Opening…

Preface

I was requested to deliver an oration on the Fourth of July, 1876, at Avondale, O. It being the one-hundredth birthday of the American Republic, I determined to prepare an oration on the American Negro. I at once began an investigation of the records of the nation to secure material for the oration. I was surprised and delighted to find that the historical memorials of the Negro were so abundant, and so creditable to him. I pronounced my oration on the Fourth of July, 1876; and the warm and generous manner in which it was received, both by those who listened to it and by others who subsequently read it in pamphlet form, encouraged me to devote what leisure time I might have to a further study of the subject.

I found that the library of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and the great Americana of Mr. Robert Clarke containing about eight thousand titles, both in Cincinnati, offered peculiar advantages to a student of American history. For two years I spent what time I could spare from professional cares in studying the whole problem of the African slave-trade; the founding of the British colonies in North America; the slave problem in the colonies; the rupture between the colonies and the British Government; the war of the Revolution; the political structure of the Continental government and Confederation; the slavery question in local and national legislation; and then traced the slavery and anti-slavery question down to the Rebellion. I became convinced that a history of the Colored people in America was required, because of the ample historically trustworthy material at hand; because the Colored people themselves had been the most vexatious problem in North America, from the time of its discovery down to the present day; because that in every attempt upon the life of the nation, whether by foes from without or within, the Colored people had always displayed a matchless patriotism and an incomparable heroism in the cause of Americans; and because such a history would give the world more correct ideas of the Colored people, and incite the latter to greater effort in the struggle of citizenship and manhood. The single reason that there was no history of the Negro race would have been a sufficient reason for writing one.

The labor incident upon the several public positions held by me precluded an earlier completion of this task; and, finding it absolutely impossible to write while discharging public duties or practising law, I retired from the public service several years ago, and since that time have devoted all my energies to this work. It is now nearly seven years since I began this wonderful task.

I have been possessed of a painful sense of the vastness of my work from first to last. I regret that for the sake of pressing the work into a single volume, favorable to a speedy sale,--at the sacrifice of the record of a most remarkable people,--I found my heart unwilling, and my best judgment protesting.

In the preparation of this work I have consulted over twelve thousand volumes,--about one thousand of which are referred to in the footnotes,--and thousands of pamphlets.

After wide and careful reading, extending through three years, I conceived the present plan of this history. I divided it into nine parts. Two thoughts led me to prepare the chapters under the head of PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. First, The defenders of slavery and the traducers of the Negro built their pro-slavery arguments upon biblical ethnology and the curse of Canaan. I am alive to the fact, that, while I am a believer in the Holy Bible, it is not the best authority on ethnology. As far as it goes, it is agreeable to my head and heart. Whatever science has added I have gladly appropriated. I make no claim, however, to be a specialist. While the curse of Canaan is no longer a question of debate, yet nevertheless the folly of the obsolete theory should be thoroughly understood by the young men of the Negro race who, though voting now, were not born when Sumter was fired upon. Second, A growing desire among the enlightened Negroes in America to learn all that is possible from research concerning the antiquity of the race,--Africa, its inhabitants, and the development of the Negro governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia, led me to furnish something to meet a felt need. If the Negro slave desired his native land before the Rebellion, will not the free, intelligent, and reflective American Negro turn to Africa with its problems of geography and missions, now that he can contribute something towards the improvement of the condition of humanity? Editors and writers everywhere throughout the world should spell the word Negro with a capital N; and when referring to the race as Colored people employ a capital C. I trust this will be observed.

In PART II., SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES, I have striven to give a succinct account of the establishment and growth of slavery under the English Crown. It involved almost infinite labor to go to the records of "the original thirteen colonies." It is proper to observe that this part is one of great value and interest.

In PART III., THE NEGRO DURING THE REVOLUTION, I found much of an almost romantic character. Many traditions have been put down, and many obscure truths elucidated. Some persons may think it irreverent to tell the truth in the plain, homely manner that characterizes my narrative; but, while I have nothing to regret in this particular, I can assure them that I have been actuated by none other spirit than that of candor. Where I have used documents it was with a desire to escape the charge of superficiality. If, however, I may be charged with seeking to escape the labor incident to thorough digestion, I answer, that, while men with the reputation of Bancroft and Hildreth could pass unchallenged when disregarding largely the use of documents and the citation of authorities, I would find myself challenged by a large number of critics. Moreover I have felt it would be almost cruel to mutilate some of the very rare old documents that shed such peerless light upon the subject in hand.

I have brought the first volume down to the close of the eighteenth century, detailing the great struggle through which the slavery problem passed. I have given as fair an idea of the debate on this question, in the convention that framed the Constitution, as possible. It was then and there that the hydra of slavery struck its fangs into the Constitution; and, once inoculated with the poison of the monster, the government was only able to purify itself in the flames of a great civil war.

The second volume opens with the present century, and closes with the year 1880. Unable to destroy slavery by constitutional law, the best thought and effort of this period were directed against the extension of the evil into the territory beyond the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers. But having placed three-fifths of the slave population under the Constitution, having pledged the Constitution to the protection of slave property, it required an almost superhuman effort to confine the evil to one section of the country. Like a loathsome disease it spread itself over the body politic until our nation became the eyesore of the age, and a byword among the nations of the world. The time came when our beloved country had to submit to heroic treatment, and the cancer of slavery was removed by the sword.

In giving an account of the Anti-Slavery Agitation Movement, I have found myself able to deal briefly with methods and results only. I have striven to honor all the multifarious measures adopted to save the Negro and the Nation. I have not attempted to write a history of the Anti-Slavery Movement. Many noble men and women have not even been mentioned. It should not be forgotten that this is a history of the Negro race; and as such I have not run into the topic discussed by the late Henry Wilson in his "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power."

In discussing the problem of the rendition of fugitive slaves by the Union army, I have given the facts with temperate and honest criticism. And, in recounting the sufferings Negro troops endured as prisoners of war in the hands of the Rebels, I have avoided any spirit of bitterness. A great deal of the material on the war I purchased from the MS. library of Mr. Thomas S. Townsend of New-York City. The questions of vital, prison, labor, educational, and financial statistics cannot fail to interest intelligent people of all races and parties. These statistics are full of comfort and assurance to the Negro as well as to his friends.

Every cabinet minister of the President wrote me full information upon all the questions I asked, and promptly too. The refusal of the general and adjutant-general of the army did not destroy my hope of getting some information concerning the Negro regiments in the regular army. I visited the Indian Territory, Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico, where I have seen the Ninth and Tenth Regiments of cavalry, and the Twenty-fourth Regiment of infantry. The Twenty-fifth Regiment of infantry is at Fort Randall, Dakota. These are among the most effective troops in the regular army. The annual desertions in white regiments of cavalry vary from ninety-eight to a hundred and eighteen; while in Negro regiments of cavalry the desertions only average from six to nine per annum. The Negro regiments are composed of young men, intelligent, faithful, brave. I heard but one complaint from the lips of a score of white officers I met, and that was that the Negroes sometimes struck their horses over the head. Every distinction in law has disappeared, except in the regular army. Here Negroes are excluded from the artillery service and engineer's department. It is wrong, and Congress should place these brave black soldiers upon the same footing as the white troops.

I have to thank Drs. George H. Moore and S. Austin Allibone, of the Lenox Library, for the many kind favors shown me while pursuing my studies in New-York City. And I am under very great obligations to Dr. Moore for his admirable "History of Early Slavery in Massachusetts," without which I should have been put to great inconvenience. To Mr. John Austin Stevens, late editor of "The Magazine of American History," who, during several months residence in New-York City, placed his private library and office at my service, and did every thing in his power to aid my investigations, I return my sincerest thanks. To the Librarians of the New-York Historical, Astor, and New-York Society Libraries, I return thanks for favors shown, and privileges granted. I am especially grateful to the Hon. Ainsworth R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress, for the manner in which he facilitated my researches during my sojourn in Washington. I had the use of many newspapers of the last century, and of other material to be found only in the Congressional Library.

To Sir T. Risely Griffith, Colonial Secretary and Treasurer of Sierra Leone, I am indebted for valuable statistics concerning that colony.

To the Assistant Librarian of the State Library of Ohio, the accomplished and efficient Miss Mary C. Harbough, I owe more than to any other person. Through her unwavering and untiring kindness and friendship, I have been enabled to use five hundred and seventy-six volumes from that library, besides newspaper files and Congressional Records. To Gov. Charles Foster, Chairman of the Board of Library Commissioners, I offer my profoundest thanks for the intelligent, active, and practical interest he has taken in the completion of this work. And to Major Charles Townsend, Secretary of State, I offer thanks for favors shown me in securing documents. To the Rev. J.L. Grover and his competent assistant, Mr. Charles H. Bell, of the Public Library of Columbus, I am indebted for the use of many works. They cheerfully rendered whatever aid they could, and for their kindness I return many thanks.

I am obliged to the Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, Financial Secretary of the A.M.E. Church of the United States, for the statistics of his denomination. And to all persons who have sent me newspapers and pamphlets I desire to return thanks. I am grateful to C.A. Fleetwood, an efficient clerk in the War Department, for statistics on the Freedmen's Bank. And, above all and more than all, I return my profoundest thanks to my heavenly Father for the inspiration, health, and money by which I have been enabled to complete this great task.

I have mentioned such Colored men as I thought necessary. To give a biographical sketch of all the worthy Colored men in the United States, would require more space than has been occupied in this work.

Not as the blind panegyrist of my race, nor as the partisan apologist, but from a love for "the truth of history," I have striven to record the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have not striven to revive sectional animosities or race prejudices. I have avoided comment so far as it was consistent with a clear exposition of the truth. My whole aim has been to write a thoroughly trustworthy history; and what I have written, if it have no other merit, is reliable.

I commit this work to the public, white and black, to the friends and foes of the Negro, in the hope that the obsolete antagonisms which grew out of the relation of master and slave may speedily sink as storms beneath the horizon; and that the day will hasten when there shall be no North, no South, no Black, no White,--but all be American citizens, with equal duties and equal rights.

GEORGE W. WILLIAMS.

NEW YORK, November, 1882.

Part I

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

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I. THE UNITY OF MANKIND

The Biblical Argument.--One Race and One Language.--One Blood.--The Curse of Canaan. 1

Chapter II

THE NEGRO IN THE LIGHT OF PHILOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND EGYPTOLOGY.

Cushim and Ethiopia.--Ethiopians, White and Black.--Negro Characteristics.--The Dark Continent.--The Antiquity of the Negro.--Indisputable Evidence.--The Military and Social Condition of Negroes.--Cause of Color.--The Term "Ethiopian." 12

III. PRIMITIVE NEGRO CIVILIZATION

The Ancient and High Degree of Negro Civilization.--Egypt, Greece, and Rome borrow from the Negro the Civilization that made them Great.--Cause of the Decline and Fall of Negro Civilization.--Confounding the Terms "Negro" and "African." 22

IV. NEGRO KINGDOMS OF AFRICA

BENIN: Its Location.--Its Discovery by the Portuguese.--Introduction of the Catholic Religion.--The King as a Missionary.--His Fidelity to the Church purchased by a White Wife.--Decline of Religion.--Introduction of Slavery.--Suppression of the Trade by the English Government.--Restoration and Peace.

DAHOMEY: Its Location.--Origin of the Kingdom.--Meaning of the Name.--War.--Capture of the English Governor, and his Death.--The Military Establishment.--Women as Soldiers.--Wars and their Objects.--Human Sacrifices.--The King a Despot.--His Powers.--His Wives.--Polygamy.--Kingly Succession.--Coronation.--Civil and Criminal Law.--Revenue System.--Its Future.

YORUBA. Its Location.--Slavery and its Abolition--Growth of the People of Abeokuta.--Missionaries and Teachers from Sierra Leone.--Prosperity and Peace attend the People.--Capacity of the People for Civilization.--Bishop Crowther.--His Influence. 26

V. THE ASHANTEE EMPIRE

Its Location and Extent.--Its Famous Kings.--The Origin of the Ashantees Obscure.--The War with Denkera.--The Ashantees against the Field conquer two Kingdoms, and annex them.--Death of Osai Tutu.--The Envy of the King of Dahomey.--Invasion of the Ashantee Country by the King of Dahomey.--His Defeat shared by his Allies.--Akwasi pursues the Army of Dahomey into its own Country.--Gets a Mortal Wound and suffers a Humiliating Defeat,--The King of Dahomey sends the Royal Kudjoh his Congratulations.--Kwamina deposed for attempting to introduce Mohammedanism into the Kingdom.--The Ashantees conquer the Mohammedans.--Numerous Wars.--Invasion of the Fanti Country.--Death of Sir Charles McCarthy.--Treaty.--Peace. 34

VI. THE NEGRO TYPE

Climate the Cause.--His Geographical Theatre.--He is susceptible to Christianity and Civilization. 45

VII. AFRICAN IDIOSYNCRASIES

Patriarchal Government.--Construction of Villages.--Negro Architecture.--Election of Kings.--Coronation Ceremony.--Succession.--African Queens.--Law, Civil and Criminal.--Priests.--Their Functions.--Marriage.--Warfare.--Agriculture.--Mechanic Arts.--Blacksmiths. 50

VIII. LANGUAGES, LITERATURE, AND RELIGION

Structure of African Languages.--The Mpongwe, Mandingo, and Grebo.--Poetry: Epic, Idyllic, and Miscellaneous.--Religions and Superstitions. 66

IX. SIERRA LEONE

Its Discovery and Situation.--Natural Beauty.--Founding of a Negro Colony.--The Sierra Leone Company.--Fever and Insubordination.--It becomes an English Province.--Character of its Inhabitants.--Christian Missions, etc. 85

X. THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA

Liberia.--Its Location.--Extent.--Rivers and Mountains.--History of the First Colony.--The Noble Men who laid the Foundation of the Liberian Republic.--Native Tribes.--Translation of the New Testament into the Vei Language.--The Beginning and Triumph of Christian Missions to Liberia.--History of the Different Denominations on the Field.--A Missionary Republic of Negroes.--Testimony of Officers of the Royal Navy as to the Efficiency of the Republic in suppressing the Slave-Trade.--The Work of the Future. 95

XI. RESUME

The Unity of the Human Family re-affirmed.--God gave all Races of Men Civilization.--The Antiquity of the Negro beyond Dispute.--Idolatry the Cause of the Degradation of the African Races.--He has always had a Place in History, though Incidental.--Negro Type caused by Degradation.--Negro Empires an Evidence of Crude Ability for Self-Government.--Influence of the two Christian Governments on the West Coast upon the Heathen.--Oration on Early Christianity in Africa.--The Duty of Christianity to evangelize Africa. 108

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Part II

SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES.

XII. THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA

1619-1775.

Introduction of the First Slaves.--"The Treasurer" and the Dutch Man-of-War.--The Correct Date.--The Number of Slaves.--Were there Twenty, or Fourteen?--Litigation about the Possession of the Slaves.--Character of the Slaves imported, and the Character of the Colonists.--Race Prejudices.--Legal Establishment of Slavery.--Who are Slaves for Life.--Duties on Imported Slaves.--Political and Military Prohibitions against Negroes.--Personal Rights.--Criminal Laws against Slaves.--Emancipation.--How brought about.--Free Negroes.--Their Rights.--Moral and Religious Training.--Population.--Slavery firmly established. 115

XIII. THE COLONY OF NEW YORK

1628-1775.

Settlement of New York by the Dutch in 1609.--Negroes introduced into the Colony, 1628.--The Trade in Negroes increased.--Tobacco exchanged for Slaves and Merchandise.--Government of the Colony.--New Netherland falls into the Hands of the English, Aug. 27, 1664.--Various Changes.--New Laws adopted.--Legislation.--First Representatives elected in 1683.--In 1702 Queen Anne instructs the Royal Governor in Regard to the Importation of Slaves.--Slavery Restrictions.--Expedition to effect the Conquest of Canada unsuccessful.--Negro Riot.--Suppressed by the Efficient Aid of Troops.--Fears of the Colonists.--Negro Plot of 1741.--The Robbery of Hogg's House.--Discovery of a Portion of the Goods.--The Arrest of Hughson, his Wife, and Irish Peggy.--Crimination and Recrimination.--The Breaking-out of Numerous Fires.--The Arrest of Spanish Negroes.--The Trial of Hughson.--Testimony of Mary Burton.--Hughson hanged.--The Arrest of Many Others implicated in the Plot.--The Hanging of Caesar and Prince.--Quack and Cuffee burned at the Stake.--The Lieutenant-Governor's Proclamation.--Many White Persons accused of being Conspirators.--Description of Hughson's Manner of swearing those having Knowledge of the Plot.--Conviction and Hanging of the Catholic Priest Ury.--The Sudden and Unexpected Termination of the Trial.--New Laws more stringent toward Slaves adopted. 134

XIV. THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS

1633-1775.

The Earliest Mentions of Negroes in Massachusetts.--Pequod Indians exchanged for Negroes.--Voyage of the Slave Ship "Desire" in 1638--Fundamental Laws adopted.--Hereditary Slavery--Kidnapping Negroes--Growth of Slavery in the Seventeenth Century--Taxation of Slaves--Introduction of Indian Slaves prohibited.--The Position of the Church respecting the Baptism of Slaves--Slave Marriage--Condition of Free Negroes--Phillis Wheatley the African Poetess.--Her Life--Slavery recognized in England in Order to be maintained in the Colonies--The Emancipation of Slaves.--Legislation favoring the Importation of White Servants, but prohibiting the Clandestine bringing-in of Negroes.--Judge Sewall's Attack on Slavery.--Judge Saffin's Reply to Judge Sewall. 172

XV. THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS,--CONTINUED

1633-1775.

The Era of Prohibitory Legislation against Slavery.--Boston instructs her Representatives to vote against the Slave-Trade.--Proclamation issued by Gov. Dummer against the Negroes, April 13, 1723.--Persecution of the Negroes.--"Suing for Liberty."--Letter of Samuel Adams to John Pickering, jun., on Behalf of Negro Memorialists.--A Bill for the Suppression of the Slave-Trade passes.--Is vetoed by Gov. Gage, and fails to become a Law. 220

XVI. THE COLONY OF MARYLAND

1634-1775.

Maryland under the Laws of Virginia until 1630.--First Legislation on the Slavery Question in 1637-38--Slavery established by Statute in 1663--The Discussion of Slavery.--An Act passed encouraging the Importation of Negroes and White Slaves in 1671.--An Act laying an Impost on Negroes and White Servants imported into the Colony.--Duties imposed on Rum and Wine.--Treatment of Slaves and Papists.--Convicts imported into the Colony--An Attempt to justify the Convict-Trade.--Spirited Replies.--The Laws of 1723, 1729, 1752.--Rights of Slaves--Negro Population in 1728.--Increase of Slavery in 1750--No Efforts made to prevent the Evils of Slavery.--The Revolution nearing.--New Life for the Negroes. 238

XVII. THE COLONY OF DELAWARE

1636-1775.

The Territory of Delaware settled in part by Swedes and Danes, anterior to the Year 1638.--The Duke of York transfers the Territory of Delaware to William Penn.--Penn grants the Colony the Privilege of Separate Government.--Slavery introduced on the Delaware as early as 1636.--Complaint against Peter Alricks for using Oxen and Negroes belonging to the Company.--The First Legislation on the Slavery Question in the Colony.--An Enactment of a Law for the Better Regulation of Servants.--An Act restraining Manumission. 249

XVIII. THE COLONY OF CONNECTICUT

1646-1775.

The Founding of Connecticut, 1631-36.--No Reliable Data given for the Introduction of Slaves.--Negroes were first introduced by Ship during the Early Years of the Colony.--"Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations."--Interrogating the Governor as to the Number of Negroes in the Colony in 1680.--The Legislature (1690) passes a Law pertaining to the Purchase and Treatment of Slaves and Free Persons.--An Act passed by the General Court in 1711, requiring Persons manumitting Slaves to maintain them.--Regulating the Social Conduct of Slaves in 1723.--The Punishment of Negro, Indian, and Mulatto Slaves, for the Use of Profane Language, in 1630.--Lawfulness of Indian and Negro Slavery recognized by Code, Sept. 5, 1646.--Limited Rights of Free Negroes in the Colony.--Negro Population in 1762.--Act against Importation of Slaves, 1774. 252

XIX. THE COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND

1647-1775.

