A class has been invoked into action, to whose sublime patience and enduring heroism the genius of poetry will turn for inspiration, while future historians, recognizing evidences of the true statesmanship which they have exhibited through the dark night of slavery, will place them amid the brightest constellations of our time. This class exhibited the same anomaly in the midst of slavery, that the slaves in a government whose doctrines taught liberty and equality to all men, and under whose banner the exile and fugitive found refuge, presented to the civilization of this century. They were an intermediate class in all the slave states, standing between the whites and the bondmen, known as the free colored; debarred from enjoying the privileges of the one, but superior in condition to the other, more, however, by sufferance than by actual law. While they were the stay of the one, they were the object of distrust to the other, and at the same time subject to the machinations and jealousies of the non-slaveholders, whom they rival in mechanical skill and trade. Prior to the rebellion these represented a fair proportion of wealth and culture, both attributable to their own thrift and energy. Unlike the same class at the North, they had but little, if any, foreign competition in the various departments of labor or trade against which to contend. Immigration not being encouraged at the South, as at the North, could not affect their progress, thus leaving all avenues open to the free colored, while they were excluded from the more liberal and learned professions. But if their faculties for accumulation were preferable to the same class North, there were influences always at work to deprive them of the fruits of their labor, either openly or covertly. On the one side were exorbitant taxes for various public charities, from the benefits of which the indigent of their race were deprived, and for public schools, to which their children were denied admittance. Business men found it in many instances impolitic to refuse requests for loans coming from influential white men, under whose protection they exercised their meagre privileges, and the payment of which it was equally impolitic to press, nor were they allowed to sue for debts.
Thus their position in the midst of a slave community was altogether precarious, as they were looked upon as a dangerous element by the slaveholders. Their lives and material prosperity standing in direct contrast to the repeated assertions of the advocates and apologists of slavery, that they would, if free, relapse into barbarism, or would burden the states in which they were found, for support. So marked and wide-spread had this class become in the Southern States, that it was a subject of general comment, but a few years before the rebellion, the almost simultaneous petitions to the various legislative bodies, to drive them from their homes, and in some of the states these were only baffled by the bribes resorted to by their victims. These continued aggressions succeeded, however, in driving large numbers to settle in the free states and the Canadas, notwithstanding the unmigratory tendency of southern races. There they remained until their listening ears caught the first note of the rebellion, as borne from Sumter’s walls, and with all the holy tenderness which clusters around the national colors in the hearts of these men, they went forward to swell the Union ranks. For to them the cause was as sacred as that which inspired the crusaders of old.
There were others whose far-seeing visions, peering into futurity, beheld the balance of power held out to them, and remained awaiting the march of events not far removed, and at this time are recognized as the accepted leaders of the rising race.
Under this state of society was engendered a habitual watchfulness of public measures, making them tenacious of their rights and immunities in every community where they are found, and peculiarly sensitive to the slightest indication of encroachments, which has resulted in developing in them a foresight and sagacity not surpassed in others, whose individual status is less closely allied with political measures.
From this class sprang the honored and scholarly Daniel E. Paine, Bishop of the African Methodist Church,—that great religious body, the power of which is destined to be felt in America, and the influence of which to be circumscribed only by the ocean. The noble Vesey, of South Carolina, who sealed his devotion to the cause of freedom with his life, was of this class. Before the walls of Petersburg, these were among the gallant soldiers who gave battle to the trained veterans of Lee, and at the ramparts of Wagner they waded to victory in blood.
Amid these uncertain surroundings was the boyhood of Martin Delany passed. In childhood the playmate of John Avis, at Charlestown, in manhood, the associate of the immortal Brown of Ossawatomie, in a measure which ultimately resulted in rendering the name of the kind-hearted Virginian historic in connection with his illustrious captive.
With all the schools closed against them in Virginia, it was not until about 1818 that his brothers and sisters ever attempted to receive instruction.
With the vast domain of Virginia at this date, teeming with school-houses, attended by thousands of colored children, and instructed by white northern teachers, as well as those of their own race, the tuition of the Delany children forms a singular contrast.
The famous New York Primer and Spelling Book was brought to them about that time by itinerant Yankee pedlers, trading in rags and old pewter, and giving in exchange for these new tin ware, school-books, and stationery. These pedlers always found it convenient and profitable, likewise, to leave their peculiar looking box wagon, to whisper into the ear of a black, “You’re as much right to learn to read as these whites;” and looking at their watches, had a “snigger of time left yet to stay a little and give a lesson or so.” These “didn’t charge, only gim me what ye mine to.” It was under such covert tuition, and with such instructors, in the humble home of Pati Delany, that the young Martin, together with his brothers and sisters, were taught to read and write.
This stealthy manner of learning, while they were unconscious of the cause, had the tendency of making them more attentive and eager, perhaps, than otherwise, for their tuition was not of long duration before the elder boys were able to read intelligently, and instruct the younger children, we are told. And after a time almost improbable had elapsed, so well arranged were the plans for imparting instruction, that the authorities, who are always so vigilant in inspecting or prying into the movements of the free blacks, “that dangerous element” of the South, were so completely baffled, that not only the smaller children were reading and spelling, but the larger boys were actually writing “passes” for the slaves of their neighborhood.