The Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts Among the Negroes in the Colonies
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was organized in London in the year 1701. During the eighteenth century the British Colonies of the New World constituted the principal field of missionary endeavor for this organization. There were then in North America 250,000 settlers, whole colonies of whom were living in heathenism while others were adhering to almost every variety of strange faiths. The work of proselyting these people was too important to be intrusted to individual enterprise and too extensive to be successfully prosecuted by the heads of the Church only. The ministrations of the Established Church were then limited to a few places in Virginia, New York, Maryland and the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. To supply this deficiency the Society endeavored to use missionaries as a direct means to convert the heathen of all races, whether Europeans, Indians or Negroes. There were cruel masters who objected to the conversion of their slaves,[1] but that any race should be denied the message of salvation because of its color was ever repudiated by the Society. From the very beginning of this work the conversion of the Negroes was as important to the Society as that of bringing the whites or the Indians into the church. Such dignitaries of the church, as Rev. Thomas Bacon and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, Sanderson and Wilson, ever urged this duty upon their brethren at home and abroad.[2]
The first really effective work of the Society was done in South Carolina. Reverend Mr. Thomas of Goose Creek Parish in that State early instructed the Indian and Negro slaves of his vicinity. He directed his attention to the Negroes in 1695 and ten years later counted among his communicants twenty blacks, who with several others "well understanding the English tongue," could read and write. He further said, in 1705: "I have here presumed to give an account of one thousand slaves so far as they know of it and are desirous of Christian knowledge and seem willing to prepare themselves for it, in learning to read, for which they redeem the time from their labor. Many of them can read the Bible distinctly and great numbers of them were learning when I left the province."[3]
This work, however, had not proceeded without much opposition. The sentiment as to the enlightenment of the blacks was largely that of the youth who resolved never to go to the holy table while slaves were received there. Others felt like the lady who inquired: "Is it possible that any of my slaves should go to heaven, and must I see them there?"[4] The earnest workers sent out by the Society, however, did not cease to labor in behalf of the Negroes and the number of masters willing to have their slaves instructed gradually increased. Among these liberal owners were John Morris, of St. Bartholomew's, Lady Moore, Captain David Davis, Mrs. Sarah Baker at Goose Creek, Landgrave Joseph Morton and his wife of St. Paul's, the Governor and a member of the Assembly, Mr. and Mrs. Skeen,[5] Mrs. Haigue and Mrs. Edwards. So successful were the efforts of Mrs. Haigue and Mrs. Edwards that they were formally thanked by the Society for their care and good example in instructing the Negroes of whom no less than twenty-seven prepared by them, including those of another planter, were baptized by the Reverend E. Taylor of St. Andrew's within two years.[6]
Other less liberal masters refused to allow their slaves to attend Mr. Taylor for instruction, but some of them were induced to teach the blacks the Lord's Prayer. The result even from this was so successful that there came to the church more Negroes than could be accommodated. So great was their desire for instruction that had it not been for the opposition of their owners, almost all of them would have been converted. "So far as the missionaries were permitted," says one, "they did all that was possible for their evangelization, and while so many professed Christians among the planters were lukewarm, it pleased God to raise to himself devout servants among the heathen, whose faithfulness was commended by the masters themselves. In some of the congregations the Negroes or blacks constituted one half of the communicants."[7]
This interest of the clergy in the Negroes of South Carolina continued in spite of opposition. Rev. Mr. Guy, of St. Andrew's Parish, said that he baptized "a Negro man and a Negro woman" in 1723, and Rev. Mr. Hunt, minister of St. John's Parish, reported in that same year that "a slave, a sensible Negro, who can read and write and comes to church, is a Catechumen under probation for Baptism which he desires."[8] A new impetus too was given the movement about 1740. Influenced by such urgent addresses as those of Dr. Brearcroft, and Bishops Gibson, Wilson and Seeker, the workers of the Society were aroused to proselyting more extensively among the Negroes. In 1741 the Bishop of Canterbury expressed his gratification at the large number of Negroes who were then being brought into the church.[9]
A decided step forward was noted in 1743. That year a school for Negroes was opened by Commissary Garden and placed in charge of Harry and Andrew, two colored youths, who had been trained as teachers at the cost of the Society. This establishment was a sort of training school for bright young blacks who felt called to instruct their fellow countrymen. For adults who labored during the day it was an evening school. It was successfully conducted for more than twenty years. In 1763 the institution was for some unknown reason closed after being conducted in the face of many difficulties and obstructions, although this was the only educational institution in that colony for its 50,000 blacks.[10]
Some good results were obtained by the missionaries of the Society of North Carolina, but difficulties were also encountered there. The chief trouble seems to have been that missionaries of that colony were "frustrated by the slave owners who would by no means permit" their Negroes to be baptized, "having a false notion that a christened slave is by law free."[11] "By much importunity," says an investigator, Mr. Ransford of Chowan (in 1712) prevailed on Mr. Martin to let him baptize three of his Negroes, two women and a boy. "All the arguments I could make use of," said he, "would scarce effect it till Bishop Fleetwood's sermon (in 1711) ... turned ye scale."[12] Mr. Rumford succeeded, however, in baptizing upwards of forty Negroes in one year. In the course of time, when the workers overcame the prejudice of the masters, a missionary would sometimes baptize fifteen to twenty-four in a month, forty to fifty in six months, and sixty to seventy in a year.[13] Reverend Mr. Newman, a minister in North Carolina, reported in 1723 that he had baptized two Negroes who could say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and gave good sureties for their further information.[14] According to the report of Rev. C. Hall, the number of conversions there among Negroes for eight years was 355, including 112 adults, and "at Edenton the blacks generally were induced to attend service at all these stations, where they behaved with great decorum."[15]
In the Middle and Southern Colonies these missionaries had the cooperation of Dr. Thomas Bray. In 1696 he was sent to Maryland by the Bishop of London to do what he could toward the conversion of adult Negroes and the education of their children.[16] Bray's most influential supporter was M. D'Alone, the private secretary of King William. D'Alone gave for the maintenance of the cause a fund, the proceeds of which were first used to employ catechists, and later to support the Thomas Bray Mission after the catechists had failed to give satisfaction. At the death of this missionary the task was taken up by certain of his followers known as the "Associates of Dr. Bray."[17] They extended their work beyond the bounds of Maryland. These benefactors maintained two schools for the benefit of Negroes in Philadelphia. About the close of the French and Indian War, Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary in North Carolina, found there a school for the education of Indians and Negroes conducted by "Dr. Bray's Associates."[18]
Georgia too was not neglected. The extension of the work of Dr. Bray's associates into the colony made an opening there for taking up the instruction of Negroes. The Society joined with these workers for supporting a schoolmaster for Negroes in 1751 and an improvement in the slaves was soon admitted by their owners.[19] In 1766 Rev. S. Frink, a missionary toiling in Augusta, found that he could neither convert the Indians nor the whites, who seemed to be as destitute of religion as the former, but succeeded in converting some Negroes.[20]
In Pennsylvania the missionary movement found less obstacles to the conversion of Negroes than to that of the Indians. In fact, the proselyting of Negroes in the colony was less difficult than in some other parts of America. The reports of the missionaries show that slaves were being baptized there as early as 1712.[21] About this time a Mr. Yeates, of Chester, was commended by the Rev. G. Ross "for his endeavors to train up the Negroes in the knowledge of religion."[22] Moved by the appeal of the Bishop of London, other masters permitted the indoctrination of their slaves in the principles of Christianity. At Philadelphia the Rev. G. Ross baptized on one occasion 12 adult Negroes, "who were examined before the congregation and answered to the admiration of all who heard them.... The like sight had never been seen before in that church."[23] Rev. Mr. Beckett, minister in Sussex County, Pennsylvania, said in 1723 that he had admitted two Negro slaves and that many Negroes constantly attended his services.[24] The same year Rev. Mr. Bartow baptized a Negro at West Chester.[25] Rev. Mr. Pugh, a missionary at Appoquinimmick, Pennsylvania, said, in a letter written to the Society in 1737, that he had received a few blacks and that the masters of the Negroes were prejudiced against their being Christians.[26] Rev. Richard Locke christened eight Negroes in one family at Lancaster in 1747 and another Negro there the following year.[26a] In 1774 the Rev. Mr. Jenney reported that there was "a great and daily increase of Negroes in this city who would with joy attend upon a catechist for instruction"; that he had baptized several, but was unable to add to his other duties; and the Society, ever ready to lend a helping hand to such pious undertakings, appointed the Rev. W. Sturgeon as catechist for the Negroes at Philadelphia.[27] The next to show diligence in the branch of the work of the Society was Mr. Neill of Dover. He baptized as many as 162 within 18 months.[28]
The operations of the Society did not seem to cover a large part of New Jersey. The Rev. Mr. Lindsay wrote of the baptizing of a Negro at Allerton in 1736.[29] The reports from the missions of New Brunswick show that a large number of Negroes had attached themselves to the church. This condition, however, did not obtain in all parts of that colony. Yet subsequent reports show that the missionary spirit was not wanting in that section. The baptism of black children and the accession of Negro adults to the church were from time to time reported from that field.[30]
The most effective work of the Society among Negroes of the Northern colonies was accomplished in New York. In that colony, the instruction of the Negro and Indian slaves to prepare them for conversion, baptism, and communion was a primary charge oft repeated to every missionary and schoolmaster of the Society. In addition to the general efforts put forth in the colonies, there was in New York a special provision for the employment of sixteen clergymen and thirteen lay teachers mainly for the evangelization of the slaves and the free Indians. For the Negro slaves a catechizing school was opened in New York City in 1704 under the charge of Elias Neau. This benevolent man, after several years' imprisonment because of his Protestant faith, had come to New York to try his fortunes as a trader. As early as 1703 he called the attention of the Society to the great number of slaves in New York "who were without God in the world, and of whose souls there was no manner of care taken"[31] and proposed the appointment of a catechist to undertake their instruction. He himself finally being prevailed upon to accept this position, obtained a license from the Governor, resigned his position as elder in the French church and conformed to the Established Church of England, "not upon any worldly account but through a principle of conscience and hearty approbation of the English liturgy."[32] He was later licensed by the Bishop of London.
