The Negro in America and the Slavery Conflict.
[=Beginning of the Slave Traffic=]
[=Increase in Numbers=]
When, over two hundred and eighty years ago (it is in doubt whether
the correct date is 1619 or 1620) a few wretched negroes, some say
fourteen, some say twenty, were bartered for provisions by the crew of
a Dutch man-of-war, then lying off the Virginia coast, it would have
seemed incredible that in 1900 the negro population of the Southern
States alone should reach very nearly eight million souls. African
negroes had, indeed, been sold into slavery among many nations for
perhaps three thousand years; but in its earlier periods slavery
was rather the outcome of war than the deliberate subject of trade,
and white captives no less than black were ruthlessly thrown into
servitude. It has been estimated that in historical times some forty
million Africans have been enslaved. The Spaniards found the Indian
an intractable slave, and for the arduous labors of colonization soon
began to make use of negro slaves, importing them in great numbers and
declaring that one negro was worth, as a human beast of burden, four
Indians. Soon the English adventurers took up the traffic. It is to Sir
John Hawkins, the ardent discoverer, that the English-speaking peoples
owe their participation in the slave trade. He has put it on record, as
the result of one of his famous voyages, that he found "that negroes
were very good merchandise in Hispaniola and might easily be had on the
coast of Guinea." For his early adventures of this kind he was roundly
taken to task by Queen Elizabeth. But tradition says that he boldly
faced her with the argument that the Africans were an inferior race,
and ended by convincing the Virgin Queen that the slave trade was not
merely a lucrative but a perfectly philanthropic undertaking. Certain
it is that she acquiesced in future slave trading, while her successors
Charles II. and James II. chartered four slave trading companies and
received a share in their profits. It is noteworthy that both Great
Britain and the United States recognized the horrors of the slave trade
as regards the seizing and transportation from Africa of the unhappy
negroes, long before they could bring themselves to deal with the
problem of slavery as a domestic institution. Of those horrors nothing
can be said in exaggeration.
[=Colonial Laws About Slavery=]
The institution of slavery, introduced as we have seen into Virginia,
grew at first very slowly. Twenty-five years after the first slaves
were landed the negro population of the colony was only three hundred.
But the conditions of agriculture and of climate were such that, once
slavery obtained a fair start, it spread with continually increasing
rapidity. We find the Colonial Assembly passing one after another a
series of laws defining the condition of the negro slave more and
more clearly, and more and more pitilessly. Thus, a distinction was
soon made between them and Indians held in servitude. It was enacted
that "all servants not being Christians imported into this colony by
shipping shall be slaves for their lives; but what shall come by land
shall serve, if boyes or girles, until thirty years of age; if men or
women, twelve years and no longer." And before the end of the century
a long series of laws so encompassed the negro with limitations and
prohibitions, that he almost ceased to have any criminal or civil
rights and became a mere personal chattel.
[=Slavery in Early New York=]
In some of the northern colonies slavery seemed to take root as readily
and to flourish as rapidly as in the South. It was only after a
considerable time that social and commercial conditions arose which led
to its gradual abandonment. In New York a mild type of negro slavery
was introduced by the Dutch. The relation of master and slave seems in
the period of the Dutch rule to have been free from great severity or
cruelty. After the seizure of the government by the English, however,
the institution was officially recognized and even encouraged. The
slave trade grew in magnitude; and here again we find a series of
oppressive laws forbidding meetings of negroes, laying down penalties
for concealing slaves, and the like. When the Revolution broke out
there were not less than fifteen thousand slaves in New York--a number
greatly in excess of that held by any other northern colony.
