferson in a letter written in 1815 expressed the hope that slavery would in time yield "to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science," but he confessed also that "where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was merely superficial and easily corrected; in the Southern, it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected and its progress hastened, will be my last and fondest prayer."[161]

Little light is gained as to the position occupied by the slave in the social mind from the discussions and debates of the constitutional convention of 1787, although slavery is tacitly recognized in the clauses on representation and taxation, the extension of the slave-trade, and the regulation of fugitive slaves. In connection with the basis of representation and taxation the question arose whether the slave was a person or a chattel, but it was debated not with the view of bringing out what the consensus of opinion of the nation at large was but rather with a view to the political exigencies of the situation. The individual States had never been inclined nor did they now propose to surrender to the Union the right to determine the status of persons within their limits so that the debates were begun with the general concession of the fact that slavery existed in some[Pg 123] of the States, that it would in all probability continue to exist, and that the future of the institution was primarily a problem that belonged to the individual States where it was found.

The problem facing the members of the convention was, therefore, to provide a system of representation that would ensure political equality to all sections and at the same time safeguard the peculiar conditions and social and economic institutions of each State. To base representation entirely upon the number of the free population would give an undue preponderance to the free States, while to base it upon all, both slave and free, would give an undue advantage to the five slave States. Hence the rather queer compromise that representation "shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons"—"all other persons" being a euphemism for "slaves," a term which does not occur in the document. By this measure the slave was made to be only three fifths of a full social unit, or three fifths of a man. This would seem to imply that in the social consciousness of the nation at large the slave was part chattel and part person and this doubtless was the fact. Certainly this is not the last instance where a tendency has manifested itself to assign to the Negro a sort of intermediary status between a chattel and a full social unit. The question came up in 1829 in the Virginia constitutional convention in the struggle between the slaveholding eastern and the free western section of that State.[162] Doubtless one reason for the refusal of Congress to reduce the representation of the Southern States, after the legislation of a few years ago, that practically disfranchised the Negro in the far South, has been an unwillingness thus to lend national sanction to the inferior political as well as social status to which this legislation has at least for the time being reduced the Negro.

The clause in the constitution which subjected its framers to the bitterest criticism at the hands of anti-slavery agitators[Pg 124] is that which requires that a "person held to service"—the term "slave" is here avoided also—in one State and escaping to another shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom the service is due. In view of the interests to be reconciled this clause was undoubtedly necessary to union.[163] If the free States were to become a place of refuge for escaping slaves it meant disaster for the States in which the institution of slavery existed and they insisted upon this as a self-protective measure. The constitution recognized the right of each State to preserve the integrity of its own domestic institutions. "It can never too often be called to mind," says Rhodes, "that the political parties of the Northern States and their senators and representatives in Congress, scrupulously respected the constitutional protection given to the peculiar institution of the South, until, by her own act, secession dissolved the bonds of union."[164] The tragedy of the situation lay in the fact that the political necessities of the time made unavoidable this strange union between freedom and slavery, the fundamental incompatibility of which the expanding national life was bound to make clear to the minds of men.

Looking back on this momentous period we are struck with what Lecky calls "the grotesque absurdity of slaveowners signing a Declaration of Independence which asserted the inalienable right of every man to liberty and equality."[165] That the contradiction existed, that it was felt by men like Jefferson, and that it was destined to become more prominent in the mind of the nation as the implications and applications of the great ideas of freedom and equality were enriched and enlarged in the expanding life of a virile democracy, can not be denied. But it may be remarked in the defense of our Revolutionary fathers that they were facing the practical problem of effecting national unity and that "it is a tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race to take the expedient in politics when the absolute right can[Pg 125] not be had."[166] They compromised on slavery and on the whole wisely. Moreover, the history of the development of great moral and political concepts indicates that men often formulate principles the logical implications of which are not grasped until new problems and the demand for new social adjustments emerge. The great moral categories of courage, temperance and justice first received scientific formulation at the hands of the Greeks; the ever swelling stream of human civilization has vastly enriched and enlarged these conceptions but without altering their essential meaning. When the idea of liberty which in 1776 included only one class, namely, those who owned the property and administered the government of the nation, was expanded so as to include every member of the social order, at that moment slavery was doomed.

Footnotes:

[122] "Democracy in America," Vol. I, pp. 30, 361 ff, 369, 370, Colonial Press edition.

[123] Turner, "The Negro in Pennsylvania," pp. 1 and 19.

[124] Bracket, "The Negro in Maryland," p. 26.

[125] Steiner, "History of Slavery in Connecticut," p. 12.

[126] Cooley, "A Study of Slavery in New Jersey," p. 12.

[127] Moore, "Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass.," p. 5.

[128] Ballagh, "A History of Slavery in Virginia," p. 8.

[129] Ibid., p. 30.

[130] Ballagh, op. cit., p. 28.

[131] Ibid., p. 11.

[132] McCrady, "Slavery in the Province of South Carolina, 1670-1770," pp. 631 ff of the Report of the American Historical Association for 1895.

[133] Sir H.H. Johnston, "The Negro in the New World," pp. 217, 218.

[134] Turner, op. cit., p. 40; see also DuBois, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade," Chs. III and IV.

[135] "Ferdinand and Isabella," Part II, Ch. 8.

[136] Moore, "History of Slavery in Massachusetts," pp. 2, 10.

[137] Brackett, op. cit., p. 20; Ballagh, op. cit., p. 36.

[138] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 47 ff.

[139] Stephenson, "Race Distinction in American Law"; R. S. Baker, "Following the Color Line."

[140] Ritchie, "Natural Rights," p. 3; see also in this connection Jellinek, "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens," and Scherger, "The Evolution of Modern Liberty."

[141] Jellinek, "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen," p. 56.

[142] Jellinek, op. cit., p. 84.

[143] Jellinek, op. cit., pp. 88, 89.

[144] Moore, op. cit., pp. 2, 30.

[145] Ibid., p. 58.

[146] Cotton Mather, who sanctioned slavery, evidently had this in mind as the following observations show: "We know not when or how these Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that probably the devil decoyed these miserable savages hither, in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them." (Quoted by Moore, op. cit., p. 31.)

[147] Moore, op. cit., pp. 58, 71.

[148] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 46, 47.

[149] Dabney, Defence of Virginia, pp. 158 ff.

[150] McCrady, op. cit., p. 644; for the text of the constitution see Perley Poore, "The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and other Organic Laws of the United States," Part II, pp. 1397 ff.

[151] Brackett, op. cit., p. 30.

[152] Ballagh, op. cit., pp. 46 ff.

[153] Brackett, "The Status of the Slave, 1775-1789," pp. 263 ff. of "Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States," edited by Jameson, 1889.

[154] Turner, op. cit., p. 79.

[155] Moore, op. cit., p. 182.

[156] Johnston, op. cit., p. 22.

[157] Brackett, "The Status of the Slave, etc.," pp. 296 ff.

[158] Ibid., p. 305.

[159] Ibid., p. 265.

[160] Quoted by Merriam, "The Negro and the Nation," p. 19.

[161] Wks., VI, 456; IX, 515, Ford Ed.

[162] Greeley, "The American Conflict," I, p. 109 ff.

[163] Curtis, "Constitutional History of the United States," I, p. 606.

[164] History of the United States, I, p. 24.

[165] Lecky, "A History of England in the Eighteenth Century," VI, p. 282.

[166] Rhodes, "History of the United States," I, p. 18.

John Woolman's Efforts in Behalf of Freedom

Pioneers of epoch-making reforms are seldom accorded the reward they merit. Later apostles usually obscure the greatness of their predecessors, and posterity is prone to overlook the pristine achievements of those who first had the vision. Such is the case of John Woolman, a poor, untutored shopkeeper of New Jersey. He was among the foremost to visualize the wrongs of human slavery, but his real significance as an abolitionist has been greatly dimmed by the subsequent deeds of such apostles as Garrison, Phillips, and Lincoln.

John Woolman's career as an apostle of freedom dates from his first appearance in the ministry of the Society of Friends, an organization commonly known as the Quakers, founded by George Fox in England during the middle of the seventeenth century. Shortly after the organization of this society, many of the members migrated to New England and the Middle Atlantic Colonies. Others were exiled by Charles II to the West Indies.[167] Paradoxical as it may seem, these earliest Friends, though distinguishing themselves from other Christian sects by their special stress on immediate teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit, had no scruples against keeping slaves. As a matter of fact, there was a prevalent conviction that Christianity indorsed slavery.[168]

This anomalous indifference to the enslaved Negro's condition remained almost constant until 1742. A few sporadic attempts, to be sure, were made to discountenance[Pg 127] slavery, but popular opinion, incited by greed, favored the institution. In 1671, for example, George Fox, during his visit to Barbadoes, admonished slaveholders to train their slaves in the fear of God; and further admonished the overseers "to deal gently and mildly with their Negroes, and not use cruelty towards them as the manner of some hath been and is, and after certain years of servitude make them free."[169] Four years later, William Edmundson complained against the unjust treatment of slaves, but was brought, for his pains, before the Governor, on the charge of "endeavoring to excite an insurrection among the blacks."[170] In 1688 the German Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, sent to the Yearly Meeting for the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Colonies a protest against "the buying and keeping of Negroes."[171] The matter was taken under advisement, but not until eight years later did the Yearly Meeting advise against "bringing in any more Negroes." The Chester Quarterly Meeting, however, insisted upon the adoption of definite measures against slave traffic, but the Society never manifested any enthusiasm for such legislation. The Friends were themselves slaveholders, and slaveholders were rapidly increasing their wealth and power through slavery; so they felt no pressing need of reform. The Yearly Meetings, therefore, like many modern congresses, dextrously dodged the grave issue of Negroes' rights, and merely expressed an opinion meekly opposed to the importation of the blacks, and a desire that "Friends generally do, as much as may be, avoid buying such Negroes as shall hereafter be brought in, rather than offend any Friends who are against it; yet this is only caution and not censure."[172] Not until 1742 was any appreciable influence exerted on the Friends against slavery. A storekeeper of Mount Holly, New Jersey, requested his clerk to prepare a bill of sale of a Negro woman whom he had sold. The thought of writing[Pg 128] such an instrument greatly oppressed the clerk. He complied, however, but afterwards told both the employer and the customer that he considered slave-keeping inconsistent with the Christian religion.[173] The clerk who ventured such an opinion was John Woolman.

