History of the Negro Race in America Volume II Part 73

It has been shown that the tribes of Africa are divisible into three cla.s.ses: The tribes of the mountain districts, the tribes of the sandstone districts, and the tribes of the alluvial districts; those of the mountain districts most powerful, those of the sandstone districts less powerful, and those of the alluvial districts least powerful. The slave markets of America were supplied,[139] very largely, from two cla.s.ses of Africans, viz.: the criminal cla.s.s, and the refuse of African society, which has been preyed upon by local disease, decimated by wars waged by the more powerful tribes which have pushed down from the abundant supply that has poured over the terraces of the mountains for centuries. Nevertheless, some of the better cla.s.s have found their way to this country. About 137 Negro tribes are represented in the United States.

For every slave landed safely in North America, there was one lost in procuring and bringing down to the coast, and in transportation. Thus in the period of 360 years, Africa was robbed of about 30,000,000 of souls! When it is remembered that the Negroes in America sprang from the criminal, diseased, and inferior cla.s.ses of Africa, it is nothing short of a phenomenon that they were able to endure such a rigorous state of bondage. Under-fed and over-worked; poorly clad and miserably housed; with the family altar cast down, and intelligent men allowed to run over it as swine; and with the fountains of knowledge sealed by law against the thirstings of human souls for knowledge, the Negroes of America, nevertheless, have shown the most wonderful signs of recuperation, and the ability to rise, against every cruel act of man and the very forces of nature, to a manhood and intelligent citizenship that converts the cautious, impartial, and conservative spirit of history into eulogy! They have overcome the obstacles in the path of the physical civilization of North America; they have earned billions of dollars for a profligate people; they have made good laborers, efficient sailors, and peerless soldiers. In three wars they won the crown of heroes by steady, intrepid valor; and in peace have shown themselves the friends of stable government. During the war for the Union, 186,017[140] Colored men enlisted in the service of the nation, _and partic.i.p.ated in 249 battles_. From 1866 to 1873, besides the money saved in other banking houses, they deposited in the Freedmen's Banks at the South $53,000,000! From 1866 to 1875 there were seven Negroes as Lieutenant-Governors of Southern States; two served in the United States Senate, and thirteen in the United States House of Representatives. There have been five Negroes appointed as Foreign Ministers. There have been ten Negro members of Northern legislatures; and in the Government Departments at Washington there are 620 Negroes employed. Starting without schools this remarkable people have now 14,889 schools, with an attendance of 720,853 pupils!

And this does not include the children of color who attend the white schools of the Northern States; and as far as it is possible to get the statistics, there are at present 169 Colored students attending white colleges in the Northern States.

The first blood shed in the Revolution was that of a Negro, Crispus Attucks, on the 5th of March, 1770. The first blood shed in the war for the Union was that of a Negro, Nicholas Biddle, a member of the very first company that pa.s.sed through Baltimore in April, 1861; while the first Negro killed in the war was named _John Brown!_ The first Union regiment of Negro troops raised during the Rebellion, was raised in the State that was first to secede from the Union, South Carolina.

Its colonel was a Ma.s.sachusetts man, and a graduate of Harvard College. The first action in which Negro troops partic.i.p.ated was in South Carolina. The first regiment of Northern Negro troops fought its first battle in South Carolina, at Fort Wagner, where it immortalized itself. The first Negro troops recruited in the Mississippi Valley were recruited by a Ma.s.sachusetts officer, Gen. B. F. Butler; while their first fighting here was directed by another Ma.s.sachusetts officer, Gen. N. P. Banks. The first recognition of Negro troops by the Confederate army was in December, 1863, when Major John C.

Calhoun, a grandson of the South Carolina statesman of that name, bore a flag of truce, which was received by Major Trowbridge of the First South Carolina Colored Regiment. The first regiment to enter Petersburg was composed of Negroes; while the first troops to enter the Confederate capital at Richmond were Gen. G.o.dfry Weitzel's two divisions of Negroes. The last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox were in the hands of Negro soldiers. And when the last expiring effort of treason had, through foul conspiracy, laid our beloved President low in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains, and marched in the stately procession which bore the ill.u.s.trious dead from the White House. And on the 15th of May, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the 62d Regiment of Colored Troops fired the last volley of the war!

Several attempts have been made to define the racial characteristics of the Negro, but they have not been attended with success.

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has written more and written better about the American Negro than any other person during the present century.

She has given laboriously and minutely wrought pictures of plantation life. She has held up to the gaze of the world portraitures comic and serio-comic, which for the gorgeousness and awfulness of their drapery will perish only with the language in which they are painted.

