The Journal of Negro History Volume IV Part 26

1: 18, f. 86, Modyford and Colleton to (the Royal Adventurers), March 31, 1664.

[70] C. O. 1: 19, f. 124, Willoughby to the king, May 20, 1665.

[71] C. O. 1: 16, f. 112, additional instructions to Lord Windsor, governor of Jamaica, April 8, 1662.

[72] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 106, minutes of the council of Jamaica, August 20, 1662.

[73] A full description of privateering by the English against the Spaniards from the year 1660 to 1670 may be found in an article by Miss Violet Barbour in the American Historical Review, XVI: 529-566.

[74] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 125 (the king to the governors of Barbadoes and Jamaica), March 13, 1663.

[75] C. O. 1: 17, f. 199, Sir Charles Lyttleton, deputy governor, to Bennet, October 15, 1663.

[76] _Ibid._, 18, f. 137, Modyford to the governor of Santo Domingo, April 30, 1664.

[77] _Ibid._, f. 139, Modyford's instructions to Colonel Cary and Captain Perrott, May 2, 1664.

[78] C. O. 1: 18, ff. 152, 153, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lynch to Bennet. May 25, 1664.

[79] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 215, the king to Modyford, June 15, 1664.

[80] _Ibid._, p. 220, proclamation by Sir Thomas Modyford, governor of Jamaica, June 15, 1664.

[81] _Ibid._, p. 228, minutes of the council of Jamaica, August 19-22, 1664.

[82] C. S. P., Dom., 1663-1664, p. 168, Richard White to Captain Weld, June 11, 1663.

[83] As this contract cannot be discovered it is difficult to say just when it was made or what were its conditions. Georges Scelle in his book, La Traite Negriere aux Indes de Castille, 1: 524, gives the date of this contract as February 28, 1663, and says it was for 35,000 Negroes which were to be delivered at the rate of 5,000 per year. This may be true, but on the other hand the company distinctly declares in one place that the contract was for the annual delivery of 3,500 Negroes per year. C. O. 1: 19, ff. 7, 8, brief narrative of the trade and present condition of the Royal Adventurers, 1664/5.

[84] C. O. 1: 17, f. 189, memorial of Sir Ellis Leighton to the duke of York, 1663.

[85] _Ibid._, ff. 244, 247; A. C. R., 75: 48.

[86] A. C. R., 75: 15, August 5, 1664.

[87] _Ibid._, 75: 34, May 26, 1665.

[88] C. O. 1: 18, f. 165, Willoughby to the king, June 17, 1664.

[89] Add. MSS., 12,430, f. 31, Beeston, Journal, April 8, 1665.

[90] A. C. R., 75: 43, March 23, 1665/6.

[91] P. C. R., Charles II, 5: 396, March 30, 1666.

[92] A. C. R., 75: 46; Add. MSS., 12,430, f. 31, Beeston, Journal, February 7, 1664/5.

[93] Answer of the Company of Royal Adventurers ... to the Pet.i.tion ... exhibited ... by Sir Paul Painter.

[94] C. O. 1: 19, ff. 7, 8, brief narrative of the trade and present condition of the Royal Adventurers, 1664/5.

BOOK REVIEWS

_Below the James. A Plantation Sketch._ By WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE. The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1918. Pp. 157.

This book is, as its t.i.tle imports, a plantation sketch dealing with that sort of life in Virginia just after the Civil War. While it is a mere story and hardly a dramatic one, it throws light on the Negro as a const.i.tuent part of the southern society of that day. As a student at Harvard before the War a southerner comes into contact with a fellow student from Ma.s.sachusetts, to whom he becomes bound by such strong ties that the four years of b.l.o.o.d.y conflict between the sections are not sufficient to sever this connection. Some years after this upheaval friend thinks of friend and soon the northerner finds himself on his way to visit the southern friend.