[=Slavery in Massachusetts=]
Massachusetts, the home in later days of so many of the most eloquent
abolition agitators, was from the very first, until after the war
with Great Britain was well under way, a stronghold of slavery. The
records of 1633 tell of the fright of Indians who saw a "Blackamoor"
in a treetop, whom they took for the devil in person, but who turned
out to be an escaped slave. A few years later the authorities of the
colony officially recognized the institution. To quote Chief Justice
Parsons, "Slavery was introduced into Massachusetts soon after its
first settlement, and was tolerated until the ratification of the
present constitution in 1780." The curious may find in ancient Boston
newspapers no lack of such advertisements as that, in 1728, of the
sale of "two very likely negro girls," and of "A likely negro woman
of about nineteen years and a child about seven months of age, to be
sold together or apart." A Tory writer before the outbreak of the
Revolution sneers at the Bostonians for their talk about freedom when
they possessed two thousand negro slaves. Even Peter Faneuil, who
built the famous "Cradle of Liberty," was himself, at that very time,
actively engaged in the slave trade. There is some truth in the once
common taunt of the pro-slavery orators that the North imported slaves,
the South only bought them.
[=Negro Soldiers in the Revolution=]
As with New York and Massachusetts, so with the other colonies. Either
slavery was introduced by greedy speculators from abroad or it spread
easily from adjoining colonies. In 1776 the slave population of the
thirteen colonies was almost exactly half a million, nine-tenths
of whom were to be found in the southern states. In the War of the
Revolution the question of arming the negroes raised bitter opposition.
In the end a comparatively few were enrolled, and it is admitted that
they served faithfully and with courage. Rhode Island even formed a
regiment of blacks, and at the siege of Newport and afterwards at
Point's Bridge, New York, this body of soldiers fought not only without
reproach but with positive heroism.
[=Slavery Abolished in the North=]
From the day when the Declaration of Independence asserted "That all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness," the peoples of the new, self-governing states
could not but have seen that with them lay the responsibility. There
is ample evidence that the fixing of the popular mind on liberty as
an ideal bore results immediately in arousing anti-slavery sentiment.
Such sentiment existed in the South as well as in the North. Even North
Carolina in 1786 declared the slave trade of "evil consequences and
highly impolitic." All the northern states abolished slavery, beginning
with Vermont in 1777, and ending with New Jersey in 1804. It should be
added, however, that many of the northern slaves were not freed, but
sold to the South. The agricultural and commercial conditions in the
North were such as to make slave labor less and less profitable, while
in the South the social order of things, agricultural conditions, and
climate were gradually making it seemingly indispensable.
When the Constitutional debates began the trend of opinion seemed
strongly against slavery. Many delegates thought that the evil would
die out of itself. One thought the abolition of slavery already rapidly
going on and soon to be completed. Another asserted that "slavery in
time will not be a speck in our country." Mr. Jefferson, on the other
hand, in view of the retention of slavery, declared roundly that he
trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just. And John
Adams urged again and again that "every measure of prudence ought to be
assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United
States." The obstinate states in the convention were South Carolina and
Georgia. Their delegates declared that their states would absolutely
refuse ratification to the Constitution unless slavery were recognized.
The compromise sections finally agreed upon, avoided the use of the
words slave and slavery, but clearly recognized the institution, and
even gave the slave states the advantage of sending representatives to
Congress on a basis of population determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons "three-fifths of all other persons." The other
persons referred to were, it is almost needless to add, negro slaves.
[=Compromises in the Constitution=]
The entire dealing with the question of slavery, at the framing of the
Constitution, was a series of compromises. This is seen again in the
failure definitely to forbid the slave trade from abroad. Some of the
southern states had absolutely declined to listen to any proposition
which would restrict their freedom of action in this matter, and they
were yielded to so far that Congress was forbidden to make the traffic
unlawful before the year 1808. As that time approached, President
Jefferson urged Congress to withdraw the country from all "further
participation in those violations of human rights which have so long
been continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa." Such an act
was at once adopted, and by it heavy fines were imposed on all persons
fitting out vessels for the slave trade and also upon all actually
engaged in the trade, while vessels so employed became absolutely
forfeited. Twelve years later another act was passed declaring the
importation of slaves to be actual piracy. The latter law, however, was
of little practical value, as it was not until 1861 that a conviction
was obtained under it. Then, at last, when the whole slave question
was about to be settled forever, a ship-master was convicted and
hanged for piracy in New York for the crime of being engaged in the
slave trade. In despite of all laws, however, the trade in slaves was
continued secretly, and the profits were so enormous that the risks did
not prevent continual attempts to smuggle slaves into the territory of
the United States.
