Spending part of the winter of 1880 in Tennessee, I began the study of
the character of the people and their institutions. I soon learned that
there existed an intense hatred on the part of the whites, toward the
colored population. Looking at the past, this was easily accounted for.
The older whites, brought up in the lap of luxury, educated to believe
themselves superior to the race under them, self-willed, arrogant,
determined, skilled in the use of side-arms, wealthy--possessing the
entire political control of the State--feeling themselves superior
also to the citizens of the free States,--this people was called
upon to subjugate themselves to an ignorant, superstitious, and
poverty-stricken, race--a race without homes, or the means of obtaining
them; to see the offices of State filled by men selected from this
servile set made these whites feel themselves deeply degraded in
the eyes of the world. Their power was gone, but their pride still
remained. They submitted in silence, but “bided their time,” and said:
“Never mind; we’ll yet make your hell a hot one.”
The blacks felt their importance, saw their own power in national
politics, were interviewed by obsequious and cringing white men from
the North--men, many of them, far inferior, morally, to the negro.
Two-faced, second-class white men of the South, few in number, it
is true, hung like leeches upon the blacks. Among the latter was a
respectable proportion of free men--free before the Rebellion; these
were comparatively well educated; to these and to the better class
of freedmen the country was to look for solid work. In the different
State Legislatures, the great battle was to be fought, and to these the
interest of the South centred. All of the Legislatures were composed
mainly of colored men. The few whites that were there were not only no
help to the blacks, but it would have been better for the character of
the latter, and for the country at large, if most of them had been in
some State prison.
Colored men went into the Legislatures somewhat as children go for the
first time to a Sabbath school. They sat and waited to see “the show.”
Many had been elected by constituencies, of which not more than ten in
a hundred could read the ballots they deposited; and a large number of
these Representatives could not write their own names.
This was not their fault. Their want of education was attributable to
the system of slavery through which they had passed, and the absence of
the educated intelligent whites of the South, was not the fault of the
colored men. This was a trying position for the recently-enfranchised
blacks, but nobly did they rise above the circumstances. The speeches
made by some of these men exhibited a depth of thought, flights of
eloquence, and civilized statesmanship, that throw their former
masters far in the back-ground. Yet, amongst the good done, bills
were introduced and passed, giving State aid to unworthy objects,
old, worn-out corporations re-galvanized, bills for outrageous new
frauds drawn up by white men, and presented by blacks; votes of both
colors bought up, bills passed, money granted, and these ignorant men
congratulated as “Statesmen.”
While this “Comedy of Errors” was being performed at the South, and
loudly applauded at the North, these very Northern men, who had yelled
their throats sore, would have fainted at the idea of a negro being
elected a member of their own Legislature.
By and by came the reaction. The disfranchised whites of the South
submitted, but complained. Northern men and women, the latter, always
the most influential, sympathized with the dog underneath. As the tide
was turning, the white adventurers returned from the South with piles
of greenbacks, and said that they had been speculating in cotton; but
their neighbors knew that it was stolen, for they had been members of
Southern Legislatures.
While Northern carpet-baggers were scudding off to their kennels with
their ill-gotten gains, the Southern colored politicians were driving
fast horses, their wives in their fine carriages; and men, who, five
years before were working in the cotton field under the lash, could now
draw their checks for thousands.
This extravagance of black men, followed by the heavy taxes, reminded
the old Southerners of their defeat in the Rebellion; it brought up
thoughts of revenge; Northern sympathy emboldened them at the South,
which resulted in the Ku-Klux organizations, and the reign of terror
that has cursed the South ever since.
The restoring of the rebels to power and the surrendering the colored
people to them, after using the latter in the war, and at the ballot
box, creating an enmity between the races, is the most bare-faced
ingratitude that history gives any account of.
After all, the ten years of negro Legislation in the South challenges
the profoundest study of mankind. History does not record a similar
instance. Five millions of uneducated, degraded people, without any
preparation whatever, set at liberty in a single day, without shedding
a drop of blood, burning a barn, or insulting a single female. They
reconstructed the State Governments that their masters had destroyed;
became Legislators, held State offices, and with all their blunders,
surpassed the whites that had preceded them. Future generations will
marvel at the calm forbearance, good sense, and Christian zeal of the
American Negro of the nineteenth century.
