similar to that of the Presbyterians. After the failure of the
emancipationist campaign in 1792 and again at the constitutional
convention in 1799 a few members of the Baptist Church began a
movement for immediate abolition under the lead of several
ministers--Tarrent, Barrow, Sutton, Holmes and others. The policy
which they advocated was not only one of immediate abolition but of
non-fellowship with the slaveholders within their own denomination.
There was no general governing body for the State, as the Baptists had
several so-called associations which covered only a few counties each.
The trend of opinion throughout the various commonwealth organizations
was apparently against the position held by the emancipationist group,
for the latter in 1807 withdrew from the regular organizations and
established an association of their own which they called the Licking
Locust Association. They were only able to muster the assent of twelve
churches to their newer group and soon died out in importance.[410]
The real sentiment of the Baptists was no doubt much like that of the
Presbyterians, but these early advocates of Negro freedom in their own
organization were entirely too radical even for their own church
membership. Had they followed a course of action and policy more in
keeping with their own constituents they might have accomplished much
good, whereas, as it was, they only stirred up the feeling within
their own denomination to such an extent that thereafter little
progress was made towards a policy of even gradual emancipation of the
slave.
Throughout the slavery era, however, the Baptists in the State were
divided into the "regular" and the "separatists," the former being in
favor of non-interference with the question and the latter
representing the advocates of emancipation in one form or another.
Both agreed that slavery was an evil, but the regular group was
unwilling to make it the cause of the expulsion of a slaveholder from
the church. In May, 1845, a "Southern Baptist Convention" was held at
Augusta, Georgia. The meeting had been hastily called and
representatives were present only from Maryland, South Carolina,
North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, and the
District of Columbia. Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida
were represented only by letters. The convention had been summoned as
a protest against the action of the "Acting Board" of the church in
the country in refusing to consent to the appointment of a slaveholder
to any field of foreign missionary labors.[411] In June of the same
year the Kentucky Baptists for the most part withdrew from the
northern organization and pledged themselves to this newly formed
southern convention. The creed was not changed. It was simply a matter
of rebuke toward the northern section's attitude on the slavery
question.[412]
The Methodists had also struggled to find a peaceful solution of the
problem of harmonizing Christianity with slavery. At the meeting of
the General Conference of the Methodist Church in 1845, several days
were taken up in the debate over the status of Bishop James Osgood
Andrew, of Kentucky. By inheritance and marriage he was a slaveholder.
Finally he was requested by a vote of 110 to 68 "to desist from the
exercise of the office of Bishop while this impediment remained." The
southerners in the convention became unusually indignant, declaring
that the infliction of such a stigma upon Bishop Andrew would make it
impossible for them to maintain the influence of Methodism in the
South.[413] So they withdrew from the convention and in May, 1845,
held a convention of the Methodist churches of the Southern States in
Louisville. After a nineteen-days' session they decided to set up an
organization of their own to be known as the "Methodist Episcopal
Church South" and to have their first meeting at Petersburg, Virginia,
in May, 1846.[414]
The Kentucky Methodist Conference met at Frankfort on September 17,
1845, and the entire attention of the meeting was given over to the
question of whether they would adhere to the general conference or
would pledge themselves to the newly formed southern organization.
Bishop Andrew appeared at Frankfort at the crucial moment and stated
all the facts concerning himself and the action which the Louisville
Conference had taken as a result of the trouble in the previous
General Conference. By a vote of 146 to 5 they then declared that
henceforth they would adhere to the Methodist Episcopal Church South,
and that all proceedings, records and official acts would thereafter
be in the name of the "Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South."[415]
At its annual conference in 1858 held in Hopkinsville the Louisville
Conference held a very heated debate over the rules of the church
regarding slaveholders. Finally they voted to expunge from the General
Rules the one which forbade "the buying and selling of men, women and
children, with the intention to enslave them."[416] The regulation
thus repealed, although it was a part of the rules of Methodism, was
just another indication of the sentiment in Kentucky at that time to
resent more and more the encroachments of the North on the slave
system of the South and to hang on to the institution with a grim
determination. But they were not willing to go to unwarrantable
lengths, for at the Kentucky Conference held in Germantown in March,
1860, a proposition submitted by the sister conferences to the South
with a view to further altering the rules on slavery was denied.[417]
The churches of Kentucky for the most part pursued a policy of
benevolent neutrality in the struggle which the slave forces of the
State were having with their neighbors to the North. The Baptists and
Methodists within the commonwealth officially never made any positive
contribution to the forces of either side, and they took no definite
stand until the whole southern division of their general national
organization withdrew from membership in the national conventions and
set up an organization of their own. When this much had been done
both the Methodists and Baptists of Kentucky pledged their allegiance
to their respective newly formed southern conventions. On the other
hand the Presbyterians of the State maintained a policy that was
distinctively their own, separate and apart from any acts of their
national organization. They were the only religious body in Kentucky
to issue officially a constructive plan for the betterment of social
and economic conditions under slavery. When it came to the advocacy of
even gradual emancipation they were careful to state that the plan was
only published for the benefit of the slaveholding members of their
own religious body. The Presbyterians went further in their
interference with the institution of slavery in the State than any
other religious body, but even they were not willing to try to extend
their home missionary field beyond their own membership. On the whole,
the churches in Kentucky merely followed the dictates of public
opinion on the subject of slavery, trying to pursue a policy of
neutrality as long as possible and then when it was no longer
feasible, most of them sided with the slaveholding group. The northern
section of none of these religious bodies, however, was driven out of
the State. There were a good many of the so-called "northern" churches
which remained loyal to the old national organizations.
The summary of the actions of the three principal religious bodies of
the State shows that there was a growing sentiment against the
institution of slavery. Kentucky being a slaveholding State, the
significance of this attitude was very important. While it may be true
that the majority sentiment even among the churches was not in favor
of the elimination of slavery the very fact that even a minority were
coming to the front unmolested by violence and threats and favoring
the gradual elimination of the established institution revealed the
general trend of public opinion among the people of Kentucky. These
measures were taken entirely upon their own initiative and were not
prompted by an outside anti-slavery influence.
Any discussion of the evolution of public opinion in Kentucky on the
subject of emancipation and of slavery in general would be incomplete
without describing the attitude of Henry Clay toward the institution
in Kentucky. During almost the entire period of slavery in Kentucky he
was the foremost citizen of the State and one of the principal
slaveholders. From those two viewpoints alone anything that he had to
say on the local type and problems of slavery is valuable in this
connection.
The general position of Clay on the subject of Negro servitude has
never been very widely understood. Among the radical abolitionists of
the North he was looked upon as a friend of slavery for the sake of
political advancement and among the slaveholders in some parts of the
South he was regarded as almost a member of the Garrisonian group of
the enemies of slavery. To understand Clay's real position we need
only to consider his relation to the institution as it existed in his
native State.
Coming from Virginia to Lexington in 1797, Clay soon found ample
opportunities for a public career. He first came into prominence as a
writer on slavery in the columns of the _Lexington Gazette_ and the
_Kentucky Reporter_. When the constitutional convention of 1799 was
called for a revision of the fundamental law of the State Clay bent
all his efforts towards the adoption of a system of gradual
emancipation for the slaves of Kentucky. It was pointed out that there
were relatively few slaves in the State and that a progressive plan of
liberation would be much easier than at any future time.
The consensus of opinion at the time was that the emancipationists led
by this young man from Virginia would have been successful, had it not
been for the intervening excitement produced by the Alien and Sedition
Laws and the resulting famous Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of
1798. Clay threw himself heart and soul into the newer campaign
against the mistakes of the Federalists and the former enthusiasm for
the gradual freedom of the slaves seems to have died down in his
thought as well as among the Kentucky people in general. Thus the
constitutional convention of 1799 left the conditions of slavery as
they were.
In a speech delivered three decades later before the Kentucky
Colonization Society, Clay said in commenting on his position in 1798:
"More than thirty years ago, an attempt was made, in this
commonwealth, to adopt a system of gradual emancipation, similar to
that which the illustrious Franklin had mainly contributed to
introduce in 1780, in the state founded by the benevolent Penn. And
among the facts of my life which I look back to with most satisfaction
is that of my having cooperated, with other zealous and intelligent
friends, to procure the establishment of that system in this state. We
were overpowered by numbers, but submitted to the decision of the
majority with that grace which the minority in a republic should ever
yield to that decision. I have, nevertheless, never ceased, and shall
never cease, to regret a decision, the effects of which have been to
place us in the rear of our neighbors, who are exempt from slavery, in
the state of agriculture, the progress of manufactures, the advance of
improvements, and the general progress of society."[418] In his famous
speech in the Senate on Abolition in 1839, referring further to his
activities in 1798, Clay stated that "no one was rash enough to
propose or think of immediate abolition. No one was rash enough to
think of throwing loose upon the community, ignorant and unprepared,
the untutored slaves of the state."[419]
Clay's private dealings with the institution were always consistent
with his political principles on the subject of slavery. He bought
many slaves during his lifetime but he never sold any.[420] Clay
believed that the slaves should be freed, but at the same time
considered the difficulties attendant upon instant emancipation. Among
the mass of the slaveholders of the State, Clay was one of the very
few who held a perfectly consistent attitude on gradual emancipation
as was finally shown by his will.[421]
With a more radical policy than that of Henry Clay the Kentucky
Abolition Society had been established as early as 1807, but its
membership was composed largely of Presbyterian and Baptist preachers
who were not in sympathy with the stand taken by the constitutional
convention of 1799. It was not until about 1830 that there began in
the State any real movement which was wide enough in influence to be
taken as an indication of the trend of public opinion. It will be
recalled that it was not until 1835 that the Presbyterian Synod was
able to decide on a plan of gradual emancipation.
It was in 1831 that some 48 slaveholders of Kentucky met and declared
themselves in favor of the gradual liberation of the slaves.[422]
James G. Birney, who was at that time living in Danville, took this
statement of the slave owners rather seriously and sent out an
invitation to the prominent men of the State to attend an
emancipation convention on December 6, 1831. After several months of
determined effort Birney only succeeded in getting together nine men,
all slaveholders. It is evident from the writings of Birney that he
thought these men were all determined to free their slaves and that
whatever plan he should propose would be accepted. But when the nine
slaveholders began to talk about the existing conditions in Kentucky
Birney's eyes were opened. It was pointed out that those who advocated
immediate emancipation were coming more and more to be victims of
social ostracism. Furthermore, Birney learned that there was among the
prominent slaveholders of the State a sort of secret organization
which had been formed to protect the constitutional rights of Kentucky
slaveholders against the encroachments of the people from the North.
