The Tragedy of the Negro in America: A Condensed History of the Enslavement, Sufferings, Emancipation, Present Condition and Progress of the Negro Race in the United States of America:
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Stanford, P. Thomas (Peter Thomas)
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Source Description: (title page) The Tragedy of the Negro in America: A Condensed History of the Enslavement, Sufferings, Emancipation, Present Condition and Progress of the Negro Race in the United States of America (spine) The Tragedy of the Negro in America
Rev. P. Thos. Stanford., D.D., LL.D.
[8], xvi, 230 p., ill.
Boston, Mass.
Charles A. Wasto, Printer
1897
Call number E185 .S79 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998
Languages Used:
English
Latin
LC Subject Headings:
African Americans -- History.
Slavery -- United States -- History.
Slaves -- Emancipation -- United States.
Lynching -- United States.
African Americans -- Social conditions.
Blacks -- History.
Race relations -- 20th century.
Progress.
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Andrew Leiter
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THE TRAGEDY
OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA.
A
CONDENSED HISTORY OF THE ENSLAVEMENT, SUFFERINGS,
EMANCIPATION, PRESENT CONDITION AND PROGRESS
OF THE NEGRO RACE IN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
BY
REV. P. THOS. STANFORD., D.D., LL.D.,
PASTOR OF ZION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, HAVERHILL,
MASSACHUSETTS: LATE PASTOR OF THE WILBERFORCE
MEMORIAL CHURCH, BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.
BOSTON, MASS.
CHARLES A. WASTO, PRINTER,
142 West Lenox Street, 1897.
Page verso
COPYRIGHTED
By REV. P. THOS. STANFORD, D.D., LL.D.,
BOSTON,1897.
All rights reserved.
Page [4]
TO
MY MANY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-HELPERS,
AND TO
ALL HONEST MEN WHO SYMPATHIZE WITH MY
RACE
I DEDICATE THIS SHORT STORY OF
NEGRO LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES, IN THE
HOPE OF HELPING CREATE A STRONG, HEALTHY
PUBLIC OPINION THAT WILL
MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR OUTRAGES AND LYNCHINGS
TO BE MUCH LONGER CONTINUED.
Edwin G. Walker, Esq., Attorney-at-Law.
He was Elected to the Massachusetts Legislature
in 1863, and Nominated by General
Butler for the Position of Judge . . . . . 180
Home School, Berthold, North Dakota. Sustained
by American Missionary Association . . . . . 192
Plymouth Church: Rev. H. W. Beecher Selling
a Slave . . . . . 206
Mr. Booker T. Washington, A.M. Principal
of Tuskegee Normal School, Alabama . . . . . 210
Howard University, Washington, D. C. . . . . . 215
Grand Fountain Assurance Head Office, Richmond,
Virginia . . . . . 219
Open Air Kindergarten. Listening to the
Birds. Sustained by American Missionary
Association . . . . . 228
Page i
PREFACE.
This volume is intended to compress, within
the narrowest limits, an account of Negro life in
the United States of America. I have consulted
the most reliable histories, and made personal
inquiries with great care, and can conscientiously
present the story as trustworthy. No desire has
been felt about gratifying the spirit of any race, but
fairness to both white and black has been carefully
kept in sight; the oppressors of the Negro have
been looked at from every point of view in the hope
of finding some excuse for their cruelty.
In my work as a Christian teacher I have naturally
felt the deepest sympathy for the poor and
needy, and devoted my chief care to them. I was
born a slave, and lived for several years with the
poorest of the poor, and can never forget my own
poverty and sufferings; to help the down-trodden
is a desire which never leaves me.
When the Public Meeting, which was held at
the Wilberforce Memorial Church, Priestly Road,
Birmingham, England, on the 28th of May, 1894,
passed the following resolutions:--
"RESOLVED: That the Rev. Peter Stanford
(England's Coloured Preacher) be deputed, in the
Page ii
interests of the philanthropic and Christian public
of England, to visit the States for the purpose of
investigating these alleged outrages, and of there
pleading with the prominent white Christians to
induce them to exert their influence in preventing
further reprisals, and in insisting upon the enforcement
of law and order."
"RESOLVED: That this meeting, having implicit
confidence in the impartiality and good judgment
as a representative of his race, hereby desires to
assure the Rev. Peter Stanford of their entire sympathy
and support":--I felt there was nothing for
me to do but relinquish my pastoral work in
England, and as best I might proceed to discharge
the new duties thrust upon me.
Leaving my Birmingham Church was the greatest
trial of my life. Greater than the trials of my
youth, because then I knew not the meaning of
human sympathy and helpfulness; greater than
those of school and college days; it was my greatest
trial because the kindness and love of many
friends must be left behind, could not longer be
enjoyed in all the paths afforded by church fellowship,
neither requited with gratitude in bodily
presence. Until the day shall come that will witness
my departure from this world, I can not forget
the splendid generosity of my Birmingham Church
members, and their sympathy in every time of trial
will be enshrined in my heart.
Page iii
When I arrived at America, and proceeded to
make investigation into the condition of my race,
I was soon convinced that a pamphlet of ten or a
dozen pages would not afford space enough for a
satisfactory description of it to be made; indeed,
were I to arrange, and print all the material now
in my possession a book several times the size of
this one would have to be issued. The history of
the Negro in America cannot yet be written; but
when it shall be written it will be a terrible comment
on the character of many so-called Christians.
Pain, cruelty, and death will appear on almost
every page.
Having investigated as thoroughly as time, ability,
and means permitted, the various outrages
reported in the press, and finding myself with
material enough for a large book, after much consideration
and consultation with friends of my
race, I decided that a brief story of Negro life in
the States would best answer my purpose. I saw
that the outrages of to-day are merely repetitions
of previous outrages, the bad, poisonous fruit of
seed sown in the distant and near past, and was
convinced that the Negro's cause would be best
helped forward by a condensed statement of slave
history from the beginning. If I have successfully
compassed my intention, the reader will be able in
some measure to understand, at small expenditure
Page iv
of money and time, the indescribable horrors of
slavery, and see the fearful darkness in which my
people lived for centuries, and in which millions of
them now live.
To tell the story as effectually as possible, observations
are made on Africa, and why and how the
Negro was brought thence is explained; a few
remarks are made respecting American geography
and the founding of the States; John Brown, the
puritan descendant who attempted to free the
slaves, is described; what befell the Negro from
1619 to this present day is told in the briefest manner;
Lynchings, which are so diabolically done
until now, are set forth in the mildest possible
language; some friends of the race are named with
gratitude; the different conditions of the Negro of
the North and his brother of the South are made
as clear as the writers ability permits; and some
suggestions are made for the consideration of all
Christian people in respect of the future.
The attention of the reader is directed to the
labour of the American Missionary Association
among the coloured people of the South, of which
it is impossible to speak with too much praise, and
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama,
Wilberforce University, Ohio, Guadalupe
College, Texas, Hampton Normal and Industrial
Institute, Virginia, Howard University, Washington,
Page v
D. C., and Livingstone College, North Carolina,
are mentioned gratefully, and brief descriptions
of the educational work they do are given. These
Christian and Educational Institutions will help
the Negro to attain a complete victory over all his
opponents.
Sending this "TRAGEDY OF THE NEGRO IN
AMERICA"--to me it is a tragedy--to the public,
I can not withold gratitude from any of the friends
who have helped me, but do thank one and all most
sincerely for the asssistance they have so willingly
rendered. Their reward must be my deepest thankfulness
and, as I hope, an improved and healthier
public opinion on the Negro question.
Praying and hoping for God's blessing on this
poor effort to expose a perpetuated wrong and help
bring nearer the day of universal brotherhood, and
that He may send labourers, more and more, into
the "black malarial slough," and make them competent
to convey His love and enlightening spirit to
the millions of my race there living, I send it forth
in humility to do whatever of good is possible.
P. T. S.
Page vii
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
That the public may know who the writer is, and
that this book may go forth with every mark of
honesty and sincerity upon it, and, above all, that
sympathy may be enlarged in the hearts of all
Christians for the Negro of the "Black South,"
the author deems it his duty to put aside delicacy
of feeling and give the following particulars
of his life. Fortunately he is under no necessity of
writing of himself; he is spared that undesirable
task by several newspapers and journals, quotations
from whose articles, published at different times,
will be found below.
The Christian Educator, edited by J. W. Hamilton,
D.D., and M. C. B. Mason, D.D., the Official
Magazine of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the
South, in its issue of October and November, 1896,
says:--"In Birmingham, England, there is a
congregation which is white that had a black preacher
for several years. This distinguished preacher is
the Rev. Peter Thomas Stanford, D.D., who was
born a slave. His parents lived at Hampton, Virginia.
His father was sold before he was born, and
his mother was taken away from him when he was
only four years old. While yet a child he attracted
the attention of General Armstrong, and was received
Page viii
into his Home for Black Orphan Children.
From the Home he was taken to Boston, where he
was received into the family of Mr. Perry L. Stan-
ford, whose name he adopted. Here he remained
until he was twelve years of age, when, for some
trivial matter, he ran away from Mr. Stanford, and
became a wanderer among the street arabs in New
York City. When Messrs. Moody and Sankey
began their tabernacle meetings in that city, he was
attracted through curiosity to attend them, and was
led to become a Christian. Through the kindness
of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Rev. Henry
Highland Garnett, and the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, he was educated at Suffield Institute, in
Suffield, Connecticut. While attending the school
he began to preach; was ordained pastor of the Mt.
Zion Baptist Church, Hartford, on the twenty-sixth
day of September, 1878. In 1880 he went to Canada,
and was there employed by the African Baptist
Association. He became pastor of the Horton Street
Baptist Church in London, Ontario, and later on was
editor of The Christian Defender. He went from
Canada to England. He was kindly received by
the English people, and greatly encouraged to prosecute
his work as a Christian minister. August 13,
1888, he married Miss Beatrice Mabel Stickley, an
English lady, who was a cultivated Christian
woman. He went to Birmingham, where he be-
came pastor of the Wilberforce Memorial Church.
The congregation was composed largely of the laboring
people, who were greatly attached to their
preacher. Here he continued for eight years, doing
heroic work. He was popular, and treated with
Page ix
great consideration by men of position and influence.
During the agitation over the lynching of Negroes
in this country, eminent citizens came together and
organized a committee to protest against the barbarous
treatment of black criminals in the United
States. Mr. Stanford did effective service in the
public meetings which were held, and the interest
which was awakened led to his return to America,
where he has since remained. He accepted work
at first under the direction of the Massachusetts
Home Missionary Society. He is an earnest and
interesting public speaker. He delivered one of
the addresses at the recent International Christian
Endeavor Convention, held in Washington, D. C."
The following was sent by the members of the
Wilberforce Memorial Church and Congregation:--
"To the Editor of the Freeman:--On Monday and
Tuesday, September 30th and October 1st, 1894, the
farewell services of the Rev. Peter Stanford, who is
soon to leave England as her representative upon
the lynch-law question, were held at the Wilberforce
Memorial Church, Priestly Road. On Monday a
crowded and enthusiastic public meeting was held,
over which the Rev. W. A. H. Babidge presided.
