THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO RACE IN SLAVERY
We are now, I think, far enough removed from the period of slavery to
be able to study the influence of that institution objectively rather
than subjectively. Surely if any Negro who was a part of the
institution itself can do so, the remaining portion of the American
people ought to be able to do so, whether they live at the North or at
the South.
My subject naturally leads me to a discussion of the Negro as he was
in slavery. We must all acknowledge, whatever else resulted from
slavery that, first of all, it was the economic element involved that
brought the Negro to America, and it was largely this consideration
that held the race in slavery for a period of about 245 years. But,
in this discussion, I am not to consider the economic value of the
Negro as a slave, as such, but only the influence of his industrial
training while in slavery in the development of his moral and
religious life.
In my opinion, it requires no little effort on the part of a man who
was once himself a slave to be able to admit this. If any Negro who
was a part of the institution of slavery itself can so far rid himself
of the prejudices of the same, it seems to me other people, living in
whatever section, should be able to do so.
I have been a slave once in my life--a slave in body. But I long since
resolved that no inducement and no influence would ever make me a
slave in soul, in my love for humanity, and in my search for truth.
At the same time slaves were being brought to the shores of Virginia
from their native land, Africa, the woods of Virginia were swarming
with thousands of another dark-skinned race. The question naturally
arises: Why did the importers of Negro slaves go to the trouble and
expense of going thousands of miles for a dark-skinned people to hew
wood and draw water for the whites, when they had right among them a
people of another race who could have answered the purpose? The answer
is that the Indian was tried and found wanting in the commercial
qualities which the Negro seemed to possess. The Indian, as a race,
would not submit to slavery and in those instances where he was tried,
as a slave, his labor was not profitable and he was found unable to
stand the physical strain of slavery. As a slave, the Indian died in
large numbers. This was true in San Domingo and in other parts of the
American continent.
The two races, the Indian and the Negro, have been often compared to
the disadvantage of the Negro. It is often said of the Negro that he
is an imitative race. That, in a large degree, is true. That element
has its disadvantages and it also has its advantages. Very often the
Negro imitates the worst element in the white man; on the other hand I
believe that the masses of our people imitate the best they find in
the white man.
I have said more than once that one of the unfortunate conditions of
the Negro in the North is that,--because of the large proportion of
our people who are in menial service, their duties bring them in
contact with the worst. They, for example, are waiters in clubs and in
various organizations, and being engaged in that capacity makes it
necessary for them to touch the white man at his weakest point. In the
city of Philadelphia, there are hundreds, I do not suppose I should
exaggerate if I were to say thousands, who are serving the white man
as a waiter in some club or similar organization. When that white man
was at work in his factory, in his counting-room, in his bank, he was
far removed from him. When he was at his best the Negro did not come
into touch with him. In the evening when he lays aside the working
dress, takes matters easy, and gets his cigar and perhaps champagne,
the Negro comes into contact with him, not to an advantage, but at his
weakest point rather than at his strongest.
In the South, as in most parts of America, during slavery and after,
the Negro has gotten something from the white man that has made him
more valuable as a citizen. In most cases he imitates the best rather
than the worst. For example, you never see a Negro braiding his hair
in the same way as a Chinaman braids his, but he cuts his like the
white man. The Negro is seeking out the highest and best as to
quality.
It has been more than once stated that the Indian proved himself the
superior race in not submitting to slavery. We shall see about this.
In this respect it may be that the Indian secured a temporary
advantage in so far as race feeling or prejudice is concerned; I mean
by this that he escaped the badge of servitude which has fastened
itself upon the Negro,--not only upon the Negro in America, but upon
that race wherever found, for the known commercial value of the Negro
has made him a subject of traffic in other portions of the globe
during many centuries.
The Indian refused to submit to bondage and to learn the white man's
ways. The result is that the greater portion of the American Indians
have disappeared, the greater portion of those who remain are not
civilized. The Negro, wiser and more enduring than the Indian,
patiently endured slavery; and contact with the white man has given
him a civilization vastly superior to that of the Indian.
The Indian and the Negro met on the American continent for the first
time at Jamestown, in 1619. Both were in the darkest barbarism. There
were twenty Negroes and thousands of Indians. At the present time
there are between nine and ten million Negroes and two hundred and
eighty-four thousand and seventy-nine Indians. The annual tax upon the
Government on account of the Indian is $14,236,078.71 (1905); the cost
from 1789 to 1902, inclusive, reached the sum of $389,282,361.00. The
one in this case not only decreased in numbers and failed to add
anything to the economic value of his country, but has actually proven
a charge upon the state.
The Negro seems to be about the only race that has been able to look
the white man in the face during the long period of years and
live--not only live, but multiply. The Negro has not only done this,
but he has had the good sense to get something from the white man at
every point where he has touched him--something that has made him a
stronger and a better race.
Let me say in the beginning that nothing which I shall say should be
taken as an endorsement of the enslavement of my race. The experience
of the world's civilization teaches that the final and net result of
slavery is bad--bad for the enslaved, and perhaps worse for the
enslaver. If permitted a choice, I think I should prefer being the
first to being the last. But in the case of the Negro in America no
one, willing to be frank and fair, can fail to see that the Negro did
get certain benefits out of slavery; at the same time he was, as I
have stated, harmed. But in this connection we must deal with the
facts and not with prejudice, either for or against the race.
Let me make this statement with which you may or may not agree: In my
opinion, there cannot be found in the civilized or uncivilized world
ten millions of Negroes whose economic, educational, moral and
religious life is so advanced as that of the ten millions of Negroes
within the United States. If this statement be true, let us find the
cause thereof, especially as regards the Negro's moral and Christian
growth. In doing so, let credit be given wherever it is due, whether
to the Northern white man, the Southern white man, or the Negro
himself. If, as stated, the ten millions of black people in the United
States have excelled all the other groups of their race-type in moral
and Christian growth, let us trace the cause, and in doing so we may
get some light and information that will be of value in dealing with
the Negro race in America and elsewhere, and in elevating and
Christianizing other races.
In order to determine the influence of economic or industrial training
upon the moral and Christian life of the Negro, we must begin with
slavery and trace the development of the black man, noticing in a
brief manner his development through slavery to freedom, and to the
present time.
This involves, then, the period of slavery, and the period of
freedom. To begin with, let me repeat that at first, at least, the
underlying object of slavery was an economic, and an industrial one.
The climatic and other new conditions required that the slave should
wear clothing, a thing, for the most part, new to him. It has perhaps
already occurred to you that one of the conditions requisite for the
Christian life is clothing. So far as I know, Christianity is the only
religion that makes the wearing of clothes one of its conditions. A
naked Christian is impossible--and I may add that I have little faith
in a hungry Christian.
Some years ago we were holding the Tuskeegee Annual Negro Conference,
and I remember on several occasions there was one old fellow who tried
to get the floor without success. He tried continually to get
recognition from the chair, and, finally, was recognized. He said:
"Mr. Washington, we's making great progress in our community. It is
not the same as it used to be. We's making great progress. We's
getting to the point where nearly all the people in my community owns
their own pigs." I asked him why he was so much interested in his
neighbors owning their own pigs. He said: "I feel that when all my
neighbors own their own pigs, I can always sleep better every night."
There is a good deal of philosophy underlying that remark.
The economic element not only made it necessary that the Negro slave
should be clothed for the sake of decency and in order to preserve his
health, but the same considerations made it necessary that he be
housed and taught the comforts to be found in a home. Within a few
months, then, after the arrival of the Negro in America, he was
wearing clothes and living in a house--no inconsiderable step in the
direction of morality and Christianity. True, the Negro slave had worn
some kind of garment and occupied some kind of hut before he was
brought to America, but he had made little progress in the improvement
of his garments or in the kind of hut he inhabited. As we shall
perhaps see later, his introduction into American slavery was the
beginning of real growth in the two directions under consideration.
There is another important element. In his native country, owing to
climatic conditions, and also because of his few simple and crude
wants, the Negro, before coming to America, had little necessity to
labor. You have, perhaps, read the story, that it is said might be
true in certain portions of Africa, of how the native simply lies down
on his back under a banana-tree and falls asleep with his mouth open.
The banana falls into his mouth while he is asleep and when he wakes
up he finds that all he has to do is to chew it--he has his meal
already served.
Notwithstanding the fact that, in most cases, the element of
compulsion entered into the labor of the slave, and the main object
sought was the enrichment of the owner, the American Negro had, under
the regime of slavery, his first lesson in anything like continuous,
progressive, systematic labor. I have said that two of the signs of
Christianity are clothes and houses, and now I add a third, "work."
In the early days of slavery the labor performed by the slave was
naturally of a crude and primitive kind. With the growth of
civilization came a demand for a higher kind of labor, hence the Negro
slave was soon demanded as a skilled laborer, as well as for ordinary
farm and common labor. It soon became evident that from an economic
point of view it paid to give the Negro just as high a degree of skill
as possible--the more skill, the more dollars. When an ordinary slave
sold for, say seven hundred dollars, a skilled mechanic would easily
bring on the auction block from fourteen hundred to two thousand
dollars. It is strangely true that when a black man would bring two
thousand dollars a white man would not bring fifty cents.
