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Economic Co-operation among Negro Americans. Report of a Study made by
Atlanta University, under the Patronage of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C.,
together with the Proceedings of the 12th Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems,
held at Atlanta University, on Tuesday, May the 28th, 1907:
Electronic Edition.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963, Ed.

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the electronic publication of this title.

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(title page) Economic Co-operation among Negro Americans. Report of a Social Study made by Atlanta University, under the Patronage of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, D. C., together with the Proceedings of the 12th Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, held at Atlanta University, on Tuesday, May the 28th, 1907
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, Ed.
184 p.
Atlanta
The Atlanta University Press
1907
Call number E185.5 .A88 no. 12 (Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Illustration

ECONOMIC
CO-OPERATION
AMONG
NEGRO AMERICANS
Report of a Social Study made by Atlanta University, under the patronage of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., together with the Proceedings of the 12th Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, held at Atlanta University, on Tuesday, May the 28th, 1907


EDITED BY

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE CONFERENCE

The Atlanta University Press
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
1907

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         WER ihnen (i. e. the Negroes of Africa) selbständige Erfindung und Eigenen Geschmack in ihren Arbeiten abspricht, der verschliesst sein Auge absichtlich den offenkündigen Thatsachen, oder Mangel an Kenntniss derselben macht ihn unfähig zum competenten Beurtheiler.

Soyaux.

        AMONG the great groups of "natural" races, the Negroes are the best and keenest tillers of the ground.

Ratzel.

        THE market is the center of all the more stirring life in [African] Negro communities, and attempts to train him to culture have made the most effectual start from this tendency.

Ratzel.

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Contents

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Resolutions of the Conference

        The Conference regards the economic development of the Negro Americans at present as in a critical state. The crisis arises not so much because of idleness or even lack of skill as by reason of the fact that they unwittingly stand hesitating at the cross roads--one way leading to the old trodden ways of grasping fierce individualistic competition, where the shrewd, cunning, skilled and rich among them will prey upon the ignorance and simplicity of the mass of the race and get wealth at the expense of the general well being; the other way leading to co-operation in capital and labor, the massing of small savings, the wide distribution of capital and a more general equality of wealth and comfort. This latter path of co-operative effort has already been entered by many; we find a wide development of industrial and sick relief, many building and loan associations, some co-operation of artisans and considerable co-operation in retail trade. Indeed from the fact that there is among Negroes, as yet, little of that great inequality of wealth distribution which marks modern life, nearly all their economic effort tends toward true economic co-operation. But danger lurks here. The race does not recognize the parting of the ways, they tend to think and are being taught to think that any method which leads to individual riches is the way of salvation.

        The Conference believes this doctrine mischievously false, we believe that every effort ought to be made to foster and emphasize present tendencies among Negroes toward co-operative effort and that the ideal of wide ownership of small capital and small accumulations among many rather than great riches among a few, should persistently be held before them.

N. O. NELSON,
R. P. SIMS,
W. E. B. DU BOIS.

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Preface

        This study, which forms the twelfth of the annual publications of Atlanta University, and the second investigation of the new decade, is a further carrying out of a plan of social study by means of recurring decennial inquiries into the same general set of human problems. The object of these studies is primarily scientific--a careful search for truth conducted as thoroughly, broadly, and honestly as the material resources and mental equipment at command will allow; but this is not our sole object: we wish not only to make the Truth clear but to present it in such shape as will encourage and help social reform. Our financial resources are unfortunately meagre: Atlanta University is primarily a school and most of its funds and energy go to teaching. It is, however, also a seat of learning and as such it has endeavored to advance knowledge, particularly in matters of racial contact and development which seemed obviously its nearest field. In this work it has received unusual encouragement from the scientific world, and the published results of these studies are used in America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Scarcely a book on the Negro problem or any phase of it has been published in the last decade which has not acknowledged its indebtedness to our work.

        On the other hand, the financial support given this work has been very small. The total cost of the twelve publications has been about $13,000, or a little over $1,000 a year. The growing demands of the work, the vast field to be covered and the delicacy and equipment needed in such work call for far greater resources. We need, for workers, laboratory and publications, a fund of $6,000 a year, if this work is going adequately to fulfill its promise. This year a small temporary grant from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., has greatly helped us.

        In other years we have been able to serve the United States Bureau of Labor, the United States Census, the Board of Education of the English Government, many scientific associations, professors in nearly all the leading universities, and many periodicals and reviews. May we not hope in the future for such increased financial resources as will enable us to study adequately this the greatest group of social problems that ever faced America?

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Select Bibliography of Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

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Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Part 1. The Background

Section 1. The Scope of this Study

        In 1898 the Atlanta Conference made a limited study entitled "Some Efforts of American Negroes for their Own Social Betterment." The present study is a continuation and enlargement of this initial study made nearly ten years ago, with certain limitations and changes. The question set before us in the present study is: How far is there and has there been among Negro Americans a conscious effort at mutual aid in earning a living? In answering this question we must first consider just how broad an interpretation we are giving to the phrase, "earning a living." In a highly developed economic society like that which surrounds us here in America and in other countries under the lead of European civilization, the phrase "earning a living" is pretty clear, because there are large numbers of persons engaged simply or principally in that occupation; and all persons recognize the efforts toward earning a living as a distinct set of efforts in their general life. It must be remembered, however, that this situation is, to an extent, abnormal; that neither in the undeveloped races nor in the fully developed Race, when it comes, will earning a living as such, occupy the large space that it does today in human endeavor. Among the semi-civilized races the work of getting the material things necessary for life is looked upon as incidental to a great many other larger and, in their opinion, better things, such as hunting, resting, eating and perhaps carousing. So, too, in an ideal community, we would expect that the purely economic efforts to supply human beings at least with the necessities of life would occupy a comparatively small part of the community for short spaces of time.

        All this is trite, but we must not forget it, as we are apt to do, when we come to study a group like of the Negro American, which has not reached the economic development of the surrounding nation, and which perhaps never will surrender itself entirely to the ideals of the surrounding group. We must not expect, for instance, to find a separately developed economic life among the Negroes except as they became under compulsion a part of the economic life of the nation before emancipation; and except as they have become since the emancipation, a part of the great working force. So far as their own inner economic efforts are concerned we must expect in looking over their history to find great strivings in religious development, in political life and in efforts at education. And so completely do these cultural aspects of their group efforts overshadow the economic efforts that at

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first a student is tempted to think that there has been no inner economic co-operation, or at least that it has only come to the fore in the last two or three decades. But this is not so. While to be sure the religious motive was uppermost during the time of slavery, for instance, so far as group action among the Negroes were concerned, even then it had an economic tinge, and more so since slavery, has Negro religion had its economic side; so, too, the political striving after the war was a matter even more largely of economic welfare than it was of political preferment so far as the great mass of the race was concerned. And then and now the strife for education is, if not primarily, certainly to a very large extent an effort at earning a living in some manner which will satisfy the higher cravings of the rising classes of Negroes. When, therefore, we take up under the head of economic co-operation such institutions as the church, such movements as the Exodus of 1879 and the matter of schools, etc., it is from the economic side that we are studying these things, and because this economic side was really of very great importance and significance.

        Then again we are studying the conscious effort in economic lines not, primarily, so far as individual effort is concerned, but so far as these efforts are combined in some sort of effort for mutual aid, that is: it is a matter of group co-operation that we have before us. Now this brings certain difficulties because a race in the state of development in which the Negro American is today must of necessity depend tremendously upon the individual leader. He is in the period of special individual development, and while the group development is going on rapidly, yet it is the individual as yet who stands forth. Consequently very often we must touch upon individual effort and touch upon things which strictly speaking are not co-operative, in the narrow sense, and yet in the present state of Negro development they have a significance which is co-operative, because the leader has been called forth by a group movement and not simply for his own aggrandizement. In other words, the kind of co-operation which we are going to find among the Negro Americans is not always democratic co-operation; very often the group organization is aristocratic and even monarchic, and yet it is co-operation, and the autocracy holds its leadership by the vote of the mass, and even the monarch does the same, as in the case of the small Baptist church.

        Finally a study like this must throw great light upon the development of all social classes. We are apt to say that in Economics and in the Social Sciences we cannot segregate the class and make the "crucial test," as we can in certain physical experiments. This is true in a great many cases, but it is not universally true, as witness the present instance, where we have a segregation, and where we can study a class by itself. Moreover the analogy goes still further: The rise of a lower social class in any community is in no wise different from the development of a race; in fact, we realize in studying races, and particularly primitive races as we have them today in contact with more highly developed races, that what we have going on around us every day in

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civilized society is the same thing in microcosm which the world has seen going on from the beginning: that whereas in the world we have separate large groups in varying degrees of civilization and development, and they gradually rise and fall and sometimes even change their relative positions, so, too, in any separate group or nation, we have smaller groups with differing developments, and these classes into which the group is divided, are coming forward or retrograding in the same way, and with many of the same phenomena. Therefore, a study of the Negro American in the United States today in his economic aspect, as well as in other aspects, throws peculiar light upon the problems of all social classes in a great modern nation.

Section 2. Africa

        It used to be assumed in studying the Negro American that in any development we might safely begin with zero so far as Africa is concerned; the later studies are more and more convincing us that this former attitude has been wrong, and that always in explaining the development in America of the Negro we must look back upon a considerable past development in Africa. We have, therefore, first to ask ourselves in this study, How far are there traces in Africa of economic life and economic co-operation among Negroes?

        Ratzel thoughtfully says: "Even in earlier days a deeper thinker might not have agreed with our great, but in this respect short-sighted historical philosophers, who held that Africa was only in the ante chamber of universal history. The land which bore Egypt and Carthage will always be of importance in the world's history; and even the transplantation without their will of millions of Africans to America remains an event having most important consequences. But since Africa, both politically and economically, has been brought nearer to us, the above mentioned idea has had altogether to give way. That continent, the greatest portion of which longest remained a terra incognita, has suddenly been called on to play a great part in the history of the expansion of the European races. In our days Africa has become the scene of a great movement, which must fix its destiny in history for thousands of years. While a century ago the great political and trading powers were still merely hanging on like leeches to its outskirts, today the "spheres of interest," domains of power of which the extent is not yet known even to their owner, are meeting in the far interior of the continent. Herewith for the first time Europeans are coming into very close connections with the most vigorous shoot of the dark branches of nations, on the soil most appropriate to it, but to them in the first place by no means favorable. Now it will be decided whether much or little of these, the oldest of all now living stocks, will pass into mankind of the remoter future. And this is one of the greatest problems of the history of the world, which must be the history of mankind."

        Not only is there this new attitude toward the meaning of Africa as a whole, but we are also revising our ideas as to the exact status of Africa

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in its development toward civilization. We are beginning to see that the Africans, notwithstanding the fact that they have not reached European culture, nevertheless have made great advances. In 1885 Dr. Wilhelm Schneider summed up the cultural accomplishments of the Negro by bringing together the testimonies of African travellers up to that time. If we take from that excellent summing up the condition of the African in economic organization we shall have a fairly trustworthy picture. Schneider first takes up the matter of agriculture, and says that the Negro pursues agriculture together with cattle raising and dairying. Sheep, goats and chickens are domestic animals all over Africa, and cows are raised in regions where grass grows. Von Franzius considers Africa the home of the house cattle and the Negro as the original tamer.

        Northeastern Africa especially is noted for agriculture, cattle raising and fruit culture. In the eastern Soudan and among the great Bantu tribes extending from the Soudan down toward the south, cattle are evidences of wealth, one tribe, for instance, having so many oxen that each village had ten or twelve thousand head. Lenz (1884), Bouet-Willaumez (1848), Hecquard (1854), Bosman (1805), and Baker (1868), all bear witness to this, and Schweinfurth (1878), tells us of great cattle parks with 2,000-3,000 head, and of numerous agricultural and cattle raising tribes. Von der Decken (1859-61), describes the paradise of the dwellers about Kilimanjaro--the bananas, fruit, beans, and peas, and cattle raising with stall-feed, the fertilizing of the fields, and irrigation. The Negroid Gallas have seven or eight cattle to each inhabitant. Cameron (1877), tells of villages so clean, with huts so artistic, that--save in book knowledge--the people occupied no low plane of civilization. Livingstone bears witness to the busy cattle raising of the Bantus and Kaffirs.

        Hulub (1881), and Chapman (1868), tell of agriculture and fruit raising in South Africa. Shütt (1884), found the tribes in the Southwestern basin or the Congo with sheep, swine, goats and cattle. The African elephant, however, never was tamed by the natives in later years, partly because he is much wilder than the Indian.

        Schneider sums up the Africans' accomplishments in handwork and industry by quoting Soyaux on Africans, as follows: "Whoever denies to them independent invention and individual taste in their work, either shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of knowledge renders him an incompetent judge." Gabriel de Mortillet (1883), declares them the only iron users among primitive people, and at any rate they are far beyond others in the development of iron industry, and their work bears strong resemblance to that of the ancient Egyptians. Some would therefore argue that the Negro learned it from other folk, but Andree declares that the Negro developed his own "Iron Kingdom," and still others believe that from him it spread to Europe and Asia.*


        *Cf. Boas, in our day.


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        Various tribes have been described: Baker and Felkin tell of smiths of wonderful adroitness, goat-skins prepared better than a European tailor could do, drinking cups and kegs of remarkable symmetry and polished clay floors. Schweinfurth says: "The arrow and spear heads are of the finest and most artistic work; their bristle-like barbs and points are baffling when one knows how few tools these smiths have." Excellent wood-carving is found among the Bongo, Ovambo and Makololo. Pottery and basketry and careful hut-building distinguish many tribes. The Monbuttu work both iron and copper. "The masterpieces of the Monbuttu smiths are the fine chains worn as ornaments, and which in perfection of form and fineness compare well with our best steel chains." Such chains are hardened by hammering. Barth found copper exported from central Africa in competition with European copper at Kano.

        Nor is the iron industry confined to the Soudan. About the great lakes and other parts of central Africa it is widely distributed. Thornton says: "This iron industry proves that the East Africans stand by no means on so low a plane of culture as many travellers would have us think. It is unnecessary to be reminded that a people who without instruction and with the rudest tools do such skilled work, could do if furnished with steel tools. Arrows made east of Lake Nyanza were found to be nearly as good as the best Swedish iron in Birmingham. From Egypt to the cape Livingstone assures us that the mortar and pestle, the long handled axe, the goat skin bellows, etc., have the same form, size, etc., pointing to a migration southwestward. Holub (1879), on the Zambesi found fine workers in iron and bronze (copper and tin). The Bantu huts contain spoons, wooden dishes, milk pails, calibashes, handmills and axes. Kaffirs and Zulus, in the extreme south, are good smiths and the latter melt copper and tin together and draw wire from it, according to Kranz (1880). West of the Great Lakes, Stanley (1878), found wonderful examples of smith work: figures worked out of brass and much work in copper. Cameron (1878), saw vases made near Lake Tanganyika which reminded him of the amphoræ in the Villa of Diomedes, Pompeii. Horn (1882), praises tribes here for iron and copper work. Livingstone (1871), passed thirty smelting houses in one journey and Cameron came across bellows with valves, and tribes who used knives in eating. He found tribes which no Europeans had ever visited, who made ingots of copper in the form of St. Andrew's cross, which circulated even to the coast. In the southern Congo basin iron and copper are worked; also wood and ivory carving and pottery are pursued. In equatorial west Africa, Lenz and Du Chaillu (1861), found the iron workers with charcoal, and also carvers of bone and ivory. Near Cape Lopez, Hübbe-Schleiden found tribes making ivory needles inlaid with ebony, while the arms and dishes of the Osaka are found among many tribes even as far as the Atlantic ocean. Wilson (1856), found natives in West Africa who could repair American watches.

        The Ashanti are renowned weavers and dyers, smiths and founders. Gold coast Negroes make gold rings and chains, forming the metal into

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all kinds of forms. Soyaux says: "The works in relief which natives of Lower Guinea carve with their own knives out of ivory and hippopotamus teeth, are really entitled to be called works of art, and many wooden figures of fetiches in the Ethnographical Museum of Berlin show some understanding of the proportions of the human body." Great Bassam is called by Hecquard the "Fatherland of Smiths." The Mandingo in the Northwest are remarkable workers in iron, silver and gold, we are, told by Mungo Park (1800) while there is a mass of testimony as to the work in the northwest of Africa in gold, tin, weaving and dyeing. Caillé found the Negroes in Bambana manufacturing gunpowder (1824-8), and the Haussa make soap; so, too, Negroes in Uganda and other parts have made guns after seeing European models.

        On the whole, as Herman Soyaux says: in art and industry the accomplishment of the African Negro is in many respects far beyond expectation and at least shows what they might do in more favorable surroundings; and Lenz adds: "Our sharpest European merchants, even Jews and Armenians, can learn much from the cunning of the Negro in trade."*


        *Schnedider: Culturfaehigkeit des Negers


        Coming down to later writers, we find Ratzel testifying that:

        Among all the great groups of the "natural" races, the Negroes are the best and keenest tillers of the ground. A minority despise agriculture and breed cattle; many combine both occupations. Among the genuine tillers, the whole life of the family is taken up in agriculture; and hence the months are by preference called after the operations which they demand. Constant clearings change forests to fields, and the ground is manured with the ashes of the burnt thicket. In the middle of the fields rise the light watch-towers, from which a watchman scares grain-eating birds and other thieves. An African cultivated landscape is incomplete without barns. The rapidity with which, when newly imported, the most various forms of cultivation spread in Africa says much for the attention which is devoted to this branch of economy. Industries, again, which may be called agricultural, like the preparation of meal from millet and other crops, also from cassava, the fabrication of fermented drinks from grain, or the manufacture of cotton, are widely known and sedulously fostered.*


        *Ratzel, II., 380-381.