During his address he said: "For a testimony to
Rev. Peter Stanford's worth and work in the city of
Birmingham, we need only refer to the large congregation
which assembled at his farewell services, and
in the name of the Bible Xian Conference and my
colleagues, I wish Mr. Stanford god-speed and great
success in his undertaking on behalf of his brethren
in America.' Mr. J. Hallett, the assistant minister,
offered prayer, and then a scene of the most pleasing
Page x
character took place. A. D. Chin, Secretary of the
church much of the time during Mr. Stanford's
ministry in Birmingham, stepped forward and
informed him that he had been intrusted with a number
of useful gifts to present him on that occasion.
An illuminated address containing a photo of the
chapel and public buildings of the city, costing $30;
a farewell address; a number of volumes rebound;
a fountain pen; a traveling reading lamp; a traveling
dressing case, and a jug with Revs. John Wesley
and Peter Stanford's pictures engraved thereon; a
gold ring with Masons' emblems. Letters of
encouragement were received from the following: Sir
James Sawyer, Knight; Revs. W. Wallace, George
Campbell Morgan, Charles Joseph, N. M.
Hennesey, T. Travers Sherlock, B. A., Richard Cadbury,
Esq., and J. P. Mosely. Addresses were
given by H. E. Carl, Chairman of the Lynch Law
Repression League, Thos. Wright, Esq., of the
Peace Society, and J. Milton Chasterton, Esq. On
Tuesday and Friday evenings, special credentials
were presented to Mr. Stanford from the Ancient
Order of Foresters and the Grand United Order
of Good Templars, and before the Reverend gentleman
sails he will receive the special commission
from the Ancient Order of Buffaloes and
Freemasons, of which he is an active member. The
meeting was altogether of a very satisfactory character,
and was a happy punctuation to this part of
Mr. Stanford's life in Birmingham, and will be an
inspiration to him in the new piece of work which
he has undertaken."
Page xi
Page xii
The Boston Courant, March 13, 1897, says:--
"The Rev. Stanford arrived in this city June 1st,
1895, not quite two years ago, and when we
consider the amount of work accomplished by him in
so short a time we are amazed. In August, 1895, at
the urgent request of the leading colored citizens
of Boston, the Doctor founded the first and only
congregational church in the city of Boston.
The churches invited were all the Congregational
Churches in Boston, the Harvard Congregational
Church, Brookline, and Rev. Joshua Coit, Rev, H.
A. Bridgman, Rev. C. H. Daniels, D, D., Rev. A.
E. Dunning, D. D., Rev. Geo. H. Gutterson, Rev.
E. B. Palmer, Rev. H. A. Quint, D. D., Rev. D. W.
Waldron. In September, 1895, the Doctor, finding
his new church well organized, lent himself to other
important interests of the race. He and the Rev.
W. H. Scott united their efforts in the formation of
the Interdenominational Ministerial Association,
and the Doctor served for six months as its secretary.
He has written letters to the British press
on Negro questions, also many able articles to our
daily papers in Boston. In November, 1896, the
Doctor was called upon to preach a sermon to the
ministers of the Suffolk South Association of
Congregational white ministers on the subject, 'What
the influence of the ministry should be in literature,'
and in commenting upon it some of the ablest
of them said the Doctor's sermon was an able
production. The trustees of one of our leading colleges
are seeking to further honor their great and
influential institution of learning by conferring upon
the Doctor the degree of L.L.D., and we hasten to
Page xiii
urge his acceptance, and will be the first to acknowledge
that he is the Rev. P. Thos. Stanford, D.D.,
L.L.D., America's "Negro Beecher" and England's
colored minister, and author of "From Bondage to
Liberty," and "The Tragedy of The Negro in
America."
Zion Congregational Church,
Haverhill, Mass.,May 5th, 1897.
REV. P. THOS. STANFORD, D.D., L.L.D.,
Rev. and Dear Sir:--Some twelve months ago a
few of us met together to talk over matters pertaining
to the welfare of our people and to see what we
as colored citizens in Haverhill could do to assist
in bettering the condition of the race.
We were not long in arriving at the conclusion
that much could be done. Haverhill has a population
of fifty thousand, of which seven hundred are
colored, and this number is being augmented every
year.
Having been organized into a regular Church of
the Congregational faith, we have set ourselves the
task of helping to build up our people, intellectually,
morally and spiritually.
We want a house of worship, also a suitable
building in which to provide for and train some of
the orphan and neglected negro children, who are
to be found in the rural districts of the Southern
States, for whom no provision has as yet been made.
We have been praying earnestly and the burden of
our prayers has been that God would send us a
leader.
Page xiv
Knowing your world-wide reputation as a minister
of the Gospel and as an ardent defender of our race,
we feel that there is no one better able to direct our
efforts in this important work.
We therefore unite in extending to you this unanimous
call and hereby agree, should you decide to
accept, that you have all the time you may require
for your projected trip to England, and pray that
the Great Head of the Church may send you to us.
Anxiously awaiting your reply,
We are faithfully yours,
Signed in behalf of the Church at the regular
meeting, Friday Evening, April 23, '97,
ISAAC ROBERTS,
Church Clerk.
Boston,
May 10th, 1897.
TO THE OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ZION
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, HAVERHILL, MASS.,
Brethren:--After much thought, prayer and
consultation with friends, I have decided to accept your
call to the partorate; but must make my position
very clear to you. The work I have in hand respecting
the whole Negro race in America, and the
expectation of my many friends in England of hearing
from me on the lynching question, will require and
must receive much of my attention in the next twelve
months. Therefore, you will be prepared to accept
such time and service as I will be able to give
previous to my visit to Great Britain, also permit me,
as you say in your call, to leave for that country in
September or thereabouts, and return some time in
the summer of 1898. Subject to these conditions and
Page xv
agreements, I accept. I hope that our union will
be for the good of our people in Haverhill, and I
pray God to grant us His blessing.
Yours in Christian sympathy,
P. THOS. STANFORD.
At a meeting of the Garrison Memorial Church,
held on the twenty-ninth of March, 1897, the following
business was transacted, and reported in the
Boston Journal on the thirtieth:--"The meeting
was called to order at 8 P. M. Mr. Charles Prevoa
presided. Doctor Stanford presented his resignation,
in person, which was accepted. Mr. W. H.
B. Johnson, J. P. presented a set of resolutions,
which embodied the acceptance of the resignation
and expressed the regard of the membership of
the society for the retiring pastor. Mr. Johnson
informed the meeting that Doctor Stanford received
information yesterday that the degree of L. L. D.
had been conferred upon him by Guadalupe College,
Seguin, Texas, and the society passed a vote
of thanks to the college for its action. Doctor
Stanford informed the Journal representative that
he would return to England in September, for a stay
there of six months or so."
Stanford's Coloured Orphanage and Home for
Friendless Girls, Haverhill, Mass., near Boston.
President, Rev. P. Thos. Stanford, D.D., LL.D.,
Pastor of Zion Congregational Church, Haverhill.
Page xvi
Gifts of money, clothing, type-writers, sewing-machines,
books, or any other useful thing, may be
sent to Doctor Stanford or Mrs. Stanford, Haverhill,
near Boston, Mass, and to every donor a receipt
will be sent by Secretary and Treasurer.
The aim of the Institution, which will soon be
incorporated, is to provide for Orphan and Neglected
children of the rural districts of the South, and to
give them normal and industrial training; also to
provide a temporary home for coloured girls who
come to Boston and vicinity. "Feed the hungry."
"Clothe the naked." "The poor ye have always
with you."
(P. O. BOX, 2374.)
REV. EDWIN B. PALMER, TREASURER.
Boston, April 7, 1897.
To whom it may concern: -
Rev. P. Thomas Stanford, D. D., has served the
Garrison Memorial Church, a Home Missionary
Church, in Boston for more than a year. He has
been faithful and diligent, and has made great personal
sacrifice to establish the Church. He and
his wife Mrs. B. Stanford have both given themselves
freely to the work. I gladly commend him
to any people, where in the providence of God his
lot may be cast, as a man of irreproachable character,
an able preacher and a faithful pastor.
JOSHUA COIT,
Secretary,
Mass. Home Missionary Society.
Page 3
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."
Loss of life by unauthorized violence,
and the resulting unhappiness to others, is called a tragedy;
and, every tragedy of real life has stimulated the
best and the worst passions of mankind to vigorous
interest and exertion. All tragedies, however,
have not been caused by unauthorized violence;
the pages of history are black with records of the
foulest crimes, of violations of human rights and
the divine law, by violence authorized and made
legal by men in whom power was vested.
The history of the Martyrs of England, France
and Spain is a tragedy which began in the distant
past, whose pains and horrors, which were the
direct result of misuse of power by cruel kings and
bigoted statesmen, were realized by men and women
of many generations; and, in this day of civilization
and advanced knowledge of christianity, the world
is looking with weary eyes and sickened heart upon
a tragedy in Armenia, commanded and made legal
by the Sultan of Turkey, in which little children
Page 4
are mutilated, helpless women are outraged, and
unarmed toiling men are horribly done to death.
This is an authorized, not an unauthorized, tragedy,
which the whole world knows, but has not yet been
outraged enough to stop it; more cruelties must be
done and more human blood must flow before the
Christian powers will be sufficiently stimulated to
dethrone the murderer and restore peace and order
to the fairest garden of the east. "Come and see
the works of God:" said one of old, "His eyes
behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt
themselves." "To me belongeth vengeance, and
recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for
the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things
that shall come upon them make haste." Man
knows not as God knows; sees not as He sees. It
is written, however, so that he who runs may read,
that all tyrants shall fall; all cruelties will be
avenged; all powers which brutalize mankind must
be either saved by fire or destroyed; the righteousness
of God is ordained to prevail in the world; and,
the brotherhood of man shall be fully established.
In America,--which is known as the land of the
free, whose people are rightly proud of a history
that speaks of a noble, victorious struggle against
tyranny; of the wisdom, foresight, and piety of the
founders of the States; of the marvellous energy
which transformed vast plains and forests into fields
Page 5
of wealth creating grain and fruit, built cities,
established manufactures, and made a large sphere
of art and science;--a long and revolting tragedy
has been in progress, in which the Negro has sufferred
indescribable misery and been afflicted with
diabolical torture. This also was a tragedy authorized
by the powers that were, was recognized and
defined by law, and endorsed and supported by not
a few churches and religious teachers, in which the
Negro was bound with chains, whipped with the
lash, treated as a beast, sold in the common market
as a thing, and, when he was no longer worth
money, hurried to death and buried anyhow.
This authorized tragedy came to an end; by fire,
the fire of the vengeance of righteousness, it was
destroyed. In the great conflagration of the War of
Emancipation, which would not have happened had
the United States of America been willing to know
God's will without pain and blood-shed, no preserving
angel walked to keep those from harm and
death who were engaged therein; the nation had
sinned, and could not be relieved from sin's penalty.
The nation paid the penalty in money and in blood,
and thereby saved herself from the fate of Babylon,
Assyria, and Rome. Nations that forget God and
forsake righteousness cannot abide; they have been,
and will be, overthrown. Power cannot forever
stay in the hand of the tyrant; prosperity forsakes
Page 6
the land of blood; ignorance and every debasing
habit are the heritage of nations that do wickedly;
decay and destruction wait for the people who
oppress the poor. This authorized tragedy of the
States, whose sufferer was the poor Negro, was
always abhorred by pious men and righteous citizens,
and eventually aroused the natural good
feeling of the multitude, who together swept it
away and prevented the country from sliding into
immeasurable disgrace and calamity.
