In 1847 the Prince Hall Lodge of the Masons in Massachusetts, the First Independent African Grand Lodge in Pennsylvania, and the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania formed a National Grand Lodge, and from one or another of these all other Grand Lodges among Negroes have descended. In 1842 the members of the Philomathean Institute of New York and of the Philadelphia Library Company and Debating Society applied for admission to the International Order of Odd Fellows. They were refused on account of their race. Thereupon Peter Ogden, a Negro, who had already joined the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of England, secured a charter for the first Negro American lodge, Philomathean, No. 646, of New York, which was set up March 1, 1843. It was followed within the next two years by lodges in New York, Philadelphia, Albany, and Poughkeepsie. The Knights of Pythias were not organized until 1864 in Washington; but the Grand Order of Galilean Fishermen started on its career in Baltimore in 1856.
The benefit societies developed apace. At first they were small and confined to a group of persons well known to each other, thus being genuinely fraternal. Simple in form, they imposed an initiation fee of hardly less than $2.50 or more than $5.00, a monthly fee of about 50 cents, and gave sick dues ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 a month, with guarantee of payment of one's funeral expenses and subsequent help to the widow. By 1838 there were in Philadelphia alone 100 such groups with 7,448 members. As bringing together spirits supposedly congenial, these organizations largely took the place of clubs, and the meetings were relished accordingly. Some drifted into secret societies, and after the Civil War some that had not cultivated the idea of insurance were forced to add this feature to their work.
In the sphere of civil rights the Negroes, in spite of circumstances, were making progress, and that by their own efforts as well as those of their friends the Abolitionists. Their papers helped decidedly. The Journal of Freedom (commonly known as Freedom's Journal), begun March 30, 1827, ran for three years. It had numerous successors, but no one of outstanding strength before the North Star (later known as Frederick Douglass' Paper) began publication in 1847, continuing until the Civil War. Largely through the effort of Paul Cuffe for the franchise, New Bedford, Mass., was generally prominent in all that made for racial prosperity. Here even by 1850 the Negro voters held the balance of power and accordingly exerted a potent influence on Election day.[179] Under date March 6, 1840, there was brought up for repeal so much of the Massachusetts Statutes as forbade intermarriage between white persons and Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, as "contrary to the principles of Christianity and republicanism." The committee said that it did not recommend a repeal in the expectation that the number of connections, legal or illegal, between the races would be thereupon increased; but its object rather was that wherever such connections were found the usual civil liabilities and obligations should not fail to attach to the contracting parties. The enactment was repealed. In the same state, by January, 1843, an act forbidding discrimination on railroads was passed. This grew out of separate petitions or remonstrances from Francis Jackson and Joseph Nunn, each man being supported by friends, and the petitioners based their request "not on the supposition that the colored man is not as well treated as his white fellow-citizen, but on the broad principle that the constitution allows no distinction in public privileges among the different classes of citizens in this commonwealth."[180] In New York City an interesting case arose over the question of public conveyances. When about 1852 horse-cars began to supersede omnibuses on the streets, the Negro was excluded from the use of them, and he continued to be excluded until 1855, when a decision of Judge Rockwell gave him the right to enter them. The decision was ignored and the Negro continued to be excluded as before. One Sunday in May, however, Rev. James W.C. Pennington, after service, reminded his hearers of Judge Rockwell's decision, urged them to stand up for their rights, and especially to inform any friends who might visit the city during the coming anniversary week that Negroes were no longer excluded from the street cars. He himself then boarded a car on Sixth Avenue, refused to leave when requested to do so, and was forcibly ejected. He brought suit against the company and won his case; and thus the Negro made further advance toward full citizenship in New York.[181]
Thus was the Negro developing in religious organization, in his benefit societies, and toward his rights as a citizen. When we look at the economic life upon which so much depended, we find that rather amazing progress had been made. Doors were so often closed to the Negro, competing white artisans were so often openly hostile, and he himself labored under so many disadvantages generally that it has often been thought that his economic advance before 1860 was negligible; but nothing could be farther from the truth. It must not be forgotten that for decades the South had depended upon Negro men for whatever was to be done in all ordinary trades; some brick-masons, carpenters, and shoemakers had served a long apprenticeship and were thoroughly accomplished; and when some of the more enterprising of these men removed to the North or West they took their training with them. Very few persons became paupers. Certainly many were destitute, especially those who had most recently made their way from slavery; and in general the colored people cared for their own poor. In 1852, of 3500 Negroes in Cincinnati, 200 were holders of property who paid taxes on their real estate.[182] In 1855 the Negro per capita ownership of property compared most favorably with that of the white people. Altogether the Negroes owned $800,000 worth of property in the city and $5,000,000 worth in the state. In the city there were among other workers three bank tellers, a landscape artist who had visited Rome to complete his education, and nine daguerreotypists, one of whom was the best in the entire West.[183] Of 1696 Negroes at work in Philadelphia in 1856, some of the more important occupations numbered workers as follows: tailors, dressmakers, and shirtmakers, 615; barbers, 248; shoemakers, 66; brickmakers, 53; carpenters, 49; milliners, 45; tanners, 24; cake-bakers, pastry-cooks, or confectioners, 22; blacksmiths, 22. There were also 15 musicians or music-teachers, 6 physicians, and 16 school-teachers.[184] The foremost and the most wealthy man of business of the race in the country about 1850 was Stephen Smith, of the firm of Smith and Whipper, of Columbia, Pa.[185] He and his partner were lumber merchants. Smith was a man of wide interests. He invested his capital judiciously, engaging in real estate and spending much of his time in Philadelphia, where he owned more than fifty brick houses, while Whipper, a relative, attended to the business of the firm. Together these men gave employment to a large number of persons. Of similar quality was Samuel T. Wilcox, of Cincinnati, the owner of a large grocery business who also engaged in real estate. Henry Boyd, of Cincinnati, was the proprietor of a bedstead manufactory that filled numerous orders from the South and West and that sometimes employed as many as twenty-five men, half of whom were white. Sometimes through an humble occupation a Negro rose to competence; thus one of the eighteen hucksters in Cincinnati became the owner of $20,000 worth of property. Here and there several caterers and tailors became known as having the best places in their line of business in their respective towns. John Julius, of Pittsburgh, was the proprietor of a brilliant place known as Concert Hall. When President-elect William Henry Harrison in 1840 visited the city it was here that his chief reception was held. Cordovell became widely known as the name of the leading tailor and originator of fashions in New Orleans. After several years of success in business this merchant removed to France, where he enjoyed the fortune that he had accumulated.
