Speaking of this incident Park says: “Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness and sleep fled from my eyes. Another writer says: “The name of the woman and the alabaster box of precious ointment, the nameless widow, who, giving only two mites, had given more than all the rich, and this nameless woman of Sego, form a trio of feminine beauty and grandeur of which the sex in all ages may be proud.”

Mungo Park went from Kano back to England and as every one had thought him dead long ago his return caused great rejoicing throughout the country. Eight years afterward he went again to Africa on the same errand and with quite a company, but one by one his companions sickened and died and finally, though having traveled many miles and endured much suffering, Park himself was drowned while trying to escape from the natives and without coming in sight of the Niger's source.

David Livingstone was also of Scotland and was born about eight years after Park died. His parents were poor, and as he was compelled to work in the day, he received his early education at a night school. He was of a serious turn and while quite young decided to give his life to the cause of missions. In 1840, at the age of twenty-seven he went to South Africa where for nine years he preached and taught at various stations in the vicinity of, Cape Town; he also sent to England during this time much information of value to geographers and scientists.

At length he started into the interior on a journey of discovery, realizing, as we all finally do, that by a true, sincere and unselfish life he might point the way to God no matter where he was nor what his occupation. And so, for years, he devoted himself to the double cause of religion and discovery.

Sometimes for months and again for years there would be no word from him and upon two or three occasions searching parties were sent out to find him. He traveled thousands of miles and made many discoveries and though he sometimes met hostile tribes who would engage him and his followers in battle, because they did not know how good and kind he was, wherever they had the chance to really know him they became his true friends. His native servants were devoted to him and among other things he taught them English. Chumah and Susi were the names of two who rendered him valuable assistance.

During his travels he went one time from Cape Colony up to the northwestern part of what is now Matebele; another time he went much farther north and discovered Lake Nyassa; with Stanley he sailed up to the northern end of Lake Tanganyika and his last trip was made to Lake Bangeola, where he had been once before. Here he fell sick and died.

His wife had died in Africa about ten years before and he had hoped after exploring the region around Bangeola to return to England and spend his last days with his children; but, alas, this was not to be. Those who were with him when he died embalmed his body as best they could and at last succeeded in carrying it to Zanzibar. Here it was received by a government vessel and carried to England, and Livingstone was buried with the honor he deserved in Westminster Abby.

Samuel White Baker, an English explorer of note, had traveled much in Asia and Africa and in 1864 had discovered Albert Nyanza or Lake Victoria Nyanza had previously been discovered by two explorers—Speke and Grant. In 1869, Baker with his wife and a large company which included soldiers sailors, a physician, engineers, carpenters and other trained men, started from Egypt, with the consent of the Khedive or king for the purpose of establishing honest trade with the natives instead of the cheating system and also to break up the slave trade as far south as possible. His plan was to reach the interior by means of the Nile and its branches and he took along several vessels, some of these were in pieces to be put together when needed.

You must remember that these explorers had nothing to guide them and that they were making a map not only for themselves but for the rest of the world. They never knew one day through what sort of country they would be traveling next nor whether the natives would be friends or enemies.

On this trip, after sailing for over a month through waters sometimes so covered with vegetation that the men were compelled to swim ahead and cut a canal for the boats with their swords, through waters filled with crocodiles which kept the men in constant fear, through waters in which were many hippotami which sometimes upset the small boats and broke holes in the large ones, Baker and his party were compelled to return to the Nile proper because the water became too shallow to float the boats. But he and his companions would not give up and after resting a while, set out once more.

On the way to Fatiko, the home of Abou Saood and the hotbed of slavery, they met hostile tribes of natives, and the Arabs who made their living by selling slaves, set many traps for them. After much hardship, suffering hunger and thirst, lack of clothing, the burning of their camp and many other losses, they succeeded in conquering their enemies and Baker and his party had the happiness of knowing that their trials had not been in vain. The slave station of Abou Saood was completely broken up and that cruel, wicked man left for Cairo saying that he had been wrongfully treated and would enter a complaint against Baker at the court of the Khedive. However, for the time being, at least, the slave trade throughout the entire region through which Baker had passed and down to the equator no longer existed; the natives returned to their homes and began once more to till the soil.

Henry M. Stanley has been called the most successful explorer of modern times. He made three separate trips into the heart of Africa, each of which was entirely successful, though at the cost of many lives.

His first trip, made in 1870, was for the purpose of finding Livingstone, his second was for the purpose of carrying forward the work which Livingstone had not been able to finish; at this time Stanley explored Lake Victoria and proved it to be one of the sources of the Nile. His last trip was for the relief of Emin Pasha, who after being appointed governor of a province in the interior had been surrounded by hostile natives.

He published to the world many interesting and wonderful facts about the country and inhabitants of Africa. Money, at that time was of no use in the heart of Africa and food and other necessaries were exchanged for beads, bells, wire, cloth and such other things as the natives could not make. More than once life hung on a string of beads or a yard of cloth.

If you have imagined that all of the native Africans resemble the pictures of such usually placed in school books you are greatly mistaken, for, according to Stanley there is as much difference in color, features and character between the tribes of Africa as between the various nations of Europe. Some African tribes are of lighter or darker brown, some are black, some resemble what are called mulatoes, and there is a tribe living on Mt. Gambaragara, near Victoria Nyanza members of which were seen by both Livingstone and Stanley and who are as fair as Europeans with brown hair. “The Wahumba, is a fine well-formed race, the mouth exceedingly well cut, delicately small; the nose that of the Greeks, limbs long, shapely and clean as those of the antelope. Their robes of calf and goat skins hang from the shoulders and fall to the knees.” “The Wadoe is a warlike intelligent people living in a picturesque country. On account of their superior physique and intelligence they are eagerly sought for as slaves by the cruel Arabs.” “The Wagogo, a sturdy native with his rich complexion, his lion front, menacing aspect, bullying nature, haughty, proud and quarrelsome, is a mere child with a man who will study his nature and not offend his vanity. He believes in God or the Sky Spirit and his prayers are generally directed to Him when parents die.” In the course of his journeyings Stanley saw many beautiful native women and many dignified and handsome men.

In 1821, Adjai, a boy of about eleven years, was captured in Yorubaland and sold into slavery. The next year, he was rescued by a British ship and landed at Sierra Leone. The missionaries cared for and educated him and in December, 1825, he was baptised and given the name, Samuel Adjai Crowther. He became a teacher at Furah Bay and afterwards an energetic missionary in the Niger country. In 1842, he went to England and entered the Missionary College, and in June, 1843, was ordained by Bishop Blomfield. Returning to Africa, he went first to Yorubaland and afterwards to Abookuta where he labored earnestly. At the latter place, he translated the Bible and the Prayer Book into Yoruba and other dialects and also prepared school books for the people. He showed the natives how to improve their way of farming and how to trade their cotton for other things. He went on several expeditions up the Niger and afterwards went to England, where on St. Peter's Day, 1864, he was consecrated first Bishop of the Niger. Bishop Crowther, upon reaching Africa again, established several missions and turned many to Christianity. He died of paralysis on December 31, 1891, having for many years displayed as a missionary, untiring industry, great practical wisdom, and deep piety.

Benin was another powerful native kingdom. It was first visited by the English in 1553 and for many years carried on a trade in ivory, palm oil, pepper, etc. The Beni are said to be a pure Negro tribe, speaking a distinct language and having a well-organized government. In the seventeenth century, it was known to Europeans as Great Benin. The King of Benin was a puppet in the hands of the priests, who were the real rulers. The people are skilled in weaving cloth, ivory carving and working in brass, and much of the work of the native artists is to be seen.

In 1897 the English consul general sent to ask for an audience with the king. The latter requested the English to remain away until after the annual “customs,” but in spite of this request, the consul, with eight others started for Benin and were massacred on the way, only two escaping. A large English force was sent against Benin and after a long, hard fight the city was conquered and partly burned. The king and chiefs were tried, the king deported to Calabar and the chiefs executed. The whole country is now governed by a Council of Chiefs, under supervision of a British resident.

The kingdom of Dahomey, like those of Benin and Ashanti was a purely Negro and pagan state. King Gezo, its most famous ruler, reigned forty years and under him the country was exceedingly prosperous. He reorganized the women warriors, or Amazons, for which Dahomey is famous. The strongest and best looking women were drafted into the Amazon regiments and they were the pride of Dahomy. Each of these regiments had its own peculiar uniform and badges and the Amazons took the post of honor and danger in all battles.

“Sir R. F. Burton, who saw the army marching out of Kano on an expedition in 1862, computed the whole force of female troops at twenty-five hundred, of whom one-third were unarmed or only half armed. Weapons were blunderbusses, flint muskets and bows and arrows and the system of warfare was to surprise the enemy.” “The Amazons were carefully trained and the king was in the habit of holding “autumn maneuvers” for the benefit of foreigners. Many Europeans have witnessed a mimic assault, and agree in ascribing a marvelous power of endurance to the women. Lines of thorny acacia were piled up one behind the other to represent defences, and at a given signal the Amazons, barefooted and without any special protection, charged and disappeared from sight. Presently, they emerged within the lines, torn and bleeding but apparently insensible to pain, and the parade closed with a march past, each warrior leading a pretended captive.”

The independent existence of Dahomey ended with the surrender of Bohanzi, the last native king and the kingdom is now a French colony.

The Basutos of South Africa were able for a great while to maintain their independence against the English and the Boers through the patriotism and intelligence of Mosesh, their great leader and king. When he was forced to make a choice of allies, he had the insight and intelligence to choose the English and in the protectorate of Basutoland the natives are sturdy and prosperous. Moshesh died in 1869, but his people still enjoy the fruits of his tact and skill. “As a result of the great work of Moshesh, Basutoland is today almost entirely self-governing, with nearly 300,000 inhabitants, with annual exports of grain, cattle and wool amounting to $700,000 a year.” It is exceedingly encouraging to feel that when “the time” comes, as come it will, that the descendants of all these brave peoples shall again have opportunity for self-government they will be able to add to their natural capacity that which they have learned from contact with modern civilization.

The Barbary States, on whose soil Carthage once stood, play, in these days, an unimportant part in the world and the several states are under the government of different nations. The native ruler of Egypt is called the Khedive, but at present the government is practically in the hands of Great Britain. Travel in Eastern lands has become so rapid and comfortable that a trip to Egypt is now taken by many people as a sort of summer outing, and every year thousands of tourists gaze in wonder and awe at the Pyramids, the Sphynx, the Catacombs and the River Nile.

