The most widely discussed book written by a Negro in the period was one that appeared in Boston in 1829. David Walker, the author, had been born in North Carolina in 1785, of a free mother and a slave father, and he was therefore free.[121] He received a fair education, traveled widely over the United States, and by 1827 was living in Boston as the proprietor of a second-hand clothing store on Brattle Street. He felt very strongly on the subject of slavery and actually seems to have contemplated leading an insurrection. In 1828 he addressed various audiences of Negroes in Boston and elsewhere, and in 1829 he published his Appeal, in four articles; together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America. The book was remarkably successful. Appearing in September, by March of the following year it had reached its third edition; and in each successive edition the language was more bold and vigorous. Walker's projected insurrection did not take place, and he himself died in 1830. While there was no real proof of the fact, among the Negro people there was a strong belief that he met with foul play.
Article I Walker headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery." A trip over the United States had convinced him that the Negroes of the country were "the most degraded, wretched and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began." He quoted a South Carolina paper as saying, "The Turks are the most barbarous people in the world—they treat the Greeks more like brutes than human beings"; and then from the same paper cited an advertisement of the sale of eight Negro men and four women. "Are we men?" he exclaimed. "I ask you, O! my brothers, are we men?... Have we any other master but Jesus Christ alone? Is He not their master as well as ours? What right, then, have we to obey and call any man master but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we can not tell whether they are as good as ourselves, or not, I never could conceive." "The whites," he asserted, "have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and bloodthirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority." As heathen the white people had been cruel enough, but as Christians they were ten times more so. As heathen "they were not quite so audacious as to go and take vessel loads of men, women and children, and in cold blood, through devilishness, throw them into the sea, and murder them in all kind of ways. But being Christians, enlightened and sensible, they are completely prepared for such hellish cruelties." Next was considered "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance." In general the writer maintained that his people as a whole did not have intelligence enough to realize their own degradation; even if boys studied books they did not master their texts, nor did their information go sufficiently far to enable them actually to meet the problems of life. If one would but go to the South or West, he would see there a son take his mother, who bore almost the pains of death to give him birth, and by the command of a tyrant, strip her as naked as she came into the world and apply the cowhide to her until she fell a victim to death in the road. He would see a husband take his dear wife, not unfrequently in a pregnant state and perhaps far advanced, and beat her for an unmerciful wretch, until her infant fell a lifeless lump at her feet. Moreover, "there have been, and are this day, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, colored men who are in league with tyrants and who receive a great portion of their daily bread of the moneys which they acquire from the blood and tears of their more miserable brethren, whom they scandalously deliver into the hands of our natural enemies." In Article III Walker considered "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ." Here was a fertile field, which was only partially developed. Walker evidently did not have at hand the utterances of Furman and others to serve as a definite point of attack. He did point out, however, the general failure of Christian ministers to live up to the teachings of Christ. "Even here in Boston," we are informed, "pride and prejudice have got to such a pitch, that in the very houses erected to the Lord they have built little places for the reception of colored people, where they must sit during meeting, or keep away from the house of God." Hypocrisy could hardly go further than that of preachers who could not see the evils at their door but could "send out missionaries to convert the heathen, notwithstanding." Article IV was headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Colonizing Plan." This was a bitter arraignment, especially directed against Henry Clay. "I appeal and ask every citizen of these United States," said Walker, "and of the world, both white and black, who has any knowledge of Mr. Clay's public labors for these states—I want you candidly to answer the Lord, who sees the secrets of your hearts, Do you believe that Mr. Henry Clay, late Secretary of State, and now in Kentucky, is a friend to the blacks further than his personal interest extends?... Does he care a pinch of snuff about Africa—whether it remains a land of pagans and of blood, or of Christians, so long as he gets enough of her sons and daughters to dig up gold and silver for him?... Was he not made by the Creator to sit in the shade, and make the blacks work without remuneration for their services, to support him and his family? I have been for some time taking notice of this man's speeches and public writings, but never to my knowledge have I seen anything in his writings which insisted on the emancipation of slavery, which has almost ruined his country." Walker then paid his compliments to Elias B. Caldwell and John Randolph, the former of whom had said, "The more you improve the condition of these people, the more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them in their present state." "Here," the work continues, "is a demonstrative proof of a plan got up, by a gang of slaveholders, to select the free people of color from among the slaves, that our more miserable brethren may be the better secured in ignorance and wretchedness, to work their farms and dig their mines, and thus go on enriching the Christians with their blood and groans. What our brethren could have been thinking about, who have left their native land and gone away to Africa, I am unable to say.... The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have to raise us from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and to make a national acknowledgment to us for the wrongs they have inflicted on us.... You may doubt it, if you please. I know that thousands will doubt—they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur. So did the antediluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood came and swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got out of the city, and God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven upon them and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the very existence of God, saying, 'Who is the Lord, that I should let Israel go?' ... So did the Romans doubt.... But they got dreadfully deceived."
