A SOCIAL HISTORY
OF THE
American Negro
BEING
A HISTORY OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM
IN THE UNITED STATES
INCLUDING
A HISTORY AND STUDY OF THE
REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA
by BENJAMIN BRAWLEY
1921
TO THE MEMORY OF
NORWOOD PENROSE HALLOWELL
PATRIOT
1839-1914
* * * * *
_These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them afar off_.
Norwood Penrose Hallowell was born in Philadelphia April 13, 1839. He
inherited the tradition of the Quakers and grew to manhood in a
strong anti-slavery atmosphere. The home of his father, Morris L.
Hallowell--the "House called Beautiful," in the phrase of Oliver Wendell
Holmes--was a haven of rest and refreshment for wounded soldiers of the
Union Army, and hither also, after the assault upon him in the Senate,
Charles Sumner had come for succor and peace. Three brothers in one
way or another served the cause of the Union, one of them, Edward
N. Hallowell, succeeding Robert Gould Shaw in the Command of the
Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. Norwood Penrose
Hallowell himself, a natural leader of men, was Harvard class orator in
1861; twenty-five years later he was the marshal of his class; and in
1896 he delivered the Memorial Day address in Sanders Theater. Entering
the Union Army with promptness in April, 1861, he served first in
the New England Guards, then as First Lieutenant in the Twentieth
Massachusetts, won a Captain's commission in November, and within the
next year took part in numerous engagements, being wounded at Glendale
and even more severely at Antietam. On April 17, 1863, he became
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, and on May 30
Colonel of the newly organized Fifty-Fifth. Serving in the investment
of Fort Wagner, he was one of the first to enter the fort after its
evacuation. His wounds ultimately forced him to resign his commission,
and in November, 1863, he retired from the service. He engaged in
business in New York, but after a few years removed to Boston, where he
became eminent for his public spirit. He was one of God's noblemen, and
to the last he preserved his faith in the Negro whom he had been among
the first to lead toward the full heritage of American citizenship. He
died April 11, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF NEGROES TO AMERICA
1. African Origins
2. The Negro in Spanish Exploration
3. Development of the Slave-Trade
4. Planting of Slavery in the Colonies
5. The Wake of the Slave-Ship
CHAPTER II
THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES
1. Servitude and Slavery
2. The Indian, the Mulatto, and the Free Negro
3. First Effort toward Social Betterment
4. Early Insurrections
CHAPTER III
THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA
1. Sentiment in England and America
2. The Negro in the War
3. The Northwest Territory and the Constitution
4. Early Steps toward Abolition
5. Beginning of Racial Consciousness
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW WEST, THE SOUTH, AND THE WEST INDIES
1. The Cotton-Gin, the New Southwest, and the First Fugitive Slave Law
2. Toussaint L'Ouverture, Louisiana, and the Formal Closing of the
Slave-Trade
3. Gabriel's Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem
CHAPTER V
INDIAN AND NEGRO
1. Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 1812
2. First Seminole War and the Treaties of Indian Spring and Fort Moultrie
3. From the Treaty of Fort Moultrie to the Treaty of Payne's Landing
4. Osceola and the Second Seminole War
CHAPTER VI
EARLY APPROACH TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM
1. The Ultimate Problem and the Missouri Compromise
2. Colonization
3. Slavery
CHAPTER VII
THE NEGRO REPLY--I: REVOLT
1. Denmark Vesey's Insurrection
2. Nat Turner's Insurrection
3. The _Amistad_ and _Creole_ Cases
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEGRO REPLY--II: ORGANIZATION AND AGITATION
1. Walker's "Appeal"
2. The Convention Movement
3. Sojourner Truth and Woman Suffrage
CHAPTER IX
LIBERIA
1. The Place and the People
2. History
(a) Colonization and Settlement
(b) The Commonwealth of Liberia
(c) The Republic of Liberia
3. International Relations
4. Economic and Social Conditions
CHAPTER X
THE NEGRO A NATIONAL ISSUE
1. Current Tendencies
2. The Challenge of the Abolitionists
3. The Contest
CHAPTER XI
SOCIAL PROGRESS, 1820-1860
CHAPTER XII
THE CIVIL WAR AND EMANCIPATION
CHAPTER XIII
THE ERA OF ENFRANCHISEMENT
1. The Problem
2. Meeting the Problem
3. Reaction: The Ku-Klux Klan
4. Counter-Reaction: The Negro Exodus
5. A Postscript on the War and Reconstruction
CHAPTER XIV
THE NEGRO IN THE NEW SOUTH
1. Political Life: Disfranchisement
2. Economic Life: Peonage
3. Social Life: Proscription, Lynching
CHAPTER XV
"THE VALE OF TEARS," 1890-1910
1. Current Opinion and Tendencies
2. Industrial Education: Booker T. Washington
3. Individual Achievement: The Spanish-American War
4. Mob Violence; Election Troubles; The Atlanta Massacre
5. The Question of Labor
6. Defamation; Brownsville
7. The Dawn of a To-morrow
CHAPTER XVI
THE NEGRO IN THE NEW AGE
1. Character of the Period
2. Migration; East St. Louis
3. The Great War
4. High Tension: Washington, Chicago, Elaine
5. The Widening Problem
CHAPTER XVII
THE NEGRO PROBLEM
1. World Aspect
2. The Negro in American Life
3. Face to Face
PREFACE
In the following pages an effort is made to give fresh treatment to the
history of the Negro people in the United States, and to present this
from a distinct point of view, the social. It is now forty years since
George W. Williams completed his _History of the Negro Race in America_,
and while there have been many brilliant studies of periods or episodes
since that important work appeared, no one book has again attempted to
treat the subject comprehensively, and meanwhile the race has passed
through some of its most critical years in America. The more outstanding
political phases of the subject, especially in the period before the
Civil War, have been frequently considered; and in any account of
the Negro people themselves the emphasis has almost always been upon
political and military features. Williams emphasizes this point of view,
and his study of legal aspects is not likely soon to be superseded. A
noteworthy point about the history of the Negro, however, is that laws
on the statute-books have not necessarily been regarded, public opinion
and sentiment almost always insisting on being considered. It is
necessary accordingly to study the actual life of the Negro people in
itself and in connection with that of the nation, and something like
this the present work endeavors to do. It thus becomes not only a Social
History of the race, but also the first formal effort toward a History
of the Negro Problem in America.