[=The Slave Trade=]
The first quarter of a century of our history, after the adoption of
the Constitution, was marked by comparative quietude in regard to the
future of slavery. In the North, as we have seen, the institution died
a natural death, but there was no disposition evinced in the northern
states to interfere with it in the South. The first great battle took
place in 1820 over the so-called Missouri compromise. Now, for the
first time, the country was divided, sectionally and in a strictly
political way, upon issues which involved the future policy of the
United States as to the extension or restriction of slave territory.
State after state had been admitted into the Union, but there had been
an alteration of slave and free states, so that the political balance
was not disturbed. Thus Ohio was balanced by Louisiana, Indiana by
Mississippi, Illinois by Alabama. Of the twenty-two states admitted
before 1820, eleven were slave and eleven free states.
[=The Missouri Compromise=]
Immediately after the admission of Alabama, of course as a
slave-holding state, Maine and Missouri applied for admission. The
admission of Maine alone would have given a preponderance to the free
states, and for this reason it was strongly contended by southern
members that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state. But the
sentiment of opposition to the extension of slavery was growing
rapidly in the North, and many members from that section opposed this
proposition. They had believed that the ordinance of 1787, adopted
simultaneously with the Constitution, and which forbade slavery to be
established in the territory northwest of the Ohio, had settled this
question definitely; but this ordinance did not apply to territory west
of the Mississippi, so that the question really remained open. A fierce
debate was waged through two sessions of Congress, and in the end it
was agreed to permit the introduction of slavery into Missouri, but to
prohibit it forever in all future states lying north of the parallel
of 36 degrees 30 minutes, the southern boundary of Missouri. This was
a compromise, satisfactory only because it seemed to dispose of the
question of slavery in the territories once and forever. It was carried
mainly by the great personal influence of Henry Clay. It did, indeed,
dispose of slavery as a matter of national legislative discussion for
thirty years.
[=The Anti-slavery Sentiment=]
But this interval was distinctively a period of popular agitation.
Anti-slavery sentiment of a mild type had long existed. The Quakers
had, since revolutionary times, held anti-slavery doctrines, had
released their own servants from bondage, and had disfellowshipped
members who refused to concur in the sacrifice. The very last public
act of Benjamin Franklin was the framing of a memorial to Congress in
which he deprecated the existence of slavery in a free country. In New
York the Manumission society had been founded in 1785, with John Jay
and Alexander Hamilton, in turn, as its presidents. But this early
writing and speaking were directed against slavery in a general way,
and with no tone of aggression. Gradual emancipation and colonization
were the only remedies suggested. It was with the founding of the
_Liberator_ by William Lloyd Garrison, in 1831, that the era of
aggressive abolitionism began. Garrison and his society maintained that
slavery was a sin against God and man; that immediate emancipation was
a duty; that slave owners had no claim to compensation; that all laws
upholding slavery were, before God, null and void. Garrison exclaimed:
"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will
not retreat a single inch. And I will be heard." His paper bore
conspicuously the motto "No union with slaveholders."
[=Leading Opponents of Slavery=]
The Abolitionists were, in numbers, a feeble band; as a party they
never acquired strength, nor were their tenets adopted strictly by any
political party; but they served the purpose of arousing the conscience
of the nation. They were abused, vilified, mobbed, all but killed.
Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope around
his neck--through those very streets which, in 1854, had their shops
closed and hung in black, with flags Union down and a huge coffin
suspended in mid-air, on the day when the fugitive slave, Anthony
Burns, was marched through them on his way back to his master, under a
guard of nearly two thousand men. Mr. Garrison's society soon took the
stand that the union of states with slavery retained was "an agreement
with hell and a covenant with death," and openly advocated secession of
the non-slaveholding states. On this issue the Abolitionists split into
two branches, and those who threw off Garrison's lead maintained that
there was power enough under the Constitution to do away with slavery.