Neau's task was not an easy one. At first he went from house to house, but afterwards arranged for some of the slaves to attend him. He succeeded, however, in obtaining gratifying results. He was commended to the Society by Rev. Mr. Vesey in 1706 as a "constant communicant of our church, and a most zealous and prudent servant of Christ, in proselyting the miserable Negroes and Indians among them to the Christian Religion, whereby he does great service to God and his church."[33] Further confidence in him was attested by an act of the Society in preparing at his request "a Bill to be offered to Parliament for the more effectual Conversion of the Negro and other Servants in the Plantations, to compell Owners of Slaves to cause children to be baptized within 3 months after their birth and to permit them when come to years of discretion to be instructed in the Christian Religion on our Lord's day by the Missionaries under whose ministry they live."[34]
Neau's school suffered greatly in 1712 because of the prejudice engendered by the declaration that instruction was the main cause of the Negro riot in that city. For some days Neau dared not show himself, so bitter was the feeling of the masters. Upon being assured, however, that only one Negro connected with the school had participated in the affair and that the most criminal belonged to the masters who were openly opposed to educating them, the institution was permitted to continue its endeavors, and the Governor extended to it his protection and recommended that masters have their slaves instructed.[35] Yet Neau had still to complain thereafter of the struggle and opposition of the generality of the inhabitants, who were strongly prejudiced with a horrid motive thinking that Christian knowledge "would be a means to make the slave more cunning and apter to wickedness."[36] Not so long thereafter, however, the support of the best people and officials of the community made his task easier. Neau could say in 1714 that "if the slaves and domestics in New York were not instructed it was not his fault."[37] The Governor, the Council, Mayor, the Recorder and the Chief Justice informed the Society that Neau had performed his work "to the great advancement of religion in general and the particular benefit of the free Indians, Negro slaves, and other Heathens in those parts, with indefatigable zeal and application."[38]
Neau died in 1722. His work was carried on by Mr. Huddlestone, Rev. Mr. Whitmore, Rev. Mr. Colgan, Rev. R. Charlton, and Rev. S. Auchmutty. From 1732 to 1740 Mr. Charlton baptized 219 slaves and frequently thereafter the number admitted yearly was from 40 to 60.[39] The great care exercised in preparing slaves for the church was rewarded by the spiritual knowledge which in some cases was such as might have put to shame many persons who had had greater advantages. Rev. Mr. Auchmutty, who served from 1747 to 1764, reported that there was among the Negroes an ever-increasing desire for instruction and "not one single Black" that had been "admitted by him to the Holy Communion" had "turned out bad or been in any shape a disgrace to our holy Profession."[40]
The interest in the enlightenment of Negroes too extended also to other parts of the colony. In 1737 Rev. Mr. Stoupe wrote of baptizing four black children at New Rochelle.[41] Mr. Charlton had taken upon himself at New Windsor the task of instructing these unfortunates before he entered upon the work in New York City. At Staten Island too he found it both practical and convenient "to throw into one the classes of his white and black catechumens."[42] Rev. Charles Taylor, a schoolmaster at that place, kept a night school "for the instruction of Negroes, and of such as" could not "be spared from their work in the day time."[43] Rev. J. Sayre, of Newburgh, followed the same plan of coeducation of the races in each of the four churches under his charge.[44] Rev. T. Barclay, an earnest worker among the slaves in Albany, reported in 1714 "a great forwardness" among them to embrace Christianity "and a readiness to receive instruction."[45] He found much opposition among certain masters, chief among whom were Major M. Schuyler and his brother-in-law Petrus Vandroffen. Sixty years later came the report from Schenectady that there were still to be found several Negro slaves of whom 11 were sober, serious communicants.[46]
These missionaries met with more opposition than encouragement in New England. The Puritan had no serious objection to seeing the Negroes saved, but when the conversion meant the incorporation of the undesirable class into the state, then so closely connected with the church, many New Englanders became silent. This opposition, however, was not effective everywhere. From Bristol, Rev. J. Usher wrote in 1730 that several Negroes desired baptism and were able "to render a very good account of the hope that was in them," but he was forbidden by their masters to comply with the request. Yet he reported the same year that among others he had in his congregation "about 30 Negroes and Indians," most of whom joined "in the public service very decently."[47] At Newtown, where greater opposition was encountered, Rev. J. Beach seemed to have baptized by 1733 many Indians and a few Negroes.[48] The Rev. Dr. Cutler, a missionary at Boston, wrote to the Society in 1737 that among those he had admitted to his church were four Negro slaves.[49] Endeavoring to do more than to effect nominal conversions, Doctor Johnson, while at Stratford, had catechetical lectures during the summer months of 1751, attended by many Negroes and some Indians, as well as whites, "about 70 or 80 in all." And said he: "As far as I can find, where the Dissenters have baptized 2, if not 3 or 4 Negroes or Indians, I have four or five communicants."[50] Dr. Macsparran conducted at Narragansett a class of 70 Indians and Negroes whom he frequently catechized and instructed before the regular service.[51] Rev. J. Honyman, of Newport, had in his congregation more than 100 Negroes who "constantly attended the Publick Worship."[52]
It appears then that the Negroes were instructed by the missionaries in all of the colonies except some remote parts of New England, Virginia and Maryland. The Established Church had workers among the white persons in those colonies but they did not always direct their attention to the slaves. This does not mean, however, that the slaves in those parts were entirely neglected. There were at work other agencies to bring them to the light. And so on it continued until the outbreak of the Revolution, when the work of these missionaries was impeded and in most cases brought to a close.
C. E. Pierre
Footnotes
[[return]]1. "An Account of the Endeavor Used by the S.P.G.," pp. 6-12; Meade, "Sermons of Rev. Thomas Bacon," pp. 31 et seq.
[[return]]2. Special Report of U. S. Commission of Ed., 1871, pp. 300 et seq.
[[return]]3. Journal, Vol. I, May 30, July 18, and Aug. 15, 1707; Special Report of the U. S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 363.
[[return]]4. Pascoe, "Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," p. 15.
[[return]]5. Ibid., 15.
[[return]]6. In 1713 this churchman wrote his supporters:
"As I am a minister of Christ and of the Church of England, and a Missionary of the most Christian Society in the whole world, I think it my indispensable and special duty to do all that in me lies to promote the conversion and salvation of the poor heathens here, and more especially of the Negro and Indian slaves in my own parish, which I hope I can truly say I have been sincerely and earnestly endeavoring ever since I was a minister here where there are many Negro and Indian slaves in a most pitifull deplorable and perishing condition tho' little pitied by many of their masters and their conversion and salvation little desired and endeavored by them. If the masters were but good Christians themselves and would but concurre with the ministers, we should then have good hopes of the conversion and salvation at least of some of their Negro and Indian slaves. But too many of them rather oppose than concurr with us and are angry with us, I am sure I may say with me for endeavouring as much as I doe the conversion of their slaves.... I cannot but honour Madame Haigue.... In my parish a very considerable number of Negroes ... were very loose and wicked and little inclined to Christianity before her coming among them I can't but honor her so much ... as to acquaint the Society with the extraordinary pains this gentle woman and one Madm. Edwards, that came with her, have taken to instruct those negroes in the principles of the Christian Religion and to instruct and reform them; And the wonderful successe they have met with, in about a half a year's time in this great and good work. Upon these gentle women's desiring me to come and examine these negroes ... I went and among other things I asked them, Who Christ was. They readily answered. He is the Son of God and Saviour of the world and told me that they embraced Him with all their hearts as such, and I desired them to rehearse the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, which they did very distinctly and perfectly. 14 of them gave me so great satisfaction, and were so very desirous to be baptized, that I thought it my duty to baptize them and therefore I baptized these 14 last Lord's Day. And I doubt not but these gentlewomen will prepare the rest of them for Baptism in a short Time." Journal, Vol. II, Oct. 6, 1713; A. Mss., Vol. VIII, pp. 356-7; Pascoe, "Digest of Records of S.P.G.," p. 15.
[[return]]7. Journal, II, 328; XIV, 48; XX, 132-133; XVI, 165-166.
[[return]]8. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1723, p. 46.
[[return]]9. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," 16.
[[return]]10. Meriwether, "Education in South Carolina," p. 123; McCrady, "South Carolina," etc., p. 246; Dalcho, "An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina," pp. 156, 157, 164.
[[return]]11. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 22.
[[return]]12. Ibid., 22.
[[return]]13. Ibid., 23.
[[return]]14. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1723, p. 47.
[[return]]15. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 22.
[[return]]16. Smyth, "Works of Franklin," V, 431.
[[return]]17. Wickersham, "History of Education in Pennsylvania," p. 249.
[[return]]18. Bassett, "Slavery and Servitude in North Carolina," p. 226.
[[return]]19. Journal, Vol. XI, pp. 305 and 311.
[[return]]20. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 28.
[[return]]21. Journal, Vol. XVII, p. 97.
[[return]]22. Ibid., II, 251.
[[return]]23. Journal, IX, 87.
[[return]]24. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1723, p. 47.
[[return]]25. Ibid., 1737, 50.
[[return]]26. Ibid., 1737, p. 41.
[[return]]26a. Pennsylvania Magazine of History, XXIV, 467, 469.
[[return]]27. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 38.
[[return]]28. Ibid., 39.
[[return]]29. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1736.
[[return]]30. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," 55.
[[return]]31. Ibid., 56.
[[return]]32. Ibid., 57, and "Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed.," 1871, 362; and "An Account of the Endeavors Used by the S.P.G.," pp. 6-12.
[[return]]33. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 58.
[[return]]34. Ibid., Journal, I, Oct. 20, 1710.
[[return]]35. "Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed.," 1871, p. 362.
[[return]]36. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 59.
[[return]]37. Journal, III, Oct. 15, 1714.
[[return]]38. Humphreys, "Historical Account of the S.P.G.," 243.
[[return]]39. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 65.
[[return]]40. Ibid., 66.
[[return]]41. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1737.
[[return]]42. Pascoe, "Digest, etc.," p. 68.
[[return]]43. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1723, p. 50.
[[return]]44. Journal, XIX, 452-453.
[[return]]45. Ibid., January 21, 1715.
[[return]]46. Pascoe, "Digest of the Records of the S.P.G.," p. 67.
[[return]]47. Ibid., 46.
[[return]]48. Ibid., 47.
[[return]]49. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1737 and 1738, p. 39.
[[return]]50. Ibid., p. 40.
[[return]]51. Proceedings of the S.P.G., 1723, 51.