With this aim in mind, in view of the enormous amount of material,
we have found it necessary to confine ourselves within very definite
limits. A thorough study of all the questions relating to the Negro in
the United States would fill volumes, for sooner or later it would touch
upon all the great problems of American life. No attempt is made to
perform such a task; rather is it intended to fix attention upon the
race itself as definitely as possible. Even with this limitation there
are some topics that might be treated at length, but that have already
been studied so thoroughly that no very great modification is now likely
to be made of the results obtained. Such are many of the questions
revolving around the general subject of slavery. Wars are studied not so
much to take note of the achievement of Negro soldiers, vital as that
is, as to record the effect of these events on the life of the great
body of people. Both wars and slavery thus become not more than
incidents in the history of the ultimate problem.
In view of what has been said, it is natural that the method of
treatment should vary with the different chapters. Sometimes it is
general, as when we touch upon the highways of American history.
Sometimes it is intensive, as in the consideration of insurrections and
early effort for social progress; and Liberia, as a distinct and much
criticized experiment in government by American Negroes, receives very
special attention. For the first time also an effort is now made to
treat consecutively the life of the Negro people in America for the last
fifty years.
This work is the result of studies on which I have been engaged for
a number of years and which have already seen some light in _A Short
History of the American Negro_ and _The Negro in Literature and Art_;
and acquaintance with the elementary facts contained in such books as
these is in the present work very largely taken for granted. I feel
under a special debt of gratitude to the New York State Colonization
Society, which, coöperating with the American Colonization Society and
the Board of Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia, in 1920
gave me opportunity for some study at first hand of educational and
social conditions on the West Coast of Africa; and most of all do I
remember the courtesy and helpfulness of Dr. E.C. Sage and Dr. J.H.
Dillard in this connection. In general I have worked independently
of Williams, but any student of the subject must be grateful to that
pioneer, as well as to Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who has made contributions in
so many ways. My obligations to such scholarly dissertations as those
by Turner and Russell are manifest, while to Mary Stoughton Locke's
_Anti-Slavery in America_--a model monograph--I feel indebted more than
to any other thesis. Within the last few years, of course, the _Crisis_,
the _Journal of Negro History_, and the _Negro Year-Book_ have in their
special fields become indispensable, and to Dr. Carter G. Woodson and
Professor M.N. Work much credit is due for the faith which has prompted
their respective ventures. I take this occasion also to thank Professor
W.E. Dodd, of the University of Chicago, who from the time of my
entrance upon this field has generously placed at my disposal his
unrivaled knowledge of the history of the South; and as always I must
be grateful to my father, Rev. E.M. Brawley, for that stimulation and
criticism which all my life have been most valuable to me. Finally, the
work has been dedicated to the memory of a distinguished soldier, who,
in his youth, in the nation's darkest hour, helped to lead a struggling
people to freedom and his country to victory. It is now submitted to the
consideration of all who are interested in the nation's problems, and
indeed in any effort that tries to keep in mind the highest welfare of
the country itself.
BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. Cambridge, January 1, 1921.
SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF NEGROES TO AMERICA
1. _African Origins_
An outstanding characteristic of recent years has been an increasing
recognition of the cultural importance of Africa to the world. From all
that has been written three facts are prominent: (1) That at some time
early in the Middle Ages, perhaps about the seventh century, there was
a considerable infiltration of Arabian culture into the tribes living
below the Sahara, something of which may to-day most easily be seen
among such people as the Haussas in the Soudan and the Mandingoes along
the West Coast; (2) That, whatever influences came in from the outside,
there developed in Africa an independent culture which must not be
underestimated; and (3) That, perhaps vastly more than has been
supposed, this African culture had to do with early exploration and
colonization in America. The first of these three facts is very
important, but is now generally accepted and need not here detain us.
For the present purpose the second and third demand more attention.
The development of native African art is a theme of never-ending
fascination for the ethnologist. Especially have striking resemblances
between Negro and Oceanian culture been pointed out. In political
organization as well as certain forms of artistic endeavor the Negro
people have achieved creditable results, and especially have they been
honored as the originators of the iron technique.[1] It has further been
shown that fetichism, which is especially well developed along the
West Coast and its hinterland, is at heart not very different from the
manitou beliefs of the American Indians; and it is this connection that
furnishes the key to some of the most striking results of the researches
of the latest and most profound student of this and related problems.[2]
[Footnote 1: Note article "Africa" in _New International Encyclopedia_,
referring especially to the studies of Von Luschan.]
[Footnote 2: Leo Wiener: _Africa and the Discovery of America_, Vol. I,
Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, 1920.]
