It therefore becomes a small part for us to perform in signalizing the honest writer and leader by giving him our unanimous support. The author has spent months of effort and toil in compiling data and accounts, that Caucasian authors with alertness suppress. He has made a strong case and defense of the Negro's manhood and trustworthiness at a time when most men would have been honest with pain. The simplicity with which his data is compiled and presented to the reader stamps him neither in quest of gold or greatness, but striving to convince the ignorant that heroes and heroines can even be found among this despised race of America, whom some would brand as rapists and thieves. A tale is welded together in which every experience, occurrence and stage is passed through that can occur to a poor, struggling people; yet, no instance presents itself by which the character, the basal part of any people, can be impeached. 'Twill serve as a firer of the ambition and aspirations of the young Negro, and at the same time, so thrilling are its narratives, that 'twill prove as interesting reading matter as many a romance. The eagerness with which our youth devour such tales as relates the better side of his ancestry's life, is too well known to us. The story of Beulah Jackson will fill a long-felt niche in the young Negro's reading matter, that will in itself prove highly beneficial.
JACOB NICHOLSON.
HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
[CHAPTER I.]
Though this is the year of grace, just forty-seven years after the date when my adventurous story begins, my recollections of that bright morning in May, 1855, when I arose and at one bound broke loose from slavery, are as vivid as the lightning's flash. "A still tongue makes a wise head," and so I held my tongue and bided my time until I made at last that successful spring. And never do I behold the glorious sun rising over the hills and forests but the joyous recollection of that Wednesday morning in May comes back to me, like the rebounding reaction of the bow that is unbent.
I was born in the State of Kentucky, a few miles below Louisville, where my father's mansion stood on one of those sloping hills that faces the river Ohio, which the French named with justice, the "Beautiful River." That mansion, with all its splendid surroundings, belonged to my father and owner, a white man named Lemuel Jackson; but my own mother, a woman of uncommon beauty, belonged to the colored race. My mother, for some cause or other, was sold down the river in New Orleans, in the year 1853, when I was but fifteen years of age. I never got over that sudden separation, and I at once formed my own resolutions, of which I said nothing.
As my father was a rich man, who indulged me in many ways and appeared to love me, and as I often had occasion to accompany him and Mrs. Jackson, or some of the other members of the family, to Louisville, he seldom refused to give me the cash I asked for, which I now began to carefully put away in a secret place only known to the Lord and myself. Two eventful years had passed away. I had by this time discovered the whereabouts of my mother, Harriet, in New Orleans, and my hopes of meeting her again grew stronger every day as the time approached for me to kick off the detested chains of slavery. For the coming of this happy deliverance I prayed to my good Lord both day and night.
At last that day dawned upon me, the spring-time of all my joys. The Lord heard my prayers, and He cleared the way to freedom. There was to be a big church gathering at Louisville, and the first session of that great time was to be on Wednesday morning—the first Wednesday in the month, as I very well remember, indeed.
The bishop and his wife, who were invited guests to our house, had arrived the day before. They were to spend the night with us, and all things breathed religion and excitement over the events of the morrow and the rest of the week to come.