CHAPTER XXIX.
In America, the negro stands alone as a race. He is without mate or fellow in the great family of man. Whatever progress he makes, it must be mainly by his own efforts. This is an unfortunate fact, and for which there seems to be no remedy.
All history demonstrates the truth that amalgamation is the great civilizer of the races of men. Wherever a race, clan, or community have kept themselves together, prohibiting by law, usage, or common consent, inter-marriage with others, they have made little or no progress. The Jews, a distinct and isolated people, are good only at driving a bargain and getting rich. The Gipsies commence and stop with trading horses. The Irish, in their own country, are dull. The Coptic race form but a handful of what they were—those builders, unequalled in ancient or modern times. What has become of them? Where are the Romans? What races have they destroyed? What races have they supplanted? For fourteen centuries they lorded it over the semi-civilized world; and now they are of no more note than the ancient Scythians, or Mongols, Copts, or Tartars. An un-amalgamated, inactive people will decline. Thus it was with the Mexicans, when Cortes marched on Mexico, and the Peruvians, when Pizarro marched on Peru.
The Britons were a dull, lethargic people before their country was invaded, and the hot, romantic blood of Julius Cæsar and William of Normandy coursed through their veins.
Caractacus, king of the Britons, was captured and sent to Rome in chains. Still later, Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon generals, imposed the most humiliating conditions upon the Britons, to which they were compelled to submit. Then came William of Normandy, defeated Harold at Hastings, and the blood of the most renowned land-pirates and sea-robbers that ever disgraced humanity, mixed with the Briton and Saxon, and gave to the world the Anglo-Saxon race, with its physical ability, strong mind, brave and enterprising spirit. And, yet, all that this race is, it owes to its mixed blood. Civilization, or the social condition of man, is the result and test of the qualities of every race. The benefit of this blood mixture, the negro is never to enjoy on this continent. In the South where he is raised, in the North, East, or West, it is all the same, no new blood is to be infused into his sluggish veins.
His only hope is education, professions, trades, and copying the best examples, no matter from what source they come.
This antipathy to amalgamation with the negro, has shown itself in all of the States. Most of the Northern and Eastern State Legislatures have passed upon this question years ago. Since the coming in of the present year, Rhode Island’s Senate refused to repeal the old law forbidding the inter-marriage of whites and blacks. Thus the colored man is left to “paddle his own canoe” alone. Where there is no law against the mixture of the two races, there is a public sentiment which is often stronger than law itself. Even the wild blood of the red Indian refuses to mingle with the sluggish blood of the negro. This is no light matter, for race hate, prejudice and common malice all die away before the melting power of amalgamation. The beauty of the half-breeds of the South, the result of the crime of slavery, have long claimed the attention of writers, and why not a lawful mixture? And then this might help in
“Making a race far more lovely and fair,
Darker a little than white people are:
Stronger, and nobler, and better in form,
Hearts more voluptuous, kinder, and warm;
Bosoms of beauty, that heave with a pride
Nature had ever to white folks denied.”
Emigration to other States, where the blacks will come in contact with educated and enterprising whites, will do them much good. This benefit by commercial intercourse is seen in the four thousand colored people who have come to Boston, where most of them are employed as servants. They are sought after as the best domestics in the city. Some of these people, who were in slavery before the war, are now engaged in mercantile pursuits, doing good business, and showing what contact will do. Many of them rank with the ablest whites in the same trades. Indeed, the various callings are well represented by Southern men, showing plainly the need of emigration. Although the colored man has been sadly at fault in not vindicating his right to liberty, he has, it is true, shown ability in other fields. Benjamin Banneker, a negro of Maryland, who lived a hundred years ago, exhibited splendid natural qualities. He had a quickness of apprehension, and a vivacity of understanding, which easily took in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of mathematics and metaphysics. He possessed in a large degree that genius which constitutes a man of letters; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.
The rapid progress made in acquiring education and homesteads by the colored people of the South, in the face of adverse circumstances, commends the highest admiration from all classes.
The product of their native genius and industry, as exhibited at county and State Agricultural Fairs, speak well for the race.
At the National Fair, held at Raleigh, N. C., in the autumn of 1879, the exhibition did great credit to the colored citizens of the South, who had the matter in charge. Such manifestations of intellectual and mechanical enterprise will do much to stimulate the people to further development of their powers, and higher facilities.