Colonial Government in Rhode Island, May, 1647.--An Act passed to abolish Slavery in 1652, but was never enforced.--An Act specifying what Times Indian and Negro Slaves should not appear in the Streets.--An Impost-Tax on Slaves (1708).--Penalties imposed on Disobedient Slaves.--Anti Slavery Sentiment in the Colonies receives Little Encouragement.--Circular Letter from the Board of Trade to the Governor of the English Colonies, relative to Negro Slaves.--Governor Cranston's Reply.--List of Militia-Men, including White and black Servants.--Another Letter from the Board of Trade.--An Act preventing Clandestine Importations and Exportations of Passengers, Negroes, or Indian Slaves.--Masters of Vessels required to report the Names and Number of Passengers to the Governor.--Violation of the Impost-Tax Law on Slaves punished by Severe Penalties.--Appropriation by the General Assembly, July 5, 1715, from the Fund derived from the Impost Tax, for the paving of the Streets of Newport.--An Act passed disposing of the Money raised by Impost-Tax.--Impost-Law repealed, May, 1732.--An Act relating to freeing Mulatto and Negro Slaves passed 1728--An Act passed preventing Masters of Vessels from carrying Slaves out of the Colony, June 17, 1757.--Eve of the Revolution.--An Act prohibiting Importation of Negroes into the Colony in 1774.--The Population of Rhode Island in 1730 and 1774. 262

XX. THE COLONY OF NEW JERSEY

1664-1775.

New Jersey passes into the Hands of the English.--Political Powers conveyed to Berkeley and Carteret.--Legislation on the Subject of Slavery during the Eighteenth Century.--The Colony divided into East and West Jersey.--Separate Governments.--An Act concerning Slavery by the Legislature of East Jersey.--General Apprehension respecting the rising of Negro and Indian Slaves.--East and West Jersey surrender their Rights of Government to the Queen.--An Act for regulating the Conduct of Slaves.--Impost-Tax of Ten Pounds levied upon each Negro imported into the Colony.--The General Court passes a Law regulating the Trial of Slaves.--Negroes ruled out of the Militia Establishment upon Condition.--Population of the Jerseys in 1738 and 1745. 282

XXI. THE COLONY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

1665-1775.

The Carolinas receive two Different Charters from the Crown of Great Britain.--Era of Slavery Legislation.--Law establishing Slavery.--The Slave Population of this Province regarded as Chattel Property.--Trial of Slaves.--Increase of Slave Population.--The Increase in the Rice-Trade.--Severe Laws regulating the Private and Public Conduct of Slaves.--Punishment of Slaves for running away.--The Life of Slaves regarded as of Little Consequence by the Violent Master Class.--An Act empowering two Justices of the Peace to investigate Treatment of Slaves.--An Act prohibiting the Overworking of Slaves.--Slave-Market at Charleston.--Insurrection.--A Law authorizing the carrying of Fire-Arms among the Whites.--The Enlistment of Slaves to serve in Time of Alarm.--Negroes admitted to the Militia Service.--Compensation to Masters for the Loss of Slaves killed by the Enemy or who desert.--Few Slaves manumitted.--From 1754-76, Little Legislation on the Subject of Slavery.--Threatening War between England and her Provincial Dependencies.--The Effect upon Public Sentiment. 289

XXII. THE COLONY OF NORTH CAROLINA

1669-1775.

The Geographical Situation of North Carolina favorable to the Slave-Trade.--The Locke Constitution adopted.--William Sayle commissioned Governor.--Legislative Career of the Colony.--The Introduction of the Established Church of England into the Colony.--The Rights of Negroes controlled absolutely by their Masters.--An Act respecting Conspiracies.--The Wrath of Ill-natured Whites visited upon their Slaves.--An Act against the Emancipation of Slaves.--Limited Rights of Free Negroes. 302

XXIII. THE COLONY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

1679-1775.

The Provincial Government of Massachusetts exercises Authority over the State of New Hampshire at its Organization.--Slavery existed from the Beginning.--The Governor releases a Slave from Bondage.--Instruction against Importation of Slaves.--Several Acts regulating the Conduct of Servants.--The Indifferent Treatment of Slaves.--The Importation of Indian Servants forbidden.--An Act checking the Severe Treatment of Servants and Slaves.--Slaves in the Colony until the Commencement of Hostilities. 309

XXIV. THE COLONY OF PENNSYLVANIA

1681-1775.

Organization of the Government of Pennsylvania.--The Swedes and Dutch plant Settlements on the Western Bank of the Delaware River.--The Governor of New York seeks to exercise Jurisdiction over the Territory of Pennsylvania.--The First Laws agreed upon in England.--Provisions of the Law.--Memorial against Slavery draughted and adopted by the Germantown Friends.--William Penn presents a Bill for the Better Regulation of Servants.--An Act preventing the Importation of Negroes and Indians.--Rights of Negroes.--A Duty laid upon Negroes and Mulatto Slaves.--The Quaker the Friend of the Negro.--England begins to threaten her Dependencies in North America.--The People of Pennsylvania reflect upon the Probable Outrages their Negroes might commit. 312

XXV. THE COLONY OF GEORGIA

1732-1775.

Georgia once included in the Territory of Carolina.--The Thirteenth Colony planted in North America by the English Government.--Slaves ruled out altogether by the Trustees.--The Opinion of Gen. Oglethorpe concerning Slavery.--Long and Bitter Discussion in Regard to the Admission of Slavery into the Colony.--Slavery introduced.--History of Slavery in Georgia. 316

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Part III

THE NEGRO DURING THE REVOLUTION.

XXVI. MILITARY EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES

1775-1780.

The Colonial States in 1715.--Ratification of the Non-Importation Act by the Southern Colonies.--George Washington presents Resolutions against Slavery, in a Meeting at Fairfax Court-House, Va.--Letter written by Benjamin Franklin to Dean Woodward, pertaining to Slavery.--Letter to the Freemen of Virginia from a Committee, concerning the Slaves brought from Jamaica.--Severe Treatment of Slaves in the Colonies modified.--Advertisement in "The Boston Gazette" of the Runaway Slave Crispus Attucks.--The Boston Massacre.--Its Results.--Crispus Attucks shows his Loyalty.--His Spirited Letter to the Tory Governor of the Province.--Slaves admitted into the Army.--The Condition of the Continental Army.--Spirited Debate in the Continental Congress, over the Draught of a Letter to Gen. Washington.--Instructions to discharge all Slaves and Free Negroes in his Army.--Minutes of the Meeting held at Cambridge.--Lord Dunmore's Proclamation.--Prejudice in the Southern Colonies.--Negroes in Virginia flock to the British Army.--Caution to the Negroes printed in a Williamsburg Paper.--The Virginia Convention answers the Proclamation of Lord Dunmore.--Gen. Greene, in a Letter to Gen. Washington, calls Attention to the raising of a Negro Regiment on Staten Island.--Letter from a Hessian Officer.--Connecticut Legislature on the Subject of Employment of Negroes as Soldiers.--Gen. Varnum's Letter to Gen. Washington, suggesting the Employment of Negroes, sent to Gov. Cooke.--The Governor refers Varnum's Letter to the General Assembly.--Minority Protest against enlisting Slaves to serve in the Army.--Massachusetts tries to secure Legal Enlistments of Negro Troops.--Letter of Thomas Kench to the Council and House of Representatives, Boston, Mass.--Negroes serve in White Organizations until the Close of the American Revolution.--Negro Soldiers serve in Virginia.--Maryland employs Negroes.--New York passes an Act providing for the Raising of two Colored Regiments.--War in the Middle and Southern Colonies.--Hamilton's Letter to John Jay.--Col. Laurens's Efforts to raise Negro Troops in South Carolina.--Proclamation of Sir Henry Clinton inducing Negroes to desert the Rebel Army.--Lord Cornwallis issues a Proclamation offering Protection to all Negroes seeking his Command,--Col. Laurens is called to France on Important Business.--His Plan for securing Black Levies for the South upon his Return.--His Letters to Gen. Washington in Regard to his Fruitless Plans.--Capt David Humphreys recruits a Company of Colored Infantry in Connecticut.--Return of Negroes in the Army in 1778. 324

XXVII. NEGROES AS SOLDIERS

1775-1783.

The Negro as a Soldier.--Battle of Bunker Hill--Gallantry of Negro Soldiers.--Peter Salem, the Intrepid Black Soldier.--Bunker-hill Monument.--The Negro Salem Poor distinguishes himself by Deeds of Desperate Valor.--Capture of Gen. Lee.--Capture of Gen. Prescott--Battle of Rhode Island.--Col. Greene commands a Negro Regiment.--Murder of Col. Greene in 1781.--The Valor of the Negro Soldiers. 363

XXVIII. LEGAL STATUS OF THE NEGRO DURING THE REVOLUTION

1775-1783.

The Negro was Chattel or Real Property.--His Legal Status during his New Relation as a Soldier--Resolution introduced in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to prevent the selling of Two Negroes captured upon the High Seas--The Continental Congress appoints a Committee to consider what should be done with Negroes taken by Vessels of War in the Service of the United Colonies.--Confederation of the New States.--Spirited Debate in Congress respecting the Disposal of Recaptures.--The Spanish Ship "Victoria" captures an English Vessel having on Board Thirty-four Negroes taken from South Carolina.--The Negroes recaptured by Vessels belonging to the State of Massachusetts.--They are delivered to Thomas Knox, and conveyed to Castle Island.--Col. Paul Revere has Charge of the Slaves on Castle Island--Massachusetts passes a Law providing for the Security, Support, and Exchange of Prisoners brought into the State.--Gen Hancock receives a Letter from the Governor of South Carolina respecting the Detention of Negroes--In the Provincial Articles between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty, Negroes were rated as Property.--And also in the Definite Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty.--And also in the Treaty of Peace of 1814, between His Britannic Majesty and the United States, Negroes were designated as Property.--Gen. Washington's Letter to Brig-Gen Rufus Putnam in regard to a Negro in his Regiment claimed by Mr. Hobby.--Enlistment in the Army did not always work a Practical Emancipation. 370

Chapter XXIX

THE NEGRO INTELLECT.--BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.--FULLER THE MATHEMATICIAN.--DERHAM THE PHYSICIAN.

Statutory Prohibition against the Education of Negroes.--Benjamin Banneker, the Negro Astronomer and Philosopher.--His Antecedents--Young Banneker as a Farmer and Inventor--The Mills of Ellicott & Co.--Banneker cultivates his Mechanical Genius and Mathematical Tastes.--Banneker's first Calculation of an Eclipse submitted for Inspection in 1789.--His Letter to Mr Ellicott.--The Testimony of a Personal Acquaintance of Banneker as to his Upright Character.--His Home becomes a Place of Interest to Visitors.--Record of his Business Transactions.--Mrs. Mason's Visit to him.--She addresses him in Verse.--Banneker replies by Letter to her.--Prepares his First Almanac for Publication in 1792.--Title of his Almanac--Banneker's Letter to Thomas Jefferson.--Thomas Jefferson's Reply.--Banneker invited to accompany the Commissioners to run the Lines of the District of Columbia.--Banneker's Habits of studying the Heavenly Bodies.--Minute Description given to his Sisters in Reference to the Disposition of his Personal Property after Death.--His Death.--Regarded as the most Distinguished Negro of his Time.--Fuller the Mathematician, or "The Virginia Calculator."--Fuller of African Birth, but stolen and sold as a Slave into Virginia.--Visited by Men of Learning.--He was pronounced to be a Prodigy in the Manipulation of Figures.--His Death.--Derham the Physician.--Science of Medicine regarded as the most Intricate Pursuit of Man.--Early Life of James Derham.--His Knowledge of Medicine, how acquired.--He becomes a Prominent Physician in New Orleans.--Dr. Rush gives an Account of an Interview with him.--What the Negro Race produced by their Genius in America. 385

XXX. SLAVERY DURING THE REVOLUTION

1775-1783.

Progress of the Slave-Trade.--A Great War for the Emancipation of the Colonies from Political Bondage.--Condition of the Southern States during the War.--The Virginia Declaration of Rights.--Immediate Legislation against Slavery demanded.--Advertisement from "The Independent Chronicle."--Petition of Massachusetts Slaves.--An Act preventing the Practice of holding Persons in Slavery.--Advertisements from "The Continental Journal."--A Law passed in Virginia limiting the Rights of Slaves.--Law emancipating all Slaves who served in the Army.--New York promises her Negro Soldiers Freedom.--A Conscientious Minority in Favor of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade.--Slavery flourishes during the Entire Revolutionary Period. 402

XXXI. SLAVERY AS A POLITICAL AND LEGAL PROBLEM

1775-1800.

British Colonies in North America declare their Independence.--A New Government established.--Slavery the Bane of American Civilization.--The Tory Party accept the Doctrine of Property in Man.--The Doctrine of the Locke Constitution in the South.--The Whig Party the Dominant Political Organization in the Northern States.--Slavery recognized under the New Government.--Anti Slavery Agitation in the States.--Attempted Legislation against Slavery.--Articles of Confederation.--Then Adoption in 1778.--Discussion concerning the Disposal of the Western Territory.--Mr. Jefferson's Recommendation.--Amendment by Mr. Spaight.--Congress in New York in 1787.--Discussion respecting the Government of the Western Territory.--Convention at Philadelphia to frame the Federal Constitution.--Proceedings of the Convention.--The Southern States still advocate Slavery.--Speeches on the Slavery Question by Leading Statesmen.--Constitution adopted by the Convention in 1787.--First Session of Congress under the Federal Constitution held in New York in 1789.--The Introduction of a Tariff-Bill.--An Attempt to amend it by inserting a Clause levying a Tax on Slaves brought by Water.--Extinction of Slavery in Massachusetts.--A Change in the Public Opinion of the Middle and Eastern States on the Subject of Slavery.--Dr. Benjamin Franklin's Address to the Public for promoting the Abolition of Slavery.--Memorial to the United-States Congress.--Congress in 1790.--Bitter Discussion on the Restriction of the Slave-Trade.--Slave-Population.--Vermont and Kentucky admitted into the Union.--A Law providing for the Return of Fugitives from "Labor and Service."--Convention of Friends held in Philadelphia.--An Act against the Foreign Slave-Trade.--Mississippi Territory.--Constitution of Georgia revised.--New York passes a Bill for the Gradual Extinction of Slavery.--Constitution of Kentucky revised.--Slavery as an Institution firmly established. 412

HISTORY OF THE NEGRO RACE IN AMERICA.

Part I

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

I. THE UNITY OF MANKIND

THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT.--ONE RACE AND ONE LANGUAGE.--ONE BLOOD.--THE CURSE OF CANAAN.

During the last half-century, many writers on ethnology, anthropology, and slavery have strenuously striven to place the Negro outside of the human family; and the disciples of these teachers have endeavored to justify their views by the most dehumanizing treatment of the Negro. But, fortunately for the Negro and for humanity at large, we live now in an epoch when race malice and sectional hate are disappearing beneath the horizon of a brighter and better future. The Negro in America is free. He is now an acknowledged factor in the affairs of the continent; and no community, state, or government, in this period of the world's history, can afford to be indifferent to his moral, social, intellectual, or political well-being.

It is proposed, in the first place, to call the attention to the absurd charge that the Negro does not belong to the human family. Happily, there are few left upon the face of the earth who still maintain this belief.

In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis it is clearly stated that "God created man," "male and female created he them;"[1] that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul;"[2] and that "the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."[3] It is noticeable that the sacred historian, in every reference to Adam, speaks of him as "man;" and that the divine injunction to them was,--Adam and Eve,--"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."[4] As among the animals, so here in the higher order, there were two,--a pair,--"male and female," of the human species. We may begin with man, and run down the scale, and we are sure to find two of a kind, "male and female." This was the divine order. But they were to "be fruitful," were to "replenish the earth." That they did "multiply," we have the trustworthy testimony of God; and it was true that man and beast, fowl and fish, increased. We read that after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Eve bore Adam a family. Cain and Abel; and that they "peopled the earth."

After a number of years we find that wickedness increased in the earth; so much so that the Lord was provoked to destroy the earth with a flood, with the exception of Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives,--eight souls in all.[5] Of the animals, two of each kind were saved.

But the most interesting portion of Bible history comes after the Flood. We then have the history of the confusion of tongues, and the subsequent and consequent dispersion of mankind. In the eleventh chapter and first verse of Genesis it is recorded: "And the WHOLE EARTH was of ONE LANGUAGE, and of ONE SPEECH." "The whole earth" here means all the inhabitants of the earth,--all mankind. The medium of communication was common. Everybody used one language. In the sixth verse occurs this remarkable language: "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language." Attention is called to this verse, because we have here the testimony of the Lord that "the people is one," and that the language of the people is one. This verse establishes two very important facts; i.e., there was but one nationality, and hence but one language. The fact that they had but one language furnishes reasonable proof that they were of one blood; and the historian has covered the whole question very carefully by recording the great truth that they were one people, and had but one language. The seventh, eighth, and ninth verses of the eleventh chapter are not irrelevant: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

It was the wickedness of the people that caused the Lord to disperse them, to confound their speech, and bring to nought their haughty work. Evidently this was the beginning of different families of men,--different nationalities, and hence different languages. In the ninth verse it reads, that "from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." There is no ambiguity about this language. He did not only "confound their language," but "scattered them from thence," from Babel, "upon the face of all the earth." Here, then, are two very important facts: their language was confused, and they were "scattered." They were not only "scattered," they were "scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth." That is, they were dispersed very widely, sent into the various and remote parts of the earth; and their nationality received its being from the latitudes to which the divinely appointed wave of dispersion bore them; and their subsequent racial character was to borrow its tone and color from climateric influences. Three great families, the Shemitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic, were suddenly built up. Many other families, or tribes, sprang from these; but these were the three great heads of all subsequent races of men.

"That the three sons of Noah overspread and peopled the whole earth, is so expressly stated in Scripture, that, had we not to argue against those who unfortunately disbelieve such evidence, we might here stop: let us, however, inquire how far the truth of this declaration is substantiated by other considerations. Enough has been said to show that there is a curious, if not a remarkable, analogy between the predictions of Noah on the future descendants of his three sons, and the actual state of those races which are generally supposed to have sprung from them. It may here be again remarked, that, to render the subject more clear, we have adopted the quinary arrangement of Professor Blumenbach: yet that Cuvier and other learned physiologists are of opinion that the primary varieties of the human form are more properly but three; viz., the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian. This number corresponds with that of Noah's sons. Assigning, therefore, the Mongolian race to Japheth, and the Ethiopian to Ham, the Caucasian, the noblest race, will belong to Shem, the third son of Noah, himself descended from Seth, the third son of Adam. That the primary distinctions of the human varieties are but three, has been further maintained by the erudite Prichard; who, while he rejects the nomenclature both of Blumenbach and Cuvier, as implying absolute divisions, arranges the leading varieties of the human skull under three sections, differing from those of Cuvier only by name. That the three sons of Noah who were to 'replenish the earth,' and on whose progeny very opposite destinies were pronounced, should give birth to different races, is what might reasonably be conjectured; but that the observation of those who do, and of those who do not, believe the Mosaic history, should tend to confirm truth, by pointing out in what these three races do actually differ, both physically and morally, is, to say the least, a singular coincidence. It amounts, in short, to a presumptive evidence, that a mysterious and very beautiful analogy pervades throughout, and teaches us to look beyond natural causes in attempting to account for effects apparently interwoven in the plans of Omnipotence."[6]

In the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, twenty-sixth verse, we find the following language: "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."[7] The Apostle Paul was a missionary. He was, at this time, on a mission to the far-famed city of Athens,--"the eye of Greece, and the fountain of learning and philosophy." He told the "men of Athens," that, as he travelled through their beautiful city, he had not been unmindful of its attractions; that he had not been indifferent to the claims of its citizens to scholarship and culture, and that among other things he noticed an altar erected to an unknown God. He went on to remark, that, great as their city and nation were, God, whose offspring they were, had created other nations, who lived beyond their verdant hills and swelling rivers. And, moreover, that God had created "all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" out "of one blood." He called their attention to the fact that God had fenced all the nations in by geographical boundaries,--had fixed the limits of their habitation.

