[137] We visited Kansas twice in 1880, and again in 1881. We conversed with Gov. St. John, Mr. John M. Brown, and other gentlemen related to and familiar with the matter of the Exodus, and found that those who at the first so violently opposed the coming of the Negroes had been pleased with their simplicity, patience, industry, and character. They were all doing well. The association had discontinued its work, and the people were settled in quiet homes.
[138] Chicago Inter-Ocean, April 15, 1880.
CHAPTER XXIX.
RETROSPECTION AND PROSPECTION.
The Three Grand Divisions of the Tribes of Africa.—Slave Markets of America supplied from the Diseased and Criminal Classes of African Society.—America robs Africa of 15,000,000 Souls in 360 Years.—Negro Power of Endurance.—His Wonderful Achievements as a Laborer, Soldier, and Student.—First in War, and First in Devotion to the Country.—His Idiosyncrasies.—Mrs. Stowe's Errors.—His Growing Love for Schools and Churches.—His General Improvement.—The Negro will endure to the End.—He is Capable for All the Duties of Citizenship.—Amalgamation will not obliterate the Race.—The American Negro will civilize Africa.—America will establish Steamship Communication with the Dark Continent.—Africa will yet be composed of States, and "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her Hands unto God."
IT has been shown that the tribes of Africa are divisible into three classes: The tribes of the mountain districts, the tribes of the sandstone districts, and the tribes of the alluvial districts; those of the mountain districts most powerful, those of the sandstone districts less powerful, and those of the alluvial districts least powerful. The slave markets of America were supplied,[139] very largely, from two classes of Africans, viz.: the criminal class, and the refuse of African society, which has been preyed upon by local disease, decimated by wars waged by the more powerful tribes which have pushed down from the abundant supply that has poured over the terraces of the mountains for centuries. Nevertheless, some of the better class have found their way to this country. About 137 Negro tribes are represented in the United States.
For every slave landed safely in North America, there was one lost in procuring and bringing down to the coast, and in transportation. Thus in the period of 360 years, Africa was robbed of about 30,000,000 of souls! When it is remembered that the Negroes in America sprang from the criminal, diseased, and inferior classes of Africa, it is nothing short of a phenomenon that they were able to endure such a rigorous state of bondage. Under-fed and over-worked; poorly clad and miserably housed; with the family altar cast down, and intelligent men allowed to run over it as swine; and with the fountains of knowledge sealed by law against the thirstings of human souls for knowledge, the Negroes of America, nevertheless, have shown the most wonderful signs of recuperation, and the ability to rise, against every cruel act of man and the very forces of nature, to a manhood and intelligent citizenship that converts the cautious, impartial, and conservative spirit of history into eulogy! They have overcome the obstacles in the path of the physical civilization of North America; they have earned billions of dollars for a profligate people; they have made good laborers, efficient sailors, and peerless soldiers. In three wars they won the crown of heroes by steady, intrepid valor; and in peace have shown themselves the friends of stable government. During the war for the Union, 186,017[140] Colored men enlisted in the service of the nation, and participated in 249 battles. From 1866 to 1873, besides the money saved in other banking houses, they deposited in the Freedmen's Banks at the South $53,000,000! From 1866 to 1875 there were seven Negroes as Lieutenant-Governors of Southern States; two served in the United States Senate, and thirteen in the United States House of Representatives. There have been five Negroes appointed as Foreign Ministers. There have been ten Negro members of Northern legislatures; and in the Government Departments at Washington there are 620 Negroes employed. Starting without schools this remarkable people have now 14,889 schools, with an attendance of 720,853 pupils! And this does not include the children of color who attend the white schools of the Northern States; and as far as it is possible to get the statistics, there are at present 169 Colored students attending white colleges in the Northern States.
The first blood shed in the Revolution was that of a Negro, Crispus Attucks, on the 5th of March, 1770. The first blood shed in the war for the Union was that of a Negro, Nicholas Biddle, a member of the very first company that passed through Baltimore in April, 1861; while the first Negro killed in the war was named John Brown! The first Union regiment of Negro troops raised during the Rebellion, was raised in the State that was first to secede from the Union, South Carolina. Its colonel was a Massachusetts man, and a graduate of Harvard College. The first action in which Negro troops participated was in South Carolina. The first regiment of Northern Negro troops fought its first battle in South Carolina, at Fort Wagner, where it immortalized itself. The first Negro troops recruited in the Mississippi Valley were recruited by a Massachusetts officer, Gen. B. F. Butler; while their first fighting here was directed by another Massachusetts officer, Gen. N. P. Banks. The first recognition of Negro troops by the Confederate army was in December, 1863, when Major John C. Calhoun, a grandson of the South Carolina statesman of that name, bore a flag of truce, which was received by Major Trowbridge of the First South Carolina Colored Regiment. The first regiment to enter Petersburg was composed of Negroes; while the first troops to enter the Confederate capital at Richmond were Gen. Godfry Weitzel's two divisions of Negroes. The last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox were in the hands of Negro soldiers. And when the last expiring effort of treason had, through foul conspiracy, laid our beloved President low in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains, and marched in the stately procession which bore the illustrious dead from the White House. And on the 15th of May, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the 62d Regiment of Colored Troops fired the last volley of the war!