But Mrs. Stowe's great characters are marred by some glaring imperfections. "Uncle Tom" is too goodish, too lamb-like, too obsequious. He is a child of full growth, yet lacks the elements of an enlarged manhood. His mind is feeble, body strong--too strong for the conspicuous absence of spirit and pa.s.sion.

"Dred" is the divinest character of the times--is prophet, preacher, and saint. He is _so_ grand. He is eloquent beyond compare, and as familiar with the Bible as if he were its author. And every hero Mrs.

Stowe takes in charge must make up his mind to get religion, lots of it too, and then prepare to die. There is a terrible fatality among her leading characters.

Mrs. Stowe has given but one side of Negro character, and that side is terribly exaggerated. But all strong natures like hers are given to exaggeration. Wendell Phillips never tells the truth, and yet he always tells the truth. He is a man of strong convictions, and always p.r.o.nounces his conviction strongly. He has a poetical nature, is a word-painter, and, therefore, indulges in the license of the poet and painter. Mrs. Stowe belongs to this school of writers. The lamb and lion are united in the Negro character. Mrs. Stowe's mistake consists in ascribing to the Negro a peculiarly religious character and disposition. Here is detected the mistake. The Negro is not, as she supposes, the most religious being in the world. He has more religion and has less religion than any other of the races, in one sense. And yet, divorced from the circ.u.mstances by which he has been surrounded in this country, he is not so very religious. Mrs. Stowe seizes upon a characteristic that belongs to mankind wherever mankind is enslaved, and gently binds it about the neck of the Negro. All races of men become religious when oppressed. Frederick the Great was an infidel when with his friend Voltaire, but when suffering the reverses of war in Silesia he could write very pious letters to his "favorite sister."

This is true in national character when traced to its last a.n.a.lysis.

Men pray while they are down in life, but curse when up. And of necessity the religion of a bond people is not always healthy. There is an involuntary turning to a divine helper; a sort of religious superst.i.tion, that believes all things, hopes all things, and is patient. The soul of such a people is surcharged with an almost incredulous amount of poetry, song, and rude but grand eloquence. And when the songs that cheered and lighted many a heavy heart in the starless night of bondage shall have been rescued and purified by the art of music, the hymnology of this century will be greatly indebted to this much-abused people. So, under this religious garb, woven by the cruel experiences consequent upon slavery, the lion slumbers in the Negro.

Every year since the close of the Rebellion the Negro has been taking on better and purer traits of character. Possessed of an impressible nature, a discriminating sense of the beautiful, and a deep, pure taste for music, his progress has been phenomenal. Strong in his attachments, gentle in manners, confiding, hopeful, enduring in affection, and benevolent to a fault, there is no limit to the outcome of his character.

Like the oscillations of the pendulum of a clock the Negro is swinging from an extreme religious fanaticism to an extreme rationalism. But he will finally take his position upon a solid religious basis; and to his "faith" will add virtue, knowledge, and good works. Everywhere under good influences he has made a good citizen. No issue in the State has been foreign to him. He has proven his patriotism and his fondness for this land to which he was dragged in chains, and in his obedience to its laws and devotion to its principles has stood second to none. His home promises much good. His whole life seems to have undergone a radical change. He has shown a disposition and delight in the education of his children; and the constantly growing demand for competent teachers and educated preachers shows that he has outgrown his old ideas concerning education and religion. From an insatiable desire for gewgaws he has turned to a practice of the precepts of economy. From the state of semi-civilization in which he cared only for the comforts of the present, his desires and wants have swept outward and upward into the years to come and toward the Mysterious Future. He has learned the difficult lesson that "man shall not live by bread alone," and has shown himself delighted with a keen sense of intellectual hunger. One hundred weekly newspapers, conducted by Negroes, are feeding the mind of the race, binding communities together by the cords of common interests and racial sympathy; while the works of twenty Negro authors[141] lend inspiration and purpose to every honest effort at self-improvement.

The fiery trials of the young Colored men who gained admission to West Point, and the n.o.ble conduct of the four regiments of black troops in the severe service of the frontiers have strengthened the hopes of a nation in the final outcome of the American Negro.

But what of the future? Can the Negro endure the sharp compet.i.tion of American civilization? Can he keep his position against the tendencies to amalgamation? Since it has been proven that the Negro is not dying out, but on the contrary possesses the powers of reproduction to a remarkable degree, a new source of danger has been discovered. It is said that the Negro will perish, will be absorbed by the dominant race ere long; that where races are crossed the inferior race suffers; and that mixed races lack the power to reproduce their species; and that hence the disappearance of the Negro is but a question of time. Mr.

