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THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
/
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
MEN AND WOMEN EMINENT
IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE
AMERICAN OF AFRICAN
DESCENT
BY
JOHN W. CROMWELL
Secretary of the American Negro Academy, Washington, D. C.
WASHINGTON THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY
1914
Copyright, 1914, by JOHN W. CROMWELL
APR.^tiSI4
J. F. TAPLEY CO.
NEW YORK
1^
^
,^f / ^^
DEDICATION
Oh! Sing it in the light of freedom's mom, The' tyrant wars have made the earth a grave; The good, the great, and true, are, if so, born, And so with slaves, chains do not make the slave! If high-souled birth be what the mother gave, — If manly birth, and manly to the core, — Wliate'er the test, the man will he behave! Crush him to earth, and crush him o'er and o'er, A MAN he'll rise at last and meet you as before.
— A. A. Whitman.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I Discovery, Colonization,- Slavery 1
II The Slave Code -r^^.... 6
III National Independence and Emancipation ... 10
«--iV Slave Insurrections 12-
V Some Early Strivings 17 ""
VI Abolition of Slave Trade 18
VII From 1816 to 1870 1»-^
VIII Slavery — Extension and Abolition 21
IX Civil War and Reconstruction 23-..
X Educational Progress 25
XI The Early Convention Movement 27
XII Reconstruction Fails 47
XIII Negro as Soldier, a, 1652-1814 50
XIV Negro as Soldier, b, 1861-1865 54 ,
XV Spanish-American War 57
/^SKYl Negro Church 61-^
XVII Retrospect and Prospect 71
XVIII Phillis Wheatley 77
XIX Benjamin Banneker 86
XX Paul Cutfe, Navigator and Philanthropist . . 98
XXI Sojourner Truth .' 104 l^
XXII Daniel Alexander Payne 115
XXIII Henry Highland Garnet 126
XXIV Alexander Crummell 130
XXV Frederick Douglass 139 'i--^^
XXVI John Mercer Langston 155
XXVII Blanche Kelso Bruce 164
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
XXVIII Joseph Charles Price 171
XXIX Robert Brown Elliott 179
XXX Paul Laurence Dunbar 188
XXXI Booker Taliaferro Washington 195
XXXII Fanny M. Jackson Coppin 213
XXXIII Henry Osawa Tanner 219
XXXIV John F. Cook and Sons, John F., Jr.^ and
George F. T 228
XXXV Edward Wilmot Blyden 235
APPENDICES
Appendix A— Holly 241
Appendix B — ^An Early Incident of the Civil War . . . 242
Appendix C — The Somerset Case 245
Appendix D — The Amistad Captives 245
Appendix E — The Underground Railroad ....... 243
Appendix F — The Freedmen's Bureau 24S
Appendix G — Medal of Honor Men 249
Appendix H — The Freedmen's Bank 253
Bibliography 255
Reports 260
Chronology 261
Index 267
ILLUSTRATIONS
Boston Massacre " Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Branding Female Slave 2
John Brown on Way to Scaffold 22
Eeading Emancipation Proclamation by Union Soldier in a Slave
Cabin 24
Colored Congressmen 46
Battle of Bmiker Hill 50
Paul Cuffe Monument 98
The Libyan Sibyl and Sojourner Truth 112
Bird's Eye View of Livingstone College 170
Wilberforce University — Typical Buildings 122
Douglass, Payne, Dunbar, Washington 114
Crummell, Tanner, Blyden, Garnet 126
Douglass ]\ionument at Rochester 152
Negro Indus- try, Tuskeg-ee View 206
Price, Wheatley, Coppin 212
Christ and Nieodemus 222 •
George F. T. Cook Normal School No. 2, Washington, D. C. . . 234
FOREWORD
It is not my purpose to write a history of the United States nor of any period of that history. The Negro is so interwoven with the growth and development of the American Nation that a history of him as an important element, during little more than a century of which he has been a factor, becomes a task of pe- culiar difficulty. In the few pages that follow, mine is a much more simple and humble task — to indicate some of the more im- portant points of the contact of the Nation and the Negro; to tell how the former in its evolution has been affected by the pres- ence and the status of the latter; and to trace the transfor- mation of the bondman and savage stolen from Africa to his freedom and citizenship in the United States, and to his recog- nition as such in the fundamental law, and by an increasing public sentiment of the country.
The rise to eminence of representative men and women in both Church and State, as educators, statesmen, artists, and men of affairs, will be cited for the emulation of our youth who are so liable from the scant mention of such men and women in the histories which they study and the books they read, to conclude that only the lowest and most menial avenues of service are open to them.
Well nigh ten years ago Mrs. Charles Bartlett Dykes, formerly of the Leland-Stanford, Jr., University, while an instructor in a Summer School at the Hampton N. & A. Institute, gave this re- sult of studies made with six hundred colored pupils in certain near-by primary schools. She had asked two questions that were fully explained:
xi
xii FOEEWORD
(a) Do you want to be rich? If so, why? If not, why not?
The answers were almost without exception, "No." The reason given was "because we cannot go to Heaven."
(b) Do you want to be famous? If so, why? If not, why not?
The answers were almost uniformly, "No, because it is impossible."
This voiced the despair of the average colored child in the common schools right under the guns of Fortress Monroe, where the first schools for colored children in the Southland were opened nearly forty years before.
A test somewhat similar, in several of the public schools in Washington produced practically the same result. The remedy suggested by Mrs. Dykes for such a condition was the preparation of "a first book in American history, in which the story of at least twelve of the really eminent men and women of African descent" would give a stimulus to tens of thousands of youth in our schools, who in their formative period learn little or noth- ing of their kith or kin that is meritorious or inspiring. This necessity formally set forth by Mrs. Dykes, confirmed by my own conclusions based on an experience in the schoolroom cover- ing twenty years, leads me to attempt the publication of a book which shall give to teachers and secondary pupils especially the salient points in the history of the American Negro, the story of their most eminent men and women and a bibliograph}'^ that will guide those desirous of making further study and in- vestigation.
The author has not been handicapped by dearth of material in the selection of the men and the women whose careers he has aimed to trace, his main purpose having been to consider representative types whose careers afford side-lights of the growth and development of the American Negro and who at the same time are worthy of emulation. Others, perhaps, quite as conspicuous, might be preferred by some as equally deserving
FOREWORD xiii
of notice, yet on the whole we think it will be the verdict of competent and impartial judges that none herein named could have been excluded from consideration. Obviously only those still living could be the subjects of notice who have reached the acme of their career. The preeminence of Booker T. Washing- ton, because of the establishment of Tuskegee and the recog- nized place of industrial training in the public mind, is a fact, while the art of Tanner is conceded in salons and art galleries of America and Europe.
To Dr. James R. L. Diggs of Selma University, Chaplain Theophilus G. Steward of Wilberforce University, T. Thomas Fortune, L. M. Hershaw, Wm. C. Bolivar, Daniel A. Murray of the Library of Congress and A. A. Schomburg, he acknowledges indebtedness for many helpful suggestions in the development, progress and completion of this work.
John W. Cromwell.
THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN
HISTORY
DISCOVERY, COLONIZATION, SLAVERY
The discovery and colonization of America was primarily for
greed, and this dominant principle was illustrated in different
stages of the growth and development of the country. Spain,
which in the sixteenth century was not only a world-wide power,
but one of the greatest of modern times, bore a very important
part in the conquest and settlement of the New World. It was
mainly her capital, her merchantmen, that plowed the main,
her capital and the patronage of her sovereigns that led. The
Dutch and the English followed in the rear. Settlements in
North America and the West Indies were made by her sons
early in the sixteenth century, but it was one hundred years
after, at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, that the English made
the first permanent settlement within the continental limits
of the United States of America.
In the early voyages it was not at all remarkable that Negroes
were found as sailors, though slaves. It is well authenticated
that in the explorations of Narvaez and among the survivors of
the Coronado expedition was Estevan, a black, who was guide
to Friar Marcoz in 1539 in the search for the Seven Cities of
Cibola. The celebrated anthropologist Quatrefages in "The
Human Species" strongly intimates that Africa had its share
1
2 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
in the peopling and the settlement of some sections of South America.
The exception but proves the rule that the Negro came to the New World as a slave. He was stolen from or bought on the West Coast of Africa to add to the wealth of America by his toil as bondman and laborer.
Slavery was first introduced in America on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti) where the aborigines of America and the West Indies had been found not sufficiently robust for the work in the mines and the plantations. Large numbers of Negi'oes were imported by the Portuguese, who owned the great portion of the African coast then known, into Europe a half century before the discovery of America.^ To Las Casas who pleaded the cause of the poor American Indian who had been enslaved in the New World, large responsibility for importing the Afri- can must be given notwithstanding the opposition of Cardinal Ximines, then regent of Spain, Las Casas lived to regret the part he played by his fateful suggestion.
To supply this labor the Slave Trade, as it became known, was begun. La Bresa, a Flemish favorite of Charles V having obtained from the king a patent containing an exclusive right of annually importing four thousand Negroes into America, sold it to some Genoese merchants who first brought into a regular form the commerce for slaves between Africa and America.^ Sir John Hawkins made three trips to America from the West Coast of Africa between 1563 and 1567, taking with him several hundred of the natives whom he sold as slaves. Queen Elizabeth became a partner in this nefarious traffic. So elated was she at its profits that she knighted him, and he most happily selected for his crest a Negro head and bust with arms tightly pinioned. It was a lucrative business and though it at first shocked the sensibilities of Christian nations and rulers, they
1 Bancroft, Vol. T.
2 Spanish Conquest of America, Vol. I.
Biaiidiiio- a Female Slave.
DISCOVERY, COLONIZATION, SLAVERY 3
soon reconciled themselves not only to the traffic, but introduced the servitude as part of the economic system of their depend- encies in America. That it became a fixture after its introduc- tion in these colonies was due to the prerogative of the Home Government rather than to the importunities of the colonists, especially because it was a source of revenue to the Crown.
Within twelve years after its settlement, a Dutch man-of-war landed in September, 1619, a cargo of twenty slaves at James- "^^Ym,-c>' town in Virginia.
Beginning with this introduction in Virginia slavery gradually made its way into all the thirteen colonies, and received the sanction of their several legislatures. Contrary to general belief, ' ' Negro Slavery in the colonies never existed ' ' nor was it origin- ally established by law, but it rested wholly on custom.* ' ' Slavery where it existed, being the creature of custom, required positive law to establish or control it." In Virginia the acts first passed were "for the mere regulation of servants, the legal distinction between servants for a term of years (white im- migrants under indenture), and servants for life (slaves)." The civil law rule as to descent was adopted by statute December 14, 1662. Eight years later, October 3, 1670, servants not Chris- tians imported by shipping were declared slaves for life. Slavery was thus legalized in this colony.
In Maryland, slaves were first mentioned incidentally in a proposed law of 1638, four years after its settlement. The Swedes prohibited its establishment in Delaware, but the Dutch introduced it and gave it its first legal recognition in 1721, though it had existed in the colony as early as 1666.
In North Carolina white slavery was provided for in the Locke Constitution of 1673.* In South Carolina the first legis- lation respecting it was February 7, 1690, before the two colonies were separated. The charter of Georgia prohibited slavery at
sLalor's Cyclopedia, Vol. III. Holmes Amer. Annals, Vol. I. •* Locke Brittanica Encyclopedia.
4 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
the time of the establishment of the colony by Oglethorpe in 1733, but owing to popular clamor this prohibition was re- pealed in 1749 and the first legislative recognition of slavery was in 1755.^
Although slavery existed in Pennsylvania from the establish- ment of the colony, and was due to the Germans rather than the Quakers, a protest against it was made in 1688 by the Ger- mantown Quakers. This was the first formal action against slavery since its introduction. In 1700 the legislature forbade selling beyond the borders of the State without the consent of the slave.
The Dutch have also the responsibility of bringing slavery into New Jersey, where it received its first legal recognition in 1664. It was in 1626 while New York was the Dutch colony of New Netherlands that African serfdom was introduced, but it received legal recognition in 1665.*' The traffic was never di- rectly specifically established in Connecticut by statute, and the time of its introduction is unknown.^ In Rhode Island, May 19, 1652, the first act for the abolition of slavery was passed, but the law was not enforced.
In Massachusetts slavery was incidentally recognized in 1633. In 1636, a Salem ship began the importation of slaves from the "West Indies, but in 1641 it was forbidden in the fundamental law. The statutes of New Hampshire show only two legal recog- nitions of slavery, by acts of 1714 and 1718, to regulate the conduct of servants and slaves and masters.
There was some difference between slavery in the North and in the South. This may be attributable to economic rather than to any moral causes. The African was fitted for service only as an agricultural laborer, and the character, size and loca- tion of the farms in New England and the Middle States in-
BLalor's Cyclopedia. SLalor's Cyclopedia. 7 Slavery in New York, an historical sketch, A. Judd Northrup.
DISCOVERY, COLONIZATION, SLAVERY 5
hibited the rapid growth and extension of chattel slavery in this section, whereas the raising of tobacco in Virginia, rice in South Carolina, also cotton, favored the employment of a large number of slaves in the southern section of our country. In both North and South the status of the slave was the same. In the eyes of the law he was a thing, a piece of personal property, and the laws recognizing and regulating it were framed with rigidity and executed with severity. By 1775 more than 300,000 Negroes were in the colonies along the coast from Maine to Georgia, distributed as follows : In New England, 25,000 ; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, 50,000; in the remaining colonies of Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina and Georgia, 425,000. Relatively there were at this time 42 whites to 1 black in New England, 13 whites to 1 black in the middle colonies, while in the five southern colonies last mentioned the slave population was more than that of the whites.®
While the objection to the idea of property in man was the prevailing rule, it was by no means universal. Protests against it were by individuals rather than by communities and classes. Exception must be made as to the Quakers, whose protest in Germantown has already been instanced. They followed this up by an appeal in 1696 against any of their religious belief bringing in any more Negroes, and by their action at intervals in the eighteenth century. The majority of the men who cried aloud and spared not were the followers of George Fox. The circulation of the celebrated tract, "The Selling of Joseph" by the Colonial Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, was also a great factor in the growth of sentiment against slavery.
8 Estimated. See The Status of the Slave, 1775-1789, J. R. Brackettj The Const. History of the American People, Vol. I, F. R. Thorpe.
II
THE SLAVE CODE
The Slave Code embodies statutes which show in an unmistak- able manner the attitude of the colonies in different times and sections toward the enslaved African. So ^eat a shock to the Christian religion was the idea of holding property in man when first suggested, that one of the first excuses was that the African was a heathen whom slavery would convert; then when the injustice of holding a fellow Christian in bonds was apparent, it was affirmed by statute that "conversion to or acceptance of Christianity does not presume or effect manumission either in person or posterity" so legislated Maryland in 1692, and Vir- ginia in 1705 endorsed the doctrine. An act was passed in 1706 to encourage the baptizing of Negro, Indian or mulatto slaves and although a Virginia statute of 1682 had freed Negroes "born of Christian parents in England, the Spanish colonies, the English colonies and other Christian lands," it was virtually repealed by an act of 1705.
In the statutes of the colony of Virginia we note, "The Ap- pearance of Negro, Indian and mulatto slaves after nightfall in the streets without a lighted candle was forbidden and none were permitted to absent themselves from a master's plantation without written certificate." This law was published every six months at the county court and the parish churches. It was specially designed to prevent the possibility of servile insur- rections. Slaves accompanying their masters to free territory did not become free, ruled Lord Hardwicke and Lord Talbot in 1729 ; but forty-three years later Lord Mansfield in the
6
THE SLAVE CODE 7
Somerset case declared that as soon as a slave set foot on the soil of the British Island he became free.
The emancipation of the slave in many colonies was impossible only in meritorious cases except by permission from a governor for which a license had to be issued. Such an instance was where ''Will" was emancipated by the General Assembly of Virginia because he had been signally serviceable in discover- ing a conspiracy of divers Negroes in the county of Surry for levying war on the colony of Virginia. He was the slave of Elizabeth, the widow of Benjamin Harrison. The similarity of the name to that of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the father of one of the Presidents and the great- grandfather of another, is at least suggestive.
Not only was emancipation thus carefully guarded, but to steal a slave was a capital offense punishable by death. Should a slave, who resisted his master or one acting under his authority while administering punislmient, meet with death, the master or his agent was not guilty of a felony. The carrying of arms either for defense or offense without special written certificate was punishable with a penalty of from 20 to 39 lashes.
A statute was passed in 1764 ordering collars to be put on slaves to prevent their escape. Two unique advertisements further indicate the low estimate placed on the bondman. One from the London Gazette advertises for Col. Kirk's runaway black boy upon whose silver collar the inscription was, "My Lady Bromfield's black in Lincoln Inn Fields" and in the London Advertiser of 1756 a goldsmith in Westminster an- nounces that he makes silver padlocks for blacks' or dogs' collars.
It could not be expected that the slave would be permitted to read and write, yet in 1744 Dr. Bearcroft ^ of South Carolina refers to the purchase of two young Negroes when thoroughly qualified to become schoolmasters among their fellows. One such school was actually opened in Charleston, S. C, in which
1 Special Report U. S. Com. of Education 1870, p. 363.
8 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
more than "sixty young Negroes were put under instruction, two-thirds of whom were sent out annually well-instructed in religion and capable of reading their Bible, who may carry home and diffuse this same knowledge which they shall have been taught among their poor relations and fellow slaves. And in time schools will be opened in other places and in other colonies to teach them to believe in the Son of God who shall make them free." But ninety years after, in the same State it was enacted, "If any person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write such person if a free white person, shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars for such offence, and imprisonment not less than six months; or if a free person of color, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes and fined not exceeding fifty dollars; and if a slave to be whipped at the discretion of the court, not exceeding fifty lashes, the informer to be entitled to one-half of the fine, and to be a competent witness. And if any free person of color or slave shall keep any school or other place of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of color, he shall be liable to the same penalties prescribed by this act on free persons of color and slaves for teaching slaves to write." -
Slaves were prohibited under the penalty of death from the preparation or administering of any medicine whatever save with the full knowledge and consent of masters.
There was a relaxation of these strict regulations in some of the Northern colonies. As early as 1643 and 1646 several Negroes appear on the records of New York, then under the control of the Dutch, as land patentees.^ When enfranchised, as was possible even in those early days, he might and did obtain a freehold.* Many scarcely appeared to know they were in bondage as they danced merrily as the best in kermis at Christ-
2 Payne's' "Seventy Years."
3 Dunlop's History of New Netherlands, Vol. I, 59. 4Brodhead's 748.
THE SLAVE CODE 9
mas and Pinkster. This, however, was exceptional. Without going into particulars the general condition was, as it has been summarized in Stroud's Slave Law: ''as the incidents of slavery —
First. — The master may determine the kind and degree and time
of labor to which the slave shall be subjected. Second. — The master may supply the slave with such food and
clothing only, both as to quantity and to quality as he may
think proper or find convenient. Third. — He may exercise his discretion as to the kind of punish- ment to be administered. Fourth. — All power over the slave may be exercised by himself
or another. Fifth. — Slaves have no legal rights of property in things real
or personal ; whatever they acquire belongs in point of law
to the master. Sixth. — Being a personal chattel the slave is at all times liable
to be sold absolutely or mortgaged or leased. Seventh. — He may be sold by process of law for the satisfaction
of the debts of a living or a deceased master. Eighth. — He cannot be a party in any judicial tribunal in any
species of action against the master."
Ill
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND EMANCIPATION
The events that led to the Revolution and the formation of the Union quickened the public conscience and crystallized the feel- ing against slavery to such a degree that public men were out- spoken against it, societies were organized, and the work of the abolition of slavery was begun.
The principle in the Declaration of Independence that "All men are created equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," certainly exerted a most powerful influence. The colony of Vermont, claimed in vain at intervals both by New York and New Hampshire, and which was practically independ- ent of the thirteen, adopted a constitution in 1777 abolishing slavery. In 1780 Massachusetts framed a constitution contain- ing a provision construed by the courts as destroying human bondage, while Peiuisylvania in the same year provided for gradual emancipation, though the last slave in this common- wealth did not die until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century. New Hampshire followed the example of Massachusetts in 1783. Rhode Island and Connecticut passed gradual aboli- tion laws in 1784. Thus five of the original thirteen colonies prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 placed them- selves before the world as free States, to which must be added New York and New Jersey, the former in 1799, the latter in the following year, copying their example.