Coming to the South at the time when the Negroes as a new cla.s.s in their different situation were endeavoring to readjust themselves under difficult circ.u.mstances, the observations of the traveler are of much value to the historian. He not only saw much to admire in the colonial seats of prominent southerners like Patrick Henry and John Randolph, but showed an appreciation of the simple life of the Negroes. Their new position as freemen taking a part in the government, the role of the carpetbagger, and the undesirable conditions of that regime play some part in the story.

As to the Negroes themselves, however, the most interesting revelations are those dealing with the inner life of the blacks. In the language used to impersonate the blacks the reader sees a philosophy of life; in their mode of living appears the virtue of a n.o.ble peasantry; and in their worship of divinity there is the striving of a righteous people willing to labor and to wait. In this respect the book is valuable. We have known too little of the plantation, too little of the life of the Negro before the Civil War, too little of how he during the Reconstruction developed into something above and beyond the hewer of wood and drawer of water.

While not primarily historical then and falling far short of being an historical novel, this book is unconsciously informing and therefore interesting and valuable to the student of Negro life and history.

_The Emanc.i.p.ated and Freed in American Sculpture. A Study in Interpretation._ By FREEMAN HENRY MORRIS MURRAY. Murray Brothers, incorporated, Washington, D. C., 1916. Pp. 228.

This work is to some extent a compilation of matter which on former occasions have been used by the author in lectures and addresses bearing on the Negroes in art. There is in it, however, much that is new, for even in this formerly used material the author has incorporated additional facts and more extensive comment. This work is not given out as the last word. It is one of a series to appear under the caption of the "Black Folk in Art" or an effort to set forth the contributions of the blacks to art in ancient and modern times. This work itself is, as the author calls it, "A Study in Interpretation."

His purpose, he says, is to indicate as well as he can, what he thinks are the criteria for the formation of judgment in these matters. Yet his interpretation is to be different from technical criticism, as his effort is primarily directed toward intention, meaning and effect.

This thought is the keynote to the comments on the various sculptures ill.u.s.trated in the work. While one may not agree with the author in his arrangement and may differ from his interpretation, it must be admitted that the book contains interesting information and is a bold step in the right direction. It is a portraiture of freedom as a motive for artistic expression and an effort to symbolize this desire for liberation to animate the citizenry in making. It brings to light numerous facts as to how the thought of the Negro has been dominant in the minds of certain artists and how in the course of time race prejudice has caused the pendulum to swing the other way in the interest of those who would forget what the blacks have thought and felt and done.

The many ill.u.s.trations const.i.tute the chief value of the work. There appears _The Greek Slave_ by Hiram Powers, _Freedom_ on the dome of the Capitol, _The Libyan Sibyl_ by W. W. Story, _The Freedman_ by J.

I. A. Ward, _The Freedwoman_ by Edmonia Lewis, _Emanc.i.p.ation_ in Washington by Thomas Ball, _Emanc.i.p.ation_ in Edinburgh, Scotland, by George E. Bissell, _Emanc.i.p.ation_ panel on the Military Monument in Cleveland by Levi T. Scofield, _Emanc.i.p.ation_ by Meta Warrick Fuller, _The Beecher Monument_ in Brooklyn by J. I. A. Ward, _Africa_ by Randolph Rogers, _Africa_ by Daniel C. French, _The Harriet Tubman Tablet, The Frederick Dougla.s.s Monument_ in Rochester, _The Attucks Monument_ in Boston by Robert Kraus, _The Faithful Slaves Monument_ in Fort Mill, South Carolina, _l'Africane_ by E. Caroni, _l'Abolizione_ by R. Vincenzo, _Ethiopia_ and _Toussaint L'Ouverture_ by Anne Whitney, _The Slave Auction_, _The Fugitive's Story_, _Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations_, _The Wounded Scout_, and _Uncle Ned's School_ by John Rogers, _The Slave Memorial_ by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and _The Death of Major Montgomery_.

_The Question Before Congress. A consideration of the Debates and final action by Congress upon various Phases of the Race Question in the United States._ By GEORGE W. MITCh.e.l.l. The A. M. E. Book Concern, Philadelphia, 1918. Pp. 237.