This document created the greatest consternation in the South. The Mayor of Savannah wrote to Mayor Otis of Boston, demanding that Walker be punished. Otis, in a widely published letter, replied expressing his disapproval of the pamphlet, but saying that the author had done nothing that made him "amenable" to the laws. In Virginia the legislature considered passing an "extraordinary bill," not only forbidding the circulation of such seditious publications but forbidding the education of free Negroes. The bill passed the House of Delegates, but failed in the Senate. The Appeal even found its way to Louisiana, where there were already rumors of an insurrection, and immediately a law was passed expelling all free Negroes who had come to the state since 1825.
2. [The Convention Movement]
As may be inferred from Walker's attitude, the representative men of the race were almost a unit in their opposition to colonization. They were not always opposed to colonization itself, for some looked favorably upon settlement in Canada, and a few hundred made their way to the West Indies. They did object, however, to the plan offered by the American Colonization Society, which more and more impressed them as a device on the part of slaveholders to get free Negroes out of the country in order that slave labor might be more valuable. Richard Allen, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the foremost Negro of the period, said: "We were stolen from our mother country and brought here. We have tilled the ground and made fortunes for thousands, and still they are not weary of our services. But they who stay to till the ground must be slaves. Is there not land enough in America, or 'corn enough in Egypt'? Why should they send us into a far country to die? See the thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year: and if there be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them to eat, why would they wish to send the first tillers of the land away? Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling to part with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those who remain must be slaves. I have no doubt that there are many good men who do not see as I do, and who are sending us to Liberia; but they have not duly considered the subject—they are not men of color. This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free."[122] This point of view received popular expression in a song which bore the cumbersome title, "The Colored Man's Opinion of Colonization," and which was sung to the tune of "Home, Sweet Home." The first stanza was as follows:
Great God, if the humble and weak are as dear
To thy love as the proud, to thy children give ear!
Our brethren would drive us in deserts to roam;
Forgive them, O Father, and keep us at home.
Home, sweet home!
We have no other; this, this is our home.[123]
To this sentiment formal expression was given in the measures adopted at various Negro meetings in the North. In 1817 the greatest excitement was occasioned by a report that through the efforts of the newly-formed Colonization Society all free Negroes were forcibly to be deported from the country. Resolutions of protest were adopted, and these were widely circulated.[124] Of special importance was the meeting in Philadelphia in January, presided over by James Forten. Of this the full report is as follows:
At a numerous meeting of the people of color, convened at Bethel Church, to take into consideration the propriety of remonstrating against the contemplated measure that is to exile us from the land of our nativity, James Forten was called to the chair, and Russell Parrott appointed secretary. The intent of the meeting having been stated by the chairman, the following resolutions were adopted without one dissenting voice:
WHEREAS, Our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil, which their blood and sweat manured; and that any measure or system of measures, having a tendency to banish us from her bosom, would not only be cruel, but in direct violation of those principles which have been the boast of this republic,
Resolved, That we view with deep abhorrence the unmerited stigma attempted to be cast upon the reputation of the free people of color, by the promoters of this measure, "that they are a dangerous and useless part of the community," when in the state of disfranchisement in which they live, in the hour of danger they ceased to remember their wrongs, and rallied around the standard of their country.
Resolved, That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population of this country; they are our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them, than fancied advantages for a season.
Resolved, That without arts, without science, without a proper knowledge of government to cast upon the savage wilds of Africa the free people of color, seems to us the circuitous route through which they must return to perpetual bondage.
Resolved, That having the strongest confidence in the justice of God, and philanthropy of the free states, we cheerfully submit our destinies to the guidance of Him who suffers not a sparrow to fall without his special providence.
Resolved, That a committee of eleven persons be appointed to open a correspondence with the honorable Joseph Hopkinson, member of Congress from this city, and likewise to inform him of the sentiments of this meeting, and that the following named persons constitute the committee, and that they have power to call a general meeting, when they, in their judgment, may deem it proper: Rev. Absalom Jones, Rev. Richard Allen, James Forten, Robert Douglass, Francis Perkins, Rev. John Gloucester, Robert Gorden, James Johnson, Quamoney Clarkson, John Summersett, Randall Shepherd.
JAMES FORTEN, Chairman.
RUSSELL PARROTT, Secretary.
In 1827, in New York, was begun the publication of Freedom's Journal, the first Negro newspaper in the United States. The editors were John B. Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish. Russwurm was a recent graduate of Bowdoin College and was later to become better known as the governor of Maryland in Africa. By 1830 feeling was acute throughout the country, especially in Ohio and Kentucky, and on the part of Negro men had developed the conviction that the time had come for national organization and protest.