From the Soudan radiated a culture that was destined to affect Europe
and in course of time to extend its influence even beyond the Atlantic
Ocean. It is important to remember that throughout the early history of
Europe and up to the close of the fifteenth century the approach to the
home of the Negro was by land. The Soudan was thought to be the edge of
the then known world; Homer speaks of the Ethiopians as "the farthest
removed of men, and separated into two divisions." Later Greek writers
carry the description still further and speak of the two divisions as
Eastern and Western--the Eastern occupying the countries eastward of the
Nile, and the Western stretching from the western shores of that river
to the Atlantic Coast. "One of these divisions," says Lady Lugard, "we
have to acknowledge, was perhaps itself the original source of the
civilization which has through Egypt permeated the Western world....
When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be
found that the kingdoms lying toward the eastern end of the Soudan were
the home of races who inspired, rather than of races who received, the
traditions of civilization associated for us with the name of ancient
Egypt."[1]
[Footnote 1: _A Tropical Dependency_, James Nisbet & Co., Ltd., London,
1906, p. 17.]
If now we come to America, we find the Negro influence upon the Indian
to be so strong as to call in question all current conceptions of
American archæology and so early as to suggest the coming of men from
the Guinea Coast perhaps even before the coming of Columbus.[1] The
first natives of Africa to come were Mandingoes; many of the words
used by the Indians in their daily life appear to be not more than
corruptions or adaptations of words used by the tribes of Africa; and
the more we study the remains of those who lived in America before 1492,
and the far-reaching influence of African products and habits, the more
must we acknowledge the strength of the position of the latest thesis.
This whole subject will doubtless receive much more attention from
scholars, but in any case it is evident that the demands of Negro
culture can no longer be lightly regarded or brushed aside, and that as
a scholarly contribution to the subject Wiener's work is of the very
highest importance.
[Footnote 1: See Wiener, I, 178.]
2. _The Negro in Spanish Exploration_
When we come to Columbus himself, the accuracy of whose accounts has so
recently been questioned, we find a Negro, Pedro Alonso Niño, as the
pilot of one of the famous three vessels. In 1496 Niño sailed to Santo
Domingo and he was also with Columbus on his third voyage. With two men,
Cristóbal de la Guerra, who served as pilot, and Luís de la Guerra,
a Spanish merchant, in 1499 he planned what proved to be the first
successful commercial voyage to the New World.
The revival of slavery at the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning
of the system of Negro slavery were due to the commercial expansion of
Portugal in the fifteenth century. The very word _Negro_ is the modern
Spanish and Portuguese form of the Latin _niger_. In 1441 Prince Henry
sent out one Gonzales, who captured three Moors on the African coast.
These men offered as ransom ten Negroes whom they had taken. The Negroes
were taken to Lisbon in 1442, and in 1444 Prince Henry regularly began
the European trade from the Guinea Coast. For fifty years his country
enjoyed a monopoly of the traffic. By 1474 Negroes were numerous in
Spain, and special interest attaches to Juan de Valladolid, probably the
first of many Negroes who in time came to have influence and power over
their people under the authority of a greater state. He was addressed as
"judge of all the Negroes and mulattoes, free or slaves, which are in
the very loyal and noble city of Seville, and throughout the whole
archbishopric thereof." After 1500 there are frequent references to
Negroes, especially in the Spanish West Indies. Instructions to Ovando,
governor of Hispaniola, in 1501, prohibited the passage to the Indies of
Jews, Moors, or recent converts, but authorized him to take over Negro
slaves who had been born in the power of Christians. These orders were
actually put in force the next year. Even the restricted importation
Ovando found inadvisable, and he very soon requested that Negroes be not
sent, as they ran away to the Indians, with whom they soon made friends.
Isabella accordingly withdrew her permission, but after her death
Ferdinand reverted to the old plan and in 1505 sent to Ovando seventeen
Negro slaves for work in the copper-mines, where the severity of the
labor was rapidly destroying the Indians. In 1510 Ferdinand directed
that fifty Negroes be sent immediately, and that more be sent later; and
in April of this year over a hundred were bought in the Lisbon market.
This, says Bourne,[1] was the real beginning of the African slave-trade
to America. Already, however, as early as 1504, a considerable number
of Negroes had been introduced from Guinea because, as we are informed,
"the work of one Negro was worth more than that of four Indians." In
1513 thirty Negroes assisted Balboa in building the first ships made on
the Pacific Coast of America. In 1517 Spain formally entered upon the
traffic, Charles V on his accession to the throne granting "license
for the introduction of Negroes to the number of four hundred," and
thereafter importation to the West Indies became a thriving industry.
Those who came in these early years were sometimes men of considerable
intelligence, having been trained as Mohammedans or Catholics. By 1518
Negroes were at work in the sugar-mills in Hispaniola, where they seem
to have suffered from indulgence in drinks made from sugarcane. In 1521
it was ordered that Negro slaves should not be employed on errands as
in general these tended to cultivate too close acquaintance with the
Indians. In 1522 there was a rebellion on the sugar plantations in
Hispaniola, primarily because the services of certain Indians were
discontinued. Twenty Negroes from the Admiral's mill, uniting with
twenty others who spoke the same language, killed a number of
Christians. They fled and nine leagues away they killed another Spaniard
and sacked a house. One Negro, assisted by twelve Indian slaves, also
killed nine other Christians. After much trouble the Negroes were
apprehended and several of them hanged. It was about 1526 that Negroes
were first introduced within the present limits of the United States,
being brought to a colony near what later became Jamestown, Va. Here the
Negroes were harshly treated and in course of time they rose against
their oppressors and fired their houses. The settlement was broken up,
and the Negroes and their Spanish companions returned to Hispaniola,
whence they had come. In 1540, in Quivira, in Mexico, there was a
Negro who had taken holy orders; and in 1542 there were established at
Guamanga three brotherhoods of the True Cross of Spaniards, one being
for Indians and one for Negroes.