From the general sentiment of the time as voiced by such men
as "Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, nothing seemed more
10
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND EMANCIPATION 11
certain than that slavery would in a very few years be doomed to extinction. In the Continental Congress March 1, 1784, Jef- ferson proposed a draft ordinance for the government of the Territory of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi ceded already or to be ceded by individual States, to the United States, ''that after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery nor involun- tary servitude in any of the said States otherwise than in punish- ment of crime. ' '
Owing to opposition of the planting interests, led by South Carolina and Georgia this proviso was lost. But three years later when Jefferson was in Paris on a foreign mission, the ordi- nance of 1787, by the provisions of which slavery was to be prohibited in the territory north of the Ohio, which now includes the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and lUinois, was adopted by the unanimous vote of the Continental Congress of the thirteen colonies.^
1 Critical Period — Fiske.
IV
SLAVE INSURRECTIONS
Slave Insurrections were a constant menace to the safety and security of slavery and the laws provided against the personal liberty of the slave ; his freedom of locomotion ; his right to as- semble in large numbers except under the supervision of the master class ; his right to purchase fire arms or weapons of deadly warfare — all were enacted and enforced to prevent the possi- bility and the effectiveness of outbreaks for freedom.
Notwithstanding these repressive measures upon the slave, the tendency of which was to make their bondage more complete and secure, there were about twenty-five recorded instances of Negro Insurrections previous to the Revolution. Among these there was one in 1687 in the Northern Neck of Virginia. As early as 1710 one was suppressed in Virginia. In 1740 one was discovered in South Carolina and what was known as the New York Slave Plot was discovered in 1741.
In 1800 the insurrection of General Gabriel was only timely prevented. It was on discovery found that fully 1,000 slaves were involved and those concerned were scattered through a large section of territory.
In 1822 the Denmark Vesey plot in South Carolina was only prevented from disastrous effects by the confession of a slave. So carefully had it been planned, so trustworthy, so faithful to the purpose of its promoters, that it was with extreme difficulty that the authorities could secure enough evidence to identify and to bring to trial those accused. Denmark Vesey whose name is given to this outbreak, was a most remarkable character. He
12
SLAVE INSURRECTIONS 13
was a great organizer, a man of rare intelligence, with wonder- ful knowledge of men and a born leader. He was also one of the last men to be suspected by the whites as bent on such a scheme. He exercised a dread over the blacks that facilitated the development of his plans and the confidence reposed in him by the whites never caused him to be distrusted.
Peter Poyas, his chief lieutenant, was scarcely second to Den- mark in ability to select, drill and command. One hundred and thirty-one arrests were made, as a result of which 67 were con- victed, of whom 35 were executed and 37 banished beyond the limits of the United States.
Notwithstanding, the effect of the outbreak was wide reaching.
In "Right on the Scaffold or the Martyrs of 1822," No. 7, Negro American Academy papers, Mr. Archibald H. Grimke has given a most thrilling description of the principal partici- pants, the events leading up and flowing from this tragic plot of slave life in South Carolina.
The prompt punishment of the participants in the Denmark Vesey Outbreak did not stamp out the spirit of resentment on the part of the most restless spirits among the slaves; for nine years afterwards, came the Nat Turner Insurrection in South- hampton County, Virginia.
Nat Turner was born October 2, 1800, the slave of Benjamin Turner. The father who escaped from slavery finally migrated to Liberia. In his early years Nat had a presentiment that largely influenced his after life. His mind was restless, active, inquisitive, observant. He learned to read and write without apparent difficulty. He was deeply religious, he could manu- facture paper, gunpowder, pottery and other articles in com- mon use, and his skill in planning was universally admitted. As late as the beginning of the Civil War, there were tradi- tions of his keen devices and ready wit. He was below the ordi- nary stature, compact in physique, with strongly marked phys- ical features. Contrary to general impression he was not a
14 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
preacher. His personality was not that of a criminal but of an austere, reserved and contemplative.
In 1825 he said he discovered drops of blood on the corn as though it were dew from heaven, that he found on leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood and represent- ing the figures he had previously seen in the heavens.
July 4, 1831, was the time on which he had planned to begin his work, but he hesitated until the reappearance of signs in the heavens determined him to begin Sunday, August 21, at which time he met six men. Hark, Henry, Sam, Nelson, Will and Jack and long after midnight, after a long feast in the woods, they began the work. Armed with a hatchet Nat entered his master's chamber and aimed the first blow of death but the weapon glanced harmless from the head of the would-be victim, who then received the first fatal blow from Will, a member of the party, who without Nat's suggestion got into the plot. Five whites perished here. Four guns, several old muskets, a few rounds of ammunition, were seized. The party were drilled and maneuvered at the barn after which they marched from planta- tion to plantation until the attacking force numbered sixty, all armed with guns, axes, swords and clubs, and mounted. Late Monday afternoon they had reached a point about three miles dis- tant from Jerusalem, the County Seat, now known as Courtland. Against Nat's judgment they halted and awaited reenforce- ments. This delay proved the turning point in his attack. Nat started to the mansion house in search of his stragglers and on his return to the road, he found that a party of white men from the countryside, who had pursued the bloody path of the in- surrectionists, had dispersed the guard of eight men left at the roadside. The white men numbered eighteen under the com- mand of a Capt. Alex P. Peete.
Although these men were directed to reserve their fire until within thirty paces, one of their number fired on Nat's crowd
SLAVE INSURRECTIONS 15
at about one hundred yards and half of them beat a precipitate retreat, when Nat ordered them to fire and rush on them. The remaining white men stood their ground until Nat was within fifty yards when they too retreated. Nat pursued, wounded and overtook some of them and would have slaughtered the entire party but for the timely arrival of a company of whites in another direction from Jerusalem. With a party of twenty Nat bafiled capture and endeavored to cross the Nottoway river, attack the County Seat from the rear, and procure additional arms and ammunition. This was a vain procedure. A mid- night attack at his rendezvous at which point he had recruited his strength, left him with less than a score of followers. The sudden firing of a gun by Hark was the signal for an ambush which caused the retreat and flight of his force. Dismayed but not disappointed, Nat endeavored once more to rally his men, but the discovery of white men reconnoitering near his rendezvous convinced him that he had been betrayed and further aggressive steps were useless.
For nearly six weeks the entire county sought his capture which was finally accomplished only by accident. His trial, con- viction and punishment followed. Fifty-five white men were killed but not a single Negro was slain during the attack. Seventeen of the insurrectionists were convicted and executed, seven convicted and transported, ten acquitted, seven discharged and four sent on for further hearing. Four of those convicted and transported were boys. Only four free men were brought to trial, of whom one was discharged and three acquitted. Not only Virginia, but the whole country was stirred. Rumors of similar outbreaks flew thick and fast. Distant cities were put under military defense, arrests of suspects were made months after. Governor Hayne issued a proclamation in South Caro- lina ; Macon, Georgia, was aroused at midnight by rumors of an impending onslaught. Slaves were arrested by the wholesale, were tied to trees while militia captains took delight in hacking
16 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
at them with swords. In brief, the reprisals were bloody, ter- rific, in a few cases most pathetic ; white sympathizers suffered in the revenge.
The next session o£ the Virginia Legislature occasioned a pro- longed debate on the evils of slavery, which Henry Wilson ' ' Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," pronounced to be the ablest, most eloquent and brilliant in the entire history of state legislation. In this discussion all the arguments for and against abolition were given as strongly and as eloquently as anti-slavery orator or agitator ever enunciated or formulated, but more rigorous laws against the free Negro and the slave were enacted and enforced, "not only in Virginia but North Carolina, South Carolina and other States."
/
SOME EARLY STRIVINGS
It was near the close of the eighteenth century before the first signs of social life appeared in the American Negro.^ The Free African Society of Philadelphia was formed April 12, 1787. Among the organizers was Richard Allen, who became the or- ganizer and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal church in 1816, and president of the first National Convention of colored men held in Philadelphia in 1830. Absalom Jones (founder and first priest of St. Thomas Episcopal Church), was another. The first African Lodge of Free Masons, with Prince Hall as its worshipful master, was opened in Boston, its warrant bearing date September 29, 1784. In Williamsburg, Va., the first African Baptist Church was organized in 1776, and as a result of the labors of George Liele, a Negro evangelist, African churches were formed both in Augusta, and Savannah, Georgia, in the same decade .-
These were exceptional incidents in the life of a people, num- bering more than a half million who had hitherto no social bond, nothing in common but that they were the victims of oppression and injustice.
1 Johnston's High School History of the U. S. Thorpe — ^History of the American People, p. 88. The Negro Church — Atlanta Univ. Publications. The Negro Mason in Equity — S. W. Clark.
2 All race organizations were then styled African.
17
VI
ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE
After the Revolutionary War, when the colonists tried to form a Constitution they found themselves hopelessly divided over the question of one or two houses in the legislature and the basis of representation. The presence of the Negro in large numbers in the South where slavery was steadily on the increase oc- casioned much of the trouble. Two of the three great com- promises which made the Constitution a possibility bore directly on this unequal distribution of free and slave, white and black population. By the terms of the second compromise five slaves in the basis of popular representation were to be counted as equal to three white men. The third compromise permitted the foreign slave trade to continue for twenty years.
The moral effect of the abolition of the African slave trade by the United States, which was determined by an act of March 2, 1807, to go into effect the first day of the following year, is borne out by the action of several European countries. Great Britain, on March 25, same year, followed the example of the United States. Sweden was the next, in 1813 ; the Dutch and France did the like in 1814, the latter as the result of a treaty with Great Britain, though it was not in full operation until June 1, 1819. Spain lingered until the next year, and Portu- gal, which had legislated for absolute abolition in January, 1815, had the time for the cessation of the trade extended to January 21, 1823, and finally to February, 1830. To Denmark, however, must be given the honor of having pioneered in the movement for the abolition of the slave trade, a royal order hav- ing been issued May 16, 1792, to be enforced throughout her
dominion at the end of ten years.
18
VII
FROM 1816 TO 1870
The year 1816 witnessed the beginning of two divergent move- ments with respect to the black population of the United States. The first was the organization by the whites of the American Colonization Society, the adoption of its constitution, December 31, and the election of its officers, January 1, 1817. Henry Clay presided at the first meeting, which was held at the Capitol, December 21, 1816. At the adjourned meeting held in the hall of the House of Representatives the constitution was adopted with fifty men as charter members. Bushrod Washington, a nephew of George Washington and one of the justices of the Supreme Court, was elected first president. This movement, paradoxical as it may be, was held to be both in the interest of slavery and freedom — of slavery, because by the contemplated removal of the free people of color from the country it would destroy the unrest and dissatisfaction of the slave with his servile condition; in the interest of freedom, because the free Negro would be transported to a land in which he would have free scope for all his activities, energies, and aspirations, unfettered by the prejudice of race and unequal competition.
The other epochal event was the creation of the African Metho- dist Episcopal Church denomination of colored Methodist societies in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and the adjacent country. The black worshipers in the first-named city had been ordered up from their knees while in the act of praying, and in other places they were otherwise restricted. To save their self-re- spect they established churches composed entirely of their own
19
20 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
race, and in this year was the fii*st step towards connectional
union.
The movement to remove systematically the free men of the country was the first step to atone for the purchase of the twenty Negroes landed at Jamestown two hundred years be- fore. The twenty had become in 1810, 1,369,864, of whom 183,897, were free. The Nation gave moral support to the col- onization movement. Colored men desirous of going to Africa were not subjected to certain disabilities. They could receive educational facilities denied other colored Americans, and they enjoyed more of the freedom of locomotion. Yet during the entire period of the colonization movement from 1820, the time of the first settlement in Africa, the numbers who have gone to Liberia, including 5,722 recaptured Africans, up to the close of the nineteenth century were not more than 22,119, and their descendants in that country did not at the beginning of the twentieth century^ amount to more than 25,000.^ On the other hand, the A. M. E. Church has grown rapidly from the begin- ning. In 1912 it had a membership of 620,234.^ The A. M. E. Zion Church, established largely for the same reasons in 1820, had the same year a membership of 547,216,^ distributed throughout the continental part of the United States.
1 Liberia Bulletin No. 16.
2 Dr. H. K. Carroll, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in
America.
3 Ibid.
\
VIII
SLAVERY — EXTENSION AND ABOLITION
N 1820 a battle royal was fought in Congress in which the right of determining whether new territory should be free or slave was the issue. After a prolonged debate the Missouri Com- promise, as it is known, became a law. Missouri was admitted as a slave, Maine as a free State, and thereafter neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should be permitted in the United States north of 36° 30'. It was believed so far as Congress was concerned that the Slavery Question had been settled. Three events, however, the Denmark Vesey Insurrection of 1822, the Nat Turner Insurrection of 1831 and the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 at Philadelphia, kept the Slavery Question before the country. The Amistad Captives, who in 1839 overcame the slave traders who were bringing them from Africa to this country to sell them into slavery,^ also held the popular attention. The persistent warfare of John Quiney Adams in the House of Representatives in behalf of the right of petition; the rapid increase of slave population in the South, due to the smuggling of slaves and the struggle of the Slave Power to keep pace with the rapid growth of the Middle West and the annexation of Texas, brought the elements together again in conflict in 1850. After another prolonged debate, another compromise was adopted, by which among other things.
First. — California was to be admitted as a free State.
Second. — A more rigid fugitive slave law was passed.
1 Slavery and Anti-Slavery, W. Goodell.
21
22 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Third. — The organization of the Territory of New Mexico with- out any restriction as to slavery.
Fourth. — The prohibition of domestic slave trade in the Dis- trict of Columbia.
The sentiment of the North was decidedly against the enforce- ment of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the South, »Q-the ather hai^ did not keep faith with the Compromise of 1820, which by her solid delegation in Congress, aided by a strong contingent from the North she defied by the enactment in 1854, of the Kan- sas-Nebraska Act. Here was an irrepressible conflict, which was accentuated by the Dred Scott Decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in 1857, delivered two days after the inauguration of President Buchanan. In Kansas the conflict was bitter and persistent, and in the end Freedom won. Both sides of the struggle between Freedom and Slavery were engaged in a polit- ical duel in Illinois, where Lincoln represented the idea of the National power of the country to check the westward extension of slavery, and Stephen Douglas championed the right to make a territory either free or slave at will. In 1859 another insur- rection, this time led by John Brown, a white man, with 22 followers, at Harper 's Ferry, West Virginia, thrilled the country. It had most wide-reaching and permanent results, dooming slavery to extinction, although its leader and his associates paid the penalty of their lives on the scaffold. \
A-
Jolin Brown on His \\a\- to tlu' Scaffold. After Hovonden.
IX
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
With the Democratic party divided, 1860 witnessed two rival presidential tickets; as a result of which Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party obtained a decisive victory in the electoral college.
The triumph of the Republicans gave the South the pretext that it was seeking. The civil war followed and resulted in the triumph of the Union and the abolition of slavery. On April 16, 1862, slavery was abolished in the District of Colum- bia by the payment of $993,406.35 ; and notice having been given, September 22, 1862 of his intention, if those supporting the Rich- mond government did not return to the Union within one hun- dred days. President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclama- tion, January 1, 1863, declaring all slaves in the seceded States and Territories except in sections in the control of the Union armies henceforth and forever free.
The assassination of President Lincoln, April 15, 1865, follow- ing so closely upon the Fall of Richmond and the Surrender of Lee at Appomattox, precipitated a long and bitter conflict be- tween Congress and Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor in office. April 9, 1866, a Civil Rights Law was enacted, confer- ring certain fundamental civil rights upon the emancipated race — the right to sue and be sued, to hold property, and to testify in the courts. The States lately in rebellion passed vagrant acts which virtually reenacted many of the objectionable features of the Slave Code, and Congress decided to protect by legislation and constitutional enactments those freed by the sword. The
23
24 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Thirteenth Amendment, constitutionally legalizing emancipa- tion, became a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865 ; the Fourteenth Amendment, defining citizenship and declaring all Negroes to be citizens of the United States and of the States in which they reside, became incorporated in the Constitution July 18, 1868. The right of franchise was given the Negro, first in the States that were engaged in rebellion by the Reconstruction Act organizing the seceded States, which passed March 2, 1867, and through the Fifteenth Amendment, preventing any denial of the right of suifrage on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. This amendment was ratified March 30, 1870, and applied to the entire countr5\ With its em- bodiment in the fundamental law and the restoration of all the States lately in rebellion to their constitutional rights and representation within the Union, the work of reconstruction was supposed to be complete.
rj2
J.
o
'00
EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
One of the laws most rigidly enforced south of Mason and Dixon's Line was that prohibiting the teaching of colored people to read and write. There was no gi-eater, no more ardent desire on their part than to obtain an education. Every artifice to evade this law and to obtain by stealth an education was em- ployed. During the Civil War philanthropic associations fol- lowed victorious armies, and schools were opened in the centers of Negro population all over the South Old and young flocked to these, all eager to get an education. While not under the oper- ation of positive law, they enjoyed, nevertheless, a kind of na- tional governmental supervision— that of the Freedmen's Bureau.^ The teachers as a rule were Northern young men and women, especially the latter, who were fired with enthusiasm for the work and exhibited the self-denying consecration of the foreign missionary. The progress of the pupils in these schools was phenomenal. The establishment of normal schools and acad- emies at which the brightest of the colored youth could be pre- pared for the work of teachers rapidly followed. Almost about the same time Howard University at Washington, Atlanta Uni- versity in Georgia, Fisk University at Nashville, Straight Uni- versity in New Orleans, Shaw University at Raleigh, Colver Insti- tute in Richmond, Va., Wayland Seminary in Washington— these last two now merged in the Union University at Richmond, Va., and Hampton Institute, were established— all the outgrowth of missionary effort or philanthropy. In faculty and other equip-
iSee Appendix.
26
26 THE NEGRO IN AMEEICAN HISTORY
ment these schools matched the secondary institutions at the South for the whites. Thus was laid the foundation for the schoolteachers, the doctors, lawyers and ministers of the gospel needed in the popular instruction, professional work, the religious and secular leadership of the Negro. From the private philan- thropy that maintained these schools were evolved the Peabody, Slater and Hand Funds, and in ylater years the General and the Southern Educational Boar^ and the Jeanes Educational Fund.
The common schools of the South came into being with the reconstruction of the new State governments, and may be said to have had a fair beginning with the year 1871. Four of the State Superintendents of Instruction in the period of Reconstruc- tion were colored men, Rev. now Bishop J. W. Hood in North Carolina, Thomas W. Cardozo in Mississippi, William 6, Brown in Louisiana, and Rev. Jonathan G. Gibbs of Florida. It may be claimed without fear of successful contradiction that the es- tablishment of the common school in the South is attributable to the political forces which the Negro 's vote placed in power.
XI
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT
With the period immediately following the Second War with Great Britain, begins a series of events which indicate a pur- pose of the nation to make the condition of the free man of color an inferior status socially and politically. That this was resisted at every step, revealed more clearly the national aim and
\ purpose In 1820 the passage of the Missouri Compromise permitted the westward extension of slavery and as far north as 36° 30'.
Local legislation, harmonizing with this national action against extending the domain of freedom and making the country unde- sirable for the colored freeman, followed. Two years after the enactment of the compromise, "the martyrs of 1822" went bravely and heroically to their fate in South Carolina. In 1827, the Empire State completed its work of emancipation of the slave, begun 28 years before, and saw the birth of Free- dom's Journal, the first Negro newspaper within the limits of the United States, edited by John B. Russwurpa_^ and Samuel E. Cornish. In 1831, Virginia was convulsed and the entire South- land shocked by the Insurrection of Nat Turner. In the State of Ohio along the Kentucky border, the feeling against the free Negro had become acute. Mobs occurred, blood was shed and the people were compelled to look to some spot where they could abide in peace.
In these stirring times the Convention Movement came into
1 First college-bred Negro, Bowdoin College, one year after Longfellow ajid Hawthorne.
27
28 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
existence. The forces whicli it evoked were conserved and corre- lated until the dynamics of Civil Revolution had wrought desola- tion and destruction far and wide, sweeping away forever what had been a basis of the social and political strength of the Na- tion.
