Vol. VII—October, 1922—No. 4
BRAZILIAN AND UNITED STATES SLAVERY COMPARED
A General View
Whether the Teutonic races are superior to the Latin races is a mooted question, subject to prejudiced points of view. However, there is no doubt that there actually exists a great difference in the institutions of religion, law, language, customs, fashions, and moral precepts between, let us say, the Anglo-Saxon and the Portuguese. In other words, the English nation has evolved an English way of living, just as the Portuguese have adapted themselves to governing society, attacking nature in their own way.
Now assume that these two nationalities with their unlike national habits and traditions are planted in the new world. Assume the one as living in a warm temperate clime, and the other under equatorial conditions. Assume that the first nationality is self-sufficient to establish a colony, and opposed to intermarriage with other races; and then imagine the second case, where there exist a few colonists in womanless settlements with consequent marriages between the native and European common, and a large half-breed population as the result. With such diversities in national character, in the make-up of the individuals, in natural and social environment, could we expect the two peoples to react similarly to a given social institution? No wonder then, that slavery in the English colonies of North America was very much unlike the institution as it existed in Brazil.
Brazil was being tilled by slave labor long before the settlement of Jamestown, and still boasted of hordes of slaves on its plantations as late as a quarter century after the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States had been issued. As early as 1585, Pernambuco could claim 10,000 African slaves and Bahia something like three or four thousand,[1] whereas the first shipment of slaves to the English colonies in America was introduced into Jamestown harbor by a Dutch ship as late as August, 1619.[2]
In Brazil the slave trade received an impetus as a result of royal restrictions and Jesuits' opposition to the enslavement of Indians, thereby compelling the more law-abiding and docile settlers to turn from exploiting the native labor and to seek its labor supply from Africa.[3] The labor demands of the great sugar plantations, cotton fields, tobacco lands, and later the mines, kept the slave poachers on the Guinea and Angola Coast busy, so that by the middle of the eighteenth century slaves were entering Brazil on a vast scale. From 1759 to 1803, according to Keller, the colonial registers give as consigned from Angola to Brazil 642,000 Negroes. Thus, by 1800 fully one half of the total Brazilian population of 3,200,000 was slave, and by 1818 there were 1,930,000 slaves besides some 526,000 free Negroes and mulattoes, in all about sixty-three per cent of the total.[4] By the middle of the nineteenth century there was something like three millions of slaves out of a population of seven and a half millions. Lord Palmerston estimated the total number of slaves in the sixties as being 3,000,000;[5] whereas a writer in the "Revue des deux Mondes" puts the number between 2,500,000 and 4,000,000.[6] Dawson quotes the number of slaves in 1856 as being approximately 2,500,000 or forty per cent of the total population.[7] Apparently there is no actual census available on the number of slaves for this period. Needless to say, the slaves easily comprised from forty to fifty per cent of the population, and if we add all those of mixed blood we have a majority of the inhabitants of Brazil.
Now let us turn to the Old South. Slavery we know progressed somewhat in the southern colonies, and to a negligible extent in the New England colonies. The "Asiento" in 1713, by which Great Britain at the close of the War of Spanish Succession secured the right to supply the colonies of Spain with 4,800 slaves annually,[8] augmented the slave trade throughout the new world. Negroes were in demand in the rice areas, cotton fields, and tobacco plantations. In 1710 there were only 50,000 slaves in the United States, the number increased to 220,000 in 1750, to 464,000 in 1770,[9] until by the year 1790 they numbered 697,624.[10] This number constituted one-fifth of our total population.
Slavery, however, was not a venerated institution in the Southland in the eighteenth century. In fact, it was rather supported through the force of habit and the fear of the results of emancipation. Then came Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. The South went cotton mad. The United States now became the world's producer of raw cotton. Henceforth, slavery was held "the indispensable economic instrument of southern society."[11]
In the first half of the nineteenth century, then, American slavery was at its height. By 1850 the slaves numbered 3,204,313, about a few thousand less than Brazil, which at the opening of the century had so far led it in the number of slaves held.[12] Blake, writing in 1857, shows that by the last census, however, unlike Brazil, the proportion of black to white was not great, being in the neighborhood of fourteen per cent. However, taking the nation in sections, the ratio of black to white in the South was one to two, whereas in the North it was but one to sixty-eight.[13]
As to the extent of slavery in the two nations, in the United States slavery was largely confined to the semi-tropical country south of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line and the Ohio River. A slight form of domestic slavery had existed in New England, and to a greater degree in the Middle Atlantic Colonies, but was virtually unknown in the mines and cattle ranges of the West. In Brazil slavery existed practically everywhere the Europeans settled. There was no geographical section, whose sentiment and economic interests were antagonistic to slave holding. However, it was true that about the plantations of Pernambuco and Bahia slavery existed on a far more extensive scale than in the southern province of Rio Grande De Sul, where slavery was practised at a minimum.
In both the United States and Brazil there were diversified products of slave labor. In Brazil sugar was the great slave labor staple; in America, cotton. Besides cotton, the American slave was the cultivator of tobacco, rice, sugar, hemp, and molasses. In Brazil the other products were tobacco, cotton, and cattle, in addition to some cacao and rubber.
In the United States there were two types of slavery, one the storied domestic slavery of the towns, and the southern country seat, where the Negro was usually benevolently treated and loved as though one of the family. This type of slavery was most common along the Mason-Dixon line. The other type was determined by the large scale enterprises in the cotton and rice fields in the "southern" South, where absentee ownership was often the rule. Here frequently masters knew little about their slaves, and the driving of the mobs of laborers gave Harriet Beecher Stowe, no doubt, her concept of a Simon Legree.[14] In Brazil slaves did every type of work. First of all, they furnished the labor for the great sugar plantations of Pernambuco and also the cotton districts of the north. In the provinces of the south of Brazil, contrary to conditions in the United States, they were employed on cattle ranches. In Minas Geraes they were utilized in the mines. In the cities they carried on all the manual and menial work.
Henderson tells us of his observations of the African in urban occupations during the first decade of the last century in Rio. He relates that owners would send out slaves to do work for other employers, and to turn over their wages to their idle masters. He relates that masters sent slaves in pairs and threes, bearing baskets on their heads, soliciting work. This type was called "Negroes de ganho." Others bore great tubs on their heads with which they drew water from fountains to supply the inhabitants. At dusk the street was crowded with slaves carrying the refuse of the city to the dumps. Slave labor removed the imported goods from the docks. Few had the help of wagons. The English had tried to introduce carts to help the toiling slaves at the wharves, but the custom house clerks would have none of them, as they were making a "haul" on the city by hiring out their slaves, and wagons would lessen the amount of work to be done.[15]
In the United States slaves were owned by planters and private individuals exclusively. In Brazil besides the planter class, large plantations were owned by such religious orders as the Benedictine and Carmelite friars, who treated their slaves with the greatest regard for comfort and ease.[16] Furthermore, there were slaves belonging to the government. As late as the outbreak of the American Civil War, the annual report of the Brazilian minister of finance shows more than 1,500 government slaves.[17] One thing in favor of Brazil, however, was that the horrible shortcomings of absentee ownership on large plantations did not exist to any extent, since most of the proprietors resided on their own respective estates.[18]
Summing up the general condition of the Negro slave in both lands, we notice that (1) Brazilian slavery antedated and postulated American slavery; (2) that there were a larger number of slaves and a greater proportion to the total population in Brazil than in America; (3) that Brazilian slavery received its impetus through the cutting off of the native labor supply and the growth of sugar cultivation; whereas American slavery was stimulated by the invention of the cotton gin; (4) that in both countries slaves were engaged in diversified occupations, except that in Brazil besides agriculture and domestic pursuits, slaves were employed in almost every variety of unskilled and semi-skilled labor; (5) that in Brazil slavery was homogeneously distributed rather than in sectional patches; and (6), finally, that both the state and religious bodies owned slaves in Brazil.
The Social Side of Slavery
The living conditions of the Negroes in both the United States and Brazil varied in relation to the type of work. Domestic slaves in the former were generally treated well in the households of their masters. In Brazil the domestic slave was usually a Creole.[19] But our interest centers largely on the manner by which the agricultural slave lived, for after all, in him lies the crux to the whole problem. In both Brazil and America slaves were quartered on the great plantations in rude huts. Their diet was simple. Corn meal, bacon, and sweet potatoes were chief items in the diet of the American slave. In Brazil the slave was fed farina (the flour of the mandioca root), salt fish or salt meat, sometimes bacon, and in the mining districts corn flour. In both countries the slave was rudely clad. In Brazil his outfit consisted of a shirt and pants of cotton and a straw hat.[20]
In the United States slaves on the large plantations began work at sunrise, and toiled to the crack of the whip on the great plantations until sundown. Women and children, only half grown, were compelled to do their share in the fields. In Brazil conditions generally were easier for the slave. The Portuguese planter was perhaps less anxious to "drive" the work out of his bondsmen than the more enterprising Anglo-Saxon. Accordingly, we are told that at three in the afternoon, at least at Pernambuco, the heart of the sugar belt, work ceased, and the slave had the remainder of the day to himself, time which many slaves employed in cultivating a private plot of their own, hoping some day to earn enough thereby to purchase their freedom. They, like their northern brothers, were supervised in the field by a "feitor" or taskmaster, usually white, though frequently a Creole, mulatto, freedman, or even in cases, another slave.[22]
Slaves in America welcomed Sundays and the days around Christmas as periods of rest and recreation.[23] In Brazil not only did the slaves have Sundays and Christmas, but something like over thirty holidays on the Catholic calendar. Incidentally, showing there was still a breath of humanity in a stifling age of oppression, it is declared in the "Correio Braziliense" for December, 1815, on page 738, that although the Portuguese had ceased to stop work on many of these holidays, the thirty-five holidays were still enforced as days of cessation of labor in Brazil in order that the slaves might still enjoy the days of rest.[24]
The Negro slave in Africa, according to DuBois, lived generally a polygamous family life. When he came to the Southern Colonies his whole family life was made irregular and unhappy, due to the evil conditions of slavery there. The slave might marry on the plantation, but the very next day he might be sold, and separated from his wife and parents. The auction block is the foulest stain on the whole parasitic institution of slavery in the United States. In Brazil the sale of slaves from one master to another apparently was never as extensive as in our own country.[25] Moreover, the sanctity of marriage was far more highly regarded in Brazil than in the United States. A slave, who wished to be married had first to learn the requisite number of prayers; he must understand the confession, and receive the sacraments. Then, having received the consent of the master, he was married by the vicar. A slave might marry a freeman. If the husband were free and the wife slave, the child of the union was a slave; vice versa, a slave father and free mother produced a free child.[26]
In language, we find in both the Old South and Brazil, that the Africans soon forgot their native dialects, and adopted the tongue of their new home, and their language did not materially influence that of their masters in America.
Religion was a vital factor in slave life. In the Old South, religion was at first discouraged among the slaves. There was a reason for this, for masters knew that nowhere in Christian teachings were there provisions for enslaving Christians.[27] Never was religion encouraged to a great degree. In fact, as late as 1831, Virginia passed a measure, declaring that neither free nor slave Negro might "preach, exhort, or teach in any Negro assemblage." Nevertheless, religious sentiment waxed ever stronger. Beginning with the taboos of the deported tribal priest, and gradually becoming influenced by Christianity, the great Negro Church[28] grew. Sometimes the Negroes were allowed to worship under the same roof as their white superiors,[29] but they usually had to steal away to some secret place for this purpose. In Brazil, however, Christianization of the slaves was an essential. Before the Negroes in Angola (Portuguese West Africa) embarked on the slave vessel for Brazil, they were baptized "en masse." Arriving in the new world, they were branded with the crown, which proved that they had been baptized and that the king's duty on them had been paid. Next, they had to learn the doctrines of the Church and the duties of the religion they were about to embrace. Slaves from the other parts of Africa were Christianized after a year following arrival, during which time they had to learn certain prayers.[30] Most interesting is the existence among the Brazilian slaves of their own religious brotherhoods, to join which was the ambition of every Negro slave. These brotherhoods had their own versions of the Virgin Mary and Our Lady of the Rosary had her hands and face painted black.[31]
Slave Rights
Properly speaking, a true slave has no legal rights. Perhaps the words privileges and permits are happier. At any rate, the obligations and restrictions in the Old South were far more stringent than those on the plantations and urban districts of Brazil. Privileges and restrictions for slaves in the South varied according to the laws of the States; whereas in Brazil the centralized colonial government tended to unify what slavery legislation there was.
In both countries, theoretically, a master was liable for indiscriminately killing his slaves or for practising cruelty. To be sure, the penalty was slight for so great an offense, but public opinion in Brazil, especially, more than once pointed its finger at the brutal master. In practice, even the slightest defense of a maltreated slave was rarely heard before the magistrates, for no slave in the case of the South could bear witness against a white. In Brazil the ouvidor of the province was the one to punish the cruel master, but then, who would dare report?[32] In Brazil, if a slave was unruly he was to be turned over to state authorities, and duly given a public punishment.[33]
In the Old South it was possible under certain circumstances for the slave to buy his own freedom, that is, if the master was kindly disposed. In Brazil, it is commonly affirmed that the master was obliged to free his slave if the latter could furnish a sum equivalent to his market price.[34] As a matter of practice, it was easy for the master to deny freedom to his slave under such conditions, and the slave for lack of strength would have to accept the outcome meekly. Furthermore, Christie, British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in Brazil during the period of the American Civil War, in a letter to Earl Russell in June, 1861, declares that no such law actually exists on the statute books of Brazil, as that the slave has the right to appear before a magistrate, have his price fixed and to purchase his freedom.[35]
Moreover, the Brazilian slave exercised some right to change masters. The master set a price upon his slave. Then the slave with a note, declaring the master's intentions, might seek out some neighboring planter with a good reputation, and if the desired new master decided to pay the price set, the old master, according to Luccock,[36] was obliged to sell the slave. In practice the plan did not work out so well, because one planter did not care to interfere in the other's affairs, and often the evaluation of the slave could not be agreed upon.[37]
A slave could be and was manumitted in both the United States and Brazil. In Brazil manumission could be accomplished in the following ways: (1) the slave could purchase himself; (2) his master could liberate him during his life; (3) or he could manumit him at his death; (4) a Negro woman who had brought ten children into the world by virtue of her tenth became free; (5) also, the price of a new-born babe was so slight, that often the infant was purchased its freedom by friends.[38] In fact, manumission had been so extensive, that by 1818 mulattoes and free Negroes had become a considerable part of the population.[39] In the United States there were 488,070 freedmen in 1860.[40]
As for holding common ordinary citizen's rights, the Negro slave in both countries was out of consideration. In the Old South, for instance, a slave could be arrested, tried, and condemned with but one witness against him, and without a jury.[41] In Brazil he was equally as defenceless. Professional slave runaway catchers might pounce upon a slave who was about his duty, imprison him, subject him to indignities, on the ground that he was a fugitive, and return him to his master, claiming money for their trouble. In such a sad case, no one would take the slave's part, none would believe his story.[42]
The privileges of the slave as to being secure against violent treatment, of securing his own freedom, of selecting another master, or of claiming any plain citizen's immunities whatsoever, then, were very slight in both Brazil and the United States, but even more so in our own Southland.
Slave Resistance
Docile as the African slave was, he was bound at times to attempt to free himself from the drudgery and sufferings of his lot. Naturally the most direct, impulsive, and simple method was escape. Hence, we are brought to compare the fugitive slave problem in Brazil to the same problem in the United States.
In our own country the South had to combat an effective force which did not exist in Brazil, namely, the antagonism of an Anti-slavery North, which aided the Negroes by "underground railroads" to escape to free territory, or to cross the Canadian line, where slavery was prohibited. The Dismal Swamp in Virginia, and the Everglades of Florida were favorite hiding places for fugitives.[43] In Brazil the universal prevalence of slavery and the lack of opposition to the practice by any considerable group up to the last days of its existence gave the fleeing slave few friends. However, there was a trackless wilderness to which he might flee. Especially qualified runaway slave catchers were employed to trail such fugitives.
The other method of resisting the institution of slavery was by organized risings. Riots and local revolts occurred occasionally in the Old South, but were never serious and were easily quelled. The most noteworthy revolts of blacks in America were actually mere spouts. In the first half of the eighteenth century, for example, New York was thrown into hysteria at the rumors of a threatened Negro plot,[44] out of which nothing materialized. Gabriel's riot planned in Richmond, Virginia, in 1800, ended very much like that in New York. Another incident was the attempt in 1822 of a certain Negro, Denmark Vesey, to start an insurrection at Charleston, which utterly failed. Nat Turner, a religious fanatic, was the cause of the most serious uprising of all. In 1831 he organized a revolt in Virginia which cost the lives of several score of whites before it was quelled.[45] The other spontaneous turn of the worm was the Amistad incident,[46] in which Negroes of the slave ship Amistad rose and took possession of the ship, and ordered the crew to guide her back to Africa. Instead, the crew steered the vessel into a hospitable harbor, thus baffling its captors. The rising of the slaves of the Creole in somewhat the same manner was more romantic.
All these pin pricks in the South are now to be contrasted to a series of serious organized risings of slaves in Brazil, eruptions which at times threatened the political control or integrity of a whole district or province. In the United States the slave placidly submitted. In Brazil he was at periods actually class conscious.
In Pernambuco, the Brazilian government was actually challenged by slave rebels. It was during the chaotic days of 1630-1654, when the Dutch were in occupation of Pernambuco, and the Brazilians were at war with them, that hundreds of slaves fled to the interior, where they established an independent state, consisting of a cluster of fortified villages. Establishing a rude form of administration and a primitive adaptation of Christianity, they actually governed themselves. After the Dutch had been fairly well beaten, the whites turned to make war upon the villages. For fifty years the villages held out, until in 1697, Palmares, the last and most important of the fortresses, capitulated.[47]
Bahia lived in a perpetual fear of Negro uprising, and well were her fears grounded, for here the Negro was most assertive against his mistreatment. The population of Bahia in the first decade of the nineteenth century is estimated by Henderson as being in the neighborhood of 110,000, two thirds of which was slave. Once let the slave get a start and with such odds in his favor the masters had best beware. For this reason, slaves were prevented as much as possible from organizing. No bondman might go on the streets of Bahia after evening vespers, save with a pass from his master.[48] Yet the slaves did at times organize. In 1808, when John VI, the Portuguese king, arrived in Bahia, the slaves boldly communicated with him, asking that the punishment of one hundred and fifty lashes be abolished.[49]
A short time after this episode, matters came to a culmination. As was usual at holiday time, slaves congregated in plazas, chose a chief for the day, to whom they did homage. This was a customary feat, tolerated by the authorities of the city. On this particular occasion, a friend of Henderson noticed that a white man was being hanged in effigy. He sniffed trouble. Only a few months later the Bahian authorities were lucky, by timely arrests, to save the whole population from being massacred by the enraged slaves in an impending insurrection, whose purpose was nothing less than the wholesale slaughter of the entire white population of the city, with the exception of the governor, D'Arcos, whom the insurrectos were to raise as their prince. Already they had murdered many whites in the outskirts of the city.[50]
Thus, in the Old South, flight was the leading form of resistance to the institution of slavery; whereas in Brazil the more effective form of resistance by organized uprising was more frequently attempted.
The Race Problem
Before concluding the theme, it is imperative that we hurriedly skim over the saddest and most serious by-product of United States slavery, race prejudice. We are familiar enough with the limitations of the man of color in the South today. In the days of slavery, discriminations were just as severe, if not more so, against any man of black skin, whether slave, mulatto, freedman, quadroon, or octoroon. The slightest strain of black in a man's pedigree made him a "nigger." A freedman was better than a slave only in an economic way. Otherwise he had virtually no rights. He could not vote, marry a white, hold office, give testimony in case of a white man on trial, and for militia services was limited to fatigue duty. In many parts, however, the freedman could keep his own money, possess land, have slaves, a wife, and even own one gun to protect his home.[51]
In Portuguese America it is often said that the race problem has been allowed to solve itself, which is largely true. The slave in Brazil was looked down upon as a menial laborer, rather than as an offshoot of a lower race. Marriages between the lower classes of either race were not scorned by society. Inter-racial marriages were legal, Brazilian society favoring the marriage of the higher type of the white to the lighter type of Negroid. Of course, among the highest class of the land, the wealthy planters and officials, unions with persons of non-genuine white ancestry were not relished. Here and there existed race prejudice in mild form.[52]
Mulattoes who were free were ranked above freedmen of pure ancestry. The former were generally considered as white, for as a rule in Brazil a man passed as white if he contained a fair degree of white blood in his veins. These free mulattoes had a regiment of their own with their own officers, as was the case with the blacks. Many wealthy planters at Pernambuco were men of color. Many of the Creole blacks in this region were mechanics, who sent out their slaves to do odd mechanical jobs for the owner's profit. The best church and image painter at Pernambuco was black. One of three commanders of the Brazilian forces against the Dutch in the seventeenth century was Henrique Diaz, a Negro.
All told, race prejudice, as a vast problem, was a peculiar complement of the Anglo-Saxon new world colonies' slave problem, for in virtually no other country has slavery ever so viciously contributed to race discord. Brazil, then, may pride herself upon emerging from a slave sustained society, free from the sores of a hideous race conflict.
An Afterthought
In brief, it seems that the Brazilian institution of slavery was softer, far less brutal than the United States system. On the other hand, the United States slave system was probably more efficient, for the inefficiency of the management of the plantations of sugar in Brazil allowed the West Indies in the eighteenth century to take the lead in the sugar, rum, and molasses exports. The United States, under the slave system, secured pre-eminence in the production of the world's greatest textile staple, cotton.