James G. Birney was one of the most intelligent of the Kentuckians who
favored emancipation, but the ardent enthusiasm which he had hitherto
held for the future of his cause in Kentucky was decidedly cooled by
this little gathering of nine slaveholders. These men showed him a
point of view about which he had thought very little. Outside of the
new vision which this conference gave to Birney the only result of the
deliberations was that there was formed a society of slaveholders
which advocated the gradual emancipation of the future offspring of
slaves when they reached the age of twenty-one.[423]
Soon after this episode Birney came out in opposition to both gradual
emancipation and colonization. The majority of liberal-minded
Kentuckians were coming more and more to believe in these two
propositions as the ultimate solution of the slave problems of the
State and once Birney came out in opposition to them he was put down
as a radical abolitionist. In July, 1835, the feeling of the people of
Danville was aroused to the highest pitch and his anti-slavery paper
_The Philanthropist_ was forced to suspend publication when the local
printer was bought out.[424] The feeling of the people throughout the
State, however, was well shown by the fact that for the next two
months Birney made personal visits to Lexington, Frankfort and
Louisville in an attempt to get a printer to issue his newspaper. He
was entirely unsuccessful and on September 13 he wrote to Gerrit Smith
that he had determined to move to Cincinnati.[425] While the people of
the State could not agree with Birney's attitude on slavery they were
the first to admire his courage. George D. Prentice, the pro-slavery
editor of the _Louisville Journal_, had this comment to make:
"He is an enthusiastic, but, in our opinion, a visionary
philanthropist, whose efforts, though well intended, are likely
to be of no real service to the cause of humanity. He at least
shows, however, that he has the courage to reside among the
people whose institutions he assails. He is not like William
Lloyd Garrison living in Massachusetts, and opening the battery
upon the states five hundred or one thousand miles off. He is not
such a coward or fool as to think of cannonading the South from
the steeple of a New England meeting house."
The climax of Birney's career in Kentucky had been reached in the
early part of 1835 when he split with the Kentucky Colonization
Society. Judge Underwood in the annual colonization address at
Frankfort had attempted to show that the only way to exterminate
slavery in the State was by African colonization. He advocated the
expenditure of $140,000 annually for the transportation of four
thousand Negroes between the ages of seventeen and twenty. The plan if
followed for fifty years he stated would rid the State of all
slaves.[426] In a letter to Gerrit Smith on January 31, 1835, Birney
voiced his opposition to the plan of Judge Underwood and to any scheme
of colonization. Thus on another point he was to be classed as a
radical abolitionist and his career of usefulness in Kentucky was at
an end. If he had chosen a more middle ground and aided the cause of
colonization, he would no doubt have accomplished much good. As it
was, he was forced to leave the State after many threats and
thereafter he stormed the institution of slavery in his native State
from a safe region north of the Ohio River. From that time on
everything that he uttered in opposition to slavery in Kentucky was
met with a strong current of opposition. Where Birney might have
accomplished much for his native State he really did harm because he
went beyond the point where the people would listen to his advice. In
September, 1834, he visited Henry Clay and that most liberal of all
Kentucky slaveholders pointed out to Birney the error of his ways but
the latter showed no signs of listening to advice and thereafter Clay
and Birney were sworn political antagonists. Had Birney joined with
Clay at this time there might have been a much brighter future in
Kentucky for the cause of emancipation. As it was, Birney never
receded from his position and when the Presbyterian Synod came out
with its plan of gradual emancipation Birney voiced his determined
opposition to the scheme because it did not favor the immediate
liberation of the slaves.[427] With the advent of the abolition
movement most of the Kentucky masters who were in favor of gradual
emancipation receded from their position and held on firmly to the
existing institution.[428]
The series of events from 1831 to 1835, centering around the
activities of Birney, brought the attention of the public to the
slavery question more than ever. As was common in all other movements
of popular interest it became the custom for local gatherings to be
held to discuss the problem. It was always customary at the conclusion
of these meetings to draw up a series of resolutions and it is
noticeable that they all voiced a similarity of sentiment on the
slavery question. A typical set of resolves were those drawn up at a
gathering held in Shelbyville in June, 1835:
"_Resolved_, that the system of domestic slavery as it now exists
in this commonwealth, is both a moral and a political evil, and
in violation of the rights of man.
"_Resolved_, as the opinion of this meeting, that the additional
value which would be given to our property, and its products by
the introduction of free white labor, would in itself be
sufficient, under a system of gradual emancipation, to transport
the whole of our colored population.
"_Resolved_, that no system of emancipation will meet with our
approbation, unless colonization be inseparably connected with
it, and that any scheme of emancipation which will leave the
blacks within our borders, is more to be deprecated than slavery
itself."[429]
These resolutions were just another indication that the sentiment of
the people of Kentucky during the decade from 1830 to 1840 was in
favor of gradual emancipation of the slaves and their colonization in
Africa. We have seen that this was the plan of the various church
bodies, and also of Kentucky's greatest statesman, Henry Clay. Added
to this we find that the majority of the liberal-minded people of the
State held to the same conviction. But why, one asks, did all this
feeling come to naught. The answer can be better expressed in the
words of a contemporary Kentuckian, Nathaniel Shaler: "From the local
histories the deliberate student will easily become convinced that if
there had been no external pressure against slavery at this time there
would still have been a progressive elimination of the slave element
from the population by emancipation on the soil, by the sale of slaves
to the planters of the Southern States, and by their colonization in
foreign parts."[430]
During the decade from 1840 to 1850 this outside pressure of which
Shaler speaks was at its height. We have seen typical examples of it
within the borders of Kentucky in the discussion of the cases of Delia
Webster, Calvin Fairbank and John B. Mahan. The change in the trend of
popular thought during this period does not show itself much in the
open until 1849, when the third constitutional convention was about to
assemble. It was then that all phases of the problem of slavery were
discussed, in the press, in the pulpit, on the platform and in the
elections. George IX Prentice in an editorial gave the best exposition
of Kentucky sentiment. He said: "The sentiment of Kentucky we believe
to be, that slavery is an evil which must be borne with patience,
simply because there is no known plan for its rapid extinction which
would not produce incalculable sacrifices and appalling risks. At the
same time we think the people of Kentucky are not inclined to increase
the evil, but are inclined to favor its gradual emancipation and
remote termination, by prohibiting the further introduction of slaves
and by some provision tending to encourage voluntary emancipation with
colonization. These measures they believe, taken in connection with
the known tendency in widening circles to substitute free for slave
labor, will hasten the social revolution in question as fast as it can
be carried with safety to the Commonwealth or with benefit to the
colonized negro."[431]
So universal was this feeling that even Cassius M. Clay, the only real
abolitionist left in the State, came out more or less in favor of it.
Under his leadership there was held at Frankfort, April 25, 1849, an
emancipation convention to which all the more radical element were
invited. Clay himself proved to be the most radical member of the
convention but when they came to draw up a series of resolutions the
only ones to pass were those which favored the absolute prohibition of
the importation of any more slaves into Kentucky and the complete
power to enforce and perfect, under the new constitution, whenever the
people desired it, a system of gradual emancipation of the
slaves.[432] Here we are confronted with the unusual fact that the
radical element of the State agreed with the plan of George D.
Prentice, one of the chief pro-slavery men of Kentucky, and with that
of Henry Clay.
While sojourning for his health in New Orleans in February, 1849, Clay
sent Richard Pindell for publication a letter on the gradual
emancipation of slavery in Kentucky, as the State at that time was
about to hold another constitutional convention. This long and able
document constitutes the most constructive program for the progressive
elimination of slavery from the State that was ever drawn up. It
embodied not only the fundamental principles of Clay's attitude on the
Kentucky slavery question but it undoubtedly typified the real
position of the average high-minded Kentucky slaveholder of that day.
Clay frankly admitted that he had little hope of the immediate success
of the plan, but he thought it was his duty to present the facts of
the problem to the people of his own State, at a time when they were
about to alter the existing constitution. The spirit of the plan as
well as its context shows that Clay had thoroughly considered the
emancipation question from all aspects, especially in relation to its
practical operation. The actual plan was based on three principles:
(1) that any gradual emancipation should be slow in its operation, so
as not to disturb the existing habits of society; (2) as an
indispensable condition the liberated slaves were to be sent out of
the State and colonized in Africa; (3) and the expenses of their
transportation and six months subsistence were to be borne by a fund
supplied by the labor of the freed negro.
Regarding the progressive plan of liberation, Clay suggested that a
certain date, January 1, 1855 or 1860, be fixed for the commencement
of the plan. All slaves born after that date were to be free at the
age of twenty-five; but they were liable thereafter to be hired out
under State authority for a period of not more than three years, in
order to raise money to pay for their expenses of transportation to
their colony and their subsistence for the term of six months. It was
suggested that the offspring of those who were to be free at
twenty-five should be free at their birth, but subject to
apprenticeship until they reached their majority and then to be hired
out as in the case of the parent to pay the expenses of transportation
to the colony and their settlement there. In the meanwhile the master
would have the usual legal rights over the slaves and could sell,
devise or remove them out of the State.
Clay considered colonization to be an indispensable part of his scheme
and went so far as to say that he would be "utterly opposed" to any
system of emancipation without it. He firmly believed that the nearly
two hundred thousand blacks along with their descendants "could never
live in peace and harmony and equality with the residue of the
population" if they were free. He thought the expense of colonizing
should be borne by a fund from the labor of the liberated Negro
because he was the individual who secured the most benefit thereby.
The non-slaveholder should not be taxed for any share in the expense
and the slaveholder would have enough sacrifices to make without any
additional financial burdens. Clay figured that the average annual
hire of each slave would be about fifty dollars, or one hundred and
fifty dollars for the whole period of three years. One third of this
sum would be required for the transportation of the Negro to Africa
and the other two thirds would go towards a fund to establish him in
his new country.[433]
The persistence of Clay in his avowed convictions on the subject of
slavery and emancipation in Kentucky was kept up in spite of the fact
that within a few days after the publication of his plan of
emancipation throughout Kentucky the House of Representatives at
Frankfort by the unanimous vote of 93 to 0 declared that "we the
representatives of the people of Kentucky, are opposed to abolition or
emancipation of slavery in any shape or form whatever, except as now
provided by the laws and constitution of the state."[434] This was
their answer to the plea set forth by Clay and strange to say the same
group of men voted unanimously at the same session to return Clay for
six years more to the United States Senate.
A convention of the so-called "Friends of Constitutional Reform" had
been held at the State capital on February 5, 1849, and had drawn up a
series of twelve resolutions on the several questions which were to be
debated in the constitutional convention. They made mention
incidentally of the desired reforms in connection with slavery stating
"that we do not desire or contemplate any change in the relative
condition of master and slave in the new Constitution, and intend a
firm and decided resistance to any such change. We have no objection
to a proper provision for colonizing the present free blacks, and
those who shall hereafter be set free, but protest against abolition
or emancipation without the consent of the owner, unless upon full
compensation and colonization."[435]
This element dominated the convention. The body not only ignored any
plan of emancipation but drew the reins of the existing institution
tighter than ever before by incorporating in the Bill of Rights the
famous phrase that "the right of property is before and higher than
any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to
such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right
of the owner of any property whatsoever." Such a statement was,
however, not brought on by the words of Clay, but was a direct
answer to the "higher law than the constitution" plea of the
abolitionists.[436] The convention amended the standard article on
slavery with a section to the effect that the "General Assembly should
pass laws providing that any free negro or mulatto immigrating to,
and any slave thereafter emancipated in, and refusing to leave that
State, should be deemed guilty of a felony, punished by confinement in
the penitentiary."