A glance at the list of the officers of this pioneer deliberative convention of colored people of which we have as yet any data, shows that the men who led in this meeting were among the fore- most colored citizens whose names have come down to us from that distant past.- James Forten was President, and Russell Parrott, the assistant to Absalom Jones at St. Thomas, P. E. Church, was the Secretary. Prominent also in this anti-coloniza- tion convention, were Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Robert Douglass, and John Gloucester — the first settled pastor of a colored Presbyterian Church.
This Convention of 1830 was the first conscious step toward con- certed action and was in no sense local in its conception, its con- stituency or its purpose.
The prime mover was Hezekiah Griee, a native of Baltimore. In his early life, he had met Benjamin Lundy, and in 1828-9, William Lloyd Garrison, editors and publishers of The Genius of Universal Emancipation, published at that time in Balti- more. In the spring of 1830 he wrote a circular letter to prom- inent colored men in the free States requesting their views on the feasibility and imperative necessity of holding a convention of the free colored men of the country, at some point north of Mason and Dixon's Line, for the exchange of views on the ques- tion of emigration or the adoption of a policy that would make living in the United States more endurable. For several months there was no response whatever to this circular. In August, however, he received an urgent request for him to come at once
2 Tlie first public demonstration of hostility to the colonization scheme was made January 24, 1817, by free colored inhabitants of Richmond, Va. Garrison's "Thoughts on African Colonization."
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 29
to Philadelphia. On his arrival there he found a meeting in session, discussing conflicting reports relative to the openings for colored people as emigrants to Canada. Bishop Richard Allen, at whose instance he was in Philadelphia, subsequently showed him a printed circular signed by Peter Williams, the rector of St. Philip's Church, New York, Peter Vogelsang and Thomas L. Jennings of the same place, approving the plan of a convention. This approval decided the Philadelphians to take definite action, and they immediately "issued a call for a Con- vention of the colored men of the United States to be held in the city of Philadelphia, on the 15th of September, 1830."
When the time came the Convention assembled in Bethel Church, the historic building in which was laid the foundation of the A. M. E. denomination. The Convention was organized by the election of Bishop Allen as President, Dr. Belfast Burton of Philadelphia and Austin Steward of Rochester, N, Y., as Vice Presidents, Junius C. Morell, Secretary, and Robert Cowley, Maryland, Assistant Secretary.
Seven States were represented by duly accredited delegates as follows : ^
Pennsylvania — Richard Allen, Belfast Burton, Cyrus Black, Junius C. Morell, Benjamin Paschall, James Cornish, William Whipper, Peter Gardiner, John Allen, James Newman, Charles H. Leveck, Frederick A. Hinton; New York — Austin Steward, Joseph Adams, George L. Brown; Connecticut — Scipio Augus- tus; Rhode Island — George C. Willis, Alfred Niger; Mary- land— James Deaver, Hezekiah Grice, Aaron Willson, Robert Cowley; Delaware — Abraham D. Shadd; Virginia — Arthur M. Waring, William Duncan, James West, Jr.
Besides there were these honorary members :
Pennsylvania — Robert Bro\\Ti, William Rogers, John Bowers, Richard HoweU, Daniel Peterson, Charles Shorts; New York — Leven Williams; Maryland — James P. Walker, Rev. Samuel
s Anglo-African Magazine, 1859.
30 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Todd, John Arnold ; Ohio — John Robinson ; New Jersey — Samp- son Peters ; Delaware — Rev. Anthony Campbell and Dan Caro- lus HaU.
They may well be called the first "forty immortals" in our Valhalla.
The question of emigration to Canada West, after an ex- haustive discussion which continued during the two days of the convention's sessions, was recommended as a measure of relief against the persecution from which the colored American suffered in many places in the North. Strong resolutions against the American Colonization Society were adopted. The formation of a parent society with auxiliaries in the different localities repre- sented in the convention, for the purpose of raising money to defray the object of purchasing a colony in the province of Upper Canada, and ascertaining more definite information, having been effected, the convention adjourned to reassemble on the first Monday in June, 1831, during which time the order of the con- vention respecting the organization of the auxiliary societies had been carried into operation.
At the assembling of the convention in 1831, which was fully reported in The Liberator, the officers elected were, John Bowers, Philadelphia, President, Abraham D. Shadd and Wil- liam Duncan, Vice Presidents, William Whipper, Secretary, Thomas L. Jennings, Assistant Secretary.
The roll of delegates reveals the presence of many of the pioneers. Hezekiah Grice did not attend — in fact he was never subsequently a delegate, for two years later he emigrated to Haiti, where he became a foremost contractor. Richard Allen had died, after having completed a most remarkable career. Rev. James W. C. Pennington, who for forty years afterward bore a conspicuous place as a clergyman of sound scholarship, was a new figure and thenceforth an active participant in the movement.
This convention aroused no little interest among the foremost
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 31
friends of the Negro and was visited and addressed by such men as Rev. S. S. Jocelyn of New Haven, Benjamin Lundy and Wil- liam Lloyd Garrison. In the "Life of Arthur Tappan," by his brother Lewis Tappan, we find the following :
"A convention of people of color was held in Philadelphia in 1831 of delegates from several States to consult upon the common interest. It was numerously attended and the proceedings were conducted with much ability. A resolution was adopted that it was expedient to es- tablish a collegiate school on the manual labor system. ... A com- mittee appomted for the purpose made an appeal to the benevolent. . . . New Haven was suggested as a suitable place for its loca- tion . . . Arthur Tappan purchased several acres of land in the southerly part of the city and made arrangements for the erection of a suitable building and furnished it with needful supplies in a way to do honor to the city and country . . . The people of New Haven be- came violently agitated in opposition to the plan. The city was filled with confusion. They seemed to fear that the city would be overrun with Negroes from all parts of the world ... A public meeting called by the Mayor September 8, 1831, in spite of a manly protest by Roger S. Baldwin, subsequently Governor of the State and IT. S. Senator from Connecticut, adopted the following:
"Resolved, by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council and free- men of the city of New Haven, in city meeting assembled, that we will resist the establishment of the proposed college in this place by every lawful means."
The attempt at the founding of a college in Connecticut was abandoned. The Prudence Crandall incident disgraced the name of Connecticut at the same period.
What was a kind of National Executive Committee, and known as the Convention Board, issued the caUs for the conventions from time to time.
When the next convention was held in 1832, there were eight States represented with an attendance of thirty delegates, as fol- lows: Maryland had 3; Delaware, 5; New Jersey, 3; Pennsyl-
32 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
vania, 9 ; New York, 5 ; Connecticut, 2 ; Rhode Island, 1 ; Massa- chusetts, 2.
Beginning June 4th, it continued in session until the 15th. The question exciting the greatest interest was one which pro- posed the purchase of other lands for settlement in Canada ; for 800 acres of land had already been secured, two thousand indi- viduals had left the soil of their birth, crossed the line and laid the foundation for a structure which promised an asylum for the colored population of the United States. They had already erected two hundred log houses and 500 acres of land had been brought under cultivation. But hostility to the settlement of the Negro in that section had been manifested by Canadians, many of whom would sell no land to the Negro. This may explain the hesitation of the convention and the appointment of an agent whose duty it was to make further investigation and report to a subsequent convention.
Opposition to the colonization movement was emphasized by a strong protest against any appropriation by Congress in behalf of the American Colonization Society. Abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia was also urged at the same convention. This was one year before the organization of the American Anti- Slaverj^ Society.
There were fifty-eight delegates present when the convention assembled June 3, 1833. The States represented were Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, Con- necticut and New York. Abraham D. Shadd, then of Washing- ton, D. C, was elected President.
The usual resolutions and addresses to the people were framed and adopted. In addition to these, the law of Connecticut, but recently passed, prohibiting the establishment of literary insti- tutions in that State for the instruction of persons of color of other States was specifically referred to, as well as a resolution giving the approval of the mission of WiUiam Lloyd Garrison to
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 33
Europe to obtain funds for the establishment of a Manual Train- ing School.
The emigration question was again thoroughly discussed. A committee was appointed to look into the matter of the encourage- ment of settlement in Upper Canada and all plans for coloniza- tion anywhere were rejected.
A general convention fund was provided for, also a schedule showing the population, churches, day schools, Sunday Schools, pupils, temperance societies, benevolent societies, mechanics and store-keepers. A most significant action was one recommending the establishment in different parts of the country of Free Labor Stores at which no produce from the result of slave labor would be exposed for sale.
The next year, 1834, the convention met in New York, June 8th, with Henry Sipkins as President. There were seven States represented and about 40 delegates present. The usual resolu- tions were adopted, one commending Prudence Crandall * to the patronage and affection of the people at large; another urging the people to assemble on the fourth of each July for the purpose of prayer and the delivery of addresses pertaining to the con- dition and welfare of the colored people. The foundation of so- cieties on the principle of moral reform and total abstinence from intoxicating liquors was advocated. Moreover, every person of color was urged to discountenance all boarding houses where gam- bling was permitted.
At the same convention the Phoenix Societies came up for special consideration and were heartily commended. These planned an organization of the colored people in their municipal subdivisions with the special object of the promotion of their improvement in morals, literature and the mechanic arts. Lewis Tappan refers to them in the biography previously referred to. The ''Mental Feast" which was a social feature, survived thirty years later in some of the interior towns of Pennsylvania and the
* (See Appendix.
34 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
West. General Superintendent Christopher Rush of the A. M. E. Zion, was the president of these societies. Rev, Theodore S. Wright, the predecessor of Rev. Henry Highland Garnet at the Shiloh Presbyterian Church, New York, and who enjoys the unique reputation of claiming Princeton Seminary as his Alma Mater, was a vice president. Among its directors were Boston Crummell, the father of Alexander Crummell, Rev. William Paul Quinn, subsequently a bishop of the A. M. E. Church, and Rev. Peter Williams. These names suggest that the Phoenix Society movement was a somewhat widespread institution. Unfor- tunately, there was lost during the excitement of the New York Draft Riots of 1863, nearly all the documentary data for an interesting sidelight on the Convention Movement, through the study of these societies.
With 1835, the Convention returned to Philadelphia ; June 1-5 was -the time of its sessions. There were forty-four delegates en- rolled, with Reuben Ruby of Maine, as president, John F. Cook of the District of Columbia, was Secretary.
Speaking of its proceedings "The Liberator^' says:
"Its pages offered abundant testimony of the ability of this body to set before the Nation a detail of the wrongs and grievances to which they are by custom and law subjected, and they also exhibit a praiseworthy spirit of manly and noble resolution to contend by moral force alone until their rights so long withheld shall be restored."
Among other specially notable things, Robert Purvis and Fred- erick A. Hinton were appointed a committee to correspond with dissatisfied emigrants to Liberia and to take such action as would best promote the sentiment of the colored people respecting the work of the Colonization Society ; the students of Lane Seminary at Cincinnati were thanked for their zeal in the cause of aboli- tion. Temperance reform was advocated in a stirring address to the people ; and the free people of color were recommended to petition Congress and their respective state legislatures to be ad-
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 35
mitted to the rights and privileges of American citizenship, and to be protected in the enjoyment of the same.
William Whipper advocated that the word * ' colored ' ' should be abandoned and the title ** African" should be removed from the name of the churches, lodges, societies and other institutions.
In 1836, in the columns of The Liberator appear calls for two conventions; the regular annual convention was called to meet in Philadelphia, June 6, by Henry Sipkins of the Conven- tion Board, and the urgent language of the call implies doubt in the interest of the people or the probability of their prompt response to the call. William Whipper issued the call, through the same medium, for the Convention of the American Moral Re- form to meet August 2, 1836, also in Philadelphia. Careful perusal of the files of The Liberator fails to disclose a com- ment on the proceedings of either convention. But the per- sonnel of the officers of the American Moral Reform shows the influential men of the Convention Movement at their helm. James Forten, Sr., the Revolutionary patriot, was the President, Reuben Ruby, Rev. Samuel E. Cornish, Rev. Walter Proctor and Jacob C. White, Sr., of Philadelphia, were Vice Presidents, Joseph Cassey was Treasurer, Robert Purvis, Foreign Cor- responding Secretary and James Forten, Jr., Recording Sec- retary.
The address was drawn up by William Watkins of Baltimore, who two decades later was an able colleague of Frederick Doug- lass in the conduct of The North Star.
In 1837, the Convention of the American Moral Reform was again held in Philadelphia, August 19th, in which William Whipper, John P. Burr, Rev. John F. Cook, who delivered an address on Temperance, and James Forten, Jr., were leading spirits.
Sufficient has been stated to show that the convention move- ment was deeply rooted in the thought of the disfranchised American. The fact that there was a lull does not at all dis-
36 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
prove this contention. The conventions were ^eat educators, alike of the Ne^o and the American whites. They taught the former parliamentary usages and how to conduct deliberative bodies. They brought to light facts pertaining to the Negro's status which tended to establish that he was thrifty and steadily improving as a moral and economic force; while the American whites had in them an object lesson from which they learned much. In his ''Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro," Samuel Ringgold Ward * says : "A State or a National Convention of black men is held. The talent displayed, the order maintained, the demeanor of the delegates, all impress themselves upon the community. All agree that to keep a people rooted to the soil who are rapidly improving, who have already attained consider- able influence and are marshaled by gifted leaders (men who show themselves qualified for legislative and judicial positions), and to doom them to a state of perpetual vassalage is altogether out of the question. ' '
The work of unifying the race along right lines now pro- ceeded with the holding of State Conventions. There was a state Temperance Convention of the colored men of Connecticut, held at Middletown, 1836, followed by a call for a New England Convention at Boston in October. Reference to its proceedings shows a prior convention held at Providence, R. I., in May. At the Boston Convention a ringing appeal was made to the people, for total abstinence from all intoxicants, and almost immediately thereafter, local meetings were held for the purpose of putting in practical operation the principles enunciated. Not only in New England, but in the Middle and Western States, local conven- tions were held during this and the next decade.
The following extracts from a letter dated Dec. 21, 1901 from the veteran educator, Peter H. Clark, of Cincinnati and St. Louis, Missouri, shed a flood of light upon this early movement :
* Pronounced by Daniel Webster "the ablest thinker on his legs before the American public."
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 37
Mt Dear Sib : —
The people of Ohio held conventions annually for more than thirty years. Usually they printed their proceedings in pamphlets.
A peculiarity of the Ohio conventions was that they were meant to improve the condition of the colored people of that State. The con- ventions of those residing in the more eastern States were simply anti- slaveiy conventions, and their memorials and protests were aimed at slavery. The first conventions of the men of Ohio were self -helpful. By their own sacrifices and with the help of friends, they purchased lots and erected school houses in a number of towns, or they organized schools and located them in churches.
Active in this work were the Yancy's, Charles and Walter, Gideon and Charles Langston (brothei-s of John M.), George Carey, Dennis Hill, and chief among them, David Jenkins. Walter Yancy was the agent of these men, traveling and organizing societies and schools, col- lecting funds, etc.
As a result of this self-helping movement, a number of farming communities were established, some of which accumulated large areas of land, and in Cincinnati, The Iron Chest Company accumulated funds and in 1840 erected a block of buildings which still stands.
Later, the action of the Convention was directed against the Black Laws of Ohio. These were repealed in 1849, and colored children were permitted to share in the benefits of the school funds, though in sepa- rate schools. The same legislature elected Salmon P. Chase to the United States Senate. The movement thus detailed was the result of a bargain between the Democrats of Ohio and the Free Soilers.
Afterwards the force of these conventions was directed against discriminations against colored people which still existed on the statute books. Sometimes this force took the shape of petitions, memorials, protests, and after the organization of the Ohio Equal Rights League, it took the shape of legal proceedings, etc.
One of the most memorable of these conventions was held in 1852, when John M. Langston delivered the best speech of his life, defending the thesis, "there is a mutual repellency between the white and black races of the world."
The materials for the speech were collected by Charles Langston,
38 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
but John made the speech. Time has vindicated the position taken by Mr. Langston in that memorable address. It was the beginning of the Emigration Movement in which Dr. Martin R. Delaney afterwards be- came prominent.
Effective national conventions have not been numerous in the past fifty years.
One of the most notable met at Rochester in 1853. Frederick Douglass presided and I had the honor of being the secretary.
It was reported that Mrs. Stowe desired to give a portion of her earnings fi'om "Uncle Tom" for the fomiding of a school for the bene- fit of the Afro-American, and this convention was called to formulate an advisory plan.
The plan when formulated, was practically what Mr. Washington realized many years afterwards at Tuskegee. . . .
The Rochester movement came to naught, but its influence upon the colored people of the country was wide spread, chiefly because of the character of the men who composed it.
Its proceedings were published in the "North Star," and so far as I know, nowhere else. The files of that paper were destroyed with Mr. Douglass' Rochester house, and, unless in the Congressional Library, no copy now exists.
The convention at Syracuse, 1864, was another note-worthy assem- blage. It was the formulation of a plan of organization known as the National Equal Rights League. The rivalry between Mr. Douglass and Mr. Langston prevented the wide usefulness of which the organiza- tion was capable.
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois organized auxiliary State leagues, and in each State much good was done. Mr. Langston, president elect of the National Organization, never called it together. . . .
It will take time and thought for the compilation of such a list. The men who officiated in the conventions of which I have written, wei'e mostly small men, great only in their zeal for the welfare of their people.
Within these ten years from 1837 to 1847, a new figure ap- pears on the scene, a man, though not born free like Paul, yet like the chief captain, obtained it at a great price. The
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 39
career of Frederick Douglass was but preliminary prior to his return from England, and his settlement at Rochester, N. Y., as editor of The North Star. By a most remarkable coin- cidence, the very first article in the first number of The North Star published January, 1848, is an extended notice of the National Colored Convention held at the Liberty Street Church, Troy, New York, October 9, 1847. Nathan Johnson was president.
There were 67 delegates. From New York, 44; Massachusetts, 15 ; Connecticut, 2 ; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky and Michigan, 1 each.
The presence of one delegate, Benjamin Weeden, from a large constituency, Northampton, Mass., whose credentials stated the fact that a large number of white citizens sympathizing with the objects of the call had formally expressed their endorsement of the movement, was a signal for hearty applause.
A most spirited discussion arose on the report of the Com- mittee of Education as to the expediency of the establishment of a college for colored young men, which was discussed pro and con by arguments that can not be surpassed even after a lapse of more than half a century. The report gives unstinted praise to the chairman ^ of the committee for his scholarly style, his choice diction and his grace of manner.
The next year, September 6, 1848, between sixty and seventy delegates assembled at Cleveland, Ohio, in the National Conven- tion, the sessions alternating between the Court House and the Tabernacle. Frederick Douglass was chosen President, John Jones of Illinois, Allen Jones of Oliio, Thomas Johnson of Michi- gan and Abner Francis of New York, were Vice Presidents, Wil- liam Howard Day was the Secretary, with William H. Burnham and Justin Hollin, Assistants. At the head of the business com- mittee stood Martin R. Delaney. The line of policy was not de- flected. As in previous conventions, education was encouraged,
5 Alexander Crummell.
40 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
the importance of statistical information emphasized and temper- ance societies urged.
As showing the representative character of the delegates, the diversity of occupations, employment and the professions fol- lowed, the fact was developed that there were printers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, engineers, dentists, gunsmiths, editors, tailors, merchants, wheelwrights, painters, farmers, physicians, plasterers, masons, college students, clergymen, barbers, hair- dressers, laborers, coopers, livery stable keepers, bath-house keepers and grocers among the members of the convention.
But of all the conventions of the period, the largest, that in which the ability of its members was best displayed in the broad and statesmanlike treatment of the questions discussed and the practical action which vindicated their right to recog- nition as enfranchised citizens, and the one to which the at- tention of the American people was attracted as never before, was the one held in the city of Rochester, N. Y. With greater emphasis than at prior meetings, this convention set the seal of its opposition against any hope for permanent relief to the con- ditions under which the colored freeman labored by any com- prehensive scheme of emigration. Because of tliis, it directed its energies to affirmative, constructive action.