Cordovell was representative of the advance of the people of mixed blood in the South. The general status of these people was better in Louisiana than anywhere else in the country, North or South; at the same time their situation was such as to call for special consideration. In Louisiana the "F.M.C." (Free Man of Color) formed a distinct and anomalous class in society.[186] As a free man he had certain rights, and sometimes his property holdings were very large.[187] In fact, in New Orleans a few years before the Civil War not less than one-fifth of the taxable property was in the hands of free people of color. At the same time the lot of these people was one of endless humiliation. Among some of them irregular household establishments were regularly maintained by white men, and there were held the "quadroon balls" which in course of time gave the city a distinct notoriety. Above the people of this group, however, was a genuine aristocracy of free people of color who had a long tradition of freedom, being descended from the early colonists, and whose family life was most exemplary. In general they lived to themselves. In fact, it was difficult for them to do otherwise. They were often compelled to have papers filled out by white guardians, and they were not allowed to be visited by slaves or to have companionship with them, even when attending church or walking along the roads. Sometimes free colored men owned their women and children in order that the latter might escape the invidious law against Negroes recently emancipated; or the situation was sometimes turned around, as in Norfolk, Va., where several women owned their husbands. When the name of a free man of color had to appear on any formal document—a deed of conveyance, a marriage-license, a certificate of birth or death, or even in a newspaper report—the initials F.M.C. had to be appended. In Louisiana these people petitioned in vain for the suffrage, and at the outbreak of the Civil War organized and splendidly equipped for the Confederacy two battalions of five hundred men. For these they chose two distinguished white commanders, and the governor accepted their services, only to have to inform them later that the Confederacy objected to the enrolling of Negro soldiers. In Charleston thirty-seven men in a remarkable petition also formally offered their services to the Confederacy.[188] What most readily found illustration in New Orleans or Charleston was also true to some extent of other centers of free people of color such as Mobile and Baltimore. In general the F.M.C.'s were industrious and they almost monopolized one or two avenues of employment; but as a group they had not yet learned to place themselves upon the broad basis of racial aspiration.
Whatever may have been the situation of special groups, however, it can readily be seen that there were at least some Negroes in the country—a good many in the aggregate—who by 1860 were maintaining a high standard in their ordinary social life. It must not be forgotten that we are dealing with a period when the general standard of American culture was by no means what it is to-day. "Four-fifths of the people of the United States of 1860 lived in the country, and it is perhaps fair to say that half of these dwelt in log houses of one or two rooms. Comforts such as most of us enjoy daily were as good as unknown.... For the workaday world shirtsleeves, heavy brogan boots and shoes, and rough wool hats were the rule."[189] In Philadelphia, a fairly representative city, there were at this time a considerable number of Negroes of means or professional standing. These people were regularly hospitable; they visited frequently; and they entertained in well furnished parlors with music and refreshments. In a day when many of their people had not yet learned to get beyond showiness in dress, they were temperate and self-restrained, they lived within their incomes, and they retired at a seasonable hour.[190]
In spite moreover of all the laws and disadvantages that they had to meet the Negroes also made general advance in education. In the South efforts were of course sporadic, but Negroes received some teaching through private or clandestine sources.[191] More than one slave learned the alphabet while entertaining the son of his master. In Charleston for a long time before the Civil War free Negroes could attend schools especially designed for their benefit and kept by white people or other Negroes. The course of study not infrequently embraced such subjects as physiology, physics, and plane geometry. After John Brown's raid the order went forth that no longer should any colored person teach Negroes. This resulted in a white person's being brought to sit in the classroom, though at the outbreak of the war schools were closed altogether. In the North, in spite of all proscription, conditions were somewhat better. As early as 1850 there were in the public schools in New York 3,393 Negro children, these sustaining about the same proportion to the Negro population that white children sustained to the total white population. Two institutions for the higher education of the Negro were established before the Civil War, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1854) and Wilberforce University in Ohio (1856). Oberlin moreover was founded in 1833. In 1835 Professor Asa Mahan, of Lane Seminary, was offered the presidency. As he was an Abolitionist he said that he would accept only if Negroes were admitted on equal terms with other students. After a warm session of the trustees the vote was in his favor. Though, before this, individual Negroes had found their way into Northern institutions, it was here at Oberlin that they first received a real welcome. By the outbreak of the war nearly one-third of the students were of the Negro race, and one of the graduates, John M. Langston, was soon to be generally prominent in the affairs of the country.