John Woolman was born in Northampton, in Burlington County, West Jersey, in the year 1720. His youthful struggle against wickedness was in many respects similar to Bunyan's. The fear of God seized him in early boyhood, and an intense religious fervor characterized his future career. Though this fervor was undoubtedly an innate tendency, it owed its development partly to the early guidance of pious parents; for Woolman's father was, without doubt, a devout Christian. Every Sunday after meeting, the children were required to read the Holy Scriptures or some religious books. Here, no doubt, was the beginning of Woolman's religious devotion to the teachings of the Bible.[174] At times, during his youth, he apparently forgot these earliest teachings, but he never wandered too far to be reproved by his conscience. When he reached the age of[Pg 129] sixteen, his will was finally subdued, and he learned the lesson that youth seldom learns,—that "all the cravings of sense must be governed by a Divine principle." He tells us that he became convinced that "true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God, the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures."[175]

All this time Woolman lived with his parents and worked on the plantation. His schooling was, consequently, meagre, but he gave a generous portion of his leisure to his self-improvement. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to tend shop and keep books for a baker in Mount Holly. Meanwhile, his religious fervor was growing more intense, and with it his genuine philanthropy. The inevitable sequence of his accelerated enthusiasm for spreading the teachings of Christianity was his entrance into the Christian ministry.[176]

In 1746 Woolman accompanied his beloved friend, Isaac Andrews, on a tour through Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina. It was on this journey that he beheld for the first time the miseries of slavery.[177] He became so depressed with[Pg 130] what he saw that on his return he wrote an essay on the subject, publishing it in 1754. The essay appeared under the elongated title of "Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes Recommended to the Professors of Christianity of Every Denomination."[178] The theme of Woolman's discussion is the Brotherhood of Man. "All men by nature," he argues, "are equally entitled to the equity of the Golden Rule, and under indispensable obligations to it."[179] The whole discussion, which is an appeal to the Friends to be mindful of the teachings of the Bible, glows with the religious zeal which was so eminently characteristic of the author. It is replete with such Biblical references as are sure to have a wholesome effect upon a religious sect like the Society of Friends.

Woolman made a second visit in 1757 to the Southern meetings of the Society of Friends. Again he beheld the miseries of slavery and became greatly alarmed at the extension of the system. Everywhere he turned, he saw slaves. What pained him most was the presence of slaves in the homes of Friends. He declined, therefore, to accept the hospitality of his several hosts, feeling that the acceptance of such courtesies would be an indorsement or encouragement of the[Pg 131] evil.[180] Meanwhile, he held confidential talks with Friends on the subject of slavery. On one occasion, when a colonel of the militia berated the Negroes' slothful disposition, Woolman replied that free men, whose minds are properly on their business, find a satisfaction in improving, cultivating, and providing for their families; whereas Negroes, laboring to support others, and expecting nothing but slavery during life, have not the same inducement to be industrious. Again, when another slaveholder gave the wretchedness of Negroes, occasioned by intestine wars, as a justification of slave-traffic, Woolman answered that, if compassion for the Africans, on account of their domestic troubles, was the real motive of buying them, the spirit of tenderness should incite the Friends to use the Negroes kindly, as strangers brought out of affliction. Many other arguments were urged in defence of slavery, among which number was the oft-repeated notion that the Africans' color subjects them to, or qualifies them for, slavery, inasmuch as they are descendants of Cain who was marked with this color, because he slew his brother Abel.[181] In short, a large portion
[Pg 132]of Woolman's time during this second journey was given over to
answering such arguments. He travelled in the two months, during which he was out, about eleven hundred and fifty miles. His efforts were not without fruit, for he made a profound impression on many of the honest-hearted.

All this time Woolman fought single-handed against overwhelming odds, but he was destined soon to have help from two of the most remarkable and antithetical personages connected with this early movement against slavery; namely, Benjamin Lay and Anthony Benezet.[182] Lay represented the revolutionary type of reformer. Whittier describes his personal appearance as "a figure only four and a half feet high, hunchbacked, with projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs; a huge head, showing only beneath his enormous white hat large, solemn eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy semicircle of beard falling low on his breast—a figure to recall the old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold."[183] By birth he was a Friend, but the Society in England disowned[Pg 133] him on account of his revolutionary propensities. He took up residence in the West Indies, but was compelled to leave on account of his violent denunciation of slavery. He went to Philadelphia, but finding slavery there, retired to a cave, where he lived a most eccentric life, refusing to eat food or wear clothes which had been secured at the expense of animal life, or produced by slave labor. He made frequent excursions, however, from his cave to denounce slavery, his favorite subject being "Deliverance to the Captive." He usually succeeded in being heard, though he was detested by the slaveholders. On one occasion, when he interrupted a meeting in Philadelphia, he was forcibly ejected by a burly blacksmith. He remained, however, the most fearless of the earliest abolitionists. Though his methods were entirely different from Woolman's, and though, no doubt, neither reformer was influenced by the other, Lay's stubborn fight against slavery was obviously helpful to Woolman's calmer campaign against the same evil.

Anthony Benezet, on the other hand, was a reformer of riper judgment and calmer methods than Lay. He has been described as "a small, eager-faced man, full of zeal and activity, constantly engaged in works of benevolence, which were by no means confined to the blacks."[184] He was a descendant of persecuted French Protestants. He, therefore, inherited an aversion to any form of persecution, and readily became a benefactor of the slave. It was inevitable that he should become a friend of Woolman, and a coadjutor in the movement to abolish slavery.[185]

Whether Lay or Benezet was influenced by Woolman may be a matter of speculation and debate. The consideration of primary importance is the increasing interest manifested in abolition. The Friends were beginning to realize that slavery was contradictory to the basic principles of[Pg 134] their organization. Woolman's real opportunity, therefore, came at the memorable Yearly Meeting of 1758, in Philadelphia—the meeting which Whittier has seen fit to term "one of the most important convocations in the history of the Christian church." All during the early part of the meeting, Woolman remained silent, his "mind frequently covered with inward prayer." But when, towards the close of the meeting, the subject of slavery was brought up, he took such an active part in the discussion that he dominated that part of the meeting. His remarks were simple but impressive.[186] The effect was so immediate that many slaveholders expressed a desire to pass a rule to treat as offenders Friends who in the future bought slaves. But there arose the criticism that the real evil could hardly be cured "until a thorough search was made in the circumstances of such Friends as kept Negroes with respect to the uprighteousness of their motives in keeping them, that impartial justice might be administered throughout." Sober thought prevailed. Many assented to the proposition, and others declared that liberty was the Negro's right. Before the meeting closed, John Woolman, John Scarborough, Daniel Stanton, and John Sykes were appointed a committee "to visit and treat with such Friends as kept slaves."[187] Thus the first important step towards the abolition of slavery was taken.

The committee lost no time in setting out on their mission. Such a stupendous undertaking, however, was fraught with obvious difficulties. In the first place, the system of[Pg 135] slavery had assumed such large proportions that it required a number of years to visit and treat with any appreciable number of slaveholders. Again, it was by no means easy to persuade slaveholders to give up a possession which meant so much to them in power and wealth. Finally, it was unfortunately true in the eighteenth century, as it is in the twentieth, that an argument of right and justice, based upon Christianity, did not have instantaneous effect upon professing Christians. But Woolman seemed divinely inspired to perform his mission. He travelled extensively and never hesitated to approach Friends on the subject of slavery.[188] At the Yearly Meeting for 1759, he was gratified to learn that a recommendation had been made to Friends "to labor against buying and keeping slaves."[189]

As a means of promoting his cause, Woolman published in 1762 the second part of his "Considerations on Keeping Negroes," a continuation of his appeal for the operation of the Golden Rule.[190] The overseers of the press offered to print the essay at the expense of the Yearly Meeting, but[Pg 136] Woolman did not accept the offer. He published the essay at his own expense.[191] Woolman gives the following reason for not accepting the overseers' offer: "This stock is the contribution of the members of our religious society in general, among whom are some who keep Negroes, and being inclined to continue them in slavery, are not likely to be satisfied with such books being spread among a people, especially at their own expense, many of whose slaves are taught to read, and, such receiving them as a gift, often conceal them. But as they who make a purchase generally buy that which they have a mind for, I believe it best to sell them expecting by that means they would more generally be read with attention."

