THE SUCCESSFUL MIGRANT
The reader will naturally be interested in learning exactly what these
thousands of Negroes did on free soil. To estimate these achievements the
casual reader of contemporary testimony would now, as such persons did
then, find it decidedly easy. He would say that in spite of the unfailing
aid which philanthropists gave the blacks, they seldom kept themselves
above want and, therefore, became a public charge, afflicting their
communities with so much poverty, disease and crime that they were
considered the lepers of society. The student of history, however, must
look beyond these comments for the whole truth. One must take into
consideration the fact that in most cases these Negroes escaped as
fugitives without sufficient food and clothing to comfort them until they
could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with which the pioneer
usually provided himself in going to establish a home in the wilderness,
and lacking, above all, initiative of which slavery had deprived them.
Furthermore, these refugees with few exceptions had to go to places where
they were not wanted and in some cases to points from which they were
driven as undesirables, although preparation for their coming had
sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing homes and making provision for
employment upon arrival.[1] Several well-established Negro settlements in
the North, moreover, were broken up by the slave hunters after the passing
of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.[2]
The increasing intensity of the hatred of the Negroes must be understood
too both as a cause and result of their intolerable condition. Prior to
1800 the Negroes of the North were in fair circumstances. Until that time
it was generally believed that the whites and the blacks would soon reach
the advanced stage of living together on a basis of absolute equality.[3]
The Negroes had not at that time exceeded the number that could be
assimilated by the sympathizing communities in that section. The
intolerable legislation of the South, however, forced so many free Negroes
in the rough to crowd northern cities during the first four decades of the
nineteenth century that they could not be easily readjusted. The number
seeking employment far exceeded the demand for labor and thus multiplied
the number of vagrants and paupers, many of whom had already been forced
to this condition by the Irish and Germans then immigrating into northern
cities. At one time, as in the case of Philadelphia, the Negroes
constituting a small fraction of the population furnished one half of the
criminals.[4] A radical opposition to the Negro followed, therefore,
arousing first the laboring classes and finally alienating the support of
the well-to-do people and the press. This condition obtained until 1840 in
most northern communities and until 1850 in some places where the Negro
population was considerable.
We must also take into account the critical labor situation during these
years. The northern people were divided as to the way the Negroes should
be encouraged. The mechanics of the North raised no objection to having
the Negroes freed and enlightened but did not welcome them to that section
as competitors in the struggle of life. When, therefore, the blacks,
converted to the doctrine of training the hand to work with skill, began
to appear in northern industrial centers there arose a formidable
prejudice against them.[5] Negro and white mechanics had once worked
together but during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when
labor became more dignified and a larger number of white persons devoted
themselves to skilled labor, they adopted the policy of eliminating the
blacks. This opposition, to be sure, was not a mere harmless sentiment. It
tended to give rise to the organization of labor groups and finally to
that of trades unions, the beginnings of those controlling this country
today. Carrying the fight against the Negro still further, these laboring
classes used their influence to obtain legislation against the employment
of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland and Georgia passed laws
restricting the privileges of Negro mechanics, and Pennsylvania followed
their example.[6]
Even in those cases when the Negroes were not disturbed in their new homes
on free soil, it was, with the exception of the Quaker and a few other
communities, merely an act of toleration.[7] It must not be concluded,
however, that the Negroes then migrating to the North did not receive
considerable aid. The fact to be noted here is that because they were not
well received sometimes by the people of their new environment, the help
which they obtained from friends afar off did not suffice to make up for
the deficiency of community cooperation. This, of course, was an unusual
handicap to the Negro, as his life as a slave tended to make him a
dependent rather than a pioneer.
