transportation and we want to leave ratway as soon as you let us
here from you some of us is married mens who need work we would
like to bring our wife with us there is 20 head of good mens want
transportation and if you need us let us no by return mail we all
are redy only wants here from you there may be more all of our
peoples wont to leave here and I want you to send as much as 20
tickets any way I will get you up plenty hands to do most any
kind of work all you have to do is to send for them. looking to
here from you. This is among us collerd.
PLAQUEMINE, LA., April 288, 1917.
_Der sir:_ only a few lines in regards you advertismen this week
Chicago Defender and it verry intresting to me and other that why
Im wrighten you because it my benifit me in the futur I know
about twenty five young men would like to go north but accorden
to present conditions in the south wont allow them to save enough
to go if their a possible chance of you doing enything we all
good worker and think if you will give us a chance will proof to
you that we can work and if you give us transportation we will
work and pay it back from the start. I will close hope you will
kindly except our offer and give it your persinel intrest.
NEW ORLEANS, April 27, 1917.
_Dear Sirs:_ I have been engaged in the hotel business for
eighteen years. And I am personally acquainted with at least
fifty of our leading citizens of your city. And in my home I
would refer you to Mr. ----, asst. Depot Ticket agent of the ----
R. R. He told me that any corporation that was in need of Labor
and placed passes with them for the same, that they would haul
the people. I could furnish you at least one thousand in the
next sixty days. And you will not have sixty dead beats. I will
furnish the names, and each pass should have the name of the user
on it before leaving Chicago. The greater number that I know have
families and do not wish to leave without them. Let me hear from
you at once. I can give you the business and my people will go
any where sent and do any kind of work, if the wages are right.
PATTERSON, LA., May 1, 1917.
_Dear Sir:_ I was reading one of the Chicago Defender papers and
I seen a splendid opportunity to grasp a good job. Now if you
could fowerd me a pass from New Orleans I would be very glad
because I am a willing worker, write me a letter as soon as
possible and let me know just what job you will put me to, of
cours I dont know any trade but will be willing to learn a good
trade. this aid I seen reads like this:
Laborers wanted for foundry, warehouse and yard work. Excellent
opportunity for learning trades, paying good money start
$2.50-$2.75 so I would like to learn a trade. I might can get you
some more from here. I will close hope I will hear from you at
once. Before sending the transportation write me a letter.
CHATTANOOGA, TENN., May 1, 1917.
_Dear Sur:_ will you send me a transportation i am a foundry man
i want to come where i can get same pay for my work and you plese
send me a transportation for 4 good hard labore man please send
and i can get you some good mens here i am down here working hard
and gett nothing for it so i hop you will ancer soon and let me
here from you i have had 7 years exprense in foundry works i noes
my jobe well i will expet to here from you rat way so good by.
MOBILE, ALA., April 30, 1917.
_Dear Sir:_ In answer to your Ad. which apeared in the Chicago
Defender for laborer wanted to work in Foundry warehouse and yard
work I can recruit 15 good honest men whom I believe would make
good and can leave as soon as transportation for same is
provided. Hopeing to hear from you soon I remain Yours truly.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., 4/30/17.
_Kind sir:_ only a few lines wanting to get some information
concerning of work i want to find out when could you send
transportations for fifteen men eight of them is molders and the
balance of them is experienced warehouse men and experienced
firemen if required i saw your ad in the CHicago Defender.
This is all at present hopeing to get an early reply.
CHATTANOGGA, TENN., 5-2-17.
_Dear sir:_ i only had the chance to see your ad to day at noon.
i was to glad to see it and hop that i am not to lat to full it i
am fuly sattisfied i can get as many as 10 or 15 reddy by the 7
or 8 and we will be reddy by that time if you will tret us rite
we will stand by you to the las
CHATTANOOGA, TENN., May 2, 1917.
_Dear Sir:_ I beg to call you tension of some employment in your
country. I has been inform that you will give instruction an get
work any wher in the northern stats. I have some of the best
labor that is in south an some of the best molders if we can get
employment in north we wil go.
a waiting your reply.
SAVANNAH, GA., March 16, 1917.
_Gentlemen:_ Having learned that you ar short of laborers, I
respectfully offer myself as an applicant for a situation, and
would be glad to get a hearing from you as soon as it would be
convenient for you to reply. There are also many of my friends
that would be glad to get a situation. I am willing to do most
eny kind of earnest work. I am 36 years of age and can read and
wright the english language. and have good experance in busness.
Any communication whitch you may be pleased to make addressed as
above will receive prompt attention.
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA., May 1, 1917.
_Dear sir:_ I am in receipt of your letter of the 16th of April
in reply to a letter I written to you. I will say at this
junction that there are more than 250 men desire to come north
but is not able to come if your manufacture men would like to
have 75 men labores from the south why he can get them for the
fair from here to New York is only 19.00 nineteen dollars and I
do not think that is a high transportation cost to get good
labor. Now there are men here that will work that can and have
10.00 ten dollars on there fair and for a little assistance they
will come at once for the condishion there is terrible the low
wage and high cost of living and bad treatment is causing all to
want to come north. Now I have a family of 8 only, one boy that
can work in the north for he is 18 years the others is school
children and I would like to get them up there with me for I was
raise in the eastern state Massachusett Cambridge and pass as a
master workman in Denver Colorader making brick. Now if there is
any way to assist why do so now if you can only assist me why
just do it as a brother & friend I have 5 to pay for but I have a
little moeny but not enough to pay all way 3 full and 2 half fair
so you can readily see just where Im at but I got my fare but
rather bring my family with me.
ASHFORD, ALA., Dec. 8, 1916.
_Dear sir_: I take great pleasure in writing you and replying to
your advertiser that you all wanted colored laborers and I want
to come up north and could get you 75 more responsible hands if
you want them so if you please send me 3 passes are as manny as
you like and I garontee you that I will fill them out with
responsible hands and good ones so please let me here from you at
once.
ORANGEBURG, S. C., June 14, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: your addess was gave to me this after noon by a young
man by the name of Mr. ---- who is now in Conn. and I write him
to see if he could get me a good job so he said to me on his card
that he was listening for a vacan place to apply for but hesen
found any thing not as yet but he said he wood do his very best
for me. This time of the year most people are now goeing north so
much I thought I wood come two so he told me to write you and see
if I could get you to get me a good job and have the people to
write me and advance me a transportation from Orangeburg to New
York. He said you are the best man in New York to assist good
fellow in to good paying jobs. I will look two here from you very
soon.
GRAHAM, LA., May 18, 1917.
_Dear sir_: a word of infermation and a ancer from you please
there are about 12 or 15 of us with our famlys leaving the south
and we can hear of collored peples leaving the south but we are
not luckey enough to leave hear. Dr. ---- clame to be an agent to
sind peples off and we has bin to him so minnie times and has
fail to get off untill we dont no what to do so if you will place
us about 15 tickets or get some one else to do so we are honest
enough to come at once and labor for you or the one that sind
them untill we pay you if so requir. If we war able we wood sur
leave this torminting place but the job we as got and what we get
it we do well to feed our family so please let me here from you
at once giveing full detale of my requess.
SAVANNAH, GA., May 3, 1917.
_Dare sier:_ I understand that you wont some mens and if you wood
sen me transportation for ten mens wood bee turly glad and please
write to me at wonce and lete me hir form you.
MEMPHIS, TENN., May 3, 1917.
_Dear Sir:_ Seeing you add in the Chicago definder that you are
in need of labor I write you for full information at once hope
you will please give me. I am willing to come & if you kneed any
more labor I am sufficient to bring them.
Now my dear sir if you can give me a steady job please send me a
pass hope you will write me at once.
SAVANNAH, GA., 4-30-17.
_Dear sir:_ in reply to the labor wanted I write you let you know
I am a poor afflicted man can not do anything come to hand but am
willing to work and do need something to make a support now will
you please look up a job for me I could sweep or do any thing
light like that could watch act as janitor if you will send me a
transportation when I get there you see my willingness you would
make me a job now if you will except I will get you some men and
bring with me because I know numbers of men want to come and can
get as many as you want. Just give me a trial.
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., May 2, 1917.
_Deer sir:_ i reed in the Chicago Defender that you wanted some
molder in your city i dont no wheather you mene lumber are iron
moulder but i am 4 years experence in lumber but if you mene iron
molder i dont think i will be many days learning the trade if it
is any chance that i can get a good job eith you i would like to
hear from you at once i am maried and would like to get 2
transportation if i can and if you want some hard working mens
let me no and i will do all that i can for you and bring them on
with me if you will make same range ment to get them there i mean
that i will get you some good men hard working mens like myself
so let me here from you at once Please
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., 5/21/17.
_Dear sir_: i am today righting you a few lines asking you to
please give me some information and that is this if you know of
any one that wants help of any kind men or women and one that
would send a few tickets would you please give me they address i
was told to right to you for information please lead me in the
light as i could get five familys and 8 or 9 good men for any
firm that wanted help, so I am awaiting your promp reply.
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS, 5/5th/17.
_Dear Sir_: Permitt me to inform you that I have had the pleasure
of reading the Defender for the first time in my life as I never
dreamed that there was such a race paper published and I must say
that its _some_ paper.
However I can unhesitatingly say that it is extraordinarily
interesting and had I know that there was such a paper in my town
or such being handled in my vicinity I would have been a
subscriber years ago.
Nevertheless I read every space of the paper dated April 28th
which is my first and only paper at present. Although I am
greatfully anticipating the pleasure of receiving my next
Defender as I now consider myself a full fledged defender fan and
I have also requested the representative of said paper to deliver
my Defender weekly.
In reading the Defenders want ad I notice that there is lots of
work to be had and if I havent miscomprehended I think I also
understand that the transportation is advanced to able bodied
working men who is out of work and desire work. Am I not right?
with the understanding that those who have been advanced
transportation same will be deducted from their salary after they
have begun work. Now then if this is they proposition I have
about 10 or 15 good working men who is out of work and are dying
to leave the south and I assure you that they are working men and
will be too glad to come north east or west, any where but the
south.
Now then if this is the proposition kindly let me know by return
mail. However I assure you that it shall be my pleasure to
furnish you with further or all information that you may
undertake to ask or all information necessary concerning this
communication.
Thanking you in advance for the courtesy of a prompt reply with
much interest, I am
COLUMBUS, GA., April 29, 1917.
_Dear sir_: I seen your adds in the paper & after reading I saw
where I could do some business for you & if you will write & let
me know promply what you will allow me for heads & let me know
right away I can get you as many as thirty at once & I know that
you do not want nothing but able bodied men if you will as soon
as you get this mail let me know by wireing me & I can get the
men ready by Thursday wire me as soon as your early convenence.
will also send you my recamendation that I am a true and reliable
negro if you take the notion to send the ticket send me money
emough to feed them until we get there you can estamate about how
much it will take to feed thirty all of them is anxious to go &
will go at the word from you please return the recamendation
back.
MOBILE, ALA., April 21, 1917.
_Gentlemen_: Please have the kindness to let me know if you can
handle any labor as I wish to come north but would like to know
just who I am going to work for before starting so as to not be
there on expences and in the main time I have other friends that
would like to have a steady imployment while they are unable to
raise the money for transportation. Let me know what disposition
you could make in regards to the same.
MOBILE, ALA., May 15, 1917.
_Dear Sir and Brother_: I am in the information of your labores
league and while in this city I have been asked about the
conditions of work in the north and at the same time we have
about 300 men here in this city of different trades. Some are
farmers, mail men iron and stell workers, mechanics and of all
classes of work. They ask me in their union to find out just the
conditions of the afair. They wants to know if they can go to
work in one or two days after they get there? if so some of them
can pay all of their fair some half and some wants to come on
conditions. will the company send them a pass and let them pay
them back weekly? if so I can send 500 more or less in order that
you may know who I am I will send you some of my papers that you
may know what I stand for and what I have been taking along,
please let me hear from you at once and what you think about it.
LETTERS ABOUT LABOR AGENTS
MOBILE, ALA., 4-26-17.