The story of the rest of Woolman's life is but a repetition of his travels and labors in behalf of abolition. He travelled extensively, beheld the deplorable conditions attending slavery, and preached to Friends his only sermon, that "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." He did not live to see the slaves manumitted by all the slaveholding Friends, but he "was renewedly confirmed in mind that the Lord (whose tender mercies are over all his works, and whose ear is open to all the cries and groans of the oppressed) is graciously moving in the hearts of people to draw them off from the desire of wealth and to bring them into such an humble, lowly way of living that they may see their way clearly to repair to the standard of true righteousness, and may not only break the yoke of oppression, but may know Him to be their strength and support in times of outward affliction."[192]

Woolman's career was fittingly brought to an end in England, the birthplace of the society for whose improvement he labored so faithfully. He landed at London in June, 1772, and went straightway to the Yearly Meeting.[Pg 137][193] He visited a number of meetings in neighboring towns. While he was attending a meeting of Friends at York, he was smitten with small-pox. He died of the malady, October 1, 1772. But his difficult duty had been performed, and his labor had not been in vain. His efforts had so greatly influenced the Society of Friends that the traffic in slaves had been almost abandoned during his life. Some, of course, continued the practice of holding slaves; but a protest against the practice was made at the Yearly Meeting two years after the death of Woolman, and in 1776 the subordinate meetings were instructed to "deny the right of membership to such as persisted in holding their fellow-men as property." Thus, within four years after the pious reformer's death, the Society of Friends embraced the doctrine of abolition and made slaveholding an offence against Christianity.

The life of John Woolman furnishes another example of a poor but courageous man, who, guided by the real teachings[Pg 138] of the Christian religion, rendered a great service to mankind. Living at a time when the defence of black men's rights was considered reprehensible, he fought against discouraging odds for the brotherhood of mankind. He was meek, persuasive, and confident. He was not a scholar, but "the greatest clerks be not the wisest men," says Chaucer. Like Bunyan, he was a student of the Holy Bible, and well understood its teachings. He realized that no power is durable, or any religion permanent, that is based on hypocrisy. He realized, further, that the grave question of men's rights must be interpreted in terms of the Christian religion. His fellow Friends, incited by selfish motives, had become unmindful of the basic elements of their religion. In their attempt to condone slavery and embrace the religion of brotherhood, they had made Christianity appear farcical. John Woolman's task, then, was not to propagate a new religion, but to make fashionable the Christian religion in which all professed a belief. He succeeded because he was allied to the right. He succeeded because he fought courageously against the wrong. He succeeded because he was a true disciple of the Christian religion. Although his laudable achievement is somewhat overlooked in these days, and his name does not command a conspicuous place on the pages of anthologies, the true lovers of freedom and the sincere exponents of the Christian religion will always remember with reverence the wonderful service of John Woolman, the pious Quaker of New Jersey.

Footnotes:

[167] The Act of Banishment enforced by Charles II against all dissenters.

[168] This opinion was held and supported by Richard Nisbit, in his "Slavery Not Forbidden by Scripture, or a Defence of the West-India Planters." See "Slave-Trade Tracts," Vol. 1, Tract 3. The same opinion was given by John Millar, LL.D., of the University of Glasgow, in his treatise on the "Ranks of Society."

[169] Whittier, "The Journal of John Woolman," 7.

[170] Ibid., 7.

[171] Pa. Mag., IV, 28.

[172] Whittier, "The Journal of John Woolman," 8-9.

[173] Woolman relates this experience in the first chapter of his "Journal," as follows: "My employer, having a Negro woman, sold her, and desired me to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting who bought her. The thing was sudden; and though I felt uneasiness at the thoughts of writing an instrument of slavery for one of my fellow creatures, yet I remembered that I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who bought her; so through weakness I gave way and wrote it; but at the executing of it I was so afflicted in mind, that I said before my master and the Friend that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion. This, in some degree, abated my uneasiness; yet as often as I reflected seriously upon it I thought I should have been clearer if I had desired to be excused from it, as a thing against my conscience; for such it was." "Journal of John Woolman," Edition Philadelphia, 1845, pp. 30-31.

[174] Concerning this early home training, Woolman writes: "The pious instructions of my parents were often fresh in my mind, when I happened to be among wicked children, and were of use to me. Having a large family of children, they used frequently, on first-days, after meeting, to set us one after another to read the Holy Scriptures, or some religious books, the rest sitting by without much conversation; I have since often thought it was a good practice. From what I had read and heard, I believed there had been, in past ages, people who walked in uprightness before God in a degree exceeding any that I knew or heard of now living." "Journal of John Woolman," 20.

[175] "Journal of John Woolman," 25.

[176] That Woolman had a very lofty conception of his calling will appear in his following reflection: "All the faithful are not called to the public ministry; but whoever are, are called to minister of that which they have tasted and handled spiritually. The outward modes of worship are various; but whenever any are true ministers of Jesus Christ, it is from the operation of his Spirit upon their hearts, first purifying them, and thus giving them a just sense of the conditions of others. This truth was early fixed in my mind, and I was taught to watch the pure opening, and to take heed lest, while I was standing to speak, my own will should get uppermost, and cause me to utter words from worldly wisdom, and depart from the channel of the true gospel ministry." "Journal of John Woolman," 29.

[177] According to tradition, Woolman travelled mostly on foot during his journeys among slaveholders. Brissot points out the similarity between the Apostles' practices and Woolman's. The comparison is entertaining, but cannot on all points be reconciled with facts given by Woolman himself in his "Journal." See Brissot's "New Travels in America," published in 1788.

Woolman's impression of slavery at this time is best told in his own words referring to this first journey. He writes: "Two things were remarkable to me in this journey: first, in regard to my entertainment. When I ate, drank, and lodged free-cost with people who lived in ease on the hard labor of their slaves I felt uneasy; and as my mind was inward to the Lord, I found this uneasiness return upon me, at times, through the whole visit. Where the masters bore a good share of the burden, and lived frugally, so that their servants were well provided for, and their labor moderate, I felt more easy; but where they lived in a costly way, and laid heavy burdens on their slaves, my exercise was often great, and I frequently had conversation with them in private concerning it. Secondly, this trade of importing slaves from their native country being much encouraged amongst them, and the white people and their children so generally living without such labor, was frequently the subject of my serious thoughts. I saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess hanging over the land." "Journal of John Woolman," 93.

[178] Note that this essay was not published until eight years after Woolman's journey. The publication in 1754 was due partly to the suggestion of Woolman's father, who, just before his death, persuaded his son to publish the essay. This essay may be found in "Slave-Trade Tracts," Vol. 2.

[179] See Some Considerations, etc.

[180] In this connection, Woolman has two striking passages on page 61 of his "Journal," viz., "Receiving a gift, considered as a gift, brings the receiver under obligations to the benefactor, and has a natural tendency to draw the obliged into a party with the giver. To prevent difficulties of this kind, and to preserve the minds of judges from any bias, was the Divine prohibition: 'Thou shalt not receive any gift; for a gift bindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.'" (Exod. XXIII, 8.)

Again, "Conduct is more convincing than language, and where people, by their actions, manifest that the slave-trade is not so disagreeable to their principles, but that it may be encouraged, there is not a sound uniting with some Friends who visit them."

[181] Woolman answered this argument by showing that Noah and his family were all who survived the flood, according to Scripture; and as Noah was of Seth's race, the family of Cain was wholly destroyed. Woolman's opponent, however, replied that after the flood Ham went to the land of Nod and took a wife; that Nod was a land far distant, inhabited by Cain's race, and that the flood did not reach it; and as Ham was sentenced to be a servant of servants to his brethren, these two families, being thus joined, were undoubtedly fit only for slaves. Woolman answered that the flood was a judgment upon the world for their abominations, and it was granted that Cain's stock was the most wicked, and therefore unreasonable to suppose that they were spared. As to Ham's going to the land of Nod for a wife, no time being fixed, Nod might be inhabited by some of Noah's family before Ham married a second time. Moreover, according to the text, "All flesh died that moved upon the earth." (Gen. VII, 21.) For the full account of the argument, see the "Journal," p. 66.

It is interesting in this connection to note how Montesquieu, in his "Spirit of Laws," treats this color argument with ridicule. He writes ironically:

"Were I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the Negroes, these should be my arguments.

"The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, were obliged to make slaves of the Africans for clearing such vast tracts of land.

"Sugar would be too dear, if the plants which produce it were cultivated by any other than slaves.

"These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied.

"It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black ugly body.

"The Negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold, which polite nations so highly value: can there be greater proof of their wanting common sense?

"It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow, that we ourselves are not Christians."—Book XV, Chap. V.

[182] See Clarkson's "History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade," II, 148, and Vaux's "Memoirs of Anthony Benezet."

[183] See John Greenleaf Whittier's "Introduction to John Woolman's Journal."

[184] This description is by the Marquis de Chastellux, author of "De la Felicite Publique."

[185] For an exhaustive discussion of Benezet, see the "Journal of Negro History," Vol. II, No. 1.