Nothing has been left undone to cripple their energies, darken their
minds, debase their moral sense, and obliterate all traces of their
relationship to the rest of mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have
sustained the mighty load of oppression under which they have groaned
for thousands of years.
After looking at the past history of both races, I could easily see
the cause of the great antipathy of the white man to the black,
here in Tennessee. This feeling was most forcibly illustrated by an
incident that occurred one day while I was standing in front of the
Knoxville House, in Knoxville. A good-looking, well-dressed colored man
approached a white man, in a business-like manner, and began talking to
him, but ere he had finished the question, the white raised his walking
stick, and with much force, knocked off the black man’s hat, and with
an oath said, “Don’t you know better than to speak to a white man with
your hat on, where’s your manners?” The negro picked up his hat, held
it in his hand, and resumed the conversation.
I inquired of the colored gentleman with whom I was talking, who the
parties were; he replied,--“The white man is a real estate dealer, and
the colored man is Hon. Mr. ----, ex-member of the General Assembly.”
This race feeling is still more forcibly set forth in the dastardly
attack of John Warren, of Huntingdon. The wife of this ruffian, while
passing through one of the streets of that town, was accidentally
run against by Miss Florence Hayes, who offered ample apology, and
which would have been accepted by any well-bred lady. However, Mrs.
Warren would not be satisfied with anything less than the punishment
of the young lady. Therefore, the two-fisted, coarse, rough, uncouth
ex-slave-holder, proceeded to Miss Hayes’ residence, gained admission,
and without a word of ceremony seized the young lady by the hair, and
began beating her with his fist, and kicking her with his heavy boots.
Not until his victim lay prostrate and senseless at his feet, did this
fiend cease his blows. Miss Hayes was teaching school at Huntingdon
when this outrage was committed, and so severe was the barbarous
attack, that she was compelled to return to her home at Nashville,
where she was confined to her room for several weeks. Yet, neither law
nor public opinion could reach this monster.
A few days after the assault, the following paragraph appeared in the
Huntingdon _Vindicator_:
“The occurrences of the past two weeks in the town of Huntingdon should
prove conclusively to the colored citizens that there is a certain
line existing between themselves and the white people which they
cannot cross with impunity. The incident which prompts us to write
this article, is the thrashing which a white gentleman administered
to a colored woman last week. With no wish to foster a spirit of
lawlessness in this community, but actuated by a desire to see the
negro keep in his proper place, we advise white men everywhere to
_stand up for their rights_, and in no case yield an inch to the
encroachment of an inferior race.”
“Stand up for their rights,” with this editor, means for the white
ruffianly coward to knock down every colored lady that does not give up
the entire sidewalk to him or his wife.
It was my good fortune to meet on several occasions Miss Florence T.
Hayes, the young lady above alluded to, and I never came in contact
with a more retiring, lady-like person in my life. She is a student of
Tennessee Central College, where she bears an unstained reputation,
and is regarded by all who know her to possess intellectual gifts far
superior to the average white young women of Tennessee.
Spending a night in the country, we had just risen from the
supper-table when mine host said:
“Listen, Mingo is telling how he re-converted his daughter; listen,
you’ll hear a rich story, and a true one.” Mr. Mingo lived in the
adjoining room.
“Yes, Mrs. Jones, my darter has bin home wissitin’ me, an’ I had a
mighty trial wid her, I can tell yer.”
“What was the matter, Mr. Mingo?” inquired the visitor.
“Well, yer see, Fanny’s bin a-livin’ in Philamadelfy, an’ she’s a
mighty changed ’oman in her ways. When she come in de house, she run
up to her mammy and say,--‘O! mar, I’m exquisitely pleased to greet
you.’ Den she run ter me an’ sed,--‘O! par,’ an’ kiss me. Well, dat was
all well enuff, but to see as much as two yards of her dress a-dragin’
behind her on de floor, it was too much,--an’ it were silk, too. It
made my heart ache. Ses I,--‘Fanny, you’s very stravagant, dragin’ all
dat silk on de floor in dat way.’ ‘O!’ sed she, ‘that’s the fashion,
par.’ Den, yer see, I were uneasy fer her. I were ’fraid she’d fall,
fer she had on a pair of boots wid the highess heels I eber see in my
life, which made her walk as ef she were walkin’ on her toes. Den, she
were covered all over wid ribbons and ruffles.