_Dear Sir Bro._: I take great pane in droping you a few lines
hopeing that this will find you enjoying the best of health as it
leave me at this time present. Dear sir I seen in the Defender
where you was helping us a long in securing a posission as
brickmason plaster cementers stone mason. I am writing to you for
advice about comeing north. I am a brickmason an I can do cement
work an stone work. I written to a firm in Birmingham an they
sent me a blank stateing $2.00 would get me a ticket an pay 10
per ct of my salary for the 1st month and $24.92c would be paid
after I reach Detorit and went to work where they sent me to
work. I had to stay there until I pay them the sum of $24.92c so
I want to leave Mobile for there, if there nothing there for me
to make a support for my self and family. My wife is seamstress.
We want to get away the 15 or 20 of May so please give this
matter your earnest consideration an let me hear from you by
return mail as my bro. in law want to get away to. He is a
carpenter by trade. so please help us as we are in need of your
help as we wanted to go to Detroit but if you says no we go where
ever you sends us until we can get to Detroit. We expect to do
whatever you says. There is nothing here for the colored man but
a hard time wich these southern crackers gives us. We has not had
any work to do in 4 wks. and every thing is high to the colored
man so please let me hear from you by return mail. Please do this
for your brother.
ANNINSTON, ALA., April 26, 1917.
_Dear sir_: Seeing in the Chicago Defender that you wanted men to
work and that you are not to rob them of their half loaf;
interested me very much. So much that I am inquiring for a job;
one for my wife, auntie and myself. My wife is a seamster, my
auntie a cook I do janitor work or comon labor. We all will do
the work you give us. Please reply early.
SHREVEPORT, LA., May 22, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: I want to get some infirmation about getting out up
there I did learn that they had a man here agent for to send
people up there I have never seen him yet and I want you to tell
me how to get up there. they are passing people out up there that
are unable to come I would like to hear from you at once from
your unknown friend.
DERIDDER, LA., April 18, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: in regards of helth and all so in need that I am
riting you these fue lines to day to you. this few lines leves
famly and I well at the present an doe trus by the help of God
these will find you the same. Now what I want you to doe for me
is this will you please give this letter to the Chicago Defender
printers and I will bee oblige to you. I wood of back this letter
to the Chicago defenders but they never wood of receve it from
here.
I am to day riting you jus a fue lines for infermasion I wil
state my complant is this. now her is 18 hundred of the colored
race have paid to a man $2.00 to be transfered to Chicago to
work, he tel us that thire is great demand in the north for labor
and wee no it is true bee cors ther is thousands of them going
from Alabama and fla. and Gergia and all so other states and this
white man was to send us to Chicago on the 15 of march and eavery
time we ask him about it he tell us that the companys is not redy
for us and we all wants to get out of the south, wee herd that
this man have fould wee people out of this money, wee has a
duplicate shorn that wee have paid him this money and if ther is
iny compnys that wants these men and will furnis transpertashion
for us wil you please notifie me at once bee cors I am tired of
bene dog as I was a beast and wee will come at wonce. So I will
bee oblige to you if you will help us out of the south.
LIVE OAK, FLA., 4-25-17.
_Dear sir_: I wish to become in touch with you. I have been
thinking of leaving the south and have had several ofers
presented to me if only would say I would go and pay down so
mutch money until a certain date but dont aprove of sutch. Know
would be glad to have you relate to me weather I can get a job in
or near the city.
I am now working at a commission house. Listen there have been
several crooks out saying they are getting men for difrent works
in the north, all you had to do pay them $2 or $3 dollars and
meet him on a certain day and that would be the last. Will you
relate to me some of the difrent kinds of works & prices.
Nothing more, I remain.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., April 22, 1917.
_Dear sir_: with the greatest of pleasure for me to address you a
few lines, concerning of labor as I was reading and advertisement
of yours in the Chicago Defender stateing that those who wish to
locate in smaller towns with fairly good wages and to bring their
children up with the best of education will kindly get in touch
with you. However if you are in a business of that kind it just
fitted me. While I am a man with a very large family most all are
boys and it is my desires to get in touch with some good firms to
works. Kind sir if you are in that kind of position please let me
hear from you at once I've get no confidence in some of these so
called agents. Ill be to glad to hear from you at once.
MOBILE, ALA., 12-4-16.
_Dear Sir_: While reading Sunday's Defender I read where you was
coming south looking for labor I see you want intelligent
industrious men to work in factories so I thought I would write
and get a little information about it. there are a lot of idle
men here that are very anxious to come north. every day they are
fooled about go and see the man. pleanty of men have quit thier
jobs with the expectation of going but when they go the man that
is to take them cant be found. last week there was a preacher
giving lecturers on going. took up collection and when the men
got to the depot he could not be found, so if you will allow me
the privaledge I can get you as many men as you need that are
hard working honest men that will be glad to come. I will send
you these names and address if you will send for them to come.
there is not work here every thing is so high what little money
you make we have to eat it up. so if what I say to you is
agreeable please answer.
LETTERS ABOUT THE GREAT NORTHERN DRIVE OF 1917
PENSACOLA, FLA., 4-21-17.
_Sir_: You will please give us the names of firms where we can
secure employment. Also please explain the Great Northern Drive
for May 15th. We will come by the thousands. Some of us like farm
work. The colored people will leave if you will assist them.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., April 25, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: Would you kindely advise me of a good place where I
can get a good job out in some of the small places from Chicago
about 50 or 60 miles. I am expecting to leave the south about the
15th of May and will bring my family later on. Answer soon.
PASS CHRISTIAN, MISS., April 30, 1917.
_Sir_: I want to come north on 15th of May, & I would like to get
a job at once. & if you will please locate one for me & let me
know in return mail & oblige. Will except a job on farm or in
town. I have a little education & I am aquainted with work all
right. Hope to here from you soon.
MOBILE, ALA., April 25, 1917.
_Sir_: I was reading in theat paper atoout the Colored race and
while reading it I seen in it where cars would be here for the 15
of May which is one month from to day. Will you be so kind as to
let me know where they are coming to and I will be glad to know
because I am a poor woman and have a husband and five children
living and three dead one single and two twin girls six months
old today and my husband can hardly make bread for them in
Mobile. This is my native home but it is not fit to live in just
as the Chicago Defender say it says the truth and my husband only
get $1.50 a day and pays $7.50 a month for house rent and can
hardly feed me and his self and children. I am the mother of 8
children 25 years old and I want to get out of this dog hold
because I dont know what I am raising them up for in this place
and I want to get to Chicago where I know they will be raised and
my husband crazy to get there because he know he can get more to
raise his children and will you please let me know where the cars
is going to stop to so that he can come where he can take care of
me and my children. He get there a while and then he can send for
me. I heard they wasnt coming here so I sent to find out and he
can go and meet them at the place they are going and go from
there to Chicago. No more at present. hoping to hear from you
soon from your needed and worried friend.
MONTGOMERY, ALA., May 7, 1917.
_My dear Sir_: I am writing to solicit your aid and advice as to
how I may best obtain employment at my trade in your city. I
shall be coming that way on the 15th of May and I wish to find
immediate employment if possible.
I have varied experience as a compositor and printer. Job
composition is my hobby. I have not experience as linotype
operator, but can fill any other place in a printing office.
Please communicate with me at the above address at once. Thanking
you in advance for any assistance and information in the matter.
ROME, GA., May 13, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: I am writing you in regards to present conditions in
Chicago in getting employment. I am an experienced hotel man--in
all departments, such as bellman, waiter, buss boy, or any other
work pertaining to hotel and would like to know in return could
you furnish me transportation to Chicago as you advertise in the
Chicago Defender. Am good honest and sober worker, can furnish
recermendations if necessary. Have worked at the Palmer House
during year 1911 as bus boy in Cafe. But returned South for
awhile and since the Northern Drive has begun I have decided to
return to Chicago as I am well acquainted with the city. Hope to
hear from you soon on this matter as it is of great importance to
me.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., 4-23-17.
_Dear Editor_: I am a reader of the Defender and I am askeso much
about the great Northern drive on the 15th of May. We want more
understanding about it for there is a great many wants to get
ready for that day & the depot agents never gives us any
satisfaction when we ask for they dont want us to leave here, I
want to ask you to please publish in your next Saturdays paper
just what the fair will be on that day so we all will know & can
be ready. So many women here are wanting to go that day. They are
all working women and we cant get work here so much now, the
white women tell us we just want to make money to go North and we
do so please kindly ans. this in your next paper if you do I will
read it every word in the Defender, had rather read it then to
eat when Saturday comes, it is my hearts delight & hope your
paper will continue on in the south until every one reads it for
it is a God sent blessing to the Race. Will close with best
wishes.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., May 2, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: Please Sir will you kindly tell me what is meant by
the great Northern Drive to take place May the 15th on tuesday.
It is a rumor all over town to be ready for the 15th of May to go
in the drive. the Defender first spoke of the drive the 10th of
February. My husband is in the north already preparing for our
family but hearing that the excursion will be $6.00 from here
north on the 15 and having a large family, I could profit by it
if it is really true. Do please write me at once and say is there
an excursion to leave the south. Nearly the whole of the south is
getting ready for the drive or excursion as it is termed. Please
write at once. We are sick to get out of the solid south.
LETTERS CONCERNING WHICH SECRECY WAS ENJOINED
ORANGE CITY, FLA., May 4, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: Being a reader of the Chicago Defender, I finds a
add, stateing laborers wanted. I would like to ask if the add is
refering to persons of that state only. Could a person secure a
position until he could reach said state?
Now if you would answer this letter of information I would highly
appreciate it. During your letter please give information about
advanced transportation, etc. This is not as a testimony--don't
publish.
MEMPHIS, TENN., June 1, 1917.
_Sir_: as I being one of the readers of your great News paper and
if I am not to imposeing I want to ask you this information as to
what steps I should take to secure a good position as a first
class automobeal blacksmith or any kind pretaining to such and to
say that I have been opporating a first class white shop here for
quite a number of years one of the largest in the south and if I
must say the only colored man in the city that does.
now I never knew any other way to find out as I want to leave the
south and I feel very much confidential that you would give
information if in your power. So if you know of such why please
inform me at your leasure time. Any charges why notify me in
return but do not publish.
VICKSBURG, MISS., May 2, 1917.
_Sir_: I am a reader of the Chicago Defender I am asking you a
little information. So many people are leaving south for north
and it is too big families and we want to come north or middle
west for better wages. We all have trade and if you think we all
can get position just as we get north if not the middle west.
Better please dont publish this is no paper. here is a stamp
envelop for reply.
LAUREL, MISS., 4-30-17.
_Dear Sir_: In reading your defender paper every week find every
thing so true makes me want to come more every day. so i am
thinking of coming in a few days decided to write you in regards
to getting a job that will suit my age. I am 48 years old am in
very good helth and likes to work just like the days come. Have
farm the biggest position of my life untill seven years ago. i
follow publick work untill now would not like for my name to be
publish in the paper.
FULLERTON, LA., May 7, 1917.
_Dear sir_: This comes to inform you that I would like very much
to come up and locate in your town, but would like to have a
little advise before I leave the sunny south. I am a railroad man
by trade. Of course I am a Colored man but I have been Conductor
for the G. & S. R. Ry. of the past eight years. I have acted as
yard master, and manager of the switch engine and had charge of
the local freight department. Please advise if you think I can
secure a fairly good paying position up there and I am ready to
come up and take hold. I can furnish good reference, and have my
own typewriter and equipment.
I am not particular about working for the rail-road, but I would
like to get something respectable if possible.
I think my reference will satisfy the most interogator. Kindly
advise privately and do not publish.
GREENVILLE, MISS., May 12, 1917.
_Dear sir_: Please inform me as to wether there is imployment for
col. insurance agents by Company as industrial writers sick and
acc. and deth if thair is such co. handling coolored agents in
Chicago or suburban towns, please see suptender as to wether he
could youse a good relible live agent. I am contemplating moving
to Ill. This is confidential.
My experience as ins. agent 15 year industrial and ord. life and
prefered.