[Footnote 1: _Spain in America_, Vol. 3 in American Nation Series, p.
270.]
The outstanding instance of a Negro's heading in exploration is that of
Estévanico (or Estévanillo, or Estévan, that is, Stephen), one of the
four survivors of the ill-fated expedition of De Narvaez, who sailed
from Spain, June 17, 1527. Having returned to Spain after many years of
service in the New World, Pamfilo de Narvaez petitioned for a grant, and
accordingly the right to conquer and colonize the country between the
Rio de las Palmas, in eastern Mexico, and Florida was accorded him.[1]
His force originally consisted of six hundred soldiers and
colonists. The whole conduct of the expedition--incompetent in the
extreme--furnished one of the most appalling tragedies of early
exploration in America. The original number of men was reduced by half
by storms and hurricanes and desertions in Santo Domingo and Cuba, and
those who were left landed in April, 1528, near the entrance to Tampa
Bay, on the west coast of Florida. One disaster followed another in the
vicinity of Pensacola Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi until at
length only four men survived. These were Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca;
Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a captain of infantry; Alonzo del Castillo
Maldonado; and Estévanico, who had originally come from the west
coast of Morocco and who was a slave of Dorantes. These men had most
remarkable adventures in the years between 1528 and 1536, and as a
narrative of suffering and privation Cabeza de Vaca's _Journal_ has
hardly an equal in the annals of the continent. Both Dorantes and
Estévanico were captured, and indeed for a season or two all four men
were forced to sojourn among the Indians. They treated the sick, and
with such success did they work that their fame spread far and wide
among the tribes. Crowds followed them from place to place, showering
presents upon them. With Alonzo de Castillo, Estévanico sojourned for
a while with the Yguazes, a very savage tribe that killed its own male
children and bought those of strangers. He at length escaped from these
people and spent several months with the Avavares. He afterwards went
with De Vaca to the Maliacones, only a short distance from the Avavares,
and still later he accompanied Alonzo de Castillo in exploring the
country toward the Rio Grande. He was unexcelled as a guide who could
make his way through new territory. In 1539 he went with Fray Marcos of
Nice, the Father Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, as a
guide to the Seven Cities of Cibola, the villages of the ancestors of
the present Zuñi Indians in western New Mexico. Preceding Fray Marcos
by a few days and accompanied by natives who joined him on the way, he
reached Háwikuh, the southern-most of the seven towns. Here he and all
but three of his Indian followers were killed.
[Footnote 1: Frederick W. Hodge, 3, in _Spanish Explorers in the
Southern United States_, 1528-1543, in "Original Narratives of Early
American History," Scribner's, New York, 1907. Both the Narrative of
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Narrative of the Expedition of
Coronado, by Pedro de Casteñada, are edited by Hodge, with illuminating
introductions.]
3. _Development of the Slave-Trade_
Portugal and Spain having demonstrated that the slave-trade was
profitable, England also determined to engage in the traffic; and as
early as 1530 William Hawkins, a merchant of Plymouth, visited the
Guinea Coast and took away a few slaves. England really entered the
field, however, with the voyage in 1562 of Captain John Hawkins, son of
William, who in October of this year also went to the coast of Guinea.
He had a fleet of three ships and one hundred men, and partly by the
sword and partly by other means he took three hundred or more Negroes,
whom he took to Santo Domingo and sold profitably.[1] He was richly
laden going homeward and some of his stores were seized by Spanish
vessels. Hawkins made two other voyages, one in 1564, and another,
with Drake, in 1567. On his second voyage he had four armed ships, the
largest being the _Jesus_, a vessel of seven hundred tons, and a force
of one hundred and seventy men. December and January (1564-5) he spent
in picking up freight, and by sickness and fights with the Negroes he
lost many of his men. Then at the end of January he set out for the
West Indies. He was becalmed for twenty-one days, but he arrived at the
Island of Dominica March 9. He traded along the Spanish coasts and on
his return to England he touched at various points in the West Indies
and sailed along the coast of Florida. On his third voyage he had five
ships. He himself was again in command of the _Jesus_, while Drake
was in charge of the _Judith_, a little vessel of fifty tons. He got
together between four and five hundred Negroes and again went to
Dominica. He had various adventures and at last was thrown by a storm on
the coast of Mexico. Here after three days he was attacked by a Spanish
fleet of twelve vessels, and all of his ships were destroyed except the
_Judith_ and another small vessel, the _Minion_, which was so crowded
that one hundred men risked the dangers on land rather than go to
sea with her. On this last voyage Hawkins and Drake had among their
companions the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, who were then, like
other young Elizabethans, seeking fame and fortune. It is noteworthy
that in all that he did Hawkins seems to have had no sense of cruelty or
wrong. He held religious services morning and evening, and in the spirit
of the later Cromwell he enjoined upon his men to "serve God daily, love
one another, preserve their victuals, beware of fire, and keep good
company." Queen Elizabeth evidently regarded the opening of the
slave-trade as a worthy achievement, for after his second voyage she
made Hawkins a knight, giving him for a crest the device of a Negro's
head and bust with the arms securely bound.
[Footnote 1: Edward E. Hale in Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical
History of America_, III, 60.]