“When we set down to dinner, Fanny eat wid her fork, an’ when she see
her sister put de knife in her mouf, she ses,--‘Don’t put your knife in
your mouth; that’s vulgar.’ Nex’ mornin’, she took out of her pocket
some seeds, an’ put ’em in a tin cup, an’ pour bilin’ hot water on ’em.
Ses I,--‘Fanny, is yer sick, an’ gwine to take some medicine?’
“‘O! no, par, it’s quince seed, to make some gum-stick-um.’
“‘What is dat fer?’ I axed.
“‘Why, par, it’s to make Grecian waves on my forehead. Some call them
“scallopes.” We ladies in the city make them. You see, par, we comb
our hair down in little waves, and the gum makes them stick close to
the forehead. All the white ladies in the city wear them; it’s all the
fashion.’
“Well, yer see, Mrs. Jones, I could stand all dat, but when we went
to prayers I ax Fanny to lead in prayer; an’ when dat gal got on her
knees and took out of her pocket a gilt-edge book, and read a prayer,
den I were done, I ax myself is it possible dat my darter is come to
dat. So, when prayer were over, I sed: ‘Fanny, what kind of religion
is dat yer’s got?’ Sed she,--‘Why, par, I em a Piscopion.’ ‘What is
dat?’ I axed. ‘That’s the English Church service. Den yer’s no more a
Methodist?’ ‘O! no,’ said she, ‘to be a Piscopion is all the fashion.’”
“Stop, Mr. Mingo,” sed Mrs. Jones; “what kind of religion is dat? Is it
Baptiss?”
“No, no,” replied the old man; “ef it were Baptiss, den I could a-stood
dat, kase de Baptiss religion will do when yer can’t get no better. Fer
wid all dey faults, I believe de Baptiss ken get into hebben by a tight
squeeze. Kase, yer see, Mrs. Jones, I is a Methodiss, an’ I believes
in ole-time religion, an’ I wants my chillen to meet me in hebben. So,
I jess went right down on my knees an’ ax de Lord to show me my juty
about Fanny, fer I wanted to win her back to de ole-time religion.
Well, de Lord made it all plain to me, an’ follerin’ de Lord’s message
to me, I got right up an’ went out into de woods an’ cut some switches,
an’ put ’em in de barn. So I sed to Fanny: ‘Come, my darter, out to de
barn; I want to give yer a present to take back to Philamadelfy wid
yer.’
“‘Yes, par,’ said she, fer she was a-fixin’ de ’gum-stick-um’ on her
hair. So I went to de barn, an’ very soon out come Fanny. I jess shut
de door an’ fasten it, and took down my switches, an’ ax her,--‘What
kind of religion is dat yer’s got?’
“‘Piscopion, par.’ Den I commence, an’ I did give dat gal sech a
whippen, and she cry out,--‘O! par. O! par, please stop, par.’ Den I ax
her,--‘What kind of religion yer’s got?’ ‘Pis-co-copion,’ sed she. So I
give her some moo, an’ I ax her again,--‘What kind of religion is yer
got?’ She sed,--‘O! par, O! par.’ Sed I,--‘Don’t call me “par.” Call me
in de right way.’ Den she said,--‘O! daddy, O! daddy, I is a Methodiss.
I is got ole-time religion; please stop an’ I’ll never be a Piscopion
any more.’
“So, yer see, Mrs. Jones, I converted dat gal right back to de ole-time
religion, which is de bess of all religion. Yes, de Lord answered my
prayer dat time, wid de aid of de switches.”
Whether Mingo’s conversion of his daughter kept her from joining the
Episcopalians, on her return to Philadelphia, or not, I have not
learned.