The obvious purpose of this amendment was to reduce the number of
Negroes in the State. Accordingly every slave emancipated was forced
to leave the State and the Negro population was decreased just so much
every time any slaves were set free. The convention was thus willing
to do something towards eliminating the Negro, but was not in favor of
any scheme of a general gradual liberation of the slaves. The
necessary legislative act for carrying out the provision of the
constitution was enacted March 24, 1851.[437] This law only went half
way in that it only prevented those Negroes who had been freed in
Kentucky from living in the State. It was not until March 3, 1860,
that the prohibition was extended to all free Negro immigration into
the State.[438] An interesting development of this policy was shown in
the enactment of the legislature in 1863 which declared it unlawful
for any Negro or mulatto claiming to be free under the Emancipation
Proclamation to migrate to or remain in the State. Any Negro violating
this law was to be treated as a runaway slave.[439]
The desire of the State authorities to eliminate the free Negro was
accompanied by constructive measures in behalf of the emancipated
slave. On March 3, 1856, the State legislature passed a law
appropriating $5,000 annually to aid the Kentucky Colonization Society
in the transportation of free Negroes to Liberia.[440] The universal
sentiment of the time was that the salvation of the Negro race rested
in their elimination from the State even as free men and their
transportation to their native African soil. Henry Clay of all others
was the most persistent advocate of colonization.
We have seen that the general trend of public opinion from about 1798
had been progressively in favor of gradual emancipation provided it
was coupled with some form of colonization which would remove the
liberated Negroes from the State. Public sentiment, however, received
a serious set-back about 1838 with the beginning of the Underground
Railroad system and the incoming of the abolitionist literature. In a
speech in the Kentucky legislature of 1838 James T. Morehead, one of
the leading anti-slavery statesmen of the State, portrayed the coming
of the newer era in the history of Kentucky slavery when the people
would make more strenuous efforts to hold firmly to the slavery
institution. Morehead pictured the popular mind in these words: "Any
man who desires to see slavery abolished--any friend of emancipation,
gradual or immediate--- who supposes for a moment that now is the time
to carry out this favorite policy, must be blind to the prognostics
that lower from every quarter of the political sky. Sir, the present
is not the period to unmanacle the slave in this or any other state of
the Union. Four years ago you might have had some hope. But the wild
spirit of fanaticism has done much to retard the work of emancipation
and to rivet the fetters of slavery in Kentucky.... The advocates of
abolition--the phrenzied fanatics of the North, neither sleep nor
slumber. Their footsteps are even now to be seen wherever mischief can
be perpetrated--and it may be that while the people of Kentucky are
reposing in the confidence of fancied security, the tocsin of
rebellion may resound through the land--the firebrand of the
incendiary may wrap their dwellings in flames--their towns and cities
may become heaps of ashes before their eyes and their minds drawn off
from all thoughts of reforming the government to consider the means
necessary for their self-preservation--the protection of their
families and all that is dear to men."[441]
Such was the idea of one of the most prominent public men of Kentucky
and such became in time the opinion of the average citizen who had
come to believe in gradual emancipation as the hope and solution of
the Negro problem in the State. The future course of events regarding
slavery in Kentucky is to be explained by this radical change of
mind. Thus did the wise and constructive plans of the gradual
emancipationists come to naught with the incoming of the radical
abolitionist movement which the Kentucky populace thought would bring
about a civil insurrection among the slaves in their own State. The
abolitionists misunderstood the gradual emancipation movement in
Kentucky and really fanned the flame of the pro-slavery sentiment that
came in its place.
FOOTNOTES:
[397] Davidson, _History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_, p.
336.
[398] _Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery_, Vol. 1, p. 147.
[399] _Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery_, Vol. 2, pp. 102-3.
[400] _Ibid._, Vol. 2, pp. 163, 224.
[401] _Minutes W. Lexington Presbytery_, Vol. 1, p. 38.
[402] _Ibid._, p. 81.
[403] _Minutes of Kentucky Synod_, Vol. 5, pp. 28, 31.
[404] _Minutes of Kentucky Synod_, Vol. 5, pp. 50-52.
[405] _Address to Presbyterians of Kentucky_, pp. 33-34.
[406] _Ibid._, p. 34.
[407] Davidson, _History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_, p.
340.
[408] _Op. cit._, p. 340.
[409] Blanchard and Rice, _Debate on Slavery_, p. 88.
[410] Spencer, _History of the Baptists in Kentucky_, Vol. 1, p. 186.
[411] _Niles' Register_, May 24, 1845.
[412] _Ibid._, June 28, 1845.
[413] _Ibid._, June 8, 1844.
[414] _Ibid._, May 17, 24, 31, 1845.
[415] _Niles' Register_, September 27, 1845.
[416] Collins, _History of Kentucky_, Vol. 1, p. 81.
[417] _Ibid._, Vol. 1, p. 83.
[418] Schurz, Carl, _Henry Clay_, Vol. 1, p. 31.
[419] Colton, _Works of Clay_, Vol. 6, p. 153.
[420] His attitude was perhaps best shown when, on a visit to
Richmond, Indiana, in the fall of 1846, he was presented with a
petition by a Quaker by the name of Mendenhall asking him to liberate
all the slaves he owned. Clay made a rather lengthy speech to the
gentleman on the general principles of the question and then, came
down to the practical side of the problem:
"Without any knowledge of the relation in which I stand to my slaves,
or their individual condition, you, Mr. Mendenhall, and your
associates, who have been active in getting up this petition, call
upon me forthwith to liberate the whole of them. Now let me tell you,
that some half a dozen of them, from age, decrepitude, or infirmity,
are wholly unable to gain a livelihood for themselves, and are a heavy
charge upon me. Do you think that I should conform to the dictates of
humanity by ridding myself of that charge, and sending them forth into
the world with the boon of liberty, to end a wretched existence in
starvation? Another class is composed of helpless infants, with or
without improvident mothers. Do you believe as a Christian, that I
should perform my duty toward them by abandoning them to their fate?
Then there is another class who would not accept their freedom if I
would give it to them. I have for many years owned a slave that I
wished would leave me, but he would not. What shall I do with that
class?"
"What my treatment of my slaves is you can learn from Charles, who
accompanies me on this journey, and who has traveled with me over the
greater part of the United States, and in both the Canadas, and has
had a thousand opportunities, if he had chosen to embrace them, to
leave me. Excuse me, Mr. Mendenhall, for saying that my slaves are as
well fed and clad, look as sleek and hearty, and are quite as civil
and respectful in their demeanor, and as little disposed to wound the
feelings of any one, as you are."
* * * * *
"I shall, Mr. Mendenhall, take your petition into respectful and
deliberate consideration; but before I come to a final decision, I
should like to know what you and your associates are willing to do for
the slaves in my possession, if I should think proper to liberate
them. I own about fifty, who are probably worth about fifteen thousand
dollars. To turn them loose upon society without any means of
subsistence or support would be an act of cruelty. Are you willing to
raise and secure the payment of fifteen thousand dollars for their
benefit, if I should be induced to free them? The security of the
payment of that sum would materially lessen the obstacle in the way of
their emancipation."--Colton, Reed & McKinley, _Works of Henry Clay_,
Vol. 6, pp. 388-390.
This sums up in Clay's own words his treatment of the slaves that were
under his control. It is not to be presumed in any case that general
conditions in the State were like this. There were obvious reasons why
Clay couldn't get one or two of his slaves to accept freedom when he
offered it, for they realized that they were far better off under his
own particular care than they could ever hope to be under an
absolutely free status in society.
[421] So consistent was Clay in deed as well as words in spite of all
that the opposing forces had accomplished in the "State of Kentucky
that when he died he left a will which did for his own slaves just
what he would have had others do in his lifetime. As long as he lived
he refused to emancipate his slaves but when he passed away he left a
written document, the following portion of which forms the eminent
climax to a career of continuous labors for the eventual good of the
Kentucky slave owners as well as the slaves themselves.
"In the sale of any of my slaves, I direct that members of families
shall not be separated without their consent.
"My will is, and I accordingly direct, that the issue of all my female
slaves, which shall be born after the first day of January, 1850,
shall be free at the respective ages, of the males at twenty-eight,
and of the females at twenty-five; and that the three years next
preceding their arrival at the age of freedom, they shall be entitled
to their hire or wages for those years, or of the fair value of their
services, to defray the expense of transporting them to one of the
African colonies and of furnishing them with an outfit on their
arrival there.
"And I further direct, that they be taught to read, to write, and to
cipher, and that they be sent to Africa. I further will and direct,
that the issue of any of the females, who are so to be entitled to
their freedom, at the age of twenty-five, shall be free at their
birth, and that they be bound out as apprentices to learn farming, or
some useful trade, upon the condition also, of being taught to read,
to write, and to cipher. And I direct also, that the age of twenty-one
having been attained, they shall be sent to one of the African
colonies, to raise the necessary funds for which purpose, if they
shall not have previously earned them, they must be hired out for a
sufficient length of time.
"I require and enjoin my executors and descendants to pay particular
attention to the execution of this provision of my will. And if they
should sell any of the females who or whose issue are to be free, I
especially desire them to guard carefully the rights of such issue by
all suitable stipulations and sanctions in the contract of sale. But I
hope that it may not be necessary to sell any such persons who are to
be entitled to their freedom, but that they may be retained in the
possession of some of my descendants."--Colton, Reed & McKinley, Vol.
3, p. 153.
[422] Birney, William, _James G. Birney and his Times_, p. 132.
[423] Birney, William, _James G. Birney and his Times_, p. 133.
[424] _Ibid._, p. 182. The interesting story of Birney and his
troubles with his fellow townsmen does not come within the scope of
this investigation and will be found treated at length in William
Birney's _James G. Birney and His Times_.
[425] Birney, William, _James G. Birney and his Times_, p. 185.
[426] _Ibid._, p. 155.
[427] Birney, William, _James G. Birney and his Times_, p. 156.
[428] Quick to recognize this tendency, Clay referred to it in his
Senate speech of February 7, 1839:
"The proposition in Kentucky for gradual emancipation did not prevail,
but it was sustained by a large and respectable minority. That
minority had increased, and was increasing, until the abolitionists
commenced their operations. The effect has been to dissipate all
prospects whatever, for the present, of any scheme of gradual or other
emancipation. The people of that state have been shocked and alarmed
by these abolition movements, and the number who would now favor a
system even of gradual emancipation is probably less than it was in
the years 1798-9. At the session of the legislature held in 1837-8 the
question of calling a convention was submitted to a consideration of
the people by a law passed in conformity with the Constitution of that
state. Many motives existed for the passage of the law, and among them
that of emancipation had its influence. When the question was passed
upon by the people at their last annual election, only about one
fourth of the whole voters of the state supported a call of a
convention. The apprehension of the danger of abolition was the
leading consideration among the people for opposing the call. But for
that, but for the agitation of the question of abolition in states
whose population had no right, in the opinion of the people of
Kentucky, to interfere in the matter, the vote for a convention would
have been much larger, if it had not been carried.... Prior to the
agitation of this subject of abolition, there was a progressive
melioration in the condition of the slaves--schools of instruction
were opened by humane and religious persons. These are now all
checked, and a spirit of insubordination having shown itself in some
localities, traceable, it is believed, to abolition movements and
exertions, the legislative authority has found it expedient to infuse
fresh vigor into the police and the laws which regulate the conduct of
the slaves."--Colton, Reed & McKinley, _Works of Henry Clay_, Vol. 6,
pp. 153-154.
[429] _Niles' Register_, July 4, 1835.
[430] Shaler, N. S., _Kentucky_, p. 197.
[431] _Louisville Weekly Journal_, September 26, 1849.
[432] _Niles' Register_, May 9, 1849. Clay, Cassius, _Memoirs_, pp.
175-178. Collins, _History of Kentucky_, Vol. 1, p. 59.