In the enunciation of a philosophy able, far-sighted and states- manlike, contained in the address to the American people, we behold the wisdom of a master mind — one then at the prime of his intellectual and physical powers, Frederick Douglass, the chairman of the Business Committee.
Among the important things done by the convention might be enumerated. It says :
"We can not announce the discovery of any new principle adopted to ameliorate the condition of mankind. The great truths of moral and political science upon which we rely, and which press upon your consideration, have been evolved and enunciated by you. We point to your principles, your wisdom and your great example as the full
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 41
justification of our course this day. That all men are created equal; that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the right of all; that taxation and representation should go together; that the Constitution of the United States was formed to establish justice, promote the gen- eral welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to all the people of the country; that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God — are American principles and maxims, and together they form and constitute the con- structive elements of the American government."
1. The plan for an industrial college on the manual labor plan, was api^roved, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was about to make a visit to England at the instance of friends in that eomitry, was authorized to receive funds in the name of the colored people of the country for that purpose. The successful establishment and conduct of such an institution of learning, would train youth to be self-reliant and skilled workmen, fitted to hold their own in the struggle of life on the con- ditions prevailing here.
2. A registiy of colored mechanics, artisans and business men throughout the Union, was provided for, also, of all the persons will- ing to employ colored men in busmess, to teach colored boys mechanic trades, liberal and scientific professions and farming, also a registry of colored men and youth seeking employment or instruction.
3. A committee on publication "to collect all facts, statistics and statements. All laws and historical records and biographies of the colored people and all books by colored authors." This committee was further authorized "to publish replies to any assaults worthy of note, made upon the character or condition of the colored people." This was in keeping with what had actually been done by the colored peo- ple of the State of New York the year previous, after its Governor, Ward Hunt, had substantially recommended the passage of black laws which would have forbidden the settlement of any blacks or mulattoes within its borders and placed further restrictions on those at that time citizens. The charge of unthrift against the Negro was utterly dis- proven by a comparative statement showing that in those places m which the conditions were the woi-st. New York, Brooklyn and Williams- burg, the Negro had increased 25 per cent, in population in twenty years and 100 per cent, in real estate holdings.
42 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
In thirteen counties the amount owned by colored persons was ascertained to be $1,000,000.
Capit.\l in Business. — New York, $755,000; Brooklyn, $79,- 200; Williamsburg, $4,900. Total $839,100.
Real Estate Exclusive of Incumbrance. — New York, $733,- 000; Brooklyn, $276,000; Williamsburg, $151,000. Total $1,- 160,000.
The convention crowned its work by a more comprehensive plan of organization than those of twenty years before.
A national council was provided for to be "composed of two members from each State by elections to be held at a poll at which each colored inhabitant may vote who pays ten cents as a poll tax, and each State shall elect at such election delegates to State conventions twenty in number from each State at large."
The detail of this plan shows that the methods of the Afro- American Council of 1895, is an almost exact copy of the National Council of 1853. The chairman of the committee which formulated this plan was William Howard Day and other members were Charles H. Langston, George B. Vashon, William J. Wilson, William Whipper and Charles B. Ray, all of them men of more than ordinary intelligence, information and abil- ity.
But those who saw only in emigration the solution of the evils with which they were beset, immediately called another con- vention to consider and decide upon the subject of emigration from the United States. According to the call, no one was to be admitted to the convention who would introduce the subject of emigration to any part of the Eastern Hemisphere, and op- ponents of emigration were also to be excluded. Among the signers to the call in and from the States of Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Canada and California were : Rev. Wil- liam Webb, Martin R. Delaney, Pittsburg, Pa., Dr. J. J. Gould Bias and Franklin Turner of Philadelphia, Rev. Augustus R. Green of Allegheny, Pa., James M. Whitfield, New York, William
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 43
Lambert of Michigan, Henry Bibb, James Theodore Holly of Canada and Henry M. Collins of California.
Douglass in his paper The North Star, characterized the call as uncalled for, — unwise and unfortunate and prema- ture. As far too narrow and illiberal to meet with acceptance among the intelligent. "A convention to consider the subject of emigration when every delegate must declare himself in favor of it beforehand as a condition of taking his seat, is like the handle of a jug, all on one side. We hope no colored man will omit during the coming twelve months an opportunity which may offer to buy a piece of property, a house lot, a farm or any- thing else in the United States which looks to permanent resi- dence here."
James M. Whitfield of Buffalo, N. Y., the Negro poet of America, and one of the signers of the call, responded to the at- tacks in the same journal. Douglass made a reply and Whitfield responded again, and so on until several articles on each side were produced by these and other disputants. The articles were collected and published in pamphlet form by Rev. and Bishop James Theodore Holly of Port au Prince, Haiti, making a valu- able contribution to literature, for I doubt if there is anywhere throughout the range of controversial literature anything to sur- pass it.
Bishop Holly gives further information respecting this con- vention. In a private letter he says :
"The convention was accordingly held. The Rev. William Munroe was President, the Rt. Rev. [William] Paul Quinn, Vice President, Dr. Delaney, Chairman of the Business Committee and I was the Secre- tary. . . .
"There were three parties in that Emigration Convention, ranged according to the foreign fields they preferred to emigrate to. Dr. Delaney headed the party that desired to go to the Niger Valley in Africa, Whitfield the party which preferred to go to Central America, and Holly the party which preferred to go to Hayti.
44 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
"All these parties were recognized and embraced by the Convention. Dr. Delaney was given a commission to go to Africa, in the Niger Val- ley, Whitfield to go to Central America and Holly to Hayti, to enter into negotiations with the authorities of these various countries for Negro emigrants and to report to future conventions. Holly was the first to execute his mission, going down to Hayti in 1855, when he en- tered into relations with the Minister of the Interior, the father of the late President Hyppolite, and by him was presented to Emperor Faustin I. The next Emigration Convention was held at Chatham, Canada West, in 1856, when the report on Hayti was made. Dr. De- laney went off on his mission to the Niger Valley, Africa, via England in 1858. There he concluded a treaty signed by himself and eight Mngs, offering inducements for Negro emigrants to their territories. Whitfield went to California, intending to go later from thence to Central America, but died in San Francisco before he could do so. Meanwhile [James] Redpath went to Hayti as a John Brownist after the Harper's Ferry raid, and reaped the first fruits of Holly's mission by being appomted Haytian Commissioner of Emigration in the United States by the Haytian Government, but with the express injunction that Rev. Holly should be called to cooperate with him. On Red- path's arrival in the United States, he tendered Rev. Holly a Commis- sion from the Haytian Government at $1,000 per annum and traveling expenses to engage emigrants to go to Hayti. The first shipload of emigrants were from Philadelphia in 1861.
"Not more than one-third of the 2,000 emigrants to Hayti re- ceived through this movement, permanently abided there. They proved to be neither intellectually, industrially, nor financially prepared to undertake to wring from the soil the riches that it is ready to yield up to such as shall be thus prepared; nor are the government and in- fluential individuals suflBciently instructed in social, industrial and financial problems which now govern the world, to turn to profitable use willing workers among the laboring class.
"The Civil War put a stop to the African Emigration project by Dr. Delaney taking the commission of Major from President Lincoln, and the Central American project died out with Whitfield, leaving the Haytian Emigration as the only remaining practical outcome of the Emigration Convention of 1854."
THE EARLY CONVENTION MOVEMENT 45
The Civil War destroyed many landmarks and the National Colored Convention, restricted to the free colored people of the North and the border States, was a thing of the past.
Just after one of the darkest periods of that strife, when the dawn was apparent, there assembled in the city of Syracuse, the last National Colored Convention in which the men who began the movement in 1830, their successors and their sons had the control. The sphere of influence even in that had some- what increased, for southeastern Virginia, Louisiana and Ten- nessee had some representation. Slavery was dead ; the coloniza- tiouists to Canada, the West Indies and Africa had abandoned the field of openly aiming to commit the policy of the race to what was considered expatriation.
Reconstruction, even in 1864, was seen in the South peering above the horizon. The Equal Rights League came forth dis- placing the National Council of 1854, yet with the same object of the Legal Rights Association organized by Hezekiah Griee in Baltimore in 1830. John Mercer Langston stepped in the arena at the head of the new organization, but under more favorable auspices than was begun in the movement of 1830. A study of its rise, progress and decline belongs to another period of the evolution of the Free Negro.
These four facts appear from a study of this movement :
1. The Convention Movement begun in 1830, demonstrates the ability of the Negro to construct a platform broad enough for a race to stand upon and to outline a policy alike far-sighted and statesmanlike, one that has not been surpassed in the eighty years that have elapsed.
2. The earnestness, the enthusiasm and the efficiency with which the work aimed at was done, the singleness of purpose, the public spirit and the intrepidity manifested, encouraged and inspired such men as Benjamin Lundy, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, S. S. Jocelyn, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, William Goodell and Beriah Green to greater efforts and persistence in
46 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
behalf of the disfranchised American, accomplishing at last the tremendous work of revolutionizing the public sentiment of the country and making the institution of radical reforms possible.
3. The preparatory training which the convention work gave, fitted its leaders for the broader arena of abolitionism. And it can not be regarded as a mere coincidence that the only colored men who were among the organizers of the American Anti- Slavery Society in 1833, Robert Purvis and James G. Barbadoes, were both promoters and leaders in the Convention Movement.
4. The importance of industrial education in the growth and development of the Negro-American is no new doctrine in the creed of the representative colored people of the country. Be- fore Hampton and Tuskegee reared their walls — aye, before Booker T. Washington was born, Frederick Douglass and the Colored Convention of 1853 had commissioned Mrs. Stowe to ob- tain funds to establish an Agriculture and Industrial College. Long before Frederick Douglass had left Maryland by the Under Ground Railroad, but for the opposition of the white people of Connecticut, and within the echo of Yale College, would have stood the first institution dedicated to our enlightenment and social regeneration.
XII
RECONSTRUCTION FAILS
From 1865 to 1870 the Equal Rights League had a respectable existence. The chief value of this body was that it brought to- gether colored men from different sections and created the com- mittee of colored men stationed in Washington during the winter immediately after the war, pending the fight between Congress and Andrew Johnson and the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts. This fight also paved the way for the framing and passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
This law and amendments were followed by the readmission of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. With the elective franchise safeguarded by the presence of the United States Army and the federal statutes there was a revolu- tion in the personnel and political administration of the South. In local and State offices colored men were chosen under the new constitutions. Negro magistrates and police officers in the towns and cities; members of the legislatures by the score; a half a dozen judges, secretaries of state in Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina ; and lieutenant governors in Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi. As Members of Congress, there were two Senators, Hiram R. Revels, who filled an unexpired term, and Blanche K. Bruce, the full term of six years from 1875 to 1881, both from Mississippi. Virginia had one colored Mem- ber of Congress, John M. Langston, who served one term ; North Carolina, John A. Hyman, one term, James E. O'Hara, two terms; Henry P. Cheatham, two terms, and George H. White,
47
48 THE NEGRO IN AMEEICAN HISTORY
two terms. From South Carolina, Joseph H. Rainey who served in five Congresses, Rev. (later Bishop) Richard H. Cain, in two, Robert C. DeLarge, in one, Alonzo J. Ransier, in one, Thomas E. Miller, one term, Robert Brown Elliott, in two, George W. Murray, in two, Robert Smalls, in five. Georgia had Jefferson Long in part of a term, Florida sent Josiah T. Walls two terms. From Alabama came Jere Haralson, Benjamin S. Turner and James T. Rapier, one term each. Mississippi, John R. Lynch, two tenns, and Louisiana, Charles E. Nash, one term.
The withdrawal of the last contingent of United States sol- diers from the South during the Administration of President Hayes, and the opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court that the Enforcement Act was unconstitutional, as well as similar opin- ions as to other Reconstruction Legislation, were followed in 1877 by the collapse of the last reconstructed governments of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana.
Hope was indulged in, nevertheless, that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the National Constitution in the South w^ould be recognized and enforced by local sentiment. In Vir- ginia, the "readjuster" movement led by William Mahone triumphed in 1881 and gave a fair interpretation to the U. S. Constitution, and a combination between the Populists and the Republicans in North Carolina obtained control of the govern- ment of this State with a somewhat kindred result. In Ala- bama a union between the same elements gave j^romise of the / same results. But all these successes were temporary. Begin- ning with Mississippi in 1890, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana have revised their constitu- tions so ingeniously that while not violating the letter of the Fifteenth Amendment they have placed the power of admitting to the elective franchise entirely in the hands of local officers. These officers having full discretion have uniformlj^ admitted all white men but disfranchised nearly all colored men, re-
KECONSTKUCTION FAILS 49
gardless of whether they do or do not conform to the State law. Several attempts have been made to have the U. S, Su- preme Court rule on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of these revised constitutions. But thus far these attempts have been in vain.
The elective franchise is now quite as much in control of the State as before the Civil War. One of the problems of the twentieth century is either the complete nullification of the war amendments or their enforcement in letter and spirit.
XIII
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER
1652-1781
As early as 1652 the Negro trained in the Virginia Militia and was found in the French and Indian War. Crispus Attucks, the mulatto, was one of the first to fall March 5, 1770, in the Boston Massacre, in which the first blood of the Revolution was shed. From the very earliest days of the Revolution the free Negro enlisted as a soldier in common with other men. As such he was found in the service of nearly all the colonies.^ Their pres- ence created objection and led to a council of war, held October, 1775, composed of three major generals and six brigadiers, presided over by General George Washington, in which any further Negro enlistments were unanimously condemned. Ten days later this action was approved by a conference participated in by Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Washington, and the deputy governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The British took advantage of this policy of the Revolutionists, and Lord Duimiore, in a proclamation dated November 7, 1775, offered freedom and equal pay to all slaves who would join their army. Before the year closed, in fact on December 30, 1775, Washington issued orders authorizing the enlistment of free Negroes as soldiers, and as such they continued until the close of the M^ar.
The connection of the Negro soldier in the Continental Army was not without incident. Some achieved honorable mention
1 Arnold's History State of R. I, p. 428.
50
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 51
and distinction. Salem Poor was the subject of a memorial to the General Court of Massachusetts for his soldierly bearing and bravery. To Peter Salem belongs the distinction of killing Major Pitcairn at Bunker Hill, and Jordan Freeman killed Major Montgomery at the storming of Fort Griswold. At the battle of Rhode Island, August 29, 1778, a battalion of 400 Negroes withstood three separate charges from 1,500 Hessians under Count Donop. In his description of this battle Arnold says: "It was in repelling the furious onset, that the newly raised black regiment under Colonel Green, distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor. Posted behind a thicket in the valley, three times they drove back the Hessians who charged repeatedly down the hill to dislodge them; and so determined were the enemy in these successive charges, that the day after the battle the Hessian Colonel who had led the attack, applied to exchange his command and go to New York, because he dared not lead his regiment again to battle lest his men should shoot him for having caused them so much loss. ' '
1812-1814
In the War of 1812 the Negro was one-sixth of the naval forces of the young republic. Captain Oliver H. Perry, subse- quently Commodore, in the early part of the struggle com- plained because of the large number of Negro recruits sent him, but later he applauded them for their bravery and effi- ciency.
A popular gathering was held in New York to honor Com- modore Decatur at which Hull, Jones and Decatur were present. Shortly after dinner was given, the crew, of which one-third was colored, mulattoes and full blacks, walked side by side with the white soldiers in the parade. Commodore Decatur re- viewed them. Some gentlemen seeing the Negro element ex- pressed their surprise to the Commodore and inquired if such men were good for anything in a fight. The Commodore re-
52 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
plied: ''They are as brave men as ever fired a gun. There are no stouter hearts in the service. ' ' ^ Incidents of the valor of the colored sailors in that struggle are abundant. John Johnson, struck by a twenty-four-pounder in the hip, which took away the lower part of his body, exclaimed while in this condition, ''Fire away, my boys; no haul a color down." An- other, John Davis, just as seriously wounded, begged to be thrown overboard because he said he was in the way of others.
In the east Senate stairway of the Capitol at Washington, and in the rotunda of the Capitol at Columbus, Ohio, Art has rescued from oblivion, by the celebrated picture of Perry's Victory on Lake Erie, the contribution of the Negro sailor to a place among the heroes of that engagement.^
General Andrew Jackson, President from 1829 to 1837, issued a stirring appeal for aid to the free colored people of Louisiana, September 21, 1814. It runs as follows: "Through a mistaken policy you have been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for National rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer shall exist." Two battalions were recruited and did splendid service in the battle of New Orleans, New York enrolled two battalions and Pennsylvania enrolled 2,400 soldiers. Still another was ready for service when peace was de- clared. So highly pleased was General Jackson with the service of the colored soldiers at the battle of New Orleans that he issued a proclamation containing these words : "To the men of color, soldiers! From the shores of Mobile, I called you to arms. I invited you to share in the perils and to divide the glory of your white countrymen. I expected much of you; for I was not uninformed of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading foe. I knew you could endure hunger and thirst and all the hardships of war. I knew that you
a Am. Hist. Record, Vol. I, p. 115.
3 There were one hundred and nine dauntless colored heroes who fought on the Battle of Lake Erie. — Centennial Address of Rev. A. J. Carey.
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 53
loved the land of your nativity, and that, like ourselves, you had to defend all that is most dear to man. But you surpass my hopes. I found in you, united to those qualities, that noble enthusiasm that impels to great deeds.
' ' Soldiers, the President of the United States shall be informed of your conduct on the present occasion, and the voice of the representative of the American Nation shall applaud your valor as your General now praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His sails cover the lake, but the brave are united, and if he finds us contending among ourselves, it will be for the prize of valor, and fame its noblest reward."
In Louisiana a special act of the legislature authorized free Negro troops to be raised during the second war with England, but only those residing in the parish of Natchitoches, who pos- sessed real estate of the value of one hundred and fifty dollars, were eligible. This was the only instance of the enrolment of Negro troops in the half-century (1800-1850). Respecting this regiment. General Jackson wrote, in a letter to President Mon- roe describing the battle of New Orleans, "I saw General Packenham reel and pitch out of his saddle. I have always believed that he fell from the bullet of a freeman of color, who was a famous rifle shot, and came from the Attakapas region of Louisiana. ' ' *
Commenting on this belief Thorpe, the historian, says: "If war be man's most glorious occupation, and the death of the enemy's commander-in-chief be desirable, America should erect a monument to this forgotten free Negro who on a property qualification of a hundred and fifty dollars served so faithfully at the battle of New Orleans. Was not this almost as great a service as to command a Negro regiment ? " °
* Century Magazine, January, 1897.
5 Constitutional History of the American People, page 361.
XIV
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER
1861-1865
In the spring of 1862, the second year of the war which main- tained the supremacy of the Union and preserved the flag, Gen- eral David Hunter raised and equipped a regiment of Negroes in South Carolina. His action, which provoked censure and the offering of a resolution in the House of Representatives demanding the authority for this step, was ultimately approved by President Lincoln and by Congress. Negro soldiers thence- forth were recruited with enthusiasm until the total number was 178,975 in 138 regiments of infantry, six of cavalry, four- teen regiments of heavy artillery and one battery of light artil- lery.
The record of the bravery of "The Colored Volunteer" in defense of the flag has inspired alike the poet and the orator to some of the most eloquent tributes to the valor, the courage, the daring of the bronze boys in blue. The names of Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson and Fort Pillow are as familiar as Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh and Gettysburg.
"When the Second Louisiana Native Guards, one of the three colored battalions mustered in the Union cause at New Orleans, were leaving for service, Colonel Stafford, their commander, thus concludes an address, turning over the regimental colors: ''Color-Guard: Protect, defend, die for, but do not surrender these colors."
Plancianos, the gallant flag-sergeant, replied: "Colonel, I
will bring back these colors to you in honor, or report to God
the reason why."
54
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 55
At Port Hudson, May, 1863, six times the battalion unsuccess- fully charged against the foe. Captain Cailloux, so black that he was proud of his color, leading on and refusing to leave the field, though wounded, until killed by a shell. The colors re- turned, but dyed with the blood of the brave Plancianos, who had reported to God from that bloody field. George H. Boker, the poet, immortalizes the engagement in "The Black Regi- ment. ' '
At Milliken's Bend, garrisoned by the Ninth and Eleventh Louisiana and the First Mississippi, Negroes, and about one hundred and sixty of the Twenty-third Iowa, white, about eleven hundred fighting men in all, defended themselves against a force of six Confederate regiments from 3 a. m. to 12 noon, when rescued by a Union gunboat.