We find two leading thoughts in the twenty-sixth verse; viz., that this passage establishes clearly and unmistakably the unity of mankind, in that God created them of one blood; second, he hath determined "the bounds of their habitation,"--hath located them geographically. The language quoted is very explicit. "He hath determined the bounds of their habitation," that is, "all the nations of men.[8] We have, then, the fact, that there are different "nations of men," and that they are all "of one blood," and, therefore, have a common parent. This declaration was made by the Apostle Paul, an inspired writer, a teacher of great erudition, and a scholar in both the Hebrew and the Greek languages.

It should not be forgotten either, that in Paul's masterly discussion of the doctrine of sin,--the fall of man,--he always refers to Adam as the "one man" by whom sin came into the world.[9] His Epistle to the Romans abounds in passages which prove very plainly the unity of mankind. The Acts of the Apostles, as well as the Gospels, prove the unity we seek to establish.

But there are a few who would admit the unity of mankind, and still insist that the Negro does not belong to the human family. It is so preposterous, that one has a keen sense of humiliation in the assured consciousness that he goes rather low to meet the enemies of God's poor; but it can certainly do no harm to meet them with the everlasting truth.

In the Gospel of Luke we read this remarkable historical statement: "And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus."[10] By referring to the map, the reader will observe that Cyrene is in Libya, on the north coast of Africa. All the commentators we have been able to consult, on the passage quoted below, agree that this man Simon was a Negro,--a black man. John Melville produced a very remarkable sermon from this passage.[11] And many of the most celebrated pictures of "The Crucifixion," in Europe, represent this Cyrenian as black, and give him a very prominent place in the most tragic scene ever witnessed on this earth. In the Acts of the Apostles we have a very full and interesting account of the conversion and immersion of the Ethiopian eunuch, "a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship."[12] Here, again, we find that all the commentators agree as to the nationality of the eunuch: he was a Negro; and, by implication, the passage quoted leads us to the belief that the Ethiopians were a numerous and wealthy people. Candace was the queen that made war against Augustus Caesar twenty years before Christ, and, though not victorious, secured an honorable peace.[13] She reigned in Upper Egypt,--up the Nile,--and lived at Meroe, that ancient city, the very cradle of Egyptian civilization.[14]

"In the time of our Saviour (and indeed from that time forward), by Ethiopia was meant, in a general sense, the countries south of Egypt, then but imperfectly known; of one of which that Candace was queen whose eunuch was baptized by Philip. Mr. Bruce, on his return from Abyssinia, found in latitude 16 deg. 38' a place called Chendi, where the reigning sovereign was then a queen; and where a tradition existed that a woman, by name Hendaque (which comes as near as possible to the Greek name [Greek: Chandake]), once governed all that country. Near this place are extensive ruins, consisting of broken pedestals and obelisks, which Bruce conjectures to be those of Meroe, the capital of the African Ethiopia, which is described by Herodotus as a great city in his time, namely, four hundred years before Christ; and where, separated from the rest of the world by almost impassable deserts, and enriched by the commercial expeditions of their travelling brethren, the Cushites continued to cultivate, so late as the first century of the Christian era, some portions of those arts and sciences to which the settlers in the cities had always more or less devoted themselves."[15]

But a few writers have asserted, and striven to prove, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians are quite a different people from the Negro. Jeremiah seems to have understood that these people about whom we have been writing were Negroes,--we mean black. "Can the Ethiopian," asks the prophet, "change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" The prophet was as thoroughly aware that the Ethiopian was black, as that the leopard had spots; and Luther's German has for the word "Ethiopia," "Negro-land,"--the country of the blacks.[16] The word "Ethiop" in the Greek literally means "sunburn."

That these Ethiopians were black, we have, in addition to the valuable testimony of Jeremiah, the scholarly evidence of Herodotus, Homer, Josephus, Eusebius, Strabo, and others.

It will be necessary for us to use the term "Cush" farther along in this discussion: so we call attention at this time to the fact, that the Cushites, so frequently referred to in the Scriptures, are the same as the Ethiopians.

Driven from unscriptural and untenable ground on the unity of the races of mankind, the enemies of the Negro, falling back in confusion, intrench themselves in the curse of Canaan. "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."[17] This passage was the leading theme of the defenders of slavery in the pulpit for many years. Bishop Hopkins says,--

"The heartless irreverence which Ham, the father of Canaan, displayed toward his eminent parent, whose piety had just saved him from the Deluge, presented the immediate occasion for this remarkable prophecy; but the actual fulfilment was reserved for his posterity after they had lost the knowledge of God, and become utterly polluted by the abominations of heathen idolatry. The Almighty, foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and Japheth, doubtless because he judged it to be their fittest condition. And all history proves how accurately the prediction has been accomplished, even to the present day."[18]

Now, the first thing to be done by those who adopt this view is, to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Noah was inspired to pronounce this prophecy. Noah had been, as a rule, a righteous man. For more than a hundred years he had lifted up his voice against the growing wickedness of the world. His fidelity to the cause of God was unquestioned; and for his faith and correct living, he and his entire household were saved from the Deluge. But after his miraculous deliverance from the destruction that overcame the old world, his entire character is changed. There is not a single passage to show us that he continued his avocation as a preacher. He became a husbandman; he kept a vineyard; and, more than all, he drank of the wine and got drunk! Awaking from a state of inebriation, he knew that Ham had beheld his nakedness and "told his two brethren." But "Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."[19] It is quite natural to suppose, that, humiliated and chagrined at his sinful conduct, and angered at the behavior of his son and grandson, Ham and Canaan, Noah expressed his disapprobation of Canaan. It was his desire, on the impulse of the moment, that Canaan should suffer a humiliation somewhat commensurate with his offence; and, on the other hand, it was appropriate that he should commend the conduct of his other sons, who sought to hide their father's shame. And all this was done without any inspiration. He simply expressed himself as a fallible man.

Bishop Hopkins, however, is pleased to call this a "prophecy." In order to prophesy, in the scriptural meaning of the word, a man must have the divine unction, and must be moved by the Holy Ghost; and, in addition to this, it should be said, that a true prophecy always comes to pass,--is sure of fulfilment. Noah was not inspired when he pronounced his curse against Canaan, for the sufficient reason that it was not fulfilled. He was not speaking in the spirit of prophecy when he blessed Shem and Japheth, for the good reason that their descendants have often been in bondage. Now, if these words of Noah were prophetic, were inspired of God, we would naturally expect to find all of Canaan's descendants in bondage, and all of Shem's out of bondage,--free! If this prophecy--granting this point to the learned bishop for argument's sake--has not been fulfilled, then we conclude one of two things; namely, these are not the words of God, or they have not been fulfilled. But they were not the words of prophecy, and consequently never had any divine authority. It was Canaan upon whom Noah pronounced the curse: and Canaan was the son of Ham; and Ham, it is said, is the progenitor of the Negro race. The Canaanites were not bondmen, but freemen,--powerful tribes when the Hebrews invaded their country; and from the Canaanites descended the bold and intelligent Carthaginians, as is admitted by the majority of writers on this subject. From Ham proceeded the Egyptians, Libyans, the Phutim, and the Cushim or Ethiopians, who, colonizing the African side of the Red Sea, subsequently extended themselves indefinitely to the west and south of that great continent. Egypt was called Chemia, or the country of Ham; and it has been thought that the Egyptian's deity, Hammon or Ammon, was a deification of Ham.[20] The Carthaginians were successful in numerous wars against the sturdy Romans. So in this, as in many other instances, the prophecy of Noah failed.

Following the chapter containing the prophecy of Noah, the historian records the genealogy of the descendants of Ham and Canaan. We will quote the entire account that we may be assisted to the truth.

"And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan; and the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba and Dedan. And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim (out of whom came Philistim), and Caphtorim. And Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations."[21]

Here is a very minute account of the family of Ham, who it is said was to share the fate of his son Canaan, and a clear account of the children of Canaan. "Nimrod," says the record, "began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.... And the beginning of his kingdom," etc. We find that Cush was the oldest son of Ham, and the father of Nimrod the "mighty one in the earth," whose "kingdom" was so extensive. He founded the Babylonian empire, and was the father of the founder of the city of Nineveh, one of the grandest cities of the ancient world. These wonderful achievements were of the children of Cush, the ancestor of the Negroes. It is fair to suppose that this line of Ham's posterity was not lacking in powers necessary to found cities and kingdoms, and maintain government.

Thus far we have been enabled to see, according to the Bible record, that the posterity of Canaan did not go into bondage; that it was a powerful people, both in point of numbers and wealth; and, from the number and character of the cities it built, we infer that it was an intellectual posterity. We conclude that thus far there is no evidence, from a biblical standpoint, that Noah's prophecy was fulfilled. But, notwithstanding the absence of scriptural proof as to the bondage of the children of Canaan, the venerable Dr. Mede says, "There never has been a son of Ham who has shaken a sceptre over the head of Japheth. Shem has subdued Japheth, and Japheth has subdued Shem; but Ham has never subdued either." The doctor is either falsifying the facts of history, or is ignorant of history. The Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt for centuries. Egypt was peopled by Misraim, the second son of Ham. Who were the Shemites? They were Hebrews! The Shemites were in slavery to the Hamites. Melchizedek, whose name was expressive of his character,--king of righteousness (or a righteous king), was a worthy priest of the most high God; and Abimelech, whose name imports parental king, pleaded the integrity of his heart and the righteousness of his nation before God, and his plea was admitted. Yet both these personages appear to have been Canaanites."[22] Melchizedek and Abimelech were Canaanites, and the most sacred and honorable characters in Old-Testament history. It was Abraham, a Shemite, who, meeting Melchizedek, a Canaanite, gave him a tenth of all his spoils. It was Nimrod, a Cushite, who "went to Asher, and built Nineveh," after subduing the Shemites, So it seems very plain that Noah's prophecy did not come true in every respect, and that it was not the word of God. "And God blessed Noah and his sons."[23] God pronounces his blessing upon this entire family, and enjoins upon them to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." Afterwards Noah seeks to abrogate the blessing of God by his "cursed be Canaan." But this was only the bitter expression of a drunken and humiliated parent lacking divine authority. No doubt he and his other two sons conformed their conduct to the spirit of the curse pronounced, and treated the Hamites accordingly. The scholarly Dr. William Jones[24] says that Ham was the youngest son of Noah; that he had four sons, Cush, Misraim, Phut, and Canaan; and that they peopled Africa and part of Asia.[25] The Hamites were the offspring of Noah, and one of the three great families that have peopled the earth.[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Gen. i. 27.Return to passage

[2] Gen. ii. 7.Return to passage

[3] Gen. ii. 15.Return to passage

[4] Gen. i. 28.Return to passage

[5] Gen. vi. 5_sq._Return to passage

[6] Encycl. of Geo., p. 255.Return to passage

[7] If the Apostle Paul had asserted that all men resembled each other in the color of their skin and the texture of their hair, or even in their physiological make-up, he would have been at war with observation and critical investigation. But, having announced a wonderful truth in reference to the unity of the human race as based upon one blood, science comes to his support, and through the microscope reveals the corpuscles of the blood, and shows that the globule is the same in all human blood.Return to passage

[8] Deut. xxxii. 8, 9: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance."Return to passage

[9] Rom. v. 12, 14-21.Return to passage

[10] Luke xxiii, 26: Acts vi. 9, also second chapter, tenth verse. Matthew records the same fact in the twenty-seventh chapter, thirty-second verse. "And at they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross."Return to passage

[11] See Melville's Sermons.Return to passage

[12] Acts viii. 27.Return to passage

[13] Pliny says the Ethiopian government subsisted for several generations in the hands of queens whose name was Candace.Return to passage

[14] See Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon.Return to passage

[15] Jones's Biblical Cyclopaedia, p. 311.Return to passage

[16] The term Ethiope was anciently given to all those whose color was darkened by the sun.--Smyth's Unity of the Human Races, chap. i. p. 34.Return to passage

[17] Gen. ix. 24, 25. See also the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses.Return to passage

[18] Bible Views of Slavery, p. 7.Return to passage

[19] Gen. ix. 23.Return to passage

[20] Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride. See also Dr. Morton, and Ethnological Journal, 4th No p. 172.Return to passage

[21] Gen. x. 6-20.Return to passage

[22] Dr. Bush.Return to passage

[23] Gen. ix. I.Return to passage

[24] Jones's Biblical Cyclopaedia, p. 393. Ps. lxxviii. 51.Return to passage

[25] Ps. cv. 23.Return to passage

[26] If Noah's utterance were to be regarded as a prophecy, it applied only to the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, Noah's grandson. Nothing is said in reference to any person but Canaan in the supposed prophecy.Return to passage

Chapter II

THE NEGRO IN THE LIGHT OF PHILOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND EGYPTOLOGY.

CUSHIM AND ETHIOPIA.--ETHIOPIANS, WHITE AND BLACK.--NEGRO CHARACTERISTICS.--THE DARK CONTINENT.--THE ANTIQUITY OF THE NEGRO.--INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE.--THE MILITARY AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF NEGROES.--CAUSE OF COLOR.--THE TERM ETHIOPIAN.

There seems to be a great deal of ignorance and confusion in the use of the word "Negro;"[27] and about as much trouble attends the proper classification of the inhabitants of Africa. In the preceding chapter we endeavored to prove, not that Ham and Canaan were the progenitors of the Negro races,--for that is admitted by the most consistent enemies of the blacks,--but that the human race is one, and that Noah's curse was not a divine prophecy.

The term "Negro" seems to be applied chiefly to the dark and woolly-haired people who inhabit Western Africa. But the Negro is to be found also in Eastern Africa.[28] Zonaras says, "Chus is the person from whom the Cuseans are derived. They are the same people as the Ethiopians." This view is corroborated by Josephus.[29] Apuleius, and Eusebius. The Hebrew term "Cush" is translated Ethiopia by the Septuagint, Vulgate, and by almost all other versions, ancient and modern, as well as by the English version. "It is not, therefore, to be doubted that the term 'Cushim' has by the interpretation of all ages been translated by 'Ethiopians,' because they were also known by their black color, and their transmigrations, which were easy and frequent."[30] But while it is a fact, supported by both sacred and profane history, that the terms "Cush" and "Ethiopian" were used interchangeably, there seems to be no lack of proof that the same terms were applied frequently to a people who were not Negroes. It should be remembered, moreover, that there were nations who were black, and yet were not Negroes. And the only distinction amongst all these people, who are branches of the Hamitic family, is the texture of the hair. "But it is equally certain, as we have seen, that the term 'Cushite' is applied in Scripture to other branches of the same family; as, for instance, to the Midianites, from whom Moses selected his wife, and who could not have been Negroes. The term 'Cushite,' therefore, is used in Scripture as denoting nations who were not black, or in any respect Negroes, and also countries south of Egypt, whose inhabitants were Negroes; and yet both races are declared to be the descendants of Cush, the son of Ham. Even in Ezekiel's day the interior African nations were not of one race; for he represents Cush, Phut, Lud, and Chub, as either themselves constituting, or as being amalgamated with, 'a mingled people' (Ezek. xxx. 5); 'that is to say,' says Faber, 'it was a nation of Negroes who are represented as very numerous,--all the mingled people.'"[31]

The term "Ethiopia" was anciently given to all those whose color was darkened by the sun. Herodotus, therefore, distinguishes the Eastern Ethiopians who had straight hair, from the Western Ethiopians who had curly or woolly hair.[32]. They are a twofold people, lying extended in a long tract from the rising to the setting sun."[33]

The conclusion is patent. The words "Ethiopia" and "Cush" were used always to describe a black people, or the country where such a people lived. The term "Negro," from the Latin "niger" and the French "noir," means black; and consequently is a modern term, with all the original meaning of Cush and Ethiopia, with a single exception. We called attention above to the fact that all Ethiopians were not of the pure Negro type, but were nevertheless a branch of the original Hamitic family from whence sprang all the dark races. The term "Negro" is now used to designate the people, who, in addition to their dark complexion, have curly or woolly hair. It is in this connection that we shall use the term in this work.[34]

Africa, the home of the indigenous dark races, in a geographic and ethnographic sense, is the most wonderful country in the world It is thoroughly tropical. It has an area in English square miles of 11,556,600, with a population of 192,520,000 souls. It lies between the latitudes of 38 deg. north and 35 deg. south; and is, strictly speaking, an enormous peninsula, attached to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. The most northern point is the cape, situated a little to the west of Cabo Blanco, and opposite Sicily, which lies in latitude 37 deg. 20' 40" north, longitude 9 deg. 41' east. Its southernmost point is Cabo d'Agulhas, in 34 deg. 49' 15" south; the distance between these two points being 4,330 geographical, or about 5,000 English miles. The westernmost point is Cabo Verde, in longitude 17 deg. 33' west; its easternmost, Cape Jerdaffun, in longitude 51 deg. 21' east, latitude 10 deg. 25' north, the distance between the two points being about the same as its length. The western coasts are washed by the Atlantic, the northern by the Mediterranean, and the eastern by the Indian Ocean. The shape of this "dark continent" is likened to a triangle or to an Oval. It is rich in oils, ivory, gold, and precious timber. It has beautiful lakes and mighty rivers, that are the insoluble problems of the present times.

Of the antiquity of the Negro there can be no doubt. He is known as thoroughly to history as any of the other families of men. He appears at the first dawn of history, and has continued down to the present time. The scholarly Gliddon says, that "the hieroglyphical designation of 'KeSH,' exclusively applied to African races as distinct from the Egyptian, has been found by Lepsius as far back as the monuments of the sixth dynasty, 3000 B.C. But the great influx of Negro and Mulatto races into Egypt as captives dated from the twelfth dynasty; when, about the twenty-second century, B.C., Pharaoh SESOUR-TASEN extended his conquests up the Nile far into Nigritia. After the eighteenth dynasty the monuments come down to the third century, A.D., without one single instance in the Pharaonic or Ptolemaic periods that Negro labor was ever directed to any agricultural or utilitarian objects."[35] The Negro was found in great numbers with the Sukim, Thut, Lubin, and other African nations, who formed the strength of the army of the king of Egypt, Shishak, when he came against Rehoboam in the year 971 B.C.; and in his tomb, opened in 1849, there were found among his depicted army the exact representation of the genuine Negro race, both in color, hair, and physiognomy. Negroes are also represented in Egyptian paintings as connected with the military campaigns of the eighteenth dynasty. They formed a part of the army of Ibrahim Pacha, and were prized as gallant soldiers at Moncha and in South Arabia.[36] And Herodotus assures us that Negroes were found in the armies of Sesostris and Xerxes; and, at the present time, they are no inconsiderable part of the standing army of Egypt.[37] Herodotus states that eighteen of the Egyptian kings were Ethiopians.[38]

It is quite remarkable to hear a writer like John P. Jeffries, who evidently is not very friendly in his criticisms of the Negro, make such a positive declaration as the following:--

"Every rational mind must, therefore, readily conclude that the African race has been in existence, as a distinct people, over four thousand two hundred years; and how long before that period is a matter of conjecture only, there being no reliable data upon which to predicate any reliable opinion."[39]

It is difficult to find a writer on ethnology, ethnography, or Egyptology, who doubts the antiquity of the Negroes as a distinct people. Dr. John C. Nott of Mobile, Ala., a Southern man in the widest meaning, in his "Types of Mankind," while he tries to make his book acceptable to Southern slaveholders, strongly maintains the antiquity of the Negro.

"Ethnological science, then, possesses not only the authoritative testimonies of Lepsius and Birch in proof of the existence of Negro races during the twenty-fourth century, B.C., but, the same fact being conceded by all living Egyptologists, we may hence infer that these Nigritian types were contemporary with the earliest Egyptians."[40]

In 1829 there was a remarkable Theban tomb opened by Mr. Wilkinson, and in 1840 it was carefully examined by Harris and Gliddon. There is a most wonderful collection of Negro scenes in it. Of one of these scenes even Dr. Nott says,--

"A Negress, apparently a princess, arrives at Thebes, drawn in a plaustrum by a pair of humped oxen, the driver and groom being red-colored Egyptians, and, one might almost infer, eunuchs. Following her are multitudes of Negroes and Nubians, bringing tribute from the upper country, as well as black slaves of both sexes and all ages, among which are some red children, whose fathers were Egyptians. The cause of her advent seems to have been to make offerings in the tomb of a 'royal son of KeS_h_--Amunoph,' who may have been her husband."[41]

It is rather strange that the feelings of Dr. Nott toward the Negro were so far mollified as to allow him to make a statement that destroys his heretofore specious reasoning about the political and social status of the Negro. He admits the antiquity of the Negro; but makes a special effort to place him in a servile state at all times, and to present him as a vanquished vassal before Ramses III. and other Egyptian kings. He sees no change in the Negro's condition, except that in slavery he is better fed and clothed than in his native home. But, nevertheless, the Negress of whom he makes mention, and the entire picture in the Theban tomb, put down the learned doctor's argument. Here is a Negro princess with Egyptian driver and groom, with a large army of attendants, going on a long journey to the tomb of her royal husband!

