Martyria; or, Andersonville Prison

by Augustus C. Hamlin

During the more than two centuries of occupation of these southern lands there appear sufficient data to form, perhaps, some definite ideas of the success or failure of colonization, and the vague and doubtful process of acclimation. These evidences, thus far, are decidedly in favor of the black man. For he has multiplied with astonishing rapidity, and preserved his physical forces, and during this long and brutalizing term of his servitude he has not exhibited the ferocity of his master, save when hunted down like the beasts of prey, as in Hayti; neither has he sunk so low in the scale of true humanity as those who have held him in bondage.

The hungry and maimed soldier of the republic, escaping from the murderous prison-dens of the rebels, always found a crust of bread, a protecting shelter, and a kind word from the humblest and most oppressed of these beings.

Never were they betrayed by the black man, although the reward was large. Never were they denied assistance, although the penalty was death.

Although history seems to forbid, we are not of that class of men who maintain that there are inferior races, intended by nature for servitude; for we believe that every race contains the elements of greatness, and that there is a common destiny to all. And we cherish the idea that there is a better future even for the black man among the civilized nations of the earth. The singular aptitude of the black man for music, which is the language of the soul; his deep, sincere, immovable veneration for the precepts, the faith, the hope of Christianity, do not indicate a race lost to the nobler impulses, or to the benign influences of civilization, nor a people abandoned and accursed by Providence. God has gifted every living creature with the instinct of self-preservation; he has endowed all animated creatures of the human form with the love of the beautiful, with the desire of developing and perfecting their innate powers, and of leaving on earth some act, some memorial worthy of imitation or remembrance. He who declines to help his fellow-creature in the struggle for social existence, in the effort for happiness, knowledge, and immortality, is less than a man.

The problem of civilization is left mostly to the free will of men, and God blasts and crumbles into dust only those nations who have abused the gifts and privileges of nature, and who, when arriving at the height of prosperity and power, have disregarded and despised those principles of morality and religion which form the true base of all society. How all the noble aspirations may be crushed and the instincts perverted; how from a species of voluntary insanity, by our own fierce passions, and by a strange desire of mutual destruction, men rush on to contest and to ruin, is well illustrated by the past of the slave faction.

XII.

It is evident that the black man has not deteriorated during his sojourn in these countries; on the contrary, he has improved in physique: the repulsive Congo type has changed, and the Circassian features appear. It is the result of the law of contact and example; it is the effect of civilization.

Has the white man gained in similar ratio? Go to the cotton fields and rice lands, and learn a lesson from the instructive contrast of the gaunt and apathetic white laborer, with the sturdy, well-developed, lively black. You will then observe that these vast alluvial lands, which rank in richness and fertility with the best on the globe, must be consigned to waste by reason of insalubrity, if not cultivated by races of men who are congenial to the soil and climate. There is no white race who can cultivate these lands, and enjoy life and establish society with any duration. Malaria would forbid, if other conditions were favorable.

The littoral lands of the lower tier of Slave States, which are composed of post tertiary and alluvial soils, tertiary sands and secondary chalk marls, can be tilled in safety and with economy and with gain only by the black man. Below the upper terraces and the slopes of the mountain ranges of the northern limits of these States, where we find the primary and metamorphic rocks and their debris, the white laborer cannot descend without contending with the full force of his nature, with disease, degeneration, and premature death.

There are now in the States of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana thirty millions of acres of arable land yet belonging to the United States, unsold and unoccupied. In all England there are but seven million acres of uncultivated land.