The Kingdom of Abyssinia was, for many years wisely governed by King Menelik, who called himself, among other things, “the King of Kings and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.” Because the King had been in ill health for some time, Prince Lidj Jeassu was, in May, 1909, at the age of thirteen, proclaimed heir to the Abyssinian throne, and Ras Hessama was appointed to act as guardian of the little heir and to govern in his stead. In May, 1911, Prince Lidj Jeassu was proclaimed Emperor.

The inhabitants are justly proud of their centuries-old history and prefer to be known by their ancient name of Ethiopians. As a whole they are an extremely intelligent people, grave of countenance, elaborately courteous and it is said that with training and experience they will be fully “capable of meeting the competition of the Western world.” Their dress is the toga such as was worn by the Greeks and Romans. Menelik is described as “tall and straight, with a face full of intelligence and the manners of a gentleman as well as a king.” As a part of their literature, handed down for centuries, the Abyssians prize extracts from the Old Testament, in the Gheze language, the Sabbatical laws, commandments given to Moses by God and a translation of Josephus.

It is said that on the plains and lower lands the soil of Abyssinia is very fertile and produces sometimes three crops per year; nearly every grain that will grow anywhere, can be grown in Abyssinia. The inhabitants also engage in raising sheep and goats and a certain amount of commerce is carried on. “By methods as old as Moses, gold to the average amount of five hundred thousand dollars is annually produced.”

Recently a commission was appointed by the President of the United States to visit Abyssinia and to endeavor to establish friendly relations between the two countries. The commissioners were received with great pomp and assured of the interest and friendship of Menelik. Modern Abyssinia is said to be one of the few remaining lands of romance and adventure.

You have already heard of the Congo Free or Independent State. It was so called because in 1885, representatives from fourteen countries, the United States included, met and agreed that in that part of Africa, at least, trade should be free to all, the navigation of the Congo river should be free and the natives should not be oppressed, but encouraged to make the most of themselves. King Leopold of Belgium was one of those who consented to this and he succeded in having himself appointed a kind of guardian to see that the agreement was carried out; but he was a wicked, cruel king, sly and crafty and by degrees he obtained absolute power over every soul in the Congo. He claimed that the Congoland and everything in its was his and that the natives were simply his tenants and, strange to say, the thirteen other countries allowed him to do so.

The Congo is a vast region and has been described as being as large as the whole of Europe, omitting Spain and Russia. Leopold placed over every village in the Congo, men as heartless and cruel as himself, and if the natives of a village failed to bring out of the forest as much ivory and rubber as the overseers thought they should, these wicked men would send after them cannibal soldiers who would burn the huts and kill and eat the natives. The terrible things that were reported from the Congo, horrified the civilized world, and more than once Leopold pretended to stop them, but recently accounts of awful conditions have been published. It is said that in seven years, driven by their cruel taskmasters, the natives gathered fifty-five millions of dollars' worth of rubber for which they received barely enough to keep them alive.

Dr. W. H. Sheppard, himself a colored man and a citizen of the United States, took up missionary work in Africa in 1893. In 1911 he returned to America from the Congo region and tells many interesting things of the tribes with which he came into contact. Among them there was a tribe which he was the first civilized man to visit. The king of this tribe had heard of foreigners and their cruelties to the natives, and as he thought they were all alike, he issued an edict that no foreigner should enter his kingdom. But Dr. Sheppard had won the love of the tribes around Stanley Pool, and accompanied by some of them, he finally made his way into the forbidden land. He found the natives weaving their own cloth, making their own farming and domestic implements, and living very contentedly. He also came into contact with a tribe of cannibals, whose lives were, as a matter of course, on a much lower plane. He preached to them the Gospel, and after many years has the happiness to know that he and his helpers have been the means of bringing many to Christianity and civilization.

There are still in Central Africa, regions which are unknown to the civilized world, but in some places of which until recently little has been heard, the natives have reached a high state of development. As you know, the Arabs who believe in the Mohammedan religion have for centuries been traveling through Africa, and in many places have erected villages for permanent homes and intermarried with the natives. This is true of Nigeria where the natives show their contact with the Arabs in many ways. The two most important tribes of this region are the Fallani and the Hausas, both of which are highly intelligent and progressive. Kano, the chief city of this locality, has been called the Chicago of West Africa and is a busy city with markets crowdeded with buyers and merchants selling vegetables, fruits, fowl, sheep, goats and many other things, while its shops are filled with native and foreign products. The people engage in tilling the soil, tending herds, weaving, dyeing, and manufacturing pottery, native cloth, farming tools and simple arms such as daggers, spears, etc.

Uganda, where good King Mtesa reigned in Stanley's time, is now a British protectorate; but there is still a native king. It is said that one hundred thousand of the natives are Christians and twice as many of them can read and write. Beside the king there is a court and a parliament, nobles, ministers and a code of laws. The people are industrious, cultured and peaceable. “The white man cannot live here long at a time, for in his flesh every cut or scratch festers, small wounds become running sores and malaria turns to the fatal black-water fever.”

South Africa is rich in gold and diamonds and for many years was governed by people called Boers, who are of Dutch descent. Recently the Boers and England went to war and England conquered the country and added it to her other possessions. It was to this country that Livingstone, the explorer, went, taught and preached to the people and converted many to Christianity. But the Boers were not kind to the natives and oppressed them in many ways.

Spreading all over South Africa is a great tribe of natives called Kaffirs and of these the Zulus are said to be the best type. They are noted for their hospitality and though partly nomadic, they are lovers of home and children. Those Kaffirs who have not been tainted by the vices of the Boers are described as the “most intellectual of all savage races, with lofty, thoughtful foreheads.” In complexion they are dark with a tinge of red, the skin is thin and fine grained and the hair crisp and curly. They are very proud of their appearance and if asked what complexion they prefer will say, “black like mine, with a little red.” The blacker a person is the more beautiful the Kaffirs consider him and though Albinos are sometimes found among them they are pitied rather than admired. In recent years several Negro missionaries have gone to South Africa as well as to other sections and the natives are joining the churches, educating their children and learning many of the arts of civilization.

Of the West Coast of Africa a writer has recently said that “to partition finally among the powers this strip of death and disease, of unaccountable wealth, of unnamed horrors and cruelties, has taken many hundreds of years, has brought to the black man every misery that can be inflicted upon a human being and to thousands of white men, death and degradation or great wealth.” It was from this part of Africa that the majority of slaves were brought to America.

Sierra Leone was founded on the West Coast by English philanthropists as a home for freedmen, and later American friends of humanity established a colony adjoining Sierra Leone for the same purpose, and this colony was finally called the Republic of Liberia.

The native tribes which live in Sierra Leone and Liberia and in that part of the adjoining country which reaches toward central Africa and which is called the hinterland, are a very interesting people. The most progressive of them are the Mandingoes (whose language Mungo Park learned) and the Vai. Of these the men are, as a rule, stalwart and handsome and many of the women are beautiful. Other tribes are the Gora, the Sunu, and the Kru, to which belong the Grebe, the De, the Basa and the Gibi. The Krumen are the workingmen of the West Coast. They are heavily built and muscular and neither the women nor the men are especially attractive in appearance; but they are very industrious and much of coast traffic depends on their labor.

The natives of this section manufacture a kind of pottery which is very artistic and not unlike that made by the Indians in this country. They also weave a cloth which is called “country cloth,” and rude musical instruments, swords, wooden plates, drums and similar articles are made.

Throughout Africa there exist secret societies known by different names in different places. The societies for men and women are separate and distinct and they are not allowed to hold sessions at the same time. In the vicinity of Sierra Leone the women's society is called the Bandu and the men's, the Poro. When the older women of the tribe decide to hold a meeting, a space is cleared in the forest or bush and thus the session has been named the Bandu Bush. The chief officers are called “dibbles,” “boogies,” or “devils,” and they dress in a very fantastic manner. Over the head and face is worn a hideous mask from which hangs a covering of palm fiber so adjusted as to completely hide the figure and disguise the individual. They pretend to be supernatural and only the highest officials know who they really are.

Into the Bush the girls from about twelve to sixteen are taken to be initiated. The girls who do not go are looked upon with contempt and are called “silly” and “idiots.” The initiates remain in the Bush for months and the women teach them many useful things; among others, to be obedient and respectful to their elders and to be good wives and mothers. After they have been sufficiently instructed, they are “medicine washed” and a public feast takes place in their honor, something like a debut party in civilized countries. When the boys go into the Poro bush they are told the laws and legends of their tribe and commanded to respect them, they are taught to hunt and fish and are also made to understand their duties and responsibilities as future husbands and fathers.

Of the natives of western Africa a missionary has said: “Whatever other estimate we may form of the African, we may not doubt his love for his mother. Her name, whether she be dead or alive, is always on his lips and in his heart. She is the first thing he thinks of when awakening from his slumbers and the last thing he remembers when he closes his eyes in sleep; to her he confides secrets which he would reveal to no other human being on the face of the earth. He cares for no one else in time of sickness, she alone must prepare his food, administer his medicine, perform his ablutions and spread his mat for him. He flies to her in the hour of his distress, for he well knows if all the rest of the world turn against him, she will be steadfast in her love, whether he be right or wrong.” How wonderful must be the women who can inspire and keep such deep and constant love and devotion in the hearts of their children!

All lovers of humanity earnestly desire the civilization and redemption of the entire continent of Africa, and many plans to that end have been suggested. Speaking of these, Didwho Twe, a native African, and a man of great culture and discernment, has said: “A new form of Christianity for the African race will develop from the present commercialism. The initiative of this great change will come from men of pure African blood—Africans in appearance, Africans in body, Africans in spirit, Africans in pride, Africans in thought.”

Quamine, who was the son of a wealthy native of Annamboe, had been sent by his father to England to be educated, but the person to whom he had been entrusted, had treacherously sold him into slavery. Besides the two named, Salmur Nubia, another young African, was desirous of furthering Dr. Hopkins' plan. But little money was donated and when the Revolutionary War broke out, it put an end to the project. Many years after, two of Dr. Hopkins' proteges joined the Liberian colony—one of them was Salmur Nubia, the other Deacon Newport Gardner.

In 1787, Dr. Thornton, of Washington, D. C., published “an address to the free people of color in Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” inviting them to accompany him to the west coast of Africa, there to plant a colony, but the plan fell through for lack of funds.