France joined in the traffic in 1624, and then Holland and Denmark, and
the rivalry soon became intense. England, with her usual aggressiveness,
assumed a commanding position, and, much more than has commonly been
supposed, the Navigation Ordinance of 1651 and the two wars with the
Dutch in the seventeenth century had as their basis the struggle for
supremacy in the slave-trade. The English trade proper began with the
granting of rights to special companies, to one in 1618, to another in
1631, and in 1662 to the "Company of Royal Adventurers," rechartered
in 1672 as the "Royal African Company," to which in 1687 was given the
exclusive right to trade between the Gold Coast and the British colonies
in America. James, Duke of York, was interested in this last company,
and it agreed to supply the West Indies with three thousand slaves
annually. In 1698, on account of the incessant clamor of English
merchants, the trade was opened generally, and any vessel carrying the
British flag was by act of Parliament permitted to engage in it on
payment of a duty of 10 per cent on English goods exported to Africa.
New England immediately engaged in the traffic, and vessels from Boston
and Newport went forth to the Gold Coast laden with hogsheads of rum. In
course of time there developed a three-cornered trade by which molasses
was brought from the West Indies to New England, made into rum to be
taken to Africa and exchanged for slaves, the slaves in turn being
brought to the West Indies or the Southern colonies.[1] A slave
purchased for one hundred gallons of rum worth £10 brought from £20 to
£50 when offered for sale in America.[2] Newport soon had twenty-two
still houses, and even these could not satisfy the demand. England
regarded the slave-trade as of such importance that when in 1713 she
accepted the Peace of Utrecht she insisted on having awarded to her for
thirty years the exclusive right to transport slaves to the Spanish
colonies in America. When in the course of the eighteenth century the
trade became fully developed, scores of vessels went forth each year
to engage in it; but just how many slaves were brought to the present
United States and how many were taken to the West Indies or South
America, it is impossible to say. In 1726 the three cities of London,
Bristol, and Liverpool alone had 171 ships engaged in the traffic, and
the profits were said to warrant a thousand more, though such a number
was probably never reached so far as England alone was concerned.[3]
[Footnote 1: Bogart: _Economic History_, 72.]
[Footnote 2: Coman: _Industrial History_, 78.]
[Footnote 3: Ballagh: _Slavery in Virginia, 12_.]
4. _Planting of Slavery in the Colonies_
It is only for Virginia that we can state with definiteness the year
in which Negro slaves were first brought to an English colony on the
mainland. When legislation on the subject of slavery first appears
elsewhere, slaves are already present. "About the last of August
(1619)," says John Rolfe in John Smith's _Generall Historie_, "came in a
Dutch man of warre, that sold us twenty Negars." These Negroes were
sold into servitude, and Virginia did not give statutory recognition to
slavery as a system until 1661, the importations being too small to make
the matter one of importance. In this year, however, an act of assembly
stated that Negroes were "incapable of making satisfaction for the time
lost in running away by addition of time"; [1] and thus slavery gained a
firm place in the oldest of the colonies.
[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, II, _26_.]
Negroes were first imported into Massachusetts from Barbadoes a year or
two before 1638, but in John Winthrop's _Journal_, under date February
26 of this year, we have positive evidence on the subject as follows:
"Mr. Pierce in the Salem ship, the _Desire_, returned from the West
Indies after seven months. He had been at Providence, and brought some
cotton, and tobacco, and Negroes, etc., from thence, and salt from
Tertugos. Dry fish and strong liquors are the only commodities for those
parts. He met there two men-of-war, sent forth by the lords, etc., of
Providence with letters of mart, who had taken divers prizes from the
Spaniard and many Negroes." It was in 1641 that there was passed in
Massachusetts the first act on the subject of slavery, and this was the
first positive statement in any of the colonies with reference to
the matter. Said this act: "There shall never be any bond slavery,
villeinage, nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives, taken
in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are
sold to us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages
which the law of God established in Israel requires." This article
clearly sanctioned slavery. Of the three classes of persons referred to,
the first was made up of Indians, the second of white people under the
system of indenture, and the third of Negroes. In this whole matter, as
in many others, Massachusetts moved in advance of the other colonies.
The first definitely to legalize slavery, in course of time she became
also the foremost representative of sentiment against the system. In
1646 one John Smith brought home two Negroes from the Guinea Coast,
where we are told he "had been the means of killing near a hundred
more." The General Court, "conceiving themselves bound by the first
opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of
man-stealing," ordered that the Negroes be sent at public expense to
their native country.[1] In later cases, however, Massachusetts did not
find herself able to follow this precedent. In general in these early
years New England was more concerned about Indians than about Negroes,
as the presence of the former in large numbers was a constant menace,
while Negro slavery had not yet assumed its most serious aspects.
[Footnote 1: Coffin: _Slave Insurrections_, 8.]
In New York slavery began under the Dutch rule and continued under the
English. Before or about 1650 the Dutch West India Company brought some
Negroes to New Netherland. Most of these continued to belong to the
company, though after a period of labor (under the common system of
indenture) some of the more trusty were permitted to have small farms,
from the produce of which they made return to the company. Their
children, however, continued to be slaves. In 1664 New Netherland became
New York. The next year, in the code of English laws that was drawn
up, it was enacted that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery,
villeinage, or captivity, except who shall be judged thereunto by
authority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves." As
at first there was some hesitancy about making Negroes Christians, this
act, like the one in Massachusetts, by implication permitted slavery.
It was in 1632 that the grant including what is now the states of
Maryland and Delaware was made to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore.