LETTERS EMPHASIZING RACE WELFARE
AUGUST, GA., May 12, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: Just for a little infermation from you i would like
to know wheather or not i could get in tuch with some good people
to work for with a firm because things is afful hear in the south
let me here from you soon as poseble what ever you do dont
publish my name in your paper but i think peple as a race oguht
to look out for one another as Christians friends i am a
schuffur and i cant make a living for my family with small pay
and the people is getting so bad with us black peple down south
hear. now if you ever help your race now is the time to help me
to get my family away. food stuf is so high. i will look for
answer by return mail, dont publish my name if your paper but let
me hear from you at once.
DELAND, FLA., 5/1. 17.
_Dear sir_: I being onknon to you in personnal but by reading the
Chicago Defender I notice in its ad that there is chance for all
kind of imployment that a men that will work can get and as I am
one of the negro race that dont mind working study so it is
understand that you will please let me no as to wheather you can
place me in some of those positions for I sopose to be in this
town about 5 more weeks. after leving her stopping in Savannah my
home city to see my too bro. and mother I will then leve for the
northern states I will thank you for some information.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., May 1, 1917.
_Dear sir_: i am a reader of the Chicago defender and i seen in
the defender that you are interrested in the well fair of the
colored people those of the classe that is interested in
themselves and coming to the north for a better chance so i take
pleashure in riting to you that i may get some under standing
about conditions of getting work as i see that you are in turch
with the foundrys warehouses and the manufacturing concerns that
is in need of laborers and i thought it was best to rite you and
get some understanding as it is 4 of us expecting to leave here
in a few days to come north but we are not coming for pleasure we
are looking for wirk and better treatment and more money and i
ask your aid in helping us to secure a good position of work as
we are men of familys and we canot aford to loaf and i will be
very glad to hear from you and an my arival i will call at your
place to see you.
COLUMBIA, S. C., May 7, 1917.
_Dir sur_: i saw in one of our colord papers your ad i now seat
my selft to seak work thru your ade of which i beleve is ernest
devotion to our betterment i am a brick layer and plastrer i rite
to no if i can get or you can get work for me please let me know
detales plese.
MEMPHIS, TENN., 4-23-17.
_Gentlemen_: I want to get in tuch with you in regard of a good
location & a job I am for race elevation every way. I want a job
in a small town some where in the north where I can receive verry
good wages and where I can educate my 3 little girls and demand
respect of intelegence. I prefer a job as cabinet maker or any
kind of furniture mfg. if possible.
Let me hear from you all at once please. State minimum wages and
kind of work.
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., May 2, 1917.
_Dear sir_: I am writing you a few lines seacking information
about some work as i was read a Chicago Defender i saw where
labarers wanted very much I am a labarer now have not no work
here to do i am married man have one child and would like for yo
to give me work to do anything I am well expereinced in ware
house and foundry and if there any way for you to fearnish me a
transportation to come at once do i can go so i can make my
family a desen living you will please let me know and if you
would help a poor need man i am willing to come any time if I had
the money i would pay my own way but i realy ain got it so i am
asking you to please do this for me i am realy in need if you can
do a poor negro any good please do this for me.
PENSACOLA, FLA., April 25, 1917.
_My dear Sir_: I noticed an anticle in the Chicago Defender that
officers and members of your organization officer to assist any
member of the race to secure steady employment in small cities
near Chicago. I am verry anxious to secure a job the year round
at any kind of honest work, trusting that I may hear from you at
an early date, I beg to remain.
ATLANTA, GA., April 11, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: I am a reader of you paper and we are all crazy about
it and take it every Saturday and we raise a great howl when we
dont get it. Now since I see and feel that you are for the race
and are willing to assist any one so I will ask you to please
assist me in getting imployment and some place to stop with some
good quiet people or with a family that would take some one to
live with them. I will do any kind of work. I am a hair dresser
but I will do any kind of work I can get to do I am a widow and
have one child a little girl 6 years years old I dont know any
body there so if you can assist me in any way will be greatly
appreciated now this letter is personal please dont print it in
your paper. I hope to hear from you soon.
ROME, GA., April 28, 1917.
_My dear Northern friend_: I saw in the Chicago Defender where
llabors are wanted I am sure a man that wants to get out of the
south and would do most any kind of work I has a wife she works
all the time We has a boy age 13 years he has been working with
me 5 years I has been working at the pipe shop 11 year but I can
do other work you said you will sind a transportation after
labores please send after me I can get 10 more mens if you want
them. ans. soon so that I will no what to do but I hope you will
say yes. hope you will say get the mens and let us sind for you
all I am a man woks all the time I has a wife and 4 childrens.
HOUSTON, TEX., April 27, 1917.
_Dear Sirs_: I am a reader of the Chicago Defender and I seen
where you are in need of men and are also in the position for
firms to seek you. I see where you are in the lines of work for
the betterment of the race.
NEW ORLEANS, LA., April 22, 1917.
_Dear sir_: in reading the defender I seen where this was an
oportunity for work, for the betterment of the race. Just out of
the city and i thought to get in touch with you to see if their
would be a chance for me an my brother, i dident no if you meant
any one this far from Chicago or not but i rite to find out. but
i hope you will except me please and let me no your wages, i hope
to hear from you and if you will except me i can pick you up some
responseful families mens but if you dont want them take me
because i wants work, so good by.
SHERMAN, GA., Nov. 28, 1916.
_Dear sir_: This letter comes to ask for all infirmations concern
emplyoment in your conection in the warmest climate. Now I am in
a family of (11) eleven more or less boys and girls (men and
women) mixed sizes who want to go north as soon as arrangements
can be made and employment given places for shelter an so en
(etc) now this are farming people they were raised on the farm
and are good farm hands I of course have some experence and
qualefication as a coman school teacher and hotel waiter and
along few other lines.
I wish you would write me at your first chance and tell me if you
can give us employment at what time and about what wages will you
pay and what kind of arrangement can be made for our shelter.
Tell me when can you best use us now or later.
Will you send us tickets if so on what terms and at what price
what is the cost per head and by what route should we come. We
are Negroes and try to show ourselves worthy of all we may get
from any friendly source we endeavor to be true to all good
causes, if you can we thank you to help up to come north as soon
as you can.
SAVANNAH, GA., 4/21/17/
_Dear Sir_: I was very much impressed when I read the Defender
where you are taking so much interest securing jobs for the race
from the south. Please secure a job for man & wife in some small
town and write me all information at once.
KISSIMMEE, FLA., May 1, 1917.
_Dear Sir_: I am a subscriber for the Chicago Defender have read
of the good work you are doing in employing help for your large
factories and how you are striving to help get the better class
of people to the north. I am a teacher and have been teaching
five years successful, and as our school here has closed my
cousin and I have decided to go north for the summer who is also
a teacher of this county. I am writing you to secure for us a
position that we could fit and one that would fit us, if there be
any that is vacant.
We can furnish you with the best of reference. We would not like
to advertise through a paper. Hoping to hear from you at an early
date, I am
SANFORD, FLA., 4-29-17.
_Dear sir_: as a member of the Race who desire to join in and
with and be among the better side of our Race I ask that you
surcue me a job and have me a ticket sent or please send
transportation fees at once. Write soon as I will watch for
answer from you.
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., 4/29/17.
_Dear sir_: i was reading the Chicago Defender to day and i find
that you is mutch enterrested in our negro race i have sevrul
years in laundry business as a wash man and stationery boilers
fireing at this time i have charge of wash room, i am a fire man
and all so a laundry wash man too. hopeing that you will do all
you can for me in getting a plase of theas persisons please giv
this your attenson estateing salery per week pleas let me heare
from you soon i remain yours truly
PENSACOLA, FLA., May 1, 1917.
_dear sirs_: I sene in Defender wher more positions open then men
for them I am colord an do woork hard for my living an dont mind
it is not no bad habits I work but dont get but small wedges I am
up bilder of my colord race an love to help one when he dezirs to
better his condishon I want to ast you for a favor of helping me
to get to you an your office to get me a woork to do I want to
learn a trade and I will pay you to look out for me an get me a
job if you kindly will. Please an send me 3 tickets as we three
good woorking mens make the time you can corleck ever weeak pay
for yo at once be cause we meanse buisness now.
MONTGOMERY, ALA., May 19, 1917.
_Dear sir_: I notice in the Chicago defender that you are working
to better the condiction of the colored people of the south. I am
a member of the race & want too come north for to better the
condiction of my famely I have five children my self and a wife &
I want you to seek for me a job please. I will send you the trade
I follows while here in the south. I works in the packing houses
& also wholesale grocers houses. Either one I can do but I rather
the packing the best. you can get a half of dozen womens from
here that want work & wants information about jobs such as
cooking, nurseing & cleaning up or anything else they can do.
PENSACOLA, FLA., April 13, 1917.
_Dear sur_: I ritting to you in order to get in touch with you
about the work for the betterment of the race I shure want to
better my condeshon in the Chicago Defender I seen whear that you
say those wishing to locate in smaller towns with fairly good
wages that what I want to suner the better for me. Answer at
wonce.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Collected under the direction of Emmett J. Scott.
BOOK REVIEWS
_A Century of Negro Migration._ By CARTER G. WOODSON. The Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History, Washington, D. C. Pp. 221.
The increasingly numerous articles, inquiries and investigations into
the nature, extent, causes and results of the recent migratory
movement among the Negroes in America demonstrate the great interest
which has been manifested in this subject. At a period when so much
personal opinion, ill-digested information and controversial
literature, on racial problems are being flung at the public, it is a
real pleasure for the sincere student of human affairs to welcome such
an instructive work as this both because of its point of view and its
valuable research. This volume is an unusual contribution in this
field. It is an historical treatise, a study in economic progress and
a survey of contemporary movements. As suggested by its title, the
book examines with scholarly comprehension the continued migrations of
the nineteenth century. The point of view which the volume presents is
that of the new historical school, which holds that movements of the
present have their roots in the past; and the present may not be
properly understood without comprehending the foundations of the past.
The book is replete with facts organized and interpreted with a
scientific spirit, and the discussions are modern and scholarly.
After reading the book one ceases to speak of "a" migration, or of
"the" migration, for Negro migration ceases to be a new development.
It becomes an old movement, begun a century ago, but now heightened
and intensified by the factors growing out of the World War. The
author in his preface especially disclaims any distinctly new
contribution of fact. The specific value of the volume rests then in
its collection of isolated historical data culled from many known
sources, and its presentation of a new vantage ground from which the
whole subject may be regarded. An introductory section on the
migrations at the close of the eighteenth century and in the opening
years of the nineteenth century leads to the main chapters which
follow under the headings: A Transplantation to the North; Fighting it
out on Free Soil; Colonization as a Remedy for Migration; The
Successful Migrant; Confusing Movements; The Exodus to the West; The
Migration of the Talented Tenth, and The Exodus during the World War.
In the discussion of the Successful Migrant much information is given
us of individuals who succeeded by sheer grit in making their way to
freedom, and in some cases in building neat fortunes for themselves
and their families. The charge that the Negro appears to be naturally
migratory, an assertion which comes to light in recent studies in
economic progress, is declared untrue. Dr. Woodson asserts that "this
impression is often received by persons who hear of the thousands of
Negroes who move from one place to another from year to year because
of the desire to improve their unhappy condition. In this there is no
tendency to migrate but an urgent need to escape undesirable
conditions. In fact, one of the American Negroes' greatest
shortcomings is that they are not sufficiently pioneering." To the
reviewer, this statement, typical of others, seems to be the more
reasonable conclusion from the facts, which others regard as only
facts and by inference as racial tendencies. In the majority of
instances the author finds, as other investigators have found, that
the migrants belonged to the intelligent laboring class.
The best discussion is given in the closing chapter on The Exodus
during the World War. This is made to differ from other migrations on
the ground that the Negro has opportunity awaiting him, whereas
formerly he had "to make a place for himself upon arriving among
enemies." The effects upon the whites and the Negroes, North and
South, are noted with unbiased attitude. The perspective of the
trained historian appears to have its influence in this section. The
earlier chapters are concerned primarily with the Negro in the
Northwest, and so completely does the information center in this
section of the country that it appears easily possible to expand this
part into a larger work treating this phase in particular. The
author's comment and criticism are suggestive to both races and
particularly to the Negroes who furnish the subject-matter of the
book. The book will have not only historical interest, but it will
serve to point out the paramount unsettled condition of the race
problem during the past century and the disturbing future which must
face America. The volume is heartily commended to all readers and
students, and it cannot fail to be informing upon this unsettled
aspect of Negro life and history. No serious student should be without
it.
CHARLES H. WESLEY.
* * * * *
_Negro Migration in 1916-17._ By R. H. LEAVELL, T.R. SNAVELY, T. J.
WOOFTER, JR., W. T. B. WILLIAMS, and FRANCIS D. TYSON, with an
introduction by J. H. DILLARD. Government Printing Office, Washington,
D. C., 1919. Pp. 158.
This is a report of the Department of Labor issued from the office of
the Secretary through the Division of Negro Economics, under the
direction of Dr. George E. Haynes. The task was divided among a number
of investigators. Mr. Leavell directed his attention to the migration
from Mississippi, Mr. Snavely to that from Alabama and North Carolina,
and Mr. Woofter to that from Georgia. Mr. Williams sketches in general
the Exodus from the South and Mr. Tyson gives a survey of the Negro
Migrant in the North. Submitted in this condition the report is much
less valuable than it would have been, had the investigation been
directed by a single man to work out of these individual reports a
scientific presentation of the whole movement. As this was not the
case, there is found throughout the report numerous duplications of
discussions of causes and effects which might have given place to more
valuable information.
The conclusion of Mr. Leavell, himself a Mississippian, as to measures
for the rehabilitation of Mississippi labor conditions, are very
interesting. He believes that a permanent surplus of Negro laborers
outside of the upper delta can be created by reorganizing agriculture
with emphasis on live stock and forage, that this surplus could then
be directed to the delta and to Arkansas so far as needed for
producing cotton and food stuffs, that the balance of this surplus
labor should be drawn permanently to northern industries, and that the
older communities along the Mississippi could attract the necessary
additional labor from the surplus created in the hills. He believes
also that there should be schools emphasizing education toward the
farm, fair dealing in all business transactions, equal treatment in
the distribution of public utilities, equal treatment in the courts
and the encouragement of Negro farm ownership, the abolition of the
fee system in courts of justice, the insistence of white public
opinion on full settlement with Negroes on plantations, and, above all
else, that the fundamental need is for frequent and confidential
conferences upon community problems and for active cooperation between
the local leaders of the two races.
Mr. Snavely counts among the causes of the migration from Alabama and
North Carolina, the changed conditions incident to the transition from
the old system of cotton planting to stock raising and the
diversification of crops. Mr. Williams undertakes to estimate the size
of the exodus, some of its effects and the initial remedies for
keeping the Negroes in the South. Some of these are better pay,
greater care for the employees, better educational facilities, the
opportunity to rent and purchase sanitary homes, justice in the
courts, the abolition of "jim crowism" and segregation.
One of the most interesting parts of the report is that which deals
with the Negro migrant in the North. It is doubtful, however, that the
author has done his task so well as Mr. Epstein did in treating
intensively the same situation in Pittsburgh. This part of the report
is too brief to cover the field adequately. There are few statistics
taken from the censuses of 1900 and 1910 to show the increase of Negro
population in the North during this period. Then comes a rapid survey
of the districts receiving large numbers of Negroes during the
migration. Attention is directed also to the adjustment of the Negroes
to northern industry, race friction and the bearing of the Negro
migration on the labor movement culminating in the riot of East St.
Louis. Delinquency in the migrant population and the reports on the
crime, health and housing conditions of the Negroes in the North are
also discussed. That part of the report on constructive efforts toward
adjustment of the migrant population in the North gives much
information as to how the leading citizens of both races have
coöperated in trying to solve the problems resulting from this sudden
shifting of large groups of people.
* * * * *
_Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt._ By WILLIAM J. EDWARDS. The
Cornhill Company, Boston, 1918. Pp. 143.
This is a valuable biographical work in that the reader gets a view of
conditions in the South as experienced and viewed by a Negro educated
at Tuskegee and inspired thereby to spend his life in another part of
the State of Alabama, doing what he learned at this institution. The
author mentions his growth, the founding of the Snow Hill School, the
assistance of the Jeannes Fund, and the ultimate solutions of his more
difficult problems. The book becomes more interesting when he
discusses the Negro problem, the exodus of the blacks and the World
War.
The aim of the author, however, is to acquaint the public with the
problems and difficulties confronting those who labor for the future
of the Negro race. He complains of the land tenure, the credit system
by which the Negroes become indebted to their landlords, the lack of
educational facilities, and the consequent ignorance of the masses of
the race. To enlist support to remedy these evils wherever this
condition obtains, the life of the author who for twenty-five years
has had to struggle against hardships is hereby presented as typical
of the thousands of teachers white and black now suffering all but
martyrdom in the South that the Negroes may after all have a chance to
toil upward.
The book is not highly literary. The style is generally rough.
Interesting facts appear here and there, but they did not reach the
stage of organization in passing through the author's mind. The value
of the book, however, is not materially diminished by its style. It
certainly reflects the feelings and chronicles the deeds of a large
group of the American people during one of the most critical periods
of our history and must therefore be read with profit by those
interested in the strivings of the people of low estate. Persons
primarily concerned with industrial education will find this sketch
unusually valuable. To throw further light on this systematic effort
to elevate the Negroes of Alabama the author has given numerous
illustrations. Among these are _Uncle Charles Lee and His Home in the
Black Belt_, _Partial View of the Snow Hill Institute_, _A New Type of
Home in the Black Belt_, _Typical Log Cabin in the Black Belt_, the
_Home of a Snow Hill Graduate_, _Graduates of Snow Hill Institute_ and
_Teachers of Snow Hill Institute_.
* * * * *
_Women of Achievement._ By BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. Woman's American Baptist
Home Mission Society, Chicago, 1919. Pp. 92.
Glancing at the title of this volume one would expect to find therein
the sketches of a number of women of color known to be useful in the
uplift of the Negro race. Instead of this, however, there is the
disappointment in tho restriction of these sketches to Harriet Tubman,
Nora Gordon, Meta Warrick Fuller, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Mary Church
Terrell. No one will question the claims of some of these women to
honorable mention, but when Nora Gordon, an unknown but successful
missionary to Africa, is given precedence to the hundreds of women of
color who have influenced thought and contributed to the common good
of the race and country the historian must call for an explanation.
It is equally clear that in choosing the other four of these women as
representative of the achievements of their race the biographer has
done other distinguished women of the Negro race considerable
injustice, if his book is to be taken seriously. Harriet Tubman was
truly a great character and her life is an interesting chapter in the
history of this country. Whether Meta Warrick Fuller, Mary McLeod
Bethune and Mary Church Terrell deserve special consideration to the
exclusion of others, however, is debatable. Meta Warrick Fuller has
distinguished herself in art and so have several other women of color.
Mary McLeod Bethune is generally considered an enterprising educator
and public spirited woman, but one can here raise the question as to
whether she leads her companions. Mary Church Terrell has very well
established herself as an acceptable speaker on the race problem and
so have many others.
In giving the facts which entitle these characters to honorable
mention the author did not do his task well. He mentioned too few
incidents in the lives of these persons to make them interesting. In
other words, instead of presenting facts to speak for themselves the
author too easily yielded to the temptation to indulge in mere eulogy.
These mistakes cannot be excused, even if the book is intended for
children. On the whole, however, the work indicates effort in the
right direction and it is hoped that more extensive and numerous
sketches of women of achievement of the Negro race may be found in the
literature of our day.
NOTES
At the close of this the fourth year of its existence the Association
for the Study of Negro Life and History convened in biennial session
in Washington, D. C., on the 17th and 18th of June at the 12th Street
Branch Y. M. C. A. The reports for the year were heard, new officers
were elected, and the plans for the coming year were formulated. The
proceedings in full will appear in the October number.
The chief interest of the meeting centered around the informing
addresses on the _Negro in the World War_. Every phase of the war
history which the Negro helped to make was treated.
The Association worked out also the plans by which it will collect
data to write a scientific _History of the Negro in the World War_
just as soon as the treaty of peace is signed and documents now
inaccessible because of the proximity to the conflict become
available. The coöperation of all seekers after the truth is earnestly
solicited.
During the past two years the Association has been able to move
steadily forward in spite of the difficulties incident to the war. The
subscriptions to the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY have gradually increased
and a number of philanthropists have liberally contributed to the fund
now being used to extend the work into all parts of the country. This
work is being done by a Field Agent who organizes clubs for the study
of Negro life and history and, through local agents, sells the
publications of the Association and solicits subscriptions to the
JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY.
In addition to publishing for four years the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY,
a repository of truth now available in bound form, the association has
brought out also _Slavery in Kentucky_, an interesting portraiture of
the institution in that State; _The Royal Adventurers Trading into
Africa_, one of the best studies of the early slave trade; and _A
Century of Negro Migration_, the only scientific treatment of this
movement hitherto published.
The circulation of these publications has been extensive. They are
read in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa; they
reach more than three hundred college and public libraries; they are
found in all Negro homes where learning is an objective; they are used
by most social workers to get light on the solution of the problems of
humanity; they are referred to by students and professors conducting
classes carrying on research; and they reach members of the cabinet
and the President of the United States.
* * * * *
Carter G. Woodson is not a contributor to the _Official History of the
Negro in the World War_ by Mr. Emmett J. Scott as has been reported
throughout the country. He has given the author several suggestions,
however, and such editorial assistance as the many tasks and
obligations of the Director permitted.
THE JOURNAL
OF
NEGRO HISTORY
VOL. IV--OCTOBER, 1919--NO. 4
LABOR CONDITIONS IN JAMAICA PRIOR TO 1917
To show the lack of progress in Jamaica since the abolition of slavery
by the gradual process inaugurated in 1833 and its final extermination
in 1838, nothing will better serve the purpose than the review of the
system of apprenticeship established as a substitute for that
institution. According to the portraiture given by Sturge and Harvey
in their work entitled _The West Indies in 1837_ and the conditions
now obtaining in the island, very little progress in the condition of
the laboring man has been made since that time.
For scarcely any remuneration the Negroes were required by a
compulsory arrangement between their overseers and the Special
Magistrates to give during the crop the time granted them under the
law for their own use and they were on many estates obliged to work a
greater number of hours than was required by law. The apprentices were
compelled to work by spells of eight hours in the field on one day,
and for sixteen hours in and about the boiling house on the next day,
giving up their half Friday, for which amount of extra labor they
received two shillings and one penny or 50 cents a week. On one estate
the wages paid for extra labor during crop was two pence or 4 cents an
hour. The working hours were generally from four to eleven and from
one to five, and it is interesting to note that while it was expected
that on each half Friday given to the apprentices, sufficient food
should be provided by them to last for the succeeding week, yet when
that half day was taken from them five or six herrings were the only
compensation.
The following case is taken from an agreement made in 1836 by certain
cane hole diggers. Every laborer agreed to dig 405 cane holes in four
and one half days due his master, and to receive ten pounds of salt
fish and a daily allowance of sugar and rum, the salt fish to be
diminished in the ratio of one pound for every forty holes short of
405. In the one day and a half of his own time he was paid three
shillings and four pence or 80 cents for every ninety cane holes.
Under this agreement the maximum work performed was that of an
apprentice who in three weeks of thirteen and one half days dug in his
own time 1,017 holes, for which he received 28 pounds of fish, and in
cash one pound and fifteen shillings or $8.40. By this means it was
possible for the master to have 58 acres of land worked at a total
cost of £147 10s 0d or $708. The cost to him, if the work had been
given out to jobbers, would have been £8 an acre or £464, $2,227.20.
His apprentices were therefore the means of saving for him the sum of
£316 l0d or $1,519.20.
The following was the scale of wages for transient labor:
Prime headman 3 pence or 6 cents.
Inferior headman 2 pence or 4 cents.
First gang--able-bodied 1-1/2 pence or 3 cents.
First gang--weakly 1-1/4 pence or 2-1/2 cents.
Second gang--able-bodied 1-1/4 pence or 2-1/2 cents.
Second gang--weakly 1 penny or 2 cents.
Third gang--active 3/4 penny or 1-1/2 cents.
Third gang--lazy 1/2 penny or 1 cent.
The apprentices were permitted under the law to make application to be
valued, and on the basis of the valuation were entitled to purchase
their freedom. Here again was the system grossly abused. The slaves or
apprentices, as they were at that time called, became at the hour of
valuation very desirable assets; and, in many instances, so valuable
did they suddenly become that it was quite out of their power to carry
out their intention. The system became for this reason a premium on
all the bad qualities of the Negroes and a tax upon all the good. In
spite of this, however, so great was the desire for freedom that
within a period of twenty-eight months, from 1st August, 1834, to 30th
November, 1836, 1,580 apprentices purchased their freedom by valuation
at a cost of £52,215 or $250,632, an average of £33 or $158.40 a head.
Although seventy-eight years have passed since the total abolition of
slavery, however, the condition of the laborers of Jamaica remains
practically the same as it was then. There has been beyond doubt much
improvement in the island, but the unfortunate fact is this, that the
laborer living in a country much improved in many respects, is himself
no better or very little better off than his forefathers in slavery.
In truth, he is still an economic slave. The conditions under which he
lives and works are such as destroy whatever ambition he may possess,
and reduce his life to a mere drudgery, to a mere animal existence.
Some progress has been made and there are signs of improvement, but
the majority of laborers, the men and women and children who till the
banana fields and work on the sugar plantations, are no better off
than previously. These are still beasts of burden, still the victims
of an economic system under which they labor not as human beings with
bodies to be fed or clothed, with minds to be cultivated and aspiring
souls to be ministered unto, but as living machines designed only to
plant so many banana suckers in an hour, or to carry so many loads of
canes in a day. After seventy-eight years in this fair island, side by
side, with the progress and improvements above referred to, there are
still hundreds and hundreds of men and women who live like savages in
unfloored huts, huddled together like beasts of the field, without
regard to health or comfort. And they live thus, not because they are
worthless or because they are wholly without ambition or desire to
live otherwise, but because they must thus continue as economic
slaves receiving still the miserable pittance of a wage of eighteen
pence or 36 cents a day that was paid to their forefathers at the dawn
of emancipation. The system is now so well established that the
employers apparently regard it as their sacred right and privilege to
exploit the laborers, and the laborers themselves have been led by
long submission and faulty teaching to believe that the system is a
part of the natural order, a result of divine ordainment.
This attitude of the poor down-trodden laborers is one of the most
effective blocks in the way of his improvement. But the despair of
every one who dares to tackle this problem of improving the economic
and therefore the social and moral condition of the laborers of this
island is based on the inertness which almost amounts to callous
indifference of the local Government.
The following letters addressed to me by the Colonial Secretary of
Jamaica deserves to be put on record as evidence of the mind of the
government, in 1913,--of its inability or unwillingness to take the
first step. Letter A was written at the direction of Sir Sydney
Olivier, K.C.M.G., then Governor of Jamaica, who recently expressed
the opinion that the laborers in this island should receive one dollar
a day. That letter is valuable in that it is an official statement of
the maximum wages paid by the government of Jamaica to its own
laborers. Letter B was written at the direction of the then Colonial
Secretary, Mr. P. Cork, and is even more valuable as an official
pronouncement on the important question of a living wage.
LETTER A.
"17th January, 1913.
No. 787/15568
With reference to the letter from this office No. 13099/15568
dated the 6th November last and to previous correspondence in
connection with your suggestion that the Government should raise
the wages of their laborers, I am directed by the Governor to
inform you that it appears from enquiries made by His
Excellency's direction that the average wage now earned by
laborers under the Public Works Department is approximately one
shilling and eight pence half penny (41 cents) for an average day
of ten hours, so that in an average day of ten hours the laborers
would at the same rate of pay earn two shillings and one penny
half penny" (51 cents).
LETTER B.
"8th March, 1913.
No. 2926/3268
The Acting Governor directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 26th ultimo on the subject of the amount of wages
paid to native laborers in the employment of the Government, and
in reply to say that no acknowledgement of the correctness of
your contention that one shilling and sixpence per diem is not a
fair living wage for any laborer to receive, and that the minimum
he ought reasonably to expect to enable him to meet the ordinary
demands of existence is two shillings per diem (48 cents), is to
be inferred from the letter from this office, No. 737/15568 dated
the 17th of January, 1913.
"2. I am to add that His Excellency is not in a position to
comply with your request that steps should be taken to ensure to
all laborers working under the Public Works Department a minimum
wage of two shillings per diem (48 cents) as from 1st April
next."
The problem becomes real and serious when the ruling authorities are
unwilling to admit what is absolutely clear to every one who is not
hopelessly prejudiced, namely, that eighteen pence or thirty-six cents
a day, the amount which was paid to the emancipated slaves in 1838, is
not a living wage for his descendants in the year 1913, and when they
are either unable or unwilling to set the pace for other employers of
labor by paying their own laborers a minimum wage of two shillings or
forty-eight cents a day.
With the labor problem of Jamaica the question of East Indian
Immigration is intimately connected. While, on the one hand, we have
the able-bodied native laborers miserably and cruelly underpaid, and
having in consequence to emigrate in large numbers to other countries,
on the other hand, we have the importation into the island of
indentured immigrants under the conditions which make the economic
improvement of the native laborers an impossibility. On the one side,
the available records inform us that from April 1, 1905, to March 31,
1908, laborers numbering 39,060 emigrated from this island and
deposited with the local Government the sum of £22,217 or $106,641.60
as required by law. The exodus to Cuba is at present a very serious
comment upon the existing labor conditions. During the month of
December, 1916, 761 persons emigrated from the island, 580 to Cuba and
181 to other places.
The figures, on the other side, reveal the fact that since the
introduction of East Indian Immigration in 1845 to the present time
35,933 East Indians have been brought into the island; and it is
estimated that there are to-day resident in the island over 20,000
East Indians, 3,000 of whom are indentured and 17,000 have completed
their term of indenture. These immigrants are distributed to the
several estates by the government at a cost of £20.10.0, or $90.42,
paid in installments: £2 or $9.60, paid on allottment, £2.2.0 or
$10.08 at the end of the first year, and £4.2.0 or $19.68 at the end
of each of the succeeding four years.
For the years 1891-1908 the cost of this system to the colony is
officially reported as follows:
Cost of importation £129,692.2.2 $622,522.12
Administrative expenses £ 37,377.0.2 179,409.64
Return passages 1901-8 £ 27,254.5.11 130,820.62
Gross cost £194,323.83 $932,752.38
Receipts in hand £143,171.1.1 $687,221.06
Net cost to colony £ 51,152.7.2 $245,531.32
or an average of over £3,000 or $14,400 per annum.
The immigrants are indentured for five years, and are entitled after a
continuous residence of ten years in the colony to one half of the
value of their passage money in the case of men and of one third in
the case of women. For a working day of nine hours the men are paid
one shilling or 24 cents and the women nine pence or 18 cents. A
deduction of two shillings and sixpence or 60 cents a week is made
for rations supplied. They receive free hospital treatment which cost
the Government on the average of two pounds or $9.60 each per annum.
The system of immigration is a factor contributing to the present
unsatisfactory condition of the labor market in this island. The
immigrants are unfair competitors of the natives. They accept lower
wages, and they lower the standard of life. They are practically
modern slaves. It is not then reasonable with such competitors for the
native laborer to expect a favorable response to his appeal for fairer
treatment. It is asserted that the importation of East Indians is
necessary because the native laborers will not give that reliable and
continuous service which is necessary for the profitable working of
the estates. The answer to this is that these same laborers emigrate
and give their foreign employers the reliable and continuous service
which they consistently withhold from the employer at home because
they are paid more and treated better abroad.
The solution of the problem in so far as the first steps are concerned
is then two fold. First, the government must at once determine that
this systematic immigration of cheap labor must cease, and must set
about without delay to make the necessary arrangements and adjustments
which will be preparatory to an early discontinuance of the system.
Next, the employers of labor must either by persuasion or legal
coercion be led to induce the native laborers by the offer of better
wages to remain at home.
With reference to the first it has been discovered that the government
supports the fiction that the importation of East Indians is
necessary. In a report dated October 1, 1908, the Acting Protector of
Immigrants, with the apparent approval of the Governor, wrote: "As a
result of having a nucleus of reliable labor in the shape of
indentured coolies owners of estates have felt themselves justified in
spending large sums of money in extending their cultivations, and in
installing expensive machinery. This has had the effect of providing
employment for a much larger number of creole laborers than formerly,
and of putting a great deal more money in circulation. I think that
instead of the coolie being cursed by the native laborer for taking
away his work he should be blessed for having been the means of
providing employment for him."
The substance of the statement given above is incorporated by Sir
Sydney Olivier, K.C.M.G., in a chapter of his book entitled _White
Capital and Colored Labor_, in which there occurs this remarkable
assertion: "In Jamaica wages are higher in those districts where
indentured coolies are employed on banana plantations." Coolies who
receive a maximum wage of one shilling or 24 cents a day are
introduced to the world as the wage-raising factor in Jamaica!
Just prior to the World War the labor question was a very live one in
Jamaica. The weekly exodus of hundreds of laborers to the neighboring
island of Cuba, the murmuring of dissatisfaction among the immigrants,
friction in the working of the Immigration Department,--all have
served to bring this labor problem prominently to public notice. At a
meeting held in the interest of the sugar industry in January, 1917,
there was adopted a suggestive resolution moved by Mr. A. W.
Farquharson, a prominent and successful legal practitioner, and a man
who, though the descendant of an old family of planters, is deeply
interested in the improvement of the laborers. The resolution was:
"That this committee is convinced that the continuous and increasing
exodus of laborers from the colony to seek work in foreign countries
is impeding the development of the resources of the island, and that
it is of urgent importance that early measures should be adopted to
arrest such exodus, by the creation of conditions which will induce an
improvement in the status of the laboring population."
The _Daily Chronicle_ of that date comments thus on the question:
"The Sugar Committee has pointed out clearly the precise measures
that are certain to produce better remuneration for the laborer,
and this, as we have been insisting from the start, is the very
essence of the scheme. According to the recommendations forwarded
to the Government and turned down by the Privy Council--some of
whose members have evidently made up their minds that something
akin to the feudal system must, in the interest of a few, be
forever maintained in Jamaica--the Government would go into the
business for the protection of the community against the avidity
of the private capitalist; in other words, to insure a fair
distribution in this island, of the profits derived from the
rehabilitated industry. Under this arrangement the Government
factories would be in a position to set the pace in the matter of
payment of wages to the laborer. Think of what this would mean! A
higher standard of living, better health, more happiness--the
very things which the peasant is being forced to go abroad to
obtain. But the mandamus will have none of this socialism; it is
too broad, too comprehensive, too human for minds unaccustomed to
look beyond self. So they have rejected the Sugar Committee's
proposals, compelling Mr. Farquharson and his friends to appeal
to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. His Excellency the
Governor and his advisors have thus shown their utter inability
to understand the economic needs of the island. Deliberately--we
do not say with malice aforethought--have they decided to
perpetuate conditions which in the past have served to
disintegrate the population of this colony, and will in the
future continue to do this with even more harmful effects than
hitherto unless some well-considered attempt is made to produce
more wealth from our soil for the benefit, not of a few
capitalists, but of the nine hundred thousand inhabitants of
Jamaica."
One might not wholly endorse this criticism, but it should be
represented that the inaction of the government, whether due to
inability or indifference or to whatever cause, has been the prime
preventing cause of an earlier solution of a long standing problem. It
seemed, however, as if an attempt was at last to be made to do
something. A news article in _The Daily Gleaner_, February, 1917,
announced that the Government had at last realized the urgent need of
improved barrack accommodation on the estates, and of proper medical
supervision of the laborers. It desired to stem the exodus of
laborers, but from its own statement given out to the press in the
article referred to, not so much for the benefit of the ill-paid
laborers, but in consideration for the employers who would soon have
to face a labor market relieved of imported coolies. And so, for the
sake of the employers, it was proposed to ask the native laborer to
agree to be indentured for twelve months at the same miserable wages
of eighteen pence or 36 cents a day, with the addition of a tempting
(?) bonus of two pounds or $9.60 at the end of the term. And this
paternal suggestion was made in order "to improve the local sources of
labor supply that were available" at a time when Cuba was offering
from one dollar to one dollar and a half a day!
The Labor Problem of Jamaica may then be briefly stated thus: After
seventy-eight years of freedom the laboring population was
economically no better off in 1916 than their forefathers who lived in
the early days of emancipation. The laborers received a daily wage
which was but a small pittance, and they worked under conditions that
were appalling, and that were a disgrace to any community pretending
to be civilized. The government instead of taking steps to improve
these conditions and thus to induce the laborer to give in Jamaica
that reliable and continuous service which hundreds so willingly and
efficiently gave abroad, promoted the perpetuation of those conditions
by spending each year over £3,000 or $14,400 of the taxpayers' money
in establishing and maintaining a system of immigration which
demoralized the best labor market by providing the employers with an
undesirable class of laborers whose standard of life is abnormally
low, and to whom twenty-four cents a day is a considerable sum, and
thereby compelled the native laborer either to accept the
unsatisfactory conditions or to emigrate.
The following extract from an article entitled, "What Feeding Him
Means," which appeared in _The Daily Gleaner_ of February 7, 1917,
throws more light on the problem:
"Captain Fist tells us that what the peasant needs to make him a
better worker is better feeding. He also suggests that decent
dwelling places should be put up on the estates and plantations
for the people, and that a small lot of land should be allowed
each family for the cultivation of ground provisions. All this
and more is being done for the Jamaican in Panama. But when we
hear of living places here, it is always 'barracks' that are
spoken of,--a long range of wretched structures where comfort and
privacy are out of the question, and where, as a rule, only
single men can live. But men are not going to work and live as
bachelors to oblige other people. We do not want laborers merely,
we want decent families of men and women and children, and if the
economic situation in this country cannot provide us with these,
so much the worse for the situation and for the whole country.
The fact is that the Jamaica peasant, if he has been decently fed
and is free from disease, is a good worker. Our Government,
therefore, if it is to justify any claim to being intelligent,
progressive and far seeing must take up the question of disease
with a degree of thoroughness never shown before; while the
employer of labor must provide decent living places for his
workers and pay a sufficient wage to enable them to eat enough
nutritious food and become better workers and improved human
beings. Unless something of the sort is done, Jamaica will
continue to lose her best able bodied population. There can be no
restriction of emigration here unless the Government fixes that
minimum at an amount not less than two shillings a day (48 cents)
and then the Government would have to see that the worker got his
money, and also obtained sufficient work to do. Nothing is to be
expected from any scheme of local indenture: the laborer who
indentured himself to work for a year at one shilling and
sixpence a day, (36 cents) even with a bonus of less than a
shilling a week thrown in at the end of a year would be an
exceptional person, a man with no intention of keeping the
contract and what would you do if he did not keep the contract?
No; these schemes are merely moonshine: we might as well dismiss
them from our minds at once. The only way in which the Government
can directly help the laborer is for the Government to start
industries and pay a decent daily or weekly wage. But the
intelligent employer can do a great deal to help himself where
labor is concerned, if he will but understand that better pay and
better conditions are what his workers want and must have; and
he will find that so long as his undertakings pay him well--that
so long as sugar, coconuts and other things bring him a large
profit (as they are doing today) it will be profitable to him to
make the lot of the worker a better one than it is. Now is the
time for employers to set to work on these necessary reforms.
They can afford to do so, and they decidedly ought to do so.
E. ETHELRED BROWN.
THE LIFE OF CHARLES B. RAY
Charles Bennett Ray was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, December 25,
1807, and died August 15, 1886. He first attended the school and
academy of his native town and then studied theology at the Wesleyan
Academy of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and later at Wesleyan University,
Middletown, Connecticut. He became a Congregational minister. His
chief work, however, was in connection with the anti-slavery movement,
the Underground Railroad and as editor of _The Colored American_ from
1839 to 1842. As a national character he did not measure up to the
stature of Ward, Remond and Douglass, and for that reason he is too
often neglected in the study of the history of the Negro prior to the
Civil War. But he was one of the useful workers in behalf of the
Negroes and accomplished much worthy of mention.[1]
Ray became connected with the anti-slavery movement in 1833, in the
early winter of which the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed. He
proved his fidelity to the sacred cause of liberty by lending
practical aid which men in high places often had neither the time nor
the patience to give and contributed much to the final overthrow of
slavery. "Many a midnight hour," said he, "have I with others walked
the streets, their leader and guide and my home was an almost daily
receptacle for numbers of them at a time."[2] In those days when so
many matters of importance touching the subject of slavery had to be
adjusted, the advocates of freedom often met for an interchange of
views; and Mr. Ray's home became, on several occasions, the scene of
such gatherings where Lewis Tappan, Simeon S. Jocelyn, Joseph Sturge,
the celebrated English philanthropist, and others discussed with
great earnestness the inner workings of that grand moral conflict.
In coöperation with wealthy abolitionists whose purse strings were
wont to be loosed at the call of humanity, he assisted in enabling
many a slave to see the light of freedom. Several were taken by him to
the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, which under the inspiration of Henry
Ward Beecher, the fearless champion of the cause, contributed
liberally toward the succor of the oppressed. In 1850, fifteen years
after the formation of the Vigilance Committee of the city of New
York, of which Theodore S. Wright was president, the New York State
Committee was formed with a plan and object similar to those of the
more local organizations. Of this new association Gerrit Smith was
president and Ray, a member of the executive board as well as
corresponding secretary, an office he held also in the older society.
While Ray was not every time the moving spirit of these organizations,
he figured largely in carrying out the plans agreed upon by these
bodies. In the discharge of the trust committed to his hands he
usually acquitted himself with an honorable record.[3]
In advancing the anti-slavery cause, Ray was among the first to work
with the circle of radical free Negroes who, through the conventions
of the free people of color meeting in Philadelphia and in other
cities of the North from 1830 until the Civil War,[4] did much to make
the freedman stand out as worthy objects of the philanthropy of the
anti-slavery societies. During this period the American Colonization
Society was doing its best to convince free Negroes of their lack of
opportunity in this country to induce them to try their fortunes in
Africa and because of the rapidity with which some free Negroes
yielded to this heresy, there was a strong probability that the
anti-slavery movement might be weakened by such adherence to faith in
colonization to the extent that the ardor of the militant
abolitionists would be considerably dampened. While not among the
first to start the convention movement among Negroes, Ray in the
course of time became one of its most ardent supporters and no
convention of the free people of color was considered complete without
him.
His career as a journalist in connection with _The Colored American_
was highly creditable. This paper was established in 1837 as the
_Weekly Advocate_ with Samuel E. Cornish as editor and Phillip A. Bell
as proprietor. After two months it was decided to change the name of
the publication to _The Colored American_, under the caption of which
it appeared March 4, 1837. Bell then called to his assistance Charles
B. Ray who served him as general agent. Traveling as such he went
through all parts of the North, East, and West writing letters to
present to the public his observations and experiences and lecturing
while speaking of the claims of his paper as the champion of the slave
and the organ of thought for the free Negro.[5]
Ray rose to the position of one of the proprietors of _The Colored
American_ in 1838 and upon the withdrawal of Bell from the enterprise
the following year, he became the sole editor and continued in that
capacity until 1842 when he suspended publication. He was regarded by
his contemporary, William Wells Brown, as a terse and vigorous writer
and an able and eloquent speaker well informed upon all subjects of
the day. "Blameless in his family relations, guided by the highest
moral rectitude, a true friend to everything that tends to better the
moral, social, religious and political condition of man. Dr. Ray,"
says Brown, "may be looked upon as one of the foremost of the leading
men of his race."[6]
That the paper ceased to be was no reflection on Ray's ability to
conduct the journal, for he manifested evidences of unusual editorial
ability and his writings were always strong in the advocacy of liberty
and justice. The failure of the enterprise was due to the fact that
there were not quite 400,000 free Negroes in the United States at that
time and the small number of readers among them were so unhappily
dispersed throughout the country that it was difficult to secure
enough support for such an enterprise. At this time _The Colored
American_ was the only paper in the United States devoted to the
interest of the Negro published by a man of color. Its objects were
the "more directly moral, social, and political elevation and
improvement of the free colored people; and the peaceful emancipation
of the enslaved." It, therefore, advocated "all lawful as well as
moral measures to accomplish those objects."[7] Feeling that this
journal should not be narrow in restricting its efforts to better the
condition of the people of color in this country, the editor
proclaimed his interest in behalf of such people of all countries of
the universe and his concern in the reforms of the age and whatever
related to common humanity.
Concerning this paper the _Herald of Freedom_ said the following:
"_The Colored American_, we are glad to see, has reappeared in
the field, under the conduct of our enterprising and talented
Brother Ray. It will maintain a very handsome rank among the
antislavery periodicals, and we hope will be well sustained and
kept up by both, colored and uncolored patronage.
"It must be a matter of pride to our colored friends, as it is to
us, that they are already able to vindicate the claims our
enterprise has always made in their behalf,--to an equal
intellectual rank in this heterogeneous (but 'homogeneous')
community.
"It is no longer necessary for abolitionists to contend against
the blunder of pro-slavery,--that the colored people are inferior
to the whites; for these people are practically demonstrating its
falseness. They have men enough in action now, to maintain the
anti-slavery enterprise, and to win their liberty, and that of
their enslaved brethren,--if every white abolitionist were drawn
from the field: McCune Smith, and Cornish, and Wright and Ray and
a host of others,--not to mention our eloquent brother, Remond,
of Maine, and Brother Lewis who is the stay and staff of field
antislavery in New Hampshire.
"The people of such men as these cannot be held in slavery. They
have got their pens drawn and tried their voices, and they are
seen to be the pens and voices of human genius; and they will
neither lay down the one, nor will they hush the other, till
their brethren are free.
"The Calhouns and Clays may display their vain oratory and
metaphysics, but they tremble when they behold the colored man is
in the intellectual field. The time is at hand, when this
terrible denunciation shall thunder in their own race."[8]
_The Christian Witness_ said the following:
"_The Colored American._ Returning from the country, we are glad
to find upon our table several copies of this excellent paper,
which has waked up with renewed strength and beauty. It is now
under the exclusive control of Charles B. Ray, a gentleman in
every manner competent to the duties devolving upon him in the
station he occupies. Our colored friends generally, and all those
who can do so, would bestow their patronage worthily by giving it
to _The Colored American_."[9]
As to the sort of editor Charles B. Ray was, we can best observe by
reading two of his striking editorials on _Prejudice_ and _This
Country, our only Home_.
PREJUDICE
"'Prejudice,' said a noble man, 'is an aristocratic hatred of
humble life.'
"Prejudice, of every character, and existing against whom it may,
is hatred. It is a fruit of our corrupt nature, and has its being
in the depravity of the human heart. It is sin.
"To hate a man, for any consideration whatever, is murderous; and
to hate him, in any degree, is, in the same degree murderous; and
to hate a man for no cause whatever, magnifies the evil.
'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,' says Holy Writ.
"There is a kind of aristocracy in our country, as in nearly all
others, a looking down with disdain upon humble life and a
disregard of it. Still, we hear little about prejudice against
any class among us, excepting against color, or against the
colored population of this Union, which so monopolizes this state
of feeling in our country that we hear less of it in its
operations upon others, than in other countries. It is the only
sense in which there is equality; here, the democratic principle
is adopted and all come together as equals, and unite the rich
and the poor, the high and the low, in an equal right to hate the
colored man; and its operations upon the mind and character are
cruel and disastrous, as it is murderous and wicked in itself.
One needs to feel it, and to wither under its effects, to know
it: and the colored men of the United States, wherever found, and
in whatever circumstances, are living epistles, which may be read
by all men in proof of all that is paralyzing to enterprise,
destructive to ambition, ruinous to character, crushing to mind,
and painful to the soul, in the monster, Prejudice. For it is
found equally malignant, active, and strong--associated with the
mechanical arts, in the work-shop, in the mercantile houses, in
the commercial affairs of the country, in the halls of learning,
in the temple of God; and in the highways and hedges. It almost
possesses ubiquity; it is every where, doing its deleterious work
wherever one of the proscribed class lives and moves.
"Yet prejudice against color, prevalent as it is in the minds of
one class of our community against another, is unnatural, though
habitual. If it were natural, children would manifest it with the
first signs of consciousness; but with them, all are alike
affectionate and beloved. They have not the feeling, because it
is a creature of education and habit.
"While we write, there are now playing at our right, a few steps
away, a colored and white child, with all the affection and
harmony of feeling, as though prejudice had always been unknown.
"Prejudice overlooks all that is noble and grand in man's being.
It forgets that, housed in a dark complexion is, equally alike
with the whites, all that is lofty in mind and noble in soul,
that there lies an equal immortality. It reaches to grade mind
and soul, either by the texture of the hair, or the form of the
features, or the color of the skin. This is an education fostered
by prejudice; consequently, an education almost universally
prevalent in our country; an education, too, subverting the
principles of our humanity, and turning away the dictates of our
noble being from what is important, to meaner things.[10]
"THIS COUNTRY, OUR ONLY HOME.
"When we say, 'our home,' we refer to the colored community. When
we say, 'our only home,' we speak in a general sense, and do not
suppose but in individual cases some may, and will take up a
residence under another government, and perhaps in some other
quarter of the globe. We are disposed to say something upon this
subject now, in refutation of certain positions that have been
assumed by a class of men, as the American people are too well
aware, and to the reproach of the Christian church and the
Christian religion, too, viz.: that we never can rise here, and
that no power whatsoever is sufficient to correct the American
spirit, and equalize the laws in reference to our people, so as
to give them power and influence in this country.
"If we cannot be an elevated people here, in a country the resort
of almost all nations to improve their condition; a country of
which we are native, constituent members; our native home, (as we
shall attempt to show) and where there are more means available
to bring the people into power and influence, and more territory
to extend to them than in any other country; also the spirit and
genius of whose institution we so well understand, being
completely Americanized, as it will be found most of our people
are,--we say, if we can not be raised up in this country, we are
at great loss to know where, all things considered, we can be.
"If the Colored Americans are citizens of this country, it
follows, of course, that, in the broadest sense, this country is
our home. If we are not citizens of this country, then we cannot
see of what country we are, or can be, citizens; for Blackstone
who is quoted, we believe, as the standard of civil law, tells us
that the strongest claim to citizenship is birthplace. We
understand him to say, that in whatever country or place you may
be born of that country or place you are, in the highest sense, a
citizen; in fine, this appears to us to be too self-evident to
require argument to prove it.
"Now, probably three-fourths of the present colored people are
American born, and therefore American citizens. Suppose we should
remove to some other country, and claim a foothold there, could
we not be rejected on the ground that we were not of them,
because not born among them? Even in Africa, identity of
complexion would be nothing, neither would it weigh anything
because our ancestry was of that country; the fact of our not
having been born there would be sufficient ground for any civil
power to refuse us citizenship. If this principle were carried
out, it would be seen that we could not be even a cosmopolite,
but must be of nowhere, and of no section of the globe. This is
so absurd that it is as clear as day that we must revert to the
country which gave us birth, as being, in the highest sense,
citizens of it.
"These points, it appears to us, are true, indisputably true. We
are satisfied as to our claims as citizens here, and as to this
being the virtual and destined home of colored Americans.
"We reflect upon this subject now, on account of the frequent
agitations, introduced among us, in reference to our emigrating
to some other country, each of which, embodies more or less of
the colonizing principle, and all of which are of bad tendency,
throwing our people into an unsettled state; and turning away our
attention in this country, to uncertain things under another
government, and evidently putting us back. All such agitations
introduced among us, with a view to our emigrating, ought to be
frowned upon by us, and we ought to teach the people that they
may as well come here and agitate the emigration of the Jays, the
Rings, the Adamses, the Otises, the Hancocks, et al., as to
agitate our removal. We are all alike constituents of the same
government, and members of the same rising family. Although we
come up much more slowly, our rise is to be none the less sure.
This subject is pressed upon us, because we not infrequently meet
some of our brethren in this unsettled state of mind, who, though
by no means colonizationists yet adopt the colonization motto,
and say they can not see how or when we are going to rise here.
Perhaps, if we looked only to the selfishness of man, and to him
as absolute, we should think so, too. But while we know that God
lives and governs, and always will; that He is just, and has
declared that righteousness shall prevail; and that one day with
Him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day; we
believe that, despite all corruption and caste, we shall yet be
elevated with the American people here.
"It appears to us most conclusive, that our destinies in this
country are for the better, not for the worse, in view of the
many schemes introduced to our notice for emigrating to other
countries having failed; thus teaching us that our rights, hopes,
and prospects, are in this country; and it is a waste of time and
of power to look for them under another government; and also,
that God, in His providence, is instructing us to remain at home,
where are all our interests and claims and to adopt proper
measures and pursue them, and we yet shall participate in all the
immunities and privileges the American nation holds out to her
citizens, and be happy. We are also strongly American in our
character and disposition.
"We believe, therefore, in view of all the facts, that it is our
duty and privilege to claim an equal place among the American
people; to identify ourselves with American interests, and to
exert all the power and influence we have, to break down all the
disabilities under which we labor, and thus look to become a
happy people in this extensive country."[11]
Ray rendered equally as valuable services to the Negroes as a promoter
of the Underground Railroad. In fact he was approaching the climax of
his career when the Underground Railroad became an efficient agency in
offering relief to the large number of Negro slaves who found
themselves reduced to the plane of beasts in the rapidly growing
cotton kingdom. One of the striking cases in which he figured was that
of the escape of the Weims family, so well known for the almost
unparalleled deliverance from bondage of the entire family with one
exception.
Exactly how the freedom of these slaves was obtained appears to better
effect in the language of Ray himself. "But I must say a word about
the younger girl, the price of whom they held as high as we gave for
Catherine. We proposed another method for her freedom and carried it
out, in which the mother acted a good part, as she could; we proposed
to run her off. I was written to, to know whether a draft for three
hundred dollars would be forwarded, conditioned upon the appearance of
Ann Maria in my house or hands--the sum being appropriated to
compensate the one who should deliver her safely in the North. I
answered, of course, in the affirmative."[12]
The escape of Ann Maria, as proposed by this new plan, can best be
explained by the correspondence between Mr. Ray and Mr. Bigelow in
Washington, who, writing according to a method often adopted in those
days in order the more effectually to secure concealment, designates
Ann Maria as the parcel sent.[13] The letter reads thus:
"WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 17, 1855.
"REV. CHAS. B. RAY,
"_Dear Sir:_ I have a friend passing through the city on his way
to New York, and I mean to avail myself of his kindness to send
to your lady the little parcel she has been so long expecting.
You can name it to her, and I now suggest that as soon as you
find it convenient, you send me by express the wrapper and
covering in which the valuables are packed, for I have another
similar parcel to send and shall find these things exactly
convenient for that purpose. My friend intends to leave here on
Monday morning, with his own conveyance, taking it leisurely, and
may not reach New York before about Thursday, but of this I speak
more exactly before I close. I need not suggest to you how
anxious I shall be to get the earliest news of the arrival of the
package without breakage or injury."
Also he adds as follows:
"WASHINGTON, D. C., November 22, 1855.
"REV. CHAS. B. RAY,
"_Dear Sir:_
"My last letter will lead you to expect to see the boy Joe to-day
but it was afterwards calculated that he will not arrive till
sometime to-morrow. I am requested for the gratification of Joe's
mother that you will be pleased on his arrival and before he
changes his sex, to have his daguerrotype taken for her use. It
will make up a part of the Record."
Mr. Ray's narration continues thus:
"Accordingly, one afternoon upon arriving home I found, sitting
on the sofa at my home, a little boy about ten years old in
appearance and looking rather feminine. I knew at once who it
was, that it was Ann Maria. Upon her arrival I was to take her to
Mr. Tappan, in whose hands the balance of the money was placed.
This I did, and the little boy Joe was taken to her uncle or to
where he could obtain her and finally reached Canada."
The following incident has often been told in Mr. Ray's family. "One
summer morning, a loud rap with the knocker at the front door arrested
the attention and the door being opened, a man entered, who after
asking, 'Does the Rev. Mr. Ray live here?' and receiving an
affirmative answer, whistled as a signal to attract the notice of his
comrades, then cried out, 'Come on, boys!' and forthwith fourteen men
in all entered, quite alarming the inmates of the house on seeing such
a train of fugitives."
In the midst of these busy days Mr. Ray also served as a minister. For
twenty years he was the pastor of the Bethesda Congregational Church
in New York City where many learned to wait upon his ministry. He
lived until 1886, long enough to enjoy some of that liberty for which
he so patiently toiled. His more valuable services to his race,
however, were rendered during the period prior to the Civil War.
Although in the midst of this struggle of the subsequent period there
came forward men who towered higher in the public opinion than he did,
the valuable work which he did as an abolitionist, and an editor,
should not be neglected.
M. N. WORK
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A very good account of C. B. Ray's literary efforts is given in I.
Garland Penn's _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 32-47.
[2] Papers in the possession of Ray's family.
[3] For further information see manuscripts in the possession of Ray's
family.
[4] This convention movement is well treated in J. W. Cromwell's _The
Negro in American History_, pp. 27-46.
[5] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, p. 35.
[6] Brown, _The Rising Son_, p. 473.
[7] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, p. 38.
[8] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 39-40.
[9] _Ibid._, p. 41.
[10] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 42-43.
[11] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 43-46.
[12] From papers in the possession of Ray's family.
[13] These letters are in the possession of the author.
THE SLAVE IN UPPER CANADA[A]
The dictum of Lord Chief Justice Holt: "As soon as a slave enters
England he becomes free"[1] was succeeded by the decision of the Court
of King's Bench to the same effect in the celebrated case of Somerset
_v._ Stewart[2] where Lord Mansfield is reported to have said: "The
air of England has long been too pure for a slave and every man is
free who breathes it."[3]
James Somerest,[4] a Negro slave of Charles Stewart in Jamaica, had
been brought by his master to England "to attend and abide with him
and to carry him back as soon as his business should be transacted."
The Negro refused to go back, whereupon he was put in irons and taken
on board the ship _Ann and Mary_ lying in the Thames and bound for
Jamaica. Lord Mansfield granted a writ of habeas corpus requiring
Captain Knowles to produce Somerset before him with the cause of the
detainer. On the motion, the cause being stated as above indicated,
Lord Mansfield referred the matter to the Full Court of King's Bench;
whereupon, on June 22, 1772, judgment was given for the Negro. The
basis of the decision, the theme of the argument, was that the only
kind of slavery known to English law was villeinage, that the Statute
of Tenures (1660) (12 Car. 11, c. 24) expressly abolished villeins
regardant to a manor and by implication villeins in gross. The reasons
for the decision would hardly stand fire at the present day. The
investigation of Paul Vinogradoff and others have conclusively
established that there was not a real difference in status between the
so-called villein regardant and villein in gross, and that in any case
the villein was not properly a slave but rather a serf.[5] Moreover,
the Statute of Tenures deals solely with tenure and not with status.
But what seems to have been taken for granted, namely that slavery,
personal slavery, had never existed in England and that the only
unfree person was the villein, who, by the way was real property, is
certainly not correct. Slaves were known in England as mere personal
goods and chattels, bought and sold, at least as late as the middle of
the twelfth century.[6] However weak the reasons given for the
decision, its authority has never been questioned and it is good law.