This book contains little which has not been extensively treated in various other works of standard authors. It goes over the ground covered in books easily accessible in most local libraries. Yet there is in it something which the historian does not find in these other works. It is this same drama of history as it appears to an intelligent man of color well read in the history of this country although lacking the att.i.tude of a scientific investigator. Whether he has written an accurate book is of little value here. These facts are already known. He has enabled the public to know the Negro's reaction on these things and that in itself is a contribution to history.

As to exactly what the author has treated little needs to be said. He begins with the slavery question in the Federal Convention of 1787 which framed the Const.i.tution of the United States. Then comes the treatment of the slave trade, the debate on the Missouri Compromise, the exclusion of abolition literature from the mails, the attack on the right of pet.i.tion, the exodus of antislavery men from the South, the murder of Lovejoy, the coming of Giddings to Congress, the Wilmot Proviso, the formation of the Free Soil party, antislavery men in Congress, the effort to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the slavery question in California, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas Nebraska trouble, the organization of the Republican Party, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's Raid and the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Then follows a discussion of facts still more familiar. The author takes up the upheaval of the Civil War and the difficulty with which the Negroes effected a readjustment because of the large number of refugees. He next discusses the role of the Negro in politics during the Reconstruction period, the outrages which followed and the failure of the carpetbagger regime. The remaining portion of the book is devoted to the treatment of the Negroes in freedom and the problem of social justice. In fact, almost every phase of Negro political history from the formation of the Union to the present time has been treated by the author.

_Negro Population: 1790-1915._ By JOHN c.u.mMINGS, Ph.D., Expert Special Agent, Bureau of Census. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1918.

Pp. 844.

This volume is unique in that never before in the history of the Bureau of the Census has it devoted a whole volume to statistics bearing on the Negro. This work, moreover, is more important than the average census report in that it covers a period of 125 years. The compiler has used not only previously published doc.u.ments but various unpublished schedules, tables and ma.n.u.scripts which give this work a decidedly historical value. Never before has the public been given so many new figures concerning the development and progress of the Negroes in this country. It is a cause of much satisfaction then that these facts are available so that many questions which have hitherto been puzzling because of the lack of such statistics may now be easily cleared up.

What the work comprehends is interesting. It is a statistical account of the "growth of the Negro population from decade to decade; its geographical distribution at each decennial enumeration; its migratory drift westward in the early decades of the last century, when Negroes and whites were moving forward into the East and West South Central States as cultivators of virgin soil; its drift northward and cityward, and in more recent decades southward out of the "black belt," in response to the universal gravity pull of complex economic and social forces; its widespread dispersion on the one hand, and on the other its segregation with reference to the white population; its s.e.x and age composition and marital condition; its fertility, as indicated by the proportion of children to women of child-bearing age in different periods--again, under social conditions varying from the irresponsible relations of slavery to the more exacting inst.i.tutions of freedom; its intermixture with other races, as shown by the increase in the proportion mulatto; its annual mortality in the registration area; its educational progress since emanc.i.p.ation, in so far as it can be measured by elementary schooling and by increasing literacy; its criminality, dependency, and physical and mental defectiveness--those characteristics of individual degeneracy which Negroes manifest in common with other racial cla.s.ses in all civilized communities; finally, its economic progress, as indicated by increasing ownership of homes, by entrance into skilled trades and professions, and primarily and fundamentally by the rapid development of Negro agriculture."

Although this report goes as far back as 1790 most of the facts herein a.s.sembled bear on the life of the Negro since emanc.i.p.ation. This is not due, however, to the tendency to neglect the early period, but to the fact that earlier in our history statistics concerning Negroes were not considered valuable. It is only recently that public officials have directed attention to the importance of keeping these records and in many parts of the South certain statistics regarding Negroes are not yet considered worth while. The United States Government, however, as this volume indicates, has taken this matter seriously and from such volumes as this the public will expect more valuable information.