[[return]]52. Ibid., 1723, p. 52.
People of Color in Louisiana
Part I
The title of a possible discussion of the Negro in Louisiana presents difficulties, for there is no such word as Negro permissible in speaking of this State. The history of the State is filled with attempts to define, sometimes at the point of the sword, oftenest in civil or criminal courts, the meaning of the word Negro. By common consent, it came to mean in Louisiana, prior to 1865, slave, and after the war, those whose complexions were noticeably dark. As Grace King so delightfully puts it, "The pure-blooded African was never called colored, but always Negro." The gens de couleur, colored people, were always a class apart, separated from and superior to the Negroes, ennobled were it only by one drop of white blood in their veins. The caste seems to have existed from the first introduction of slaves. To the whites, all Africans who were not of pure blood were gens de couleur. Among themselves, however, there were jealous and fiercely-guarded distinctions: "griffes, briqués, mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, each term meaning one degree's further transfiguration toward the Caucasian standard of physical perfection."[1]
Negro slavery in Louisiana seems to have been early influenced by the policy of the Spanish colonies. De las Casas, an apostle to the Indians, exclaimed against the slavery of the Indians and finding his efforts of no avail proposed to Charles V in 1517 the slavery of the Africans as a substitute.[2] The Spaniards refused at first to import slaves from Africa, but later agreed to the proposition and employed other nations to traffic in them.[3] Louisiana learned from the Spanish colonies her lessons of this traffic, took over certain parts of the slave regulations and imported bondmen from the Spanish West Indies. Others brought thither were Congo, Banbara, Yaloff, and Mandingo slaves.[4]
People of color were introduced into Louisiana early in the eighteenth century. In 1708, according to the historian, Gayarré, the little colony of Louisiana, at the point on the Gulf of Mexico now known as Biloxi, in the present State of Mississippi, had been in existence nine years. In 1708, the population of the colony did not exceed 279 persons. The land about this region is particularly sterile, and the colonists were little disposed to undertake the laborious task of tilling the soil. Indian slavery was attempted but found unprofitable and exceedingly precarious. So Bienville, lacking the sympathy of De las Casas for the Indians, wrote his government to obtain the authorization of exchanging Negroes for Indians with the French West Indian islands. "We shall give," he said, "three Indians for two Negroes. The Indians, when in the islands, will not be able to run away, the country being unknown to them, and the Negroes will not dare to become fugitives in Louisiana, because the Indians would kill them."[5]
Bienville's suggestion seems not to have met with a very favorable reception. Yet, in 1712, the King of France granted to Anthony Crozat the exclusive privilege for fifteen years of trading in all that immense territory which, with its undefined limits, France claimed as Louisiana. Among other privileges granted Crozat were those of sending, once a year, a ship to Africa for Negroes.[6] When the first came, is not known, but in 1713 twenty of these Negro slaves from Africa are recorded in the census of the little colony on the Mississippi.[7]
In 1717 John Law flashed meteor-wise across the world with his huge scheme to finance France out of difficulty with his Mississippi Bubble. Among other considerations mentioned in the charter for twenty-five years, which he obtained from the gullible French government, was the stipulation that before the expiration of the charter, he must transport to Louisiana six thousand white persons, and three thousand Negroes, not to be brought from another French colony. These slaves, so said the charter, were to be sold to those inhabitants who had been two years in the colony for one half cash and the balance on one year's credit. The new inhabitants had one or two years' credit granted them.[8] In the first year, the Law Company transported from Africa one thousand slaves, in 1720 five hundred, the same number the next March, and by 1721 the pages of legal enactments in the West Indies were being ransacked for precedents in dealing with this strange population. But of all these slaves who came to the colony by June, 1721, but six hundred remained. Many had died, some had been exported. In 1722, therefore, the Mississippi Company was under constraint to pass an edict prohibiting the inhabitants of Louisiana from selling their slaves for transportation out of the colony, to the Spaniards, or to any other foreign nation under the penalty of the fine of a thousand livres and the confiscation of the Negroes.[9]
But already the curse of slavery had begun to show its effects. The new colony was not immoral; it may best be described as unmoral. Indolence on the part of the masters was physical, mental and moral. The slave population began to lighten in color, and increase out of all proportion to the importation and natural breeding among themselves. La Harpe comments in 1724 upon the astonishing diminution of the white population and the astounding increase of the colored population.[10] Something was undoubtedly wrong, according to the Caucasian standard, and it has remained wrong to our own day.[11] The person of color was now, in Louisiana, a part of its social system, a creature to be legislated for and against, a person lending his dark shade to temper the inartistic complexion of his white master. Now he began to make history, and just as the trail of his color persisted in the complexion of Louisiana, so the trail of his personal influence continued in the history of the colony, the territory and the State.
Bienville, the man of far-reaching vision, saw the danger menacing the colony, and before his recall and disgrace before the French court, he published, in 1724, the famous Black Code.[12] This code followed the order of that of the West Indies but contains some provisions to meet local needs. The legal status of the slave was that of movable property of his master. Children born of Negro parents followed the condition of their mother. Slaves were forbidden to carry weapons. Slaves of different masters could not assemble in crowds by day or night. They were not permitted to sell "commodities, provisions, or produce" without permission from their masters, and had no property which did not belong to their masters. Neither free-born blacks nor slaves were allowed to receive gifts from whites. They could not exercise such public functions as arbitrator or expert, could not be partners to civil or criminal suits, could not give testimony except in default of white people, and could never testify against their masters. If a slave struck his master or one of the family so as to produce a bruise or shedding blood in the face, he had to be put to death. Any runaway slave who continued to be so from the day his master "denounced" him suffered the penalty of having his ears cut off and being branded on his shoulder with a fleur-de-lis. For a second offence the penalty was to hamstring the fugitive and brand him on the other shoulder. For the third such offence he suffered death. Freed or free-born Negroes who gave refuge to fugitive slaves had to pay 30 livres for each day of retention and other free persons 10 livres a day. If the freed or free-born Negroes were not able to pay the fine, they could be reduced to the condition of slaves and sold as such.
The slaves were socially ostracized. Marriage of whites with slaves was forbidden, as was also the concubinage of whites and manumitted or free-born blacks with slaves. The consent of the parents of a slave to his marriage was not required. That of the master was sufficient, but a slave could not be forced to marry against his will.
There were, however, somewhat favorable provisions which made this code seem a little less rigorous. The slaves had to be well fed and the masters could not force them to provide for themselves by working for their own account certain days of the week and slaves could give information against their owners, if not properly fed or clothed. Disabled slaves had to be sent to the hospital. Husbands, wives, and their children under the age of puberty could not be seized and sold separately when belonging to the same master. The code forbade the application of the rack to slaves, under any pretext, on private authority, or mutilation of a limb, under penalty of confiscation of the slave and criminal prosecution of the master. The master was allowed, however, to have his slave put in irons and whipped with rods or ropes. The code commanded officers or justices to prosecute masters and overseers who should kill or mutilate slaves, and to punish the murder according to the atrocity of the circumstance.
Other provisions were still more favorable. The slaves had to be instructed in the Catholic religion. Slaves appointed by their masters as tutors to their children were held set free. Moreover, manumitted slaves enjoyed the same rights, privileges and immunities that were enjoyed by those born free. "It is our pleasure," reads the document, "that their merit in having acquired their freedom shall produce in their favor, not only with regard to their persons, but also to their property, the same effects that our other subjects derive from the happy circumstance of their having been born free."[13]
From the first appearance of the gens de couleur in the colony of Louisiana dates the class, the gens de couleur libres. The record of the legal tangles which resulted from the attempts to define this race in Louisiana is most interesting. Up to 1671, all Creoles, Mulattoes, free Negroes, etc., paid a capitation tax. In February 12 of that year, M. de Baas, Governor-General of Martinique, issued an order exempting the Creoles. Those Mulattoes who were also designated as Creoles claimed the same exemption and resisted paying the tax. M. Patoulet, Intendent, rendered a decision in 1683 and said: "The Mulattoes and free Negroes claimed to be exempt from the capitation tax: I have made them pay without difficulty. I decide that those Mulattoes born in vice should not receive the exemption, and that for the free Negro, the master could give him freedom but could not give him the exemption that attaches to the whites originally from France."[14] The next year, the Mulattoes refused to pay, and the successor of Minister Patoulet, M. Michel Begou, asked for a law to compel them.[15] In 1696, an agreement was reached exempting the Mulattoes and Creoles, leaving only the free black subject to the tax.[16] But in 1712, a M. Robert, in a decision on a subject, again included the Mulattoes, without, however, mentioning the Creoles, so that only the free Negroes and Mulattoes paid.[17] Thus they were held as a class apart. A free Negro woman, Magdelaine Debern, further contested the matter, and in 1724, in the colony of Louisiana, won a decision exempting free Negroes and Mulattoes, and again placing them on the same footing with the Creole. The Creoles had a decided advantage, however, because through the favor of those in authority, there was always a disposition to exalt them.[18]
It is in the definition of the word Creole that another great difficulty arises. The native white Louisianian will tell you that a Creole is a white man, whose ancestors contain some French or Spanish blood in their veins. But he will be disputed by others, who will gravely tell you that Creoles are to be found only in the lower Delta lands of the state, that there are no Creoles north of New Orleans; and will raise their hands in horror at the idea of being confused with the "Cajans," the descendants of those Nova Scotians whom Longfellow immortalized in Evangeline. Sifting down the mass of conflicting definitions, it appears that to a Caucasian, a Creole is a native of the lower parishes of Louisiana, in whose veins some traces of Spanish, West Indian or French blood runs.[19] The Caucasian will shudder with horror at the idea of including a person of color in the definition, and the person of color will retort with his definition that a Creole is a native of Louisiana, in whose blood runs mixed strains of everything un-American, with the African strain slightly apparent. The true Creole is like the famous gumbo of the state, a little bit of everything, making a whole, delightfully flavored, quite distinctive, and wholly unique.