It has been maintained that in their emphasis on education and on the highest culture possible for the Negro the Abolitionists were mere visionaries who had no practical knowledge whatever of the race's real needs. This was neither true nor just. It was absolutely necessary first of all to establish the Negro's right to enter any field occupied by any other man, and time has vindicated this position. Even in 1850, however, the needs of the majority of the Negro people for advance in their economic life were not overlooked either by the Abolitionists or the Negroes themselves. Said Martin V. Delany: "Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts, and work of our own hands. No other human power can accomplish it.... Let our young men and young women prepare themselves for usefulness and business; that the men may enter into merchandise, trading, and other things of importance; the young women may become teachers of various kinds, and otherwise fill places of usefulness. Parents must turn their attention more to the education of their children. We mean, to educate them for useful practical business purposes. Educate them for the store and counting-house—to do everyday practical business. Consult the children's propensities, and direct their education according to their inclinations. It may be that there is too great a desire on the part of parents to give their children a professional education, before the body of the people are ready for it. A people must be a business people and have more to depend upon than mere help in people's houses and hotels, before they are either able to support or capable of properly appreciating the services of professional men among them. This has been one of our great mistakes—we have gone in advance of ourselves. We have commenced at the superstructure of the building, instead of the foundation—at the top instead of the bottom. We should first be mechanics and common tradesmen, and professions as a matter of course would grow out of the wealth made thereby."[192]
In professional life the Negro had by 1860 made a noteworthy beginning. Already he had been forced to give attention to the law, though as yet little by way of actual practice had been done. In this field Robert Morris, Jr., of Boston, was probably foremost. William C. Nell, of Rochester and Boston, at the time prominent in newspaper work and politics, is now best remembered for his study of the Negro in the early wars of the country. About the middle of the century Samuel Ringgold Ward, author of the Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro, and one of the most eloquent men of the time, was for several years pastor of a white Congregational church in Courtlandville, N.Y.; and Henry Highland Garnett was the pastor of a white congregation in Troy, and well known as a public-spirited citizen as well. Upon James W.C. Pennington the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by Heidelberg, and generally this man had a reputation in England and on the continent of Europe as well as in America. About the same time Bishops Daniel A. Payne and William Paul Quinn were adding to the dignity of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Special interest attaches to the Negro physician. Even in colonial times, though there was much emphasis on the control of diseases by roots or charms, there was at least a beginning in work genuinely scientific. As early as 1792 a Negro named Cæsar had gained such distinction by his knowledge of curative herbs that the Assembly of South Carolina purchased his freedom and gave him an annuity. In the earlier years of the last century James Derham, of New Orleans, became the first regularly recognized Negro physician of whom there is a complete record. Born in Philadelphia in 1762, as a boy he was transferred to a physician for whom he learned to perform minor duties. Afterwards he was sold to a physician in New Orleans who used him as an assistant. Two or three years later he won his freedom, he became familiar with French and Spanish as well as English, and he soon commanded general respect by his learning and skill. About the middle of the century, in New York, James McCune Smith, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, was prominent. He was the author of several scientific papers, a man of wide interests, and universally held in high esteem. "The first real impetus to bring Negroes in considerable numbers into the professional world came from the American Colonization Society, which in the early years flourished in the South as well as the North ... and undertook to prepare professional leaders of their race for the Liberian colony. 'To execute this scheme, leaders of the colonization movement endeavored to educate Negroes in mechanic arts, agriculture, science, and Biblical literature. Especially bright or promising youths were to be given special training as catechists, teachers, preachers, and physicians. Not much was said about what they were doing, but now and then appeared notices of Negroes who had been prepared privately in the South or publicly in the North for service in Liberia. Dr. William Taylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in the District of Columbia. In the same way John V. De Grasse, of New York, and Thomas J. White, of Brooklyn, were allowed to complete the medical course at Bowdoin in 1849. In 1854 Dr. De Grasse was admitted as a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society.'"[193] Martin V. Delany, more than once referred to in these pages, after being refused admission at a number of institutions, was admitted to the medical school at Harvard. He became distinguished for his work in a cholera epidemic in Pittsburgh in 1854. It was of course not until after the Civil War that medical departments were established in connection with some of the new higher institutions of learning for Negro students.