It is to be regretted, of course, that slavery has persisted so long, and still thrives in certain Mohammedan lands. It stands today outlawed in the new world, but it will always be a source of regret to progressive citizens of the United States that their country clung to the institution up to within the memory of many yet living, and that she did not relax her tight grasp upon the slave until forced to immediate action in the stress of a fratricidal war. To humane thinkers of Brazil, it will ever be a source of sorrow that their nation has only been slave ridden within the present generation, and even then, egged on to emancipation by the reproaches of an at last awakened world.
Slavery must have differed in details in one country from that in another, but after all, it was shameful in Brazil, shameful in the United States, just as it is shameful at any other spot underneath the blue sky.
Herbert B. Alexander
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Keller, Albert Galloway, Ph.D., Colonization, Boston, Copyright, 1908, p. 145.
[2] DuBois, William Edward Burghardt, The Negro, New York, 1915, p. 164.
[3] Keller, pp. 156-157.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Christie, W. D., Notes on Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 69-76.
[6] Christie, pp. 69-76.
[7] Dawson, Thomas C., South American Republics, two volumes, first edition, vol. I, New York, Copyright, 1903, p. 481.
[8] DuBois, The Negro, p. 152.
[9] Ibid. p. 184.
[10] Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, p. 33.
[11] Ingram, J. K., A History of Slavery and Serfdom, London, 1895, p. 285.
[12] Bureau of Census (Dept. of Commerce and Labor), A Century of Population Growth, Washington, 1909, p. 80.
[13] Blake, William O., A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Columbus, 1857, p. 808.
[14] DuBois, The Negro, p. 190.
[15] Henderson, James, A History of Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 73-74.
[16] Koster, Henry, Travels in Brazil, second edition, in two volumes, vol. II, London, 1817, pp. 247-259.
[17] Christie, pp. 69-76.
[18] Koster, p. 123.
[19] Ibid., pp. 247-259.
[20] Koster, pp. 247-259.
[21] Encyclopedia Americana, 30 volumes, vol. 27, New York and Chicago, 1919, pp. 395-396.
[22] Americana, pp. 395-396.
[23] Koster, pp. 229-231.
[24] Koster, pp. 246-247.
[25] Southey, vol. III, pp. 781-783, states that in Pernambuco masters were opposed to selling their slaves.
[26] Koster, pp. 246-247.
[27] Brawley, Benjamin Griffith, A Short History of the American Negro, N. Y., 1917, pp. 20-21.
[28] DuBois, p. 197.
[29] Americana, pp. 395-396.
[30] Koster, pp. 238-239.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Koster, pp. 236-238.
[33] Luccock, John, Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern Part of Brazil, London, 1820, p. 591.
[34] Koster, pp. 229-231.
[35] Christie, p. 578.
[36] Luccock, p. 591.
[37] Koster, pp. 233-235.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Keller, pp. 156-157.
[40] Blake, p. 808.
[41] Brawley, pp. 20-21.
[42] Henderson, pp. 72-78.
[43] Brawley, p. 90.
[44] DuBois, p. 196
[45] Ibid.
[46] Brawley, p. 90.
[47] Dawson, p. 375.
[48] Henderson, pp. 339-340.
[49] Henderson, p. 340.
[50] Ibid., p. 340.
[51] Brawley, p. 22.
[52] Koster, ch. XVIII
THE ORIGINS OF ABOLITION IN SANTO DOMINGO
Columbus discovered this island December 6, 1492. It is of the Great Antilles of the Caribbean Sea, and lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico. He called the island Hispaniola, but Hayti, or Haiti, was its original name. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its suitability as an abode for man.
At the time of its discovery the island was divided into five states or cacicats. Thus divided it was easily conquered by the Spaniards who subjected the native Indians to slavery. Soon after the discovery, Spain began establishing a plantation colony as opposed to a farm colony. The work fell upon the subjected Indians, who vanished from the island, in about 50 years, leaving the problem of labor to the overseers and the colonists. To meet this need, the Spaniards repaired this loss by bringing in Africans, supplied by the Portuguese, who at that time occupied themselves with the slave trade. Hierrera, who claimed to be an authority, said that one Negro would do more work than four Indians.[1] In 1630, a number of French adventurers were expelled by the Spanish from St. Christophe, which they had taken possession of five years before under the leadership of Neil d'Enambroe of Dieppe. Shortly afterward they established themselves at La Fortue. In 1650 the Spaniards still held the inner and greater islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica; though in Hispaniola French buccaneers were laying the foundations of the prosperous French Colony of St. Domingo. Smouldering resentment on the part of the Spaniards soon burst forth in open hostility, exhibiting more seriousness than before. Then followed savage contention between Spain and France, the Spaniards disputing the rights of the French, the French creeping steadily inward until 1697 by virtue of the treaty of Ryswick an end was put to this struggle. Louis XIV obtained, under this treaty, from Charles II of Spain, the cession of all the western part of the island, which for forty years belonged to the French by virtue of conquest. Spain kept the eastern portion of the island, calling it Santo Domingo. This cession was of great economic value to France, she increased her number of slaves and soon supplied all Europe with cotton and sugar. Santo Domingo, Spain's portion of the island, as compared with Haiti, was a sluggish community. Here also Negroes increased as slaves and soon the population of these two colonies was mostly Negro.
The distinct line between master and slave, white and black, was to become smeared. Soon there grew up four distinct classes. Miscegenation, the result of the contact of European masters with slave women, gave rise to a new class called mulattoes. These were usually given their freedom, and it was the practice to liberate the mother as well. This gave rise to another class, the free-blacks. The mulattoes and free-blacks obtained with emancipation no political rights whatever. At first this caused no worry or serious difficulty. Some of the mulattoes received vast wealth from their fathers and often they were educated abroad, usually in France. Some of the free-blacks accumulated a little property but in a far lesser degree, however. With the increase of mulattoes and free-blacks, and the return of those mulattoes from studies abroad, dissatisfaction grew into thought and subsequently into expression and agitation for political rights. Behind and beneath the growing dissatisfaction of these two classes, the mulattoes and free-blacks, was a resentful and restless slave population.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, even before it, France had in her possession eight slave holding colonies, San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, Tabago, St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon. The most important of these being Martinique and Guadeloupe, with a white population of about 25,000, contained about 150,000 slaves and a small number of free Negroes; and then there was her flourishing colony of San Domingo. Martinique and Guadeloupe were represented in the National Assemblies which brought France into early contact with the issue rising out of racial color.[2] San Domingo with its large population and economic importance offered a more perplexing problem. The population there was large. Moreau de St. Méry quoted the official figures of 1790 as 30,826 whites, 24,262 free Negroes and mulattoes, and 452,000 slaves.[3]
The legal status of slaves here was substantially the same as that of slaves in the tropical colonies of other nations; in fact, the Western European slave code remains practically the same. This slave colony seems singular in being unfavorable to the health and life of the natives. The annual excess of deaths over births amounted to about two and one half per cent. Added to this death rate was the rapid spread of the feverish desire for wealth at any cost among the peoples of European countries. The slave trade was profitable. The demand for slaves was continual, amounting at this period to anywhere between 30,000 to 35,000 a year in the French West Indies. Human life and rights were subordinate to gold, despite the position assumed by these nations as champions of Christianity.
The question of mulattoes and freedmen and their descendants was peculiar to San Domingo. The free Negroes and mulattoes were four fifths the whites in number. When the offspring of illicit unions between slave women and their masters attained their majority they were emancipated, and in many cases their mothers were set free also. As follows a system of servitude,
"The Sons of gods take the Daughters of men, but
The Sons of men dare not touch the daughters of the gods."
And thus it came about the number of these classes increased rapidly. The poor laboring class of the community, corresponding somewhat to the class of "poor whites" within the slave section of our country, was made up of free Negroes.
"According to the Code Noir of Louis XIV, freemen and their descendants were entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of France. However, in defiance of the law, race prejudice had built up during the eighteenth century a special body of customary rules for their control, and this custom was recognized by numerous administrative edicts and royal ordinances." Great effort was put forth to keep the possibilities of uprisings at a distance. Any use of fire arms was prohibited even the mulattoes, and the commissioned officers of military service were kept white without exception. A trace of Negro blood was a bar to individual attainment, even marriage to a mulatto received its share of condemnation. A strong feeling of social repugnance was being brought into play which outlawed all social intercourse between the races. This sort of thing, going on in so many different places—practically wherever the Western European colonized—became imbedded in custom and in places was expressed in law.
While the Code Noir of Louis XIV went even so far as to lay down certain practices as the fundamental law of slavery, it was apparently only a "law." There was a lack of the moral support necessary to insure for it even a respectable amount of operation. There were at work, however, forces which sought to create a widespread social antipathy to slavery. This resulted somewhat from the situation in England where there was a strong sentiment against slavery. The Quakers in England, whose founder had been a fearless critic of the institution, were foremost in the attack on slavery. In 1727 the Society of Friends passed a resolution of censure against the slave trade, and in 1758 its influence was strongly exerted to keep its members from even an indirect connection with it. In 1765, Granville Sharp began to look after the interests of Negroes who were claimed in British ports as slaves, and in 1772 was instrumental in securing the famous Somerset decision that, as soon as any slave set foot on British soil he became free. In 1783 the Society of Friends submitted to Parliament the first petition for the abolition of the slave trade. In that same year Thomas Clarkson won the prize in a competition in Latin composition at Cambridge upon the assigned subject, "Whether it is right to enslave others against their will." His essay immediately became a standard authority among opponents of the trade and the institution. A greater consequence was that Clarkson himself was so inspired he devoted his life to the cause of the blacks. In 1787 a "Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade" was organized. It was composed chiefly of Quakers, having Granville Sharp as President and Thomas Clarkson as its most prominent member. Their work was organized to embrace appeals to the public and petitions to the government. Wilberforce, a member of Parliament and an intimate friend of Pitt, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the Committee was to solicit funds, collect information and arouse public sentiment. This campaign lasted until the abolition of British slave trade in 1806.
This work in behalf of freedom soon extended to France. A little over three months after the London Committee was formed it received a letter from Jean Pierre Brissot, requesting that he and Etienne Clavière might become associates of the committee for the purpose of publishing French translations of its literature and collecting subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid but elected Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed in France. Now both Brissot and Clavière were active figures in the Revolution. Clavière was at one time minister of finances and Brissot, most ardent of revolutionists, was a Parish Deputy during the Reign of Terror, and a leader of the Girondins from 1789 to 1792. Accordingly, a society was formed in Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the Society of Friends of the Blacks, with Clavière as President. It adopted the same seals as the Committee in England but was an entirely independent organization. Directly its influence began to draw within its folds powerful figures. The famous Comte de Mirabeau was a charter member, Marquis de Lafayette, an officer who had served in the American Revolution, and Condorcet, a member of the Convention, whose report as a member of the Committee of Public Instruction of the Legislative Assembly formed the actual basis of subsequent plans for education, were among the first additions to its membership. Other prominent members who came in later were Sièyés, Petion, Grégoire, Robespierre, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Mirabeau issued the early publications of the society as supplements to his journal; at a later time Brissot's journal, the "Patriote francaise," became the organ of the society.
With Brissot's return from a visit to America in 1788, the society went seriously to work. In America he seems to have met some things which clinched his convictions and determinations. Coincidental, the National Assembly was about to meet, deputies were being elected, cahiers were being written, and the country was stirred up over the watchword liberty. This offered an exceptional advantage to the society. What better opportunity could one anticipate to secure the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the most flagrant violations of the principles of equality and liberty ever known? On February 3, 1789, Condorcet, at that time the President, addressed a circular letter to all the bailiwicks of France, urging that there be inserted in the cahiers a demand that the Estates-General destroy the slave trade and make preparations for the ultimate abolition of slavery. The results of this campaign were disappointing. As a whole the cahiers made it perfectly clear to the Society and all concerned, that an attack on slavery was not a matter vital to the mass of the nation, and that success, if it came at all, must be due to the loyalty of the Estates-General to the principles of equality and liberty, and to the ability and energy of the little group of intellectual leaders who made up the Society of Friends of the Blacks. This was the status of the controversy. Anti-slavery agitation was confined to an intellectual élite, promoted by an appeal to the mind.
In the National Assembly the contest between Friends of the Blacks and defenders of slavery began in connection with the application of a delegation for admission to the Estates-General as representatives of San Domingo. Early in 1788 there was formed in Paris an organization, the "colonial committee" by name, composed of certain colonial proprietors residing in France, a few merchants interested in colonial trade, and a small number of actual residents of San Domingo, which began an agitation for representation of the colony in the Estates-General, which had been promised for 1792. The committee circulated pamphlets and the like. It made a formal request of the king for representation of San Domingo. The request was refused by the Council of State. The agitators boldly drew up and sent to the colony a plan for electoral assemblies. These assemblies were held without any legal sanction, and thirty-one deputies were elected.
The committee continued its work in France, and succeeded in securing a demand for the admission of colonial deputies in at least fourteen cahiers of primary assemblies. Repeated applications were made to Necker and to the Minister of Marine, but without result, and when the Estates-General opened the representatives of San Domingo had no legal standing. Nevertheless part of the deputies presented themselves on June 8, making application separately to each of the three orders.
The third estate alone proved receptive. On June 20, eight San Domingo deputies were allowed to take the Tennis Court Oath. On June 27 the Committee on Credentials made a report unanimously recommending the admission of the colonial deputation but declared itself unable to agree on the number of deputies to which the colony was properly entitled. The Assembly accepted the report, apparently without a dissenting voice, and postponed discussion of the question of numbers to June 3. This brought squarely before the Assembly the delicate problem of slavery and the status of free-blacks under the new régime, and brought upon the colonial delegation the wrath of the powerful Society of the Friends of the Blacks.
The Friends of the Blacks recognized in this San Domingo delegation a foe. Mirabeau's newspaper challenged their right to count the slaves as a basis of representation, and taunted them with bitter words. "Either count your Negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free them, let them vote, let them be elected to office. If they are cattle, let the number of deputies be proportional to your human population; we have counted neither our horses nor our mules."[4]
Between the vote of admission on June 27 and the final debate on July 3 and 4 the Friends of the Blacks awoke to the importance of the issue. Condorcet published a vigorous pamphlet denouncing the slave holder and all his works. "We are tempted," said he, "to advocate a law which shall exclude from the National Assembly every man, who, as a slave holder, is interested in the maintenance of principles contrary to the natural rights of man, which are the only purpose of every political organization.... The natural rights of man to be governed only by laws to which he has given his consent cannot be invoked in favor of a man who is himself at the very moment violating the law of nature." The pamphlet closes with the remark that the planters can doubtless speak concerning their own interests, "but that on their lips the sacred word 'rights' would be blasphemy against reason."[5]
When the question was reopened on July 3, Mirabeau took the lead in the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only about one half the free population, since the whole body of free blacks and mulattoes had been excluded from suffrage. The spokesman of the colonial deputation was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial proprietor residing in Paris, from the beginning a leader in the movement for colonial representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend the principle of slave representation. He based his claim for the admission of eighteen or twenty delegates on the wealth and commercial importance of the colony. His weak point was the exclusion of free tax-paying mulattoes from the electoral assemblies. He said that since the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous to give them any influence, an argument which made a bad impression on the Assembly. The debate was finished the next day, and the number of deputies was fixed by a compromise at six. The chief importance of this discussion was the prominence which it gave to two questions that the colonial deputies were anxious to keep smothered—slavery and the civil status of the free Negroes. During the debate on June 27 the Duke de la Rochefoucauld found opportunity to present the aims of the Society of Friends of the Blacks, and requested the future consideration of the problem of emancipation. Remarks by other deputies to the effect that something be done to improve the condition of slaves received hearty applause.
The French Revolution plunged the island into a state of chaos. The vast majority of the population of the western colony were slaves, and the number of free blacks and mulattoes were nearly equal to the number of whites. "The news of the Revolution had encouraged each class of the colonial population to expect the realization of its peculiar hopes. The planters desired freer access to the markets of the world, the poor whites hoped for the advantages that their richer neighbors alone enjoyed, the free blacks and mulattoes for civil equality; even the slaves cherished hopes of liberty."[6] The clash of interests brought on civil war in Santo Domingo. The situation here, the richest of the sugar colonies, was serious; it soon received special attention from the home government. A colonial assembly was chosen, and did in miniature what the National Assembly undertook for all France. It controlled royal officers and troops, attempted to reorganize the administrative system and the courts, and even opened the ports to products specifically excluded by a royal ordinance. The question of the status of the free blacks had reached an acute stage. As property holders their interests were identical with those of the whites, provided the whites did not exclude them from a share in the civil conquests of the French Revolution. The National Assembly finally gave to the colonies an organization similar to the local administrative system of France except that it delegated executive powers to a governor. The constitution of the colony, once approved by the national legislature, could not be changed without the demand or consent of the local assemblies. To this local legislature was given the responsibility for the making of laws on all matters except trade and defense. If the governor did not withhold his consent in order that the authorities at Paris should first be consulted, laws could be put into force provisionally before they received the final sanction of the National Assembly and the Crown.
The free people of color petitioned the National Assembly for political rights and privileges in 1789. On May 15, 1791, on the question of the free blacks, the Assembly passed a decree declaring that people of color, born of free parents, were entitled to all the privileges of French citizens. When the news reached the island the mulattoes and free Negroes rejoiced. The whites were opposed to any such measure. Thereupon the governor of the island delayed promulgating the decree while he communicated with the home government. The free people of color were angered and civil strife followed. The mulattoes took up arms against the whites. To complicate matters, the slaves rose in insurrection in August, 1791. The whites, finding themselves in a perilous situation, decided to accede to the demands of the free people of color, who in turn promised to combine with the whites to suppress the revolt. Meanwhile, in the last days of the Assembly the friends of the planters succeeded in having the whole matter referred to the colonial assemblies. The people of color, mulattoes and free blacks, fled to arms again and joined the slaves, leading bands of them against the whites or remained indifferent in actual warfare. Then followed actual civil war. The French land owners or "colons" called in the English to help them combat the blacks.[7] The English came to their aid. By the end of 1793 the latter took possession of a part of the island which seemed lost to France, being occupied partly by Spaniards and partly by English, when Toussaint L'Ouverture, the bondman leading the revolting slaves, espoused the cause of France. Following months of bloody war, France, apprehensive of a British invasion in full force, and not being able to put down the insurgents, weary and tired of the struggle, conciliated. August, 1793, Universal Freedom was proclaimed—this measure was ratified by the National convention early the following year. This was the first time in the history of the world a legislative assembly ever decreed the abolition of human slavery.
The British, having taken Port-au-Prince and besieged the French Governor at Port-de-la-Paix when the blacks under Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated them and released the French Governor, abandoned the island in 1797. L'Ouverture, who up to forty years of age had been a slave, thus succeeded in ridding the island of the Spaniards and the English. The French government rewarded him by appointing him major-general and governor of the island.
This left L'Ouverture Commander-in-Chief and virtually dictator of the island. He set up a Republic, drew up a Constitution, which he sent to Napoleon. For answer Napoleon appointed Leclerc governor of the colony, and sent a formidable army to reduce the authority of L'Ouverture. War broke out again. After several engagements L'Ouverture surrendered and retired on his properties. He was subsequently decoyed on board a French vessel, kidnapped and deported to Paris. He was then placed by Bonaparte in a damp prison of the fortress of Joux on the chilly heights of Jura where he died. In September, 1802, the peoples of color took up arms against French domination under the leadership of General Dessalines and swore to die rather than remain subservient any longer.[8] By the end of 1793 Rochambeau, who on the death of General Leclerc was put in command by Bonaparte, was hard pressed in the city of Cape Haitien by black troops and was compelled to capitulate and "the power of France was lost on the island forever." On January 1, 1804, Haiti, as it was better known, proclaimed its independence with General Dessalines as ruler. Slavery was abolished forever. In 1822 Haiti, the western colony, controlled the whole of the island; but in 1844 the eastern part seceded and established an independent government known today as the Dominican Republic.
George W. Brown
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mossell, Toussaint L'Ouverture, p. xiii.
[2] Hardy, Negro Question in French Revolution, p. 1.
[3] Moreau de St. Méry, Response, etc., 72.
[4] Hardy, The Negro Question in the French Revolution, p. 10.
[5] Condorcet's Works.
[6] Bourne, Revolutionary Period in Europe, p. 110.
[7] American Encyclopedia—Haiti.
[8] Mossell, Toussaint L'Ouverture.
CANADIAN NEGROES AND THE REBELLION OF 1837
There are a number of interesting references in the literature of the times to the part played by Negro refugees in defending the frontier of Canada during the troubles of 1838. The outbreaks in both Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 were followed by a series of petty attacks along the border in which American sympathizers participated. Sandwich, on the Detroit River, was one of the objectives of the attacking parties and there were also threats on the Niagara River frontier. One of the parties of "rebels" had taken possession of Navy Island, in the Niagara River, and a small ship, the Caroline, was used for conveying supplies. A Canadian party under command of Colonel MacNab crossed the river, seized the ship and after setting it afire allowed it to drift over the falls. This gave rise to an international issue and was the occasion of much bluster on both sides of the line that happily ended as bluster. All along the border on the American side there were "Hunter's Lodges"[1] organized during 1838 and this movement, joined with the widespread political disaffection, made the times unhappy for the Canadian provinces.