It is evident, however, from accessible statistics that wherever the Negro
was adequately encouraged he succeeded. When the urban Negroes in northern
communities had emerged from their crude state they easily learned from
the white men their method of solving the problems of life. This tendency
was apparent after 1840 and striking results of their efforts were noted
long before the Civil War. They showed an inclination to work when
positions could be found, purchased homes, acquired other property, built
churches and established schools. Going even further than this, some of
them, taking advantage of their opportunities in the business world,
accumulated considerable fortunes, just as had been done in certain
centers in the South where Negroes had been given a chance.[8]
In cities far north like Boston not so much difference as to the result of
this migration was noted. Some economic progress among the Negroes had
early been observed there as a result of the long residence of Negroes in
that city as in the case of Lewis Hayden who established a successful
clothing business.[9] In New York such evidences were more apparent. There
were in that city not so many Negroes as frequented some other northern
communities of this time but enough to make for that city a decidedly
perplexing problem. It was the usual situation of ignorant, helpless
fugitives and free Negroes going, they knew not where, to find a better
country. The situation at times became so grave that it not only caused
prejudice but gave rise to intense opposition against those who defended
the cause of the blacks as in the case of the abolition riots which
occurred at several places in the State in 1834.[10]
To relieve this situation, Gerrit Smith, an unusually philanthropic
gentleman, came forward with an interesting plan. Having large tracts of
land in the southeastern counties of New York, he proposed to settle on
small farms a large number of those Negroes huddled together in the
congested districts of New York City. Desiring to obtain only the best
class, he requested that the Negroes to be thus colonized be recommended
by Reverend Charles B. Ray, Reverend Theodore S. Wright and Dr. J. McCune
Smith, three Negroes of New York City, known to be representative of the
best of the race. Upon their recommendations he deeded unconditionally to
black men in 1846 three hundred small farms in Franklin, Essex, Hamilton,
Fulton, Oneida, Delaware, Madison and Ulster counties, giving to each
settler beside $10.00 to enable him to visit his farm.[11] With these
holdings the blacks would not only have a basis for economic independence
but would have sufficient property to meet the special qualifications
which New York by the law of 1823 required of Negroes offering to vote.
This experiment, however, was a failure. It was not successful because of
the intractability of the land, the harshness of the climate, and, in a
great measure, the inefficiency of the settlers. They had none of the
qualities of farmers. Furthermore, having been disabled by infirmities and
vices they could not as beneficiaries answer the call of the benefactor.
Peterboro, the town opened to Negroes in this section, did maintain a
school and served as a station of the Underground Railroad but the
agricultural results expected of the enterprise never materialized. The
main difficulty in this case was the impossibility of substituting
something foreign for individual enterprise.[12]
Progressive Negroes did appear, however, in other parts of the State. In
Penyan, Western New York, William Platt and Joseph C. Cassey were
successful lumber merchants.[13] Mr. W.H. Topp of Albany was for several
years one of the leading merchant tailors of that city.[14] Henry Scott,
of New York City, developed a successful pickling business, supplying most
of the vessels entering that port.[15] Thomas Downing for thirty years ran
a creditable restaurant in the midst of the Wall Street banks, where he
made a fortune.[16] Edward V. Clark conducted a thriving business,
handling jewelry and silverware.[17] The Negroes as a whole, moreover, had
shown progress. Aided by the Government and philanthropic white people,
they had before the Civil War a school system with primary, intermediate
and grammar schools and a normal department. They then had considerable
property, several churches and some benevolent institutions.
In Southern Pennsylvania, nearer to the border between the slave and free
States, the effects of the achievements of these Negroes were more
apparent for the reason that in these urban centers there were sufficient
Negroes for one to be helpful to the other. Philadelphia presented then
the most striking example of the remaking of these people. Here the
handicap of the foreign element was greatest, especially after 1830. The
Philadelphia Negro, moreover, was further impeded in his progress by the
presence of southerners who made Philadelphia their home, and still more
by the prejudice of those Philadelphia merchants who, sustaining such
close relations to the South, hated the Negro and the abolitionists who
antagonized their customers.
In spite of these untoward circumstances, however, the Negroes of
Philadelphia achieved success. Negroes who had formerly been able to toil
upward were still restricted but they had learned to make opportunities.
In 1832 the Philadelphia blacks had $350,000 of taxable property, $359,626
in 1837 and $400,000 in 1847. These Negroes had 16 churches and 100
benevolent societies in 1837 and 19 churches and 106 benevolent societies
in 1847. Philadelphia then had more successful Negro schools than any
other city in the country. There were also about 500 Negro mechanics in
spite of the opposition of organized labor.[18] Some of these Negroes, of
course, were natives of that city.
Chief among those who had accumulated considerable property was Mr. James
Forten, the proprietor of one of the leading sail manufactories,
constantly employing a large number of men, black and white. Joseph Casey,
a broker of considerable acumen, also accumulated desirable property,
worth probably $75,000.[19] Crowded out of the higher pursuits of labor,
certain other enterprising business men of this group organized the Guild
of Caterers. This was composed of such men as Bogle, Prosser, Dorsey,
Jones and Minton. The aim was to elevate the Negro waiter and cook from
the plane of menials to that of progressive business men. Then came
Stephen Smith who amassed a large fortune as a lumber merchant and with
him Whipper, Vidal and Purnell. Still and Bowers were reliable coal
merchants, Adger a success in handling furniture, Bowser a well-known
painter, and William H. Riley the intelligent boot-maker.[20]
There were a few such successful Negroes in other communities in the
State. Mr. William Goodrich, of York, acquired considerable interest in
the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad extending to Lancaster.[21]
Benjamin Richards, of Pittsburgh, amassed a large fortune running a
butchering business, buying by contract droves of cattle to supply the
various military posts of the United States.[22] Mr. Henry M. Collins, who
started life as a boatman, left this position for speculation in real
estate in Pittsburgh where he established himself as an asset of the
community and accumulated considerable wealth.[23] Owen A. Barrett, of the
same city, made his way by discovering the remedy known as _B.A.