“The first public meeting ever held in this country to consider the subject of African Colonization was called by Dr. Robert Finley, and was held in the Presbyterian Church in Princeton, N. J. After maturing his plans, Dr. Finley went to Washington in December, 1816, during the session of Congress and succeeded in having many of the prominent men present in the city attend a meeting to consider his project. Hon. Henry Clay was present and was called to the chair. After the society was organized many other prominent Americans became actively interested in its work. Among them were Judge Bushrod Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Marshall, John Randolph, J. H. B. Latrobe, and Francis Scott Key.

About thirty-five years after the first colony of freedmen went from England to Sierra Leone, the American Colonization Society sent a company of freedmen from this country to Africa. About the same time, Congress authorized the President to provide a place in Africa for the slaves who might be recaptured at sea. The government chartered a vessel to carry its agents and agreed to take also the agent of the Colonization Society and such free Negroes as that organization should recommend. Eighty-nine persons were finally selected and the vessel sailed from New York February 6, 1821, arriving in Sierra Leone March 9.

The government agents in charge were Rev. Samuel Bacon and John P. Bankson, while Dr. Samuel Crozer was the agent of the colonization society. The emigrants made a temporary settlement at Sherbo, but before land could be purchased for a permanent home the agents and many of the colonists died. Just before his death Dr. Crozer solemnly entrusted the colony and all its posessions to the care of the Rev. Daniel Coker, a colored Methodist preacher. Though new to such responsibility, the latter managed affairs with great ability and received the praise of Dr. Ayres, the next agent.

After looking over the situation Dr. Ayres decided to buy land on Mesurado Bay, and in December, 1821, made an agreement with the six native kings or headmen who owned the ground, receiving a deed to the same and giving in exchange muskets, beads, gunpowder, rum, knives, forks, spoons, hats coats, looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, canes, umbrellas, soap, etc. The contracting parties pledged themselves to live in peace forever. The first colony arrived at Mesurado on January 7, 1882, and found much work awaiting them; land was to be cleared, shelter made for the provisions, houses built for themselves and many other things to be done which life in a new country required.

Though the natives had promised friendship it was not long before they began to show signs of hostility. Slave traders in the neighborhood aroused ill feeling by telling the tribes that if the colony was allowed to flourish, it would break up the selling of slaves and would mean the loss of the rum and tobacco which the natives had been taught to prize. Several raids were made upon the colonists and they who were already fighting disease and great bodily discomfort were called upon to take arms and fight for life itself. The situation called forth the best that was in them and among the freedmen who distinguished themselves in the early days, along more than one line were Lot Cary and wife, Elijah Johnston, Collin Teague and wife, Joseph Blake, Richard Sampson and Joseph Langford and wife. Later came Joseph Shepherd, a school teacher, and J. B. Russwurm, who founded and edited the Liberia Herald and afterward became Governor of New Maryland. Colored lieutenant governors were Lot Cary, Rev. C. M. Waring, Anthony D. Williams, J. J. Roberts. Other notable characters of colonial Liberia were George M. Erskine, a Presbyterian minister; Jacob W. Prout, of Baltimore; Mr. and Mrs. Tittler, missionaries; Archie Moore and Closter Simpson, of Mississippi; Dr. Robert McDowell, of Edinburgh, Scotland, colonial physician; and Charles H. Webb, his assistant.

In 1836 Mr. James Brown was elected President of the Town Council of Monrovia, an office equal to that of mayor. Mr. Brown took the greatest interest in agriculture and made a number of very interesting and successful experiments. He published several circulars looking to the promotion of good farming in the colony and he also instituted an agricultural conversation club, a fair and a museum. He lent every assistance to the White Plains Manual Labor School, established during his presidency by Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The school was located at Millsburg, a beautiful and fertile spot, and was under the care of Rev. B. R. Wilson.

No one can read the early history of Liberia without deeply appreciating the spirit of Christian love and devotion which moved the white agents and missionaries most of whom gave their lives to the cause; among them were Bacon, Andrus Sessions, Helton, Ashmun, Randall, Levi Scott and others.

The spirit which animated Bacon seems to have been in all the rest. Said he, “As regards myself, I counted the cost of engaging in the service before I left America. I came to these shores to die and anything better than death is better than I expect.”

After the colony had been established, many slave owners in the United States freed their slaves and sent them to Liberia. Hundreds were recaptured from slave vessels, and several companies of free Negroes joined the colony. The colonization society had branches in many states and was untiring in its effort to support the colony. The Colonization Society of Maryland was independent of the National Colonization Society because it was found that thereby it would receive more support from the state legislature. The colony at Cape Palmas was founded and controlled by the Maryland Colonization Society, but finally became part of the Liberian Republic.

The natives showed themselves willing to be taught. Writing of them in 1827 Lot Cary said: “The heathen in our vicinity are very anxious for the means of light. They will buy it, beg it, and sooner than miss it, they will steal it. In renewing our school establishment up to Cape Mount, I had upwards of forty natives carry out baggage, and though they had every opportunity to commit depredations nothing was lost except fifteen spelling books.”

When it was plainly to be seen that Liberia as a colony could not defend itself steps were taken to form it into an independent government, and on July 26, 1847, the colony became the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia. Article I, Section 1 of the constitution reads as follows: All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural inherent and inalienable rights, among which are the rights of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.

The republic was first recognized by Great Britain, next by France and then by the other powers. The chief officials are the President, Vice President, a Senate and House of Representatives, a Cabinet and a Supreme Court. The President must be thirty-five years of age and own real estate; electors must be of Negro blood and be owners of land; natives may vote but usually do not except in larger towns.

Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts became the first President of the Liberian Republic and served from 1848 to 1856. Succeeding Presidents were Hon. Stephen A. Benson, 1856-64; Daniel Warner, 1864-68; James S. Payne, 1848-70; Edward J. Roye, 1870-72; James Jenkins Roberts, 1872-76; James Spriggs Payne, 1876-78; Anthony W. Gardner, 1878-84; Hiliary R. W. Johnson, 1884-1891; Joseph J. Cheeseman, 1892-98; William D. Coleman, 1898-1900; Garretson W. Gibson, 1900-04; Arthur Barclay, 1904-12.

On January 1, 1912, Hon. Daniel Edward Howard was inaugurated President of the republic. “It was the first inauguration ever attended by native chiefs.”

Liberia is about the size of the State of New York, and the total population is between fifteen and twenty-one hundred thousand, about twelve thousand of whom are Americo-Liberians. The principal tribes represented are the Mandingo, the Kisi, the Gola, the Kru and allies. The coast region is divided into three counties—Basa, Sino, and Maryland.

There is a government college, Methodist college and a Protestant Episcopal high school; Dr. Blyden was at one time president of Liberia College. Dr. Alexander Crummell once had charge of the Episcopal mission in that country.

Francis Burns was the first colored missionary bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church to West Africa, serving from 1858 to 1863. In 1834 he went to Liberia and did splendid work as evangelist and teacher. Upon his election to the bishopric, he came to this country to be ordained and returned to Africa. In a few years his health failed and in 1863 he died. John Wright Roberts was ordained a few years afterward and succeeded Bishop Burns. “Roberts vigorously carried forward the work so wisely begun by his predecessor, and it is said that at the time of his death, in 1875, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Africa numbered more than two hundred thousand souls.” “The Right Reverend S. D. Ferguson, the present Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Liberia, is a native of South Carolina. Bishop Ferguson has spent almost his entire life in Africa. Although now advanced in age, he is extremely active and has a firm grip on his work. He has trained up a fine body of native clergymen.”

In Liberia there is an organized militia, a volunteer force and a police force. Every male citizen from sixteen years old to fifty, capable of bearing arms, is liable to serve. The national flag bears a single star and stripes.

The hinterland is undeveloped so that the resources of the country are not exactly known, but gold, diamonds, copper, lead, zinc have been found. There are no railways and oxcarts are the vehicles commonly used; a motor road has recently been constructed, about twenty miles in length. Seven lines of steamers regularly visit Monrovia—British, German, French, Spanish.

The following colored Americans have served as United States Ministers to Liberia: Hon. J. Milton Turner, John H. Smith, Henry Highland Garnet, O. W. L. Smith, Ernest Lyon, W. D. Crum. Hon. James Robert Spurgeon, a graduate of Yale, was at one time secretary of legation. He was commended for excellent service. In 1902, Hon. George W. Ellis, of Kansas University, succeeded Mr. Spurgeon. Mr. Ellis served eight and one half years, and as he is an authority upon questions of economics and sociology, he was able to render important service to the Liberian government.

Of Liberia, Mr. Ellis says: “Liberia offers to the United States an opening to the most extensive, the most desirable and the best paying commerce of all the world. Agricultural possibilities of the republic are tremendous, on account of the fertility of the soil. Liberia also affords access to a hundred million Sudanese natives, the highest type of the Negro race, and cultured in many arts.” “The Sudanese of northern Africa have a civilization dating back for centuries, and similar in its origin to that which made Morocco the metropolis of Negro culture years ago.”

Besides the multitude of valuable articles to be found in Liberia proper and the Hinterland, “not least are the hides of many animals—of the leopard, the beautiful spotted bushcat, of many varieties of deer, of the monkey, the alligator and the boa-constrictor. All these beasts inhabit the interior. The elephant is to be found within two or three days' walk of Cape Mount. Domestic cattle are also numerous on the Mandingan plains and among some of the coast tribes. These cattle are descended from ancient stock, introduced into Africa centuries ago from Egypt and the Mediterranean.”

The government of Liberia has not had a smooth path, for, envious of the great natural wealth which the country contains, some of the European powers have artfully tried to undermine the republic. In 1910 a commission, appointed by President of U. S., visited Liberia to look into the condition of the country, as the Liberians had urgently requested America to come to their aid. The commission consisted of Messrs. Roland P. Folkner, George Sale and Emmett J. Scott: the latter has been for many years, secretary to Dr. Booker T. Washington. The commission reported favorably and the United States has established a sort of financial protectorate over the country and has placed American officials in charge of Liberian customs.

Writing of Liberia in 1832 a visitor says: “All my expectations in regard to the health, harmony, order, contentment, industry and general prosperity of the settlers were more than realized. I saw no intemperance nor did I hear a profane word. I know of no place where the Sabbath appears to be more respected than in Monrovia; no man, not even a native, could be hired “for love or money” to work on the Sabbath day. Most of the settlers appear to be rapidly acquiring property and I have no doubt that they are doing better for themserves and their children than they could do in any other part of the world.”