[433] Clay endeavored in his plan to be fair to all parties concerned,
not only the Negro but the slave owner as well, as is well evident in
the following paragraph, in which he sought to show the justice of his
scheme to the holders of Negroes in the State:
"That the system, will be attended with some sacrifices on the part of
the slaveholders, which are to be regretted, need not be denied. What
great and beneficent enterprise was ever accomplished without risk and
sacrifice! But these sacrifices are distant, contingent, and
inconsiderable. Assuming the year 1860 for the commencement of the
system, all slaves born prior to that time would remain such during
their lives, and the present loss of the slaveholder would be only the
difference in value of the female slave whose offspring, if she had
any, born after the first day of January, 1860, should be free at the
age of twenty-five or should be slaves for life. In the meantime, if
the right to remove or sell the slave out of the State should be
exercised, that trifling loss would not be incurred. The slaveholder,
after the commencement of the system, would lose the difference
between the value of the slaves for life and slaves until the age of
twenty-five years. He might also incur some inconsiderable expense in
rearing from their birth the issue of those who were to be free at
twenty-five, until they were old enough to be apprenticed out; but as
it is probable that they would be most generally bound to him, he
would receive some indemnity from their services until they attained
their majority."
[434] Collins, _History of Kentucky_, Vol. 1, p. 58.
[435] _Niles' Register_, February 21, 1849.
[436] We know how Clay felt about this matter, for he referred to it
at length in his speech in the Senate on February 20, 3850, in the
debate on the Compromise resolutions. Speaking particularly of his
letter of emancipation he declared: "I knew at the moment that I wrote
that letter in New Orleans, as well as I know at this moment, that a
majority of the people of Kentucky would not adopt my scheme, or
probably any project whatever of gradual emancipation. Perfectly well
did I know it; but I was anxious that, if any of my posterity, or any
human being who comes after me, should have occasion to look into my
sentiments, and ascertain what they were on this great institution of
slavery; to put them on record then; and ineffectual as I saw the
project would be, I felt it was a duty which I owed to myself, to
truth, to my country, and to my God, to record my sentiments. The
State of Kentucky has decided as I anticipated she would do. I regret
it; but I acquiesce in her decision." --Colton, Reed & McKinley,
_Works of Henry Clay_, Vol. 3, p. 353
[437] Collins, _History of Kentucky_, Vol. 1, p. 61.
[438] _Ibid._, Vol. 1, p. 83.
[439] Session Laws of 1863, p. 366.
[440] _Ibid._, 1856, Vol. 1, p. 50.
[441] _Maysville Eagle_, April 11, 1838.
BOOK REVIEWS
_The Negro in Literature and Art._ By BENJAMIN BRAWLEY. Duffield and
Company, New York, 1918. Pp. 176. Price $1.25.
This is an effort to put in succinct form an estimate of the Negro's
efforts in the creative world. The style of the book is largely
biographical. The opening chapter deals with Negro genius. Then around
such Negroes as Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles W.
Chestnutt, W. E. B. DuBois, William Stanley Braithwaite, Meta Warrick
Fuller, Henry O. Tanner, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington
are grouped most of the facts as to the achievements of the Negroes in
art, literature, and science. In the appendix there is a dissertation
on the Negro in American fiction. A helpful bibliography and a short
index are also added.
This book is unique in that it is the first work devoted exclusively
to this aspect of Negro history. It undertakes "to treat somewhat more
thoroughly than has ever before been attempted the achievement of the
Negro in the United States along literary and artistic lines, judging
this by absolute rather than by partial or limited standards." The
work is the result of studies begun by the author years ago and
published in booklet form in 1910 as _The Negro in Literature and
Art_. The substance of this treatise is found also in Professor
Brawley's _A Short History of the American Negro_. Certain articles
included therein have already been published in the _Springfield
Republican_, _The Southern Workman_, and the _Dial_. The appearance of
this work in the new form is justified by the author on the ground
that the constantly increasing material in this field has so changed
his viewpoint that the time seemed ripe for a more intensive review.
The purpose of the author is a lofty one. Here we see the effort to
inform the public that there is among Negroes a growing scholarship
which must be reckoned with in determining the thought of this
country. It is to convince the public that the Negro mind is
functioning along all lines of thought known to other races of
achievement. The purpose, too, is to set forth to Negroes examples of
successful men and women in this field to serve them as an incentive
to contribute to thought. Professor Brawley has, therefore, written an
interesting book which should attract all persons desiring to
understand those forces at work in the Negro mind and the manner in
which they have found expression.
C. G. WOODSON
* * * * *
_Negro Folk Songs._ By NATALIE CURTIS BURLIN. Book I. New York and
Boston, G. Schirmer. Pp. 42. Price 50 cents.
The unique features of Natalie Curtis Burlin's notation of Negro
folk-songs, collected in the South, are their complete truth to the
original folk-song, spirit and letter. The spontaneous part-singing of
groups of Negroes is a rare phenomenon in folk-music, for most simple
people sing only a unisono melody. Mrs. Curtis Burlin, unlike most
former collectors, has recorded not only the melody and words, but the
whole _choral_ folk-song, as sung in the South, with all its different
voices. To secure entire accuracy in so difficult a task, a phonograph
was used and the work was mainly accomplished in all its wealth of
octave at Hampton Institute, Virginia, under the auspices of which the
collection was undertaken and for the benefit of which the
publications are made. Not content with a by-ear approximation only of
the folk-song, Mrs. Burlin gave especial care to the notation of every
nuance of Negro singing--organic and rhythmic. The changing nuance
syncopations that give such expressive accent to the different solo
verses sung by the Negro "leader" have all been caught and put upon
paper. Doctor Talcott Williams, of the New York School of Journalism,
says that the example of this reverent and scholarly work marks a new
era in the collecting of Negro folk-music in this country.
The words of the songs--true folk-poems--have been noted in dialect
with the same truth to Negro rendering as the music. Furthermore, the
syllables stressed in the music are stressed in the written poem as
well; for in the mind of the Negro authors, words and music were one
spontaneous creation, and it is the _music_ that gives to the words
the accent, instead of the words forming the basis of the accentuation
of the music, as with us. This reproduction in verse of the original
Negro rhythms which are full of unexpected emphasis and captivating
syncopation forms a new departure in the manner of writing Negro poems
and it is believed that modern poets and writers of vers libre will
find interest in the richness and variety of Negro rhythms here shown.
Each song is prefaced by a few paragraphs of descriptive text and the
dedications of the different records to men who have helped to advance
the Negro summarize, in a sense, the progress of the race since
emancipation.
The recording of Negro folk-songs was prefaced by Mrs. Burlin by a
year's study of the native music of Africa. Doubleday, Page & Co. will
bring out in the autumn her book entitled _Songs From the Dark
Continent_, containing the results of careful study of native
folk-lore and music told and sung by two African boys (one a Zulu and
the other from the Ndan tribe) who had come directly to Hampton
Institute from the Dark Continent. This book plainly proves the
relationship of American Negro music to its parent stem in Africa, and
reveals the poetic as well as musical gifts latent in the black race.
* * * * *
_The Black Man's Part in the War._ By SIR H. H. JOHNSTON. Simpkin
Marshall, London, 1917.
Taking into consideration that the United Kingdom now rules 50,000,000
of Africans who are well represented in the battle line by the
thousands of Negroes fighting to make democracy safe in the world of
the white man, from which the blacks are excluded, this sympathetic
writer here endeavors to give these soldiers of color credit for their
unselfish services. The highest tribute which he pays them is that
their loyalty is incontestable. The writer, therefore, makes an appeal
in behalf of safeguarding their interests and reasonably preserving
their independence after the war. Having in mind the new alignments of
trade, he sees the Africans as the producers of the tropical products
which white men will need. Their future loyalty in the competitive
commercial world after the war is also necessary to the salvation of
the English people in the tropics and at home.
The writer believes too that to secure this necessary loyalty the
natives must be given political recognition. The rights of the black
man as a citizen of the empire must be affirmed wherever the
territories have been under British rule long enough to acquire a very
British tone in language, education and ideals. He hopes also that the
present tendency of the natives of the late German possessions to
prefer the rule of the British to that of their former masters may be
further accentuated by the efforts of Englishmen to treat these
natives with more consideration. The writer advocates also a fair
division of land where the two races are brought into contact with
each other as in Rhodesia.
To strengthen the claims he makes for the recognition of the black man
the writer has well illustrated his book with plates showing the
advancement of Negroes to arouse interest in their behalf. The book
is, of necessity, incomplete, as the war has not yet ended; but, on
the whole, students of Negro life and history will find it profitable
to read this broad enlightened working program for changing the white
man's attitude toward a large part of the human family which not only
has done him no great wrong, but has borne his burdens when he has
been about to fall beneath the load.
* * * * *
_History of the Civil War._ By JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt.
McMillan Company, New York. 1861-1865. Pp. 454.
Mr. Rhodes has covered this ground in detail in his _History of the
United States_ in seven volumes. But this work is not an abridgment of
the three volumes of that history dealing with the Civil War. Since
writing his first history he has had access to much new material and
many valuable treatments of certain periods of the Civil War. He has,
therefore, considered it necessary to bring out this new volume that
he may show the bearing of these new facts on his grasp of this period
of our history.
Influenced by the dominant thought of the present war, Mr. Rhodes
treats such conditions as unpreparedness, the privations of the war,
lack of tea and coffee, the lack of bread and meat, the difficulty of
transportation, conscription, high prices, loans, high taxation, and
consequent distress. The Negroes are necessarily mentioned in the
discussion of slavery in the territories, the attempted slavery
compromises, Lincoln's handling of the question, the effect on them of
the movements of the armies, and the efforts at emancipation leading
up to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. Mention is also
made of the conduct of the slaves who accompanied the Confederates and
of those who followed and fought with the Union army.
Mr. Rhodes is here at his best, that is, when writing on the Civil
War. But this seems to be mere chance. He writes a good history of the
Civil War because he happens to be a Unionist, and no one has yet
proved that the Union cause was wrong. He is after all an
impressionable historian, accepting almost anything he picks up, but
embellishing it so well as to win the American public, whose
scholarship has not yet performed the task of publishing an authentic
history of the Civil War from the viewpoint of treating the records
scientifically. When Rhodes elsewhere takes up the Negro in the
Reconstruction he shows his lack of ability as an historian in
accepting almost everything which he has heard or read about the Negro
and in branding, therefore, as mistakes and failures all of the
efforts to elevate the Negro to the dignity of citizenship and to deal
with him as a human being.
NOTES
William Bernard Hartgrove, one of the five members who participated in
the organization of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and
History in Chicago in 1915, died at Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the
twenty-fourth of April. In his death the Association lost a
substantial supporter and friend. He was an unselfish, wide-awake and
enterprising teacher, endeavoring always to be instrumental in the
uplift of the Negro. During the last ten years of his life he devoted
much of his time and means to the work of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, serving the local branch most of
that period as secretary. When the Association for the Study of Negro
Life and History was organized he was among the first to see its
possibilities and to give it financial as well as moral support. He
made himself useful in assisting the editor in his arduous duties
during the days when the work was in the making. He contributed to the
JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, moreover, a number of articles, among which
are: _The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards_, _The
Negro Soldier in the American Revolution_, and _The Story of Josiah
Henson_.
* * * * *
Mention of the slave Archy in Miss Beasley's _Slavery in California_
has called forth from a relative of his the following short sketch:
Archy's mother was named Maria. Maria had four children: Archy,
Candace, Pompey and Quitman. (I am the daughter of Candace.) At the
time Charles A. Stoval took Archy to California, Maria with her other
children were with Simeon Stoval, the father of Chas. A. Stoval.