[186] Woolman reports his remarks in substance as follows: "In the difficulties attending us in this life nothing is more precious than the mind of truth inwardly manifested; and it is my earnest desire that in this weighty matter we may be so truly humbled as to be favored with a clear understanding of the mind of truth, and follow it; this would be of more advantage to the Society than any medium not in the clearness of Divine wisdom. The case is difficult to some who have slaves, but it should set aside all self-interest, and come to be weaned from the desire of getting estates, or even from holding them together, when truth requires the contrary, I believe way will so open that they will know how to steer through those difficulties." "Journal," pp. 91-92.

[187] "Journal of John Woolman," 93.

[188] Speaking of his mission, Woolman writes: "I have found an increasing concern on my mind to visit some active members in our Society who have slaves, and having no opportunity of the company of such as were named in the minutes of the Yearly Meeting, I went alone to the houses, and, in fear of the Lord, acquainted them with the exercise I was under; and thus, sometimes by a few words, I found myself discharged from a heavy burden." "Journal," p. 97.

[189] "Journal of John Woolman," 96.

[190] Following are two typical passages taken from the essay: "Through the force of long custom, it appears needful to speak in relation to color. Suppose a white child, born of parents of the meanest sort, who died and left him an infant, falls into the hands of a person, who endeavors to keep him a slave, some men would account him an unjust man in doing so, who yet appear easy while many black people, of honest lives, and good abilities, are enslaved, in a manner more shocking than the case here supposed. This is owing chiefly to the idea of slavery being connected with the black color, and liberty with the white. And where false ideas are twisted into our minds, it is with difficulty we get fairly disentangled." "Slave-Trade Tracts," Vol. 2.

Again, "The color of a man avails nothing, in the matters of right and equity. Consider color in relation to treaties; by such, disputes betwixt nations are sometimes settled. And should the Father of us all so dispose things, that treaties with black men should sometimes be necessary, how then would it appear amongst the princes and ambassadors, to insist upon the prerogative of the white color?" "Slave-Trade Tracts," Vol. 2.

[191] "Journal of John Woolman," p. 126.

[192] Ibid., p. 98.

[193] William J. Allinson, editor of the Friends' Review, tells the following story concerning Woolman's first appearance in England: The vessel reached London on the fifth day of the week, and John Woolman, knowing that the meeting was then in session, lost no time in reaching it. Coming in late and unannounced, his peculiar dress and manner excited attention and apprehension that he was an itinerant enthusiast. He presented his certificate from Friends in America, but the dissatisfaction still remained, and some one remarked that perhaps the stranger Friend might feel that his dedication of himself to this apprehended service was accepted, without further labor, and that he might now feel free to return to his home. John Woolman sat silent for a space, seeking the unerring counsel of Divine Wisdom. He was profoundly affected by the unfavorable reception he met with, and his tears flowed freely.

... He rose at last, and stated that he could not feel himself released from his prospect of labor in England. Yet he could not travel in the ministry without the unity of Friends; and while that was withheld he could not feel easy to be of any cost to them. He could not go back as had been suggested; but he was acquainted with a mechanical trade, and while the impediment to his service continued he hoped Friends would be kindly willing to employ him in such business as he was capable of, and that he might not be chargeable to any.

A deep silence prevailed over the assembly, many of whom were touched by the wise simplicity of the stranger's words and manner. After a season of waiting, John Woolman felt that words were given him to utter as a minister of Christ. The spirit of his Master bore witness to them in the hearts of his hearers. When he closed, the Friend who had advised against his further service rose up and humbly confessed his error, and avowed his full unity with the stranger. All doubt was removed; there was a general expression of unity and sympathy, and John Woolman, owned by his brethren, passed on to his work. Whittier, "Journal of John Woolman," 257-258.

The Tarik É Soudan

The sixteenth century was the golden age of science and literature in Timbuctoo. Her scholars with the University of Sankoré as a center had so generously contributed to the world's thought that they had brought to that country no less fame than its statesmen and warriors by their constructive work and daring deeds. The country, however, was finally invaded by the Moors and the scattering of the talented class resulting thereby led to the inevitable decline of culture. "Yet," says Félix DuBois, "the greatest work of all literature of the Sudan was produced in the first days of its twilight, namely, that Tarik é Soudan (the History of the Soudan)"[194] which we shall here briefly consider.

Investigators had for years endeavored to discover this valuable book, which because of certain traces in the Barbary States had been generally considered the work of Ahmed Baba. The explorer Barth, the first to make a study of this document, was of the same opinion. Félix DuBois expresses his surprise that a man so well informed on Arabian subjects as Barth could be so easily misled, when the very extracts themselves quote Ahmed Baba as an authority. This misconception was due to the failure of the German scholar to read anything but the fragments which he discovered at Gando and to his suspicion that the author in quoting Ahmed Baba was following the Arabs' custom of quoting themselves. Félix DuBois found an excellent copy in Jenne and made from it a duplicate which was corrected from a copy of Timbuctoo,[195] so that he now has the work in what he considers as complete a form as possible.[196]

In establishing the authorship of this work, Félix DuBois emphasizes the fact that the book contains the date, year,[Pg 140] month and day of Ahmed Baba's death and that elsewhere the author gives a very circumstantial account of himself and his belongings. "His name," according to this authority, "is Abderrahman (ben Abdallah, ben Amran, ben Amar) Sadi el Timbucti, and he was born at Timbuctoo, (the 'object of his affections'), of one of those families in which science and piety are transmitted as a patrimony."[197] It seems that he was trained by a distinguished professor who inspired him with the desire to be intellectual. This book shows, too, that he was a mature man some time between 1625 and 1635, during the period when the star of Timbuctoo was waning. That he should still maintain himself as a scholar and obtain the respect of the destructive invaders was due to the reverence with which they held the learned men of the fallen Empire. Having established a reputation which far transcended the bounds of his native country, Abderrahman Sadi was received with marks of honor and presented with gifts during all of his travels to Massina and the regions of the Upper Niger. He was made iman of a mosque of Jenne in 1631, but was later deprived of that honor. He then returned to Timbuctoo, where he was received with sympathy and consoled by friends.

Abderrahman Sadi spent his remaining years, first at Timbuctoo, then at Jenne. It seems that because of his unusual learning and knowledge of politics and government he was employed by the pashas in diplomatic affairs. Although there was then no longer the same center of culture as flourished at the University of Sankoré in former years, Abderrahman Sadi, still imbued with the desire to impart knowledge, devoted no little of his time to giving lectures and holding conferences. His most important undertaking, however, was his great historical work embracing all the countries of the Niger. For such a stupendous task he had adequate preparation not only by his former training but by his experience as a traveller, his services as a public functionary, his social contact and his access to documents which are no longer extant. The following is the preface:[Pg 141]

While it is not our purpose to sketch here the history of this empire, some knowledge of it will give a better appreciation of this great work. As an historical document the Tarik é Soudan is the only source from which we get an idea as to the origin of the Songhoi. The natives of this country inform the traveller that they came from the east. The Tarik é Soudan says: "The first king of the Songhoi was called Dialliaman," meaning, "He has come from Yemen." Dialliaman quitted Yemen in company with his brother. They travelled through the country of God until destiny brought them to the land of Kokia. Giving a more detailed account it says:

Here the author has confused tradition with history.[200] The document itself, however, substantiates the contention that there arose in this region one of the world's greatest empires ruled by an almost unbroken succession of kings who piloted the nation through the trials of its incipiency, enabled it to develop a very advanced civilization, and extended its influence over a large portion of Africa. The empire of the Songhoi lasted about 1,000 years, during which three dynasties ruled over these people. The kings of these lines adopted the names Dia, Sunni, and Askia. The first included thirty kings who ruled from 700 to 1335; the second a line of eighteen kings from 1335 to 1492, and the third and last dynasty from 1494 to 1591.

During the reign of Dia Sobi of the first dynasty the empire passed through a crisis. Unable to conquer its enemies from without, it finally became the vassal of the Mali empire on the west. Jenne, the city of much wealth and culture, was then separated from the Songhoi empire. But finally there came Ali Kolon, of the second dynasty, who freed the Songhoi from the rule of Mali. The country thereafter continued for some time in peace. Later it expanded considerably under Sunni Ali, "the true Negro soldier," who ruled from 1464 to 1493. Although skeptical,[Pg 143] violent and oppressive he paved the way for the establishment of the largest empire which had ever existed in that part of the world.

In 1494 the second dynasty was brought to a close when Sunni Barro, the last of that line, was obliged to flee from the country and Askia Mohammed usurped the throne. He began as a pious ruler and was, therefore, praised as "a brilliant light shining after great darkness; a savior who drew the servants of God from idolatry and the country from ruin."[201] He made pilgrimages to Mecca, scattered his funds in the holy places, rendered homage to the Khalif Abassid Motewekkel in Egypt, got in touch with the theologians and learned men of Cairo and endeavored to take over the more advanced civilization of Egypt. During these years, however, his piety did not deter him from the use of the sword. He ever fought his neighbors, conducting an expedition against some nation almost every year. He eventually succeeded in triumphing over his enemies, conquering Mali on the west and Agades, Katsina, Kano, Zegzey, and Sanfara on the east. He was then Askia the Great, the ruler of one of the greatest empires of the world, extending north and south from Thegazza to Bandouk and east and west from Lake Chad to the Atlantic Ocean. He was not a mere warrior. He was just as successful in carrying out a constructive policy of incorporation. Instead of being satisfied with the payment of tribute, he destroyed old systems, established his lieutenants in the seats of government, appointed viceroys[Pg 144] to supervise the governors of provinces, promoted commerce, and built up a formidable standing army.