On July 18, 1863, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, under Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, in their charge against Fort Wagner, won undying fame. It was here that Flag-Sergeant William H. Carney, though wounded, bore the flag back in safety, though falling exhausted from the loss of blood, and exclaiming, "Boys, the Old Flag never touched the ground."
In Virginia in the armies of the James and the Potomac, the prowess of the Negro soldier elicited praise from commanding officers as well as from an admiring world. Major C. A. Fleet- wood,^ with pardonable pride, says: "The true metal of the Negro as a soldier rang out its clearest notes amid the tremen- dous diapason that rolled back and forth between the embattled hosts!"
It was September 29, 1864, at New Market Heights and Fort Harrison, that only one of a color guard of the 4th U. S. C. T., twelve men, came off the field on his own feet. This gallant flag-sergeant, Hilton, the last to fall, cried out as he went down, "Boys, save the colors," and they were saved. It was at New
1 Fleetwood was a medal of honor man; for other Colored Honor Men, see Appendix.
56 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Market Heights that owing to the loss of their commissioned officers, six non-commissioned officers, Milton M. Holland, James H. Bronson, Powhattan Beatty, Robert Finn, Edward RatcUff and Samuel Gilchrist, led their men so nobly, so bravely, so skillfully, that they were given special medals of honor. It was of this engagement that Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, a Represent- ative in Congress, thus spoke ten years after : - " There in a space not wider than the clerk's desk, and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of 543 of my colored comrades, slain in the defence of their country, who had lain down their lives to uphold its flag and its honor as a willing sacrifice. And as I rode along, guiding my horse this way and that lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked at their bronzed faces, upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, and whose flag had been to them a flag of stripes, in which no star of glory had ever shone for them. Feeling I had wronged them in the past, and believing what was the future duty of my country to them, I swore a solemn oath, 'May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I ever fail to defend the rights of the men who have given their blood for me and my country that day and for their race forever.' And, God helping me, I will keep that oath."
2 January 7, 1874.
XV
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
The sinking of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on the night of February 15, 1898, wrought the American people to such a pitch that war between the United States and Spain was inevitable. This was declared April 21, and a block- ade of the Cuban ports effected the next day. Cessation of hostilities was announced by a proclamation of President Mc- Kinley, August 12, 1898, and peace concluded by treaty ratified February 6, 1899. Cuba became a Republic, independent of Spain; Porto Rico was annexed to the United States and the Philippines became part of our insular possessions. In short, the United States, hitherto restricted in authority to the conti- nent of North America, became a world-wide power.
In this struggle between the United States and Spain, com- pressed within an active period of less than four months, the Negro soldier won a distinction surpassing, if possible, that of his fame in the Revolution, the War of 1812 or that for the preservation of the Union.
At the beginning of hostilities four regiments of colored sol- diers in the regular army establishment, the Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry comprised the entire representation of the Negro in the army; but during the brief progress of the war this quota was increased by one company, of the Sixth Massachusetts In- fantry, the Ninth Ohio Battalion,^ companies A and B of the
1 Major Chaa. Yoiing, a N^ro graduate of West Point Academ7.
57
58 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
First Indiana, the Eighth Illinois regiment, two battalions of the Twenty-third Kansas, the Third North Carolina regiment, the Second South Carolina, the Third Alabama and two bat- talions of the SiKth Virginia. To these must be added what are otherwise known as the immunes, for service in the Philippines, the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth U. S. Volunteers. The officers in the Eighth Illinois, the Twenty-third Kansas and the Ohio battalion, line and field, were colored ; only the line ofBicers in the other commands were colored men.
No regiment South of Mason and Dixon's line was actually engaged on the fighting line in Cuba during the short conflict, but all the four colored regiments from the immunes of the colored volunteers saw service on the island of Cuba.
There was nevertheless no hesitation in the response of the South to the call for troops; but before their troops were mustered in the service and could reach the front the real work had been accomplished. There were, however, white commis- sioned officers that had seen service on the Confederate side dur- ing the Civil War, who distinguished themselves in the Spanish American War. Among these were Generals Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia and Joseph Wheeler of Alabama. Sons of veterans of Federals and Confederates alike received lieutenancies and higher commissions, but no such honor was given the son of a Negro veteran. The Negro officer had once more to win his spurs and demonstrate his fitness for the honors grudgingly awarded him by State and Nation. President McKinley, it is reported, had declared his intention of promoting to a brig- adiership some Negro soldier before the end of the struggle, and the prospect seemed assured when there were brigaded regiments in Cuba; but on the eve of the retirement of its commanding officer, the officer next in line, being Major Charles Young, the brigade was suddenly disbanded by order of General Henry A. Corbin, who though he had commanded colored troops in the Civil War, is held responsible for the failure of the colored
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 59
soldier to receive high commissions during the Spanish- American War.
At the Battle of El Caney the capture of the stone fort was due to the gallantry of the Twenty-fifth Infantry; at San Juan the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry regiments distinguished them- selves, as did the Twenty-fourth Infantry. The surrender of the Spanish forces followed shortly afterwards and as indi- cated, the war speedily came to an end.
Another correspondent thus expresses the situation:
"American valor never shone with greater luster than when the Twenty-fifth Infantrj^ swept up the sizzling hill of El Caney to the rescue of the Rough Riders. Two other regiments came into view, but the bullets were flying like driving hail, the enemy were in trees and ambushes with smokeless powder, and the Rough Riders were biting the dust and were threatened with annihilation." *
There are many thrilling incidents testifying to the bravery of the colored soldiers in this war. Stephen Bonsai, a news- paper correspondent, expresses what was well nigh the universal opinion. This is what he said: "It is a fact that the services of no four white regiments can be compared with those rendered by the four colored regiments — the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. They were to the front at La Guasima, at Caney and at San Juan, and in what was the severest test of all that came later in the yellow fever hospitals.
"L" Company is the oldest military organization among the colored people of this eomitry. It dates back to 1782, when the Bucks of America was formed in Boston and was so far as authentic history points out, the first independent mihtary company of America. This military company was made up of Negroes living in or near Boston,
* Theodore Roosevelt was with the Rough Riders. In saving them, these black regiments saved for New York a governor and for the United States a president.
60 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
who had fought m the Revolutionary War. It was over 100 strong and under the command of one Colonel Middleton. It was presented with a set of colors by John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and then Governor of Massachusetts. The flag is now in the custody of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In course of time this company applied to become a part of the Militia of Massa- chusetts, but was not only refused but they could not bear arms. In 1812 they again applied to the State to form an artillery regiment, but were refused. About 1837 they became the Boston Blues and shortly after the Massasoit Guards. A few years later they adopted the name of Liberty Guards and were upon certain occasions permitted by State authorities to bear arms. This name was held down to 1863, when this company became the nucleus of the Fifty-fourth Infantry Massa- chusetts Colored Volunteers. Those who remained at home were taken into the Massachusetts home guard, and were the first colored com- pany in the country to be recognized as a part of a State provisional armed force. — R. T. in New York Age. Also "Nell's Colored Patriots" and Livermore's "Researches."
XVI
THE NEGRO CHURCH
The existence of the Negi'o church has been incidentally referred to. Such is its importance, however, that it deserves more de- tailed treatment. The original colored churches in different sections of the country came about in one of the following ways:
1. They were in some cases the result of special missionary effort on the part of the whites;
2. They were brought about by direct discrimination against the blacks made by the whites during divine worship ;
3. They were the natural sequence, when on account of increase in numbers it became necessary for congregations to divide; whereupon the blacks were evolved as distinct churches, but still under the oversight, if not the exclu- sive control, of the whites;
4. They were, in not a few cases, the preference of colored com- municants themselves, in order to get as much as possible the equal privileges and advantages of government denied them under the existing system.
The establishment of many of these churches took place at substantially about the same time, in sections more distant at that period than now, it was before the time of the railroad, the ' use of the steamboat or the telegraph; so it can easily be de- I termined whether their coming into existence at the same time can be attributed to similar causes.
The first regular Church organization was a Baptist Church,
61
62 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
at Williamsburg, Virginia, formed in the year 1776, and recog- nized as such in 1790,^ Following it were two Baptist Churches, one in 1788 in Savannah, and the other in 1790 in Augusta, Georgia.^ These three precede the Episcopal Church, St. Thomas in Philadelphia in 1791; Bethel Church, Philadelphia, in 1794; Zion Methodist Church, New York City, in 1796; Joy Street Baptist Church, Boston, in 1805; Abyssinian Baptist Church, New York, in 1803 ; First Baptist, St. Louis, 1830, So far as the establishment is concerned of the colored Methodist Churches which evolved the A. M. E. and A. M. E. Zion denomi- nations, persecution by the whites was the moving cause. They were compelled to protect themselves against the yoke sought to be imposed on them, by worshiping among themselves. The one movement in Philadelphia, the other in New York, moved in parallel — often in rival lines. New York and Philadelphia were soon in free States and their methods were those of freemen, in name at least, while the establishment of colored Methodist Churches in the South, as in IMaryland under the direction of the whites, illustrated one of the instances of special missionary effort. The colored Baptist Churches in the South came mostly into existence mainly through the third cause indicated. The Presbyterian Church, as found among the colored people, is due to the operation of two causes; the desire of the colored people to be by themselves and that of the whites to strengthen their denomination among this class. The first colored Episcopal Churches, both in New York and Philadelphia, resulted directly from causes similar to those which produced the colored Meth- odist Churches in these localities.
A word as to the men mainly instrumental by reason of their position as pioneers in organizing these first churches in the different colored denominations, may not be out of place.
The first colored pastor of which there is authoritative state-
1 Semple's Rise of the Virginia Baptists.
2 History of the Baptists, David Benedict. Infra W. J. White.
/ THE NEGRO CHURCH 63
ment was Andrew Bryan, a convert to the preaching of George Liele by whom he was baptized. By Abraham Marshall, a noted pioneer Baptist (white), he was ordained in 1788 as the pastor of an African Baptist Church at Savannah, Georgia.
Rev. W. J. White, D.D. of Augusta, Ga., the veteran editor of the Georgia Baptist in a letter dated September 6, 1893, writes as follows: ** The Springfield Baptist Church in this city is the only individual church that has a hundred years of undisputed existence in Georgia among colored Baptists, and I think the only colored Baptist church in the country having at this time 103 years of undisputed and uninterrupted history. Rev. Jacob Walker who died in 1845 and had been pastor twenty- seven years was succeeded by Rev. Kelly Lowe who served six- teen years, till 1861, and Rev, Henry Watts succeeded Rev. Kelly Lowe, serving to 1877, sixteen years. These three men served together nearly sixty years and are all buried in the yard of the church. The pastorate prior to 1818 had been filled by Caesar McCradey who was also buried in the church- yard but the spot has been lost, and Ventor Golphin whose history is obscure. In 1888- we celebrated in Savannah the centennial of our denomination, which dates January 20, 1788, when the first church was organized. But in Savannah there are two churches claiming the paternity. One of these churches is the First African and the other is the First Bryan. While there may be dispute as to which of these churches is entitled to the honor of being the very church organized in 1788, there is no dispute with reference to the spot upon which the first church was organized and the date of the organization. My impression is that at even an earlier date than this a colored church was in existence upon some island not far distant from Savannah. ' ' ^
3 In the "Silver BlujBf Church" by Kev. Walter H. Brooks this divine says "the Negro Baptist Church at Silver Bluflf, S. C, was organized not earlier than 1773, not later than 1775."
64 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
The Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Portsmouth, Vir- ginia (white), known as the Court Street Baptist Church, was Reverend Josiah Bishop, a Negro. He succeeded Reverend Thomas Armstead (white), a commissioned officer of high rank in the Revolutionary War. While Mr. Bishop's ability was not questioned, his pastorate for obvious reasons, was not of long duration. He went North and organized the Abyssinian Bap- tist Church in New York in 1803, the first colored Baptist Church in the free States. From this church the other colored Baptist Churches of the North and East sprang.
Of the churches in the North, first was Richard Allen, one of the leaders in the Free African Society, from the members of which came the leaders, almost the organization itself, both of the Bethel ]\Iethodist and the St. Thomas Episcopal Churches in the city of Philadelphia. He was born February 12, 1760, a slave in Philadelphia. At an early age he gave evidence of a high order of talents for leadership. He was converted while quite a lad and licensed to preach in 1782. In 1797 he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Francis Asbury, who had been entrusted by John Wesley with the superintendence of the work in America. He possessed talents as an organizer of the high- est order. He was a bom leader, an almost infallible judge of human nature and w^as actively identified with everj^ forward movement among the colored people, irrespective of denomi- nation.
Absalom Jones, next in historical importance, was born a slave at Sussex, Delaware, November 6, 1746, At the age of sixteen he was taken to Philadelphia. He was married in 1770, purchased his wife and afterwards succeeded in obtaining his own liberty.
James Varick was born January 10, 1768, at Newburg, New York. He was licensed to preach in 1803 in New York, and was elected and consecrated the first Superintendent of the A. M. E.
THE NEGRO CHURCH 65
Zion Church in June, 1821. He died after a brief administra- tion June 9, 1827. He was one of the colored men members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York who were per- mitted to hold meetings under their own auspices in 1796, and was one of the first elders elected when the first steps looking to a separate and independent organization of the colored mem- bership in New York was taken.
Rev. John Gloucester, the first colored minister to act as pastor of a colored Presbyterian Church, possessed a fair English education which he received from private sources. He was a pioneer of Presbyterian ministers, as four of his sons, Jeremiah, John, Stephen and James, became Presbyterian ministers, and from the Sunday School of his church three other well-known ministers went forth, Rev. Amos to Africa, Rev. H. M. Wilson to New York and Rev. Jonathan C. Gibbs, who died in Florida, after having been Secretary of State and State Superintendent of Schools. Like Allen and Jones, Mr. Gloucester was born a slave, in Kentucky about the year 1776. Such was his intelli- gence that he was purchased by Rev. Gideon Blackburn, of the Presbyterian denomination also of Kentucky. The records show that when Mr. Gloucester was ordained Dr. Blackburn was the moderator of the presbytery, who on the appointment of Rev. Gloucester to the First African Presbyterian Church liberated him. He died May 2, 1822, after fifteen years of service in the church, during which time it rapidly increased in numbers from twenty-two to three hundred. With the increase of the colored population and its distribution to other centers, other religious societies sprang up, so that wherever you find any number of these people in the earlier decades of the Republic you will find a church, often churches, out of all proportion to the popula- tion.
In the West, it may be stated, that colored churches were not the result of secessions or irregular, wholesale withdrawals
66 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
from the white churches as in the East. They sprang up di- rectly in the path of the westward migration of colored people from the South and the East.
In the South, the whites were in complete and absolute con- trol, in church as in State. Colored people attended and held membership in the same church as the whites; though they did not possess the same rights or privileges. They either had special services at stated times or they sat in the galleries. When this colored membership increased to very large numbers separate churches for rather than of the colored people were established. In the South as in the North, this membership was principally in the Baptist and Methodist Churches, and to these denominations did these separate colored churches belong, with exceptions so rare that they may be named as to cities or dis- tricts where it was otherwise. Outside of the few ministers of the A. M. E. and the A. M. E. Zion Churches in the border States, it is doubtful if there were a score of colored pastors in full control of colored churches in the South before the Civil War.
There were a few other colored ministers not pastors of any historic churches yet who were so very conspicuous by their work as pioneers as to deserve special notice. There were Harry Hosier, who accompanied Bishop Asbuiy, frequently filling ap- pointments for him. Rev. Daniel Coker of Baltimore and Rev. Peter Spencer of Delaware who organized the "Protestant" branch of colored Methodism. There was the Rev. George Liele, a native of Virginia, the slave or body servant of a British officer during the Revolutionary War. Throughout that struggle he preached in different parts of the country. Rev. Andrew Bryan whom Liele had baptized became pastor of the Savannah Church. Compelled to leave the United States at the close of the war, Liele went to Jamaica, in which he organized in 1783 a church with four members. By 1790 he had baptized more than four hundred persons on that island. In 1793 he built there the very
THE NEGRO CHURCH 67
first non-Episcopal religious chapel, to which there were belong- ing in 1841, 3700 members. That white Baptist missionaries subsequently went to the West Indies is to be attributed to Rev. Liele's work, for they were brought there as a direct result of his correspondence with ecclesiastical authorities in Great Brit- ain.
Next we have Lott Carey, also a native of Virginia, bom a slave in Charles City Co., about 1780. In 1804 Lott removed to Richmond where he worked in a tobacco factory and from all accounts was very profligate and wicked. In 1807, being converted, he joined the First Baptist Church, learned to read, made rapid advancement as a scholar and was shortly afterwards licensed to preach. After purchasing his family in 1813, he organized in 1815 the African Missionary Society, the very first missionaiy society in the country, and within five years raised seven hundred dollars for African Missions. He was a man of superior intellect and force of character with a wide range of reading. When he decided to go to Africa his employers offered to raise his salary from eight hundred to one thousand dollars a year. Carey was not induced by such a flattering offer, for he was determined. His last sermon in the Old First Church in Richmond was compared by an eye-witness, a resident of another State, to the burning, eloquent appeals of George White- field. He was the leader of the pioneer colony to Liberia, where he arrived even before the agent of the Colonization Society. In his new home he was made the Vice-Governor of the colony, and became Governor in fact while Gov. Ashmun was tempo- rarily absent in this country. Carey did not allow his position to betray the cause of his people, for he did not hesitate to expose the duplicity of the Colonization Society and even defy their authority, it would seem, in the interests of the people. While casting cartridges to defend the colonists against the natives in 1828, the accidental upsetting of a candle caused an explosion that resulted in his death.
68 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Special reference must also be made to the Rev. John Chavis of North Carolina, the first colored man ordained to the Presby- terian ministry. Dr. Alexander, subsequently professor at Princeton College, had urged his selection as pastor at the church in Philadelphia. There is a conflict of statement as to where he obtained his education, but it is certain, as the sequel showed, that it must have been thorough and universally recognized by the whites as being the very best.
Several years ago an elderly lady, the niece of Rev. Chavis,^ gave the writer the information that he attended or graduated from the Hampden Sidne.y College, Va,, during or shortly after the Revolutionary War. Elsewhere the statement is given that he was once at Princeton Seminarj^ New Jersey, and the fact that Dr. Alexander urged his claims for the church in Phila- delphia to which Rev. Gloucester was appointed, gives color to the statement as to his stay at Princeton, but it is not conclusive as to his status in that institution. In the History of Education in North Carolina, published by the U. S. Bureau of Education, four octavo pages are given to a biographical sketch of this same Rev. John Chavis, for he was the principal of the best academy in the State of North Carolina for the training of white youth. Many of the most eminent men in the service of the State and the Nation of the sons of North Carolina were trained by this Negro, and they boarded at his house too while they were being educated. In the historical publications of the University of North Carolina is quite an interesting biographical account of Rev. Chavis and his school. He preached frequently in the white churches throughout the State, during which time he was often a guest at the firesides of the most aristocratic families of that noble State, not staying in the kitchen, but eating at the same table with them. His last sermon, preached about 1837 when he formally retired from public life, was published in pamphlet form and had a Tvade sale.
*Mrs. Thomas James, Sr., Washington, D. C.
THE NEGRO CHURCH 69
Although the colored churches sprang up individually, since similar causes operated on them, they could not long remain apart. Accordingly in 1816 the A. M. E, denomination as previously stated, was organized by a convention in Philadelphia, with Richard Allen as the first bishop. Those Methodist Churches which followed the leadership of Zion Church in New York City, in 1820 held a convention and organized the A. M. E. Zion Church and after having first had a white superintendent, in 1832 elected one of their number, Rev. James Varick, as their Superintendent. These two organizations organized conferences and pushed their work throughout the North, so that up to the war they were found in nearly every State in which there were any considerable number of colored people.
