The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917
by Various · English · Gutenberg #20752 · 1,039,594 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917
Author: Various
Release date: March 6, 2007 [eBook #20752]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20752
Credits: Produced by Curtis Weyant, Richard J. Shiffer and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, VOLUME 2, 1917 ***
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Richard J. Shiffer and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this
text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant
spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to
correct an obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook. Also, the
transcriber added the Table of Contents.]
THE JOURNAL
OF
NEGRO HISTORY
Volume II
1917
Table of Contents
Vol II--January, 1917--No. 1
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 ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON
Notes on Connecticut as a Slave State
Documents
Letters of Anthony Benezet
Reviews of Books
Notes
Vol II--April, 1917--No. 2
Slave Status in American Democracy JOHN M. MECKLIN
John Woolman's Efforts in Behalf of Freedom G. DAVID HOUSTON
The Tarik É Soudan A.O. STAFFORD
From a Jamaica Portfolio T.H. MACDERMOT
Notes on the Nomolis of Sherbroland WALTER L. EDWIN
Documents
Observations on the Negroes of Louisiana
The Conditions against which Woolman
and Anthony Benezet Inveighted
Book Reviews
Notes
Vol II--July, 1917--No. 3
Formation of American Colonization Society HENRY NOBLE SHERWOOD, PH.D
Slave Status in American Democracy 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
Vol II--October, 1917--No. 4
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
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
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 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.
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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
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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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]
JEROME DOWD,
_Professor in the University of Oklahoma._
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 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 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 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:
"And be it further enacted, that in case the original inventor or
discoverer of the art, machine or improvement for which a patent
is solicited is a slave, the master of such slave may take an
oath that the said slave was the original; and on complying with
the requisites of the law shall receive a patent for said
discovery or invention, and have all the rights to which a
patentee is entitled by law."[17]
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?
[Illustration: _N. Rillieux_
_Evaporating Pan._
_No. 4,879_
_Patented Dec. 10, 1846_
_Sheet 3-4 Sheets_]
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, 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 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 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.
[Illustration: J. E. MATZELIGER
LASTING MACHINE
NO. 274,207
PATENTED MAR. 20, 1883
AN ILLUSTRATION SHOWING THE MODELS MADE BY MATZELIGER TO ILLUSTRATE
HIS INVENTIONS IN SHOE MACHINES.]
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 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 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 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, 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 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.
HENRY E. BAKER,
_Assistant Examiner, United States Patent Office_.
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 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 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 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.[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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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]
C. G. WOODSON.
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 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, 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 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. 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 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.[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, 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.[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 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 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 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, 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 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
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 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,
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 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 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 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 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 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 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.[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
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.[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 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.[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.
ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON.
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:
"The caste system was in full being in church, business and
social life. There was no more question about his right of
keeping slaves than of his owning sheep. The minister--the leader
and aristocrat of the day--invariably owned his slave or slaves.
Even the heavenly-minded John Davenport and Edward Hopkins were
not adverse to the custom, and Rev. Ezra Stiles, one time
president of Yale college and later a vigorous advocate of
emancipation, sent a barrel of rum to Africa to be traded for a
'Blackamoor,' because, he said, 'It is a great privilege for the
poor Negroes to be taken from the ignorant and wicked people of
Guiana and be placed in a Christian land, where they can become
good Christians and go to heaven when they die.' Religious
freedom was an inherent right of the mind, but slaveholding was a
matter of the pocketbook, and an entirely different proposition
in the Puritan eyes. The fact of the matter is, he kept them
because it paid.
"The high-water mark of slavery in Connecticut was reached in
1774, and thereafter steadily declined. To speak in the Billy
Sunday vernacular, 'Connecticut had hit the sawdust path.' The
number of slaves rapidly decreased from 6,562 in 1774 to only
2,759 in 1790, and 10 years later, in 1800, there were only 951
slaves in the state. Still the good work went on, and in 1810
only 310 were left. In 1820 but 97, and in 1830, 200 years from
the commencement of the evil system, there were only 25 slaves
owned within Connecticut's borders. In 1840 there were 17. In
1848 Connecticut experienced a full change of heart and enacted a
law forever doing away with this blot upon her fair escutcheon,
and emancipated all slaves remaining in Connecticut. At this time
there were but six slaves remaining in bondage within the state.
"Throughout the whole history of this slavery thraldom in
Connecticut, some curious laws were passed, showing that the
Puritan was not fully satisfied with the situation. In 1702,
there was enacted a law which arose from the practice of turning
loose a slave who had broken down, and was of little use, and
abandoning him, thus forcing him to care for himself. This law
obliged the last owner of the slave and his heirs, and
administrators, to pay for the care of these wrecks of humanity.
In 1711 it was further enacted, that in case the former owner
refused to give the care required, the selectmen of the town
where the owner resided, should care for the needy slave, and
collect with costs from his owner. In 1774 it was enacted that
'no Indian, Negro, or mulatto slave, shall at any time hereafter
be brought or imported into this state, by sea or by land, from
any place or places whatsoever, to be disposed of, left or sold,
within this state.'
"In 1784, a law was passed which provided that no Negro or
mulatto child born after March 1, 1784, should be held in
servitude beyond the age of 25 years. In 1797, a further
enactment released all colored children from slavery, when they
'had attained the age of 21 years.' Connecticut gradually was
'coming to her own' again. Even the ministry received a change of
heart, for in 1788, the general association of ministers of
Connecticut declared the slave trade to be unjust, and that every
justifiable measure ought to be taken to suppress it. In 1789,
Connecticut shippers were prohibited from engaging in the slave
trade anywhere.