Chas. A. Stoval had been graduated in medicine and had returned home
to begin practice, but his health having failed him, he went to
California, taking my Uncle Archy with him. My grandmother Maria heard
through the relatives of Stoval of Archy during the time Stoval
remained in California. But near the close of the Civil War, Chas. A.
Stoval returned to Mississippi and remained there until his death a
few years later. After Stoval came back from California, my
grandmother never heard any more of her son Archy, except when she
once heard that he was with the Indians, who were treating him for
some kind of sickness. Whether he died or whether this rumor was put
out to keep the Stovals from trying to steal him and bring him back to
Mississippi I have never been able to learn. My grandmother Maria
continued to search for Archy, by writing several times to San
Francisco, but without success. She died in 1884. Pompey and Quitman
continued to live near Jackson, Miss., where Quitman died some time
ago. Pompey was still alive when I last heard of him.
MRS. R. A. HUNT
* * * * *
_German East Africa_, by A. F. Calvert, has been published by Werner
Laurie, London.
Messrs. Routledge, of London, will soon bring out a volume of _Select
Constitutional Documents Illustrating the History of South Africa_.
Dr. H. K. W. Kumm's history of modern missionary work has appeared
with imprint of MacMillan with the title _African Missionary Heroes
and Heroines_.
Doubleday, Page and Company announce the appearance of _Education and
Life_, by Doctor Francis Greenwood Peabody, of Harvard University.
This is a short history of Hampton Institute during the last fifty
years, prepared at the request of the trustees.
THE JOURNAL
OF
NEGRO HISTORY
VOL. III--OCTOBER, 1918--NO. 4
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MISCEGENATION OF THE WHITES AND BLACKS
Although science has uprooted the theory, a number of writers are
loath to give up the contention that the white race is superior to
others, as it is still hoped that the Caucasian race may be preserved
in its purity, especially so far as it means miscegenation with the
blacks. But there are others who express doubt that the integrity of
the dominant race has been maintained.[442] Scholars have for
centuries differed as to the composition of the mixed breed stock
constituting the Mediterranean race and especially about that in Egypt
and the Barbary States. In that part of the dark continent many
inhabitants have certain characteristics which are more Caucasian than
negroid and have achieved more than investigators have been willing to
consider the civilization of the Negro. It is clear, however, that
although the people of northern Africa cannot be classed as Negroes,
being bounded on the south by the masses of African blacks, they have
so generally mixed their blood with that of the blacks that in many
parts they are no nearer to any white stock than the Negroes of the
United States.
This miscegenation, to be sure, increased toward the south into
central Africa, but it has extended also to the north and east into
Asia and Europe. Traces of Negro blood have been found in the Malay
States, India and Polynesia. In the Arabian Peninsula it has been so
extensive as to constitute a large group there called the Arabised
Negroes. But most significant of all has been the invasion of Europe
by persons of African blood. Professor Sergi leads one to conclude
that the ancient Pelasgii were of African origin or probably the
descendants of the race which settled northern Africa and southern
Europe, and are therefore due credit for the achievements of the early
Greek and Italian civilizations.[443]
There is much evidence of a further extension of this infusion in the
Mediterranean world.
"Recent discoveries made in the vicinity of the principality of
Monaco and others in Italy and western France," says MacDonald,
"would seem to reveal ... the actual fact that many thousand
years ago a negroid race had penetrated through Italy into
France, leaving traces at the present day in the physiognomy of
the peoples of southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and western
France, and even in the western parts of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland. There are even at the present day some
examples of the Keltiberian peoples of western Scotland, southern
and western Wales, southern and western Ireland, of distinctly
negroid aspect, and in whose ancestry there is no indication
whatever of any connection with the West Indies or with Modern
Africa. Still more marked is this feature in the peoples of
southern and western France and of the other parts of the
Mediterranean already mentioned."[444]
Because of the temperament of the Portugese this infusion of African
blood was still more striking in their country. As the Portugese are a
good-natured people void of race hate they did not dread the
miscegenation of the races. One finds in southern Portugal a "strong
Moorish, North African element" and also an "old intermixture with
those Negroes who were imported thither from Northwest Africa to till
the scantily populated southern provinces."[445] This miscegenation
among the Portugese easily extended to the New World. Then followed
the story of the Caramarii, the descendants of the Portugese, who
after being shipwrecked near Bahia arose to prominence among the
Tupinambo Indians and produced a clan of half-castes by taking to
himself numerous native women.[446] This admixture served as a
stepping stone to the assimilation of the Negroes when they came.
There immigrated later into Brazil other settlers who, mixing eagerly
with the Amerindians, gave rise to a race called Mamelucos who began
to mix maritally with the imported Negro women. The French and Dutch
too in caring for their offspring by native women promoted the same.
"They educated them, set them free, lifted them above servitude, and
raised them socially to the level of the whites"[447] so that today
generally speaking there are no distinctions in society or politics in
Brazil. Commenting on this condition in Brazil, Agassiz said: "This
hybrid class, although more marked here because the Indian is added,
is very numerous in all cities; perhaps, the fact, so honorable to
Brazil, that the free Negro has full access to all privileges of any
free citizen, rather tends to increase than to dimmish that number."
After emancipation in Brazil in 1888, the already marked tendency
toward this fusion of the slave and the master classes gradually
increased.[448]
The Spaniards mixed less freely with the Negroes than did the
Portugese but mixed just the same. At first they seriously considered
the inconveniences which might arise from miscegenation under frontier
conditions and generally refrained from extensive intermingling. But
men are but men and as Spanish women were far too few in the New
World at that time, the other sex of their race soon yielded to the
charms of women of African blood. The rise of the mixed breeds too
further facilitated the movement. Spaniards who refused to intermingle
with the blacks found it convenient to approach the hybrids who showed
less color. In the course of time, therefore, the assimilation of the
blacks was as pronounced in some of the Spanish colonies as in those
which originally exhibited less race antipathy. There are millions of
Hispanicized Negroes in Latin America. Many of the mixed breeds,
however, have Indian rather than Negro blood.[449]
Miscegenation had its best chance among the French. Not being
disinclined to mingle with Negroes, the French early faced the problem
of the half caste, which was given consideration in the most human of
all slave regulations, the _Code Noir_.[450] It provided that free men
who had children from their concubinage with women-slaves (if they
consented to such concubinage) should be punished by a fine of two
thousand pounds of sugar. But if the offender was the master himself,
in addition to the fine, the slave should be taken from him, sold for
the benefit of the hospital and never be allowed to be freed;
excepting, that, if the man was not married to another person at the
time of his concubinage, he was to marry the woman slave, who,
together with her children, should thereby become free. Masters were
forbidden to constrain slaves to marry against their will. Many
Frenchmen like those in Haiti married their Negro mistresses,
producing attractive half caste women who because of their wealth were
sought by gentlemen in preference to their own women without dot.
Among the English the situation was decidedly different. There was not
so much need for the use of Negro women by Englishmen in the New
World, but there was the same tendency to cohabit with them. In the
end, however, the English, unlike the Latins, disowned their offspring
by slave women, leaving these children to follow the condition of
their mother. There was, therefore, not so much less miscegenation
among the English but there remained the natural tendency so to
denounce these unions as eventually to restrict the custom, as it is
today, to the weaker types of both races, the offspring of whom in the
case of slave mothers became a commodity in the commercial world.
There was extensive miscegenation in the English colonies, however,
before the race as a majority could realize the apparent need for
maintaining its integrity. With the development of the industries came
the use of the white servants as well as the slaves. The status of the
one differed from that of the other in that the former at the
expiration of his term of service could become free whereas the latter
was doomed to servitude for life. In the absence of social
distinctions between these two classes of laborers there arose
considerable intermingling growing out of a community of interests. In
the colonies in which the laborers were largely of one class or the
other not so much of this admixture was feared, but in the plantations
having a considerable sprinkling of the two miscegenation usually
ensued.
The following, therefore, was enacted in Maryland in 1661 as a
response to the question of the council to the lower house as to what
it intended should become of such free women of the English or other
Christian nations as married Negroes or other slaves.[451] The
preamble reads: "And forasmuch as divers freeborn _English_ women,
forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation,
do intermarry with negro slaves,[452] by which also divers suits may
arise, touching the issue of such women, and a great damage doth
befall the master of such negroes, for preservation whereof for
deterring such free-born women from such shameful matches, _be it
enacted_: That whatsoever free-born woman shall intermarry with any
slave, from and after the last day of the present assembly, shall
serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband; and
that all the issues of such free-born women, so married, shall be
slaves as their fathers were." "And be it further enacted: That all
the issues of _English_, or other free-born women, that have already
married negroes, shall serve the master of their parents, till they be
thirty years of age and no longer."[453]
According to A. J. Calhoun, however, all planters of Maryland did not
manifest so much ire because of this custom among indentured servants.
"Planters, said he, "sometimes married white women servants to Negroes
in order to transform the Negroes and their offspring into
slaves.[454] This was in violation of the ancient unwritten law that
the children of a free woman, the father being a slave, follow the
status of their mother and are free. The custom gave rise to an
interesting case. "Irish Nell," one of the servants brought to
Maryland by Lord Baltimore, was sold by him to a planter when he
returned to England. Following the custom of other masters who held
white women as servants, he soon married her to a Negro named Butler
to produce slaves. Upon hearing this, Baltimore used his influence to
have the law repealed but the abrogation of it was construed by the
Court of Appeals not to have any effect on the status of her offspring
almost a century later when William and Mary Butler sued for their
freedom on the ground that they descended from this white woman. The
Provincial Court had granted them freedom but in this decision the
Court of Appeals reversed the lower tribunal on the ground that "Irish
Nell" was a slave before the measure repealing the act had been
passed. This case came up again 1787 when Mary, the daughter of
William and Mary Butler, petitioned the State for freedom. Both
tribunals then decided to grant this petition.[455]
The act of repeal of 1681, therefore, is self explanatory. The
preamble reads: "Forasmuch as, divers free-born _English_, or white
women, sometimes by the instigation, procurement or connivance of
their masters, mistresses, or dames, and always to the satisfaction of
their lascivious and lustful desires, and to the disgrace not only of
the _English_, but also of many other Christian nations, do intermarry
with Negroes and slaves, by which means, divers inconveniences,
controversies, and suits may arise, touching the issue or children of
such free-born women aforesaid; for the prevention whereof for the
future, _Be it enacted_: That if the marriage of any woman-servant
with any slave shall take place by the procurement of permission of
the master, such woman and her issue shall be free." It enacted a
penalty by fine on the master or mistress and on the person joining
the parties in marriage.[456]
The effect of this law was merely to prevent masters from prostituting
white women to an economic purpose. It did not prevent the
miscegenation of the two races. McCormac says: "Mingling of the races
in Maryland continued during the eighteenth century, in spite of all
laws against it. Preventing marriages of white servants with slaves
only led to a greater social evil, which caused a reaction of public
sentiment against the servant. Masters and society in general were
burdened with the care of illegitimate mulatto children, and it became
necessary to frame laws compelling the guilty parties to reimburse the
masters for the maintenance of these unfortunate waifs."[457] To
remedy this laws were passed in 1715 and 1717 to reduce to the status
of a servant for seven years any white man or white woman who
cohabited with any Negro, free or slave. Their children were made
servants for thirty-one years, a black thus concerned was reduced to
slavery for life and the maintenance of the bastard children of women
servants was made incumbent upon masters. If the father of an
illegitimate child could be discovered, he would have to support his
offspring. If not this duty fell upon the mother who had to discharge
it by servitude or otherwise.[458]
As what had been done to prevent the admixture was not sufficient, the
Maryland General Assembly took the following action in 1728:
"Whereas by the act of assembly relating to servants and slaves,
there is no provision made for the punishment of free mulatto
women, having bastard children by negroes and other slaves, nor
is there any provision made in the said act for the punishment of
free negro women, having bastard children by white men; and
forasmuch as such copulations are as unnatural and inordinate as
between white women and negro men, or other slaves.