Though slaves are mentioned earlier, it was in 1663-4 that the Maryland
Legislature passed its first enactment on the subject of slavery. It was
declared that "all Negroes and other slaves within this province, and
all Negroes and other slaves to be hereinafter imported into this
province, shall serve during life; and all children born of any Negro
or other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were, for the term of
their lives."
In Delaware and New Jersey the real beginnings of slavery are unusually
hazy. The Dutch introduced the system in both of these colonies. In the
laws of New Jersey the word _slaves_ occurs as early as 1664, and acts
for the regulation of the conduct of those in bondage began with the
practical union of the colony with New York in 1702. The lot of the
slave was somewhat better here than in most of the colonies. Although
the system was in existence in Delaware almost from the beginning of the
colony, it did not receive legal recognition until 1721, when there was
passed an act providing for the trial of slaves in a special court with
two justices and six freeholders.
As early as 1639 there are incidental reference to Negroes in
Pennsylvania, and there are frequent references after this date.[1] In
this colony there were strong objections to the importing of Negroes in
spite of the demand for them. Penn in his charter to the Free Society of
Traders in 1682 enjoined upon the members of this company that if they
held black slaves these should be free at the end of fourteen years,
the Negroes then to become the company's tenants.[2] In 1688 there
originated in Germantown a protest against Negro slavery that was "the
first formal action ever taken against the barter in human flesh within
the boundaries of the United States." [3] Here a small company of
Germans was assembled April 18, 1688, and there was drawn up a document
signed by Garret Hendericks, Franz Daniel Pastorius, Dirck Op den
Graeff, and Abraham Op den Graeff. The protest was addressed to the
monthly meeting of the Quakers about to take place in Lower Dublin.
The monthly meeting on April 30 felt that it could not pretend to take
action on such an important matter and referred it to the quarterly
meeting in June. This in turn passed it on to the yearly meeting, the
highest tribunal of the Quakers. Here it was laid on the table, and
for the next few years nothing resulted from it. About 1696, however,
opposition to slavery on the part of the Quakers began to be active. In
the colony at large before 1700 the lot of the Negro was regularly
one of servitude. Laws were made for servants, white or black, and
regulations and restrictions were largely identical. In 1700, however,
legislation began more definitely to fix the status of the slave. In
this year an act of the legislature forbade the selling of Negroes out
of the province without their consent, but in other ways it denied the
personality of the slave. This act met further formal approval in 1705,
when special courts were ordained for the trial and punishment of
slaves, and when importation from Carolina was forbidden on the ground
that it made trouble with the Indians nearer home. In 1700 a maximum
duty of 20s. was placed on each Negro imported, and in 1705 this was
doubled, there being already some competition with white labor. In 1712
the Assembly sought to prevent importation altogether by a duty of £20
a head. This act was repealed in England, and a duty of £5 in 1715 was
also repealed. In 1729, however, the duty was fixed at £2, at which
figure it remained for a generation.
[Footnote 1: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 1.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., 21.]
[Footnote 3: Faust: _The German Element in the United States_, Boston,
1909, I, 45.]
It was almost by accident that slavery was officially recognized in
Connecticut in 1650. The code of laws compiled for the colony in this
year was especially harsh on the Indians. It was enacted that certain of
them who incurred the displeasure of the colony might be made to serve
the person injured or "be shipped out and exchanged for Negroes." In
1680 the governor of the colony informed the Board of Trade that "as for
blacks there came sometimes three or four in a year from Barbadoes, and
they are usually sold at the rate of £22 apiece." These people were
regarded rather as servants than as slaves, and early legislation was
mainly in the line of police regulations designed to prevent their
running away.
In 1652 it was enacted in Rhode Island that all slaves brought into the
colony should be set free after ten years of service. This law was not
designed, as might be supposed, to restrict slavery. It was really a
step in the evolution of the system, and the limit of ten years was by
no means observed. "The only legal recognition of the law was in the
series of acts beginning January 4, 1703, to control the wandering of
African slaves and servants, and another beginning in April, 1708, in
which the slave-trade was indirectly legalized by being taxed."[1] "In
course of time Rhode Island became the greatest slave-trader in the
country, becoming a sort of clearing-house for the other colonies."[2]
[Footnote 1: William T. Alexander: History of the Colored Race in
America, New Orleans, 1887, p. 136.]
[Footnote 2: DuBois: Suppression of the Slave-Trade, 34.]
New Hampshire, profiting by the experience of the neighboring colony of
Massachusetts, deemed it best from the beginning to discourage
slavery. There were so few Negroes in the colony as to form a quantity
practically negligible. The system was recognized, however, an act being
passed in 1714 to regulate the conduct of slaves, and another four years
later to regulate that of masters.
In North Carolina, even more than in most of the colonies, the system
of Negro slavery was long controlled by custom rather than by legal
enactment. It was recognized by law in 1715, however, and police
regulations to govern the slaves were enacted. In South Carolina the
history of slavery is particularly noteworthy. The natural resources
of this colony offered a ready home for the system, and the laws here
formulated were as explicit as any ever enacted. Slaves were first
imported from Barbadoes, and their status received official confirmation
in 1682. By 1720 the number had increased to 12,000, the white people
numbering only 9,000. By 1698 such was the fear from the preponderance
of the Negro population that a special act was passed to encourage white
immigration. Legislation "for the better ordering of slaves" was passed
in 1690, and in 1712 the first regular slave law was enacted. Once
before 1713, the year of the Assiento Contract of the Peace of Utrecht,
and several times after this date, prohibitive duties were placed on
Negroes to guard against their too rapid increase. By 1734, however,
importation had again reached large proportions; and in 1740, in
consequence of recent insurrectionary efforts, a prohibitive duty
several times larger than the previous one was placed upon Negroes
brought into the province.