The authorized tragedy of the Negro in America,
then, ended in a pouring out of blood and of treasure,
and in a vast war tax which continues until
now; but did not in its death struggle engulf all
the meanness of iniquity. They who fought against
emancipation, and many who fought for emancipation,
when the war was over and the Negro set free,
were unwilling, and remain unwilling, to recognize
in him a brother. He was free; let him care for
himself, and see what he could make of his freedom.
Free, it is true, but untaught, homeless, moneyless,
a stranger in a land whose people loved him not.
Free; yes, free; to look on the fields he had made
smile with harvests, but not to call one grain of the
wheat his own; to gaze with what intelligence was
in him on all the wealth he had created, but not to
find one copper of it in his own pocket; to behold
luxury and affluence all around him, but not to
Page 7
have a home for himself, in which to find shelter,
peace, and love. History tells of men being cast
on uninhabited islands, in which naught but trees
and wild fruit grew; in which birds lived and
reared their young, and wild beasts prowled and
fought each other; which was an unfortunate
experience. But they were free to fell the trees
and make houses of wood for themselves, and to
pluck the wild fruit and catch the fish of the streams
for food, and to use the implements of defence they
possessed in their struggle with the beasts; and
more than once have men filled desolate parts of
the earth with human life, prosperity, peace, and
happiness by merely putting forth unhindered effort.
How much worse was the position of the emancipated
Negro than that of ship-wrecked men cast
on uninhabited, fruitful islands!
The authorized Negro tragedy in the United
States of America did indeed come to an end, but
the unauthorized tragedy began with the declaration
of emancipation; and, had there been no righteousness
therein, no hearts of flesh, no men whose souls
had received the light of God and the compassion
which is tender and eternal, the poor coloured man
must have wished, had he known of such a thing,
that he might be free as the ship-wrecked mariner
to pluck and eat wild fruit in a lonely land, and
make for himself a home out of wood which no man
Page 8
claimed. Land there was around him in the States,
stretching away in every direction, thousands of
miles of it, but none of it his; he must ask permission
of the owners to live on it, which fact kept
him in their power, and enabled the unworthy to
continue the tragedy in an unauthorized form,
which continues until now. Will it forever continue?
Let men who deny the Negro equal opportunity,
who say equal civic rights are enough for
him, who hinder and obstruct his development and
progress in every imaginable manner, who cast him
out of the sphere of white men and lynch him to
death on the smallest Provocation, remember the
saying:--"He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth
his Maker." It may be that a few bold, bad men
live, in whom neither faith nor love dwells, who
dare even reproach God, who will do so until the
grave swallow them up, and persecute not Negroes
only, but whom they can of any colour; but it can
not be that the enlightened United States will forever
tolerate this unauthorized tragedy of the Negro,
this unlawful lynching which occurs in so many
places. Yet a little while, and, surely, the righteous
people of the States will once more make an effort,
an effort of peace, in the name of "Our Father who
art in heaven," to make it impossible in their
country for child of His to suffer hardship because
of colour, and bring to an end the reproach of caste
which rests now on black and white equally.
Page 9
It is the purpose of this little book, which pretends
only to be a report of inquiries made, to
present in brief form the history of the Negro from
the time of his importation into America as an
article of commerce down to this day. The writer
aims not at sensation, but desires first to see for
himself the facts in their true light, and, having
seen, give to his readers an unexaggerated statement
thereof. No cause is assisted by falsehood;
no race of men can be permanently helped forward
by fraud. The scriptures are as full of warnings
against misrepresentation, as against oppression,
and all human history affords for all who are willing
to see the clearest demonstrations of how falsehood
developes destruction. Not by falsehood,
then, does this book seek to promote the Negro's
cause, but by a simple and brief story of his life in
America. It may be that white men and black men
will never be as one people, perhaps cannot be;
but none who have accepted the teachings of the
Christ can refuse to accord equal opportunity to
the sons of Africa.
Page 13
CHAPTER II.
AFRICA: AND HOW THE NEGRO WAS BROUGHT
THENCE, AND WHY.
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE'S HOUSE, IN WHICH SHE WROTE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."
Africa, an immense peninsula of the Old World,
the third in size of the great divisions of the globe,
is a land of ignorance and darkness, and the home
of the Negro. "Its greatest length is about 5,000
miles; its greatest breadth is about 4,600 miles; its
superficial area comprises nearly 12,000,000 square
miles; its population is estimated at 200,000,000."
Fifty years ago this vast peninsula was a land of
mystery, of which we had the most meagre maps,
and of whose people we knew next to nothing.
The Phoenicians, who lived in cities on the coast
of Syria, one of which was ancient Tyre, were
devoted to the pursuit of the sea, and established
colonies on the north coast of Africa, and created
extensive commerce. It is said of them that they
were the first people to circumnavigate Africa, and
that Necho, who ascended the throne of Egypt in
the year 617, B.C. was the navigator. The Carthaginians,
who established a mighty empire, and
Page 14
absorbed all the Phoenician settlements of the West,
followed in the steps of the Phoenicians, and sent
their navy along the Atlantic Shores of Africa,
which returned in the year 570, B. C., having settled
several colonies on the coast. Herodotus, who was
born in the year 484, B.C., was the first Greek who
travelled in quest of distant lands and the founder
of Grecian geography. He explored Egypt as far
as the Cataracts of the Nile, and made excursions
into Lybia and Arabia, and subsequently wrote
accurate descriptions of the countries he visited.
After Herodotus, little seems to have been written
of Africa until Ptolemy,--who was born in Egypt
and lived in the second century of the Christian
Era,--wrote his "Universal Geography, illustrated
with maps, which was not superseded as the text
book of science till the fifteenth century." After
Ptolemy, nobody wrote much of Africa, and little is
known of that strange land, other than that provided
by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Herodotus,
and Ptolemy, until modern maritime discovery
began in the fifteenth century, after which information
was afforded that astonished the world. Since
then adventurers, explorers, and missionaries have
been busy in the great work of discovering the
world, and of bringing to those in darkness the
light of the truth of God. Adventurers went forth
in ships, which were paid for in their own money,
Page 15
to gain wealth; explorers, to make discovery in the
name of king and country for the benefit of both;
missionaries, to declare the knowledge and love of
the Most High. Adventurers left behind them the
bitterness of cruelty and the devastation of greed;
explorers made it easier for mankind to understand
the greatness of the earth; missionaries advanced,
and yet advance, the eternal good of the human
race by displaying before untaught men the gentleness
and sympathy of the Christ. The age of the
adventurer in its ancient form is ended, passed and
gone forever, and can never return in its old, bad
sense of theft and murder; but the humane explorer
and the Christian missionary possess both present
and future, in which they may together pursue their
beneficent work.
The Portuguese, who explored the West coast of
Africa in the fifteenth century, and the Spaniards,
who gained possession of South America, were the
first Christian powers that paid attention to Africa,
and did indeed erect the figure of the Cross there,
and upon every new land they discovered; but by
their foul and brutal practices caused the holy
symbol to remind the native tribes of rapine and
murder. They respected no right of property in the
land, in the produce of the country, not even in the
flesh and blood of the natives; but treated all and
sundry with indignity and plunder. They have
Page 16
long since received the recoiling punishment of
wrong doing, and are to-day among the weakest
and poorest nations of the world.
Africa, whose peoples, it must be said, have inflicted
fearful cruelties upon one another, has not
escaped the ravages of the adventurer; but when
her true history shall be written, the names of
Mungo Park, Dr. Barth, Dr. Livingstone, Dr.
Moffat, Mr. Stanley, and a host of others will stand
out in letters of gold for all time, and the African of
the future, who will certainly be educated and one
day stand erect among men, claiming and receiving
perfect equality, will in them recognize under the
providence of God, the saviours of his race. Then,
in his native land of luxuriant vegetation, fruitful
fields, noble rivers, vast forests, and immense deposits
of mineral wealth, and wherever else he may
chance to live or be, white men will respect him,
and none will dare speak of slavery, shackles or
death.
Man is one the whole world over, and consists of
a single species. He is distinguished from the
animals beneath him by conscience, reason, and
speech, and is so marvellously endowed that he can
adapt himself to every known climate. His intelligence
has taught him how to protect himself from
the cold of the North, and to endure the heat of the
South. He may be found in every climate, from
Page 17
the hottest to the coldest. In vast forests, in regions
of fertility, in wastes of sterility, in valleys and in
mountains he finds a home, and makes the earth
provide him food and shelter. But man is not the
same in stature, intelligence, and colour in every
place; diversity obtains most prominently; but
colour is the most noticeable feature of difference.
His skin is black, yellow, olive, tawny, white, but
he is man, qualified for the highest effort of mind
and the holiest act of worship. Whether black or white,
educated or uneducated, he is the same creature in
his feelings, and has ideas of a state after death, of
a supreme power, of guilt, of pardon, which vary
according to his state of enlightenment. The saying
that God "hath made of one blood all nations
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" has
been abundantly established as a truism all over
the world, particularly by the rising of several
savage tribes to the average level of educated
nations. The ancestry of mankind is one ancestry,
and man everywhere is the child of a divine father,
and is destined for all eternal life, and nations ought
to cultivate sentiments of peace and good-will. It
is the duty of the learned to teach the unlearned;
the strong to help the weak; and, they who have
knowledge of God and are conscious of His sustaining
grace and love are under the heaviest
obligation to rescue from wretchedness, guilt, and
Page 18
impurity those who are ignorant and depraved, that
the identity of man be perfect.
If this be true; if men ought to respect and help
each other, and recognize before God their common
origin and the obligation resting upon each to promote
the good of all;--of which in this day there
can be no doubt--the question, how the Negro was
brought from Africa to America, and why, becomes
very interesting, particularly so in view of the conditions
of his past and present state therein. In the
answer we shall see how strangely events of life
intertwine with each other.
In the year 1485, just seven years before Columbus
was permitted by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain
to sail westward in search of unknown lands, who
discovered Watling Island, one of the Bahamas,
and one of the great islands of Cuba and St.
Domingo, Alfonso de Aviso discovered Benin,
Africa, which then comprised Benin, Dahomey,
and Yoruba, three Negro kingdoms, and subsequently
Fernando Po of Portugal established a
Portuguese Colony and the Church of Rome at
Gaton, Benin. The Brothers of Jesus laboured in
their usual manner to convert the natives to Christianity,
to Christianity as they understood it; but
met with small success. Knowing not the "perseverance
of the gospel," and not being qualified to
labour in patience and love they adopted a quicker
Page 19
method of conversion than that of the Master.
They turned their attention to the king, who cared
little for their new religion, but much for the satisfying
of his personal desires. This untaught son
of the Dark Continent made a proposition, viz.,
that he would turn Christian, and compel his subjects
also to turn, if the Brothers of Jesus would
find him a white wife. He asked for a white wife
to be provided as he would for any article of manufacture
that was new to him, and probably was not
conscious of any existing difference between a piece
of cloth and a wife; but the same cannot be said of
the Brothers of Jesus. However, knowing or not
knowing that marriage is a sacred covenant, they
agreed to the king's proposal, and forthwith proceeded
to keep their part of the agreement. They
went to the Sisters of St. Thomas, an order of women
devoted to charity and holy work, and, wonderful
to relate, one of the Sisters consented to accept the
king as husband. What prompted her to agree to
this extraordinary compact? Human love was out
of the question, because she had never seen him,
and it is difficult to imagine that any lower desire
moved her. Let it be written down to the eternal
credit of this nameless Sister of Mercy that she
placed her all on the altar of sacrifice in the name of
the Son of Man. Nothing more is heard of her; but
her noble effort,--noble from her point of view--
Page 20
though probably successful for a time, failed of a
permanent settlement of Christianity in the king's
country. Why ? The Portuguese established the
slave trade in Gaton, which is answer enough.