To the fierce invective and constant agitation of Garrison were, in
time, added the splendid oratory of Wendell Phillips, the economic
arguments of Horace Greeley, the wise statesmanship of Charles Sumner,
the fervid writings of Channing and Emerson, and the noble poetry of
Whittier. All these and others, in varied ways and from different
points of view, joined in bringing the public opinion of the North to
the view that the permanent existence of slavery was incompatible with
that of a free republic.
[=Southern Hatred of Abolitionists=]
In the South, meanwhile, the institution was intrenching itself more
and more firmly. The invention of the cotton gin and the beginning
of the reign of cotton as king made the great plantation system a
seeming commercial necessity. From the deprecatory and half apologetic
utterances of early southern statesmen, we come to Mr. Calhoun's
declaration that slavery "now preserves in quiet and security more than
six and a half million human beings, and that it could not be destroyed
without destroying the peace and prosperity of nearly half the states
in the Union." The Abolitionists were regarded in the South with
the bitterest hatred. Attempts were even made to compel the northern
states to silence the anti-slavery orators, to prohibit the circulation
through the mail of anti-slavery speeches, and to refuse a hearing in
Congress to anti-slavery petitions. The influence of the South was
still dominant in the North. Though the feeling against slavery spread,
there co-existed with it the belief that an open quarrel with the
South meant commercial ruin; and the anti-slavery sentiment was also
neutralized by the nobler feeling that the Union must be preserved at
all hazards, and that there was no constitutional mode of interfering
with the slave system. The annexation of Texas was a distinct gain to
the slave power, and the Mexican war was undertaken, said John Quincy
Adams, in order that "the slave-holding power in the government shall
be secured and riveted."
[=The Literature of Slavery=]
The actual condition of the negro over whom such a strife was being
waged differed materially in different parts of the South, and, under
masters of different character, in the same locality. It had its side
of cruelty, oppression and atrocity; it had also its side of kindness
on the part of master and of devotion on the part of slave. Its dark
side has been made familiar to readers by such books as "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," Dickens' "American Notes," and Edmund Kirk's "Among the Pines;"
its brighter side has been charmingly depicted in the stories of Thomas
Nelson Page, Joel Chandler Harris, and Harry Edwards. On the great
cotton plantations of Mississippi and Alabama the slave was often
overtaxed and harshly treated; in the domestic life of Virginia, on the
other hand, he was as a rule most kindly used, and often a relation of
deep affection sprang up between him and his master.
[=The Fugitive Slave Law and Underground Railroad=]
With this state of public feeling North and South, it was with
increased bitterness and developed sectionalism that the subject of
slavery in new states was again debated in the Congress of 1850. The
Liberty party, which held that slavery might be abolished under the
Constitution, had been merged in the Free Soil party, whose cardinal
principle was, "To secure free soil to a free people," and, while not
interfering with slavery in existing states, to insist on its exclusion
from territory so far free. The proposed admission of California
was not affected by the Missouri Compromise. Its status as a future
free or slave state was the turning point of the famous debates in
the Senate of 1850, in which Webster, Calhoun, Douglas and Seward
won fame--debates which have never been equaled in our history for
eloquence and acerbity. It was in the course of these debates that
Mr. Seward, while denying that the Constitution recognized property
in man, struck out his famous dictum, "There is a higher law than
the Constitution." The end reached was a compromise which allowed
California to settle for itself the question of slavery, forbade the
slave trade in the District of Columbia, but enacted a strict fugitive
slave law. To the Abolitionists this fugitive slave law, sustained
in its most extreme measures by the courts in the famous--or as they
called it, infamous--Dred Scott case, was as fuel to fire. They defied
it in every possible way. The "Underground Railway" was the outcome of
this defiance. By it a chain of secret stations was established, from
one to the other of which the slave was guided at night until at last
he reached the Canada border. The most used of these routes in the East
was from Baltimore to New York, thence north through New England; that
most employed in the West was from Cincinnati to Detroit. It has been
estimated that not fewer than thirty thousand slaves were thus assisted
to freedom.
