An event that came under my notice of startling character, attracting
national attention, was the arrival of the schooner "Amistad" at
Philadelphia in 1840. This vessel had been engaged in the slave trade.
With a cargo of slaves from Africa was destined for one of the West
India Islands. Cinguez, one of, and at the head of the captives,
rebelled while at sea, killing a number of the crew and taking
possession of the ship.
In the concluding scene of the foregoing drama, Mr. Douglass was an
actor, I an observer. After the decision giving them their liberty, the
anti-slavery society, who had been vigilant in its endeavors to have
them liberated ever since their advent on American shores, held a
monster meeting to receive them.
Frederick Douglass introduced "Cinguez" to the meeting. I cannot forget
or fail to feel the inspiration of that scene. The two giants locked in
each others embrace, looked the incarnation of heroism and dauntless
purpose, equal to the achievement of great results. The one by
indomitable will had shaken off his own shackles and was making slavery
odius by his matchless and eloquent arraignment; the other, "a leader
of men," had now written his protest with the blood of his captors.
Cinguez, with unintelligible utterance in African dialect with emphatic
gesture, his liberty loving soul on fire, while burning words strove for
expression, described his action on the memorable night of his
emancipation, with such vividness, power, and pathos that the audience
seemed to see every act of the drama and feel the pulsation of his great
heart. Through an interpreter he afterwards narrated his manner of
taking the vessel, and how it happened to reach American shores. How,
after taking the ship, he stood by the tiller with drawn weapon and
commanded the mate to steer back to Africa. During the day he complied,
but at night took the opposite course. After sometime of circuitous
wandering the vessel ran into Long Island Sound and was taken possession
of by the United States authorities. Cinguez, as hero and patriot,
ennobled African character.
When majority and the threshold of man's estate is attained, the
transition from advanced youth to the entry of manhood is liable to
casualties; not unlike a bark serenely leaving its home harbor to enter
unfrequented waters, the crew exhilarated by fresh and invigorating
breezes, charmed by a genial sky, it moves on "like a thing of beauty"
with the hope of "joy forever." The chart and log of many predecessors
may unheeded lie at hand, but the glorious present, cloudless and
fascinating, rich in expectation, it sails on, fortunate if it escapes
the rocks and shoals that ever lie in wait. It is unreasonable to expect
a proper conception, and the happiest performance of life's duties at
such a period, especially from those with easy and favorable
environments, or who have been heedless of parental restraint, for even
at an advanced stage in life, there have been many to exclaim with a
poet:
"Ne'er tell me of evening serenely adorning
The close of a life richly mellowed by time,
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning
Her smiles and her tears are worth evening's best light."
Twenty-one years of age found me the possessor of a trade, an
attainment, and a capital invaluable for a poor young man beginning the
race of life. For whether seen smutted by the soot of the blacksmith
shop, or whitened by the lime of the plasterer or bricklayer; whether
bending beneath tool box of the carpenter or ensconced on the bench of
the shoemaker, he has a moral strength, a consciousness of acquirement,
giving him a dignity of manhood unpossessed by the menial and those
engaged in unskilled labor. Let it never be forgotten that as high over
in importance as the best interest of the race is to that of the
individual, will be the uplifting influence of assiduously cultivating a
desire to obtain trades. The crying want with us is a middle class. The
chief component of our race today is laborers unskilled. We will not and
cannot compete with other races who have a large and influential class
of artisans and mechanics, and having received higher remuneration for
labor, have paved the way for themselves or offsprings from the mechanic
to the merchant or to the professional. These three factors, linked and
interlinked, an ascending chain will be strong in its relation, as
consistent in construction.
In 1849 Frederick Douglass, Charles Lenox Remond and Julia Griffith, an
English lady prominent in reform circles in England, attended the
National Anti-slavery Convention held in Philadelphia, and presided over
by that apostle of liberty, Wm. Lloyd Garrison. At its close Mr.
Douglass invited me to accompany him to his home at Rochester, and then
to join him in lecturing in the "Western Reserve."