The Presbyterian and Baptist Churches for two reasons con- tinued isolated much longer. In the first place the former de- nomination was exceedingly weak numerically, and so was the latter denomination in the North as compared with the Meth- odists, and their form of government being congregational, each church was a law to itself and there was less necessity for co- operation. The Episcopalians were fewer still. '^ In 1837 the Louisiana Baptist Association was organized by Rev. Joseph Willis, termed a mulatto, and in 1838 the Wood River Association was organized in Illinois. From this body in 1853 there was organized the Western Baptist Convention, which in 1864 developed into the Northwestern and Southern Baptist Convention.
The Civil War over, a great impetus was given to the establish- ment of colored churches North as well as South. There was an opening at the South for hundreds to fill pulpits. Thousands of the race at the South left for the North, giving new life and vigor to the old churches and organizing new ones. At the South churches were organized in large numbers. Among the Baptists, associations and conventions sprang up everyw^here to promote their denominational interests. Conferences came into
70 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
being as pioneer bishops, A. M. E. and A. M. E. Zion, strode through the Southland "to seek their brethren." Nor were other interests idle. Schools were established by charitable and religious organizations of the North and in their wake came Congregational, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches.
* ' The first State Convention of colored Baptists was organized in North Carolina in 1866 ; the second in Alabama and the third in Virginia in 1867 ; the fourth in Arkansas in 1868 and the fifth in Kentucky in 1869. To-day (1890) there are colored con- ventions in fifteen states."
As an illustration of the growth and development of the national organization among the Baptists under the condition of freedom, the American National Baptist Convention was organized August 25, 1866, the Baptist African Missionary Con- vention of the Western States and Territories organized January 15, 1873, the Baptist Foreign Missionary Convention of the United States, organized December, 1880 ; last but not least, the Baptist Educational Convention in 1892.
Under the fostering influences of these organizations, associ- ations and conventions among the Baptists, conferences, annual and general, among the Methodists, presbyteries and synods among the Presbyterians, congresses of the colored Catholics and Episcopal churches, we have a showing as phenomenal as that of the growth of the American Negro in education and the accumulation of property.
XVII
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
The failure of the Republican Party in the administration of Benjamin Harrison to safeguard the exercise by the Negro of the right of franchise in the South, followed by the revision of the Constitution of Mississippi in 1890, was notice to the op- ponents of Negro citizenship especially in view of the adverse decisions of the United States Supreme Court, that they could have a free hand in dealing with the interpretation of the 14th and 15th Amendments and the legislation based thereon.
They did not as a rule openly avow a purpose to attack the amendments, but pretended that their sole object was to raise the standard of the electorate by rescuing it from the control of the vicious and the ignorant. Following the Mississippi plan other Southern States revised their constitutions until to-day the Fifteenth Amendment is a dead letter in the States South of the Potomac River. Laws establishing separate cars on the common carriers, popularly known as "Jim Crow" car laws, were enacted throughout the same section.
Inferior educational facilities in the schools for the Negro were still further curtailed, going even so far in the city of New Orleans, as to make no provision for colored youth beyond the fifth grade. The extent of the disparity betw^een colored and white schools is difficult to prove by the record, because the absence of separate statistical reports of the costs of each race prevents a comparative showing of the per capita cbst, salaries and equipment for colored and white education. The propa- ganda which has accomplished these results has included such
71
72 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
men as Thomas Dixon in private life, Benjamin Tillman, Hoke Smith and J. A. Vardaman in the political arena. The press of many metropolitan newspapers, through men of Southern birth, training and traditions and by means of bold headlines, exag- gerating the weaknesses of the Negro and concealing and ignoring his commendable progress, except where it is absolutely impos- sible to do otherwise, is a most important factor.
For a long time there was no voice raised in protest which the Nation could or would hear. Some organizations in which Southern whites have leadership have aimed to promote the educational interests of the race, but scarce a voice of protest was raised against the prevailing and popular tendencies when the second Mississippi plan was introduced.
Frequent IjTichings, many of them by burning at the stake were chronicled in the newspapers of the country, and directly and by innuendo the charge of rape was held against the Negro. Public sentiment gradually became, from being sympathetic, hostile to the Negro; even the great Republican Party became indifferent and at times seemed to indorse the Southern reaction- ary plan. Finally President W. H. Taft announced in his in- augural address, March 4, 1909, a line of policy which was a com- plete surrender to the Southern view respecting the equal citizen- ship of the Negro. This was an avowed public policy in the centennial year of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the Emanci- pator.
This also illustrates how perplexing are the problems of the evolution of Negro citizenship at the close of the first decade of the 20th century. The era of safeguarding his rights and privi- leges by the agencies of constitutional amendments and statutory provisions, it has been cited, passed with the close of the nine- teenth century, so far as there are present indications. But such constructive tendencies for the amelioration of his social, material, even his political condition, as the Business Men's League, the National Medical Association and Educational Con-
EETKOSPECT AND PROSPECT 73
ventions, and organized sociological movements, give a rift in the sky. Under the advancement of these movements there are more than a score of men — women too — destined to have as salutary an influence in the progress and advancement of the race as the men and women who became eminent before the Civil War and the Reconstruction period when there was a sympathetic body of white men and women that could be relied on to advance the growth and maintenance of a public sentiment that promoted freedom and enfranchisement.
In the profession of medicine and surgery, Dr. Daniel H. Williams of Chicago, Dr. Marcus F. Wheatland of Newport, R. I., Dr. Solomon C. Fuller of the Hospital for the Insane of Massa- chusetts and Dr. C. V. Roman of Nashville, Tenn., have more than a local recognition as experts in their chosen profession.
In law, Ashbie W. Hawkins of Baltimore, who has thus far demonstrated his capacity in the highest courts of Maryland ; Ed- ward H. IVIorris in the leading bar of the West, and William H. H. Hart of the District of Columbia and Josiah T. Settle of Mem- phis, Tenn., have demonstrated the ability of the Negro lawyer in the higher realms of the profession. As educational adminis- trators with independent institutions. Dr. John Hope of More- house College, R. R. Wright of Georgia State College, Inman E. Page of Langston University, Bishop George W. Clinton, William A. Joiner of Wilberforce University, W. S. Scarborough, and Joshua H. Jones, now an A. M. E. Bishop, have demonstrated the executive ability of which successful college Presidents are made. Two women have displayed in this same field capabilities which spell academic success — Lucy Laney, who founded the Haines Institute at Augusta, Ga., and Nannie H. Burroughs, who created the Girls' National Training School at Lincoln Heights, almost within the shadow of the National Capitol and the axis of the great National Lincoln Monument.
In the business of publishing, R. H. Boyd of Nashville, Tenn. and Ira T. Bryant have achieved flattering success. In pure
74 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
science, E. E. Just of Howard University has a distinction as a biologist in a field in which the lamented Prof. Earl Finch of Wilberforce University was winning international reputa^ tion. As a journalistic controversialist, John E. Bruce, Presi- dent of the Negro Society for Historical Research, has a reputa- tion that is conceded wherever the Negro race has a conscious influence.
The sermons of Rev. Francis J. Grimke on National topics are great headlights exhorting to higher living and rebuking national hypocrisy. In his brother, Archibald H. Grimke, President of the American Negro Academy and Kelly Miller, of Howard Uni- versity, the race has two masters of criticism and controversy, both of offense and defense, sterling champions of the integrity and destiny of the American Negro. In the field of letters there are Stanley G. Brathwaite, the poet, Charles W. Chesnutt, the novelist, and Dr. William E, Burghardt DuBois, sociologist and editor ; R. R. Wright, Jr., and M. N. Work, sociologists and stat- isticians. In journalism, John Mitchell is unique — publisher and banker. As a business genius, Charles Banks amid the bayous of Mississippi, and W. R. Pettiford, of Birmingham, have solved the problem of industrial credits.
T. Thomas Fortune and William Monroe Trotter diametrical in methods and manners are both exemplifications of the power of Negro journalism.
But even the array of such a coterie of capable men and women seems futile in the face of the unanimity of the ruling classes of the South and the acquiescence of the North in the policy and program of the South. Fortunately, over and against the politicians of the South as represented by those who have infused the poison of their pernicious principles in the body politic, retarding, postponing the realization of the blessings of liberty to all regardless of race, there has been a quiet band of white Southern thinkers who have introduced the leaven of hu- mane principles in accord wdth the Federal Constitution, the
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 75
brotherhood of man and true Christianity. They deserve es- pecial mention here. There was Attieus G. Haygood who in "Our Brother in Black" made a stirring appeal to the white peo- ple of the South for fairness of treatment. George W. Cable, native and to the manner born, while still a resident of Louisiana, in magazine articles and books, in the "Freedmen's Case in Equity," and ''The Silent South," and Lewis H. Blair of Rich- mond, Virginia, a representative business man, in ' ' The Prosper- ity of the South dependent upon the elevation of the Negro ' ' took the most advanced ground for identical treatment by the State and National Government to all classes of citizens. Rev. Quincy Ewing, an Episcopal clergyman, in more than one sermon delivered in the heart of the South and published in Metropolitan newspapers, with fiery eloquence, masterly and fearlessly has contended for the equal citizenship of the Negro. So many others there are who have pleaded for the extension of educational advantages at the expense of the property of the State that to make personal mention of a few would do injustice to all.
But the operation of these forces to transform civil and politi- cal conditions necessarily would be slow and unsatisfactory. Unsatisfactory, because they do not attack the vital weakness of the situation, the moral cowardice of the Republican Party when in power, and the aggressive policy of the Democratic Party as shown by their advocacies when in control, in the matter of Negro citizenship, which is the crux of the whole Southern problem. It all depends on whether or not the Negro is an equal citizen that there is any real difficulty at issue, anything requiring ad- justment.
The Constitutional League took a step in advance of other movements in raising funds for the enforcement of the laws through an appeal to the Federal Courts, and in carrying to a final issue without the heralding of trumpets, tests to invoke the Federal Constitution for the Negro's protection.
76 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
The National Society for the Improvement of the Colored Peo- ple, however, has the most comprehensive program. By means of a national organization with affiliated branches located at various centers of population and a bureau of publicity, a syste- matic attempt is made to secure a recognition of the rights of the Negro through the courts and friendly legislation and the liber- alization of public sentiment. In method it closely follows the spirit of the Anti-Slavery Society which eighty years ago began the aggressive work against the existence of chattel slavery; a work which it kept up for thirty years until the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln was issued and the Thirteenth Amendment to the National Constitution was assured. With this definite cause of action followed with the intelligence, vigor, and persistence of the movement of which William Lloyd Garrison is the central figure, History may repeat itself, and it is among the possibilities that the apostle of this new movement may be Os- wald Garrison Villard.
XVIII
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
While the United States of America were subject to Great Britain the descendants of Africa in America were either slaves or the children of slaves, and, except in rare cases, were Negroes, that is, they had little or no traces of white blood in their veins. Only a few generations prior to the Revolutionary War a min- ister of the gospel of respectable ability (Morgan Godwyn), had actually written a book to prove that the Negro should not be used as a beast of burden without causing remorse of con- science.
It was at this period that the intellectual and social circles of both New and Old England had a revelation in the person of a native of Africa of pleasing personal appearance, of charming conversational qualities, an easy and accomplished correspondent, one who could write pleasing verses of poetry that were compli- mented for their grace and elegance, if not for their depth and profundity of thought.
This phenomenon was Phillis Wheatley who was brought to this country from Africa in 1761, when about seven years of age and sold in the streets of Boston as a slave to Mr. John Wheatley, a prosperous tailor and the owner of several other slaves. He desired her as a personal attendant of his wife, as a maid to wait on her in her old age. It was the humble and modest de- meanor, especially the pleasing expression of the young child, that attracted Mr. Wheatley 's attention.
As she had been torn from her home, ten thousands of miles dis- tant, it was not to be expected that she had a very elaborate
77
78 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
wardrobe — in fact, she had the scantiest of clothing, an old piece of carpet forming her only dress.
When installed in Mr. Wheatley 's home the uncommon intelli- gence of the slave girl was displayed in her frequent attempts to make letters upon the wall with pieces of chalk or charcoal. A daughter of Mrs. Wheatley observing her precocity undertook her education and was astonished by her intelligence, and by the ease and rapidity with which Phillis learned. She mastered the language in sixteen months ; carried on with her friends and acquaintances an extensive and elegant correspondence while but twelve years of age; composed her first poem at fourteen, be- came a proficient Latin scholar at seventeen, and an authoress at nineteen, when we are told that she published her first collection of poems.
Although originally intended for menial pursuits, she was reared as a member of the family and not permitted to associate with the other family servants. With her growth in years her mind expanded and such was her progress in her studies that she drew the attention of a large circle of the most cultured people of Boston, who encouraged her by their association and their com- panionship.
At the early age of sixteen she was admitted by baptism into the membership of the Old South Church of which Rev. Samuel Sewall was pastor. Her record as a church member accorded with her reputation in society, in which her humility of charac- ter, her elevated tone of thought and her consistent life made her a shining light. Her devout Christian character displayed itself not only in some of her poems, but in her private corre- spondence. In one of her early poems she says —
" 'Twas Mercy brought me from my pagan laud, Taught my benighted soul to landerstand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too ; Once I redemption neither sought nor knew,
PHILLIS WHEATLEY 79
Some view our sable race with scornful eye — 'Their color is a diabolic dye.'
"Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain, May be reiined and join th' angelic train."
Unlike very many persons who suddenly become famous in literary circles, she was not given to moods or sullenness. On the other hand, she was accommodating, ever ready and willing to receive all who called on her and to give an example of her marvelous gifts.
The subjects on which she wrote showed not only a wide range of reading, but an originality of treatment that established her right to be considered as one of the famous women of her time. The opinion is well supported that her knowledge of composition and the use of a correct style was the result of a familiarity with the best English writers and her association with the most culti- vated people of the time, rather than as the result of any sys- tematic instruction in English composition. Frequent classical allusions in her poems display fondness for early Roman and Grecian historj^ Readers of Virgil may note the influence of the Bard of Mantua in her ' * Ode to Washington. ' '
In his ''Colored Patriots of the Revolution," published more than fifty years ago, William C. Nell, himself a colored author, says: "There is another circumstance respecting her habits of composition. She did not seem to have the power of retaining the creations of her own fancy for a long time in her mind. If during the vigil of a wakeful night she amused herself by weav- ing a tale she knew nothing of it in the morning — it had vanished in the land of dreams. Her kind mistress indulged her with a light, and in the cold season with a fire in her apartment, dur- ing the night. The light was placed upon a table at her bedside, with writing materials so that, if anything occurred to her after she had retired, she might without rising or taking cold secure the swift-winged fancy ere it fled. ' '
80 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
In the winter of 1773, at the age of twenty, a sea voyage being advised, owing to her declining health, she accompanied a sol of Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley to England. She was then at the height of her fame. Her reputation had preceded her. She was cordially received by Lady Huntingdon, George Whitefield, the great evangelist, Lord Dartmouth, after whom Dartmouth Col- lege is named, the Lord Mayor of London and other persons of the highest social position; but this popularity did not turn her head. During her stay in England the first bound volume of her poems was published and dedicated to the Countess of Hunting- don. A copper-plate engraving of the authoress appears, show- ing her in the attitude of meditation with her writing materials at her side. So true to life was this picture that when Mrs. Wheatlej^ first saw a copy of the book she exclaimed : ' ' See ! look at my Phillis — ! Does she not seem as though she would speak to me?" Arrangements had been made for the formal presentation of Phillis to George III, the reigning monarch, on his return to his court at St. James, but she was hurried home from Europe because of the tidings of the declining health of her mistress and benefactor, whose eyes after the return of Phillis were soon closed in death. Mr. Wheatley survived his wife by nine days.
In the next month Phillis entered on another experience. Shortly after her return from Europe she had received an offer of marriage from John Peters, said to be a handsome and at- tractive gentleman of color who kept at one time a grocery, later was employed as a journeyman baker, and also tried to practice law and medicine, but who was utterly unworthy of so rare and precious a human jewel as Phillis Wheatley. The marriage seems to have proven, it is written, an unfortunate if not an unhappy one. Another source thus speaks of John Peters: "He was a man of talents and information ; that he wrote with fluency and propriety, and at one period read law. It is admitted, however, that he was disagreeable in his manners, and that on account of
PHILLIS WHEATLEY 81
his improper conduct Phillis became entirely estranged from the Vijmmediate family of the Wheatleys. They were not seasonably informed of her suffering condition or of her death. ' '
Regarding these two estimates, it is a most reasonable in- ference that the devotion of his wife to him and the death of both Mr. and Mrs. "Wheatley, as well as the personal pride which Mr. Peters as a freeman of color naturally possessed, may have had not a little to do with these opinions.
Three children were bom to the young family, and all of them died in infancy. Unknown to her large circle of friends Phillis passed quietly away December 5, 1784. The Independent Chronicle gave the news to the world in the following para- graph :
''Last Lord's Day died Mrs. Phillis Peters (formerly Phillis "Wheatley) age 31, known to the literary world by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her funeral is to be this afternoon at four o'clock from the house lately improved by Mr. Todd nearly opposite Dr. Bulfinch 's at West Boston, where her friends are de- sired to attend." The house thus referred to was situated on or near the present site of the Revere House on Bowdoin Square, formerly known at times as a portion of Cambridge Street and sometimes as the westerly end of Court Street.
As an early American poet Phillis Wheatley has been sneered at these later years; but in her time her name was on every tongue and her merits freely acknowledged by competent judges. In the edition of her poems published in Boston in 1774 the fol- lowing card, issued to silence criticism and objectors, speaks for itself : *■* We whose names are underwritten do assure the world that the poems specified in the following pages were as we readily believe, written by Phillis, a young Negro girl who was, but a few years since, brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been and now is under the disadvantage of serv- ing as a slave in a family in this town. She has been examined by some of the best judges and is thought qualified to write
82 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
them." Among the signatures are those of Thomas Hutchinson, then Governor of Massachusetts, Andrew Oliver, Lieutenant- Governor, John Hancock, of Revolutionary fame, and John Wheatley, her master. The influence of her name and fame upon the rapidly gro\sdng anti-slavery sentiment in America was con- siderable, for the friends of the people of color took pleasure in pointing to her career as an illustration of the possibilities of the Negro under kind and considerate treatment and a fair oppor- tunity for education. She was the very first of her race in America to attract attention because of her intellectual and moral character. Benjamin Banneker, who was twenty years her senior, had not compiled and published the almanac which brought him to general notice until nearly ten years after Phillis had died. Richard Allen who laid the foundation of the great A. M. E. Church and Absalom Jones, the founder of the first African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, as well as George Liele, the colored Baptist revivalist to whose activities the colored Baptist Churches at Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, owe their origin, were all later than Phillis "Wheatley to be singled out as examples of the possibilities of the African in America. James Durham, the celebrated Negro physician, a native of Philadelphia, and whose fame was established by his professional success in New Orleans, though about the same age as Phillis Wheatley did not rise to eminence there until after her death. The most notable fact is that she was a native of Africa and — a woman. As woman is the mother of the race, Phillis Wheatley 's preeminence among the representatives of her race stands un- assailed and unassailable, suggestive and significant, a fact both pregnant and prophetic.
Though she had received marked attention while in England, at a time when the two countries, America and England, were on the eve of war, Phillis Wheatley was loyal to the colonies. That she shared in their general admiration for George Washing-
PHILLIS WHEATLEY 83
ton this correspondence abundantly proves. In a letter written to him from Providence, Rhode Island, under date of October 26, 1775, she says—
Sir:
I have taken the freedom to address Your Excellency in the enclosed poem, and I entreat your acceptance, though I am not insensible of its inaccuracies. Your being appointed by the Grand Continental Con- gress to be generalissimo of the Armies of North America, together with the fame of your virtues excite sensations not easy to suppress. Your generosity, therefore, I presume, wiU pardon the attempt.
Wishing Your Excellency all possible success in the gjeat cause you are so generously engaged in, I am Your Excellency's Most Obedient Humble Servant,
Phillis Wheatley.
Washin^on's reply was characteristic of the man. He writes as follows:
Cambiudge^ February 2, 1776.