[=The Outbreak an Kansas=]
Soon the struggle was changed to another part of the western territory,
which was now growing so rapidly as to demand the formation of new
states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill introduced by Douglas was in effect
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in that it left the question
as to whether slavery should be carried into the new territories to
the decision of the settlers themselves. As a consequence immigration
was directed by both the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery parties
to Kansas, each determined on obtaining a majority enabling it to
control the proposed State Constitution. Then began a series of acts
of violence which almost amounted to civil war. "Bleeding Kansas"
became a phrase in almost every one's mouth. Border ruffians swaggered
at the polls and attempted to drive out the assisted emigrants sent
to Kansas by the Abolition societies. The result of the election of
the Legislature on its face made Kansas a slave state, but a great
part of the people refused to accept this result; and a convention was
held at Topeka which resolved that Kansas should be free even if the
laws formed by the Legislature should have to be "resisted to a bloody
issue."
[=John Brown at Harper's Ferry=]
Prominent among the armed supporters of free state ideas in Kansas was
Captain John Brown, a man whose watchword was at all times action.
"Talk," he said, "is a national institution; but it does no good for
the slave." He believed that slavery could only be coped with by
armed force. His theory was that the way to make free men of slaves
was for the slaves themselves to resist any attempt to coerce them
by their masters. He was undoubtedly a fanatic in that he did not
stop to measure probabilities or to take account of the written law.
His attempt at Harper's Ferry was without reasonable hope, and as
the intended beginning of a great military movement was a ridiculous
fiasco. To attempt to make war upon the United States with twenty men
was utter madness, and if the hoped for rising of the slaves had taken
place might have yielded horrible results. The execution of John Brown,
that followed, was the logical consequence of his hopeless effort.
But there was that about the man which none could call ridiculous.
Rash and unreasoning as his action seemed, he was still, even by his
enemies, recognized as a man of unswerving conscience, of high ideals,
of deep belief in the brotherhood of mankind. His offense against law
and peace was cheerfully paid fur by his death and that of others near
and dear to him. Almost no one at that day could be found to applaud
his plot, but the incident had an effect on the minds of the people
altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic character. More and more
as time went on he became recognized as a martyr in the cause of human
liberty.
[=Slaves "Contraband of War"=]
Events of vast importance to the future of the negro in America now
hurried fast upon each other's footsteps: the final settlement of the
Kansas dispute by its becoming a free state; the formation and rapid
growth of the Republican party; the division of the Democratic party
into northern and southern factions; the election of Abraham Lincoln;
the secession of South Carolina, and, finally, the greatest civil war
the world has known. Though that war would never have been waged were
it not for the negro, and though his fate was inevitably involved in
its result, it must be remembered that it was not undertaken on his
account. Before the struggle began Mr. Lincoln said: "If there be
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would
not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery,
I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union,
and not either to destroy or to save slavery." And the northern press
emphasized over and over again the fact that this was "a white man's
war." But the logic of events is inexorable. It seems amazing now that
Union generals should have been puzzled as to the question whether
they ought in duty to return runaway slaves to their masters. General
Butler settled the controversy by one happy phrase when he called the
fugitives "contraband of war." Soon it was deemed right to use these
contrabands, to employ the new-coined word, as the South was using
the negroes still in bondage, to aid in the non-fighting work of the
army--on fortification, team-driving, cooking, and so on. From this
it was but a step, though a step not taken without much perturbation,
to employ them as soldiers. At Vicksburg, at Fort Pillow, and in many
another battle, the negro showed beyond dispute that he could fight
for his liberty. No fiercer or braver charge was made in the war than
that upon the parapet of Fort Wagner by Colonel Shaw's gallant colored
regiment, the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth.