From 1724 to the present time, frequent discussions as to the proper name by which to designate this very important portion of the population of Louisiana waged more or less acrimoniously.[20] It was this Creole element who in 1763 obtained a decision from Louis XV that all mixed bloods who could claim descent from an Indian ancestor in addition to a white outranked those mixed bloods who had only white and African ancestors.[21] In Jamaica, in 1733, there was passed a law that every person who could show that he was three degrees removed from a Negro ancestor should be regarded as belonging to the white race, and could sit as a member of the Jamaica Assembly.[22] In Barbadoes, any person who had a white ancestor could vote. These laws were quoted in Louisiana and influenced legislation there.[23]
Gov. Perier succeeded Bienville as Governor of Louisiana. His task was not a light one; the colony staggered under "terror of attack from the Indians, sudden alarms, false hopes, anxious suspense, militia levies, colonial paper, instead of good money, industrial stagnation, the care of homeless refugees, and worst of all, the restiveness of the slaves. The bad effects of slave-holding began to show themselves." Many of the slaves had been taken in war, and were fierce and implacable. Some were of that fiercest of African tribes, the Banbaras. A friendliness, born of common hatred and despair, began to show itself between the colored people and the fierce Choctaw Indians surrounding the colony, when Gov. Perier planned a master-stroke of diplomacy. Just above New Orleans lived a small tribe of Indians, the Chouchas, who, not particularly harmful in themselves, had succeeded in inspiring the nervous inhabitants of the city with abject fear. Perier armed a band of slaves in 1729 and sent them to the Chouchas with instructions to exterminate the tribe. They did their work with an ease and dispatch that should have been a warning to their white masters. In reporting the success of his plan Perier said: "The Negroes executed their mission with as much promptitude as secrecy. This lesson taught them by our Negroes, kept in check all the nations higher up the river."[24] Thus, by one stroke the wily Governor had intimidated the tribes of Indians, allayed the nervous fears of New Orleans, and effected a state of hostility between the Indians and the Africans, who were beginning to be entirely too friendly with each other. Then Perier used the slaves to make the entrenchments about the city. Thus we have the first instance of the arming of the Negro in Louisiana for the defense of the colony. On the 15th of January, 1730, Gov. Perier sent a boat containing twenty white men and six Africans to carry ammunition to the Illinois settlement up the Mississippi river whence tales of massacre and cruelty by the Indians filtered down.[25]
The arming of the slaves in defense of the whites gave impetus to the struggle for their own freedom. In the massacre of the French by the Natchez, at the village of that name, over three hundred women and slaves were kept as prisoners, and in January of the same year which witnessed the massacre of the Chouchas, the French surprised the Natchez Indians with the intention of recovering their women and slaves, and avenging the death of their comrades. Some of the Africans who had been promised their freedom if they allied themselves with the Natchez Indians, fought against their erstwhile masters, others were loyal, and helped the French. The battle became an issue, as it were, between the slaves. Over one hundred of them were recovered from the Indians.[26]
The first tribute we have paid to the black man as a soldier in Louisiana was paid by Gov. Perier in this war in his dispatch to the French government. "Fifteen negroes," he wrote, "in whose hands we had put weapons, performed prodigies of valor. If the blacks did not cost so much, and if their labors were not so necessary to the colony, it would be better to turn them into soldiers, and to dismiss those we have, who are so bad and so cowardly that they seem to have been manufactured purposely for this colony."[27]
But the tiger had tasted blood. Perier's cruel logic was reactionary. Since he had used blacks to murder Indians in order to make bad blood between the races, the Indians retaliated by using blacks to murder white men. In August of that same fateful year, the Chickasaws, who had given asylum to the despoiled Natchez in order to curb the encroachments of the white men, stirred the black slaves to revolt. We have noted before the prevalence of the Banbara Negroes in the colony. It was they who planned the rebellion. Their plan was, after having butchered the whites, to establish a Banbara colony, keeping as slaves for themselves all blacks not of their nation. The conspiracy was discovered by the hints of a woman in the revolt before it had time to ripen, and the head of the revolt, a powerful black named Samba with eight of his confederates was broken on the wheel, and the woman hanged.[28]
Gov. Perier's administration did not lack interest. The next year, in 1731, we find him still struggling with his old enemies, the Natchez. His dispatches mention that a crew under one De Coulanges, with Indians and free blacks had been massacred by the Indians. One dispatch has the greatest interest for us, because of the expression "free blacks"[29] used. Here is one of the great mysteries of the person of color in Louisiana. Whence the free black? We are told explicitly that up to this time all Negroes imported into Louisiana were slaves from Africa, for the West Indian migration did not occur until a half century later. This dispatch from Gov. Perier recalls articles in the Black Code of 1724, where explicit directions are given for the disposition of the children of free blacks. In the regulations of police under the governorship of the Marquis of Vandreuil, 1750, there is an article regulating the attitude of free Negroes and Negresses toward slaves. Here is the very beginning of that aristocracy of freedom so fiercely and jealously guarded until this day, a free person of color being set as far above his slave fellows as the white man sets himself above the person of color. Three explanations for this aristocracy seem highly probable: Some slaves might have been freed by their masters because of valor on the battlefield, others by buying their freedom in terms of money, and not a few slave women by their owners because of their personal attractions. It makes little difference in this story which of the three or whether all of the three were contributors to the rise of this new class. It existed as early as 1724, twelve years after the first recorded slave importation. It was in 1766 that some Acadians, complaining of their treatment to the Governor Ulloa, represented that Negroes were freemen while they were slaves.
Bienville returned to the colony as its governor in 1733, after an absence of eight years, and it is recorded that in 1735, when he reviewed his troops near Mobile while making preparations for an Indian war, he found that his army from New Orleans consisted of five hundred and forty-four white men, excluding the officers, and forty-five Negroes commanded by free blacks.[30] Here we note free black officers of Negro troops in 1735. If not actually the first regular Negro troops to appear in what is now the United States, they were certainly the first to be commanded by Negro officers.
The engagement with the Choctaw Indians was not altogether successful for the French. Disaster succeeded disaster, and the day closed with the French army deeply humiliated, and making a retreat as dignified as possible under the circumstances. A number of the French officers, as Gayarré tells us, stood under the shade of a gigantic oak discussing the defeat, and with them Simon, a free black, the commander of the troop of Negroes. He was deeply vexed because his troops had not stood fire, and expressed himself with so much freedom and disgust, that the French officers kept bantering him without mercy at the timidity of his soldiers, soothing their own wounded pride by laughing at his mortification. Stung to the heart, Simon finally exclaimed wrathfully, "A Negro is as brave as anybody and I will show it to you." Seizing a rope which was dangling from one of the tents, he rushed headlong toward one of the horses which were quietly slaking their thirst under the protection of the Indian muskets. To reach a white mare, to jump on her back with the agility of a tiger, and to twist around her head and mouth the rope with which to control her, was the affair of an instant. But that instant was enough for the apparently sleeping Indian village to show itself awake, and to flash forth into a hail of bullets. Away dashed Simon toward the Indian village, and back to the French camp where he arrived safe amid the cheering acclamations of the troops, and without having received a wound from the shots of the enemy.[31] This feat silenced at once the jests of the French officers, of which Simon thought himself the victim.[32]
The beginning of the Revolutionary war in 1776 found Louisiana a Spanish province and the natives of the colony beginning to tolerate and even to like their erstwhile hated Spanish masters. Don Bernardo de Galvez was governor of the colony. His administration has a peculiar interest to us, because it was during his rule that the Court of Madrid, fully alive to the policy of extending the agriculture of Louisiana, issued a decree permitting the introduction of Negroes into Louisiana by French vessels, from whatever ports they might come.[33] This was the beginning of the rapid migration from the West Indian islands.
While Andrew Jackson was still a child, Louisiana had a deliverer from the British in the person of this brave Gov. Galvez. The strategical importance of the Mississippi River and of New Orleans was at once apparent to the British commanders, and Louisiana, being neutral territory, offered a most fascinating field of operation. Galvez, in July, 1777, had secured declaration of neutrality from the 25,000 or more Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws, but even this did not seem to satisfy the combatants. New Orleans was at the mercy of first the American troops and then the British. The mediation of Spain between France and England having been rejected in the courts of Europe, Spain decided to join France in the struggle against Great Britain. So on May 8, 1779, Spain formally declared war against Great Britain, and on July 8 authorized all Spanish subjects in America to take their share in the hostilities against the English. No news could be more welcome to the dashing young Galvez, to whom a policy of neutrality was decidedly distasteful. He decided to forestall the attack on New Orleans, which he had learned was to be made by the British, by attacking first, and on August 26 gathered his little army together. From New Orleans, as Gayarré tells, were 170 veteran soldiers, 330 recruits, 20 carabiniers, 60 militiamen, and 80 free blacks and mulattoes. On the way up the river, they were reinforced by 600 men from the coast of "every condition and color," besides 160 Indians.[34]
On the march, the colored men and Indians were ordered to keep ahead of the main body of troops, at a distance of about three quarters of a mile, and closely to reconnoitre the woods. In capturing the two forts of Baton Rouge and Natchez, which were held by the British, Galvez found a considerable number of Negro slaves who had been armed by the British. Many of these he set free. In his dispatch to his government at Madrid, Galvez reports that the companies of free blacks and mulattoes, who had been employed in all the false attacks, and who, as scouts and skirmishers, had proved exceedingly useful, behaved on all occasions with as much valor and generosity as the white soldiers.[35] But not alone were the exploits of Galvez's little army celebrated in history. Poetry added her laurel wreath to its crown. Julien Poydras de Lalande, known to all Louisianians as Poydras, celebrated the victory in a poem, "The God of the Mississippi," wherein the brave deeds of the army, white and colored, are hailed in French verse, lame and halting, it may be in places, but impartial in its tribute.