Miss Phillis:
Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hand 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences continually iriteiposing to distract the mind and to withdraw the at- tention, I hope, will apologize for the delay and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. 1 thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed, and how- ever undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a strikmg proof of your poetical talents, in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, 1 would have published the poem, had I not have been apprehensive that while, I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, 1 might have in- curred the imputation of vanity. This and nothing else determined me not to give it place in the public prints.
If you should ever come to Cambridge or near headquarters, 1 shall
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be happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great respect.
Your obedient humble servant,
George Washington.
Jared Sparks, the biographer of Washington, thought that this poem was lost, and George W. WilUams, the Negro historian, author of the History of the Negro in America, being unable to produce it arrived at the same conclusion. Fortunately, how- ever, Washington's modesty in refusing it publicity lest his ene- mies might charge him with vanity did not succeed in concealing the poem from the world; for it appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine or American Monthly for April, 1776, a publication of which there are very few copies extant.
Thus runs the poem :
Celestial choir, enthroned in realms of light, Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I ^vrite. While Freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms. She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
^&'-
See Mother Earth her offspring's fate bemoan. And Nations gaze at scenes before unknown ; See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light Involved in sorrows and the veil of night !
The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair, Olive and laurel binds her golden hair; Wherever shines this native of the skies, Unnumbered charms and recent graces rise.
Muse ! bow propitious while my pen relates How pour her armies through a thousand gates; As when Eolus heaven's fair face deforms Enwrapped in tempest and a night of storms;
I
PHILLIS WHEATLEY 85
Astonished ocean feels the wild uproar, The refluent surges beat the sounding shore; Or thick as leaves in autumn's golden reign, Such, and so many, moves the warrior's train.
In bright array they seek the work of war, Where high unfurled the ensign waves in air. Shall I to Washington their praise recite? Enough thou know'st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honors, we demand The grace and glory of thy martial band. Famed for thy valor, for thy virtues more. Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!
One centui-y scarce perfoi-med its destined round. When Gallic powers Columbia's fury foimd; And so may you, whoever dares disgrace The land of Freedom's heaven-defended race!
Fixed are the eyes of nations on the scales, For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails. Anon Britannia droops the pensive head, While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah ! cruel blindness to Columbia's state ; Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late. Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side Thy eveiy action let the goddess guide,
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine With gold unfading, Washington, be thine !
XIX
BENJAMIN BANNEKER
A LITTLE more than one hundred years ago a black prince arrived on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. He came by compulsion, not by choice; he was brought here a slave. That he was no ordinary black is attested by the fact that he clung to his heathen gods and refused to work for those who had him in control ; yet, he was of noble mien, dignified and possessed rare intelligence, even retaining to the last the name which he brought with him from Africa — Banneker.^
In the same year in which WiUiam Penn established his colony on the banks of the Delaware, an English peasant woman having accidentally spilled a can of milk — so the story goes — was charged with and found guilty of stealing. As her punishment she was transported to Maryland where she was bound to service for seven years, a mild sentence for the offense, because she could read. A thrifty woman she was and bought a small farm on which she subsequently placed Banneker, the exiled black African prince.
Though he would not work, Banneker touched the heart of MoUy Welsh who liberated and married him.
Four children was the result of this union, one of whom, Mary Banneker, was married about the year 1730 to Robert, a native African who on being baptized in the Episcopal faith, was for- mally given his freedom. Robert, like many a one of his race of whom there is unfortunately no record, did not take the name of the white people who had claimed him a slave, but called himself Banneker, after his wife, the daughter of the African prince.
1 Banaky.
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BENJAMIN BANNEKER 87
Their oldest offspring, Benjamin Banneker, was born November 9, 1731, just about three months before George Washington. In the year 1737 Robert Banneker, his father, purchased for the sum of seventeen thousand pounds of tobacco a farm of one hundred acres. It was in a primeval wilderness, though only ten miles from Baltimore, then a village of less than thirty houses. Roads were few, houses were miles and miles apart, schools and churches were exceedingly scarce, the steam whistle had not yet echoed through the valleys nor across the plains of that primitive coun- try, yet there were a few private schools, and to one of these the lad Benjamin w^as sent.
Here he w^as a most apt student and had received instruction as far as * ' double position, " as it was then called, proficiency in which even a century later, was regarded as a test of arithmetical skill, and to-day, as compound proportion, by which name it is now known, it is a source of great perplexity to pupils in our ad- vanced grammar schools. This was the limit of the educational advantages which Banneker received, but it must have been most thorough, for as the sequel proved, it was the foundation upon which he built so well as to take rank with the greatest scientific men of his times, to achieve a world-wide distinction for skill as mathematician and astronomer that one hundred years have not obliterated. Apart from his studies, his life was not eventful, yet it is deserving of all emulation. The oldest and only son among four children, he assiduously gave his service on his farm even after he had attained his majority. Upon the death of the father, in 1757 (which fact is learned from an entry in Benja- min's Bible), the full responsibility of the management of the farm fell upon him, the household duties being performed by Benjamin's mother whose vigor of body remained until she was quite advanced in years. It is said of her agility that even when over seventy years of age it was a common thing for her to run down the barn yard fowls which were desired for the table or for market.
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In those days the country^ stores were the centers of informa- tion and social contact, Plere the planters brought their com, their wheat, their tobacco, for sale or for exchange ; here the latest intelligence from London, Boston or Philadelphia was obtained. The country store also contained the post-office at which letters were received or dispatched at the weekly or monthly mail. Here the weekly newspaper, of which there were only two at that time in the colony, was read by the most intelligent and the af- fairs of the day discussed. Banneker, himself a landed pro- prietor, was frequently at the store during these gatherings at which his intelligent conversation, his quiet and dignified man- ner, and his accurate information on current affairs made him a unique but welcome visitor. He did not resort there to the neg- lect of his farm, for it was thoroughly well-kept, his orchards abounded in fruit, his cattle were sleek and fat, his storehouse was well filled with grain and tobacco.
It was in his early manhood about 1753 that Banneker having only seen a watch, with it for a model constructed a wooden clock all the parts of which — the wheels, the springs, the bal- ances— were the result of his own ingenuity, skill, patience and perseverance. This is said to be the first clock ever constructed in America all the parts of which were made in this country. For more than twenty years it kept good time, an example of the cunning workmanship of the sable artificer.
An event of very great significance in the quiet neighborhood of Banneker 's home was the erection in 1772 of the flour mills at what is now EUicott City. The machinery, so crude and anti- quated by present standards, was more than a nine days ' wonder in these far-off days. Among others, Banneker, delighted even after the novelty had worn off, lingered to study it, to understand its philosophy and to enlarge the sphere of his knowledge of mechanics. The establishment of these mills was not only an event deigned to advance the material interests of this neighbor- hood. It was a means to him of great intellectual development.
BENJAMIN BANNEKER 89
The proprietors, the Ellicotts, became warmly attached to him, especially because of the strong personal friendship that grew up between him and George Ellicott. Mr. Ellicott saw in Banneker an intellect that not only was ever grasping after the truth, but one capable of an almost infinite development. Though Ban- neker was black he was to Ellicott, to use a favorite expression of Frederick Douglass — "a kinsman, a clansman, a brother be- loved."
One day in 1787 Mr. George Ellicott loaned Banneker Mayer's Tables, Ferguson's Astronomy, Leadbeater's Lunar Tables and some astronomical instruments, which only those far advanced in mathematics could comprehend — telling Banneker at the time that at the earliest opportunity he (Ellicott) would explain them to him. Banneker took them and retired to the seclusion of his cottage where without any aid save that which God had given, he made himself so familiar with the contents of the volumes as to detect errors in their calculations. You can imagine Mr. Elli- cott's surprise to find on next meeting the philosopher that his services as instructor were not needed. Banneker possessing ' ' the cunning- warded keys" that open every door in one's pursuit of knowledge, at the mature age of fifty-six entered zealously upon the study of astronomy, closely observing all the natural phenom- ena of his neighborhood, as well as the movement of the heavenly bodies, making records, still in existence, that spread his fame far and wide.
The time required for his study and investigations so trenched upon that required for the work of the farm that the necessity of utilizing his scientific knowledge led him in part to consider the feasibility of compiling an ephemeris or almanac for the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, IMaryland and Virginia. For this work he had advanced far towards the construction of tables of loga- rithms for the necessary calculations when Mr. Ellicott presented him with a set.
Many observers who saw Banneker asleep during the day in his
90 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
cottage which on a knoll commanded a fine view of the surround- ing country, declared him to be a worthless, good-for-nothing fellow, a victim to an old propensity for intoxicating liquors; but it was untrue, for when,
"Nature let her curtain down, And pinned it with a star,"
they might have seen Banneker enveloped in the ample folds of his cloak reclining on the ground, his eyes watching the heavenly bodies and determining their laws. In these days of observation this would be unnecessary; but Banneker was his own observa- tory and telescope — he built the roadbed on which he trod to suc- cess.
His patience and determination won. He solved the problems confronting him, if not to his own satisfaction, at least to that of mankind. When his almanac was nearly ready for publica- tion he was prevented from carrying out his purpose by a most fortunate combination of circumstances.
The United States Government had begun with Washington's inauguration in 1789, but there was yet no permanent ofScial home. In keeping with a provision of the Constitutional Conven- tion, Maryland and Virginia had ceded to the central government certain territory, known as the Federal Territory, to be used as the Nation's Capital, but its exact boundaries had not been fixed. Mr. Andrew Ellicott was commissioned to survey the boundaries and Benjamin Banneker w^as invited as a man of scientific attain- ments and professional skill to assist in the work. He accepted the invitation and shared in fixing the boundaries of the District, in the selection of the site of the Capitol Building, in locating an eligible spot for the Executive Mansion, the Treasury and other buildings. So satisfactory was his work and so agreeable a com- panion was he that despite prevailing customs the Commissioners invited him again and again to a seat during their meals at the
BENJAMIN BANNEKER 91
same table with themselves, but he was content to occupy a seat at a side table in the same dining room.
Banneker having completed his engagement at the Federal Territory with which he was very well pleased as he recounted to his friends, addressed himself to the publication of his almanac.
That I may not be accused of exaggeration or giving an undue praise, I quote from Mr. J. H. B. Latrobe's Memoir before the Maryland Historical Society:
"The first almanac which Banneker prepared fit for publica- tion was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally kno\^Ti, and among others who took an interest in him was James McHenry, Esquire. Mr. McHenry wrote a let- ter to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac publishers in Balti- more. . . .
"In their editorial notice Messrs. Goddard and Angell say, 'they feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the pub- lic, through their press, what must be considered as an extraor- dinary effort of genius; a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792 calculated by a sable descendant of Africa.' And they further say, that 'they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their pat- ronage and support to this work, not only on account of its in- trinsic merits (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the cele- brated Mr. Rittenhouse), but from similar notices to these which induce the editors to give this calculation the preference' [mark the words — the preference] 'the ardent desire for drawing modest merit from obscurity and controverting the long-established, ill- bred prejudice against the blacks.' "
This Mr. McHenry referred to was a division surgeon of the Revolutionary War, a trusted friend of General Washington, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and a Cabinet officer under both Washington and John Adams. David Ritten-
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house was the celebrated astronomer and statesman who wrote the constitution of Pennsylvania, and a professor of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. Like Banneker he had at an early age constructed a clock and for several years was the most noted clock maker in America.
The endorsement of two such men standing in the very first professional and political rank is sufficient to establish the stand- ing and claim of this great, this monumental work of Banneker. For ten years this almanac was the main dependence of the farmers of IMaryland, Delaware and the adjacent States, which demonstrated its utility, in fact it was discontinued only with the inability of Mr. Banneker, on account of old age to undergo the intellectual labor incidental to its further publication.
In the publication of his almanac, Banneker was not unmind- ful of the service rendered to the race of which he was a part. It was an opportunity that he did not shrink from seizing and improving. Before the first copy was received from the printers, he prepared a complete autograph copy and sent it accompanied by a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then U. S. Secretary of State — a most remarkable letter, a most manly appeal through Jefferson to the American people on behalf of a class of people who had rendered most valuable service to the country. The entire letter deserves to be read again and again for its courteous manner, its nobility of thought, its dignified utterances as well as for its elo- quence. We have space only for a few extracts :
"Sir, I hope I may safely admit in consequence of the report which hath reached me, . . . that you are measurably friendly and well-dis- posed toward us and that you are willing to lend your aid and assist- ance to our relief from those many distresses and numerous calamities to which we are reduced. ... I apprehend you will readily embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevail with respect to us; and that your sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are, that one Universal Father hath given being to us all; that He hath not only made us all
BENJAMIN BANNEKER 93
of one flesh, but he hath also, without partiality, afforded to us aU the same faculties, and that however variable we may be in society and religion, however diversified in situation or color, we are all of the same family and stand in the same relation to Him."
He next makes an argument that it is the duty of all who pro- fess the obligations of Christianity to extend their power and influence for the relief of every part of the human race.
Notwithstanding the privileges freely accorded to him person- ally, Banneker keenly felt the force of the prejudice against the race as a class. He says:
I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race, and in that color which is natural to them, of the deepest dye, and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the universe, I now confess I am not under that state of tyrannical and inhuman captivity to which many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored, and which I hope you will willingly allow, you have received from the immediate hands of that Being from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.
And so he makes argument after argument, and then apologiz- ing for the length of the letter he concludes as follows :
I ardently hope that your candor and generosity will plead with you in my behalf when I make known to you that it was not originally my design ; but that having taken up my pen in order to direct to you as a present a copy of an almanac which I have calculated for the succeeding year, I was unexpectedly and imavoidably led thereto.
This calculation, sir, is the product of my arduous study in this my advanced stage of life; for having long had mibounded desire to be- come acquainted with the secrets of nature, I have had to gratify my curiosity herein through my own assiduous application to astronomical study, in which I need not recount to you the many difficulties and disadvantages which I have had to encounter.
And although I had almost declined to make my calculations for
94 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
the ensuing year, in consequence of that time which I had allotted therefor being taken up at the Federal Territory, by the request of Mr. Andrew EUicott, yet finding myself under engagements to printers of this State, to whom I had communicated my design on my return to my place of residence, I industriously applied myself thereto which I hope I have accomplished with correctness and accuracy, a copy of which I have taken the liberty to direct to you and which I humbly request you will favorably receive; and although you may have the opportunity of perusing it after its publication, yet, I chose to send it to you in manuscript previous thereto, that thereby you might not only have an earlier inspection, but that you might also view it in my own handwriting.
Jefferson's reply is brief, but characteristic.
Philadelphia, August 31, 1791.
Sir: I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men and that the appear- ance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for rais- ing the conditions, both of their body and mmd to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circum- stances which cannot be neglected, will admit.
I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Science at Paris, and mem- bers of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your color had a right, for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.
I am, with great esteem, sir.
Your most obedient servant,
Thomas Jefferson.
What of Banneker as a social being ? He never married. So thoroughly devoted was he to science that the tender passion, love, never gained the mastery. He lived by himself, prepared
BENJAMIN BANNEKER 95
his own food and washed his own clothes and in other domestic necessities his wants were supplied by his sisters who lived near by,
A few anecdotes will shed a light on other traits in his char- acter.
When he was no longer actively engaged in agriculture, he di- vided his holdings into smaller tenancies, but since tenants were not regular in their payments and they considered it a personal affront when he called on them for his rent ; nevertheless, he w^as determined to provide for his maintenance, so he sold his land for an annuity based on the market value of his land and his ex- pectancy of life, reserving a residence for himself for life. He lived eight years longer than his calculations, and therefore got not only the value of his land but a handsome advance on it.
Reference has been made to his abundant orchards. His pear trees were especially noted, and the smaller boys of those days, the great-grandfathers of those who live in our midst to-day, would steal them while the old gentleman was intent on his astronomical calculations. Once when some boys were more per- sistent or bolder than usual he arose, left his table and coming to the door said, "Boys, you are perfectly welcome to one-half of the fruit if you will leave me the other." With that he re- turned to his room and resumed his studies. When he had oc- casion to come once more to the door he found that the boys had left him — the leaves.
He was a musician. Like that other gi'eat son of Maryland of three generations later, Frederick Douglass, he was quite a violin- ist. Nothing was more common than to find him under his favorite tree at evening tide playing his violin.
He was not a member of any church but the spirit of reverence for the Father of all pervades much of his writings. He fre- quently attended the meetings of the Society of Friends during which he leaned on his staff in the spirit of humility and de- votion.
96 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
There was nothing to indicate the slightest trace of white blood in his appearance. "In size and personal appearance," says one who remembered him as he appeared in the later years of his life, "the statne of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia as seen from the street is a perfect likeness of him. This likeness is heightened because he wore a superfine drab broadcloth suit made in the old style, plain coat with a straight collar, and long waist- coat and a broad-brimmed hat."-
The excessive mental application kept up with intensity for a score of years told on his vigorous constitution and he became a victim to a complication of disorders, but his indomitable will added years to his life. He could not forego the pleasure of com- muning with nature under the open sky. It was during one of his walks one bright autumnal Sunday afternoon of 1804 that he complained of not feeling well — he returned to his cabin, became speechless and in a few hours passed from contemplation of the terrestrial to an enjoyment of prospects celestial.
His surviving relatives promptly carried out the injunction he had given, of taking over to Mr. Ellicott all his books, mathe- matical instruments and papers including the oval table on which he made his calculations — almost as soon as the breath had left his body.
Two days later the last funeral rites were held. While these were in progress a fire consumed his house and everything that remained in it, including the wooden clock that first evidenced his mechanical skill and inventive genius.
To-day his name is not more than a tradition ; no headboard or other monument marks his final resting place, if even it be known.
In the Chautauqua for September, 1899, Gabriella M. Jacobs in winding up an article on ' ' The Black Astronomer, ' ' says :
"Neither the site of his birthplace nor his grave was ever marked by a memorial. He was buried on a hillside near to his
2 J. H. B. Latrobe's Memoir.
BENJAMIN BANNEKER 97
own property, but by the strange irony of fate, the exact loca- tion of his grave is now unknown. ' ' ^
She says in concluding :
"A public school building for colored pupils in Washington, D C, known as the Banneker school is believed to be the only monument to the genius of the Negro who at the dawn of the nineteenth century foreshadowed the advancement of his race which marks the century's close."
3 See also Bishop Payne, Infra.
PAUL CUFPfe, NAVIGATOR AND PHILANTHROPIST
Paul Cuffe was bom in 1759 on the island of Cutterhunker near Westport, Massachusetts. There were four sons and six daughters of John Cuffe, who had been stolen from Africa, and Ruth, a woman of Indian extraction. Paul, the youngest son, lacked the advantage of an early education, but he supplied the deficiency by his personal efforts and learned not only to read and write with facility, but made such proficiency in the art of navigation as to become a skillful seaman and the instructor of both whites and blacks in the same art.
His father, who had obtained his freedom and bought a farm of one hundred acres, died when Paul was about fourteen. When he was sixteen, Paul began the life of a sailor. On his third voyage he was captured by a British brig and was for three months a prisoner of war. On his release he planned to go into business on his own account. With the aid of an elder brother, David Cuffe, an open boat was built in which they went to sea; but this brother on the first intimation of danger gave up the venture and Paul was forced to undertake the work single- handed and alone, which was a sore disappointment. On his second attempt he lost all he had.
Before the close of the Revolutionary War, Paul refused to pay a personal tax, on the ground that free colored people did not enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship. After con- siderable delay, and an appeal to the courts, he paid the tax under protest. He then petitioned to the legislature which finally agreed to his contention. His efforts are the first of
98
— Fi uni .-in Old Print. PWh ( IFFE, Ki:VOLi;r?ONARY PATRIOT.
PAUL CUFF^ 99
which there is any record of a citizen of African descent making a successful appeal in behalf of his civil rights. On reaching the age of twenty-five, he married a woman of the same tribe as his mother, and for a while gave up life on the ocean wave; but the growth of his family led him back to his fond pursuit on the briny deep. As he was unable to purchase a boat, with the aid of his brother he built one from keel to gunwale and launched into the enterprise.
While on the way to a nearby island to consult his brother whom he had induced once more to venture forth with him, he was overtaken by pirates who robbed him of all he possessed. Again Paul returned home disappointed, though not discouraged. Once more he applied for assistance to his brother David and another boat was built. After securing a cargo, he met again with pirates, but he eluded them though he was compelled to return and repair his boat. These having been made he began a most successful career along the coast as far north as New- foundland, to the south as far as Savannah and as distant as Gottenburg.