The colored people of the United States are sadly in need of a National Scientific Association, to which may be brought yearly reports of such investigations as may be achieved in science, philosophy, art, philology, ethnology, jurisprudence, metaphysics, and whatever may tend to unite the race in their moral, social, intellectual and physical improvement.
We have negro artists of a high order, both in painting and sculpture; also, discoverers who hold patents, and yet the world knows little or nothing about them. The time for the negro to work out his destiny has arrived. Now let him show himself equal to the hour.
In this work I frequently used the word “Negro,” and shall, no doubt, hear from it when the negro critics get a sight of the book. And why should I not use it? Is it not honorable? What is there in the word that does not sound as well as “English,” “Irish,” “German,” “Italian,” “French?”
“Don’t call me a negro; I’m an American,” said a black to me a few days since.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I was born in this country, and I don’t want to be called out of my name.”
Just then, an Irish-American came up, and shook hands with me. He had been a neighbor of mine in Cambridge. When the young man was gone, I inquired of the black man what countryman he thought the man was.
“Oh!” replied he, “he’s an Irishman.”
“What makes you think so?” I inquired.
“Why, his brogue is enough to tell it.”
“Then,” said I, “why is not your color enough to tell that you’re a negro?”
“Arh!” said he, “that’s a horse of another color,” and left me with a “Ha, ha, ha!”
Black men, don’t be ashamed to show your colors, and to own them.
The Negro in the American Rebellion
His Heroism and His Fidelity.
By Wm. Wells Brown, M.D.
Nearly 400 pages. Handsomely bound in cloth. Price $2.00.
Dr. Brown has written a number of books, but none of them are more interesting or instructive than this, his History of the Negro in America.
Commencing with the first cargo of slaves landed in the colonies in 1620, he carries the race through “The War of 1812,” “The John Brown Raid,” and “The Late Rebellion,” portraying in a most graphic manner the horrors of the slave trade in the olden time; the different struggles of individual negroes for the freedom of themselves and brothers; and, finally, gives a complete and detailed history of the part taken by the colored man in the late war, which showed to the world the true heroism and fidelity of the race.
The history of this people, full of sorrow, blood, and tears, is full, also, of instruction for mankind, and the story becomes doubly interesting when told in Dr. Brown’s fascinating way, and embellished with anecdote and adventure all through its pages.
The above work is sold by subscription, and the publishers desire to employ active agents everywhere to canvass for subscribers, and to such agents they will allow handsome commissions. Sample copy sent by mail, postage paid, to any address, on receipt of $2.00.
LEE & SHEPHERD, Publishers,
Boston, Mass.
And may be had of
A. G. BROWN & CO., 28 EAST CANTON STREET, BOSTON.
THE RISING SON:
OR,
The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race.
By Wm. Wells Brown, M.D.
Price $2.00 per copy.
This standard work has passed through ten editions, and the agents are still selling it in large numbers. The following are some of the comments of the press:—
“In reading Dr. Brown’s earlier works, we formed a high opinion of his literary ability, but this, his last effort, surpasses all his former writings, and gives him a permanent position with the most profound historians. The foot-notes and references in The Rising Son give it a reliability that will secure for it a place in all our libraries. Every friend of the race will get the book, and no colored man will remain long without it. The blacks, everywhere, owe the author a lasting debt of gratitude.”—Boston Evening Transcript.
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“Dr. Brown has given us, in this valuable volume, a collection of great value to those who would know more of the negro race than has been generally known. The book is printed on excellent paper, nicely bound, and its typographical execution is of the best.”—New National Era, Washington, D.C.
“We say at once,—Let every colored man in the country buy this Rising Son, and read its forty-nine chapters; and the fiftieth too, if he have the time. There is much in it that will repay the most complete perusal.”—The Christian Recorder, Philadelphia.
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“We commend it heartily as one of the most valuable books yet published for the up-lifting of the race. To the young men of America, this work will be invaluable, both as a history and an incentive to press forward. Its brief sketches of live men of the time, are all an invitation to them to ‘come up higher.’”—Our National Progress; Harrisburgh, Pa.
“The Rising Son proclaims Dr. Brown a man of versatile genius, and gives him undisputed rank on the catalogue of American authors, without regard to race or color.”—The National Monitor, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Agents wanted in every State to sell this work, and to whom great inducements are offered. Send in your orders. A Book will be sent to any address, free of postage, on receipt of price, $2.00.
A. G. BROWN & CO., Publishers, 28 East Canton St., Boston, Mass.