Sir Francis Bond Head, who was Governor of Upper Canada when the troubles of 1837 began and whose conduct did not tend materially to quelling the unrest, wrote his "apologia" a couple of years later and in it he speaks of the loyalty of the colored people, almost all of whom were refugees from slavery. He says:
"When our colored population were informed that American citizens, sympathizing with their sufferings, had taken violent possession of Navy Island, for the double object of liberating them from the domination of British rule, and of imparting to them the blessings of republican institutions, based upon the principle that all men are born equal, did our colored brethren hail their approach? No, on the contrary, they hastened as volunteers in wagon-loads to the Niagara frontier to beg from me permission that, in the intended attack upon Navy Island, they might be permitted to form the forlorn hope—in short they supplicated that they might be allowed to be foremost to defend the glorious institutions of Great Britain."[2]
Rev. J. W. Loguen, in the narrative of his life, says that he was urgently solicited by the Canadian government to accept the captaincy of a company of black troops who had been enrolled during the troubles. As the affair was then about all over by the joint effort of the Canadian and United States governments, he did not accept the offer but he makes this interesting comment:
"The colored population of Canada at that time was small compared to what it now is; nevertheless, it was sufficiently large to attract the attention of the government. They were almost to a man fugitives from the States. They could not, therefore, be passive when the success of the invaders would break the only arm interposed for their security, and destroy the only asylum for African freedom in North America. The promptness with which several companies of blacks were organized and equipped, and the desperate valor they displayed in this brief conflict, are an earnest of what may be expected from the swelling thousands of colored fugitives collecting there, in the event of a war between the two countries."[3]
Josiah Henson, founder of the Dawn colony in Upper Canada and famous as the reputed "original" of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom, says in his narrative that he was captain of the second company of Essex colored volunteers and that he and his men assisted in the defence of Fort Malden (Amherstburg) from Christmas 1837 to May of 1838. He says further that he assisted in the capture of the schooner Anne, an affair which took place on January 9, 1838.[4]
John MacMullen, in his History of Canada, says that among the troops on the border during 1838 "were two hundred Indians from Delaware, and a body of colored men, settlers in the western part of the province, the poor hunted fugitives from American slavery, who had at length found liberty and security under the British flag."[5]
A rather interesting aftermath of the rebellion is contained in an item appearing in the Amherstburg Courier of March 10, 1849, reporting a meeting of Negroes in Sandwich township to protest against the Rebellion Losses Bill.[6] Colonel Prince was thanked for his opposition to the measure.[7]
Eighty years after the rebellion the Negro men of Canada were again called upon to fight, this time in another land and in a conflict that was destined to affect every race and every land. The service that was rendered in the Canadian army by the colored companies of pioneers will some day receive due recognition at the hands of an historian. In the meantime, it is not forgotten by the people of Canada.
Fred Landon
The Public Library,
London, Ontario
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A convention of Hunter's Lodges of Ohio and Michigan, held at Cleveland, September 16-22, 1838, was attended by seventy delegates.
[2] Head, Sir, F. B., A Narrative (London, 1839), page 392.
[3] Loguen, J. W., The Rev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman (Syracuse, 1859), pp. 343-345.
[4] An autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson, "Uncle Tom," from 1789 to 1881 (London, Ont., 1881), page 177. A sketch of Josiah Henson appeared in The Journal of Negro History for January, 1918 (Vol. III, no. 1, pp. 1-21). This is condensed from his autobiography which appeared in several editions.
[5] MacMullen, John, History of Canada from its first Discovery to the Present Times (Brockville, Ont., 1868), pp. 459-460. He gives as his authority Radclift's despatch, "10th January, 1838."
[6] The Rebellion Losses Bill proposed compensation for those who had sustained losses in Lower Canada (Quebec) during the troubles of 1837. It was fiercely opposed in Upper Canada (Ontario) by the element that regarded the French as "aliens" and "rebels." When Lord Elgin, the Governor, gave his assent to the bill in 1849 there were riots in Montreal in which the Parliament Buildings were burned.
[7] Col. Prince was one of the leaders in the defense of the Canadian frontier along the Detroit River during 1838, afterwards a member of the Canadian Parliament. During the troubles of 1838 he ordered the shooting of four prisoners without the form of a trial. The act was condemned by Lord Brougham and others with great severity and is one dark spot on the records of the Canadian forces during the trying period.
LOTT CARY,[1] THE COLONIZING MISSIONARY
With Lott Cary and Colin Teague[2] sailing for Africa in 1821, a new era of missionary expansion was begun by Negro Baptists. The distinctive feature of this epoch, which may be termed modern, is the fact that behind these men was the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, which gave them support, such as it was, and to which periodic reports were made. True enough, Lott Cary was under appointment of the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America but only that fact and the sum of $200 in cash and $100 in books appropriated for his use up to 1826[3] could not be sufficient evidence to claim him wholly as a missionary of the General Missionary Convention although he did receive some advisory instructions from its board.[4] Indeed, Lott Cary was the first American Baptist missionary in Africa, the first representative of a purely Negro missionary organization to labor beyond the limits of the United States.
Preparation for Africa
Lott Cary was born on the estate of William A. Christian,[5] in Charles City County, Virginia,[6] thirty miles from Richmond,[7] about four years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There was no exact record kept of the time of his birth, although it appears to have been about the year 1780.[8]
His mother and father lived together on the great plantation of their master, centering their attention on Lott, their only child. His mother gave no public profession of religion although she died giving evidence that she accepted the Christian faith. His father, however, was a pious man, a respected member of a Baptist church.[9] As a result, Lott received some early religious training which may have influenced his later life.
But there were temptings in his life; there were battles in his soul. Why should a slave boy hope? Could he ever become free? Why not drink life to the dregs? The chief among his playmates, he became the mischief-maker of the place. Profligate, profane, polluter was his title. Lott Cary tried to reform but he was only able to control himself a few days. Before long, in 1804,[10] he was hired out by the year as a common laborer[11] in the Shochoe tobacco warehouse at Richmond.[12] There he grew more intemperate and profane and showed little signs of reformation.
It was not reformation that he needed but regeneration as was evidenced one Lord's day in 1807[13] as he sat in the gallery of the First Baptist Church[14] and heard the minister preach. He was hopefully converted and was baptized by Pastor John Courtney[15] into the fellowship of the church. There he heard a sermon on the third chapter of the gospel of John which so inspired him that he obtained a Testament in order that he might read for himself the Lord's interview with Nicodemus. In a short time he knew the alphabet, and with very little assistance from the men at the warehouse,[16] he learned to read this chapter and also to write.[17]
Cary was a changed man—industrious, thrifty, Christian. Whereas he had been idle now he devoted his leisure time to reading and it is said that one of the books that he read was Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.[18] By his application to reading and writing he was able in a little time to make dray tickets and to act as shipping clerk.[19] His work in the warehouse was "such as no person, white or black, has equalled in the same situation.... He could produce any one of the hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco the instant it was called for."[20] For these services he was often given a five dollar note and the privilege to sell small quantities of waste tobacco for his own benefit.[21] He saved the money obtained in this way, and with the aid of a subscription among his employers accumulated by 1813 $850 with which he purchased freedom for himself and his two children.[22]
The following extract of a letter from William Crane to the Rev. Obadiah Brown of Washington City, which he forwarded to the corresponding secretary of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, corroborates, in the main, the foregoing statements as well as gives some interesting sidelights on the lives of Cary and Teague:
Richmond, March 28, 1819.
You will probably recollect, that I introduced you to two of our colored brethren in this place, who are accustomed to speak in public; one named Collin Teague, the other Lot Carey. Ever since the missionary subject has been so much agitated in this country, these two brethren, associated with many others, have been wishing they could, in some way, aid their unhappy kindred in Africa; and I suppose you have heard of their having formed a missionary society for this sole purpose. Some letters published in No. VI of the Luminary (written by Kizell, the Baptist leader in Sherbro Island and by some others) have served to awaken them effectually. They are now determined to go themselves to Africa; and the only questions with them are, in what way will it be best for them to proceed? and what previous steps are requisite to be taken? They think it necessary to spend some time in study first. They both possess industry and abilities, such as, with the blessing of Providence, would soon make them rich. It is but two or three years since either of them enjoyed freedom; and both have paid large sums for their families. They now possess but little, except a zealous wish to go and do what they can. Brother Lot has a wife, and several little children. He has a place a little below Richmond, that cost him $1500, but will probably not sell for more than $1000 at this time. Brother Collin has a wife, a son 14 years of age, and a daughter of 11, for whom he has paid $1300, and has scarcely any thing left. Both their wives are Baptists; their children, amiable and docile, have been to school considerably; and I hope, if they go, will likewise be of service. Collin is a saddler and harness maker. He had no early education. The little that he has gained, has been by chance and peacemeal. He has judgment, and as much keenness of penetration as almost any man. He can read, though he is not a good reader, and can write so as to make out a letter. The little knowledge he has of figures, has been gained by common calculations in business. Lot was brought up on a farm; and for a number of years has been chief manager among the labourers in the largest tobacco ware house in this city. He has charge of receiving, marking and shipping tobacco; and the circumstance that he receives $700 a-year wages may help you to form an estimate of the man. He reads better than Collin, and is in every respect a better scholar. They have been trying to preach about ten or eleven years, and are both about forty years of age.[23]
Cary had been licensed to preach by the First Baptist Church, Richmond, and he exercised his talent every Lord's day among the colored people on plantations a few miles from Richmond.[24] It was not many months before he was the highly esteemed pastor of the African Baptist Church in Richmond. As a preacher, Cary was not polished, but "his ideas would sometimes burst upon you in their native solemnity, and awaken deeper feelings than the most polished, but less original" and artificial discourses.[25]
Lott Cary early exhibited the power of an organizer. In 1815, William Crane, who was a member of the First Baptist Church, felt that his ought to use his talent among the twelve hundred Negro members of that congregation. Consequently, he and David Roper[26] gratuitously opened a tri-weekly night school in the gallery of the old church with Lott Cary, Colin Teague and fifteen or twenty leading members of the church as pupils.[27] Now Crane was able to inspire such a group to practical missionary service, for he himself had been repeatedly urged to become a missionary and had had close contact with Luther Rice as one of the managers of the General Missionary Convention. But it was left to Lott Cary to excite among the Negroes a strong interest in behalf of Africa. The result was the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in 1815. Crane was the president or corresponding secretary.[28] This was necessary, for since the various uprisings of Negroes[29] were making Virginia a hotbed of discontent, the city of Richmond was wary of having Negro meetings unless they were sponsored by white persons. Crane represented the Society in the General Missionary Convention,[30] formed in 1814, and remained its delegate for about twenty years.
At the first triennial session of the Convention at Philadelphia, in May, 1817, a letter was read from the corresponding secretary of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society and it was unanimously
Resolved, that the said letter be noticed on the minutes of the Convention, and that the Board, if they find it practicable, be advised to institute an African Mission, conformably to the wishes of the said African Mission Society; and that the Corresponding Secretary of the Board be requested to communicate this resolution together with an encouraging affectionate letter to that society.[31]
Feeling of sympathy for the African was high. Many slave-holding Baptists felt that they owed the Negro a debt which they should pay.[32] Moreover, the board of the Convention felt that the interest in Foreign missions manifested by the Negro Baptists of Richmond was a providential plan whereby the slaves brought from Africa might be converted and returned to evangelize that continent.[33] Since, therefore, mission work could be propagated in Africa in the English language and for one quarter the expense required for other lands,[34] the Convention felt no hesitancy in acknowledging the claims of Africa.
Luther Rice, while in Richmond during the winter of 1817, visited the African Missionary Society. "It afforded me much pleasure, indeed," he reported,[35] "to observe the zeal, and intelligence and capacity, and success, discovered in the African Mission Society."
As a matter of fact, the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Society was an epochal event. The example was followed by the African Baptist Church of Philadelphia[36] and by the Baptists of Petersburg, Virginia.[37] The African mission spirit even permeated North Carolina and Georgia, for during the years 1816 and 1817 the Negro Baptists of those parts contributed $32.64 to the cause.[38] This contribution far outstripped the donation of the white Baptists to the same cause. During the same time they contributed only $14.27, $12.27 of which was given by the newly formed African Mite Society of Providence, Rhode Island.[39]
Lott Cary resolved that it was his duty to go and preach the gospel in benighted Africa. It was at Crane's night school that this intention was made known. After Crane had reviewed the report of Burgess and Mills, telling of their exploring tour on the coast of Africa, Lott Cary said: "I have been determined for a long time to go to Africa and at least to see the country for myself."[40] There is no doubt that to some extent Gary was awakened to a deep sense of responsibility for his brethren in Africa by that part of this report which dealt with John Kizell, the Baptist leader in Sherbro Island, the president of the Friendly Society established by Paul Cuffee, the escort and guide of Burgess and Mills on their exploring tour, the man directly responsible for the beginning of the impractical scheme of deportation on the continent of Africa by the American Colonization Society.[41]
But how was he to accomplish his object? Crane said,[42] "I had thought of addressing the Corresponding Secretary on their (Cary and Teague) behalf, for the patronage of the American Baptist Mission Society, but again thought, that the Colonization Society might be pleased with taking them under their care, and that their mission might bear a more imposing aspect under the auspices of this society than it would with the Baptists alone." Lott Cary was received by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, May 1, 1819, and was accepted by the American Colonization Society to work for them "without pay as other engagements would permit."[43]
The treasurer of the General Missionary Convention reported $2 for Africa received September 21, 1819, from a friend in Nashville Tennessee. The next year the society appropriated $200 in cash and $100 in books. Contrasted with this was the $483.25 paid April 17, 1820, by the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society to the General Missionary Convention to be appropriated for Africa.[44] Thus the Convention served only as a clearing house for the funds contributed from Richmond. With this in mind we can more clearly understand the following order voted by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in 1820:
With African Mission Society, Richmond,
To various exp. for Collin Teague and Lot Carey ... 500 25.[45]
Furthermore, the historian of the Convention up to the year 1840[46] relates that the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, of which Lott Cary was the recording secretary, appropriated to the cause of African redemption $700, all of its funds collected during the first five years of its existence. For many years thereafter the Society collected and contributed annually from $100 to $150 to the mission in Africa.[47]
Lott Cary was giving up much to be an apostle to his people—a pastorate of nearly eight hundred members, a farm and house costing $1,500 and a salary increase of $200 a year if he would stay.[48] But he must go. There were promptings big and great. Cary and Colin Teague are said to have wished to be where their color would be no disparagement to their usefulness.[49] "I am an African," he is reported to have answered an intelligent minister who asked him why he was leaving,[50] "and, in this country, however meritorious my conduct, and respectable my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion; and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race."
It is highly probable that Cary possessed no such race consciousness as is portrayed in the foregoing reports of Crane and Gurley. True enough, the occasion for such sentiment was there in the institution of slavery but had Cary imbibed the spirit? On the one hand, the free Negro was not wanted in Virginia as is evidenced by an act which made unlawful the permanent residence in the State of any slave set free after May 1, 1806. But, on the other hand, this act was not generally enforced because of the economic value of many of the freedmen.[51] Thus it is doubtful whether Cary, whose salary would be increased if he remained in Virginia, and Teague, both effectual workmen whose industry was needed, would have to go away to gain a higher status.
Let us examine the facts further. Crane was certainly enthusiastic for African colonization and Gurley was the secretary of the American Colonization Society. Thus these statements, as well as similar ones which follow, seem like attempts on the part of the friends of colonization to make Cary say to the other free Negroes that colonization was a desirable thing. Certainly such an attitude would be a timely rebuttal of the anti-colonization sentiment of the Negro ministry in general.
Furthermore, this reason for going to Africa was not in accord with the one given at Crane's night school. Then he wanted to see Africa for himself; now he finds America no place for the Negro. He could have changed his point of view, but did he? If he did change his view, he had changed again in less than two years (March 13, 1821) when he wrote as follows to the corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions:
If you intend doing anything for Africa you must not wait for the Colonization Society, nor for government, for neither of these are in search of missionary grounds, but of colonizing grounds; if it should not suit missionary needs, you cannot expect to gather in a missionary crop. And, moreover, all of us who are connected with the agents, who are under public instructions, must be conformed to their laws, whether they militate against missionary operation or not.[52]
Thus if Cary made statements which favor colonization he was very inconsistent, for it was he who was chiefly responsible for the colonists openly defying the Colonization Society in 1824. Nor could Cary write so well. It is most likely, therefore, that Lott Cary wanted to go to Africa simply to see the country and to do missionary work.
Prior to his public farewell, Lott Cary and Colin Teague were ordained and they, with their wives, Joseph Langford and wife and Hilary Teague, were organized in January, 1821, into a church. Lott Cary was elected pastor. The constitution of this body which they were to plant in Africa was modelled after the Samson Street Church of Philadelphia.[53]
Cary's farewell sermon, preached in the meeting house of the First Baptist Church, Richmond, was well ordered, without the rant common to some preachers of that day, dignified and pathetic, and left a lasting impression on the audience.[54] Teague had often remarked to William Crane, "Sir, I don't hear any of your white ministers that can preach like Lott Cary." Crane was anxious to hear him and after listening to his farewell message from Romans 8:32—"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"—he did not hesitate to declare: "I have a most vivid recollection of the manner in which, towards the close, he dwelt upon the word 'freely.' With thrilling emphasis he exclaimed over and over, 'He gave them freely!' He rang a succession of perhaps a dozen changes upon the word, in a manner that would not have dishonored Whitfield."[55]
Lott Gary closed his sermon with this thought:
I am about to leave you and expect to see your faces no more. I long to preach to the poor Africans the way of life and salvation. I don't know what may befall me, whether I may find a grave in the ocean, or among the savage men, or more savage wild beasts on the Coast of Africa; nor am I anxious what may become of me. I feel it my duty to go; and I very much fear that many of those who preach the Gospel in this country, will blush when the Saviour calls them to give an account of their labors in His cause and tell them, "I commanded you to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature;" (very emphatically he exclaimed) the Saviour may ask where have you been? What have you been doing? Have you endeavored to the utmost of your ability to fulfill the commands I gave you, or have you sought your own gratification, and your own ease, regardless of My commands?[56]
A distinguished Presbyterian minister said to Gurley, "A sermon which I heard from Lott Gary, shortly before he sailed for Africa, was the best extemporaneous sermon I ever heard. It contained more original and impressive thoughts, some of which are distinct in my memory, and never can be forgotten."[57] Elder John Bryce, assistant pastor of the First Baptist Church, afterwards confessed that he had never been so deeply interested in a sermon.[58]
Readjustment on African Soil
By the twenty-third of January, 1821, Gary and his church were ready to sail.[59] At half past six in the morning[60] the Nautilus, carrying 28 colonists and a number of children, left Norfolk, Virginia, en route to Sierra Leone.[61]
As the agents of the American Colonization Society, who made the journey, had not completed their negotiations for the purchase of a site for the settlers, the party remained at Freetown, Sierra Leone, for some months.[62] From there Cary wrote the Corresponding Secretary of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, March 13th:
Rev. and Dear Sir
I am happy that an opportunity is now afforded me, to inform the Board through you, the only proper medium of communication with them, that we all arrived safe in Africa. We had a long passage of forty four days, yet we were wonderfully preserved by the great Ruler of the winds and the seas....
I am truly sorry, that the hopes and expectations of the Board cannot be realized, as to our missionary labours; for, as it pleased you to have us connected with the Colonization Society, and the agents of the Society upon their arrival here, finding their prospects of getting lands very gloomy, so much so that they disowned us as colonists; and the government's agent had captured Africans for whom he was bound, by the laws of the United States, to procure a place, in order to settle them, or until there can be a more permanent settlement obtained, the agent received us as labourers and mechanics, to be settled with them in order to make preparations for the reception of others; we are therefore bound to the government's agent. He has rented a farm, and put us on it, and we must cultivate it for our support, and for the support of these Africans; and pay as much of the rent as we can. And as this obligation will last until lands are purchased by the agents of the Colonization Society, I am greatly afraid it will not end soon; and until it does end, our mission labours will be very few. Jesus Christ, our Saviour, when he came on his mission into this world, was found often with a broad axe in his hand: and I believe that a good many corn field missionaries would be a great blessing to this country, that is if they were not confined to the field by law and by necessity. We are bound by both. I converse very freely with you on this subject, because with me it is a very important one, and because of the interest which the Board has taken in this mission.[63]
Mrs. Cary, "a sensible woman and an exemplary Christian,"[64] was sick at this time and soon died, leaving her husband the care of their two children.[65] Despite this and the appalling circumstances of the first settlers, they wrote to the Board rejoicing that they were in the country of their forefathers and hoping that His gracious approbation would crown their labors.[66] Lott Cary kept constantly in mind the great object of his mission. He not only preached as often as opportunity would permit but he established a mission among the Mandingoes.[67]
Nevertheless, there was danger for some time that the whole enterprise would be abandoned. Whereupon, Captain Robert F. Stockton was sent to Africa in the armed schooner Alligator with full powers from President Monroe and the American Colonization Society to make arrangements for a new and permanent settlement.[68] On December 11, he and Doctor Eli Ayres, the Society's agent, who had left America in July, anchored off Cape Mesurado or Montserado and, with John Mills, an English mulatto and slave dealer, as interpreter, made negotiations with King Peter, the principal chief around the Cape, for the purchase of a settlement. After much parleying and delay on the part of the king and treachery on the part of Mills,[69] they finally exchanged gunpowder, tobacco, rum, iron pots, beads, looking glasses, "four Hats, three Coats, three pair Shoes"[70] and other minor articles not worth more than $300 for that valuable tract of land[71] which was the nucleus of what is now the Republic of Liberia.[72]
Arrangements were made for the colonists to take possession of their new home the 7th of February, 1822.[73] The territory, finally including ninety miles of coast lying between the Junk and Sesters Rivers and extending nearly seventy miles into the interior, presented, on the one hand, an excellent opportunity to work among the Bassa, Vey, Dey and Kroo tribes,[74] who numbered about 125,000, and exhibited, on the other hand, many obstacles, for the natives were hostile, and the rainy season was approaching, at the time when provisions were scarce.