“Previous to the settlement of Liberia the mouths of the rivers St. Paul, Mesurado and St. John were the greatest marts for slaves on the windward coast. Thousands came down those streams each year and were sold away. Now those rivers are used by the husbandmen to bring their produce to Monrovia, Grand Bassa and Etina, and the native paddles his canoe in safety under the protection of the colonies founded by the Colonization Society.”

A visitor to Liberia in 1910 writes: “The people of Monrovia look, act and dress very like the better class of Negroes of Atlanta or Louisville. All the Americo-Liberians (and many civilized natives) are neatly but not flashily clothed, and most of the aborigines put on an extra cloth when they come to town. I doubt if there be anywhere in the United States a Negro community of the size of Monrovia where there is so little boisterousness or profanity. Swearing is a lost art and I saw but one case of drunkenness during my first month in Monrovia.”

“The Liberian Sabbath suggests the quiet of a New England city—a quiet that is broken only by the sound of church organs and congregational singing. The churches are well attended and the services are conducted with due regard to dignity and reverence.” So you see that for at least eighty years the Liberians have conducted themselves with the same dignity and have had no need to be ashamed of their country.

A writer describes the inaugural ceremonies of President Howard, held January 1, 1912, as very imposing. “It was the first inauguration ever attended by native chiefs, headmen and retainers, and their presence was significant. They talked nothing but peace and prosperity, and promised to do all in their power to make the new administration a highly successful one. Nearly two thousand natives from the interior listened to President Howard advocate that they be given equal rights, and when on the second day President Howard and Vice President Harmon donned attire similar to that worn by the native chiefs, the incident occasioned much good feeling.”

Following is the official family of the new administration: President, Daniel Edward Howard; Vice President, Samuel George Harmon; Secretary of State, C. D. B. King; Secretary of Treasury, Thomas W. Haynes; Secretary of War and Navy, Wilmot E. Dennis; Postmaster General, Col. Isaac Moort; Secretary of Interior, J. J. Morris; Attorney General, Samuel A. Ross; Secretary of Education, B. W. Payne; Executive Secretary to the President, Walter F. Walker.

Still another writer sums up a recent article on Liberia as follows: The Republic needs men, not so much missionaries in the ordinary sense of the word. Like the Negroes of the United States, she appears to have no lack of preachers. She needs men who will support themselves by their toil, and who, as citizens, will strive for the national good. Especially does she need men of mechanical ability to grapple with her industrial tasks. I think if I were a Negro, Liberia would appeal to me strongly upon this ground. I think I would count it a privilege to cast in my lot with the Negro Republic, to toil with her for high national ideals, for the assimilation and civilization of my brothers of the jungle, and to prove to the world what the black man can do.

If you have ever owned any living thing you can form some idea of what it meant to be a slave owner and if you will quietly think for a while you can faintly imagine what it meant to be a slave; to talk, walk, dress, eat, move, live, not as one wanted or knew to be best, but in obedience to the will of one's owner. I have compared the state of a slave with that of your kitten because nearly every child has owned a kitten, but the comparison is a feeble one and as you come to understand more about slavery, I want you to think out for yourself a more just comparison. Of course, a kitten cannot talk, or think, or plan, or hope, in other words, it is not, as you know, a human being, but it is weak and defenceless, and you have had absolute power over it, even the power of life and death.

In our talks we have often mentioned slavery and it has always been the Negro or the Indian who was the slave. I want you to know how old and how evil a system slavery was, how in ancient times it covered the then known world, and how none of the races of the earth have escaped its effects. Slavery existed in one form or another since history began. Those who had the strength and the power have ever been willing to compel the weaker to do their bidding and not until the coming of Christ was there any persistent attempt either to destroy slavery or to soften the hard lot of the slave, but strange to say, it took hundreds of years before the preaching of Christ's Golden Rule and Gospel of Love was so understood by Christians every where as to cause them to work with energy and determination for the freeing of all slaves.

The ancient Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Chinese, the people of Indian, all held their conquered enemies as slaves. The Phoenicians were great slave traders and kidnapped people of any and every nation, selling them as slaves. “They stole Greeks and sold them, twelve centuries before Christ, and they also sold stolen people to the Greeks.” It is said that in every country the condition of female slaves was much worse than that of the males and that they were required to do the hardest work and were treated in the harshest manner.

The Greeks held many slaves and the bondsmen of Athens are said to have been much better treated than those of Sparta. Since the Spartans were so stern with their children, they would hardly have been tender with slaves. The slaves of Sparta were called helots; they belonged to the state and were assigned to land owners, so many to a certain amount of land. Their condition was very miserable and as they increased in numbers they grew very restless, finally uniting and marching against Sparta, which they nearly succeeded in taking. As a usual thing, however, they were as loyal as they possibly could be and often fought in the armies of Sparta, but they received little gratitude from the state. The masters, through guilty consciences perhaps, were kept in constant fear of uprisings, and at times would secretly give young Spartan men permission to massacre the helots by night. At one time two thousand helots who had valiantly fought for Sparta were slain.

The Romans owned many more slaves than the Greeks and their numerous victories over other nations filled the slave market to over-flowing. It is said that at the close of the war with Greece and the East “men were sold for four drachmae each or about sixty-two cents of our money,” and these were men of the highest type of ancient civilization. The Romans seemed to prefer to humble the proudest, and men, who in their own country had been slave owners, men who were cultured and who had lived in luxury, were most desired as slaves by the Romans. “All races furnished their share of the greatest population of slaves that ever existed under one dominion.” The Roman conquests extended through Germany and France and as far north as England, and many Englishmen men were carried into slavery, and their chiefs chained to the chariot wheels of the conquerors.

“Roman citizens who had committed certain crimes became ‘slaves of punishment;’ thieves who could not repay four times the value of what they had stolen, became slaves to those whom they had robbed; children were sold into slavery by their parents, and poor debtors were sold as slaves.”

Many citizens owned a great number of slaves, some as many as twenty thousand each. “The price of slaves were not fixed; good actors, doctors, cooks, beautiful women, handsome boys and jesters brought heavy sums. Learned men, grammarians, architects, rhetoricians, and gladiators also sold at high prices; some classes of artisans and laborers sold for upward of three hundred dollars of our money each, but one hundred dollars was a fair average price for a common slave, and when a slave could be bought for about half that sum, the price was held to be low.” Rome as well as Greece experienced many slave insurrections and these were usually led by the gladiators or trained fighters; the insurrection of which Spartacus, the renowned gladiator was the leader, cost many lives and would probably have been successful had not the leader been slain early in the conflict.

You can see that a country in which so many of the inhabitants were restless, discontented and miserable and where so many others were cruel tyrants, could not survive. Slavery is said to have been one of the chief causes of the fall of Rome. After the decline of the Roman power, the peoples who overthrew the empire, established there the feudal system and serfdom, another form of slavery.

The word serf means a servant or slave, and serfdom existed in nearly every country in Europe. By this system the whole mass of poor people were just a little better off than slaves; they were compelled to work the land for the lords or owners and though they could not be removed from the land and were only bought or sold with it, their condition was pitiable in the extreme; they were housed and fed with less care than the livestock and clothed themselves as best they could.

When the Christian nations of western Europe united to take back the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Turks, every serf who enlisted in these wars (which were called Crusades) became free to live where and how he pleased upon his return home, and from this time serfdom gradually died out in most European countries; Hungary in 1848 and Russia in 1861, being the last to give it up. As the general emancipation of Negro slaves in the United States took place in 1865, Russia was but a few years ahead of this country in freeing its bondsmen.

During the long wars between the Turks and the peoples of southern and eastern Europe, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after each encounter, the defeated army was sold into slavery; each also invaded the others territory and captured women and children for slaves. It was about this time that Negro slavery came into prominence, but white slavery still continued in Turkey and the Barbary states, being carried on by the corsairs or pirates until 1816, when an English fleet under Lord Exmouth successfully bombarded Algiers.

You have seen how, at some time in their history, members of every great European race have been held in slavery. In the early days of this republic white Americans had, in their own persons a bitter taste of slavery in a most humilitating form; before this country possessed a navy, many American merchant vessels were captured while passing through the Mediterranean, by the Corsairs, of North Africa and the officers and seamen of these vessels were sold as slaves. In order to ransom those American citizens the United States Government was compelled to pay the sum of one million dollars. It seemed to give the Dey or ruler of Algiers the greatest pleasure to insult and humiliate Americans.

Speaking of the enslavement of the Negro in ancient times a writer says: “The fact that the ancients regarded black slaves as luxuries proves that their number could not have been large in European countries to which they were taken, either by the way of Egypt or that of Carthage. Such details as we have concerning the black slaves of antiquity all serve to show that they were not numerous, far less so, indeed, than were slaves belonging to some of the highest of the white races.”

It is said that with Admiral Don Christopher Columbus, when he made his first voyage of discovery in 1492, was “Pietro Alonzo, or Alonzo the Negro, who piloted the Nina, one of the three vessels under the command of Columbus.” “Diego el Negro was another Spanish Negro who sailed with Columbus on his second voyage in the capacity of cabin boy. The Negro pilot, Pietro Alonzo also made minor discoveries and was the first European Negro navigator to discover the Pearl Coast, after having purchased pearls from naked men. Alonzo the Negro was also a pilot on Columbus' second voyage and navigated the flagship on which Columbus himself sailed. After leaving the Cape Verde Islands, Columbus relied upon this black man's knowledge of navigation.”

“Alonzo afterward became master and captain of a fleet that sailed from Cadiz in, January, 1496, and upon his return to Spain from America, this black navigator was given a public dinner at Seville by the Duke of Medina, which was attended by the city authorities and court officials, in recognition of his achievement in opening up to Spain a veritable ‘gate of pearls;’ so that Negro brains aided in the discovery of America on the very first voyage which Christopher Columbus made to this continent.”

It is also said that three hundred Negro porters and soldiers accompanied Cortes on his Mexican expedition; Negroes carried the loads of Balboa on his discovery of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, and went with Hernandez to Peru in 1530. Negroes assisted as servants and laborers in the founding of the Spanish city of St. Augustine, in Florida, in 1565, and were sailors in the Spanish ships which explored the coasts of Virginia in 1521. A Spanish Negro explorer, Estevan, discovered New Mexico, the land of the Zuni Indians, in 1539.