Askia the Great, however, finally declined and was deposed by his son Askia Moussa in 1521. He entered upon the policy of killing his hundred brothers and was finally assassinated. Then came a nephew of Askia the Great, Askia Bankouri, who, much like his predecessor, endeavored to murder his uncles who might pretend to the throne. Despite this blot on his escutcheon, however, it is said that he wielded power with magnificence and maintained a great court. He was dethroned by the Viceroy of Dandi in 1537 and Askia Ismael was proclaimed king. His motives, according to the Tarik, are interesting. "I accepted the honour for three reasons," declared he; "to rescue my father from his distressful condition, to enable my sisters to resume the veil that Bankouri had obliged them to relinquish, and to pacify Yan Mara, one of the hundred hen ostriches, who was wont to throw herself into a frenzy whenever she saw Bankouri."[202]

Ismael died in 1540 and was succeeded by his brother Ishak. Following the example of his predecessor, he put to death many of his relations. The last four Askia to rule over the entire empire had much difficulty in maintaining their positions because of the internal and external causes operating to make it decline and fall. The Moors, the most aggressive peoples then seeking to invade the dominions, finally overran the empire and made it a colony.

Referring to this turbulent period through which the empire passed, the Tarik says: "All was changed in a moment. Danger took the place of security, destitution of abundance, trouble, calamities, and violence succeeded to tranquillity. Everywhere the populations began to destroy each other. In all places and in every direction rapine became the law, war spared neither life nor property, nor the position of the people. Disorder was general, it spread everywhere till it reached at last the highest degree of intensity." "Things continued thus," adds the historian, "until towards the moment in which the Songhoi dynasty approached its[Pg 145] end, and its empire ceased to exist. At this moment faith was exchanged for infidelity; there was nothing forbidden by God which was not openly done. Men drank wine, they gave themselves up to vice.... As to adultery, it became so frequent that indulgence in it was almost accepted as permissible. Without it there was no elegance and no glory. ... Because of these abominations, the Almighty in his vengeance drew down upon the Songhoi the victorious army of the Moors. He brought it through terrible suffering from a distant country. Then the roots of this people were separated from the trunk, and the chastisement they underwent was exemplary."[203]

The Tarik é Soudan, however, continues its story beyond the fall of the empire of the Songhoi. It throws light on Foulbes, Touaregs, Mossi and Ouolofs, mentions Morocco and Massina, sketches the careers of saints and scholars, sets forth the authors curriculum vitae, and brings this narrative to a close in 1653. His task as a historian finished, the author appends the annals of the country to the year 1656, saying: "What shall happen hereafter I shall relate in the same manner as that which is past, for as long as I shall be alive."[204] It is highly probable that the author died that year.

Considered from all angles the student must agree with the investigator that the Tarik é Soudan is a masterpiece. Barth, the distinguished German scholar, says that the book forms "one of the most important additions that the present age has made to the history of mankind."[205] Lady Lugard, another writer in this field, believes that it is not merely an authentic narrative but is an unusually valuable document since it throws unconscious light upon the life, manners, politics and literature of that country. "Above all," says she, "it possesses the crowning quality, displayed usually in creative poetry alone, of presenting a vivid picture of the character of the men with whom it deals. It has been called the 'Epic of the Soudan,'" continues the writer. "It lacks[Pg 146] the charm of form, but in all else the description is well merited. Its pages are a treasure-house of information for the careful student and the volumes may be read many times without extracting from them more than a small part of all that they contain."[206]

Félix DuBois refers to it as serving him as his "charming and picturesque guide through the Soudan." "The Tarik é Soudan," says he, "is conceived upon a perfectly clear and logical plan according to the most correct rules of literary composition."[207] "It forms, with the exception of the holy writings, the favorite volume of the negro, and is known to the furthest extremity of western Africa, from the shores of the Niger to the borders of Lake Chad." "Its style," continues he, "is very simple and clear, entirely lacking those literary artifices so much in vogue among the Arabs; and the author displays an unusual conscientiousness, never hesitating to give both versions of a doubtful event."[208] On the whole it is a book of elevated active morals and with its charming combination of fables, marvels and miracles it is well adapted to influence the negraic mind. The work is not an uninteresting narration of events but an explanation of them as the rewards of God when fortunate and punishments of the wicked when calamitous. Devoted to religion and civic virtue, the author portrays as sinful the evil deeds of all whether they be peasants or kings. "The Tarik is to this day," remarks Félix DuBois, "the Hozier of the Soudan. In addition to the attractions to be found in its pages, it contains a charm which entirely escapes the Sudanese, and which we alone are privileged to taste, viz., the naïvete, good nature, and delicious sincerity which pervade the book." The "book admirably reflects the life and mind of the Soudan of yesterday. One enjoys from its pages," says this writer, "the delicate repasts offered by Homer, Herodotus, and Froissard, and it is for this reason I have called the Tarik the chef-d'oeuvre of Sudanese literature."[209]

Footnotes:

[194] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 310.

[195] Ibid., 315.

[196] This work has been translated into French by M. Octave Houdas, Professor of the Oriental School of Languages in Paris.

[197] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 312.

[198] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 313-314.

[199] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 90-91.

[200] "Like Homer, Abderrahman sometimes wanders astray," says DuBois, "pen in hand. Side by side with the gravest events he mentions that 'a white crow appeared from the 22nd of Rebia to the 28th of Djoumada, on which day the children caught and killed it.' Elsewhere in the narratives of his voyage to Massina, one of his hosts gave him his daughter in marriage. He was fifty years of age at the time, and in possession of several other wives. Not content with imparting the event to posterity, he adds, 'My union with Fatima was concluded on the twelfth day of Moharrem, 1645, but the marriage was not consummated until Friday the sixteenth.' I believe he would have given us his washing-bills if the use of body linen had been familiar to the Sudanese. In referring to this tendency of the annalist, DuBois does not mean to say anything which might be taken as an undervaluation of this work. He aims to show how the Tarik reminds the reader of works of some of the leading writers of the most civilized countries." See DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," p. 316.

[201] It was said "He made a pilgrimage to the house of God, accompanied by a thousand foot-soldiers and five hundred horse, and carrying with him three hundred thousand mitkals of gold from the treasure of Sunni Ali. He scattered this treasure in the holy places, at the tomb of the Prophet in Medina, and at the sacred mosque at Mecca. In the latter town he bought gardens and established a charitable institute for the people of the Sudan. This place is well known in Mecca, and cost five thousand mitkals.

"He rendered homage to the Khalif Abassid Motewekkel in Egypt, praying to be made his deputy in the Sudan in general and in Songhois in particular. The Abassid consented, requiring the king of Songhois to abdicate for three days and to place the power in his hands. On the fourth day Motewekkel solemnly proclaimed Askia Mohammed the representative of the sultan in Sudan. He accompanied this by placing a green fez and white turban upon his head and returning him his sabre." "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 110.

[202] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 119-120.

[203] Lady Lugard, "A Tropical Dependency," 283-284.

[204] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 314.

[205] Lady Lugard, "A Tropical Dependency," 154.

[206] Ibid., 154-155.

[207] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 313.

[208] Félix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 312.

[209] Ibid., 316.

From a Jamaica Portfolio—Francis Williams [210]

A great dividing line in the history of Jamaica runs across the record between the years 1834 and 1838. On the further side lay slavery; on the hitherward side lies the freedom, partially proclaimed on August 1, 1834, and made complete and absolute on a like date in the year of grace 1838. Amid the noise and gloom of the period from these years back into the past, it is only here and there that the face and figure of a son of Africa stands out with anything like clearness or distinction against the background of historic events. It was in 1494 that the European first came to Jamaica. The island was then discovered by Columbus. Fifteen years later the Spaniards, who had meantime harried and slain the native Indians, set to work seriously to settle in the island. As the Arrowaks withered from the land, before the cruelty of the conqueror, the African was brought in to supply slave labor.[211] It is not our immediate task to enquire into the condition of the slaves during the Spanish occupation, nor does there exist very much material for answering such an enquiry, but it may be noted, as an interesting fact, that a black priest was in the deputation that came forth to negotiate with the British conqueror when, in 1655, the surrender of the capital city, St. Jago de la Vega, became a necessity. The Spanish Governor, Don Arnoldi Gasi, sent as one of his representatives Don[Pg 148] Acosta, "a noble Portuguese." Belonging to his establishment and accompanying him as chaplain was a Negro priest. His name has not come down to us but we know his fate. One of the conditions of the surrender was that the Spaniards were not to attempt to remove their belongings.[212] The town, however, contained a party, chiefly of Portuguese, hostile to the surrender. The first article of the capitulation required that all "goods, wares, merchandizes, or what else upon the said island, be delivered up, etc., without any deceit, embezzlement, or concealment whatever." A certain Colonel made bold to drive away into the woodlands all the cattle he could collect. Don Acosta was not only as a man of honor shocked at this breach of a solemnly signed agreement, but he had the painful personal interest in it of being a hostage in the hands of the British for the due performance of the treaty of surrender. He therefore, we are told, sent to the Colonel "his priest, a discreet Negro, to remonstrate."[213] The Colonel put the priest to death, and apparently suffered no worse punishment for this dastardly act than to have the cattle he had gone away with discovered and brought back to the British lines.[214]

When the Spaniards a few weeks after evacuated the island, going by ship to Cuba, they took the liberty of further transgressing the treaty made with Penn and Venables, the British commanders, for, instead of taking their slaves with them, they turned them loose into the hills, with directions to harass the British as much as was possible. These slaves formed the nucleus of the Maroons, a body of mountain warriors whose deeds of daring and battle form a story too long and too interesting to be dealt with here.[215]

The British speedily introduced African slaves into the island, and, after a few generations, the population had taken the contour it still preserves, namely, the pure whites,[Pg 149] the colored folk (mixed breeds) and the pure blacks. For one reason and another, individuals in the last-named section obtained their freedom. Sometimes it was granted to them by masters who appreciated some special service rendered. Sometimes it was bequeathed to them by kind-hearted masters. At times it was a gift from the state for services rendered in times of rebellion or other disaster to the commonwealth.[216]

Among the colored element of the population the tendency towards manumission was even more marked and extensive, for there the white fathers often not only bestowed freedom on their offspring but bequeathed to them comfortable, if not ample, means. Our immediate interest is, however, to be found among the blacks, for it is among them that we see a face and figure that holds our attention.