Men cannot preach the Kingdom of God, establish
colonies in peace, prosperity and social order, and
at the same time buy and sell, or steal and sell,
flesh and blood. "Ye can not serve God and
Mammon." It is impossible to educate and civilize
the human race by any such self-destructive
method; piety and holiness can not be preached by
men who traffic in human life.
The influence of this diabolical conduct of the
Portuguese was almost instantaneous on the natives,
who, taught by the evil example of the Europeans,
themselves became man stealers and followers of
the slave trade. Then the poor, ignorant people,
who had previously tilled the land and pursued the
calling of fishermen, gave themselves to the work
of hell, and carried all who were weaker than they
to the coast, and for the merest trifles, for worthless
trinkets, sold them into slavery. This was the
white man's work in Benin. Instead of inspiring
honesty, truthfulness and gentleness, he stirred up
a huge sea of treachery, duplicity and cruelty, and
made himself rich for a time by the proceeds of
miseries immeasurable which were heaped on the
helpless, the aged, and all who were unable to protect
Page 21
themselves. He can find no excuse for his base
conduct in the cruelty of the King of Dahomey, the
adjoining kingdom, whose court was paved with
human skulls, and whose palace,--the place he
called his palace--walls were decorated in like manner.
There it stands, and will abide, a deep black
mark of infamy against the white man, who went
to Africa to establish colonies and preach heaven,
yet managed to create pandemonium on earth.
This fiendish work was begun by white men on
the coast of Africa between the years 1485 and 1490,
and in 1492 Columbus set forth to find lands in the
West. Following Columbus, but unlike Columbus,
were thousands of Spaniards, and legendary
stories of the measureless wealth of the West were
soon told far and wide. Spain was then preeminent
among the nations of the world, and pointed
with pride to continents discovered by her mariners.
But Spain was unfitted to be the missionary of
heaven; she was drunk with the lust of gold, knew
not liberty, gloried in her cruel inquisition, and has
long since found her reward. Other nations entered
into the work of discovery, and wrested from her
the supremacy. On the fifth of March, 1496, John
Cabot was commissioned by Henry VII. of England
"to sail into eastern, western, or northern seas with
a fleet of five ships, to search for islands, provinces
and regions hitherto unseen by Christian people,
Page 22
and to set up the banners of England on city,
island, country or continent, and, as vassal of the
English Crown, to possess and occupy the territories
which might be found." On the twenty-fourth of
June, 1497, fourteen months after Columbus on his
third voyage came in sight of the main land, John
Cabot discovered the Western Continent, and,
"having sailed three hundred leagues along the
coast, planted on the land the flag of England."
Then followed in due time Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir
Richard Grenville, Cavendish, the great navigator,
and ultimately the Pilgrim Fathers, and English
colonies were established in Virginia and in Massachusetts.
In 1664 the English defeated the Dutch
at New York, and became the masters of North
America.
In that wonderful fifteenth Century, then, we
find the Portuguese in Africa, the Spaniard in
South America, the Dutch in New York, the English
in Virginia, and subsequently in Massachusetts.
White winged ships crossed and re-crossed
every sea, carrying cargoes of commerce to favourable
ports. Why not carry cargoes of Negroes?
Were there not enough and to spare of them in
Africa? Had not the Portuguese stolen and sold
them in 1485 ? It was a profitable idea; not to be
forgotten. They were black men, therefore inferior,
fit only to obey the white man, who needed them to
Page 23
do the work of the New World. The Dutch of
New York would buy some Negroes, or steal them;
would sell them and make money; and, in 1619, a
Dutch Man of War brought the first slaves, fourteen
in number, to Virginia. There the captain of the
ship gave them in exchange for provisions to
Captain Miles Kendall, deputy-governor of the
colony. Why not? In those days few men so
much as thought of the great sin which was being
committed, and were utterly incapable of foreseeing
the fearful heritage of sorrow that would accrue to
succeeding generations. This is how the Negro
was brought from Africa. First by the Dutch, in a
Man of War, and the why may be seen in the money
value of so much free labour, which was made to
produce harvests at the low cost af feeding.
To look back on those fearless Englishmen, who
fought like heroes in defence of their own homes
and country, and laboured continuously that wife
and child might be fed and clothed, and supplied
with every comfort the earth could produce, and see
them doing the devil's work so shamelessly, is to
look upon a scene which causes infinite regret,
which more than suggests the thought that England's
priests had grossly neglected to guide rightly
her valiant men. The Dutch, too, were brave and
religious, thrifty and careful of each other, yet
could barter in flesh and blood, which proves how
Page 24
strangely and awfully both good and evil are mixed
in man. Love of money, a real, frightful source of
wrong in all times, blinded the eyes of these brave
men, and prevented them seeing rightly; and, having
no prophet to warn and guide them, they fell
into the blackest sin. For money and ease of life
they gave play to the worst passions of human
nature, and dared heaven, perhaps unconsciously,
to curse them, which curse came then and there,
though they knew it not, and burst in tornadoes of
of fire, shot and death on succeeding generations.
We see, then, how and why the Negro was brought
from Africa to America, and it is known that this
mad trafficing in blood, which stained the banners
of England and America, finally cost both countries
millions of treasure and thousands of lives to erase
the blot. It is a tragedy indeed, this of the Negro
in America, which we are watching, on which also
a silent, offended God looks; but a tragedy whose
end is not death to all concerned; a tragedy whose
clearest fact is fire, the fire of cleansing and deliverance.
It is strange that men will so depart from
virtue and plunge so deeply into sin, when they
know that catastrophe must follow. Meanwhile,
we leave white and black men face to face, one the
owner and oppressor, the other the owned and
oppressed, and will see in following chapters how
the mighty battle was fought and won between
right and wrong.
Page 27
CHAPTER III.
AMERICA: AND WHAT BEFELL THE NEGRO THEREIN
FROM A. D. 1619 TO A. D. 1712.
MRS. HARRIET TUBMAN, SHE ACTED AS A SPY FOR THE UNION ARMY.
The geography and history of the United States
need not more than a passing glance; the Negro
and what has befallen him therein being the subject
of this little book. It is enough to say that
the territory of the States stretches for thousands
of miles in every direction, that the population
exceeds the huge figure of 70,000,000, and that for
great rivers, coal fields, gold mines, silver mines
and agriculture it is not surpassed by any other
part of the globe. The growth of its population is
one of the world's wonders; a kind of miracle
wrought by steam boat and railroad train. In the
year 1800 it amounted to about 6,000,000, that is, it
was not more than the population of London to-day;
had increased to 39,000,000 at the census of 1870,
and,--an extraordinary fact--as stated above, to
70,000,000 at this present time. The natural leaders
of this great population, which is composed of men
from almost every nation under the sun, have resting
Page 28
upon them a responsibility that will not be
easily borne, a responsibility which calls for the
highest qualities of mind, extensive knowledge of
human nature, and faith in the providence of God.
Compared with the older nations of Europe and
Asia, the States are yet in their infancy; but have
in the short period of one hundred years become
infinitely more important than most of them in
respect of everything pertaining to the good of the
human family. Here are Greeks, Russians, Armenians,
Germans, French, Chinese, Japanese,
English, Irish, Scotch and Americans, men born
under every form of government and trained in conflicting
ideas of religion and morals, bound together
in a free republican government, each having the
right to vote in City, State and National affairs. It
has been an experiment, perhaps is so yet, in human
government on a vast scale; but appearances justify
the remark that it has successfully stood the test
of trial, and that to-day, thanks to Washington,
Adams, Webster, Lincoln, and many other noble
men, who devoted extraordinary powers of mind to
the service of the New Nation, is better established
than many of the dynasties of the Old World.
But the States were not a nation of 70,000,000 of
inhabitants when white and black man first stood
face to face on American soil; they were colonies of
England, and were governed by that extraordinary
Page 29
power, which has so marvellously colonized so
many portions of the globe. But the England of
the year 1619, when those fourteen slaves were
landed on the shore of Virginia, and given in
exchange for provisions to Captain Miles Kendall,
deputy-governor of that state, and the England of
to-day are scarcely comparable. Then, it is true,
Englishmen were free men, and could pursue the
calling of their choice in perfect safety; but the
toiling millions were practically outside of the constitution,
and had no voice whatever in the government
of the country. Then England was governed
by the aristocracy and the free-holders, who formed
a very small part of the population, and the colonies
were in the hands of chartered trading companies.
Corruption was in every office; the House of Commons
was in the power of the House of Lords; seats
in the Commons were bought and sold openly, and
places of power were given without regard to merit;
reformers, men who sought the privilege of the
vote, were persecuted and even put to death by the
sword; and, not until the year 1832 was the constitution
widened so as to admit persons of substantial
position, which good work was completed in 1867
with Household Suffrage. To-day it is a different
and better England. Every working man who has
a home or a lodging can vote in every election that
is held, whether for City Counsellors, Members of
Page 30
School Board, Members of the House of Commons,
or any representative position, and can even be
elected himself. Corruption is dead; the power of
the House of Lords is small, and cannot be exercised
at all in respect of money bills; seats in the Commons
are no longer, cannot be, bought and sold;
places of power are bestowed according to merit and
length of service; reformers are free to advocate
reform in open meeting or in any manner not harmful
to the persons and property of the inhabitants,
without fear of interference. To-day, as some one
has well put it:--"England is a republic with a
hereditary president" and protects her citizens the
wide world over, and suffers no slave to live beneath
her banner.
Let England and America, then, as we know
them to-day, be in no sense blamed for the fixing of
a slave-system in the States. Both countries have
paid in money and in blood the price of the sin of
dead generations, and are the greatest hope of mankind.
In a holy rivalry they hold up the torch of
civilizing light, spread on every hand the beneficence
of business, display before all nations the
safety and solidity of national life based in the free
vote of their peoples, and send forth missionaries
at immense cost to all who are in the darkness of
ignorance. Personal wrong there surely is in both
countries, which is inflicted by individuals upon
Page 31
others who can not help themselves; but the wisdom
of their peoples and rulers will yet find a remedy for
these evils, and perfection will be attained as nearly
as is possible in human institutions. In that good
time which is certainly before both countries, the
unworthy effort of many wicked persons to place
the Negro outside the human family will be finally
defeated, and race prejudice in the States will be
dead.
Returning to the evil year 1619, we find that
Captain Butler succeeded Captain Miles Kendall in
the governorship of Virginia, and that a disgraceful
dispute arose respecting the ownership of the fourteen
slaves. He claimed the negroes in the name
of the Earl of Warwick which claim Captain Miles
Kendall resisted, and sought what he called equity
by placing his case before the London company.