The condition of the colonists was so appalling that many proposed to return to Sierra Leone. Just a few more hours and the Cape would have been abandoned, but when the Agent went ashore to prepare for departure he was informed by Lott Gary that he was determined not to go. Nearly all the colonists were induced to follow his example.
In the event they suffered severely; nearly 1,000 natives attacked them in November, 1822, but were repulsed. During this and similar encounters with the natives, which lasted through the months of November and December, Lott Cary cooperated wisely with the Agent, Jehudi Ashmun,[75] and, although several of the colonists were killed and wounded, with only 37 men and boys he, on one occasion, drove back with considerable loss 1,500 wild and exasperated natives who were bent on extirpating the settlement. Lott Cary compared the little company of disturbed settlers to the Jews, who "grasped a weapon in one hand, while they labored with the other" to rebuild the city. But he is said to have asserted: "There never has been an hour or a minute, no, not even when the balls were flying around my head, when I could wish myself again in America."[76]
These colonists planted their church at Monrovia and soon had under way the nucleus of a flourishing Sunday-school.[77] Cary extended his labors to communities far and near, and by 1823 had 6 converts.[78] The following resolution adopted by the General Missionary Convention speaks for itself the sentiment of that body respecting the work of Cary and Teague up to May 7, 1823:[79]
The committee states that the present condition and prospects of the mission are encouraging. Brethren Cary and Teague are at present much occupied in aiding in the establishment of the colony at Cape Mesurado. Their conduct has been good and that of the former, in particular, has been specially commended by the Agent of the Colonization Society. The committee recommends that an able white missionary be stationed, as soon as practicable, at Cape Mesurado. The mission has a double effect. While it tends to introduce the gospel into Africa, a mission establishment on the coast will essentially aid in the suppression of the slave trade.
In spite of the fact that his associate, Colin Teague, had returned to Freetown, Sierra Leone,[80] Lott Cary was adding some few of the natives to the church. In 1824, he baptized 9. One by the name of John from Grand Cape Mount, a town about eighty miles distant, proved a valuable helper by the good influence which he exerted. Some word from Hector Peters[81] had touched him and he came to the American settlement for instruction and baptism. Without being asked, he related his experience to the church.
"When me bin Sa' lone," he began, "me see all man go to church house—me go too—me be very bad man too—suppose a man can cus (curse) me—me can cus im too—suppose a man can fight me—me can fight im too.—Well, me go to church house—the man speak, and one word catch my heart (and at the same time laying his hand on his breast)—I go to my home—my heart be very heavy—and trouble me too—night time come—me fear me can't go to my bed for sleep—my heart trouble me so—something tell me go pray to God—me fall down to pray—no—my heart be too bad—I can't pray—I think so—I go die now—suppose I die—I go to hell—me be very bad man—pass all turrer (other) man—God be angry with me—soon I die—suppose man cus me this time—me can't cus him no more—suppose man fight me—me can't fight him no more—all the time my heart trouble me—all day—all night me can't sleep—by and by my heart grow too big—me fall down this time—now me can pray—me say Lord—have massey. Then light come in my heart—make me glad—make me light—make me love the Son of God—make me love everybody."
John was baptized the 20th of March, 1825. The church neatly dressed him, gave him an extra suit, about $10.50, 3 Bibles and 2 hymn books and sent him on his way rejoicing.[82]
The impetus received by the church was amazing. The membership by 1825 had increased to 60 or 70 and two or three pious emigrants were assisting in the work. This same year, Lott Cary directed the building of a substantial meeting house which would have been completed immediately if nails and boards could have been procured.[83] In a letter from Monrovia,[84] dated April 24, 1826, he wrote a brother in Norfolk: "We dedicated our meeting house last October; it was four weeks from the time we raised it to the time it was dedicated. It is quite a comfortable house, 30 × 20 feet, and ceiled inside nearly up to the plates, with a decent pulpit and seats. I feel very grateful to you for your services, and to the brethren and friends for their liberal contribution."[85]
This progress of the church might, at first blush, seem to say that everything was in a state of tranquility and peace. This is far from being the case. In the face of the record of Lott Cary as a Christian, a pastor, a representative of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society and a church builder in Africa, it is interesting to note the invective hurled against him by Governor Ashmun in 1823. The Governor's phraseology is unique. "Wretched," "morose," "obstinate," "soured," "narrow," "disobliging," "moral desert," "a corroding temper," and "destitute of natural affection," were some of the epithets used as over against "more obliging," "affectionate husband," "display of tenderness," "sweet and profound humility," "promoter of every commendable and pious design," "every laudable habit," "moral renovation," "habit of holiness," and "redeemed" when an understanding was perfected in 1824.[86]
The cause of the misunderstanding was of long standing. Agents of the American Colonization Society prior to Ashmun's time were accused of transmitting false reports to the board and of appropriating to their own use the provisions and supplies of the colonists.[87] It is also known that a commercial company of Baltimore, whose business it was to prosecute the African slave trade, was jealous of the Society and tried to undermine it. In addition, the trials and hardships incidental to founding the colony had reduced many of the settlers to want.[88] The most ignorant could thus fathom their condition: "We suffer: if the Society have means and does not apply them to our relief, it is without benevolence; if it have not means, it wants power and in either case is unworthy of our confidence."[89]
This lack of power showed itself in the helplessness of the government to restrain the first vestiges of insubordination and to enforce the law. Thereupon, the discontentment of Cary and one or two others became widespread.[90] Probably the manhood consciousness of Cary would not have asserted itself so soon had not the occasion arisen between August 31 and September 25, 1823, when the principal Agent attempted to redistribute the town lots of the earliest colonists who alleged that they held them under a former sanction of the Agent and so refused to have them redistributed. They resolved to appeal to the board of the American Colonization Society.[91] Moreover, they openly avowed that they would neither survey nor cultivate any of the lots (thickly covered with undergrowth) assigned to them nor aid in any public improvements[92] until they should hear from the board. On the 13th of December, Ashmun published the announcement that there were in the Colony more than a dozen healthy persons who would not receive any more provisions out of the public store till they earned them. Six days later the Agent ordered the rations of the offending persons to be stopped. Next morning a few[93] of the colonists assembled at the Agency House and vociferously demanded the Agent to rescind his order. Ashmun was immovable. The colonists straightway hastened to the storehouse where rations for the week were then being issued and each seized a store of provisions and went home.[94] Lott Cary had no small influence and share in this seditious proceeding.[95] Toward evening, the Agent addressed a circular "to all the colonists" declaring that the impropriety of the morning's act would be communicated to the board. He further exhorted all to go to work and not to commit such an offence again for their sakes in this world or in the one to come. Lott Cary was not to perform any of his ministerial functions "till time and circumstances shall have evidenced the deepness and sincerity of his repentance."[96] Gurley states that the leaders of the sedition, led by Lott Cary, almost "immediately confessed and deplored" their error.[97]
It seemed in 1824 that the affair of the previous year would be repeated when, on March 17, the rations were reduced one half. The act was viewed by the colonists as oppression and they openly reproached Ashmun. Through all of this period, the spirit of disorganization was working so that the colonists furnished little support towards developing the government.[98]
In communicating the account of the disturbances to the board, Ashmun wrote, March 15, that "the services rendered by Lott Cary in the Colony, who has with very few (and those recent exceptions), done honor to the selection of the Baptist Missionary Society, under whose auspices he was sent out to Africa, entitle his agency in this affair, to the most indulgent construction which it will bear. The hand which records the lawless transaction, would long since have been cold in the grave, had it not been for the unwearied and painful attentions of this individual rendered at all hours—of every description—and continued several months."[99]
The General Missionary Convention was influenced very little, if any, by the report, if, indeed, they had received it officially. At the annual meeting of the Board of Managers, April, 1824, the committee on the African mission had "no hesitation in recommending a careful regard to this mission, which though it may seem to slumber for a moment, in their opinion promises great and extensive usefulness." The board recommended
That a constant correspondence be kept up with the brethren there by which their minds will be encouraged, and their hands strengthened and through which information may be received of the state of the Colony, the progress of the cause, and of the earliest opportunities which may offer for introducing the Gospel more extensively into the heart of Africa.[100]
There is no further account of this misunderstanding other than that from the pen of Ashmun. Mr. Taylor,[101] the biographer of Lott Cary, remarks: "He (Cary) was compelled, to some extent, to act the part of a mediator between the rebellious colonists, who considered themselves injured, and Mr. Ashmun, the Governor. While for a moment he might seem to act injudiciously, he possessed too much noble and generous feeling to be guilty of a dishonorable act." The Rev. G. Winfred Hervey[102] thinks that "in any controversy between mules and muledrivers, the latter have several advantages among which one of the most important is that they have the exclusive use of vocal attack and defence. Cary was too prudent a man to publish an apology for constructive sedition; and as he has not left us his own explanation of any of the facts in the case, we have not all the materials on which to base an impartial judgment."
The agitation at length had its effect. It was directly responsible for the establishment, in 1824, of a new form of government which was approved by Cary and his fellow-citizens and in which the colonists had a full expression.[103] Gurley[104] and Ashmun both testified that Cary readily entered into the spirit of the new government.[105] Only eight days, from August 14 to 22, were needed to organize a government that should be energetic and feasible.[106] "Beneath the thatched roof of the first rude house for divine worship ever erected in the Colony stood the little company of one hundred colored emigrants, who had ventured all things to gain for themselves and children a home and inheritance of liberty and before God pledged themselves to maintain the Constitution of their choice, and prove faithful to the great trust committed to their hands."[107] Despite the seeming repetition of the chagrin of past irregularities in September, 1824, however, the board of the American Colonization Society passed a motion, April 2, 1825, to organize, on the 18th of the next month, a permanent government for the colony.[108]
Usefulness of the Man
During these times Lott Cary continued to increase his popularity by performing the pastoral duties of the Providence Baptist Church as vigorously as he could.[109] He preached several times each week, and, in addition, gave religious instruction to many of the native children. A day school of twenty-one pupils was begun April 18, 1825.[110] By June, the number had increased to thirty-two, nineteen of whom came from Grand Cape Mount, some miles distant.[111] Cary was handicapped in this work by the lack of funds, by the demoralizing gin traffic of the Europeans, by Mohammedanism, by the deadly climate and by degraded fetichism,[112] yet, in the course of seven weeks, he taught several children to read the Bible intelligently, although he could not devote more than three hours a day to this work.[113]
In the meantime, in keeping with the report of the Board of Managers of the General Missionary Convention in 1823, Governor Ashmun wrote to the American Colonization Society, March 20, 1825, that "the natives have universally a most affecting persuasion of the superiority of white men.... I cannot hesitate to say that the missionary, or principal of the proposed establishment (i.e., a religious mission for Africa), ought by preference to be a white man."[114] The little colony of near 400 souls was suffering for an adequate educational program. Excepting Governor Ashmun, there was not an individual there who had ever received a plain English education.[115] Allowing that and granting that there were few intelligent Negroes in the United States,[116] Ashmun would have appeared more hopeful of Negro leadership had he made his request to the board more general.
Whether because of this appeal or not, it is singular to note that the Rev. Calvin Holton, a graduate of Waterville College (now Colby College), offered his service to the board the same year and, with 34 emigrants,[117] sailed from Boston in the brig Vine, January 4, 1826. He was employed to establish and direct a Lancastrian system of education for (1) the children of the colonists, (2) for the native children living in the settlement, (3) for the recaptured Africans who numbered about 120, and (4) for the young men and women who were teaching or preparing themselves for this profession.[118] His work was not of long duration for on the 2d of July, 1826, he died[119] and was succeeded early in 1827 by the Rev. G. M'Gill, "an intelligent and experienced coloured Teacher from Baltimore."[120]
About this time the number of native boys who received instruction was only 50. These were trained either to be interpreters to American and European missionaries or religious teachers. Lott Cary had 45 scholars enrolled in his school at Monrovia.[121] He was assisted by a lad of fourteen years and by the Rev. John N. Lewis, another missionary sent out by the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, but who, from lack of adequate support, turned to other business.[122]
Lott Cary had a large task to perform with this school. As a matter of fact, "the hopes of the African tribes," said Ashmun,[123] "from Gallinas to Trade Town, are at present suspended upon it. Most of the boys who attend it are sons of the principal individuals of the country, and more than half can read the New Testament intelligently, and understand the English language nearly as well as the settlers of the same age." The expense of a native boy was estimated at $25 and of a girl at $20.[124]
Gurley believed that the schools were numerous enough and amply able to afford instruction to every child in the colony. Although this instruction was compulsory, it is not altogether evident, however, that at any place save Monrovia a real educational program was begun. Ashmun related that about six out of every ten emigrants were illiterate and that just one pious individual assisted by two or three utterly illiterate exhorters was the only instructor around the settlement. "Not one in five of these people habitually attend, even on Sundays, such religious instruction as they possess." Consequently, he adds that the moral power exerted was not sufficient to offset "the demoralizing influence of corrupt examples."[125]
The Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society and Lott Cary, however, were expending their funds liberally on the schools. The surplus funds in the colonial treasury plus the subscription of $1,400 from the colonists (including $300 subscribed by Ashmun) were spent for education.[126] Yet from all sources enough money could not be raised to continue all the schools begun. Cary, in 1827, removed the day school from Monrovia to Grand Cape Mount. He made appeal after appeal to send the light to Africa. To prove that the natives would sooner steal the light than miss it he gives the following incident that occurred in removing the school establishment to Grand Cape Mount:
"I had upwards of forty natives," he said,[127] "to carry our baggage, and they carried something like 250 bars ($187.50); a part of them went on four days beforehand, and had every opportunity to commit depredations, but of all the goods that were sent and carried there, nothing was lost except fifteen spelling books; five of them were recovered again."
Mr. Cary's letter to Mr. Crane will explain somewhat the circumstances of the school at Grand Cape Mount.
June 11, 1827.
On yesterday week, being our monthly meeting, I baptized one young man, and after preaching in the afternoon, we had the happiness to break bread together in the house of the Lord. I don't like to be too sanguine, but I think he will be a blessing to the church; his name is John Reavy (Revey)—came out in the first expedition, and has been engaged in teaching a native school on the Sherbro, with Nathaniel Brander, until the last two years, which he has spent at Sierra Leone.
For I fear I may not have another opportunity to write you again soon, I must again call your attention to the immediate establishment of a school at Cape Mount. Since writing the fore part of this letter, I have received an order for books from Cape Mount, which I have sent. I requested, at the same time, the native Brother, John,[128] to come down immediately, and I would try and arrange business so as to send up a teacher with him; and on proposing the subject to Brother John Reavy, he is quite willing to go up to commence the school as soon as the Brother comes down. I expect to allow him $10.00 per month and find him. My means at present will not justify these engagements, but I know you will do what you can when there is an opportunity; if you cannot send out tobacco or other articles, send out the money. United States bank notes pass as well here as they do with you. I shall try to keep the wheels going until you can send out supplies. I want some writing paper and ink powder or ink, and wish the Society (Richmond) would send me a bbl. of single nails. You will please make my respects to all the brethren and friends, and accept the same for yourself and the Board.
Lott Cary.[129]
After many months of delay[130] the school was established November 10, 1827, at Big Town, Grand Cape Mount. John Revey was in charge. "The school room," says Cary,[131] "is nearly fifteen feet by thirty. We made arrangements to have worship in it on the ensuing Lord's day, and I had the honour to address a very attentive audience twice, through brother John. After service I informed the congregation that I should need their assistance the following day in preparing seats, &c., and they turned out like men, and performed more labour by eight o'clock, than I expected to have accomplished in the whole day. We got seats prepared for about 60 children by 4 o'clock, and gave notice that as the school would be organized on the day following, at 9 o'clock, A.M., all persons wishing to have their children instructed were requested to come at that time and have them entered, and the number received was 37. I read and explained a short set of regulations which I had drawn up; and as I had the king and his head men present, I got them to sign the articles of agreement in the presence of the whole congregation. For twelve months I think the school will, of course, be expensive. The present arrangement is—I agree to allow brother Revey $20 per month, and find him provisions, washing, &c."
Mr. Cary thought that by this arrangement the station at Grand Cape Mount would net better results than the one at Monrovia. Neither he nor the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society were able to maintain both. Some funds were received[132] but it developed in about a year that the school had to be given up for lack of funds and assistants.[133]
Other duties, moreover, required some time. Lott Cary realized from the beginning of the colony that a missionary in Africa ought to be more than a corrector of moral ills and a "doctor" of divinity; he would be fortunate indeed if he could mend human bodies. As a result, Cary was constrained to forego much of the joy which he had anticipated from efforts to show men the living Christ by accepting the position of Health Officer of the colony, August 31, 1822.[134] He had no medical schooling but with the use of home remedies, patent medicines,[135] and common sense, he was able to cure some. Until the 31st of August, 1823, he was practically the only physician in the settlement (excepting Dr. Ayres who was present a part of the year 1822). After that Dr. Ayres returned on the Oswego in the late spring of 1825.[136] He and sixty emigrants who came with him were soon suffering from the disease of the country and had to rely on the medical experience of Cary. Eight emigrants died[137] and by December, Dr. Ayres was compelled to leave the colony. The climate was so unhealthy that hardly any one escaped its pestilence.[138] When, in addition, the poor housing conditions, the inadequate sanitation and the scanty hospital supplies[139] are considered, it is remarkable that so many escaped death.
Every ship[140] that brought emigrants meant more work for Cary. On February 13, 1824,[141] one hundred and five emigrants arrived in the ship Cyrus and in less than a month every one was prostrate with the fever.[142] "Astonishing," said Ashmun,[143] "that in this atmosphere should exist causes so universal in their operation, as amongst all the varieties of age, sex and habit, not to leave one in the whole number without disease, and that in less than four weeks; and stranger still, that the blast should be so tempered to the strength of the constitution of every individual, as only to have swept off three small children. Men may call these phenomena in human life, the effects of the laws of nature; I choose to call them singular proofs of the Providence of God over all his creatures."
When the brig Hunter arrived, March 13, 1825, with 66 settlers, nearly all of whom were farmers,[144] all were stricken during the first month. Although Cary himself was confined to his house nursing a severe injury, only a few children were fatally affected.[145]
Cary gratuitously spent about half of his time in caring for the sick of the colony. This fact was a matter of course as no funds were specially designated for this purpose. Cary was financially able to do such a thing. He had defrayed no small share of his own expense[146] in equipment for Africa, and when the colonists were in need of medical aid, he spent much of his means in this direction.[147] In 1825 he still owned a house and lot near Richmond which he was desirous of selling.[148]
Lott Cary was so occupied with caring for the sick that his prospective trip to America in the spring of 1826 had to be postponed.[149] He was also physician to Governor Ashmun. The governor was very ill in May after an exposure of four hours in attempting to save the schooner Catherine from destruction. "The prescriptions of our excellent and experienced assistant physician, the Rev. L. Cary," the Governor said,[150] "under the blessing of Divine Providence, so far succeeded as to afford complete relief, only leaving me in a very emaciated and enfeebled state, about the end of the first week in July."
All of this was just part of the work that Lott Cary had set himself to accomplish. By his unselfish labors and untiring efforts he had won the hearts of the natives. He had been indefatigable in his efforts to uplift the colony. The morale of the settlement was greatly lifted. Drunkenness, profanity and quarreling were unknown; the Sabbath was observed with strictness.[151] Nearly the whole adult population had come under the influence of Christianity. On the site of a once desolate forest consecrated to demon worship was erected the commodious chapel which stood as a monument of the overthrow of heathenism and as a tribute to the Son of God.[152]
But in the sight of this landmark of Christianity, the slave trade was carried on extensively.[153] In 1825 from eight to ten, even fifteen traders were engaged at the same time off the coast. In July "contracts were existing for eight hundred slaves to be furnished in the short space of four months within eight miles of the Cape. Four hundred of these were to be purchased for two American traders. During the same season, a boat belonging to a Frenchman, having on board twenty-six slaves, all in irons, was upset in the mouth of the St. Paul River and twenty of their number perished."[154] Between October, 1825, and April, 1826, no less than one hundred and eighty Negroes were reclaimed from slave traders and taught the Scripture.[155]
When Gurley visited the colony in August, 1824, he found the state of religion and morality hopeful, defenses adequate, quiet Sabbaths and physical improvements which indicated that a considerable amount of labor had been done. For twenty-two months following, the jails were in disuse.[156] By 1826 the people had developed from inexperienced immigrants to efficient citizens. No family was without ample food and wearing apparel. Wages were high and employment could be found everywhere. The common laborers were receiving from $.75 to $1.75 a day, while the mechanics got $2 a day. Houses were built and a telegraph system was soon to be installed. There were also two corps of militia, an artillery battery of fifty men and forty infantrymen. These had charge of the fifteen large carriages and three small pivot guns.[157]
A printing press costing more than $1,000, in addition to the salary of a printer, had been sent out. The citizens of Liberia expressed their thanks by subscribing nearly $200 "toward the immediate issue and support of a publick newspaper."[158] One thousand volumes of books, a complete set of the North American Review, a gift of Editor Sparks, and many other useful things were on hand.[159]
Economic effort, however, did not at first play as conspicuous a part in the missionary adventure of Lott Cary as it did in the lives of the pioneers, George Liele and David George, who left this country primarily to be able to make a living.[160] Nevertheless, the economic feature developed after a time. The agricultural progress of the country was rapidly promoted. The sultry and moist climate greatly accelerated[161] the growth of coffee,[162] rice and cassada. The Rev. Colston M. Waring was the first to attempt farming on anything like a large scale. His crop of rice and cassada on a ten acre farm failed and checked so bold an example from all except Lott Cary. He, too, lost a promising crop in 1825 on the same kind of land because of the birds and the monkeys.[163] This failure, however, showed him that either farming as the natives adopted (scratching the surface of the ground with a sharp stick) or more improved methods of thoroughly preparing the soil had to be tried.[164] In the following year, Cary enlarged his farm, had it cleared, dug it up with picks and hoes, and, in June, sowed about three bushels of rice to the acre. At the first cutting, on the 20th of October, it averaged 50 kroos (a measure varying from 3 to 5 winchester gallons) per acre.[165]
In one letter, he says:[166] "I have a promising little crop of rice and cassada, and have planted about 180 coffee trees this week, a part of which I expect, will produce next season, as they are now in bloom. I think, sir, that in a very few years we shall send you coffee of a better quality than you have ever seen brought into your market. We find that trees of two species abound in great quantities on the Cape."