Without salary, poor in purse, doubtful of useful ability, dependent for
sustenance on a sentiment then prevailing, that for anti-slavery
expression was as reserved as the "Reserve" was Western. I have often
thought of my feelings of doubt and fear to go with Mr. Douglass, as an
epoch in my life's history. The parting of the ways, the embarkation to
a wider field of action, the close connection between obedience to an
impulse of duty (however uninviting or uncertain the outcome), and the
ever moral and often material benefit.
[Illustration: HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
"Sage of Anacostia."
The Most Distinguished Negro of the Race--As Statesman, Editor, Orator,
Philanthropist He Left an Indelible Mark on the Page of His Country's
History--Born in 1817 at Tuckahoe, Maryland--Died February, 1895--He was
Author of "My Bondage and My Freedom," "Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass," and Others.]
Rochester proved to be my pathway to California. Western New York, 50
years ago, then known as the "Western Reserve," was very unlike the
present as to population, means of travel, material developments,
schools of learning, and humanizing influences. Mr. Douglass, in the
Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., a short time before his death, told
how, in 1849, we there traveled together; that where now are stately
cities and villages a sparsely settled wilderness existed; that while we
there proclaimed abolition as the right of the slave, the chilling
effect of those December days were not more cold and heartless than the
reception we met when our mission as advocates for the slave became
known; churches and halls were closed against us. Stables and blacksmith
shops would sometimes hold audiences more generous with epithets and
elderly eggs than with manly decorum. God be thanked, Douglass, the
grandest of "our grand old men," lived to see "the seeds of mighty truth
have their silent undergrowth, and in the earth be wrought." A family,
however poor, striving as best they may to give the rudiments of
knowledge to their children, should have, if but few, books descriptive
of the hopes and struggles of those no better situated, who have made
impress on the age in which they lived. We seldom remember from whence
we first received the idea which gave impulse to an honorable action; we
received it, however, most probably from tongue or pen. For impressible
youth such biography should be as easy of access as possible.
It has been said that "a man's noblest mistake is to be born before his
time." This will not apply to Frederick Douglass. His "Life and Times"
should be in the front rank of selection for blessing and inspiration. A
blessing for the high moral of its teaching; an inspiration for the
poorest boy; that he need not "beg the world's pardon for having been
born," but by fostering courage and consecration of purpose "he may rank
the peer of any man."
Frederick Douglass, born a slave, hampered by all the depressing
influences of that institution; by indomitable energy and devotion;
seizing with an avidity that knew no obstacle every opportunity,
cultivated a mind and developed a character that will be a bright page
in the history of noble and beneficent achievements.
For the conditions that confronted him and the anti-slavery crusade,
have been well and eloquently portrayed by the late George William
Curtis. That how terribly earnest was the anti-slavery agitation this
generation little knows. To understand is to recall the situation of the
country. Slavery sat supreme in the White House and made laws at the
capitol. Courts of Justice were its ministers, and legislators its
lackeys. It silenced the preacher in the pulpit; it muzzled the editor
at his desk, and the professor in his lecture-room. It sat a price on
the heads of peaceful citizens; robbed the mails, and denounced the
vital principles of the declaration of independence as treason. In the
States where the law did not tolerate slavery, slavery ruled the club
and drawing room, the factory and the office, swaggered at the dinner
table, and scourged with scorn a cowardly society. It tore the golden
rule from the school books, and from the prayer books the pictured
benignity of Christ. It prohibited schools in the free States for the
hated race; hunted women who taught children to read, and forbade a free
people to communicate with their representatives.
It was under such conditions so pungently and truthfully stated that
Douglass appeared as a small star on the horizon of a clouded firmament;
rose in intellectual brilliancy, mental power and a noble generosity.
For his devotion was not only to the freedom of the slave with which he
was identified, but for liberty and the betterment of humanity
everywhere, regardless of sex or color. His page already luminous in
history will continue to brighten, and when statuary, now and hereafter,
erected to his memory, shall have crumbled "neath the beatings of
time;" the good fame of his name, high purpose and unflinching integrity
to the highest needs of humanity, will remain hallowed "foot prints in
the sands of time." Eminently fit was the naming of an institution in
Philadelphia "The Frederick Douglass Hospital and Freedman's School;"
the assuaging of suffering and the giving of larger opportunity for
technical instruction were cherished ideals with the sage of Anacostia;
also the lives of Harriet Beacher Stowe, Lucretia Mott and Francis E.