But it is good law for England, for even in the Somerset case it was
admitted that a concurrence of unhappy circumstances had rendered
slavery necessary[7] in the American colonies: and Parliament had
recognized the right of property in slaves there.[8]
When Canada was conquered in 1760, slavery existed in that country.
There were not only Panis[9] or Indian Slaves, but also Negro slaves.
These were not enfranchised by the conqueror, but retained their
servile status. When the united empire loyalists came to this northern
land after the acknowledgment by Britain of the independence of the
revolted colonies, some of them brought their slaves with them: and
the Parliament of Great Britain in 1790 passed an Act authorizing any
"subject of ... the United States of America" to bring into Canada
"any negroes" free of duty having first obtained a license from the
Lieutenant Governor.[10]
An immense territory formerly Canada was erected into a Government or
Province of Quebec by Royal Proclamation in 1763 and the limits of the
province were extended by the Quebec Act in 1774.[11] This province
was divided into two provinces, Upper Canada and Lower Canada in
1791.[12] At this time the whole country was under the French
Canadian law in civil matters. The law of England had been introduced
into the old Government of the Province of Quebec by the Royal
Proclamation of 1763; but the former French Canadian law had been
reintroduced in 1774 by the Quebec Act in matters of property and
civil rights, leaving the English criminal law in full force. The law,
civil and criminal, had been modified in certain details (not of
importance here) by Ordinances of the Governor and Council of Quebec.
The very first act of the first Parliament of Upper Canada
reintroduced the English civil law.[13] This did not destroy slavery,
nor did it ameliorate the condition of the slave. Rather the reverse,
for as the English law did not, like the civil law of Rome and the
systems founded on it, recognize the status of the slave at all, when
it was forced by grim fact to acknowledge slavery it had no room for
the slave except as a mere piece of property. Instead of giving him
rights like those of the "servus," he was deprived of all rights,
marital, parental, proprietary, even the right to live. In the English
law and systems founded on it, the slave had no rights which the
master was bound to respect.[14]
The first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was Col. John Graves
Simcoe. He hated slavery and had spoken against it in the House of
Commons in England. Arriving in Upper Canada in the summer of 1792, he
was soon made fully aware that the horrors of slavery were not unknown
in his new Province. The following is a report of a meeting of his
Executive Council:
"At the Council Chamber, Navy Hall, in the County of Lincoln,
Wednesday, March 21st, 1793.
"PRESENT
"His Excellency, J. G. Simcoe, Esq., Lieut.-Governor, &c., &c.,
The Honble Wm. Osgoode, Chief Justice
The Honble Peter Russell.
"Peter Martin (a negro in the service of Col. Butler) attended
the Board for the purpose of informing them of a violent outrage
committed by one ---- Fromand, an Inhabitant of this Province,
residing near Queens Town, or the West Landing, on the person of
Chloe Cooley a Negro girl in his service, by binding her, and
violently and forcibly transporting her across the River, and
delivering her against her will to certain persons unknown; to
prove the truth of his Allegation he produced Wm. Grisley (or
Crisley).
"William Grisley an Inhabitant near Mississague Point in this
Province says: that on Wednesday evening last he was at work at
Mr. Froomans near Queens Town, who in conversation told him, he
was going to sell his Negro Wench to some persons in the States,
that in the Evening he saw the said Negro girl, tied with a rope,
that afterwards a Boat was brought, and the said Frooman with his
Brother and one _Vanevery_, forced the said Negro Girl into it,
that he was desired to come into the boat, which he did, but did
not assist or was otherwise concerned in carrying off the said
Negro Girl, but that all the others were, and carried the Boat
across the River; that the said Negro Girl was then taken and
delivered to a man upon the Bank of the River by ---- Froomand,
that she screamed violently and made resistance, but was tied in
the same manner as when the said William Grisley first saw her,
and in that situation delivered to the man.... Wm. Grisley
farther says that he saw a negro at a distance, he believes to be
tied in the same manner, and has heard that many other People
mean to do the same by their Negroes
"_Resolved._--That it is necessary to take immediate steps to
prevent the continuance of such violent breaches of the Public
Peace, and for that purpose, that His Majesty's Attorney-General,
be forthwith directed to prosecute the said Fromond.
"Adjourned."[15]
The Attorney-General was John White[16] an accomplished English
lawyer. He knew that the brutal master was well within his rights in
acting as he did. He had the same right to bind, export, and sell his
slave as to bind, export, and sell his cow. Chloe Cooley had no rights
which Vrooman was bound to respect: and it was no more a breach of the
peace than if he had been dealing with his heifer. Nothing came of the
direction to prosecute and nothing could be done.
It is probable that it was this circumstance which brought about
legislation. At the Second Session of the First Parliament which met
at Newark, May 31, 1793, a bill was introduced and unanimously passed
the House of Assembly. The trifling amendments introduced by the
Legislative Council were speedily concurred in, the royal assent was
given July 9, 1793, and the bill became law.[17] It recited that it
was unjust that a people who enjoy freedom by law should encourage the
introduction of slaves, and that it was highly expedient to abolish
slavery in the Province so far as it could be done gradually without
violating private property; and proceeded to repeal the Imperial
Statute of 1790 so far as it related to Upper Canada, and to enact
that from and after the passing of the Act, "No Negro or other person
who shall come or be brought into this Province ... shall be subject
to the condition of a slave or to" bounden involuntary service for
life. With that regard for property characteristic of the
English-speaking peoples, the act contained an important proviso which
continued the slavery of every "negroe or other person subjected to
such service" who has been lawfully brought into the Province. It then
enacted that every child born after the passing of the act, of a Negro
mother or other woman subjected to such service should become
absolutely free on attaining the age of twenty-five, the master in the
meantime to provide "proper nourishment and cloathing" for the child,
but to be entitled to put him to work, all issue of such children to
be free whenever born. It further declared any voluntary contract of
service or indenture should not be binding longer than nine years.
Upper Canada was the first British possession to provide for the
abolition of slavery.[18]
It will be seen that the Statute did not put an end to slavery at
once. Those who were lawfully slaves remained slaves for life unless
manumitted and the statute rather discouraged manumission, as it
provided that the master on liberating a slave must give good and
sufficient security that the freed man would not become a public
charge. But, defective as it was, it was not long without attack. In
1798, Simcoe had left the province never to return,[19] and while the
government was being administered by the time-serving Peter Russell, a
bill was introduced into the Lower House to enable persons "migrating
into the province to bring their negro slaves with them." The bill was
contested at every stage but finally passed on a vote of eight to
four. In the Legislative Council it received the three months' hoist
and was never heard of again.[20] The argument in favor of the bill
was based on the scarcity of labor which all contemporary writers
speak of, the inducement to intending settlers to come to Upper Canada
where they would have the same privileges in respect of slavery as in
New York and elsewhere; in other words the inevitable appeals to
greed.
After this bill became law, slavery gradually disappeared. Public
opinion favored manumission and while there were not many manumissions
_inter vivos_,[21] in some measure owing to the provisions of the act
requiring security to be given in such case against the freed man
becoming a public charge, there were not a few liberations by
will.[22]
The number of slaves in Upper Canada was also diminished by what seems
at first sight paradoxical, that is, their flight across the Detroit
River into American territory. So long as Detroit and its vicinity
were British in fact and even for some years later, Section 6 of the
Ordinance of 1787 "that there shall be neither slavery not involuntary
servitude in the said territory otherwise than as the punishment of
crime" was in great measure a dead letter: but when Michigan was
incorporated as a territory in 1805, the ordinance became effective.
Many slaves made their way from Canada to Detroit, a real land of the
free; so many, indeed, that we find that a company of Negro militia
was formed in Detroit in 1806 to assist in the general defence of the
territory, composed entirely of escaped slaves from Canada.[23]
Almost from the passing of the Canada Act, however, runaway Negroes
began to come to Upper Canada, fleeing from slavery; this influx
increased and never ceased until the American Civil War gave its death
blow to slavery in the United States. Hundreds of blacks thus obtained
their freedom, some having been brought by their masters near to the
international boundary and then clandestinely or by force effecting a
passage; some coming from far to the South, guided by the North Star;
many assisted by friends more or less secretly. The Underground
Railroad was kept constantly running.[24] These refugees joined
settlements with other people of color freeborn or freed in the
western part of the Peninsula, in the counties of Essex and Kent and
elsewhere.[25] Some of them settled in other parts of the province,
either together or more usually sporadically.
At the time of the outbreak of the Civil War there were many thousands
of black refugees in the province.[26] More than half of these were
manumitted slaves who in consequence of unjust laws had been forced to
leave their State. While some of such freedmen went to the Northern
States, most came to Canada, some returning to the Northern States.
The Negro refugees were superior to most of their race, for none but
those with more than ordinary qualities could reach Canada.[27]
The masters of runaway slaves did not always remain quiet when their
slave reached this province. Sometimes they followed him in an attempt
to take him back. There are said to have been a few instances of
actual kidnapping, a few of attempted kidnapping.[28] There have been
cases in which criminal charges have been laid against escaped slaves,
and their extradition sought, ostensibly to answer the criminal
charges. It has always been the theory in this province that the
governor has the power independently of statute or treaty to deliver
up alien refugees charged with crime.[29] To make it clear, the
Parliament of Upper Canada in 1833 passed an Act for the apprehension
of fugitive offenders from foreign countries, and delivering them up
to justice.[30] This provides that on the requisition of the executive
of any foreign country the governor of the province on the advice of
his executive council may deliver up any person in the province
charged with "Murder, Forgery, Larceny or other crime which if
committed within the Province would have been punishable with death,
corporal punishment, the Pillory, whipping or confinement at hard
labour." The person charged might be arrested and detained for
inquiry. The Act was permissive only and the delivery up was at the
discretion of the governor.
When this act was in force Solomon Mosely or Moseby, a Negro slave,
came to the Province across the Niagara River from Buffalo which he
had reached after many days' travel from Louisville, Kentucky. His
master followed him and charged him with the larceny of a horse which
the slave took to assist him in his flight. That he had taken the
horse there was no doubt, and as little that after days of hard riding
he had sold it. The Negro was arrested and placed in Niagara jail; a
_prima facie_ case was made out and an order sent for his extradition.
The people of color of the Niagara region made Mosely's case their own
and determined to prevent his delivery up to the American authorities
to be taken to the land of the free and the home of the brave, knowing
that there for him to be brave meant torture and death, and that death
alone could set him free. Under the leadership of Herbert Holmes, a
yellow man,[31] a teacher and preacher, they lay around the jail night
and day to the number of from two to four hundred to prevent the
prisoner's delivery up. At length the deputy sheriff with a military
guard brought out the unfortunate man shackled in a wagon from the
jail yard, to go to the ferry across the Niagara River. Holmes and a
man of color named Green grabbed the lines. Deputy Sheriff McLeod from
his horse gave the order to fire and charge. One soldier shot Holmes
dead and another bayoneted Green, so that he died almost at once.
Mosely, who was very athletic, leaped from the wagon and made his
escape. He went to Montreal and afterwards to England, finally
returning to Niagara, where he was joined by his wife, who also
escaped from slavery.
An inquest was held on the bodies of Holmes and Green. The jury found
"justifiable homicide" in the case of Holmes; "whether justifiable or
unjustifiable there was not sufficient evidence before the jury to
decide" in the case of Green. The verdict in the case of Holmes was
the only possible verdict on the admitted facts. Holmes was forcibly
resisting an officer of the law in executing a legal order of the
proper authority. In the case of Green the doubt arose from the
uncertainty whether he was bayoneted while resisting the officers or
after Mosely had made his escape. The evidence was conflicting and the
fact has never been made quite clear. No proceedings were taken
against the deputy sheriff; but a score or more of the people of color
were arrested and placed in prison for a time. The troublous times of
the Mackenzie Rebellion came on, the men of color were released, many
of them joining a Negro militia company which took part in protecting
the border.