"_Be it enacted_, That from and after the end of this present
session of assembly, that all such free mulatto women, having
bastard children, either within or after the time of their
service, (_and their issue_,) shall be subject to the same
penalties that white women and their issue are, for having
mulatto bastards, by the act, entitled, An act relating to
servants and slaves.
"_And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, by and
with the advice and consent aforesaid_, that from and after the
end of this present session of assembly, that all free negro
women, having bastard children by white men, (_and their issue_,)
shall be subject to the same penalties that white women are, by
the act aforesaid, for having bastards by negro men."[459]
Virginia which faced the same problem did not lag far behind Maryland.
In 1630 the Governor and Council in Court ordered Hugh Davis to be
soundly whipped before an assembly of Negroes and others for abusing
himself to the dishonor of God and shame of a Christian by defiling
his body in lying with a Negro, which he was to acknowledge next
Sabbath day. In 1662 the colony imposed double fines for fornication
with a Negro, but did not restrict intermarriage until 1691.[460] The
words of the preamble give the reasons for this action. It says:
"And for the prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious
issue which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by
negroes, mulattoes, and Indians intermarrying with English, or
other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one
another, _Be it enacted by the authoritie aforesaid, and it is
hereby enacted_, That for the time to come, whatsoever English or
other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a
negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within
three months after such marriage be banished and removed from
this dominion forever, and that the justices of each respective
countie within this dominion make it their perticular care, that
this act be put in effectuall execution."
If any free English woman should have a bastard child by any Negro or
mulatto, she should pay the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, within one
month after such bastard child should be born, to the church wardens
of the parish where she should be delivered of such child, and in
default of such payment she should be taken into the possession of the
said church wardens and disposed of for five years, and such bastard
child should be bound out as a servant by the church wardens until he
or she should attain the age of thirty years, and in case such English
woman that should have such bastard child be a servant, she should be
sold by the church wardens (after her time is expired that she ought
by law to serve her master) for five years, and the money she should
be sold for divided as before appointed, and the child should serve as
aforesaid.[461]
It was further provided in 1753 that if any woman servant should have
a bastard child by a Negro or mulatto, over and above the year's
service due to her master or owner, she should immediately upon the
expiration of her time, to her then present master, or owner, pay down
to the church wardens of the parish wherein such child should be born
for the use of the said parish, fifteen pounds current money of
Virginia, or be sold for five years to the use aforesaid; and if a
free Christian white woman should have such bastard child by a Negro,
or mulatto, for every such offence, she should within one month after
her delivery of such bastard child, pay to the church wardens for the
time being, of the parish wherein such child should be born, for the
use of the said parish, fifteen pounds current money of Virginia, or
be by them sold for five years to the use aforesaid; and in both the
said cases, the church wardens should bind the said child to be a
servant until it should be of thirty-one years of age.
And for a further prevention of that "abominable mixture, and the
spurious issue, which may hereafter increase in this his majesty's
colony and dominion as well by English, and other white men and women,
intermarrying with Negroes or mulattoes, as by their unlawful coition
with them" it was enacted that whatsoever English, or other white man
or woman, being free, should intermarry with a Negro, or mulatto man
or woman bond or free, should by judgment of the county court, be
committed to prison and there remain during the space of six months,
without bail or main-prize, and should forfeit and pay ten pounds
current money of Virginia, to the use of the parish as aforesaid. It
was further enacted that no minister of the Church of England, or
other minister or person whatsoever, within that colony and dominion,
should thereafter presume to marry a white man with a Negro, or
mulatto woman, or to marry a white woman with a Negro or mulatto man,
upon pain of forfeiting and paying for every such marriage, the sum of
ten thousand pounds of tobacco.[462]
It developed later that these laws did not meet all requirements, for
there were in subsequent years so many illegitimate children born of
such mothers that they became a public charge.[463] Those of Negro
blood were bound out by law. According to Russell, "In 1727 it was
ordered that David James a free negro boy, be bound to Mr. James Isdel
'who is to teach him to read ye bible distinctly also ye trade of a
gunsmith that he carry him to ye Clark's office & take Indenture to
that purpose.' "By the Warwick County court it was 'ordered that
Malacai, a mulatto boy, son of mulatto Betty be, by the Church Wardens
of this Parish bound to Thomas Hobday to learn the art of a planter
according to law.' By order of the Norfolk County court, about 1770, a
free negro was bound out 'to learn the trade of a tanner.'"[464]
In making more stringent regulations for servants and slaves, North
Carolina provided in 1715 that if a white servant woman had a child by
a Negro, mulatto or Indian, she must serve her master two years extra
and should pay to the Church wardens immediately on the expiration of
that time six pounds for the use of the parish or be sold four years
for the use aforesaid.[465] A clergyman found guilty of officiating at
such a marriage should be fined fifty pounds. This law, according to
Bassett, did not succeed in preventing such unions. Two ministers were
indicted within two years for performing such a marriage ceremony. "In
one case the suit was dropped, in the other case the clergyman went
before the Chief Justice and confessed as it seems of his own
accord.... In 1727 a white woman was indicted in the General Court
because she had left her husband and was cohabiting with a negro
slave.... So far as general looseness was concerned this law of 1715
had no force. Brickell, who was a physician, says that white men of
the colony suffered a great deal from a malignant kind of venereal
disease which they took from the slaves."[466]
By the law of 1741 therefore the colony endeavored to prevent what the
General Assembly called "that abominable mixture and spurious issue,
which hereafter may increase in this government, by white men and
women intermarrying with Indians, Negroes, mustees, or mulattoes." It
was enacted that if any man or woman, being free, should intermarry
with an Indian, Negro, mustee or mulatto man or woman, or any person
of mixed blood, to the third generation, bond or free, he should, by
judgment of the county court forfeit and pay the sum of fifty pounds,
proclamation money, to the use of the parish.[467] It was also
provided that if any white servant woman should during the time of her
servitude, be delivered of a child, begotten by any Negro, mulatto or
Indian, such servant, over and above the time she was by this act to
serve her master or owner for such offence, should be sold by the
Church wardens of the parish, for two years, after the time by
indenture or otherwise had expired.[468]
The miscegenation of the whites and blacks extended so widely that it
became a matter of concern to the colonies farther north where the
Negro population was not considerable. Seeking also to prevent this
"spurious mixt issue" Massachusetts enacted in 1705 that a Negro or
mulatto man committing fornication with an "English woman, or a woman
of any other Christian nation," should be sold out of the province."
"An English man, or man of any other Christian nation committing
fornication with a Negro or mulatto woman," should be whipped, and the
woman sold out of the province. None of her Majesty's English or
Scottish subjects, nor of any other Christian nation within that
province should contract matrimony with any Negro or mulatto, under a
penalty imposed on the person joining them in marriage. No master
should unreasonably deny marriage to his Negro with one of the same
nation; any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.[469]
There was much social contact between the white servants and the
Negroes in Pennsylvania, where the number of the latter greatly
increased during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Turner
says a white servant was indicted for this offence in Sussex County in
1677 and a tract of land there bore the name of "Mulatto Hall."[470]
According to the same writer Chester County seemed to have a large
number of these cases and laid down the principle that such admixture
should be prohibited,
"For that hee," referring to a white man, "Contrary to his
Masters Consent hath ... got wth child a certaine molato wooman
Called Swart anna." "David Lewis Constable of Haverford Returned
a Negro man of his And a white woman for having a Bastard Childe
... the Negroe said she Intised him and promised him to marry
him: she being examined, Confest the same: the Court ordered that
she shall receive Twenty one lashes on her bare Backe ... and the
Court ordered the negroe never more to meddle with any white
woman more uppon paine of his life."[471]
Advertising for Richard Molson in Philadelphia in 1720, his master
said, "He is in company with a white woman named Mary, who is supposed
now goes for his wife"; "and a white man named Garrett Choise, and
Jane his wife, which said white people are servants to some neighbors
of the said Richard Tilghman."[472] In 1722 a woman was punished for
abetting a clandestine marriage between a white woman and a Negro. In
the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 1, 1749, appeared the notice of the
departure of Isaac Cromwell, a mulatto, who ran away with an English
servant woman named Anne Greene.[473]
The Assembly, therefore, upon a petition from inhabitants inveighing
against this custom enacted a prohibitory law in 1725. This law
provided that no minister, pastor or magistrate or other person
whatsover who according to the laws of that province usually joined
people in marriage should upon any pretence whatever join in marriage
any Negro with any white person on the penalty of one hundred pounds.
And it was further enacted that if any white man or woman should
cohabit or dwell with any Negro under pretense of being married, such
white man or woman should be put out of service as above directed
until they come to the age of thirty-one years; and if any free Negro
man or woman should intermarry with a white man or woman, such Negro
should become a slave during life to be sold by order of the justice
of the quarter sessions of the respective county; and if any free
Negro man or woman should commit fornication or adultery with any
white man or woman, such Negro or Negroes should be sold as a servant
for seven years and the white man or woman should be punished as the
law directs in cases of adultery or fornication.[474]
This law seemed to have very little effect on the miscegenation of the
races in certain parts. In Chester County, according to the records of
1780, mulattoes constituted one fifth of the Negro population.[475]
Furthermore, that very year when the State of Pennsylvania had grown
sufficiently liberal to provide for gradual emancipation the law
against the mingling of the races was repealed. Mixed marriages
thereafter became common as the white and the blacks in the light of
the American Revolution realized liberty in its full meaning. Thomas
Branagan said:
"There are many, very many blacks who ... begin to feel
themselves consequential, ... will not be satisfied unless they
get white women for wives, and are likewise exceedingly
impertinent to white people in low circumstances.... I solemnly
swear, I have seen more white women married to, and deluded
through the arts of seduction by negroes in one year in
Philadelphia, than for eight years I was visiting (West Indies
and the Southern States). I know a black man who seduced a young
white girl ... who soon after married him, and died with a broken
heart. On her death he said that he would not disgrace himself to
have a negro wife and acted accordingly, for he soon after
married a white woman. ... There are perhaps hundreds of white
women thus fascinated by black men in this city, and there are
thousands of black children by them at present."[476]
A reaction thereafter set in against this custom during the first
decade of the nineteenth century, when fugitives in the rough were
rushing to that State, and culminated in an actual campaign against it
by 1820. That year a petition from Greene County said that many
Negroes had settled in Pennsylvania and had been able to seduce into
marriage "the minor children of the white inhabitants."[477] This
county, therefore, asked that these marriages be made an offence
against the laws of the State. Such a marriage was the cause of a riot
in Columbia in 1834 and in 1838 the members of the Constitutional
Convention engaged in a heated discussion of the custom.[478]
Petitions were frequently sent to the legislature asking that this
admixture be penalized by law, but no such action was ever taken.