There is little room here to question the political and social conditions of the Negroes.[42] They either had enjoyed a long and peaceful rule, or by their valor in offensive warfare had won honorable place by conquest. And the fact that black slaves are mentioned does not in any sense invalidate the historical trustworthiness of the pictures found in this Theban tomb; for Wilkinson says, in reference to the condition of society at this period,--

"It is evident that both white and black slaves were employed as servants; they attended on the guests when invited to the house of their master; and, from their being in the families of priests as well as of the military chiefs, we may infer that they were purchased with money, and that the right of possessing slaves was not confined to those who had taken them in war. The traffic in slaves was tolerated by the Egyptians; and it is reasonable to suppose that many persons were engaged ... in bringing them to Egypt for public sale, independent of those who were sent as part of the tribute, and who were probably, at first, the property of the monarch; nor did any difficulty occur to the Ishmaelites in the purchase of Joseph from his brethren, nor in his subsequent sale to Potiphar on arriving in Egypt."

So we find that slavery was not, at this time, confined to any particular race of people. This Negro princess was as liable to purchase white as black slaves; and doubtless some were taken in successful wars with other nations, while others were purchased as servants.

But we have further evidence to offer in favor of the antiquity of the Negro. In Japan, and in many other parts of the East, there are to be found stupendous and magnificent temples, that are hoary with age. It is almost impossible to determine the antiquity of some of them, in which the idols are exact representations of woolly-haired Negroes, although the inhabitants of those countries to-day have straight hair. Among the Japanese, black is considered a color of good omen. In the temples of Siam we find the idols fashioned like unto Negroes.[43] Osiris, one of the principal deities of the Egyptians, is frequently represented as black.[44] Bubastis, also, the Diana of Greece, and a member of the great Egyptian Triad, is now on exhibition in the British Museum, sculptured in black basalt silting figure.[45] Among the Hindus, Kali, the consort of Siva, one of their great Triad; Crishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu; and Vishnu also himself, the second of the Trimerti or Hindu Triad, are represented of a black color.[46] Dr. Morton says,--

"The Sphinx may have been the shrine of the Negro population of Egypt, who, as a people, were unquestionably under our average size. Three million Buddhists in Asia represent their chief deity, Buddha, with Negro features and hair. There are two other images of Buddha, one at Ceylon and the other at Calanee, of which Lieut. Mahoney says, 'Both these statues agree in having crisped hair and long, pendent ear-rings,'"[47]

And the learned and indefatigable Hamilton Smith says,--

"In the plains of India are Nagpoor, and a ruined city without name at the gates of Benares (perhaps the real Kasi of tradition), once adorned with statues of a woolly-haired race."[48]

Now, these substantial and indisputable traces of the march of the Negro races through Japan and Asia lead us to conclude that the Negro race antedates all profane history. And while the great body of the Negro races have been located geographically in Africa, they have been, in no small sense, a cosmopolitan people. Their wanderings may be traced from the rising to the setting sun.

"The remains of architecture and sculpture in India seem to prove an early connection between that country and Africa.... The Pyramids of Egypt, the colossal statues described by Pausanias and others, the Sphinx, and the Hermes Canis, which last bears a strong resemblance to the Varaha Avatar, indicate the style of the same indefatigable workmen who formed the vast excavations of Canarah, the various temples and images of Buddha, and the idols which are continually dug up at Gaya or in its vicinity. These and other indubitable facts may induce no ill-grounded opinion, that Ethiopia and Hindustan were peopled or colonized by the same extraordinary race; in confirmation of which it may be added, that the mountaineers of Bengal and Benhar can hardly be distinguished in some of their features, particularly in their lips and noses, from the modern Abyssinians."[49]

There is little room for speculation here to the candid searcher after truth. The evidence accumulates as we pursue our investigations. Monuments and temples, sepulchred stones and pyramids, rise up to declare the antiquity of the Negro races. Hamilton Smith, after careful and critical investigation, reaches the conclusion, that the Negro type of man was the most ancient, and the indigenous race of Asia, as far north as the lower range of the Himalaya Mountains, and presents at length many curious facts which cannot, he believes, be otherwise explained.

"In this view, the first migrations of the Negro stock, coasting westward by catamarans, or in wretched canoes, and skirting South-western Asia, may synchronize with the earliest appearance of the Negro tribes of Eastern Africa, and just precede the more mixed races, which, like the Ethiopians of Asia, passed the Red Sea at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, ascended the Nile, or crossed that river to the west."[50]

Taking the whole southern portion of Asia westward to Arabia, this conjecture--which likewise was a conclusion drawn, after patient research, by the late Sir T. Stanford Raffles--accounts, more satisfactorily than any other, for the Oriental habits, ideas, traditions, and words which can be traced among several of the present African tribes and in the South-Sea Islands. Traces of this black race are still found along the Himalaya range from the Indus to Indo-China, and the Malay peninsula, and in a mixed form all through the southern states to Ceylon.[51]

But it is unnecessary to multiply evidence in proof of the antiquity of the Negro. His presence in this world was coetaneous with the other families of mankind: here he has toiled with a varied fortune; and here under God--his God--he will, in the process of time, work out all the sublime problems connected with his future as a man and a brother.

There are various opinions rife as to the cause of color and texture of hair in the Negro. The generally accepted theory years ago was, that the curse of Cain rested upon this race; while others saw in the dark skin of the Negro the curse of Noah pronounced against Canaan. These two explanations were comforting to that class who claimed that they had a right to buy and sell the Negro; and of whom the Saviour said, "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."[52] But science has, of later years, attempted a solution of this problem. Peter Barrere, in his treatise on the subject, takes the ground that the bile in the human system has much to do with the color of the skin.[53] This theory, however, has drawn the fire of a number of European scholars, who have combated it with more zeal than skill. It is said that the spinal and brain matter are of a dark, ashy color; and by careful examination it is proven that the blood of Ethiopians is black. These facts would seem to clothe this theory with at least a shadow of plausibility. But the opinion of Aristotle, Strabo, Alexander, and Blumenbach is, that the climate, temperature, and mode of life, have more to do with giving color than any thing else. This is certainly true among animals and plants. There are many instances on record where dogs and wolves, etc., have turned white in winter, and then assumed a different color in the spring. If you start at the north and move south, you will find, at first, that the flowers are very white and delicate; but, as you move toward the tropics, they begin to take on deeper and richer hues until they run into almost endless varieties. Guyot argues on the other side of the question to account for the intellectual diversity of the races of mankind.

"While all the types of animals and of plants go on decreasing in perfection, from the equatorial to the polar regions, in proportion to the temperatures, man presents to our view his purest, his most perfect type, at the very centre of the temperate continents,--at the centre of Asia, Europe, in the regions of Iran, of Armenia, and of the Caucasus; and, departing from this geographical centre in the three grand directions of the lands, the types gradually lose the beauty of their forms, in proportion to their distance, even to the extreme points of the southern continents, where we find the most deformed and degenerate races, and the lowest in the scale of humanity."[54]

The learned professor seeks to carry out his famous geographical argument, and, with great skill and labor, weaves his theory of the influence of climate upon the brain and character of man. But while no scholar would presume to combat the theory that plants take on the most gorgeous hues as one nears the equator, and that the races of mankind take on a darker color in their march toward the equator, certainly no student of Oriental history will assent to the unsupported doctrine, that the intensity of the climate of tropical countries affects the intellectual status of races. If any one be so prejudiced as to doubt this, let him turn to "Asiatic Researches," and learn that the dark races have made some of the most invaluable contributions to science, literature, civil-engineering, art, and architecture that the world has yet known. Here we find the cradle of civilization, ancient and remote.

Even changes and differences in color are to be noted in almost every community.

"As we go westward we observe the light color predominating over the dark; and then, again, when we come within the influence of damp from the sea-air, we find the shade deepened into the general blackness of the coast population."

The artisan and farm-laborer may become exceedingly dark from exposure, and the sailor is frequently so affected by the weather that it is next to impossible to tell his nationality.

"It is well known that the Biscayan women are a shining white, the inhabitants of Granada on the contrary dark, to such an extent, that, in this region, the pictures of the blessed Virgin and other saints are painted of the same color."[55]

The same writer calls attention to the fact, that the people on the Cordilleras, who live under the mountains towards the west, and are, therefore, exposed to the Pacific Ocean, are quite, or nearly, as fair in complexion as the Europeans; whereas, on the contrary, the inhabitants of the opposite side, exposed to the burning sun and scorching winds, are copper-colored. Of this theory of climateric influence we shall say more farther on.

It is held by some eminent physicians in Europe and America, that the color of the skin depends upon substances external to the cutis vera. Outside of the cutis are certain layers of a substance various in consistence, and scarcely perceptible: here is the home and seat of color; and these may be regarded as secretions from the vessels of the cutis. The dark color of the Negro principally depends on the substance interposed between the true skin and the scarf-skin. This substance presents different appearances: and it is described sometimes as a sort of organized network or reticular tissue; at others, as a mere mucous or slimy layer; and it is odd that these somewhat incompatible ideas are both conveyed by the term reticulum mucosum given to the intermediate portion of the skin by its orignal discoverer, Malpighi. There is, no doubt, something plausible in all the theories advanced as to the color and hair of the Negro; but it is verily all speculation. One theory is about as valuable as another.

Nine hundred years before Christ the poet Homer, speaking of the death of Memnon, killed at the siege of Troy, says, "He was received by his Ethiopians." This is the first use of the word Ethiopia in the Greek; and it is derived from the roots [Greek: aitho], "to burn," and [Greek: ops], "face." It is safe to assume, that, when God dispersed the sons of Noah, he fixed the "bounds of their habitation," and, that, from the earth and sky the various races have secured their civilization. He sent the different nations into separate parts of the earth. He gave to each its racial peculiarities, and adaptability for the climate into which it went. He gave color, language, and civilization; and, when by wisdom we fail to interpret his inscrutable ways, it is pleasant to know that "he worketh all things after the counsel of his own mind."

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Edward W. Blyden, LL.D., of Liberia, says, "Supposing that this term was originally used as a phrase of contempt, is it not with us to elevate it? How often has it not happened that names originally given in reproach have been afterwards adopted as a title of honor by those against whom it was used?--Methodists, Quakers, etc. But as a proof that no unfavorable signification attached to the word when first employed, I may mention, that, long before the slave-trade began, travellers found the blacks on the coast of Africa preferring to be called Negroes" (see Purchas' Pilgrimage ...). And in all the pre-slavetrade literature the word was spelled with a capital N. It was the slavery of the blacks which afterwards degraded the term. To say that the name was invented to degrade the race, some of whose members were reduced to slavery, is to be guilty of what in grammar is called a hysteron proteron. The disgrace became attached to the name in consequence of slavery; and what we propose to do is, now that slavery is abolished, to restore it to its original place and legitimate use, and therefore to restore the capital N."Return to passage

[28] Prichard, vol. ii. p. 44.Return to passage

[29] Josephus, Antiq., lib. 2, chap. 6.Return to passage

[30] Poole.Return to passage

[31] Smyth's Unity Human Races, chap. II, p. 41.Return to passage

[32] Herodotus, vii., 69, 70. Ancient Univ. Hist., vol. xviii. pp. 254, 255.Return to passage

[33] Strabo, vol. I. p. 60.Return to passage

[34] It is not wise, to say the least, for intelligent Negroes in America to seek to drop the word "Negro." It is a good, strong, and healthy word, and ought to live. It should be covered with glory: let Negroes do it.Return to passage

[35] Journal of Ethnology, No. 7, p. 310.Return to passage

[36] Pickering's Races of Men, pp. 185-89.Return to passage

[37] Burckhardt's Travels, p. 341.Return to passage

[38] Euterpe, lib. 6.Return to passage

[39] Jeffries's Nat. Hist. of Human Race, p. 315.Return to passage

[40] Types of Mankind, p. 259.Return to passage

[41] Types of Mankind, p. 262.Return to passage

[42] Even in Africa it is found that Negroes possess great culture. Speaking of Sego, the capital of Bambara, Mr. Park says: "The view of this extensive city, the numerous, canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa." See Park's Travels, chap. ii.Return to passage

Mr. Park also adds, that the population of this city, Sego, is about thirty thousand. It had mosques, and even ferries were busy conveying men and horses over the Niger.

[43] See Ambassades Memorables de la Companie des Indes orientales des Provinces Unies vers les Empereurs du Japan, Amst., 1680; and Kaempfer.Return to passage

[44] Wilkinson's Egypt, vol. iii. p. 340.Return to passage

[45] Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 91. Dr. William Jones, vol. iii., p. 377.Return to passage

[46] Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 436-448.Return to passage

[47] Heber's Narrative, vol. i. p. 254.Return to passage

[48] Nat. Hist. of the Human Species, pp. 209, 214, 217.Return to passage

[49] Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p 427. Also Sir William Jones, vol. iii. 3d disc.Return to passage

[50] Nat. Hist. Human Species, p. 126.Return to passage

[51] Prichard, pp. 188-219.Return to passage

[52] Matt. xxiii. 4.Return to passage

[53] Discours sur la cause physicale de la couleur des negres.Return to passage

[54] Earth and Man. Lecture x. pp. 254, 255.Return to passage

[55] Blumenbach, p. 107.Return to passage

III. PRIMITIVE NEGRO CIVILIZATION

THE ANCIENT AND HIGH DEGREE OF NEGRO CIVILIZATION.--EGYPT, GREECE, AND ROME BORROW FROM THE NEGRO THE CIVILIZATION THAT MADE THEM GREAT.--CAUSE OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF NEGRO CIVILIZATION.--CONFOUNDING THE TERMS "NEGRO" AND "AFRICAN."

It is fair to presume that God gave all the races of mankind civilization to start with. We infer this from the known character of the Creator. Before Romulus founded Rome, before Homer sang, when Greece was in its infancy, and the world quite young, "hoary Meroe" was the chief city of the Negroes along the Nile. Its private and public buildings, its markets and public squares, its colossal walls and stupendous gates, its gorgeous chariots and alert footmen, its inventive genius and ripe scholarship, made it the cradle of civilization, and the mother of art. It was the queenly city of Ethiopia,--for it was founded by colonies of Negroes. Through its open gates long and ceaseless caravans, laden with gold, silver, ivory, frankincense, and palm-oil, poured the riches of Africa into the capacious lap of the city. The learning of this people, embalmed in the immortal hieroglyphic, flowed adown the Nile, and, like spray, spread over the delta of that time-honored stream, on by the beautiful and venerable city of Thebes,--the city of a hundred gates, another monument to Negro genius and civilization, and more ancient than the cities of the Delta,--until Greece and Rome stood transfixed before the ancient glory of Ethiopia! Homeric mythology borrowed its very essence from Negro hieroglyphics; Egypt borrowed her light from the venerable Negroes up the Nile. Greece went to school to the Egyptians, and Rome turned to Greece for law and the science of warfare. England dug down into Rome twenty centuries to learn to build and plant, to establish a government, and maintain it. Thus the flow of civilization has been from the East--the place of light--to the West; from the Oriental to the Occidental. (God fixed the mountains east and west in Europe.)

"Tradition universally represents the earliest men descending, it is true, from the high table-lands of this continent; but it is in the low and fertile plains lying at their feet, with which we are already acquainted, that they unite themselves for the first time in natural bodies, in tribes, with fixed habitations, devoting themselves to husbandry, building cities, cultivating the arts,--in a word, forming well-regulated societies. The traditions of the Chinese place the first progenitors of that people on the high table-land, whence the great rivers flow: they mike them advance, station by station as far as the shores of the ocean. The people of the Brahmins come down from the regions of the Hindo-Khu, and from Cashmere, into the plains of the Indus and the Ganges; Assyria and Bactriana receive their inhabitants from the table-lands of Armenia and Persia.

"These alluvial plains, watered by their twin rivers, were better formed than all other countries of the globe to render the first steps of man, an infant still, easy in the career of civilized life. A rich soil, on which overflowing rivers spread every year a fruitful loam, as in Egypt, and one where the plough is almost useless, so movable and so easily tilled is it, a warm climate, finally, secure to the inhabitants of these fortunate regions plentiful harvests in return for light labor. Nevertheless, the conflict with the river itself and with the desert,--which, on the banks of the Euphrates, as on those of the Nile and the Indus, is ever threatening to invade the cultivated lands,--the necessity of irrigation, the inconstancy of the seasons, keep forethought alive, and give birth to the useful arts and to the sciences of observation. The abundance of resources, the absence of every obstacle, of all separation between the different parts of these vast plains, allow the aggregation of a great number of men upon one and the same space, and facilitate the formation of those mighty primitive states which amaze us by the grandeur of their proportions.

"Each of them finds upon its own soil all that is necessary for a brilliant exhibition of its resources. We see those nations come rapidly forward, and reach in the remotest antiquity a degree of culture of which the temples and the monuments of Egypt and of India, and the recently discovered palaces of Nineveh are living and glorious witnesses.

"Great nations, then, are separately formed in each of these areas, circumscribed by nature within natural limits. Each has its religion, its social principles, its civilization severally. But nature, as we have seen, has separated them; little intercourse is established between them; the social principle on which they are founded is exhausted by the very formation of the social state they enjoy, and is never renewed. A common life is wanting to them: they do not reciprocally share with each other their riches. With them movement is stopped: every thing becomes stable and tends to remain stationary.

"Meantime, in spite of the peculiar seal impressed on each of these Oriental nations by the natural conditions in the midst of which they live, they have, nevertheless some grand characteristics common to all, some family traits that betray the nature of the continent and the period of human progress to which they belong, making them known on the one side as Asiatic, and on the other side as primitive."[56]

Is it asked what caused the decline of all this glory of the primitive Negro? why this people lost their position in the world's history? Idolatry! Sin![57]

Centuries have flown apace, tribes have perished, cities have risen and fallen, and even empires, whose boast was their duration, have crumbled, while Thebes and Meroe stood. And it is a remarkable fact, that the people who built those cities are less mortal than their handiwork. Notwithstanding their degradation, their woes and wrongs, the perils of the forest and dangers of the desert, this remarkable people have not been blotted out. They still live, and are multiplying in the earth. Certainly they have been preserved for some wise purpose, in the future to be unfolded.

But, again, what was the cause of the Negro's fall from his high state of civilization? It was forgetfulness of God, idolatry! "Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people."

The Negro tribes of Africa are as widely separated by mental, moral, physical, and social qualities as the Irish, Huns, Copts, and Druids are. Their location on the Dark Continent, their surroundings, and the amount of light that has come to them from the outside world, are the thermometer of their civilization. It is as manifestly improper to call all Africans Negroes as to call, Americans Indians.

