BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY
[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to the fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating—still less grappling with—the political and social issues he has so confidently undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his bastard philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate treatment of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously enough the doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the possession of a white skin should be the strongest recommendation. Wonder might fairly be felt that there is no suggestion of a corresponding advantage being accorded to the possession of a long nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, little [234] or no attention that can be deemed serious is given to the interest of the Blacks, as a large and (out of Africa) no longer despicable section of the human family, in the great world-problems which are so visibly preparing and press for definitive solutions. The intra-African Negro is clearly powerless to struggle successfully against personal enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible "protection" of his territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages be the opinion and attitude of the extra-African millions—ten millions in the Western Hemisphere—dispersed so widely over the surface of the globe, apt apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized culture? Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and able to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and interesting questions it was within the province and duty of a famous historian, laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to propound alone, but also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] of forecast, however, has been confined to finical pronouncements regarding those for whose special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion.
Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, let us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to intelligences having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can be no attainable knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the growth and progress of civilization among the races of the earth. That in the existence of the human family every age has been marked by its own essential characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life, however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence as we possess concerning the past—whether recorded by man himself in the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of nature—would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy. And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then, if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications, physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for prominence amongst other races?
The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection, the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which is the mother of Progress. Transplanted to alien climes, and through centuries of desolating trials, this irrepressible race has [238] bated not one throb of its energy, nor one jot of its heart or hope. In modern times, after his expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain and America have had occasion to see that even in the paralysing fetters of political and social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop can be a valuable auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her conflict with France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain the aid of the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons for the trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests.
Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible fibres of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The Northern States, after months of hesitating repugnance, and when taught at last by dire defeats that colour did not in any way help to victory, at length sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto disdained, of the eager African contingent. The records of Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in imperishable attestation of the fact that the distinction of being laurelled during life as victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's grave, is reserved for no colour, but for the heart that can dare and the hand that can strike boldly in a righteous cause. The experience of the Southern slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less striking and worthy of admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding States forming the Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately for the avowed purpose of perpetuating slavery, was called into the field, as no available male arm could be spared from the conflict on their side. Plantation owner, overseer, and every one in authority, had to be drafted away from the scene of their usual occupation to the stage whereon the bloody drama of internecine strife was being enacted. Not only the plantation, but the home and the household, including the mistress and her children, had to be left, not unprotected, it is glorious to observe, but, with confident assurance in their loyalty and good faith, under the protection of the four million of bondsmen, who, through the laws and customs of these very States, had been doomed to lifelong ignorance and exclusion from all moralizing influences. With what result? The protraction of the conflict on the part of the South would [240] have been impossible but for the admirable management and realization of their resources by those benighted slaves. On the other hand, not one of the thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the durance of a Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the assistance and protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of those bondsmen were each in its proper place. The moral effect of these experiences of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on either North or South. In the North it effaced from thousands of repugnant hearts the adverse feelings which had devised and accomplished so much to the Negro's detriment. In the South—but for the blunders of the Reconstructionists—it would have considerably facilitated the final readjustment of affairs between the erewhile master and slave in their new-born relations of employer and employed.
Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white man's country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and sisters. Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same ship. These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united by common sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them intensely affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate with the area of their location thus became the order among these people. At the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West Indies to replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines at Santo Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, the circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of singular, even romantic, interest.
The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish wars, upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned [242] the peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in whom the daring of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce sort of religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, and endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane injunctions of Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and female, were promptly presented for admission by baptism into the Catholic Church, which always had stood open and ready to welcome them. The relations of god-father and god-mother resulting from these baptismal functions had a most important bearing on the reciprocal stations of master and slave. The god-children were, according to ecclesiastical custom, considered in every sense entitled to all the protection and assistance which were within the competence of the god-parents, who, in their turn, received from the former the most absolute submission. It is easy to see that the planters, as well as those intimately connected with them, in assuming such obligations with their concomitant responsibilities, practically entered into bonds which they all regarded as, if possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular parentage. The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of racial power mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of the dwellers in the tropical house of bondage.
The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections with such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through personal comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, both combined. There was ordinarily in this beginning of the seventeenth century no Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of a plantation Ahasuerus to make room for the African Esther to be admitted to the chief place within the portals. One great natural consequence of this was the extension to the relatives or guardians of the bondswoman so preferred of an amount of favour which, in the case of the more capable males, completes the parallel we have been drawing by securing for each of them the precedence and responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring of these natural alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately the union of interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved by their fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior [245] to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social prescription, these young procreations—Mulattos, as they were called—were made the objects of special and careful provisions on the fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their fathers in the majority of cases, sent for education and training to European or other superior institutions. After this course they were either formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was impracticable, amply and suitably provided for in a career out of their native colony. To a reflecting mind there is something that interests, not to say fascinates, in studying the action and reaction upon one another of circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. As a matter of fact, he had much more to complain of under the slave system than his pure-blooded African relations. The law, by decreeing that every child of a freeman and a slave woman must follow the fortune of the womb, thus making him the property of his mother exclusively, practically robbed him before his very birth of the nurture and protection of a father. His reputed father had no obligation to be even aware of his procreation, and nevertheless [246] —so inscrutable are the ways of Providence!—the Mulatto was the centre around which clustered the outraged instincts of nature in rebellion against the desecrating mandates that prescribed treason to herself. Law and society may decree; but in our normal humanity there throbs a sentiment which neutralizes every external impulse contrary to its promptings.
In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United States, since his first landing on the banks of the James River in 1619 till the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is curious to observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great measure secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of those that operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. The men of the slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced by Puritanic surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway which rendered possible in the West Indies and other Catholic countries the establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents and god-children. The self-same causes operated to prevent any large blending of the two races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who [247] had gone forth from his country to better his fortune had not left behind him his attachment to the institutions of the mother-land, among which marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most cherished. Above all, too, as another powerful check at first to such alliances between the ruling and servile races of the States, there existed the native idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class of them who had left Britain were likelier than the more refined of their nation to exhibit in its crudest and cruellest form the innate jealousy and contempt of other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon bosom. It is but a simple fact that, whenever he condescended thereto, familiarity with even the loveliest of the subject people was regarded as a mighty self-unbending for which the object should be correspondingly grateful. So there could, in the beginning, be no frequent instances of the romantic chivalry that gilded the quasi-marital relations of the more fervid and humane members of the Latin stock.
But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had in many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more intelligible, more accessible, more attractive—and the inevitable consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the offspring whereof became at length so visibly numerous.