"One of the interesting points to note in this gradual
metamorphosis is that as the number of slaves gradually
diminished, the number of free Negroes correspondingly increased,
showing that but comparatively few left the state. The caste
system was in full force everywhere. It was very evident in the
church. For years the system of 'dignifying the pews,' as it was
termed, was practiced. That is, assigning seats to the different
members of the parish by a committee appointed for that purpose.
For a man must go to church whether he wished to or not, and pay
his share of supporting the minister, by a tax laid upon him and
collected by the town. Social standing secured the first choice
of seats, wealth the second, and piety the last. In this
assignment one or more pews were 'set off' away up in the top of
the gallery for the slaves of the social leaders and ministers.
At the First Congregational church, Winsted, there were two pews
thus 'set off' in the gallery, and they were so high up that they
were called 'Nigger heaven.'
"In 1837, a number of enthusiasts were invited to meet in
Wolcottville (now Torrington) to organize a county abolition
society. Upon looking for a place of meeting, they found that
every church, public and private hall, was closed against them,
and also heard public threats of violence if they persisted in
attempting to hold a meeting, from the proslavery element of the
town. A barn was offered them as a meeting place and promptly
accepted. The barn was filled, floor, scaffold, haymow and
stables, by these disciples of abolition. It was a very cold day
in January, and much suffering resulted in spite of their warm
zeal. Roger S. Mills of New Hartford was appointed chairman, and
Rev. R. M. Chipman of Harwinton secretary, and Daniel Coe of
Winsted offered prayer. The following officers were appointed:
President, Roger S. Mills; vice-presidents, Erastus Lyman of
Goshen, Gen. Daniel Brinsmade of Washington, Gen. Uriel Tuttle of
Torringford and Jonathan Coe of Winsted; secretary, Rev. R. M.
Chipman of Harwinton, and treasurer, Dr. E. D. Hudson of
Torringford. While being addressed by an agent of the American
society, and suffering from extreme cold, they were attacked by a
mob of proslaveryites who had paraded the streets of Wolcottville
and had elevated their courage with New England rum. They
gathered around the barn which was near the Congregational
church, yelling, blowing horns, thumping on tin pans and kettles,
and ringing furiously the church bell, and finally, by brute
force, broke up the meeting which took a hasty adjournment.
"When the people were leaving Wolcottville the entire village
seemed to be a bedlam. Dea Ebenezer Rood was set upon while in
his sleigh, and some of the mob endeavored to overturn him and
cause his horses to run away. But the blood of his Puritan
ancestors became rampant, and in defiance he shouted: 'Rattle
your pans; hoot and toot; ring your bells, ye pesky fools, if it
does ye any good,' and plying his whip to his now frantic horses
he escaped the mob.
"Torringford street arose in its anger and might, at this insult,
opened her church doors, and the abolition convention held
session there for two days. Although there was great opposition
on the street at this new move, there was no other demonstration.
"Inspired by Dea Rood's defiance, the abolition spirit blazed
high, and monthly meetings were held in barns, sheds, and groves,
throughout the county. These enthusiasts were called all sorts of
opprobrious names such as, 'Nigger friends, and disturbers of
Israel,' and some were excommunicated from the churches. These
were indeed stirring days; Connecticut had received a change of
heart, and in her ecstasy had forgotten her own sins.
"Even our own village did not escape unscathed. A pastor of the
First Congregational church who had strong antislavery
principles, dared to preach an abolition sermon one Sunday from
his pulpit, and the next morning the village was flooded with a
'Broadside' demanding the people to rise, and teach this
disturber a lesson, and not allow such sins to be perpetrated in
their midst. A copy of this sheet was even nailed upon his own
doorway, and is now deposited in our historical society, and is
worthy of your perusal.
"Even the historic cannon now reposing in our historical rooms
was used to break up 'pestilent abolition meetings' in our own
midst. Thus I have endeavored to give you some idea of an
interesting phase in the history of our Commonwealth, that may
not be familiar to all, and which I would term as a Connecticut
mistake."--_The Springfield Republican_, June 18, 1916.
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
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]
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, TENTH MONTH, 30th, 1772.
"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."
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, ELEVENTH MONTH, 30th, 1772.
"_Dear Samuel_,
"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 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."
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, TWELFTH MONTH, 14th, 1773.
"_Beloved Friend_,
"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."
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, FOURTH MONTH, 28th, 1773.
"_Doctor John Fothergill_,
"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 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 them as to be plain, instructive
and edifying, without touching upon that which might be of fruitless
debate.
"ANTHONY BENEZET."
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, FOURTH MONTH, 1773.
"_Granville Sharp_,
"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 remain with love,
"ANTHONY BENEZET."
* * * * *
"HANOVER, January 18, 1773.
"_Dear Sir_:
"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
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]
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, TENTH MONTH, 23d, 1774.
"_Dear_ ----.
"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. 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.
"ANTHONY BENEZET.
"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."
* * * * *
"PHILADELPHIA, THIRD MONTH, 30th, 1774.
"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 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."
* * * * *
"_Dear Samuel_,
"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."
* * * * *
"Seventh day, 4 o'clock.
"_Dear Friend_,
"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."
* * * * *
FROM GOVERNOR LIVINGSTONE, OF NEW JERSEY
"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."
* * * * *
FROM AMBROSE SERLE, SECRETARY TO LORD HOWE
"PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 2d, 1778.
"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 t
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/20752