From the beginning of the traffic, human strife and
cruelty were alarmingly aggravated, and men of all
stations in life were filled with the meanest wickedness,
rich and poor alike, from the Earl of Warwick
to the poorest black man who was strong enough
to kid-nap a weaker black man and sell him into
slavery on the coast. This dispute was not quickly
settled. However, in July, 1622, the London Court
disposed of the case, giving nine slaves to Captain
Kendall and the remainder to the company. But
what is the terrible fact of this fixing of the slave
Page 32
system in the States? This: That the English
colony of Virginia purchased the first Negroes who
were brought to the States, and inaugurated the
hideous traffic in human flesh and blood. For this
most shameful act of inhumanity, out of which crime
too black and foul to be described grew, the reader
must not blame either England or America; it was
the act of men who had left the Old Country to
seek wealth and get it in any manner, righteous or
unrighteous, who scrupled not to class a man with
a coloured skin with the beasts of the field. Their
reward is shame, which clings to them until now,
and reflects disastrously upon the otherwise fair
fame of the wisest and best of them.
The institution of slavery, once established, took
root, but did not grow rapidly. Taking the census
of the colony of Virginia of February 16, 1624, the
fourteen slaves of 1619 had only grown to twenty-two.
Perhaps they were a little afraid of the
system; may be conscience troubled many of the
colonists; or, what is quite as likely, importers of
flesh and blood were probably not over well supplied
by Negro stealers. But twenty-four years subsequently,
in 1648, the population of Virginia was
about 15,000, of whom 300 were slaves. Evidently
the whites had somewhat lost fear of the system in
those twenty-four years, if they ever felt it, and it is
equally certain that conscience had been educated.
Page 33
The colonists of 1648 were not a reputable lot;
indeed there were more men of bad character among
them than the original settlers and their descendants
liked. Thieves, vagrants, burglars and disorderly
persons of every evil character, who had been sent
to Virginia by the English Government for their
crimes at home, formed no inconsiderable part of
the population; yet were more graciously received
than the poor Negro. It is difficult, if not impossible,
in this day of enlightenment to imagine how
a God-fearing man,--many of the colonists were
such--could bring himself to treat a condemned
criminal with greater kindness than he was willing
to extend to a Negro; yet such is one of the ugly
facts of that time. Sin is subtle, and overthrows the
best of men, if they cease to fight it, and destroys
their manhood, covers them with disgrace, and
causes them to make the most ignoble laws. It so
happened in Virginia. On September 17, 1630, an
act of prohibition was passed by the colonists to the
following effect: "That the banished criminals of
England must not have relations with Negroes."
Think of it. The vilest of the vile, men too bad to
be allowed a place in English life, banished for
offences proven against them in courts of law, must
not defile themselves with the Negro! Language,
it is said, undergoes perpetual enlargement of meaning
and purification, and it must be true that defilement
Page 34
could not have meant in Virginia at the time
now under consideration what it means to-day.
How could a criminal, a creature of the blackest
indecencies, defile himself by having relations with
an ignorant, untaught, probably trustful Negro?
The defilement would be more on the side of the
Negro, though he knew it not. Yet the prohibition
was made, and the punishment for every such offence
was public flogging and confession of the offence in
church on the following sabbath. Bad men may
make bad laws, and other bad men will break them,
even as good laws are broken, and have been broken
in every age.
The colonists had to bring out the whip and hear
confession in church; villany could not forego the
easy prey within its reach. Hugh Davis, a white
servant, whose name is written in history forever,--
whether an English criminal or an ordinary colonist
we know not--was indeed publicly flogged before
a company of blacks and whites for defiling himself
with a Negro. He was not the last victim of this
vicious law; but if it were possible or right to sympathize
with a worker of iniquity, Hugh Davis
would have our sympathy. We can pity him, and
regret that he could defile himself with any child of
God; but for the Negro, whose education along
lines of debasement, cunning and treachery had
been continued by white men, only sympathy ought
Page 35
to be felt. He was a natural child of the forest,
acquainted with the rudest life only, knowing
nothing of civilization and little of the white man,
whose whole subsequent history in America would
have been different and better had he been put to
work in a humane manner and treated as a man
who needed training in skilled labour and educating
in letters. It was not. Therefore, he became the
cause, by no fault of his own, of the most fearful
struggle of modern times, which held in suspense
for four years the very life of a mighty nation,
whose salvation was accomplished by the slaughter
of 1,000,000 men.
From 1619 until 1662 slavery existed without any
direct sanction in law, and had no foundation in the
order of state Virginia, the mother state of slavery,
and none in any other state. It was a case of one
man owning another because he had bought him.
But was he not property? He had cost money.
Slave owners felt the need of a law, which would
fix beyond dispute the right of ownership, as real
estate was fixed, and on the fourteenth of December,
1662, the foundations of slavery were laid by a
proclamation--"that the issue of slave mothers
should follow their condition." No help now for
the Negro, neither for any innocent child born of a
coloured mother; for two hundred years he must
toil, bleed, die in the service of the white man, and
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not dare to murmur. For two hundred years he
must obey his master and ask no questions, though
he hear questions of right and wrong discussed.
Patience must be the order of his tribe; ignorance,
and suffering will abide with him. While this
inhuman business was being done, it is certain that
Christian mothers in Virginia taught their children
that stealing, swearing, speaking falsely, coveting
another's property and committing adultery were
all sins against God and man; and, it is equally
certain that so-called Christian fathers did steal the
Negro's labour, did most cruelly abuse him, did
commit adultery with their own slaves with the
horrid intent of increasing their live stock, and forsook,
turned their backs upon every feeling of
humanity. God has made it easy for man in all
the departments of morality to decide the right and
the wrong, in view of which eternal fact no excuse
can be found for slave owners. They decided, those
original slave owners of Virginia, "that the issue
of slave mothers should follow their condition," and
thereby accomplished two things; viz, hereditary
slavery, and statutary sanction thereof. Thus far
this battle between right and wrong went against
right in the person and life of the Negro, and the
quotations given below will show how tightly the
manacles were fastened to his feet and hands.
In 1670, Virginia, thoroughly accustomed to the
Page 37
infamous institution, and having realized the profit
of so much unpaid labour, declared by Act of
Assembly that "all servants not Christians, coming
into the colony by shipping, should be slaves for
their lives."
On the twenty-fourth of October, 1684, the province
of New York made the slave trade legitimate
within its borders, recognizing that the white man
had a right to buy and sell the coloured man.
On the fourth of October, 1705, an act was passed
without a single dissenting voice, declaring the
Negro, Mulatto and Indian, slaves within their
dominion.
In 1706 an act was passed to "encourage the
baptism of Negroes," which was done, it is said,
"to quiet the public mind on the question."
On the thirty-first of October, 1751, King George
II. issued a proclamation repealing the act which
declared slaves real estate.
Thus the business went, all against the Negro,
who had become a thing. King George II. declared
he must not be "real estate," but left him to be
classed with cattle, or crops, or any other miserable
article, and the traffic increased. In 1648 there
were 300 slaves in the colony of Virginia; in 1671--
2,000; in 1715--23,000; and in 1758 more
than 100,000, which was only a little less than the white
population. Think of it. In one hundred and
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thirty-nine years fourteen slaves had increased to
over 100,000; an awful fact, which caused even
Virginia to realize that the institution was a most
serious and alarming one. True, it was a well
organized system, and recognized in the most solemn
manner by the law; was defended by the Church of
Christ, the Church of Him who declared and revealed
the brotherhood of man, and Christian ministers
received slaves as salary; yet was the ghost
that haunted the vision of many good men, and a
problem which was ultimately solved by a volcanic
upheaval that scattered death on every hand. It
was futile to baptize the Negro that his soul might
be saved; that same Negro lived and multiplied to
baptize a nation in blood. He had no rights; could
not appear as witness in any court of law; could be
condemned on the evidence of one witness without
a jury; could own nothing; if he secretly saved
anything it was taken from him; had no family
relations such as white men enjoyed; lived together
by common consent; dared not strike a Christian
or Jew, no matter what the provocation; had no
schools; was at last buried in a common ditch.
Pity 'tis there was no prophet in those days to foresee
coming events, and to warn men of judgment to
come. Such an one might have saved past and
present generations from deep disgrace and exhausting
strife.
Page 39
This is what befell the Negro in the States of
America between the years 1619 and 1712. God, it
is said, never makes haste, but that His will is certain
of execution. We do know that He desires
none to be ignorant, and that He seeks to save every
child of man with a complete salvation. With Him
was the issue, and is, and as we shall examine and
describe the condition of the Negro from 1712 to
1865, the year of emancipation,--his life on the
plantations, his struggles for freedom, his simple,
hearty acceptance of the gospel, his glad awakening
on the day of redemption, and his most wonderful
subsequent progress, we shall hope to see that the
hand of God is set against the wrong doing of men,
and behold the promise, set as in rainbow-light and
beauty, "that the kingdoms of this world" shall "become the kingdoms of God and His Christ."
Page 43
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE NEGRO WAS TREATED DOWN TO 1844.
HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS. THE NEGRO STATESMAN AND ORATOR.
The closing years of the nineteenth century will
be looked back upon by future generations with
considerable interest, and the whole century will be
esteemed the most important in results of beneficence
to human life since the time of Jesus Christ. Man
has always been king of all creatures living on
earth; but time never was when he stood for so
much as now. Fortune, caste, privilege and birth,
the historic barrier builders, are by no means passed
and done with, yet do not obstruct individual
progress so seriously as they used to; there is now
plenty of room for earnest capable men to exercise
their personal powers. Vast business companies
and combinations notwithstanding, which certainly
many times and in different ways destroy the best
efforts of the individual, a man of energy, endowed
with faith in the Almighty, may make much of his
life. Christian sympathy and the spirit of God are
his assistants, by whose help he may overcome
many difficulties. Indeed, the fact is, whenever
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we see success of any kind we know that a man is
behind it, though we see him not. Ideas, principles,
truth and right are indispensible, it is true; but
until a living man incarnates them, and puts them
into active operation, not much is accomplished.
A man of noble personality,--who loves truth, dispenses
right, lives by principle, does right because it
is right and refuses to do wrong because it is wrong,
and disseminates ideas of holiness,--inspires everybody
and moves hundreds forward to the ground
of hope and a happier existence. Such an one,--
possessing a tender conscience, natural piety, a
glowing heart full of sympathy and benevolence,
and a high moral purpose in all he does--carries
heaven with him and strengthens the weakness of
all among whom he moves. Jesus Christ, Martin
Luther, John Knox and John Wesley; Tennyson,
Longfellow and Whittier; Thos. Carlyle, Emerson
and Chas. Dickens were men who saw, and knew,
and taught, and the whole civilized world looks back
upon them with admiration and gratitude. Jesus
Christ was the incomparable one, who illumined
human consciousness and commenced an era of
never ending progress, whose name must always
be mentioned with reverence. When men listen to
His teaching and emulate His example it is well for
the world, and progress is advanced in the best and
surest manner. If dead generations had walked in
Page 45
His footsteps, obeying His commands, and if living
generations were eager above all things to keep
His law, slavery had never been amongst men in
the last nineteen centuries, and war and standing
armies would have no place in the life of nations
to-day.
Looking back from this wonderful nineteenth
century to the year 1712, in which the Negro in the
States of America found himself bound by manacles
of slavery, in which, also, men and women, the men
and women who owned him, feared God and reverenced
Jesus Christ, it is difficult to realize that the
holy name had much influence with them, and no one
could for a moment believe that it had if evidence
were not abundantly at hand in proof thereof.