The colony of Georgia was chartered in 1732 and actually founded the
next year. Oglethorpe's idea was that the colony should be a refuge for
persecuted Christians and the debtor classes of England. Slavery was
forbidden on the ground that Georgia was to defend the other English
colonies from the Spaniards on the South, and that it would not be able
to do this if like South Carolina it dissipated its energies in guarding
Negro slaves. For years the development of Georgia was slow, and the
prosperous condition of South Carolina constantly suggested to the
planters that "the one thing needful" for their highest welfare was
slavery. Again and again were petitions addressed to the trustees,
George Whitefield being among those who most urgently advocated the
innovation. Moreover, Negroes from South Carolina were sometimes hired
for life, and purchases were openly made in Savannah. It was not until
1749, however, that the trustees yielded to the request. In 1755 the
legislature passed an act that regulated the conduct of the slaves, and
in 1765 a more regular code was adopted. Thus did slavery finally gain a
foothold in what was destined to become one of the most important of the
Southern states.
For the first fifty or sixty years of the life of the colonies the
introduction of Negroes was slow; the system of white servitude
furnished most of the labor needed, and England had not yet won
supremacy in the slave-trade. It was in the last quarter of the
seventeenth century that importations began to be large, and in the
course of the eighteenth century the numbers grew by leaps and bounds.
In 1625, six years after the first Negroes were brought to the colony,
there were in Virginia only 23 Negroes, 12 male, 11 female. [1] In 1659
there were 300; but in 1683 there were 3,000 and in 1708, 12,000. In
1680 Governor Simon Bradstreet reported to England with reference to
Massachusetts that "no company of blacks or slaves" had been brought
into the province since its beginning, for the space of fifty years,
with the exception of a small vessel that two years previously, after a
twenty months' voyage to Madagascar, had brought hither between forty
and fifty Negroes, mainly women and children, who were sold for £10,
£15, and £20 apiece; occasionally two or three Negroes were brought from
Barbadoes or other islands, and altogether there were in Massachusetts
at the time not more than 100 or 120.
[Footnote 1: _Virginia Magazine of History_, VII, 364.]
The colonists were at first largely opposed to the introduction of
slavery, and numerous acts were passed prohibiting it in Virginia,
Massachusetts, and elsewhere; and in Georgia, as we have seen, it had at
first been expressly forbidden. English business men, however, had no
scruples about the matter. About 1663 a British Committee on
Foreign Plantations declared that "black slaves are the most useful
appurtenances of a plantation," [1] and twenty years later the Lords
Commissioners of Trade stated that "the colonists could not possibly
subsist" without an adequate supply of slaves. Laws passed in the
colonies were regularly disallowed by the crown, and royal governors
were warned that the colonists would not be permitted to "discourage a
traffic so beneficial to the nation." Before 1772 Virginia passed not
less than thirty-three acts looking toward the prohibition of the
importation of slaves, but in every instance the act was annulled by
England. In the far South, especially in South Carolina, we have seen
that there were increasingly heavy duties. In spite of all such efforts
for restriction, however, the system of Negro slavery, once well
started, developed apace.
[Footnote 1: Bogart: _Economic History_, 73.]
In two colonies not among the original thirteen but important in the
later history of the United States, Negroes were present at a very early
date, in the Spanish colony of Florida from the very first, and in the
French colony of Louisiana as soon as New Orleans really began to grow.
Negroes accompanied the Spaniards in their voyages along the South
Atlantic coast early in the sixteenth century, and specially trained
Spanish slaves assisted in the founding of St. Augustine in 1565. The
ambitious schemes in France of the great adventurer, John Law, and
especially the design of the Mississippi Company (chartered 1717)
included an agreement for the importation into Louisiana of six thousand
white persons and three thousand Negroes, the Company having secured
among other privileges the exclusive right to trade with the colony for
twenty-five years and the absolute ownership of all mines in it. The
sufferings of some of the white emigrants from France--the kidnapping,
the revenge, and the chicanery that played so large a part--all make
a story complete in itself. As for the Negroes, it was definitely
stipulated that these should not come from another French colony without
the consent of the governor of that colony. The contract had only begun
to be carried out when Law's bubble burst. However, in June, 1721, there
were 600 Negroes in Louisiana; in 1745 the number had increased to
2020. The stories connected with these people are as tragic and wildly
romantic as are most of the stories in the history of Louisiana. In
fact, this colony from the very first owed not a little of its abandon
and its fascination to the mysticism that the Negroes themselves brought
from Africa. In the midst of much that is apocryphal one or two events
or episodes stand out with distinctness. In 1729, Perier, governor at
the time, testified with reference to a small company of Negroes who
had been sent against the Indians as follows: "Fifteen Negroes in whose
hands we had put weapons, performed prodigies of valor. If the blacks
did not cost so much, and if their labors were not so necessary to the
colony, it would be better to turn them into soldiers, and to dismiss
those we have, who are so bad and so cowardly that they seem to have
been manufactured purposely for this colony[1]." Not always, however,
did the Negroes fight against the Indians. In 1730 some representatives
of the powerful Banbaras had an understanding with the Chickasaws by
which the latter were to help them in exterminating all the white people
and in setting up an independent republic[2]. They were led by a strong
and desperate Negro named Samba. As a result of this effort for freedom
Samba and seven of his companions were broken on the wheel and a woman
was hanged. Already, however, there had been given the suggestion of the
possible alliance in the future of the Indian and the Negro. From the
very first also, because of the freedom from restraint of all the
elements of population that entered into the life of the colony, there
was the beginning of that mixture of the races which was later to tell
so vitally on the social life of Louisiana and whose effects are so
readily apparent even to-day.