Harper, and the noble band of women of which they were the type, who
bravely met social ostracism and insult for devotion to the slave, will
ever have a proud place in our country's history. Of this illustrious
band was Julia Griffith, hitherto referred to, a grand representative of
those renowned women, who at home or abroad, did so much to hasten the
downfall of slavery and encourage the weak and lowly to hope and effort.
Thackery has said that, "Could you see every man's career, you would
find a woman clogging him, or cheering him, or beckoning him on."
Having finished my intended tour with Mr. Douglass, and returned to
Rochester, the outlook for my future, to me, was not promising. The
opportunities for advancement were much, very much less than now. With
me ambition and dejection contended for the mastery, the latter often in
the ascendant. To her friendly inquiry I gave reasons for my
depression. I shall never forget the response; almost imperious in
manner, you could already anticipate the magnitude of an idea that
seemed to struggle for utterance. "What! discouraged? Go do some great
thing." It was an inspiration, the result of which she may never have
known. We are assured, however, that a kind act or helpful word is
inseparably connected with a blessing for the giver. To earnest youth I
would bequeath the excelsior of the "youth mid snow and ice," and the
above injunction, "upward and onward;" "go do some great thing."
The war with Mexico, discovery of gold in California in 1848, the
acquisition of new territory, and the developments of our hitherto
undeveloped Western possessions, stimulated the financial pulse, and
permeated every avenue of industry and speculative life. While in New
York State I met several going and returning gold seekers, many giving
dazzling accounts of immense deposits of gold in the new Eldorado; and
others, as ever the case with adventurers, gave gloomy statements of
peril and disaster. A judicious temperament, untiring energy, a lexicon
of endeavor, in which there is no such word as "fail," is the only open
sesame to hidden opportunities in a new country. Fortune, in precarious
mood, may sometime smile on the inert, but she seldom fails to surrender
to pluck, tenacity and perseverance. As the Oxford men say it is the one
pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow;" it is
the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes more
persistent courage that wins the fight.
I returned to Philadelphia, and with some friendly assistance, sailed,
in 1850, from New York, as a steerage passenger for San Francisco.
Arriving at Aspinwall, the point of debarkation, on the Atlantic side,
boats and boatsmen were engaged to transport passengers and baggage up
the "Chagress," a small and shallow river. Crossing the Isthmus to
Panama, on the Pacific side, I found Panama very cosmopolitan in
appearance, for mingled with the sombrero-attired South American, could
be seen denizens from every foreign clime. Its make up was a combination
of peculiar attributes. It was dirty, but happy in having crows for its
scavengers; sickly, but cheery; old, but with an youthful infusion. The
virtues and vices were both shy and unblushing. A rich, dark foliage,
ever blooming, and ever decaying; a humid atmosphere; a rotting
vegetation under a tropical sun, while fever stalked on from conquest to
conquest.
The sudden influx, the great travel from ocean to ocean, had given much
impetus to business as well as to local amusements. For the latter,
Sunday was the ideal day, when bull and cock fights secured the
attendance of the elite, and the humble, the priest and the laity.
The church, preaching gentleness and peace in the morning, in the
afternoon her minister, with sword spurred "bolosed" bantams under their
arms, would appear on the scene eager for the fray.
After recovering from the Panama fever I took passage on the steamship
"Golden Gate" for San Francisco. Science, experience, and a greatly
increased demand have done much during the intervening fifty years to
lessen risk and increase the comfort of ocean travel. Yet it is not
without a degree of restless anticipation that one finds himself and
baggage finally domiciled on an ocean-going steamer. Curiosity and
criticism, selfishness and graciousness each in turn assert themselves.
Curiosity in espionage, criticism in observation, while selfishness and
graciousness alternate. You find yourself in the midst of a miniature
world, environed, but isolated from activities of the greater, an
epitome of human proclivities. A possible peril, real, imaginary or
remote; a common brotherhood tightens the chain of fellowship and
gradually widens the exchange of amenities.
We had a stormy passage, making San Diego with the top of smoke stack
encrusted with the salt of the waves, paddle wheel broken and otherwise
disabled, finally arriving at San Francisco in September.