"They feared God and worshipped their idols" was
said by one of old of a well known people, which
saying might with perfect justice be applied to many
of the original slave owners. It seems mysterious
that the year, in which the Dutch man of war landed
the first batch of slaves at Jamestown, Virginia,
bore the "Mayflower" to the New World, whose
passengers, were men and women that sought a new
home and liberty to worship God according to their
conscience. The "Mayflower" carried a freight
of piety, learning and Christian civilization which
were to be written into the law of the New World;
the Dutch man of war carried a burden of wretchedness
Page 46
and sorrow, and a system destined to perish in
the flames its own hand should kindle. The Pilgrim
Fathers were men whose fame has gone forth over
all the world, and probably to the end of time they
will be held up as ensamples of robust faith, fearless
courage, and sincere piety; yet it is certain that
slavery was established in Massachusetts not long
after their arrival. Chief-justice Parsons declared
from the bench that "slavery was introduced into
Massachusetts soon after its first settlement and was
tolerated until the ratification of the present constitution
of 1780." Let all ministers of the gospel
observe this fact, and be it their duty never to
weaken God's demand for righteousness. Need
there is for real prophets, who seek not wealth,
neither position, who will at any cost warn men of
the sinfulness of sin. Slavery cannot come back,
but other evils are here, and will increase in power
and in destructiveness, if the voice of the preacher
be not true to the solemn duty of declaring the
whole counsel of God.
The first mention of Negroes in Massachusetts we
find in the year 1633. It appears that some Indians
found a creature in the woods they thought was the
devil, of whom they were so afraid that they dared
neither approach nor touch him. They hastened
to the English settlers, and declared they had seen
the evil spirit. The English returned with the
Page 47
terrified red men to the woods and found a harmless
black man, who was lost, had wandered from
his master's house; but they sent him back to his
master. Why? Why did they not keep him, and
instruct him in their religion, and in all useful social
duties? He was a black man, and was owned by a
white man, which is explanation enough. It was
no doubt honest to send him back; but it would have
been more in keeping with the religion they professed
to have kept and treated him in a Christian
manner. This amusing incident of red men being
afraid of a black man, and of white men returning
him to his owner on a point of honesty, brings into
clearest view the peculiar, soul-saddening fact, that
religious people can be morally blind and do grossly
immoral acts.
Who the owner was of this solitary Negro is not
known, neither does history tell how he came into
Massachusetts; but it is clearly recorded that the
first importation of slaves into the state was in 1637,
just four years after the above mentioned event,
who were brought from Barbados, and for whom
Indians were given in exchange.
At first, slavery in Massachusetts, as in the other
colonies, was a family business, which was its most
harmless form; then it became an affair of the community;
and, finally, an ordinary business of men
who wished to enjoy the fruits of forced labour.
Page 48
Like all the works of sin it developed into larger
proportions, destroyed the humanity of men, and
filled the colonies with unworthiness. In 1720,
General Shute placed the number of slaves in
Massachusetts, including a few Indians, at 2,000.
In 1735 there were 2,600, and within the next
seventeen years the Negro population of Boston
alone was 1,541. In 1754 a system of taxation was
established by the Colonial government, which
included black people in the schedule of taxable
property, not a little to the confusion of Governor
Shirley. In his message of November 19, 1754, to
the assembly, he said: "There is one part of the
estate, viz., the Negro slaves, which I am at a loss
how to come at the knowledge of, without your
assistance." But he was helped out of his difficulty.
In that year 4,489 Negroes were classed with hogs,
and in 1764 the number had increased to 5,779.
5,779 human beings, in Massachusetts, the home of
the Pilgrim Fathers, were rated with hogs and
horses, and Negro children were considered an
incumbrance, and were given away like puppy dogs.
It is impossible to believe that all the Colonists
countenanced this horrible business, indeed it is
certain they did not; but it is clear that the life of
the colony was morally poisoned, which was the
unhappy condition of all the English colonies in
the year 1754, Georgia excepted. The natural
Page 49
rights of thousands were subverted. They were
"deemed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged in
law to be chattels personal to all interests, constructions
and purposes whatsoever," as the law put it;
which was contrary to reason and the admonitions
of conscience, and gratified the spirit of vulgar
pride and class distinction, and the lust of dominion.
Violence was the spirit of slavery, and depraved
greed its inspiration. From the first slave-hunt in
unhappy Africa to the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox, its blood-stained hand was laid on the
bodies and souls of the slaves, and on the moral
sensibilities of the people. It had no mercy; knew
no decency; forced the slave to make the earth produce
harvests; whipped him; sold him; killed him;
defied God and the inexorable law of righteousness.
But Jehovah's judgment came at last in the awful
War of Emancipation, and men trembled; and, let
this never be forgotten, all who thus disobey must,
either here or yonder, in time or eternity, stand in
the same sure retribution. It was the old sin, of
which many are guilty to-day, of "doing wrong
that good may come." There is nothing before
men who forget righteousness but confusion and
disaster.
It is with astonishment we read the state papers
and official documents bearing on the slave trade;
they cause us to imagine that we hear the clanking
Page 50
chains which bound living men to a living death;
but when to-day we see 8,000,000 of Negroes living
and toiling as free men a great hope is felt, which
is related to the whole Negro race in Africa and
America. May not these 8,000,000, when they
shall have won equality as well as liberty, provide
our missionary societies the best ministers for the
African field? Is it impossible for them to become
a power under the providence of God which shall
lift the entire race of coloured people to conditions
of moral and spiritual life? They have suffered,
and yet suffer. They have been in the blackest
darkness of despair; but now see a light of hope,
in which thousands of them rejoice perfectly. They
have been, as their brethren in Africa are to-day,
untaught, savage and immoral; but are now gaining
knowledge, and becoming followers of Christ.
All their suffering and degradation, heroic struggles
and present pursuit of things worthy and sacred
cannot end merely in their own elevation, but must
surely have some relation to the uplifting of the
race.
It has puzzled and perplexed thoughtful men
to explain the connection between suffering and
progress, and probably no satisfactory solution of
the problem has yet been found; but it is known
that the cleansing fire of affliction and the noblest
character have a close relation with each other.
Page 51
There is something in prolonged prosperity which
demoralizes most men, and something in fierce
adversity that draws the grandest soul-elements to
the surface. The man who never had a personal
Gethsemane knows not the supremest glory of the
mount of Transfiguration; the greatest men and
women have braved the storm. Is it not possible,
then, that what men call the worst thing may turn
out the best? The undisciplined soul cannot be
compared with the soul that has by bitter experience
learned the deepest truth of the Christ. The
Negro, therefore, may yet, by the over-ruling providence
of God, become one of the world's most noble
benefactors. While we follow to a close the history
of his life in America, this hope of future extensive
good shall be cherished, and faith reposed in God.
Resuming the story of his life in the United States
of America, a quotation from the pen of the immortal
Rev. George Whitefield, the renowned evangelist,
who travelled extensively through the Southern
States, will help the reader to understand the awful
sufferings that were inflicted upon him. "In 1739,
Mr. Whitefield said, in a letter he addressed to the
inhabitants of the Southern States, that his sympathies
had been strongly excited by what he had
seen of the 'miseries of the poor Negroes.' He
called attention to the practice of slave-masters,
and the encouragement it afforded to the savage
Page 52
tribes in Africa to continue their warfare on each
other, to supply the demand for slaves thus created.
He charged 'the generality' of them with using
their slaves 'as bad as though they were brutes
nay, worse,'--worse than their horses which were
'fed and properly cared for' after the labours of the
day, while the slaves must grind their corn and
prepare their own food,--worse than their dogs,
who are 'caressed and fondled' while the slaves
'are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which
fall from their master's table.' He spoke of the
cruel lashings which 'ploughed their backs and
made long furrows,' sometimes ending in death.
He reminded them of their spacious houses and
sumptuous fare; while they to whose 'indefatigable
labours' their luxuries were 'owing had neither
convenient food to eat nor proper raiment to put
on.'" Mr. Whitefield did not exaggerate; but
placed on record a faithful description of what he
had seen, which record can not be destroyed. His
letter briefly set forth what was happening in all
the English colonies, Georgia excepted. In New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and
South Carolina, in one degree or another of fiendishness,
more severely in some states than others,
these cruelties were inflicted on 58,850 human
Page 53
beings, each one a sensitive creature, capable of
feeling pain, and endowed with faculties of soul,
whose deep moan and uttered cry for deliverance
went up constantly to heaven.
It is impossible to set forth in words the horrors
of the trade in New York. The Dutch, under whose
government it was known as New Netherlands,
looked on slavery as a necessary evil, but did not
treat slaves with cruelty. They added them to their
families, taught them letters as best they could,
and called them in to family prayers; but bought
and sold them in the ordinary manner. When the
Dutch were defeated by the English the lot of the
Negro changed for the worse; a system of neglect,
punishment and torture was introduced. In 1702
the assembly passed a law which was called "An
Act for Regulating Slaves," and the following quotations
show the quality of that regulation. It was
declared "not lawful to trade with Negro slaves;"
"not more than three slaves may meet together;"
"a slave must not strike a freeman;" "all the
children of freed black mothers already born, or
yet to be born, must be slaves;" "that a common
whipper be appointed." No lion in his cage, no
eagle fastened by chain to post, fed and cared for
by keeper, was ever so miserable as the poor Negro
in the bad past. He might walk about and work;
but no Christian or Jew would risk fine and
Page 54
imprisonment by trading with him. He was allowed
to talk with two other Negroes; but if more than
three met together they were all whipped by a J. P.
or the common whipper, or sent to jail. A freeman
was at liberty to beat him anywhere and anyhow;
but let him so much as raise his hand in self-defence,
and legal punishment followed. A freed black woman--some of the better sort gave manumission
papers to their slaves--could become a
mother; but her child was taken from her as soon
as he could work and was pushed into slavery,
often sold to a dealer in another state. All this
being true, how great ought one's sympathy to be
for coloured men and women who are the children
of parents that were so ill-treated! That they can
believe in a God of righteousness, that they do not
hate and abhor the white man, is the miracle of our
time, and a solid proof of the divine that is in them.
From the eleventh of May to the twenty-ninth of
August, 1741,--only three short months--one
hundred and fifty slaves were cast into prison in
New York; eighteen of whom were hanged, fourteen
burnt to death, seventy-one transported to other
colonies,--sold for cash--and the remainder, forty-seven
of them, pardoned. For what? Absolutely
nothing. One, Mary Barton by name, gave out a
report that the slaves had made a plot to burn the
town and murder the inhabitants, which was absurd
Page 55
on the face of it. Yet Justices lost their heads, and
the inhabitants, each one armed,--slaves were unarmed--
became terror stricken, and hanging and
burning were done without mercy. "The wicked
fleeth, when no man pursueth."
God is the maker and judge of all men. He made
us innocent, and never placed burden on mortal
man beyond his strength, nor imposed a duty that
could not be discharged; but men have created
apparently inexplicable contradictions, crooked
aspirations, and injustice and impurity, and now
and again vainly endeavour to run away from their
own badness.
Looking steadfastly into this Egyptian darkness
of slavery in the States we see a little light of
promise; and, in God-fearing men, most of them
Quakers, such as Leister King, Elizur Wright,
John Sloane of Ravenna, David Hudson, from
whom Hudson City received its name, and Owen
Brown, father of the immortal John Brown, we discern
His ambassadors, who feared not to proclaim
their Master's will. They did not labour in vain.