On the 7th of July, 1825, Cary reported a discovery of gold in the sand near little Cape Mount.[167] The appearance of gold was certain to develop the country commercially; some trade was already being carried on. Endeavoring to participate therein, nine of the natives built a ten ton schooner which carried from four to eight thousand dollars' worth of goods each trip.[168] Doctor Alexander[169] relates that between the first of January and the fifteenth of July, 1826, fifteen vessels stopped at Monrovia.
Nevertheless, there were some anti-slavery leaders in America who seriously questioned the permanent utility and moral influence of the colony of Liberia. One of these anti-slavery groups, composed of free Negroes of Philadelphia, was led by Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.[170] In a letter to a gentleman in Richmond, Lott Cary makes mention, September 24, 1827, of the agitation carried on by these Negroes of Philadelphia. "Before I left America," he said,[171] "and ever since then, the coloured people in about Philadelphia, have been making efforts in opposition to the scheme of colonizing the free people in Africa; and as some of their very recent publications have reached this place, I felt that in justice to the cause, and my own feelings, I ought to undertake to point out to them their situation."
Unfortunately the letter closes shortly after this but singularly enough our sources supply an "Address, By the Citizens of Monrovia, to the free coloured people of the United States,"[172] which no doubt is referred to in the letter. The name of Lott Cary is not attached to this address, which boosts "the doings of the Colonization Society" and which points out the political, social, economic, educational and religious advantages enjoyed by the colonists. Nevertheless, the document could not fully express the sentiments of the colonists unless the feelings of the leaders were given. It is not too much to presume that the address was gotten up by Lott Cary, the outstanding leader of the colonists, but it is very doubtful whether he wrote it in its present form. The correspondence of Cary reveals that he did not express himself so clearly nor did he use so good English.[173] The antithetical style reminds one of the writing of Ashmun.[174]
Through all of the many affairs which Cary performed, he continued pastor of the church at Monrovia. A missionary society was formed in connection with the church in the spring of 1826. Cary was elected president.[175] At the first anniversary[176] on Easter Monday, in consequence of the failure of the Rev. Colin Teague to come from Sierra Leone, Lott Cary preached the introductory sermon.[177] This society contributed $50 for mission work during the year 1827.[178] By the following year, the church contained one hundred members and two ordained preachers, John Lewis and Colston M. Waring, besides exhorters.[179]
Final Work and Worth
Lott Cary was none the less interested and active in the welfare of the government. From the first settlement in Cape Montserado, he was appointed Government Inspector at the same time he was selected Health Officer[180] and consequently he knew something of the working of the government. In September, 1826, he was unanimously elected vice-agent of the colony. The colonial agent had great confidence in his judgments, decisions and loyalty[181] and left the affairs of the colony in Cary's charge when he was advised in 1828 to return to America for his health.[182]
"I was able," Mr. Ashmun wrote to the board,[183] "to arrange the concerns of the Colony with Mr. Cary, even to the minutest particulars, and I have the greatest confidence that his administration will prove satisfactory, in a high degree, to the Board and advantageous to the Colony."
During the first six months, Cary's task was to see to it that every man and working family were self-supporting. "To effect this object, they must be furnished with a few simple tools—to pay for them if they can—if not, to receive them gratuitously. Their allowance must be withheld if they neglect or negligently follow the improvement of their lands, and the building of their houses. Much may be done by visiting the people separately, getting at their intentions and circumstances and spurring, advising or reproving as they may require. I am persuaded it will be useful, and in most instances possible to get at least all the men out of the public receptacles and on their lands before the rains set in." Respecting the buildings of the United States, those of the colony, the arms, forts, printing establishment, farms, Millsburg settlement, finances, etc., other particular regulations were suggested.[184] Lott Cary kept Ashmun and the American Colonization Society informed about the condition of the colony.[185] On his death bed, Ashmun again expressed his confidence in Cary and urged that he should be permanently appointed to conduct the affairs of the colony[186] which now contained upwards of 1,200 settlers.[187]
The only trouble that Cary had while he was vice-agent was with the natives.[188] The factory belonging to the colony at Digby, a settlement just north of Monrovia, was robbed by them and general hostilities threatened when satisfaction was demanded and refused. A letter of protest to a slave dealer who had stored his goods in the house where stores of the colony had been deposited was intercepted and destroyed by the natives. Immediately, Cary prepared to defend the rights and property of the colony. He called out the militia and began with others, in the evening of November 8, to make cartridges in the old agency house. In some manner, a candle was accidentally upset and almost instantly the entire ammunition exploded, entirely destroying the house. Eight people died; six of the number survived until the next day; Lott Cary and one other until November 10, 1828.[189]
The unbelievable news of the death of Lott Cary spread like a mighty conflagration to the organizations which he represented. The following is the resolution read and adopted at the annual meeting of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in 1829:[190]
The loss which has been sustained, cannot in our estimation, be easily repaired. This excellent man seems to have been raised up by divine providence, for the special purpose of taking an active part in the management of the infant settlement. His discriminating judgment, his honesty of heart, and decision of character, qualified him eminently, for this service. But, especially, in relation to your society is his death to be sincerely lamented. It will be recollected, that he was a principal instrument in the origin of this society, and for several years acted as its recording secretary. A little more than eight years ago, he received his appointment, and sailed, as missionary, in company with brother Teage, for the land of their forefathers. His exertions as a minister in that land have been of the most devoted and untiring kind. In the communications which have been received by the Board, he seemed to possess the most anxious concern for the salvation of the perishing multitudes around him. Through his instrumentality a considerable church has been collected together which seems to be in a prosperous and growing condition. Sabbath and week day schools have been instituted for the instruction of native children and the children of the colony, which have proved eminently useful. We were looking forward with confidence to the more perfect consummation of our wishes, when that moral desert should rejoice and blossom as the rose; but God has seen fit to cross our expectations, in calling from his station this laborious missionary. It becomes us to bow with submission to the stroke, and to realize the saying of the apostle, "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." Although we were not permitted to receive his dying testimony to the trust, we have the fullest assurance that our loss is his unspeakable and eternal gain.
At the sixth triennial meeting of the General Missionary Convention, 1829, the committee on the African Mission made this report[191] which in some particulars was paradoxical:
This excellent man (it began) went to Africa, under the patronage of the American Colonization Society, as well as of this convention.... Could he have devoted his whole time to our service much good might have been expected to have resulted from his labors. But he was under necessity to assist in its government and defense, as well as to act as its physician.
It is a source of consolation to the friends of Mr. Cary that though his life was terminated in an unexpected moment and in a most distressing manner, the unwearied diligence and fidelity with which he discharged the important trust confided to his care—his zeal for the honor of religion, and the purity and piety of his general conduct have gained him a reputation which must live in grateful remembrance, as long as the interesting colony exists, in whose service he lived and died.
Your committee cannot help expressing their regret that so small a portion of benevolent feeling has been exercised towards this mission, and that so little has been accomplished during the eight years of its existence.
The next item of this report is an appeal for "some brethren of competent talents" to go and labor there.
There surely was ground for regret that so small a portion of benevolent feeling was exercised towards this mission. Some individuals did contribute now and then; "A Georgia Planter" sent a part of $10;[192] a "poor woman" of the Rev. H. Malcom's congregation sent $3 for the African mission;[193] "a friend to Africa avails of jewelry for mission to Liberia, per Mr. E. Lincoln, $6";[194] the Negroes connected with the First Baptist Church, Washington, sent $15[195] and, no doubt, some others contributed.
It is not quite clear, however, why William Crane, still representing the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in the Convention and the Rev. James B. Taylor, a delegate from Virginia and later the biographer of Lott Cary, did not challenge the statement that so little had been accomplished during the eight years of the existence of the African mission.
The Convention then adopted the following recommendation of the Committee:
Resolved, That this convention cherish a grateful recollection of the self-denying labors of our late lamented missionary to Africa, Rev. Lott Cary, and that we sympathize with his family, the American Colonization Society, and the church at Monrovia, in the loss they have sustained in his death.
Resolved, That it be recommended to the Board to take measures for supplying the vacancy occasioned by the death of Bro. Cary as soon as possible by an able white missionary, and that they endeavor to the utmost of their power to promote the success of this mission, as one in which the convention feel a special interest.
S. Cornelius, Chairman.
It was not until 1832 that the Convention saw the error of its conclusion and declared that it must depend "principally on colored persons, as missionaries and school teachers, in Africa."[196] Despite this color-phobia of the Baptists, nothing can explain away the fact that Lott Cary had lived helpfully and died honorably. Gurley[197] and Hervey[198] would make him a man of genius who, had he possessed educational advantages, would have won a worldwide reputation as preacher, as general or as chief magistrate. This square-faced, keen-eyed, reserved, cautious black held nothing back. From Charles City County to Richmond, from slave to freedman, from profligate to prophet, from sinner to saint, is a record that might have gone unnoticed; but from America to Africa, from governed to governor, from missionary to martyr is Lott Cary.
For over a score of years the little village of Carytown was the only memento of the man. But in 1850, the Rev. Eli Ball, an agent of the Southern Baptist Convention, while visiting all the Liberian Baptist Mission stations, found with difficulty the final resting place of Lott Cary. The next year a marble monument was sent out and placed over his grave.[199]
Miles Mark Fisher
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This spelling seems more correct than either the short form, Lot Cary, used by the Rev. D. Stratton, D.D. of St. Albans, West Virginia, in his "Life and Work of Lot Cary, Missionary in Africa," or the longer form, Lott Carey, used by the Rev. James B. Taylor in "The Biography of Elder Lott Carey" and by many other writers for the following consideration: There is no trace of Cary spelling his name Lot Cary. In the American Baptist Magazine and Gammell's "A History of American Baptist Missions" there are letters from or references to Cary marked Lott Carey, which are no doubt presumptions on the part of the printer or writer that the name is spelled like that of the Rev. William Carey. If, on the other hand, Lott Cary spelled his name either Carey or Cary, that would only argue that his name would be better spelled Lott Cary as a means of distinction from the Rev. William Carey. "The Biography of Elder Lott Carey" written in 1837 is the source of much that is known of the man but seems to draw heavily from the "Life of Jehudi Ashmun, late Colonial Agent in Liberia, with an Appendix Containing Extracts from His Journal and Other Writings, with a Brief Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Lott Cary," written in 1835 by Ralph Randolph Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society. Many incidents of the life of Lott Cary are taken from the life and writings of Mr. Ashmun. It would therefore seem consistent to follow his spelling of the name. In this work, the name, Lott Cary, is used frequently—even signed to a letter to Mr. Gurley—and many references are made to it by Mr. Ashmun who probably knew Cary better than anyone else. Only once in the entire work, on page 126, never in the "Brief Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Lott Cary," is the name spelled Carey. This could be a typographical error. Furthermore, Mr. Randall who went to Africa as Governor of Liberia about a month and a half after Cary's death said, respecting a native settlement, "I propose to have it called after him, Carytown." (The African Repository, Vol. V, p. 1.) Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. I, p. 548, follows this spelling.
[2] This name is also variously spelled—Collin or Colin and Teague or Teage. The above spelling is from the American Baptist Missionary Union in their Missionary Jubilee volume, pp. 215, 267.
[3] Proceedings of the Fifth Triennial Meeting of the Baptist General Convention, 1826, p. 22; Earnest, The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia, p. 95; $150 was appropriated for the mission May 23, 1823. Proceedings, 1826, pp. 22, 32.
[4] Report of the Board of Managers of the General Convention in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, pp. 396 ff.
[5] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[6] Hervey, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands, p. 199.
[7] Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, p. 147; Peck, History of the Missions of the Baptist General Convention in the History of American Missions to the Heathen, p. 443.
[8] Hervey, op. cit., p. 199.
[9] The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 11; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 147.
[10] Hervey, op. cit., p. 200.
[11] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[12] Peck, op. cit., p. 443.
[13] The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 11; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 147.
[14] The gallery was reserved for the slaves connected with the church and congregation. Hervey, op. cit., p. 202.
[15] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[16] Ibid.
[17] The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 11; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 147; Peck, op. cit., p. 443.
[18] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 148; Peck, op. cit., p. 443.
[19] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[20] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 148.
[21] Peck, op. cit., p. 443.
[22] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340. His wife died shortly before this time, The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 11; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 147.
[23] Fifth Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. I, pp. 400f.
[24] The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 12.
[25] Ibid., Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 148.
[26] Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopaedia, Vol. I, p. 288.
[27] The Missionary Jubilee, pp. 17, 18, 19; Tupper, A Decade of Foreign Missions, p. 875.
[28] Peck, op. cit., p. 444; The Missionary Jubilee, p. 214; Tupper, op. cit., p. 875.
[29] The outbreaks of Toussaint L'Ouverture in Hayti in 1789 and especially Gabriel in Richmond had not died away. Gabriel in 1800 organized 1000 Negroes in Henrico County. The plot, however, was betrayed by a slave Pharaoh and amounted to no lives lost except those of Gabriel and Jack Bowles who were executed. A public guard of 68 policed the city for some months afterwards. Cf. Ballagh, Slavery in Virginia, p. 92.
[30] From Article I of the Constitution of this body it is presumed that the Richmond Society contributed "a sum amounting to at least one hundred dollars" for their membership fee.
[31] Proceedings of the General Convention, 1817, p. 134.
[32] Gammell, A History of American Baptist Missions, p. 256.
[33] The Third Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, p. 180.
[34] Proceedings of the Baptist General Convention, 1829, p. 34; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, pp. 30, 32.
[35] Letter to Doctor Staughton, dated Philadelphia, April 30, 1818, in the Fourth Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions.
[36] Third Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, p. 180.
[37] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[38] August 5, 1816, the Negro Baptists of Warren County, North Carolina, contributed $5.15; August 18, of the County Line Association, Caswell County, North Carolina, $.69; September 1, of the Shiloh Association, Culpepper, Virginia, $1.90; October 21, of the Pee Dee Association, Montgomery County, North Carolina, $2.19; May 7, 1817, "a col. Wom." of Georgia, $1; June 2, "Coloured Brethren" of the Sunbury Association, Georgia, $21; June 16, "a man of colour 15 cts.—a woman of col. 6 cts." and August 1, "a man of col. 25 cts."—The Third Annual Report of the Baptist Board, pp. 146-149; The Fourth Annual Report of the Baptist Board, pp. 206, 208.
[39] The Fourth Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, pp. 206, 208, 210.
[40] Peck, op. cit., p. 444; Hervey, op. cit., p. 201.
[41] Cf. Journal of Mills in Spring, Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills.
[42] Letter dated Richmond, March 28, 1819, to the Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, Washington City.
[43] The Missionary Jubilee, p. 215.
[44] Sixth Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, p. 141.
[45] The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, p. 141.
[46] Peck, op. cit., p. 439; cf. also The Missionary Jubilee, p. 215. The constitution of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society restricted its funds to Africa.
[47] The African Repository, March, 1829; Gurley, op. cit., appendix.
[48] This would have increased his salary to $1000 annually.
[49] Letter of William Crane to the Rev. Obadiah Brown.
[50] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 148.
[51] Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 145-156.
[52] Seventh Annual Report of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, pp. 317f.
[53] Ibid., p. 399; The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 341; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 159; Peck, op. cit., p. 439; The Missionary Jubilee, p. 215.
[54] Peck, op. cit., p. 444; Hervey, op. cit., p. 202.
[55] Hervey, op. cit., pp. 201f.
[56] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 149.
[57] Ibid., p. 148; The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 12.
[58] Hervey, op. cit., p. 202.
[59] Earnest, op. cit., p. 95.
[60] Journal of Cary in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, p. 399.
[61] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. III, p. 181.
[62] Hervey, op. cit., p. 202.
[63] The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, pp. 397f.
[64] Peck, op. cit., p. 439.
[65] Gammell, op. cit., pp. 247, 249.
[66] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. II, p. 181.
[67] Alexander, A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa, p. 245.
[68] Latrobe, Maryland in Liberia, p. 9.
[69] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, pp. 149f.
[70] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[71] The Fifth Annual Report of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States, pp. 55-64.
[72] Liberia was named at the annual meeting of the Colonization Society, February, 1825. Fox, The American Colonization Society, p. 71.
[73] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 149; Hervey, op. cit., p. 202.
[74] Warneck, Outline of a History of Protestant Missions, p. 193.
[75] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 149; Hervey, op. cit., p. 203.
[76] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 149; Hervey, op. cit., p. 203; The African Repository, March, 1829, p. 13; The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 341.
[77] Gammell, op. cit., p. 244; Peck, op. cit., p. 441.
[78] Peck, op. cit., p. 439; Gammell, op. cit., p. 244.
[79] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 142.
[80] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 341; Gammell, op. cit., p. 244; Tupper, The Foreign Missions of the Southern Baptist Convention, p. 277.
[81] A Negro Baptist preacher who accompanied David George to Sierra Leone from Nova Scotia in 1792. For a detailed account cf. Rippon, The Baptist Annual Register, Vol. I, pp. 478-481.
[82] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. V, pp. 241f.; The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, pp. 222f.
[83] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, pp. 222f.
[84] At the annual meeting of the American Colonization Society, February, 1825, on motion of General Robert G. Harper, the settlement was named Monrovia, in honor of the President of the United States. Fox, op. cit., p. 71.
[85] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, pp. 244f. In the Report of the Board of Managers of the General Missionary Convention, May, 1825, "Lott Cary ... states that hostilities ... of the natives had ceased.... He asks for assistance to complete the work (on the church); and the Board feel pleasure in recommending the case to the hearts of all who are interested in the melioration of the condition of the African Race." Ibid., Vol. V, p. 216.
[86] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[87] Gurley, op. cit., p. 196.
[88] Gurley, op. cit., p. 213.
[89] Ibid., p. 214.
[90] Ibid., p. 213.
[91] Ibid., op. cit., p. 182.
[92] The laws of the Society required every adult male to work two days a week for the public good while receiving rations from the public store. This rule was dispensed with providing each colonist would cultivate his own land. Ibid., p. 186.
[93] Ibid., appendix, p. 150.
[94] Gurley, op. cit., p. 187.
[95] Ibid., appendix, p. 150.
[96] Fox, op. cit., p. 72.
[97] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 150.
[98] Ibid., pp. 190ff.
[99] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 150.
[100] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 423.
[101] Hervey, op. cit., p. 204.
[102] Gurley, op. cit., p. 203.
[103] Gurley, op. cit., p. 214; Hervey, op. cit., p. 204.
[104] Ibid., op. cit., p. 215; ibid., appendix, p. 150.
[105] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 143.
[106] Ibid.
[107] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 49.
[108] Ibid. p. 246.
[109] Gammell, op. cit., p. 247.
[110] The Missionary Jubilee, p. 215.
[111] The Veys inhabit this healthy country and are very intelligent. They have a written language although no books. Peck, op. cit., p. 441.
[112] Warneck, op. cit., p. 189.
[113] Peck, op. cit., p. 441.
[114] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 30.
[115] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 341.
[116] Cf. Jones, The Religious Instruction of the Negro in the United States.
[117] These emigrants with one exception were from Newport, Rhode Island. Eighteen of them were, just before their departure and at their own request, organized into a church. Gurley, op. cit., pp. 308, 310.
[118] Gurley, op. cit., p. 309.
[119] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 368; Gammell, op. cit., p. 247; Peck, op. cit., p. 442; The Missionary Jubilee, p. 215.
[120] Gurley, op. cit., p. 356.
[121] The schools and scholars in Liberia in 1827 were as follows:
| Rev. Mr. Gary's school for native children | 45 |
| Rev. Mr. M'Gill's classes | 16 |
| Mr. Stewart's school | 44 |
| Miss Jackson's school | 40 |
| Mrs. Williams' school | 30 |
| Mr. Prout's school | 52 |
Gurley, op. cit., p. 350.
[122] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, pp. 272f.; ibid., Vol. VII, p. 166.
[123] Gurley, op. cit., p. 357.
[124] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. XXI, p. 183.
[125] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, pp. 32, 35, 36, 37.
[126] Ibid., op. cit., p. 356.
[127] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VIII, p. 144; cf. also Alexander, op. cit., pp. 248f.
[128] Baptized eighteen months before by Cary. He was a native evangelist at Big Town, Grand Cape Mount and styled himself John Baptist. Letter of Cary dated Monrovia, June, 1827, to Crane.
[129] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VII, pp. 305f.
[130] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VIII, pp. 143f.
[131] Ibid., pp. 53f.
[132] The General Missionary Convention made a remittance of $90 on February 15, 1828. The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VII, pp. 170, 176.
[133] Peck, op. cit., p. 442.
[134] Alexander, op. cit., p. 181.
[135] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[136] The American Missionary Register, May, 1825, p. 142.
[137] Gurley, op. cit., p. 182.
[138] Ibid., p. 190.
[139] Ibid., p. 182.
[140] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[141] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 142.
[142] Peck, op. cit., p. 439; Stratton, Life and Work of Lot Cary, p. 3.
[143] Gurley, op. cit., p. 190.
[144] Gurley, op. cit., p. 232.