As the slave grew in the direction of skilled labor, he was given an
increased amount of freedom. This was practiced by some owners to such
an extent that the skilled mechanic was permitted to "hire" his own
time, working where and for whom he pleased, and for what wage, on
condition that he pay his owner so much per month or year, as agreed
upon. Not a few masters found that this policy paid better than the
one of close personal supervision; many female slaves were trained not
only in ordinary house duties, but on every large plantation there was
at least one high class seamstress.
I have made a search but have not yet been able to find a single case
of abuse of confidence, and the policy to which I have referred was
practiced very largely in Virginia and especially in West
Virginia--the policy of permitting those slaves who were skilled
laborers to work for whom they pleased, on condition that they pay
their masters a fixed sum each month or each year. I have never yet
heard of a single case of failure at the end of the month or at the
end of the year to bring and place in his master's hands the
stipulated sum of money.
A discussion of this subject calls to mind one of those curious
changes in public opinion and custom with regard to races which often
occur in the United States. At the period to which I am now referring,
a great number of the Negroes in the South were compelled to follow a
trade, and they seem to have no difficulty in pursuing trades there
to-day. In the North where the agitation for the Negro's freedom
began, it is in most cases difficult, and often impossible, for a
black man to find an opportunity to work at any kind of skilled labor.
I sometimes wonder which man is the greater sinner,--the man who by
force compels the Negro to work without pay, or the man who by
physical force and through the force of public sentiment prevents the
Negro from working for him, when he is ready, willing, and fit to do
so.
I do not overstate the matter when I say that I am quite sure that in
one county in the South during the days of slavery there were more
colored youths being taught trades than there are members of my race
now being taught trades in any of the larger cities of the North.
Before I go further, I ought, in justice, to add that as slavery
spread and the owners came to know their slaves better, there appeared
in nearly every section of the South, especially in Virginia and South
Carolina, a considerable number of slave-holders who rose above the
mere idea of economic and selfish gain; and thus, through the medium
of slavery, the opportunity to train the Negro in morality and
Christianity presented itself in many sections of the South. During
the days of slavery regular religious services were provided for the
slaves, the same minister who served the white congregation preached
to the blacks. In some of the most aristocratic families, the Negro
children were taught in the Sunday-school; this was true of the Lees
and Jacksons of Virginia, and of the family of Bishop Capers and other
men of that type in South Carolina.
At the end of the period of slavery, about two hundred and fifty
years, the Negro race as a whole had learned, as I have stated, to
wear clothes, to live in a home, to work with a reasonable degree of
regularity and system, and a few had learned to work with a high
degree of skill. Not only this, the race had reached the point where,
from speaking scores of dialects, it had learned to speak
intelligently the English language. It had also a fair knowledge of
American civilization and had changed from a pagan into a Christian
race. Further, at the beginning of his freedom, the Negro found
himself in possession of--in fact had a monopoly of--the common and
skilled labor throughout the South; not only this, but, by reason of
the contact of whites and blacks during slavery, the Negro found
business and commercial careers open to him at the beginning of his
freedom.
Such conditions were unusual in the case of a race that had been
occupying so low a place in the civilization of another people. They
resulted from the fact that in slavery when the master wanted a pair
of shoes made, he went to the Negro shoemaker for those shoes; when he
wanted a suit of clothes, he went to the Negro tailor for those
clothes; and when he wanted a house built, he consulted the Negro
carpenter and mason about the plans and cost--thus the two races
learned to do business with each other. It was an easy step from this
to a higher plane of business, hence immediately after the war the
Negro found that he could become a dry goods merchant, a grocery
merchant, start a bank, go into real estate dealing, and secure the
trade not only of his own people, but also of the white man, who was
glad to do business with him and thought nothing of it.
In my own town of Tuskeegee there is a colored merchant who, not
excepting any other merchant, has the largest trade in that county in
retail groceries, and in a recent conversation with him he said that
for thirty-five years his customers had been among the best white
families of the county. More than a dozen times have I met the man who
owned this Negro in the days of slavery and he expressed himself as
more than pleased that his former slave had attained the honor of
being the most successful grocery dealer in the town of Tuskeegee.
You would be surprised, if you were to inquire into the facts, to
know how the Negro has grown in this direction. In the Southern states
there are one hundred and fifteen drug stores owned by Negroes. In
Anniston, Alabama, there are two large drug stores owned by black
people, and in one section a wholesale drug store owned and operated
successfully by a black man. The Negro who to-day owns and operates
that large wholesale drug store, selling drugs to the white as well as
colored retail druggists, was a slave, I think, until he was twelve or
fifteen years of age. It is interesting to know that more banks have
been organized in the last three years in the state of Mississippi
than ever before. There have been ten banks organized since Vardaman
became governor of the state.
For the reasons I have mentioned, the Negro in the South has not only
found a practically free field in the commercial world, but in the
world of skilled labor. Such a field is not open to him in such a
degree in any other part of the United States, or perhaps in the
world, as is open in the South. All of this has had a tremendously
strong bearing in developing the Negro's moral and Christian life.
In proportion to their numbers, I question whether so large a
proportion of any other race are members of some Christian Church as
is true of the American Negro. In many cases their practical ideas of
Christianity are crude, and their daily practice of religion is far
from satisfactory; still the foundation is laid, upon which can be
builded a rational, practical and helpful Christian life.
Let me illustrate the value of the economic and industrial training of
the Negro: If one chooses, let him try this plan which I have tried on
a good many occasions. Go into any village or town, North or South,
enter their Baptist and Methodist churches--for the most part they
belong to the Baptist Church--and ask their pastors to point out to
you the most reliable, progressive and leading colored man in the
community, the man who is most given to putting his religious
teachings into practice in his daily life, and in a majority of cases
one will have pointed out to him a Negro who learned a trade or got
some special economic training during the days of slavery,--in all
probability an individual who has become the owner of a little piece
of land, who lives in his own house.
Now what lessons for the work that is before us can you and I learn
from what I have attempted to say? The lesson suggested in the
elevation of the black race in America will apply with equal force, in
my opinion, to the inculcating of moral and Christian principles into
_any_ race, regardless of color, that is in the same relative stage of
civilization. Here let me add that in all my advocacy of the value of
industrial training I have never done so because my people are black;
I would advocate the same kind of training for any race that is on
the same plane of civilization as our people are found on at the
present time.
But as to the lesson which may prove of direct interest, so far as you
are concerned. In the old days, the method of converting the heathen
to Christianity was very largely abstract. The Bible was, in most
cases, the only argument. In the conversion of the heathen to
Christianity or in raising the standard of moral and Christian living
for any people, I argue that in the use of the economic element and
the teaching of the industries we should be guided by the same rules
that are now used in the most advanced methods of ordinary
school-teaching--that is, to begin with the known and gradually
advance to the unknown; we should advance from the concrete to the
abstract. In doing this, industrial education, it seems to me,
furnishes a tremendously good opportunity.
Let me illustrate: Not long ago a missionary who was going into a
foreign field very kindly asked of me advice as to how he should
proceed to convert the people to Christianity. I asked him, first,
upon what the people depended mostly for a living in the country where
he was to labor; he replied that for the most part they were engaged
in sheep raising. I said to him at once that if I were going into that
country as a missionary, I should begin my efforts by teaching the
people to raise more sheep and better sheep. If he could convince them
that Christianity could raise more sheep and better sheep than
paganism, he would at once get a hold upon their sympathy and
confidence in a way he could not do by following more abstract methods
of converting them.
The average man can discern more quickly the difference between good
sheep and bad sheep, than he can the difference between Unitarianism
and Trinitarianism.
If the Christian missionary can gradually teach the heathen how to
build a better house than he has used, how to make better clothes, how
to grow, prepare and secure better food for his daily meals, the
missionary will have gone a long way, may I repeat, toward securing
the confidence of the heathen and will have laid the foundation in
this concrete manner for interesting the pagan in a higher moral life
and in getting him to appreciate the difference between the heathen
life and the Christian life. In teaching the child to read we use the
objective method; in converting the heathen we should employ the same
method--and this means the economic or industrial method.
Some six years ago a group of Tuskeegee graduates and former students
went to Africa for the purpose of giving the natives in a certain
territory of West Africa training in methods of raising American
cotton. They did not go there primarily as missionaries, nor was their
chief end the conversion of these pagans to Christianity. Naturally,
they began their work by training the natives how to cultivate their
land differently, how and when to plant the crop, and when to harvest
it, and gradually taught them how to use a small hand gin in getting
the cotton ready for market.
Largely through the leadership of this group of Tuskeegee students,
there is shipped from this section of Africa to the Berlin market each
year many bales of cotton. The natives have learned through the
teaching of these men to grow more cotton and better cotton. They have
learned to use their time, have learned that by working systematically
and regularly they can increase their income and thus add to their
independence and supply their wants. Not only this, but in order that
these people might be fitted for continuous and regular service in the
cotton field, their houses have been improved and the natives have
been taught how to take better care of their bodies. In a word,
during the years that these Tuskeegee people have been in the
community they have improved the entire economic, industrial, and
physical life of the people in this immediate territory.
The result is, as one of the men stated on his last visit to
Tuskeegee, there is little difficulty now in getting the children of
these people to attend Sunday-school and the older people to attend
church; in fact, in a natural, logical manner they seem to have been
converted to the idea that the religion practiced by these Tuskeegee
men is superior to their own. They believe this firmly, because they
have seen that better results have been produced through the Christian
influence of these Tuskeegee men than has been produced when they had
no such leadership. If these Tuskeegee people had gone there as
missionaries of the old type and had confined themselves to abstract
teachings of the Bible alone, it would have required many years to
have brought about the results which have been attained within a few
years.
Some time ago in Montgomery, Alabama, there was a church, attended by
members of my race, which happened to be located not very far from the
residence of a white family. The cook who served in this white family
attended this church to which I refer. The members of the church made
considerable noise in their singing, shouting, and praying, and after
a while the white family grew rather exasperated because of this
noise. One Sunday the church services were prolonged until an unusual
hour and there was more noise than usual; so the next morning when the
cook came, the lady of the house called her into the sitting-room, and
said: "Jane, why in the world do you make so much noise in your
worship, in your singing, praying, and shouting? Why don't you be
orderly, quiet, and systematic in your worship? Why, Jane, in the
Bible we read that in the building of Solomon's Temple, no noise
pervaded the silence of the builders. Why can you not worship in the
same way?" The old colored woman looked at her mistress for a few
moments and said: "Lordy, missus, you don't know what we's doing;
Lordy, missus, you don't know what we's striving at; we's just
blasting out de stone for de foundation ob de Temple." So, my friends,
when you hear us laying so much emphasis upon the moral and economic
training, upon home-getting and all those things, remember we are
simply trying to teach our people to blast out the foundation of the
temple in which we are to grow and be useful.
Says the Psalmist: "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works; in wisdom hast
Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches." I believe that a
wise Providence means that we shall use all the material riches of the
earth: soil, wood, minerals, stones, water, air, and what not, as a
means through which to reach God and glorify Him.
I have thus briefly dealt with the problem of slavery in its relations
to the economic and moral growth of my people. Each one of these
periods has presented a problem of tremendous importance and
seriousness to your race and to my race.
If more attention had been given to the economic and industrial
development of Liberia in the early stages of the history of that
republic, Liberia would be far in advance of its present condition
both in morals and religion, to say nothing of commercial prosperity.
In Liberia there is an immense territory rich with resources.
Notwithstanding this, there are no improved or advanced methods of
agriculture; the soil is scarcely stirred; there are no carts, wagons
or other wheeled vehicles, practically no public roads, no bridges, no
railroads; the mineral wealth and the timber wealth remain almost
untouched; and I am told on good authority that, in spite of all this
wealth right at the very door of these people, even school-teachers
and ministers wear clothing manufactured in the United States or in
Europe, and eat canned goods that come from Chicago or Germany.
It requires no argument to impress the fact that the most practical
missionary work would have been in the direction of teaching these
people how to cultivate the soil in the best manner with the very best
implements, how to get the wealth out of their forests and water and
mines, how to build roads, decent bridges and decent houses; in a
word, how to take hold of the material riches with which Providence
has blessed the land and turn these riches into moral and religious
growth. This, in my opinion, would have represented the very highest
kind of missionary work.
I do not grow discouraged or despondent by reason of great and serious
problems. On the contrary, I deem it a privilege to be permitted to
live in an age when great, serious, and perplexing problems are to be
met and solved. I would not care to live in a period when there was no
weak part of the human family to be helped up and no wrongs to be
righted. It is only through struggle and the surmounting of
difficulties that races, like individuals, are made strong, powerful,
and useful.
This is the road the Negro should travel; this is the road, in my
opinion, the Negro will travel. I sometimes fear that in our great
anxiety to push forward we lay too much stress upon our former
condition. We should think less of our former growth and more of the
present and of the things which go to retard or hinder that growth. In
one of his letters to the Galatians, St. Paul says: "But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law."
I believe that it is possible for a race, as it is for an individual,
to learn to live up in such a high atmosphere that there is no human
law that can prevail against it. There is no man who can pass a law to
affect the Negro in relation to his singing, his peace, and his
self-control. Wherever I go I would enter St. Paul's atmosphere and,
living through and in that spirit, we will grow and make progress and,
notwithstanding discouragements and mistakes, we will become an
increasingly strong part of the Christian citizenship of this
republic.
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