As early as 1726, the Colonists of Virginia, alarmed
by the increase of slaves, tried to check further
importation by imposing a tax; but "the African
company obtained the repeal of that law." In I760,
South Carolina endeavoured to restrict the traffic,
"for which she received the rebuke of the British
Page 56
government." Earlier than the Colonists of Virginia,
the people of Pennsylvania passed a law in
1712 to prevent the increase of slaves, which the
Crown promptly annulled. In 1771, also in 1774,
Massachusetts adopted measures for the abolition
of slavery; but the Colonial Governors, who represented
the government, refused to approve them, and
so they were lost. Rhode Island, more fortunate
than the other colonies, passed a law in 1774, prohibiting
the importation of slaves, and in 1784,
declared all children free born after the next March,
of which acts the government took no notice. Light
was breaking through the clouds; this was the first
step towards emancipation. No more slaves to be
imported, and all children of slaves then in the
state, also all children to be born, to be free, meant
the redemption of Rhode Island from the horrible
crime, and had more influence in the other states
than can now be measured.
The light and the promise grow more clear while
we look, and circumstances of good omen accumulate.
With the annexation of Texas, a vast country
adapted to the growth of cotton, which increased
the demand for and the price of slaves, we see a
bolder activity on the part of the Quakers, who,
filled with the love of God and man, stepped forth
before all men to render aid to the hunted fugitive.
The hunted fugitive? Yes; for the slave had at
Page 57
last found manhood enough in himself to attempt
escape, to fly from the auction block, the flesh and
blood jobbers, the pain of the lash and the woe of
children sent from his heart into other lands. To
Eastern Pennsylvania hundreds of them took flight,
and were received and helped by good Samaritans.
This was the beginning of the end. God had
assisted the Negro to feel his manhood, and had
provided good men to help him. The slave power
might, and did, continue to oppress him; deny him
the rights of citizenship; prohibit meetings and
schools; forbid him to preach to his brother slaves;
punish white men who dared to instruct him; bind
manacles tighter to his feet; but in vain. He had
learned that men lived in other places who were
ready to serve him, and had discovered a personal
courage to dare something for himself. Previous
to the annexation of Texas came the revolution,
and separation from England, in which the Negro
found that he could use arms, and was encouraged
by both Colonists and Crown to do so, and of 501,102
slaves at that time in the States, some fought for
the Crown and some for the Colonists. They knew
not for what they fought; but it was a new experience,
and was not forgotten.
His valour, however, did not win liberty for him.
After the new constitution had been ratified, and
the States were established as a separate nation, he
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went back to his labour and sorrow; for him no
improvement had been won. But something had
been won personal to himself, which was increased
courage and bolder daring. He had seen white
men fight for something they called liberty; had
ignorantly fought with them, and had seen many
new things. And slaves in every state had heard
of Canada, a land far away; but of distance they
knew nothing and cared less. With miraculous
courage and wonderful faith thousands of them
ventured forth; were helped by a society known as
the Underground Railroad;--composed of good
men of all creeds--were fed and directed; were
sheltered by day and conducted through the woods
by night; and, it is pleasing to read that they
always proffered to pay in labour for what they had
received. The light grows clearer, and thousands
of men are looking at the horrid cruelties of darkness,
and much earnest discussion is heard throughout
the land.
It is 1844, just two hundred and twenty-five years
since those unfortunate fourteen slaves were delivered
to the Governor of Virginia, and the divine
judgment of slavery and slave-holders is getting
nearer. In eighteen years the inhabitants of the
States will know what slavery means, and how fearful
a thing it is to forsake righteousness. England,
once a partner in the business, has meanwhile made
Page 59
a noble repentance, and has set free every slave
that lived beneath her banner, and never more will
stain her hands with the blood of such a crime.
More than that; at her own cost and as best she can
she prevents the crime being committed by others.
Her Sons of to-day must not be blamed for the sins
of their fathers. But in 1844 the darkness had not
passed from the United States, though thousands
of her noblest sons saw the light, and sorrowed o'er
the sin; the storm might not be avoided, but must
break in death-giving force upon them. The Negro
must suffer and wear his manacles yet a while.
Then the world shall see and the States feel the
awful judgment of God, and widows will weep, and
sons lament, and fathers moan for those who are
not.
Page 63
CHAPTER V.
JOHN BROWN.
JOHN BROWN. PURITAN HERO, CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, MARTYR FOR THE SLAVES.
On the seventeenth of October, 1859, John Brown,
at the head of a small force of armed men, entered
the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, a little after
ten o'clock in the evening, to free the slaves. Five
colored and fourteen white men constituted the
entire force, with which he hoped not to destroy the
huge slave party of the South, but to create a feeling,
or so inflame a feeling already created, that
would burn in Christian hearts until the power of
that party should be destroyed. He took possession
of the armoury buildings, cut the telegraph wires,
stopped trains on the railroad, liberated several
slaves, and held the town not much longer than a
day. The slave party, at first, were astounded, if
not for a moment paralized; then they laughed,
and said: "The folly of a madman." John Brown
could not with his small force accomplish a task
which ultimately cost millions of treasure and one
million lives; but he could, and did, reveal to the
anti-slave party, as they had never seen it before,
Page 64
the evil spirit of the slave party in its diabolical
nature and purpose.
On the nineteenth of October, 1859, only two days
after his bold attack on the town, John Brown was
cast into prison, where he remained until the seventh
of November without a change of clothing, and,
his wounds not withstanding, without medical aid;
and, forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment
was hanged to death. The raid, capture, trial,
conviction and execution of this wonderful man
and his followers profoundly stirred the nation, and
attracted the attention of the civilized nations of the
world. His friends, who admired his simplicity of
heart and life, felt very sorrowful; thought he had
made a grievous mistake and that military action
would not advance legitimate reform; the slave-owners
were excited and furiously determined to
stand by their property. But his friends did not
know that they had opposed to them the worst,
most wicked, subtlest of sin-serving men this world
has ever seen; they could not then feel, for which
they cannot be blamed, that only blood and death
could rid the nation of the evil of slavery. But it
was brought home to them a few months after John
Brown's execution, when they saw for the first
time that it was war or eternal disgrace, perhaps
destruction. Then all good men of every creed,
with infinite regret, but with courage made mighty
Page 65
by burning indignation, drew the sword, not to
sheath it until the curse was destroyed.
We are, always have been, for peace, and must
oppose war; but if ever war was justifiable, that of
the emancipation is justified. It was not desired by
the North, the government did not seek it, there
was no coveted territory to be won, not a private
interest to be advanced; it was a case of wresting
from blood-stained hands that would not peaceably
let go millions of human beings.
John Brown did not mean war; but was mysteriously,
no doubt providentially, influenced at the
last moment to depart from his original plan. To
quote from a letter he wrote on the fifteenth of
November, 1859, to a minister of religion, it is clear
that some influence moved him to act as he had not
intended. He says: "I am not as yet, in the main,
at all disappointed. I have been a good deal disappointed
as it regards myself in not keeping up to
my own plans; but now I feel entirely reconciled
to that even; for God's plan was infinitely better,
no doubt, or I should have kept my own. Had
Samson kept to his determination of not telling
Delilah wherein his great strength lay, he would
probably have never overturned the house. I did
not tell Delilah; but I was induced to act very contrary
to my better judgment." God's plan was
better than my own is the substance of the letter,
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and we doubt not that this rugged puritan, a lineal
descendant in the direct line of Peter Brown of the
"Mayflower," saw visions and dreamed dreams in
his cell, and clearly perceived that the end of slavery
in the United States was near at hand, and that his
own death would hasten its downfall. He felt that he, as Samson by telling his secret was brought to
the task of overturning the enemies' house, by not keeping his own plans had secured the destruction
of slavery in the States. There can be no question
now about his vision being correct. A few months
later, the Twelfth Massachusetts marched out of
Boston singing the John Brown song, and sang it
in camp, and regiment after regiment caught up
the air of it, and on the march and in the midst of
battle descendants of the Puritans and of the Pilgrim
Fathers, and other noble-hearted men, made fields
and pathways resound with musical words of "John
Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave," and
of "his soul still marching on." The fore-seeing
eye is yet in the world, and God's prophets have
somewhat to do even in the nineteenth century.
He was a real Puritan, and, like the fathers from
whom he descended, sternly religious. Baxter and
Bunyan were the men with whom he sat and talked,
through their books, and the bible was his chief
adviser and guide. Selfishness had no place in his
character, but generosity was the shining virtue of
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his life, and he was endowed with an exceedingly
fine sense of justice. Fear he knew not; when told
that the Missourians had marked him for death, he
replied: "The Angel of the Lord will camp round
about me." His destiny was linked with that of
the slave; he felt that he must live and die for him;
he was one of the instruments by which God worked
out His will. In prison, he wrote: "I never did
intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of
property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion,
or to make insurrection. The design on my part
was to free the slaves."
Virginia and all the Southern States, though the
great slave-owners called him a madman, were
thrown into confusion by this Puritan and his nineteen
men, and the baser sort would gladly have
lynched him. They had for years taunted the anti-slavery
party with cowardice, saying that they dared
not preach emancipation in the South. In their
imagined safely established power they sneered at
the party of humanity, were sneering on that historic
seventeenth of October, when, to their infinite surprise,
momentary dread, and long-continued suspicion
of a vast conspiracy against them, a few
brave men stood up in their midst sword in hand to
bear testimony with their lives against the crime of
slavery. Never did lightning from heaven smite
the human heart with terror more suddenly than
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did this John Brown into the souls of men who
owned flesh and blood. They must find out who
had supported him, and see what power was behind
him. Therefore, Senator Mason hastened to
Harper's ferry, and, finding the old puritan lying
on the floor of the armoury office, his face, hands
and clothes stained with blood which flowed from
his undressed wounds, proceeded to question him.
When was the organization formed? Who provided
the money? Where did he get the arms?
Said Brown: "I will answer freely and faithfully
about what concerns myself--I will answer anything
I can with honour, but not about others."
Asked: "How do you justify your acts?" he
answered: "I think, my friend, you are guilty of
a great wrong against God and humanity--I say
it without wishing to be offensive--and it would
be perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you
so far as to free those you willingly and wickedly
hold in bondage. . . . I think I did right, and that
others will do right who interfere with you at any
time and all times. I hold that the golden rule,
'Do unto others as ye would that they should do
unto you,' applies to all who would help others to
gain their liberty." . . . "I want you to understand,
gentlemen," he said, "that I respect the
rights of the poorest and weakest of coloured people
oppressed by the slave system just as much as I
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do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That
is the idea that has moved me, and that alone.
We expected no reward except the satisfaction of
endeavouring to do for those in distress and greatly
oppressed as we would be done by. The cry of
distress of the oppressed is my reason and the only
thing that prompted me to come here. . . . I wish
to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you
people of the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement
of this question, that must come up for settlement
sooner than you are prepared for it. . . . You
may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed
of now; but this question is still to be settled--
this Negro question I mean; the end of that is
not yet." Prophetic words, let the reader observe,
spoken by one whose soul was full of light, who in
few days would join the "Sons of the morning."
