The influence of this propaganda at the South exerted itself strongly to the detriment of the work undertaken by Miss Schofield, and others who came after her, in that it aroused the passions of the ignorant whites and determined them in the course of lawlessness, which but for the zeal and strength of heart expressed by Martha Schofield might have succeeded in delaying for many years the phenomenal rise and progress of the black people of the Southern States.
One Sunday morning, the sun in all its radiance and splendor lighting up the whole world, doing for the earth and every creature and plant on it (giving them light and warmth and moisture that they might develop and grow to perfection) just what God would have us do—help along everything good that we can—on such a morning as this—a band of armed men approached Miss Schofield’s home and demanded that she quit teaching Negro children and return to her home or she would be forced to do so.
To these she replied as follows: “Thee can kill my body and hide it away, but my soul is of God, that is the one invincible thing, which thee can not kill.”
A noble life consecrated absolutely, even in the face of death, to the uplift and service of a lowly, impoverished race! Everywhere she went, she reached righteousness, law, order, temperance, truth, cleanliness, thoroughness and economy.
After fifty years of toil, of social ostracism, of infinitely wicked persecution, which in later years by her patience, by her kindness and charity was greatly modified, she fell in the harness, full of achievements from the work which God had given her to do. At both the funeral service at Aiken, S. C., where she died on the night before the event arranged by friends to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of her service to the colored people and her helpfulness to all who met her socially or in a business way, and at Darby Meeting House, in Pennsylvania, where the interment of the body took place, solemn covenants consecrating mind and heart and hand, amid the tears and sobs of blacks and whites alike, were made by many to keep alive forever the spark of truth and life she was first to express the courage to plant in a land of enemies, surrounded on every side by the dangers of assassination and the ravages of small pox, malaria, and dengue fevers.
CHAPTER VII.
Cause of Many Riots.
Between the years of 1865 and 1876 the severest tests were put to the work of being done by Miss Schofield, to see whether it could be made practical or not. By the courage with which she met and answered them she established once and for always the truth that the progress of light and reason can not be retarded long, no matter by whom and for what purpose such an attempt might be undertaken. The outrageous murders of Negroes by white men which went on almost daily following the unwise policy of the government at Washington in putting them in power in the South before many of them could scarcely read or write, precipitated the greatest excitement throughout the country. These outrages attracted the indignation of the North and martial law was declared all over South Carolina. This was done to enforce the rights of the peaceable, law-abiding whites, as well as the rights of that class of Negroes. Of course, much blame for the haughty attitude of the Negro and the declaration of martial law was laid at the door of Miss Schofield, whose teaching it was generally believed by the ignorant whites, was responsible for the deplorable state of affairs that existed. The Northern press at the time carried over her signature many accounts of the numerous brutalities happening in and around Aiken and she was repeatedly called to account by the leading white people, all assuming a threatening attitude that would have put to flight almost any other woman. But Miss Schofield would meet her antagonists face to face and dare them to harm even one hair of her head. She would remind them that they were all chivalrous white gentlemen and could not under their own pretences attack her and do her violence without surrendering every right and claim which they might have upon knight erranty.
In a New York newspaper of the year 1876 she details one of the murders typical of the Reconstruction period.
An old man, deaf, and dumb, who had never spoken a word or heard a sound in all his seventy years of life sought protection and refuge in the Schofield home. He had scarcely entered the house before an armed body of men arrived and demanded that the old dumb man reveal the hiding place of a certain negro whom the white people had decided it was necessary to put to death for their own peace and security. As he could neither hear nor talk, he answered the threatening attitude of the crowd with unintelligent murmurs and gestures and pointed excitedly at Miss Schofield. She explained the condition of the man and plead earnestly with the mob for his life, but to no purpose. They engaged him and stabbed him to death in her back yard as he undertook to escape.