[=Behavior of Slaves During the Civil War=]
In a thousand ways the negro figures in the history of the war. In
its literature he everywhere stands out picturesquely. He sought the
flag with the greatest avidity for freedom; flocking in crowds, old
men and young, women and children, sometimes with quaint odds and ends
of personal belongings, often empty-handed, always enthusiastic and
hopeful, almost always densely ignorant of the meaning of freedom and
of self-support. But while the negro showed this avidity for liberty,
his conduct toward his old masters was often generous, and almost never
did he seize the opportunity to inflict vengeance for his past wrongs.
The eloquent southern orator and writer, Henry W. Grady, said: "History
has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the
war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through
these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety and the
unprotected homes rested in peace.... A thousand torches would have
disbanded every southern army, but not one was lighted."
[=The Emancipation Proclamation=]
It was with conditions, and only after great hesitation, that the
final step of emancipating the slaves was taken by President Lincoln
in September, 1862. The proclamation was distinctly a war measure,
but its reception by the North and by the foreign powers and its
immediate effect upon the contest were such that its expediency was at
once recognized. Thereafter there was possible no question as to the
personal freedom of the negro in the United States of America. With
the Confederacy, slavery went down once and forever. In the so-called
reconstruction period which followed, the negro suffered almost as
much from the over-zeal of his political friends as from the prejudice
of his old masters. A negro writer, who is a historian of his race,
has declared that the government gave the negro the statute book
when he should have had the spelling book; that it placed him in the
legislature when he ought to have been in the school house, and that,
so to speak, "the heels were put where the brains ought to have been."
A quarter of a century and more has passed since that turbulent period
began, and if the negro has become less prominent as a political
factor, all the more for that reason has he been advancing steadily
though slowly in the requisites of citizenship. He has learned that he
must, by force of circumstances, turn his attention, for the time at
least, rather to educational, industrial and material progress than
to political ambition. And the record of his advance on these lines
is promising and hopeful. In Mississippi alone, for instance, the
negroes own one-fifth of the entire property in the state. In all,
the negroes of the South to-day possess two hundred and fifty million
dollars' worth of property. Everywhere throughout the South white men
and negroes may be found working together.
[=Progress of the Negroes of the South=]
[=Educational Development of the Negro Race=]
The promise of the negro race to-day is not so much in the development
of men of exceptional talent, such as Frederick Douglas or Senator
Bruce, as in the general spread of intelligence and knowledge. The
southern states have very generally given the negro equal educational
opportunities with the whites, while the eagerness of the race to
learn is shown in the recently ascertained fact that while the colored
population has increased only twenty-seven per cent. the enrollment
in the colored schools has increased one hundred and thirty-seven per
cent. Fifty industrial schools are crowded by the colored youth of the
South. Institutions of higher education, like the Atlanta University,
the Hampton Institute of Virginia, and Tuskegee College are doing
admirable work in turning out hundreds of negroes fitted to educate
their own race. Honors and scholarships have been taken by colored
young men at Harvard, at Cornell, at Phillips Academy and at other
northern schools and colleges of the highest rank. The fact that a
young negro, Mr. Morgan, was, in 1890, elected by his classmates at
Harvard as the class orator has a special significance. Yet there
is greater significance, as a negro newspaper writes, in the fact
that the equatorial telescope now used by the Lawrence University
of Wisconsin was made entirely by colored pupils in the School of
Mechanical Arts of Nashville, Tenn. In other words, the Afro-American
is finding his place as an intelligent worker, a property owner, and
an independent citizen, rather than as an agitator, a politician or a
race advocate. In religion, superstition and effusive sentiment are
giving way to stricter morality. In educational matters, ambition for
the high-sounding and the abstract is giving place to practical and
industrial acquirements. It will be many years before the character
of the negro, for centuries dwarfed and distorted by oppression and
ignorance, reaches its normal growth, but that the race is at last upon
the right path, and is being guided by the true principles cannot be
doubted.