Relying upon public opinion, however, the advocates of racial
integrity practically succeeded. Marriages of whites and blacks
eventually became so odious that they led to disturbances as in the
case of the riot of 1849, one of the causes of which was that a white
man was living with a Negro wife.[479] This was almost ineffective,
however, in the prevention of race admixture. Clandestine
intermingling went on and tended to increase in enormous proportions.
The conclusive proof of this is that in 1860 mulattoes constituted one
third of the Negro population of Pennsylvania.
Persons who professed seriously to consider the future of slavery,
therefore, saw that miscegenation and especially the general
connection of white men with their female slaves introduced a mulatto
race whose numbers would become dangerous, if the affections of their
white parents were permitted to render them free.[480] The Americans
of the future would thereby become a race of mixed breeds rather than
a white and a black population. As the lust of white persons for those
of color was too strong to prevent this miscegenation, the liberty of
emancipating their mulatto offspring was restricted in the slave
States but that of selling them remained.[481]
These laws eventually, therefore, had their desired effect. They were
never intended to prevent the miscegenation of the races but to debase
to a still lower status the offspring of the blacks who in spite of
public opinion might intermarry with the poor white women and to leave
women of color without protection against white men, who might use
them for convenience, whereas white women and black men would
gradually grow separate and distinct in their social relations.
Although thereafter the offspring of blacks and whites did not
diminish, instead of being gradually assimilated to the type of the
Caucasian they tended to constitute a peculiar class commonly called
people of color having a higher social status than that of the blacks
but finally classified with all other persons of African blood as
Negroes.
While it later became a capital offence in some of the slave States
for a Negro man to cohabit with a white woman, Abdy who toured this
country from 1833 to 1834 doubted that such laws were enforced. "A
man," said he, "was hanged not long ago for this crime at New Orleans.
The partner of his guilt--his master's daughter--endeavored to save
his life, by avowing that she alone was to blame. She died shortly
after his execution."[482] With the white man and the Negro woman the
situation was different. A sister of President Madison once said to
the Reverend George Bourne, then a Presbyterian minister in Virginia:
"We Southern ladies are complimented with the name of wives; but we
are only the mistresses of seraglios." The masters of the female
slaves, however, were not always the only persons of loose morals.
Many women of color were also prostituted to the purposes of
young white men[483] and overseers.[484] Goodell reports a
well-authenticated account of a respectable Christian lady at the
South who kept a handsome mulatto female for the use of her genteel
son, as a method of deterring him, as she said, "from indiscriminate
and vulgar indulgences."[485] Harriet Martineau discovered a young
white man who on visiting a southern lady became insanely enamored of
her intelligent quadroon maid. He sought to purchase her but the owner
refused to sell the slave because of her unusual worth. The young
white man persisted in trying to effect this purchase and finally
informed her owner that he could not live without this attractive
slave. Thereupon the white lady sold the woman of color to satisfy the
lust of her friend.[486]
The accomplishment of this task of reducing the free people of color
to the status of the blacks, however, was not easy. In the first
place, so many persons of color had risen to positions of usefulness
among progressive people and had formed connections with them that an
abrupt separation was both inexpedient and undesirable. Exceptions to
the hard and fast rules of caste were often made to relieve the people
of color. Moreover, the miscegenation of the races in the South and
especially in large cities like Charleston and New Orleans had gone to
the extent that from these centers eventually went, as they do now, a
large number of quadroons and octoroons,[487] who elsewhere crossed
over to the other race.
White men ashamed of the planters who abused helpless black women are
now trying to minimize the prevalence of this custom. Such an effort,
however, means little in the face of the facts that one seventh of the
Negroes in the United States had in their veins any amount of
Caucasian blood in 1860 and according to the last census more than one
fifth of them have this infusion. Furthermore the testimony of
travelers in this country during the slavery period support the
contention that race admixture was common.[488]
So extensive did it become that the most prominent white men in the
country did not escape. Benjamin Franklin seems to have made no secret
of his associations with Negro women.[490] Russell connects many of
these cases with the master class in Virginia.[491] There are now in
Washington Negroes who call themselves the descendants of two
Virginians who attained the presidency of the United States.
The abolitionists made positive statements about the mulatto offspring
of Thomas Jefferson. Goodell lamented the fact that Jefferson in his
will had to entreat the legislature of Virginia to confirm his bequest
of freedom to his own reputed enslaved offspring that they might
remain in the State of their nativity, where their families and
connections were.[492] Writing in 1845, the editor of the _Cleveland
American_ expressed regret that notwithstanding all the services and
sacrifices of Jefferson in the establishment of the freedom of this
country, his own son then living in Ohio was not allowed to vote or
bear witness in a court of justice. The editor of the _Ohio Star_
said: "We are not sure whether this is intended as a statement of
actual fact, or of what might possibly and naturally enough be true."
_The Cincinnati Herald_ inquired: "Is this a fact? If so, it ought to
be known. Perhaps 'the Democracy' might be induced to pass a special
act in his favor." _The Cleveland American_, therefore, added: "We are
credibly informed that a natural son of Jefferson by the celebrated
'Black Sal,' a person of no little renown in the politics of 1800 and
thereafter, is now living in a central county of Ohio. We shall
endeavor to get at the truth of the matter and make public the result
of our inquiries."[493]
A later report of miscegenation of this kind was recorded by Jane Grey
Swisshelm in her _Half a Century_, where she states that a daughter of
President John Tyler "ran away with the man she loved in order that
she might be married, but for this they must reach foreign soil. A
young lady of the White House could not marry the man of her choice in
the United States. The lovers were captured and she was brought to His
Excellency, her father, who sold her to a slave-trader. From that
Washington slave-pen she was taken to New Orleans by a man who
expected to get twenty-five hundred dollars for her on account of her
great beauty.[494]
CARTER G. WOODSON
FOOTNOTES:
[442] MacDonald, _Trade, Politics and Christianity in Africa and the
East_, Chapter on inter-racial marriage, p. 239; and THE JOURNAL OF
NEGRO HISTORY, pp. 329, 334-344.
[443] _Report of First Race Congress_, 1911, p. 330; MacDonald,
_Trade, Politics, and Christianity_, p. 235; and _Contemporary
Review_, August, 1911.
[444] _Report of First Races Congress_, 1911, p. 330.
[445] Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_, p. 98.
[446] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[447] _Ibid._, pp. 98-99.
[448] Authorities consider the Amerindians the most fecund stock in
the country, especially when mixed with an effusion of white or black
blood. Agassiz, _A Journey in Brazil in 1868_.
[449] Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_, p. 135.
[450] _Code Noir._
[451] Brackett, _The Negro in Maryland_, pp. 32-33.
[452] Benjamin Banneker's mother was a white woman who married one of
her own slaves. See Tyson, _Benjamin Banneker_, p. 3.
[453] _Archives of Maryland, Proceedings of the General Assembly_,
1637-1664, pp. 533-534.
[454] Calhoun, _A Social History of the American Family_, p. 94.
[455] Harris and McHenry Reports, I, pp. 374, 376; II, pp. 26, 38,
214, 233.
[456] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, VI, pp. 249-250.
[457] McCormac, _White Servitude in Maryland_, p. 70.
[458] Act of Assembly, Oct., 1727.
[459] Dorsey, _The General Public Statutory Law and Public Local Law
of State of Maryland_, from 1692-1839, p. 79.
[460] Bullagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, pp. 72,
73.
[461] Hening, _The Statutes at Large_, I, pp. 146, 532. II, 170; III,
pp. 86-88, 252.
[462] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, VI, pp. 360-362.
[463] Meade, _Old Churches and Families of Virginia_, I, p. 366.
[464] Russell, _Free Negro in Virginia_, pp. 138-139.
[465] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina_, p. 83.
[466] _Ibid._, pp. 58-59. See also _Natural History of North
Carolina_, p. 48; and Hawk's _History of North Carolina_, II, pp.
126-127.
[467] Potter, _Revised Laws of North Carolina_, I, p. 130.
[468] _Ibid._, I, p. 157.
[469] _Massachusetts Charters, etc._, p. 747; Hurd, _Law of Freedom
and Bondage_, VI, p. 262.
[470] Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, pp. 29-30.
[471] _Ibid._, p. 30.
[472] _The American Weekly Mercury_ (Philadelphia), August 20, 1720.
[473] _The Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 1, 1749.
[474] _Statutes at Large_, IV, p. 62.
[475] Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, p. 31.
[476] Branagan, _Serious Remonstrances_, pp. 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74,
75, 102; _Somerset Whig_, March 12, 1818, and _Union Times_, August
15, 1834.
[477] _Journal of Senate_, 1820-1821, p. 213; and _American Daily
Advertiser_, January 23, 1821.
[478] _Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1838_, X, p. 230.
[479] _The Spirit of the Times_, October 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 19, 1849.
[480] Harriet Martineau, _Views of Slavery and Emancipation_, p. 10.
[481] Hart, _Slavery and Abolition_, p. 182; _Censuses of the United
States_.
[482] Abdy, _North America_, I, p. 160.
[483] Child, _Anti-slavery Catechism_, p. 17; 2 _Howard Mississippi
Reports_, p. 837.
[484] Kemble, _Georgian Plantation_, pp. 140, 162, 199, 208-210;
Olmstead, _Seaboard States_, pp. 599-600; Rhodes, _United States_, I,
pp. 341-343.
[485] Goodell, _Slave Code_, pp. 111-112.
[486] Harriet Martineau, _Views of Slavery and Emancipation_, p. 13.
[487] Featherstonaugh, _Excursion_, p. 141; Buckingham, _Slave
States_, I, p. 358.
[488] Writing of conditions in this country prior to the American
Revolution, Anne Grant found only two cases of miscegenation in Albany
before this period but saw it well established later by the British
soldiers. Johann Schoepf--witnessed this situation in Charleston in
1784. J. P. Brissot saw this tendency toward miscegenation as a
striking feature of society among the French in the Ohio Valley in
1788. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was very much impressed with
the numerous quadroons and octoroons of New Orleans in 1825 and
Charles Gayarré portrayed the same conditions there in 1830. Frederika
Bremer frequently met with this class while touring the South in 1850.
See Grant, _Memoirs of An American Lady_, p. 28; Schoepf, _Travels in
the Confederation_, II, p. 382; Brissot, _Travels_, II, p. 61;
Saxe-Weimar, _Travels_, II, p. 69; Grace King, _New Orleans_, pp.
346-349; Frederika Bremer, _Homes of the New World_, I, pp. 325, 326,
382, 385.
[489] _The American Journal of Sociology_, XXII, p. 98.
[490] _Ibid._, XXII, p. 98.
[491] See Russell, _Free Negro in Virginia_, p. 127.
[492] Goodell, _Slave Code_, p. 376.
[493] _The Liberator_, December 19, 1845.
[494] Swisshelm, _Half a Century_, p. 129.
GERRIT SMITH'S EFFORT IN BEHALF OF THE NEGROES IN NEW YORK
During the first half of the nineteenth century, the condition of the
free Negroes in the Southern States became more and more critical. The
doctrine of the rights of man, which had swept over the world in the
latter part of the eighteenth century had had its effect on the
colonists and resulted in the manumission of many slaves. These
freedmen taking advantage of their economic and educational
opportunities became an ever increasing menace to the social
institutions that had no foundation except that of slavery. Ambitious,
often aggressive, they were a constant source of dissatisfaction
because of the unhappy comparison of their lot with that of the
slaves. They, moreover, encouraged the slaves to improve their
condition and to escape to the North. This situation was rendered
still more critical for the reason that the South, considering slavery
indispensable to its economic life, was already being lashed into a
frenzy to gain new slave territory and to strengthen the institution
by every possible method of oppression of the blacks. Measures
inimical to the economic progress of freedmen were enacted.[495] Many
who had been manumitted were seized and again reduced to slavery.