In 1562, John Hawkins, an English sea captain, together with a number of other Englishmen, asked permission of Queen Elizabeth to capture native Africans and sell them in the New World. The request was granted, but the ships were so packed that a great many died on the voyage. When the Queen heard of it she was shocked, and called Hawkins before her to reprimand him and to take away his charter; but Sir John grew very eloquent over the benefits of slavery to the Negro and made the Queen believe that to bring the African into contact with such highly civilized and Christian people as their new owners, was to do God's service. So, instead of scolding, the Queen praised him, took shares in his company and in 1564, lent him one of her ships. John Hawkins was at heart, you see, a knave instead of a knight.

In the Mohammedan countries there have been black slaves from the time of the prophet, and they often rise very high, as well in the state as in the household. But in all these cases, the Negro has but shared the common lot and might have been sold on the same day with the Greek and Arab and by the same trader. The Negro was then sold, not because he was a Negro, but because be was a man whose services could be turned to profitable account.

While, as we have seen, Negro slavery was known in antiquity, it was left to the New World in general, and to the country which we call our own, the United States of America, in particular, to bring it to its largest and worst development.

In the colony of Rhode Island there was, almost from the beginning a feeling against slavery and laws were passed against it, but neither the sentiment nor the law was strong enough to prevent the holding of slaves in this colony. But here the Negro had many white friends especially among those known as Quakers; these friends did all they could to lighten the lives of the oppressed, but their kindness angered the slave owners. Laws were passed to fine those who entertained slaves and to whip them if they could not pay the fine. As in nearly every other slave-holding colony laws were passed forbidding Indians as well as free Negroes to assemble at night or to walk the streets after nine o'clock without a pass or a lawful excuse.

The many vessels which entered the ports of New England and of Rhode Island especially, opened up a path to liberty which the slaves were not slow to take; they were constantly running away and shipping on these vessels. The officers encouraged this, for they made splendid seamen, but the loss to the owners was so great that a law was passed forbidding the masters of vessels to ship them. Vermont and New Hampshire had always the smallest number of slaves.

The Quakers, or Friends, did much to help the slaves in Pennsylvania. “The first recorded protest of an American against slavery was written in 1688 by a Quaker, Francis Daniel Pastorius, adopted by the Germantown Friends and by them sent up to the monthly meeting at Philadelphia. Speaking of the slaves, Pastoria asks, ‘Have not these Negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?’ He believed the time would come—

In the colonies of Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut, conditions were much the same as those recited above. The colony of New Jersey was the only one in which the Negro was tried by jury, the law also requiring the presence of three justices of the peace. though in Pennsylvania a negro charged with murder must be tried before six freeholders and two justices of the peace. Other humane laws were passed, but when New Jersey passed into the hands of the English, these laws were not regarded.

Slavery was encouraged in the Carolinas from the very beginning, but in 1690 an act more positive than any passed by the other colonies legalized salvery. A part of the act reads: “It shall be always presumed that every Negro, Indian, Mulatto and Mustizo is a slave unless the contrary can be made to appear, the Indians in amity with this government excepted, * * * Providing also, that nothing in this shall be construed to hinder or restrain any other court of law or equity in this province, from determining the property of slaves or their right of freedom.” Until 1732 Georgia was included in the Carolinas.

Because of the rice industry, the number of slaves increased rapidly but their lot was an exceedingly hard one. “They were not allowed to go to other plantations on Sundays, fast days or holy days, even though they had written passes; they were not allowed to hire or buy a house or plantation; they could not own a horse, a boat or cattle.” These oppressive laws became unbearable and many slaves ran away; those who were caught were beaten, branded with hot irons, suffered other cruel punishments and often were barbarously killed.

In most of the colonies in the early days education was neglected, the whites themselves as a rule having but little learning. In 1670, the government in England requested an account of education in the colony of Virginia and in his reply the governor, Sir William Berkeley, said: “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both.” You see, that though an English peer and a college-bred man the governor was really very ignorant as he had not the first idea of the true value of a sound education. But an earnest desire for knowledge has always been characteristic of the Negro and the slaves in the colonies showed themselves so eager to learn and it so often happened that white friends were willing to teach them that in nearly every province, laws were passed forbidding any one to teach them even to read or write.

There is one thing which you must remember, dear children, that is that always, always in every country, the Negro has had staunch, true, courageous white friends, will always have them, nor can we do without them. There will ever be a larger or a smaller number who will firmly stand for righteousness, justice and truth. So let us ever appreciate, honor and be worthy of all our friends.

Throughout the colonies there were a number of slaves who had, in one way or another, gained freedom; in some cases they were set free by their masters, in others by making every spare moment count and often by working all night, they had earned enough money to buy themselves; sometimes their owners, dying, would leave them free. But freed Negroes were feared and distrusted by the whites and despised by the slaves, and many laws which worked to their discomfort were passed. In some colonies it became quite customary to free a slave or let him buy himself for a small sum when old age or ill health caused him to be no longer useful to his master. But you can see that such a practice was almost as cruel as slavery.

In the ancient cemetery at Concord, Mass., is the grave of a slave, born in the early part of the eighteenth century, over which is a headstone bearing the following:

You have heard that several slaves in Massachusetts entered suit for liberty against their masters. It was a woman who began it, Jenny Slew of Ipswich, Essex County, who sued the man who claimed to own her in September,1775. The case was at first decided against her, but she appealed to the Superior Court and won her freedom and four pounds, English money, besides. Think what a brave, determined woman Jenny Slew must have been! Following that, many slaves obtained freedom in like manner. After the colonies declared themselves independent, Massachusetts adopted a constitution in 1780, and again a woman, Elizabeth Freeman, led in suing for liberty under the new constitution. Mr. Sedgwick, who afterward became a United States senator, pleaded Elizabeth's case and won it, and this is said to have been the death blow of slavery in that colony. When the census of 1790 was taken there were no slaves in Massachusetts.

Before that time the Negroes of Massachusetts had addressed two strong and able petitions to the legislature, the first of which is as follows:

To His Excellency, Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Governor:

“To the Honorable, His Majesty's Council, and to the Honorable House of Representatives in general court assembled at Boston, the 5th day of January, 1773:

The humble petition of many slaves living in the town of Boston and other towns in this province, is this namely—

That Your Excellency and Honors, and the Honorable the Representatives, would be pleased to take their unhappy state and condition under your wise and just consideration.

We desire to bless God, who loves mankind, who sent His Son to die for their salvation, and who is no respecter of persons, that he hath lately put it into the hearts of multitudes, on both sides of the water, to bear our burthens, some of whom are men of great note and influence, who have pleaded our cause with arguments, which we hope will have their weight with this Honorable Court.

Ebenezer Hill was a slave at Stonington, Conn., who served throughout the war and who took part in the battles of Saratoga and Stillwater, and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne.

Prince Whipple acted as bodyguard to General Whipple, one of Washington's aids. Prince is the Negro seen on horseback in the engraving of Washington crossing the Delaware, and again pulling the stroke oar in the boat in which Washington crossed. “Deborah Gannett, a Negro woman enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment in disguise, under the name of Robert Shurtliff in 1782, and served a year and a half, for which the General Court paid her thirty-four pounds sterling in 1792.”

“At the storming of Fort Griswold Major Montgomery was lifted upon the walls of the fort by his soldiers and called upon the Americans to surrender. John Freeman, a Negro soldier, with his pike, pinned him dead to the earth. Among the American soldiers who were massacred by the British soldiers, after the surrender of the fort were two Negro soldiers, Lambo Latham and Jordan Freeman.

“Quack Matrick, a Negro, fought through the Revolutionary War, as a soldier, for which he was pensioned. Also Jonathan Overtin, who was in the Battle of Yorktown. Simon Lee, of Virginia, and Major Jeffrey, of Tennesse, also rendered excellent service.”

Following is an interesting account of an aged Negro patriot from the Burlington Gazette, written in the early nineteenth century: “The attention of many of our citizens has doubtless been arrested by the appearance of an old colored man who might have been seen sitting in front of his residence in east Union street respectfully raising his hat to those who might be passing by. His attenuated frame, his silvered head, his feeble movements, combine to prove that he is very aged, and yet comparatively few are aware that he is among the survivors of the gallant army who fought for the liberties of our country.

“On Monday last we stopped to speak to him, and ask how old he was. He asked the day of the month, and upon being told that it was the 24th of May replied with trembling lips, ‘I am very old; I am a hundred years old today.’

“His name is Oliver Cromwell, and he says that he was born at the Black Horse (now Columbus) in this county, in the family of John Hutchins. He enlisted in a company commanded by Captain Lowry, attached to the Second New Jersey Regiment, under the command of Col. Israel Shreve. He was at the battles of Trenton, Brandywine, Princeton, Monmouth and Yorktown, at which latter place he saw the last man killed. Although his faculties are failing, yet he relates many interesting reminiscences of the Revolution. He was with the army at the retreat of the Delaware, on the memorable crossing of the 25th of December, 1776, and relates the story of the battle on the succeeding day with enthusiasm. He gives the details of the march from Trenton to Princeton, and told us, with much humor that they ‘knocked the British around lively’ at the latter place.”

“Cromwell was brought up with a farmer, having served his time with Thomas Hutchins. He was for six years and nine months under the immediate command of Washington, whom he loved affectionately. His discharge, at the close of the war was in Washington's own handwriting, of which he was very proud, often speaking of it. He received annually ninety-six dollars pension. His long life was an honorable one.”

The census for 1775 gave the slave population as follows: Connecticut, 5,000; Delaware, 9,000; Georgia, 16,000; Maryland, 80,000; Massachusetts, 3,500; New Hampshire, 629; North Carolina, 75,000; New York, 15,000; New Jersey, 7,600; Pennsylvania, 10,000; Rhode Island, 4,373; South Caroline, 110,000; Virginia, 165,000. By the end of the eighteenth century, Massachusetts and Vermont had freed their slaves, but many of the other colonies had increased their holdings.

So that in spite of the distinguished services which Negro soldiers and sailors gave to their country, in spite of the expectations of the slaves and their friends, the close of the war brought little relief; indeed many who had fought with great Bravery were returned to slavery, and the beginning of the nineteenth century found hope almost dead in the breast of slaves. Almost, but not entirely, for there have always been those among us whose faith and trust in God has never wavered and whose belief in the final triumph of justice and right has remained unshaken.

Lundy's paper reached the editorial desk of an enthusiastic young man away up in Bennington, Vermont. The latter was William Lloyd Garrison, who was publishing a paper called the Journal of the Times. He had been advocating the principles of Peace and Temperance, and to those he now added “an intense hatred for slavery.” Garrison secured many names to a petition to Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, as that territory was, and is, under Congressional control.