The close of the Revolutionary war found the colony partially paralyzed as to industry. During the Spanish domination the indigo industry declined, tobacco was difficult to raise, and the production of cotton was not then profitable. Sugar raising was the only other industry to which they could turn. In 1751 the Jesuit fathers had received their first seed, or rather layers, from Santo Domingo and from that time sugar-cane had been grown with more or less success. But it was a strictly local industry. The Louisianians were poor sugar-makers. The stuff was badly granulated and very moist, and when in 1765 an effort was made to export some of the sugar to France, it was so wet that half of the cargo leaked out of the ship before it could make port. It was just at this psychological moment, in 1791 to 1794, when the planters of the lower Delta saw ruin staring them in the face, that there came to the rescue of the colony a man of color, one of the refugees from Santo Domingo, where the blacks had risen in 1791. From the failure of this abortive attempt to emulate the spirit of the white man, refugees flew in every direction, and Louisiana welcomed them, if not exactly with open arms, at least with more indifference than other colonies. And these black refugees were her saviors. For they had been prosperous sugar-makers, and the efforts to make marketable sugar in Louisiana, which had ceased for nearly twenty-five years, were revived. Two Spaniards, Mendez and Solis, erected on the outskirts of New Orleans, the one a distillery, the other a battery of sugar-kettles, and manufactured rum and syrup. Still, the efforts were not entirely successful, until Etienne de Boré appeared. Face to face with ruin because of the failure of the indigo crop, he staked his all on the granulation of sugar. He enlisted the services of these successful Santo Dominicans, and went to work. In all American history there can be fewer scenes more dramatic than the one described by careful historians of Louisiana, the day when the final test was made and there was passed around the electrical word, "It granulates!"[36]
That year de Boré marketed $12,000 worth of super or sugar. The agriculture of the Delta was revolutionized; seven years afterwards New Orleans marketed 2,000,000 gallons of rum, 250,000 gallons of molasses, and 5,000,000 pounds of sugar. It was the beginning of the commercial importance of one of the most progressive cities in the country. Imagination refuses to picture what would have been the case but for the refugees from San Domingo.
But the same revolution which gave to Louisiana its prestige to the commercial world, almost starved the province to death. In the year 1791, the trade, which had flourished briskly between Santo Domingo and New Orleans, was closed because of the uprising, and but for Philadelphia, famine would have decimated the city. 1,000 barrels of flour were sent in haste to the starving city by the good Quakers of Philadelphia. The members of the Cabildo, the local council, prohibited the introduction of people of color from Santo Domingo, fearing the dangerous ideas of the brotherhood of man. But it was too late. The news of the success of the slaves in Santo Domingo, and the success of the French Revolution, says Gayarré, had penetrated into the most remote cabins of Louisiana, and in April, 1795, on the plantation of the same Poydras who had sung the glory of the army of Galvez, a conspiracy was formed for a general uprising of the slaves throughout the parish of Pointe Coupée. The leaders were three white men. The conspiracy failed because one of the leaders was incensed at his advice not being heeded and through his wife the authorities were notified. A struggle ensued, and the conspiracy was strangled in its infancy by the trial and execution of the slaves most concerned in the insurrection. The three white men were exiled from the colony.[37] This finally ended the importation of slaves from the West Indies.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
Footnotes
[[return]]1. King, "New Orleans, the Place and the People during the Ancien Regime," 333.
[[return]]2. De las Casas, "Historia, General," IV, 380.
[[return]]3. Herrera, "Historia General," dec. IV, libro II; dec. V, libro II; dec. VII, libro IV.
[[return]]4. French, "Historical Collections of Louisiana," Part V, 119 et seq.
[[return]]5. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," 4th Edition, I, 242, 254.
[[return]]6. French, "Historical Collections of Louisiana," Part III, p. 42.
[[return]]7. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 102.
[[return]]8. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 242, 454.
[[return]]9. Ibid., I, 366.
[[return]]10. Ibid., I, 365-366.
[[return]]11. In 1900 a writer in Pearson's Magazine in discussing race mixture in early Louisiana made some startling statements as to the results of the miscegenation of these stocks during the colonial period.
[[return]]12. Code Noir, 1724.
[[return]]13. Code Noir.
[[return]]14. Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien régime, p. 49.
[[return]]15. Ibid., 49.
[[return]]16. Ibid., 50.
[[return]]17. Ibid., 51.
[[return]]18. In the treaty of 1803 between the newly acquired territory of Louisiana and the government of the United States, they and all mixed bloods were granted full citizenship.
[[return]]19. Most writers of our day adhere to this definition. See Grace King, "New Orleans, etc.," and Gayarré, "History of Louisiana."
[[return]]20. Lebeau, De la condition des gens de couleur libres sous l'ancien régime, passim.
[[return]]21. Ibid., 60.
[[return]]22. Laws of Jamaica.
[[return]]23. Litigation on the subject of the definition of the free person of color reached its climax in the year of our Lord, 1909, when Judge Frank D. Chretien defined the word Negro as differentiated from person of color as used in Louisiana. The case, as it was argued in court, was briefly this. It was charged that one Treadway, a white man, was living in illegal relations with an octoroon, Josephine Lightell. The District Attorney claimed that any one having a trace of African blood in his veins, however slight, should be classed as a Negro. Counsel for the defence had taken the position that Josephine Lightell had so little Negro blood in her veins that she could not be classed as one. Judge Chretien held in his ruling that local opinion, custom and sentiment had previously agreed in holding that the black, and not the white blood settled the ethnological status of each person and that an octoroon, no less than a quadroon and a mulatto, had been considered a Negro. But he held that if the Caucasian wished to be considered the superior race, and that if his blood be considered the superior element in the infusion, then the Caucasian and not the Negro blood must determine the status of a person. The case went to the Supreme Court of Louisiana on an appeal from the decision of Judge Chretien who held that a mulatto is not a Negro in legal parlance. The Supreme Court in a decision handed down April 25, 1910, sustained the view of Judge Chretien. This decision was an interpretation of an act of 1908 which set forth a definition of the word Negro.--See State vs. Treadway, 126 Louisiana, 300.
[[return]]24. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 444, 448.
[[return]]25. Ibid., I, 365, 442, 454.
[[return]]26. Ibid., I, 448.
[[return]]27. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 435.
[[return]]28. Ibid., 440.
[[return]]29. Ibid., I, 444.
[[return]]30. Dumont, "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 225, 226.
[[return]]31. Another interesting story is related by Dumont, a historian of Louisiana, who published a work in 1753. The colony was then under the administration of Gov. Kerlerec, whose opinion of colonial courage was not very high. The colony was without an executioner, and no white man could be found who would be willing to accept the office. It was decided finally by the council to force it upon a Negro blacksmith belonging to the Company of the Indies, named Jeannot, renowned for his nerve and strength. He was summoned and told that he was to be appointed executioner and made a free man at the same time. The stalwart fellow started back in anguish and horror, "What! cut off the heads of people who have never done me any harm?" He prayed, he wept, but saw at last that there was no escape from the inflexible will of his masters. "Very well," he said, rising from his knees, "wait a moment." He ran to his cabin, seized a hatchet with his left hand, laid his right hand on a block of wood and cut it off. Returning, without a word he exhibited the bloody stump to the gentlemen of the council. With one cry, it is said, they sprang to his relief, and his freedom was given him.--Dumont, "Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane," 244, 246.
The story is also told by Grace King of one slave, an excellent cook, who had once served a French governor. When, in one of her periodic transitions from one government to another, Louisiana became the property of Spain, the "Cruel" O'Reilly was made governor of the colony. He was execrated as were all things sent by Spain or pertaining to Spanish rule. However, having heard of the fame of the Negro cook, he sent for him. "You belong now," said he, "to the king of Spain, and until you are sold, I shall take you into my service." "Do not dare it;" answered the slave, "you killed my master, and I would poison you." O'Reilly dismissed him unpunished.--Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," II, 344.
[[return]]32. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," I, 480.
[[return]]33. Ibid., III, 108.
[[return]]34. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 108.
[[return]]35. Ibid., III, 126-132.
[[return]]36. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 348.
[[return]]37. Gayarré, "History of Louisiana," III, 354.
The Defeat of the Secessionists in Kentucky in 1861
The treatment of the Border States in the crisis of 1861 has received from historians the same attention as Saxony, the objective point between Prussia and Austria in the Seven Years' War. Directing special attention to Kentucky requires some explanation. The possession of this commonwealth was for several reasons more important than that of some other border States. The transportation facilities afforded by the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers furnished the key to carrying out the plan to divide the South. The possession of the State by the Confederates was of strategic importance for the invasion of the North too for the reason that the Ordinance of 1787 had been so interpreted as to fix the boundary of Kentucky on the north side of the Ohio River. It was, moreover, the native State of Abraham Lincoln and it was important to have that commonwealth support this untrained backwoodsman whom most statesmen considered incapable of administering the affairs of the nation.
In the beginning, the situation was not the least encouraging to the Unionists. The Breckenridge Democrats had carried the State in 1859 on a platform favoring Southern rights. Their chief spokesman had become such a defender of their faith that in 1860 he was chosen to lead the radically proslavery party which had come to the point of so doubting the orthodoxy of their Northern adherents as to deem it advisable to separate from them. Unalterably in favor of the rights of the slave States, the leaders of this persuasion had expressed themselves in terms that could not be misunderstood.[1] One of their spokesmen Humphrey Marshall contended that slavery is not a creature of municipal law. He believed that the institution followed the flag. He wanted Union but only with that equality which involved the recognition of the right of property in slaves everywhere.[2] Speaking in the House of Representatives on January 30, 1861, John W. Stephenson, another of this faction, said on the same topic: "Equality underlaid the whole Federal structure, and protection to persons and property within the Federal jurisdiction, was the price of allegiance of the States to such General Government, as delegated and prescribed in the constitution. Wherever the American banner floated upon the seas or land, all beneath it was entitled to the protection of the flag."[3]
On this question, their leader John C. Breckenridge, "a believer in the old Democratic creed and a supporter of the South and her institutions,"[4] took the same, if not higher ground. Referring to the Dred Scott decision in a speech delivered in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1859, Breckenridge said: "After this decision we had arrived at a point where we might reasonably expect tranquillity and peace. The equality of rights and property of all the states in the common Territory, having been stamped by the seal of judicial authority, all good citizens might well acquiesce."[5] When the Southern States seceded because of the threatened infringement of these rights, the President of the United States, according to Breckenridge, had no right to enlist men and no right to blockade the Southern ports, in short, no right to wage war on these commonwealths. Lincoln had thus overthrown constitutional government. If he was trying to preserve the Union, he must do it in a constitutional way. Breckenridge wanted the Union but contended that it would be no good without the Constitution.[6] To sum up, as Southern Democrats they had helped to disrupt the Charleston Convention, and developing into a strict Southern rights party, they had through bolting made possible the election of Abraham Lincoln. They then finally joined the States' rights party, which, boldly declaring the election of Lincoln a just cause for the dissolution of the Union, undertook to secede.[7]
With such radical leaders in control it might seem strange that, in a State formed from an aristocratic commonwealth like Virginia and extending into the fertile region of the Mississippi, these protagonists of States' rights did not turn Kentucky over to the Confederacy. Exactly what part did the rich slaveholders play during this crisis when the State was called upon to decide the question between the North and South? What was the position of such influential men as James B. Clay, George B. Hodge, Cerro Gordo Williams, T. P. Porter, Roger W. Hansom, and S. B. Buckner?[8]
Other representative citizens, however, had been equally outspoken in favor of the Union. Voicing the sentiment of the Union party, which on the eighth of January met in Louisville to take steps to support the Federal Government, Bell said: "Let us offer everything we can to avert the torrent of evil, but let us always stand ready to support our rights in the Union: the State is deeply and devotedly attached to the Union."[9] Garrett Davis inquired: "Will you preserve the Union or rush into the vortex of revolution under the name of secession?"[10] J. T. Boyle said in the same convention that there could be no benefit or advantage, no civil or political rights, no interest of any kind whatever, secured by government in the Southern Confederacy which the people did not then enjoy in the "blessed Union formed by our fathers." In his opinion, it was the duty of Kentuckians "to stand by the Star Spangled Banner and cling to the Union."[11] Some of the most influential newspapers were fearlessly advocating the Union cause. Among others were the Frankfort Daily Commonwealth, the Louisville Courier and the Democrat.