Fahnestock's Celebrated Vermifuge_, for which he was retained in the
employ of the proprietor, who exploited the remedy.[24] Mr. John Julius
made himself indispensable to Pittsburgh by running the Concert Hall Cafe
where he served President William Henry Harrison in 1840.[25]
The field of greatest achievement, however, was not in the conservative
East where the people had well established their going toward an
enlightened and sympathetic aristocracy of talent and wealth. It was in
the West where men were in position to establish themselves anew and make
of life what they would. These crude communities, to be sure, often
objected to the presence of the Negroes and sometimes drove them out. But,
on the other hand, not a few of those centers in the making were in the
hands of the Quakers and other philanthropic persons who gave the Negroes
a chance to grow up with the community, when they exhibited a capacity
which justified philanthropic efforts in their behalf.
These favorable conditions obtained especially in the towns along the Ohio
river, where so many fugitives and free persons of color stopped on their
way from slavery to freedom. In Steubenville a number of Negroes had by
their industry and good deportment made themselves helpful to the
community. Stephen Mulber who had been in that town for thirty years was
in 1835 the leader of a group of thrifty free persons of color. He had a
brick dwelling, in which he lived, and other property in the city. He made
his living as a master mechanic employing a force of workmen to meet the
increasing demand for his labor.[26] In Gallipolis, there was another
group of this class of Negroes, who had permanently attached themselves to
the town by the acquisition of property. They were then able not only to
provide for their families but were maintaining also a school and a
church.[27] In Portsmouth, Ohio, despite the "Black Friday" upheaval of
1831, the Negroes settled down to the solution of the problems of their
new environment and later showed in the accumulation of property evidences
of actual progress. Among the successful Negroes in Columbus was David
Jenkins who acquired considerable property as a painter, glazier and paper
hanger.[28] One Mr. Hill, of Chillicothe, was for several years its
leading tanner and currier.[29]
It was in Cincinnati, however, that the Negroes made most progress in the
West. The migratory blacks came there at times in such large numbers, as
we have observed, that they provoked the hostile classes of whites to
employ rash measures to exterminate them. But the Negroes, accustomed to
adversity, struggled on, endeavoring through schools and churches to
embrace every opportunity to rise. By 1840 there were 2,255 Negroes in
that city. They had, exclusive of personal effects and $19,000 worth of
church property, accumulated $209,000 worth of real estate. A number of
their progressive men had established a real estate firm known as the
"Iron Chest" company which built houses for Negroes. One man, who had once
thought it unwise to accumulate wealth from which he might be driven, had,
by 1840, changed his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real estate.
Another Negro paid $5,000 for himself and family and bought a home worth
$800 or $1,000. A freedman, who was a slave until he was twenty-four years
of age, then had two lots worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40 and had 320
acres of land in Mercer County. Another, who was worth only $3,000 in
1836, had seven houses in 1840, 400 acres of land in Indiana, and another
tract in Mercer County, Ohio. He was worth altogether about $12,000 or
$15,000. A woman who was a slave until she was thirty was then worth
$2,000. She had also come into potential possession of two houses on which
a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the payment of $2,000
borrowed from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on the auction
block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself and family and had
bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of land in Mercer
County, Ohio, said to be worth $2,500.[30]
The Negroes of Cincinnati had as early as 1820 established schools which
developed during the forties into something like a modern system with
Gilmore's High School as a capstone. By that time they had also not only
several churches but had given time and means to the organization and
promotion of such as the _Sabbath School Youth's Society_, the
_Total Abstinence Temperance Society_ and the _Anti-Slavery
Society_. The worthy example set by the Negroes of this city was a
stimulus to noble endeavor and significant achievements of Negroes
throughout the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Disarming their enemies of
the weapon that they would continue a public charge, they secured the
cooperation of a larger number of white people who at first had treated
them with contempt.[31]
This unusual progress in the Ohio valley had been promoted by two forces,
the development of the steamboat as a factor in transportation and the
rise of the Negro mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the
travelling public amassed large sums received in the form of tips.
Furthermore, the fortunate few, constituting the stewards of these
vessels, could by placing contracts for supplies and using business
methods realize handsome incomes. Many Negroes thus enriched purchased
real estate and went into business in towns along the Ohio.
The other force, the rise of the Negro mechanic, was made possible by
overcoming much of the prejudice which had at first been encountered. A
great change in this respect had taken place in Cincinnati by 1840.[32]
Many Negroes who had been forced to work as menial laborers then had the
opportunity to show their usefulness to their families and to the
community. Negro mechanics were then getting as much skilled labor as they
could do. It was not uncommon for white artisans to solicit employment of
colored men because they had the reputation of being better paymasters
than master workmen of the favored race. White mechanics not only worked
with the blacks but often associated with them, patronized the same barber
shop, and went to the same places of amusement.[33]
Out of this group came some very useful Negroes, among whom may be
mentioned Robert Harlan, the horseman; A.V. Thompson, the tailor; J.
Presley and Thomas Ball, contractors, and Samuel T. Wilcox, the merchant,
who was worth $60,000 in 1859.[34] There were among them two other
successful Negroes, Henry Boyd and Robert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky
freedman who helped to overcome the prejudice in Cincinnati against Negro
mechanics by inventing and exploiting a corded bed, the demand for which
was extensive throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. He had a
creditable manufacturing business in which he employed twenty-five
men.[35]
Robert Gordon was a much more interesting man. He was born a slave in
Richmond, Virginia. He ingratiated himself into the favor of his master
who placed him in charge of a large coal yard with the privilege of
selling the slake for his own benefit. In the course of time, he
accumulated in this position thousands of dollars with which he finally
purchased himself and moved away to free soil. After observing the
situation in several of the northern centers, he finally decided to settle
in Cincinnati, where he arrived with $15,000. Knowing the coal business,
he well established himself there after some discouragement and
opposition. He accumulated much wealth which he invested in United States
bonds during the Civil War and in real estate on Walnut Hills when the
bonds were later redeemed.[36]
The ultimately favorable attitude of the people of Detroit toward
immigrating Negroes had been reflected by the position the people of that
section had taken from the time of the earliest settlements. Generally
speaking, Detroit adhered to this position.[37] In this congenial
community prospered many a Negro family. There were the Williams' most of
whom confined themselves to their trade of bricklaying and amassed
considerable wealth. Then there were the Cooks, descending from Lomax B.
Cook, a broker of no little business ability. Will Marion Cook, the
musician, belongs to this family. The De Baptistes, too, were among the
first to succeed in this new home, as they prospered materially from their
experience and knowledge previously acquired in Fredericksburg, Virginia,
as contractors. From this group came Richard De Baptiste, who in his day
was the most useful Negro Baptist preacher in the Northwest.[38] The
Pelhams were no less successful in establishing themselves in the economic
world. Having an excellent reputation in the community, they easily
secured the cooperation of the influential white people in the city. Out
of this family came Robert A. Pelham, for years editor of a weekly in
Detroit, and from 1901 to the present time an employee of the Federal
Government in Washington.
The children of the Richards, another old family, were in no sense
inferior to the descendants of the others. The most prominent and the most
useful to emerge from this group was the daughter, Fannie M. Richards. She
was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1, 1841. Having left that
State with her parents when she was quite young, she did not see so much
of the antebellum conditions obtaining there. Desiring to have better
training than what was then given to persons of color in Detroit, she went
to Toronto where she studied English, history, drawing and needlework. In
later years she attended the Teachers' Training School in Detroit. She
became a public-school teacher there in 1863 and after fifty years of
creditable service in this work she was retired on a pension in 1913.[39]
The Negroes in the North had not only shown their ability to rise in the
economic world when properly encouraged but had begun to exhibit power of
all kinds. There were Negro inventors, a few lawyers, a number of
physicians and dentists, many teachers, a score of intelligent preachers,
some scholars of note, and even successful blacks in the finer arts. Some
of these, with Frederick Douglass as the most influential, were also doing
creditable work in journalism with about thirty newspapers which had
developed among the Negroes as weapons of defense.[40]
This progress of the Negroes in the North was much more marked after the
middle of the nineteenth century. The migration of Negroes to northern
communities was at first checked by the reaction in those places during
the thirties and forties. Thus relieved of the large influx which once
constituted a menace, those communities gave the Negroes already on hand
better economic opportunities. It was fortunate too that prior to the
check in the infiltration of the blacks they had come into certain
districts in sufficiently large numbers to become a more potential
factor.[41] They were strong enough in some cases to make common cause
against foes and could by cooperation solve many problems with which the
blacks in dispersed condition could not think of grappling.
Their endeavors along these lines proceeded in many cases from
well-organized efforts like those culminating in the numerous national
conventions which began meeting first in Philadelphia in 1830 and after
some years of deliberation in this city extended to others in the
North.[42] These bodies aimed not only to promote education, religion and
morals, but, taking up the work which the Quakers began, they put forth
efforts to secure to the free blacks opportunities to be trained in the
mechanic arts to equip themselves for participation in the industries then
springing up throughout the North. This movement, however, did not succeed
in the proportion to the efforts put forth because of the increasing power
of the trades unions.
After the middle of the nineteenth century too the Negroes found
conditions a little more favorable to their progress than the generation
before. The aggressive South had by that time so shaped the policy of the
nation as not only to force the free States to cease aiding the escape of
fugitives but to undertake to impress the northerner into the service of
assisting in their recapture as provided in the Fugitive Slave Law. This
repressive measure set a larger number of the people thinking of the Negro
as a national problem rather than a local one. The attitude of the North
was then reflected in the personal liberty laws as an answer to this
measure and in the increasing sympathy for the Negroes. During this
decade, therefore, more was done in the North to secure to the Negroes
better treatment and to give them opportunities for improvement.
[Footnote 1: _Cincinnati Morning Herald_, July 17, 1846.]
[Footnote 2: Woodson, _The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861_, p.
242.]
[Footnote 3: Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, p. 143;
_Correspondence of Dr. Benjamin Bush_, XXXIX, p. 41.]
[Footnote 4: DuBois, _The Philadelphia Negro_, pp. 26-27.]
[Footnote 5: _The Journal of Negro History_, I, p. 5; and
_Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies_.]
[Footnote 6: DuBois and Dill, _The Negro American Artisan_, p. 36.]
[Footnote 7: Jay, _An Inquiry_, pp. 34, 108, 109, 114.]
[Footnote 8: _The Journal of Negro History_, I, pp. 20-22.]
[Footnote 9: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, p. 106.]
[Footnote 10: _The Liberator_, July 9, 1835.]
[Footnote 11: Hammond, _Gerrit Smith_, pp. 26-27.]
[Footnote 12: Frothingham, _Gerrit Smith_, p. 73.]
[Footnote 13: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, pp.
107-108.]
[Footnote 14: _Ibid._, p. 102.]
[Footnote 15: _Ibid._, p. 102.]
[Footnote 16: _Ibid._, pp. 103-104.]
[Footnote 17: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, pp.
106-107.]
[Footnote 18: DuBois, _The Philadelphia Negro_, p. 31; _Report of
the Condition of the Free People of Color_, 1838; _ibid._, 1849;
and Bacon, _Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia_, 1859.]
[Footnote 19: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, p. 95.]
[Footnote 20: DuBois, _The Philadelphia Negro_, pp. 31-36.]
[Footnote 21: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, p. 109.]
[Footnote 22: _Ibid._, p. 101.]
[Footnote 23: _Ibid._, p. 104.]
[Footnote 24: _Ibid._, p. 105.]
[Footnote 25: _Ibid._, p. 107.]
[Footnote 26: _The Journal of Negro History_, I, p. 22.]
[Footnote 27: Hickok, _The Negro in Ohio_, p. 88.]
[Footnote 28: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, p. 99.]
[Footnote 29: _Ibid._, p. 101.]
[Footnote 30: _The Philanthropist_, July 21, 1840, gives these
statistics in detail.]
[Footnote 31: _The Philanthropist_, July 21, 1840.]
[Footnote 32: _The Cincinnati Daily Gazette_, Sept. 14, 1841.]
[Footnote 33: Barber's _Report on Colored People in Ohio_.]
[Footnote 34: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, pp. 97, 98.]
[Footnote 35: Delany, _Condition of the Colored People_, p. 98.]
[Footnote 36: These facts were obtained from his children and from
Cincinnati city directories.]
[Footnote 37: _Niles Register_, LXIX, p. 357.]
[Footnote 38: Letters received from Miss Fannie M. Richards of Detroit.]
[Footnote 39: These facts were obtained from clippings taken from Detroit
newspapers and from letters bearing on Miss Richard's career.]
[Footnote 40: _The A.M.E. Church Review_, IV, p. 309; and XX, p.
137.]
[Footnote 41: _Censuses of the United States_; and Clark, _Present
Condition of Colored People_.]
[Footnote 42: _Minutes and Proceedings_ of the Annual Convention of
the People of Color.]