Lundy was so pleased with Garrison's forceful writings and original methods, that he went to Bennington to see him. You can imagine how both enjoyed that conference, for up to that time the number of people who felt as they did were comparatively few. Garrison consented to go to Baltimore and edit the Genius of Universal Emancipation and Lundy was to sell the paper and attend to other details.

Garrison had not long been in Balitmore when he witnessed the shipping of a load of slaves for the New Orleans market. The heart-rending scenes, as husbands and wives, parents and children were torn from each other, probably to meet no more, made a deep impression upon the young editor. He published in his paper such a scathing article upon the subject that he was arrested for libel and thrown into prison, while a large sum was demanded as bail.

When finally released he came out of prison more than ever the unfaltering, implicable enemy to slavery. Before this the cause of Abolition had lacked leadership; it now found in Garrison a leader in every way fitted for the task. He determined to go to Boston, the birthplace of Liberty, and there he published his new paper, the Liberator. Speaking of his purpose, he said: “Let Southern oppressors tremble; let their secret abettors tremble; let all the enemies of the persecuted Black tremble.” “I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity?” “I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch, AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

The Negroes of Philadelphia were thoughtful and progressive and in 1817, they held a local convention to protest against the plans of the American Colonization Society. In 1830 Rev. Richard Allen, Junius C. Morel, James C. Cornish, Cyrus Black, and Benjamin Pascal requested the free people in the several states to send delegates to a meeting called for September 20, 1830. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss ways and means for the establishment of a colony in upper Canada. The delegates met and recommended that a parent society be formed with branches in different towns and money be raised to buy a tract of land for the proposed colony. Agents were sent to Canada to see if the plan would be advisable. Some of the States had already passed laws forcing the free Negroes to leave and many of these exiles had made their home in Canada.

Consequently what was called the “First Annual Convention of the People of Color” met in Philadelphia, June 6-11, 1831, in the Wesleyan Church on Lombard street. The delegates were as follows: Philadelphia, John Bowers, Dr. Belfast Burton, James Cornish, Junius C. Morel, William Whipper. New York, Rev. William Miller, Henry Sipkins, Thomas L. Jennings, William Hamilton, James Pennington; Maryland, Rev. Abner Coker, Robert Cowley; Delaware, Abraham D. Shad, Robert Cowley; Virginia, William Duncan. The officers chosen were: President, John Bowers; vice presidents, Abraham D. Shad, William Duncan; secretary, William Whipper; assistant secretary, Thomas L. Jennings. The stated purpose of the meeting was to discuss the general condition of free Negroes.

A committee made a report in which those who were engaged in the Canadian settlement were praised and urged to continue the work; and among other things, the virtues of education, temperance and economy were recommended to the race. “The convention attracted public attention on account of the intelligence, order and excellent judgment which prevailed. It deeply touched the young white men who had, but a few months previous, enlisted under the broad banner William Lloyd Garrison had given to the breeze.”

“The Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, of New Haven, Conn.; Arthur Tappan, of New York; Benjamin Lundy, of Washington, D. C.; William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, Mass.; Thomas Shipley and Charles Pierce, of Philadelphia, visited the convention, and were cordially received.” Messrs. Jocelyn, Tappan and Garrison made stirring addresses and especially urged the establishment of a college for the education of colored youth. A committee appointed to consider the matter reported as follows: “The plan proposed is that a college be established at New Haven, Conn., as soon as $20,000 are obtained and to be on the manual labor system, by which, in connection with a scientific education, they may also obtain a useful mechanical or agricultural profession; and (they further report having received information) that a benevolent individual has offered to subscribe one thousand dollars toward this object, provided that a farther sum of nineteen thousand dollars can be obtained in one year.”

The report of the committee was received and adopted, a soliciting agent and a treasurer appointed and committees appointed in several cities. You can see that for a long time the subject of manual training has engaged the attention of thoughtful people. But the people of Connecticut showed themselves very unfriendly to Negro schools as we shall presently see, and the idea of the college in that State was given up. Nearly every year during this period, conventions of colored men were held and the delegates represented the intelligence, the culture and the learning of the race in the United States.

In the town of Canterbury, Conn., a select school for young ladies was established in the summer of 1832 by Miss Prudence Crandall, a Quaker lady. It was intended to give instruction in the higher branches of learning. Not long after the school opened, Sarah Harris, a colored girl seventeen years old, whose father was a well-to-do farmer applied for admission to the school. She stated that she had finished the highest grade in the village schools and wanted to increase her knowledge so as to teach among her own people.

Miss Crandall admitted Sarah and for a few days all went well, for many of the other girls had known Sarah in the village school and liked her. But after a time some of the parents called on Miss Crandall and objected to a Negro girl attending a private school with their children, no matter how good she was nor high and unselfish her aim. But Miss Crandall was firm and when the white parents withdrew their children she advertised to teach colored girls.

The angry parents called a town meeting to discuss the matter and a set of resolutions were drawn up protesting against the founding of a colored school in their neighborhood. Nevertheless Miss Crandall received into her school in April, 1833, about twenty young colored girls from Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia; but the storekeepers refused to serve Miss Crandall and her pupils; the latter met with insult, contempt and abuse in the streets, the well and the doorsteps of the house were filled with refuse and a number of other petty meannesses were practiced, but Miss Crandall and the girls remained firm.

The right-thinking people of the neighborhood came to Miss Crandall's suport, among them being the Rev. Samuel May, Mr. Arnold Buffom, Mr. George Benson and others. But a man named Judson, a citizen of Canterbury, and a leading politician of the State, was bitterly opposed to the school and he so exerted his influence that a law was passed forbidding the founding of Negro schools anywhere in the State. This law, which was called a “black law,” reads in part as follows:

“Be it enacted that no person shall set up or establish in this State any school, academy or other literary institution for the instruction or education of colored persons, who are not inhabitants of this State, or harbor or board, for the purpose of attending or being taught in any such school, academy or literary institution, any colored person who is not an inhabitant of any town in this State, without the consent in writing, first obtained, of a majority of the civil authority, and also of the selectmen of the town in which the school, etc., is situated.” The reason for the law was that the whites did not wish the colored population to increase and a fine was attached in case the law was violated. The law was passed May 24, 1833.

When the news reached Canterbury that the law had passed, the people were wild with joy, bells were rung, cannon fired as if a great battle had been won, a battle with a whole state on one side and a little Quaker teacher and twenty children on the other. Miss Crandall went on with her teaching until the latter part of June, when she was arrested and after a brief hearing she was committed until the next session of the Supreme Court of the State, in August.

Her enemies, knowing that to put her in jail would weaken their cause with good people, hoped that her friends would not allow her to go to jail; but they hoped in vain for she was taken to jail and placed in a cell where a murdered had been kept. The news of this outrage spread throughout the north and made many friends for Miss Crandall and her school. Next day bond was given for Miss Crandall, but nothing could undo the treatment she had received; she was brought to trial August 23, 1833, and as the jury could not agree, she was again tried in October, when the verdict was against her. Her counsel appealed to the Court of Errors, but the case was finally dropped.

A short time afterward Miss Crandall's house was set afire, and though this did not cause her to close the school, when the building was again attacked by a mob one night in September and the doors and windows broken in, it was thought best for the pupil's safety to give up the effort. Said Mr. May, who at Miss Crandall's request dismissed the school, “Twenty harmless, well-behaved girls, whose only offense against the peace of the community was that they had come together there to obtain useful knowledge and moral culture, were to be told that they had better go away, because, forsooth, the house in which they dwelt, would not be protected by the guardians of the town. The words almost blistered my lips.”

Miss Crandall's school was closed but efforts to educate the Negro were made in other States, though the laws of the several States differed widely. In some States the teaching of Negroes was strictly prohibited, among these were Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Indiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. In other States, while education was not prohibited by law, it was by custom, while still other States tolerated efforts to enlighten the Negro. Those latter, of course, were the States where the white people were most enlightened.

You have read of the splendid work of Benezet in Philadelphia. The first school for Negroes in New York, was also started by a native of France, Elias Neau, in 1704. In his home he had embraced the Protestant faith, and being exiled, took up his abode in New York. His heart was touched by the condition of the Negroes, and, at first, he taught them by going from house to house after his day's work was done. Later, he was given permission to have them meet at his home in the evenings and in 1708, the average attendance was two hundred which shows how his work was appreciated. Besides reading, writing and arithmetic, he taught his pupils the truths of the Bible and many became communicants of Trinity P. E. Church, while the Rev. William Vesey was rector. In spite of many hindrances, Elias Neau continued his work until 1722, “when amid the unaffected sorrow of his Negro scholars and the friends who honored him for their sake, he was removed by death.” The school had several teachers, chiefly assistant rectors of Trinity, who kept the good work alive, year after year.

On some occasions pitched battles were fought between the fugitives and their owners, “every man was compelled to become a slave hunter, under certain conditions, and every kind-hearted woman who might give a cup of cold water or the shelter of a roof to a suffering sister fleeing from intolerable bondage, incurred the penalty of a felony.”

But though the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law darkened this whole decade, there was here and there a gleam of light amid the darkness. In 1851, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe began to publish, in serial form, in the National Era, of Washington, D. C., her epoch-marking story of Uncle Tom's Cabin. From the beginning the story aroused the most intense interest, and when it was published in book form, it was translated into nearly every known language. The little author became famous and thousands of friends were made for the slave through this book. It hastened emancipation.

Colored authors of the period were Rev. Daniel Payne, Martin R. Delaney, Frederick Douglass, Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward, William C. Nell, Rev. Austin Stewart, Dr. William Wells Brown.

About this time, the Negro began to take his place in the musical world and again a woman led the way. Elizabeth Taylor was born in Natchez, Miss., in 1809, and was taken to Philadelphia by Mrs. Greenfield, a Quaker lady. After a time it was discovered that Elizabeth had a beautiful voice and a kind young lady, a friend of Mrs. Greenfield's gave her vocal and instrumental lessons. Elizabeth, who added Mrs. Greenfield's name to her own, gained quite a name as a singer, and in 1851 accepted an invitation to sing before the Musical Association of Buffalo. Her voice was described by musical critics of the time, as being “full, round, of immense compass and depth and remarkable sweetness; her pronunciation very correct and her intonation excellent. She plays with ability upon the piano, harp and guitar.” In compliment, she was called the Black Swan.