        Bücher says:

        That travellers have often described the deep impression made upon them when, on coming out of the dreary primeval forest, they happened suddenly upon the well-tended fields of the natives. In the more thickly populated parts of Africa these fields often stretch for many a mile, and the assiduous care of the Negro women shines in all the brighter light when we consider the insecurity of life, the constant feuds and pillages, in which no one knows whether he will in the end be able to harvest what he has sown. Livingstone gives somewhere a graphic description of the devastations wrought by slave hunts; the people are lying about slain, the dwellings were demolished; in the fields, however, the grain was ripening and there was none to harvest it.*


*Buecher (Wickett), p. 47.

        The economic organization thus indicated is moreover arranged for purposes of trade. Bücher says:

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        Travellers have often observed this tribal or local development of industrial technique. "The native villages," relates a Belgian observer of the lower Congo, "are often situated in groups. Their activities are based upon reciprocality, and they are to a certain extent the complements of one another. Each group has its more or less strongly defined specialty. One carries on fishing, another produces palm wine; a third devotes itself to trade and is broker for the others, supplying the community with all products from outside; another has reserved to itself work in iron and copper, making weapons for war and hunting, various utensils, etc. None may, however, pass beyond the sphere of its own specialty without exposing itself to the risk of being universally proscribed." From the Boango Coast, Bastian tells of a great number of similar centres for special products of domestic industry. Loango excels in mats and fishing baskets, while the carving of elephants' tusks is specially followed in Chilungo. The so-called "Mafooka" bats with raised patterns are drawn chiefly from the bordering country of Kakongo and Mayyumbe. In Bakunya are made potter's wares, which are in great demand, in Basanza excellent swords, in Basundi especially beautiful ornament copper rings, and the Zaire clever wood and tablet carvings, in Loango ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats, in Mayumbe clothing of finely woven mat-work, in Kakongo embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers, and among the Bayakas and Mantetjes stuffs of woven grass.*


        *Buecher's Industrial Evolution (Wickett), pp. 57-8.



        A recent native African writer thus describes the trade organization of Ashanti:

        The king of Ashanti knew most of these merchant princes and His Majesty, at stated times in the commercial year, sent some of his head tradesmen with gold dust, ivory and other products to the coast to his merchant friends in exchange for Manchester goods and other articles of European manufacture. In one visit the caravan cleared off several hundred bales of cotton goods which found their way into the utmost parts of Soudan.

        It was a part of the state system of Ashanti to encourage trade. The king once in every forty days, at the Adai custom, distributed among a number of chiefs various sums of gold dust with a charge to turn the same to good account. These chiefs then sent down to the coast caravans of tradesmen, some of whom would be their slaves, sometimes some two to three hundred strong, to barter ivory for European goods, or buy such goods with gold dust, which the king obtained from the royal alluvial workings. Down to 1873 a constant stream of Ashanti traders might be seen daily wending their way to the coast and back again, yielding more certain wealth and prosperity to the merchants of the Gold Coast and Great Britain than may be expected for, sometime yet to come from the mining industry and railway development put together. The trade chiefs would, in due time, render a faithful account to the king's stewards, being allowed to retain a fair portion of the profit. In the king's household, too, he would have special men who directly traded for him. Important chiefs carried on the same system of trading with the coast as did the king. Thus every member of the state from the king downwards, took an active interest in the promotion of trade and in the keeping open of trade routes into the interior.

        Nor was the Fanti petty trader left in the lurch; for, while the merchant princes drove magnificent trade with the caravans from Ashanti, the native petty trader hawked his goods to great advantage in the intermediate towns and villages, his customers being private speculators from the interior.

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        Often the men in the coast towns acted as middlemen between men of the interior tribes coming down to trade with the merchant houses, and gained an honest means of livelihood in that way.

        Some of the chiefs in the intermediate districts would sometimes prove obstreperous to the caravans coming down, which became a grievance to His Majesty, the king of Ashanti, whose ruffled temper would often be smoothed down by diplomatic messages and an exchange of presents. Thus all went merrily and the country prospered until the dawn of that evil day when its protectors, instead of letting well enough alone, began to meddle with unscientific bands in the working of its state system.*


*Hayford, pp. 95-97.

        Ratzel describes further the market places:

        From the Fish river to Kuka, and from Lagos to Zanzibar, the market is the centre of all the more stirring life in Negro communities, and attempts to train him to culture have made their most effectual start from this tendency. Trade is a great implement of civilization for Africa; and this is as true of the furthest interior whither Europeans or Africans seldom penetrate, as of the places on the coast. In the larger localities, like Ujiji and Nyangwe, permanent markets of more than local importance are found. Everything can be bought and sold here, from the commonest earthenware pots to the prettiest girls from Usukuma. Hither flock from 1,000 to 3,000 natives of both sexes and various ages. How like is the market traffic, with all its uproar and sound of human voices, to one of our own markets! There is the same rivalry in praising the goods, the violent, brisk movements, the expressive gesture, the inquiring, searching glance, the changing looks of depreciation or triumph, of apprehension, delight, approbation. So says Stanley. Trade customs are not everywhere alike. If when negotiating with the Bangalas of Angola you do not quickly give them what they want, they go away and do not come back. Then perhaps they try to get possession of the coveted object by means of theft. It is otherwise with the Songos and Kiokos, who let you deal with them in the usual way. To buy even some small article you must go to the market; people avoid trading anywhere else. If a man says to another: "Sell me this hen," or "that fruit," the answer as a rule will be "Come to the market place." The crowd gives confidence to individuals, and the inviolability of the visitor to the market, and of the market itself, looks like an idea of justice consecrated by long practice. Does not this remind us of the old Germanic "market place?"*


*Ratzel, p. 376.

        He adds, with regard to roads:

        The permanent caravan roads call for special attention. They are of the greatest importance to the culture of Africa at large, since they have long formed the channels through which every stimulus to culture found its way from foreign countries into the interior. The most important of all come in from the east, since they lead directly into the heart of the Negro countries. The south and west, too, are less favored in this respect; only the Portuguese road to Cazembe's country had a certain importance here. The northern roads throughout the desert to the Soudan, however, do not lead directly to the Negroes, but at first into the mixed states of the Canooris, Fulbes and Arabs, whose intercourse with the Negroes to the south unhappily results, as in the case of the old Egyptians, in slavery.

        In the east, however, not foreigners but the Negroes themselves have been active in the caravan trade. Here is the true seat of the trade in Negroes;

Page 18

here especially the porter system is organized. It was formerly far easier to reach Uganda or Ujiji from Bagamoyo than Stanley Pool from the mouth of the Congo. The Wanyamwesi, those talented, keen traders and colonists, have made their roads to the coast from time immemorial. When one was closed by war or a blood feud, they opened up another; but the caravans proper--called Safari in Kiswaheli, Lugendo in Kinyamwesi-- for long consisted only of hired porters from the coast. Burton states that it was only shortly before this time that the inhabitants of the coast began to go on this business.*

        *Ratzel, II: 377.



        As to money Ratzel says:

        Where [African] trade with Arabs or Europeans begins, beads are almost indispensable in any trade transactions. The quality in demand is not always the same, but is in a certain degree governed by the fashion. Even in the sixteenth century beads had a currency value among the inhabitants of the Angola coast, and the old Venetian beads which are found, quite worn down, in graves, point to the still greater antiquity of this tendency. But excessive importation has everywhere caused a rapid fall in value. Glass beads depreciate more and more every year, and now serve only the object of feminine vanity; it is long, says Schweinfurth, since they were hoarded as treasures and buried like precious stones. The preference for cowries shows more persistence. These have spread, especially from east Africa, as money; but even in the sixteenth century they were in use on the west coast. They were however given up, as too heavy, in places where they no longer had a high value. Cowries are also used as dice. In Nyangwe, besides the cowries, slaves and goats were generally current in Cameron's time.

        On the upper Nile copper and brass have commonly taken their place, and in the form of rings have a money value throughout Equatorial Africa. Besides these iron-axes and rings-are in circulation, also pieces of iron shaped like horse-shoes or hoes . . . . . .

        On Lake Bemba three iron hoes were the fare asked of Livingstone for putting ten persons across. Cotton cloth in uselessly narrow strips passes as money in the Soudan to beyond Adamwa, while in Bornu money even takes the form of "tobes" or shirts, never intended for wearing. Cattle are currency among all pastoral races; but, with the exception of Abyssinia and many parts of the Sahara and the Soudan, where sums are reckoned in Maria Theresa dollars, coins have established themselves only in the most progressive and prosperous districts, like Basutoland or the equatorial east coast; now, too, on the Niger.*


        *Ratzel, II: 379.



Section 3. The West Indies

        From such an environment as we have very imperfectly indicated, the Negroes were suddenly snatched and brought first to the West Indies and afterward to the American continent. In this change a great deal of the past organization was destroyed. Still the transition could not utterly break them from the past, and several institutions remained. The first was, of course, the religious institution which showed itself in the beginning of the Negro church. This was especially manifest in the organization called Obe or Obeah worship; considerable collections were made of money and kind by the Obi or Voodoo priests; still the organization was scarcely one which one could call economic.

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        A second survival was that of political organization. This could be seen, of course, in such revolts as that of the Maroons in Jamaica, who set up a political organization and maintained themselves for years; but it can be seen more instructively in the Negro governors of New England. Most persons have looked upon this survival of political organization among the Negroes as simply an imitation of the whites, and a rather ludicrous one; but certain ones have noticed that it was not wholly an imitation and we find moreover that the organization had some political power. Senator Platt, for instance, in his researches tells us that the Negro governor and other officials in Connecticut had no legal power, and yet exercised considerable control over the Negroes throughout the state. The black governor directed the affairs of his people and his directions were obeyed; the black justices tried cases both civil and criminal, and rendered judgments and executed punishments. The idea of the Negroes doing this originated with the Negroes themselves, it seems, for Platt says: "They conceived the project of imitating the whites by establishing a subordinate jurisdiction and jurisprudence of their own. The old Negroes aided in the plan but not without the approbation of their masters, who foresaw that a sort of police managed wholly by the slaves would be more effectual in keeping them within the bounds of morality than if the same authority was exercised by whites." He goes on to say that the judicial department of this government within a government consisted of the governor who sometimes sat at judgment in cases of appeal; the other magistrates and judges tried all charges brought against any Negro by another or by a white person; masters complained to the governor and the magistrates of the delinquencies of their slaves, who were tried, condemned and punished at the discretion of the court. The punishment was sometimes quite severe, and what made it the more effectual was that it was the judgment of their peers, people of their own rank and color. Thus we find surviving in New England for along time a system of government which must have gone far enough to have some control over the slave as a workman, and was to some extent economic in its effects. *


        * Compare Papers of the New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Vol. VI.


        It is, however, in the West Indies that we find the most direct survival of African economic customs. In Jamaica, for instance, the practice prevailed of giving the Negroes land to cultivate and expecting them to maintain themselves from the product of these lands, giving most of their labor, of course, to the master. The Negroes acquired, therefore, some little property of their own and on, holidays and Sundays and on one week day each fortnight they went to market. They took to market not only the things raised on their part of ground, but also some of them made a few coarse manufactures, such as mats, bark ropes, wicket chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, etc. Of course these things were relics of their African trade; they could not be as well made because the Negroes did not have more than about sixteen

Page 20

hours a week to cultivate their gardens and to do work of this sort.

        Edwards says: "Sunday is their market day and it is wonderful what numbers are then seen hastening from all parts of the country toward the towns and shipping places ladened with fruits and vegetables, pigs, goats and poultry, their own property. In Jamaica it is supposed that upwards of ten thousand assemble every Sunday morning in the market of Kingston, where they barter their provisions, etc., for salted beef and pork or fine linens for their wives and children."*


        *Bryan Edwards: West Indies.


        We have here, then, a peculiar survival of African economic customs in the new world, and we shall find that in the continental colonies there were traces of the same thing.

Section 4. The Colonies

        In the continental colonies the remembrance of the African organization and society was more and more lost sight of. The Negroes had become Americans, speaking another language and forgetting much of the past. The plot of ground which they cultivated for themselves still remained in most cases, but it was supplemented by regular rations from the store-house of the master. Tendencies toward political autonomy still showed themselves in the insurrections that took place from time to time, but these were sternly suppressed and only in a few cases did they gain a wide following. Religious institutions remained and the church gained for itself a wide and ever wider following, but its economic activities were still very much curtailed.

        Beneficial and burial societies began to appear, however, even in the time of slavery. We are told, for instance:

        The history of the Negro insurance extends far beyond the days of his freedom in this country. While there are no recorded data available, yet from reliable sources we learn that more than seventy-five years ago there existed in every city of any size in Virginia organizations of Negroes having as their object the caring for the sick and the burying of the dead. In but few instances did the society exist openly, as the laws of the time concerning Negroes were such as to make it impossible for this to be done without serious consequences to the participants. History shows that no matter how the oppressed and enslaved may have been watched and hedged in, there was always found a way by which they could get together, and this has been no less true of the Negro in his attempt to combine for mutual protection from the results of sickness and death. Although it was unlawful for Negroes to assemble without the presence of a white man, and so unlawful to allow a congregation of slaves on a plantation without the consent of the master, these organizations existed and held these meetings on the "lots" of some of the law-makers themselves. The general plan seems to have been to select some one who could "read and write" and make him the secretary. The meeting place having been selected, the members would come by "ones and twos," make their payments to the secretary, and quietly withdraw. The book of the secretary was often kept covered up on the bed. In many of the societies each member was known by number and in paying simply announced his number. The president of such a society was usually a privileged slave who had

Page 21

the confidence of his or her master and could go and come at will. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend the funeral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought into play. In Richmond they would go to the church by ones and twos and there sit as near together as convenient. At the close of the service a line of march would be formed when sufficiently far from the church to make it safe to do. It is reported that the members were faithful to each other and that every obligation was faithfully carried out. This was the first form of insurance known to the Negro from which his family received a benefit.*


*Hampton Negro Conference, No. 8, pp. 43-14.

        As soon as slaves began to be emancipated such beneficial societies began to be openly formed. One of the earliest of these became, eventually, the great African Methodist Church, and its articles of association, made April 12, 1787, are of especial interest:

Preamble of the Free African Society

PHILADELPHIA, 12th, 4th mo., 1787.

        Whereas, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two men of the African race, who, for their religious life and conversation have obtained a good report among men, these persons, from a love to the people of their complexion whom they beheld with sorrow, because of their irreligious and uncivilized state, often communed together upon this painful and important subject in order to form some kind of religious society, but there being too few to be found under like concern, and those who were, differed in their religious sentiments; with these circumstances they labored for some time, till it was proposed, after a serious communication of sentiments, that a society should be formed, without regard to religious tenets, provided the persons lived an orderly and sober life, in order to support one another in sickness, and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children.

        The following persons were the charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Caesar Cranchell, James Potter and William White.

Articles

17th, 5th mo., 1787.

        We, the free Africans and their descendants of the City of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, or elsewhere, do unanimously agree, for the benefit of each other, to advance one shilling in Pennsylvania silver currency, a month; and after one year's subscription from the date thereof, then to hand forth to the needy of this society, if any should require, the sum of three shillings and nine pence per week of the said money; provided, this necessity is not brought on them by their own imprudence.

        And it is further agreed, that no drunkard nor disorderly person be admitted as a member, and if any should prove disorderly after having been received, the said disorderly person shall be disjoined from us if there is not an amendment, by being informed by two of the members, without having any of his subscription returned.

        And if any one should neglect paying his subscription for three months, and after having been informed of the same by two of the members, and no sufficient reason appearing for such neglect, if he do not pay the whole the

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next ensuing meeting, he shall be disjoined from us by being informed by two of the members as an offender, without having any of his subscription money returned.

        Also, if any person neglect meeting every month, for every omission he shall have to pay three pence, except in case of sickness or any other complaint that should require the assistance of the society, then and in such case, he shall be exempt from the fines and subscription during said sickness.

        Also, we apprehend it to be just and reasonable, that the surviving widow of the deceased member should enjoy the benefit of this society so long as she remains his widow, complying with the rules thereof, excepting the subscriptions.

        And we apprehend it to be necessary that the children of our deceased members be under the care of the society, so far as to pay for the education of their children, if they can not attend the free school; also to put them out as apprentices to suitable trades and places, if required.

        Also, that no member shall convene the society together; but it shall be the sole business of the committee, and that only on special occasions, and to dispose of the money in hand to the best advantage for the use of the society, after they are granted the liberty at a monthly meeting, and to transact all other business whatsoever, except that of clerk and treasurer.

        And we unanimously agree to choose Joseph Clarke to be our clerk and treasurer; and whenever another should succeed him, it is always understood, that one of the people called Quakers, belonging to one of the three monthly meetings in Philadelphia, is to be chosen to act as clerk and treasurer of this useful institution.

        The following persons met, viz: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Cæsar Cranchell and James Potter, and also William White, whose early assistance and useful remarks were found truly profitable. This evening the articles were read, and after some beneficial remarks were made, they were agreed unto.*


        *Arnett's Budget, 1904, pp. 93-94



        In 1790 this society had £42 9s. 1d. on deposit in the Bank of North America.

        At about this same time secret societies began to arise. The origin of the Negro Masons was as follows:*

        * Upton: Negro Masonry


        On March 6, 1775, an army lodge attached to one of the regiments stationed under General Gage in or near Boston, Mass., initiated Prince Hall and fourteen other colored men into the mysteries of Freemasonry. From this beginning, with small additions from foreign countries, sprang the Masonry among the Negroes in America. These fifteen brethren were, according to a custom of the day, authorized to assemble as a lodge, "walk on St. John's Day" and bury their dead "in manner and form;" but they did no "work"--made no Masons--until after they had been regularly warranted. They applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a warrant March 2, 1784. It was issued to them as "African Lodge, No. 459," with Prince Hall as Master, September 29, 1784, but--owing to various vexatious misadventures--was not received until April 29, 1787. The lodge was organized under the warrant May 6, 1787. It remained upon the English registry--occasionally contributing to the Grand Charity Fund--until, upon the amalgamation of

Page 23

the rival Grand Lodges of the "Moderns" and the "Ancients" into the present United Grand Lodge of England, in 1813, it and the other English lodges in the United States were erased.

        Prince Hall, a man of exceptional ability, served in the American Army during the Revolutionary War and, until his death, in 1807, was exceedingly zealous in the cause of Masonry. As early as in 1792 he was styled "Grand Master," and from that date at least he exercised the functions of a Grand Master or Provincial Grand Master.

        In 1797 he issued a license to thirteen black men who had been made Masons in England and Ireland to "assemble and work" as a lodge in Philadelphia. Another lodge was organized by his authority in Providence, Rhode Island, for the accommodation of members of African Lodge who resided in that vicinity. This was in accordance with an old usage, the validity of which had then but recently been confirmed by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. In 1808 these three lodges joined in forming the "African Grand Lodge" of Boston, subsequently styled the "Prince Hall Lodge of Massachusetts." Masonry gradually spread over the land.

        The second colored Grand Lodge, called the "First Independent African Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," was organized in 1815; and the third was the "Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania." These three Grand bodies fully recognized each other in 1847 by joining in forming a National Grand Lodge, and practically all the Negro lodges in the United States are descended from one or the other of these.

        The original warrant of Prince Hall Lodge reads:

To all and every our right Worshipful and loving Brethren, we, Thomas Howard, Earl of Effingham, Lord Howard, etc., etc., acting Grand Master under the authority of His Royal Highness, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, etc., etc., Grand Master of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, send greeting;

        Know Ye, That we, at the humble petition of our right trusty and well beloved Brethren, Prince Hall, Boston Smith, Thomas Sanderson and several other Brethren residing in Boston, New England, in North America, do hereby constitute the said Brethren into a regular Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, under the title or denomination of the African Lodge, to be opened in Boston aforesaid, and do further, at their said petition, hereby appoint the said Prince Hall to be Master, Boston Smith, Senior Warden, and Thomas Sanderson, Junior Warden, for the opening of the said Lodge and for such further time only as shall be thought proper by the brethren thereof, it being our will that this our appointment of the above officers shall in no wise affect any future election of officers of the Lodge, but that such election shall be regulated agreeable to such by-laws of said Lodge as shall be consistent with the general laws of the society, contained in the Book of Constitutions; and we hereby will and require you, the said Prince Hall, to take especial care that all and every one of the said Brethren are, or have been regularly made Masons, and that they do observe, perform and keep all the rules and orders contained in the Book of Constitutions; and further, that you do, from time to time, cause to be entered in a book kept for the purpose, an account of your proceedings in the Lodge, together with all such rules, orders and regulations,

Page 24

as shall be made for the good government of the same; that in no wise you omit once in every year to send us, or our successors, Grand Master, or to Roland Holt, Esq., our Deputy Grand Master, for the time being, an account in writing of your said proceedings, and copies of all such rules, orders and regulations as shall be made as aforesaid, together with a list of the members of the Lodge, and such a sum of money as may suit the circumstances of the Lodge and reasonably be expected towards the Grand Charity. Moreover, we hereby will and require you, the said Prince Hall, as soon as conveniently may be, to send an account in writing of what may be done by virtue of these presents.

Given at London, under our hand and seal of Masonry, this 29th day of September, A. L. 5784, A. D. 1784.

By the Grand Master's Command.

Witness Wm. WHITE, G. S.
R. HOLT, D. G. M.


Part 2. The Development of Co-operation

Section 5. An Historical Sketch

        A sketch of co-operation among the Negro Americans begins naturally with the Negro church. The vast power of the priest in the African state was not fully overcome by slavery and transportation; it still remained on the plantation. The Negro priest, therefore, early became an important figure and "found his function as the interpreter of the supernatural, the comforter of the sorrowing, and the one who expressed rudely but picturesquely the longing, disappointment and resentment of a stolen people. From such beginnings rose and spread with marvellous rapidity the Negro church in America, the first distinctively Negro American social institution. It was not at first by any means a Christian church, but rather an adaptation of those heathen rites which we roughly designate by the term Obi worship or Voodooism. Association and missionary effort, soon gave these rites a veneer of Christianity and gradually after two centuries the church became Christian with a Calvinistic creed and with many of the old customs still clinging to the services. It is this historic fact, that the Negro church of today bases itself on one of the few surviving social institutions of the African Fatherland, that accounts for its extraordinary growth and vitality. We must remember that in the United States today there is a church organization for every sixty Negro families." This institution therefore naturally assumed many functions which the other harshly suppressed social organs had to surrender, and especially the church became the center of economic activity as well as of amusement, education and social intercourse.

        It was in the church, too, or rather the organization that went by the name of church, that many of the insurrections among the slaves from the sixteenth century down had their origin; we must find in these insurrections a beginning of co-operation which eventually ended in the peaceful economic co-operation. A full list of these insurrections it is impossible to make, but if we take the larger and more significant ones

Page 25

they will show us the trend. The chief Negro insurrections are as follows:

  • Revolt of the Maroons, Jamaica.
  • Uprising in Danish Islands.
  • New York, 1712.
  • Cato of Stone, South Carolina, 1734.
  • New York, 1741.
  • San Domingo, 1791.
  • Gabriel, Virginia, 1800.
  • Vesey, South Carolina, 1822.
  • Nat Turner, Virginia, 1831.

        Both Vesey and Turner were preachers and used the church as a center of their plots; Gabriel and Cato may have been preachers, although this is not known.

        These insurrections fall into three categories: unorganized outbursts of fury, as in the Danish Islands and in early Carolina; military organizations, as in the case of the Maroons; movements of small knots of conspirators, as in New York in 1712 and 1741; and carefully planned efforts at widespread co-operation for freedom, as in the case of San Domingo, and the uprisings under Cato, Gabriel, Vesey and Turner. It was these latter that in most cases grew out of the church organizations.

        It was the fact that the Negro church thus loaned itself to insurrection and plot that led to its partial suppression and careful oversight in the latter part of the seventeenth and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless there arose out of the church in the latter part of the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth centuries the beneficial society, a small and usually clandestine organization for burying the dead; this development usually took place in cities, From the beneficial society arose naturally after emancipation the other co-operative movements: secret societies (which may date back even beyond the church in some way, although there is no tangible proof of this), and cemeteries which began to be bought and arranged for very early in the history of the church. The same sort of movement that started the cemeteries brought the hospital in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and from the secret societies came the homes and orphanages. Out of the beneficial society also developed late in the nineteenth century the first attempts at co-operative business, and still later the insurance societies, out of which came the banks in the last ten years.

        Meantime, however, the spirit of insurrection and revolt had found outlet earlier than by this slower development.

        There was early discovered an easier method of attaining freedom than by insurrection and that was by flight to the free states. In the West Indies this safety valve was wanting and the result was San Domingo. In America freedom cleared a refuge for slaves as follows:

  • Vermont, 1779.
  • Massachusetts, 1780.
    Page 26

  • Pennsylvania, 1780.
  • New Hampshire, 1783.
  • Connecticut, 1784.
  • Rhode Island, 1784.
  • Northwest Territory, 1787.
  • New York, 1799.
  • New Jersey, 1804.

        Consequently we find that the spirit of revolt which tried to co-operate by means of insurrection led to widespread organization for the rescue of fugitive slaves among Negroes themselves, and developed before the war in the North and during and after the war in the South, into various co-operative efforts toward economic emancipation and land-buying. Gradually these efforts led to co-operative business, building and loan associations and trade unions. On the other hand, the Underground Railroad led directly to various efforts at migration, especially to Canada, and in some cases to Africa. These migrations in our day have led to certain Negro towns and settlements; and finally from the efforts at migration began the various conventions of Negroes which have endeavored to organize them into one national body, and give them a group consciousness. Let us now notice in detail certain of these steps toward co-operation. We have already spoken of insurrections and can now take up the Underground Railroad and the co-operative efforts during emancipation, and the various schemes of migration.

Section 6. The Underground Railroad

        From the beginning of the nineteenth century slaves began to escape in considerable numbers from the region south of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio to the North. Even here, however, they were not safe from the fugitive slave laws, and soon after 1812 the Negro soldiers and sailors discovered a surer refuge in Canada and the tide set thither. Gradually between 1830 and 1850 there were signs of definite concerted co-operation to assist fugitives which came to be known as the Underground Railroad. The organization is best known from the side of the white abolitionists who aided and sheltered the fugitives and furnished them means.

        But it must not be forgotten that back of these helpers must have lain a more or less conscious co-operation and organization on the part of the colored people. In the first place, the running away of slaves was too systematic to be accidental; without doubt there was widespread knowledge of paths and places and times for going. Constant communication between the land of freedom and the slave states must be kept up by persons going and coming, and there can be no doubt but that the Negro organization back of the Underground Railroad was widespread and very effective. Redpath, writing just before the war, says: "In the Canadian provinces there are thousands of fugitive slaves; they are the picked men of the Southern states, many of them are intelligent and rich and all of them are deadly enemies of the South;

Page 27

five hundred of them at least annually visit the slave states, passing from Florida to Harper's Ferry on heroic errands of mercy and deliverance. They have carried the Underground Railroad and the Underground Telegraph into nearly every Southern state. Here obviously is a power of great importance for a war of liberation." Siebert says that in the South much secret aid was rendered the fugitives by persons of their own race, and he gives instances in numbers of border states where colored persons were in charge of the runaways. Frederick Douglass' connection with the Underground Railroad began long before he himself left the South. In the North people of the African race would be found in most communities, and in many cases they became energetic workers.

        It was natural that Negro settlements in the free states should be resorted to by fugitive slaves. The colored people of Greenwich, New Jersey, the Stewart settlement of Jackson county, Ohio, the Upper and Lower Camps, Brown county, Ohio, and the colored settlement, Hamilton county, Indiana, were active. The list of towns and cities in which the Negroes became co-workers with white persons in harboring and concealing runaways is a long one. Oberlin, Portsmouth and Cincinnati, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts, will suffice as examples. Negro settlements in the interior of the free states, as well as along their southern frontier, soon came to form important links in the chain of stations leading from the Southern states to Canada.*


        *Siebert, 32,91.


        In the list of Underground Railway operators given by Siebert there are 128 names of Negroes, and Negroes were on the vigilant committees of most of the larger towns, including Boston, Syracuse, Springfield and Philadelphia.

        The largest number of abduction cases occurred through the activities of those well disposed towards fugitives by the attachments of race. There were many Negroes, enslaved and free, along the southern boundaries of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, whose opportunities were numerous for conveying fugitives to free soil with slight risk to themselves. These persons sometimes did scarcely more than ferry runaways across streams or direct them to the home of friends residing near the line of free states. In the vicinity of Martin's Ferry, Ohio, there lived a colored man who frequented the Virginia shore for the purpose of persuading slaves to run away. He was in the habit of imparting the necessary information and then displaying himself in an intoxicated condition, feigned or real, to avoid suspicion. At last he was found out, but escaped by betaking himself to Canada. In the neighborhood of Portsmouth, Ohio, slaves were conveyed across the river by one Poindexter, a barber of the town of Jackson. In Baltimore, Maryland, two colored women who engaged in selling vegetables, were efficient in starting fugitives on the way to Philadelphia. At Louisville, Kentucky, Wash Spradley, a shrewd Negro, was instrumental in helping many of his enslaved brethren out of bondage. These few instances will suffice to illustrate the secret enterprises conducted by colored persons on both sides of the sectional line once dividing the North from the South.

        Another class of colored persons that undertook the work of delivering some of their race from cruel uncertainties of slavery may be found among the

Page 28

refugees of Canada. Describing the early development of the movement of slaves to Canada, Dr. Samuel G. Howe says of these persons: "Some, not content with personal freedom and happiness, went secretly back to their old homes and brought away their wives and children at much peril and cost." It has been said that the number of these persons visiting the South annually was about five hundred. Mr. D.B. Hodge, of Lloydsville, Ohio, gives the case of a Negro that went to Canada by way of New Athens, and in the course of a year returned over the same route, went to Kentucky, and brought away his wife and two children, making his pilgrimage northward again after the lapse of about two months. Another case, reported by Mr. N. C. Buswell of Nefouset, Illinois, is as follows: "A slave, Charlie, belonging to a Missouri planter living near Quincy, Illinois, escaped to Canada by way of one of the underground routes. Ere long he decided to return and get his wife, but found that she had been sold South. When making his second journey eastward he brought with him a family of slaves who preferred freedom to remaining as the chattels of his old master This was the first of a number of such trips made by the fugitive, Charlie. Mr. Seth Linton, who was familiar with the work on a line of this road running through Clinton county, Ohio, reports that a fugitive that had passed along the route returned after some months, saying he had come back to rescue his wife. His absence in the slave state continued so long that it was feared he had been captured, but after some weeks he reappeared, bringing his wife and her father with him. He told of having seen many slaves in the country and said they would be along as soon as they could escape."*

        *Siebert, 151.



        The stations at Mechanicsburg were among the most widely known in central and southern Ohio. They received fugitives from at least three regular routes, and doubtless had "switch connections" with other lines. Passengers were taken northward over one of the three, perhaps, four roads, and as one or two of these lay through pro-slavery neighborhoods a brave and experienced agent was almost indispensable. George W. S. Lucas, a colored man of Salem, Columbiana county, Ohio, made frequent trips with the closed carriage of Philip Evans between Barnesville, New Philadelphia and Cadiz, and two stations, Ashtabula and Painesville, on the shore of Lake Erie. Occasionally Mr. Lucas conducted parties to Cleveland and Sandusky and Toledo, but in such cases he went on foot or by stage. His trips were sometimes a hundred miles and more in length. George L. Burroughes, a colored man at Cairo, Illinois, became an agent for the Underground Road in 1857 while acting as porter of a sleeping car running on the Illinois Central Railroad between Cairo and Chicago. At Albany, New York, Stephen Myers, a Negro, was an agent of the Underground Road for a wide extent of territory. At Detroit there were several agents, among them George DeBaptiste and George Dolarson.*


*Siebert, 70.

        The most celebrated of these abductors were Harriet Tubman and Josiah Henson, who are said to have been the means of releasing many hundreds of slaves from slavery.

        Outside of this general co-operation there was, however, evidence of real organization among the Negroes. Hinton says that John Brown knew of this secret organization and sought to take advantage of it. Gill also testifies to the same organization; extracts from their writing will show their knowledge of this more secret co-operation:

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        On leaving Boston, March 8th, he [i. e., John Brown] carried with him $500 in gold and assurance of other support. He passed through New York on the 2d, preferring to go around rather than take the risk of being recognized in western Massachusetts. On the 10th of March Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnett of New York, Stephen Smith and William Still of Philadelphia, [all colored] with John Brown, Jr., met the captain in conference at the dwelling of either Smith or Still. Of course the object of these was to find out the Underground Railroad routes and stations, to ascertain the persons who were actually to be relied upon, places to stop at, means of conveyance, and especially to learn of the colored men who could be trusted. The Philadelphia conference must have gone over this ground with the two Browns, and the experience of those who were the most active of Underground Railroad directors in that section, could not but have been useful. . . . . . John Brown's purpose in calling and holding the convention at Chatham, Canada West, was in harmony with the conception and plans he had evolved. There was a large number of colored residents under the British flag. They were mainly fugitive slaves, among whom were many bold, even daring men. In the section of which Chatham was one of the centers, considerable direction had been given to the settlement of these people. There were among them (and still are) a good many farmers, mechanics, storekeepers, as well as laborers. It would not be correct to say that no prejudice existed against them, but it was not strong enough, as in the land from which they fled, to prevent industry and sobriety from having a fair chance, while intelligence, well directed, made its way to civic and business recognition. There were probably not less than 75,000 fugitive residents in Canada West at the time of the Chatham gathering. Their presence, well-ordered lives and fair degree of prosperity, had brought also to live with them as doctors, clergymen, teachers, lawyers, printers, surveyors, etc., educated freemen of their own race. Martin Delany, a physician, editor, ethnologist and naturalist, was one of them. Mr. Holden, a well-trained surveyor and civil engineer, at whose residence in Chatham John Brown stayed, the Rev. William Charles Munroe, Osborne Perry Anderson and others, were among these helpers. But it was not simply the presence of these forces which took John Brown to Chatham. As one may naturally understand, looking at conditions then existing, there existed something of an organization to assist fugitives and for resistance to their masters. It was found all along the borders from Syracuse, New York, to Detroit, Michigan. As none but colored men were admitted into direct and active membership with this "League of Freedom," it is quite difficult to trace its workings or know how far its ramifications extended. One of the most interesting phases of slave life, so far as the whites were enabled to see or impinge upon it, was the extent and rapidity of communication among them. Four geographical lines seem to have been chiefly followed. One was that of the coast south of the Potomac, whose almost continuous line of swamps from the vicinity of Norfolk, Va., to the northern border of Florida afforded a refuge for many who could not escape and became "marooned" in their depths, while giving facility to the more enduring to work their way out to the North Star Land. The great Appalachian range and its abutting mountains were long a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe route to freedom. It was used, too, for many years. Doubtless a knowledge of that fact, for John Brown was always an active Underground Railroad man, had very much to do, apart from its immediate use strategically considered, with the captain's decision to begin operations therein. Harriet Tubman, whom John Brown met for the first time at St. Catherine's in March or April, 1858, was a constant user of the Appalachian

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route in her efforts to aid escaping slaves. "Moses," as Mrs. Tubman was called by her own people, was a most remarkable black woman, unlettered and very negrine, but with a great degree of intelligence and perceptive insight, amazing courage and a simple steadfastness of devotion which lifts her career into the ranks of heroism. Herself a fugitive slave, she devoted her life after her own freedom was won, to the work of aiding others to escape. First and last Harriet brought out several thousand slaves. John Brown always called her "General," and once introduced her to Wendell Phillips by saying, "I bring you one of the best and bravest persons on this continent--General Tubman, as we call her." William Lambert, who died in Detroit a few years since, being very nearly one hundred years old, was another of those of the race who devoted themselves to the work for which John Brown hoped to strike a culminating blow. Between 1829 and 1862-- thirty-three years--William is reported to have aided in the escape of 30,000 slaves. He lived in Detroit, and was one of the foremost representatives of his people in both Michigan and Ontario. Underground Railroad operations culminating chiefly at Cleveland, Sandusky and Detroit, led by broad and defined routes through Ohio to the border of Kentucky. Through that state in the heart of the Cumberland mountains, northern Georgia, east Tennessee and northern Alabama, the limestone eaves of the region served a useful purpose. And it is a fact that the colored people living in Ohio were often bolder and more determined than was the rule elsewhere. The Ohio-Kentucky routes probably served more fugitives than others in the North. The valley of the Mississippi was the most westerly channel until Kansas opened a bolder way of escape from the Southwest slave section. John Brown knew whatever was to be known of all this unrest, and he also must have known of the secret organization which George B. Gill mentions in his interesting paper. This organization served a purpose of some value to the government in the earlier parts of the Civil War, a fact that lies within my own knowledge, and then fell into disuse as the hours moved swifter to the one in which the gateway of the Union swung aside, and the pathway of the law opened, to allow the colored American to reach emancipation and citizenship.


        Dr. Alexander Milton Ross, in a letter January 21st, 1893, says:*


        *Hinton: John Brown and His Men.


        Now in reference to the "Liberty League," I was one of their members at large; Gerrit Smith and Lewis Tappan were the others. As to the actual members I had very little acquaintance. I knew of George J. Reynolds of Hamilton (Sandusky, also), George W. Brown and Glover Harrison of this city (Toronto). The branch of the League in Upper Canada had no connection with the armed and drilled men along the United States border, whose duty it was to help the slaves to escape to Canada. Of course I knew many of them--Liberators, as they were called,--from Erie to Sandusky and Cleveland.


        The list of the men who met John Brown in the celebrated Chatham convention also shows the large number of co-workers, whom he tried to get to help him at Harper's Ferry. The names of the members of the Chatham convention were: William Charles Monroe, G. J. Reynolds, J. C. Grant, A. J. Smith, James Monroe Jones, George B. Gill, M. F. Bailey, William Lambert., S. Hunton, John J. Jackson, Osborne P. Anderson, Alfred Whipper, C. W. Moffett, James M. Bell, W. H. Lehman, Alfred M. Ellsworth, John E. Cook, Steward Taylor, James

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W. Purnell, George Akin, Stephen Dettin, Thomas Hickerson, John Cannel, Robinson Alexander, Richard Realf, Thomas F. Cary, Richard Richardson, Luke F. Parsons, Thos. M. Kennard, Jeremiah Anderson, J. H. Delaney, Robert Van Vauken, Thos. M. Stringer, Charles P. Tidd, John A. Thomas, C. Whipple, Alias Aaron D. Stevens, J. D. Shadd, Robert Newman, Owen Brown, John Brown, J. H. Harris, Charles Smith, Simon Fislin, Isaac Holden, James Smith, John H. Kagi; the secretary, Dr. H. R. Delaney, was a corresponding member. The members whose names are in italics were colored men.

        In addition to the educational facilities the colored folk of Chatham had churches of their own, a newspaper conducted in their interest by Mr. I. D. Shadd, an accomplished colored man, and societies for social intercourse and improvement, in which their affairs were discussed, mutual wants made known and help provided. But, there were also here and elsewhere, at each center of colored population, meetings and discussions of a more earnest character: Conductors of the "Underground Railroad," an organization whose influence in aid of the fleeing slaves was felt from the lakes and St. Lawrence river to the center of the slave populations, were often seen here.

        The League of Gileadites formed by John Brown in Springfield, Mass., just after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law also became undoubtedly an effective organization, and was carried on largely by the colored people themselves. The co-operation in rescuing fugitive slaves just before the war was due in considerable degree to this organization and others like it in different places. Siebert says:

        Soon after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed John Brown visited Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had formerly lived. The Valley of Connecticut had long been a line of underground travel and citizens of Springfield, colored and white, had become identified with operations on this line. Brown at ones decided that the new law made organization necessary, and be formed, therefore, the League of Gileadites to resist systematically the enforcement of the law. The name of this order was significant in that it contained a warning to those of its members that should show themselves cowards: "Whosoever is fearful or afraid let him return and depart from Mount Gilead." In the "Agreement and Rules" that John Brown drafted from the order, adopted January 15,1851, the following directions for action were laid down: "Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your adversaries . . . . . . Let no able bodied man appear on the ground unequipped or with his weapons exposed to view. . . . . . Your plans must be known only to yourselves and with the understanding that all traitors must die wherever caught and proven guilty. Let the first blow be the signal for all to engage. . . . . . Make lean work with your enemies, and be sure you meddle not with any others. . . . . After effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of your most prominent and influential white friends with your wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspicion of being connected with you, and will compel them to make a common cause with you . . . . . . You may make a tumult in the court-room where the trial is going on by burning gunpowder freely in paper packages . . . . . . But in such case the prisoner will need to take the hint at once and bestir himself; and so should his

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friends improve the opportunity for a general rush . . . . . . Stand by one another and by your friends while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school. Make no confessions." By adopting the Agreement and Rules, forty-four colored persons constituted themselves "A branch of the United States League of Gileadites," and "agreed to have no officers except a treasurer and secretary pro tem. until after some trial of courage," when they could choose officers on the basis of "courage efficiency and general good conduct." Doubtless the Gileadites of Springfield did efficient service, for it appears that the importance of the town as a way station on the Underground Road increased after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill.*


*Siebert, pp. 73-75.

        That slaves should run away from slavery is, of course, perfectly natural, but there is also a further development of this idea in the desire of free Negroes to move either to different parts of the country or out of the country for the sake of having better chances for development. These movements were in some cases encouraged by the American Colonization Society, but in most cases the Negroes were suspicious of that organization, and the first efforts in the line of migration began among themselves. These efforts commenced as early as 1815, and lasted down to 1880. In the midst of them came the war and emancipation. Let us, therefore, first take up the economic cooperation consequent on emancipation and then the efforts toward migration.

Section 7. Emancipation

        The first thing that vexed the Northern armies on Southern soil was the question of the disposition of the fugitive slaves. Butler confiscated them, Fremont freed them and Halleck caught and returned them, but their numbers swelled to such proportions that the mere economic problem of their presence overshadowed everything else, especially after the Emancipation proclamation. Lincoln was glad to have them come after once he realized their strength to the Confederacy. In 1864,

        The President's heart yearned for peace; his mind sought out every means of stopping the bloodshed. He referred to the really astonishing extent to which the colored people were informed in regard to the progress of the war, and remarked that he wished the "grapevine telegraph" could be utilized to call upon the Negroes of the interior peacefully to leave the plantations and seek protection of our armies. This as a wartime measure he considered legitimate. Apart from the numbers it would add to our military forces, he explained the effect such an exodus would have upon the industry of the South. The Confederate soldiers were sustained by provisions raised by Negro labor; withdraw that labor, and the young men in the Southern army would soon be obliged to go home to "raise hog and hominy," and thus promote the collapse of the Confederacy.*


        *Eaton, p. 173



        Meantime, as Howard writes, the economic problem of these massed freedmen was intricate:

        In North Carolina, Chaplain Horace James of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers became Superintendent of Negro Affairs for North Carolina, and other officers were detailed to assist him. These covered the territory

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gradually opened by the advance of our armies in both Virginia and North Carolina. Becoming a quartermaster with the rank of captain in 1864, he, for upward of two years, superintended the poor, both white and black, in that region. He grouped the refugees in small villages, and diligently attended to their industries and to their schools. Enlisted men were his first teachers; then followed the best of lady teachers from the North, and success crowned his efforts.

        In February, 1864, there were about two thousand freed people in the villages outside of the New Berne, North Carolina, intrenchments. . . . . . Lots were now assigned and about eight hundred houses erected, which at one time sheltered some three thousand escaped slaves.*


        *Howard: Vol. 2, 176-7.



        June 28,1862, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton, with headquarters at Beaufort, South Carolina, assumed the government and control of all places and persons in the Department of the South which were not embraced in the operations of General Quincy A. Gilmore, commanding the department. General Saxton, as military governor, appointed three division superintendents, each having charge of several of the Sea Islands. Market houses were established at Hilton Head and Beaufort for the sale of the produce from the plantations, and Negroes put to work, the larger settlement being Port Royal Island and near the town of Beaufort.

        Colored men in that vicinity were soon enlisted as soldiers and an effort was made to cause the laborers left on each plantation, under plantation superintendents appointed for the purpose, to raise sufficient cotton and corn for their own support, rations being given from the Commissionary Department only when necessary to prevent absolute starvation. These conditions were, with hardly an interruption, continued until the spring of 1865.

        Grant's army in the West occupied Grand Junction, Miss., by November, 1862. The usual irregular host of slaves then swarmed in from the surrounding country. They begged for protection against recapture, and they, of course, needed food, clothing and shelter. They could not now be re-enslaved through army aid, yet no provision had been made by anybody for their sustenance. A few were employed as teamsters, servants, cooks and pioneers, yet it seemed as though the vast majority must be left to freeze and starve; for when the storms came with the winter months the weather was of great severity.

        General Grant, with his usual gentleness toward the needy and his fertility in expedients, introduced at once, a plan of relief. He selected a fitting superintendent, John Eaton, chaplain of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Volunteers, who was soon promoted to the colonelcy of a colored regiment, and later for many years was a Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Education. He was then constituted Chief of the Negro Affairs for the entire district under Grant's jurisdiction. The plan which Grant conceived, the now superintendent ably carried out. They were all around Grand Junction, when our operations opened, large crops of cotton and corn ungathered. It was determined to harvest these, send them North for sale, and place the receipts to the credit of the Government. The army of fugitives, willingly going to work, produced a lively scene. The children lent a hand in gathering the cotton and corn. The superintendent, conferring with the general himself, fixed upon fair wages for this industry. Under similar renumeration woodcutters were set at work to supply with fuel numerous government steamers on the river. After inspection of accounts, the money was paid for the labor by the quartermaster,

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but never directly to the fugitives. The superintendent, controlling this money, saw to it first that the men, women and children should have sufficient clothing and food, then Colonel Eaton built for them rough cabins and provided for their sick and aged, managing to extend to them many unexpected comforts. General Grant in his memoirs, suggests this as the first idea of a "Freedmen's Bureau."

        Even before the close of 1862 many thousands of blacks of all ages, clad in rags, with no possessions except the nondescript bundles of all sizes which the adults carried on their backs, had come together at Norfolk, Hampton, Alexandria and Washington. Sickness, want of food and shelter, sometimes resulting crime, appealed to the sympathies of every feeling heart. Landless, homeless, helpless families in multitudes, including a proportion of wretched white people, were flocking northward from Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri. They were, it is true, for a time not only relieved by army rations, spasmodically issued, but were met most kindly by various volunteer societies of the North--societies which gathered their means from churches and individuals at home and abroad.

        During the spring of 1863 many different groups and crowds of freemen and refugees, regular and irregular, were located near the long and broken line of division between the armies of the North and South, ranging from Maryland to the Kansas border and along the coast from Norfolk, Va., to New Orleans, La. They were similar in character and condition to those already described. Their virtues, their vices, their poverty, their sicknesses, their labors, their idleness, their excess of joy and their extremes of suffering were told to our home people by every returning soldier or agent or by the missionaries who were soliciting the means of relief. Soon in the North an extraordinary zeal for humanity, quite universal, sprang up, and a Christian spirit which was never before exceeded began to prevail. The result was the organizing of numerous new bodies of associated workers whose influence kept our country free from the ills attending emancipation elsewhere; it saved us from Negro insurrection, anarchy and bloody massacre, with which the proslavery men and even the conservative readers of history had threatened the land.

        The secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, always anxious for successful emancipation, had had brought to his attention early in 1862 the accumulations of the best cotton on abandoned sea island plantations; there was the opportunity to raise more, and the many slaves in the vicinity practically set free and under governmental control could be worked to advantage. The cotton was to be collected by treasury agents and the freedmen benefited.

        During the summer of 1864 Wm. Pitt Fessenden, who had replaced Mr. Chase as secretary of the treasury, inaugurated a new plan for the freedmen and abandoned lands. He appointed and located supervising special agents of his department in different portions of the South which were now free from Confederate troops. These agents had charge of the freedmen. Each was to form here and there settlements on abandoned estates, each dominated a "Freedman's Home Colony," and situated in his own district, and he must appoint a supervisor for such colonies as he should establish. A number of such colonies were formed. The supervisor provided buildings, obtained work animals and implements of husbandry and other essential supplies; he kept a book of record which mentioned the former owner of the land, the name, age, residence and trade or occupation of each colonist; all births, deaths and marriages; the coming and going of each employee and other like data. These agents and supervisors were sometimes taken under military control by the local commander and sometimes operated independently.

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        Under this plan the freed people were classified for fixed wages varying from $10 to $25 per month, according to the class, and whether male or female. There was a complete and detailed system of employment. Food and clothing were guaranteed at cost, and all parties concerned were put under written contracts. For a time in some places this system worked fairly well. It was a stepping-stone to independence. The working people usually had in the supervisors and treasury agents friendly counselors; and when courts of any sort were established under them for hearing complaints of fraud or oppression, these officials reviewed the cases and their decisions were final. These were rather short steps in the path of progress! They were experiments.

        From the time of the opening of New Orleans in 1862 till 1865, different systems of caring for the escaped slaves and their families were tried in the Southwest. Generals Butler and Banks, each in his turn, sought to provide for the thousands of destitute freedmen in medicines, rations and clothing. Colonies were soon formed and sent to abandoned plantations. A sort of general poor farm was established and called "The Home Colony." Mr. Thomas W. Conway, when first put in charge of the whole region as " Superintendent of the Bureau of Free Labor," tried to impress upon all freedman who came under his charge in these home colonies that they must work as hard as if they were employed by contract on the plantation of a private citizen. His avowed object, and indeed that of every local superintendent, was to render the freedmen self-supporting. One bright freedman said: "I always kept master and me. Guess I can keep me."

        Two methods at first not much in advance of slavery were used: one was to force the laborers to toil; and the second, when wages were paid, to fix ,exact rates for them by orders. Each colony from the first had a superintendent physician, a clerk and an instructor in farming. The primary and Sunday schools were not wanting, and churches were encouraged.

        Early in 1863, General Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general of the army, was organizing colored troops along the Mississippi river. After consulting various treasury agents and department commanders, including General Grant, and having also the approval of Mr. Lincoln, he issued from Milliken's Bend, La., April 15th, a lengthy series of instructions covering the territory bordering the Mississippi and including all the inhabitants.

        He appointed three commissioners, Messrs. Field, Shickle and Livermore, to lease plantations and care for the employees. He adroitly encouraged private enterprise instead of government colonies; but he fixed the wages of able-bodied men over fifteen years of age at $7 per month, for able-bodied women $5 per month, for children twelve to fifteen years half price. He laid a tax for revenue of $2 per 400 pounds on cotton, and five cents per bushel on corn and potatoes.

        This plan naturally did not work well, for the lessees of plantations proved to be for the most part adventurers and speculators. Of course such men took advantage of the ignorant people. The commissioners themselves seem to have done more for the lessees than for the laborers; and, in fact, the wages were from the beginning so fixed as to benefit and enrich the employer. Two dollars per month was stopped against each of the employed, ostensibly for medical attendance, but to most plantations thus leased no physician or medicine ever came, and there were other attendant cruelties which avarice contrived.

        On fifteen plantations leased by the Negroes themselves in this region there was a notable success; and also a few instances among others where humanity and good sense reigned, the contracts were generally carried out. Here the

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Negroes were contented and grateful and were able to lay by small gains. This plantation arrangement along the Mississippi under the commissioners as well as the management of numerous infirmary camps passed, about the close of 1863, from the war to the treasury department. A new commission or agency with Mr. W. P. Mellen of the treasury at the head, established more careful and complete regulations than those of General Thomas. This time it was done decidedly in the interest of the laborers.

        Then came another change of jurisdiction. On March 11, 1865, General Stephen A. Hurlbut at New Orleans assumed the charge of freedmen and labor for the state of Louisana. He based his orders on the failure of the secretary of the treasury to recognize the regulations of that secretary's own general agent, Mr. Mellen. Mr. Thomas W. Conway was announced as "Superintendent of Home Colonies," the word having a larger extension than before. A registry of plantations, hire and compensation of labor, with a fair schedule of wages, penalties for idleness and crime, time and perquisites of labor, the poll tax of $2 per year, liens and security for work done, were carefully provided for by General Hurlbut's specific instructions.

        General Edward R. S. Canby, a little later, from Mobile, Ala., issued similar orders, and Mr. Conway was also placed over the freedmen's interests in his vicinity. Thus the whole freedmen's management for Alabama, Southern Mississippi and Louisiana was concentrated under Mr. Conway's control. He reported early in 1865 that there were about twenty colored regiments in Louisiana under pay and that they could purchase every inch of confiscated and abandoned lands in the bands of the government in that state. All the soldiers desired to have the land on the expiration of enlistment. One regiment had in hand $50,000 for the purpose of buying five of the largest plantations on the Mississippi. It was at the time thought by many persons interested in the future of the freedmen that the abandoned and confiscated lands if used for them would afford a wholesome solution to the Negro problem. . . . .

        A few days after the triumphal entrance, Secretary of War Stanton came in person from Washington to convey his grateful acknowledgement to General Sherman and his army for their late achievements. While at Savannah he examined into the condition of the liberated Negroes found in that city. He assembled twenty of those who were deemed their leaders. Among them were barbers, pilots and sailors, some ministers, and others who had been overseers on cotton and rice plantations. Mr. Stanton and General Sherman gave them a hearing. It would have been wise if our statesmen could have received, digested and acted upon the answers these men gave to their questions . . . . . .

        As a result of this investigation and after considerable meditation upon the perplexing problem as to what to do with the growing masses of unemployed Negroes and their families, and after a full consultation with Mr. Stanton, General Sherman issued his Sea Island Circular January 16,1865. In this paper the islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the se