Joseph C. G. Kennedy, superintendent of the Federal Census during the war, took the following view of this question:

"That an unfavorable moral condition has existed and continues among the free Colored, be the cause what it may, notwithstanding the great number of excellent people included in that population, no one can for a moment doubt who will consider that with them an element exists which is to some extent positive, and that is the fact of there being more than half as many mulattoes as blacks, forming, as they do, 36-1/4 per cent. of the whole Colored population, and they are maternally descendants of the Colored race, as it is well known that no appreciable amount of this admixture is the result of marriage between white and black, or the progeny of white mothers--a fact showing that whatever deterioration may be the consequence of this alloyage, is incurred by the Colored race. Where such a proportion of the mixed race exists, it may reasonably be inferred that the barriers to license are not more insuperable among those of the same color. That corruption of morals progresses with greater admixture of races, and that the product of vice stimulates the propensity to immorality, is as evident to observation as it is natural to circ.u.mstances. These developments of the census, to a good degree, explain the slow progress of the free Colored population in the Northern States, and indicate, with unerring certainty, the gradual extinction of that people the more rapidly as, whether free or slave, they become diffused among the dominant race. There are, however, other causes, although in themselves not sufficient to account for the great excess of deaths over births, as is found to occur in some Northern cities, and these are such as are incident to incongenial climate and a condition involving all the exposures and hardships which accompany a people of lower caste. As but two censuses have been taken which discriminate between the blacks and mulattoes, it is not yet so easy to determine how far the admixture of the races affects their vital power; but the developments already made would indicate that the mingling of the races is more unfavorable to vitality, than a condition of slavery, which practically ignores marriage to the exclusion of the admixture of races, has proved, for among the slaves the natural increase has been as high as three per cent. per annum, and ever more than two per cent., while the proportion of mulattoes at the present period reaches but 10.41 per cent. in the slave population. Among the free Colored in the Southern States, the admixture of races appears to have progressed at a somewhat less ratio than at the North, and we can only account for the greater proportionate number of mulattoes in the North by the longer period of their freedom in the midst of the dominant and more numerous race, and the supposition of more mulattoes than blacks having escaped or been manumitted from slavery."

Whatever merit this view possessed before the war of the Rebellion, it is obsolete under the present organization of society. The environments of the Negro, the downward tendencies of his social life, and the exposed state in which slave laws left him, have all perished.

In addition to his apt.i.tude for study and capacity for improvement, he is now under the protecting and restraining influences of congenial climate; and pure sociological laws will impart to his offspring the power of reproduction and the ability to maintain an excellent social footing with the other races of the world. The learned M. A.

DeQuatref.a.ges says, concerning this question:

None of the eminent men with whom I regret to differ take any account of the influence of the action of the surroundings. I believe that the conditions of the surroundings play as important a part in the crossing of races as they do in other matters. They may sometimes favor, sometimes restrict, sometimes prevent, the establishment of a mixed race. This simple consideration accounts for many apparently contradictory facts. Etwick and Long have affirmed that in Jamaica the mulattoes hold out only because they are constantly recruited by the marriage of whites with negresses. But in San Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, there are, we may say, no whites, and the population consists of two thirds mulattoes and one third negroes. The numbers of the mulattoes are there well kept up by themselves without the introduction of fresh blood. In respect to fertility; different instances of crossing between individuals of the two same races may give different results, according to the place where they are effected. I believe it is unnecessary to insist and show that the physical and physiological faculties of children born of mixed unions ought to present a.n.a.logous facts.

"In my view the aggregation of physical conditions does not in itself alone const.i.tute the environment. Social and moral conditions have an equal part in it. Here, again, it is easy to establish, in the results of crossings, differences which have no other cause than differences in these conditions. It is true that mongrels, born and grown up in the midst of the hatred of the inferior race and the contempt of the superior race, are liable to merit the reproaches which are commonly attached to them. On the other hand, if real marriages take place between the races, and their offspring are placed upon a footing of equality with the ma.s.s of the population, they are quite able to reach the general level, and sometimes to display superior qualities.

"All of my studies on this question have brought me to the conclusion that the mixture of races has in the past had a great part in the const.i.tution of a large number of actual populations.

It is also clear to me that its part in the future will not be less considerable. The movement of expansion, to which I have just called attention, has not slackened since the days of Cortez and Pizarro, but has become more extended and general. The perfection of the means of communication has given it new activity. The people of mixed blood already const.i.tute a considerable part of the population of certain states, and their number is large enough to ent.i.tle them to be taken notice of in the population of the whole world.