“After singing in nearly all the free States she resolved to carry out her long-entertained purpose of visiting Europe in order to perfect herself in the technique of her art.” Arrived in London, May, 1853, she called upon Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was also in the city at the time. Through Mrs. Stowe Miss Greenfield was introduced into the most exclusive English circles, and on one occasion she sang before the Queen. Her beautiful voice and modest, dignified bearing gained many friends for her as well as for the race. Upon her return to America, her voice showed remarkable improvement, due to the additional training which she had received, and until her death in 1876, she devoted herself to her art.

Thomas J. Bowers, of Philadelphia, styled “the colored Mario,” and his sister, Sarah Sedgwick Bowers, were famous musicians of this period, the former appearing with the Black Swan, in 1851. Justin Holland, of Norfolk county, Va., performer on the piano, guitar and flute; Henry Williams, of Boston, composer and bandmaster; the Lucca family of Connecticut, all became famous during this decade. The Luccas toured for a while with the famous Hutchinson family, a group of white musicians.

In 1854 Dred Scott, a Negro, sued for his freedom because of having been taken by his master from Missouri to Minnesota, which latter State had been made free territory by the Missouri Compromise. The case being decided for Scott was appealed to the Supreme Court in 1856, and Judge Taney, a Maryland slaveholder, there rendered his infamous decision to the effect that Negroes “were beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The effect of this decision upon the Negroes and their white friends may better be imagined than described. It was a milestone toward the inevitable end.

The people of South Carolina seized the Federal buildings, drove out loyal officials, and on the morning of April 12, 1861, after having demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter, which was occupied by national troops, fired upon the fort. The long-looked-for, long-planned-for war was begun! You have already learned that not all the people who lived in the north were friends of the Negro, or loyal to the Union. It is also true that many who lived in the south were true to their country and believed that all men should be free. But the latter were very unpopular in their home section.

In the light of what follows, it is interesting to note that, at first, neither the government nor the secessionists acknowledged that slavery had anything to do with the war. The first claimed that it was a war to preserve the Union, the last, that the war was to dissolve the Union, and both agreed that it was “a white man's war.” So when President Lincoln issued his first call fer troops, the northern Negroes who flocked to the Union standard were scornfully rejected. In New York some colored men, hired a room and began to drill, but when the white people learned of it, they threatened to mob them, and the Superintendent of Police ordered their drilling to cease.

One of the leading Virginians said: “It is a gross mistake to suppose that abolition is the cause of dissolution between the north and the south. The Cavaliers, Jacobites and the Huguenots who settled the south naturally hate, contemn and despise the Puritans who settled the north. The former are master races, the latter a slave race, the descendants of the Saxon serfs.” We are told that God maketh the wrath of men to praise Him, and we know that He is constantly using even wicked men as instruments to work His will. The Civil War was a black man's war and it was brought about to redeem both white and black from the curse of slavery.

For nearly two years Negroes were denied admission to the Union army as soldiers and the army acted as a band of slave catchers, returning runaway slaves to their masters. While some of the commanding officers rebelled against this, others gave the slave hunters every assistance. Strange to say, as early as May, 1861, there was a call for “patriotic men of color” to assist the rebel army and it is said that several companies of them fought on that side during the war. One wonders what these men could have been thinking of. However, the “Creole mulatto” who commanded three companies of Negro Confederate troops, on guard at the Mint in New Orleans, allowed his men to be cut off from the retreating white Confederates, refrained from destroying the Mint, and quietly surrendered to the Union forces which entered the city.

In May, 1862, Robert Smalls was pilot of the Confederate vessel, The Planter, and three other colored men were employed on the boat—A. Gradine, engineer; William Morrison, and John Smalls, sailors. While the officers of the vessel were ashore in Charleston, Robert Smalls, with the help of the others, carried the boat over Charleston Bar, past Fort Sumter and delivered it to the commander of the United States ships which were blockading the harbor. This daring deed was greatly commended. Smalls was appointed pilot on a Union boat, promoted to a captaincy in 1863, and placed in command of The Planter, which position he held until the boat was put out of commission in 1866.

In the spring of 1862, Gen. David Hunter, with headquarters at Hilton Head, S. C., feeling the need of a larger force and receiving no help from his superior officers, organized and equipped a regiment of Negroes. When the news reached Washington, a representative from Kentucky, angrily called for an investigation of the report. The reply of General Hunter was at once so pointed and so witty that the matter was laughed out of Congress, but the courageous general was not supported in this matter as he deserved; though, a few weeks later, an order was sent to the military governor in his department to “arm, equip and receive into the service of the United States such a number of volunteers of African descent” as would be useful.

In the summer of the same year General J. W. Phelps, of the Army of the Gulf, found the work of his soldiers hampered by the large number of Negroes—men, women and children—who flocked to his camp. He asked permission to arm and enlist the men, but was instead told to employ them in digging ditches, building fortifications, etc. Replying that he had neither ability nor taste for the position of slave-driver, General Phelps resigned his commission and returned to his home in Vermont. Almost before his resignation went into effect, the point for which he had contended was more than gained, for in some instances the colored companies were officered by colored men.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation through which the slaves in the rebellious section drew, for the first time, the breath of liberty, and the laws which through two hundred years had been, passed to keep them down, melted into nothingness. If the free men had given valiant service, imagine with what eagerness the newly freed slaves enlisted in the Federal army. But they were not always received with kindness by their brothers in arms; they were at first forced to suffer many humiliations. Most of those who had witnessed the valor of the Negro in the war of 1812 were dead and in the minds of both enemies and friends was the query, “Will the Negro fight?”

Will the Negro fight! In the very first battle where Negro companies were given a fair chance—the battle of Port Hudson, May 20, 1863—they made their mark. With others the First Louisiana Regiment, General Banks, commander, had been ordered forward, and before leaving camp, their colonel had made them a patriotic and inspiring speech, and ended by addressing these words to the color-sergeant, Anselmas Plancianos: “Color guard, protect, defend, die for, but do not surrender these flags.” The sergeant replied: “Colonel, I will bring back these colors to you, or report to God the reason why.” And so, animated by the highest sentiments of courage and patriotism, the black regiment moved against the enemy. When ordered to charge the rebel fortifications they did so at a rush, but what was the amazement of officers and men alike to find that between them and the enemy rolled an impassable stream. It was only about forty feet wide, but the enemy's guns were turned upon it and as the men reached the edge of the stream they were mowed down like grass before the scythe. Seven times this gallant regiment charged toward the enemy in the hopeless effort to capture the fort, and the bayou between rolled red with their blood.

Captain Andre Callieux, “a man so black that he prided himself upon his blackness,” was in command of Company E. He rushed out at the head of his men, waving his sword and crying, “Follow me.” He was struck by a shell and fell dead and the enemy's guns so covered the place where he fell that it was not possible to obtain his body. Soon afterward Sergeant Plancianos proudly bearing the colors, was also struck by a shell and fell dead, tightly clasping the flag. He went up to “report to God” the blunder which had needlessly sacrificed the lives of brave men. A comrade snatched the colors from his dead hands, and he being almost immediately killed, the flag was taken by another and borne aloft throughout the battle. Forty days afterward, the body of Gallioux was reclaimed and buried in New Orleans with the highest military and civil honors. The news of the bravery of the black regiment at Port Hudson spread throughout the country and their praise was unstinted. The First, Second and Third Louisiana and the First Engineer Regiment took part in this battle. The following is an extract from a poem written in honor of the Black Regiment:

On the 13th, 14th, and 15th of July, 1863, occurred what were called the New York Draft Riots. A draft to fill up the ranks of the Union army had been ordered, and the low-class whites of the city, claiming that the Negroes were to blame, formed a plot to kill them all. Of the plotters it is said, “arson and plunder, murder and maiming were their business and recreation. Men and women were clubbed to death in the streets, hung on lamp posts or butchered in their homes. The infuriated rioters laid in ashes an asylum for colored children, and the terrified inmates, who fled in every direction, were pursued and some of the poor children were cruelly beaten and maimed. The colored people throughout the city were hunted and treated as if they were noxious beasts, and many fled to the country. Finally, the police, aided by troops suppressed the insurrection, but not until several hundred human lives had been lost, and property worth $2,000,000 destroyed.

The rebels were so angry because Negroes were enlisted to fight against them that they declared they would kill every Negro captured, as well as the white men who officered them. Special vengeance was vowed against General Butler who had announced that all Negroes who came into his lines were free as “contraband of war,” and against General Hunter who had freed and armed those who came to him. In the battle of Milliken's Bend, La., fought on June 6, 1863, the slaughter was fearful. It is said “the rebels drove our forces toward the gunboats, taking colored men prisoners and murdering them. This so enraged their comrades, that they rallied and charged the enemy more heroically and desperately than has been recorded during the war. White and black men were lying side by side, pierced by bayonets. In one instance, two men, one white and the other black, were found dead side by side, each having the other's bayonet through his body. Broken limbs, broken heads, mangled bodies, all proved that it was a contest between enraged men on the one side from hatred to a race, and on the other, desire for self-preservation, revenge for past grievances and the inhuman murder of their comrades. One brave man took his former master prisoner and brought him into camp with great gusto.”

The 54th Mass., the first colored regiment from the North, took part on July 18th, 1863, in the battle of Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, S. C. Col. Robert Gould Shaw commanded, and the post of honor and of danger, in front of the attacking column, was assigned to the 54th. “A terrific fire was turned upon the Union troops, and here the brave Shaw, with scores of his black warriors, went down fighting desperately.” “What fighting and what fearful carnage! Hand to hand, breast to breast, here on this little strip of land, scarce larger than the human hand, dense masses of men struggled with fury in the darkness, and so fierce was the contest that the sands were reddened and soaked with human gore.”

Color Sergeant Win. H. Carney, of New Bedford, dashed up to the fortifications of the enemy and planted the Union colors. But the enemy's fire thinned out the regiment, and Sergeant Carney, being wounded, drew himself up on the parapet of the fort, still holding the colors aloft. When his comrades were finally compelled to retire, he crept away, but did not lower the flag. “When he entered the field hospital, where his wounded comrades were being brought in, they cheered him and the colors. Though nearly exhausted with the loss of blood, he said, ‘Boys, the old flag never touched the ground.’ ”

On April 13th, 1864, occurred the horrible massacre of Union troops at Fort Pillow, Kentucky. There were 557 National troops in the garrison, 262 of which were Negroes of the 6th Battery. The rebels, in great numbers attacked the fort, and after heavy firing on both sides, the attacking party demanded, under flag of truce, the Union forces to surrender, saying that if they were compelled to capture the works, they would give “No quarter.” Major Bradford, the commander, refused to surrender, when the whole Confederate force (having crept close to the fort while under flag of truce) charged the works and gained entrance. “They butchered black and white, soldiers and non-combatants, men, women and children. Disabled men were made to stand up and be shot; others were burned within the tents wherein they had been nailed to the floor. This carnival of murder continued until dark and was even renewed the next morning. Major Bradford was not murdered until he had been carried several miles on the retreat.” The atrocities committed there made such an impression upon the Negro troops throughout the country that in every battle afterward “Remember Fort Pillow” was their battle cry, spurring them to terrible vengeance.