In carrying on this business, starting in the small way in- dicated, he owned at different times, besides smaller boats. The Ranger, a schooner of sixty or seventy tons, a half interest in a brig of 162 tons, the brig Traveller, of 109 tons, the ship Alpha, of 268 tons and three-fourths interest in a larger vessel.
A few noble incidents may illustrate his resourcefulness, dif- ficulties and success over all obstacles. When engaged in the whaling business he was found with less than the customary outfit for effectually carrying on this work. The practice in such eases was for the other ships to loan the number of men needed. They denied this at first to Cuffe, but fair play pre- vailed and they gave him what was customary, with the result that of the seven whales captured, Paul's men secured five, and two of them fell by his own hand !
In 1795 he took a cargo to Norfolk, Virginia, and learning
100 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
that com could be bought at a decided advantage, he made a trip to the Nanticoke River, on the eastern shore of Maryland. Here his appearance as a black man commanding his own boat and with a crew of seven men all of his own complexion, alarmed the whites, who seemed to dread his presence there as the signal for a revolt on the part of their slaves. They opposed his landing, but the examination of his papers removed all doubts as to the regularity of his business, while his quiet dignity secured the respect of the leading white citizens, with one of whom he accepted an invitation to dine. He had no difficulty after this in taking a cargo of three thousand bushels of corn, from which he realized a profit of $1,000. On a second voyage he was equally successful.
Although without the privilege of attending a school when a boy, he endeavored to have his friends and neighbors open and maintain one for the colored and Indian children of the vicinity. Failing to secure their active cooperation, he built in 1797 a schoolhouse wdthout their aid.
Because of his independent means and his skill as a mariner, he visited with little or no difficulty most of the larger cities of the country, held frequent conferences with the representative men of his race, and recommended the formation of societies for their mutual relief and physical betterment. Such societies he formed in Philadelphia and New York, and then having made ample preparation he sailed in 1811 for Africa in his brig The Traveler, reaching Sierra Leone on the "West Coast after a voyage of about two months. Here he organized the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone and then went to Liverpool. Even here one of his characteristic traits manifested itself in taking with him to England for education a native of Sierra Leone. While in England, Cuffe visited London twice and consulted such friends of the Negro as Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforee ! These men were all in- terested in a proposition to promote the settlement on the West
PAUL CUFFE 101
Coast of Africa of the free people of color in America, many of whom had come into the domains of Great Britain as an outcome of the Revolutionary War. This opinion was at this period the prevailing sentiment of England respecting what was best for the Negro. Sir J. J. Crooks, a former governor of Sierra Leone, in alluding to its origin says: "There is no doubt that the influence of their opinion was felt in America and that it led to emigration thence to Africa before Liberia was settled. Paul Cuffe, a man of color . . . who was much interested in the promotion of the civil and religious liberty of his colored brethren in their native land, had been familiar with the ideas of these philanthropists, as well as with the move- ment in the same direction in England. ' ' ^
This explains Cuffe 's visit to England and to Africa — a daring venture in these perilous days — and the formation of the Friendly Societies in Africa and in his own country, the United States.
When his special mission to England was concluded, he took out a cargo from Liverpool for Sierra Leone, after which he returned to America.
Before he had made his next move, Cuffe consulted with the British Government in London and President Madison at Wash- ington. But the strained relations between the two nations, as well as the financial condition of the United States at the time, made governmental cooperation impracticable if not im- possible.
In 1815 he carried out the ideas long In his mind. In this year he sailed from Boston for Sierra Leone with thirty-eight free Negi'oes as settlers on the Black Continent. Only eight of these could pay their own expenses, but Cuffe, nevertheless, took out the entire party, landed them safe on the soil of their forefathers after a journey of fifty-five days and paid the ex- pense for the outfit, transportation and maintenance of the re-
1 History of Sierra Leone, Dublin. 1903. p. 97.
102 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
maining thirty, amounting to no less than twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) out of his own pocket. The colonists were cordially welcomed by the people of Sierra Leone, and each family received from thirty to forty acres from the Crown Government. He remained with the settlers two months and then returned home with the purpose of taking out another colony. Before, however, he could do so, and while preparations were being made for the second colony, he was taken ill. After a protracted illness he died September 7, 1817, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. At the time of his death he had no less than two thousand names of intending emigrants on his list await- ing transportation to Africa.
As to his personal characteristics: Paul Cuffe was "tall, well-formed and athletic, his deportment conciliating yet digni- fied and prepossessing. He was a member of the Society of Friends [Quakers] and became a minister among them. . . . He believed it to be his duty to sacrifice private interest, rather than engage in any enterprise, however lawful ... or however profitable that had the slightest tendency to injure his fel- low men. He would not deal in intoxicating liquors or in slaves. ' '
A current newspaper speaking of him says, **A descendant of Africa, he overcame by native strength of mind and firm ad- herence to principle the prejudice with which its descendants are too generally viewed. Industrious, temperate and prudent, his means of acquiring property, small at first, were gradually increased; and the strict integrity of his conduct gained him numerous friends to whom he never gave occasion to regret the confidence they had placed in him. His mercantile pursuits were generally successful and blessed with competence if not with wealth. The enlarged benevolence of his mind was mani- fested not only in acts of charity to individuals and in the pro- motion of objects of general ability, but more particularly in
PAUL CUFF:^ 103
the deep interest he sought for the welfare of his brethren of the African race. ' ' ^
That he became a successful navigator, crossing the Atlantic in the path of the slave ship, thence journeying to England, re- turning to the United States and actually carrying the first American Negroes to the land of their ancestry, the cost of which was borne almost entirely by himself, and before the settlement of Liberia or even the organization of the American Colonization Society by white men — is sufficient reason to con- nect Paul Cuffe with the history of two continents and to make him an example worthy of emulation for his persistence and his pluck, his philanthropy and his patriotism.
2 A Tribute for the Negro. Wilson Armistead.
XXI
SOJOURNER TRUTH
Isabella, known to history as Sojourner Truth, and without a rival in the annals of the American Negro, was born a slave of one Col, Ardinburgh in Hurley, Ulster County, New York, sometime during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
Her experiences and those of her parents as to the cruel, harsh and brutal treatment received at the hands of those who claimed their service, the many whippings for alleged disobedience and their abandonment when no longer able to be profitable as laborers and the sale of others of her kindred on the auction block by which family ties were broken, made it clear that slavery in the North * at that distant day was not unlike what it was two-thirds of a century later south of Mason and Dixon's line.
Up to the time she was ten, Isabella spoke principally the Low Dutch, while those for whom she was employed were Eng- lish. Constant blunders were inevitable and whippings as in- evitably followed.
The death of both father and mother occurred while Isabella was quite young. The details of their death are pathetic in the extreme. Isabella's troubles were of the common lot of the slave. In course of time she married and became the mother of several children. Among these was a son whose abduction
1 Her age "is approximately fixed because she was liberated under the act of 1817 which freed all slaves who were forty years old and upward. Ten thousand slaves were then set at liberty. Those under forty years of age were retained in servitude ten years longer, when all were eman- cipated.
104
SOJOURNER TRUTH 105
and sale beyond the boundaries of the State, contrary to law, fired her soul and she began that vigorous protest against the .common practices of the day and appeal for justice that subsequently made her fame national and opened up a career that is not only unique but deserving of perpetual remembrance.
At an early period she became sensible of the influence of Christianity in her own life. She became a Methodist and on her removal to New York she joined the John Street Church, the mother of American Methodism and later she attached herself to the Zion Church in the same city, the mother of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination. By the purest accident she learned that a sister whom she had never known had been a member in the same church, but Sojourner did not obtain this knowledge until after that sister's death, when she re- membered having met this sister frequently in class meetings.
The circumstances leading to Isabella's removal from the city of New York was her connection with what is known as the Mathias delusion about the year 1837-1840. This led to her giving up her own name and assuming that of Sojourner, to which she added Truth.
From New York she went to New England where she ulti- mately became an Anti-slavery lecturer. Wholly without edu- cation, advanced in years, her influence as a public speaker is a marvel. Nature had given her a very acut€ mind. She was quick at repartee, was thoroughly in earnest and her judg- ments were shrewd. Her belief in God and that in due time He would deliver her people from bondage was phenomenal. These facts had much to do with the very strong hold she had on all who heard her lectures. ]\Iany of the predictions which she made became true in manner and form as she had uttered them.
In those dark days at a meeting of anti-slavery men held at Boston, Frederick Douglass struck in the minor key a most de- spairing song. At his conclusion Sojourner Truth rose in the
106 THE NEGKO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
audience and stretching forth her arms in a shrill voice ex- claimed, "Frederick, is God dead?" The effect was electrical. By a flash the sentiment of the house was changed to one of hope and assurance.
Sojourner did not hesitate to call on anyone whom she desired to see, whether she had received an introduction to them or not. Thus it was that she called to see Harriet Beecher Stowe, the authoress of ' * Uncle Tom 's Cabin. ' '
Mrs. Stowe who had company at the time evidently did not care to be bothered with the quaint old woman, but she was no sooner in Sojourner's company than she realized the superior character of her visitor. Instead of abruptly tearing herself away from Sojourner or rudely dismissing her as a bore she requested the privilege from Sojourner of calling in her guests. This was granted and all were made to feel the superior moral power of this untutored black woman of the North.
During the Civil War Sojourner spent a protracted period at "Washington in alleviating the sufferings of our sick. Sometimes she was at the hospitals ; at other times the * ' contraband ' ' camps then numerous about the National Capital, found her an angel of mercy. While here she called on President Lincoln, who received her kindly. It was not merely to gratify curiosity nor to express her gratification that such a broad-minded presi- dent was in the White House, but to receive his commendation on her mission as counselor to the freedmen that were assembled by the thousands in and around Washington. In this capacity she visited them in their slab houses, instructing women in domestic duties, preaching the gospel of cleanliness and how to maintain their liberty, the shackles of slavery having been struck from their limbs.
In those days "Jim Crow" street cars prevailed in Washing- ton, and it was with difficulty at times that colored people could get seats even in them. Restive under this treatment, Sojourner complained to the president of the street railroads and the
SOJOURNER TRUTH 107
"'Jim Crow" sign was ordered to be taken off, yet everything was not plain sailing. The following incident deserves atten- tion.
"Not long after this, Sojourner having occasion to ride sig- naled the car, but neither conductor nor driver noticed her. Soon another followed, and she raised her hand again, but they also turned away. She then gave three tremendous yelps, 'I want to ride! I want to ride!! i want to ride.'.'/' Conster- nation seized the passing crowd ; people, carriages, go-carts of every description stood still. The car was effectually blocked up, and before it could move on. Sojourner had jumped aboard. Then there arose a great shout from the crowd, ' Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! ! She has beaten him, etc' The angry conductor told her to go forward where the horses were, or he would put her out. Quietly seating herself, she informed him that she was a passenger. 'Go forward where the horses are, or I will throw you out, ' said he in a menacing voice. She told him that she was neither a Mary lander nor a Virginian to fear his threats; but was from the Empire State of New York, and knew the laws as well as he did. Several soldiers were in the car and when other passengers came in, they related the circumstance and said, 'You ought to have heard that old woman talk to the conductor.' Sojourner rode farther than she needed to go; for a ride was so rare a privilege that she determined to make the most of it. She left the car feeling very happy, and said, 'Bless God ! / have had a ride.' "
Another incident is equally suggestive: "She was sent to Georgetown to obtain a nurse for the hospital, which being accomplished they went to the station and took seats in an empty car, but had not proceeded far before two ladies came in and seating themselves opposite the colored woman began a whispered conversation, frequently casting scornful glances at the latter. The nurse, for the first time in her life finding hei-self on a level with poor white folks and being much abashed,
108 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
hung her poor old head nearly down to her lap, but Sojourner, nothing daunted, looked fearlessly about. At length one of the ladies called out in a weak, faint voice, 'Conductor, con- ductor, does ''niggers" ride in these cars?' He hesitatingly answered ' Yes — yes — yes, ' to which she responded, ' 'Tis a shame and a disgrace. They ought to have a "nigger" car on the track.' Sojourner remarked, 'Of course colored people ride in the cars. Street cars are designed for poor white and colored folks. Carriages are for ladies and gentlemen. There are carriages,' pointing out of the window, 'standing ready to take you three or four miles for a sixpence, and then you talk of a "nigger" car!!!' Promptly acting upon this hint, those white women critics arose to leave. 'Ah!' said Sojourner, 'Now they are going to take a carriage. Good-by, ladies.' "
There are many anecdotes told that indicate her quickness at repartee, humor, sarcasm, her original and quaint philosophy.
"As Sojourner was returning to the home of Amy Post in Rochester, one evening, after having delivered a lecture in Corinthian Hall, a little policeman stepped up to her and de- manded her name. She paused, struck her cane firmly upon the ground, drew herself up to her greatest height, and in a loud, deep voice deliberately answered, 'I am that I am.' The frightened policeman vanished, and she concluded her walk without further questioning.
"During the war Sojourner met one of her Democratic friends, w^ho asked her, 'What business are you now following?' She quietly replied, 'Years ago, when I lived in the city of New York, my occupation was scouring brass door knobs but now I go about scouring copperheads.' "~
At a temperance meeting in one of the towns of Kansas, So- journer, whilst addressing the audience, was much annoyed by frequent expectorations of tobacco juice upon the floor. Pausing and contemplating the pools of liquid filth, with a look of
2 Northern sympathizer with Confederates during the Civil War.
SOJOURNER TRUTH 109
disgust upon her face, she remarked that it had been the custom of her Methodist brethren to kneel in the house of God during prayers, and asked how they could kneel upon these floors. Said she, speaking with emphasis, "If Jesus was here He would scourge you from this place."
Previous to the war. Sojourner held a series of meetings in northern Ohio. She sometimes made very strong points in the course of her speech, which she knew hit the apologists of slavery pretty hard. At the close of one of these meetings a man came up to her and said, "Old woman, do you think that your talk about slavery does any good? Do you suppose peo- ple care what you say? Why," continued he, "I don't care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea." "Per- haps not," she responded, "but, the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching. ' '
Sojourner was invited to speak at a meeting in Florence, Mass. She had just returned from a fatiguing trip, and not having thought of anything in particular to say, arose and said, ' ' Chil- dren, I have come here to-night like the rest of you to hear what I have got to say." Wendell Phillips was one of the audience. Soon after this he was invited to address a lyceum, and being unprepared for the occasion, as he thought, began by saying, "I shall have to tell you as my friend. Sojourner Truth, told an audience under similar circumstances, 'I have come here like the rest of you to hear what I have to say.' "
After the close of the Civil War, when more than four score years and ten, Sojourner Truth, unlike others who had labored for the abolition of slavery, discerned by intuition what men like Phillips, Garrison and even Douglass, seemed not to compre- hend— that the protection and elevation of the Negro lay not through the exercise of the elective franchise alone, but through the ownership of the soil and industrial education. She advo- cated the location of the newly emancipated masses of the South on the public lands of 'the West. To that end she addressed
110 THE NEGRO IN AMEEICAN HISTORY
meetings urging this course, in different parts of the North, the West and the South, circulating petitions to Congress, and even visiting Washington and endeavoring to create public sentiment in this behalf.
It was during one of these visits to Washington, while U. S. Grant was President, that the writer listened to her lecture at the First Congregational Church of this city, where, in her quaint and original style, she drew crowds to hear her, many of whom had heard her in their youthful days in New York or in New England.
Sojourner had foreseen that the cities of the North and East would attract large numbers of colored people from the South, and that the over-crowding of the labor market would react upon the race in increasing the criminal element and in weak- ening their physical stamina. But if they were settled on the public lands of the West, there would follow careful economy, regular habits of life, thrift, wealth, and ultimately political power. She had, however, lived more than her three score years and ten and was reaching the century mark. It was not among the possibilities for her to take up successfully the work of the new era which emancipation and its new conditions had created. Her work belonged to another epoch, that of the anti-slavery era, in which her service was as unique as her pei*sonality.
Speaking of her death which occurred at Battle Creek, Nov. 26, 1883, where she had spent her last years, the Detroit Post and Tribune says, "The death of Sojourner Truth takes away the most singular and impressive figure of pure African blood that has appeared in modern times." A most positive and re- markable declaration, yet as true as it was emphatic and sweep- ing.
Another authority says, "Her mysterious communings with what she believed to be a supernatural power, her strange and weird appearance, her solemn demeanor, with her wit and elo-
SOJOURNER TRUTH 111
quenee, her boldness, her unselfishness, her deep religious feel- ing, that colored all her life and conversation, her earnestness and truthfuLriess, make up a character at once curious, admirable in many respects, and certainly unique. We shall not look upon her like again."
This review of her career was made in an influential news- paper :
"The labors of this woman in behalf of the slaves and of every class and condition of men and women who appealed to her sympathy for help are too familiar to the people of Michigan to need recapitulation here. She was the most interest- ing of all the peculiar people of her race who have come in- to prominence from the conditions of slavery. . . . Sojourner Truth was too old and too much occupied by other matters to set about learning to read when the time came that she might have done so. Her learning was of a kind not to be found in books, and neither her oratory nor her religion was fashioned in the schools. Quaint in language, grotesque in appearance and homely in illustrations, she was nevertheless a power in a meet- ing, and there was no tongue M^hose teachings were more feared than hers. There was a native nobility about her which broke down all barriers. 'People ask me,' she once said, 'how I came to live so long and keep my mind; and I tell them it is because I think of the gi-eat things of God; not the little things.' Has any learned philosopher said a better thing than that? She was brave enough to face ordeals that were almost worse to her than death. On one occasion, while pleading the cause of the slaves, the effect of her eloquence was in danger of being overcome by a charge made by one of the audience that she was an impostor, a man in woman's clothes. Her tall, bony form, and heavy voice gave support to the charge and the current was turning against her. She stepped to the front of the platform and bared her breast to the assembly, telling them it was their shame and not hers that such a sacrifice was
112 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN HISTORY
made necessary for her vindication. This is not so poetical as the story of Lady Godiva, but is it less honorable to woman- kind?
"There is not in aU the annals of eloquence a more striking passage than one in the speech made by Sojourner at a AYoman's Rights convention at Akron, Ohio, in 1857. The cause was un- popular and one of the male speakers took pains to ridicule Avomen for their feebleness, helplessness and general uselessness. The meeting was in a church, and at the conclusion Sojourner rose up in her white turban from her seat on the pulpit steps, moved slowly and solemnly to the front, laid her old sunbonnet at her feet, opened with words that were thus repeated in a local paper :
" 'AY ell, chillen, when dar is so much racket dar must be something out of kilter. But what's all dis yer talkin' about? Dat man over dar say dat a woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have tTie best places everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages or over mud puddles or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arms' (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). 'I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no one could head me off, and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as any man (when I get it) and bear the lash as well, and ain't I a woman? Den dey talk about dis ting in de head — what is it dey calls it?' ('Intellect,' whispered someone near.) 'Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to, do with woman's rights? If my cup would hold but a pint and yourn hold a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Don't dat little man in black dar say woman can't have as many rights as men 'cause Christ wa'n't a woman. Whar did your Christ come from?' (Raising her voice still louder, she repeated:) 'Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with Him ! ' "
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SOJOURNER TRUTH 113
W. W. Story, the great American sculptor, first learned from the lips of Mrs. Stowe the story of Sojourner Truth, and dubbed her The Libyan Sibyl, The artist seemed impressed by it and after his "Cleopatra" had been finished he told the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," some years after, that the conception of another type of beauty in which "the elements of life, physical and spiritual, were of such excellence that the dark hue of the skin should seem only to add an appropriate charm," had never left him. In one of the World's Exhibitions he has a statue in which these ideas are worked out. It is called "The Libyan Sibyl" and was a companion to his "Cleopatra." The London Athenceiim thus described them:
"The 'Cleopatra' and the 'Sibyl' are seated, partly draped, with the characteristic Egyptian gown, that gathers about the torso and falls freely around the limbs ; the first is covered to the bosom, the second bare to the hips.
' ' Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rails of the seat sustain; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon <