VI. ANTI-SLAVERY EFFORTS OF FREE NEGROES
INTELLIGENT INTEREST OF FREE NEGROES IN THE AGITATION MOVEMENT.--"FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOR" HELD AT PHILADELPHIA.--REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE FOR YOUNG MEN OF COLOR.--PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE APPOINTED IN EACH CITY.--CONVENTIONAL ADDRESS.--SECOND CONVENTION HELD AT BENEZET HALL, PHILADELPHIA.--RESOLUTIONS OF THE MEETING.--CONVENTIONAL ADDRESS.--THE MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL COLORED ASSOCIATION.--CONVENTION OF ANTI-SLAVERY WOMEN OF AMERICA AT NEW YORK.--PREJUDICE AGAINST ADMITTING NEGROES INTO WHITE SOCIETIES.--COLORED ORATORS.--THEIR ELOQUENT PLEAS FOR THEIR ENSLAVED RACE.
The free Negroes throughout the Northern States were not passive during the agitation movement. They took a lively interest in the cause that had for its ultimate end the freedom of the slave. They did not comfort themselves with the consciousness that they were free; but thought of their brethren who were bound, and sympathized with them.
"The First Annual Convention of the People of Color" was held in Philadelphia from the 6th to the 11th of June, 1831. Its sessions were held "in the brick Wesleyan Church, Lombard Street," "pursuant to public notice, ... signed by Dr. Belfast Burton and William Whipper." The following delegates were present:
Philadelphia--John Bowers, Dr. Belfast Burton, James Cornish, Junius C. Morel, William Whipper.
New York--Rev. Wm. Miller, Henry Sipkins, Thos. L. Jennings, Wm. Hamilton, James Pennington.
Maryland--Rev. Abner Coker, Robert Cowley.
Delaware--Abraham D. Shad, Rev. Peter Gardiner.
Virginia--Wm. Duncan.
The following officers were chosen:
President--John Bowers.
Vice-Presidents--Abraham D. Shad, William Duncan.
Secretary--William Whipper.
Assistant Secretary--Thos. L. Jennings.
The first concern of this convention was the condition of that class which it directly represented--the "free persons of color" in the United States. A committee, consisting of Messrs. Morel, Shad, Duncan, Cowley, Sipkins, and Jennings, made the following report on the condition of the free persons of color in the United States:
"Brethren and Fellow-Citizens:
"We, the Committee of Inquiry, would suggest to the Convention the propriety of adopting the following resolutions, viz.:
"Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Convention, it is highly necessary that the different societies engaged in the Canadian Settlement be earnestly requested to persevere in their praiseworthy and philanthropic undertaking; firmly believing that, at a future period, their labors will be crowned with success.
"The Committee would also recommend this Convention to call on the free people of color to assemble annually by delegation at such place as may be designated as suitable.
"They would also respectfully submit to your wisdom the necessity of your deliberate reflection on the dissolute, intemperate, and ignorant condition of a large portion of the colored population of the United States. They would not, however, refer to their unfortunate circumstances to add degradation to objects already degraded and miserable; nor, with some others, improperly class the virtuous of our color with the abandoned, but with the most sympathizing and heartfelt commiseration, show our sense of obligation as the true guardians of our interests, by giving wholesome advice and good counsel.
"The Committee consider it as highly important that the Convention recommend the necessity of creating a general fund, to be denominated the CONVENTIONAL FUND, for the purpose of advancing the objects of this and future conventions, as the public good may require.
"They would further recommend, that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United Stales be read in our Conventions; believing, that the truths contained in the former are incontrovertible, and that the latter guarantees in letter and spirit to every freeman born in this country, all the rights and immunities of citizenship.
"Your Committee with regret have witnessed the many oppressive, unjust, and unconstitutional laws which have been enacted in the different parts of the Union against the free people of color, and they would call upon this Convention, as possessing the rights of freemen, to recommend to the people, through their delegation, the propriety of memorializing the proper authorities, whenever they may feel themselves aggrieved, or their rights invaded, by any cruel or oppressive laws.
"And your Committee would further report, that, in their opinion, Education, Temperance, and Economy are best calculated to promote the elevation of mankind to a proper rank and standing among men, as they enable him to discharge all those duties enjoined on him by his Creator. We would, therefore, respectfully request an early attention to those virtues among our brethren who have a desire to be useful.
"And lastly, your Committee view with unfeigned regret, and respectfully submit to the wisdom of this Convention, the operations and misrepresentations of the American Colonization Society in these United States.
"We feel sorrowful to see such an immense and wanton waste of lives and property, not doubting the benevolent feelings of some individuals engaged in that cause. But we cannot for a moment doubt, but that the cause of many of our unconstitutional, unchristian, and unheard-of sufferings emanate from that unhallowed source; and we would call on Christians of every denomination firmly to resist it."[28]
The convention was in session for several days. It attracted public attention on account of the intelligence, order, and excellent judgment which prevailed. It deeply touched the young white men who had, but a few months previous, enlisted under the broad banner Wm. Lloyd Garrison had given to the breeze. They called to see Colored men conduct a convention. The Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, of New Haven, Connecticut; Arthur Tappan, of New York; Benjamin Lundy, of Washington, D. C.; William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, Massachusetts; Thomas Shipley and Charles Pierce, of Philadelphia, visited the convention and were cordially received. Messrs. Jocelyn, Tappan, and Garrison were invited to address the convention. They delivered stirring addresses, and especially urged the necessity of establishing a college for the education of "Young Men of Color." At the suggestion of the speaker the convention appointed a committee with whom the speaker conferred. The report of the committee was as follows:
"That a plan had been submitted to them by the above-named gentlemen, for the liberal education of Young Men of Color, on the Manual-Labor System, all of which they respectfully submit to the consideration of the Convention, are as follow:
"The plan proposed is, that a College be established at New Haven, Conn., as soon as $20,000 are obtained, and to be on the Manual-Labor System, by which, in connection with a scientific education, they may also obtain a useful Mechanical or Agricultural profession; and (they further report, having received information) that a benevolent individual has offered to subscribe one thousand dollars toward this object, provided that a farther sum of nineteen thousand dollars can be obtained in one year.
"After an interesting discussion, the above report was unanimously adopted; one of the inquiries by the Convention was in regard to the place of location. On interrogating the gentlemen why New Haven should be the place of location, they gave the following as their reasons:--
"1st. The site is healthy and beautiful.
"2d. Its inhabitants are friendly, pious, generous, and humane.
"3d. Its laws are salutary and protecting to all, without regard to complexion.
"4th. Boarding is cheap and provisions are good.
"5th. The situation is as central as any other that can be obtained with the same advantages.
"6th. The town of New Haven carries on an extensive West India trade, and many of the wealthy colored residents in the Islands, would, no doubt, send their sons there to be educated, and thus a fresh tie of friendship would be formed, which might be productive of much real good in the end.
"And last, though not the least, the literary and scientific character of New Haven, renders it a very desirable place for the location of the college."
The report of the Committee was received and adopted. The Rev. Samuel E. Cornish was appointed general agent to solicit funds, and Arthur Tappan was selected as treasurer. A Provisional Committee was appointed in each city, as follows:
"Boston--Rev. Hosea Easton, Robert Roberts, James G. Barbadoes, and Rev. Samuel Snowden.
"New York--Rev. Peter Williams, Boston Cromwell, Philip Bell, Thomas Downing, Peter Voglesang.
"Philadelphia--Joseph Cassey, Robert Douglass, Sr., James Forten, Richard Howell, Robert Purvis.
"Baltimore--Thomas Green, James P. Walker, Samuel G. Mathews, Isaac Whipper, Samuel Hiner.
"New Haven--Biars Stanley, John Creed, Alexander C. Luca.
"Brooklyn, L. I.--Jacob Deyes, Henry Thomson, Willis Jones.
"Wilmington, Del.--Rev. Peter Spencer, Jacob Morgan, William S. Thomas.
"Albany--Benjamin Latimore, Captain Schuyler, Captain Francis March.
"Washington, D. C.--William Jackson, Arthur Waring, Isaac Carey.
"Lancaster, Pa.--Charles Butler and Jared Grey.
"Carlisle, Pa.--John Peck and Rowland G. Roberts.
"Chambersburg, Pa.--Dennis Berry.
"Pittsburgh--John B. Vashon, Lewis Gardiner, Abraham Lewis.
"Newark, N. J.--Peter Petitt, Charles Anderson, Adam Ray.
"Trenton--Samson Peters, Leonard Scott."
The proceedings of the convention were characterized by a deep solemnity and a lively sense of the gravity of the situation. The delegates were of the ablest Colored men in the country, and were conversant with the wants of their people. The subjoined address shows that the committee that prepared it had a thorough knowledge of the public sentiment of America on the subject of race prejudice.
"CONVENTIONAL ADDRESS.
"Respected Brethren and Fellow-Citizens:
* * * * *
"Our attention has been called to investigate the political standing of our brethren wherever dispersed, but more particularly the situation of those in this great Republic.
"Abroad, we have been cheered with pleasant views of humanity, and the steady, firm, and uncompromising march of equal liberty to the human family. Despotism, tyranny, and injustice have had to retreat, in order to make way for the unalienable rights of man. Truth has conquered prejudice, and mankind are about to rise in the majesty and splendor of their native dignity.
"The cause of general emancipation is gaining powerful and able friends abroad. Britain and Denmark have performed such deeds as will immortalize them for their humanity, in the breasts of the philanthropists of the present day; whilst, as a just tribute to their virtues, after-ages will yet erect unperishable monuments to their memory. (Would to God we could say thus of our own native soil!)
"And it is only when we look to our own native land, to the birthplace of our fathers, to the land for whose prosperity their blood and our sweat have been shed and cruelly extorted, that the Convention has had cause to hang its head and blush. Laws, as cruel in themselves as they were unconstitutional and unjust, have in many places been enacted against our poor unfriended and unoffending brethren; laws, (without a shadow of provocation on our part,) at whose bare recital the very savage draws him up for fear of the contagion,--looks noble, and prides himself because he bears not the name of a Christian.
"But the Convention would not wish to dwell long on this subject, as it is one that is too sensibly felt to need description.
"We would wish to turn you from this scene with an eye of pity, and a breast glowing with mercy, praying that the recording angel may drop a tear, which shall obliterate forever the remembrance of so foul a stain upon the national escutcheon of this great Republic.
"This spirit of persecution was the cause of our Convention. It was that first induced us to seek an asylum in the Canadas; and the Convention feels happy to report to its brethren, that our efforts to establish a settlement in that province have not been made in vain. Our prospects are cheering; our friends and funds are daily increasing; wonders have been performed far exceeding our most sanguine expectations; already have our brethren purchased eight hundred acres of land--and two thousand of them have left the soil of their birth, crossed the lines, and laid the foundation for a structure which promises to prove an asylum for the colored population of these United States. They have erected two hundred log-houses, and have five hundred acres under cultivation.
"And now it is to your fostering care the Convention appeals, and we appeal to you as to men and brethren, yet to enlarge their borders.
"We therefore ask of you, brethren,--we ask of you, philanthropists of every color and of every kindred,--to assist us in this undertaking. We look to a kind Providence and to you to say whether our desires shall be realized and our labors crowned with success.
"The Convention has done its duty, and it now remains for you, brethren, to do yours. Various obstacles have been thrown in our way by those opposed to the elevation of the human species; but, thanks to an all-wise Providence, his goodness has as yet cleared the way, and our advance has been slow but steady. The only thing now wanted, is an accumulation of funds, in order to enable us to make a purchase agreeable to the direction of the first Convention; and, to effect that purpose, the Convention has recommended, to the different Societies engaged in that cause, to preserve and prosecute their designs with double energy; and we would earnestly recommend to every colored man (who feels the weight of his degradation), to consider himself in duty bound to contribute his mite toward this great object. We would say to all, that the prosperity of the rising generation mainly depends upon our active exertions.
"Yes, it is with us to say whether they shall assume a rank and standing among the nations of the earth, as men and freemen, or whether they shall still be prized and held at market-price. Oh, then, by a brother's love, and by all that makes man dear to man, awake in time! Be wise! Be free! Endeavor to walk with circumspection; be obedient to the laws of our common country; honor and respect its lawmakers and law-givers; and, through all, let us not forget to respect ourselves.
"During the deliberations of this Convention, we had the favor of advising and consulting with some of our most eminent and tried philanthropists--men of unblemished character and of acknowledged rank and standing. Our sufferings have excited their sympathy; our ignorance appealed to their humanity; and, brethren, we feel that gratitude is due to a kind and benevolent Creator, that our excitement and appeal have neither been in vain. A plan has been proposed to the Convention for the erection of a college for the instruction of young men of color, on the manual-labor system, by which the children of the poor may receive a regular classical education, as well as those of their more opulent brethren, and the charge will be so regulated as to put it within the reach of all. In support of this plan, a benevolent individual has offered the sum of one thousand dollars, provided that we can obtain subscriptions to the amount of nineteen thousand dollars in one year.
"The Convention has viewed the plan with considerable interest, and, after mature deliberation, on a candid investigation, feels strictly justified in recommending the same to the liberal patronage of our brethren, and respectfully solicits the aid of those philanthropists who feel an interest in sending light, knowledge, and truth to all of the human species.
"To the friends of general education, we do believe that our appeal will not be in vain. For the present ignorant and degraded condition of many of our brethren in these United States (which has been a subject of much concern to the Convention) can excite no astonishment (although used by our enemies to show our inferiority in the scale of human beings); for, what opportunities have they possessed for mental cultivation or improvement? Mere ignorance, however, in a people divested of the means of acquiring information by books, or an extensive connection with the world, is no just criterion of their intellectual incapacity; and it had been actually seen, in various remarkable instances, that the degradation of the mind and character, which has been too hastily imputed to a people kept, as we are, at a distance from those sources of knowledge which abound in civilized and enlightened communities, has resulted from no other causes than our unhappy situation and circumstances.
"True philanthropy disdains to adopt those prejudices against any people which have no better foundation than accidental diversities of color, and refuses to determine without substantial evidence and incontestible fact as the basis of her judgment. And it is in order to remove these prejudices, which are the actual causes of our ignorance, that we have appealed to our friends in support of the contemplated institution.
"The Convention has not been unmindful of the operations of the American Colonization Society, and it would respectfully suggest to that august body of learning, talent, and worth, that, in our humble opinion, strengthened, too, by the opinions of eminent men in this country, as well as in Europe, that they are pursuing the direct road to perpetuate slavery, with all its unchristianlike concomitants, in this boasted land of freedom; and, as citizens and men whose best blood is sapped to gain popularity for that institution, we would, in the most feeling manner, beg of them to desist; or, if we must be sacrificed to their philanthropy, we would rather die at home. Many of our fathers, and some of us, have fought and bled for the liberty, independence, and peace which you now enjoy; and, surely, it would be ungenerous and unfeeling in you to deny us an humble and quiet grave in that country which gave us birth!
"In conclusion, the Convention would remind our brethren that knowledge is power, and to that end, we call on you to sustain and support, by all honorable, energetic, and necessary means, those presses which are devoted to our instruction and elevation, to foster and encourage the mechanical arts and sciences among our brethren, to encourage simplicity, neatness, temperance, and economy in our habits, taking due care always to give the preference to the production of freemen wherever it can be had. Of the utility of a General Fund, the Convention believes there can exist but one sentiment, and that is for a speedy establishment of the same. Finally, we trust our brethren will pay due care to take such measures as will ensure a general and equal representation in the next Convention
[Signed] "BELFAST BURTON, "JUNIUS C. MOREL, "WILLIAM WHIPPER, "Publishing Committee."
Encouraged by the good results that followed the first convention, another one was called, and assembled in Philadelphia, at Benezet Hall, Seventh Street, June 4, 1832. The following delegates were admitted to seats in the convention:
PENNSYLVANIA.
Pittsburgh--John B. Vashon.
Philadelphia--John Bowers, William Whipper, J. C. Morel, Benjamin Paschal, F. A. Hinton.
Carlisle--John Peck.
Lewistown, Miffin County--Samuel Johnson.
NEW YORK.
New York City--William Hamilton, Thomas L. Jennings, Henry Sipkins, Philip A. Bell.
Brooklyn--James Pennington.
DELAWARE.
Wilmington--Joseph Burton, Jacob Morgan, Abm. D. Shad, William Johnson, Peter Gardiner.
MARYLAND.
Baltimore--Samuel Elliott, Robert Cowley, Samuel Hiner.
NEW JERSEY.
Gloucester--Thomas D. Coxsin, Thomas Banks.
Trenton--Aaron Roberts.
MASSACHUSETTS.
Boston--Hosea Easton.
New Bedford--Nathan Johnson.
CONNECTICUT.
Hartford--Paul Drayton.
New Haven--Scipio C. Augustus.
RHODE ISLAND.
Providence--Ichabod Northrop.
On the following day the convention adjourned to the "First African Presbyterian Church." The following report was adopted:
"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Committee, the plan suggested by the first General Convention, of purchasing land or lands in Upper Canada, for the avowed object of forming a settlement in that province, for such colored persons as may choose to emigrate there, still merits and deserves our united support and exertions; and further, that the appearances of the times, in this our native land, demand an immediate action on that subject. Adopted.
"Resolved, That in the opinion of this committee, we still solemnly and sincerely protest against any interference, on the part of the American Colonization Society, with the free colored population in these United States, so long as they shall countenance or endeavor to use coercive measures (either directly or indirectly) to colonize us in any place which is not the object of our choice. And we ask of them respectfully, as men and as Christians, to cease their unhallowed persecutions of a people already sufficiently oppressed, or if, as they profess to have our welfare and prosperity at heart, to assist us in the object of our choice.
"Resolved, That this committee would recommend to the members of this Convention, to discountenance, by all just means in their power, any emigration to Liberia or Hayti, believing them only calculated to distract and divide the whole colored family."
In accordance with a resolution of the previous day the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, was invited to address the convention. He endeavored to offer an acceptable explanation of the Society, and to advocate its principles. But the Colored people, almost to a man, were opposed to colonization; and most of the anti-slavery societies regarded colonization as impracticable and hurtful to the cause of emancipation. William Lloyd Garrison happened to be present, and followed Gurley in a speech that destroyed the hopes of the friends of colonization, and greatly delighted the convention.
While the Colored people opposed colonization they regarded Canada as a proper place to go. They felt that as citizens they had the right to decide where to go, and, when they got ready, to go on their own account. Canada had furnished an asylum to their flying, travel-soiled, foot-sore, and needy brethren,--was not so very far away, and, therefore, it was preferred to the West Coast of Africa. The committee having under consideration this subject, made the following comprehensive report:
"Resolved, That the members of this Convention take into consideration the propriety of effecting the purchase of lands in the province of Upper Canada, as an asylum for those of our bretheren who may be compelled to remove from these United States, beg leave, most respectfully to report:
"That, after due consideration, they believe the resolution embraces three distinct inquiries for the consideration of this Convention, which should be duly weighed before they can adopt the sentiments contained in the above-named resolution. Therefore, your Committee conceive the resolution premature, and now proceed to state the enquiries separately.
"First.--Is it proper for the Free people of color in this country, under existing circumstances, to remove to any distant territory beyond these United States?
"Secondly.--Does Upper Canada possess superior advantages and conveniences to those held out in these United States or elsewhere?
"Thirdly.--Is there any certainty that the people of color will be compelled by oppressive legislative enactments to abandon the land of their birth for a home in a distant region?
"Your Committee, before examining those enquiries, would most respectfully take a retrospective view of the object for which the Convention was first associated, and the causes which have actuated their deliberations.
"The expulsory laws of Ohio, in 1829, which drove our people to seek a new home in Upper Canada, and their impoverished situation afterward, excited a general burst of sympathy for their situation, by the wise and good, over the whole country. This awakened public feeling on their behalf, and numerous meetings were called to raise funds to alleviate their present miseries. The bright prospects that then appeared to dawn on the new settlement, awakened our people to the precariousness of their situations, and, in order more fully to be prepared for future exigencies, and to extend the system of benevolence still further to those who should remove to Upper Canada, a circular was issued by five individuals, viz.:--the Rev. Richard Allen, Cyrus Black, Junius C. Morel, Benjamin Pascal, and James C. Cornish, in behalf of the citizens of Philadelphia, calling a convention of the colored delegates from the several States, to meet on the 20th day of September, 1830, to devise plans and means for the establishment of a colony in Upper Canada, under the patronage of the general Convention, then called.
"That Convention met, pursuant to public notice, and recommended the formation of a parent society, to be established, with auxiliaries in the different towns where they had been represented in general convention, for the purpose of raising moneys to defray the object of purchasing a colony in the province of Upper Canada, for those who should hereafter wish to emigrate thither, and that immediately after its organization, a corresponding agent should be appointed to reside at or near the intended purchase.
"Our then limited knowledge of the manners, customs, and privileges, and rights of aliens in Upper Canada, together with the climate, soil, and productions thereof, rendered it necessary to send out agents to examine the same, who returned with a favorable report, except that citizens of these United States could not purchase lands in Upper Canada, and legally transfer the same to other individuals.
"The Convention resolved to reassemble on the first Monday in June, 1831, during which time the order of the Convention had been carried into operation, relative to establishing Societies for the promotion of said object; and the sum and total of their proceedings were, that the Convention recommended to the colored people generally, when persecuted as were our brethren in Ohio, to seek an Asylum in Upper Canada. During which time, information having been received that a part of the white inhabitants of said province had, through prejudice and the fear of being overburthened with an ejected population, petitioned the provincial parliament to prohibit the general influx of colored population from entering their limits, which threw some consternation on the prospect. The Convention did not wholly abandon the subject, but turned its attention more to the elevation of our people in this, our native home.
"The recent occurrences at the South have swelled the tide of prejudice until it has almost revolutionized public sentiment, which has given birth to severe legislative enactments in some of the States, and almost ruined our interests and prospects in others, in which, in the opinion of your Committee, our situation is more precarious than it has been at any other period since the Declaration of Independence.
"The events of the past year have been more fruitful in persecution, and have presented more inducements than any other period of the history of our country, for the men of color to fly from the graves of their fathers, and seek new homes in a land where the roaring billows of prejudice are less injurious to their rights and privileges.
"Your Committee would now approach the present Convention and examine the resolution under consideration, beginning with the first interrogatory, viz.: Is it proper for the Free people of color in this country, under existing circumstances, to remove to any distant territory beyond the United States?
"If we admit the first interrogatory to be true, as it is the exact spirit of the language of this resolution, now under consideration, it is altogether unnecessary for us to make further preparation for either our moral, intellectual, or political advancement in this our own, our native land.
"Your Committee also believe that if this Convention shall adopt a resolution that will, as soon as means can be obtained, remove our colored population to the province of Upper Canada, the best and brightest prospect of the philanthropists who are laboring for our elevation in this country will be thwarted, and they will be brought to the conclusion that the great object which actuated their labors would now be removed, and they might now rest from their labors and have the painful feeling of transmitting to future generations, that an oppressed people, in the land of their birth, supported by the genuine philanthropists of the age, amidsts friends, companions, and their natural attachments, a genial clime, a fruitful soil,--amidst the rays of as proud institutions as ever graced the most favored spot that has ever received the glorious rays of a meridian sun,--have abandoned their homes on account of their persecutions, for a home almost similarly precarious, for an abiding-place among strangers!
"Your Committee further believe that any express plan to colonize our people beyond the limits of these United States, tends to weaken the situation of those who are left behind, without any peculiar advantage to those who emigrate. But it must be admitted, that the rigid oppression abroad in the land is such, that a part of our suffering brethren cannot live under it, and that the compulsory laws and the inducements held out by the American Colonization Society are such as will cause them to alienate all their natural attachments to their homes, and accept of the only mode left open, which is to remove to a distant Country to receive those rights and privileges of which they have been deprived. And as this Convention is associated for the purpose of recommending to our people the best mode of alleviating their present miseries,
"Therefore, your Committee would, most respectfully, recommend to the general Convention, now assembled, to exercise the most vigorous means to collect monies through their auxiliaries, or otherwise, to be applied in such manner, as will advance the interests, and contribute to the wants of the free colored population of this country generally.
"Your Committee would now most respectfully approach the second inquiry, viz.:--Does Upper Canada possess superior advantages and conveniences to those held out in the United States or elsewhere?
"Your Committee, without summing up the advantages and disadvantages of other situations, would, most respectfully answer in the affirmative. At least they are willing to assert that the advantage is much in favor of those who are obliged to leave their present homes. For your more particular information on that subject we would, most respectfully, refer you to the interesting account given by our real and indefatigable friend, Benjamin Lundy, in a late number of the "Genius of Universal Emancipation." Vide "Genius of Universal Emancipation," No. 10, vol. 12.
"From the history there laid down, your Committee would, most respectfully, request the Convention to aid, so far as in their power lies, those who are obliged to seek an asylum in the province of Upper Canada; and, in order that they may more effectually carry their views into operation, they would respectfully request them to appoint an Agent in Upper Canada, to receive such funds as may be there transmitted for their use.
"Your Committee have now arrived at the third and last inquiry, viz.:--Is there any certainty that we, as a people, will be compelled to leave this our native land, for a home in a distant region? To this inquiry your Committee are unable to answer; it belongs to the fruitful events of time to determine. The mistaken policy of some of the friends of our improvement, that the same could be effected on the shore of Africa, has raised the tide of our calamity until it has overflowed the valleys of peace and tranquillity--the dark clouds of prejudice have rained persecution--the oppressor and the oppressed have suffered together--and we have yet been protected by that Almighty arm, who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, and whose presence is a royal safeguard, should we place the utmost reliance on his wisdom and power.
"Your Committee, while they rejoice at the noble object for which the Convention was first associated, have been unable to come to any conclusive evidence that lands can be purchased by this Convention and legally transferred to individuals, residents of said colony, so long as the present laws exist. But, while they deem it inexpedient for the Convention to purchase lands in Upper Canada for the purpose of erecting a colony thereon, do again, most respectfully, hope that they will exercise the same laudable exertions to collect funds for the comfort and happiness of our people there situated, and those who may hereafter emigrate, and pursue the same judicious measures in the appropriation of said funds, as they would in procuring a tract of land, as expressed by the resolution.
"Your Committee, after examining the various circumstances connected with our situation as a people, have come, unanimously, to the conclusion to recommend to this Convention to adopt the following resolution, as the best mode of alleviating the miseries of our oppressed brethren:
"Resolved, That this Convention recommend the establishment of a Society, or Agent, in Upper Canada, for the purpose of purchasing lands and contributing to the wants of our people generally, who may be, by oppressive legislative enactments, obliged to flee from these United States and take up residence within her borders. And that this Convention will employ its auxiliary societies, and such other means as may lie in its power, for the purpose of raising monies, and remit the same for the purpose of aiding the proposed object.
[Signed] "ROBERT COWLEY, } "JOHN PECK, } Committee." "WM. HAMILTON, } "WM. WHIPPER, } "BENJ. PASCHAL, } "THOS. D. COXSIN, } "J. C. MOREL, }
This convention's work was carefully done, its plans were laid upon a broader scale, and the Colored people, beholding its proceedings, took heart, and went forward with zeal and courage seeking to increase their intelligence and wealth, and improve their social condition. In their address the convention did not fail to give the Colonization Society a parting shot.
"CONVENTIONAL ADDRESS.
"To the Free Colored Inhabitants of these United States:
"FELLOW-CITIZENS: We have again been permitted to associate in our representative character, from the different sections of this Union, to pour into one common stream, the afflictions, the prayers, and sympathies of our oppressed people; the axis of time has brought around this glorious, annual event. And we are again brought to rejoice that the wisdom of Divine Providence has protected us during a year whose autumnal harvest has been a reign of terror and persecution, and whose winter has almost frozen the streams of humanity by its frigid legislation. It is under the influence of times and feelings like these, that we now address you. Of a people situated as we are, little can be said, except that it becomes our duty strictly to watch those causes that operate against our interests and privileges; and to guard against whatever measures that will either lower us in the scale of being, or perpetuate our degradation in the eyes of the civilized world.
"The effects of Slavery on the bond and Colonization on the free. Of the first we shall say but little, but will here repeat the language of a high-minded Virginian in the Legislature of that State, on the recent discussion of the slave question before that honorable body, who declared, that man could not hold property in man, and that the master held no right to the slave, either by a law of nature or a patentee from God, but by the will of society; which we declare to be an unjust usurpation of the rights and privileges of men.
"But how beautiful must the prospect be to the philanthropist, to view us, the children of persecution, grown to manhood, associating in our delegated character to devise plans and means for our moral elevation, and attracting the attention of the wise and good over the whole country, who are anxiously watching our deliberations.
"We have here to inform you, that we have patiently listened to the able and eloquent arguments produced by the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, in behalf of the doings of said Society, and Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Esq., in opposition to its action.
"A more favorable opportunity to arrive at truth seldom has been witnessed, but while we admire the distinguished piety and Christian feelings with which he so solemnly portrayed the doctrines of that institution, we do now assert, that the result of the same has tended more deeply to rivet our solid conviction, that the doctrines of said Society are at enmity with the principles and precepts of religion, humanity, and justice, and should be regarded by every man of color in these United States as an evil, for magnitude, unexcelled, and whose doctrines aim at the entire extinction of the free colored population and the riveting of slavery.
"We might here repeat our protest against that institution, but it is unnecessary; your views and sentiments have long since gone to the world; the wings of the wind have borne your disapprobation to that institution. Time itself cannot erase it. You have dated your opposition from its beginning, and your views are strengthened by time and circumstances, and they hold the uppermost seat in your affections. We have not been unmindful of the compulsory laws which caused our brethren in Ohio to seek new homes in a distant land, there to share and suffer all the inconveniences of exiles in an uncultivated region; which has led us to admire the benevolent feelings of a rival government in its liberal protection to strangers; which has induced us to recommend to you, to exercise your best endeavors, to collect monies to secure the purchase of lands in the Canadas, for those who may by oppressive legislative enactments be obliged to move thither.
"In contributing to our brethren that aid which will secure them a refuge in a storm, we would not wish to be understood as possessing any inclination to remove, nor in the least to impoverish, that noble sentiment which we rejoice in exclaiming--
"This is our own, Our native land.
"All that we have done, humanity dictated it; neither inclination nor alienated feelings to our country prescribed it, but that power which is above all other considerations, viz.: the law of necessity.
"We yet anticipate in the moral strength of this nation, a final redemption from those evils that have been illegitimately entailed on us as a people. We yet expect, by due exertions on our part, together with the aid of the benevolent philanthropists of our country, to acquire a moral and intellectual strength that will unshaft the calumnious darts of our adversaries, and present to the world a general character that they will feel bound to respect and admire.
"It will be seen by a reference to our proceedings, that we have again recommended the further prosecution of the contemplated college, proposed by the last Convention, to be established at New Haven, under the rules and regulations then established. A place for its location will be selected in a climate and neighborhood where the inhabitants are less prejudiced to our rights and privileges. The proceedings of the citizens of New Haven, with regard to the erection of the college, were a disgrace to them, and cast a stigma on the reputed fame of New England and the country. We are unwilling that the character of the whole country should sink by the proceedings of a few. We are determined to present to another portion of the country not far distant, and at no very remote period, the opportunity of gaining for them the character of a truly philanthropic spirit, and of retrieving the character of the country, by the disreputable proceedings of New Haven. We must have colleges and high-schools on the manual-labor system, where our youth may be instructed in all the arts of civilized life. If we ever expect to see the influence of prejudice decrease, and ourselves respected, it must be by the blessings of an enlightened education. It must be by being in possession of that classical knowledge which promotes genius, and causes man to soar up to those high intellectual enjoyments and acquirements, which place him in a situation to shed upon a country and a people that scientific grandeur which is imperishable by time, and drowns in oblivion's cup their moral degradation. Those who think that our primary schools are capable of effecting this, are a century behind the age when to have proved a question in the rule of three was considered a higher attainment than solving the most difficult problem in Euclid is now. They might have at that time performed what some people expect of them now, in the then barren state of science; but they are now no longer capable of reflecting brilliancy on our national character, which will elevate us from our present situation. If we wish to be respected, we must build our moral character on a base as broad and high as the nation itself; our country and our character require it; we have performed all the duties from the menial to the soldier,--our fathers shed their blood in the great struggle for independence. In the late war between Great Britain and the United States, a proclamation was issued to the free colored inhabitants of Louisiana, September 21, 1814, inviting them to take up arms in defence of their country, by Gen. Andrew Jackson. And in order that you may have an idea of the manner in which they acquitted themselves on that perilous occasion, we will refer you to the proclamation of Thomas Butler, Aid-de-Camp.
"You there see that your country expects much from you, and that you have much to call you into action, morally, religiously, and scientifically. Prepare yourselves to occupy the several stations to which the wisdom of your country may promote you. We have been told in this Convention, by the Secretary of the American Colonization Society, that there are causes which forbid our advancement in this country, which no humanity, no legislation, and no religion can control. Believe it not. Is not humanity susceptible of all the tender feelings of benevolence? Is not legislation supreme--and is not religion virtuous? Our oppressed situation arises from their opposite causes. There is an awakening spirit in our people to promote their elevation, which speaks volumes in their behalf. We anticipated at the close of the last Convention, a larger representation and an increased number of delegates; we were not deceived, the number has been tenfold. And we have a right to expect that future Conventions will be increased by a geometrical ratio, until we shall present a body not inferior in numbers to our State Legislatures, and the phenomenon of an oppressed people, deprived of the rights of citizenship, in the midst of an enlightened nation, devising plans and measures for their personal and mental elevation, by moral suasion alone.
"In recommending you a path to pursue for our present good and future elevation, we have taken into consideration the circumstances of the free colored population, so far as it was possible to ascertain their views and sentiments, hoping that at a future Convention, you will all come ably represented, and that your wishes and views may receive that deliberation and attention for which this body is particularly associated.
"Finally, before taking our leave, we would admonish you, by all that you hold dear, beware of that bewitching evil, that bane of society, that curse of the world, that fell destroyer of the best prospects and the last hope of civilized man,--INTEMPERANCE.
"Be righteous, be honest, be just, be economical, be prudent, offend not the laws of your country,--in a word, live in that purity of life, by both precept and example,--live in the constant pursuit of that moral and intellectual strength which will invigorate your understandings and render you illustrious in the eyes of civilized nations, when they will assert that all that illustrious worth which was once possessed by the Egyptians, and slept for ages, has now arisen in their descendents, the inhabitants of the New World."
Excellent as was the work of these conventions of men of color, they nevertheless became the magazines from which the pro-slavery element secured dangerous ammunition with which to attack the anti-slavery movement. The white anti-slavery societies were charged with harboring a spirit of race prejudice; with inconsistency, in that while seeking freedom for the Negro by means of agitation, separate efforts were put forth by the white and black anti-slavery people of the North. And this had its due effect. Massachusetts and other States had abolition societies composed entirely of persons of Color. "The Massachusetts General Colored Association" organized in the early days of the agitation movement. It had among its leading men the most intelligent and public-spirited Colored citizens of Boston. James G. Barbadoes, Coffin Pitts, John E. Scarlett, the Eastons, Hosea and Joshua; Wm. C. Nell, Thomas Cole, Thomas Dalton, Frederick Brimley, Walker Lewis, and John T. Hilton were a few of "the faithful." In January, 1833, the following communication was sent to the white anti-slavery society of New England.
"BOSTON, January 15, 1833.
"To the Board of Managers of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society:
"The Massachusetts General Colored Association, cordially approving the objects and principles of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society, would respectfully communicate their desire to become auxiliary thereto. They have accordingly chosen one of their members to attend the annual meeting of the Society as their delegate (Mr. JOSHUA EASTON, of North Bridgewater), and solicit his acceptance in that capacity.
"THOMAS DALTON, President, "WILLIAM C. NELL, Vice-President.
"JAMES G. BARBADOES, Secretary."
The request was granted, but a few hints among friends on the outside sufficed to demonstrate the folly and hurtfulness of anti-slavery societies composed exclusively of men of color. Within the next two years Colored organizations perished, and their members took their place in the white societies. Such Colored men as John B. Vashon and Robert Purvis, of Pennsylvania; David Ruggles and Philip A. Bell, of New York; and Charles Lenox Remond and Wm. Wells Brown, of Massachusetts, were soon seen as orators and presiding officers, in the different anti-slavery societies of the free States. Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward, James McCune Smith, M.D.; James W. C. Pennington, D.D.; Henry Highland Garnett, D.D.; Alexander Crummell, D.D.; and other Colored men were eloquent, earnest, and effective in their denunciation of the institution that enslaved their brethren. In England and in Europe a corps of intelligent Colored orators was kept busy painting, to interested audiences, the cruelties and iniquities of American slavery. By association and sympathy these Colored orators took on the polish of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. Of the influence of the American Anti-slavery Society upon the Colored man, Maria Weston Chapman once said, it is "church and university, high school and common school, to all who need real instruction and true religion. Of it what a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators, and accomplished gentlemen of color have taken their degree! It has equally implanted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts, and sublime purposes, in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white man for the freedom of the black man, and it has made the black man scorn the thought of enslavement, as does a white man, as far as its influence has extended. Strengthen that noble influence! Before its organization, the country only saw here and there in slavery some 'faithful Cudjoe or Dinah,' whose strong natures blossomed even in bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the American Anti-slavery Society, the colored race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian capitals for the noblest temples. Aroused by the American Anti-slavery Society, the very white men who had forgotten and denied the claim of the black man to the rights of humanity, now thunder that claim at every gate, from cottage to capitol, from school-house to university, from the railroad carriage to the house of God. He has a place at their firesides, a place in their hearts--the man whom they once cruelly hated for his color. So feeling, they cannot send him to Coventry with a horn-book in his hand, and call it instruction! They inspire him to climb to their side by a visible, acted gospel of freedom. Thus, instead of bowing to prejudice, they conquer it."
In January, 1836, Rev. Mr. Follen offered the following resolution in a meeting of the New England Anti-slavery Society:
"Resolved, That we consider the Anti-slavery cause the cause of philanthropy, with regard to which all human beings, white men and colored men, citizens and foreigners, men and women, have the same duties and the same rights."
In support of his resolution, he said:
"We have been advised, if we really wished to benefit the slave and the colored race generally, not unnecessarily to shock the feelings, though they were but prejudices, of the white people, by admitting colored persons to our Anti-slavery meetings and societies. We have been told that many who would otherwise act in unison with us were kept away by our disregard of the feelings of the community in this respect.... But what, I would ask, is the great, the single object of all our meetings and societies? Have we any other object than to impress upon the community this one principle, that the colored man is a man? And, on the other hand, is not the prejudice which would have us exclude colored people from our meetings and societies the same which, in our Southern States, dooms them to perpetual bondage?"
In May, 1837, the Anti-slavery Women of America met in convention in New York. In a circular issued by the authority of the convention, and signed by Mary S. Parker, President, Angelina E. Grimkie, Secretary, another attack was made upon proscription in anti-slavery societies. There was a Colored lady named Sarah Douglass on the Central Committee. The following paragraphs from the circular are specimens sufficient to show the character of the circular; and the poetry at the end, written by a Colored member. Miss Sarah Forten, justified the hopes of her white sisters concerning the race:
"Those Societies that reject colored members, or seek to avoid them, have never been active or efficient. The blessing of God does not rest upon them, because they 'keep back a part of the price of the land,'--they do not lay all at the apostle's feet.
"The abandonment of prejudice is required of us as a proof of our sincerity and consistency. How can we ask our Southern brethren to make sacrifices, if we are not even willing to encounter inconveniences? First cast the beam from thine own eye, then wilt thou see clearly to cast it from his eye.
"We are thy sisters. God has truly said That of one blood the nations He has made. O Christian woman! in a Christian land, Canst thou unblushing read this great command? Suffer the wrongs which wring our inmost heart, To draw one throb of pity on thy part? Our Skins may differ, but from thee we claim A sister's privilege and a sister's name."
Every barrier was now broken down inside of anti-slavery organizations; and having conquered the prejudice that crippled their work, they enjoyed greater freedom in the prosecution of their labors.
The Colored orators wrought a wonderful change in public sentiment. In the inland white communities throughout the Northern States Negroes were few, and the majority of them were servants; some of them indolent and vicious. From these few the moral and intellectual photograph of the entire race was taken. So it was meet that Negro orators of refinement should go from town to town. The North needed arousing and educating on the anti-slavery question, and no class did more practical work in this direction than the little company of orators, with the peerless Douglass at its head, that pleaded the cause of their brethren in the flesh before the cultivated audiences of New England, the Middle and Western States,--yea, even in the capital cities of conservative Europe.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] The Minutes, in possession of the author.Return to passage
VII. NEGRO INSURRECTIONS
THE NEGRO NOT SO DOCILE AS SUPPOSED.--THE REASON WHY HE WAS KEPT IN BONDAGE.--NEGROES POSSESSED COURAGE BUT LACKED LEADERS.--INSURRECTION OF SLAVES.--GEN. GABRIEL AS A LEADER.--NEGRO INSURRECTION PLANNED IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--EVILS OF SLAVERY REVEALED.--THE "NAT. TURNER" INSURRECTION IN SOUTH HAMPTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA.--THE WHITES ARM THEMSELVES TO REPEL THE INSURRECTIONISTS.--CAPTURE AND TRIAL OF "NAT. TURNER."--HIS EXECUTION.--EFFECT OF THE INSURRECTION UPON SLAVES AND SLAVE-HOLDERS.
The supposed docility of the American Negro was counted among the reasons why it was thought he could never gain his freedom on this continent. But this was a misinterpretation of his real character. Besides, it was next to impossible to learn the history of the Negro during the years of his enslavement at the South. The question was often asked: Why don't the Negroes rise at the South and exterminate their enslavers? Negatively, not because they lacked the courage, but because they lacked leaders [as has been stated already, they sought the North and their freedom through the Underground R. R.] to organize them. But notwithstanding this great disadvantage the Negroes did rise on several different occasions, and did effective work.
"Three times, at intervals of thirty years, has a wave of unutterable terror swept across the Old Dominion, bringing thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every Virginian slave. Each time has one man's name become a spell of dismay and a symbol of deliverance. Each time has that name eclipsed its predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory; John Brown revived the story of Nat. Turner, as in his day Nat. Turner recalled the vaster schemes of Gabriel."[29]
Mention has been made of the insurrection of slaves in South Carolina in the last century. Upon the very threshold of the nineteenth century, "General Gabriel" made the master-class of Virginia quail with mortal dread. He was a man of more than ordinary intelligence; and his plans were worthy of greater success. The following newspaper paragraph reveals the condition of the minds of Virginians respecting the Negroes:
"For the week past, we have been under momentary expectation of a rising among the negroes, who have assembled to the number of nine hundred or a thousand, and threatened to massacre all the whites. They are armed with desperate weapons, and secrete themselves in the woods. God only knows our fate; we have strong guards every night under arms."
The above was communicated to the "United States Gazette," printed in Philadelphia, under date of September 8, 1800, by a Virginia correspondent. The people felt that they were sleeping over a magazine. The movement of Gabriel was to have taken place on Saturday, September 1st. The rendezvous of the Negro troops was a brook, about six miles from Richmond. The force was to comprise eleven hundred men, divided into three divisions. Richmond--then a town of eight thousand inhabitants--was the point of attack, which was to be effected under cover of night. The right wing was to fall suddenly upon the penitentiary, lately improvised into an arsenal; the left wing was to seize the powder-house; and, thus equipped and supplied with the munitions of war, the two columns were to assign the hard fighting to the third column. This column was to have possession of all the guns, swords, knives, and other weapons of modern warfare. It was to strike a sharp blow by entering the town from both ends, while the other two columns, armed with shovels, picks, clubs, etc., were to act as a reserve. The white troops were scarce, and the situation, plans, etc., of the Negroes were admirable.
"... the penitentiary held several thousand stand of arms; the powder-house was well-stocked; the capitol contained the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of the bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus secured and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to their standard 'their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity throughout the continent.' In a week, it was estimated, they would have fifty thousand men on their side, with which force they could easily possess themselves of other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John Scott--possibly the dangerous possessor of ten dollars--was already appointed to head the attack on Petersburg. But in case of final failure, the project included a retreat to the mountains, with their newfound property. John Brown was therefore anticipated by Gabriel sixty years before, in believing the Virginia mountains to have been 'created, from the foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves.'"[30]
The plot failed, but everybody, and the newspapers also, said the plan was well conceived.
In 1822 another Negro insurrection was planned in Charleston, S. C. The leader of this affair was Denmark Vesey.[31] This plot for an insurrection extended for forty-five or fifty miles around Charleston, and intrusted its secrets to thousands. Denmark Vesey, assisted by several other intelligent and trusty Negroes, had conceived the idea of slaughtering the whites in and about Charleston, and thus securing liberty for the blacks. A recruiting committee was formed, and every slave enlisted was sworn to secrecy. Household servants were rarely trusted. Talkative and intemperate slaves were not enlisted. Women were excluded from the affair that they might take care of the children. Peter Poyas, it was said, had enlisted six hundred without assistance. There were various opinions respecting the number enlisted. Some put it at hundreds, others thousands; one witness at the trial said there were nine thousand, another six thousand. But no white person ever succeeded in gaining the confidence of the black conspirators. Never was a plot so carefully guarded for so long a time.
"During the excitement and the trial of the supposed conspirators, rumor proclaimed all, and doubtless more than all, the horrors of the plot. The city was to be fired in every quarter, the arsenal in the immediate vicinity was to be broken open, and the arms distributed to the insurgents, and an universal massacre of the white inhabitants to take place. Nor did there seem to be any doubt in the mind of the people that such would actually have been the result, had not the plot fortunately been detected before the time appointed for the outbreak. It was believed, as a matter of course, that every black in the city would join in the insurrection, and that, if the original design had been attempted, and the city taken by surprise, the negroes would have achieved a complete and easy victory. Nor does it seem at all impossible that such might have been or yet may be the case, if any well-arranged and resolute rising should take place."[32]
This bold plot failed because a Negro named William Paul began to make enlistments without authority. He revealed the secret to a household servant, just the very man he should have left to the skilful manipulations of Peter Poyas or Denmark Vesey. As an evidence of the perfection of the plot it should be stated that after a month of official investigation only fifteen out of the thousands had been apprehended!
"The leaders of this attempt at insurrection died as bravely as they had lived; and it is one of the marvels of the remarkable affair, that none of this class divulged, any of their secrets to the court. The men who did the talking were those who knew but little."
The effect was to reveal the evils of slavery, to stir men to thought, and to hasten the day of freedom.
"Nat." Turner combined the lamb and lion. He was a Christian and a man. He was conscious that he was a man and not a "thing"; therefore, driven by religious fanaticism, he undertook a difficult and bloody task. Nathaniel Turner was born in Southampton County, Virginia, October 2, 1800. His master was one Benjamin Turner, a very wealthy and aristocratic man. He owned many slaves, and was a cruel and exacting master. Young "Nat." was born of slave parents, and carried to his grave many of the superstitions and traits of his father and mother. The former was a preacher; the latter a "mother in Israel." Both were unlettered, but, nevertheless, very pious people. The mother began when Nat. was quite young to teach him that he was born, like Moses, to be the deliverer of his race. She would sing to him snatches of wild, rapturous songs, and repeat portions of prophecy she had learned from the preachers of those times. Nat. listened with reverence and awe, and believed every thing his mother said. He imbibed the deep religious character of his parents, and soon manifested a desire to preach. He was solemnly set apart to "the Gospel Ministry" by his father, the Church, and visiting preachers. He was quite low in stature, dark, and had the genuine African features. His eyes were small, but sharp, and gleamed like fire when he was talking about his "mission," or preaching from some prophetic passage of Scripture. It is said that he never laughed. He was a dreamy sort of a man, and avoided the crowd. Like Moses, he lived in the solitudes of the mountains and brooded over the condition of his people. There was something grand to him in the rugged scenery that nature had surrounded him with. He believed that he was a prophet, a leader raised up by God to burst the bolts of the prison-house and set the oppressed free. The thunder, the hail, the storm-cloud, the air, the earth, the stars, at which he would sit and gaze half the night, all spake the language of the God of the oppressed. He was seldom seen in a large company, and never drank a drop of ardent spirits. Like John the Baptist, when he had delivered his message, he would retire to the fastness of the mountain, or seek the desert, where he could meditate upon his great work.
At length he declared that God spake to him. He began to dream dreams and to see visions. His grandmother, a very old and superstitious person, encouraged him in his dreaming. But, notwithstanding, he believed that he had communion with God, and saw the most remarkable visions, he denounced in the severest terms the familiar practices among slaves, known as "conjuring," "gufering," and fortune-telling. The people regarded him with mixed feelings of fear and reverence. He preached with great power and authority. He loved the prophecies, and drew his illustrations from nature. He presented God as the "All-Powerful"; he regarded him as a great "Warrior." His master soon discovered that Nat. was the acknowledged leader among the slaves, and that his fame as "prophet" and "leader" was spreading throughout the State. The poor slaves on distant plantations regarded the name of Nat. Turner as very little removed from that of God. Though having never seen him, yet they believed in him as the man under whose lead they would some time march out of the land of bondage. His influence was equally great among the preachers, while many white people honored and feared him. His master thought it necessary to the safety of his property, to hire Nat. out to a most violent and cruel man. Perhaps he thought to have him "broke." If so, he was mistaken. Nat. Turner was the last slave to submit to an insult given by a white man. His new master could do nothing with him. He ran off, and spent thirty days in the swamps--but returned. He was upbraided by some of his fellow-slaves for not seeking, as he certainly could have done, "the land of the free." He answered by saying, that a voice said to him: "Return to your earthly master; for he who knoweth his Master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." It was no direction to submit to an earthly master, but to return to him in order to carry out the will of his Heavenly Master. He related some of the visions he saw during his absence. "About that time I had a vision, and saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle; and the sun was darkened, the thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed in streams; and I heard a voice saying: 'Such is your luck, such are you called on to see; and let it come, rough or smooth, you must surely bear it.' It was not long after this when he saw another vision. He says a spirit appeared unto him and spake as follows: "The serpent is loosened, and Christ has laid down the yoke he has borne for the sins of men; and you must take it up and fight against the serpent, for the time is fast approaching when the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." These visions and many others enthused Nat., and led him to believe that the time was near when the Blacks would be "first" and the whites "last."
The plot for a general uprising was laid in the month of February, 1831. He had seen the last vision. He says: "I was told I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons." He was now prepared to arrange the details of his plot. He appointed a meeting, to which he invited four trusted friends, Sam. Edwards, Hark Travis, Henry Porter, and Nelson Williams. A wild and desolate glen was chosen as the place of meeting, and night the time when they could perfect their plans without being molested by the whites. They brought with them provisions, and ate while they debated among themselves the methods by which to carry out their plan of blood and death. The main difficulty that confronted them was how to get arms. Nat. remembered that a spirit had instructed him to "slay my enemies with their own weapons," so they decided to follow these instructions. After they had decided upon a plan, "the prophet Nat." arose, and, like a great general, made a speech to his small but brave force. "Friends and brothers," said he, "we are to commence a great work to-night! Our race is to be delivered from slavery, and God has appointed us as the men to do his bidding; and let us be worthy of our calling. I am told to slay all the whites we encounter, without regard to age or sex. We have no arms or ammunition, but we will find these in the houses of our oppressors; and, as we go on, others can join us. Remember, we do not go forth for the sake of blood and carnage; but it is necessary that, in the commencement of this revolution, all the whites we meet should die, until we have an army strong enough to carry on the war upon a Christian basis. Remember that ours is not a war for robbery, nor to satisfy our passions; it is a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds, not words. Then let's away to the scene of action!"
The blow was struck on the night of the 21st of August, 1831, in Southampton County, near Jerusalem Court-House. The latter place is about seventy miles from Richmond. Not only Southampton County but old Virginia reeled under the blow administered by the heavy hand of Nat. Turner. On their way to the first house they were to attack, that of a planter by the name of Joseph Travis, they were joined by a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation. We can find only one name for him, "Will." He was the slave of a cruel master, who had sold his wife to the "nigger traders." He was nearly six feet in height, well developed, and the most powerful and athletic man in the county. He was marked with an ugly scar, extending from his right eye to the extremity of the chin. He hated his master, hated slavery, and was glad of an opportunity to wreak his vengeance upon the whites. He armed himself with a sharp broadaxe, under whose cruel blade many a white man fell. Nat.'s speech gives us a very clear idea of the scope and spirit of his plan. We quote from his confession at the time of the trial, and will let him tell the story of this terrible insurrection.
"On returning to the house, Hark went to the door with an axe, for the purpose of breaking it open, as we knew we were strong enough to murder the family should they be awakened by the noise; but, reflecting that it might create an alarm in the neighborhood, we determined to enter the house secretly, and murder them whilst sleeping. Hark got a ladder and set it against the chimney, on which I ascended, and, hoisting a window, entered and came down stairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns from their places. It was then observed that I must spill the first blood, on which, armed with a hatchet and accompanied by Will., I entered my master's chamber. It being dark, I could not give a death-blow. The hatchet glanced from his head; he sprang from his bed and called his wife. It was his last word. Will. laid him dead with a blow of his axe."
After they had taken the lives of this family, they went from plantation to plantation, dealing death-blows to every white man, woman, or child they found. They visited vengeance upon every white household they came to. The excitement spread rapidly, and the whites arose and armed themselves in order to repel these insurrectionists.
"The first news concerning the affair was in the shape of a letter from Col. Trezvant, which reached Richmond Tuesday morning, too late for the columns of the (Richmond) "Enquirer," which was a triweekly. The letter was written on the 21st of August, and lacked definiteness, which gave rise to doubts in reference to the 'insurrection.' It was first sent to Petersburgh, and was then immediately dispatched to the Mayor of Richmond.
* * * * *
"Arms and ammunition were dispatched in wagons to the county of Southampton. The four volunteer companies of Petersburgh, the dragoons and Lafayette artillery company of Richmond, one volunteer company from Norfolk and one from Portsmouth, and the regiments of Southampton and Sussex, were at once ordered out. The cavalry and infantry took up their line of march on Tuesday evening, while the artillery embarked on the steamer 'Norfolk,' and landed at Smithfield.... A member of the Richmond dragoons, writing from Petersburgh, under date of the 23d, after careful examination, thought that 'about two hundred and fifty negroes from a camp-meeting about the Dismal Swamp had murdered about sixty, persons, none of them families much known.'"[33]
Will., the revengeful slave, proved himself the most destructive and cruel of Nat.'s followers. A hand to hand battle came. The whites were well armed, and by the force of their superior numbers overcame the army of the "Prophet,"--five men. Will. would not surrender. He laid three white men dead at his feet, when he fell mortally wounded. His last words were: "Bury my axe with me," believing that in the next world he would need it for a similar purpose. Nat. fought with great valor and skill with a short sword, and finding it useless to continue the struggle, escaped with some of his followers to the swamps, where he defied the vigilance of the military and the patient watching of the citizens for more than two months. He was finally compelled to surrender. When the Court asked: "Guilty or not guilty?" he pleaded: "Not guilty." He was sustained during his trial by his unfaltering faith in God. Like Joan of Arc, he "heard the spirits," the "voices," and believed that God had "sent him to free His people."
In the impression of the "Enquirer" of the 30th of August, 1831, the first editorial, or leader, is under the caption of THE BANDITTE. The editor says:
"They remind one of a parcel of blood-thirsty wolves rushing down from the Alps; or, rather like a former incursion of the Indians upon the white settlements. Nothing is spared: neither age nor sex respected--the helplessness of women and children pleads in vain for mercy.... The case of Nat. Turner warns us. No black-man ought to be permitted to turn a Preacher through the country. The law must be enforced--or the tragedy of Southampton appeals to us in vain."[34]
A remarkable prophecy was made by Nat. The trial was hurried, and, like a handle on a pitcher, was on one side only. He was sentenced to die on the gallows. He received the announcement with stoic indifference, and was executed at Jerusalem, the county seat of Southampton, in April, 1831. He died like a man, bravely, calmly; looking into eternity, made radiant by a faith that had never faltered. He prophesied that on the day of his execution the sun would be darkened, and other evidences of divine disapprobation would be seen. The sheriff was much impressed by Nat.'s predictions, and consequently refused to have any thing to do with the hanging. No Colored man could be secured to cut the rope that held the trap. An old white man, degraded by drink and other vices, was engaged to act as executioner, and was brought forty miles. Whether it was a fulfilment of Nat.'s prophecy or not, the sun was hidden behind angry clouds, the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the most terrific storm visited that county ever known. All this, in connection with Nat.'s predictions, made a wonderful impression upon the minds of the Colored people, and not a few white persons were frightened, and regretted the death of the "Prophet."
The results of this uprising, led by a lone man--he was alone, and yet he was not alone,--are apparent when we consider that fifty-seven whites and seventy-three Blacks were killed and many were wounded.
The first reliable list of the victims of the "tragedy" was written on the 24th of August, 1831.
"List of the dead that have been buried:--At Mrs. Whiteheads', 7; Mrs. Waller's, 13; Mr. Williams', 3; Mr. Barrows', 2; Mr. Vaughn's, 5; Mrs. Turner's, 3; Mr. Travis's, 5; Mr. J. Williams', 5; Mr. Reice's, 4; Names unknown, 10; Total, 57."
Then there was a feeling of unrest among the slaves and a fear among the whites throughout the State. Even the proceedings of the trial of Nat. were suppressed for fear of evil consequences among the slaves. But now all are free, and the ex-planters will not gnash their teeth at this revelation. Nat. Turner's insurrection, like all other insurrections led by oppressed people, lacked detail and method. History records but one successful uprising--San Domingo has the honor. Even France failed in 1789, and in 1848. There is always a zeal for freedom, but not according to knowledge. No stone marks the resting-place of this martyr to freedom, this great religious fanatic, this Black John Brown. And yet he has a prouder and more durable monument than was ever erected of stone or brass. The image of Nat. Turner is carved on the fleshy tablets of four million hearts. His history has been kept from the Colored people, at the South, but the women have handed the tradition to their children, and the "Prophet Nat." is still marching on.
Of the character of this remarkable man, Mr. Gray, the gentleman to whom he made his confession, had the following to say:--
"It has been said that he was ignorant and cowardly, and that his object was to murder and rob, for the purpose of obtaining money to make his escape. It is notorious that he was never known to have a dollar in his life, to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. As to his ignorance, he certainly never had the advantages of education; but he can read and write, and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed by few men I have ever seen. As to his being a coward, his reason, as given, for not resisting Mr. Phipps, shows the decision of his character. When he saw Mr. Phipps present his gun, he said he knew it was impossible for him to escape, as the woods were full of men; he therefore thought it was better for him to surrender, and trust to fortune for his escape.
"He is a complete fanatic, or plays his part most admirably. On other subjects he possesses an uncommon share of intelligence, with a mind capable of attaining any thing, but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. He is below the ordinary stature, though strong and active, having the true negro face, every feature of which is strongly marked. I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned hole of the prison: the calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions; the expression of his fiend-like face, when excited by enthusiasm; still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence about him, clothed with rags and covered with chains, yet daring to raise his manacled hands to Heaven, with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man. I looked on him, and the blood curdled in my veins."
In the "Richmond Enquirer," of September 2, 1831, appeared the following: "It is reported that a map was found, and said to have been drawn by Nat. Turner, with polk-berry juice, which was a description of the county of Southampton."
The influence of this bloody insurrection spread beyond the Old Dominion, and for years afterward, in nearly every Southern State the whites lived in a state of dread. To every dealer in flesh and blood the "Nat. Turner Insurrection" was a stroke of poetic justice.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Atlantic Monthly, vol. x. p. 337.Return to passage
[30] Atlantic Monthly, vol. x. p. 339.Return to passage
[31] Atlantic Monthly, vol. vii. pp. 728, 744.Return to passage
[32] Atlantic Monthly, vol. vii. p. 737.Return to passage
[33] Richmond Enquirer, August 26, 1831.Return to passage
[34] Richmond Enquirer, August 26 and 30, 1831.Return to passage
VIII. THE "AMISTAD" CAPTIVES
THE SPANISH SLAVER "AMISTAD" SAILS FROM HAVANA, CUBA, FOR PORTO PRINCIPE.--FIFTY-FOUR NATIVE AFRICANS ON BOARD.--JOSEPH CINQUEZ, THE SON OF AN AFRICAN PRINCE.--THE "AMISTAD" CAPTURED AND TAKEN INTO NEW LONDON, CONN.--TRIAL AND RELEASE OF THE SLAVES.--TOUR THROUGH THE UNITED STATES.--RETURN TO THEIR NATIVE COUNTRY IN COMPANY WITH MISSIONARIES.--THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE BENEFITED BY THEIR STAY IN THE UNITED STATES.--THEIR APPRECIATION OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.
On the 28th of June, 1839, the "Amistad," a Spanish slaver (schooner), with Captain Ramon Ferrer in command, sailed from Havana, Cuba, for Porto Principe, a place in the island of Cuba, about 100 leagues distant. The passengers were Don Pedro Montes and Jose Ruiz, with fifty-four Africans just from their native country, Lemboko, as slaves. Among the slaves was one man, called in Spanish, Joseph Cinquez,[35] said to be the son of an African prince. He was possessed of wonderful natural abilities, and was endowed with all the elements of an intelligent and intrepid leader. The treatment these captives received was very cruel. They were chained down between the decks--space not more than four feet--by their wrists and ankles; forced to eat rice, sick or well, and whipped upon the slightest provocation. On the fifth night out, Cinquez chose a few trusty companions of his misfortunes, and made a successful attack upon the officers and crew. The captain and cook struck down, two sailors put ashore, the Negroes were in full possession of the vessel. Montes was compelled, under pain of death, to navigate the vessel to Africa. He steered eastwardly during the daytime, but at night put about hoping to touch the American shore. Thus the vessel wandered until it was cited off of the coast of the United States during the month of August. It was described as a "long, low, black schooner." Notice was sent to all the collectors of the ports along the Atlantic Coast, and a steamer and several revenue cutters were dispatched after her. Finally, on the 26th of August, 1839, Lieut. Gedney, U. S. Navy, captured the "Amistad," and took her into New London, Connecticut.
The two Spaniards and a Creole cabin boy were examined before Judge Andrew T. Judson, of the United States Court, who, without examining the Negroes, bound them over to be tried as pirates. The poor Africans were cast into the prison at New London. Public curiosity was at a high pitch; and for a long time the "Amistad captives" occupied a large place in public attention. The Africans proved to be natives of the Mendi country, and quite intelligent. The romantic story of their sufferings and meanderings was given to the country through a competent interpreter; and many Christian hearts turned toward them in their lonely captivity in a strange land. The trial was continued several months. During this time the anti-slavery friends provided instruction for the Africans. Their minds were active and receptive. They soon learned to read, write, and do sums in arithmetic. They cultivated a garden of some fifteen acres, and proved themselves an intelligent and industrious people.
The final decision of the court was that the "Amistad captives" were not slaves, but freemen, and, as such, were entitled to their liberty. The good and liberal Lewis Tappan had taken a lively interest in these people from the first, and now that they were released from prison, felt that they should be sent back to their native shores and a mission started amongst their countrymen. Accordingly he took charge of them and appeared before the public in a number of cities of New England. An admission fee of fifty cents was required at the door, and the proceeds were devoted to leasing a vessel to take them home. Large audiences greeted them everywhere, and the impression they made was of the highest order. Mr. Tappan would state the desire of the people to return to their native land, appeal to the philanthropic to aid them, and then call upon the people to read the Scriptures, sing songs in their own language, and then in the English. Cinquez would then deliver an account of their capture, the horrors of the voyage, how he succeeded in getting his manacles off, how he aided his brethren to loose their fetters, how he invited them to follow him in an attempt to gain their liberty, the attack, and their rescue, etc., etc. He was a man of magnificent physique, commanding presence, graceful manners, and effective oratory. His speeches were delivered in Mendi, and translated into English by an interpreter.
"It is impossible," wrote Mr. Tappan from Boston, "to describe the novel and deeply interesting manner in which he acquitted himself. The subject of his speech was similar to that of his countrymen who had spoken in English; but he related more minutely and graphically the occurrences on board the "Amistad." The easy manner of Cinquez, his natural, graceful, and energetic action, the rapidity of his utterance, and the remarkable and various expressions of his countenance, excited admiration and applause. He was pronounced a powerful natural orator, and one born to sway the minds of his fellow-men. Should he be converted and become a preacher of the cross in Africa what delightful results may be anticipated!"
A little fellow called Kali, only eleven years of age, pleased the audience everywhere he went by his ability not only to spell any word in the Gospels, but sentences, without blundering. For example, he would spell out a sentence like the following sentence, naming each letter and syllable, and recapitulating as he went along, until he pronounced the whole sentence: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
Of their doings in Philadelphia, Mr. Joseph Sturge wrote:
"On this occasion, a very crowded and miscellaneous assembly collected to see and hear the Mendians, although the admission had been fixed as high as half a dollar, with the view of raising a fund to carry them to their native country. Fifteen of them were present, including one little boy and three girls. Cinque, their chief, spoke with great fluency in his native language; and his action and manner were very animated and graceful. Not much of his speech was translated, yet he greatly interested his audience. The little boy could speak our language with facility; and each of them read, without hesitation, one or two verses in the New Testament. It was impossible for any one to go away with the impression, that in native intellect these people were inferior to the whites. The information which I privately received from their tutor, and others who had full opportunities of appreciating their capacities and attainments, fully confirmed my own very favorable impressions."
But all the while their sad hearts were turning toward their home and the dear ones so far away. One of them eloquently declared: "If Merica men offer me as much gold as fill this cap full up, and give me houses, land, and every ting, so dat I stay in this country, I say: 'No! no! I want to see my father, my mother, my brother, my sister.'" Nothing could have been more tender and expressive. They were willing to endure any hardships short of life that they might once more see their own, their native land. The religious instruction they had enjoyed made a wonderful impression on their minds. One of them said: "We owe every thing to God; he keeps us alive, and makes us free. When we go to home to Mendi we tell our brethren about God, Jesus Christ, and heaven." Another one was asked: "What is faith?" and replied: "Believing in Jesus Christ, and trusting in him." Reverting to the murder of the captain and cook of the "Amistad," one of the Africans said that if it were to be done over again he would pray for rather than kill them. Cinquez, hearing this, smiled and shook his head. When asked if he would not pray for them, said: "Yes, I would pray for 'em, an' kill 'em too."
These captives were returned to their native country in the fall of 1841, accompanied by five missionaries. Their objective point was Sierra Leone, from which place the British Government assisted them to their homes. Their stay in the United States did the anti-slavery cause great good. Here were poor, naked, savage pagans, unable to speak English, in less than three years able to speak the English language and appreciate the blessings of a Christian civilization.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Sometimes written Cinque.Return to passage
Part 6
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION.
IX. NORTHERN SYMPATHY AND SOUTHERN SUBTERFUGES
1850-1860.
VIOLENT TREATMENT OF ANTI-SLAVERY ORATORS.--THE SOUTH MISINTERPRETS THE MOBOCRATIC SPIRIT OF THE NORTH.--THE "GARRISONIANS" AND "CALHOUNITES"--SLAVE POPULATION OF 1830-1850.--THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS.--MOTION FOR THE ADMISSION OF NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA.--THE DEMOCRATIC AND WHIG PARTIES ON THE TREATMENT OF THE SLAVE QUESTION.--CONVENTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AT BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.--NOMINATION OF FRANKLIN PIERCE FOR PRESIDENT.--WHIG PARTY CONVENTION.--NOMINATION OF GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT FOR THE PRESIDENCY BY THE WHIGS.--MR. PIERCE ELECTED PRESIDENT IN 1853.--A BILL INTRODUCED TO REPEAL THE "MISSOURI COMPROMISE."--SPEECH BY STEPHEN A. DOUGLASS.--MR. CHASE'S REPLY.--AN ACT TO ORGANIZE THE TERRITORIES OF KANSAS AND NEBRASKA.--STATE MILITIA IN THE SOUTH MAKE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.--PRESIDENT BUCHANAN IN SYMPATHY WITH THE SOUTH.
The arguments of anti-slavery orators were answered everywhere throughout the free States by rotten eggs, clubs, and missiles. The public journals, as a rule, were unfriendly and intolerant. Even Boston could contemplate, with unruffled composure, a mob of her most "reputable citizens" dragging Mr. Garrison through the streets with a halter about his neck. Public meetings were broken up by pro-slavery mobs; owners of public halls required a moneyed guarantee against the destruction of their property, when such halls were used for anti-slavery meetings. Colored schools were broken up, the teachers driven away, and the pupils maltreated.
The mobocratic demonstrations in the Northern States were the thermometer of public feeling upon the subject of slavery. The South was, therefore, emboldened; for the political leaders in that section thought they saw a light from the distance that encouraged them to entertain the belief and indulge the hope that their present sectional institution could be made national. Southerners thought slavery would grow in the cold climate of the North, excited into a lively existence by the warmth of a generous sympathy. But the South misinterpreted the real motive that inspired opposition to anti-slavery agitation in the North. The violent opposition came from the mercantile class and foreign element who believed that the agitation of the slavery question was a practical disturbance of their business affairs. The next class, more moderate in opposition to agitation, believed slavery constitutional, and, therefore, argued that anti-slavery orators were traitors to the government. The third class, conservative, did not take sides, because of the unpopularity of agitation on the one hand, and because of an harassing conscience on the other.
There were two classes of men who were seeking the dissolution of the Union. The Garrisonians sought this end in the hope of forming another Union without slavery.
In an address delivered by Wm. Lloyd Garrison, July 20, 1860, at the Framingham celebration, he declares:
"Our object is the abolition of slavery throughout the land; and whether in the prosecution of our object this party goes up or the other party goes down, it is nothing to us. We cannot alter our course one hair's breadth, nor accept a compromise of our principles for the hearty adoption of our principles. I am for meddling with slavery everywhere--attacking it by night and by day, in season and out of season (no, it can never be out of season)--in order to effect its overthrow. (Loud applause.) Higher yet will be my cry. Upward and onward! No union with slave-holders! Down with this slave-holding government! Let this 'covenant with death and agreement with hell' be annulled! Let there be a free, independent, Northern republic, and the speedy abolition of slavery will inevitably follow! (Loud applause.) So I am laboring to dissolve this blood-stained Union as a work of paramount importance. Our mission is to regenerate public opinion."
The Calhounites sought the dissolution of the Union in order that another Union might be formed with slavery as its chief corner-stone. Inspired by this hope and misguided by the apparent sympathy of the North, Southern statesmen began preparations to dissolve the Union of the United States.
During these years of agitation and discussion, although the foreign slave-trade had been suppressed, the slave population increased at a wonderful ratio.
CENSUS OF 1830.--SLAVE POPULATION.
District of Columbia 6,119 Delaware 3,292 Florida 15,501 Georgia 217,531 Illinois 747 Kentucky 165,213 Louisiana 109,588 Maryland 102,994 Alabama 117,549 Mississippi 65,659 Missouri 25,091 New Jersey 2,254 North Carolina 245,601 South Carolina 315,401 Tennessee 141,603 Virginia 469,757 Arkansas 4,576 --------- Aggregate 2,008,476
Now, this was the year the agitation movement began. Instead of the slave population decreasing during the first decade of anti-slavery discussion and work, it really increased 478,412![36]
CENSUS OF 1840.--SLAVE POPULATION.
Alabama 253,532 Arkansas 19,935 District of Columbia 4,694 Delaware 2,605 Florida 25,717 Georgia 280,944 Illinois 331 Kentucky 182,258 Louisiana 168,452 Maryland 89,737 Mississippi 195,211 Missouri 58,240 New Jersey 674 New York 4
CENSUS OF 1840.--SLAVE POPULATION.--(Continued.)
Pennsylvania 64 North Carolina 245,817 South Carolina 327,038 Tennessee 183,059 Virginia 449,087 --------- Aggregate 2,487,399
During the next decade the slave population swept forward to an increase of 716,858. The entire population of slaves was 3,204,313; 2,957,657 were unmixed Africans, and 246,656 were Mulattoes. The free Colored population amounted to 434,495, of whom 275,400 were unmixed, and 159,095 mixed or Mulatto. The total number of families owning slaves in 1850 was 347,525.
CENSUS OF 1850.--SLAVE POPULATION.
Alabama 342,844 Arkansas 47,100 District of Columbia 3,687 Delaware 2,290 Florida 39,310 Georgia 381,682 Kentucky 210,981 Louisiana 244,809 Maryland 90,368 Mississippi 309,878 Missouri 87,422 New Jersey 236 North Carolina 288,548 South Carolina 384,984 Tennessee 239,459 Texas 58,161 Virginia 472,528 Utah Territory 26 --------- Total 3,204,313
The Thirty-first Congress was three weeks attempting an organization, and at last effected it by the election of a Southerner to the Speakership, the Hon. Howell Cobb, of Georgia. President Zachary Taylor had called the attention of Congress to the admission of California and New Mexico into the Union, in his message to that body upon its assembling. On the 4th of January, 1850, Gen. Sam. Houston, United States Senator from Texas, submitted the following proposition to the Senate:
"WHEREAS, The Congress of the United States, possessing only a delegated authority, has no power over the subject of negro slavery within the limits of the United States, either to prohibit or to interfere with it in the States, territories, or districts, where, by municipal law, it now exists, or to establish it in any State or territory where it does not exist; but as an assurance and guarantee to promote harmony, quiet apprehension, and remove sectional prejudice, which by possibility might impair or weaken love and devotion to the Union in any part of the country, it is hereby
"Resolved, That, as the people in territories have the same inherent rights of self-government as the people in the States, if, in the exercise of such inherent rights, the people in the newly acquired territories, by the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of California and New Mexico, south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, extending to the Pacific Ocean, shall establish negro slavery in the formation of their State governments, it shall be deemed no objection to their admission as a State or States into the Union, in accordance with the Constitution of the United States."
On the 29th of January, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, submitted to the United States Senate the following propositions looking toward an amicable adjustment of the entire slavery question:
"1. Resolved, That California, with suitable boundaries, ought, upon her application, to be admitted as one of the States of this Union, without the imposition by Congress of any restriction in respect to the exclusion or introduction of slavery within those boundaries.
"2. Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into, or exclusion from, any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all the said territory not assigned as within the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.
"3. Resolved, That the western boundary of the State of Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del Norte, commencing one marine league from its mouth, and running up that river to the southern line of New Mexico, thence with that line eastwardly, and so continuing in the same direction to the line as established between the United States and Spain, excluding any portion of New Mexico, whether lying on the east or west of that river.
"4. Resolved, That it be proposed to the State of Texas, that the United States will provide for the payment of all that portion of the legitimate and bona-fide public debt of that State contracted prior to its annexation to the United States, and for which the duties on foreign imports were pledged by the said State to its creditors, not exceeding the sum of---- dollars, in consideration of the said duties so pledged having been no longer applicable to that object after the said annexation, but having thenceforward become payable to the United States; and upon the condition, also, that the said State of Texas shall, by some solemn and authentic act of her Legislature, or of a convention, relinquish to the United States any claim which she has to any part of New Mexico.
"5. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia whilst that institution continues to exist in the State of Maryland, without the consent of that State, without the consent of the people of the District, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves within the District.
"6. But Resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit within the District, the slave-trade in slaves brought into it from States or places beyond the limits of the District, either to be sold therein as merchandise, or to be transported to other markets without the District of Columbia.
"7. Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, according to the requirement of the Constitution, for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor in any State, who may escape into any other State or territory in the Union. And
"8. Resolved, That Congress has no power to prohibit or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slave-holding States, but that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into another of them, depends exclusively upon their own particular laws."
Senator Bell, of Tennessee, offered a series of resolutions on the same question on the 28th of February, containing nine resolves. As usual, on all propositions respecting slavery, the debate was protracted, earnest, and able. The Clay resolutions attracted most attention. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, said:
"Sir, we are called upon to receive this as a measure of compromise! As a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing. A measure of compromise! I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and, that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the Senator from Kentucky, I here assert, that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of the owners. I can never consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further aggressions upon the minority in this Union, and will never consent to any proposition which will have such a tendency, without a full guaranty or counteracting measure is connected with it."
A number of very able speeches were made on the resolutions of Mr. Clay, but the most characteristic one--the one most thoroughly representing the sentiment of the South--was made by John C. Calhoun. He said:
"The Union was in danger. The cause of this danger was the discontent at the South. And what was the cause of this discontent? It was found in the belief which prevailed among them that they could not, consistently with honor and safety, remain in the Union. And what had caused this belief? One of the causes was the long-continued agitation of the slave question at the North, and the many aggressions they had made on the rights of the South. But the primary cause was in the fact, that the equilibrium between the two sections at the time of the adoption of the Constitution had been destroyed. The first of the series of acts by which this had been done, was the ordinance of 1787, by which the South had been excluded from all the northwestern region. The next was the Missouri compromise, excluding them from all the Louisiana territory north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, except the State of Missouri,--in all 1,238,025 square miles, leaving to the South the southern portion of the original Louisiana territory, with Florida, to which had since been added the territory acquired with Texas,--making in all but 609,023 miles. And now the North was endeavoring to appropriate to herself the territory recently acquired from Mexico, adding 526,078 miles to the territory from which the South was, if possible, to be excluded. Another cause of the destruction of this equilibrium was our system of revenue (the tariff), the duties falling mainly upon the Southern portion of the Union, as being the greatest exporting States, while more than a due proportion of the revenue had been disbursed at the North.
"But while these measures were destroying the equilibrium between the two sections, the action of the government was leading to a radical change in its character. It was maintained that the government itself had the right to decide, in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers, and to resort to force to maintain the power it claimed. The doctrines of General Jackson's proclamation, subsequently asserted and maintained by Mr. Madison, the leading framer and expounder of the Constitution, were the doctrines which, if carried out, would change the character of the government from a federal republic, as it came from the hands of its framers, into a great national consolidated democracy."
Mr. Calhoun also spoke of the anti-slavery agitation, which, if not arrested, would destroy the Union; and he passed a censure upon Congress for receiving abolition petitions. Had Congress in the beginning adopted the course which he had advocated, which was to refuse to take jurisdiction, by the united voice of all parties, the agitation would have been prevented. He charged the North with false professions of devotion to the Union, and with having violated the Constitution. Acts had been passed in Northern States to set aside and annul the clause of the slavery question, with the avowed purpose of abolishing slavery in the States, which was another violation of the Constitution. And during the fifteen years of this agitation, in not a single instance had the people of the North denounced these agitators. How then could their professions of devotion to the Union be sincere?
Mr. Calhoun disapproved both the plan of Mr. Clay and that of President Taylor, as incapable of saving the Union. He would pass by the former without remark, as Mr. Clay had been replied to by several Senators. The Executive plan could not save the Union, because it could not satisfy the South that it could safely or honorably remain in the Union. It was a modification of the Wilmot proviso, proposing to effect the same object, the exclusion of the South from the new territory. The Executive proviso was more objectionable than the Wilmot. Both inflicted a dangerous wound upon the Constitution, by depriving the Southern States of equal rights as joint partners in these territories; but the former inflicted others equally great. It claimed for the inhabitants the right to legislate for the territories, which belonged to Congress. The assumption of this right was utterly unfounded, unconstitutional, and without example. Under this assumed right, the people of California had formed a constitution and a State government, and appointed Senators and Representatives. If the people as adventurers had conquered the territory and established their independence, the sovereignty of the country would have been vested in them. In that case they would have had the right to form a State government, and afterward they might have applied to Congress for admission into the Union. But the United States had conquered and acquired California; therefore, to them belonged the sovereignty and the powers of government over the territory. Michigan was the first case of departure from the uniform rule of acting. Hers, however, was a slight departure from established usage. The ordinance of 1787 secured to her the right of becoming a State when she should have 60,000 inhabitants. Congress delayed taking the census. The people became impatient; and after her population had increased to twice that number, they formed a constitution without waiting for the taking of the census; and Congress waived the omission, as there was no doubt of the requisite number of inhabitants. In other cases there had existed territorial governments.
Having shown how the Union could not be saved, he then proceeded to answer the question how it could be saved. There was but one way certain. Justice must be done to the South, by a full and final settlement of all the questions at issue. The North must concede to the South an equal right to the acquired territory, and fulfil the stipulations respecting fugitive slaves; must cease to agitate the slave question, and join in an amendment of the Constitution, restoring to the South the power she possessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the two sections had been destroyed by the action of the government.
Here was a clear statement of the position and feelings of the South respecting slavery. The ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri compromise of 1820 "were destroying the equilibrium between the two sections!" And the anti-slavery agitation, "if not arrested, would destroy the Union!" The sophistry of Calhoun sought a reasonable excuse for the South to dissolve the Union. In a speech of his, written during a spell of sickness, and read by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, he referred to Washington as "the illustrious Southerner." When it was read in the Senate Mr. Cass said:
"Our Washington--the Washington of our whole country--receives in this Senate the epithet of 'Southerner,' as if that great man, whose distinguished characteristic was his attachment to his country, and his whole country, who was so well known, and who, more than any one, deprecated all sectional feeling and all sectional action, loved Georgia better than he loved New Hampshire, because he happened to be born on the southern bank of the Potomac. I repeat, sir, that I heard with great pain that expression from the distinguished Senator from South Carolina."
There was certainly no ground for reasonable complaint on the part of the South. From the convention that framed the Federal Constitution, through all Congressional struggle, and in national politics as well, the South had secured nearly all measures asked for. And the discussion in Congress at this time was intended to divert attention from the real object of the South. Another fugitive-slave law was demanded by the South, and the Northern members voted them the right to hunt slaves upon free soil. The law passed, and was approved on the 18th of September, 1850.
It was difficult to choose between the Democratic and Whig parties by reading the planks in their platforms referring to the subject of slavery. On the 1st of June, 1852, the Democratic Convention, at Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, for the Presidency, on the forty-ninth ballot. This plank defined the position of that party on the question of slavery.
"That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of every thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
"That the foregoing proposition covers, and was intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and therefore the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures settled by the last Congress--the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, can not with fidelity thereto be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency.
"That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made."
The Whig party, at the same city, in convention assembled, on the 16th of June, 1852, nominated Gen. Winfield Scott, for the Presidency, on the fifty-third ballot. The Whig party declared its position on the slavery question as follows:
"That the series of acts of the Thirty-first Congress--the act known as the fugitive-slave law included--are received and acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States, as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting question which they embrace; and so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them and insist on their strict enforcement, until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation, to guard against the evasion of the laws on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the other, not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate all agitation of the question thus settled, as dangerous to our peace; and will discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation whenever, wherever, or however the attempt may be made; and we will maintain this system as essential to the nationality of the Whig party of the Union."
The political contest ended in the autumn in favor of Mr. Pierce. The public journals in many parts of the country thought the end of the "slavery question" had come, and that as the Whigs were determined to "discountenance all efforts to continue or renew" the agitation of the subject, there was no fear of sectional strife.
In his inaugural address, March 4, 1853, President Pierce said:
"I believe that involuntary servitude is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. I hold that the compromise measures of 1850 are strictly constitutional, and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. And now, I fervently hope that the question is at rest," etc.
In the month of December, upon the assembling of Congress, the President, in his message to that body, again referred to slavery as "a subject which had been set at rest by the deliberate judgment of the people." But on the 15th of December, nine days after the message of the President had been received by Congress, Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, submitted to the Senate a bill to organize the territory of Nebraska, which was referred to the Committee on Territories. After some discussion in the committee, it was finally reported back to the Senate by Mr. Douglass, of Illinois, with amendments. The report was elaborate, and raised considerable doubt as to whether the amendments did not repeal the Missouri compromise. A special report was made on the 4th of January, 1854, so amending the bill as to remove all doubt; and, contemplating the opening of all the vast territory secured forever to freedom, startled the nation from the "repose" it had apparently taken from agitation on the slavery question, and opened an interminable controversy.
On the 16th of January, Mr. Dixon, of Kentucky, gave notice that he would introduce a bill clearly repealing the Missouri compromise. The first champion of the repeal of the compromise of 1820 was a Northern Senator, Stephen A. Douglass, of Illinois. He hung a massive argument--excelling rather in quantity than in quality--upon the following propositions:
"From these provisions, it is apparent that the compromise measures of 1850 affirm, and rest upon, the following propositions:
"First.--That all questions pertaining to slavery in the territories, and the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them for that purpose.
"Second.--That 'all cases involving title to slaves,' and 'questions of personal freedom,' are to be referred to the adjudication of the local tribunals, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
"Third.--That the provision of the Constitution of the United States in respect to fugitives from service, is to be carried into faithful execution in all 'the original territories,' the same as in the States.
"The substitute for the bill which your committee have prepared, and which is commended to the favorable action of the Senate, proposes to carry these propositions and principles into practical operation, in the precise language of the compromise measures of 1850."
Mr. Douglass said:
"The legal effect of this bill, if passed, was neither to legislate slavery into nor out of these territories, but to leave the people to do as they pleased. And why should any man, North or South, object to this principle? It was by the operation of this principle, and not by any dictation from the Federal government, that slavery had been abolished in half of the twelve States in which it existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution."
On the 3d of February, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, moved to amend by striking out the words, "was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, and," so that the clause would read: "That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said territory of Nebraska as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, which is hereby declared inoperative."
Mr. Chase then proceeded to reply to Mr. Douglass. He called attention to that part of the President's message which referred to the "repose" of the subject of slavery, and then said:
"The agreement of the two old political parties, thus referred to by the Chief Magistrate of the country, was complete, and a large majority of the American people seemed to acquiesce in the legislation of which he spoke. A few of us, indeed, doubted the accuracy of these statements, and the permanency of this repose. We never believed that the acts of 1850 would prove to be a permanent adjustment of the slavery question. But, sir, we only represented a small, though vigorous and growing party in the country. Our number was small in Congress. By some we were regarded as visionaries, by some as factionists; while almost all agreed in pronouncing us mistaken. And so, sir, the country was at peace. As the eye swept the entire circumference of the horizon and upward to mid-heaven, not a cloud appeared; to common observation there was no mist or stain upon the clearness of the sky. But suddenly all is changed; rattling thunder breaks from the cloudless firmament. The storm bursts forth in fury. And now we find ourselves in the midst of an agitation, the end and issue of which no man can foresee.
"Now, sir, who is responsible for this renewal of strife and controversy? Not we, for we have introduced no question of territorial slavery into Congress; not we, who are denounced as agitators and factionists. No, sir; the quietists and the finalists have become agitators; they who told us that all agitation was quieted, and that the resolutions of the political conventions put a final period to the discussion of slavery. This will not escape the observation of the country. It is slavery that renews the strife. It is slavery that again wants room. It is slavery with its insatiate demand for more slave territory and more slave States. And what does slavery ask for now? Why, sir, it demands that a time-honored and sacred compact shall be rescinded--a compact which has endured through a whole generation--a compact which has been universally regarded as inviolable, North and South--a compact, the constitutionality of which few have doubted, and by which all have consented to abide."
But notwithstanding the able and eloquent speech of Mr. Chase, his amendment only received thirteen votes. The debate went on until the 3d of March, when the bill was placed upon its passage, and even then the discussion went on. When the vote was finally taken, the bill passed by a vote of 37 yeas to 14 nays. The bill went to the House, where it was made a substitute to a bill already introduced, and passed by a vote of 113 yeas to 100 nays as follows:
"Representatives from free States in favor of the bill, 44. "Representatives from slave States in favor of the bill, 69. ---- 113.
"Representatives from free States against the bill, 91. "Representatives from slave States against the bill, 9. ---- 100."
And thus, approved by the President, the measure became a law under the title of "An Act to Organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska."
Congress had violated the sublimest principles of law, had broken faith with the people; had opened a wide door to slavery; had blotted from the map of the United States the last asylum where the oppressed might seek protection; had put the country in a way to be reddened with a fratricidal war, and made our flag a flaunting lie in the eyes of the civilized world. There was nothing to be done now but to let the leaven of sectional malice work, that had been hurled into the slavery discussions in Congress. The bloodless war of words was now transferred to the territory of Kansas, where a conflict of political parties, election frauds, and assassination did their hateful work.
The South began to put her State militia upon a war footing, and to make every preparation for battle. The Administration of President Buchanan was in the interest of the South from beginning to end. He refused to give Gov. John W. Geary, of Kansas, the military support the "border ruffians" made necessary; allowed the public debt to increase, our precious coin to go abroad, our treasury to become depleted, our navy to go to the distant ports of China and Japan, our army to our extremest frontiers, the music of our industries to cease; and the faith of a loyal people in the perpetuity of the republic was allowed to faint amid the din of mobs and the threats of secession.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] There were nearly 500 slaves held in Northern States not placed in this census.Return to passage
X. THE "BLACK LAWS" OF "BORDER STATES."
STRINGENT LAWS ENACTED AGAINST FREE NEGROES AND MULATTOES.--FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAW RESPECTED IN OHIO.--A LAW TO PREVENT KIDNAPPING.--THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF OHIO.--HISTORY OF THE DRED SCOTT CASE.--JUDGE TANEY'S OPINION IN THIS CASE.--OHIO CONSTITUTION OF 1851 DENIED FREE NEGROES THE RIGHT TO VOTE.--THE ESTABLISHMENT OF COLORED SCHOOLS.--LAW IN INDIANA TERRITORY IN REFERENCE TO EXECUTIONS.--AN ACT FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF NEGROES AND MULATTOES INTO THE TERRITORY.--FIRST CONSTITUTION OF INDIANA.--THE ILLINOIS CONSTITUTION OF 1818.--CRIMINAL CODE ENACTED.--ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE PASSES AN ACT TO PREVENT THE EMIGRATION OF FREE NEGROES INTO THE STATE.--FREE NEGROES OF THE NORTHERN STATES ENDURE RESTRICTION AND PROSCRIPTION.
Although slavery was excluded from all the new States northwest of the Ohio River, the free Negro was but little better off in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois than in any of the Southern States. From the earliest moment of the organic existence of the border free States, severe laws were enacted against free Negroes and Mulattoes. At the second session of the first Legislature of the State of Ohio, "An Act to Regulate Black and Mulatto Persons"[37] was passed.
Sec. 1. That no black or mulatto person shall be permitted to settle or reside in this State "without a certificate of his or her actual freedom."
2. Resident blacks and mulattoes to have their names recorded, etc. (Amended in 1834, Jan. 5 1, Curwen, 126.) Proviso, "That nothing in this act contained shall bar the lawful claim to any black or mulatto person."
3. Residents prohibited from hiring black or mulatto persons not having a certificate.
4. Forbids, under penalty, to "harbor or secrete any black or mulatto person the property of any person whatever," or to "hinder or prevent the lawful owner or owners from re-taking," etc.
5. Black or mulatto persons coming to reside in the State with a legal certificate, to record the same.
6. "That in case any person or persons, his or their agent or agents, claiming any black or mulatto person or persons that now are or hereafter may be in this State, may apply, upon making satisfactory proof that such black or mulatto person or persons are the property of him or her who applies, to any associate judge or justice of the peace within the State, the associate judge or justice is hereby empowered and required, by his precept, to direct the sheriff or constable to arrest such black or mulatto person or persons, and deliver the same, in the county or township where such officers shall reside, to the claimant or claimants, or his or their agent or agents, for which service the sheriff or constable shall receive such compensation as he is entitled to receive in other cases for similar services."
7. "That any person or persons who shall attempt to remove or shall remove from this State, or who shall aid and assist in removing, contrary to the provisions of this act, any black or mulatto person or persons, without first proving, as herein before directed, that he, she, or they is or are legally entitled so to do, shall, on conviction thereof before any court having cognizance of the same, forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand dollars, one half to the use of the informer and the other half to the use of the State, to be recovered by the action of debt quitam or indictment, and shall moreover be liable to the action of the party injured."
So here upon free soil, under a State government that did not recognize slavery in its constitution, the Negro was compelled to produce a certificate of freedom. Thus the fugitive-slave law was recognized, but at the same time an unlawful removal of free Negroes from the State was forbidden.
At the session of 1806-7, "An Act to Amend the Act Entitled 'an Act Regulating Black and Mulatto Persons,'" was passed amending the old law. The first act simply required "a certificate of freedom"; the amended law required Negroes and Mulattoes intending to settle in Ohio to give a bond not to become a charge upon the county in which they settled. Section four reads as follows:
"4. That no black or mulatto person or persons shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn or give evidence in any court of record or elsewhere in this State, in any cause depending or matter of controversy where either party to the sale is a white person, or in any prosecution which shall be instituted in behalf of this State, against any white person."[38]
But this law did not apply to persons a shade nearer white than Mulatto [the seven-eighths law].[39] Their testimony was admissible, while that of Negroes and Mulattoes was not admitted against them. In Jordan vs. Smith [1846], 14, Ohio, p. 199: "A black person sued by a white, may make affidavit to a plea so as to put the plaintiff to proof."
Attention has been called to the fact that the fugitive-slave law was respected in Ohio. In 1818-19, a law was passed to prevent the unlawful kidnapping of free Negroes, which, in its preamble, recites the provisions of the law of Congress, passed February 12, 1793, respecting fugitives from service and labor.[40] And in 1839 the Legislature passed another act relating to "fugitives from labor," etc., paving the way by the following recital:
"WHEREAS, The second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States declares that 'no person' [etc., reciting it]; and whereas the laws now in force within the State of Ohio are wholly inadequate to the protection pledged by this provision of the Constitution to the Southern States of this Union; and whereas it is the duty of those who reap the largest measure of benefits conferred by the Constitution to recognize to their full extent the obligations which that instrument imposes; and whereas it is the deliberate conviction of this General Assembly that the Constitution can only be sustained as it was framed by a spirit of just compromise; therefore."
Sec. 1. Authorizes judges of courts of record, "or any justice of the peace, or the mayor of any city or town corporate," on application, etc., of claimant, to bring the fugitive before a judge within the county where the warrant was issued, or before some State judge with certain cautions as to proving the official character of the officer issuing the warrant; gives the form of warrant, directing the fugitive to be brought before, etc., "to be be dealt with as the law directs."[41]
J. Peck, Esq. [9, Ohio, p. 212], refers to the laws of 1818-19, and 1830-31, as a recognition by the State of Ohio of the power of Congress to pass the act of 1793, though that the act was not specially mentioned.
The first constitution of Ohio [1802] restricted the right of suffrage to "all white male inhabitants." "In all elections, all white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State one year next preceding the election, and who have paid or are charged with a State or county tax, shall enjoy the right of an elector," etc.[42] This was repeated in the Bill of Rights adopted in 1851.[43]
Article iv., Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States says: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The question as to whether free Negroes were included in the above was discussed at great length in the Dred Scott case, where Chief-Justice Taney took the ground that a Negro was not a citizen under the fourth article of the Constitution. But the fourth article of the Articles of Confederation [1778] recognized free Negroes as citizens. It is given here:
"ART. 4.--The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States--paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted--shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof, respectively; provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, from any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided, also, that no imposition, duty, or restriction shall be laid by any State on the property of the United States, or either of them."[44]
By this it is evident that "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice" were the only persons excluded from the right of citizenship. The following is the history of the Dred Scott case:
"In the year 1834, the plaintiff was a negro slave belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In that year, 1834, said Dr. Emerson took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi River, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France, and situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.
"In the year 1835, Harriet, who is named in the second count of the plaintiff's declaration, was the negro slave of Major Taliaferro, who belonged to the army of the United States. In that year, 1835, said Major Taliaferro took said Harriet to said Fort Snelling, a military post, situated as herein before stated, and kept her there as a slave until the year 1836, and then sold and delivered her as a slave at said Fort Snelling unto the said Dr. Emerson herein before named. Said Dr. Emerson held said Harriet in slavery at said Fort Snelling until the year 1838.
"In the year 1836, the plaintiff and said Harriet at said Fort Snelling, with the consent of said Dr. Emerson, who then claimed to be their master and owner, intermarried, and took each other for husband and wife. Eliza and Lizzie, named in the third count of the plaintiff's declaration, are the fruit of that marriage. Eliza is about fourteen years old, and was born on board the steamboat 'Gipsey,' north of the north line of the State of Missouri, and upon the river Mississippi. Lizzie is about seven years old, and was born in the State of Missouri, at the military post called Jefferson Barracks.
"In the year 1838, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff and said Harriet and their said daughter Eliza from said Fort Snelling to the State of Missouri, where they have ever since resided.
"Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them and each of them as slaves.
"At the time mentioned in the plaintiff's declaration, the defendant, claiming to be owner as aforesaid, laid his hands upon said plaintiff, Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, and imprisoned them, doing in this respect, however, no more than what he might lawfully do if they were of right his slaves at such times.
* * * * *
"It is agreed that Dred Scott brought suit for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County; that there was a verdict and judgment in his favor; that on a writ of error to the Supreme Court the judgment below was reversed, and the same remanded to the Circuit Court, where it has been continued to await the decision of this case.
"In May, 1854, the cause went before a jury, who found the following verdict, viz.: 'As to the first issue joined in this case, we of the jury find the defendant not guilty; and as to the issue secondly above joined, we of the jury find that before and at the time when, etc., in the first count mentioned, the said Dred Scott was a negro slave, the lawful property of the defendant; and as to the issue thirdly above joined, we, the jury, find that before and at the time when, etc., in the second and third counts mentioned, the said Harriet, wife of said Dred Scott, and Eliza and Lizzie, the daughters of the said Dred Scott, were negro slaves, the lawful property of the defendant.'
"Whereupon, the court gave judgment for the defendant.
"After an ineffectual motion for a new trial, the plaintiff filed the following bill of exceptions.
"On the trial of this cause by the jury, the plaintiff, to maintain the issues on his part, read to the jury the following agreed statement of facts (see agreement above). No further testimony was given to the jury by either party. Thereupon the plaintiff moved the court to give to the jury the following instructions, viz.:
"'That, upon the facts agreed to by the parties, they ought to find for the plaintiff.' The court refused to give such instruction to the jury, and the plaintiff, to such refusal, then and there duly excepted.
The court then gave the following instruction to the jury, on motion of the defendant:
"'The jury are instructed, that upon the facts in this case, the law is with the defendant.' The plaintiff excepted to this instruction.
"Upon these exceptions, the case came up to the Supreme Court, December term, 1856."[45]
Judge Taney gave the following opinion:
"The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.
"It will be observed that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves.
* * * * *
"We proceed to examine the case as presented by the pleadings.
"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the 'sovereign people, and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty. We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizen' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate [405] and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.
"It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws....
"In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen of any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can, by naturalizing an alien, invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the [406] rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.
"It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And, for the same reason, it cannot introduce any person or description of persons who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.
"The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and indue him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent. Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State and in its own courts?
"The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts."[46]
This decision of the Supreme Court on the plea in abatement that the plaintiff (a Negro, Dred Scott) was not a citizen in the sense of the word in Article iii, Sec. 2 of the Constitution, was based upon an erroneous idea respecting the location of the word citizen in the instrument. The premise of the court was wrong, and hence the feebleness of the reasoning and the false conclusions. Article iii, Section 2 of the Constitution, extends judicial power to all cases, in law and equity, "between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State," etc. But Article iv, Section 2, declares that "citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The plea in abatement was brought under Article iii, but all the judges, except Justice McLean, built their decision upon the word citizen as it stood in Article iv.
By the constitution of Ohio, adopted in 1851, free Negroes were not only denied the right to vote, but were excluded from the militia service. This law was not repealed until 1878.
Neither the constitution of 1802, nor that of 1851, discriminated against free Negroes in matters of education; but separate schools have been maintained in Ohio from the beginning down to the present time, by special acts of the Legislature.
In the territory of Indiana there were quite a number of Negroes from the beginning of the century. Some were slaves. In 1806, the first Legislature, at its second session, passed a law in reference to executions, as follows:
"Sec. 7. And whereas doubts have arisen whether the time of service of negroes and mulattoes, bound to service in this territory, may be sold on execution against the master, Be it therefore enacted that the time of service of such negroes or mulattoes may be sold on execution against the master, in the same manner as personal estate, immediately from which sale the said negroes or mulattoes shall serve the purchaser or purchasers for the residue of their time of service; and the said purchasers and negroes and mulattoes shall have the same remedies against each other as by the laws of the territory are mutually given them in the several cases therein mentioned, and the purchasers shall be obliged to fulfil to the said servants the contracts they made with the masters, as expressed in the indenture or agreement of servitude, and shall, for want of such contract, be obliged to give him or them their freedom due at the end of the time of service, as expressed in the second section of the law of the territory, entitled 'Law concerning servants,' adopted the twenty-second day of September, eighteen hundred and three. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the first day of February next."[47]
This was bold legislation; but it was not all. Negroes were required to carry passes, as in the slave States. And on the 17th of September, 1807, "An Act for the Introduction of Negroes and Mulattoes into" the territory was passed.
"Sec. 1. That it shall and may be lawful for any person being the owner or possessor of any negroes or mulattoes of and above the age of fifteen years, and owning service and labor as slaves in any of the States or territories of the United States, or for any citizens of the said States or territories purchasing the same to bring the said negroes and mulattoes into this territory.
"Sec. 2. The owners or possessors of any negroes or mulattoes as aforesaid, and bringing the same into this territory, shall, within thirty days after such removal, go with the same before the clerk of Court of Common Pleas of proper county, and in presence of said clerk the said owner or possessor shall determine and agree to, and with his or her negro or mulatto, upon the term of years which the said negro or mulatto will and shall serve his or her said owner or possessor, and the clerk shall make a record.
"Sec. 3. If any negro or mulatto removed into this territory as aforesaid shall refuse to serve his or her owner as aforesaid, it shall and may be lawful for such person, within sixty days thereafter, to remove the said negro or mulatto to any place [to] which by the laws of the United States or territory from whence such owner or possessor may [have come] or shall be authorized to remove the same. (As quoted in Phoebe v. Jay, Breese, Ill. R., 208.)
"Sec. 4. An owner failing to act as required in the preceding sections should forfeit all claim and right to the service of such negro or mulatto.
"Sec. 5. Declares that any person removing into this territory and being the owner or possessor of any negro or mulatto as aforesaid, under the age of fifteen years, or if any person shall hereafter acquire a property in any negro or mulatto under the age aforesaid, and who shall bring them into this territory, it shall and may be lawful for such person, owner, or possessor to hold the said negro to service or labor--the males until they arrive at the age of thirty-five, and females until they arrive at the age of thirty-two years.
"Sec. 6. Provides that any person removing any negro or mulatto into this territory under the authority of the preceding sections, it shall be incumbent on such person, within thirty days thereafter, to register the name and age of such negro or mulatto with the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for the proper county.
"Sec. 7. Requires new registry on removal to another county."
"Secs. 8, 9. Penalties by fine for breach of this act.
"Sec. 10. Clerk to take security that negro be not chargeable when his term expires.
"Sec. 12. Fees.
"Sec. 13. That the children born in said territory of a parent of color owning service or labor, by indenture according to law, should serve the master or mistress of such parent--the males until the age of thirty, and the females until the age of twenty-eight years. (As quoted in Boon v. Juliet, 1836, 1, Scammon, 258.)
"Sec. 14. That an act respecting apprentices misused by their master or mistress should apply to such children. (See the statute cited in Rankin v. Lydia, 2, A. K. Marshall's Ky., 467; and in Jarrot v. Jarrot, 2, Gilman, 19.) This act was repealed in 1810."[48]
Under the first constitution of Indiana, adopted in 1816, Negroes were not debarred from the elective franchise. In Article i, Section 1, of the Bill of Rights, this remarkable language occurs: "That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights," etc. But the very next year the primal rights of the Negro as a citizen were struck down by the following: "No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall be a witness, except in pleas of the State against negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, or in civil cases where negroes, mulattoes, or Indians alone shall be parties."[49]
In 1819 [March 22d], an execution law was passed by which the time of service of Negroes could be sold on execution against the master, in the same manner as personal estate. From the time of the sale, such Negroes or Mulattoes were compelled to serve the buyer until the expiration of the term of service.[50]
In 1831, an act regulating free Negroes and Mulattoes, servants and slaves, declared:
"Sec. 1. Negroes and mulattoes emigrating into the State shall give bond, etc.
"Sec. 2. In failure of this, such negro, etc., may be hired out and the proceeds applied to his benefit, or removed from the State under the poor law.
"Sec. 3. Penalty for committing such without authority.
"Sec. 4. Penalty for harboring such who have not given bond.
"Sec. 5. That the right of any persons to pass through this State, with his, her, or their negroes or mulattoes, servant or servants, when emigrating or travelling to any other State or territory or country, making no unnecessary delay, is hereby declared and secured."[51]
In 1851 the new constitution limited the right of franchise to "white male citizens of the United States." "No negro or mulatto shall have the right of suffrage."
"Art. xii., Sec. 1. The militia shall consist of all able-bodied white male persons, between, etc.
"Art. xiii., Sec. 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into, or settle in the State after the adoption of this Constitution.
"Sec. 2. All contracts made with any negro or mulatto coming into the State contrary to the foregoing section shall be void; and any person who shall employ such negro or mulatto or encourage him to remain in the State shall be fined not less than ten, nor more than five hundred dollars.
"Sec. 3. All fines which may be collected for a violation of the provisions of this article, or of any law hereafter passed for the purpose of carrying the same into execution, shall be set apart and appropriated for the colonization of such negroes and mulattoes and their descendants as may be in the State at the adoption of this Constitution and may be willing to emigrate.
"Sec. 4. The General Assembly shall pass laws to carry out the provisions of this article."
Other severe laws were enacted calculated to modify and limit the rights of free persons of color.
The first constitution of the State of Illinois, adopted in 1818, limited the [Art. ii, Sec. 27] elective franchise to "free white" persons. Article v, Sec. 1, exempted "negroes, mulattoes, and Indians" from service in the militia. In March, 1819, "An Act Respecting Free Negroes, Mulattoes, Servants, and Slaves" passed. Sec. 1 required Negro and Mulatto persons coming into the State to produce a certificate of freedom. Sec. 2 required them to register their family as well as themselves. Sec. 3 required persons bringing slaves into the State, for the purpose of emancipating them, to give bonds. Passes were required of Colored people, and many other hard exactions. The bill above referred to contained twenty-five sections.[52]
On the 6th of January, 1827, a criminal code was enacted for offences committed by Negroes and servants, which contained many cruel features. On the 2d of February a law was passed declaring that all Negroes, Mulattoes, and Indians were incompetent to be witnesses in any court against a white person; and that a person having one fourth part Negro blood shall be adjudged a Mulatto. This law was re-enacted in 1845.[53] In 1853, February 12th, the Legislature of Illinois passed "An Act to Prevent the Immigration of Free Negroes into this State."
"Secs. 1, 2. Fine and imprisonment for bringing slave, for any purpose, into the State. Proviso: 'That this shall not be construed so as to affect persons or slaves, bona fide, travelling through this State from and to any other State in the United States.'
"Sec. 3. Misdemeanor for negro or mulatto, bond or free, to come with intention of residing.
"Sec. 4. Such may be prosecuted and fined or sold, for time, for fine and costs.
"Secs. 5, 6, 7. If such do not afterwards remove, increased fine and like proceedings, etc., etc. Appeal allowed to the circuit.
"Sec. 8. If claimed as fugitive slave, after being thus arrested, a justice of the peace, 'after hearing the evidence, and being satisfied that the person or persons claiming said negro or mulatto is or are the owner or owners of and entitled to the custody of said negro or mulatto, in accordance with the laws of the United States passed upon this subject,' shall give the owner a certificate, after his paying the costs and the negro's unpaid fine, 'and the said owner or agent so claiming shall have a right to take and remove said slave out of the State.'
"Sec. 9. Punishment of justice for nonfeasance, and of witness falsely accusing negro."[54]
While slavery had no legal, constitutional existence in the three border States, there were, in fact, quite a number of slaves within their jurisdiction during the first generation of their existence. And the free people of Color were, first, denied the right of citizenship; second, excluded from the militia service; third, ruled out of the courts whenever their testimony was offered against a white person; fourth, could not come into the free border States without producing a certificate of freedom; and, fifth, were annoyed by many little, mean laws in the exercise of the few rights they were suffered to enjoy. A full description of the infamous "Black Code" of these States would occupy too much space, and, therefore, the dark subject must be dismissed. Posterity shall know, however, how patiently the free Negroes of the Northern States endured the restrictions and proscriptions which law and public sentiment threw across their social and political pathway!
FOOTNOTES:
[37] 1, Chase, p. 393, sects. 1-7.Return to passage
[38] 1, Chase, p. 555.Return to passage
[39] Jeffries vs. Ankeny, 11, Ohio, p. 375.Return to passage
[40] 2, Chase L., p. 1052.Return to passage
[41] Curwen, p. 533.Return to passage
[42] Revised Statutes of Ohio, vol. i. p. 60.Return to passage
[43] Ibid., p. 111.Return to passage
[44] Elliot's Debates, vol. i. p. 79.Return to passage
[45] Sanford's Dred Scott Case, pp. 397-399.Return to passage
[46] Howard's Reports, vol. xix. pp. 403-405, sq.Return to passage
[47] Hurd, vol ii. p. 123.Return to passage
[48] Terr. laws 1807-8, p. 423.Return to passage
[49] Laws of 1817, ch. 3, sec. 52.Return to passage
[50] See Hurd, vol. ii. p. 129.Return to passage
[51] Revised Laws of Indiana, 1838.Return to passage
[52] Session Laws, 1819, p. 354. R. S., 1833, p. 466.Return to passage
[53] R. S., 1845, p. 154.Return to passage
[54] Rev. St. of 1856, p. 780.Return to passage
XI. THE NORTHERN NEGROES
NOMINAL RIGHTS OF NEGROES IN THE SLAVE STATES.--FUGITIVE SLAVES SEEK REFUGE IN CANADA.--NEGROES PETITION AGAINST TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.--A LAW PREVENTING NEGROES FROM OTHER STATES FROM SETTLING IN MASSACHUSETTS.--NOTICE TO BLACKS, INDIANS, AND MULATTOES, WARNING THEM TO LEAVE THE COMMONWEALTH.--THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE NEGRO RESTRICTED.--COLORED MEN TURN THEIR ATTENTION TO THE EDUCATION OF THEIR OWN RACE.--JOHN V. DEGRASSE, THE FIRST COLORED MAN ADMITTED TO THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY.--PROMINENT COLORED MEN OF NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA.--THE ORGANIZATION OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL AND COLORED BAPTIST CHURCHES.--COLORED MEN DISTINGUISH THEMSELVES IN THE PULPIT.--REPORT TO THE OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF COLORED PEOPLE IN CINCINNATI IN 1835.--MANY PURCHASE THEIR FREEDOM.--HENRY BOYD, THE MECHANIC AND BUILDER.--HE BECOMES A SUCCESSFUL MANUFACTURER IN CINCINNATI.--SAMUEL T. WILCOX, THE GROCER.--HIS SUCCESS IN BUSINESS IN CINCINNATI.--BALL AND THOMAS, THE PHOTOGRAPHERS.--COLORED PEOPLE OF CINCINNATI EVINCE A DESIRE TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.--LYDIA P. MOTT ESTABLISHES A HOME FOR COLORED ORPHANS.--THE ORGANIZATION EFFECTED IN 1844.--ITS SUCCESS.--FORMATION OF A COLORED MILITARY COMPANY CALLED "THE ATTUCKS GUARDS."--EMIGRATION OF NEGROES TO LIBERIA.--THE COLORED PEOPLE LIVE DOWN MUCH PREJUDICE.
In 1850 there were 238,187 free Negroes in the slave States. Their freedom was merely nominal. They were despised beneath the slaves, and were watched with suspicious eyes, and disliked by their brethren in bondage.
In 1850 there were 196,016 free Negroes in the Northern States. Their increase came from [chiefly] two sources, viz.: births and emancipated persons from the South. Fugitive slaves generally went to Canada, for in addition to being in danger of arrest under the fugitive-slave law, none of the State governments in the North sympathized with escaped Negroes. The Negroes in the free States were denied the rights of citizenship, and were left to the most destroying ignorance. In 1780, some free Negroes, of the town of Dartmouth, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for relief from taxation, because they were denied the privileges and duties of citizenship. The petition set forth the hardships free Negroes were obliged to endure, even in Massachusetts, and was in itself a proof of the fitness of the petitioners for the duties of citizenship.
"_To the Honorable Council and House of Representatives, in General Court Assembled, for the State of Massachusetts Bay, in New England_:
"The petition of several poor negroes and mulattoes, who are inhabitants of the town of Dartmouth, humbly showeth:
"That we being chiefly of the African extract, and by reason of long bondage and hard slavery, we have been deprived of enjoying the profits of our labor or the advantage of inheriting estates from our parents, as our neighbors the white people do, having some of us not long enjoyed our own freedom; yet of late, contrary to the invariable custom and practice of the country, we have been, and now are, taxed both in our polls and that small pittance of estate which, through much hard labor and industry, we have got together to sustain ourselves and families withall. We apprehend it, therefore, to be hard usage, and will doubtless (if continued) reduce us to a state of beggary, whereby we shall become a burthen to others, if not timely prevented by the interposition of your justice and power.
"Your petitioners further show, that we apprehend ourselves to be aggrieved, in that, while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen of the State, having no vote or influence in the election of those that tax us, yet many of our color (as is well known) have cheerfully entered the field of battle in the defence of the common cause, and that (as we conceive) against a similar exertion of power (in regard to taxation) too well known to need a recital in this place.
"We most humble request, therefore, that you would take our unhappy case into your serious consideration, and, in your wisdom and power, grant us relief from taxation, while under our present depressed circumstances; and your poor petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, etc.
"JOHN CUFFE, "ADVENTUR CHILD, "PAUL CUFFE, "SAMUEL GRAY, [his x mark.] "PERO ROWLAND, [his x mark.] "PERO RUSSELL, [his x mark.] "PERO COGGESHALL.
"Dated at Dartmouth, the 10th of February, 1780.
"Memorandum in the handwriting of John Cuffe:
"This is the copy of the petition which we did deliver unto the Honorable Council and House, for relief from taxation in the days of our distress. But we received none. JOHN CUFFE."[55]
Not discouraged at the failure that attended the above petition, the indefatigable Paul Cuffe, addressed the following to the selectmen of his town the next year.
"A REQUEST.
"To the Selectmen of the Town of Dartmouth, Greeting:
We, the subscribers, your humble petitioners, desire that you would, in your capacity, put a stroke in your next warrant for calling a town meeting, so that it may legally be laid before said town, by way of vote, to know the mind of said town, whether all free negroes and mulattoes shall have the same privileges in this said Town of Dartmouth as the white people have, respecting places of profit, choosing of officers, and the like, together with all other privileges in all cases that shall or may happen or be brought in this our said Town of Dartmouth. We, your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray,
[Signed] "JOHN CUFFE, "PAUL CUFFE,
"Dated at Dartmouth, the 22d of the 4th mo., 1781,"
As early as 1788 Massachusetts passed a law requiring all Negroes who were not citizens, to leave the Commonwealth within two months from the date of the publication of the law. It has been said, upon good authority, that this law was drawn by several of the ablest lawyers in the Bay State, and was intended to keep out all Negroes from the South who, being emancipated, might desire to settle there. It became a law on the 26th of March, 1788, and instead of becoming a dead letter, was published and enforced in post-haste. The following section is the portion of the act pertinent to this inquiry.
"V. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid [the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled], that no person being an African or Negro, other than a subject of the Emperor of Morocco, or a citizen of some one of the United States (to be evidenced by a certificate from the Secretary of the State of which he shall be a citizen), shall tarry within this Commonwealth, for a longer time than two months, and upon complaint made to any Justice of the Peace within this Commonwealth, that any such person has been within the same more than two months, the said Justice shall order the said person to depart out of this Commonwealth, and in case that the said African or Negro shall not depart as aforesaid, any Justice of the Peace within this Commonwealth, upon complaint and proof made that such person has continued within this Commonwealth ten days after notice given him or her to depart as aforesaid, shall commit the said person to any house of correction within the county, there to be kept to hard labor, agreeable to the rules and orders of the said house, until the Sessions of the Peace, next to be holden within and for the said county; and the master of the said house of correction is hereby required and directed to transmit an attested copy of the warrant of commitment to the said Court on the first day of their said session, and if upon trial at the said Court, it shall be made to appear that the said person has thus continued within the Commonwealth, contrary to the tenor of this act, he or she shall be whipped not exceeding ten stripes, and ordered to depart out of this Commonwealth within ten days; and if he or she shall not so depart, the same process shall be had and punishment inflicted, and so toties quoties."[56]
The following notice, with the subjoined names, shows that the cruel law was enforced.
NOTICE TO BLACKS.
The Officers of Police having made return to the Subscriber of the names of the following persons, who are Africans or Negroes, not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of the United States, the same are hereby warned and directed to depart out of this Commonwealth before the 10th day of October next, as they would avoid the pains and penalties of the law in that case provided, which was passed by the Legislature, March 26, 1788.
CHARLES BULFINCH, Superintendent.
By Order and Direction of the Selectmen.
Portsmouth--Prince Patterson, Eliza Cotton, Flora Nash.
Rhode Island--Thomas Nichols and Philis Nichols, Hannah Champlin, Plato Alderson, Raney Scott, Jack Jeffers, Thomas Gardner, Julius Holden, Violet Freeman, Cuffy Buffum, Sylvia Gardner, Hagar Blackburn, Dolly Peach, Polly Gardner, Sally Alexander, Philis Taylor.
Providence--Dinah Miller, Salvia Hendrick, Rhode Allen, Nancy Hall, Richard Freeman, Elizabeth Freeman, Nancy Gardner, Margaret Harrison.
Connecticut--Bristol Morandy, John Cooper, Scipio Kent, Margaret Russell, Phoebe Seamore, Phoebe Johnson, Jack Billings.
New London--John Denny, Thomas Burdine, Hannah Burdine.
New York--Sally Evens, Sally Freeman, Caesar West and Hannah West, Thomas Peterson, Thomas Santon, Henry Sanderson, Henry Wilson, Robert Willet, Edward Cole, Mary Atkins, Polly Brown, Amey Spalding, John Johnson, Rebecca Johnson, George Homes, Prince Kilsbury, Abraham Fitch, Joseph Hicks, Abraham Francis, Elizabeth Francis, Sally Williams, William Williams, Rachel Pewinck, David Dove, Esther Dove, Peter Bayle, Thomas Bostick, Katy Bostick, Prince Hayes, Margaret Bean, Nancy Hamik, Samuel Benjamin, Peggy Ocamum, Primus Hutchinson.
Philadelphia--Mary Smith, Richard Allen, Simon Jeffers, Samuel Posey, Peter Francies, Prince Wales, Elizabeth Branch, Peter Gust, William Brown, Butterfield Scotland, Clarissa Scotland, Cuffy Cummings, John Gardner, Sally Gardner, Fortune Gorden, Samuel Stevens.
Baltimore--Peter Larkin and Jenny Larkin, Stepney Johnson, Anne Melville.
Virginia--James Scott, John Evens, Jane Jackson, Cuffey Cook, Oliver Nash, Robert Woodson, Thomas Thompson.
North Carolina--James Jurden, Polly Johnson, Janus Crage.
South Carolina--Anthony George, Peter Cane.
Halifax--Catherine Gould, Charlotte Gould, Cato Small, Philis Cole, Richard M'Coy.
West Indies--James Morfut and Hannah his wife, Mary Davis, George Powell, Peter Lewis, Charles Sharp, Peter Hendrick, William Shoppo and Mary Shoppo, Isaac Johnson, John Pearce, Charles Esings, Peter Branch, Newell Symonds, Rosanna Symonds, Peter George, Lewis Victor, Lewis Sylvester, John Laco, Thomas Foster, Peter Jesemy, Rebecca Jesemy, David Bartlet, Thomas Grant, Joseph Lewis, Hamet Lewis, John Harrison, Mary Brown, Boston Alexander.
Cape Francois--Casme Francisco and Nancy his wife, Mary Fraceway.
Aux Cayes--Susannah Ross.
Port-au-Prince--John Short.
Jamaica--Charlotte Morris, John Robinson.
Bermuda--Thomas Williams.
New Providence--Henry Taylor.
Liverpool--John Mumford.
Africa--Francis Thompson, John Brown, Mary Joseph, James Melvile, Samuel Bean, Hamlet Earl, Cato Gardner, Charles Mitchel, Sophia Mitchel, Samuel Frazier, Samuel Blackburn, Timothy Philips, Joseph Ocamum.
France--Joseph ----
Isle of France--Joseph Lovering.
LIST OF INDIANS AND MULATTOES.
The following persons from several of the United States, being people of colour, commonly called Mulattoes, are presumed to come within the intention of the same law, and are accordingly warned and directed to depart out of the Commonwealth before the 10th day of October next.
Rhode Island--Peter Badger, Kelurah Allen, Waley Green, Silvia Babcock.
Providence--Polly Adams, Paul Jones.
Connecticut--John Brown, Polly Holland, John Way and Nancy Way, Peter Virginia, Leville Steward, Lucinda Orange, Anna Sprague, Britton Doras, Amos Willis, Frank Francies.
New London--Hannah Potter.
New York--Jacob and Nelly Cummings, James and Rebecca Smith, Judith Chew, John Schumagger, Thomas Willouby, Peggy Willouby, John Reading, Mary Reading, Charles Brown, John Miles, Hannah Williams, Betsy Harris, Douglass Brown, Susannah Foster, Thomas Burros, Mary Thomson, James and Freelove Buck, Lucy Glapcion, Lucy Lewis, Eliza Williams, Diana Bayle, Caesar and Sylvia Caton, ---- Thompson, William Guin.
Albany--Elone Virginia, Abijah Reed and Lydia Reed, Abijah Reed, Jr., Rebecca Reed and Betsy Reed.
New Jersey--Stephen Boadley, Hannah Victor.
Philadelphia--Polly Boadley, James Long, Hannah Murray, Jeremiah Green, Nancy Principeso, David Johnson, George Jackson William Coak, Moses Long.
Maryland--Nancy Gust.
Baltimore--John Clark, Sally Johnson.
Virginia--Sally Hacker, Richard and John Johnson, Thomas Stewart, Anthony Paine, Mary Burk, William Hacker, Polly Losours, Betsy Guin, Lucy Brown.
Africa--Nancy Doras.[57]
The constitutions of nearly all the States, statutes, or public sentiment drove the Negro from the ballot-box, excused him from the militia, and excluded him from the courts. Although born on the soil, a soldier in two wars, an industrious, law-abiding person, the Negro, nevertheless, was not regarded as a member of political society. He was taxed, but enjoyed no representation; was governed by laws, and yet, had no voice in making the laws.
The doors of nearly all the schools of the entire North were shut in his face; and the few separate schools accorded him were given grudgingly. They were usually held in the lecture-room of some Colored church edifice, or thrust off to one side in a portion of the city or town toward which aristocratic ambition would never turn. These schools were generally poorly equipped; and the teachers were either Colored persons whose opportunities of securing an education had been poor, or white persons whose mental qualifications would not encourage them to make an honest living among their own race; there were noble exceptions.
A deeply rooted prejudice shut the Negro out from the trades. He could not acquire the art of setting type, civil engineering, building machinery, house carpentering, or any of the trades. The schools of medicine, law, and theology were not open to him; and even if he secured admission into some gentleman's office, or instruction from some divine, the future gave him no promise. The white wings of hope were broken in an ineffectual attempt to move against the bitter winds of persecution, under the dark sky of hate and proscription. Corporations, churches, theatres, and political parties made the Negro a subject of official action. If a Negro travelled by stage coach, it was among the baggage in the "boot," or on top with the driver. If he were favored with a ride on a street car, it was in a separate car marked, "This car for Colored people." If he journeyed any distance by rail, he was assigned to the "Jim Crow" car, or "smoker," where himself and family were subjected to inconvenience, insult, and the society of the lowest class of white rowdies. If he were hungry and weary at the end of the journey, there was "no room for him in the inn," and, like his Master, was assigned a place among the cattle. If he were so fortunate as to get into a hotel as a servant, bearing the baggage of his master, he slept in the garret, and took his meals in the kitchen. It mattered not who the Colored man was--whether it was Langston, the lawyer, McCune Smith, the physician, or Douglass, the orator--he found no hotel that would give him accommodations. And forsooth, if some host had the temerity to admit a Negro to his dining-room, a dozen white guests would leave the hotel rather than submit to the "outrage!"
The places of amusements in all the large cities in the North excluded the Negro; and when he did gain admission, he was shown to the gallery, where he could enjoy peanut-hulls, boot-blacks, and "black-legs." Occasionally the side door of a college was put ajar for some invincible Negro. But this was a performance of very rare occurrence; and the instances are easily remembered.
When courts and parties, corporations and companies had refused to accord the Negro the rights that were his due as a man, he carried his case to the highest earthly court, the Christian Church. He felt sure of sympathy and succor from this source. The Church had stood through the centuries as a refuge for the unfortunate and afflicted. But, alas! the Church shrank from the Negro as if he had been a reptile. If he gained admission it was to the "Negro pew" in the "organ loft." If he secured the precious "emblems of the broken body and shed blood" of his Divine Master, it was after the "white folks" were through. If the cause of the Negro were mentioned in the prayer or sermon, it was in the indistinct whisper of the moral coward who occupied the sacred desk. And when the fight was on at fever heat, when it was popular to plead the cause of the slave and demand the rights of the free Negro, the Church was the last organization in the country to take a position on the question; and even then, her "moderation was known to all men."
If the Negro had suffered from neglect only, had been left to solve the riddle of his anomalous existence without further embarrassment, it would have been well. But no, it was not so. Studied insolence jostled Colored men and women from the streets of the larger cities; mobocratic violence broke up assemblages and churches of Colored people; and malice sought them in the quiet of their homes--outraged and slew them in cold blood. Thus with the past as a haunting, bitter recollection, the present filled with fear and disaster, and the future a shapeless horror, think ye life was sweet to the Negro? Bitter? Bitter as death? Ay, bitter as hell!
Driven down from the lofty summit of laudable ambitions into the sultry plains of domestic drudgery and menial toil, nearly every ray of hope had perished upon the strained vision of the Negro. The only thing young Colored men could aspire to was the position of a waiter, the avocation of a barber, the place of a house-servant or groom, and teach or preach to their own people with little or no qualifications. Denied the opportunities and facilities of securing an education, they were upbraided by the press and pulpit, in private gatherings and public meetings, for their ignorance, which was enforced by a narrow and contracted public prejudice.
But "none of these things moved" the Negro. Undismayed he bowed to his herculean task with a complacency and courage worthy of any race or age of the world's history. The small encouragement that came to him from the conscientious minority of white men and women was as refreshing as the cool ocean breeze at even-tide to the feverish brow of a travel-soiled pilgrim. The Negro found it necessary to exert himself, to lift himself out of his social, mental, and political dilemma by the straps of his boots. Colored men turned their attention to the education of themselves and their children. Schools were begun, churches organized, and work of general improvement and self-culture entered into with alacrity and enthusiasm. Boston had among its teachers the scholarly Thomas Paul; among its clergymen Leonard A. Grimes and John T. Raymond; among its lawyers Robert Morris and E. G. Walker; among its business men J. B. Smith and Coffin Pitts; among its physicians John R. Rock and John V. DeGrasse; among its authors Brown and Nell; and among its orators Remond and Hilton. Robert Morris was admitted to the bar in Boston, on Thursday, June 27, 1850, at a meeting of the members of the Suffolk County Bar. The record is as follows:
"Resolved, That ROBERT MORRIS, Esq., be recommended for admittance to practice as a Counsellor and Attorney of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States.
"(Signed) ELLIS GRAY LORING, Chairman. "CHAS. THEO. RUSSELL, Secretary."
John V. DeGrasse, M.D., an eminent physician of Boston was perhaps the most accomplished Colored gentleman in New England between 1850-1860. The following notice appeared in a Boston journal in August, 1854:
"On the 24th of August, 1854, Mr. DeGrasse was admitted in due form a member of the 'Massachusetts Medical Society.' It is the first instance of such honor being conferred upon a colored man in this State, at least, and probably in the country; and therefore it deserves particular notice, both because the means by which he has reached this distinction are creditable to his own intelligence and perseverance, and because others of his class may be stimulated to seek an elevation which has hitherto been supposed unattainable by men of color. The Doctor is a native of New York City, where he was born in June, 1825, and where he spent his time in private and public schools till 1840. He then entered the Oneida Institute, Beriah Green, President, and spent one year; but as Latin was not taught there, he left and entered the Clinton Seminary, where he remained two years, intending to enter college in the fall of 1843. He was turned from this purpose, however, by the persuasions of a friend in France, and after spending two years in a college in that country, he returned to New York in November, 1845, and commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Samuel R. Childs, of that city. There he spent two years in patient and diligent study, and then two more in attending the medical lectures of Bowdoin College, Me. Leaving that institution with honor in May, 1849, he went again to Europe in the autumn of that year, and spent considerable time in the hospitals of Paris, travelling, at intervals, through parts of France, England, Italy, and Switzerland. Returning home in the ship 'Samuel Fox,' in the capacity of surgeon, he was married in August, 1852, and since that time he has practised medicine in Boston. Earning a good reputation here by his diligence and skill, he was admitted a member of the Medical Society, as above stated. Many of our most respectable physicians visit and advise with him whenever counsel is required. The Boston medical profession, it must be acknowledged, has done itself honor in thus discarding the law of caste, and generously acknowledging real merit, without regard to the hue of the skin."
The Colored population of New York was equal to the great emergency that required them to put forth their personal exertions. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, Dr. Charles B. Ray, and the Rev. Peter Williams in the pulpit; Charles L. Reason and William Peterson as teachers; James McCune Smith and Philip A. White as physicians and chemists; James Williams and Jacob Day among business men, did much to elevate the Negro in self-respect and self-support.
Philadelphia early ranked among her foremost leaders of the Colored people, William Whipper, Stephen Smith, Robert Purvis, William Still, Frederick A. Hinton, and Joseph Cassey. From an inquiry instituted in 1837, it was ascertained that out of the 18,768 Colored people in Philadelphia, 250 had paid for their freedom the aggregate sum of $79,612, and that the real and personal property owned by them was near $1,500,000. There were returns of several chartered benevolent societies for the purpose of affording mutual aid in sickness and distress, and there were sixteen houses of public worship, with over 4,000 communicants. And in Western Pennsylvania there were John Peck, John B. Vashon, Geo. Gardner, and Lewis Woodson. Every State in the North seemed to produce Colored men of marked ability to whom God committed a great work. Their examples of patient fortitude, industry, and frugality, and their determined efforts to obtain knowledge and build up character, stimulated the youth of the Negro race to greater exertions in the upward direction.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized as early as 1816. Its churches grew and its ministry increased in numbers, intelligence, and piety, until it became the most powerful organization of Colored men on the continent. The influence of this organization upon the Colored race in America was excellent. It brought the people together, not only in religious sympathy, but by the ties of a common interest in all affairs of their race and condition. The men in the organization who possessed the power of speech, who had talents to develop, and an ambition to serve their race, found this church a wide field of usefulness.
The Colored Baptists were organized before the Methodists, [in Virginia,] but their organization has always lacked strength. The form of government, being purely Democratic, was adapted to a people of larger intelligence and possessed of greater capacity for self-government. But, notwithstanding this fact, the "independent" order of Colored Baptists gave the members and clergymen of the denomination exalted ideas of government, and abiding confidence in the capacity of the Negro for self-government. No organization of Colored people in America has produced such able men as the Colored Baptist Church.
In Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, Colored men distinguished themselves in the pulpit, in the forum, in business, and letters. William Howard Day, of Cleveland, during this period [1850-1860] Librarian of the Cleveland Library and editor of a newspaper; John Mercer Langston, of Oberlin; John Liverpool and John I. Gaines, of Cincinnati, Ohio, were good men and true. What they did for their race was done worthily and well. At the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Putnam on the 22d, 23d, and 24th of April, 1835, the committee on the condition of the "people of Color," made the following report from Cincinnati:
The number of Colored people in Cincinnati is about 2,500. As illustrating their general condition, we will give the statistics of one or two small districts. The families in each were visited from house to house, taking them all as far as we went:
Number of families in one of these districts 26 " of individuals 125 " of heads of families 49 " of heads of families who are professors of religion 19 " of children at school 20 " of heads of families who have been slaves 39 " of individuals who have been slaves 95 Time since they obtained their freedom, from 1 to 15 years; average, 7 years. Number of individuals who have purchased themselves 23 Whole amount paid for themselves $9,112 Number of fathers and mothers still in slavery 9 " of children 18 " of brothers and sisters 98 " of newspapers taken 0 " of heads of families who can read 2
EMPLOYMENT OF HEADS OF FAMILIES.
Common laborers and porters 7 Dealers in second-hand clothing 1 Hucksters 1 Carpenters 2 Shoe-blacks 6 Cooks and waiters 11 Washer-women 18
Five of these women purchased themselves from slavery. One paid four hundred dollars for herself, and has since bought a house and lot worth six hundred dollars. All this she has done by washing.
Another individual had bargained for his wife and two children. Their master agreed to take four hundred and twenty dollars for them. He succeeded at length in raising the money, which he carried to their owner. "I shall charge you thirty dollars more than when you was here before," said the planter, "for your wife is in a family-way, and you may pay thirty dollars for that or not take her, just as you please." "And so," said he (patting the head of a little son, three years old, who hung upon his knee), "I had to pay thirty dollars for this little fellow six months before he was born."
Number of families in another district 63 " of individuals 258 " of heads of families 106 " of families who are professors of religion 16 " of heads of families at school 53 " of newspapers taken 7 Amount of property in real estate $9,850 Number of individuals who have been slaves 108 " of heads of families who have been slaves 69 Age at which they obtained their freedom, from 3 months to 60 years; average, 33 years. Time since they obtained their freedom, from 4 weeks to 27 years; average, 9 years. Number of heads of families who have purchased themselves, 36 Whole amount paid for themselves $21,515.00 Average price $597.64 Number of children which the same families have already purchased 14 Whole amount paid for these children $2,425.75 Average price $173.27 Total amount paid for these parents and children $23,940.75 Number of parents still in slavery 16 " of husbands or wives 7 " of children 35 " of brothers and sisters 144
These districts were visited without the least reference to their being exhibited separately. If they give a fair specimen of the whole population (and we believe that to be a fact), then we have the following results: 1,129 of the Colored population of Cincinnati have been in slavery; 476 have purchased themselves, at the total expense of $215,522.04, averaging for each, $452.77; 163 parents are still in slavery, 68 husbands and wives, 346 children, 1,579 brothers and sisters.
There are a large number in the city who are now working out their own freedom--their free papers being retained as security. One man of our acquaintance has just given his master seven notes of one hundred dollars each, one of which he intends to pay every year, till he has paid them all; his master promises then to give him his free papers. After paying for himself, he intends to buy his wife and then his children. Others are buying their husbands or wives, and others again their parents or children. To show that on this subject they have sympathies like other people, we will state a single fact. A young man, after purchasing himself, earned three hundred dollars. This sum he supposed was sufficient to purchase his aged mother, a widow, whom he had left in slavery five years before, in Virginia. Hearing that she was for sale, he started immediately to purchase her. But, after travelling five hundred miles, and offering all his money, he was refused. Not because she was not for sale, nor because he did not offer her full value. She had four sons and daughters with her, and the planter thought he could do better to keep the family together and send them all down the river. In vain the affectionate son pleaded for his mother. The planter's heart was steel. He would not sell her, and with a heavy heart the young man returned to Cincinnati. He has since heard that they were sold in the New Orleans market "in lots to suit purchasers."
Cincinnati produced quite a number of business men among her Colored population.
HENRY BOYD
was born in the State of Kentucky, on the 14th day of May, 1802. He received some instruction in reading and writing. He was bound out to a gentleman, from whom he learned the cabinet-making trade. He developed at quite an early age a genius for working in all kinds of wood--could make any thing in the business. He came to Ohio in 1826, and located in Cincinnati. He was a fine-looking man of twenty-four years, and a master mechanic. He expected to secure employment in some of the cabinet shops in the city. Accordingly, he applied at several, but as often as he applied he was refused employment on the ground of complexional prejudice. In some instances the proprietor was willing that a Colored man should work for him, but the white mechanics would not work by the side of a Colored man. In other cases it was quite different. The proprietors would not entertain the idea of securing the services of a "Black mechanic." So it was for weeks that Mr. Boyd sought an opportunity to use his skill in the direction of his genius and training; but he sought in vain. Disappointed, though not disheartened, he turned to the work of a stevedore, which he did for four months. At the expiration of this time he found employment with a house-builder. Within six months from the time he began work as a builder he had so thoroughly mastered the trade that he quit working as a journeyman, formed a co-partnership with a white man, and went into business. The gentleman with whom he joined his fortunes was a mechanic of excellent abilities, and acknowledged the superior fitness of Boyd for the business.
As a builder he succeeded first-rate for four years. But his color was against him. His white partner would make the contracts, secure the jobs, and then Boyd would come forward when the work was to be done. He had an abundance of work, and always finished it to the entire satisfaction of his patrons. It is impossible to estimate just how many houses he built, but the number is not small. He had made a beginning, and secured some capital. He did not like the builder's trade, and only entered it at the first from necessity--as a stepping-stone to his own trade, for which he had a great deal of enthusiasm. In 1836, ten years after his arrival in Cincinnati, he engaged in the manufacture of bedsteads. For six years he carried on this business--found a ready market and liberal pay. He brought to his business some of the oldest buyers in the bedstead line, and had a trade that kept him busy at all seasons of the year. His very excellent business habits won for him many friends, and through their solicitations he enlarged his business by manufacturing all kinds of furniture. He put up a building on the corner of Eighth Street and Broadway, where he carried on his manufacturing from 1836 till 1859, a period of twenty-three years. His business required four large buildings and a force of skilful workmen, never less than twenty, frequently fifty. He used the most approved machinery and paid excellent wages.
His manufactory presented, perhaps, what was never seen in this country before or since. His workmen represented almost all the leading races. There were Negroes, Americans, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and men of other nationalities. And they didn't bite each other! Their relations were pleasant.
He was burned out three times, but he rebuilt and went ahead. He was doing such an extensive business that some thought it advisable to destroy his buildings. His losses were very heavy, yet he kept right on, and kept up his business for some time; but finally had to yield at the last fire, when he had no insurance.
He invented a machine to turn the rails of a bed, but being a Colored man he could not take out a patent. He, therefore, had one taken out in the name of a white gentleman. "The Boyd bedstead" sold throughout the United States then, and was popular for many years after he quit the business.
He has been engaged in several different businesses since he quit manufacturing, and for the last nine years has been in the employ of the city.
SAMUEL T. WILCOX.
In 1850 Samuel T. Wilcox decided to embark in some business venture in Cincinnati. Accordingly he built a store on the northeast corner of Broadway and Fifth streets. He at once occupied it as a grocer. In those days fancy groceries were not kept. But Mr. Wilcox opened a new era in the business. He introduced fancy articles, such as all varieties of canned fruit, choice liquors, cigars, first quality of hams, all kinds of dried fruit, the best brands of sugars, molasses, and fine soaps. He made a specialty of these, and succeeded admirably.
His trade was divided between two classes--the finest river packets and the best families of the city. His customers were the very best families--people of wealth and high standing. And perhaps no grocer of his times in Cincinnati did so large a business as Samuel T. Wilcox.
His business increased rapidly until he did about $140,000 of trade per year! This continued for six years, when his social habits were not favorable to permanent success. He had been sole owner of the business up to this time. He sold out one half of the store to Charles Roxboro, Sr.; thus the firm name became "Wilcox & Roxboro." The latter gentleman was energetic and business-like in his habits. He cast his courage and marvellous tact against the high tide of business disaster that came sweeping along in the last days of the firm. He resorted to every honorable and safe expedient in order to avert failure. But the handwriting was upon the wall. He failed. Wilcox had begun business with $25,000 cash. He had accumulated $60,000 in real estate, and had transacted $140,000 of business in a single year! He failed because his life was immoral, his habits extravagant, and his attention to business indifferent.
ALEX. S. THOMAS.
This gentleman came to Cincinnati in 1852, where he made the acquaintance of a Colored gentleman of intelligence, J. P. Ball, who was in the daguerrian business at Nos. 28 and 30 West Fourth Street. Mr. Thomas became affianced to Miss Elizabeth Ball, sister of J. P. Ball; and after they were married, Mr. Thomas accepted the position of reception clerk for his brother-in-law. He filled this position with credit and honor for the space of one year. It was now 1853. Daguerrotypes were all the "rage." Photography was unknown. Mr. Ball had an excellent run of custom, and was making money rapidly.
As operator, Mr. Ball soon discovered that Mr. Thomas was a man of quick perception, thorough, and entirely trustworthy. He soon became familiar with the instrument, and in 1854 began to "operate." He continued at the instrument during the remainder of the time he spent at 28 West Fourth Street. He shortly acquired the skill of an old and well-trained operator; and his success in this department of the business added greatly to the already well-established reputation of the gallery.
Mr. Thomas was not satisfied with being a successful clerk and first-class operator. He wanted to go into business for himself. Accordingly he opened a gallery at No. 120 West Fourth Street, near the "Commercial," under the firm name of "Ball & Thomas." The rooms were handsomely fitted up, and the building leased for five years.
In May, 1860, a severe tornado passed over the city, destroying much property and several lives. The roof of the Commercial [Potter's Building] was carried away; part passed over the gallery of Ball & Thomas, while part went through the operating room, and some fragments of timber, etc., penetrated a saloon in the rear of the photographic gallery, and killed a child and a woman. The gallery was a complete wreck, the instruments, chemicals, scenery, cases, pictures, carpets, furniture, and every thing else, were ruined. This was in the early days of the firm. All their available capital had been converted into stock, used in fitting up the gallery. Ball & Thomas were young men--they were Colored men, and were financially ruined. Apparently their business was at an end. But they were artists; and many white families in Cincinnati recognized them as such. Their white friends came to the rescue. The gallery was fitted up again most elaborately, and was known as "the finest photographic gallery west of the Alleghany Mountains."
This marked a distinct era in the history of the firm, and many persons often remarked that the luckiest moment in their history was when the roof of the Commercial building sat down upon them. For years the best families of the city patronized the famous firm of Ball & Thomas. They had more business than they could attend to at times, and consequently had to engage extra help. These were years of unprecedented success. One hundred dollars a day was small money then. The firm became quite wealthy. After spending fifteen years at 120 they returned to 30 West Fourth Street, where they remained until May, 1874.
Photographers move considerable, and it is seldom that men in this business remain in one street or building as long as Ball & Thomas. They passed twenty-one of the best years of the firm in Fourth Street. This is both a compliment to the public and themselves. It shows, on the one hand, that Colored men can conduct business like white men, and, on the other hand, if Colored men have ability to carry on any kind of business, white people will patronize them.
The old stand at 30 West Fourth Street was fitted up anew, and business began with all the wonted zeal and desire to please the public which characterized the firm in former years. The rooms were at once elegant and capacious. Their motto was to do the best work at the cheapest rates. But as in all other businesses, so in photographic art, there was competition. And rather than do poor work at the low rates of competitors, they decided to remove to another locality. Accordingly, in May, 1874, they moved into No. 146 West Fifth Street. The building was leased for a term of years. It was in no wise adapted to the photographic business. The walls were cut out, doors made, stairs changed, skylight put in, chemical rooms constructed, gas-fixtures put in, papering, painting, and graining done, carpets and new furniture ordered. It cost the firm more than $2,800 to enter this new stand.
The first year at the new stand was characterized by liberal custom and excellent work. The old customers who were delighted with the work done at 30 West Fourth Street, were convinced that the firm had redoubled its artistic zeal, and was determined to outdo the palmy days of Fourth Street. The business, which at this time was in a flourishing condition, was destined to suffer an interruption in the death of Thomas Carroll Ball, the senior member of the firm. It was at a time when the trade demanded the energies of both gentlemen. But Death never tarries to consider the far-reach of results or the wishes of the friends of his subject. The business continued. Ball Thomas, the son of Mr. A. S. Thomas, who had grown up under the faithful tuition of his father, now became a successful retouching artist. For the last two years Mr. Thomas has conducted the business alone. He is now doing business at 166 West Fifth Street, and it is said that he is doing a good business.
* * * * *
The Colored people of Cincinnati evinced not only an anxiety to take care of themselves, but took steps early toward securing a home for the orphans in their midst.
In ante-bellum days there was no provision made for Colored paupers or Colored orphans. Where individual sympathy or charity did not intervene, they were left to die in the midst of squalid poverty, and were cast into the common ditch, without having medical aid or ministerial consolation. There was not simply studious neglect, but a strong prohibition against their entrance into institutions sustained by the county and State for white persons not more fortunate than they. At one time a good Quaker was superintendent of the county poorhouse. His heart was touched with kindest sympathy for the uncared-for Colored paupers in Cincinnati. He acted the part of a true Samaritan, and gave them separate quarters in the institution of which he was the official head. This fact came to the public ear, and the trustees of the poorhouse, in accordance with their own convictions and in compliance with the complexional prejudices of the community, discharged the Quaker for this breach of the law. The Colored paupers were turned out of this lazar-house on the Sabbath. The time to perpetuate this crime against humanity was indeed significant--on the Lord's day. The God of the poor and His followers beheld the streets of Christian Cincinnati filled with the maimed, halt, sick, and poor, who were denied the common fare accorded the white paupers! There was no sentiment in those days, either in the pulpit or press, to raise its voice against this act of cruelty and shame.
Lydia P. Mott, an eminent member of the Society of Friends and an able leader of a conscientious few, espoused the cause of the motherless, fatherless, and homeless Colored children of this community. She attracted the attention and won the confidence of the few Abolitionists of this city. She determined to establish a home for these little wanderers, and immediately set to work at a plan. The late Salmon P. Chase was then quite young, a man of brilliant abilities and of anti-slavery sentiments. He joined himself to the humane movement of Lydia P. Mott, with the following persons: Christian Donaldson, James Pullan, William Donaldson, Robert Buchanan, John Liverpool, Richard Phillips, John Woodson, Charles Satchell, Wm. W. Watson, William Darnes, Michael Clark, A. M. Sumner, Reuben P. Graham, Louis P. Brux, Sarah B. McLain, Mrs. Eustis, Mrs. Dr. Stanton, Mrs. Hannah Cooper, Mrs. Mary Jane Gordon, Mrs. Susan Miller, Mrs. Rebecca Darnes, Mrs. Charlotte Armstrong, Mrs. Eliza Clark, Mrs. Ruth Ellen Watson, and others. Six of the gentlemen and four of the ladies were white. Only six of this noble company are living at this time.
The organization was effected in 1844, and the act of incorporation was drawn up by Salmon P. Chase. It was chartered in February, 1845, the passage of the act having been assured through the personal influence of Mr. Chase upon the members of the Legislature.
The first Board of Trustees under the charter were William Donaldson, John Woodson, Richard Phillips, Christian Donaldson, Reuben P. Graham, Richard Pullan, Charles Satchell, Louis P. Brux, and John Liverpool. But one is alive--Richard Pullan.
The first building the Trustees secured as an asylum was on Ninth Street, between Plum and Elm. They paid a rental of $12.50 per month. The building was owned by Mr. Nicholas Longworth, but the ground was leased by him from Judge Burnet. The Trustees ultimately purchased the building for $1,500; and in 1851 the ground also was purchased of Mr. Groesbeck for $4,400 in cash.
During the three or four years following, the institution had quite an indifferent career. The money requisite to run it was not forthcoming. The children were poorly fed and clothed, and many times there was no money in the treasury at all. The Trustees were discouraged, and it seemed that the asylum would have to be closed. But just at this time that venerable Abolitionist and underground railroader, Levi Coffin, with his excellent wife, "Aunt Kitty," came to the rescue. He took charge of the institution as superintendent, and his wife assumed the duties of matron. Through their exertions and adroit management they succeeded in enlisting the sympathy of many benevolent folk, and secured the support of many true friends.
It was now 1866. The asylum building presented a forlorn aspect. It was far from being a comfortable shelter for the children. But a lack of funds forbade the Trustees from having it repaired. They began to look about for a more desirable and comfortable building. During the closing year of the Rebellion a large number of freedmen sought the shelter of our large Northern cities. Cincinnati received her share of them, and acted nobly toward them. The government authorities built a hospital for freedmen in a very desirable locality in Avondale. At this time (1866), the building, which was very capacious, was not occupied. The Trustees secured a change in the charter, permitting them, by consent of the subscribers, to sell the Ninth Street property, and purchase the hospital building and the accompanying six acres in Avondale. The Ninth Street property brought $9,000; the purchase in Avondale, refitting, etc., cost $11,000, incurring a debt of $2,000.
During the first twenty-two years of the institution much good was accomplished. Hundreds of children--orphans and friendless children--found shelter in the asylum, which existed only through the almost superhuman efforts of the intelligent Colored persons in the community, and the unstinted charity of many generous white persons. The asylum has been pervaded with a healthy religious atmosphere; and many of its inmates have gone forth to the world giving large promise of usefulness. An occasional letter from former inmates often proves that much good has been done; and that some of these children, without the kindly influence and care of the asylum, instead of occupying places of usefulness and trust in society, might have drifted into vagrancy and crime.
Amidst the struggle for temporal welfare, the Colored people of Cincinnati were not unmindful of the interests and destinies of the Union. A military company was formed, bearing the name of Attucks Guards. On the 25th of July, 1855, an association of ladies presented a flag to the company. The address, on the part of the ladies, was delivered by Miss Mary A. Darnes. Among many excellent things, she said:
"Should the love of liberty and your country ever demand your services, may you, in imitation of that noble patriot whose name you bear, promptly respond to the call, and fight to the last for the great and noble principles of liberty and justice, to the glory of your fathers and the land of your birth.
"The time is not far distant when the slave must be free; if not by moral and intellectual means, it must be done by the sword. Remember, gentlemen, should duty call, it will be yours to obey, and strike to the last for freedom or the grave.
"But God forbid that you should be called upon to witness our peaceful homes involved in war. May our eyes never behold this flag in any conflict; let the quiet breeze ever play among its folds, and the fullest peace dwell among you!"
While the great majority of the Colored people in the country were bowing themselves cheerfully to the dreadful task of living among wolves, some of the race were willing to brave the perils of the sea, and find a new home on the West Coast of Africa. Between the years of 1850-1856, 9,502 Negroes went to Liberia, of whom 3,676 had been born free. In 1850, there were 1,467 manumitted, while 1,011 ran away from their masters.
Notwithstanding the many disadvantages under which the free Negroes of the North had to labor, they accomplished a great deal. In an incredibly short time they built schools, planted churches, established newspapers; had their representatives in law, medicine, and theology before the world as the marvel of the centuries. Shut out from every influence calculated to incite them to a higher life, and provoke them to better works, nevertheless, the Colored people were enabled to live down much prejudice, and gained the support and sympathy of noble men and women of the Anglo-Saxon race.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] This is inserted in this volume as the more appropriate place.Return to passage
[56] Slavery in Massachusetts, pp. 228, 229.Return to passage
[57] Massachusetts Mercury, vol. xvi. No. 22, Sept. 16, 1780.Return to passage