[145] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. V, p. 242.
[146] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[147] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[148] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 340.
[149] This trip was to influence the free people of color in the United States to emigrate to Liberia. Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 151.
[150] Gurley, op. cit., pp. 340f.
[151] Peck, op. cit., p. 554.
[152] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 216.
[153] Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, p. 157.
[154] Ibid., op. cit., p. 261.
[155] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, pp. 212f.; Peck, op. cit., p. 442.
[156] The American Missionary Register, Vol. VI, p. 142.
[157] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 216.
[158] The Liberia Herald ran for three issues. Then the printer, Mr. Charles L. Force, died. Ibid., pp. 214ff.
[159] Ibid.
[160] Rippon, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 334, 482; Alexander, op. cit., p. 41; Crooks, A History of the Colony of Sierra Leone, p. 36.
[161] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 66.
[162] Ibid., p. 56.
[163] Ibid., p. 131.
[164] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 132.
[165] Ibid.
[166] Alexander, op. cit., p. 247.
[167] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 126.
[168] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 216.
[169] History of African Colonization, p. 225.
[170] Cf. Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, p. 92; Cromwell, The Early Negro Convention Movement, pp. 3-5.
[171] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VIII, pp. 53f.
[172] Cf. Letters and Addresses of Lott Cary.
[173] Cf. especially Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 153, 157. In speaking of going to Grand Cape Mount, Mr. Cary says, "I should have went up last year ... we may anticipate a middling severe struggle from the Mandingo priests who have been for years propagating their system of religion among that nation. They are a kind of Mahometan Jews—they are very skilful in the Old Testament...." The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VII, p. 305. Moreover, there is no known evidence that any other of the colonists could have written so well.
[174] Compare the Address of the Citizens of Monrovia to the free colored people of the United States with the account given in Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, pp. 136-138.
[175] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VIII, p. 203.
[176] $1 was the annual membership fee; 45 names were enrolled and the money paid. $7.25 was collected at the door. Ashmun contributed $5 extra. The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VII, p. 305n.
[177] Ibid., p. 305.
[178] Ibid., Vol. VIII, p. 170.
[179] Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 195; Peek, op. cit., p. 443.
[180] On August 31, 1822, Alexander, op. cit., p. 181.
[181] The African Repository, Vol. V, p. 14.
[182] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 153.
[183] Ibid., op. cit., p. 385.
[184] Gurley, op. cit., p. 385; cf. Journal of Lott Cary in Gurley, Life of Jehu Ashmun, appendix, pp. 153-156.
[185] Cf. Appendix L.
[186] Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 159.
[187] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, p. 212; Alexander, op. cit., p. 279.
[188] Alexander, op. cit., p. 261.
[189] The African Repository, Vol. V, p. 10; Gurley, op. cit., appendix, p. 160.
[190] Alexander, op. cit., pp. 254f.
[191] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, pp. 212, 215, cf. also p. 195.
[192] Cf. a letter to the treasurer of the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society in The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 181.
[193] The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, p. 255.
[194] Ibid., p. 214.
[195] The American Baptist Magazine, p. 215.
[196] Proceedings, 1832, pp. 10, 33.
[197] Op. cit., appendix, p. 160.
[198] Op. cit., p. 207.
[199] Hervey,op. cit., p. 206.
COMMUNICATIONS
The correspondence of the editor often has an historical value as the following communications will show:
February 13, 1922.
Dear Dr. Woodson:
Your Journal of Negro History has been so full of good material that I hesitate to call attention to two things in the last (January) number that seem unsuitable.
The first is the leading article on Slave Society on the Southern Society. For more than thirty years I have been combating with all my might the theory of slave-holding sovereignty set forth in that article. It is the essentially Southern view—a magnified view and an unreal view. The article is practically a mild form of the panegyric of the slave plantation which has been the stock in trade of defenders of slavery for a hundred years.
The reasons for slavery given on pages 1 and 2 do not accord with the facts, and if they were true would have minimized the protests against slavery, past and present. It is ridiculous to say that white men endanger their lives by working in the South when you consider how large a part of the cotton crop is raised entirely by white men.
The description of what was said to be the "usual" type of plantation house does not in my opinion apply to more than two hundred or three hundred plantations in the South at the outside. I have traveled very extensively in the South and have never seen more than three or four such mansions. The testimony of Olmsted and other writers is that ordinarily the slaveholder's house was poor and that he lived in a very poor fashion. As for the twelve sons and daughters in the planters' families, and the fifteen to twenty-five children in the negro families, it is perfect gammon. Not one family in a thousand had such numbers. None but a very few of the richest planters lived in the profusion described on page four. As for the enrolment in colleges between 1859 and 1860, and the incomes of the higher institutions, that is all bosh. Francis Lieber was a German by birth, found his service in South Carolina very uncongenial, and stood by the union. To compare slavery to apprenticeship is an affront. The day's work set down by Murat (whose history of the United States is a very obscure work) is contrary to evidence North or South. Regular nurseries were built only on a few large plantations. The arguments in favor of slavery on pages nine and ten are stated without qualification or contradiction. I deeply regret that a Journal of Negro History should admit an article so full of statements both untrue and dangerous to the Negro race.
The experience of a Georgia peon "seems to me very doubtful. I am personally acquainted with the story of Dade's stockade, and have passed within a few miles of it, and I do not believe in the least that there is now, or has been in the past thirty years, any plantation in the South where families are brought up in servitude. The only Ponce-de-Leon spring that I know is in Florida, which is not on the road between Georgia and Mississippi. The man seems to think that Chattanooga is on the west side of the river. It is a dangerous thing to accept any such statement without thorough investigation and calling upon the relater to state exactly where these things happened, and what was his course of travel.
I should not venture to write so decidedly but that you have done so much for the cause of the Negro race, and I don't like to see you give ammunition to the enemies of your race.
Sincerely yours,
Albert Bushnell Hart.
326 Flower St.,
Chester, Pa.,
June 26, 1922.Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D.,
The Journal of Negro History,
Washington, D. C.
My dear Doctor Woodson:The following list of Negro delegates to the Republican National Conventions from 1868 to 1920, inclusive, from South Carolina, may be of sufficient interest for publication. As the proceedings of the conventions do not differentiate as to the racial identity of the delegates it is necessary that this data should be collected before it is too late, especially as it pertains to the Reconstruction period. While a reduction in the numbers of delegates from South Carolina, as well as from most of the Southern States, was made by the Republican National Committee in December, 1913, the State still sends a majority of Negro delegates:
1868—Chicago, Ill., May 20-21.
Robert Brown Elliott, Henry B. Hayne, Stephen A. Swails,
Joseph H. Rainey, Wm. J. McKinlay, Robert Smalls,
Henry L. Shrewsbury.1872—Philadelphia, Pa., June 5-6.
At-Large—Alonzo J. Ransier.
1st District—Stephen A. Swails, F. H. Frost, Henry J.
Maxwell.
2nd District—Robert Smalls.
3rd District—Robert Brown Elliott, Wm. Beverly Nash.
A. J. Ransier on Committee to notify nominees.
At the Convention of 1872, General Elliott was called
upon from the floor to address the convention. His
speech will be found in the proceedings of the convention.1876—Cincinnati, Ohio, June 14-16.
At-Large—Robert Brown Elliott, Richard H. Gleaves.
1st District—Stephen A. Swails, Joseph H. Rainey.
2nd District—Wm. J. McKinlay.
3rd District—Wm. Beverly Nash.
5th District—Lawrence Cain, Robert Smalls.
Joseph H. Rainey on Committee to notify nominees.1880—Chicago, Illinois, June 2-8.
At-Large—Robert Brown Elliott, Samuel Lee.
1st District—Wm. A. Hayne.
3rd District—Charles M. Wilder.
4th District—Wilson Cooke.
5th District—Wm. F. Myers, Wm. J. Whipper.
Messrs. Hayne, Myers and Whipper went down to defeat
with General U. S. Grant. All received medals for
their loyalty.1884—Chicago, Illinois, June 3-6.
At-Large—Samuel Lee, Robert Smalls.
1st District—John M. Freeman.
2nd District—Paris Simpkins, Seymour E. Smith.
4th District—Charles M. Wilder, Wilson Cooke.
5th District—Eugene H. Dibble.
6th District—Edmund H. Deas.
7th District—Wm. H. Thompson.
Samuel Lee on Committee to notify nominees. Major
John R. Lynch, delegate from Mississippi, was elected
temporary chairman, the first and only time that a colored
man ever presided over a Republican National Convention.1888—Chicago, Illinois, June 19-25.
At-Large—Wm. F. Myers, Robert Smalls.
1st District—John M. Freeman.
2nd District—Fred Nix, Jr., Paris Simpkins.
3rd District—F. L. Hicks.
4th District—Peter F. Oliver, F. A. Saxton.
5th District—Charles C. Levy, Zachariah E. Walker.
6th District—Edmund H. Deas.
7th District—George E. Herriott.
Paris Simpkins on Committee to notify nominees.
Peter Oliver seconded the nomination of General Alger
for president.1892—Minneapolis, Minn., June 7-10.
At-Large—Edmund H. Deas, Dr. Wm. D. Crum.
1st District—John H. Fordham.
2nd District—Paris Simpkins, Seymour E. Smith.
3rd District—A. S. Jamison.
4th District—Irwin I. Miller.
5th District—Wm. E. Boykin.
6th District—Rev. Joshua E. Wilson.
7th District—R. H. Richardson.
E. H. Deas on Committee to notify presidential nominee.
J. H. Fordham on Committee to nominate vice-presidential
nominee.1896—St. Louis, Mo., June 16-18.
At-Large—Dr. Wm. D. Crum, Robert Smalls.
1st District—Robert C. Brown.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon.
4th District—Charles M. Wilder.
5th District—Wm. E. Boykin.
6th District—Edmund H. Deas, Rev. Joshua E. Wilson.
7th District—Zachariah E. Walker, John H. Fordham.
E. H. Deas on Committee to notify presidential nominee.
1900—Philadelphia, Pa., June 19-21.
At-Large—Edmund H. Deas, Robert Smalls.
1st District—Dr. Wm. D. Crum.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon, B. J. Dickerson.
5th District—Wm. E. Boykin.
6th District—Rev. Joshua E. Wilson, Wm. H. Collier.
7th District—John H. Fordham.
E. H. Deas on Committee to notify presidential nominee.1904—Chicago, Illinois, June 21-23.
At-Large—Edmund H. Deas, Dr. Wm. D. Crum.
1st District—Wm. F. Myers, A. P. Prioleau.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon, E. J. Dickerson.
4th District—Pratt S. Suber.
5th District—Wm. E. Boykin.
6th District—J. R. Levy, J. A. Baxter.
Dr. Crum on Committee to notify vice-presidential
nominee.1908—Chicago, Illinois, June 16-19.
At-Large—Edmund H. Deas, Thomas L. Grant.
1st District—C. M. English, P. T. Richardson.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon.
3rd District—G. C. Williams.
4th District—Dr. Wm. Tecumseh Smith.
5th District—Wm. E. Boykin.
6th District—J. A. Baxter, J. R. Levy.
7th District—Wm. T. Andrews.
Thomas L. Grant on Committee to notify presidential
nominee.1912—Chicago, Illinois, June 18-22.
At-Large—Wm. T. Andrews, J. R. Levy.
1st District—Thomas L. Grant, A. P. Prioleau.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon.
4th District—Thomas Brier.
6th District—Rev. Joshua E. Wilson, J. A. Baxter.
7th District—Dr. J. H. Godwyn.
Rev. J. E. Wilson on Committee to notify presidential
nominee.1916—Chicago, Illinois, June 7-10.
At-Large—Dr. J. H. Goodwyn, John H. Fordham.
1st District—Gibbs Mitchell.
2nd District—Wm. S. Dixon.
4th District—J. A. Brier.
6th District—J. R. Levy.
7th District—L. A. Hawkins.
J. R. Levy on Committee to notify presidential nominee.
W. S. Dixon on Committee to notify vice-presidential
nominee.1920—Chicago, Illinois, June 5-9.
At-Large—W. S. Dixon, Dr. J. H. Goodwyn.
1st District—Gibbs Mitchell.
2nd District—J. M. Jones.
5th District—G. A. Watts.
6th District—I. J. McCottrie.
7th District—L. A. Hawkins.
W. S. Dixon on Committee to notify presidential nominee.
I. J. McCottrie on Committee to notify vice-presidential
nominee.Henry A. Wallace.
140 COTTAGE STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONN., June 26, 1922.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
1216 You Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C.My dear Dr. Woodson:
Your studies in the history of the Negro people have greatly impressed me with their value and I trust that they will be continued in the many fields which call for new and careful investigation. I think there is especial need for exact and detailed information about the period of "reconstruction" in the South. Reviewing in my memory the whole period since the civil war I find a great change in prevalent opinion in the North concerning the events of the reconstruction. It seems to me that the champions of secession, of slavery and the southern oligarchy, have been heard in justification of everything they did and in arraignment of everything that defeated their designs with an unsuspicious confidence that has enabled them to mislead sentiment in the North, especially among the younger people. For example: a Yale professor of history had an article in the New York Times, a while ago, declaring that the constitutional amendments conferring citizenship on the Negroes were wrong and that the reaction against them in depriving the Negroes of the vote was justifiable; to which I wrote a reply, mostly in the language of Mr. Flemming, a native Southerner who had represented Georgia in Congress, arguing that the amendments were not only justifiable but indispensable, and the Times would not publish it, so that I had to give it to the Post. There is a prevalent opinion that the "carpet baggers" were a sort of monsters. I have known some of them as estimable men and practical public spirited citizens of a very high type: Judge Henderson of Wilcox County, Ala. for example.
Now if you can go to the roots of history in this period and investigate the facts, with biographical sketches of leading men as they actually were and authentic records of things that were actually done, it might help to clarify history.
The incessant whining and propaganda of Southern bigots devoted to the old regime naturally have an undue influence on sympathetic listeners. I am afraid that this influence will not be counteracted as it ought to be till Negro investigators, historians and journalists learn to tell their side of the story with greater thoroughness.
Very truly yours,
G. S. Dickerman.
New Bedford, Mass., May 15th, 1916
Room 6, Robeson Bldg.Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
Washington, D. C.My Dear Sir:
In reply to yours of the 8th, please find herewith a contribution in the line of my suggestion to Mr. Baker. I did not mean to imply I had much material of that nature, and what is sent is that I could readily find, and would need to take time to go through my papers to really know what I have. If you can use it all right; if not, consign it to the waste basket, and no complaint will be coming.
What I had more in mind was this: In many communities can be found some one person who has contributed services of value to race, none the less appreciable from the fact that their interest and value seem circumscribed locally. That they are so limited I do not believe, but think of each as the centre of an ever widening, circling influence for good. To illustrate:
Paul Cuffee was born at Cuttyhunk, Mass., in 1758; was an early defender of the rights of colored men; when the selectmen of the Town of Dartmouth, refused to admit colored children to the public schools, and to make separate provision for their education, he refused to pay his school taxes, was imprisoned, and when liberated, built a school house at his own expense, on his own land, employed a teacher at his own expense, and then opened his school without race discrimination, a privilege which his white neighbors availed themselves of as his school was more convenient and equally as good as those of the town. The result was colored children ceased to be proscribed along educational lines. He was a ship owner, builder and export trader. His story has been published at length, in one of our dailies, with all the documents in the case. It seemed to me that such stories would be of general as well as local interest. If you agree with me in this, Mr. Jourdain would without doubt forward the clipping to you.
The first colored school-teacher in Boston, was Prince Sanders, Secretary African Lodge F. & A. M., the first Lodge of colored Masons in America. He taught a colored school in the basement of the old Joy Street Church from 1809 to 1812. The first colored school, private, was opened in 1798, at the residence of Primus Hall, corner of West Cedar and Revere Streets, Boston, and was taught by a white man, by name, Sylvester. Its curriculum was limited to the three "R's."
I am sending you in mail with this a pamphlet copy of "Proceedings" etc., on pp. 12, 16, 17, you will find statements of services given by Prince Hall, of general as well as of local interest and value.
Yours sincerely,
Frederic S. Monroe.
DOCUMENTS
Letters, Addresses, and the like throwing Light on the Career of Lott Cary[1]
Philadelphia, January 6, 1621 (1821).
The Board of Managers of the General Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States, to their coloured brethren, Collin Teage and Lott Carey, present the assurance of their sincere affectionate esteem. They have heard with pleasure, that, by a vessel about to sail from Norfolk to the coast of Africa, an opportunity is presented for accomplishing those benevolent desires which, for many months past, you have been led to entertain. At the present time, they possess a deep anxiety for your preservation in a country where so many colonists have frequently found a grave. They most fervently commend you to the gracious protection of that God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways. May you make the Lord your refuge, even the Most High your habitation. It is a source of much encouragement that you will be able to collect useful information from the experience of your predecessors; and it is hoped that by the advice of your brethren who have already reached the shores of your forefathers, you will be enabled to adopt the most prudent measures for the health and safety of yourselves and families.
The Board earnestly recommend, what they cheerfully anticipate, that your conduct before your fellow passengers on the ocean, be pious and exemplary. Endeavour to secure their good will by every office of kindness; and, above all, cherish and discover a solemn concern for their everlasting salvation. Arrived in Africa, you will find much that will require patience, and prudence, and mutual counsel. You will have to bear with prejudices that have descended on the minds of the inhabitants, after having been cherished for ages, and to instil the sacred truths of the gospel with meekness and wisdom. While your conversation shall be without blame, the Board advise you in your ministry to dwell much on the doctrine of the cross, a doctrine which has been found in every age of the church of Christ, the power of God.
Have as little to do as possible with what may be called the politics of the country. Be content with the silence so divinely exemplified in the Lord Jesus and his apostles to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. Cultivate a tender regard for each other. If difference of opinion on any measures occur, never suffer it to produce alienation of affection. You have already had opportunities of improving your minds by reading, and the Board are gratified by the reflection that you bear with your books that are calculated to add to your general and spiritual knowledge.
Give yourselves to reading still; and, above all, let the word of God dwell in you richly. Be much engaged in prayer. If troubles rise around you, the delightful thought that you have a Father, a Saviour, in heaven, with whom you are so happy as to hold communion, will not only soften their severity, but in a good degree elevate you above their influence.
Let nothing discourage you. Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God. You are engaged in the service of Him who can make the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
The Board wish you, as you shall find opportunity, to write. They will rejoice to hear that a church, on the principles of the gospel, is founded as the fruit of your labours. They trust that at no distant period, many such churches will rise, and the solitary place be glad for them. They will be happy to facilitate your prosperity to the utmost of their power.
They pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with you, with your families, and with all who sail or settle with you; and that the American Colonization Society, and all its sister institutions, may be rendered instrumental in diffusing literary, economical, and evangelic light, from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
By order of the Board,
Wm. Staughton, Cor. Sec'ry.
Seventh Report of the Board of Managers of the General Convention, in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, pp. 396f.
A Resolution
A communication having been received from the Petersburg African Mission Society, and also from brother Colston W. Waring, a preacher of colour at Petersburg, desiring the patronage of this Board in favour of the said Waring, as a missionary to Africa.
Resolved, That the said communications impart pleasure to this body, and that the Board will cheerfully countenance and encourage the said Waring as their missionary to Africa, provided the expenses of his outfit, &c. can be met by his own resources and those of his brethren in that quarter.
Sixth Annual Report of the Board, in The Latter Day Luminary, Vol. II, p. 134.
A Contract
KNOW ALL MEN, That this Contract, made on the fifteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred twenty-one, between King Peter, King George, King Zoda, and King L. Peter, their Princes and Head-men, of the one part; and Captain Robert F. Stockton and Eli Ayres, of the other part; WITNESSETH, That whereas certain persons Citizens of the United States of America, are desirous to establish themselves on the Western Coast of Africa, and have invested Captain Robert F. Stockton and Eli Ayres with full powers to treat with and purchase from us the said Kings, Princes, and Head-men, certain Lands, viz: Dozoa Island, and also all that portion of Land bounded north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south and east by a line drawn in a south-east direction from the north of Mesurado river, We, the said Kings, Princes, and Head-men, being fully convinced of the Pacific and just views of the said Citizens of America, and being desirous to reciprocate the friendship and affection expressed for us and our people, DO HEREBY, in consideration of so much paid in hand, viz: Six muskets, one box Beads, two hogsheads Tobacco, one cask Gunpowder, six bars Iron, ten iron Pots, one dozen Knives and Forks, one dozen Spoons, six pieces blue Baft, four Hats, three Coats, three pair Shoes, one box Pipes, one keg Nails, twenty Looking-glasses, three pieces Handkerchiefs, three pieces Calico, three Canes, four Umbrellas, one box Soap, one barrel Rum; And to be paid, the following: three casks Tobacco, one box Pipes, three barrels Rum, twelve pieces cloth, six bars Iron, one box Beads, fifty Knives, twenty Looking-glasses, ten iron Pots different sizes, twelve Guns, three barrels Gunpowder, one dozen Plates, one dozen Knives and Forks, twenty Hats, five casks Beef, five barrels Pork, ten barrels Biscuit, twelve Decanters, twelve glass Tumblers, and fifty Shoes, FOR EVER CEDE AND RELINQUISH the above described Lands, with all thereto appertaining or belonging, or reputed so to belong, to Captain Robert F. Stockton and Eli Ayres, TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the said Premises, for the use of these said Citizens of America. And we, the said Kings, and Princes, and Head-men, do further pledge ourselves that we are the lawful owners of the above described Land, without manner of condition, limitation, or other matter.
The contracting Parties pledge themselves to live in peace and friendship for ever; and do further contract, not to make war, or otherwise molest or disturb each other.