Exactly what support these leaders of the differing factions would obtain was determined by forces for centuries at work in that State. Southerners who thought that, because Kentucky was a slave State it should go with the South, had failed to take these causes into consideration. In the first place, not every slaveholder was an ardent proslavery agitator. There were masters who like Henry Clay considered slavery an evil and hoped to see it abolished, but while the majority of their fellow countrymen held on to it they did so too. Many Kentuckians, moreover, were like that restless class of Westerners who, dissatisfied with the society based on slavery, had taken up land beyond the mountains, where the poor man could toil up from poverty.[12] Kentucky was the first section west of the Allegheny mountains settled by these daring adventurers because they were there cut off from the North by the French and from the South by the Spanish, and in Kentucky, a section hemmed in by these foreign possessions, the settlers were less liable to be disturbed. And even when the barrier of foreign claims had been removed, the movement of population from the East to the West took place along lines leading to the States later organized in the West rather than into Kentucky. The people of Kentucky, therefore, were not radically changed in a day by the influx of population. On the contrary, many of them, especially the mountaineers, have not changed since the days of Boone and Henderson. Some of them having left the uplands of the colonies because they were handicapped by slavery, were naturally opposed to the bold claims of that institution in 1861. They, like the Westerners, learned to look to the General Government for the establishment of commonwealths, the building of forts, and the maintenance of troops,[13] and, therefore, adhered to it when it was threatened with destruction.
Another cause, moreover, was equally as potential. In Kentucky as in some other Southern States, there had grown up a considerable number of prosperous country towns, where resided lawyers, merchants, bankers, teachers, and mechanics, who had little property interest in slavery, who felt their own "intellectual superiority to the country squires and their fox-hunting, horse-racing, quarrelsome sons, and who consequently asserted social independence of them and social equality with them."[14] They were hostile to the aristocratic masters, whom they generally denounced as "oligarchs," "slavocrats," "Lords of the Lash," and "Terror Engenders."[15] This mercantile and professional class, inspired by such men as Hinton Rowan Helper, contemplated the removal of the Negroes and the bringing of white laborers into the South.[16]
In view of this cleavage, it was difficult in the beginning of the struggle to characterize the situation. There were unconditional Secessionists and unconditional Union men. Judging from the condition then obtaining, no one could tell exactly which way the State would go. "Sympathy, blood, and the community of social feeling growing out of slavery," says one, "inclined her to the South; her political faith which Clay more than any other man had inspired her with and which Crittenden now loyally represented held her fast to the Union."[17] Many of the people, though believing in States' rights, did not think that the grievances of the South were such as to justify secession. At the same time they opposed "coercion," and since a reconstructed Union was impossible they would have solved the difficulty by peaceful separation. Writing to Gen. McClellan June 8, 1861, Garrett Davis said: "The sympathy for the South and the inclination to secession among our people is much stronger in the southwestern corner of the state than it is in any other part, and as you proceed toward the upper section of the Ohio and our Virginia line, it gradually becomes weaker until it is almost wholly lost.... I doubt not that two thirds of our people are unconditionally for the Union. The timid are for it and they shrink from convulsion and civil war, while all the bold, the reckless, and the bankrupt are for secession."[18] This categorical distinction, however, is hardly right. There were Kentuckians of representative families on both sides in all parts of the State except in the extreme West.[19] A careful study of the facts, however, leads one to the conclusion that even in the beginning there were more Unionists than Secessionists. The Unionists, unhappily, were not organized while the Secessionists were led by the State officials, chief among whom was Governor Magoffin.
When the Southern States began to secede Governor Magoffin called a special session of the State legislature, thinking that he could have a secession convention called. He said in part: "I therefore submit to your consideration the propriety of providing for the election of delegates to a convention to be assembled at an early day to which shall be referred for full and final determination the future of the Federal and interstate relations of Kentucky." He further said: "Kentucky will not be an indifferent observer of the force policy. The seceding States have not in their haste and inconsiderate action our approval, but their cause is our right and they have our sympathies. The people of Kentucky will never stand by with folded arms while those States are struggling for their constitutional rights and resisting oppression and being subjugated to an anti-slavery government."[20] He believed that the idea of coercion, when applied to great political communities, is revolting to a free people, contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and if successful would endanger the liberties of the people.[21] But the legislature did not provide for such a convention. On the eleventh of February this body adjourned. It reassembled on the twentieth of March and remained in session until the fourth of April, but still these important matters were not decided. Pursuant to another call of the Governor, it reassembled on the 6th of May and sat until the twenty-fourth of May when it adjourned. On the second of September the legislature elected in August came in, but still the important question as to what should be done hung in the balance. At first there came up the resolutions introduced by George W. Ewing on the twenty-first of January, expressing regret that certain States had furnished men and money for the coercion of the seceded States, and requesting the Governor of Kentucky to notify such States that should attempts be made to coerce these commonwealths, Kentucky would join the South.[22] This resolution passed the House but did not pass the whole legislature as so many have said. A resolution for calling a convention to amend the Constitution of the United States was passed.[23] Several distinguished men of Kentucky sat in this convention which was in session from the fourth to the twenty-second of February without accomplishing anything.
The majority of Kentuckians were then neutral. There were two classes of neutrals, however. This was easily possible since neutrality meant one thing to one man and a different thing to another. Each faction looked forward to the adoption of this policy as a victory over the other. The Unionists accepted it as the best policy, not knowing that, taking such a position, they would aid the Confederacy. Even John J. Crittenden had this idea. He said: "If Kentucky and the other border States should assume this attitude, war between the two sections of the country would be averted and the Confederate states after a few years' trial of their experiment would return voluntarily to the Union." [24]
Neutrality was considered a necessity for another reason; namely, the expected short duration of the war. No one believed at first that the war would last long. Even Lincoln thought that it would be over in ninety days. Some, therefore, felt that Kentucky would be foolish to cause blood to be shed on her soil when the war could easily be kept out of the State three months. This sentiment, however, must not be misunderstood as evincing a lack of interest in the Union, for in the address declaring for neutrality these same leaders said that the dismemberment of the Union was no remedy for existing evils but an aggravation of them all.[25] To many Unionists neutrality meant going slowly in the right direction. It was in keeping with Lincoln's plan not to go so rapidly toward "coercion" in Kentucky as he had in the other border States.