Educational opportunities were restricted or denied. Legally they were
without voice and hence could secure no redress when wronged.[496]
This economic poverty, insecurity of personal liberty, and absolutely
negative political status, impelled the freedmen to find better
conditions in the North. The reaction against plantation life and the
glittering attractions of the large city with the prospect of earning
money less arduously no doubt account for their influx into the
industrial centers.[497] These free blacks migrated in great numbers
especially to New York and Philadelphia. The Colonization Society
attempted to solve the problem by effecting the colonization of the
free Negroes somewhere either within or without the United States.
Many friends of the Negroes and even some of the Negroes themselves
thought favorably of the idea and a few small colonies were formed in
the Western States and in Liberia.[498]
Among the anti-slavery men who at first saw no fault in the aims of
the Colonization Society was Gerrit Smith. The son of a slave owner in
the State of New York, he was acquainted with slavery in the milder
form in which it existed in the North. It was just two years before
his birth that the legislature of New York passed its act of
emancipation providing that all children after the year 1799 should be
free, the males on reaching the age of twenty-eight years and the
female twenty-five. His father, Peter Smith, was a slaveholder and the
owner of extensive lands in the counties of northern New York; and
even before his death the management of these vast properties devolved
upon his son.
He soon became deeply interested in the uplift of the slaves and
endeavored to improve their condition by gradual emancipation looking
forward to colonization. As early as 1834, his diary shows a growing
belief in the universal right to liberty. Years ripened this belief
and also developed his anti-land-monopolist principles, both of which
reached fruition in his act of 1846, by which he gave away thousands
of acres of land. He severed his connection with the Colonization
Society when that body overtly declared that it was not a society for
the abolition of slavery nor for the improvement of the blacks nor for
the suppression of the slave trade, and he threw his energy into the
work of abolition as fervently, if not as drastically, as
Garrison.[499]
Anti-land-monopolist as he was, Gerrit Smith believed that the life of
the small free farmer was calculated to develop thrift and self
respect in the character of the colored freedmen that he saw crowded
in sections of the large cities. For although enjoying greater
security of personal liberty, the mass of colored people in New York
State had not made much economic progress, even to the extent of
possessing property valued at two hundred and fifty dollars, which in
that State would have entitled them to the right to vote.[500] He said
that he had for years indulged the thought that when he had sold
enough land to pay his debts, he would give away the remainder to the
poor. He was an Agrarian, who wanted every man desirous to own a farm
to have one. He, therefore, felt that it was safe to make a beginning
in the work of distributing land to individuals. He had theretofore
given tracts of land to public institutions and a few small parcels to
individuals, but had not entered upon the larger task of making large
donations of land to the poor.
He then planned to transfer three thousand parcels of land of forty to
sixty acres each during the following three years. To whom among the
poor he should make these deeds, was a question he could not hastily
solve. He was sure, however, that, inasmuch as his home and the land
were both in the State of New York, it would be very suitable to
select his beneficiaries from among the people of that State. But for
a long time, he was at a loss to decide, whether to take his
beneficiaries generally from the meritorious poor or only from the
deserving Negroes. He said, "I could not put a bounty on color. I
shrank from the least appearance of doing so, and if I know my heart,
it was equally compassionate toward such white and black men as are
equal sufferers."[501] In the end, however, he concluded to confine
his gifts to Negroes.
He would not have come to this conclusion he said, if the land he had
to give away had been several times as much as it was, nor if the
Negroes, the poorest of the poor, had not been the most deeply wronged
class of the citizens. "That they are so," said he, "is evident, if
only from the fact, that the cruel, killing, Heaven-defying prejudice
of which they are victims, has closed against them the avenues to
riches and respectability--to happiness and usefulness. That they are
so, is also evident from the fact, that, whilst white men in this
State, however destitute of property, are allowed to vote for Civil
Rulers, every colored man in it who does not own landed estate to the
value of two-hundred and fifty dollars, is excluded from the exercise
of this natural and indispensably protective right."[502] He confessed
that he was influenced by the consideration that there was great
encouragement to improve the condition of the Negroes, because every
amelioration in it contributed to loosen the bands of the enslaved
portion of their outraged and afflicted race.
He, therefore, requested Reverend Theodore S. Wright, Reverend Charles
B. Ray, and Dr. J. McCune Smith, three representative Negroes of New
York City, to make out a list of the Negroes who should receive from
him parcels of land. His only restrictions upon them in making this
selection were that they should choose no person younger than
twenty-one and no person older than sixty; that they accept no person
who was in easy circumstances as to property; and no one who was
already the owner of land, and no drunkards.[503] He further promised
to pay all taxes as well as purchase money and interest due to the
State of New York hoping that none of the parcels would be sold for
the nonpayment of taxes.[504] The total number of colonists were to be
one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five, to be distributed as
follows: in the county of Suffolk, 127; Queens, 215; Kings, 197; New
York, 861; Richmond, 832; Rockland, 331; Westchester, 115; Dutchess,
150; Sullivan, 5; Ulster, 106; Orange, 136; and Putnam, 10. Although
this distribution was suggested the actual grants seem to have been
made in the counties of Franklin, Essex, Hamilton, Fulton, Oneida,
Delaware, Madison and Ulster.
On September 9, 1846, he wrote again to three gentlemen of color,
saying that a thousand of the deeds were already in the hands of the
committee for distribution. He had saved them the expense of securing
the certificate of the County Clerk by having the acknowledgment of
the execution taken by a Supreme Court judge. The only expense left
for the beneficiaries to bear was the recording of the deed. The
letter closed with a request that the three gentlemen prepare and send
out a circular among the persons receiving the deeds, making known to
them the conditions and reasons which actuated him in bestowing the
land. This was done and the recipients were exhorted to profit by the
chance to become land owners and thereby secure their right to vote.
These lands, as Smith realized and admitted, were not all arable but
many of them had considerable timber. Such property today would be
considered valuable, but in those days of plentitude it passed as
undesirable. Some of his enemies accused him of making for himself a
reputation for generosity by giving away useless land. There is no
evidence, however, that such accusations were made by the
Negroes.[505] But be that as it may, the experiment was a failure. It
was not successful because of the intractability of the land, the
harshness of the climate, and in a great measure, the inefficiency of
the settlers. They had none of the qualities of farmers. Furthermore,
having been disabled by infirmities and vices they could not as
beneficiaries answer the call of the benefactor. Peterboro, the town
opened to Negroes in this section did maintain a school and served as
a station of the underground railroad but the agricultural results
expected of the enterprise never materialized.[506] The main trouble
in this case was the impossibility of substituting something foreign
for individual enterprise.
The failure of the enterprise did not cause this philanthropist to
cease his activities in behalf of freedom and justice to the Negroes.
He continued a staunch abolitionist, demanding unconditional
emancipation of the slaves and leaving undone nothing which might
effect this change. He was once intimately associated with John Brown,
who at one time left his home and purchased from Smith a farm in the
Negro colony in order to live with the blacks and help them to improve
their economic condition. Smith lived until 1874, long enough to see
the Negroes freed and many of them making elsewhere that economic
progress which was the dream of his earlier years.
ZITA DYSON
FOOTNOTES:
[495] See the session laws of the State Legislatures, and Woodson's
_Education of the Negro Prior to 1861_, pp. 151-178.
[496] Goodell, _Slave Code_, and Hurd, _The Law of Freedom and
Bondage_, II, pp. 1-218.
[497] Woodson, _A Century of Negro Migration_, Chapter II.
[498] The JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, I, p. 276; II, p. 209.
[499] Frothingham, _Gerrit Smith_, pp. 94-143.
[500] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, II, p. 56.
[501] Frothingham, _Gerrit Smith_, p. 103.
[502] Frothingham, _Gerrit Smith_, 104.
[503] _Letter of Gerrit Smith to Theodore S. Wright, Charles B. Ray,
and J. McCune Smith._
[504] _Ibid._
[505] _Special Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education on the
Schools of the District of Columbia_, 1871, p. 367; _The African
Repository_, X. p. 312.
[506] Frothingham, _Gerrit Smith_, p. 73.
THE BUXTON SETTLEMENT IN CANADA
The Buxton, or Elgin Association Settlement, in Kent county, western
Ontario, was in many respects the most important attempt made before
the Civil War to found a Negro refugee colony in Canada. In
population, material wealth and general organization it was
outstanding, and the firm foundation upon which it was established is
shown by the fact that today, more than half a century after
emancipation, it is still a prosperous and distinctly Negro
settlement.
The western peninsula of Ontario, lying between Lakes Huron and Erie,
was long the Mecca of the fugitive slave. Bounded on the east by the
State of New York, on the west by Michigan, and on the south by Ohio
and northwestern Pennsylvania, this was the part of Canada most easily
reached by the fugitive; and Niagara, Cleveland, Detroit and other
lake ports saw thousands of refugees cross narrow strips of water to
"shake the lion's paw" and find freedom in the British queen's
dominions. During the forties and fifties there was a constant stream
of refugees into Canada. As many as thirty in a day would cross the
Detroit River at Fort Malden alone. Many of these went to the cities
and towns, but others found greater happiness in the separate Negro
communities which grew up here and there.
The history of the Buxton settlement, one of these, is closely linked
with the name of Rev. William King. King was a native of Londonderry,
Ireland, a graduate of Glasgow College, who had emigrated to the
United States and become rector of a college in Louisiana. Later he
returned to Scotland, studied theology in the Free Church College,
Edinburgh, and in 1846 was sent out to Canada as a missionary of the
Free Church of Scotland. While he was living in Louisiana he became,
through marriage, the owner of fifteen slaves of an estimated value
of $9,000. For a time he placed them on a neighboring plantation and
gave them the proceeds of their labor but that did not satisfy his
conscience and in 1848 he brought them to Canada, thereby
automatically giving them their freedom. His effort on their behalf
did not end here. Having brought them to this new country, he felt it
a duty to look after them, to educate and make of them useful
citizens. The same thing, he believed, could be done for others in
like circumstance.
The first effort to secure a tract of land for the refugees was made
by the Rev. Mr. King as the representative of the Presbyterian Church.
This application was before the Executive Council of the Canadian
Government in September, 1848, but was not successful. Steps were at
once taken to organize a non-sectarian body to deal with the
government and this new body took the name of the Elgin Association in
honor of the then governor-general of the Canadas who seems to have
been well disposed toward the refugees. The Elgin Association was
legally incorporated "for the settlement and moral improvement of the
colored population of Canada, for the purpose of purchasing crown or
clergy reserve lands in the township of Raleigh and settling the same
with colored families resident in Canada of approved moral
character."[507] Rev. Dr. Connor was the first president; Rev. Dr.
Willis, of Knox College, Toronto, first vice-president, and Rev.
William King, second vice-president. J. T. Matthews was the secretary,
J. S. Howard, treasurer, while the original directors were E. A. T.
McCord, Walter McFarland, Peter Freland, Charles Bercsy, W. R. Abbott,
John Laidlaw, E. F. Whittesend and James Brown. These are the names
that appear upon the petition to the government for lands, the
original of which is in the Dominion Archives.