We, the Kings, Princes, and Head-men, for a proper consideration by us received, do further agree to build for the use of the said Citizens of America, six large houses, on any place selected by them within the above described tract of ceded land.
In WITNESS whereof, the said Kings, Princes, and Head-men, of the one part; and Captain Robert Stockton and Eli Ayres, of the other part; do set their hands to this Covenant, on the day and year above written.
(Signed)
King Peter, X his mark.
King George, X his mark.
King Zoda, X his mark.
King Long Peter, X his mark.
King Governor, X his mark.
King Jimmy, X his mark.(Signed)
Captain Robert F. Stockton.
Eli Ayres, M.D.Witness, (Signed)
John S. Mill.
John Craig.
Agreement With J. S. Mill
I HEREBY CONTRACT, for the consideration of one barrel of Rum, one tierce of Tobacco, one barrel of Bread, one barrel of Beef, one barrel of Pork, and one piece of trade Cloth, to give to Captain R. F. Stockton and Eli Ayres all my right and title to the Houses situated on the Land bought by them on Cape Mesurado.
In Witness whereof, I have here unto signed my name, on this sixteenth day of December, one thousand eight hundred twenty-one.
(Signed) John S. Mill.
Witness, (Signed)
Charles Carey, X his mark.
William Rodgers, X his mark.We promise to present to Charles Carey, one Coat.
(Signed) R. F. Stockton.
Eli Ayres.The Fifth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society, pp. 64-66.
L—— C——.
A black man, has been a member of this Colony since the beginning of the year 1820. He made a profession of religion in America: but never never since I knew him, either discharged its duties, or evinced much of its spirit, till within the last ten months. He was a man of good natural sense, but wretched in the extreme; and the cause of equal wretchedness to his young family. His wife, naturally of a mild and placid temper, failed in almost every thing to please him, or prevent the constant outbreakings of his morose and peevish humor. He was her tyrant—and so instinct with malevolence, the vain conceit of superiority, jealousy, and obstinate pride, as to resemble more an Arab of the desert, or a person destitute of natural affection, than a person by education and in name, a Christian. As a neighbor, his feelings were so soured and narrow, as to render him disobliging, suspicious, and equally an object of general dislike and neglect. His heart was a moral desert—no kind affection seemed to stir within it; and the bitter streams which it discharged had spread a moral desolation around him, and left him the solitary victim of his own corroding temper.
Such an ascendant had these evil qualities over the other faculties of his mind as in a great measure to dim the light of reason, and render him as a subject of the colonial government, no less perverse and untractable, than he was debased and wretched, as a man.
Several times have the laws, which guard the peace of our little community, been called in, to check the excesses of his turbulent passions, by supplying the weakness of more ingenuous motives. Still this person discovered, in the midst of this wreck of moral excellence, a few remaining qualities, on which charity might fix the hope of his recovery to virtue, usefulness and happiness. But these were few, and mostly of a negative kind. He was not addicted to profane discourse. He allowed himself in no intemperate indulgences. He observed towards sacred institutions a cold, but still an habitual respect. And, strange as the fact may seem, he was laborious in his avocations, even to severe drudgery, and equally a stranger to avarice, and a passion for a vain ostentation. Whether these relieving traits of his character were the effects of habit, produced by the influence of former piety; or whether they were the result of constitutional temperament, or of education, is not for me to decide. But such was L. C., until the autumn of 1824; when not only a reform but an absolute reversal, of every perverse disposition and habit in the revolting catalogue of his character took place. A more obliging and affectionate husband I am convinced is not to be found on the Cape, few in the world! And there is no appearance of constraint, or affection in this display of tenderness. It is uniform, untiring, cordial, and increasing, as far as it is permitted to any one, except the Searcher of hearts, to judge. In all his intercourse with his family, and neighbors, he carries with him, an inimitable air of sweet and profound humility. You would pronounce it to be the meekness of the heart springing from some deep-felt sentiment of the interior of the mind. But so far from abasing the possessor, in the estimation of others, this very trait commands their respect, and their love. It gives to him a value, which he never appeared to possess before. Ten months have I now had daily opportunities to observe this altered man in a great variety of circumstances, and some of them, it must be confessed, sufficiently trying. In one instance, I have had to regret, and censure the appearance of that perversity which made an important part of his character. But happily this fit of turbulence was of short duration; and some months have passed since, without witnessing a repetition of the infirmity. Were I this evening asked to name a man in the Colony, who would most carefully guard against offending, or causing even a momentary pain to any of his fellow-men, I should not hesitate to say that in my judgment, the man is L. C. On this point I insist, because it was precisely in his revolting and unfeeling churlishness, that his greatest and most incurable infirmity seemed to consist. I hardly need add, were silence not liable to misconstruction, that the duties and ordinances of religion are matters of his most devout and diligent observance. How often have I been awaked at dawn of Sabbath, by his devout strains of prayer and praise, sent up from the midst of a little company of praying people, who at that hour assemble for religious exercises in a vacant building near my residence. How sure am I to find him reverently seated in his place, among the earliest who assemble in the house of God. What an active promoter of every commendable and pious design, is sure to be found in him.
Every laudable habit, which had survived the general extinction of all practical virtue, seems to have acquired additional confirmation: and from the operation of higher principles, seems to follow of course, and derive the best guaranty of its continuance. I might go on to particularize; but it would only be to fill up the outline already sketched, and which, whether relating to his former or his present character, however, imperfect, is strictly true. Ask of him the cause of so obvious and surprising a change, and he humbly, but unhesitatingly ascribes it wholly to the power of the Divine Spirit, operating, he cannot tell how, but evidently by means of the word and ordinances of God, upon his whole mind. Such was the origin of this great moral renovation, and such are the agency and means by which its effects are sustained, and under the operation of which they are beginning to combine into a habit of holiness. He rejoices in the hope of its duration to the end of life, solely he would say from the confidence he has in the immutable love and faithfulness of the Holy Being, who has wrought so great a work in him. And let philosophers cavil and doubt, if they must; but this man's example is a refutation in fact of a thousand of their sceptical theories. He is a new man, and the change was effected chiefly before discipline, or example, had time to work it. He is an honest man, and soberly asserts that to his certain knowledge he did not perform the work himself. But where is the example to be found of such and so great a change, wrought by mortal means? The history of the human race is challenged to produce it. To God then who created man, to Christ who redeemed him, and to the Holy Ghost who sanctifies him, be ascribed without abatement, or reserve, the power and the grace displayed in this and every similar instance of the conversion of a blind, and hardened and wretched sinner.
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 136-138.
"June 16th, 1827."To the Rev. R. R. Gurley.
"Rev. and Dear Sir, I transmit to you a few lines, which I trust may find you well. The last emigrants that you sent out, has fared remarkably well, as it respects the disease; we have only lost two children. We have several cases of bad ulcers; and from seeing advertised in the Compiler of Richmond, a medicine called Swaim's Panacea, said to be a sure cure for ulcers; please try if possible to procure some, and send out, for we should have very healthy inhabitants at present, but for the prevalence of that uncontrolable disease. We are also in want of Salts, Castor-oil, Cream of Tartar, mignesea, and Mustard, as much as you can send well put up. I am greatly in hopes to be over the next spring, and try to wake up my colored friends in Virginia. We have a plan in contemplation which if accomplished will, I think insure my making one visit to America, that is, to purchase, or aid in the purchase of a vessel to run constantly from this, to America, to bring out our own supplies, emigrants, &c. I hope sir, when such an attempt is made you will facilitate it all that you can.
"I think that you would be pleased with the improvements that we have made since you left if you were to make another visit to this country—both our civil and religious state I think has improved very much. No more but wishing that the blessing of the Lord may attend you, both in your public and private life, and the Board of Managers, in all their administrations.
"Yours, &c.
"Lott Cary."Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, p. 153.
Appendix F
"Monrovia, April 24th, 1826.
"Rev. and Dear Sir: I received your letter sent to me by the order of the Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society; and I expected until a few days ago that the return of the Indian Chief, would have enabled me in all respects to have realized their wishes. But on a more minute examination of the subject, Mr. Ashmun and myself both were apprehensive that my leaving the Colony at present, would endanger the lives of a number of the inhabitants; Mr. Ashmun, however, has made a full statement to the Board, which I have no doubt will be satisfactory to them. I think that through the blessing of the Almighty, I shall be able to get the last expedition through the fever with very little loss; we have lost only three, the Rev. Mr. Trueman, from Baltimore, and two children belonging to the Paxton family. But the emigrants who came out in the Vine, have suffered very much; we lost twelve of them. The action of the disease was more powerful with them than is common—they unfortunately arrived here in the most sickly month in the year, February. I am strongly of the opinion, sir, that if the people of New England leave there in the winter, that the transition is so great, that you may count upon a loss of half at least. They may, in my estimation, with safety, leave in the months from April to November, and arrive here in good time; I think it to be a matter of great importance; therefore I hope, that you will regard it as such.
"I am respectfully yours,
"Lott Cary."Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, p. 152.
In April, 1826, Lott Cary made arrangements to embark for the United States. The following is extracted from a letter addressed by Mr. Ashmun to the Managers of the Colonization Society:
"The Rev. Lott Cary, returning by the 'Indian Chief,' has, in my opinion, some claims on the justice of the Society or Government of the United States, or both, which merit consideration. These claims arise out of a long and faithful course of medical services rendered to this Colony, (the only such services deserving much consideration, if we except those of Dr. Ayres and Dr. Peaco, since the commencement of the settlement, in 1820).
"It is perhaps known to the Board, that Mr. Cary has declined serving any civil office, incompatible with a faithful discharge of his sacred functions: and it may be added, that although one of the most diligent and active of men, he has never had the command of leisure or strength to engage in any Missionary duties, besides the weekly and occasional services of the congregation. More than one-half of his time has been given up to the care of our sick, from the day I landed in Africa, to the very moment of stating the fact. He has personally aided in every way, that fidelity and benevolence could dictate, in all the attentions which all our sick have in so long a period received. His want of science acquired by the regular study of Medicine, he has gone a long way towards supplying by an unwearied diligence which few regular physicians think it necessary—fewer superficial practitioners, have the motives for exercising.
"Several times have these disinterested labors reduced him to the verge of the grave. The presence of the other physicians has, instead of affording relief, only redoubled the intensity of his labors, by changing the ordinary routine of his attentions to the sick with the exhibition of their own prescriptions.
"Mr. Cary has hitherto received no compensation, either from the Society or the Government, for these services. I need not add, that it has not been in his power to support himself and family by any use he could make of the remnants of his time left him, after discharging the amount of duty already described. The Missionary Board of Richmond have fed, clothed and supplied the other wants of himself and family, while devoting his strength and time to your sick colonists, and Agents in this country. Justice seems to demand that he should be placed in a situation as an honest man, to refund the whole or part of the fund thus engrossed, not to say misapplied, to the Missionary Board.
"I beg leave also to state, that on the 15th of February, 1826, I came into an agreement with Mr. Cary, to allow him a reasonable compensation for his medical services, devoted to the then sickening company of Boston emigrants. His time has from the date of that agreement, to the present hour, been incessantly occupied in attending upon the sick."
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 151f.
On the 25th of June Gary wrote to Ashmun:
"About three o'clock to-day, there appeared three vessels—two brigs and a schooner. The schooner stood into the Roads, and one of the brigs near in, but showed no colours until a shot was fired by Captain Thompson; when she hoisted Spanish colours, and the schooner the same. All their movements appeared so suspicious, that we turned out all our forces to-night.—About eight this evening it was reported that they were standing out of our Roads; and at sunset, that the schooner had come to anchor very near the 'All Chance,' from Boston; and that the brig which had passed the Cape, had put about and was standing up, trying to double the Cape; and that the third vessel (a brig) was standing down for the Roads. The first mentioned brig showed nine ports a side. From all these circumstances I thought best to have Fort Norris Battery manned, which was immediately done by Captain Johnson. I also ordered out the two volunteer companies to make discoveries around the town, and the Artillery to support the guns, and protect the beach; which orders were promptly executed, and we stood in readiness during the night. At daylight the schooner lay at anchor and appeared to be making no preparations to communicate with us; I then ordered a shot to be fired at a little distance from her, when she sent a boat ashore with her Captain, Supercargo, and Interpreter. She reported herself the Joseph, from Havana, had been three months on the coast trading, but not for slaves, had one gun, and twenty-three men. Also, that the brig was a patriotic brig in chase of her, and that through fear she had taken shelter under our guns. The Captain wished a supply of wood and water; but I told him I knew him to be engaged in the slave trade, and that, though we did not pretend to attempt suppressing this trade, we would not aid it, and that I allowed him one hour, and one only, to get out of the reach of our guns. He was very punctual, and I believe before his hour."
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, p. 157.
A letter to the American Colonization Society through her Secretary, July 17th (1828):
Until we can raise crops sufficient to supply a considerable number of new comers every year, such an arrangement (a vessel large enough to run down to Cape Palmas and occasionally to Sierra Leone) as will enable us to proceed farther to the leeward than we have ever done, in order to procure supplies, will be indispensably necessary; as there we can procure Indian Corn, Palm Oil, and live stock. For these, neither the slave traders nor others, give themselves much. Corn can be bought there for from fifteen to twenty cents per bushel. Fifteen or twenty bushels which I bought of Captain Woodbury, I have been using instead of rice for the last two months. Besides, it can be ground into meal, and would be better than any that can be sent. Upon the supposed inquiry, will not the lands of the Colony produce Corn? they will produce it in abundance; but with the quantity of lands appropriated at present, and the means to cultivate them, each landholder will, I think, be able to raise but little more than may be required by his own family, and consequently will have little to dispose of to new comers. (It has been resolved by the Board of Managers to increase the quantity of land alloted to each settler.)
Permit me to inform the Board, that proposals have been made by a number of very respectable citizens in Monrovia, to commence a settlement near the head of the Montserado River, which would be a kind of farming establishment; which, should it be the pleasure of the Board to approve, would be followed up with great spirit, and found to contribute largely towards increasing our crops, for the soil is very promising.
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, p. 158.
ADDRESS
By the Citizens of Monrovia, to the free coloured people of the United States
As much speculation and uncertainty continue to prevail among the free people of colour in the United States, respecting our situation and prospects in Africa; and many misrepresentations have been put in circulation there, of a nature slanderous to us, and in their effects injurious to them; we feel it our duty by a true statement of our circumstances to endeavor to correct them.
The first consideration which caused our voluntary removal to this country, and the object which we still regard with the deepest concern, is liberty—liberty, in the sober, simple, but complete sense of the word:—not a licentious liberty—nor a liberty without government—or which should place us without the restraint of salutary laws. But that liberty of speech, action, and conscience, which distinguished the free, enfranchised citizens of a free state. We did not enjoy that freedom in our native country, and from causes which, as respects ourselves, we shall soon forget forever, we were certain it was not there attainable for ourselves, or our children. This then being the first object of our pursuit in coming to Africa, is probably the first subject on which you will ask for information. And we must truly declare to you, that our expectations and hopes in this respect have been realized. Our Constitution secures to us, so far as our condition allows, "all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the citizens of the United States," and these rights and these privileges are ours. We are proprietors of the soil we live on; and possess the rights of freeholders; our suffrages, and what is of more importance our sentiments, and our opinions, have their due weight in the government we live under. Our laws are altogether our own; they grow out of our circumstances; are framed for our exclusive benefit; and administered either by officers of our own appointment, or such as possess our confidence. We have a judiciary chosen from among ourselves; we serve as jurors in the trial of others; and are liable to be tried only by juries of our fellow-citizens, ourselves. We have all that is meant by liberty of conscience. The time and mode of worshipping God as prescribed in his word, and dictated by our conscience, we are not only free to follow, but are protected in following.
Forming a community of our own, in the land of our forefathers, having the commerce and soil and resources of the country at our disposal; we know nothing of that debasing inferiority, with which our very colour stamped us in America. There is nothing here to create the feeling on our part—nothing to cherish the feeling of superiority in the minds of foreigners who visit us. It is this moral emancipation—this liberation of the mind from worse than iron fetters, that repays us ten thousand times over, for all that it has cost us, and makes us grateful to God, and our American patrons, for the happy change which has taken place in our situation. We are not so self-complacent as to rest satisfied with our improvement either as regards our minds or our circumstances. We do not expect to remain stationary,—far from it; but we certainly feel ourselves, for the first time, in a state to improve either to any purpose. The burden is gone from our shoulders; we now breathe and move freely, and know not (in our present state) for which to pity you most, the empty name of liberty, which you endeavour to content yourselves with, in a country that is not yours; or the delusion which makes you hope for ampler privileges in that country hereafter. Tell us; which is the white man, who, with a prudent regard to his own character, can associate one of you on terms of equality? Ask us which is the white man who would decline such association with one of our number, whose intellectual and moral qualities are not an objection? To both of these questions we unhesitatingly make the same answer: there is no such white man.
We solicit none of you to emigrate to this country; for we know not who among you prefers rational independence and the honest respect of his fellow men, to the mental sloth and careless poverty, which you already possess, and your children will inherit after you, in America. But if your views and aspirations rise a degree higher—if your minds are not as servile as your present condition, we can decide the question at once; and with confidence say that you will bless the day, and your children after you, when you determined to become citizens of Liberia.
But we do not hold this language on the blessing of liberty, for the purpose of consoling ourselves for the sacrifice of health, or the suffering of want, in consequence of our removal to Africa. We enjoy health after a few months' residence in the country as uniformly, and in as perfect a degree, as we possessed that blessing in our native country. And a distressing scarcity of provisions, or any of the comforts of life, has for the last two years been entirely unknown, even to the poorest persons in this community. We never hoped, by leaving America, to escape the common lot of mortals—the necessity of death to which the just appointment of Heaven consigns us. But we do expect to live as long, and pass this life with as little sickness as yourselves.
The true character of the African climate is not well understood in other countries. Its inhabitants are as robust, as healthy, as long lived, to say the least, as those of any other country. Nothing like an epidemic has ever appeared in this colony; nor can we learn from the natives, that the calamity of a sweeping sickness ever yet visited this part of the continent. But the change from a temperate to a tropical country is a great one; too great, not to affect the health more or less,—and in the cases of old people and very young children, it often causes death. In the early years of the colony, want of good houses, the great fatigues and dangers of the settlers, their irregular mode of living, and the hardships and discouragements they met with, greatly helped the other causes of sickness, which prevailed to an alarming extent, and was attended with great mortality. But we look back to those times as to a season of trial long past, and nearly forgotten:—our houses and circumstances are now comfortable, and for the last 2 or 3 years, not one person in forty, from the Middle and Southern States has died, from the change of climate.
People, now arriving, have comfortable houses to receive them, will enjoy the regular attendance of a Physician in the slight sickness that may await them; will be surrounded and attended by healthy and happy people who have borne the effects of the climate, who will encourage and fortify them against that despondency, which alone has carried off several in the first years of the colony. But, you may say, that even health and freedom, good as they are, are still dearly paid for, when they cost you the common comforts of life, and expose your wives and children to famine and all the evils of poverty. We do not dispute the soundness of this conclusion neither—but we utterly deny that it has any application to the people of Liberia. Away with all the false notions that are circulating about the barrenness of this country. They are the observations of such ignorant or designing men, as would injure both it and you. A more fertile soil and a more productive country, so far as it is cultivated, there is not, we believe, on the face of the earth. Its hills and its plains are covered with a verdure which never fades—the productions of nature keep on in their growth through all the seasons of the year. Even the natives of the country, almost without farming tools, without skill, and with very little labour, make more grain and vegetables than they can consume, and often more than they can sell.
Cattle, swine, fowls, ducks, goats and sheep, thrive without feeding—and require not other care than to keep them from straying. Cotton, coffee, Indigo, and sugar cane are all the spontaneous growth of our forests; and may be cultivated at pleasure to any extent, by such as are disposed. The same may be said of rice, indian corn, guinea corn, millet, and too many species of fruits and vegetables to be enumerated. Add to all this, we have no dreary winter here, for one half of the year, to consume the productions of the other half; nature is constantly renewing herself, and constantly pouring her treasures, all the year round, into the lap of the industrious. We could say on this subject more; but we are afraid of exciting too highly the hopes of the imprudent. It is only the industrious and virtuous that we can point to independence and plenty and happiness in this country. Such people are nearly sure, to attain in a very few years, to a style of comfortable living, which they may in vain hope for in the United States. And however short we come of the character ourselves, it is only a due acknowledgment of the bounty of Divine Providence, to say that we generally enjoy the good things of this life to our entire satisfaction.
Our trade and commerce are chiefly confined to the coast, to the interior parts of the continent, and to foreign vessels. It is already valuable, and fast increasing. It is carried on in the productions of the country, consisting of rice, palm oil, ivory, tortoise-shell, dye-woods, gold, hides, wax, and a small amount of coffee; and it brings us in return the products and manufactures of the four quarters of the world. Seldom indeed is our harbour clear of European and American shipping; and the bustle and thronging of our streets show something of the activity of the smaller seaports of the United States.
Mechanics of nearly every trade are carrying on their various occupations. Their wages are high, and a large number would be sure of constant and profitable employment. Not a child or youth in the colony, but is provided with an appropriate school. We have a numerous publick library, and a Courthouse, Meeting-houses, School-houses, and fortifications sufficient, or nearly so, for the colony in its present state.
Our houses are constructed of the same materials, and finished in the same style as in the towns in America. We have abundance of good building stone, shells for lime and clay of an excellent quality for bricks. Timber is plentiful and of various kinds, and fit for all the different purposes of building and fencing.