Among the earliest Negroes in Jamaica freed because of services rendered to the state was one John Williams. Under date of 1708, a law stands on record, the first of its kind, forbidding slave testimony being received in evidence against two Negroes, to wit, Manuel Bartholomew and John Williams. This was bestowing on them one of the vital privileges as a rule confined to whites. Eight years later there was passed another act extending the privilege to Dorothy Williams, wife of John, and also to the sons of these two, namely, John, Thomas, and Francis. Exactly what led to such marked discrimination in favor of Williams and his family the records have not so far revealed, but the mere continuation of the concession and its extension suggest that there was something special about the character and worth of John Williams, Senior, as viewed by the ruling authorities. Another fact emphasizes this. John Williams, between 1708 and 1716, had to endure the rather dangerous hostility of a member of the legislature. This legislator applied to Williams the term "a black Negro," as one of contempt. Williams replied with the term, self-contradictory no doubt but effective enough to rile a Jamaican legislator in the early part of the eighteenth century. He styled[Pg 150] his would-be traducer a "white Negro." As a result he ran the risk of seeing his valued privileges withdrawn once and for all. Supported by a few of his friends, the irate legislator brought the matter before the House of Assembly, and it was actually proposed that the Act of 1708, the Magna Charta so to speak of the Williams family, should be revoked. The effort, however, failed, and it seems reasonable to view that fact as a testimony to something of worth in John Williams, especially when we find that soon after his privileges were extended to his wife and his three sons.[217]

Francis Williams now replaces John, his father, and Dorothy, his mother, against the background of the past. The Duke of Montague wished to put to the test some of his opinions about the capabilities of the Negro. He desired to see whether a black boy taken and trained at an English school and then at a university would not equal in intellectual attainments a white youth similarly educated.[218] The links that would explain how it was that the choice for this experiment fell on Francis Williams are missing, but there it did fall. He must certainly have been, as Gardner suggests, "a lively, intelligent lad,"[219] but that by itself would not fully explain his being chosen. Someone fairly high up in Jamaica must have been taking a special interest in the Williams family, and that interest, in view of the collateral facts, must have been based on something of note in John Williams, Senior.

Francis received preliminary training in Jamaica, and then was sent to an English grammar school. Thence he went to Cambridge University. Only the bare facts of his story remain, like a skeleton, but we can safely argue that he did not disappoint the expectations of his patron to any serious extent, for, when the time came for Francis to return to Jamaica, the Duke of Montague used his influence with some determination to get his protégé appointed to a seat in the Council, that his abilities might be fully put to[Pg 151] the test. The Governor of the island with whom the Duke had to do was Edward Trelawny, and this shows that Williams returned to Jamaica between 1738 and 1748, for it was between those years that Trelawny held sway. They were stormy times, and Trelawny was a man with anything but a placid temper or compliant views. The famous war of "Jenkin's ear," between Britain and Spain, began in 1738. Porto Bello was destroyed by Vernon and Cartagena was attacked with troops whose base was Jamaica. In fact, Trelawny added a Negro detachment to the army employed.[220] In the quarrels that followed the disastrous failure at Cartagena, Trelawny had even more than his fair share of the cursing, and it is hardly surprising to find that a man of such temper, and amid such storms of fate, was anything but malleable to the Duke's request. The Governor knew his mind, and it was that setting a black man in the Council would excite restlessness among the slave population. The Duke's experiment with Williams was, therefore, not completed as the Duke himself intended it should be.[221]

Williams settled down in Spanish Town (St. Jago de la Vega), the then capital of the island, and conducted a school for imparting a classical and mathematical education. He became known also in the island, and to some extent abroad, as a poet and the fragments of his work that have come down to us show that he was at any rate a fair literary craftsman. Of the sort of man he was personally, we have not the material for a fair judgment, for we are practically shut up to surveying the man through the very colored glass that the historian Long inserts in the loophole of observation he has turned on Williams. Long, who published his History of Jamaica in 1774, was of the planter class, and his prejudice on such a matter was probably so complete that he was not even conscious that prejudice existed. He says of Williams: "In regard to the general character of the[Pg 152] man, he was haughty, opinionated, looked down with sovereign contempt on his fellow blacks, entertained the highest opinion of his own knowledge, treated his parents with much disdain, and behaved towards his own children and slaves with a severity bordering on cruelty. He was fond of having great deference paid to him, and exacted it with the utmost degree from the negroes about him. He affected a singularity of dress and a particularly grave cast of countenance, to impart an idea of his wisdom and learning; and to second this view, he wore in common a huge wig, which made a very venerable figure."[222] The influence of prejudice on this picture is easily to be detected. There is not a single line of sympathy through the whole presentation, and it is something more than probable that there is actual misrepresentation of facts. Long would repeat what was current in his own circle, without feeling himself at all bound to investigate the assertions before setting them down for future generations to read.[223]

That Williams was set in a most difficult position is obvious. It was one that could only be creditably filled by one highly and exceptionally gifted, both in intellect and spirit. Still more difficult was it so to fill that position that he would appear before an age of wider and sweeter altruistic principles without disfavor in its eyes. Long credits him with the saying: "Show me a negro, and I show you a thief";[224] and Gardner, who enters in his behalf a defence that is in many ways effective, merely says regarding this accusation: "The race to which he belonged was then almost universally despised, and the temptation to curry favor with the whites by denouncing the negroes was too great for him to resist."[225] But it seems to me that something[Pg 153] more deserves to be said on the subject. We do not know whether Williams' epigram was a sober opinion or merely one cast off in a fit of irritation, that moment of "haste," which even the Psalmist knew, when he was led to sweep all mankind in under the term of "liar." But, further, if Williams was the deliberate sycophant and racial toady Gardner strives to shelter behind his shield of excuse, how was it that he had not won from the planter party, whose voice reaches us through Long, a more softened if not a more favorable opinion? There must have been some marked independence of spirit about a man who cut himself off thus on the one side and on the other. He was an educated man, placed in a false position; cut off by the narrowmindedness of the educated men around him from the environment for which training and education had fitted him. Had his savage epigram employed the term "slave," instead of "negro," and that was practically what it meant, it could stand as a thought-compelling truth, pointing beyond the slave to the tyrant system that made the slave.

Gardner, whose history was published in 1876, was, by class, of the missionaries, and by disposition a liberal, and a conscientious liberal. His estimate of Williams is thoroughly well-intentioned, and not wholly inadequate. It lacks subtlety, rather than sympathy. I cannot help hoping that time will bring to light material by which something may be attempted regarding the personality and character of Francis Williams, nearer what one feels instinctively is the truth than the outline at present holding the field.

Francis Williams has been mentioned as the author of the song: "Welcome, welcome, fellow debtor," but on what grounds, beyond tradition, it is not clear. We have, however, a Latin poem which is indubitably his work. It was addressed to General George Haldane, who arrived in Jamaica as Governor, April 17, 1758. It is panegyric, after the fashion of the eighteenth century, that is excessively so, but there are lines in it worth remembering. It is thus inscribed:[Pg 154]

The following translation of this poem has been supplied by Mr. E.J. Chinock, M.A., LL.B.:

giving it an interpretation disparaging to Williams' racial self-respect. With more understanding of the poet's surroundings it may be taken rather to express the poet's desire to be marked as distinct from the then condition of those who represented his race round him, namely slaves.

The following lines especially deserve praise for the height in emotion and manliness to which they ascend:

Mr. Chinook's rendering conveys some of their stirring force, but they deserve a better translation, and one reason for giving the whole poem here is the hope that it may elicit another translation from some one entering more feelingly and with equal lingual knowledge into the poet's conception.

Footnotes:

[210] The writer of the following article, though not of the race to serve which this Journal specially exists, offers a contribution to its pages because of the deep and sympathetic interest he has long taken in the African race, and because of his belief in its future. He would also interest readers of the Journal in his native island, Jamaica, where, although the creation still bears marks of human imperfection and incompleteness, a community has been brought into being in which the racial elements, in such fierce and embittered antagonism elsewhere, are gradually, but surely, blending into a whole of common citizenship. T.H. MacDermot, Editor of the Jamaica Times, Ltd.

[211] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 10.