"These facts show that man is everywhere the same, and that his pa.s.sions and instincts are independent of the differences that distinguish the human groups. The reason of it is that these differences, however accentuated they may seem to us, are essentially morphological, but do not in any way touch the wholly physiological power of reproduction."[142]

Race prejudice is bound to give way before the potent influences of character, education, and wealth. And these are necessary to the growth of the race. Without wealth there can be no leisure, without leisure there can be no thought, and without thought there can be no progress. The future work of the Negro is twofold: subjective and objective. Years will be devoted to his own education and improvement here in America. He will sound the depths of education, acc.u.mulate wealth, and then turn his attention to the civilization of Africa. The United States will yet establish a line of steamships between this country and the Dark Continent. Touching at the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast, and the Gold Coast, America will carry the African missionaries, Bibles, papers, improved machinery, instead of rum and chains. And Africa, in return, will send America indigo, palm-oil, ivory, gold, diamonds, costly wood, and her richest treasures, instead of slaves. Tribes will be converted to Christianity; cities will rise, states will be founded; geography and science will enrich and enlarge their discoveries; and a telegraph cable binding the heart of Africa to the ear of the civilized world, every throb of joy or sorrow will pulsate again in millions of souls. In the interpretation of _History_ the plans of G.o.d must be discerned, "_For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is pa.s.sed, and as a watch in the night_."

FOOTNOTES:

[139] From the year 1500 to 1860 the number of slaves imported from Africa were as follows:

Number of Negroes imported Total.

into America per annum.

From 1500 to 1525 500 12,500 From 1525 to 1550 5,000 125,000 From 1550 to 1600 15,000 750,000 From 1600 to 1650 20,000 1,000,000 From 1650 to 1700 35,000 1,750,000 From 1700 to 1750 60,000 3,000,000 From 1750 to 1800 80,000 4,000,000 From 1800 to 1850 65,000 3,250,000 ---------- Total, 350 years 13,887,500 From 1850 to 1860, increase for decade 749,931 ---------- Total importation of Negro slaves into America during a period of 360 years 14,637,431 or about 15,000,000 in round numbers.

The above figures are taken from Mr. Dunbar's Mexican Papers. The process by which he reaches his conclusions and secures his figures is rather remarkable.

[140] This includes the officers, most of whom were white men.

[141] Thus far the Negro has not gone, as an author, beyond mere narration. But we may soon expect a poet, a novelist, a composer, and a philosophical writer.

[142] Revue Scientifique, Paris.

THE END.

APPENDIX.

Part 5.

_ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION._

CHAPTER VI.

WALKER'S APPEAL.

One of the most remarkable papers written by a Negro during the Anti-Slavery Agitation Movement was the Appeal of David Walker, of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts. He was a shopkeeper and dealer in second-hand clothes. He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, September 28, 1785, of a free mother by a slave father. When quite young he said: "If I remain in this b.l.o.o.d.y land, I will not live long. As true as G.o.d reigns, I will be avenged for the sorrow which my people have suffered. This is not the place for me--no, no. I must leave this part of the country. It will be a great trial for me to live on the same soil where so many men are in slavery; certainly I cannot remain where I must hear their chains continually, and where I must encounter the insults of their hypocritical enslavers. Go, I must!"

He went to Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, where he took up his residence. He applied himself to study, and in 1827, capable of reading and writing, he began business in Brattle Street. He was possessed of a rather reflective and penetrating mind. And before Mr. William Lloyd Garrison unfurled his flag for the Agitation Movement, David Walker wrote and published his Appeal in 1829. It was circulated widely, and touched and stirred the South as no other pamphlet had ever done. Three editions were published. The feeling at the South was intense. The following correspondence shows how deeply agitated the South was by Walker's Appeal. The editor of the _Boston Courier_ observed: "It will be recollected that some time in December last [1829] Gov. Giles sent a message to the Legislature of Virginia complaining of an attempt to circulate in the city of Richmond a seditious pamphlet, said to have been sent there from Boston. We find in the _Richmond Enquirer_ of the 18th inst. [February, 1830] the following Message from the Governor, enclosing a correspondence which unravels all the mystery which has. .h.i.therto enveloped the transaction."

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Feb. 16th, 1830.

SIR: In compliance with the advice of the Executive Council, I do myself the honor of transmitting herewith the copy of a letter from the Honorable Harrison Gray Otis, Mayor of Boston, conveying the copy of a letter from him addressed to the Mayor of Savannah, in answer to one received by him from that gentleman respecting a seditious pamphlet written by a person of color in Boston, and circulated by him in other parts of the United States.

Very respectfully, your obd't serv't, WM. B. GILES.