How then did the neutrality policy work out? On the twenty-ninth of January R. T. Jacob introduced in the lower house of the legislature a resolution declaring that the proper position of Kentucky was that of a mediator between the sections, and that as an umpire she would remain firm and impartial in that day of trial to their "beloved country that by counsel and mediation she might aid in restoring peace and harmony and brotherly love." Giving the reasons for adopting such a policy Jacob said:
"This leading sentiment of mediation was indorsed by the Union men of both Houses of the Legislature.... Some may say, why did not the Kentucky Legislature go for coercion? For two reasons: First, some States, it is true had seceded from the Union, but war had not actually commenced: second, the men at that time who would have undertaken to force coercion upon the Legislature would have been in the hopeless minority and would have immediately given a majority to the secessionists. It would have ended in total destruction to the cause of the Union in the State. Those resolutions were for two purposes. In good faith they were intended to compromise all difference between the States, and if possible to restore peace between sections. If that failed, they were intended to hold, if possible, our meagre majority until the people could act and we had no doubt that when they did speak it would be in unmistakable tones for the preservation of the Union."[26]
No action was taken on these resolutions, but on the eleventh of February there was passed a joint measure, entitled "Resolutions Declaring action by the Legislature on political affairs unnecessary and inexpedient at this time,"[27] These resolutions mentioned the great danger which environed the Union, asked the Confederates to stay the work of secession and protested against coercion. The last resolution favored the calling of a convention to amend the Constitution of the United States. Significant too for the Unionists were the last words: "It is unnecessary and inexpedient for the Legislature to take any further action on the subject at the present time, and as an evidence of the sincerity and good faith of our propositions for an adjustment and our expression of devotion to the Union and the desire for its preservation Kentucky awaits with great solicitude the responses from her sister States."[28]
Neutrality, however, became the accepted policy of so many that it proved to be dangerous. The Union State Committee, in drawing up on the eighteenth of April a resolution to please all, seemingly pledged the State to join the South. These resolutions were severely criticised by the Unionists, especially that part which says: "What the future destiny of Kentucky may be we cannot with certainty foresee. But if the enterprise announced in the proclamation of the President should at any time hereafter assume the aspect of a war for overrunning and subjugation of the seceding States, then Kentucky ought to take her stand for the South." [29] Many thought that this obligated Kentucky to go with the South. Unionists of other States considered it a victory for the Confederacy. This committee, however, stipulated this proposition to satisfy those sympathizers with the South, who believed all the bad reports concerning the functionaries of the Federal Government, circulated by the leaders of the Confederacy. Hence, they said in this proposition not that Kentucky would go with the South, but if at any time thereafter the President's proclamation should assume the aspect of war, it would do so. They evidently did not believe that it had or would assume such an aspect. They were also trying to pacify those who misunderstood the issues of "subjugation" and "coercion."[30] The relation of the States to the Union was yet a problem to many a statesman. Many thought that the colonists when in a state of nature came together and agreed to a compact, giving up some of their sovereignty and retaining the other, and, therefore, had the right to withdraw at pleasure, carrying a part of the national property with them. Such thinkers contended too that the Union had no right to "coerce" a seceded State. Calhoun had said that because the Union was a compact it could be broken; on the other hand, Jackson had said that because it was a compact it could not be broken. Now it was difficult for Kentuckians to decide who was right. That the committee had no intention of going with the Confederacy may be seen from the following declaration: "Seditious leaders in the midst of us now appeal to her (Kentucky) to furnish troops to uphold those combinations against the government of the Union. Will she comply with this appeal? Ought she to comply with it? We answer, no."[31]
While these things were going on, the great question of Fort Sumter was before the people. When the fort was finally bombarded and Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand troops Gov. Magoffin politely refused to comply. His reply was: "I say emphatically Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."[32] He had already been much moved by the large vote given the delegates to the Border States Convention, indicating such a growth of Union sentiment that he called the legislature together, hoping to win the day for secession by changing the policy of the State from mediatorial to armed neutrality, resisting all forces, whether Confederate or Federal, which might bring war into the State. The body met on the sixteenth of May, passed a resolution of mediatorial neutrality and approved the Governor's refusal to furnish troops under the existing circumstances.[33] This, however, did not mean that the legislature was in sympathy with the efforts of the Governor to support the Southern cause. Writing to Gen. Scott, John J. Crittenden explained it thus:
"The position of Kentucky and the relation she occupies toward the government of the Union is not, I fear, understood at Washington. It ought to be well understood. Very important consequences may depend upon it and upon her proper treatment. Unfortunately for us our Governor does not sympathize with Kentucky in respect to secession. His opinions and feelings incline him strongly to the side of the South. His answer to the requisition for troops was in terms hasty and unbecoming and does not correspond with the usual and gentlemanly courtesy. But while she regretted the language of his answer, Kentucky acquiesced in his declining to furnish the troops called for, and she did so not because she loved the Union less but she feared that if she had parted with those troops and sent them to serve in your ranks, she would have been overwhelmed by secessionists at home, and severed from the Union. And it was to preserve substantially and ultimately our connection with the Union that induced us to acquiesce in the partial infraction of it by our Governor's refusal of the troops required. This was the most prevailing and general motive. To this may be added the strong indisposition of our people to a civil war with the South, and the apprehended consequences of a civil war within our state and among our people.... I think Kentucky's excuse a good one and that under all the circumstances of a complicated case she is rendering better service in her present position than she could by becoming an active party in the contest."[34]
The fact is that secession had little chance in Kentucky after public opinion found expression. Neutrality early became the order of the day. The elections of 1861 were significant in that they gave the people a chance to express their will. It should be borne in mind that the legislature of 1859 was elected when the question of union or disunion was not before the people. Now in 1861 they had to elect members to the Border State Convention, a new legislature, and congressmen to represent Kentucky at the special session called by President Lincoln. In all these elections, Unionists won. Some historians like Smith and Shaler[35] seem to think that the State had pledged itself to remain unconditionally neutral, that these elections had no particular bearing on the situation and that if a "sovereignty convention" had been called, secession would have won. These writers do not seem to see that the people of Kentucky, although nominally neutral, desired to remain with the Union. Doubtless a better statement is that, although the election of 1861 showed that a large majority of the people were in favor of the Union, the Union leaders did not show so in the early part of the year and neutrality was adopted not as an end but as a means that triumph over the enemies of the Union might finally be assured.[36] We easily see now that there was not much danger of secession, but the Unionists could not see it so well at that time. Smith and Shaler doubtless exaggerate the situation, for what danger of secession could there have been when the people had elected the Union candidates for the Border State Convention to be convened at Frankfort on May 27, when they sent nine Unionists out of the ten congressmen to represent them in the special session of Congress, and when on the 5th of the following August, after the battle of Bull Run, they elected to the State Legislature 103 Unionists out of 141 members.[37] The calling of a convention then would have made little difference, if the people had chosen a majority of Unionists to represent them in other bodies. How can one conclude then that they would have elected seceders to represent them in a "sovereignty convention"? Hodge states that the sympathizers with the Confederacy did not contest to any considerable extent the elections of August, 1861, and consequently the supporters of the Federal Government were in the ascendency in the next legislature. He seems to indicate that the Unionists used fraud, but the records show that the Secessionists, regarding it as a lost cause, in many cases withdrew their candidates. Evidently these elections showed not only that secession was impossible but that neutrality could not last.[38]
After this sentiment began to change. Men boldly took decisive positions. The unwieldy neutrality party then divided into three parts: those who went to the Confederate lines to aid the Southern cause; those who openly declared themselves in favor of the Union; and those sympathizers with the South, who although in favor of the seceding States, seeing that their cause was hopeless, advocated peaceful separation and finally, when that failed, a compromise peace between the two sections.[39] The Union party, though unalterably opposed to the abolitionists and not primarily attached to the Union because of antagonism to slavery, gradually acquiesced in the policy of the Federal Government with respect to that institution. This party first reached the position that Negroes taken from the Confederates could with propriety be disposed of as contraband of war and many of its adherents grew more favorable to the policy of general emancipation.
It was soon evident that war could not long be kept out of the State. As early as April, 1861, troops for service in the Confederacy were organized in Kentucky. This movement was somewhat accelerated by an act of the legislature providing that the arms supplied to the troops should not be used against either section and that the State companies as well as the Home Guards should take the same oath as the officers requiring fidelity to the Constitution.[40] At this point many Kentuckians of proslavery tendencies were forced out of their natural position and driven into the Confederate ranks. Among these was S. B. Buckner, who went South to command about ten thousand secessionists, recruited under the leadership of Colonels Roger W. Hanson, Lloyd Tilghman, and W. D. Lannon at Camp Boone.[41]
The Governor refused to furnish Lincoln troops but he was in touch with the Confederacy, doing all he could to equip soldiers for its service,[42] though not exactly openly, as that would have been sufficient excuse for the Unionists who desired to help the Union. The Unionists who saw all of this going on desired to arm and organize their forces but they were handicapped in that the commander of the State guard was a Secessionist and care had been taken to hold the military forces for the South. In consequence of this difficulty Lincoln was secretly appealed to for arms, which were shipped to cities on the Ohio River for secret distribution among the Unionists of Kentucky as the opportunity would permit.[43] The Secessionists had referred to these guns as the first so-called violation of neutrality. The Unionists defended themselves on the ground that since the Governor and his whole machine were about in the ranks of the Confederates they were justified in doing almost anything to defend the State. Shaler says that the action on both sides was almost simultaneous and that the actual infringement of the neutrality proclamation issued by the Governor was due to the action of Polk and Zollicoffer and the simultaneous invasion of the State some hundreds of miles apart shows that the rupture of the neutrality of Kentucky was deliberately planned by the Confederate authorities.[44]
The invasion by Polk in September produced great excitement. The legislature was then in session and passed a resolution that the invaders be expelled, and that the Governor call out the military force of the State and place the same under the command of Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden. The resolutions were vetoed by the Governor but passed by a vote of two thirds.[45] The desired proclamation was issued and soon sufficient men to form forty regiments answered the call.[46] Making further response to the invasion of the State by the Confederates, the legislature ordered that the United States flag be raised over the capitol at Frankfort, and by a resolution which "affirmed" distinctly, though not directly, the doctrine of States' rights placed Kentucky in political and military association with the North.[47]
William T. McKinney
Footnotes
[[return]]1. See Debates in Congress.
[[return]]2. Marshall, Speech in Washington on the Nomination of Breckenridge and Lane, p. 3.
[[return]]3. Speech of John Stephenson on the state of the Union in the House of Representatives, January 30, 1861.
[[return]]4. Bartlett, "Presidential Candidates in 1860," pp. 344-345.
[[return]]5. Speech of Hon. J. C. Breckenridge delivered at Ashland, Kentucky, p. 9.
[[return]]6. Speech of J. C. Breckenridge on Executive Usurpation, July 16, 1861.
[[return]]7. "The Frankfort Commonwealth," August 21, 1861.
[[return]]8. These were some of the most intellectual and aristocratic men of the State. Collins exaggerates, however, when he says that few leading men opposed secession. See Collins, "History of Kentucky," I, 82.
[[return]]9. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 36.
[[return]]10. Ibid., 36.
[[return]]11. Ibid., 37.
[[return]]12. Hart, "Slavery and Abolition," 65, 178, 234; Turner, "Rise of the New West," 77.
[[return]]13. Report of the American Historical Association, 1893, pp. 219-221.
[[return]]14. Burgess, "Civil War and the Constitution," I, 30.
[[return]]15. Ibid.
[[return]]16. McMaster, "History of the United States," VIII, 426-427.
[[return]]17. Rhodes, "History of the United States," III, 391.
[[return]]18. Rhodes, "History of the United States," VII, 392.
[[return]]19. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 158-179.
[[return]]20. House Journal, 1861, Governor's Message, p. 10.
[[return]]21. Ibid., 11.
[[return]]22. House Journal, 1861, Governor's Message, p. 12.
[[return]]23. Ibid., 14.
[[return]]24. Letter of John J. Crittenden to Gen. McClellan.
[[return]]25. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 42.
[[return]]26. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," p. 45.
[[return]]27. House Journal. 1861, p. 33.
[[return]]28. Ibid., 34.
[[return]]29. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 57.
[[return]]30. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 58-62.
[[return]]31. Ibid., 58.
[[return]]32. House Journal, 1861, p. 6.
[[return]]33. Ibid., 94.
[[return]]34. Nicolay and Hay, "Life of Lincoln," IV, 233.
[[return]]35. Smith, "History of Kentucky," 610; Shaler, "History of Kentucky," 243.
[[return]]36. Smith says in describing the period of 1861: "It were well nigh certain that if a sovereignty convention could have been called at any time before the formation of the Union sentiment and policy into action and life, the state would have been carried off into the act of secession as Virginia and Tennessee were by the sense of sympathy and kinship toward the South." Shaler thinks the same. He says: "There is reason to believe that this course (neutrality) was the only one that could have kept Kentucky from secession. If what had been unhappily named a Sovereignty Convention had been called in 1861; if the state had been compelled by the decision of a body of men who were acting under the control of no constitutional enunciation, the sense of sympathy and kinship with the Southern states, such as would easily grow up under popular oratory in a mob, would probably have precipitated action." Speed, however, is doubtless right in saying all this is mere assertion and that there was no danger of secession after the people had a chance to transfer their will to the government. Shaler, "Kentucky," p. 240; Smith, "History of Kentucky," p. 610.