[212] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 31.

[213] Bridges, "Annals of Jamaica," I, 204.

[214] Long, "History of Jamaica," 234; and Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 31-32.

[215] See Dallas's "History of the Maroons," I, 26.

[216] This is the history of gradual emancipation in most slaveholding states.

[217] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 207.

[218] Long, "History of Jamaica," II, 476.

[219] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 207.

[220] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 123.

[221] Long, "History of Jamaica," II, 476; and Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 207.

[222] Long, "History of Jamaica," II, 478.

[223] Long says: "He defined himself 'a white man acting under a black skin,' He endeavored to prove logically, that a Negroe was superior in quality to a Mulatto, or other craft, or other cast. His proposition was, that 'a simple white or simple black complexion was respectively perfect: but a Mulatto, being an heterogeneous medley of both, was imperfect, ergo inferior,'" Long, "History of Jamaica," II, 478.

[224] ibid., II, 478

[225] Gardner, "History of Jamaica," 208.

[226] Edward Long undertook to analyze this poem in such a way as to show the inferiority of the Negro. These notes are all his. See Long's "History of Jamaica," II, 478-485.

[227] Gardner, History of Jamaica, appendix.

Notes on the Nomolis of Sherbroland

Among Sierra Leoneans the Sherbro country enjoys a reputation for mysteriousness. A country where every object, from the sandy soil one treads in the streets to the bamboo chair one sits upon at home, is supposed to possess intelligence and to be capable of "catching" one, to wit, afflicting one with disease; a country where the penalty for such a venal offence as stubbing one's devoted foot against the roots of a famous cotton tree, which stands perilously near the roadside, is a sure attack of elephantiasis; a country which boasts of a certain holy city upon whose soil no man on earth may walk shod and live to see the next day, a tradition for which the District Commissioners, adventurous Britons as they are, have had so much respect that they have been content to get only a cruising knowledge of the place, always summoning the headmen to conferences on the beach and delivering instructions from the safe precincts of a boat awning; such a country evidently deserves to be called a land of mystery.

Now, to this air of mystery is added one of interest for students of archæology in general, and particularly for all Negroes who are interested in the study of the history of their race with a view to discover whether it has really made any worthy achievements in the past or, as its traducers love to make us believe, it is indeed a backward race, that is only just emerging from barbarism and beginning to enjoy and assimilate the blessings of Western culture. I refer to certain sculptured finds which are from time to time made in the country and are naturally looked upon by the unsophisticated native mind as nothing short of a mystery.

These images, or nomolis, as they are called in the vernacular, are by no means the empirical efforts of some crude artists, but are the products of finished workmanship wrought in steatite or soapstone, which abounds in the Protectorate. They present purely Egyptian and Ethiopian features, and are apparently of great antiquity, possibly thousands of years old. They are dug out from old graves in the course of ploughing, and the finder of one of them considers himself a lucky man indeed. He sees visions of an unprecedentedly rich harvest, or of an extraordinarily brisk trade, if he happens to be in the commercial line, as the nomoli is the presiding[Pg 161] deity of crops and commerce. If the good services of the god are required on the farm a small shrine is erected there for it and a great big hamper and a bundle of rods placed in front of it. The demon is then addressed in some such manner as this: "I wish you to protect this farm from injury. Make the crop prosper more than everybody's else, and, to do this, every day you must steal from other people's farms and fill this hamper to the full. If you do this I shall treat you well; but if you fail, this bundle of rods is reserved for your punishment." The god is then heartily treated to a sample of the walloping it should expect in case of default. When its help is needed in the store a similar temple is put up for it in a corner within, and its duty is then to protect the store from burglary, to replenish it by theft and to "draw" custom by a sort of personal magnetism. In either case it must be well cared for. Whatever food or drink its owner partakes every day, a portion must be given to it—and don't forget the whipping. Whether you realize or are disappointed in your expectations of it the guardian angel respects force more than gentleness, and must be whipped soundly every morning.

It will be seen from this that the morality of the nomoli is of a rather naughty order. The controlling principle of its life is theft; in fact it idealizes this vice, since ownership in regard to it cannot be transferred except by stealing. The god argues it this way: "He who is so careless of me that he allows me to be stolen from him, is not worthy to be my master; but he who so much believes in my powers that he risks the consequences of theft for the sake of getting possession of me, is deserving to be my master and I will serve him." In the event of discovery the culprit is taken to the barre or native court and the Chief inflicts a fine on him; and, "whereas, contrary to customary law, Kai Baki, the plaintiff, did harbour a 'big man' stranger (to wit, a nomoli) in the chiefdom without intimating the Chief in order that his majesty might pay his homage etc., etc.," the aforesaid plaintiff, who in native law is entitled to receive the amount of defendant's fine as compensation, is not only mulcted in the same amount more or less, but his nomoli becomes forfeited to the crown in the bargain. Obviously, then, it does not pay to prosecute for nomoli stealing, and the robbed native would rather bear his trouble like a philosopher, secretly admiring the cuteness of the other fellow and stealing his property back at the earliest opportunity.[Pg 162]

If one depends upon the aborigines for a clue as to the origin of the nomoli the enquiry would, like Kipling's "eathen," "end where it began." The whole thing is veiled in mystery; there is not even a legend about it. All that the native would tell you, and it is what he honestly believes to be the truth, is that the image was created by Gehwor (God) and came down directly from heaven. The fact that no sculpturing of the kind is now-a-days prosecuted in the country, although the Sherbros are clever at wood-carving, makes him ridicule the idea that the nomoli is man's handiwork. The enquiring student must for the present, therefore, go upon very scanty basis to formulate his theory. In order to help in the solution of this problem I shall state one or two facts about the natives of these regions. The Sherbros and Mendis, both of whom inhabit the vast territory known as Sherbroland, are, of all primitive Africans, the least given to fetish worship. This fact has always proved a stumbling-block to the spread of Mohammedanism in that part of the world. Arab as well as Negro Moslem missionaries have always found the Sherbro and Mendi man rather hard nuts to crack. Many an emissary of the prophet has invaded Sherbroland, exposing for sale all the tempting superstitious paraphernalia of the faith, but the native has almost invariably beaten him with his cold logic.

"How long does it take to come here from Mecca?" once asked a native of an Arab Sheik, who went out hawking some charms in the course of a religious tour. "Oh, more than a month," answered the unsuspecting Moslem. "A month!" exclaimed the intended convert. "Yes." "And you have come all that distance to help us with these things?" "Yes." "Then you must have paid quite a lot of money for your passage?" "Quite a lot." "And I dare say, you must have only a little money left now?" pursued the native. "Oh, yes, that's why I am selling these potent charms so cheaply, because I wish to raise money to go back home," confessed the true believer. "But how is that?" queried the native; "if, as you say, these charms can make a poor man become rich, how is it that you did not stay in Mecca and use them yourself to become rich instead of coming all the way here to sell them to get money?"

As this attitude towards charms, which is typical of the Sherbro natives, shows that they are not a fetish worshipping people, it can hardly be supposed that the nomolis are relics of that superstition. If this were the case, it could easily be suggested by those who wish to discredit the race that the images might have been made by[Pg 163] members of some foreign race and exported to the "heathen," who are supposed to delight in "bowing down to wood and stone," a sort of execution to order. This should be quite possible, because it was recently discovered that a certain London firm did a thriving business in idols with China; and it has even been suggested that the nomolis were imported into Sherbroland from Phoenicia.

But such a contingency being ruled out of court, in view of the Sherbro native's antipathy to idol worship, we must look for an explanation of the origin of the nomoli to one other feature in the customs of Sherbroland. The Sherbros have a custom almost similar to that of the Timnis, a kindred people. The latter are given to ancestor worship. At the burial of a Timni, a few stones are placed upon the grave, and after three days, when the spirit of the deceased is supposed to have entered into the stones, they are removed to a little shrine in the porch of the family house. The spirit then becomes a guardian angel, and offerings are made at the shrine from day to day. The Sherbros also make use of stones for the reception of the spirits of their departed ones, but not with a view to ancestor worship. If a Sherbro happened to die away from home, which is considered a great calamity, the remains are either exhumed and brought back to the old familiar scenes, or, if the distance be too great, three stones are taken to the last resting place and, after three days in the case of a male, or four days in the case of a female, the spirit is supposed to have entered the stones, and the latter are brought to the old town and buried.

Is it not possible, then, that the nomolis are real pictures of some ancient Sherbro men and women, and that these people, dying away from "home, sweet home," their images, after having supposedly received their spirits, were interred in the old homeland? I believe the Rev. Dr. Hayford in his "Ethiopia Unbound" suggests that Ethiopia or Negrodom was once the mistress of the world; that much-talked-of Egypt was but a province of hers, and the pharaohs not real kings, but merely governors sent from the mother country. If this be true, might it not be that some of these nomolis are sculptures of eminent men and women, natives of the region now known as Sherbroland, who went to far-away Egypt as Empire builders, lost their lives in the land of the sphynx; and, since distance prevented the return of their bodies, their busts, after receiving their imperishable parts, were brought back home and buried with due solemnity "under the stately walls of Troy?"

Documents

Observations on the Negroes of Louisiana

To present a broad view of the Negroes concerned in this and the subsequent series of documents we have given below accounts appearing from decade to decade, written by men of different classes and of various countries. Some received one impression and some another, as the situation was viewed from different angles. In the mass of information, however, there is the truth which one may learn for himself.

