Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet B. and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE AMERICAN
Prejudice Against Color.
* * * * *
AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE,
SHOWING HOW EASILY THE NATION GOT
INTO AN UPROAR.
* * * * *
BY WILLIAM G. ALLEN,
A REFUGEE FROM AMERICAN DESPOTISM.
* * * * *
LONDON:
W. AND F. G. CASH, 5, BISHOPSGATE-STREET-WITHOUT.
EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES.
DUBLIN: JAMES MC. GLASHAN AND J. B. GILPIN
* * * * *
1853
PREFACE.
Extract of a letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith, of New York, Member of
Congress, to Joseph Sturge, Esq., of Birmingham, England. (By permission
of Mr. Sturge.)
_"Peterboro', New York, March 23rd_, 1853.
"I take great pleasure in introducing to you my much esteemed friend,
Professor Wm. G. Allen. I know him well, and know him to be a man of
great mental and moral worth. I trust, in his visit to England, he will
be both useful and happy.
"Very truly, your friend and brother,
"GERRIT SMITH."
* * * * *
"Commending Professor Allen to the friends of the colored American
citizens who are denied their rights in their own country, and wishing
him every success in the object before him,
"I am, respectfully,
"_Birmingham, 6mo., 28d._, 1853. "JOSEPH STURGE."
* * * * *
"_Clapham, August 25th_, 1853.
"My dear Sir:--
"Your determination to spend some time in Great Britain, and to employ
yourself, as opportunities occur, in giving lectures and delivering
addresses upon American topics, including the social position of the
free colored population--for which your education and personal
experience eminently fit you--has given me sincere pleasure. I trust you
will meet with ample encouragement from the friends of Abolition
throughout the United Kingdom, to whose sympathy and kindness I would
earnestly recommend you, and still more your heroic and most estimable
lady.
"Believe me, most truly yours,
"Professor W. G. Allen "GEORGE THOMPSON."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--Introduction 41
II.--Personalities 42
III.--Nobility and Servility 48
IV.--The Mob 54
V.--Dark Days 63
VI.--Brightening up,--Grand Result 79
VII.--Conclusion 91
A Short Personal Narrative
by William G Allen 95
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION
Many persons having suggested that it would greatly subserve the
Anti-slavery Cause in this country, to present to the public a concise
narrative of my recent narrow escape from death, at the hands of an
armed mob in America, a mob armed with tar, feathers, poles, and an
empty barrel spiked with shingle nails, together with the reasons which
induced that mob, I propose to give it. I cannot promise however, to
write such a book as ought to be written to illustrate fully the
bitterness, malignity, and cruelty, of American prejudice against color,
and to show its terrible power in grinding into the dust of social and
political bondage, the hundreds of thousands of so-called free men and
women of color of the North. This bondage is, in many of its aspects,
far more dreadful than that of the _bona fide_ Southern Slavery, since
its victims--many of them having emerged out of, and some of them never
having been into, the darkness of personal slavery--have acquired a
development of mind, heart, and character, not at all inferior to the
foremost of their oppressors.
The book that ought to be written, _I_ ought not to attempt; but if no
one precedes me, I shall consider myself bound by necessity, and making
the attempt, lay on, with all the strength I can possibly summon, to
American Caste and skin-deep Democracy.
The mob occurred on Sabbath (!) evening, January the 30th, 1853, in the
village of Phillipsville, near Fulton, Oswego County, New York. The
cause,--the intention, on my part, of marrying a white young lady of
Fulton,--at least so the public surmised.