Truly we have a goodly heritage, and if there is any thing lacking in the character or condition of the people of this colony, it never can be charged to the account of the country. It must be the fruit of our own mismanagement or slothfulness or vices. But from these evils, we confide in Him to whom we are indebted for all our blessings, to preserve us. It is the topic of our weekly and daily thanksgiving to Almighty God, both in publick and private; and he knows with what sincerity, that we were ever conducted to this shore. Such great favours in so short a time, and mixed with so few trials, are to be ascribed to nothing but his special blessing. This we acknowledge. Judge then of the feelings with which we hear the motives and the doings of the Colonization Society traduced—and that too, by men too ignorant to know what that society has accomplished; too weak to look through its plans and intentions; or too dishonest to acknowledge either. But without pretending to any prophetic sagacity, we can certainly predict to that society the ultimate triumph of their hopes and labours; and disappointment and defeat to all who oppose them. Men may theorize and speculate about their plans in America. But there can be no speculation here. The cheerful abodes of civilization and happiness, which are scattered over this verdant mountain; the flourishing settlements which are spreading around it—the sound of Christian instruction, and scene of Christian worship, which are heard and seen in this land of brooding pagan darkness; a thousand contented freemen, united in founding a new Christian Empire, happy themselves, and the instruments of happiness to others—every object, every individual, is an argument, is demonstration of the wisdom and the goodness of the plan of Colonization.
Where is the argument that shall refute facts like these? and where is the man hardy enough to deny them?
The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VIII, pp. 50-53.
Journal of Lott Cary
The Colonial Agent, J. Ashmun, esq., went on board the brig Doris, March 26th, 1828, escorted by three companies of military, and when taking leave he delivered a short address, which was truly affecting; never, I suppose, were greater tokens of respect shown by any community on taking leave of their head. Nearly the whole (at least two-thirds) of the inhabitants of Monrovia, men, women, and children, were out on this occasion, and nearly all parted from him with tears, and in my opinion, the hope of his return in a few months, alone enabled them to give him up. He is indeed dear to this people, and it will be a joyful day when we are again permitted to see him. He has left a written address, which contains valuable admonitions to Officers, Civil, Military, and Religious. The brig sailed on the 27th. May she have a prosperous voyage.
Thursday, March 27.
Feeling very sensibly my incompetency to enter upon the duties of my office without first making all the Officers of the Colony well acquainted with the principal objects which should engage our attention, I invited them to meet at the Agency House on the 27th, at 9 o'clock, which was punctually attended to; and I then read all the instructions left by Mr. Ashmun without reserve, and requested their co-operation. I stated that it would be our first object to put the Jail in complete order, secondly to have our guns and armaments in a proper state, and thirdly to get the new settlers located on their lands; as this was a very important item in my instructions. This explanation will, I think, have a good effect; as by it the effective part of the Colony is put in possession of the most important objects of our present pursuit; and I trust through the blessing of the great Ruler of events, we shall be able to realize all the expectations of Mr. Ashmun, and render entire satisfaction to the Board of Managers if they can reconcile themselves to the necessary expenses.
March 29.
From a note received from Mr. James, dated Millsburg, I learn that he visited King Boatswain, and that the new road from Boatswain's to Millsburg will shortly be commenced.—The Headmen expect, however, to be paid for opening the road. Messrs. James and Cook, who came down this evening, state, that the Millsburg Factory will be ready in a few days for the reception of goods, and wished consignments might be made early. But as I had been on the 27th paying off the kings towards the Millsburg lands, and found that one hundred and twenty bars came so far short of satisfying them, I thought best to see them together before I should attempt to make any consignments to that place.
Know all men by these presents: That we, Old King Peter, and King Governor, King James, and King Long Peter, do on this fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, grant unto Lott Cary, acting Agent of the Colony of Liberia, in behalf of the American Colonization Society, to wit:
All that tract of Land on the north side of St. Paul's river, beginning at King James' line below the establishment called Millsburg Settlement, and we the Kings as aforesaid do bargain, sell, and grant, unto the said Lott Cary, acting in behalf of the American Colonization Society, all the aforesaid tract of land, situated and bounded as follows: by the St. Paul's river on the South, and thence running an East Northeast direction up the St. Paul's river, as far as he, the said Lott Cary, or his successor in the Agency, or Civil Authority of the Colony of Liberia, shall think proper to take up and occupy: and bounded on the West by King Jimmey's, and running thence a North direction as far as our power and influence extend. We do this day and date, grant as aforesaid for the consideration (here follow the articles to be given in payment); and will forever defend the same against all claims whatsoever.
In witness whereof we set our hands and names:
Old X King Peter,
Long X King Peter,
King X Governor,
King X James>.
Signed in the presence of,
Elijah Johnson,
Frederick James,
Daniel George.
June 18, 1828.
I found it necessary, in order to preserve the frame of the second floors of the Government House, to have the frame and ceiling painted, which is now doing. I have also been obliged to employ another workman to make the blinds, or else leave the house exposed the present season, as —— refused to do it under the former contract. On the 13th I visited Millsburg (named after Mills and Burgess) to ascertain the prospects of that settlement; and can say with propriety, that according to the quantity of land which the settlers have put under cultivation, they will reap a good and plentiful crop. The Company's crop of rice and cassada is especially promising. The new settlers at that place have done well; having all, with two or three exceptions, built houses, so as to render their families comfortable during the season. They have also each of them a small farm, which I think after a few months will be sufficient to subsist them. But I find from a particular examination, that we shall be obliged to allow them to draw rations longer than I expected, owing to the great scarcity of country produce, the cassada being so nearly exhausted, that it is, and will be, impossible to obtain, until new crops come in, much to aid our provisions, unless by going some distance into the country. Therefore I think it indispensably necessary, in order to keep the settlers to their farming improvements, to continue their rations longer than I at first intended; as I consider the present too important a crisis to leave them to neglect their improvements, although it may add something to our present expenses.
The people at Caldwell are getting on better with their farms than with their houses. I think some of them are very slow, notwithstanding I have assisted them in building. The Gun House at Caldwell is done, and at present preparations are making for the fourth of July. I think that settlement generally, is rapidly advancing in farming, building, and I hope, in industry. Our gun carriages are done; the completion of the iron work alone prevents us from mounting them all immediately. We have four mounted, and I think we shall put them all in complete order by the end of the present week.
Captain Russel will be able to give something like a fair account of the state of our improvements, as he went with me to visit the settlements on the 13th and 14th, and seemed pleased with the project at Millsburg, Caldwell and the Half-way Farms.
Mr. Warner, who has been engaged nearly the whole of the last twelve months on business of negotiation with the native tribes to the leeward, is at present down at Tippicanoe, the place which I mentioned in my former communications, as being a very important section of country, since it would connect our Sesters and Bassa districts together. He is not, however, now engaged in business of negotiation, but only in business of trade.
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 153-156.
In a letter to Mr. Ashmun, Mr. Cary wrote:
Things are nearly as you left them; most of the work that you directed to be done, is nearly accomplished. The plasterers are now at work on the Government House, and with what lime I am having brought down the river, and what shells I am getting, I think we shall succeed.
The Gun House in Monrovia and the Jail have been done for some weeks; the mounting of the guns will be done this week, if the weather permits.
The Houses at Half-way Farms are done; the Gun House at Caldwell would have been done at this time, had not the rain prevented, but I think it will be finished in three or four days. The public farm is doing pretty well. The Millsburg farms are doing very well. I think it would do you good to see that place at this time.
The Missionaries, although they have been sick are now, I am happy to inform you, recovered; and at present are able to attend to their business, and I regard them as entirely out of danger.
I hope we shall be able to remove all the furniture into the new house in two or three weeks.
Speaking of the celebration of the 4th of July under date of July 15th, Mr. Cary remarked to Mr. Ashmun:
The companies observed strictly the orders of the day, which I think were so arranged as to entitle the officers who drew them up to credit. Upon the whole, I am obliged to say, that I have never seen the American Independence celebrated with so much spirit and propriety since the existence of the Colony; the guns being all mounted and painted, and previously arranged for the purpose, added very much to the grand salute. Two dinners were given, one by the Independent Volunteer Company, and one by Captain Devany.
Mr. Cary wrote to the Secretary of the Colonization Society, July 19th, 1828:
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, forwarded by Captain Chase of Providence, also your Report and Repository, directed to Mr. Ashmun, but owing to his absence, they have fallen into my hands; and permit me to say, that these communications are read with pleasure, and that nothing affords more joy to the Colony, than to hear of the prosperity of the Colonization Society, and that you have some hopes of aid from the General Government, which makes us more desirous to enlarge our habitation and extend the borders of the Colony.
I must say, from the flattering prospects of your Society, I feel myself very much at a loss how to proceed, in the absence of Mr. Ashmun, with regard to making provisions for the reception of a large number of emigrants, which appears to be indispensably necessary. Therefore, after receiving your communication, we conceived the following to be the most safe and prudent course. First, to make arrangements to have erected at Millsburg, houses to answer as receptacles sufficient to shelter from one hundred and fifty to two hundred persons, I have therefore extended the duties of Mr. Benson so as to embrace that object. I was led to this course from the following considerations. First, from the productiveness of the Millsburg lands and the fewness of their inhabitants. I know if Mr. Ashmun were present, it would be a principal object with him to push that settlement forward with all possible speed, and that for this purpose, he would send the emigrants by the first two or three expeditions to that place. I think that those from the fresh water rivers, if carried directly after their arrival here, up to Millsburg, would suffer very little from change of climate. Second, the fertility of the land is such a temptation to the farmer, that unless he possesses laziness in its extreme degree, he cannot resist it; he must and will go to work. Thirdly, it is important to strengthen that settlement against any possible attack; and though we apprehend no hostilities from the natives, yet we would have each settlement strong enough to repel them.
I am happy to say, that the health, peace and prosperity of the Colony, I think, is still advancing, and I hope that the Board of Managers may have their wishes and expectations realized to their fullest extent, with regard to the present and future prosperity of the Colony.
Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 156-158.
Letter to the treasurer of the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society:
Sir,
Here is a mite enclosed for your society. It is part of the proceeds of a cotton field, for benevolent purposes. I helped to plough the ground, plant, hoe, pick, gin and pack the cotton with my own hands. A part of the proceeds is for the Colonization Society. My servants would shew their large white teeth, when, to encourage them to do their work well, I informed them that this cotton was designed to be a means of enlightening their brethren in Africa. Don't you think that Christians by and by, will act more like stewards with the property God has given them? I think it better to give now and then a mite, which the Lord may have bestowed upon me, to advance his cause, than to lavish it on profligate and dissipated sons. Will not God at a future day require the property he has loaned us?
We see you Northern folks seem conscious of this, by the exertions you are using to advance the Redeemer's cause. This has become a fortunate legatee, in comparison with what it was fifty years ago.
We, down here, so near the equator, think we can discover the upper limb of the millennium sun already. Will he not get clear above the horizon by 1866.
A Georgia Planter.
The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 181.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] These extracts were collected by Miles Mark Fisher.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Master's Slave—Elijah John Fisher. By Miles Mark Fisher. The Judson Press, Philadelphia, Pa. Pp. 194.
This work is a biographical sketch of one of the most prominent Negro Baptist preachers of his time. The author, the son of the subject of the sketch, believes that too little has been said concerning the Negro Church, which is largely responsible for whatever advancement the race has made. To stimulate interest in this institution and to give it the proper place in the history of the race, this biography is given to the public.
The book contains an introduction by Dr. L. K. Williams, the popular successor of Dr. Fisher at the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, where the latter faithfully served many years. It contains also an appreciation by Martin B. Madden, Congressman from Illinois, who personally knew Dr. Fisher and speaks most commendably of his character and achievements in that State.
The actual sketch begins with the chapter entitled "Bound and Branded," presenting the life of Dr. Fisher during the slavery of the last decade prior to emancipation. Herein are set forth interesting facts showing the connection of the Negro with Africa and his status in the slave-holding South. The effects of the Civil War in this section appear also from page to page.
Then follows that part of his career when he as a youth undertook to secure an education by which he might be qualified for the serious duties of life. How he began as a teacher during the beginning of Negro education of the Reconstruction period, and how he finally became an exhorter and developed into a minister acceptable to the communicants of his denomination, make the story increasingly interesting. The sketch reaches its climax through a detailed account of Dr. Fisher's work at Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago, emphasizing the last mentioned as the place of his most successful labor.
The historian will find this work valuable in that it illuminates one of the most interesting periods of Negro church history. It is not only a sketch of one distinguished churchman but a narrative presenting an important chapter of the story of the Baptists by relating the many incidents connected with the leading churchmen and ecclesiastical organizations interested in the uplift of the Negro since the Civil War. This narrative, moreover, shows how the Negro minister, in keeping with the exigencies of the time, often had to be drawn into politics in self defense and that in the case of unselfish service like that of Dr. Fisher, he may come out of the controversy untarnished.
History of the United States. Vol. V. By Edward Channing. The Macmillan Company, New York City. Pp. 615.
This is the most recent volume of Professor Channing's eight volume History of the United States from the very beginning of our history to the present time. This particular volume covers the years from 1815 to 1848 and is entitled "The Period of Transition." It is written in keeping with the standard of thoroughness characteristic of the author and is made further informing by the use of ten valuable maps illustrating important facts in American History.
In this volume the author engages the attention of the reader with an account of the wonderful century in which he writes. He then discusses the westward movement of the population, urban migration, the rise of labor unions, giving more attention to economic matters than his predecessors have been accustomed to do in the treatment of this period. A study of the documentary history of the United States has convinced the author that these important factors in the making of this country have been neglected. His treatment, therefore, is a change in the point of view in American historical writing.
This volume does not show the usual interest in slavery and abolition. Only one chapter of this large work is devoted primarily to the plantation life and abolitionism. The author discusses the lot of the slave, accounting for his tendency to escape from bondage, the traffic in human flesh, the free people of color, the colonization movement in the South, and abolition in the North. This chapter culminates in a discussion of the efforts of William Lloyd Garrison, the agitating editor of the Liberator, of Wendell Phillips, the abolition orator, of Prudence Crandall, the sacrificing worker, and of Elijah Lovejoy, the martyr in the cause. Prof. Channing does not go into details as to the achievements of the abolitionists. His account is merely sufficient to connect this movement with other forces at work in the country at that time.
Most of this volume is devoted to changes in religion, education, literature, and politics, effected by such outstanding figures as James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster. The book shows an extensive treatment of the territorial expansion of that time, especially the efforts to secure Texas, California and Oregon, and the war with Mexico. On the whole, this book has a decided economic and social trend. It is an effort to account for the significant upheavals in our history through connection with important industrial and economic events which have materially influenced the history of the United States during the last century. The book emphasizes the fact that current history can not be easily written, that one must be far removed from situations in the past in order to weigh the influences having a bearing thereon to determine exactly how the country has become what it is today.
Recent History of the United States. By Frederick L. Paxson. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Pp. 588.
This book beginning with the inauguration of Hayes shows how he reestablished home rule in the South, thus clearing the way for a realization of education and economic reconstruction of both South and North. The author then treats the civil and border strife as expressed in the Mexican Revolution of 1876, Indian wars, social unrest, national labor unions, and the War with Spain. Then follows the treatment of post-bellum ideals as expressed by literary periodicals and new writers showing a revolution in literature, and especially in historical writing.
In his treatment of silver, greenbacks, railroad and mine booms, and the like, he shows that the country had reached a new stage in its development when a transition both economic and political was apparent. This is made evident by his discussion of election frauds, Republican factions, office holders in politics, the abuse of patronage and the necessity for civil service reform. Next the author takes up the era of prosperity, the disappearance of the frontier, the land grants to railroads, the development of the telephone, telegraph, typewriter, electrical appliances, and the like, in their bearing on the industrial reconstruction of the whole country.
The author then discusses events more in detail, directing his attention to the tariff revision of the eighties, the "Mugwump Campaign" of 1884, the Wild West, labor ideals, protection, populism, the revival of the Democratic party through the leadership of Cleveland, industrial unrest, political schism, the Spanish-American War, business in politics, the career of Theodore Roosevelt, government control, insurgency, the rise of Woodrow Wilson, watchful waiting, neutrality and preparedness, the United States in the World War, and the League of Nations. Some attention is also given to the reconstruction and the election of 1920.
While the work is a valuable treatise from the point of view of a man who is trying to write the history of a particular race, it does not come up to the standard of history of the United States in all of its national and racial ramifications. So far as the Negro is concerned, it merely refers to his undoing as a political factor in the Reconstruction, the efforts for his education by northern sympathizers, the rise of Booker T. Washington, the elimination of the Negro as a factor in the South, the efforts to pass a force bill protecting the Negro in the exercise of the right of suffrage, and the continued control of the South of the Democratic party. A foreigner who reads this work might wonder whether the Negroes by this political upheaval have been exterminated or have emigrated from the country. Any student of the history of the whole Southland knows that it is centered largely around the Negro and any historian failing to take this into account cannot be recognized as an authority.
The Backbone of Africa. A Record of Travel during the Great War, with some Suggestions for Administrative Reform. By Sir Alfred Sharps, K. C. M. G., C. B., formerly Governor of Nyasaland. London, H. F. & G. Witherby, 1921. Pp. 232.
This is the reaction of a public functionary to the scenes of colonial life as they appeared to him from a different angle in a survey of the whole continent and under the circumstances of a political upheaval. He had in mind here the regions of Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Ruanda, the Congo, and the Upper Nile. The book is illustrated, well written and suggestive throughout. It contains four valuable maps and has an index largely of names.
Writing from the point of view of the exploiter of Africa, the author considers such questions as the disposition of the German Colonies coming into the possession of England at the close of the Great War, the question of restitution, the partition of Africa, the suggested union of the Protectorates in Eastern Africa under a Governor General, the partition of German East Africa, the redelimitation of boundaries, problems of railway construction and a united East African Colony. He discusses also the Home Government, native taxation, local representation, land along with land laws, native rights, their education, the labor problem, migration, industrial questions, and missions.
Treating the colonial policy in dealing with the natives, the author shows some sympathy. He does not believe that the tax on natives has been wisely imposed and, therefore, asks for a uniform and more equitable system. To effect such a reform, however, he believes that the local government with increased authority in its own affairs should exercise such power rather than have such a policy determined by the Home Government through its appointive executive and legislators who act for the colonies though not of them. The question of native ownership of spare land, he believes, should be carefully considered, inasmuch as there has never been any real title to the possession of definite blocks of freehold lands in Native Africa. Native education also should be taken in hand and there should be adopted a suitable scheme, applicable to all the Protectorates.
"In the first place in one shape or another," says the author, "we introduce a direct but immoderate impost such as a hut-tax or a more general poll-tax, the money for which has to be earned. Next, we endeavor to create new wants: clothes, ornaments, manufactured goods and luxuries of all kinds. All this represents a gradual process of regeneration, as the native is by nature very conservative and, therefore, slow to adopt new tastes or acquire ambitions. But we endeavor to raise his ideals and to inculcate the view we ourselves hold: that man should not be satisfied with mere existence, like beasts in the field, but should adopt civilisation and everything that, in the main, we consider to be essential to civilised life. We ask him, therefore, to produce something—other than for his own immediate wants—whether it be by labour done for an employer, or on his own account."
NOTES
The next annual meeting of the Association will be held in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday and Friday, the 23d and 24th of November. The day sessions will be held at the Branch Library on West Chestnut Street and the evening sessions at the Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on the same street. The management is endeavoring to make this a national meeting effective in arousing universal interest in the study of Negro life and history.
During the academic year 1922-1923 Mr. A. A. Taylor, formerly Instructor in Economics at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, will devote a part of his time to research in the field of Negro Reconstruction History as an investigator of the Association. The remaining portion of his time will be devoted to the completion of some graduate studies at Harvard University.
Mr. Taylor is a product of the Washington Public Schools and of the University of Michigan. He is the author of two articles recently published in The Journal of Negro History, namely, "Making West Virginia a Free State" and "Negro Congressmen a Generation After." It is expected that Mr. Taylor may find it possible to devote his future to investigation under the auspices of the Association.
Mr. Hosea B. Campbell, who during his four years at Grinnell College held a Julius Rosenwald scholarship, has been awarded a fellowship of $500 by the Association to prosecute at Harvard graduate studies in Negro American and African History.
An authorized translation into English of René Maran's Batouala has been published and is being sold throughout the United States. It is expected that in this form the work will more thoroughly inform the American public as to the African situation and as to the ability of this man of Negro blood to treat it.
Les Noirs de l'Afrique, an historical essay on the people of Africa, their customs and art, by Mr. Delafosse, appeared in Paris in 1921.
Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to the text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 5, professsors --> professors
2. p. 6, posssible --> possible
3. p. 34, Haper's Ferry --> Harper's Ferry
4. p. 51, tself --> itself
5. p. 54, Douglas --> Douglass
6. p. 61, banquent --> banquet
7. p. 70, Geogre --> George
8. p. 79, Ninteenth --> Nineteenth
9. p. 81, Footnote #19, Grimke's --> Grimké's
10. p. 81, No footnote marker for footnote #19.
11. p. 110, ecnouragement --> encouragement
12. p. 119, disfranchisment --> disfranchisement
13. p. 122, subscripion --> subscription
14. p. 133, Virgina --> Virginia
15. p. 137, successivly --> successively
16. p. 151, establisment --> establishment
17. p. 154, Eliott --> Elliott
18. p. 161, distinquished --> distinguished
19. p. 208, Piqua, --> Piqua.
20. p. 251, No footnote marker for footnote #10.
21. p. 334, villified --> vilified
22. p. 338, childern --> children
23. p. 355, No footnote marker for footnote #21.
24. p. 357, wheras --> whereas
25. p. 376, Footnote #8, Mossel --> Mossell
26. p. 381, missonary --> missionary
27. p. 385, Footnote #29, Toussiant --> Toussaint
28. p. 433, and and --> and
Also, many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain as published.