[Footnote 1: Gayarré: _History of Louisiana_, I, 435.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., I, 440.]
5. The Wake of the Slave-Ship
Thus it was that Negroes came to America. Thus it was also, we might
say, that the Negro Problem came, though it was not for decades, not
until the budding years of American nationality, that the ultimate
reaches of the problem were realized. Those who came were by no means
all of exactly the same race stock and language. Plantations frequently
exhibited a variety of customs, and sometimes traditional enemies became
brothers in servitude. The center of the colonial slave-trade was the
African coast for about two hundred miles east of the great Niger River.
From this comparatively small region came as many slaves as from all the
rest of Africa together. A number of those who came were of entirely
different race stock from the Negroes; some were Moors, and a very few
were Malays from Madagascar.
The actual procuring of the slaves was by no means as easy a process as
is sometimes supposed. In general the slave mart brought out the most
vicious passions of all who were in any way connected with the traffic.
The captain of a vessel had to resort to various expedients to get his
cargo. His commonest method was to bring with him a variety of gay
cloth, cheap ornaments, and whiskey, which he would give in exchange for
slaves brought to him. His task was most simple when a chieftain of
one tribe brought to him several hundred prisoners of war. Ordinarily,
however, the work was more toilsome, and kidnapping a favorite method,
though individuals were sometimes enticed on vessels. The work was
always dangerous, for the natives along the slave-coast soon became
suspicious. After they had seen some of their tribesmen taken away, they
learned not to go unarmed while a slave-vessel was on the coast, and
very often there were hand-to-hand encounters. It was not long before it
began to be impressed upon those interested in the trade that it was not
good business to place upon the captain of a vessel the responsibility
of getting together three or four hundred slaves, and that it would be
better if he could find his cargo waiting for him when he came. Thus
arose the so-called factories, which were nothing more than warehouses.
Along the coast were placed small settlements of Europeans, whose
business it was to stimulate slave-hunting expeditions, negotiate for
slaves brought in, and see that they were kept until the arrival of the
ships. Practically every nation engaged in the traffic planted factories
of this kind along the West Coast from Cape Verde to the equator; and
thus it was that this part of Africa began to be the most flagrantly
exploited region in the world; thus whiskey and all the other vices of
civilization began to come to a simple and home-loving people.
Once on board the slaves were put in chains two by two. When the ship
was ready to start, the hold of the vessel was crowded with moody and
unhappy wretches who most often were made to crouch so that their knees
touched their chins, but who also were frequently made to lie on their
sides "spoon-fashion." Sometimes the space between floor and ceiling
was still further diminished by the water-barrels; on the top of these
barrels boards were placed, on the boards the slaves had to lie, and
in the little space that remained they had to subsist as well as they
could. There was generally only one entrance to the hold, and provision
for only the smallest amount of air through the gratings on the sides.
The clothing of a captive, if there was any at all, consisted of only
a rag about the loins. The food was half-rotten rice, yams, beans, or
soup, and sometimes bread and meat; the cooking was not good, nor was
any care taken to see that all were fed. Water was always limited, a
pint a day being a generous allowance; frequently no more than a gill
could be had. The rule was to bring the slaves from the hold twice a
day for an airing, about eight o'clock in the morning and four in the
afternoon; but this plan was not always followed. On deck they were made
to dance by the lash, and they were also forced to sing. Thus were born
the sorrow-songs, the last cry of those who saw their homeland vanish
behind them--forever.
Sometimes there were stern fights on board. Sometimes food was refused
in order that death might be hastened. When opportunity served, some
leaped overboard in the hope of being taken back to Africa. Throughout
the night the hold resounded with the moans of those who awoke from
dreams of home to find themselves in bonds. Women became hysterical, and
both men and women became insane. Fearful and contagious diseases broke
out. Smallpox was one of these. More common was ophthalmia, a frightful
inflammation of the eyes. A blind, and hence a worthless, slave was
thrown to the sharks. The putrid atmosphere, the melancholy, and the
sudden transition from heat to cold greatly increased the mortality,
and frequently when morning came a dead and a living slave were found
shackled together. A captain always counted on losing one-fourth of his
cargo. Sometimes he lost a great deal more.
Back on the shore a gray figure with strained gaze watched the ship fade
away--an old woman sadly typical of the great African mother. With her
vision she better than any one else perceived the meaning of it all. The
men with hard faces who came to buy and sell might deceive others, but
not her. In a great vague way she felt that something wrong had attacked
the very heart of her people. She saw men wild with the whiskey of the
Christian nations commit crimes undreamed of before. She did not like
the coast towns; the girl who went thither came not home again, and a
young man was lost to all that Africa held dear. In course of time she
saw every native craft despised, and instead of the fabric that her own
fingers wove her children yearned for the tinsel and the gewgaws of the
trader. She cursed this man, and she called upon all her spirits
to banish the evil. But when at last all was of no avail--when the
strongest youth or the dearest maiden had gone--she went back to her hut
and ate her heart out in the darkness. She wept for her children and
would not be comforted because they were not. Then slowly to the
untutored mind somehow came the promise: "These are they which came out
of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb.... They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any
more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes."