Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

Eminent Colored Men and Women—Bishop Daniel E. Payne—Frederick Douglass—His Life and Times—Mrs. Frances Ellen Harper—Miss Louise de Mortie.

One of the hardest things in the world is to keep down a man who is determined to rise. He comes up like a plant of spontaneous growth, and the more we try to keep him down, the more he will persevere in his determination to stand upon his own feet like other men. This was often shown in the days before the war, when the bold, intrepid slave, who clearly saw that the whole system was wrong, made up his mind at least to be free, and the next thing we hear of him is a daring and successful attempt to shake off the chains of slavery, through his successful escape to the free States of the North, or to Canada, or even to Europe.

But this determined spirit to at least be free, did not confine itself merely to such adventurous and successful escapes, but assumed the form of acquiring an education also; and no better illustration of this can be given than that of the late Bishop Daniel E. Payne, of the A. M. E. Church, who was born in South Carolina, in the year 1811. The heinous system of slavery in that rebellious State treated as a crime the teaching of any slave or free colored person whatsoever. But Daniel E. Payne had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and in order to flank the evil system that then prevailed, and to gain that knowledge to which he was as much entitled as the President of the United States himself, he procured the assistance of a friendly white man, who taught him in a cellar, where neither friend nor foe could see what they were doing. Daniel was an apt and clever student, and above all things, as the Bible says, "He had a mind to work," and an enthusiastic mind at that. It did not take this young hero long to take in the entire situation regarding slave lands and slavery when once his mind had begun to expand. Like Moses and many other famous leaders, the Lord had work for him to do, and he was preparing him for it at this time.

Young Payne saw that South Carolina was no place for him, and that the first duty he owed to himself was to get away as best he could, to the Northern States, where he could enjoy his own manly and manful rights. As fortune favors the brave, he succeeded in making his escape, and his freedom being now secure, he made all due haste to become that eminent scholar, who was destined by the will of God, to become a leader and an instructor of his people. He connected himself with the A. M. E. Church, and through and by means of that powerful body he did mighty things for the education of his own people, both before the war and after it. He has justly been called "The Apostle of Education," and what the great Fred. Douglass was in the political world, Daniel E. Payne was in the educational and intellectual world. Such a man as Bishop Payne should be revered as a philanthropist for all coming time. The colored race will never be able to say that they are out of his debt. At last he was made a bishop of his own church, and became the head of Wilberforce University, in Ohio—a glorious institution that had made itself felt by its influence over all this nation. Bishop Payne was sent to Europe for a time in the interest of his church, and his high qualities were everywhere honored by the Christian and scholars across the Atlantic.

Thus we see in Daniel Payne a diamond in the rough, in the slave State of South Carolina, but by the predetermined will of God, brought to the free North and polished, as it were, by the hand of the jeweler. We see all the work that the great Creator had given him to do, and how well he did it, too. And what we have said of Payne could as well be said of thousands of others—men in whom the spirit of right and ambition dwells; men who ever forge to the front: men whom God helps, because He sees that they are also willing to help themselves.

SOUTHERN CHIVALRY—ARGUMENT VERSUS CLUB'S.

We next come to the far-famed and highly-celebrated Frederick Douglass, renowned over all the earth wherever honest worth is appreciated and valued by the civilized sons and daughters of Adam. The name of "Fred. Douglass," as he is affectionately called, stands out in alto-relief with that of John Bunyan, George Washington, and some few others who carry fame and goodness with them at one and the same time. Nobody seems to be jealous of them nor envy them, for their fame is far beyond the reach of jealousy or envy. It would be a difficult thing to find a village, valley or an isle of any ocean on the face of the globe where the familiar endearing name of Fred. Douglass has not been heard. The children growing up at their mothers' knees have learned to lisp it as a name to be revered; and when they grow up to man's estate, nothing will content them until they have read the life of the famous Fred. Douglass.

The opinion, or rather the belief, has prevailed in America that Fred. Douglass was the son of a white father and colored mother, and that white father has been supposed to have been his owner. But in the history of his own life and times, published a few years ago, Douglass positively affirms that both his parents were colored, and for my own part I believe that to be the truth. As men like Fred. Douglass are very few and far between, the wish among many of the anti-slavery school, at least, seems to have been father to the thought that so clever a man could never have been the offspring of colored parents, but that his father, at least, must have been white. Not so, by any means! Fred. himself makes it quite plain that his father and mother were both colored, and he tells us all about it in his usual modest way.

Fred. Douglass was born in the region called Tuckahoe Neck, in Talbot county, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the year 1817. There is something unusually sad and plaintive about the way in which the poor child was separated from his own father and mother, and how he came up on the rough side of the mountain of slavery. The poor lad was subjected not only to the purest barbarities, but had to undergo treatment that may be called sheer cowardice on the part of his tormentors. Well might the Prophet exclaim, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Whilst he was a boy, growing up at Baltimore, his mistress kindly taught him his letters, and went some way in giving him further instructions, till at last his master advised her to stop teaching him, as such things and slavery did not work well together. No, indeed! They did not work well together, especially in the heart and soul of a boy like Fred., who already began to look into the workings of the curse of slavery. To stop Fred. from learning was now impossible. One might as well dam up a mountain rill with one's hands—it would simply flow over the top of them, or round about them. Nature will have her way, and the great Creator had implanted the germ of liberty in the boy's heart, whose growth was not to be kept down. After many ups and downs on the Eastern and Western Shores of Maryland, when our hero had arrived at about the age of twenty-one, in the year 1838, he resolved to make a bold stroke for liberty; and accordingly, being dressed up like a sailor, he took the train at Baltimore for Philadelphia, luckily escaping detection, and having successfully run the gauntlet by the way, he landed upon the platform of the Quaker City all right. But he did not consider himself safe even here; so he left Philadelphia, still dressed in his sailor's suit, and came on to the city of New York.