“Gen. Benjamin F. Butler commanded a number of Negro troops at the battle of Fort Harrison where they made one of the most brilliant charges of the war and captured the works in an incredibly short time, crying “Remember Fort Pillow” A large number of them were slain and General Butler, who ten years later, as a member of Congress, was making a speech on the Civil Rights Bill, referred to Fort Harrison in the following words: “It became my painful duty to follow in the track of that charging column, and there, in a space not wider than the clerk's desk, and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of five hundred and forty-three of my colored comrades, fallen in the defence of their country, who had offered up their lives to uphold its flag and its honor as a willing sacrifice; and as I rode along among them, guiding my horse this way and that way lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked on their bronze faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, whose flag had only been to them a flag of stripes on which no star of glory had ever shone for them— feeling I had wronged them in the past, and believing what was the future of my country to them—among my dead comrades there, I swore to myself a solemn oath, ‘May my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,’ if I ever fail to defend the rights of those men who gave their blood for me and my country that day, and for their race forever, and God helping me, I will keep that oath.”

Nearly two hundred thousand Negro soldiers, including a number of officers, fought during the Civil War; they took part in scores of battles and always distinguished themselves for bravery. “At Petersburg, Deep Bottom, Chapin's Farm, Fair Oaks, Hatchers Run, Farmville, the black soldiers won for themselves lasting glory and golden opinions.” When the war ended in 1865, no one asked the question, “Will the Negro fight?”

The following is a resumé of the American Negro as a warrior: “The first blood shed in the Revolution was that of a Negro, Crispus Attucks, on the 5th of March, 1770. The first blood shed in the war for the Union was that of a Negro, Nicholas Biddle, a member of the very first company that passed through Baltimore in April, 1861; while the very first Negro killed in the war was named John Brown. The first Union regiment of Negro troops raised during the Rebellion was raised in the state that was first to secede from the Union, South Carolina. Its colonel was a Massachusetts man, and a graduate of Harvard College. The first action in which Negro troops participated was in South Carolina. The first regiment of Northern Negro troops fought its first battle in South Carolina, where it immortalized itself. The first Negro troops recruited in the Mississippi Valley were recruited by a Massachusetts officer, Gen. B. R Butler, while their fighting here was directed by another Massachusetts officer, Gen. N. P. Banks. The first recognition of Negro Union troops by the Confederate army was in December, 1863, when Major John C. Calhoun, a grandson of the South Carolina statesman of that name, bore a flag of truce, which was received by Major Trowbridge of the First South Carolina Colored Regiment. The first regiment to enter Petersburg was composed of Negroes, while the first troops to enter the Confederate capital at Richmond were Gen. Godfry Weitzel's two divisions of Negroes. The last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox were in the hands of Negro soldiers. And when the last expiring effort of treason had laid our beloved President low in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains, and marched in the stately procession which bore the illustrious dead from the White House. And on the 15th of May, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the 62nd Regiment of Colored Troops fired the last volley of the war.”

The colored sailors were noted for their valor and the following colored soldiers received medals of honor from the government of the United States for heroic conduct during the Civil War: Sergeant-Major C. A. Fleetwood, Color-Sergeant A. B. Hilton, Private Chas. Veal, all of the 4th Regiment; 1st Sergeant James Brownson, Sergeant-Major M. M. Holland, 1st Sergeant Robert Pinn, 1st Sergeant Powhatan Beaty, 5th Regiment; 1st Sergeant Alexander Kelly, 6th Regiment; Sergeants Samuel Gilchrist, Wm. Davis, Corporal Miles James, Private James Gardner, 36th Regiment; 1st Sergeant Edward Ratcliff, Private William Barnes, 38th Regiment. The 55th Mass. also played a notable part.

The Emancipation Proclamation issued by the President in 1863, was on Jan. 1st, 1865, extended to include the entire United States and was ratified by Congress in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Hardly had Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, on April 9th, 1865, than the whole world was horrified by the assassination of President Lincoln. Whatever hopes and plans he may have entertained for the assembling of the scattered forces of the nation and the bringing about of peace and prosperity, were suddenly ended. Vice-President Johnson took up the reins of government, but he proved more a hindrance than a help to re-adjustment, and the country and the world bewailed the loss of Lincoln.

In addition to Tuskegee and the schools named in a previous chapter, there are more than one hundred colleges and industrial schools for Negroes, besides the hundreds of primary and secondary public schools scattered over the country. Comparing this with the state of affairs in the colonies, the condition seems to be a hopeful one.

Although the “forty acres and a mule” failed him, the Negro has become a landowner on his own account and besides developing a passion for education, has developed “land hunger.” “The race that owned scarcely an acre of land fifty years ago, is now possessor, as landlords, of an area larger than Belgium and Holland combined,” and is rapidly buying more. “The desire to own a home is one of the most encouraging of all traits in the masses of a nation.” Home is the cradle of the virtues. A man is not quite up to the standard until he can say proudly to himself “This is my own, my precious home,” and if he be able to add “and all paid for,” so much the better. He has given the best possible proof of his good citizenship.

In 1888 a handful of colored people, under the leadership of Mr. Isaiah T. Montgomery, settled in the Yazoo Delta, Mississippi, and beginning to clear and cultivate the ground, started what has become known as the town of Mound Bayou. A Negro town, in the heart of the South, where the mayor, the council, and all the citizens are colored. Mound Bayou and similar settlements offer proof of the Negro's ability to govern himself, and the great contrast between the former condition and the present progressive state of the surrounding country is an object lesson.

Mr. Montgomery was horn in slavery, but his owners were kind and although it was against the law, some of their slaves were allowed to learn to read, write and keep accounts. His early advantages, added to his great natural ability, made Isaiah Montgomery a natural leader of men, and when the opportunity came to colonize the section around Mound Bayou he did not lack for followers.

Prominent among church papers are the Christian Recorder, the Southwesern Christian Advocate, Star of Zion, American Baptist, A. M. E. Church Review, Voice of Missions, Presbyterian Herald.

Dr. Daniel H. Williams, now of Chicago, was born in Pennsylvania in 1858. He stands among the great surgeons of our country. “He came into prominence when a very young man by performing one of the most difficult of surgical operations on the heart and poricardium, thereby saving the life of a man who had been stabbed in the heart.” In 1894 Dr. Williams was appointed surgeon-in-chief of Freedman's Hospital, Washington, D. C., and remained in that position for several years.

Dr. Williams was succeeded at Freedman's by Dr. A. M. Curtis, who has a wide reputation as a successful physician and surgeon. Dr. R. F. Boyd, of Nashville, is an authority on chemistry, gynecology and clinical medicine. Boyd's Infirmary, with two large surgical wards, two operating rooms and twenty rooms has been recently opened. Dr. William A. Warfield, the present surgeon-in-chief at Freedman's Hospital, is considered one of the most rapid and skillful surgeons in the country and the many delicate and difficult operations performed by him testify to his ability.

Among other successful physicians are Drs. Marcus Wheatland, Newport; Chas. E. Bentley and George Hall of Chicago; N. F. Mossell of Philadelphia; T. E. Bailey and W. J. Thompkins , Kansas City; J. A. Wormley, N. T. Cotton, New Jersey; Wm. F. Penn, Atlanta; L. A. Cornish, Cincinnati; W. L. Bulkley, Johnson, Henderson, New York; Drs. J. A. Kenney, W. S. Lofton, F. G. Elliot, A. T. Robinson, Amanda V. Gray, Julia P. H. Coleman, C. H. Marshall, G. E. Cannon, C. H. Shepard, W. E. Sterrs, W. T. Carr, E. A. Carter, J. J. France, R. T. Hamilton, J. W. Ames, W. C. Smalls, H. F. Gamble, H. H. Phipps, J. A. C. Lattimore, C. S. Wormley, J. H. N. Waring, J C. Dowling, H. W. Ross, W. C. McNeill, J. C. Anderson, John Thompson, S. A. Furniss, J. W. Darden, J. W. McDowell, H. G. McKerrow, J. D. Nelson, C. L. Carter, G. N. Stoney, E. P. Roberts, F. S. Hargrave, J. C. Norwood, A. Ridgley, J. C., Norwood, M. O. Dumas, C. A. Tignor, A. S. Gray, E. M. Boyle, S. F. L. Carson, G. W. Davis, C. A. Brooks, Moses Amos, W. C. Gordon, John R. Francis, G. W. Cabiness, James R. Wilder, John W. Mitchell, S. S. Thompson, P. W. Price, C. W. Childs, E. D. Williston, C. I. West, and a large number of dentists and pharmacists. Drs. Courtney, Garland, Stewart, Comfort, Boston.

Henry Ossawa Tanner is rated among the foremost living artists of the world. Mr. Tanner is a son of Bishop B. T. Tanner of the A. M. E. Church, and was born in Pittsburg in 1859. He finished the public school course, and having long felt a desire to study art, he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Going to Paris, he studied under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. Mr. Tanner has received several prizes and medals for excellent work and some of his paintings hang in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Institute, the Wilstach Collection and in the Luxombourg, Paris. Two of his paintings, “The Return of the Holy Women” and “The Three Marys” were, in 1911, part of a special exhibit in the Corcoran Art Galley at Washington.

In 1876, “at the Philadelphia Centennial, a first prize was awarded to a beautiful landscape painting called “The Oaks,” and labeled Bannister. The judges announced the prize, but were amazed when a modest looking Negro stepped up in answer to the name of Bannister and took both prize and picture. From that time till his death, some years ago, Edmond M. Bannister of Boston was recognized as an artist of much talent He devoted all of his time to his chosen profession, painting many pictures which are owned by Boston and Providence private collections, and when he died, his brother artists of Providence erected over his grave a beautiful monument in token of their high esteem.”