Considerations sur l'esclavage; Nègres libres; Mulâtres de la Louisiane, 1801

Observations of Berquin Duvallon on the Freed People Of Colour in Louisiana in 1802

Observations on the Negro Slave

Timothy Flint's Recollections of Conditions in Louisiana in 1826

The Observations of Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, in New Orleans

From Charles Gayarré's Unpublished Manuscript on the People of Color in Louisiana

Caswall's Account of Bishop Polk's Efforts in Louisiana in 1854

Olmsted's Observations in Louisiana in 1860

Footnotes:

[228] Environ soixante livres.

[229] It is apparent that our author once lived at St. Domingo. I imagine he was a sufferer from the revolt, insurrection and triumph of the Negroes; hence his aversion to them, hence his revilings, hence his outrageous invectives.

[230] The disastrous events proceeding from the late war should be impressed with redoubled force upon the minds of all slave-holders throughout the globe, they should teach them the necessity of keeping them in that state of content and subordination, which will alienate them from the wish of acquiring a freedom, which has cost so much blood to the colonists of St. Domingo. I subjoin for the information of the inhabitants of the United States the directions issued by the Spanish government for the treatment of slaves in Louisiana. They exhibit the internal police of the plantations.

Every slave shall punctually receive the barrel of corn allowed by the usage of the colony, and which quantity is voluntarily augmented by the greater part of their masters.

The Syndics shall take measures to induce the planters of their district to allow their negroes a portion of their waste lands; by which they will not only add to their comforts, but increase the productions of the province, and that time will be usefully employed which would otherwise be devoted to libertinism.

Every slave shall be allowed half an hour for breakfast, and two hours for dinner; their labor shall commence at break of day, and shall cease at the approach of night. Sundays shall be the holiday of the slaves, but their masters may require their labor at harvest, &c. on paying them four escalins per diem.

The slaves who have not a portion of waste lands shall receive punctually from their masters a linen shirt and trowsers for the summer, and a woollen great coat and trowsers for the winter.

No person shall cause to be given, at once, more than thirty lashes to his slave, under penalty of fifty piasters, but the same may be repeated, if necessary, within an interval of one day.

It is permitted to shoot at an armed run-away negro, who shall refuse to stop when required; or who cannot otherwise be taken, even if he be not armed; at a negro who shall dare to defend himself against his master or overseer; and lastly at those who shall secretly enter a plantation with intent to steal.

Whosoever shall kill a slave, unless in one of the cases before mentioned, shall be punished to the extent of the law, and if he shall only wound him, he shall be punished according to the circumstances of the case. Intrigues, plots of escape, &c. arising in general from the negroes of one plantation visiting those of another, the inhabitants are forbidden under the penalty of ten piasters, to allow any intercourse or resort of negroes to their plantations for the purpose of dancing, &c. And the amusements of their own slaves, which shall be allowed only on Sundays, shall terminate always before night.

A slave shall not pass the bounds of his master's land, without his permission in writing, under the penalty of 20 lashes.

A slave shall not ride the horse of his master or any other person, without permission, shall be punished with 30 lashes.

Slaves shall not be permitted to be proprietors of horses, under penalty of the confiscation thereof.

Fire-arms are prohibited to slaves, as also powder, ball and lead, under the penalty of thirty lashes and the confiscation thereof.

An inhabitant may not have more than two hunters, who are to deliver up their arms and ammunition on their return from the chase.

Slaves may not sell any thing without the permission of their master, not even the productions of the waste lands allowed them.

Rum, fire-arms and ammunition shall be seized when in possession of coasters, and sold at public auction for the use of the treasury.

New-Orleans, June 1, 1795.

Le Baron de Carondelet.

[231] Among the slave traders, a Hollander from Amsterdam, disgusted me particularly, his name was Jacobs. He had the most vulgar and sinister countenance imaginable, was constantly drunk, and treated the wretched negroes in the most brutal manner; he was, however, severely beaten by these miserable beings, driven to despair. Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels through North America during the years 1825 and 1826, pp. 57-59.

The virtuous indignation of the Duke, at these horrible consequences of slavery, is such as every man, not hardened by long familiarity with such scenes, must feel; those to whom they are daily presented regard them with calm indifference, or even attempt to argue in favour of their continuance and harmlessness. It is not as generally known, as it should be, that the slave trade is carried on, almost as vigorously now, as ever it was, and by citizens of almost every nation; not in the least excepting Americans. The slave vessels sail principally from Havanna and St. Thomas, and land their cargoes on the island of Puerto Rico, and elsewhere, whither purchasers and agents resort, when such an arrival occurs. Two schooners, with large cargoes, arrived in Puerto Rico in February last, and two brigs were daily expected. It is said in the West Indies, that all ships of war, of powers owning West India Colonies, connive at the trade, which is fully supported by facts; as French, Danish, and English cruisers were in the vicinity, when the above mentioned cargoes arrived. The idea of cruising off the coast of Africa, to prevent the trade, is ridiculed by the slave dealers, with one of whom the writer of this note conversed. If the American, or any other government really wished to put an end to this trade, it could be very effectually accomplished, by sending small armed vessels to intercept the slave traders near their places of landing cargoes, which are not very numerous. It is also said, in the West Indies, that the Havanna traders still contrive to introduce Africans into the southern part of the United States; of the truth or falsehood of this, we know nothing. The slave vessels are generally Baltimore clipper brigs, and schooners, completely armed and very fast sailers. Two of them sailed on this execrable trade in February last, from a port visited by the writer.—Trans.

[232] If it be known that a stranger, who has pretensions to mix with good society, frequents such balls as these, he may rely upon a cold reception from the white ladies.

[233] A plain, unvarnished history of the internal slave trade carried on in this country, would shock and disgust the reader to a degree that would almost render him ashamed to acknowledge himself a member of the same community. In unmanly and degrading barbarity, wanton cruelty, and horrible indifference to every human emotion, facts could be produced worthy of association with whatever is recorded of the slave trade in any other form. One of these internal slave traders has built, in a neighboring city, a range of private prisons, fronting the main road to Washington, in which he collects his cattle previous to sending off a caravan to the south. The voice of lamentation is seldom stilled within these accursed walls. Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels through North America during the years 1825 and 1826, pp. 61-63.

Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa	Jerome Dowd
The Negro in the Field of Invention	Henry E. Baker
Anthony Benezet	C. G. Woodson
People of Color in Louisiana - Part II	Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Notes on Connecticut as a Slave State
Documents
Letters of Anthony Benezet
Reviews of Books
Notes

Formation of American Colonization Society	Henry Noble Sherwood, Ph.D
Evolution of Slave Status in American Democracy - II	John M. Mecklin
History of High School for Negroes in Washington	Mary Church Terrell
The Danish West Indies	Leila Amos Pendleton
Documents
Relating to the Danish West Indies
Reviews of Books
Notes
African Origin of Grecian Civilization

Some Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes	John R. Lynch
The Struggle of Haiti and Liberia for Recognition	Charles H. Wesley
Three Negro Poets	Benjamin Brawley
Catholics and the Negro	Joseph Butsch
Documents
Letters of George Washington Bearing on the Negro
Petition for Compensation for the Loss of Slaves
An Extract from the Will of Robert Pleasants
Proceedings of a Reconstruction Meeting
Reviews of Books
Notes
The First Biennial Meeting of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History at Washington

The Journal of Negro History

Volume II

1917

Contents

The Journal of Negro History

Vol. II—January, 1917—No. 1

Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa

I. The Origin and Extent of Slavery in the Several Economic Zones of Africa

II. The Slave Trade of West Africa and the Desert of Sahara

III. Region of Northwest Africa and the Desert of Sahara. Hardship of the Desert Route

Footnotes:

The Negro in the Field of Invention

Footnotes:

Anthony Benezet

Footnotes:

People of Color in Louisiana

Part II

Footnotes:

Notes on Connecticut as a Slave State

Documents

LETTERS OF ANTHONY BENEZET

Reviews Of Books

Footnotes:

Notes

The Journal of Negro History

Vol. II—April, 1917—No. 2

I The Evolution of the Slave Status in American Democracy

Footnotes:

John Woolman's Efforts in Behalf of Freedom

Footnotes:

The Tarik É Soudan

Footnotes:

From a Jamaica Portfolio—Francis Williams[210]

Footnotes:

Notes on the Nomolis of Sherbroland

Documents

Observations on the Negroes of Louisiana

Considerations sur l'esclavage; Nègres libres; Mulâtres de la Louisiane, 1801

Observations of Berquin Duvallon on the Freed People Of Colour in Louisiana in 1802

Observations on the Negro Slave

Timothy Flint's Recollections of Conditions in Louisiana in 1826

The Observations of Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, in New Orleans

From Charles Gayarré's Unpublished Manuscript on the People of Color in Louisiana

Caswall's Account of Bishop Polk's Efforts in Louisiana in 1854

Olmsted's Observations in Louisiana in 1860

Footnotes:

The Conditions against which Woolman and Anthony Benezet Inveighed

Impressions of Jasper Danckaerts in 1679-1680

The Journal
of
Negro History

The Journal
of
Negro History

The Journal
of
Negro History

I
The Evolution of the Slave Status in American Democracy

From a Jamaica Portfolio—Francis Williams [210]