Of course, the flesh jobbers called him a fanatic,
a fool, a madman, and his friends scarcely knew at
first what to say; but in a little while they heard
God's message which came to them through his
death. Jefferson Davis called it: "The invasion
of a state by a murderous gang of abolitionists, to
incite slaves to murder helpless women and children
. . . and for which the leader has suffered a felon's
death." Mr. Douglass said he was "a notorious
man who had recently suffered death for his crimes
upon the gallows." Yes; he was such an one to
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the slave party. Slave-owners were as incapable of
understanding a John Brown as the slave was of
expounding Euclid; they could not comprehend
the man who said, while waiting for execution:
"It is a religious movement;--I regard myself an
instrument in the hands of providence." He was a
puritan; they were slave-owners; there was nothing
in common between them. They were accustomed
to the sight of the plantation, which debased them;
he, mostly with the pictures which bible stories
inspired within him. Had he not read of Joshua
taking a walled city by the blowing of trumpets and
the shouting of his people! And had he not studied
the story of Gideon, who, with three hundred men,
bearing only trumpets and lamps and pitchers, put
to flight with mighty confusion the Midianites and
Amalekites, who were like grasshoppers for multitude!
He would take his nineteen men against the
slave power, and let God decide. God did decide. John Brown was hanged, and went to heaven; and
the influence of his life and death inspired the
hearts of Northern men with feelings they never had
before, and moved them to look more earnestly at
the monster in front of them, and caused thousands
of them to realize that more men would have to die,
to give their lives to free the land from the great
abomination. God did decide, from whose decision
neither North nor South could escape.
Page 71
Governor Wise, who went to see Brown, said in
a public speech at Richmond: "They are mistaken
who take Brown to be a madman. He is a bundle
of the best nerves I ever saw, cut and thrust, and
bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of clear head,
of courage, fortitude . . . and he inspired me with
great trust in his integrity, as a man of truth. He
is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm and truthful
and intelligent." Not a bad opinion for the
governor of the mother state of slavery to give of
Brown, of which Emerson took note, and observed
thereon: "Governor Wise, in the record of his
interviews with his prisoner, appeared to great
advantage. If Governor Wise is a superior man,
or inasmuch as he is a superior man, he distinguishes
John Brown. As they confer, they understand
each other swiftly; each respects the other.
If opportunity allowed, they would prefer each
other's society and desert their former companions."
Whether Emerson's estimate of these two men be
right or wrong we do not know; but we do know
that a lawyer, by name, Abraham Lincoln, was
thinking of the incident of Harper's ferry, and that
he said at Cooper College, February 27, 1860:
"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a
slave insurrection, it was an attempt by white men
to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves
refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that
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the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly
enough it could not succeed. That affair in its
philosophy corresponds with the many attempts
related in history at the assassination of kings and
emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression
of a people, until he fancies himself commissioned
by heaven to liberate them. He ventures
the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
execution." Abraham Lincoln felt much more than
he said; he was speaking as a statesman. But he
uttered the truth, John Brown had brooded over
the oppression of the Negro, and did venture the
attempt to liberate him, and was executed. And
he did more. He left the incompleted effort to be
completed by the same Abraham Lincoln, whose
life also was sacrificed in the interest of the holy
cause. Only a few months after speaking his
memorable words on John Brown he was elected
President of the United States, which event was
quickly followed by the War of Emancipation,
after which the assassin ended his life; but not
before he had saved the nation and set the Negro
free.
When Lincoln was assassinated the whole Christian
world heard the news with sorrow; but there
were men, who lived in civilized society, that rejoiced,
and said in their hearts, if not with their
lips: "The South is avenged," which words Wilkes
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Booth shouted in Ford's Theatre after shooting
the president. He was a martyr, whose death sealed
and made secure the glorious work which had been
done. His assassination was another proof of the
most weird fact of history, that martyrdom is the
price good men have paid for human progress.
Jesus Christ gave His life to save all men from sin
and the ruin of disobedience, and His disciples
feared not to emulate His example. Filled with
His spirit, from His day until now, to give a larger
application to Lincoln's words, noble men have
brooded over the sorrows of the human family, and
feeling heaven's call have ventured to assuage them,
and, like John Brown, passed into rest by violence.
John Brown had, we think, a consciousness for
years that the victory would be made sure by his
own death, and if we were attempting more than a
brief review of the efforts he made much evidence
might be produced in support of that view. A few
of his own words must suffice. Writing to Mr.
Sanborn, a short time before he made his attack on
Harper's ferry, he said: "I have only had this one
opportunity in a life of nearly sixty years, and could
I be continued ten times as long again, I might not
again have another equal opportunity. God has
honoured but comparatively a very small part of
mankind with any possible chance of such mighty
and soul-satisfying rewards. . . . I expect nothing
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but to 'endure hardness;' but I expect to effect a
mighty conquest, even though it be like the last
victory of Samson." A little while before his execution
he wrote to his brother: "I am quite cheerful
in view of my approaching end, being fully persuaded
that I am worth inconceivably more to hang
than for any other purpose. I count it all joy. 'I
have fought the good fight,' and have, as I trust,
'finished my course.'" To his cousin he said:
"When I think how easily I might be left to spoil
all I have done or suffered in the cause of freedom,
I hardly dare wish another voyage, even if I had
the opportunity." To his children he wrote: "I
feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth on
the scaffold as in any other way," and he added:
"as I trust my life has not been thrown away, so I
also humbly trust that my death will not be in vain.
God can make it to be a thousand times more valuable
to his own cause than all the miserable service
(at best) that I have rendered it during my life."
To a minister of religion, who had written him a
letter of sympathy, he replied: "I think I feel as
happy as Paul did when he lay in prison. He knew
if they killed him, it would greatly advance the
cause of Christ; that was the reason he rejoiced so.
On that same ground 'I do rejoice.' Let them hang
me; I forgive them, and may God forgive them,
for 'they know not what they do.' I have no regret
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for the transaction for which I am condemned. I
went against the laws of men, it is true, but
'whether it be right to obey God or men, judge
ye.'" His last words to his family were: "John
Brown writes to his children to abhor with undying
hatred that sum of all villianes--slavery."
These words make a mirror, in which we may see
this man, John Brown, and if we be capable of looking
behind the flesh, we may behold his very spirit.
For generations other good men had talked about
the slave trade, had felt, too, unutterable things in
respect of it,--sorrow, shame, indignation; but the
slave-owner dared them preach their theories in the
South, and mocked their piety. If the men of the
North so much as whispered the word compulsion,
the men of the South shouted independence, separation
from the North, two United States, a North
and a South. In the senate and in the assembly
the voice of the demon was all-powerful, and no
remedy by talk or resolution could be had. John
Brown saw, heard and studied it all; "brooded
over it," to use Lincoln's words; felt that he must
do more than talk. Samson went into the house of
the Philistines, and pulled it down, and perished;
he would go boldly into the enemies' camp, and,
"though it be like the last victory of Samson,"
would try to effect a mighty conquest. He went,
and met the fate that befell Samson. The slave-owners
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hanged him, and said "he has died a felon's
death."
No separation from the North now, you flesh and
blood jobbers, that you may continue the infernal
traffic; this man Brown has destroyed all your
schemes; his blood has been sprinkled upon the
sons of God. You have killed him, hanged him to
death, it is true, and it is also true that the nation
has watched you, and her best men and women
have written in their diaries what they think of it.
Louisa Alcott has written: "The execution of St.
John the Just took place December second," and
Longfellow has set down in his journal: "This
will be a great day in our history; the date of a new
revolution, quite as much needed as the old one.
Even now, as I write, they are leading old John
Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to
rescue slaves. This is sowing the wind to reap the
whirlwind, which will come soon." You ought not
to have hanged John Brown, you buyers and sellers
of flesh and blood; it was a mistake you made, to
which you were moved by the blind wickedness
that was in you; you shall ere long go out to see,
and feel, the whirlwind. It is dangerous work,
hanging a saint of God, though his methods have
been indiscreet; they who are wicked enough to do
it may look out for God's judgment, which you shall
on no account escape.
Page 77
At last the real prophets were aroused, to whom
the country had to listen. Speaking of John Brown,
Emerson said: "I wish we might have health
enough to know virtue when we see it, and not cry
with the fools 'madman' when a hero passes;" and
the audience responded with prolonged applause.
Again he said: "That new saint, than whom none
purer or more brave was ever led by love of man
into conflict and death--the new saint awaiting his
martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make
the gallows glorious like the cross;" and the audience
broke into intense enthusiasm. Thoreau said:
"Christ was crucified some eighteen hundred years
ago; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was
hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is
not without its links. He is not old Brown any
longer, he is an angel of light." Victor Hugo
wrote: "In killing Brown, the Southern States
have committed a crime which will take its place
among the calamities of history. He was an apostle
and a hero. The gibbet has only increased his glory
and made him a martyr." And Mrs. Stearns wrote
these words in respect of her husband: "On the
second of December, Mr. Stearns yearned for the
solitude of his own soul, in communion of spirit,
with the friend who, on that day, would 'make the
gallows glorious like the cross;' and he left Dr.
Howe and took the train for Niagra Falls. There,
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sitting alone beside the mighty rush of water, he
solemnly consecrated his remaining life, his fortune,
and all that was most dear, to the cause in whose service
John Brown had died." To these words of the real
prophets of that time the country listened, and great
was the result.
It was wrong, no doubt, as men speak, to attempt
by ambush, force and invasion to subvert slavery in
Virginia; it is always better to appeal to reason and
judgment, and have the matter settled by ballot.
Enlightened forms of government and the Christian
religion equally shrink from violence and the use
of arms; but in the case of the Negro in America
the Southrons would not listen to appeal, would
scarcely discuss the question, and finally, on that
and some other issues, declared themselves a separate
nation. What was to be done? John Brown
had recently been hanged, and Abraham Lincoln
more recently elected president, and the Christian
conscience of the North was roused and instructed.
What was to be done? With the boom of Southern
guns firing on Fort Sumter millions of eyes turned
to Harper's Ferry, and millions of hearts felt--that
is what has to be done, and sooner we emulate the
example of John Brown the better for the nation
and the future of mankind.
It was done; once and forever. Harper's Ferry
could not be forgotten. Once more in the history
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of man the stern, awful righteousness of the Old
Testament was seen on earth. Once again mothers
sent their sons with prayer and benediction to the
awful battle-field, to the conflict that was not for
gold, neither for dominion. And while fathers and
sons fought side by side, and together sang the
stirring words of the John Brown song, mothers
and daughters stayed at home and prayed, which
prayers were heard in heaven. And strange things
were seen. On the very spot in Virginia where
John Brown was hanged, the Webster Regiment of
Massachusetts stood on the first day of March, 1862,
and sang to the music of a Methodist hymn -
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on."
And many wept, and deep emotions were stirred,
and the God of heaven looked down on the sons of
men, and saw the good and the evil.
He saw that many men of the North would not
fight to free the slaves; that the president himself
did not understand; that the army of the North did
not unanimously believe it was a war of emancipation.
The God of heaven guided the president, and
helped him in due time clearly to see the issue, and
strengthened him to declare the Negro free. It was
to retain the institution of slavery the South fought,
as stated distinctly by Jefferson Davis; it was, in the
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first instance, to preserve the union and defeat the
rebellious states the North fought. Fighting for
the union, as the history of the war clearly proves,
the armies of the North made no progress toward
victory; but when emancipation was declared and
the Negro himself was brought into the struggle,
victory was assured, and did finally attend their
banners. It was victory wrought by the hand of the
Almighty, which all may see who are not blind.
One more word from John Brown, the last he
wrote.
"Charlestown, Jefferson Co., Virginia, 29th March, 1