[[return]]37. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 93-98.
[[return]]38. Collins, "History of Kentucky," I, 243.
[[return]]39. The Frankfort Commonwealth, July 19; Aug. 19, 21, 23; Nov. 10, 20, 23; and Dec. 11, 1861; The Yeoman Weekly, May 10; June 21, 22; July 8, 1861; Daily Louisville Democrat, Sept. 7 and Oct. 8, 1861.
[[return]]40. House Journal, 1861, 240.
[[return]]41. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 192.
[[return]]42. War Records, Serial 108, p. 37; Serial 127, p. 234; Serial 110, pp. 44-64, and Serial 110, p. 71.
[[return]]43. Nicolay and Hay, "Life of Lincoln," IV, 237.
[[return]]44. Shaler, "History of Kentucky," 261.
[[return]]45. House Journal, 1861, p. 122.
[[return]]46. Speed, "The Union Cause in Kentucky," 300 et seq. See despatches and letters given in same.
[[return]]47. Rhodes, "History of the United States," III, 392.
Notes on Negroes in Guatemala During the Seventeenth Century
The introduction of Negroes into Guatemala commenced with the year of the conquest of that country by the Spaniards in 1524, when there came several Negro slaves with the conquistadores from Mexico. It seems that they soon increased in numbers, for among the decrees of the conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado, there is one which prohibits the selling of gunpowder to Indians and Negroes. The number of African slaves brought to Guatemala had, however, always remained relatively a very limited one, for as the Spaniards had plenty of cheap hands by means of a system of indentured labor forced upon the numerous Indian population, the importation of slaves evidently did not pay them well. It seems safe to say, that their total number never amounted to ten thousand.
The most copious, though still very sparse notices of them I have run across, are those given by Thomas Gage, an English Catholic educated in Spain, who, in the twenties and thirties of the seventeenth century, lived as a priest in the then city of Guatemala, nowadays called Antigua, and in some Indian villages not far from there.[1] One of the places where Thomas Gage observed a somewhat considerable population of Negroes was the so-called Costa del Sur, or Southern Coast, the hot land between the Andes and the Pacific, to the south of the capital. They were worked there on the indigo plantations and large cattle haciendas. The Negroes impressed Thomas Gage as the only courageous people in Guatemala while the Spanish Mestizos and Indians seemed to him to be very cowardly.
This writer said that if Guatemala was powerful with respect to its people, for she was not in arms nor resources, then she was so merely by virtue of a class of desperate Negroes, who were slaves living on the indigo plantations. Though they had no arms but a machete, which was their small lance used for chasing the wild cattle (nowadays, that name is given to a long and broad, sword-like knife), they were so desperate that they often caused fear to the very city of Guatemala and had made their masters tremble. "There are among them," said he, "those who have no fear to brave a wild bull, furious though he be, and to attach themselves to the crocodiles in the rivers, until they have killed them and brought them to the bank."[2]
In reading these lines, one cannot help from remembering the classical description Alexander Von Humboldt gives of the Negro boatmen of the river Dagua, in the actual republic of Colombia. The inimitable skill and unsurpassable bravery Humboldt saw them display in the midst of the ferocious currents and loud-pouring rapids of that river caused him to exclaim: "Every movement of the paddle is a wonder, and every Negro a god!" A nice monument to the fame of indomitable bravery the Negroes manifested in past times in Guatemala exists still in a saying often heard by travelers: "Esos son negros!" or "Those are Negroes," an exclamation which means: "Those are desperate men, who do not care for anything." One could also hear the saying: "Esto es obra de negros," or "that is a work of Negroes," the meaning being that it was work for bold men with iron nerves.
Another expression brings out the fact that the Negroes were considered, or forced to be, very hard workers. "Trabaja como un negro" or "he works like a Negro," signified doing "the most arduous labor." That the lot of the slaves was often a bitter one, though, because of the less greedy Spanish character, without doubt generally a less hard one than in North America, is shown by the fact that Guatemala had her "Cimarrones" just as Jamaica, and Guiana, had their Maroons.
The Spanish word "cimarron" signifies indiscriminately a runaway head of cattle or horses, that had become wild, or a runaway slave. The fugitive Negroes of Guatemala had their chief stronghold in the inaccessible mountain woods of the Sierra de las Minas, which lies near the Atlantic coast between the Golfo Dulce and the valley of the river Motagua. The Golfo Dulce, which is now abandoned because of lack of sufficient depth for the big vessels of to-day, was at that time the port of entry for the whole of Guatemala. From it a bridle-path ran over the Sierra de las Minas to the valley of the Motagua and further on to the capital. In speaking of this path over the mountain, Gage remarks: "What the Spaniards fear most until they get out of these mountains, are two or three hundred Negroes, Cimarrones, who for the bad treatment they received have fled from Guatemala and from other places, running away from their masters in order to resort to these woods; there they live with their wives and children and increase in numbers every year, so that the entire force of Guatemala City and its environments is not capable to subdue them."
They very often came out of the woods to attack those who drove teams of mules, and took from them wine, salt, clothes and arms to the quantity they needed. They never did any harm to the mule drivers nor to their slaves. On the contrary, the slaves amused themselves with the Cimarrones, because they were of the same color and in the same condition of servitude, and not seldom availed themselves of the opportunity to follow their example, and united with them to obtain liberty, though obliged to live in the woods and mountains.
Their arms were arrows and bows, which they carried only for the purpose of defending themselves against attacks of the Spaniards; for they did not harm those who passed by peacefully and who let them have a part of the provisions they carried. They often declared that their principal reason for resorting to these mountains was to be ready to join the English or Dutch, if these some day appeared in the Gulf, for they well knew that these, unlike the Spaniards, would let them live in peace.
Among the most remarkable facts learned by Thomas Gage in Guatemala is the story of a Negro freedman who had accumulated great wealth. This Negro lived in Agua Caliente, an Indian village, on the road to Guatemala City, or Antigua, where the natives had obtained considerable quantities of gold from some spot in the mountains only known to them. The Spaniards, not content with an annual tribute paid them by the Indians, endeavored in vain to force the natives to show them the mine, and because they refused killed them, thus gaining no knowledge of the mine for which they were still searching in vain in the times of Thomas Gage. "In that place of Agua Caliente," continues Gage, "there is a Negro who lives and receives very well the travelers who call upon him. His wealth consists in cattle, sheep, and goats, and he furnishes the city of Guatemala and the environments with the best cheese to be found in the country. But it is believed that his wealth does not come so much from the produce of his farm and his cattle and cheese, but from that hidden treasure which is believed known to him. He, therefore, has been summoned to the Royal Audience in Guatemala, but he has always denied to have any knowledge of it."
He had been suspected because he had formerly been a slave and had secured his liberty by means of a considerable sum. After that, he had bought his farm and much of the surrounding land and had considerably increased his original holdings. To his inquisitors he replied that, "when young and still a slave he had a kind master who suffered him to do what he pleased, and that by economy he had accumulated where-with to buy his liberty and afterwards a little house to live in; and God had given His blessing to that and let him have the means for increasing his funds."
Another one of Gage's accounts discloses the abuses common among the slave-holders under Spanish rule, and the silliness of the belief that the masters for their own benefit would treat their human property well. This account refers to one Juan Palomeque, a rich landowner and promoter of mule-transports, who lived in Gage's parish of Mexico, near the actual capital of Guatemala. He was believed to be worth six hundred thousand ducats, about 1,400,000 dollars. He owned about a hundred Negroes, men, women, and children, but was so stingy that, to avoid the expense of decent house-keeping, he never lived in the city, though he had several houses there. Instead, he lived in a straw-hut and feasted on hard, black bread and on tasajo, or thin strips of salt beef dried in the sun.
He was so cruel to his Negroes, that, when one of them behaved badly, he would whip him almost to death. He had among others a slave named Macaco, "on behalf of whom," said Gage, "I often pleaded, but in vain. At times he hung him by the hands and beat him until he had his back entirely covered with blood, and in that state, the skin being entirely torn to pieces, in order to heal up the slave's sores the master poured hot fat over them. Moreover, he had marked him with a hot iron face, hands, arms, back, belly, and legs, so that this poor slave got tired to live and intended several times to suicide himself; but I prevented him from doing so every time by remonstrances I made him."
Juan Palomeque was so sensual and voluptuous that he constantly abused the wives of his slaves as he liked, and even when he saw in the city some girl or woman of that class whom he wanted, and she was not attracted to him, he would call upon her master or mistress and buy her, "giving much more than she had cost; afterwards he boasted that he would break down her pride in one year of slavery." "In my times," said Gage, "he killed two Indians on the road to the Gulf, but by means of his money he got so easily out of that affair as if he had killed but a dog." As Gage does not tell anything of a prosecution for the crimes against the Negro, no actual law seems to have been violated.[3]
The descendants of the ancient slaves have so completely become mixed up with Spanish-Indian blood that, making exception of the valley of the Motagua River, they have practically disappeared as a race. In 1796, their number was considerably increased by the so-called Caribs, whom the English deported from the Island of St. Vincent and set ashore in Guatemala. They live now on the Atlantic coast, also on that of Honduras and Nicaragua, and are estimated to total about 20,000. They are Zambos, but the African blood seems to prevail.[4]
Footnotes
[[return]]1. Gage published in 1648 in London an account of his residence and voyages; I have only a French version of his work at hand, printed in Amsterdam, in 1721. The passages cited are re-translated from that language and, therefore, will not agree word for word with the original text.
[[return]]2. Gage's "Voyages," Part 3, Chapter II.
[[return]]3. It seems proper to add here, that three years after Guatemala had declared her independence of Spain, she abrogated slavery by decree of April 17, 1824. Thereby she got, by the way, into difficulties with Great Britain, which as late as in 1840 demanded the extradition of slaves run away from the adjacent British territory of Balize. Guatemala was by men-of-war sent to her coast forced to do so, though that was contrary to her constitution.
[[return]]4. Within the last decades, some Negroes have been brought over, from the United States, to the banana plantations of United Fruit Co., near the Atlantic coast, and occasionally, though very seldom, one meets with a black newcomer from Jamaica, Barbadoes, or other West Indian islands.