"The Negro nations of Africa differ widely as to their manner of life and their characters, both of mind and body, in different parts of that continent, according as they have existed under different moral and physical conditions. Foreign culture, though not of a high degree, has been introduced among the population of some regions; while from others it has been shut out by almost impenetrable barriers, beyond which the aboriginal people remain secluded amid their mountains and forests, in a state of instinctive existence,--a state from which, history informs us, that human races have hardly emerged, until moved by some impulse from without. Neither Phoenician nor Roman culture seems to have penetrated into Africa beyond the Atlantic region and the desert. The activity and enthusiasm of the propagators of Islam have reached farther. In the fertile low countries beyond the Sahara, watered by rivers which descend northward from the central highlands, Africa has contained for centuries several Negro empires, originally founded by Mohammedans. The Negroes of this part of Africa are people of a very different description from the black pagan nations farther towards the South. They have adopted many of the arts of civilized society, and have subjected themselves to governments and political institutions. They practise agriculture, and have learned the necessary, and even some of the ornamental, arts of life, and dwell in towns of considerable extent; many of which are said to contain ten thousand, and even thirty thousand inhabitants,--a circumstance which implies a considerable advancement in industry and the resources of subsistence. All these improvements were introduced into the interior of Africa three or four centuries ago; and we have historical testimony, that in the region where trade and agriculture now prevail the population consisted, previous to the introduction of Islam, of savages as wild and fierce as the natives farther towards the south, whither the missionaries of that religion have never penetrated. It hence appears that human society has not been in all parts of Africa stationary and unprogressive from age to age. The first impulse to civilization was late in reaching the interior of that continent, owing to local circumstances which are easily understood; but, when it had once taken place, an improvement has resulted which is, perhaps, proportional to the early progress of human culture in other more favored regions of the world."[58]

But in our examination of African tribes we shall not confine ourselves to that class of people known as Negroes, but call attention to other tribes as well. And while, in this country, all persons with a visible admixture of Negro blood in them are considered Negroes, it is technically incorrect. For the real Negro was not the sole subject sold into slavery: very many of the noblest types of mankind in Africa have, through the uncertainties of war, found their way to the horrors of the middle passage, and finally to the rice and cotton fields of the Carolinas and Virginias. So, in speaking of the race in this country, in subsequent chapters, I shall refer to them as colored people or Negroes.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Earth and Man, pp. 300-302.Return to passage

[57] It is a remarkable fact, that the absence of salt in the food of the Eastern nations, especially the dark nations or races, has been very deleterious. An African child will eat salt by the handful, and, once tasting it, will cry for it. The ocean is the womb of nature; and the Creator has wisely designed salt as the savor of life, the preservative element in human food.Return to passage

[58] Physical History of Mankind, vol. ii. pp. 45, 46.Return to passage

IV. NEGRO KINGDOMS OF AFRICA

BENIN: ITS LOCATION.--ITS DISCOVERY BY THE PORTUGUESE.--INTRODUCTION OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION.--THE KING AS A MISSIONARY,--HIS FIDELITY TO THE CHURCH PURCHASED BY WHITE WIFE.--DECLINE OF RELIGION.--INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY.--SUPPRESSION OF THE TRADE BY THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.--RESTORATION AND PEACE.

DAHOMEY: ITS LOCATION.--ORIGIN OF THE KINGDOM.--MEANING OF THE NAME.--WAR.--CAPTURE OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNOR, AND HIS DEATH.--THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT.--WOMEN AS SOLDIERS.--WARS AND THEIR OBJECTS.--HUMAN SACRIFICE.--THE KING A DESPOT.--HIS POWERS.--HIS WIVES.--POLYGAMY.--KINGLY SUCCESSION.--CORONATION.--CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW.--REVENUE SYSTEM.--ITS FUTURE.

YORUBA: ITS LOCATION.--SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION.--GROWTH OF THE PEOPLE OF ABEOKUTA.--MISSIONARIES AND TEACHERS FROM SIERRA LEONE.--PROSPERITY AND PEACE ATTEND THE PEOPLE.--CAPACITY OF THE PEOPLE FOR CIVILIZATION.--BISHOP CROWTHER.--HIS INFLUENCE.

BENIN.

The vast territory stretching from the Volta River on the west to the Niger in the Gulf of Benin on the east, the Atlantic Ocean on the south, and the Kong Mountains on the north, embraces the three powerful Negro kingdoms of Benin, Dahomey, and Yoruba. From this country, more than from any other part of Africa, were the people sold into American slavery. Two or three hundred years ago there were several very powerful Negro empires in Western Africa. They had social and political government, and were certainly a very orderly people. But in 1485 Alfonso de Aviro, a Portuguese, discovered Benin, the most easterly province; and as an almost immediate result the slave-trade was begun. It is rather strange, too, in the face of the fact, that, when De Aviro returned to the court of Portugal, an ambassador from the Negro king of Benin accompanied him for the purpose of requesting the presence of Christian missionaries among this people. Portugal became interested, and despatched Fernando Po to the Gulf of Benin; who, after discovering the island that bears his name, ascended the Benin River to Gaton, where he located a Portuguese colony. The Romish Church lifted her standard here. The brothers of the Society of Jesus, if they did not convert the king, certainly had him in a humor to bring all of his regal powers to bear upon his subjects to turn them into the Catholic Church. He actually took the contract to turn his subjects over to this Church! But this shrewd savage did not agree to undertake this herculean task for nothing. He wanted a white wife. He told the missionaries that he would deliver his subjects to Christianity for a white wife, and they agreed to furnish her. Some priests were sent to the Island of St. Thomas to hunt the wife. This island had, even at that early day, a considerable white population. A strong appeal was made to the sisters there to consider this matter as a duty to the holy Church. It was set forth as a missionary enterprise. After some contemplation, one of the sisters agreed to accept the hand of the Negro king. It was a noble act, and one for which she should have been canonized, but we believe never was.

The Portuguese continued to come. Gaton grew. The missionary worked with a will. Attention was given to agriculture and commerce. But the climate was wretched. Sickness and death swept the Portuguese as the fiery breath of tropical lightning. They lost their influence over the people. They established the slave-trade, but the Church and slave-pen would not agree. The inhuman treatment they bestowed upon the people gave rise to the gravest suspicions as to the sincerity of the missionaries. History gives us the sum total of a religious effort that was not of God. There isn't a trace of Roman Catholicism in that country, and the last state of that people is worse than the former.

The slave-trade turned the heads of the natives. Their cruel and hardened hearts assented to the crime of man-stealing. They turned aside from agricultural pursuits. They left their fish-nets on the seashore, their cattle uncared for, their villages neglected, and went forth to battle against their weaker neighbors. They sold their prisoners of war to slave-dealers on the coast, who gave them rum and tobacco as an exceeding great reward. When war failed to give from its bloody and remorseless jaws the victims for whom a ready market awaited, they turned to duplicity, treachery, and cruelty. "And men's worst enemies were those of their own household." The person suspicioned of witchcraft was speedily found guilty, and adjudged to slavery. The guilty and the innocent often shared the same fate. The thief, the adulterer, and the aged were seized by the rapacity that pervaded the people, and were hurled into the hell of slavery.

Now, as a result of this condition of affairs, the population was depleted, the people grew indolent and vicious, and finally the empire was rent with political feuds. Two provinces was the result. One still bore the name of Benin, the other was called Waree. The capital of the former contains about 38,000 inhabitants, and the chief town and island of Waree only contain about 16,000 of a population.

Finally England was moved to a suppression of the slave-trade at this point. The ocean is very calm along this coast, which enabled her fleets to run down slave-vessels and make prizes of them. This had a salutary influence upon the natives. Peace and quietness came as angels. A spirit of thrift possessed the people. They turned to the cultivation of the fields and to commercial pursuits. On the river Bonny, and along other streams, large and flourishing palm-oil marts sprang up; and a score or more of vessels are needed to export the single article of palm-oil. The morals of the people are not what they ought to be; but they have, on the whole, made wonderful improvement during the last fifty years.

DAHOMEY.

This nation is flanked by Ashantee on the west, and Yoruba on the east; running from the seacoast on the south to the Kong mountains on the north. It is one hundred and eighty miles in width, by two hundred in breadth. Whydah is the principal town on the seacoast. The story runs, that, about two hundred and seventy-five years ago, Tacudons, chief of the Foys, carried a siege against the city of Abomey. He made a solemn vow to the gods, that, if they aided him in pushing the city to capitulate, he would build a palace in honor of the victory. He succeeded. He laid the foundations of his palace, and then upon them ripped open the bowels of Da. He called the building Da-Omi, which meant Da's belly. He took the title of King of Dahomey, which has remained until the present time. The neighboring tribes, proud and ambitious, overran the country, and swept Whydah and adjacent places with the torch and spear. Many whites fell into their hands as prisoners; all of whom were treated with great consideration, save the English governor of the above-named town. They put him to death, because, as they charged, he had incited and excited the people of Dahomey to resist their king.

This is a remarkable people. They are as cruel as they are cunning. The entire population is converted into an army: even women are soldiers. Whole regiments of women are to be found in the army of the king of Dahomey, and they are the best foot-regiments in the kingdom. They are drilled at stated periods, are officered, and well disciplined. The army is so large, and is so constantly employed in predatory raids upon neighboring tribes, that the consuming element is greater than the producing. The object of these raids was threefold: to get slaves for human sacrifices, to pour the blood of the victims on the graves of their ancestors yearly, and to secure human skulls to pave the court of the king and to ornament the walls about the palace! After a successful war, the captives are brought to the capital of the kingdom. A large platform is erected in the great market space, encircled by a parapet about three feet high. The platform blazes with rich clothes, elaborate umbrellas, and all the evidences of kingly wealth and splendor, as well as the spoils taken in battle. The king occupies a seat in the centre of the platform, attended by his imperturbable wives. The captives, rum, tobacco, and cowries are now ready to be thrown to the surging mob below. They have fought gallantly, and now clamor for their reward. "Feed us, king!" they cry, "feed us, king! for we are hungry!" and as the poor captives are tossed to the mob they are despatched without ceremony!

But let us turn from this bloody and barbarous scene. The king is the most absolute despot in the world. He is heir-at-law to all his subjects. He is regarded as a demigod. It is unlawful to indicate that the king eats, sleeps, or drinks. No one is allowed to approach him, except his nobles, who at a court levee disrobe themselves of all their elegant garments, and, prostrate upon the ground, they crawl into his royal presence. The whole people are the cringing lickspittles of the nobles in turn. Every private in the army is ambitious to please the king by valor. The king is literally monarch of all he surveys. He is proprietor of the land, and has at his disposal every thing animate or inanimate in his kingdom. He has about three thousand wives.[59] Every man who would marry must buy his spouse from the king; and, while the system of polygamy obtains everywhere throughout the kingdom, the subject must have care not to secure so many wives that it would appear that he is attempting to rival the king. The robust women are consigned to the military service. But the real condition of woman in this kingdom is slavery of the vilest type. She owns nothing. She is always in the market, and lives in a state of constant dread of being sold. When the king dies, a large number of his wives are sacrificed upon his grave. This fact inspires them to take good care of him! In case of death, the king's brother, then his nephew, and so on, take the throne. An inauguration generally lasts six days, during which time hundreds of human lives are sacrificed in honor of the new monarch.

The code of Dahomey is very severe. Witchcraft is punished with death; and in this regard stalwart old Massachusetts borrowed from the barbarian. Adultery is punished by slavery or sudden death. Thieves are also sold into slavery. Treason and cowardice and murder are punished by death. The civil code is as complicated as the criminal is severe. Over every village, is a Caboceer, equivalent to our mayor. He can convene a court by prostrating himself and kissing the ground. The court convenes, tries and condemns the criminal. If it be a death sentence, he is delivered to a man called the Milgan, or equivalent to our sheriff, who is the ranking officer in the state. If the criminal is sentenced to slavery, he is delivered to the Mayo, who is second in rank to the Milgan, or about like our turnkey or jailer. All sentences must be referred to the king for his approval; and all executions take place at the capital, where notice is given of the same by a public crier in the market-places.

The revenue system of this kingdom is oppressive. The majority of slaves taken in war are the property of the king. A tax is levied on each person or slave exported from the kingdom. In relation to domestic commerce, a tax is levied on every article of food and clothing. A custom-service is organized, and the tax-collectors are shrewd and exacting.

The religion of the people is idolatry and fetich, or superstition. They have large houses where they worship snakes; and so great is their reverence for the reptile, that, if any one kills one that has escaped, he is punished with death. But, above their wild and superstitious notions, there is an ever-present consciousness of a Supreme Being. They seldom mention the name of God, and then with fear and trembling.

"The worship of God in the absurd symbol of the lower animals I do not wish to defend: but it is all that these poor savages can do; and is not that less impious than to speak of the Deity with blasphemous familiarity, as our illiterate preachers often do?"[60]

But this people are not in a hopeless condition of degradation.

"The Wesleyan Missionary Society of England have had a mission-station at Badagry for some years, and not without some important and encouraging tokens of success.... The king, it is thought, is more favorable to Christian missions now than he formerly was."[61]

And we say Amen!

YORUBA.

This kingdom extends from the seacoast to the river Niger, by which it is separated from the kingdom of Nufi. It contains more territory than either Benin or Dahomey. Its principal seaport is Lagos. For many years it was a great slave-mart, and only gave up the traffic under the deadly presence of English guns. Its facilities for the trade were great. Portuguese and Spanish slave-traders took up their abode here, and, teaching the natives the use of fire-arms, made a stubborn stand for their lucrative enterprise; but in 1852 the slave-trade was stopped, and the slavers driven from the seacoast. The place came under the English flag; and, as a result, social order and business enterprise have been restored and quickened. The slave-trade wrought great havoc among this people. It is now about fifty-five years since a few weak and fainting tribes, decimated by the slave-trade, fled to Ogun, a stream seventy-five miles from the coast, where they took refuge in a cavern. In the course of time they were joined by other tribes that fled before the scourge of slave-hunters. Their common danger gave them a commonality of interests. They were, at first, reduced to very great want. They lived for a long time on berries, herbs, roots, and such articles of food as nature furnished without money and without price; but, leagued together to defend their common rights, they grew bold, and began to spread out around their hiding-place, and engage in agriculture. Homes and villages began to rise, and the desert to blossom as the rose. They finally chose a leader,--a wise and judicious man by the name of Shodeke; and one hundred and thirty towns were united under one government. In 1853, less than a generation, a feeble people had grown to be nearly one hundred thousand (100,000); and Abeokuta, named for their cave, contains at present nearly three hundred thousand souls.

In 1839 some colored men from Sierra Leone, desirous of engaging in trade, purchased a small vessel, and called at Lagos and Badagry. They had been slaves in this country, and had been taken to Sierra Leone, where they had received a Christian education. Their visit, therefore, was attended with no ordinary interest. They recognized many of their friends and kindred, and were agreeably surprised at the wonderful change that had taken place in so short a time. They returned to Sierra Leone, only to inspire their neighbors with a zeal for commercial and missionary enterprise. Within three years, five hundred of the best colored people of Sierra Leone set out for Lagos and Badagry on the seacoast, and then moved overland to Abeokuta, where they intended to make their home. In this company of noble men were merchants, mechanics, physicians, school-teachers, and clergymen. Their people had fought for deliverance from physical bondage: these brave missionaries had come to deliver them from intellectual and spiritual bondage. The people of Abeokuta gave the missionaries a hearty welcome. The colony received new blood and energy. School-buildings and churches rose on every hand. Commerce was revived, and even agriculture received more skilful attention. Peace and and plenty began to abound. Every thing wore a sunny smile, and many tribes were bound together by the golden cords of civilization, and sang their Te Deum together. Far-away England caught their songs of peace, and sent them agricultural implements, machinery, and Christian ministers and teachers. So, that, nowhere on the continent of Africa is there to be found so many renewed households, so many reclaimed tribes, such substantial results of a vigorous, Christian civilization.

The forces that quickened the inhabitants of Abeokuta were not all objective, exoteric: there were subjective and inherent forces at work in the hearts of the people. They were capable of civilization,--longed for it; and the first blaze of light from without aroused their slumbering forces, and showed them the broad and ascending road that led to the heights of freedom and usefulness. That they sought this road with surprising alacrity, we have the most abundant evidence. Nor did all the leaders come from abroad. Adgai, in the Yoruba language, but Crowther, in English, was a native of this country. In 1822 he was sold into slavery at the port of Badagry. The vessel that was to bear him away to the "land of chains and stocks" was captured by a British man-of-war, and taken to Sierra Leone. Here he came under the influence of Christian teachers. He proved to be one of the best pupils in his school. He received a classical education, fitted for the ministry, and then hastened back to his native country to carry the gospel of peace. It is rather remarkable, but he found his mother and several sisters still "in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity." The son and brother became their spiritual teacher, and, ere long, had the great satisfaction of seeing them "clothed, in their right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus." His influence has been almost boundless. A man of magnificent physical proportions,--tall, a straight body mounted by a ponderous head, shapely, with a kind eye, benevolent face, a rich cadence in his voice,--the "black Bishop" Crowther is a princely looking man, who would attract the attention of cultivated people anywhere. He is a man of eminent piety, broad scholarship, and good works. He has translated the Bible into the Yoruba language, founded schools, and directed the energies of his people with a matchless zeal. His beautiful and beneficent life is an argument in favor of the possibilities of Negro manhood so long injured by the dehumanizing influences of slavery. Others have caught the inspiration that has made Bishop Crowther's life "as terrible as an army with banners" to the enemies of Christ and humanity, and are working to dissipate the darkness of that land of night.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] The king of Dahomey is limited to 3,333 wives! It is hardly fair to suppose that his majesty feels cramped under the ungenerous act that limits the number of his wives.Return to passage

[60] Savage Africa, p. 51.Return to passage

[61] Western Africa, p. 207.Return to passage

V. THE ASHANTEE EMPIRE

ITS LOCATION AND EXTENT.--ITS FAMOUS KINGS.--THE ORIGIN OF THE ASHANTEES OBSCURE.--THE WAR WITH DENKERA.--THE ASHANTEES AGAINST THE FIELD CONQUER TWO KINGDOMS AND ANNEX THEM.--DEATH OF OSAI TUTU.--THE ENVY OF THE KING OF DAHOMEY.--INVASION OF THE ASHANTEE COUNTRY BY THE KING OF DAHOMEY.--HIS DEFEAT SHARED BY HIS ALLIES.--AKWASI PURSUES THE ARMY OF DAHOMEY INTO ITS OWN COUNTRY.--GETS A MORTAL WOUND AND SUFFERS A HUMILIATING DEFEAT.--THE KING OF DAHOMEY SENDS THE ROYAL KUDJOH HIS CONGRATULATIONS.--KWAMINA DEPOSED FOR ATTEMPTING TO INTRODUCE MOHAMMEDANISM INTO THE KINGDOM.--THE ASHANTEES CONQUER THE MOHAMMEDANS.--NUMEROUS WARS.--INVASION OF THE FANTI COUNTRY.--DEATH OF SIR CHARLES MCCARTHY.--TREATY.--PEACE.

The kingdom of Ashantee lies between the Kong Mountains and the vast country of the Fantis. The country occupied by the Ashantees was, at the first, very small; but by a series of brilliant conquests they finally secured a territory of three hundred square miles. One of their most renowned kings, Osai Tutu, during the last century, added to Ashantee by conquest the kingdoms of Sarem, Buntuku, Warsaw, Denkera, and Axim. Very little is known as to the origin of the Ashantees. They were discovered in the early part of the eighteenth century in the great valley between the Kong Mountains and the river Niger, from whence they were driven by the Moors and Mohammedan Negroes. They exchanged the bow for fire-arms, and soon became a warlike people. Osai Tutu led in a desperate engagement against the king of Denkera, in which the latter was slain, his army was put to rout, and large quantities of booty fell into the hands of the victorious Ashantees. The king of Axim unwittingly united his forces to those of the discomforted Denkera, and, drawing the Ashantees into battle again, sustained heavy losses, and was put to flight. He was compelled to accept the most exacting conditions of peace, to pay the king of the Ashantees four thousand ounces of gold to defray the expenses of the war, and have his territory made tributary to the conqueror. In a subsequent battle Osai Tutu was surprised and killed. His courtiers and wives were made prisoners, with much goods. This enraged the Ashantees, and they reeked vengeance on the heads of the inhabitants of Kromanti, who laid the disastrous ambuscade. They failed, however, to recover the body of their slain king; but many of his attendants were retaken, and numerous enemies, whom they sacrificed to the manes of their dead king at Kumasi.

After the death of the noble Osai Tutu, dissensions arose among his followers. The tribes and kingdoms he had bound to his victorious chariot-wheels began to assert their independence. His life-work began to crumble. Disorder ran riot; and, after a few ambitious leaders were convinced that the throne of Ashantee demanded brains and courage, they cheerfully made way for the coronation of Osai Opoko, brother to the late king. He was equal to the existing state of affairs. He proved himself a statesman, a soldier, and a wise ruler. He organized his army, and took the field in person against the revolting tribes. He reconquered all the lost provinces. He defeated his most valorous foe, the king of Gaman, after driving him into the Kong Mountains. When his jealous underlings sought his overthrow by conspiracy, he conquered them by an appeal to arms. His rule was attended by the most lasting and beneficent results. He died in 1742, and was succeeded by his brother, Osai Akwasi.

The fame and military prowess of the kings of the Ashantees were borne on every passing breeze, and told by every fleeing fugitive. The whole country was astounded by the marvellous achievements of this people, and not a little envy was felt among adjoining nations. The king of Dahomey especially felt like humiliating this people in battle. This spirit finally manifested itself in feuds, charges, complaints, and, laterally, by actual hostilities. The king of Dahomey felt that he had but one rival, the king of Ashantee. He felt quite sure of victory on account of the size, spirit, and discipline of his army. It was idle at this time, and was ordered to the Ashantee border. The first engagement took place near the Volta. The king of Dahomey had succeeded in securing an alliance with the armies of Kawaku and Bourony, but the valor and skill of the Ashantees were too much for the invading armies. If King Akwasi had simply maintained his defensive position, his victory would have been lasting; but, overjoyed at his success, he unwittingly pursued the enemy beyond the Volta, and carried war into the kingdom of Dahomey. Troops fight with great desperation in their own country. The Ashantee army was struck on its exposed flanks, its splendid companies of Caboceers went down before the intrepid Amazons. Back to the Volta, the boundary line between the two empires, fled the routed Ashantees. Akwasi received a mortal wound, from which he died in 1752, when his nephew, Osai Kudjoh, succeeded to the throne.

Three brothers had held the sceptre over this empire, but now it passed to another generation. The new king was worthy of his illustrious family. After the days of mourning for his royal uncle were ended, before he ascended the throne, several provinces revolted. He at once took the field, subdued his recalcitrant subjects, and made them pay a heavy tribute. He won other provinces by conquest, and awed the neighboring tribes until an unobstructed way was open to his invincible army across the country to Cape Palmas. His fame grew with each military manoeuvre, and each passing year witnessed new triumphs. Fawning followed envy in the heart of the king of Dahomey; and a large embassy was despatched to the powerful Kudjoh, congratulating him upon his military achievements, and seeking a friendly alliance between the two governments. Peace was now restored; and the armies of Ashantee very largely melted into agricultural communities, and great prosperity came. But King Kudjoh was growing old in the service of his people; and, as he could no longer give his personal attention to public affairs, dissensions arose in some of the remote provinces. With impaired vision and feeble health he, nevertheless, put an army into the field to punish the insubordinate tribes; but before operations began he died. His grandson, Osai Kwamina, was designated as legal successor to the throne in 1781. He took a solemn vow that he would not enter the palace until he secured the heads of Akombroh and Afosee, whom he knew had excited and incited the people to rebellion against his grandfather. His vengeance was swift and complete. The heads of the rebel leaders were long kept at Juntas as highly prized relics of the reign of King Kwamina. His reign was brief, however. He was deposed for attempting to introduce the Mohammedan religion into the kingdom. Osai Apoko was crowned as his successor in 1797. The Gaman and Kongo armies attached themselves to the declining fortunes of the deposed king, and gave battle for his lost crown. It was a lost cause. The new king could wield his sword as well as wear a crown. He died of a painful sickness, and was succeeded by his son, Osai Tutu Kwamina, in 1800.

The new king was quite youthful,--only seventeen; but he inherited splendid qualities from a race of excellent rulers. He re-organized his armies, and early won a reputation for courage, sagacity, and excellent ability, extraordinary in one so young. He inherited a bitter feeling against the Mohammedans, and made up his mind to chastise two of their chiefs, Ghofan and Ghobago, and make the territory of Banna tributary to Ashantee. He invaded their country, and burned their capital. In an engagement fought at Kaha, the entire Moslem army was defeated and captured. The king of Ghofan was wounded and made prisoner, and died in the camp of the Ashantee army. Two more provinces were bound to the throne of Kwamina; and we submit that this is an historical anomaly, in that a pagan people subdued an army that emblazoned its banner with the faith of the one God!

The Ashantee empire had reached the zenith of its glory. Its flag waved in triumph from the Volta to Bossumpea, and the Kong Mountains had echoed the exploits of the veterans that formed the strength of its army. The repose that even this uncivilized people longed for was denied them by a most unfortunate incident.

Asim was a province tributary to the Ashantee empire. Two of the chiefs of Asim became insubordinate, gave offence to the king, and then fled into the country of the Fantis, one of the most numerous and powerful tribes on the Gold Coast. The Fantis promised the fugitives armed protection. There was no extradition treaty in those days. The king despatched friendly messengers, who were instructed to set forth the faults of the offending subjects, and to request their return. The request was contemptuously denied, and the messengers subjected to a painful death. The king of Ashantee invaded the country of the enemy, and defeated the united forces of Fanti and Asim. He again made them an offer of peace, and was led to believe it would be accepted. But the routed army was gathering strength for another battle, although Chibbu and Apontee had indicated to the king that the conditions of peace were agreeable. The king sent an embassy to learn when a formal submission would take place; and they, also, were put to death. King Osai Tutu Kwamina took "the great oath," and vowed that he would never return from the seat of war or enter his capital without the heads of the rebellious chiefs. The Ashantee army shared the desperate feelings of their leader; and a war was begun, which for cruelty and carnage has no equal in the annals of the world's history. Pastoral communities, hamlets, villages, and towns were swept by the red waves of remorseless warfare. There was no mercy in battle: there were no prisoners taken by day, save to be spared for a painful death at nightfall. Their groans, mingling with the shouts of the victors, made the darkness doubly hideous; and the blood of the vanquished army, but a short distance removed, ran cold at the thoughts of the probable fate that waited them on the morrow. Old men and old women, young men and young women, the rollicking children whose light hearts knew no touch of sorrow, as well as the innocent babes clinging to the agitated bosoms of their mothers,--unable to distinguish between friend or foe,--felt the cruel stroke of war. All were driven to an inhospitable grave in the place where the fateful hand of war made them its victims, or perished in the sullen waters of the Volta. For nearly a hundred miles "the smoke of their torment" mounted the skies. Nothing was left in the rear of the Ashantee army, not even cattle or buildings. Pursued by a fleet-footed and impartial disaster, the fainting Fantis and their terrified allies turned their faces toward the seacoast. And why? Perhaps this fleeing army had a sort of superstitious belief that the sea might help them. Then, again, they knew that there were many English on the Gold Coast; that they had forts and troops. They trusted, also, that the young king of the Ashantees would not follow his enemy under the British flag and guns. They were mistaken. The two revolting chiefs took refuge in the fort at Anamabo. On came the intrepid king, thundering at the very gates of the English fort. The village was swept with the hot breath of battle. Thousands perished before this invincible army. The English soldiers poured hot shot and musketry into the columns of the advancing army; but on they marched to victory with an impurturbable air, worthy of "the old guard" under Ney at Waterloo. Preparations were completed for blowing up the walls of the fort; and it would have been but a few hours until the king of Ashantee would have taken the governor's chair, had not the English capitulated. During the negotiations one of the offending chiefs made good his escape to a little village called Cape Coast; but the other was delivered up, and, having been taken back to Kumasi, was tortured to death. Twelve thousand persons fell in the engagement at Anamabo, and thousands of lives were lost in other engagements. This took place in 1807.

In 1811 the king of Ashantee sent an array to Elmina to protect his subjects against predatory bands of Fantis. Three or four battles were fought, and were invariably won by the Ashantee troops.

Barbarians have about as long memories as civilized races. They are a kind-hearted people, but very dangerous and ugly when they are led to feel that they have been injured. "The great oath" means a great deal; and the king was not happy in the thought that one of the insolent chiefs had found refuge in the town of Cape Coast, which was in the Fanti country. So in 1817 he invaded this country, and called at Cape Coast, and reduced the place to the condition of a siege. The English authorities saw the Fantis dying under their eyes, and paid the fine imposed by the King of Ashantee, rather than bury the dead inhabitants of the beleaguered town. The Ashantees retired.

England began to notice the Ashantees. They had proven themselves to be a most heroic, intelligent, and aggressive people. The Fantis lay stretched between them and the seacoast. The frequent invasion of this country, for corrective purposes as the Ashantees believed, very seriously interrupted the trade of the coast; and England began to feel it. The English had been defeated once in an attempt to assist the Fantis, and now thought it wise to turn attention to a pacific policy, looking toward the establishment of amicable relations between the Ashantees and themselves. There had never been any unpleasant relations between the two governments, except in the instance named. The Ashantees rather felt very kindly toward England, and for prudential and commercial reasons desired to treat the authorities at the coast with great consideration. They knew that the English gave them a market for their gold, and an opportunity to purchase manufactured articles that they needed. But the Fantis, right under the English flag, receiving a rent for the ground on which the English had their fort and government buildings, grew so intolerably abusive towards their neighbors, the Ashantees, that the British saw nothing before them but interminable war. It was their desire to avoid it if possible. Accordingly, they sent an embassy to the king of the Ashantees, consisting of Gov. James, of the fort at Akra, a Mr. Bowdich, nephew to the governor-in-chief at Cape Coast, a Mr. Hutchinson, and the surgeon of the English settlement, Dr. Teddlie. Mr. Bowdich headed the embassy to the royal court, where they were kindly received. A treaty was made. The rent that the Fantis had been receiving for ground occupied by the English--four ounces of gold per month--was to be paid to the king of Ashantee, as his by right of conquest. Diplomatic relations were to be established between the two governments, and Mr. Hutchinson was to remain at Kumasi as the British resident minister. He was charged with the carrying out of so much of the treaty as related to his government. The treaty was at once forwarded to the home government, and Mr. Dupuis was appointed consul of his Majesty's government to the court of Ashantee. A policy was outlined that meant the opening up of commerce with the distant provinces of the Ashantee empire along the Kong Mountains. In those days it took a long time to sail from England to the Gold Coast in Western Africa; and before Consul Dupuis reached the coast, the king of Ashantee was engaged in a war with the king of Gaman. The Ashantee army was routed. The news of the disaster was hailed by the Fantis on the coast with the most boisterous and public demonstrations. This gave the king of Ashantee offence. The British authorities were quite passive about the conduct of the Fantis, although by solemn treaty they had become responsible for their deportment. The Fantis grew very insulting and offensive towards the Ashantees. The king of the latter called the attention of the authorities at the Cape to the conduct of the Fantis, but no official action was taken. In the mean while Mr. Dupuis was not allowed to proceed on his mission to the capital of the Ashantees. Affairs began to assume a very threatening attitude; and only after the most earnest request was he permitted to proceed to the palace of the king of Ashantee. He received a hearty welcome at the court, and was entertained with the most lavish kindness. After long and painstaking consideration, a treaty was decided upon that was mutually agreeable; but the self-conceited and swaggering insolence of the British authorities on the coast put it into the waste-basket. The commander of the British squadron put himself in harmony with the local authorities, and refused to give Consul Dupuis transportation to England for the commissioners of the Ashantee government, whom he had brought to the coast with the intention of taking to London with him.

A war-cloud was gathering. Dupuis saw it. He sent word to the king of Ashantee to remember his oath, and refrain from hostilities until he could communicate with the British government. The treaty stipulated for the recognition, by the British authorities, of the authority of the Ashantee king over the Fantis. Only those immediately around the fort were subject to English law, and then not to an extent to exempt them from tax imposed by the Ashantee authorities.

In the midst of these complications, Parliament, by a special act, abolished the charter of the African Company. This put all its forts, arsenals, and stations under the direct control of the crown. Sir Charles McCarthy was made governor-general of the British possessions on the Gold Coast, and took up his head-quarters at Cape Coast in March, 1822. Two months had passed now since Dupuis had sailed for England; and not a syllable had reached the king's messenger, who, all this time, had waited to hear from England. The country was in an unsettled state. Gov, McCarthy was not equal to the situation. He fell an easy prey to the fawning and lying Fantis. They received him as the champion of their declining fortunes, and did every thing in their power to give him an unfriendly opinion of the Ashantees. The king of the Ashantees began to lose faith in the British. His faithful messenger returned from the coast bearing no friendly tidings. The king withdrew his troops from the seacoast, and began to put his army upon a good war-footing. When all was in readiness a Negro sergeant in the British service was seized, and put to a torturous death. This was a signal for the grand opening. Of course the British were bound to demand redress. Sir Charles McCarthy was informed by some Fantis scouts that the king of Ashantee, at the head of his army, was marching for Cape Coast. Sir Charles rallied his forces, and went forth to give him battle. His object was to fight the king at a distance from the cape, and thus prevent him from devastating the entire country as in former wars. Sir Charles McCarthy was a brave man, and worthy of old England; but in this instance his courage was foolhardy. He crossed the Prah River to meet a wily and desperate foe. His troops were the worthless natives, hastily gathered, and were intoxicated with the hope of deliverance from Ashantee rule. He should have waited for the trained troops of Major Chisholm. This was his fatal mistake. His pickets felt the enemy early in the morning of the 21st of January, 1824. A lively skirmish followed. In a short time the clamorous war-horns of the advancing Ashantees were heard, and a general engagement came on. The first fighting began along a shallow stream. The Ashantees came up with the courage and measured tread of a well-disciplined army. They made a well-directed charge to gain the opposite bank of the stream, but were repulsed by an admirable bayonet charge from Sir Charles's troops. The Ashantees then crossed the stream above and below the British army, and fell with such desperation upon its exposed and naked flanks, that it was bent into the shape of a letter A, and hurled back toward Cape Coast in dismay. Wounded and exhausted, toward evening Sir Charles fled from his exposed position to the troops of his allies under the command of the king of Denkera. He concentrated his artillery upon the heaviest columns of the enemy; but still they came undaunted, bearing down upon the centre like an avalanche. Sir Charles made an attempt to retreat with his staff, but met instant death at the hands of the Ashantees. His head was removed from the body and sent to Kumasi. His heart was eaten by the chiefs of the army that they might imbibe his courage, while his flesh was dried and issued in small rations among the line-officers for the same purpose. His bones were kept at the capital of the Ashantee kingdom as national fetiches.[62]

Major Chisholm and Capt. Laing, learning of the disaster that had well-nigh swallowed up Sir Charles's army, retreated to Cape Coast. There were about thirty thousand troops remaining, but they were so terrified at the disaster of the day that they could not be induced to make a stand against the gallant Ashantees. The king of Ashantee, instead of following the routed army to the gates of Cape Coast, where he could have dealt it a death-blow, offered the English conditions of peace. Capt. Ricketts met the Ashantee messengers at Elmina, and heard from them the friendly messages of the king. The Ashantees only wanted the British to surrender Kudjoh Chibbu of the province of Denkera; but this fugitive from the Ashantee king, while negotiations were pending, resolved to rally the allied armies and make a bold stroke. He crossed the Prah at the head of a considerable force, and fell upon the Ashantee army in its camp. The English were charmed by this bold stroke, and sent a reserve force; but the whole army was again defeated by the Ashantees, and came back to Cape Coast in complete confusion.

The Ashantee army were at the gates of the town. Col. Southerland arrived with re-enforcements, but was beaten into the fort by the unyielding courage of the attacking force. A new king, Osai Ockote, arrived with fresh troops, and won the confidence of the army by marching right under the British guns, and hissing defiance into the face of the foe. The conflict that followed was severe, and destructive to both life and property. All the native and British forces were compelled to retire to the fort; while the Ashantee troops, inspired by the dashing bearing of their new king, closed in around them like tongues of steel. The invading army was not daunted by the belching cannon that cut away battalion after battalion. On they pressed for revenge and victory. The screams of fainting women and terrified children, the groans of the dying, and the bitter imprecations of desperate combatants,--a mingling medley,--swelled the great diapason of noisy battle. The eyes of the beleaguered were turned toward the setting sun, whose enormous disk was leaning against the far-away mountains, and casting his red and vermilion over the dusky faces of dead Ashantees and Fantis; and, imparting a momentary beauty to the features of the dead white men who fell so far away from home and friends, he sank to rest. There was a sad, far-off look in the eye of the impatient sailor who kept his lonely watch on the vessel that lay at rest on the sea. Night was wished for, prayed for, yearned for. It came at last, and threw its broad sable pinions over the dead, the dying, and the living. Hostilities were to be renewed in the morning; but the small-pox broke out among the soldiers, and the king of Ashantee retired.

Sir Neill Campbell was appointed governor-general at Cape Coast. One of his first acts was to call for all the chiefs of the Fantis, and give them to understand that hostilities between themselves and the king of Ashantee must stop. He then required Osai Ockoto to deposit four thousand ounces of gold ($72,000), as a bond to keep the peace. In case he provoked hostilities, the seventy-two thousand dollars were to be used to purchase ammunition with which to chastise him. In 1831 the king was obliged to send two of his royal family, Kwanta Missah, his own son, and Ansah, the son of the late king, to be held as hostages. These boys were sent to England, where they were educated, but are now residents of Ashantee.

Warsaw and Denkera, interior provinces, were lost to the Ashantee empire; but, nevertheless, it still remains one of the most powerful Negro empires of Western Africa.

The king of Ashantee has a fair government. His power is well-nigh absolute. He has a House of Lords, who have a check-power. Coomassi is the famous city of gold, situated in the centre of the empire. The communication through to the seacoast is unobstructed; and it is rather remarkable that the Ashantees are the only nation in Africa, who, living in the interior, have direct communication with the Caucasian. They have felt the somewhat elevating influence of Mohammedanism, and are not unconscious of the benefits derived by the literature and contact of the outside world. They are a remarkable people: brave, generous, industrious, and mentally capable. The day is not distant when the Ashantee kingdom will be won to the Saviour, and its inhabitants brought under the beneficent influences of Christian civilization.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] The following telegram shocks the civilized world. It serves notice on the Christians of the civilized world, that, in a large missionary sense, they have come far short of their duty to the "nations beyond," who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.Return to passage

"MASSACRE OF MAIDENS. LONDON, NOV. 10, 1881.--Advices from Cape Coast Castle report that the king of Ashantee killed two hundred young girls for the purpose of using their blood for mixing mortar for repair of one of the state buildings. The report of the massacre was received from a refugee chosen for one of the victims. Such wholesale massacres are known to be a custom with the king."--Cinn. Commercial.

VI. THE NEGRO TYPE

CLIMATE THE CAUSE.--HIS GEOGRAPHICAL THEATRE.--HE IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION.

If the reader will turn to a map of Africa, the Mountains of the Moon[63] will be found to run right through the centre of that continent. They divide Africa into two almost equal parts. In a dialectic sense, also, Africa is divided. The Mountains of the Moon, running east and west, seem to be nature's dividing line between two distinct peoples. North of these wonderful mountains the languages are numerous and quite distinct, and lacking affinity. For centuries these tribes have lived in the same latitude, under the same climatic influences, and yet, without a written standard, have preserved the idiomatic coloring of their tribal language without corruption. Thus they have eluded the fate that has overtaken all other races who without a written language, living together by the laws of affinity, sooner or later have found one medium of speech as inevitable as necessary.

But coming south of the Mountains of the Moon, until we reach the Cape of Good Hope, there is to be found one great family. Nor is the difference between the northern and southern tribes only linguistic. The physiological difference between these people is great. They range in color from the dead black up to pure white, and from the dwarfs on the banks of the Casemanche to the tall and giant-like Vei tribe of Cape Mount.

"The Fans which inhabit the mountain terraces are altogether of a different complexion from the seacoast tribes. Their hair is longer: that of the women hangs down in long braids to their shoulders, while the men have tolerably long two-pointed beards. It would be impossible to find such long hair among the coast tribes, even in a single instance.

"In the low, swampy land at the mouth of the Congo, one meets with typical Negroes; and there again, as one reaches a higher soil, one finds a different class of people.

"The Angolese resemble the Fula. They are scarcely ever black. Their hands and feet are exquisitely small; and in every way they form a contrast with the slaves of the Portuguese, who, brought for the most part from the Congo, are brutal and debased.

"I have divided Africa into three grand types,--the Ethiopian, the intermediate, and the Negro. In the same manner the Negro may be divided into three sub-classes:--

"The bronze-colored class: gracefully formed, with effeminate features, small hands and feet, long fingers, intelligent minds, courteous and polished manners. Such are the Mpongwe of the Gaboon, the Angolese, the Fanti of the Gold Coast, and most probably the Haoussa of the Niger, a tribe with which I am not acquainted.

"The black-skinned class: athletic shapes, rude manners, less intelligence, but always with some good faculties, thicker lips, broader noses, but seldom prognathous to any great degree. Such are the Wollof, the Kru-men, the Benga of Corisco, and the Cabinda of Lower Guinea, who hire themselves out as sailors in the Congo and in Angola precisely as do the Kru-men of North Guinea.

"Lastly, the typical Negroes: an exceptional race even among the Negroes, whose disgusting type it is not necessary to re-describe. They are found chiefly along the coast between the Casemanche and Sierra Leone, between Lagos and the Cameroons, in the Congo swamps, and in certain swampy plains and mountain-hollows of the interior."[64]

That climate has much to do with physical and mental character, we will not have to prove to any great extent. It is a fact as well established as any principle in pathology. Dr. Joseph Brown says,--

"It is observed that the natives of marshy districts who permanently reside in them lose their whole bodily and mental constitution, contaminated by the poison they inhale. Their aspect is sallow and prematurely senile, so that children are often wrinkled, their muscles flaccid, their hair lank, and frequently pale, the abdomen tumid, the stature stunted, and the intellectual and moral character low and degraded. They rarely attain what in more wholesome regions would be considered old age. In the marshy districts of certain countries,--for example, Egypt, Georgia, and Virginia,--the extreme term of life is stated to be forty in the latter place.... In portions of Brittany which adjoin the Loire, the extreme duration of life is fifty, at which age the inhabitant wears the aspect of eighty in a healthier district. It is remarked that the inferior animals, and even vegetables, partake of the general deprivation; they are stunted and short-lived."

In his "Ashango Land," Paul B. du Chaillu devotes a large part of his fifteenth chapter to the Obongos, or Dwarfs. Nearly all African explorers and travellers have been much amazed at the diversity of color and stature among the tribes they met. This diversity in physical and mental character owes its existence to the diversity and perversity of African climate.

The Negro, who is but a fraction of the countless indigenous races of Africa, has been carried down to his low estate by the invincible forces of nature. Along the ancient volcanic tracts are to be found the Libyan race, with a tawny complexion, features quite Caucasian, and long black hair. On the sandstones are to be found an intermediate type, darker somewhat than their progenitors, lips thick, and nostrils wide at the base. Then comes the Negro down in the alluvia, with dark skin, woolly hair, and prognathous development.

"The Negro forms an exceptional race in Africa. He inhabits that immense tract of marshy land which lies between the mountains and the sea, from Senegal to Benguela, and the low lands of the eastern side in the same manner. He is found in the parts about Lake Tchad, in Sennaar, along the marshy banks of rivers, and in several isolated spots besides."[65]

The true Negro inhabits Northern Africa. When his country, of which we know absolutely nothing, has been crowded, the nomadic portion of the population has poured itself over the mountain terraces, and, descending into the swamps, has become degraded in body and mind.

Technically speaking, we do not believe the Negro is a distinct species.

"It is certain that the woolly hair, the prognathous development, and the deep black skin of the typical Negro, are not peculiar to the African continent."[66]

The Negro is found in the low, marshy, and malarious districts. We think the Negro is produced in a descending scale. The African who moves from the mountain regions down into the miasmatic districts may be observed to lose his stature, his complexion, his hair, and his intellectual vigor: he finally becomes the Negro. Pathologically considered, he is weak, sickly, and short-lived. His legs are slender and almost calf-less: the head is developed in the direction of the passions, while the whole form is destitute of symmetry.

"It will be understood that the typical Negroes, with whom the slavers are supplied, represent the dangerous, the destitute, and diseased classes of African society. They may be compared to those which in England fill our jails, our workhouses, and our hospitals. So far from being equal to us, the polished inhabitants of Europe, as some ignorant people suppose, they are immeasurably below the Africans themselves,

"The typical Negro is the true savage of Africa; and I must paint the deformed anatomy of his mind, as I have already done that of his body.

"The typical Negroes dwell in petty tribes, where all are equal except the women, who are slaves; where property is common, and where, consequently, there is no property at all; where one may recognize the Utopia of philosophers, and observe the saddest and basest spectacles which humanity can afford.

"The typical Negro, unrestrained by moral laws, spends his days in sloth, his nights in debauchery. He smokes hashish till he stupefies his senses or falls into convulsions; he drinks palm-wine till he brings on a loathsome disease; he abuses children, stabs the poor brute of a woman whose hands keep him from starvation, and makes a trade of his own offspring. He swallows up his youth in premature vice; he lingers through a manhood of disease, and his tardy death is hastened by those who no longer care to find him food.... If you wish to know what they have been, and to what we may restore them, look at the portraits which have been preserved of the ancient Egyptians: and in those delicate and voluptuous forms; in those round, soft features; in those long, almond-shaped, half-closed, languishing eyes; in those full pouting lips, large smiling mouths, and complexions of a warm and copper-colored tint,--you will recognize the true African type, the women-men of the Old World, of which the Negroes are the base, the depraved caricatures."[67]

But the Negro is not beyond the influences of civilization and Christianization. Hundreds of thousands have perished in the cruel swamps of Africa; hundreds of thousands have been devoured by wild beasts of the forests; hundreds of thousands have perished before the steady and murderous columns of stronger tribes; hundreds of thousands have perished from fever, small-pox, and cutaneous diseases; hundreds of thousands have been sold into slavery; hundreds of thousands have perished in the "middle-passage;" hundreds of thousands have been landed in this New World in the West: and yet hundreds of thousands are still swarming in the low and marshy lands of Western Africa. Poor as this material is, out of it we have made, here in the United States, six million citizens; and out of this cast-away material of Africa, God has raised up many children.

To the candid student of ethnography, it must be conclusive that the Negro is but the most degraded and disfigured type of the primeval African. And still, with all his interminable woes and wrongs, the Negro on the west coast of Africa, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as in the southern part of the United States, shows that centuries of savagehood and slavery have not drained him of all the elements of his manhood. History furnishes us with abundant and specific evidence of his capacity to civilize and Christianize. We shall speak of this at length in a subsequent chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See Keith Johnson's Map of Africa, 1863.Return to passage

[64] Savage Africa, pp. 403, 404.Return to passage

[65] Savage Africa, p. 400.Return to passage

[66] Savage Africa, p. 412.Return to passage

[67] Savage Africa, p. 430.Return to passage

VII. AFRICAN IDIOSYNCRASIES

PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT.--CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES.--NEGRO ARCHITECTURE.--ELECTION OF KINGS.--CORONATION CEREMONY.--SUCCESSION.--AFRICAN QUEENS.--LAW, CIVIL AND CRIMINAL.--PRIESTS.--THEIR FUNCTIONS.--MARRIAGE.--WARFARE.--AGRICULTURE.--MECHANIC ARTS.--BLACKSMITHS.

All the tribes on the continent of Africa are under, to a greater or less degree, the patriarchal form of government. It is usual for writers on Africa to speak of "kingdoms" and "empires;" but these kingdoms are called so more by compliment than with any desire to convey the real meaning that we get when the empire of Germany or kingdom of Spain is spoken of. The patriarchal government is the most ancient in Africa. It is true that great kingdoms have risen in Africa; but they were the result of devastating wars rather than the creation of political genius or governmental wisdom.

"Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende. Sandia and Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja. The country north of the mountains, here in sight from the Zambesi, is called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga or Basenga; but all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the Manganja and Maravi. Formerly all the Manganja were united under the government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi's death it fell to pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by their powerful Southern neighbors, the Bamjai. This has been the inevitable fate of every African empire from time immemorial. A chief of more than ordinary ability arises, and, subduing all his less powerful neighbors, founds a kingdom, which he governs more or less wisely till he dies. His successor, not having the talents of the conqueror, cannot retain the dominion, and some of the abler under-chiefs set up for themselves; and, in a few years, the remembrance only of the empire remains. This, which may be considered as the normal state of African society, gives rise to frequent and desolating wars, and the people long in vain for a power able to make all dwell in peace. In this light a European colony would be considered by the natives as an inestimable boon to inter-tropical Africa. Thousands of industrious natives would gladly settle around it, and engage in that peaceful pursuit of agriculture and trade of which they are so fond; and, undistracted by wars or rumors of wars, might listen to the purifying and ennobling truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Manganja on the Zambesi, like their countrymen on the Shire, are fond of agriculture; and, in addition to the usual varieties of food, cultivate tobacco and cotton in quantities more than equal to their wants. To the question, 'Would they work for Europeans?' an affirmative answer may be given; if the Europeans belong to the class which can pay a reasonable price for labor, and not to that of adventurers who want employment for themselves. All were particularly well clothed from Sandia's to Pangola's; and it was noticed that all the cloth was of native manufacture, the product of their own looms. In Senga a great deal of iron is obtained from the ore, and manufactured very cleverly."[68]

The above is a fair description of the internecine wars that have been carried on between the tribes in Africa, back "to a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." In a preceding chapter we gave quite an extended account of four Negro empires. We call attention here to the villages of these people, and shall allow writers who have paid much attention to this subject to give their impressions. Speaking of a village of the Aviia tribe called Mandji, Du Chaillu says,--

"It was the dirtiest village I had yet seen in Africa, and the inhabitants appeared to me of a degraded class of Negroes. The shape and arrangement of the village were quite different from any thing I had seen before. The place was in the form of a quadrangle, with an open space in the middle not more than ten yards square; and the huts, arranged in a continuous row on two sides, were not more than eight feet high from the ground to the roof. The doors were only four feet high, and of about the same width, with sticks placed across on the inside, one above the other, to bar the entrance. The place for the fire was in the middle of the principal room, on each side of which was a little dark chamber; and on the floor was an orala, or stage, to smoke meat upon. In the middle of the yard was a hole dug in the ground for the reception of offal, from which a disgusting smell arose, the wretched inhabitants being too lazy or obtuse to guard against this by covering it with earth.

"The houses were built of a framework of poles, covered with the bark of trees, and roofed with leaves. In the middle of the village stood the public shed, or palaver-house,--a kind of town-hall found in almost all West-African villages. A large fire was burning in it, on the ground; and at one end of the shed stood a huge wooden idol, painted red and white, and rudely fashioned in the shape of a woman. The shed was the largest building in the village, for it was ten feet high, and measured fifteen feet by ten. It is the habit of the lazy negroes of these interior villages--at least, the men--to spend almost the whole day lying down under the palaver-shed, feeding their morbid imaginations with tales of witchcraft, and smoking their condoquais."

But all the villages of these poor children of the desert are not so untidy as the one described above. There is a wide difference in the sanitary laws governing these villages.

"The Ishogo villages are large. Indeed, what most strikes the traveller in coming from the seacoast to this inland country, is the large size, neatness, and beauty of the villages. They generally have about one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty huts, arranged in streets, which are very broad and kept remarkably clean. Each house has a door of wood which is painted in fanciful designs with red, white, and black. One pattern struck me as simple and effective; it was a number of black spots margined with white, painted in regular rows on a red ground. But my readers must not run away with the idea that the doors are like those of the houses of civilized people; they are seldom more than two feet and a half high. The door of my house was just twenty-seven inches high. It is fortunate that I am a short man, otherwise it would have been hard exercise to go in and out of my lodgings. The planks of which the doors are made are cut with great labor by native axes out of trunks of trees, one trunk seldom yielding more than one good plank. My hut, an average-sized dwelling, was twenty feet long and eight feet broad. It was divided into three rooms or compartments, the middle one, into which the door opened, being a little larger than the other two.... Mokenga is a beautiful village, containing about one hundred and sixty houses; they were the largest dwellings I had yet seen on the journey. The village was surrounded by a dense grove of plantain-trees, many of which had to be supported by poles, on account of the weight of the enormous bunches of plantains they bore. Little groves of lime-trees were scattered everywhere, and the limes, like so much golden fruit, looked beautiful amidst the dark foliage that surrounded them. Tall, towering palm-trees were scattered here and there. Above and behind the village was the dark green forest. The street was the broadest I ever saw in Africa; one part of it was about one hundred yards broad, and not a blade of grass could be seen in it. The Sycobii were building their nests everywhere, and made a deafening noise, for there were thousands and thousands of these little sociable birds."[69]

The construction of houses in villages in Africa is almost uniform, as far as our studies have led us.[70] Or, rather, we ought to modify this statement by saying there are but two plans of construction. One is where the houses are erected on the rectilinear, the other is where they are built on the circular plan. In the more warlike tribes the latter plan prevails. The hillsides and elevated places near the timber are sought as desirable locations for villages. The plan of architecture is simple. The diameter is first considered, and generally varies from ten to fifteen feet. A circle is drawn in the ground, and then long flexible sticks are driven into the earth. The builder, standing inside of the circle, binds the sticks together at the top; where they are secured together by the use of the "monkey-rope," a thick vine that stretches itself in great profusion from tree to tree in that country. Now, the reader can imagine a large umbrella with the handle broken off even with the ribs when closed up, and without any cloth,--nothing but the ribs left. Now open it, and place it on the ground before you, and you have a fair idea of the hut up to the present time. A reed thatching is laid over the frame, and secured firmly by parallel lashings about fifteen inches apart. The door is made last by cutting a hole in the side of the hut facing toward the centre of the contemplated circle of huts.[71] The door is about eighteen inches in height, and just wide enough to admit the body of the owner. The sharp points, after the cutting, are guarded by plaited twigs. The door is made of quite a number of stout sticks driven into the ground at equal distances apart, through which, in and out, are woven pliant sticks. When this is accomplished, the maker cuts off the irregular ends to make it fit the door, and removes it to its place. Screens are often used inside to keep out the wind: they are made so as to be placed in whatever position the wind is blowing. Some of these houses are built with great care, and those with domed roofs are elaborately decorated inside with beads of various sizes and colors.

The furniture consists of a few mats, several baskets, a milk-pail, a number of earthen pots, a bundle of assagais, and a few other weapons of war. Next, to guard against the perils of the rainy season, a ditch about two feet in width and of equal depth is made about the new dwelling. Now multiply this hut by five hundred, preserving the circle, and you have the village. The palaver-house, or place for public debates, is situated in the centre of the circle of huts. Among the northern and southern tribes, a fence is built around their villages, when they are called "kraals." The space immediately outside of the fence is cleared, so as to put an enemy at a disadvantage in an attack upon the village. Among the agricultural tribes, as, for example, the Kaffirs, they drive their cattle into the kraal, and for the young build pens.

The other method of building villages is to have one long street, with a row of houses on each side, rectangular in shape. They are about twenty-five or thirty feet in length, and about twelve to fifteen feet in width. Six or eight posts are used to join the material of the sides to. The roofs are flat. Three rooms are allowed to each house. The two end rooms are larger than the centre one, where the door opens out into the street. Sometimes these rooms are plastered, but it is seldom; and then it is in the case of the well-to-do class.[72]

We said, at the beginning of this chapter, that the government in Africa was largely patriarchal; and yet we have called attention to four great kingdoms. There is no contradiction here, although there may seem to be; for even kings are chosen by ballot, and a sort of a house of lords has a veto power over royal edicts.

"Among the tribes which I visited in my explorations I found but one form of government, which may be called the patriarchal. There is not sufficient national unity in any of the tribes to give occasion for such a despotism as prevails in Dahomey, and in other of the African nationalities. I found the tribes of equatorial Africa greatly dispersed, and, in general, no bond of union between parts of the same tribe. A tribe is divided up into numerous clans, and these again into numberless little villages, each of which last possesses an independent chief. The villages are scattered; are often moved for death or witchcraft, as I have already explained in the narrative; and not infrequently are engaged in war with each other.

"The chieftainship is, to a certain extent, hereditary, the right of succession vesting in the brother of the reigning chief or king. The people, however, and particularly the elders of the village, have a veto power, and can, for sufficient cause, deprive the lineal heir of his succession, and put in over him some one thought of more worth. In such cases the question is put to the vote of the village; and, where parties are equally divided as to strength, there ensue sometimes long and serious palavers before all can unite in a choice. The chief is mostly a man of great influence prior to his accession, and generally an old man when he gains power.

"His authority, though greater than one would think, judging from the little personal deference paid to him, is final only in matters of every-day use. In cases of importance, such as war, or any important removal, the elders of the village meet together and deliberate in the presence of the whole population, which last finally decide the question.

"The elders, who possess other authority, and are always in the counsels of the chief, are the oldest members of important families in the village. Respect is paid to them on account of their years, but more from a certain regard for 'family,' which the African has very strongly wherever I have known him. These families form the aristocracy."[73]

Here are democracy and aristocracy blended somewhat. The king's power seems to be in deciding everyday affairs, while the weighty matters which affect the whole tribe are decided by the elders and the people. Mr. Reade says of such government,--

"Among these equatorial tribes the government is patriarchal, which is almost equivalent to saying that there is no government at all. The tribes are divided into clans. Each clan inhabits a separate village, or group of villages; and at the head of each is a patriarch, the parody of a king. They are distinguished from the others by the grass-woven cap which they wear on their heads, and by the staff which they carry in their hands. They are always rich and aged: therefore they are venerated; but, though they can exert influence, they cannot wield power; they can advise, but they cannot command. In some instances, as in that of Quenqueza, King of the Rembo, the title and empty honors of royalty are bestowed upon the most influential patriarch in a district. This is a vestige of higher civilization and of ancient empire which disappears as one descends among the lower tribes."[74]

"The African form of government is patriarchal, and, according to the temperament of the chief, despotic, or guided by the counsel of the elders of the tribe. Reverence for loyalty sometimes leads the mass of the people to submit to great cruelty, and even murder, at the hands of a despot or madman; but, on the whole, the rule is mild; and the same remark applies in a degree to their religion."[75]

When a new king is elected, he has first to repair to the pontiff's house, who--apropos of priests--is more important than the king himself. The king prostrates himself, and, with loud cries, entreats the favor of this high priest. At first the old man inside, with a gruff voice, orders him away, says he cannot be annoyed; but the king enumerates the presents he has brought him, and finally the door opens, and the priest appears, clad in white, a looking-glass on his breast, and long white feathers in his head. The king is sprinkled, covered with dust, walked over, and then, finally, the priest lies upon him. He has to swear that he will obey, etc.; and then he is allowed to go to the coronation. Then follow days and nights of feasting, and, among some tribes, human sacrifices.

The right of succession is generally kept on the male side of the family. The crown passes from brother to brother, from uncle to nephew, from cousin to cousin. Where there are no brothers, the son takes the sceptre. In all our studies on Africa, we have found only two women reigning. A woman by the name of Shinga ascended the throne of the Congo empire in 1640. She rebelled against the ceremonies, sought to be introduced by Portuguese Catholic priests, who incited her nephew to treason. Defeated in several pitched battles, she fled into the Jaga country, where she was crowned with much success. In 1646 she won her throne again, and concluded an honorable peace with the Portuguese. The other queen was the bloodthirsty Tembandumba of the Jagas. She was of Arab blood, and a cannibal by practice. She fought many battles, achieved great victories, flirted with beautiful young savages, and finally was poisoned.

The African is not altogether without law.

"Justice appears, upon the whole, to be pretty fairly administered among the Makololo. A headman took some beads and a blanket from one of his men who had been with us; the matter was brought before the chief; and he immediately ordered the goods to be restored, and decreed, moreover, that no headman should take the property of the men who had returned. In theory all the goods brought back belonged to the chief; the men laid them at his feet, and made a formal offer of them all: he looked at the articles, and told the men to keep them. This is almost invariably the case. Tuba Mokoro, however, fearing lest Sekeletu might take a fancy to some of his best goods, exhibited only a few of his old and least valuable acquisitions. Masakasa had little to show: he had committed some breach of native law in one of the villages on the way, and paid a heavy fine rather than have the matter brought to the doctor's ears. Each carrier is entitled to a portion of the goods in his bundle, though purchased by the chief's ivory; and they never hesitate to claim their rights; but no wages can be demanded from the chief if he fails to respond to the first application."[76]

We have found considerable civil and criminal law among the different tribes. We gave an account of the civil and criminal code of Dahomey in the chapter on that empire. In the Congo country all civil suits are brought before a judge. He sits on a mat under a large tree, and patiently hears the arguments pro and con. His decisions are final. There is no higher court, and hence no appeal. The criminal cases are brought before the Chitome, or priest. He keeps a sacred fire burning in his house that is never suffered to go out. He is supported by the lavish and delicate gifts of the people, and is held to be sacred. No one is allowed to approach his house except on the most urgent business. He never dies, so say the people. When he is seriously sick his legal successor steals quietly into his house, and beats his brains out, or strangles him to death. It is his duty to hear all criminal cases, and to this end he makes a periodical circuit among the tribe. Murder, treason, adultery, killing the escaped snakes from the fetich-house,--and often stealing,--are punished by death, or by being sold into slavery. A girl who loses her standing, disgraces her family by an immoral act, is banished from the tribe. And in case of seduction the man is tied up and flogged. In case of adultery a large sum of money must be paid. If the guilty one is unable to pay the fine, then death or slavery is the penalty.

"Adultery is regarded by the Africans as a kind of theft. It is a vice, therefore, and so common that one might write a Decameron of native tales like those of Boccaccio. And what in Boccaccio is more poignant and more vicious than this song of the Benga, which I have often heard them sing, young men and women together, when no old men were present?--

'The old men young girls married. The young girls made the old men fools; For they love to kiss the young men in the dark, Or beneath the green leaves of the plantain-tree. The old men then threatened the young men, And said, "You make us look like fools; But we will stab you with our knives till your blood runs forth!" "Oh, stab us, stab us!" cried the young men gladly, "For then your wives will fasten up our wounds."'"[77]

The laws of marriage among many tribes are very wholesome and elevating. When the age of puberty arrives, it is the custom in many tribes for the elderly women, who style themselves Negemba, to go into the forest, and prepare for the initiation of the igonji, or novice. They clear a large space, build a fire, which is kept burning for three days. They take the young woman into the fetich-house,--a new one for this ceremony,--where they go through some ordeal, that, thus far, has never been understood by men. When a young man wants a wife, there are two things necessary; viz., he must secure her consent, and then buy her. The apparent necessary element in African courtship is not a thing to be deprecated by the contracting parties. On the other hand, it is the sine qua non of matrimony. It is proof positive when a suitor gives cattle for his sweetheart, first, that he is wealthy; and, second, that he greatly values the lady he fain would make his bride. He first seeks the favor of the girl's parents. If she have none, then her next of kin, as in Israel in the days of Boaz. For it is a law among many tribes, that a young girl shall never be without a guardian. When the relatives are favorably impressed with the suitor, they are at great pains to sound his praise in the presence of the girl; who, after a while, consents to see him. The news is conveyed to him by a friend or relative of the girl. The suitor takes a bath, rubs his body with palm-oil, dons his best armor, and with beating heart and proud stride hastens to the presence of the fastidious charmer. She does not speak. He sits down, rises, turns around, runs, and goes through many exercises to show her that he is sound and healthy. The girl retires, and the anxious suitor receives the warm congratulations of the spectators on his noble bearing. The fair lady conveys her assent to the waiting lover, and the village rings with shouts of gladness. Next come the preliminary matters before the wedding. Marriage among most African tribes is a coetaneous contract. The bride is delivered when the price is paid by the bridegroom. No goods, no wife. Then follow the wedding and feasting, firing of guns, blowing of horns, music, and dancing.[78]

Polygamy is almost universal in Africa, and poor woman is the greater sufferer from the accursed system. It is not enough that she is drained of her beauty and strength by the savage passions of man: she is the merest abject slave everywhere. The young women are beautiful, but it is only for a brief season: it soon passes like the fragile rose into the ashes of premature old age. In Dahomey she is a soldier; in Kaffir-land she tends the herds, and builds houses; and in Congo without her industry man would starve. Everywhere man's cruel hand is against her. Everywhere she is the slave of his unholy passions.[79]

It is a mistaken notion that has obtained for many years, that the Negro in Africa is physically the most loathsome of all mankind. True, the Negro has been deformed by degradation and abuse; but this is not his normal condition. We have seen native Africans who were jet black, woolly-haired, and yet possessing fine teeth, beautiful features, tall, graceful, and athletic.

"In reference to the status of the Africans among the nations of the earth, we have seen nothing to justify the notion that they are of a different 'breed' or 'species' from the most civilized. The African is a man with every attribute of human kind. Centuries of barbarism have had the same deteriorating effects on Africans as Prichard describes them to have had on certain of the Irish who were driven, some generations back, to the hills in Ulster and Connaught; and these depressing influences have had such moral and physical effects on some tribes, that ages probably will be required to undo what ages have done. This degradation, however, would hardly be given as a reason for holding any race in bondage, unless the advocate had sunk morally to the same low state. Apart from the frightful loss of life in the process by which, it is pretended, the Negroes are better provided for than in a state of liberty in their own country, it is this very system that perpetuates, if not causes, the unhappy condition with which the comparative comfort of some of them in slavery is contrasted.

"Ethnologists reckon the African as by no means the lowest of the human family. He is nearly as strong physically as the European; and, as a race, is wonderfully persistent among the nations of the earth. Neither the diseases nor the ardent spirits which proved so fatal to North-American Indians, South-Sea Islanders, and Australians, seem capable of annihilating the Negroes. Even when subjected to that system so destructive to human life, by which they are torn from their native soil, they spring up irrepressibly, and darken half the new continent. They are gifted by nature with physical strength capable of withstanding the sorest privations, and a lightheartedness which, as a sort of compensation, enables them to make the best of the worst situations. It is like that power which the human frame possesses of withstanding heat, and to an extent which we should never have known, had not an adventurous surgeon gone into an oven, and burnt his fingers with his own watch. The Africans have wonderfully borne up under unnatural conditions that would have proved fatal to most races.

"It is remarkable that the power of resistance under calamity, or, as some would say, adaptation for a life of servitude, is peculiar only to certain tribes on the continent of Africa. Climate cannot be made to account for the fact that many would pine in a state of slavery, or voluntarily perish. No Krooman can be converted into a slave, and yet he is an inhabitant of the low, unhealthy west coast; nor can any of the Zulu or Kaffir tribes be reduced to bondage, though all these live on comparatively elevated regions. We have heard it stated by men familiar with some of the Kaffirs, that a blow, given even in play by a European, must be returned. A love of liberty is observable in all who have the Zulu blood, as the Makololo, the Watuta, and probably the Masai. But blood does not explain the fact. A beautiful Barotse woman at NHLe, on refusing to marry a man whom she did not like, was in a pet given by the headman to some Mambari slave-traders from Benguela. Seeing her fate, she seized one of their spears, and, stabbing herself, fell down dead."[80]

Dr. David Livingstone is certainly entitled to our utmost confidence in all matters that he writes about. Mr. Archibald Forbes says he has seen Africans dead upon the field of battle that would measure nine feet, and it was only a few months ago that we had the privilege of seeing a Zulu who was eight feet and eleven inches in height. As to the beauty of the Negro, nearly all African travellers agree.

"But if the women of Africa are brutal, the men of Africa are feminine. Their faces are smooth; their breasts are frequently as full as those of European women; their voices are never gruff or deep; their fingers are long; and they can be very proud of their rosy nails. While the women are nearly always ill-shaped after their girlhood, the men have gracefully moulded limbs, and always after a feminine type,--the arms rounded, the legs elegantly formed, without too much muscular development, and the feet delicate and small.

"When I first went ashore on Africa, viz., at Bathurst, I thought all the men who passed me, covered in their long robes, were women, till I saw one of the latter sex, and was thereby disenchanted.

"While no African's face ever yet reminded me of a man whom I had known in England, I saw again and again faces which reminded me of women; and on one occasion, in Angola, being about to chastise a carregadore, he sank on his knees as I raised my stick, clasped his hands, and looked up imploringly toward me,--was so like a young lady I had once felt an affection for, that, in spite of myself, I flung the stick away, fearing to commit a sacrilege.

"Ladies on reading this will open their eyes, and suppose that either I have very bad taste, or that I am writing fiction. But I can assure them that among the Angolas, and the Mpongwe, and the Mandingoes, and the Fula, I have seen men whose form and features would disgrace no petticoats,--not even satin ones at a drawing-room.

"While the women are stupid, sulky, and phlegmatic, the men are vivacious, timid, inquisitive, and garrulous beyond belief. They make excellent domestic servants, are cleanly, and even tedious in the nicety with which they arrange dishes on a table or clothes on a bed. They have also their friendships after the manner of woman, embracing one another, sleeping on the same mat, telling one another their secrets, betraying them, and getting terribly jealous of one another (from pecuniary motives) when they happen to serve the same master.

"They have none of that austerity, that reserve, that pertinacity, that perseverance, that strong-headed stubborn determination, or that ferocious courage, which are the common attributes of our sex. They have, on the other hand, that delicate tact, that intuition, that nervous imagination, that quick perception of character, which have become the proverbial characteristics of cultivated women. They know how to render themselves impenetrable; and if they desire to be perfidious, they wear a mask which few eyes can see through, while at the same time a certain sameness of purpose models their character in similar moulds. Their nature is an enigma: but solve it, and you have solved the race. They are inordinately vain: they buy looking-glasses; they will pass hours at their toilet, in which their wives must act as femmes de chambre; they will spend all their money on ornaments and dress, in which they can display a charming taste. They are fond of music, of dancing, and are not insensible to the beauties of nature. They are indolent, and have little ambition except to be admired and well spoken of. They are so sensitive that a harsh word will rankle in then hearts, and make them unhappy for a length of time; and they will strip themselves to pay the grills for their flattery, and to escape their satire. Though naturally timid, and loath to shed blood, they witness without horror the most revolting spectacles which their religion sanctions; and, though awed by us their superiors, a real injury will transform their natures, and they will take a speedy and merciless revenge.

"According to popular belief, the Africans are treacherous and hostile. The fact is, that all Africans are supposed to be Negroes, and that which is criminal is ever associated with that which is hideous. But, with the exception of some Mohammedan tribes toward the north, one may travel all over Africa without risking one's life. They may detain you, they may rob you, if you are rich; they may insult you, and refuse to let you enter their country, if you are poor: but your life is always safe till you sacrifice it by some imprudence.

"In ancient times the blacks were known to be so gentle to strangers that many believed that the gods sprang from them. Homer sings of the Ocean, father of the gods; and says that, when Jupiter wishes to take a holiday, he visits the sea, and goes to the banquets of the blacks,--a people humble, courteous, and devout."[81]

We have quoted thus extensively from Mr. Reade because he has given a fair account of the peoples he met. He is a good writer, but sometimes gets real funny!

It is a fact that all uncivilized races are warlike. The tribes of Africa are a vast standing army. Fighting seems to be their employment. We went into this matter of armies so thoroughly in the fourth chapter that we shall not have much to say here. The bow and arrow, the spear and assagai were the primitive weapons of African warriors; but they have learned the use of fire-arms within the last quarter of a century. The shield and assagai are not, however, done away with. The young Prince Napoleon, whose dreadful death the reader may recall, was slain by an assagai. These armies are officered, disciplined, and drilled to great perfection, as the French and English troops have abundant reason to know.

"The Zulu tribes are remarkable for being the only people in that part of Africa who have practised war in an European sense of the word. The other tribes are very good at bush fighting, and are exceedingly crafty at taking an enemy unawares, and coming on him before he is prepared for them. Guerilla warfare is, in fact, their only mode of waging battle; and, as is necessarily the case in such warfare, more depends on the exertion of individual combatants than on the scientific combinations of masses. But the Zulu tribe have, since the time of Dhaka, the great inventor of military tactics, carried on war in a manner approaching the notions of civilization.

"Their men are organized into regiments, each subdivided into companies, and each commanded by its own chief, or colonel; while the king, as commanding general, leads his forces to war, disposes them in battle-array, and personally directs their movements. They give an enemy notice that they are about to match against him, and boldly meet him in the open field. There is a military etiquette about them which some of our own people have been slow to understand. They once sent a message to the English commander that they would 'come and breakfast with him.' He thought it was only a joke, and was very much surprised when the Kaffirs, true to their promise, came pouring like a torrent over the hills, leaving him barely time to get his men under arms before the dark enemies arrived."[82]

And there are some legends told about African wars that would put the "Arabian Nights" to the blush.[83]

In Africa, as in districts of Germany and Holland, woman is burdened with agricultural duties. The soil of Africa is very rich,[84] and consequently Nature furnishes her untutored children with much spontaneous vegetation. It is a rather remarkable fact, that the average African warrior thinks it a degradation for him to engage in agriculture. He will fell trees, and help move a village, but will not go into the field to work. The women--generally the married ones--do the gardening. They carry the seed on their heads in a large basket, a hoe on their shoulder, and a baby slung on the back. They scatter the seed over the ground, and then break up the earth to the depth of three or four inches.

"Four or five gardens are often to be seen round a kraal, each situated so as to suit some particular plant. Various kinds of crops are cultivated by the Kaffirs, the principal being maize, millet, pumpkins, and a kind of spurious sugar-cane in great use throughout Southern Africa, and popularly known by the name of 'sweet-reed.' The two former constitute, however, the necessaries of life, the latter belonging rather to the class of luxuries. The maize, or, as it is popularly called when the pods are severed from the stem, 'mealies,' is the very staff of life to a Kaffir; as it is from the mealies that is made the thick porridge on which the Kaffir chiefly lives. If a European hires a Kaffir, whether as guide, servant, or hunter, he is obliged to supply him with a stipulated quantity of food, of which the maize forms the chief ingredient. Indeed, so long as the native of Southern Africa can get plenty of porridge and sour milk, he is perfectly satisfied with his lot. When ripe, the ears of maize are removed from the stem, the leafy envelope is stripped off, and they are hung in pairs over sticks until they are dry enough to be taken to the storehouse."[85]

The cattle are cared for by the men, and women are not allowed to engage in the hunt for wild animals. The cattle among the mountain and sandstone tribes are of a fine stock, but those of the tribes in the alluvia, like their owners, are small and sickly.

The African pays more attention to his weapons of offensive warfare than he does to his wives; but in many instances he is quite skilful in the handicrafts.

"The Ishogo people are noted throughout the neighboring tribes for the superior quality and fineness of the bongos, or pieces of grass-cloth, which they manufacture. They are industrious and skilful weavers. In walking down the main street of Mokenga, a number of ouandjas, or houses without walls are seen, each containing four or five looms, with the weavers seated before them weaving the cloth. In the middle of the floor of the ouandjay a wood-fire is seen burning; and the weavers, as you pass by, are sure to be seen smoking their pipes, and chatting to one another whilst going on with their work. The weavers are all men, and it is men also who stitch the bongos together to make denguis or robes of them; the stitches are not very close together, nor is the thread very fine, but the work is very neat and regular, and the needles are of their own manufacture. The bongos are very often striped, and sometimes made even in check patterns; this is done by their dyeing some of the threads of the warp, or of both warp and woof, with various simple colors; the dyes are all made of decoctions of different kinds of wood, except for black, when a kind of iron ore is used. The bongos are employed as money in this put of Africa. Although called grass-cloth by me, the material is not made of grass, but of the delicate and firm cuticle of palm leaflets, stripped off in a dexterous manner with the fingers."[86]

Nearly all his mechanical genius seems to be exhausted in the perfection of his implements of war, and Dr. Livingstone is of the opinion, that when a certain perfection in the arts is reached, the natives pause. This, we think, is owing to their far remove from other nations. Livingstone says,--

"The races of this continent seem to have advanced to a certain point and no farther; their progress in the arts of working iron and copper, in pottery, basket-making, spinning, weaving, making nets, fish-hooks, spears, axes, knives, needles, and other things, whether originally invented by this people or communicated by another instructor, appears to have remained in the same rude state for a great number of centuries. This apparent stagnation of mind in certain nations we cannot understand, but, since we have in the latter ages of the world made what we consider great progress in the arts, we have unconsciously got into the way of speaking of some other races in much the same tone as that used by the Celestials in the Flowery Land. These same Chinese anticipated us in several most important discoveries, by as many centuries as we may have preceded others. In the knowledge of the properties of the magnet, the composition of gunpowder, the invention of printing, the manufacture of porcelain, of silk, and in the progress of literature, they were before us. But then the power of making further discoveries was arrested, and a stagnation of the intellect prevented their advancing in the path of improvement or invention."

Mr. Wood says,--

"The natives of Southern Africa are wonderful proficients in forging iron; and, indeed, a decided capability for the blacksmith's art seems to be inherent in the natives of Africa, from north to south, and from east to west. None of the tribes can do very much with the iron, but the little which they require is worked in perfection. As in the case with all uncivilized beings, the whole treasures of the art are lavished on their weapons; and so, if we wish to see what an African savage can do with iron, we must look at his spears, knives, and arrows--the latter, indeed, being but spears in miniature."

The blacksmith, then, is a person of some consequence in his village. He gives shape and point to the weapons by which game is to be secured and battles won. All seek his favor.

"Among the Kaffirs, a blacksmith is a man of considerable importance, and is much respected by the tribe. He will not profane the mystery of his craft by allowing uninitiated eyes to inspect his various processes, and therefore carries on his operations at some distance from the kraal. His first care is to prepare the bellows. The form which he uses prevails over a very large portion of Africa, and is seen, with some few modifications, even among the many islands of Polynesia. It consists of two leathern sacks, at the upper end of which is a handle. To the lower end of each sack is attached the hollow horns of some animal, that of the cow or eland being most commonly used; and when the bags are alternately inflated and compressed, the air passes out through the two horns.

"Of course the heat of the fire would destroy the horns if they were allowed to come in contact with it; and they are therefore inserted, not into the fire, but into an earthenware tube which communicates with the fire. The use of valves is unknown; but as the two horns do not open into the fire, but into the tube, the fire is not drawn into the bellows as would otherwise be the case. This arrangement, however, causes considerable waste of air, so that the bellows-blower is obliged to work much harder than would be the case if he were provided with an instrument that could conduct the blast directly to its destination. The ancient Egyptians used a bellows of precisely similar construction, except that they did not work them entirely by hand. They stood with one foot on each sack, and blew the fire by alternately pressing on them with the feet, and raising them by means of a cord fastened to their upper ends.

"When the blacksmith is about to set to work, he digs a hole in the ground, in which the fire is placed; and then sinks the earthenware tube in a sloping direction, so that the lower end opens at the bottom of the hole, while the upper end projects above the level of the ground. The two horns are next inserted into the upper end of the earthenware tube; and the bellows are then fastened in their places, so that the sacks are conveniently disposed for the hands of the operator, who sits between them. A charcoal-fire is then laid in the hole, and is soon brought to a powerful heat by means of the bellows. A larger stone serves the purpose of an anvil, and a smaller stone does duty for a hammer. Sometimes the hammer is made of a conical piece of iron, but in most cases a stone is considered sufficient. The rough work of hammering the iron into shape is generally done by the chief blacksmith's assistants, of whom he has several, all of whom will pound away at the iron in regular succession. The shaping and finishing the article is reserved by the smith for himself. The other tools are few and simple, and consist of punches and rude pinchers made of two rods of iron.

"With these instruments the Kaffir smith can cast brass into various ornaments, Sometimes he pours it into a cylindrical mould, so as to make a bar from which bracelets and similar ornaments can be hammered, and sometimes he makes studs and knobs by forming their shape in clay moulds."[87]

Verily, the day will come when these warlike tribes shall beat their spears into pruning-hooks, and their assagais into ploughshares, and shall learn war no more! The skill and cunning of their artificers shall be consecrated to the higher and nobler ends of civilization, and the noise of battle shall die amid the music of a varied industry!

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 216, 217.Return to passage

[69] Ashango Land, pp. 288, 289, 291, 292.Return to passage

[70] Western Africa, p. 257 sq.Return to passage

[71] Through the Dark Continent, vol. i. p. 489.Return to passage

[72] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. chap, vii.Return to passage

[73] Equatorial Africa, pp. 377, 378.Return to passage

[74] Savage Africa, p. 216.Return to passage

[75] Expedition to Zambesi, pp. 626, 627.Return to passage

[76] Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 307, 308.Return to passage

[77] Savage Africa, p. 219.Return to passage

[78] See Savage Africa, p. 207. Livingstone's Life-Work, pp. 47, 48. Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. 1. pp. 71-86; also Du Chaillu and Denham and Clappterton.Return to passage

[79] Savage Africa, pp. 424, 425.Return to passage

[80] Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, pp 625, 626.Return to passage

[81] Savage Africa, pp 426, 427.Return to passage

[82] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. p. 94.Return to passage

[83] Through the Dark Continent, vol. i. p. 344 sq.; also vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.Return to passage

[84] Livingstone's Zambesi, pp. 613-617.Return to passage

[85] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. p. 146.Return to passage

[86] Ashango Land, pp 290, 291.Return to passage

[87] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. pp. 97, 98.Return to passage